afternoon at a small business expo…

We had a very interesting afternoon at a small business expo and where ‘the cloud’ was mentioned constantly.

Everyone explained how they wanted to move to the cloud, but they also want the reassurance they have by having a company server which they could ‘touch’. So the the physical reassurance is still paramount.

With Deskonline, the Nextcloud sync agent can be installed on Windows or Linux and provides two-way data synchronization. This not only provides an encrypted backup to your data, but also provides online access to your files which are still stored on your physical server.

What does this mean? A seamless user experience in the transition to ‘the cloud’. Work natively as you always have, but know that your files are backed up and accessible to you from when you log into deskonline from any device connected to the internet (phone, tablet, laptop, pc).

Protect your precious photos with auto-upload

📱 Imagine taking a photo on your phone and knowing that 10 minutes later your photo is safe on your home computer.
Select a folder on your phone or device and all photos in that folder will be automatically scheduled for back up via upload to deskonline.cloud

📲 Auto-uploads are enabled when connected over Wi-Fi

📲 Uploads can be scheduled and are enabled even when connected over the mobile network.

💻Access your photos on deskonline.cloud using the Nextcloud app or a web browser from any device

Where is your business data stored and what would happen if it was suddenly removed?

Integrate deskonline.cloud with your Disaster Recovery strategy to mitigate the business impact of lost data:

Protect your data in the event of hardware damage or theft

Customer data, financial records, sales and marketing collateral; how long would it take you to recreate this data if it was suddenly inaccessible?

• Drag and drop to create copies of files with date time stamp or schedule auto-uploads from a specific folder on your device

• Access your files at any time from Nextcloud app or via web browser from any device

Using the Deck for brainstorming

There is something slightly therapeutic about removing post-it notes from the  block and  re-sticking them elsewhere.

But I can say I’ve been won over by the ability to seamlessly create, categorise and task manage stacks of notes online; no paper required!  My stacks of notes are then accessible from my mobile, tablet/laptop or desktop and can be shared with others for review or real-time update via a secure link.

First though, let’s recognise and acknowledge the old school method that has served us well for many years.

The reality is though, that this is how you’re probably doing brainstorming in your team workshops now:

  • Grab a few ‘decks’ of post-it notes;
  • Get your team in a room;
  • Realise some people you need are in a different office, organise to dial them in because there are no VC rooms available;
  • Find a wall;
  • Group brainstorm and write ideas on each post-it note;
  • Remember that you forgot to dial the other guys in;
  • Bring the guys on the phone up to speed, decide it’s easier to take a  photo of the wall of post-it notes and send it;
  • Resume brainstorming and shout at the speaker phone over your shoulder as you as you stick post-its on the wall;
  • Decide the mass of post-it notes on the wall needs grouping and owners assigned;
  • Pull them off the wall and put them back onto the wall in new groups;
  • Watch the moved post-it notes fall off the wall;
  • Put them back on the wall again.  Yell into the speaker phone to keep the off-site guys in the loop;
  • More fall off, repeat last step; then
  • Discuss who will own which actions.  Take a photo of the whole wall, collect all the post-it notes and assign someone to convert the picture into an action plan.

As exciting as this sounds, there is a now a far more efficient and collaborative way to get the job done:

  • Create a shared ‘Deck’ and send the link to everyone;
  • Do you want to chat too?  Open up  ‘Talk’ in Deskonline.cloud for chat or video conferencing;
  • Group brainstorm and start filling up the stacks with notes;
  • Realise the decks need grouping, create some categories or new stacks;
  • Drag and drop notes to the right stack and update categories;
  • Assign owners and due dates to notes along the way;
  • Chitty-chitty-chat-chat.  Repeat last two steps; then
  • Everyone kicks back with a cheeky beverage to admire the glorious looking set of ideas and actions on  your shared deck, knowing that an alert notification will tell them when there’s an upcoming task due

 

This is the Deck, a Nextcloud app and it’s live now in deskonline.cloud your Australian based NextCloud provider.

Introducing deskonline.cloud

We created deskonline.cloud to offer Australian Businesses and individuals access to Nextcloud as an alternative to Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud and Office 365 for online workspace collaboration and file storage.

What is Nextcloud?

Nextcloud is an alternative to services like Dropbox, Google Drive or iCloud but the software is free and it can be set up so that your files are always accessible via the internet. Your files can then be accessed from any device, as long as that device has internet access. Sharing of files is easy – you can let other people view or edit even if they are not a Nextcloud user.   So far this kind of sounds like all the others, right?

Right, but there’s one really big differentiator. What sparked our interest in Nextcloud was the conversation around data ownership. Unlike the other comparable services, with Nextcloud, you remain the sole owner of your data. That’s right. Your data is your data. Nextcloud does not claim a right to co-own your data, access your data, share your data or lock you out from your own data. If you share a photo, it’s your photo and you’re sharing it only with those you have decided to share it with.

