M365 Weekly Newsletter
Issue #94
☁️What’s on my mind
I see more and more examples of companies wanting cloud-only solutions. They want to get rid of as much of their own in-house IT infrastructure as possible.
Microsoft 365 and Azure have already become so good that they have become serious alternatives to on-prem IT. The fact that companies still have a lot of legacy hardware and software that are becoming obsolete is maybe just the final nail in the coffin of on-prem IT in these companies.
If both hardware and software need to be updated, it is a great opportunity to seriously reconsider a move to the cloud.
But it is also true that we have companies that think completely differently. The well-known Basecamp is leaving the cloud. Why? You can read some interesting reflections and the rationale behind their decision in a reflective piece by one of Basecamp’s business partners David Heinemeier Hansson.
What do you think? Is it already possible to completely write off on-premises IT and jump into cloud-only?
Have a really great day.
Matic Z.
☁️Productivity & Modern Workplace
A day in the life: Everyday diagramming with Visio. Visio has been with us for quite a few years. It is also available in an online version. Since last year, it has been available for free in a stripped-down version. Visio is a great service when you need to quickly make a diagram, draw a process, or write down the results of a group brainstorming session.
Get Countries’ population data in Excel. Yes, it’s so simple and quick that it’s hard to make an instructional video longer than half a minute.
Microsoft Teams maintains audio quality even in challenging network scenarios. The sound quality of calls depends on a wide variety of factors. While Microsoft can’t improve the quality of your internet connection, it can use AI to improve the sound quality of your call. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.
Teams Video Chat Supports 1-Minute Clips. Teams video chat messages are clips up to one minute long that can be sent in 1:1, group, and meeting chats involving tenant users (including guests).
Asynchronous work with the help of Microsoft Teams. There has been a staggering 252% increase in weekly time spent in meetings for an average Teams user. Is this really the best way to spend your working hours? Maybe you can transition to asynchronous work. Teams can help a lot.
☁️Sysadmin Stuff
Use Free Office 365 Test Tenant to Test New Features and Scripts. Testing in a production environment is always a bad idea. Set up your own sandbox so you can test in peace.
Find Underused Accounts with Expensive Office 365 Licenses. How to adapt the Microsoft 365 licensing report script to highlight underused accounts (with licenses) that haven’t signed in for a while.
A Detailed Guide to Manage Storage Quota in SharePoint Online. How much space an organization has on SharePoint Online depends on a few factors. Did you know that each user in an organization adds 10 GB to the total amount of space?
Update User Email Addresses and UPNs in Microsoft 365. When a company changes its public domain, it usually has to change the email addresses and sign-in addresses (UPNs) of all users. Doing this by hand is pointless. The script does it quickly.
☁️Security & Data Governance
Essential Office 365 Security Checklist to Stay Safe. October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Admindroid blog has prepared one action for each day of the month that you can do to improve security in Tenant. A great to-do list.
5 Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) Best Practices for 2022. Not every approach to MFA is a good one. SMS as a second factor, for example, has long been recognized as unreliable and even insecure. Do rethink before you implement MFA.
A Guide to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to Prevent Spoofing. A newsletter reader asked me to tell more about SPF, DKIM and DMARC. I could write at length, but I came across this, which explains it all nicely.
☁️Noteworthy (long)reads
Why you should visualize your cloud infrastructure. Businesses are moving more and more of their IT infrastructure to the cloud, perhaps even to several clouds at the same time. It has become very important to have an overview of how everything works together as a whole. The easiest way to do this is with diagrams.
Microsoft Adds New AI-Powered Image Creator Tool to Bing. Have you had a chance to play with AI-generated photos? With a bit of experimentation and a well-written prompt, the results are fantastic. And all of this will be available (if it isn’t already) in Bing and Edge.
Passwords Shouldn’t Be as Easy as 1-2-3-4. The statistics are brutal. We simply rely too much on our memory when it comes to passwords. And that is not the only bad practice that is in our blood.
☁️Classifieds
The Sample. A whole new way of discovering exciting email newsletters. Sign up and you will get sample newsletters based on the interests that you’ve tagged.
☁️On a Less Serious Note
☁️ Last but not least …
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