June 2014 – MikeRisner.com

Office 365 Just Became a No-Brainer [UPDATED]

July 16, 2014June 23, 2014 by Mike

Microsoft announced significant increases in OneDrive storage. From its free offering to Office 365, storage is becoming very affordable very quickly.

The new pricing and plans are expected sometime in July 2014.

All users get 15GB for free. A healthy 200GB plan is just $48 per year (other plans, too). And with Office 365, each user gets 1TB of storage included. Not 1 TB to share, mind you. A full 1TB for each person!

In my opinion, Office 365 is now a no-brainer. For $99, you get:

5 installations of the latest version of Microsoft Office for Windows or Mac
5 installations of Office for iPad (and Android before the end of the year)
Apps on mobile phones (iOS, Android, and Windows Phone)
1TB of OneDrive storage for up to 5 users

So why do I give it “no-brainer” status? Because 1TB of storage pretty much negates the need for remote backup services. Just make sure you have all your stuff in your OneDrive folder (built into Windows 8.x and available for Mac) and you’re good to go. Organize it any way you like. If you’re worried a synchronization might wipe out a file you want to save, then just make a copy in a “backup” folder. And the OneDrive apps on mobile devices can save your photos and videos automatically to the cloud. And to top it all off: You can access all this from any device.

And in future updates, Microsoft plans to enhance the photo organization and sharing features.

The new pricing and offerings are extremely competitive with offerings from Google and others, and it puts DropBox to shame (which offers just 2GB for free and charges $10 per month for 100GB at the time of this writing).

See? It’s a no-brainer.

UPDATE – 7 July 2014

Microsoft has just updated its Office and OneDrive Web sites stating that 1 TB of storage is included for each user of Office 365 Home.

Sources: winsupersite.com & ars technica

Really Reboot Your iPhone

June 8, 2014 by Mike

Sometimes your iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) can start having issues. Suddenly, you can’t connect to your WiFi network, the screen locks up, or some such thing. Your iPhone is just a computer, so it’s gonna glitch every now and then.

The best way to resolve the issue is to reboot the device. But you need to really reboot it! Here’s how:

You will need to press and hold two buttons at the same time. First, on the top right side of the device is the Sleep/Wake button. Second, on the front face at the bottom is the Home button.

Press and hold both of these buttons … for a while. Also (and this is important!), ignore the “Slide to Power Off” prompt. You don’t want this.

Keep holding the two buttons down until you see the Apple logo.

Then you may release the buttons and wait for your iPhone to finish rebooting. And more than likely your phone will be in much better shape than before.

Backing Up Your iPhone Contacts the Right Way

June 7, 2014 by Mike

If you have your iPhone set to synchronize your contacts to iCloud, Google Contacts, or another service, then you should realize that those contacts are likely not backed up. They’re just synchronized, which is very important. But it’s just half of what you need. You need your contacts backed up, too!

When a contacted is deleted or altered, it is sync’d with, say, iCloud. You will not be able to recover the previous state of that contact. For example: Let’s say I change Jesse’s phone number and tap Done. The contact is sync’d to iCloud. Then I realize that his number didn’t change, but I don’t remember the old one. Unfortunately, iCloud won’t let me recover that old number. And I’m in a lurch, because now I don’t have Jesse’s correct phone number any longer.

So what can you do? Get an app or service that will back up your contacts.

During my research I noticed there are several solutions will only restore all of your contacts and others that allow you to download them from a Web site in spreadsheet form so you can enter them back in manually (??!). These are less than optimal.

The best solution I found was IDrive. It backs up your contacts to the cloud and allows you to restore all or individual contacts when you need them. You can also view them in the cloud on IDrive’s Web site.

You need to create an IDrive account, and you get 5GB of free storage (which should be more than enough for your contacts). You can earn more storage by installing their desktop and mobile apps and inviting friends to join. You can also use IDrive to back up more items than just your contacts, such as pictures, videos, and calendar events.

Overall, IDrive is a good service. And it’s excellent for free, reliable contacts backup.

IDrive on the App Store (FREE)