Email | CranstonIT - Blog

Slack brings all your communications together

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Email is the classic example of the double-edged sword. We can’t live without it, we depend upon it … and we can’t wait until it all goes away.

Email was intended to be the straightest line between two points. It was supposed to be a brief communication that either provided information or directed action. But, somehow, that very targeted email got lost.

Today, email has become an avalanche of irrelevant narrative and marketing outreach, making it difficult for all of us to find that get-to-the-point information we need in order to take next steps. In fact, according to Forbes, high-skill knowledge workers worldwide lose as much as 28% of their productivity managing email, equating to more than $1 trillion in annual value.

That’s why many organizations — including small and large businesses, academic and government agencies and non-profits — have shifted their internal communications to the group messaging service called Slack.

Slack’s goal is to unify your entire team’s communications with seamlessly integrated apps that help streamline workflow. It bundles colleagues, files, messages and calls all in one place. Slack has apps for macOS®, iOS, Windows and Android, and isn’t conceptually all that different from the popular Messages® app from Apple®. Read More...

Kerio Connect Offers Features, Function and Reliability in an Affordable Mail Server

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Kerio Connect is an ideal solution for businesses that need a modern, full-featured yet affordable mail server. Powerful and reliable, it provides email, shared calendars and contact management to most email clients, web browsers and mobile devices. It also has integrated anti-virus, multiple layers of spam control, built-in archiving, and automated backup. What makes it even more ideal is Kerio Connect’s ability to work cross platform on Macs, PCs and mobile devices. This means everything is integrated even if Windows users are using Outlook and Mac users are using Mail, Contacts and Calendars.

The days before email became essential to doing business seem like a theme for a documentary on the History Channel. Gone are the days when businesses relied solely on snail mail and phone calls to communicate. Email is a critical component to business success and the ability for your mail server to multitask is just as important.

Ask yourself a few questions to determine if your email server is adequately meeting your current needs.
Read More...

Watch Out for Phishing Attacks Hidden in Your Email

Internet information thieves are preying on our inattention while reading emails.

Online criminals know we are all busy, and that we often aren’t focused on what we are opening, reading and where we are clicking. They take advantage of that inattention by forging email messages to look like they've come from Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, along with well-known banks, payment services, retailers, and even government agencies such as the IRS and the Social Security Administration. Even more dangerous are messages that appear to come from a trusted individual and include personal details—often targeted at executives and company managers.

Generally speaking, these attacks are called phishing. And they cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

The goal, of course, is to prompt you to click a link in the message and visit a malicious website. That site usually continues to masquerade as being run by a company or organization you trust. Its aim is to sucker you into revealing confidential information by asking you to log in, pay for a product or service, or fill out a survey. The site — or an attachment in the email message — might also try to install malware. Although macOS is quite secure, it can still be affected if you approve certain security prompts.

Here’s how you can help identify potential phishing attacks.
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Beware of Sophisticated Email Scams

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Social engineering scammers are becoming more sophisticated every day. This past month, some of our clients got hit with a well-designed scheme to trick users into transferring money into a bogus bank account.

Here is how the scam worked:

The scammers first did some research on the company and found the names of the President and Controller, most likely using the company’s website or LinkedIn profile. Though email addresses for these individuals were not listed on the website, most companies use a standard naming convention for email addresses and guessing a user’s email address is not difficult.  Read More...

Kerio Connect - Business Class Email

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Kerio Connect Offers Features, Function and Reliability in an Affordable Mail Server

The days before email became essential to doing business seem like a theme for a documentary on the History Channel. Gone are the days when businesses relied solely on snail mail and phone calls to communicate. Email is a critical component to business success and the ability for your mail server to multitask is just as important. Ask yourself a few questions to determine if your email server is adequately meeting your current needs.

  • Can you synchronize email messages between your phone and computer?
  • Is the endless barrage of spam making it hard to find the real messages sent to you?
  • Can you see and update the same list of contacts on your phone and your computer?
  • Are you able to send and receive meeting invites that sync with your calendar?
  • Can you easily set an out-of-office message and schedule it to turn on and off by itself?

Read More...

Slack: Redefining Business Team Communication

Team based communication in business is an often overlooked function in today’s business environment. Obviously, there are lots of ways to communicate: email, instant messages, phone, VOIP, online forums, but all them lack key features that make team based communication effective. Slack is a new cloud based communication service that allows teams to communicate easily and efficiently all in one place. While barely a year old with already 500,000 daily users, Slack has single handily revolutionized the way businesses are communicating. So what is Slack’s magic and how can it transform your team’s communication? Read More...

AirMail 2.0 an alternative to Apple Mail

Email is an integral part of most people’s lives. It’s how we communicate with each other in both the professional world and on a more personal level. When using email on your Mac, most of us use the “Mail” application, but did you know that there are other email client options? Airmail is a email client that enhances the user experience while making the emailing process more fluid and intuitive. Read More...

Common Internet Scams

The internet is a powerful tool that has transformed and enriched our lives. With new ways to communicate, it’s good to be aware of potential danger that could cost you. Internet scams are nothing new, but with ever changing technology and smarter scammers, it’s becoming more difficult to tell when someone might be trying to pull a fast one. Below are some of the most common internet scams and ways to detect and avoid future threats.

Phishing is an email scam that uses well known companies to trick you into giving sensitive information. Here’s how it works: you get an email for a company, such as your bank, saying they need you to immediately sign into your account and provide a link for you to do so. Once you click on the link, you are taken to a website that looks like that of the trusted site. If you provide your login credentials, they are saved and used to access your account. If you receive an email requesting sensitive information, it is probably a phishing scam. Read More...

Unroll.me Email Management Service

If you’re like most people, combing through masses of junk emails and unwanted subscriptions is just part of your daily routine. More often than not, we’re hitting the delete button. On occasion you might feel inspired to clean up your inbox and vow to unsubscribe from pesky emails, but finding the “unsubscribe” button and completing the prompts is tedious and time consuming. With a new web service, Unroll.me, claiming to revolutionize email, you can finally keep your promise and clean out your inbox once and for all. Read More...

Kerio Connect: New Webmail & Tutorial Videos

As many of you already know, Kerio Connect is an ideal solution for businesses that need a reliable yet affordable alternative to Microsoft Exchange. This powerful mail server provides email, shared calendars and contact management to most email clients, web browsers and mobile devices. It also has integrated anti-virus, multiple layers of spam control, built-in archiving, automated backup and an easy Web Administration interface.

It is completely cross platform and works on Macs, PCs and mobile devices. This means everything is integrated even if Windows users are using Outlook and Mac users are using Apple Mail, Address Book or iCal. Kerio Connect can be run on your own internal server or hosted by CranstonIT in the cloud. Read More...

Managing Your Mail

Confused by email mailboxes and storage options in Apple Mail? It’s actually pretty simple. You can keep your email in three different places: on the server, in local mailboxes in Mail, or in a saved archive on your computer. Where you choose to store your messages will depend on how easily you need to be able to access them, how important they are, and how long you want to keep them. Read More...

Using Mountain Lion's Mail VIP Folders (Tutorial with Video)

Have a VIP in your life? With Apple’s newest operating system, Mountain Lion, you can automatically keep copies of that person’s messages in a SmartFolder in your Mail program. This will eliminate the need to search multiple folders for specific messages you may need in the future. It also eliminates the need to manually drag messages into folders. Read More...
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