Microsoft Outlook can be a fantastic way to communicate, but only if you know how to best use it. When you?re using it to reach out to clients or vendors, you need to consider all of the best practices and shortcuts you can to make the most of it. We?ll discuss some of the best ways that you can use Microsoft Outlook to help your business function better as a whole. Keyboard shortcuts are certainly no stranger to any business owner, but Microsoft Outlook has several specific shortcuts that you can use to save a surprising amount of time on daily, mundane tasks. The following shortcuts can be used in Microsoft Outlook 2013 and 2016. All you need to do is print this blog out and hand it out to your staff–they?ll never have to Google another shortcut again. Alt + S: This will send an email. Ctrl + Enter: Send the message you?re currently writing. Ctrl + R: Reply to an email. Ctrl + F: Forward an email. Ctrl + K: Complete the name or email you are typing into the address bar. Ctrl + N: Create a new email folder. Ctrl + Shift + A: Create a new appointment on your calendar. Ctrl + Shift + O: Open your Outbox. Ctrl + Shift + I: Open your Inbox. Ctrl + Shift + C: Create a new contact. While many other shortcuts can also be used in Microsoft Outlook, you?ll find that these dedicated keystrokes can be a great asset for your organization. Don?t forget that you can also easily bold, italicize, and underline text using the same shortcuts as in other Microsoft products. Many other also work just as well in Outlook, so be sure to give them all a try. These shortcuts can help your business save time and help your team be more productive with Microsoft Outlook. To learn more of how you can take full advantage of your technology, subscribe to our blog.

Adding the Same Text to Multiple CellsIt?s a hassle that every Excel user has faced: the same text needs to be inserted into many cells. Fortunately, there?s a simpler way to go about doing this than one cell at a time. If you highlight the cells that need the text entered before typing the text, and press Ctrl and Enter instead of just Enter, your selected cells will have that text added in. Auto-Sum ShortcutExcel can naturally be used as a quick-adding calculator, but a quick shortcut can make that easier. Highlighting the cells, you need to add together before pressing Alt and = will give you final sum. Data Sorting, Made EasierIn those cases where you need your data to be sorted by a particular variable, Microsoft gives you the means to do so in their Auto Filter. Once your spreadsheet is populated with your data, you can select the columns to be filtered by selecting the top rows. Once you?ve done so, click Data. You will then see options for Filter and subsequently, Auto Filter. This adds a drop-down menu to each column, allowing you to sort the entire spreadsheet by that data in that column. What are your most-used Excel shortcuts? Tell us in the comments, and check back in to the White Mountain IT Services blog for more useful tips.

If you see these malicious emails in your inbox, you might be tempted to give the attacker a piece of your mind (or simply mess with them). We?ve all been there. So, is it a good idea to antagonize a cybercriminal who was targeting you? In a word, no. There are plenty of professionals who have experimented with this very concept, for the academic purpose of finding out how a cybercriminal will react. One such researcher, Jerome Segura of Malwarebytes, played though a scam in its entirety. What he encountered was a mixture of apparent helpfulness in finding a cache of issues in his ?device? — actually a virtual machine rigged to record attacks — and a decidedly less helpful, unpleasant tone, A  ?technician? had Segura check his Microsoft Error reports, warning him that each and every error and warning he sees is a major problem that had already begun to corrupt his system. To reinforce the need for a ?solution,? Segura was told that his software warranty had expired and, once transferred to another ?representative,? that he needed to pay for a $299 renewal. Instead of paying, Segura supplied incorrect payment credentials, knowing they would be rejected. Once they were, his computer was suddenly seized. The ?technician? deleted all of his files as well as the Ethernet adapter driver, and calling Segura a rude word before disconnecting. This is a fairly tame account of what this sort of cybercriminal can do. A wildlife photographer named Jakob Dulisse received a call to his home in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada from ?Windows Technical Support? in Los Angeles, California. Quickly deducing that this was an attempt to scam him, Dulisse played along at first, before calling the voice on the other end of the line, ?a scammer, a thief, and a bad person.? The scammer/thief/bad person did not react well, stating that their group had people in Canada that would kill Dulisse, going so far as to describe himself as a killer and referencing that people in his region cut people into pieces and rid themselves of them in the river. Other professionals have simply found remote access software installed without their consent as they have ?played along? with scammers. However, these are professionals, whose job it is to identify and publicize the attacks that cybercriminals are resorting to. As for the business user, their best bet is to report the attempt to the local authorities, as well as your managed service provider. A managed service provider can help you ensure that you are both secured against, and well-versed, in the latest cyberattacks. Give White Mountain IT Services a call at (603) 889-0800 to get started.

Understanding SpamSimply put, spam is any message sent to cause harm to your business, either by wasting time and resources, or by doing much worse. Generally found as an email message, spam can also infect your systems through social media messaging platforms (despite the high levels of defense these platforms have). As mentioned before, spam can be dangerous, and is often annoying–often both at the same time. What Causes SpamUnfortunately, there isn?t much that can be done to avoid spam, other than trying to operate without email. Spam can infiltrate your email via inclusion into a database, a subscription to one piece of content that provides you with emails from other services. Whatever the method, you are likely struggling with a spam problem, or could be very soon. Other varieties of spam are delivered through a malicious link or downloaded attachment. These are especially likely to be a risk to your systems, as they are pushing for immediate action, often to download and install viruses and malware. Protecting Your Inbox From SpamFortunately, there are a few ways you can foil spam and keep it from infiltrating your inbox. First, make sure you unsubscribe from any email correspondence you no longer want. Most legitimate newsletters and similar pieces of content include a link that will allow you to unsubscribe, usually at the footer of their message to you. Secondly, make sure you have an enterprise-level spam blocking solution in place. If a message even looks like spam, the spam blocker will keep it out of your inbox. That way, you will have to worry about spam considerably less. To learn more about what our spam-blocking services can do, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

Open a New TabSure, you could always use your mouse to add a new tab to your browser window, but using a keyboard shortcut is a lot more impressive. More importantly, it makes your browsing experience faster, incrementally boosting your productivity. To open a new tab with a keyboard shortcut, press Ctrl + T. Close a TabJust like opening a tab, there?s the easy way to close a tab–clicking the little ?x? next to the page title on the tab in question. However, you can also close out the tab by clicking on it with the middle button of your mouse. Admittedly, it isn?t much of a shortcut, but it is a great way to show off your computing chops at the office. Reopen a Closed TabWhoops–that wasn?t the tab you meant to close. Fortunately, you can press Ctrl+Shift+T to restore a closed tab. You can even go back more than one closed tab. So, if you need to find something that you closed a while ago, all you need to do is repeat the key command until you find what you need. Open a Link in a New TabThis comes in handy when you want to investigate something further, but you don?t want to leave the page you?re currently on. There are a few methods of accomplishing this. First, you can always right click on the link and select Open link in new tab, but there are also some shortcuts that let you accomplish this as well. Just like you can close tabs with the middle button of your mouse, you can also open links in new tabs by again clicking on them with the middle button. Finally, if you?re using Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can hold down Ctrl and click the link to have it open in a new tab. Switch Between Open TabsIf you need to quickly reference the contents of another tab, you can use your number keys as a quick shortcut. Pressing Ctrl with whichever number tab you want to view will let you jump to that tab. So, if you wanted to jump to the fourth tab, you?d press Ctrl+4. So how will you make use of these tab shortcuts and tips? Let us know in the comments, and make sure you subscribe to our blog.