Cloud computing and cloud services are terms used to describe computer processing and IT services that are hosted by an organization and delivered to you over the internet. At All Covered we make it our business to take care of your IT needs so you can take care of your business.

It’s all about location

When you are considering cloud services, location matters. Before considering the specifics of any provider’s cloud services, research the location where your services will be hosted.

Ensure that your cloud provider houses its physical data centers in the US. While you might get cheaper services overseas, you have no way of knowing how safe your data really is. Industrial espionage is a state sponsored venture in some nations and you have little legal protection if your data is stolen.

Certify that your cloud services provider not only houses your data on US soil, but also runs a secure data center. That means not only securing data from hackers, but ensuring that securities are in place to prevent unauthorized people from gaining entry to the data center where your cloud services reside.

Verify that the data center will meet your particular regulatory compliance requirements. If the data center you select for cloud services meets specific standards as identified by your vertical market, the cloud services can also likely be integrated into any disaster recovery/business continuity solutions your organization has in place.

All about All Covered Cloud Services

Our All Covered Cloud Services are physically hosted on US soil. We don’t outsource any of our All Covered Cloud Services. Our data centers are completely secure with intrusion prevention protocols to protect your data from hackers and we maintain controlled access to all points of entry. Our data centers are SSAE-16 / SAS 70 type II compliant—we can help you meet your regulatory needs.

Our All Covered Cloud Services are scalable, affordable, and secure IT services delivered over the internet. When your organization reaches the point where it is considering upgrading hardware needs scalability, or is concerned about security, our All Covered Cloud Services have got you covered.

Scalability is assured when you select All Covered Cloud Services. All Covered Cloud Services are flexible and customizable.

• Requisitioning additional cloud services is simple. A single phone call is all it takes for your organization to add to its cloud services.
• Customizing All Covered Cloud Services is easy. Contact us anytime your organization’s IT needs change and we’ll be happy to modify your cloud services in order to better support your organization’s needs.

Saving on upfront costs when you adopt All Covered Cloud Services. All Covered Cloud Services give your organization access to cutting edge technology without an hefty upfront price tag.

• Utilizing our All Covered Cloud Services gives your organization access to new technology without the upfront costs of investing in onsite servers.
• Leveraging our All Covered Cloud Services will help your organization save money with an affordable monthly payment.

Security and peace of mind when you implement All Covered Cloud Services. We understand that your organization needs reliable and secure access to its Cloud Computing services.

• Accessing data and cloud services is never a problem. We guarantee that you will enjoy 99.995% uptime. In the event that you have a problem of any sort, a simple call to our 24/7 support line will address your problems immediately.
• Securing data is part of the program with All Covered Cloud Services. At All Covered, we understand that security of your data and prevention of intrusion are mandatory. That’s why your systems are locked down and protected against threats of any kind.

Learn more

We would be pleased to meet with you to discuss how All Covered Cloud Services would best serve your organization. Please call us at 866-446-1133 for a free consultation and demonstration of our All Covered Cloud Services.

The post Your First Steps toward the Cloud appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

Every day, people continue to receive bogus email messages worded similar to the one above intended to steal your information or bring down your systems; however, there are some steps to protect yourself from being a victim.

It is pretty confident to say that almost everyone whether for business or personal reasons uses email. Businesses rely on email to share information about products and services they provide and to conduct their business. Because so many people rely on communication via email, cyber criminals are hooked onto “phishing” attacks.

What is “Phishing”?

Originally penned in 1996, “phishing” was a way for individuals to commit fraud to get financial information. Basically, the email would trick an individual into providing personal banking information. Why? – To steal your money. Today, “phishing” had morphed into more than just wanting personal banking information. Today, professional “phishers” are randomly sending out links and information to gain your personal information but also to infect viruses into small and large business systems that can result into a complete financial standstill. You could say it is basically a type of cyber warfare. Since emails are random, hackers know the value of odds. At some point, someone will click a link and then, they are HOOKED!

“What is Spear Phishing”?

