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TL;DR: Build a WordPress website without coding using the MaxiBlocks plugin, now 86% off. When you want to launch a website for your business, every waiting day counts. The longer it takes to get your e-commerce site or portfolio up and running, you miss out on sales and connections. Whether the delay is happening because you’re considering hiring a developer or doing the work yourself, check out this first. MaxiBlocks is a no-code website builder for WordPress that helps you launch websites independently. All you’d need is this: WordPress, web hosting, and a domain name—no developer is necessary. Pay $59 (reg. $447) and keep it for life, creating as many websites as you want. This purchase includes three licenses, so you can enlist others on your team to help with the website or create other projects. That comes out to less than $20 per license. It’s so easy, anyone can do it Whether your business will finally start selling merch or creating landing pages for marketing campaigns, MaxiBlocks has webpage templates to help you bring them to life. Once you have WordPress, just install this as a plugin to get started. Then, start designing your website. If you can use Canva, you can build a website with MaxiBlocks: Choose a Style Card to have a consistent look across your website. Browse hundreds of website templates to customize the layout. Rearrange pieces with a single drag-and-drop. Add icons from a library of over 14,000 images. Launch your website in hours, not weeks. Create websites without coding using the MaxiBlocks WordPress plugin, now $59 (reg. $447). Prices and availability are subject to change. source

The day after Thanksgiving brings full stomachs and deep discounts. TechRepublic has curated a roundup of the best Black Friday deals on technology for business — from smart office accessories to the hottest Apple products. While some Black Friday deals shave just a few percentage points off an item’s price, we focused on finding more significant discounts. We’ve also prioritized high-quality products that won’t break the bank. The pricing and product availability information was accurate at the time of publication. SEE: Beware of scams during the holiday shopping season, especially around high-end tech. HP 15.6 inch Windows Laptop The laptop on sale comes in red or silver. Image: Walmart This laptop runs Windows 11 S mode, has 4 GB RAM and 128 GB of storage, and offers two color options: red and silver. The Black Friday sales slice the price almost in half. Reviewers have left positive reviews on his laptop, which is suitable for light-duty work with Microsoft 365 and other common productivity programs. The Black Friday deal price for the HP 15.6 inch Windows Laptop is $199, which is $180 off the list price. Garmin Multisport Smartwatch The Garmin fēnix smartwatch is durable and versatile. Image: Amazon This watch is made for fitness and training, but it can seamlessly transition to tracking steps and sleep at work conferences, linking your fitness ambitions and office innovation. The battery can charge from a built-in solar charging lens, extending the battery life to weeks. For exercise and lifestyle tracking, it includes a heart rate tracker, sleep monitoring, morning reports, and more. The Black Friday deal price for the Garmin multisport smartwatch is $749.99, 25% off the list price. JBL Tune Headphones Three color variants of the JBL over-ear headphones are on sale: black, blue, and white. Image: Amazon These wireless, over-ear headphones promise quality sound while sitting in work meetings, editing audio, or listening to energetic music to brighten your work day. The batteries last for up to 76 hours, so you won’t need to worry about recharging often. These headphones have modern control options like an app and Voice Aware transparency. But the most important part is the sound, which many reviewers say is excellent. The Black Friday deal price for the JBL Tune headphones is $49.95, 50% off the list price. Samsung 43” Smart TV The 43” TV could fit nicely in a home office. Image: Samsung Walmart took $60 off the price of this 4K smart TV. If you’re keen on this item, Samsung’s website has discounts on other sizes of the same model, with up to $200 off the largest — although Walmart’s deal beats Samsung’s deal on the 43” version. This TV features an LED screen, Bluetooth connectivity, a 60 Hz refresh rate, and a 16:9 aspect ratio. The Black Friday deal price for this Samsung 43” smart TV at Walmart is $268, 18.29% off the list price. Apple AirPods 2nd Generation AirPods come with a charging case. Image: Apple These AirPods are older models compared to the fourth generation, but they still offer modern functionality and the quality Apple aficionados have come to expect. Just note that the second generation uses the older Lightning connector for charging instead of USB-C. These AirPods are compatible with Siri, so depending on the phone you connect them to, they may be able to synch with Apple’s AI features. Reviewers praise the second-generation AirPods for their sound quality and ease of use. The Black Friday deal price for the Apple AirPods 2nd Generation is $89, 31% off the list price. Honorable mentions source

