In the coming weeks/months we are looking to add as many as 4 new technicians to our managed services team as a Helpdesk Technician with the opportunity to learn from our skilled staff and gain valuable experience.

Please spread the word and share this job posting with anyone you know who may be interested!

http://www.acroment.com/about/careers/helpdesk/

At Acroment we value our customer above all else.  In addition to providing outstanding IT support we strive to be a valued IT partner.  One of those partners, Aetna Plastics – http://www.aetnaplastics.com/ – is celebrating their 65th anniversary and Acroment would like to offer our sincere congratulations on such an amazing accomplishment.

Aetna Plastics was founded in 1946 by Paul Davis as a distributor of plastics materials.  Mr. Davis went on to found the International Association of Plastics Distributors (IAPD) in 1956.  His son Gary Davis took over as president of Aetna Plastics in 1975 and continues to serve in that capacity to present day.

Through the years, Aetna Plastics has continued to grow through various acquisitions including Vanguard Plastics in 2004 and Pro-Fab Manufacturing in 2007.  Aetna Plastics currently employs 34 individuals and  continues to serve its customers both domestically and internationally.

Please join us in congratulating Aetna Plastics on their outstanding achievement.

How about yelling your company name just before running into a wall?

Yeah, we went for the last option too…

On the Fiverr website, thousands of people from all over the world are willing to do just about anything for $5.  The ultimate virtual assistant.  Fiverr puts buyers and sellers together in a marketplace where you simply find a “Gig” you want to buy, pay $5 and sit back.  The person (the Fiverr) you bought the Gig from will contact you through the website to let you know if there is additional information needed to complete your request or let you know when it is done.Since I discovered Fiverr, I have used it to:

• Create the above video
• Share our last blog post with 100,000 people on Twitter
• Create a logo for our domain name registration service

Although I didn’t care for the logo that we had designed, the result was indeed a high-quality logo.  And hey, it only cost $5!  At that price, we could try 19 other similar logo design offers and certainly find ONE that we liked, for hundreds or thousands less than what someone else might charge.

There are a variety of categories currently on Fiverr that you can choose from:

• Gifts
• Graphics
• Video
• Social Marketing
• Travel
• Writing
• Advertising
• Music & Audio
• Fun & Bizarre
• Tips & Advice
• Business
• Technology
• Programming

In addition, Fiverr allows you to “Request a Gig” right from their homepage.  Current requests are things like: “Install PLESK on dedicated server” and “Design a ecommerce blogspot template with Paypal checkout.”  Personally I think $5 may be a bit on the shy side for those two items, but that’s the beauty of Fiverr – you never know who’s going to answer the call to make $5.

So next time you need someone to do something for you – like have a sock puppet sing your company jingle, give Fiverr a try.

Many of you may remember that we used to send a monthly newsletter (via US Mail) to our friends and customers. We used a service that would design and write the newsletter each month and mail it for us. I liked it because it was an easy way for me to reach out to our followers. I liked sending it via regular mail because  it gave people something they could read off-line.

Then I was talking to my long time friend Ralph Dise about the newsletter. There was an article that related to a computer challenge he was having and I was wondering if the information helped him. His reply was candid and sharp “Eric, I throw those away each month!” I immediately started to total up the invoices I had been paying for the service as I asked him, “Why?“  His reply was the reason for us starting this blog: “Because it doesn’t come from you. I can tell that don’t write it. I want YOUR thoughts and impressions.” I canceled the service the next day and wrote that first blog post.

We may not post everything we want to. We try to make sure that we’re posting things that our customers will care about.  You can rest assured that WE are writing this stuff. Each and every post post is filled with our own thoughts and information – so that it matters to you.  You may ask yourself… “Isn’t EVERYONE writing their own content?“  The answer is a resounding, “NO”.

Take a look at some of our competitor’s websites and specifically at their blogs.  If you copy the first sentence of some of those posts into Google you’ll see some amazing results.  Here’s one example from a recent post:

“Here’s a scenario: Tom’s computer is acting up and getting a blue screen error a couple times a day.”

If you do a search for that specific phrase, you’ll get… 3,190 exact matches.  That’s 3,190 instances (just from Google’s results) of that exact phrase.  Why does this happen?  It’s because many firms take a “cookie cutter” approach to their communications.  Essentially what they’ve done is purchased syndicated content and published it on their site.  There’s nothing “wrong” with that strategy perse… it’s just not the way we go about it.  If they’re taking this passive route when communicating with you don’t you have to ask yourself what else is being pushed to the side?

