A new report by ProjectManager.com Research, which polled over 300,000 project management (PM) pros on LinkedIn, has uncovered interesting results about integration practices with leading PM tools. A majority of project management professionals cite a lack of integration as a leading source of frustration with their current project management software, leading to growing dissatisfaction primarily with Microsoft Project.

The 2016 PM Community Linkedin Survey: Project Management Tools in Practice report revealed large dissatisfaction with the dominant project management software players, Microsoft Project and Excel, citing "lack of integration with other tools" as a leading factor with nearly 48 percent of all respondents. Overall dissatisfaction with Microsoft tools as a whole (nearly 75 percent use Excel in addition to other tools and 40-60 percent use either MS Project or MS Project Server), is marked, with 44 percent unhappy with their current tool. Significantly, a whopping 95 percent of the participants use more than one tool to manage their projects, so integration can be seen to be a clear need.

Continue reading →

The modern workplace can be an increasingly fragmented place, with employees on multiple sites or working from home. Delivering the systems that they need is therefore a challenging task.

Cross platform solutions specialist Parallels is launching a new version of its Remote Application Server which allows businesses to deliver Windows applications and desktops to employees on any device, anywhere in the world.

Continue reading →

Sandboxing is a smart technology which isolates programs from the operating system, preventing them from making any permanent changes.

Run your browser in a sandbox, say, and it won’t matter if you’re hit by a drive-by download, a toolbar gets installed or your home page is updated: clear the sandbox and all changes will be lost.

Continue reading →

Although there are lots of apps and services you can use for chatting to friends, Facebook Messenger is one of the better options because you can pretty much guarantee most people you know will have a Facebook account.

In addition to chatting with your friends you can now challenge them to play a game of chess, but only if you know the secret phrase to launch it, and the hotkeys used to pay the game.

Continue reading →

If you are like me, you probably spend a lot of time in front of a computer. Quite frankly, other than sleeping, there is nothing that I do more than computing. This means I am constantly using a keyboard and mouse. I have a comfortable bed for sleeping; shouldn't I also have quality input devices?

Yes. Everyone deserves quality tools for what they do. Whether you use a computer for work or play, a mechanical keyboard is a sound investment, as it can improve the typing or gameplay experience. Today, Logitech unveils a beautiful such keyboard -- the G810 Orion Spectrum. With a focus on gaming, it should also serve well for more general typing needs.

Continue reading →

You may be aware of risks and problems in your own business, but increasingly it's possible to be exposed to issues by other organizations that you deal with, particularly if you're buying in IT services.

How can enterprises deal with these threats and ensure that their data and that of their customers is kept safe at all stages of the supply chain? We spoke to Dean Coleman, head of service delivery at service management and support specialist Sunrise Software, to find out.

Continue reading →

Well that was... brief. Just days after Samsung released an update that allowed for adblocking software to be installed on its handsets, Google has put its foot down. The company has already started to pull adblocking apps from Google Play.

Being so reliant on advertising revenue, it's understandable that Google might take a dim view of anything that stops the cash rolling in. Nonetheless, a move to block apps that have already proved incredibly popular has raised the ire of developers and users alike.

Continue reading →

Hard drive failure is inevitable, but manufacturers will generally provide an estimate of how long their products will last, giving businesses and consumers plenty of time to backup their drives. When a hard drive fails unexpectedly and long before it should, it can cripple a business.

A class-action lawsuit has been brought against the hard drive manufacturer Seagate after many users reported that the company’s 3TB drives were failing at an alarming rate. The law firm Hagens Berman and Sheller has filed a case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Continue reading →

Last year Fast ring preview builds of Windows 10 arrived at a pretty sedate pace. This year they are coming thick and fast with a new build announced on a weekly basis.

The speed that new builds arrive does mean the differences between versions aren’t huge, but it’s all about preparing the ground work for future additions, like extensions.

Continue reading →

There is collective head-scratching across the InterWebs about a Wall Street Journal report that Amazon will open as many as 300, or even 400, stores selling books. The company's massive success selling ebooks and the cost and selection advantages of warehousing their physical counterparts make the concept seem nonsensical. I contend that it's brilliant.

Amazon is in process of expanding online services into the purview of local retail, which biggest competitive advantage is immediacy. In conjunction with the $99-per-year Prime program, the online retailer offers faster shipping; same day, and within hours, in some locales. The company increasingly contracts its own carriers, as well. Immediacy requires presence. What better location than a bookstore that also warehouses other goods and provides customer service operations? That's all without considering the branding opportunities, which, as Apple Store demonstrates, can be huge.

Continue reading →

I read a comment from a user who was talking about Windows 10 Mobile. He referred to it as Microsoft's stillborn baby. As dark and as gruesome an image as this may be, it feels very fitting, and it got me wondering how best to think of the desktop version of Windows 10. Clearly this is not a stillborn -- there's plenty of life in this kicking and screaming beast, and there is no sign of an abortion on the horizon.

But it is the black sheep of the family, the -- brace yourselves, politically correct gentlefolk -- deformed and underdeveloped spawn of Microsoft's loins. If it was an animal, it probably would have been destroyed in utero. As it is -- to view it in more human terms -- it's more like the Elephant Man: a lumbering, lurching curiosity that many would like to see dead, but which at the same time retains its right to existence.

Continue reading →

The kindest thing that can be said about Microsoft Edge is Windows 10's new browser has potential. It’s far from awful, it’s just rather unfinished. There’s little there to tempt users of Firefox or Chrome into switching.

Microsoft is working to change that though, and make the browser more appealing. Today it reveals a little more about its future plans, including how it will be handling extensions. It doesn’t announce exactly when the browser will receive this much-requested feature, but it does touch on how add-ons will be made available, and how you’ll be able to try out some early examples for yourself.

Continue reading →

Jaguar Land Rover wants to make autonomous vehicles behave more like humans, and less like robots.

The company is looking into how humans behave in specific situations, like slow-moving traffic, roadworks and busy junctions.

Continue reading →

Watching the Super Bowl is easy. Sit down, turn on your TV, and you are good to go. With that said, properly experiencing the big game is something else. For maximum fun, it is a good idea to watch it with other people while eating delicious snacks.

If you are an Android user and not sure where to watch Super Bowl 50, Google has you covered. Its Maps service will help you discover some awesome places to watch the game. If you don't have any friends to call upon, don't worry -- you can use this as an opportunity to make some.

Continue reading →

You perhaps have not heard of the tiny island nestled between England and Ireland, but the Isle of Man has a long and rich history, including its now dying language of Manx. Its most prominent export these days is cyclist Mark Cavendish, a multi-stage winning sprinter in the Tour de France.

Now you just may be hearing much more about it as the island lobbies to be the test bed for driverless cars, a product that Google has made famous, but that many more manufacturers are attempting to produce as the future seems to dictate it.

Continue reading →