TL;DR: Turbocharge your business by using the best professional software with the Ultimate 2019 Microsoft Bundle: Office, Project, Visio and Windows 11 Pro – you can get it for just $71.94 through December 1 at TechRepublic Academy. If you’re competing with established professionals, then you need the most professional software for your business. And that’s just what you’ll get in the Ultimate 2019 Microsoft Bundle: Office, Project, Visio and Windows 11 Pro. Best of all, it’s available through December 1 for only $71.94. Microsoft Windows 11 Pro This bundle includes Microsoft Windows 11 Pro with its new easier interface, widgets, Microsoft Teams and Windows Studio Effects. But the big news is all about the recently added AI features, such as the Windows Copilot, which replaces Cortana and helps you with things like summarizing docs, launching playlists and changing settings. Even Paint has updates like AI-powered background removal, layers support, dark mode and much more. Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 is the perfect companion to Windows 11 Pro. This is one of the most popular office suites in the world, and for good reason. You’ll get the 2019 versions of all the core Office programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher and Access. You could even go on to boost your skills in some of them for even greater advantage. Microsoft Visio 2019 Professional Complex data is so much easier to grasp when presented visually. So if you’re constantly dealing with things like schedules, maps, flowcharts, networking and more, then you’ll love hearing that Visio is available to new users in this bundle as well. There are dozens of premade starter diagrams, templates, stencils and much more to make your work easier. Microsoft Project 2019 Professional Also available to new users is Microsoft Project 2019 Professional, which has a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars on both GetApp and Capterra. It’s so easy to use, yet allows you to maintain control of all your projects in the most efficient way possible. All of the programs can be downloaded immediately and you’ll quickly receive lifetime license keys to install the programs on one Windows PC. So you can use them at home or at the office. Get the Ultimate 2019 Microsoft Bundle: Office, Project, Visio and Windows 11 Pro through 11:59pm Pacific on December 1 for just $71.94. Prices and availability subject to change. source

According to an industry expert from Amazon Web Services, resilience has become a board-level concern for Australia’s financial services industry ahead of new CPS 230 Operational Risk Management regulations from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, the industry’s regulatory body. Australian banks, insurers, and superannuation funds will be required to meet the APRA’s new consolidated CPS 230 standard for operational risk management. Those classified as “significant” financial institutions have until July 2025 to comply, while non-significant financial institutions have been given until July 2026 to comply with specific business continuity requirements and scenario analysis requirements. The obligations focus on businesses’ resilience. Institutions subject to CPS 230 must ensure the continuity of critical operations during business disruptions. Compliance with these regulations is closely tied to technology, as organisations must maintain operational technology to deliver critical services during events such as cybersecurity incidents and other disruptions. Jamie Simon, director of banking and financial services at AWS, told TechRepublic that the APRA-regulated industry was well prepared for the introduction of next year’s new requirements. “We’ve had quite a bit of time now to understand the intent and also to start to work with customers to help prepare them for it — and they’re very well progressed across the industry,” Simon said. Real-world examples that underscore the importance of resilience Resilience has become a top priority for boards at APRA-regulated institutions, standing alongside cyber security as a crucial focus. There is now heightened attention from the top down to ensure businesses meet their obligations effectively. A key driver of this shift is CPS 230, which holds boards accountable for overseeing operational risk management, including business continuity and managing service provider arrangements. Recent public incidents in the sector have further underscored the importance of resilience, providing boards with concrete examples of what could go wrong and why proactive oversight is essential. In October, an outage at Australia’s second-largest super fund, the Australian Retirement Trust, caused nearly 100,000 pension recipients to wait five extra days for payments. That same month, system issues and outages also affected Westpac, where customers struggled to access banking and payments over three days. SEE: Data centre outages cause focus on risk mitigation “Any time any kind of public event happens, it raises the level of visibility and awareness at board level,” Simon said. “From the regulator, that puts more focus on making sure the posturing, positioning, design, and ways of working are really robust and well set up to minimise or avoid any such event in the future.” He added that a bell curve