rick@phxcomputing.com
Valleywide 602-826-1303
(call or text)
Computer and Smartphone Tips
First get an account at www.outlook.com (or use an exiting microsoft outlook.com account or hotmail account). You can use it anywhere you like on any computer, anytime, by accessing www.outlook.com on the web. Next, load it up into Outlook. It's built into Outlook 2013. For previous verions, get the "Outlook Hotmail Connector" http://search.microsoft.com/en-us/DownloadResults.aspx?q=hotmail+outlook+connector Now you are setup in Outlook for Inbox, all folders, contacts, and calendar, with free unlimited storage from Microsoft. To add it into your smartphone: Add a new account (exchange/corporate) with these settings: Account name: Your outlook email (myname@outlook.com), Domain: leave blank. Server name "s.outlook.com" and check the "use secure connection" box. You now have fully synced (and backed up) inbox/folders, contacts, calendars, on phone phone and/or tablet. Lastly, if you choose, you may instruct own email provider(s) to forward new mail to outlook.com, to yourname@outlook.com. Thank you Microsoft for this free service! Note: Gmail works mostly as well, but requires add-ons to sync to outlook, and isn't as seamless. Google provides a good calendar sync software, but lacks a contact sync. This does it all for free!
There are now a dozen or more providers of "cloud" storage. Most have free storage of 5GB or more, and paid storage starting at 100GB. These make an excellent backup solution or mkae an easy way to move files from one shared PC to another or share to your smartphone, or share among a workgroup. The most popular is www.dropbox.com. Google offers "Google Drive". I'm personally a fan of "Cubby" www.cubby.com I like Cubby because it is one of the few to allow you to designate your own folders to be synced to your cloud storage. Most others assign a folder that you must then store things in. Cubby even lets you designate the "desktop" in the cloud, thus items you save on your desktop can be shared and backed up! Cubby also supports client-side AES 256-bit encryption, for those with sensitive data.
Free for personal use, TeamViewer www.teamviewer.com allows you a single-use or to permanently allow control of remote computer from another location, or smartphone/tablet. You can transfer files, and print, all for free (with "personal use only" restriction). www.logmein.com also has a free version and is great for remote access. It is free for personal and business use without printing and file transfer options, and has a paid option if you would like to add these. Two great and easy solutions to control another machine!
Godaddy www.godaddy.com offers websites at $10/month, and for basic 5-page websites at low at just $1/month, which include a very easy to use web page builder. Ready for your "dot-com"? Also, you can get a domain name (.com) free when you sign up for the yearly plan.
