Over the last few years, SherWeb has developed an exclusive Control Panel using unique proprietary .NET technologies. One of SherWeb’s most used web interface, it allows customers to easily and intuitively manage their Hosted Exchange, SharePoint, CRM, mobile and BlackBerry synchronization. SherWeb’s team of developers is always on the lookout to update and improve it. The original Control Panel was revamped this winter with a new interface and improved features.

So far, users have not been informed of updates made to the Control Panel, but from now on, we intend to regularly blog about new versions and updates. To make sure these posts don’t become confusing, we will identify them by version number.

The following features were added in version 2.10 published two weeks ago and in version 2.11 published this week.

1. New distribution list features (2.11)
2. BlackBerry wiping (2.11)
3. SharePoint URL reminder (2.10)
4. Organization summary page (2.10)
5. Manager and direct reports (2.10)
6. BlackBerry PIN message

New distribution list features (2.11)

You can now change the display name for all of your distribution lists, which will also change the name displayed in the Outlook address book. You also have the ability to grant or deny permissions on your distribution lists; allowing you to determine who can send messages to a specific distribution list. A select/deselect all checkbox has been added to the “manage members” page as well.

BlackBerry wiping (2.11)

This feature has been requested a few times by our customers. It has been added to the BlackBerry command list in a user’s home page and allows you to wipe a device clean.

SharePoint URL reminder (2.10)

Every user of an organization can now see the organization’s SharePoint URL on the Control Panel’s home page when they log in.

Organization summary page (2.10)

Want to know what’s going on with your organization? The summary page gives you a one-glance view of how many Exchange mailboxes you have, which plan they are using, and which mailstore they are on. It’s a quick way to make an inventory of your assets and a useful tool to understand what you pay for.

Manager and direct reports (2.10)

This handy feature allows you to set a user’s manager. The changes are reflected through Outlook’s user property page and through the Control Panel’s user property page.

BlackBerry PIN message

A very useful feature that has been on our Control Panel for a while but doesn’t get much attention. It allows you to send a PIN message to a user’s BlackBerry device. A PIN message has the same format as an email, the speed of an SMS message, but it doesn’t go through Exchange and doesn’t cost a thing. The BlackBerry server receives the message and immediately pushes it to the device. You can also send a message to an organization, through the organization’s main page, in the BlackBerry section.

Although it is only a few months old, SherWeb’s new Control Panel is already a mature project. It is developed and fixed as soon as feature requests and bugs come in. The development team works closely with the support team to ensure they can efficiently serve our customers and make sure our clients have the best user experience with our products.

by Christian Droulers. A software developer at SherWeb, Christian works mainly on the Control Panel. He has been with the company since April 2008.

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SherWeb’s co-founder and executive vice-president, Matthew Cassar, presented a seminar on the SaaS business opportunity where he debated this new industry reality and answered questions from a diversified audience.

The largest event of its kind worldwide, WebhostingDay 2009 gathered over 2,000 attendees at Phantasialand near Cologne for a few days of networking and exchanging on current webhosting trends.

SherWeb would like to extend its thanks to the event’s organization team for a wonderful time. We are looking forward to attending WebhostingDay 2010!

If you would like to see pictures of the event please click here

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Please be rest assured that SherWeb is extremely excited about Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS) and we are doing our best to speed up the process and deploy the solution as soon as possible. That being said, we do not want to rush things in such a way that it will have a negative impact on our customers’ experience. Unlike some of our competitors, we rely on Microsoft’s solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) for the deployment of our Microsoft solutions. HMC is a set of tools and best-practice recommendations proposed by Microsoft so that providers such as SherWeb are able to offer their software in a reliable way.

Since the HMC version of OCS is not out yet, we will not offer OCS right away. Some providers have opted to do so even though Microsoft hasn’t provided the solution yet and we are not willing to take that risk. SherWeb has had absolutely no unplanned downtime for its Exchange 2007 service while still experiencing an incredible growth and we associate part of that phenomenal success to our ability to stick and work under Microsoft’s guidelines and specifications.