exists when preparing a market for a regulation such as CPS 230, and it is influenced by each institution’s capacity and capability to understand and prepare for it. However, he said that some bigger entities that had more at stake and were due to come under the regulation first were establishing their own risk practices that exceeded the APRA guidance. “They are actually in a significantly better position than the guidelines outline or require of them, which I think is a really positive thing within the Australian financial services industry,” Simon said. More Australia coverage SaaS system observability is seen as a key way to increase resilience The observability of SaaS supply chains is an area where the financial services industry is pushing ahead. As part of APRA’s CPS 230, the financial services industry needs to enhance third-party risk management to support resilience and ensure any risks from material service providers are appropriately managed. “The regulatory changes mean having to carry more responsibility of understanding and managing their full supply chain,” Simon said. “That’s where I think a lot of them are getting ahead of the guidelines; they are working really hard to understand what that full end-to-end looks like and partnering with suppliers.” Simon said one industry trend is the significant adoption of SaaS third-party providers. Institutions no longer run the infrastructure themselves but are asking providers to run the physical infrastructure sitting underneath “what can be fairly critical workloads sometimes.” SEE: Obsidian Security warns of rising SaaS threats to enterprises  Ensuring strong observability across all systems and third parties is key, Simon said. This includes having the right tools in place to monitor, understand, and pre-emptively identify risks across their own and third-party systems. This also requires institutions to work with major cloud service providers like AWS. “AWS is really leaning into that to make sure that we’re able to provide them all the right levels of visibility in the system so they can feel really confident that their full supply chain is protected and secure,” he added. Resilience can be an enabler of innovation A focus on resilience is warranted, given the impact disruptions can have on businesses and the customers who suffer through them. “Fairly high visibility outages that take down customer services for a period of time can lead to customer churn,” Simon said. “It can lead to significant customer dissatisfaction, and that can have significant top-line implications. And that’s true of all industries, not just financial services institutions.” However, he explained that typical approaches often trade resilience off with driving innovation: “It’s often talked about as a counterbalance — like you’re trying to find a balance between those two things.” SEE: How AWS responded to the generative AI wave of 2023 However, he said AWS strongly believes that having a strong resilience and security position “actually enables you to move faster with confidence when you start to innovate around things like AI and automation of business processes and more automation of the customer experience.” “That in turn, allows you to drive significant automation into resilience and security practices, which then helps them uplift and it becomes this really positive flywheel effect,” he said. Rather than seeing resilience as a counterbalance to innovation, he said the relationship between the two can be seen as driving faster, safer innovation through better resilience and security. source

Video marketing is challenging — there are numerous steps for a single piece of content, from ideation and writing the script to editing, visuals, and packaging. Working with other people adds even more complexity. Whether you’re working with a team or by yourself, the right video production template will help you stay organized and consistent. These are the best templates I’ve come across to help you do just that. monday.com: A video production template with built-in budget tracking monday.com is a flexible and powerful project management solution. It’s scalable, versatile, and useful across your entire business from HR and accounting to marketing, sales, and customer success. You can use its automations, customizable relational databases, and integrations to build full-fledged business systems that work how you do. You can try it free as long as you’d like with up to two users. The free plan comes with over 200+ templates, three project boards, eight column types, and access to the monday.com mobile app. More on monday.com: monday.com Review | monday.com vs Wrike | monday.com vs Airtable. Track your video production budget, tasks, projects, and more with monday.com. Image: monday.com monday.com offers their own templates and a huge library of options created by monday.com users. I tend to prefer those created by actual users because it’s more likely that the template was created out of necessity. You’re more likely to get something closer to an actual video production workflow, which is why this particular template is my favorite. It includes several pre configured views, including a task management board for assigning and tracking video work, customizable dashboards for visualizing