Blue Surf I.T.

10/28/2021

Such helpful IOS 15 trick! Live Text let's you take a picture of any text, phone number and highlight, copy/paste into any other app. You can even call a phone number you highlighted directly from a photo you took. Or highlight text in the viewfinder without even taking the picture. You can paste and address from a photo, or without even taking the photo, into Maps.

If your camera recognizes text/numbers, a little icon appears (circled in RED). When you tap that, all editing functions become available.

04/26/2021

Apple and Facebook are going to war!

The new iOS 14.5 lets us opt out of apps tracking us which means it's going to be lot harder for Facebook to sell our information to advertisers. The article in the comment describes the new features.

02/22/2021

Venmo is experiencing outages. No, it's not your phone...there's no time estimate for the return of functionality as of now.

12/15/2020

Google is having a huge outage with its gmail service in SoCal. It seems to be the continuation of an even bigger problem on all their platforms yesterday.

11/30/2020

I'd like to share my newest addition to my work environment. It is a notebook by RocketBook. It bridges the digital divide between my handwritten notes and my digital notes.

After I got my notebook (there are some great deals on it directly from RocketBook) I downloaded the RocketBook app and I set up different destinations for my handwritten notes. It is really easy to do, doesn't require much technology skills. I've set up a few to go to my OneDrive client folders, others to my personal files yet some directly to a new email as an attachment.

The magic starts after I jot some notes down. I scan the page with the app, chose the icon (destination to send it to) and that's it! I can see the note there instantly either as a pdf file or a jpeg. It can even bundle multiple pages into one document. OCR technology is included so the app can transcribe your handwritten notes into editable and searchable text.

There are more cumbersome ways to accomplish some of that, like taking a picture of your notes and then uploading it to wherever you want it but the ease and the speed of RocketBook is well worth the expense. Actually, I was surprised how affordable those notebooks are and I saw some great Cyber Monday deals.

As an added bonus, the pages are reusable, they can be wiped clean with the included cloth.

The Rocketbook Smart Notebook instantly connects and stores your notes, doodles and lists in the cloud with the free smart notebook app.

11/18/2020

If you updated to MacOS Big Sur and your Zoom app doesn't work, it needs an update.

Open the Zoom app, click on your initials at the top right corner and choose "Check for Updates". Download and install the update. You (and Zoom) should be good to go!

07/15/2020

Microsoft is having some issues with Office 365 and Outlook. My clients' Outlook on the computers cannot open or crashes immediately opening. Outlook Online (portal.office.com) and mobil devices are unaffected. According to Microsoft it could take a few hours to remedy the problem. As always, contact me with any questions.

05/04/2020

So what happens when your company becomes the capstone project for a handful of SDSU business school students? They win a competition at the end of the semester! It was so very encouraging to participate in the competition last Friday and listen to these talented young people. I've been working with them since January and they developed an impressive business and marketing plan for Blue Surf I.T. I believe the future is bright for Blue Surf I.T. and for the next generation.

Congratulations to this semester's winning team, Blue Surf IT! The judges particularly liked the way you incorporated the COVID19 pandemic into your business...

03/10/2020

Some of my office clients asked me to get them ready for remote work, just in case it becomes necessary. With laptops and cloud solutions already in place it is really not a difficult task to leave the office behind but additional protections, like VPN and email encryption might be needed. If any of you needs advice on setting up a safe and secure remote workplace, feel free to contact me.

02/27/2020

Another day, another serious security flaw... this time in the ever popular Chrome browser. Please make sure you update Chrome on your devices! Information on the security vulnerability and the easy update process (it's three clicks) is in this article:

Google Chrome users around the world need to stop and upgrade their browsers, right now...

02/18/2020

It's increasingly the Wild Wild West of cybersecurity threats out there.

The top 10 cybersecurity stories that caught your attention during 2019 also provide a glimpse of what’s to come in 2020