To give you an idea of some of these great apps, I thought I’d pull together 5 of my favourites.

1. Tweetbot

I’m a Twitter addict. I use Twitter mostly for consuming news and information and building up my bank of interesting articles to read (see Pocket) rather than tweeting incessantly. For that reason, Tweetbot is my most used app and takes pride of place on my homescreen.

There are lots of Twitter apps available for the iPhone, not least of which the official one from Twitter themselves. I used to use it before I heard of a new app on the grapevine called Tweetbot. Once it was released I bought it and haven’t looked back. What sets it apart from other clients is the gorgeous interface, the broad featureset and the overall quality it exudes. It’s almost unheard of that Tweetbot crashes, and any issues are dealt with in the next app update.

iTunes Link: Tweetbot

2. Pocket

I consume (that’s the new buzz word meaning read) most news on my iPhone or iPad when I have 5-10 minutes spare, such as over breakfast or when I’m having a well earned coffee break! This means I’m rapidly taking things in without stopping to pause and go into any detail. If that was all I did, some pretty great articles would pass me by. That’s why I send links to things I want to look at later to Pocket.

Pocket is like a giant bookmark collection service. You can add links to it with your own personal account that you can then refer back to at a later date when you have more time. Rather than simply giving you a big list of webpages, Pocket presents all of your saved links as your own personalised magazine which not only looks great but is functional too.

If you find yourself overwhelmed with amazing stuff on the internet, Pocket is your way to put them in one place so you don’t miss out. My only issue with Pocket is that every time I open it, I tend to have another 20-30 things to read!

iTunes Link: Pocket

3. Clear

Clear is a to-do list. It’s not burdened with features. There are no alerts, no date or time options, no geo-location trickery. In fact all you can record are short descriptions of tasks you need to do. And that’s why Clear is my favourite to-do app.

I’ve used other apps that offer all of the features that Clear lacks and none of them has made me as productive as Clear. It’s as if stripping out all the things beyond the fundamental basics helps you to focus on completing the task, and not spend ages entering things on the list in the first place!

Clear is also deceptively gorgeous. Tasks are marked as done with a satisfying swipe and denoted with some great sounds (true story – I often unmute my phone just to hear the sounds in Clear). They have a colour scheme and style which I’ve since seen copied in other apps.

If Clear looks too simple, that’s because it is. And that’s why I use it every day for all of my must do tasks.

iTunes Link: Clear

4. Drafts

On the surface of it, Drafts is a quick way to capture snippets of text. Maybe an idea you had in the shower. Or someone’s phone number or email address. A shopping list perhaps. Drafts works great for all these.

But a text snippet is just the start of things. Drafts offers an extensive array (aka loads and loads) of custom actions to do something with that text. Tweet it. Send it as an email. Text message it. Send it to another app. Put a copy in your Dropbox. The possibilities with Drafts boggles the mind. And don’t just take my word for it. Go read @viticci expert review on it to get the full low-down at MacStories – disclaimer: it’s aimed at the more advanced users amongst you.

The tagline for Drafts is “where text starts on iOS” and they aren’t kidding!

iTunes Link: Drafts

5. Day One

Blogs are great for communicating news. Even if no one reads them, you can put things up there for the world to see. I used to have my own personal blog. The trouble was, some things I wanted to keep personal and private. Nothing scandalous, but I believe that some things are yours to keep. Plus the only person who really cares about the stuff I write is me anyway.

I now write a daily journal in Day One. It’s going to be nice to refer back to these entries in the future, and see how I’ve progressed. I record goals and milestones I’ve achieved towards them.

I’m also blessed with a young daughter, and as the saying goes, they grow up so fast. It’s important to write down the things she says and does so the memories don’t fade.

Day One is a truly stunningly good looking app, possibly my favourite on any device. All the tools and functions you’d want (like geotagging where you were at the time of the entry as well as what the weather was like) are in there. You can add photos too. Looking back over entries looks amazing. If you think having a written record of your life is going to pay dividends later in life, get Day One and start writing.

iTunes Link: Day One

BONUS – Facebook

I hesitated before adding this app to this list. I’m writing about my favourite and most used apps, and certainly Facebook is one I use daily. My hesitation is based on the fact that the app is rubbish. I don’t think I need to explain what Facebook is, so let’s just get into why I use the app daily even though it’s atrocious (and getting worse).