analytics, and a video request form. You can easily add new views, build onto the existing system, or edit existing views to match your needs. As you create new tasks, there’s a field for estimated budget. When the task is complete, you can add your actual budget to compare. All of this is automatically updated on the main dashboard, showing your estimated spend, actual spend, remaining budget, and more. If you work with clients, you’ll be able to set a budget for each client and track that as well. ClickUp: A beginner-friendly video production template for teams ClickUp is a feature-rich and user-friendly project management software. This makes it perfect for teams (or individual users) who need an easy way to keep track of video production tasks, assets, SOPs, and more. It has one of the best free plans, allowing for unlimited users and unlimited tasks. The biggest limitations are storage space, integrations, guest permissions, and advanced project views. However, it’s a great option if you want to get started and onboard your team for free. More on ClickUp: ClickUp Review | ClickUp vs Asana | ClickUp vs Notion. ClickUp makes it easy to organize every aspect of video production, from SOPs and documentation to digital assets, tasks, timelines, and more. Image: Clickup.com This template is great for teams because it’s easily adaptable to different production workflows. It comes with nine custom statuses that reflect real-world video production stages, all the way from concept through final editing and publication. Because these statuses already map to typical production milestones, you won’t have to do a ton of tweaking before your team can start using it. It also includes three pre configured views centered around team collaboration. There’s a project list for high level planning, a production process view for day-to-day work, and a premiere view that’s useful for release planning. One of the best parts of this template is all the custom fields. Out of the gate, there are 14, covering everything from location details and staff requirements to equipment, collaborators, categories, and more. All of these fields make it easy for managers to slice and dice the data however they want. Need to see which locations are using a particular piece of equipment and when? No problem. Aside from what the template comes with, you can easily add a Gantt chart, dependency warnings, time-tracking, and other advanced capabilities if you need to. TeamGantt: A video production template to visualize your production schedule TeamGantt is a project management solution built around Gantt charts. It’s great for visualizing projects and tasks with dependencies, assignees, due dates, and anything else you need to see at a high level. It’s particularly useful if you’re managing a lot of video production work that overlaps or lasts longer than a few weeks. You can try it for free with one project and up to two collaborators. It’s not something you’ll be able to stay on forever, but you can try it and see if it’s right for your team before upgrading. More on TeamGantt: TeamGantt Review. Plan every step of long-term video production activities with TeamGantt. Image: Teamgantt.com By default, the template is segmented into three phases — pre-production, production, and post-production. Within each phase, you’ll be able to define objectives and break them down into actionable steps. Viewing all of this on a Gantt chart makes it easy to visualize the process and identify work that can happen at the same time vs those that are dependent on other tasks. Maybe you need to complete the script before you start casting actors. But on production day, it doesn’t matter whether audio or lighting equipment is set up first. A Gantt chart helps you lay all of this out and move things around in a few clicks. TeamGantt also lets you set milestones, which are great for managing longer production cycles. You can break months-long processes into shorter sprints to make planning more manageable. This template is great for one-off video projects, but TeamGantt also has a free video series planning template if you need help visualizing and planning multiple videos instead. Notion: A pre and post video production template for YouTube Notion is a productivity platform that combines collaborative documents with spreadsheets and relational databases. You can use it to manage projects, budgets, SOPs, expenses, marketing plans, and more. However, it’s not set up to do any

The U.K.’s competition regulator has raised concerns about Apple’s dominance in the mobile browser market. The Competition and Markets Authority said on Nov. 22 that Apple restricts competition by limiting the use of rival browsers on its iOS devices and effectively requiring developers to use its WebKit browser engine. This could stifle innovation among competitors, leading to reduced choice for consumers. Currently, any browser available for iOS must use WebKit. The CMA report says WebKit limits the ways browser providers can differentiate from one another. It also claims that third-party browsers built with WebKit do not have the same level of access and functionality as Safari. Browser competition ‘holding back innovation’ in the UK, according to CMA executive Third-party browser developers told the CMA