The impact of COVID-19 has made internet access more important to families than ever. With students learning virtually, parents working from home and more of us accessing services remotely, fast and reliable internet is essential.

As schools continue with virtual learning, most parents are looking for new ways to keep their kids engaged and on track. Fortunately, there are some simple tips and tricks that can help. Stay ahead of the learning curve with these simple remote learning tips.

SpaceX promises to bring high-speed internet service, called Starlink, to hard-to-reach rural areas around the globe by launching thousands of small low Earth orbit satellites, vastly speeding interaction with residential computers on the ground. SpaceX has said it will begin beta tests on the service with volunteer households in Canada and northern areas of the United States this fall. It is not clear how soon Canadians will be able to access Starlink’s service.

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After consultations with Farmers’ Markets Ontario, local municipalities and the Grey Bruce Health Unit, organizers of the Flesherton and Thornbury farmers’ markets scrambled to deal with a dynamic situation, facing tight restrictions for businesses under a provincial state of emergency. Despite being considered essential services, these markets were met with cautionary advice from a multitude of sources.

Starting in September 2020 Google will switch to mobile-first indexing for all websites. If your website isn’t mobile ready, Google recommends responsive websites, then you need to make a change or watch your search listing fall.

Get in touch to learn more about how we can help you with the switch to a Google-mobile friendly website!

COVID-19 has impacted small businesses in unprecedented ways. And now as the world shifts to a different way of living and working through uncertain times, we’ve seen our clients innovate, finding new ways to continue their business and diversify their income.

Diversification. There are many ways to diversify your business that allow your loyal customers to support their favorite businesses even though they may be unable to visit your shop or enjoy your service in-person.

Digital gift cards can help increase cash flow while your business is closed or affected by social distancing. If you use square payment processing, like our client Highland Hounds Canada in Grey Highlands, Ontario, you can set up a free ordering page to sell digital gift cards. The page allows customers to purchase digital gift cards online and send them to a recipient of their choice (or themselves) via email. Digital gift cards can be redeemed online and in-person. Once your order page is live, you can promote it through your own website, social media, and email.

Etsy shops or online stores can be setup quickly and easily, in many cases within a few hours you could be up and running. Wedding photographer extraordinaire Kayla Yestal was faced with an entire season being postponed. To help offset her loss of income she has introduced digital gallery through Etsy. The gallery contains specially curated photos from her back catalogue of fine art photography.

Hair and nail salons have had to completely shut down in the face of COVID-19. However our client Beauty Bar On Main in Grand Valley, Ontario found a way to supplement their income and support their greying clientele by providing pre-made perfectly matched hair dye kits available through curb-side-pick-up.

There are many ways to innovate your business and diversify your income in face of COVID-19 and if you need help understanding your options or just getting them up and running, get in touch we’d be glad to help.

Canadian households are under attack by malware and phishing, and family members aren’t always equipped with the knowledge they need to avoid malicious content. Now Canadians can have the same level of protection that large corporations have enjoyed for years without having to worry about their data being sold to advertisers. From the Canadian non-profit that is dedicated to building a better online Canada, the Canadian Internet
Registration Authority (CIRA).

Canadian Shield is the new service to help keep Canadians stay safe as they work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The service is a DNS firewall, that has some extra features to make you safer while working from home, including an adult content blocker, malware, botnet, and phishing protections. Simply, this is a filter between you and the internet that ensures you’re not being watched or downloading viruses.

Get started with the Canadian Shield at the CIRA website.

A free app and website GBH Strong was created to keep people in Midwestern Ontario close and connected during this extraordinary period.

The App and Website Offers:

• Links to trusted information
• Resources for people and businesses in need
• A way for citizens to offer help to others
• Things to do while at home

The Grey Bruce Huron Strong platform was initiated by Bruce Power in cooperation with both Grey and Bruce Counties. The app and website were developed by Kincardine’s NPX Innovation and the Nuclear Innovation Institute (NII).

Microsoft seems to be working on a new logo for its Bing search engine, which seems to be part of the larger Fluent Design rebrand within Microsoft.

The new Bing logo keeps the barnded lowercase ‘b’, but no longer has sharp corners and adopts a much curvier design. They have also introduced some very subtle gradients giving it some depth. This change is very reminiscent of the style used for Office for Mac icons (back in 2011). Although the new logo isn’t significantly different from the existing Bing logo, we believe that the old sharp edges have given way to a sleek, classy update that we like.

Microsoft is yet to officially announce the new Bing logo, the company seems to be testing the new logo with a small portion of users and has been spotted in the wild.

Now that Microsoft Edge is using the Chromium engine, it is a really good browser. Now Microsoft is adding some new features that could tempt you away from Chrome and Firefox.

• Collections – allows you to easily collect information from different websites, organize it, export it into various files or just come back to your research at a later time and pick up right where you left off.
• Vertical tabs – helps you easily find and manage many open tabs at once. Microsoft Edge is the only browser that allows you to manage your tabs on the side with a single click.
• Smart copy – makes it easier to select, copy and paste the exact content you want from the web and preserve the rich web format.
• Tracking prevention – is designed to protect you from being tracked by websites that you aren’t accessing directly, giving you more control over what you see and what you don’t.
• Password Monitor – notifies you if the credentials you’ve saved to autofill have been detected on the dark web.
• InPrivate mode – automatically deletes my history, cookies and site data when finishing a web browsing session.
• Immersive Reader – removes distractions on the screen and creates a simplified environment that helps you focus.
• 4K and Dolby Audio – lets you watch 4K on Netflix and supports Dolby Audio and Dolby Vision on Windows 10.

Most of the new features will be released in the next while, you can read more about these features here.