I use Facebook to keep up to date with family and friends (I have nearly 100 close relatives). The app makes this experience painful. It’s slow and unresponsive. It crashes often. It will randomly choose to not display updates (this has nothing to do with EdgeRank). Facebook used to use HTML5 to power the app. They famously threw this away and wrote a native iOS application, which for a while seemed to make things better.

For a company as large and tech savvy as Facebook to produce such a poor app is a shame. They do have some very clever people but perhaps the strain of nearly a billion users makes for a poor mobile experience.

iTunes Link: Facebook

What are your favourite iPhone apps?

I’m always on the look out for great apps. I could have easily written about my favourite 20 apps, but I feel those above are worthy of your attention and money.

What apps do you use on a daily basis? Have you tried any of the apps named above? How did you find them? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below, or drop us a tweet on @4thlevelit

The post Top 5 iPhone apps appeared first on 4th Level IT Solutions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Let us know how you get on in the comments below.

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Just read a blog post about the #Plumpynut challenge I’m signed up for. it sounds… hmmm. How do I say diplomatically?

— Martin Broadhurst (@MPBroadhurst) January 22, 2013

Having no idea what a Plumpynut was, let alone what the challenge involved, I did a Google search and discovered the Plumpynut Challenge website!

First of all, lets see what Plumpy’nut is. According to Wikipedia:

Plumpy’nut is a peanut-based paste in a plastic wrapper for treatment of severe acute malnutrition manufactured by a French company, Nutriset

It’s made from peanut paste, vegetable oil, powdered milk, powdered sugar, vitamins, and minerals, and is ideal for treating malnourishment as it requires no supervision so can be taken at home, as well as having a long shelf life.

In order to raise money to provide Plumpy’nut for starving children, Merlin invite people to sign up to receive a box through the post containing 4 sachets of Plumpy’nut, enough for an entire day. You then choose a day, and eat nothing but the Plumpy’nut! By tweeting and blogging, the idea is to raise awareness and sponsorship money. £50 is enough to provide Plumpy’nut for a child for 8 weeks – enough to save their life.

I signed up last week and promptly received my package though the post. The plan is to take the challenge on Friday 15th February, starting at the 4Networking breakfast meeting I run. The team I work with there are also taking the challenge which is great!

Here’s how you can help.

• Sign up to do the Plumpy’nut Challenge yourself
• Or even easier – sponsor me to do it!

This seems like a great way to raise money and should be a lot of fun (even though the feedback I’ve heard on the taste of the Plumpy’nut isn’t great)!

My target is to raise £50 but I’d love that to just be the minimum. Please give what you can, and remember that if I hit my target, you’ll have helped to save the life of a starving child! Head over to my sponsorship page now!

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Before we look at why Dropbox is so useful and successful, let’s look at the Wikipedia description of what it is.

Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc., that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, and client software. Dropbox allows users to create a special folder on each of their computers, which Dropbox then synchronises so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of which computer is used to view it. Files placed in this folder also are accessible through a website and mobile phone applications.

We use Dropbox on multiple PCs so all have the same content, the same files at the same version. I also access those files from my iPad and iPhone – there’s been many occasions where I’ve been out of the office and needed to check something. This has proved to be a life saver.

But the true power of Dropbox for me, are the hundreds (and growing) of applications that make use of Dropbox to add useful functionality when using multiple devices.

Let me give a few examples. The first is this blog post itself. I am writing this post on my iPad using an app called Byword, which can read and write to files in my Dropbox. As I write this, it is being saved to my Dropbox account online, which means this document is available to my other devices. So when I sit down in front of my PC, the file is automatically available to the program I use on there called MarkdownPad. This is a seamless experience and allows me to work without worrying about carting my documents around on a memory stick (and then forgetting where I put it)!

