Getting The Most Out Of On-site Training Courses
One of the chief benefits of booking on-site (in-house) training, as opposed to sending your people off to a training centre to attend a pubic course, is that the training can be customised to suit the specific needs of your organisation. When booking on-site training courses, be sure to make this clear to the training company and brief them fully on your requirements.
Produce a list of key topics that need to be covered after discussing the matter with the people who will be attending the course, their manager or someone in your organisation who already has the skills the trainees are looking to acquire. For more information please visit Computer Training
Send examples of your work to the training company, before the training, so that they have a good idea of the kind of documents your guys will need to create or edit (Make sure that you remove any sensitive or confidential information!).
A good software training session will offer users opportunities to practice the skills they are being taught. Ask the training company to incorporate your documents into the practical exercises given to delegates on the course. For example, if your staff are being shown how to create corporate brochures, have the trainer ask them to create pages from some of your typical brochures during the training to check that they are mastering the relevant techniques.
The training area
You will need to find a suitable area where you can realistically conduct a training session and where the trainees can concentrate on learning without interruption, distraction or discomfort. If your organisation does not have a training room then a meeting room can be adapted for the purpose. Delegates should be able to see the trainer from their seat without having to twist around or crane their necks. Each delegate should also have the use of their own workstation or laptop for the duration of the course and enough space to use it.
The appropriate version of the software should be loaded on each person’s machine and, ideally, everyone should be using the same version of the software. For example, running a course on Microsoft Word where some delegates have Word 2003 and others 2007 would be a nightmare, since the two versions have such major differences.)
A workstation or laptop connected to a screen projector for use by the trainer is not essential but is extremely useful, especially with a large group (say, more than half a dozen people). If your company does not own one, they can be hired for around 50 pounds per day. A whiteboard and pens are also very handy.
The training delegates
For your training to be effective, delegates must be available for the duration of the course and must be off-limits to other members of staff. Ideally, they should be treated as absent from the office until their course ends. Equally, they should be motivated to do the training and agree that it will benefit them and that acquiring the new skills provided by the training will help them to work more effectively. For more information please visit Corporate Training Courses
It’s not a good idea to add a few extra bodies to a training session just to make up the numbers and get your money’s worth. It is far better to include just those delegates for whom the training will be relevant and useful and who will, furthermore, receive more personal attention from the trainer.
Timing
Finally, to be effective, in-house training (like all computer training) should be timely. Computer users should attend a course at a time when they are about to start using the software or using it in some new or more advanced manner. Immediately following their training, they should also have the opportunity to implement what they have learned.
This of course implies that they should have the software available on their own computers and that there will be a requirement for them to use it as part of their daily routine. If they never actually use the software for weeks or months after attending a course, the benefits of the training will be almost entirely lost and they will probably need to repeat the training session! For more information please visit End user computer training
Secure Online Cloud Backups
You’re probably wondering why would anyone decide to use the Internet as a backup system. Well, there are lots of reasons. First, if your backing up your files on the Internet you don’t need specialized hardware or software. A connection to the Internet is the only requirement. Second, your files will be available to you anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection.And with good security and encryption, nobody will get your data or even realize where it is.
the Internet has millions of gigabytes of storage space available to you and you can generally find a variety of quality services that specialize in Internet Backup.I’m paying around four dollars each month for over 30GB of data. Now I have 40% of my backup allocation free which leaves me with plenty of space to for future backup at a very cheap rate.
The first step is to make a determination as to which provider is best for you.Most providers that do free trial periods end up being more expensive overall than the providers that don’t offer free trials.So by avoiding free trials by doing a liitle legwork of your own you can save yourself alot of time.In the end it’ll save you a lot of money. With all the blogs, internet backup comparison sites, etc. it’s easy to make a good decision.
So now, you’ve decided which online backup provider you will use. Deciding which files you need to keep backed up due to their importance (financial), sentimental value (photos), difficulty in reconstructing (music, etc.). The best online backup providers have software that does all the work for you. and will automatically upload files after they’ve been encrypted for security. As you have figured out by now, the easiest to use services are also generally the best ones out there. And the best will run on all common operating systems (online backup for Windows, MAC, and Linux is what I mean here).
The simple explaination is if they make it too difficult for you, you’ll just go somewhere else. Just as in any business the market is a competitive one and services who don’t have a rich feature set or are only providing services for Windows or MAC, etc. generally arn’t very reliable and could not be there in a month or two. So it’s important to make sure they support MacIntosh and Linux in addition to Windows. If they’re serious about their business they will.
So, let’s put this basic overview into perspective with some questions you need to answer when selecting a Internet backup provider.
Do they have free software for you that will make it easy?
Does their software support MAC, Linux and Windows?
Can you back up all your computers with just one account?
What type of Internet data back up is it? How frequent are the backups?
Is encryption provided by default? You need to have encryption for maximum security (like 256bit AES).
You have other issues that are important to you.But by doing a little research and answering these few questions will help you discern between “the men and the boys”.
Backup Your Work Online via the New Digital Lockbox
Is your backup program heavy?
