Apple Support

Published on March 2023 by BriAlys

Hey friend!

I ran across a YouTube account, Apple Support, that I wanted to share with you. The account has tons of tips for Apple users. The videos are short and easy to follow, with no fluff. You can enjoy tips and how-tos—directly from Apple.

I listed a few items below that I have found to be extremely useful. Enjoy!

xoxo, Bri Alys

Mixtape for Netflix

Published on July 2016July 2016 by BriAlys

It’s July and I already have the perfect low-cost, tech-savvy gift idea for teens, adults and everyone in between! The gift idea comes courtesy of Netflix.

Flixtape is a short playlist of Netflix titles based around a theme, a mood, or message. It’s like a mixtape, but for Netflix! If you’re a fan of a few shows you think your pal would like, create a Flixtape and share it with your bestie! No shipping is required AND you can gift the SAME Flixtape to multiple people. How cool is that? If you need some inspiration for what to include, use Bri’s Commandments and Google “best netflix series”. Here’s what my search results turned up:

I can tell you straight away that I’m all over the first two series shown above: Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. In fact, I only spend $20 on Netflix per year. That gets me 2 months of viewing (the subscription costs $9.99 per month). When new seasons of OITB or HOC come out, I simply buy a month, binge watch the episodes and use the remaining time to catch up on anything else that has caught my eye. #dontjudgeme You can also view new Titles on Netflix here.

NOW, BACK TO MY FABULOUS GIFT IDEA. All that is required is a Netflix subscription and a little ~~elbow~~ finger grease to set up the ~~playlist~~ flixtape. If you purchase a $30 subscription your pal will get 3 months free. It’s the gift that keeps on giving long after the holidays! You can also EMAIL the subscription the day of! This is absolutely perfect for me because I’m thinking about taking a Christmas vacation this year. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of gifting via email you can also apply the same concept to music with Spotify (my fav) and Apple Music.

#giftcardsgonewild #everybodygetsgiftcardsthisyear #happyegifting

BONUS: For tips on how to find the best Spotify playlists, click here

There is no Online Safe Zone

Published on August 2015 by BriAlys

In case you haven’t noticed, computer hackers are taking over the world! Surely you’ve heard of Anonymous, the “invisible” group threatening to release all sorts of information. I’ve said this so many times – the next “war era” will not be using bombs or grenades, it will be done online! And in case you haven’t noticed, it’s already started. Before we get into the details, here’s a simple truth: “Everything you do or say online can be used against you.” That disclaimer should be tied to every smart phone, computer or tablet issued in the entire world. People who are smart enough to know how to program a computer (and exploit it) can make all of our worst nightmares a reality. You remember – there was the Target data breach (40 million cards affected), then came Home Depot and even more recently the US Government and Ashley Madison (online affair site – those hackers made good on their promise and exposed cheater’s names, credit card numbers and home address). Even Hillary Clinton’s camp is not smart enough to know that emails CAN ALWAYS be recovered.

SIDE NOTE: I’m no fan of Hillary Clinton by the way. Charles Barkley was on Mike and Mike this morning. When asked who he would vote for at the moment, he said “No Democrat impresses me.” I agree!

Now, back to the subject at hand – I’ve always said, the dumbest criminal is the one who incriminates him or herself. Why photograph illegal activity? Or post it online? Or insinuate it? Or leave a paper / digital trail. Just not smart people!!! Even a PRIVATE Instagram account will not hold up to a WARRANT from a JUDGE. Facebook just LOST a case when it tried to challenge the legality of warrants requesting personal data from it’s members.

I ran across this article by The Verge, I knew it was worth sharing:

PSA: Everything you say and do is public: five rules for living with the internet

Assume everything you do and say will be made public.
Do not be seduced by privacy settings and passwords, which are temporary illusions that distract from the reality of the previous point.
Understand that context and data are often one in the same. When you enter information on the internet, assume that you include the who (you), the what (the data), the when (the time of data input), the where (the site on which the data is being placed), the how (the device on which you input the data), and the why (the purpose of the site).
Believe that all of your credit card transactions are being kept in a colossal, searchable ledger that one day will be made available for all to study.
Believe that data does not disappear when you delete it.

Stay in the KNOW!

#READ #LEARN and #STRENGTHENYOURTOOLBOX

IBM goes Email

Published on November 2014 by BriAlys

IBM is making the leap into the (not-so) wonderful world of email. I’ve told you before about my own email annoyances in the workplace. One thing I didn’t mention is that typically when I get an email with multiple people copied on it, I spend about 3 clicks per person trying to find out who they are, what their role is and who they report to. This is all very important stuff to know before you Reply!

Verse from IBM – is a new email like Gmail from Google and iCloud from Apple. Verse is aiming to solve the problem I describe above and more! Even if you don’t plan to use it right away, go ahead and sign up here to notified when you can reserve your preferred username. Using email services of the past (i.e. AOL, Hotmail) is a sure way to date yourself – sorry mom and hubby 🙂

(Better) Organize You Email

Published on October 2014October 2014 by BriAlys

Starting a new job (or the first of the year) is a great time to research better ways to Organize your email. People that work in corporate America commonly know that receiving too many and sometimes very long emails goes along with the territory. So this post is about how to better organize your business email. Lifehackerspace has a great blog on how to do this effectively: it’s fast, easy to implement and works with the basic version on Microsoft Outlook. Given those three criteria, the system has 3 components: Categories, Follow-ups and Quick Steps.

Categories: Outlook supports the use of categories that can be user defined. You can have multiple categories associated to a single email/task/calendar item.

Start by creating 3 categories: one for yourself, one for your boss (i.e. items to discuss in your next 1×1), and one for each of your direct staff (i.e. tasks assigned to people who work for you).

Follow-up: This feature allows you set up a task that can be associated to an email. You can pick Today, Tomorrow, This Week, Next Week, This Month, Next Month or custom dates. Avoid custom dates – too much typing.

Quick Steps: This is the key to everything. Quick Steps are like macros – they’ll run a bunch of simple commands at the press of a button.

For #2 and #3, imagine the following series of steps/actions for one your staff to act on. His name is Fred. In that scenario you’d want to: 1) Flag the message as something linked to Fred, 2) Create a follow up item and set the due date to be this week, 3) Move the original email of your inbox and into the 0 – current month folder, 4) Forward the message to Fred. Using Quick Step, you can automate these 4 steps: that’s 4 things you can do with one click!

That’s it! You’re done. If you invest a few minutes thinking about the categories and rules that make most sense for your job – you will save yourself a lot of time!