“Spear Phishing” is an e-mail fraud attempt that targets a specific organization, seeking unauthorized access to confidential data. “Spear phishing” attacks are not typically initiated by “random hackers” but are more likely to be conducted by culprits out for financial gain, trade secrets, disruption to business activity or military information. From beginning to end, “spear phishing” involves planning, setup, attack, and collection data for future attacks. All organizations should be concerned about “spear phishing”, but banking institutions and organizations are targeted by phishing campaigns three times more often than any other industry.

“Phishing” Techniques and Protection Tips

It is important to understand “phishing” will continue to happen so the best offense is defense. Having up to date antivirus, antimalware and system patches is only part of the process. Learn hackers’ techniques to avoid becoming a victim. Techniques include:

• Harvesting Information
  Today’s cyber criminals have become very sophisticated with their attacks. In order to fool people, email information and links must be believable. Linked websites are specifically designed to be so similar to legitimate bank or company websites that many people cannot tell a difference. It may look like it comes from a friend or colleague or business partner.

• Infecting systems through malicious links and attachments
  Phishers know malware and viruses are engaged by a user simply clicking malicious links or opening attachments. Unfortunately, these attacks can render your computer and other systems defenseless. It’s through this vulnerability that phishers silently spread viruses to others because they now can expand their reach to phishing from a lake to an entire sea of computers. However, what better way to get control of your personal or business computers than gaining direct access. Therefore, “phishers send out links to entice the reader to click. Once the attachments are opened or fraudulent links clicked, “phishers” can directly infect your systems with malware and viruses that could bring your business productivity to a complete stand still, capture confidential information or gain access to personal information.

User Tips:

• Don’t email personal or financial information.
• Be suspicious of misspellings in subject lines. If a link is provided, hover over the link to see where it is directing you to go on the website. A better alternative is to copy the URL and paste into your search browser box.
• If you get directed to a link that you feel might be fictitious, always seek out a phone number from a legitimate source first and make a call to verify the information requested. Don’t use the phone numbers provided from the link as it is more than likely not directed to the real company.
• Don’t open any attachments that you were not expecting, even from trusted sources. If you are not sure check with person to verify they sent it.
• Don’t fall victim to scam emails. i.e emails referencing you have won lottery, charity needs support following a national disaster, or even ones saying you have a family member in need of financial support within or outside your country.
• Beware of emails that require immediate action.
• Notify you IT department of phishing or spear phishing emails you receive, so they can take additional action.

Additional Business Tips:

• Develop business computer user rules or protocols and educate your employees frequently.
• Setup a centralized IT infrastructure to monitor and apply updates rather than allowing individual employees to manage on their systems.

Whether in business or personal use, if you think you received “phishing” emails, don’t open them. Simply delete them. Using common sense will also help you avoid being a victim. Remember: if it seems too good to be true, well, it probably is.

Contact All Covered

To learn more about how your organization can avoid or prevent “phishing,” please contact the IT Support experts at All Covered at 866-446-1133 for a custom consultation.

The post Beware of “Phishing” Attacks; They Aren’t Going Away! appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

Even the most innocuous piece of malware can spread quickly through a networked IT environment which means that it is important to identify strange IT system behaviors as soon as possible. Often the detection of a simple piece of malware can lead to the discovery of more complex malicious applications and even unauthorized access by hackers. If you speculate that any of your organization’s systems have been hacked, you should gather as much information as possible and contact its IT support provider as soon as possible.

Information gathering

Any information that you can share with your organization’s IT support provider will help them determine the nature of the hack and then take appropriate measures to secure IT systems, identify and remediate any damage caused by the hack. Basic information that you should provide to your IT support provider when you contact them is as follows:

• Identify affected systems- In the event that only a few computers are acting strangely, note down the particular machines and also note which users typically use the machines.
• Identify network symptoms- If symptoms such as network slowdown, poor connectivity, and unavailable resources are being reported by users, document all of the abnormal symptoms even if they aren’t very disruptive to your organization.
• Establish a timeline- Speak with all of your organization’s IT systems users and establish a timeline of all noticed events that are out of the ordinary. Attempt to determine on which computer or network resource the strange behaviors were first noted.