that they have been unable to offer certain privacy and security features or faster webpage loading due to these restrictions. They have also been held back from creating so-called “progressive web apps,” low-cost apps that are built using web platform technologies and don’t have to be downloaded through an app store. Apple also limits the amount of traffic and customisation options available for in-app browsing in third-party apps. Margot Daly, chair of the CMA’s independent inquiry group, said in a press release: “Markets work best when rival businesses are able to develop and bring innovative options to consumers. Through our investigation, we have provisionally found that competition between different mobile browsers is not working well and this is holding back innovation in the UK.” Other issues the watchdog picked up include a dubious agreement between Google and Apple, meaning they both earn significant revenue when their rival’s browser, Chrome or Safari, is used on iOS. Such revenue sharing reduces their incentive to compete with each other. Apple and Google can also manipulate their respective browser choice screens, which allow users to choose their default internet browser for opening links, to make Safari and Chrome the clearest or easiest options. SEE: Apple’s Geo-Blocking Practices Could Violate EU Rules The investigation was opened in 2021 when the CMA ruled that Apple and Google have an “effective duopoly on mobile ecosystems, including operating systems, app stores and web browsers on mobile devices.” The watchdog is exploring potential mitigations, including forcing Apple to loosen its browser engine restrictions. The report provisionally recommends that the CMA prioritise its investigation into Apple and Google’s duopoly under the new Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act, which will come into force early next year. Relevant parties can now comment on the inquiry groups’ provisional findings, and the final decision will be published in February or March 2025. Must-read Apple coverage Google and Apple maintain they support competition in the mobile browser market but will comply with the probe A Google spokesperson told TechRepublic: “Android’s openness has helped to expand choice, reduce prices, and democratize access to smartphones and apps. We remain committed to open platforms that empower consumers and help developers build successful businesses and we will continue to engage constructively with the CMA on these matters in the months ahead.” Meanwhile, Apple “disagree[s] with the findings in the report regarding Safari, WebKit, and in-app browsing on iOS,” according to a spokesperson. They told TechRepublic that “Apple believes in thriving and dynamic markets where innovation can flourish. We face competition in every segment and jurisdiction where we operate, and our focus is always the trust of our users. “We are concerned that the interventions discussed in the report for future consideration under the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act would undermine user privacy and security and hinder our ability to make the kind of technology that sets Apple apart. We will continue to engage constructively with the CMA as their work on this matter progresses.” Apple also claims that allowing non-Safari browsers on iOS and enabling users to choose their default browser ensures ongoing competition. It has previously defended its policies regarding WebKit, arguing that “‘mandating use of third-party rendering engines on iOS would break the integrated privacy, security, and performance model of iOS devices” in response to a 2022 report from the CMA into its mobile ecosystem. The report’s authors also said that, by requiring apps to use WebKit, Apple “is able to address security and privacy issues across all browsers on the iPhone for all iPhone users, quickly and effectively.” In the E.U., browser engines other than WebKit can be used to build browsers for iOS and iPadOS due to the Digital Markets Act. The Cupertino giant made a policy change in January 2024 to comply with its requirements that it enables “browsers operating on iOS to use a browser engine other than WebKit” and provides “equivalent access to key features and functionalities that Safari has access to.” Apple also introduced a pop-up browser choice screen for E.U. consumers, appearing the first time Safari opens after updating the iPhone to iOS 17.4, when the DMA came into force in March. Initially, the alternatives to Safari were not made clear enough in the list of options, so Apple had to make some changes in August. Global regulators are holding Big Tech accountable for stifling competition The CMA’s move is a part of a broader investigation into mobile ecosystems as regulators worldwide increase scrutiny of tech giant’s market power. Apple has also been in the crosshairs of European regulators and the U.K. In June, the company was charged with violating the DMA for several reasons, including not making it easy enough for developers to steer their customers to purchase options outside the app which do not financially benefit Apple. The Commission also launched a non-compliance investigation into whether Apple discourages developers from hosting their iOS apps on third-party platforms. In August, Apple announced it would allow E.U. users to delete pre-installed apps on iOS 18 to comply with the DMA. It also made the browser choice screen clearer and expanded several default apps that third-party versions can replace. source