By comparison, do a Google search for the first sentence from one of our recent posts:

“With the recent changes to the Facebook profile, it was a certainty that the way certain programs, websites and apps interacted with the social media giant would change as well.”

How many results did you get?  4.  And all 4 of them are to either the Acroment website, or the Acroment Facebook page.

Judging on the increase in our website traffic – I think that it is working.  Many of you are reading our posts – THANK YOU!  But we would also love for you to comment on the posts and tell us what you like, or don’t like about them, or even just say “Hi”.  What would be even better is if you take a moment to share our posts with others (using the share button below) to share our information with your friends.

• Installing, upgrading & migrating to Windows 7
• Configuring hardware, applications & network connectivity
• Mobile computing configuration
• Backup & recovery options
• And MUCH more…

Tony worked tirelessly to prepare for this exam and this certification is validation to that hard work.  This achievement counts toward Tony’s MCITP: Enterprise Administrator certification that he’s working on.

Please join us in congratulating Tony on his outstanding accomplishment!

But why is a Gmail account a must have?

1. An Alternative To Your Work Email – Its a great email account to use for personal email. When I sign up to buy things online where I am concerned I may receive spam email, I use my Gmail account. I also use this account when I buy personal things online so those emails don’t go into my work email account. When I register my domain names and websites – so that if my work email is down, I can still receive those emails to my external (Gmail) account.
2. The Google Universe - Google links a lot of its services to its Gmail system. Like Google Anlytics (to view your website traffic) and Youtube. It is better for you to have access to those systems from your Gmail account and give access to others in your company rather than have an employee take control of those with their own personal Gmail account.
3. Built In Tools – There are some useful tools you can access with your Gmail account like Google+ (social networking), a built in chat client called Google Talk, and Google Reader (blog/rss feed reader).
4. Mobility – An on-the-go business owner in today’s day and age needs be in constant contact.  Gmail works across multiple mobile devices with beautiful native versions for the iPhone, Blackberry & Droid.
5. Cost – How about free?  Yep, you get all of this for nothing.  No subscription charge, no pop up ads, nothing.

There’s the top 5.  I could go on further and talk about the features of the platform (storage capacity, built in search, intuitive layout, etc.).  If you don’t have one yet, you can sign up for a Gmail account at http://www.gmail.com/

One option, is to purchase a secondary USB monitor. Back in 2009, I reviewed the Nanovision Mimo UM-710 and really liked using it (until it was stolen). It certainly is convenient to have a monitor that plugs in with USB. You can find the UM-710S at Amazon.com for $139 +shipping.

However, if you also own an iPad, you can use the iPad as a secondary monitor using Air Display from Avatron  ($9.99 from the Apple App Store).

So, unlike the single purpose/use USB Display, the iPad does so much more (although at 3x the price of the Mimo).

Air display was easy to setup. I purchased the app from the app store and when you run it for the first time you receive instructions for connecting the air display to your computer (compatible with both Mac and PC systems). You download and install the tool on your system the follow the directions to link it to your iPad. Its very flexible and works with iPad, iPod Touch, and the iPhone. Clearly, you get the best experience with the larger screen of the iPad, but the iPhone and iPod touch also work as advertised.

I even use it as a third monitor connected to my Windows 7 desktop.

AirDisplay is not without its own drawbacks – it requires that both your computer and the iPad are on the same WiFi network. Also, depending on the speed of that network, you may have a delay in the display of data. The color depth/screen isn’t as sharp as the native screen of your laptop. The limitations of the display are seen rather quickly when you fire it up and move a window over to the iPad. There will be come lag as the iPad refreshes over the WiFi. I wouldn’t use it to play games or for any intense graphics.

Here is a short demo of the software in operation using my Macbook Pro.

As someone who loves working with multiple screens – this app is a must have.

The conference was kicked off by keynote speaker Daymond John (Founder and CEO of FUBU and current star of ABC’s Shark Tank.  John weaved his discussion around 5 “Shark Points” for businesses to be successful:

1. S – Setting at goal.
2. H – Homework… do it.
3. A – Amore.  Do what you LOVE to do.
4. R – Remember.  YOU are the brand way before anything else.
5. K – Keep moving, and keep trying.

