Surviving After the Storm...

Hopefully everyone has made it through Hurricane Irene. A lot of damage and power outages has occurred. We want to make sure you are still safe even after the storm.

• Use a flashlight for emergency lighting. Never use candles or open flames indoors.



• When cutting up fallen trees, use caution, especially if you use a chain saw. Serious injuries can occur with these powerful machines, they may snap or break.



• Assess damage to home and contents. Photograph all damage.
  


• Make temporary repairs to protect the building and contents.
  


• Remove and discard all porous organic materials that have become visibly wet or contaminated.



• When using a generator, be sure that the main circuit breaker is off and locked out prior to starting the generator.
  


• Do not attempt to drive across flowing water. As little as six inches of water may cause you to lose control and two feet of water will carry away most cars.

Read more on the after the storm checklist at abc.com

Prepare for Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene, a powerful Category 3 hurricane, is threatening the east coast and it looks like we may get hit hard with the storm. Lastest projections show the hurricane hitting Long Island on Sunday.

Prepare Your Technology
Be sure you have a full backup of all your important data. (both on and off-site preferably)

If you have a UPS battery (Uninterruptible Power Supplies with surge protection) be sure the unit is connected and the auto shutdown software is installed and working.

If you do not have a UPS battery on each device, we recommend shutting
down your PC's and servers if you expect, or are prone to power outages. A sudden loss of power will damage computer equipment. At the very least be sure you have surge protectors if you do not have UPS units.

We advise you to unplug your PC if you do not have a proper UPS or surger protector.

If your in flood prone area, make sure to keep all your computers and hardware off the floors.

**If you have a server and multiple PC's, it might be safest for you to shut down your office for this weekend to protect your systems. Before you take this action, please contact Armando and discuss if this is the best way to prepare for your site**
Office number: (516) 208-4161

Take Control of your Cellphone Camera

One of the biggest gripes about Smartphone cameras, apart from general quality issues, is the clunky (or lack of) controls over camera functions.

Its easy to fumble over functions like zoom, shutter speed, and aperture size. Fortunately, an army of apps awaits, offering tools and options to give you better control over these variables.

Hipstamatic - the $2 app gives your iPhone camera a distinctly analog feel, producing images reminiscent of cheap-o medium-format cameras like the Holga and Lomo. Hipstamatic offers a variety of lenses and film types from which to choose, including several add-on packs for an additional charge.

Camera360 Ultimate - Similar to the Hipstamatic app, but with more features and available for Android-based phones, Camera360 give you Lomo-like effects, but also adds HDR, high contrast reversal film stock simulation, tilt-shift, selective focus (on compatible hardware), alignment grids, and a timer for self-portraits. $4 from the Android store.

PicPlz - This app offers some basic filters and effects, but the real selling point is its integrated social networing capabilities including fast and simple sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, and Foursquare, as well as syncing with Dropbox. Available for free from the Android store.

ProHDR - Compatible with 3GS and newer iPhones, ProHDR offers superior control over the HDR default presets in the iPhone 4's native OS and also lets 3GS users in on the HDR fun. $2 in the iTunes store.

Darkroom - One of the biggest knocks against the iPhones integrated camera is poor low-light performance. Darkroom helps you snap better photos in dim situations by lessening blur cause by insufficient lighting and accidental motion. Available for iPhone only. Free from the iTunes store.

Adobe Photoshop Express - Not a camera app, per se, but a very useful (and FREE) image manipulation tool for iPhone and Android. Crop, rotate, and touch-up your images, as well as apply filters and adjust color, brightness and contrast.

Manage Your Google Gadgets!

Do you know how to add google gadgets to your G-mail Account? No?!
Well we're going to show you!

Open the below Google Gadgets link in a browser window, then watch the video on how to manage your gadgets.

Google Gadgets Lab

Video: How to Manage your Google Gadgets

CMIT Sponors StudentLifeLine

Armando D'Accordo of CMIT Solutions of South Nassau proudly sponsored Student Lifeline in their goal to protect the youth of America. Since 1988, this organization has been dedicated to providing taxi and limo services to bringing home youngsters safely.

Drunk driving continues to be the number one cause of death in this age group. Also, over 1 million children and teenagers are reported missing or abducted each year. Studentlifeline provides car rides home at no cost by sending out cards to schools, law enforcement agencies and commercial entities nationwide. If a teenager is in desperate need of a ride home, Studentlifeline is here to get them home safely.

Armando sponsored the dispersal of these free transportation service cards in the Wantagh area. The cards were distributed throughout the Wantagh school district and the local King Kullen in Wantagh.

This organized effort to keep our youth safe is a great way to decrease the occurrences of drunk drivers and missing children reports.

Ensuring Your Computer Works in Public

Sometimes you might want to connect your laptop in public but want to prevent sharing your machine with everyone. Sharing files and accessing printers is okay when you’re home, but there of course files or settings you might not want everyone in a public hotspot to retrieve.

