Blogs - Siobhan O'Shea

October 21, 2015May 23, 2016 by Siobhan

What’s a merchant acquirer and how to pick the right one for your business

Selecting a merchant account provider can be a daunting process, even if you have been through it before. The fees and pricing structures from banks and card processors can feel overwhelming – device leasing costs, charges per transaction, monthly billing minimums etc. Your business banking provider is far from your only option, there’s no shortage […]

in Finance 0 comments

September 18, 2015May 23, 2016 by Siobhan

What is PCI and why a payments provider need to be PCI certified

Please, please tell me a story about the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Okay, you are unlikely to hear those words at bedtime, but who doesn’t love a story with good guys, bad guys and a fortune at stake? So what is PCI DSS? Once upon a time, four major credit-card companies […]

in Finance 0 comments

September 7, 2015April 2, 2016 by Siobhan

Why email isn’t secure and 10 easy steps you can take to make it safer

Q. More than 204 million emails are sent in a minute so why isn’t email secure ? A. The reason email is not secure is wasn’t designed that way. Email has come a long way since 1979. From a simple way of messaging it’s evolved into our on-line personalities, how we sign up for things, […]

in Tech 0 comments

Where oh where is my right click gone? After much furious tapping and clicking I finally asked my digital guru (dg) what was going on. The answer of course is there is no right click. You click on the word and make a two fingered gesture, ahem. It’s called tap-to-click. Simply press on the track pad with both fingers. Even after a week, I find that tapping with the 2 fingers doesn’t always work for me. Sometimes it take me 2, 3 taps or doesn’t work at all. Leaving me look like a maniac pounding away on the keyboard. Never fear, if you are having problems there’s a cheat. Press the alt key and single tap (or physically click) on the trackpad. Words a treat every time to bring up that expected ‘right click’ menu.

My programs have gone. Oops, my start button is gone. Wait, everything is gone. No matter how much you are aware that the Chromebook is just a browser and the dg warned you 10 times that it’s just a browser, it’s still a very different way of using a laptop. I’ve used a PC, windows laptop, ipad, macbook and now a Chromebook during my work life. The fact that your main work/life necessity can now be charged using a phone charger is still a surprise.

I’ve lost all my work aka I accidentally closed a tab. This actually highlights a great feature of the Chromebook. You don’t have Word, but you have Google Docs which opens in a browser tab. So you will be typing away on your latest masterpiece in a BROWSER TAB which you actually get used to very quickly. Best thing is even if you accidentally close the tab, Google Docs automatically saves a document every 2-3 minutes. Very nifty. The menu bar even gently reassures “All Changes Saved in Drive”.
How did I accidentally close the tab anyhow? Back to gestures again. I must be a paddle flailer ie someone who wildly flails their hands around like rubber paddles, because in the first couple of days a new tab would somehow open. Disconcerting. What I had cleverly discovered was another gesture, this time with three fingers. Click on a link with a three fingered tap and the link will open in a new tab. So what, you might say. But if you wanted to open an new interesting link or bookmarked link without closing the page you’re working on, it’s brilliant. Click on the new tab with the three fingers again to close it. Simples.

No Start button, but there’s a strange search button on its usual real estate on the bottom left of the screen. Here you can find “apps” such as Evernote, Gmail, Pixlr Express, Google Play Movies, even Calculator. Except they aren’t apps of course though they work exactly the same. They are Chrome add-ons.

Chrome Play Movies, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides – noticing a trend here? If you think all of my work couldn’t possibly fit into a browser, think about what you do on a laptop. Browse the web? Check. Email? Check. Work on documents, slides or spreadsheets? Check. Share and edit work with colleagues? Check. Edit images? Check. And did I mention that the battery can last up to 8 hours? I will definitely be keeping the Chromebook for another week. For further investigations, of course.

July 24, 2015April 23, 2019 by Siobhan

Periscope, it’s just…stuff

Periscope, it’s just…. stuff. by Siobhan O’Shea So says my 6 year-old digital native, when there weren’t enough people “doing crazy things” on the live streaming app. And she’s right. It is mainly just stuff. Stuff like people displaying the contents of their fridges. Gwyneth Paltrow’s fridge, if you’re interested, contains a stick of celery […]

in Social Media Marketing 0 comments

February 12, 2015May 23, 2016 by Siobhan

Payments Cards Most Likely to Succeed, class of 2015

Will you be signing the Cards and Payments Yearbook this year? At 1,034 pages for volume one alone, let Mozobi Payments do the hard work for you and lay out some of the award winners from our hardworking class of Payments 2015-2026. Most Popular Card payments continued to grow by volume […]

in Finance 0 comments