The point of having my files online at all times, means I don’t need to worry about not having them. Another application that demonstrates the power of this is called You Need A Budget (YNAB). I’m a huge advocate of budgeting, and have even delivered presentations on the subject. This app is therefore one I use frequently, at least once a day. As you’d expect, it contains budgeting information – how much money is available, what categories have what money, and a list of categorised expenditures. In order to have up to date financial information to allow me to make informed buying decisions, the program links into Dropbox to provide real-time values. I have the YNAB app on my iPhone, as does my wife, and the updating of information happens automatically without either of us having to think about it.

Another great feature of Dropbox is the ability to share files with other people. This has several advantages over emailing files as attachments. Firstly it is possible to share files much larger than those typically allowed via email. Another is that email attachments are static. That is to say, once sent, they do not get updated should you do make any further changes to them. With Dropbox, the shared version is always the live version so you can work on it and update it without having to reshare the link.

Dropbox comes with varying amounts of storage but they also offer a free 2GB account which has proven to a hugely successful tactic contributing to their phenomenal growth. As an extra bonus, you can get an extra 500MB for free!

Do you have a Dropbox account? Share your experiences with Dropbox in the comments below.

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As my friend was using a terminal server (or remote desktop server if you speak in new money) he needed a RDP client on the iPad. There are many available in the App Store, both free and paid. I’ve had good success with the 2X client (free). It has custom buttons to give access to features not found by default on the iPad, such as Ctrl+Alt+Del, the function keys (F1, F5 etc) and other keyboard buttons such as Home and End.

With RDP, it is necessary to have a direct connection of some kind from your iPad to your server. If you are on the same network on both devices, it is trivial to set up a connection.

When the devices are on separate networks (such as one in the office, and one at home) then there are two possibilities. The first is to open up your firewall to allow a direct connection. This means exposing your server to the outside world, adding a small but potential security risk.

A more complicated method is to set up a Virtual Private Connection (VPN) link, which means a secure connection protected by a username and password, theoretically more difficult for someone to gain unauthorised access.

If RDP and VPN sounds like too much hard work (aka gibberish) then a more simple method is to use a service such as LogMeIn. This works by installing the LogMeIn software on your PC/server at work and connecting to it via the LogMeIn website, or in this case, via the iPad app (free). It has been designed to be very simple yet secure, and has a straightforward easy-to-use interface. There are both free and paid plans with a trial to see which will work best for you. The only draw back to this method in my friend’s instance, is that it doesn’t allow multiple users to work on the terminal server at the same time.

Hopefully these links will allow you to use your iPad to work remotely. If some (or all!) of the above sounds too complicated and you just want help setting it up, get in touch.

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In order to keep the code safe, and allow us to track changes (and roll them back if necessary) they are kept in a version control system called Subversion. Every time someone adds or changes code in the repository, it is called a “commit”.

This week a milestone 2000th commit was reached. Using an open source program called gource, one of the team made a video which beautifully represents each code commit in a mesmerising way!

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can read more about this, and other aspects of the project on the BRISSkit website.

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Who are Draytek?

Draytek were founded in 1997 and have a mission to produce superior network products. These are a cut above the rest, not typically given away by an ISP, and offer stunning value. PC Pro magazine said it best – “If you’re buying a router for business – it’s an obvious choice“! In fact, Draytek are award winners, time after time after time.

Who uses Draytek products?

Draytek routers and equipment can be found in thousands of small and medium organisation across the globe. As they offer features typically found in much more expensive devices, as well as routers tailored for the UK market, they are equally suitable in your home as well as your place of work.

I’ve been using a Draytek router for my broadband connection since 2008. Beyond an untouchable feature set, what strikes me about the router is the incredible level of support that is still available to this day. For a router that is over 4 years old to still receive firmware updates is almost unheard of, and yet Draytek released their latest version for my router just 10 days ago! Go see for yourself!

What do you as a Draytek Reseller offer?

As a reseller, we have specialised access to Draytek support to ensure our customers get the most from their purchase. We can also offer competitive pricing. As a value added reseller, we don’t just want to sell you a product as cheap as possible – you will benefit from a tailored solution specific to your needs and requirements – not the one that makes us the most money!