Disaster recovery as a service helps businesses restore their data and applications, providing business continuity after a natural or man-made disaster has interrupted or halted IT operations. When DR is offered as a service, organizations can use a cloud-based service provider to handle their disaster recovery planning. This article covers the best DRaaS providers to help you compare and choose the best solution for your business. 1 New Relic Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Any Company Size Any Company Size Features Analytics / Reports, API, Compliance Management, and more 2 Zoho Assist Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Any Company Size Any Company Size Features Analytics / Reports, API, Document Management / Sharing, and more 3 NinjaOne Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Small (50-249 Employees), Medium (250-999 Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees) Small, Medium, Large, Enterprise Features Monitoring, Patch Management Top disaster recovery as a service providers compared The following table highlights and compares a few key features of the best DRaaS solutions, including availability of a free trial. I also compare the products’ overall ratings in the table. If you want to read more about how I compared them, skip down to read my evaluation. Overall rating DR testing Dashboards & reports Protection for virtual environments Free trial Unitrends 4.3 out of 5 stars ✓ ✓ ✓ 30 days Acronis 4.2 out of 5 stars ✓ ✓ ✓ 30 days Druva 3.7 out of 5 stars ✓ ✓ ✕ 30 days Arcserve 3.5 out of 5 stars ✓ Unclear Unclear 30 days Zerto 3.5 out of 5 stars ✓ ✓ ✓ 14 days Microsoft Azure 3.1 out of 5 stars ✓ ✓ ✓ 30 days Kamatera 2.9 out of 5 stars ✕ ✓ ✕ 30 days Unitrends Backup and Recovery: Best overall for backups and disaster prevention Image: Unitrends Unitrends offers all-in-one backup appliances to help businesses or organizations simplify data and server backup with a smarter approach that keeps threats away. These solutions include AI-backed analytics to detect, predict, and prevent outages before a disaster strikes. Unitrends can alert users about potential ransomware infection and hardware failure. It can back up multiple environments, including storage solutions, hypervisors, and databases. SEE: How to Create an Effective Cybersecurity Awareness Program (TechRepublic Premium) Why I chose Unitrends Unitrends scored best overall in my comparison of DR providers, with multiple features and backup environments available. It also offers administrative capabilities like reports, and it supports a range of operating systems and environments. Image: Unitrends. Unitrends user interface. Pricing Contact Unitrends: Sales team will provide specific pricing information. Free trial: 30 days. Features Multi-device management: From a central console, admins can manage backups for their devices of different operating systems. Global deduplication: Unitrends reduces duplicate data in backups for improved performance and efficiency. AES-256-bit encryption: Unitrends admins can enable encryption per client and set end-to-end encryption for local or offsite backup copies. Pure Storage protection: Unitrends supports backup for Pure Storage flash environments. Pros Cons Attractive user interface with dashboards Troubleshooting problems when backups fail can be challenging Supports over 200 operating systems, applications and hypervisors Some users find Unitrends expensive Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud: Best for managed service providers Image: Acronis Acronis offers a different type of DRaaS solution than most on this list: Cyber Protect Cloud is a backup and recovery solution for MSPs, designed to help them support their own customers. Acronis is one of the best backup providers in the industry, and it offers multiple enterprise-grade features, including restoration, DR planning, and DR testing. The Advanced Disaster Recovery add-on will give you the most DR functionality. Why I chose Acronis I found that Acronis performed well in my DRaaS analysis, and it fits a slightly different audience, namely managed service providers who want to support their own clients’ data. It offers advanced protective features and is one of the most respected backup providers in the industry. Image: Acronis. Cyber Protect Cloud interface. Pricing Cyber Protect Cloud: Per-workload and per-gigabyte pricing options. Pricing calculator: Used to decide which pricing method is better for your organization and your customers. Contact Acronis: Contact the sales team for specific pricing information. Free trial: 30 days. Features Automated test failover: Service providers can automate failover testing scenarios and schedule them once a month for servers. Anti-ransomware: Acronis builds automated ransomware recovery into its solution and focuses on zero days. #CyberFit scores: Acronis rates your customers’ IT security posture with a metric-based score and offers recommendations for improvement. Device and port controls: The MSP product allows you to