Next steps

Once your organization has gathered as much information about its hacked IT systems, contact your IT support provider and share with them the list. By sharing the list with your IT support providers, you are giving them knowledge that will help them determine the best course of action to defend against the hack.

Once you’ve contacted your IT support staff, consider contacting your legal counsel. Depending on the nature of your organization’s services and the types of information it collects and stores on its IT network systems, there may be legal ramifications in the event that data is exposed. Your legal counsel can guide your organization on its responsibilities in regards to being hacked. Your legal council may also be able to help you prioritize tasks and remediation efforts based on the level of exposure your business has.

Learn more

If your organization’s IT systems exhibit strange behaviors that are indicative of having been hacked, it is important to act quickly. To learn more about how to identify when your IT systems have been hacked, or to learn more about how to protect your systems from being hacked, or to get help remediating the damage done from a hack, please contact the IT security experts at All Covered.

The post Your Network Has Been Hacked appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

In our last article we discussed how to create secure home networks. In this article we will discuss how to extend security beyond the network by ensuring that all computer operating systems and applications are secure.

Secure operating systems 101

We at All Covered have found that while many organizations invest the time and money into keeping operating systems updated and patched, they often neglect to consider the operating systems that staff use in their home offices. Many people are still running Microsoft XP or even earlier versions. The problem with this is that older operating systems are not supported by their manufacturers—this means that security patches are unavailable and as such are vulnerable to cyber threats.

Any time a remote worker uses an outdated, unpatched operating system and goes online—whether for personal or work reasons—the computer is exposed to countless types of malware. In the event that a home computer gets infected and then connects to organizational IT resources, your organization’s IT infrastructure is exposed to the threat.

All Covered recommends that if your organization has staff that work from home offices it provides should provide IT security training, and implement policies to ensure that the following operating system and applicationstandards are in place.

• Update hardware- Older hardware cannot support newer operating systems and applications which are more secure against cyber threats. By ensuring that home workers have newer hardware which can support the newer operating systems, you can be sure that their machines are less vulnerable to cyber threats.
• Update operating systems- Older operating systems such as Windows XP are no longer supported—this means that the manufacturers are no longer creating new security patches. Newer operating systems such as Windows7 and Windows 8 are and will continue to besupported for the foreseeable future. Newer operating systems also have better built-in security features than earlier operating systems.
• Install host-based security solutions- All computers that are connected to home networkswhich connect to your organization’s IT resources should have host-based security solutions installed. A comprehensive solution will provide a layered defense system which will protect against malware, suspicious email links, phishing scams, and also provide firewall capabilities.
• Limit administrative privileges- Each computer that connects to the home office network should have only one administrative account established. This account should be password protected and used only to apply patches, updates, and provide system support. Other accounts, without administrative privileges, should be created for users that wish to browse the internet, send emails, and create documents.
• Enable encryption- Full disk encryption should be used on all laptops that connect to the home network. Because laptops are portable they can be stolen which makes it imperative that hard drives are encrypted to protect your organization’s IT infrastructure. Full disk encryption is available with some operating systems or third party applications can also be used.
• Apply security patches- Home users often neglect to keep their systems patched. This could pose risks to your organization’s IT systems. Providing security awareness training and “how-to” guides that describe how to install updates on home systems is a good way to ensure that remote workers have the knowledge they need to keep their systems patched.

Learn more

There are many justifiable reasons to allow your organization’s staff to work from home offices; there are even more reasons to be concerned about the potential threat to your organization’s information systems. Don’t let old operating systems and poor security knowledge be the weak link in your organization’s IT chain. To learn more about updating hardware, operating systems, patches, and more, please contact the security experts at All Covered.

The post Build a Stronger Chain appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

Of course your organization does all of that, and more, but it still might not be enough. Unplanned catastrophic events like Superstorm Sandy and unremarkable, everyday events like telecommuting share in common one critical element that could be your organization’s weakest link-remote access from a home office.