We believe that getting the core systems right, those at the very foundation of a solid IT infrastructure, is of critical importance. It’s for this reason that we typically start with the deployment of a Draytek router in an organisation, and today’s announcement strengthens our endorsement of Draytek and their products.

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On the surface of it, it makes sense that I would want an Android phone. They come in a variety of sizes, with a plethora of high end features, and a lot of computing power to boot. They work seamlessly with Google Apps (which we use for our email/calendars/contacts) and allow for a great deal of tinkering and customisation.

It is the final point that destines me to be an Android man. There are thousands upon thousands of people developing and writing software for Android. They are even able to pull apart and put back together the operating system itself, often adding features to the phone not even provided by the original manufacturer. For people who want a phone to do exactly what they want, Android is great.

Alas all this customisation does come with a price, and that is simplicity. For anyone who has attempted to install a “custom ROM” to their device, you will know that this requires a good level of technical ability, and is certainly not for the faint hearted.

On the other hand, Apple have designed the iPhone to be more of a closed system – often referred to as a “walled garden”. You have to be much more willing to do things the way Apple’s have decided rather than your own. You can only install software via the App store, and all apps there must pass through Apple’s approval process and adhere to their guidelines. This for me has actually been a positive.

I know that all apps can be found in one place. My first foray into smartphones was with Nokia. Part of the challenge of adding additional apps was to track them down in the first place!

The iPhone is the most popular and well supported phone in the world (the total number of Android phones dwarves iPhones, but no single model of Android is more popular). If I want an app, the first platform it had available for is the iPhone.

Although Apple release a new iPhone every year, they do a good job of supporting past models with software updates. In fact, they released their latest version, iOS 6, to support the iPhone 3GS which is over 3 years old. Android phones might be running out of date software from the day they are released, and may never see a single update!

There is a reason why Apple are the most valuable company in the history of the world. It is not because they have the fastest phone, or the most features. Today is all about ecosystems – that is to say various components working together in harmony. Apple have made buying apps, music and movies simple. They allow you to share content and photos easily between all of your devices. They may not have the best features, but adding up all their offerings, it is easily the most well rounded and complete.

The simple answer then, as to why I use an iPhone is that “things just work without fuss”. Running a business, and having a young family, time truly is precious, and I don’t want to be wasting it getting technology to do something when there is a better way. My customers feel the same way. Don’t you?

What phone do you have? Have you switched between Apple and Android? Which do you prefer? Leave us a comment below and let us know!

The post Why I use an iPhone appeared first on 4th Level IT Solutions.

Introduction

The first two questions to answer are, what is IT security and why should we care? Let’s rename IT security to something else and make both answers clearer. Often when we talk about IT security, we really mean data security. So how do we protect the information we hold in our businesses – customer details, payroll, accounts, intellectual property and dozens of other items that are crucial to our daily operations.

What happens when you lose it? Even if you feel secure, does that mean you really are. There was a recent tale of a technology journalist who got hacked called Mat Honan. He lost his email account, racist messages were posted to his twitter account, and his phone and laptop were erased. But worst of all for him, was that he lost all the photos of his daughter that he had taken since she was born.

It’s a fascinating story that is worthy of a read, but the worst of it could have been avoided if Mat had taken a back up of his data.

Backups

So how often do you back up your data? Do you keep a copy offsite? One of the most common mistakes is to take backups, but never to prove that you can recover your data from it. Can you afford to lose a days work? How about a week? Or how about the £0.5 million fine the Information Commissioners Office can fine for personal data breaches of the Data Protection Act? If you do nothing else to secure your data, make sure you have a backup. Most bad things that happen can be recovered from with good backups.

Protect your data

So other than backups, here are a couple of other ways to protect your data.

The first is to protect your computer. There are viruses, worms, rootkits, spyware and trojans to contend with. All of these are types of malicious software, or malware. There are many anti-virus programs available, some very good ones are available for free such as Microsoft Security Essentials, Avast or AVG, and these do a great job of helping to protect you.

Then there’s Windows Updates. Once a month, Microsoft produce and supply free fixes and security updates that you install on to your computer. These are typically released on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, coining the name “Patch Tuesday”. This is followed the next day by “Exploit Wednesdays” whereby hackers try to break in to all computers that are yet to receive the updates.