If you have lost computer data previously due to perhaps computer crash, then you must have tried finding a backup system online. These systems are usually tape or hard-drive based that you need to take somewhere else to ensure it being safe from theft, viruses and calamities, and keep everything in it recoverable.Only when someone actually handles the hardware can the system assure complete safety and recoverability.
Breaking Up With Your Old Backup
Enter the automated online backup, essentially the ideal solution for those who want to back their data up and not have to ever worry about it again unless one of the aforementioned problems happens and they need access to older files.These are exemplified by Carbonite and Mozy, which stores data at professionally managed remote servers as backup.
Mosey Up to Mozy
Mozy if considered the best as it sets schedules for backing up and limits network usage when you want to use the Internet aside from simply backing up files. This ensures that backing up data doesn’t cause your other activities to be put on pause.
While we’re on the subject of putting things on pause, Mozy can backup files that are being used, so you don’t have to turn off program x just to back it up.Those who used earlier programs can aver that backing up files can be terribly time consuming. For a complete look at how their service performs take a look at this Mozy review, it provides a detailed overview of the features, performance, and cost of using Mozy Backup online.
Once you have tried backing up your files and set the next back up schedules, Mozy will handle them automatically for you. Almost as good is that if you do find a file missing or infected by a virus you can select multiple versions of the file that Mozy keeps stored online for you.
Yet Another Security Serious Security Flaw In Microsoft Explorer
Microsoft Explorer despite it previous vulnerabilities and the constant challenge for other web browsers looking to take over the crown is still used by over 80 % of the planet according to research.
Little wonder then that hackers try and exploit explorer at every opportunity but the latest vulnerability appears to be very serious.
The vulnerability has been publicised and Brian Krebs the respected security journalist at the Washington post has been tracking and reporting the situation.
Krebs reports that Microsoft now says the flaw affects all supported versions of IE, and because security experts are warning that a large number of sites are being compromised in an effort to exploit this vulnerability and install malware on vulnerable systems.
SANS’s chief technology officer Johannes Ullrich estimates that thousands of sites have been seeded with this exploit to date and Microsoft have also released a security advisory that outlines a number of recommendations.
Unfortunately many average users if they were to read the advisory would be reluctant or not have the technical know how to put the recommendations in place and even if they are they would appear to throw up other problems.
What is more worrying however is that another respected source according to Krebs claimed that a very small minority of anti- virus applications are even detecting the problem although this situation may change with updated detection rules.
In the meantime what should we do? The IT operations manager for a respected data solution provider in Sheffield that specialises in server supply and installation has recommended that for the time being until this vulnerability is closed that users investigate using other common browsers.
Surfers Beware!
Transfer files from XP to Vista
Vista is now dominating the market. I for one really do like Vista and in my professional opinion it is a better operating system over XP.Vista is not all that different from XP. After all it's built on the same core os as XP the features have been enhanced and ultimately Vista is a better system.
Now that you bought your new slick looking Vista system you are all ready to go. Except for the part of all your files being stuck on your old XP system. The purpose of this guide is to talk about different methods of moving your old data from XP over to Vista. While this sounds like a daunting task many of these tasks are not all that hard. If you are NOT computer literate then you may want to consider purchasing some data transfer software to help out in this process. Check out this PC to PC file Transfer page. You should also consider purchasing a data transfer cable as well. This just makes the whole job even easier. We posted a 10 dollar off coupon we got from contacting Laplink as well so you should consider applying the savings to cover the cost of the data transfer cable.
As always there are free ways of doing a data transfer.There is software pre-installed on xp and vista call the Data tranfer wizard that is another way to go. This is a good way to transfer over all the user settings and your personal files. This method does not transfer over software programs and the only program out there that does this is the one mentioned in our link above. However if you want to see how the built in Windows tool works we suggest visiting this trasnfer files site. It’s easy to navigate and they walk you through the whole process. In our experience this free transfer program is not bad but it’s does come with it’s own set of headaches.
Something to consider is just starting over with a fresh user account and just manually coping over the data needed. Normally is what I do is network both systems together or just hookup a USB hard driver and manually copy over the My Documents folder and favorites. To find were your documents are stored hit the Windows Start button and browse to My Computer > C: > Documents and Settings > Your USER ACCOUNT. From there you will see the My Documents folder as well as your IE favorite’s folder and your Desktop folder. This is the main place were your data is stored and for most people the only thing they want to transfer over. Just copy and paste it to the new computer over the network or copy it over to the USB hard drive and then copy it to your new Vista System.
Only you can decide what method is best for you.you can always pay someone to do the XP to Vista data transfer for you. This is cheaper then you may think. We like to recommend out this computer repair company. It’s an online computer repair company that can transfer your person files over to your new computer and help set you all up. All you have to do is visit the link above and start chatting with them. They have you download a quick screen sharing tool that will allow them onto your computer for that session only and they will copy your files and then you allow them access to the other system and they place the files were they need to go and you are all set. Very easy and this company is located in California but they can help you any were in the world.