Even though I’d never heard the man speak before and had only been introduced to his “character” on Shark Tank this was a very engaging talk.  We attended some great workshops for the rest of the day and talked to a ton of local businesses.

The next day’s keynote address was by Jeffrey Rayport a nationally known digital marketing, media and ecommerce expert.  My Rayport had the crowd enthralled with facts and figures about social media, mobile and ecommerce and the speed at which the digital landscape is changing.

The conference closed with a panel of successful local business owners:

• Matt Fish from Melt Bar & Grilled – http://meltbarandgrilled.com/
• Joe Lopez from Aster Elements – http://www.aster.us/
• Tricia & Rich Kaman from Kaman Art Shoppes – http://www.kamansart.com/
• Joel Domino from Kent Displays – http://www.kentdisplays.com/

All of the panelists gave valuable insights into what has made their businesses successful and clearly showed their passion for what they do in the Cleveland community.

You can see some photos from the event posted on our Facebook page at http://facebook.com/acroment  We’re already looking forward to next year!

• Greg created the “Remember the 90′s? They Were Awesome!” playlist
• Greg listened to “The Touch” by Stan Bush

But what if you don’t WANT your friends to know what you’re listening to?  Never fear… if you want to keep your Britney Spears obsession under wraps, there is a quick and easy way to turn off this setting so you can once again enjoy your Justin Bieber, Nickelback, Def Leppard or [insert your guilty pleasure here] without getting ridiculed by your friends.

How To Turn Off Spotify Facebook Sharing

Sure you could always just completely disconnect your Facebook account from Spotify, but what fun would that be?

• In Spotify, choose EDIT and then PREFERENCES

In the preferences screen, simply uncheck “Get personal recommendations by sending music you play to your Facebook Timeline”

And just like that… you can now CHOOSE which songs you share to your Facebook wall.  They’ll no longer appear in your timeline but rather as status updates.

Got another tip about Spotify or Facebook?  Let us hear about it.

Got a question about a website, app or piece of software?  We’d love to look into it for you!

There are big changes on the horizon at Facebook.  Recently at f8 (the Facebook developers conference), CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced and showed off some of the big changes that the social networking giant has in store for us. (Watch the keynote address here)

Privacy Settings
Of paramount concern for quite a few Facebook users is privacy. Recent changes (once again) to the privacy policy have begun rolling out.  If you haven’t checked out your profile recently, you may very well be greeted with the following screens.  They essentially walk you through your new abilities to control specific privacy settings.

You now have some more control over the following:

• Who you’re with
• Where you are
• Who can see and comment on your post

These are all very cool changes that while no one has ever come out and said it, are clearly in direct response to some of the things that Google + got right.

Facebook Timeline
Oh… you wanted to see the new profile that you’ve been hearing about?  Well here it is.

As you can see, the layout of your profile page is VERY different than it has been in versions past.  The concept of a profile picture is still here, but now you can also add what Facebook refers to as “cover” (the steak pictured above). This is yet another opportunity to share what you’re doing, who you’re with, your mood, etc.  HOW TO: Make the Most of the New Facebook Timeline Cover Photo.  The profile picture (in this example the pic of Eric with sunglasses on) is still the one that follows you around the site as you comment, like and share items.

In addition to the new cover picture you can see there are quite a few other changes here.  In the upper right hand corner you get a “quick view” of what people are doing.  You can roll over each item and instantly interact with that particular story.

The timeline itself (to the right of the cover photo) will allow you to quickly go back through time. Facebook will show fewer and fewer items as you go back in time, but it will call out important items in your life (births, weddings, new jobs, etc.)  As always, more info is just a click away as you can expand to look at old status updates, photos and activity.

Speaking of activity, the new profile gives you an at-a-glance view of where you’ve been.

Note that I’m a big user of location based programs whether it be the Facebook Places check in feature or mobile apps such as Foursquare.  By default Facebook is NOT tracking where you are.  This map is built when you check in, tag a photo or post with a location.  This particular mapping feature only includes Facebook items (IE, it doesn’t include Foursquare check ins).

There’s quite few other changes that I won’t go into detail here.  Suffice to say just when you thought you had a handle on your Facebook profile, Mark Zuckerberg and crew have gone and changed it up once again.  This new profile will start to be rolled out in the next couple of weeks.

Want to enable to the new Timeline Profile now?  Click here and follow the steps.

Let us know what you think!