Many people use laptops and mobile devices which are easily lost or stolen, or left on a train. To stop people from being able to read the data from these drives, you need to use encryption. This is where data is passed through a mathematical formula that makes your data virtually unreadable without the correct password. There is software available which allow you to do this on your PC and Mac. Just having a password to log in to your laptop is not enough, as one of my customers will testify to when we pulled the drive from one laptop and without needing a password, we were able to view all of his data on the hard drive on another laptop.

Protect your employees

Do you have a clearly defined security policy? This should explain the importance of security, provide training to ensure they understand it, and the consequences of ignoring it. It should also detail how they are to report any security issues.

Protect yourself

Security is a behaviour that must be practised. So when dealing with data ask yourself how secure is it? Could someone else get access to my data? So how can I make it more difficult for them?

There was an experiment conducted outside of a train station in London, where by people were asked for their password in exchange for a cheap pen. Shockingly, nearly 90% of people who were asked gave away their precious password very cheaply!

This is an obvious example of social engineering. Many people use Twitter, both personally and for their businesses. Who has received a message from one of their contacts with a provocative message asking them to click a link? It is through this process that access to your account is granted to someone you have no desire to share it with.

Email

There are many viruses that get sent by email. So it is crucial that you don’t open an attachment if you aren’t expecting it. There are also phishing emails where they appear to come from somewhere like your bank but actually contain links to a malicious website which is there to harvest your login credentials. Then there’s the endless spam.

Emails are used for password resets. So make sure you keep your email as secure as possible!

If you get an email from someone asking for information, stop. They can be anyone. If there seems to be a link to a bank or other website, type the address to your bank in manually as you would do normally as links can be easily falsified.

Here’s a top tip – set up a “catch all” email address and then use specific names for emails such as banking@ or newsletter@ so you can trace it back to the source.

Passwords

You should always use a secure password that cannot be guessed. So it shouldn’t be based on a pets name, or a child or an easily guessable date like your birthday or anniversary. It should be of a sufficient length, and a mixture of upper and lower case letters, numbers and characters.

Size matters. An 8 character password can be broken by a common home PC in around 50 seconds!

Top tip – use the euro symbol (€) and pound symbol (£) as most password hackers use characters from American keyboards when they try to guess your password.

Conclusion

This has been a very quick tour of just some of the things you should be thinking about.. Leave a comment below if you have any other great ways to keep your data secure.

The post IT Security insights appeared first on 4th Level IT Solutions.

I was inspired to do this by 4Networking, a business networking organisation of which I am a team member. They have a section on their forum called “Let’s talk / Let’s meet” as well as sessions called “Make It Happen Mondays“. So here’s my very own “Fix Your Fault Fridays”! While I can’t help you shift that last 5 pounds, or help you quit smoking, I do know my way around a computer.

What can I use this for?

Many businesses require the ongoing support from an IT provider to ensure things keep running smoothly, and to introduce new and better ways of working. For some people, this unfortunately is just not possible. And yet people still have issues arise from time to time, and questions about what cost effective technologies they can implement.

This is where a free session can help. Use it as an opportunity to resolve those nagging problems that you’ve not been able to go away! Find out about all the great tech you’ve been missing out on! Ask questions about tablet devices like iPads, IT security, cloud computing, data backup, or how to work from anywhere.

OK, sounds great. What’s the catch?

The maximum cost you will have to pay is 30 minutes of your time. Nothing else. By free, I truly mean you don’t have to pay me a penny!

Each person will be allowed one session which lasts no more than 30 minutes. Support will be via telephone or Skype, and if needed, a secure remote connection to your computer. I can’t guarantee to fix your faults but I’ll be sure to give you 100% and nothing less!

How do I get a free session?

To book in a slot, leave us a comment below and we’ll be in touch soon to sort you out.

Alternatively, follow us on twitter and give a mention using the hash tag #FYFF

When are the sessions running?

We will have 2 x 30 minute sessions up for grabs every Friday until the end of September. That’s 4 hours of free support you could be using to boost your business. What are you waiting for?! Drop us a comment below or say hi on twitter remembering to put #FYFF in the mention.

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