Remote access of business IT resources from home offices will always be a weak link for many organizations. Regardless of why your staff is working at home-by necessity or by choice-your staff will be using IT resources that are not under the physical control of your organization. This means that your organization must trust that its staff is capable of establishing secure remote offices; the best way to do that is to provide staff with training which focuses on creating secure home offices.

Secure home office networking 101

By IT security standards, creating a secure home office means more than installing a lock on the door of your guest room/man cave/home office. When IT security professionals discuss making a home office secure, what they are really discussing is creating a secure home network.

Any home network that is used for business purposes should include the following elements:

• Secure connection to ISP provider- Internet service providers (ISPs) typically provide home users with cable modems which offer router and wireless capabilities; while this type of device will provide remote workers with access to the internet, it is not as secure as it should be. To ensure that home networks are secure, remote users should, in addition to the ISP provided modem, use personally owned firewalls or routers that will provide an additional level of security between the internet and the home network.
• Secure wireless connectivity- Remote workers should use secure wireless networks if they do not connect directly to their personal firewalls. Older wireless routers use encryption solutions that can be easily hacked. To ensure that wireless networks are secure, wireless routers should be new enough to be protected with Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) encryption instead of the older WEP encryption.
• Advanced router configurations- Regardless of whether the network is hardwired or wireless, advanced security features should be enabled. By using a filtering feature which allows only identified computing devices (based on MAC or hardware addresses) on the wireless home networks, your organization can ensure that only authorized users will access home networks which can connect to your organization’s information systems
• Limited administrative access- Home networks and the computing devices that will be used with them should be administered from only within the network. When configuring routers and other devices, the option that allows for external administrative account access should be deselected to prevent unauthorized users from attempting to access and modify networks.
• Strong passwords- The same strong password requirements that are in place in your organization place of business should also be used in home offices. Strong passwords should be at least ten characters long and consist of complex character strings that contain letters, numbers, and special characters. Strong passwords should not be found in the dictionary or consist of special dates such as birth dates and anniversaries. Strong passwords should be used on all networked devices.

Learn more

When your remote workers create secure home networks, they are taking the first step toward ensuring that their home offices will not be the weakest link in your organizational IT chain. To learn more about how your organization can create secure remote offices, please read the follow-up articles that will be posted in the next several weeks. To learn more about remote offices that will support your organization, please contact the IT Support experts at All Covered at 866-446-1133.

The post What is Your Organization’s Weakest Link? appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

VDI benefits

Depending on the nature of your organization’s IT infrastructure and on the VDI solution that your organization chooses to implement, it can take advantage of a great number of benefits. VDI solutions typically have unique features that will appeal to specific organizational needs, but most VDI solutions will, at the least, provide the following benefits:

• Quick and easy “workstation” provisioning: Once your organization’s IT team has created a virtualized workstation with an operating system, applications, and security configurations, the virtualized workstation can be used as a template that can be reproduced any time a user needs a new workstation. Copying a template to create workstations as needed can save time and allow users to be productive instead of waiting around for your IT staff to build a computer, install software, and patches.
• Centralized patch management: Patch management is always an IT nightmare. While some programs like Microsoft Windows and antivirus can be configured on individual workstations to auto-update, other applications like Java have to be manually downloaded and installed. With a VDI solution, because all machines are hosted on one server, it is easy for your organization’s IT staff to ensure that all patches are updated in a timely manner.
• Standardized security configurations: Because new security threats are discovered every day, your organization’s IT staff likely spends a lot of time updating security patches and maintaining standardized security settings on individual workstations. With a VDI solution, the IT staff can quickly update security patches to all virtualized workstations and ensure that security settings are standardized on all virtualized workstations.
• Secured data: With a VDI solution, sensitive data is secure because all workstations are virtualized and hosted on servers or hosted data centers. Sensitive data can be created and worked with from numerous computing devices, but it will never reside on the device since the host server houses the virtualized workstation and provides the operating system, applications, data, and processing power. In the event that one of your organization’s laptops, tablets, or smartphones is lost or stolen, your organization won’t have to worry about data exposure because the data is not stored on the devices.
• Anywhere access of virtualized workstations: If your organization adopts a VDI solution, it will realize increased productivity because users can access their virtualized workstations from home, work, or vacation from many computing devices such as smart phones, tablets, and laptops. Users can safely use personal devices like home computers to access sensitive organizational data because virtual workstations are isolated from the personal devices hard drives.

