A Guide to Data Protection for Small Businesses.

In a typical data outage, small businesses can lose 52% of productivity and 29% of revenue. This tells us data protection isn’t just for large corporations. Make sure that you have a data protection plan in place for your small business. Find out what data you need to protect, train your employees about internet safety and stay up to date with the latest data threats as technology evolves rapidly.

This infographic, which was released by the global computer security company Symantec, shows the 10 most common ways that small businesses put their data at risk. Click for a larger, interactive version of the infographic.

Check out some of our other blog posts for more information about data protection. Take a look at our graph showing you how to choose a secure password, or you can learn how to encrypt your email messages so you aren’t sending unprotected information over an insecure WiFi connection.

Tranquility also offers a small USB device that you can plug into your computer for a secure internet connection when you’re on the go. Read about it here, or call us at at 573-443-5803 for more information.

No More Google Reader.

On March 13, Google announced on it’s Official Blog that it would be phasing out Google Reader in its second spring cleaning. Google Reader is an RSS reading platform that was started in 2005 to help people keep up with the latest updates from their favorite websites. Its faithful user base will need to find an alternative by July 1, when Google Reader will be no more.

We’ve found four alternative RSS readers that may suit your needs. All of these options allow you to easily transfer your Google Reader information over to a new platform:

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How to Subscribe to a YouTube Channel.

YouTube offers a great tool for people interested in learning new tech tricks, which is why Tranquility Internet has begun producing a series of how-to videos.

Subscribing to a YouTube channel can keep you up to date with the latest videos updates from your favorite users. This video shows you how to subscribe to a YouTube channel.

For more how-to tech videos, subscribe to the MayeCreate channel. Happy viewing!

Use Your Email Signature as a Marketing Tool.

Sometimes its hard to remember that your email works for you – and that you don’t work for you email. Have you ever thought about the amount of of time you spend composing, reading and incessantly checking your email?

A great way to get a extra mileage out of those messages your sending is by adding a little umph to your email signature. Yes, that little section of contact information that most people ignore.

WiseStamp is an email application for Tnet Mail that could change your perception of email signatures and turn yours into a marketing tool for you or your business. With WiseStamp, you can add  your latest Facebook post, a button to connect the recipient to your LinkedIn profile, a link to your blog, your photo or logo and more.

Getting Started

Open your Chrome or Firefox browser, and go to wisestamp.com. Click the Free Download button. Follow the prompts to complete the installation. Then, if you are using Firefox, restart your browser.

A pop-up window will appear, prompting you to begin your editing process. Click Start Now.

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Save Time with Google Docs Templates.

Ever spent more time formatting a document than actually adding content to it? Eliminating that issue one of the beauties of Google Drive.

Google Drive offers a service called Google Docs Templates. It is a gallery of document templates that you can choose from and use to create documents in your Google Drive. For the business world, it offers templates for sales invoices, progress reports, time sheets, gas mileage and much more. They’re just a few clicks and a search button away.

To get started with Google Docs Templates

First, access your Google Drive by logging into your Google account or Tnet Mail and clicking Drive in the menu across the top of the window.

When you have reached your Drive, click the red Create button. In the drop-down menu, choose From template.

A new window will appear. You are now in the template gallery. From there, click on the Public Templates tab.

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Meet Our New Office Assistant.

There’s a new face at the office! Stephanie Sanders joined the Tranquility team this month as our new office assistant. She’s here to help the customers and keep the employees in order. Here’s a few words from Stephanie about herself:

“Hi, I’m Stephanie Sanders. I graduated from University of Missouri-Columbia in 2009.  I received my bachelors degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. Although I love cooking for a living, it became too much when my daughter arrived early last year.  She is my world, and I have made career changes into the internet business to better support my daughter. I’m very excited about being part of the Tranquility team and hope that I can make your experience with us a little easier!”

Come into Tranquility at 307 Locust today to meet Stephanie. She and the rest of the team would be happy to take care of your Internet needs.

Manage Email Subscriptions with Unroll.me.

Got a lot of email newsletters or other subscriptions clogging up your inbox? Tired of having to click those pesky “unsubscribe” links at the bottom of every one of those unwanted emails?

You should check out a free service called Unroll.me.

Unroll.me handles all those email subscriptions in one, go-to place. Currently, Unroll.me works with Tnet Mail, Gmail, Aol Mail, Windows Live Mail and Yahoo! Mail.

Here’s how it works…It goes through your email inbox – don’t worry, it’s safe and secure – and then presents you with a list of all your current subscriptions. Sounds easy right? That’s because it is as simple as that!

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Calling All Techs! We’re Hiring!

We’re seeking a skilled new Tech to join our dedicated team.  It’s a full time gig with benefits and a great work environment.  To apply please email monica@tranq.net, send your resume and cover letter and we’ll get started with a short phone interview.

What does it take to be a member of our Internet pit crew?

Take a look at our job description to see if you have what it takes.

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A Holiday Letter from Our Family to Yours.

That little jokester called New Years seems to have popped out of the shadows and surprised us again. We hope that the little 3 that will soon be tacked on the end of 201 doesn’t have you down in the gutters this holiday season. We wanted to take this seasonal opportunity to share all of the fabulous things our little office family has done over the past year.

We had a few births at the office.

No, Stacy didn’t have her baby in the conference room, but she did have a lovely baby boy, Owen Brockmeier on October 19th.

We brought a new Tranquility website into the world in August. He’s a beautiful little baby–with the perfect amount of white space. We gave him some toy trucks to play with. Okay, so they’re transportation icons, but close enough.

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Pause Your Inbox Over the Holidays.

If you’re looking for a way to escape from your email during the holidays, we may have found the perfect solution. INBOX PAUSE calls itself, “the paradigm-shiftingest, game-changingest email innovation of 2012!” While we wouldn’t go that far with our excitement, we do think it’s a handy little tool to minimize distractions in your life.

Pause Your Inbox.

This Gmail add-on places a pause button in your Tnet Mail or Gmail. When you click the pause button, new emails will stop arriving in your inbox. Instead, they will be sent to and held under a special label until you click on the blue unpause button in your Gmail.

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