Changing your security settings and file-sharing permissions each time you are in a new location, try creating a separate user account for each place, such as “Home”, “Office” or “Public”. Administrators often make a “Guest” account too, so that users can log on but don’t have access to all your files. In order to create these profiles, go to your Control Panel--User Account.

If you would like a file to be opened from all accounts, you must log in from administrator, put them in Window 7’s “Public Documents” folder (Shared Documents in XP). If you right-click on that folder, pick the option that says “Share with” and you can choose the users you would like. You can also place the files you only want to view in certain locations in the “My Documents” folder for the appropriate user profile. Then, configure accounts by logging in to each one and adjusting your setting in Control Panel. Any time you want to install new software, log in as administrator and select the “Install for All Users” option. Above all, be sure that file sharing is disabled (Control Panel--Network and Sharing Center--Advanced sharing settings). You can also protect them with a strong password on your “Public” profile. Otherwise, you can share everything on your hard drive with everyone in the same Wi-Fi network.

Managing Multiple Monitors

Sometimes you might feel like your computer screen is a little overcrowded, but before you buy a larger monitor, considering buying an additional one. Two smaller (22”) monitors often cost less than one large (30”) one, so it may be a good investment. It’s additional screen space at a lower cost.

Before you purchase anything however, you want to make sure that a second monitor is supported by your PC. You can do this by seeing if your computer has more than one video output. (A second one can be installed as well.) Different connections are okay--you can use both DVI and VGA, as shown in the picture below.

Once plugged in, Windows should recognize both monitors. If not, right click on your desktop, select "Screen Resolution" and use the "Detect" and "Identify" buttons to configure the second display. Once this is up and running, you are free to organize your windows however you please. Some people choose to keep email and chat programs open on one screen while working on a document on the other.

You can put them in "Duplicate" mode to show the same display on both screens, or only show one monitor at a time, depending on what you are doing. Press "Windows key + P" to look through all the configurations, or view the options in the "Screen Resolution" control panel.

If you have questions about multiple monitors, feel free to call us at CMIT and we can help you decide what is the best option for you adn can help you with your hardware purchases.

Before you purchase anything however, you want to make sure that a second monitor is supported by your PC. You can do this by seeing if your computer has more than one video output. (A second one can be installed as well.) Different connections are okay—you can use both DVI and VGA, as shown in the picture below.Once plugged in, Windows should recognize both monitors. If not, right click on your desktop, select “Screen Resolution” and use the “Detect” and “Identify” buttons to configure the second display. Once this is up and running, you are free to organize your windows however you please. Some people choose to keep email and chat programs open on one screen while working on a document on the other.

You can put them in “Duplicate” mode to show the same display on both screens, or only show one monitor at a time, depending on what you are doing. Press “Windows key + P” to look through all the configurations, or view the options in the “Screen Resolution” control panel.

If you have questions about multiple monitors, feel free to call us at CMIT and we can help you decide what is the best option for you and can help you with your hardware purchases.

Going Digital: A Paperless Office

Have you seen the recent New York Times article about airline pilots replacing bulky, printed in-cockpit flight manuals with digital versions on iPads? It makes great sense being that the digital version weighs a fraction of the 40lb. paper version, receives updates in real-time, and is easily searchable.

When PCs were revolutionizing the way businesses operated in the mid-90s, the so-called "paperless office" held the promise of eliminating the mass amounts of paper that clogged file cabinets and inboxes. It required careful organization and storage in order to keep track of everything.

The reality was much different, however. Computer crashes, software glitches, and even the occasional server-room fire necessitated maintaining hard copies of just about everything as a backup. Perhaps you recall when people used to print copies of every email "just in case." In addition, government regulations required certain industries to maintain paper archives or face consequences.

However, technological advances in data security, including reliable, redundant backup systems, along with regulatory acceptance now make the paperless office (or, less-paper office) not only a reality, but in many cases, a competitive necessity.

At a recent NYeHealth summit, Maria Trusa, executive director of the Scarsdale Medical Group, stated "In 2004 I had to convince 11 physician partners that EHR (electronic health records) was something we needed to do. The cost of running our practice was beginning to skyrocket. The staff was always looking for charts and as a result things were getting out of control. We had two full-time and two part-time employees dedicated to finding charts. And because those charts took up so much room, we were considering moving because we physically needed more space."

Trusa's group quickly needed to adopt EHRs or face the significant expense of moving to new offices, all because they were drowning in paperwork.

On a good note, you don't have to wait until there is a fiscal gun to your head to start reaping the benefits of the paperless office. Going digital will save you money, not only on physical storage space, but also on labor. No more wasting time spending hours digging through the file cabinets to track down one misplaced invoice. Even if you already conduct much of your business digitally, there is almost always opportunities for increased efficiency, convenience, and cost savings by leveraging technology.