Learn more

Your organization can realize many benefits from adopting a VDI solution from a reputable vendor such as VMware or Microsoft. To learn more about VDI in general, or to discover how a VDI solution can benefit your organization, please contact the VDI experts at All Covered.

The post Benefits of VDI ( Virtual Desktop Infrastructure ) appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

Is your organization prepared to mitigate the potential damage that a catastrophic event such as Superstorm Sandy or a malicious cyber-attack could cause?

While your organizationmight have in place a simple plan which would allow for a one day closure without adversely affecting its bottom line or reputation, there are occasions where a simple plan cannot address more extreme situations such as superstorms or cyber-attacks.

Regardless of the nature of potential events that might disrupt business and operational services, a single event can last long enough to adversely affect your organization’s profit margins and its reputation.

While it can be difficult to create a plan that would protect your organization against all potential threats both natural and man-made, by focusing on how your organization uses information technologies and then identifying the most likely risks that your organization might face, your organization can take steps to proactively mitigate identified risks. The best way to create a plan to protect your organization’s information systems is through an IT risk assessment.

What is an IT risk assessment?

An IT risk assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of your organization’s operations and processes as they relate to your organization’s information systems. While your organization knows that severe weather, hackers, and insider threats can affect information systems, it might not be sure how best to focus energies and funds against identified threats. An IT risk assessment will help your organization identify the types of events that could affect information systems and also calculate the severity of the identified events.

Because your organization is unique, it is not possible to buy an off the shelf, one-size-fits-all solution that will reduce all potential risks. This is why an IT risk assessment is important. An IT risk assessment will provide an accounting of all of your organization’s risks—both man-made and natural—so that your organization can focus investments and energies in the appropriate areas.

An IT risk assessment will review your organization’s information systems and rate potential risks based on the probability or an occurrence and the likely effects of events to your organization. An IT assessment will do the following:

• Identify threats that your organization is most likely to experience
• Rate the effectiveness of current IT protections against identified threats
• Create a plan to mitigate identified risks

Who should have a risk assessment?

All Covered believes that all organizations can benefit from an IT risk assessment. All Covered specifically recommends that your organization have an IT risk assessment performed if it meets any of the following criteria:

• My organization is regulated by state, federal, trade, or business association requirements
• My organization works with highly sensitive data
• My organization is located in an area that has a history of environmental risks such as tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding, and wild fires

How often should an IT risk assessment be completed?

It is important for your organization to understand that IT-related risksare constantly changing. To protect your organization and its information systems, your organization should to review its information systems, identify risks, and revise mitigation steps regularly.

In addition to an initial IT risk assessment, your organization should have a risk assessment performed every three years. Also perform an IT risk assessment if your organization makes major organizational changes, implements new business processes or changes a product line, or if it plans to invest in new IT.

Learn more

Risks to information systems are always changing. The best way for your organization to proactively mitigate the threats it is most likely to face, is to have an IT risk assessment performed. To learn more about IT risk assessments in general, or to discuss how an IT risk assessment can help your organization, please contact the IT risk assessment specialists at All Covered at 866-446-1133.

The post IT Risk Assessment appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

While that bit of dialogue might sound like a tired line from a B-rated movie-uttered by a husky-voiced man speaking through a handkerchief into the receiver of an old payphone-it is a message that is being received by more and more organizations that have had their information systems taken hostage by a class of malware known as “ransomware.”

What it is

Ransomware is a type of malware that typically infects a workstation when a user unknowingly visits a compromised website. Once downloaded onto a workstation, ransomware will encrypt all files and demand “ransom” in order to decrypt the files. Usually, ransom demands average about $200 (US currency), but trends indicate that more recent demands are averaging around $400. Unfortunately, even if the ransom is paid, there is a high likelihood that information provided will not decrypt the workstation files.