So how does deskonline.cloud fit in?

While the Nextcloud software is free, you still need to be able to run the Nextcloud software and host your files somewhere.

Yes, you could go directly to Nextcloud and sign-up yourself. But you’ll need to be pretty fly with Linux administration and prepared for a lengthy and technical set-up process. Plus you’ll then need to make sure you have a maintenance and upgrade plan with technical expertise on hand to carry it out.

Lucky for you we are pretty fly with Linux and we love the challenge of a lengthy technical exercise. We host deskonline.cloud on Amazon Web Services and we’re committed to keeping deskonline.cloud up to date with the very latest Nextcloud version. We launched deskonline.cloud when Nextcloud was on version 8 and we’ve just upgraded to version 15!.

Because we use deskonline.cloud in our own businesses, we are constantly living the user experience and making improvements. Plus we keep an eye on the suite of Nextcloud apps available so we can find clever ways to integrate them into deskonline.cloud.

If you’re interested in a comparison of how Nextcloud vs the rest, read more here: https://nextcloud.com/compare/

 

We’d love you to visit!

If you’d like to hang out in the deskonline.cloud space for a little while to see if it works for you, head over to www.deskonline.cloud and hit the ‘Sign-up Now’ button to activate your free 30 day trial.

Contractor on a project team with no access to the corporate network…

Deskonline.cloud lets you save files to a central location, with either secure links or passwords to let you control who can access the files.

Program and Project Teams

If you’re a contractor in this space you know the pain around BYOD vs access to company network vs maintaining a single file repository for project documents. Now you can keep your own templates and project documents in Deskonline.cloud for secure access wherever you are and without connecting to a company fileserver.

  • Log in to Deskonline.cloud via mobile, tablet or desktop with internet to access your files
  • Drag and drop to load files into your Deskonline.cloud space with a date time stamp
  • Set permissions control access to individual files or folders
  • Use permissions to grant secure access to external users or within your circle of Deskonline.cloud contacts
  • No need to resend files after they are updated – update files in Deskonline.cloud or upload a new file and resend the link only

 

You should also check out the real time collaboration features that Deskonline.cloud offers to boost efficiency of document reviews (think requirement specs, project plans, progress reports, RACI, change plans).

Simultaneous co-authoring is pretty cool and especially useful when you have team members reviewing, contributing and approving document from multiple locations.

To find out more about how deskonline.cloud can help you by being a #safeplacetosyncandstore head over to www.deskonline.cloud and sign-up for your 30 day trial.

When your laptop won’t connect to the AV…

If you’ve ever had to take your own device to present at a customer site, you will know that the special type of anticipation that kicks in when you’re not sure your laptop will connect properly to the AV set up.

This is how it goes down:

  • Confirm ahead of time that your device, OS and file formats are compatible with the AV set up
  • Arrive early to set up the room and make sure everything connects
  • Discover that the AV is not responding when you plug your laptop in
  • Call reception or AV support – can’t work out why the projector isn’t turning on when your laptop is plugged in
  • Reboot just in case – still not working
  • Have a little freak out – you’re on in 15 min
  • Reception offers you a Front of House laptop to use that they know will connect
  • You need to somehow get the 10MB of files you have on your laptop over onto the Front of House laptop.
  • If you’re lucky, you can transfer to USB or email your files in batches to Reception so they can save them to the Front of House laptop

What’s your back up plan? With deskonline.cloud, your back up plan can look like this:

  • When you do your final file saves, drag and drop all files you need to a deskonline.cloud folder

  • Share the folder and copy the link into an email and send that to Reception and yourself in case your laptop doesn’t connect to the AV

  • Arrive early to set up the room and make sure everything connects
  • Discover that the AV is not responding when you plug your laptop in
  • Call Reception or AV Support – ask reception for a Front of House laptop
  • Connect Front of House laptop to the AV – copy link from email to web browser

  • Click link and admire your presentation on the projector
  • Grab a coffee and wait for your guests to arrive

To find out more about how deskonline.cloud can help you by being a #safeplacetosyncandstore head over to www.deskonline.cloud and sign-up for your 30 day trial.

Password Reset Procedure.

To reset password :

Care should be taken *

1. Select the ‘Forget Password?’ link on ‘Log in’ page.

2. Enter Username or eMail address of account to be reset and press the ‘Reset Password’ link.

3. The deskonline system will send you a email with a link to reset password.

4. The deskonline will display a message regarding the password reset email.

5. Check your email account for “Password reset” email and click on “Reset your password” link.

6. Enter a new password and click on the ‘Reset Password’ link.

7. You will be presented with information regarding encrypted files.

8. You will need to acknowledge via selecting the tick-box and press ‘Reset password’ again.

9. You will be returned to the login screen to use your new password:

* Care should be taken if there is any un-synced data waiting to be synced by ‘the sync/backup clients with e2e encryption enabled’. Encrypted data may be lost.