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Outlook tip for Calendar Management

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When looking at your calendar you can change the view so you can see one day or multiple days / month. There are multiple ways to do this but most people just use the standard approach. There are two additional ways to do this which may be quicker or give additional views for example only see 2 days. Try these #productivity tips for yourself. Most people use the standard approach which is to use the buttons on the #Outlook ribbon bar for Day, Work Week, Week, Month and Schedule View. Did you know you can do this via the keyboard or by using your mouse. Using the Keyboard Press ALT key and then numbers from 1 through to 0. Each number represents the number of days to show at once. For example pressing ALT+3 will show 3 days. If you press ALT + 0 then it will show 10 days. This is very helpful when you want to look at today and tomorrow for example (ALT + 2). Using the Mouse If your mouse has a wheel button, and most do these days, then you can hold the CTRL key and use the wheel button ...
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Editing emails... after sending them

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I was recently reading an article on Microsoft Outlook short cuts and tips which got me thinking about one of my Outlook productivity hacks that I have used for years and thought it might be useful for some of you too. Have you sometimes sent an email and immediately realised you forgot to add somebody to the distribution list or forgot an attachment? I have done this from time to time. By creating a new Outlook Rule to delay all emails I send out by one minute, I have the ability to quick go to the outbox folder in Outlook and open the email and make corrections. Saved me a few times including once when I clicked send and immediately realised I was sending to the wrong person. It is quiet easy to create this rule and to help I created this image with the steps listed. Hope this helps and any questions on the steps just shout.
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Invading neighbours privacy

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Ann Cavoukian, prominent leader and intellect in the privacy space, recently said in a tweet that “your home is the last bastion of privacy”. Whilst this is arguable considering the onslaught on “smart devices” in the home, her response was aimed at a House of Commons working paper titled “CCTV Surveillance by your neighbour”. The paper outlines the responsibilities of the home owner to use CCTV in their private lives carefully and ensuring they protect the privacy of their neighbours. You can find the paper here: http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01803/SN01803.pdf CCTV cameras for the home are nowadays easy to get and install, there are now “smart” door bells with cameras and microphones too, so the obligation to use these to protect your property responsibility is important. Nobody has the right to invade the sanctuary of another person whether this be their inner most being, their thoughts and ideas, or their home. However this topic is not as new as we might ...
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So what is Personally Identifiable Information

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This is a topic that comes up all the time and there are various views out there so I wanted to add to the debate. I specifically want to emphasise 2 key points: It is not just about your name It needs to be contextualised Definition The new General Data Protection Regulation (for short we will call it GDPR) defines it as follows: Personal Information - any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. So what is an "identifiable natural person"? GDPR go on to explain that this is someone who "can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person" It is also important to stress that GDPR and EU law seeks to incorporate into this definition as many pieces of information about you as poss...
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We are a second class citizens

Before I begin if you are an American Citizen then congratulations. You are a first-class citizen and do not need to read any further. For the rest of us we need to have a talk about some facts that you will need to get used to. Let me say it as plainly as I can... You are second class citizen of the world. You do not deserve privacy and protection of your personal information, what you do, what you see online, who you talk to etc. So unfortunately, we all need to get used to it. So, what am I referring to? Well we have President Trump to thank. According to him if you are not American then you are a second-rate citizen of the world. Regarding your rights to privacy and a private life as are all our rights as human beings and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Right, they do not exist. On twitter Cobun Keegan (@cobun) highlighted that the executive order President Trump enacted on "public safety" directs all federal agencies that the Privacy Act should not extend...
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Social Media inadvertently revealing sensitive relationships and health status

Social media services are available everywhere these days. In many ways they help people communicate, keep in touch with loved ones and generally find out what is happening within communities and the world at large. However there are also side effects to these services which must be understood and managed. For example vulnerable people or sensitive relationships should remain private and confidential but in a recent article, Kashmir Hill writing for fusion.net (see references below), highlighted how one social media services used data and metadata about people to violate privacy and confidentiality. Hill recounted how Facebook suggested patients of a a psychiatrists be friends. This relationship should be confidential however Facebook afforded these patients to work out who else were patients of the psychologist in question and potentially able to determine their health concerns. The concern is that this psychiatrist did not look up or befriend any of her patients on Facebook. Whilst F...
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Privacy and Government access

I am all for enforcing law, catching and prosecuting criminals and terrorists and preventing harm to vulnerable members of our society. I am also for protecting civil liberties, freedom, the right to decide how our personal information is collected and used and the right to defend any misrepresentation of our personal information. So it is hard to square these two and there will always be a tension to get the right balance. A few news items I have been watching over the last few weeks really made me think (again). Many countries are enacting more stringent laws to allow governments more access to our data with lower barriers to enter but allegedly more oversight or governance. For example the USA has enacted the Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act (CISA) and the UK has the “snoopers charter” or as it is called “Investigatory Powers Bill” (to be far not enacted but almost). However how do we square giving more and more powers to the government when we can’t trust them to keep it s...
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