Why it matters

According to a report from Symantec, cybercriminals are making more than $5 million a year with ransomware. Up until the last several years, ransomware was mostly confined to Eastern Europe. Recent trends indicate that as ransomware becomes more vicious, it is spreading throughout the globe. Kevin Haley, director of Symantec’s security response team, observed that “…We see so many gangs moving to ransomware, looking for new angles, new versions [of the malware], that we’re going to see a lot of this in the future.”

Over the past two years, experts have identified at least 16 different ransomware variants. What that means is that there are at least 16 specific, unique families of malware that are currently assumed to have been created independently by competing criminal gangs. That means that each type of ransomware is completely unique and that one version of malware is never “just an upgrade” of a previous version. The distinctly different natures of the ransomware make it difficult to create an anti-malware program to protect against it and clean up after an infection has occurred.

Protect against it

Due to the constantly evolving nature of ransomware, it is imperative that computer users take precautions to help decrease the likelihood of your organization being held hostage. The following list of safe computing practices will help your organization protect itself:

• Keep the internet firewall on at all times.
• Backup important data daily.
• Ensure sure that antivirus is up-to-date.
• Keep all software up-to-date. Ensure that automatic updating is enabled so that computers receive the latest Microsoft security and software updates. Manually verify that Java, Flash, and Adobe software are updated.
• Delete spam email messages without opening them.
• Don’t open suspicious links in emails.
• Don’t open hyperlinks that use shortened URLs such as TinyURL or twitter unless the destination website is known and trusted.

Ransomware cleanup

Because there are so many variations of ransomware, there is no standard procedure for cleaning up a compromised system. At this point, antivirus programs are unable to quarantine ransomware. In the event that one of your organization’s workstations is taken hostage, immediately contact a security specialist.

While your organization might be tempted to pay the ransom to gain access to its encrypted files, the FBI advises against it since statistics show that the decryption solutions provided by the ransomware rarely work. If one of your organization’s systems does get taken hostage, the FBI encourages that a report be filed with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

Learn more

To learn more about ransomware in general or to get help cleaning up after a ransomware infection, please contact the IT experts at All Covered at 866-446-1133.

The post The Rise of Ransomware appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

Lately, it seems as if almost every employee in almost every organization is using a company or personal smartphone for business tasks. It also seems as if more and more employees are requesting that their desktop and laptop computers be replaced with a tablet PC. When these mobile devices are used with cloud computing services and productivity apps, it may provide a strong argument for completely replacing a traditional IT infrastructure based on servers, PCs, laptops, thin clients, and virtualization, but All Covered urges caution before making the move to a totally mobile IT infrastructure.

In our opinion

All Covered has been providing IT outsourcing services for more than a decade, and we have experienced the shift from large desktop computers, to laptops and thin clients, to virtualized environments. Now, the newest trend indicates a shift toward mobile computing that focuses on using mobile devices with limited hard disk space, internet connectivity, and cloud services. While we have seen this mobility trend grow, we have noticed that there still seems to be a need for desktop computers, thin clients, and virtualized environments.

All Covered believes that there are justifiable reasons for both maintaining a more traditional IT infrastructure and embracing the mobile technologies provided by smartphones, tablets, and cloud computing. All Covered advises that if your organization is considering moving to a mobile device and cloud-based infrastructure it carefully considers how data is used. Simply put, consider whether your staff members consume or create data.

Data consumption

Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs are great for consuming data. By this, we mean that a portable device like an iPad is great to use as an email reader, e-reader, a personal video player, an internet browser, and execute other tasks that can be completed by touching the screen with a finger or stylus. All of these activities focus on viewing or “consuming data.” Tablets and smartphones tend to lack separate peripheral input devices such as keyboards and mouses, instead requiring a user to tap an onscreen-keyboard which can make it tedious to create anything more than the shortest email or twitter feed, social media post, or IM text.