SherWeb’s mentality has always been to provide the best hosted experience to its customers, period. This philosophy allows us to offer products that are mature and Microsoft certified for the Hosted environment; unlike that of some of our competitors which take the risk of releasing un-tested early versions which may provide limited features and continual development at your time and expense.

Thank you for taking the time to read me.

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Eight Business Trends to Watch from McKinsey

Top Consumer Technology Predictions for 2008 from Forrester Research

You can also take a look at this website who publishes a list of all the websites that have something to say about the new trends of 2008.

THE Digital Media & Internet Uber 2008 Prediction List
http://www.darrenherman.com/2007/12/16/the-digital-media-internet-uber-2008-prediction-list/

Enjoy and if you have more predictions do not hesitate to post a comment.

Thank you

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This Year: Don’t “lose” your domain name!

Mr. Sweetman explains how Tucows.com deals everyday with anxious customers who forget to renew their internet identity commonly known as a Domain name.

SherWeb definitely understands this situation as it sees plenty of customers complaining that they have “lost “or got their domain name stolen. So before it happens to you, here is what Mr. Sweetman has to say to avoid this disaster.

Take 30 seconds, RIGHT NOW, to find out when your domain name is going to expire. (Do a WHOIS query at whois.tucows.com, then check to see what expiration/renewal date is listed.) Make note of this date.

Now, take another 30 seconds to write a reminder to yourself to renew the domain name a few weeks before it expires. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you do this. Use Outlook or whatever calendaring system you use. Just make sure you set a reminder!

Finally, when you get your reminder to renew your domain name, RENEW your darn domain name! In most cases this takes less than two minutes, and you can do it online via the company your registered the domain name with.

As you can see, all this is extremely easy to do and requires little or no time. Most importantly, it prevents you from feeling angry and frustrated when trying to retrieve your “lost” domain.

That being said, I would like to thank M. Sweetman for his blog and would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!

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It has become mission critical for organizations to implement a business class email solution at work but most importantly to arm itself against the increasing amount of spam sent to employees within the company. According to Barracuda’s annual spam report: 95 percent of all e-mail sent in 2007 was spam.

Please read this interesting article if you want to know more about the study and consider yourself lucky to be protected (for free) by one of the best spam filtering solution on the market.

Thank you for reading me

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In its press release published on October 24 2007, RIM announces the launch of its new Facebook for Blackberry application that enables fast, streamlined and optimized mobile access to the popular Facebook social utility using a BlackBerry smartphone. The application leverages the push-based BlackBerry system architecture and Facebook Platform to create an unparalleled mobile experience for Facebook users.

Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones, which will be available as a free download, makes it faster, easier and more convenient for users to stay wirelessly connected with their Facebook friends and colleagues. The application allows users to:

• Receive notifications and messages automatically – Leveraging the BlackBerry platform’s push-based architecture, notifications and messages are automatically sent to the user; the user can also set a unique alert (vibration and/or ringtone) for Facebook related content
• Quickly access essential features – Convenient onscreen icons let users quickly change their Status, upload a photo, add a friend, poke someone, write on a Wall, or send a message. Users can also quickly scroll through messages and notifications as they do with email messages
• Invite friends to join Facebook and accept new friend requests
• Quickly snap and post pictures along with a caption and tags – The photo upload feature is also integrated with the BlackBerry smartphone camera and photo management applications on the smartphone
• View the Status of friends
• Read, compose and reply to messages even while offline – If the user is out of wireless coverage, messages are queued until the user returns to an area of coverage

Facebook users will be able to download the application at www.facebook.com from their PC or BlackBerry smartphone beginning later today.

Now the only thing that’s left to do for all you Blackberry fans, is to make sure to purchase a Hosted Blackberry account from SherWeb

For more details and to read the full press release please click here

Thank you for reading me

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