Data creation

The more traditional IT infrastructure that uses traditional workstations, laptop computers, and thin clients makes it easier for users to create data. Larger monitors and peripheral devices make it easier for users to input or manipulate large quantities of data that are often found in spreadsheets and databases.

A combination of the two

Instead of treating mobile and traditional IT infrastructures as an all or nothing buy-in, consider adopting both solutions. Give smartphones to all employees so that they can keep in touch through email and IM. Provide tablets to employees that don’t typically manipulate or view large amounts of data. Provide more traditional workstations and laptop computers to your organization’s power users that create and manipulate large quantities of data.

Learn more

All Covered believes that the best IT infrastructure for your organization is the one that will support your organizations tasks and enable employees to easily create and consume data. To learn more about how integrating into your existing IT environment mobile devices might be beneficial, or to learn more about moving toward a mobile and cloud-based infrastructure, please contact the technology experts at All Covered at 866-446-1133.

The post Can Mobile Devices and Cloud Computing Services Replace a Traditional IT Infrastructure? appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.

The iPad Mini models

The iPad mini is available with three different hard drive capacities and provides internet connectivity through Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and cellular service. Keep in mind that cellular service will require a contract with a cellular provider. Current cellular providers include: AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon.

Below are the available hard drive capacities, internet access methods and prices as set by Apple.

The size

The Wi-Fi only iPad mini offers an overall size of 7.87 inches high by 5.3 inches wide with a depth of.28 inches and weighs in at .68 pounds while the iPad mini with Wi-Fi and cellular service shares the same dimensions but weighs .69 pounds. (In comparison, the Wi-Fi only iPad 2 measures 9.5 inches high by 7.31 inches wide with a depth of .34 inches and a weight of 1.33 pounds.

The display

The iPad mini offers a 7.9 inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Multi-touch display with IPS (In-Plane Switching) technology. The IPS technology, which is the same technology in the iPad 2 and iPad with Retina display, provides a 178 degree angle of viewing to ensure a greater screen viewing experience regardless of the angle at which the iPad mini is being held.

Key features

Just like every version of iPad, the iPad mini is loaded with features to improve the overall user experience.

Battery life- Depending on how the iPad mini is used, typical battery charge will last for approximately ten hours.

Operating system- The iPad mini uses the iOS 6 operating system which is the same operating system that is available on iPads and iPhones.

Cameras- The iPad mini offers two cameras:

• FaceTime HD camera- This front facing camera allows users to take 1.2 MP pictures, 720p HD video, and hold video phone calls with FaceTime as long as the iPad mini is connected to Wi-Fi or has cellular service.
• iSight camera- This rear facing camera allows users to take 5MP pictures and is equipped with auto focus and face detection, a five-element lens with a hybrid IR filter, and an f/2.4 aperture.

Built-in Apps- The iPad mini offers the same built-in apps as iPads.

• Safari for browsing the Internet
• Mail for sending and receiving email
• iBooks for browsing, buying and reading e-books
• Photos for viewing, editing, and sharing pictures
• Newstand for browsing, buying and reading electronic newspapers
• Messages for instant messaging
• Siri for finding information
• Calendars for staying on time
• Reminders for remembering important tasks
• Contacts for staying in touch
• Notes for jotting down quick thoughts when you are on the go
• Game Center for when you need a quick mental break
• Clock for when you need to know the time, set an alarm, or time an event
• iTunes for discovering, purchasing and listening to music
• App Store for buying more than 275,000 apps
• Videos for previewing, purchasing, and watching movies, television shows, and music videos

Release dates

The iPad minis will be released on two different dates. Wi-Fi only models are available for in-store purchase on Friday, November 2nd and the Wi-Fi and cellular models are supposed to be released in mid-November.

Learn more

To learn more about the iPad mini or to learn how tablet PCs can fit into your organization’s existing IT services infrastructure, please contact the mobility experts at All Covered at 866-446-1133.

The post Is Your Business Ready for the iPad mini? appeared first on All Covered Learning Center.