encrypt removable media and manage user access to locally connected devices and ports. Pros Cons Tailored specifically to MSP needs Network and data center coverage appears limited Integrations with multiple storage products Unclear whether Cyber Protect Cloud is itself available as a service to the MSPs Druva Data Resiliency Cloud: Best for SaaS and database backup Image: Druva Druva Data Resiliency Cloud is a DRaaS solution developed to offer comprehensive and effective data protection. It reduces the risks that companies and users face when storing data within cloud applications. It provides a centralized system for user data management, governance, and recovery regardless of the storage resources used. Druva backs up multiple SaaS solutions, including Salesforce, and databases like SAP HANA and Oracle. Why I chose Druva I picked Druva as it is a good choice for teams with a lot of SaaS applications or databases. Druva offers backup for solutions like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Salesforce. You can also back up your Nutanix infrastructure or Microsoft Hyper-V clusters and machines. Image: Druva. Druva dashboards. Pricing Public cloud and hybrid workload pricing: Credit-based, per back-end terabyte. SaaS applications and end-user pricing: Per user per month. Pay per use option: Available for backup storage. Free trial: 30 days. Features Air-gapped backups: Druva stores immutable backups separated from the customer’s

TL;DR: Get Microsoft Project 2024 for Windows on sale for $79.97 while codes last. Drowning in to-do lists, endless request emails, and a constant feeling of “where did the day go?” You’re not alone. Most of us—business leaders and professionals alike—struggle to stay organized and productive as a result. It might be time to ditch your sticky notes for a reliable project management software like Microsoft Project. The 2024 version was just released, and we have an extreme discount on the Windows app while codes last: $79.97 (reg. $1,129.99). Get organized and never miss a deadline It doesn’t matter if you’re leading a team or the one following assignments—Project will help you see the whole project at a glance and the smaller tasks that make up the greater whole. As you can imagine, linking everything in one place is much easier than spreading it across your desk and email inbox. A day in the life with Microsoft Project Here’s what your workdays could look like with this new tool: 8:00 AM: Open Microsoft Project and review the Gantt chart for the “Website Redesign” project. Quickly assess progress—maybe you spot a task that was missed yesterday. 8:30 AM: Assign yesterday’s missing task to a team member, considering their availability. Auto-populate the task end date. 9:00 AM: Connect to Project Online to share the updated project plan with the team and stakeholders. 11:00 AM: Update task progress and track actuals against the planned schedule. You might discover that some team members are falling behind due to limited resources, so use resource management tools to adjust their due dates more realistically. 12:00 PM: Meet with those team members through Microsoft Teams for Business (licensed separately) by seeing their availability directly through Project. 1:30 PM: Throughout the day, receive notifications about task updates, deadlines, and potential issues. 3:00 PM: Submit timesheets to capture time spent on project and non-project work. 4:00 PM: Wrap up the day by reviewing accomplishments and updating the project plan. Download now: Limited codes available Streamline your workdays with Microsoft Project 2024, now $79.97 (reg $1,129.99), while codes last. Prices and availability are subject to change. source

Two years ago, on Nov. 30, ChatGPT burst onto the scene, igniting a global fascination with generative AI and transforming it into a must-watch innovation for both consumers and technology professionals. Since then, ChatGPT has expanded, and the wheels of AI regulation have started to turn. TechRepublic asked tech professionals how their work with ChatGPT has evolved, both personally and within the broader tech industry. New features introduced in 2024 Over the last year, OpenAI has: Expanded ChatGPT into new formats like ChatGPT search and Canvas, the latter of which is built, in part, to sit beside a coding application. Unveiled GPT-4o and OpenAI o1, new flagship models. Partnered with Apple to support some features of Apple’s onboard AI. Announced ChatGPT will remember previous conversations. Released ChatGPT search, marking OpenAI’s bid to replace Google Search as the de facto portal to the rest of the internet. Rolled out Advanced Voice Mode to select users in October, enabling users to talk to the AI aloud. On Oct. 3, OpenAI rolled out Canvas, marking a major experiment in using ChatGPT. “Making AI more useful and accessible requires rethinking how we interact with it,” the OpenAI team wrote in October on the occasion of Canvas’s announcement. “Canvas is a new approach and the first major update to ChatGPT’s visual interface since we launched two years ago.” How ChatGPT has improved in 2024 Graham Glass, CEO of AI course-building platform Cypher Learning, noted how ChatGPT offers access to more sophisticated models now than it did in 2023. “First of all, ChatGPT keeps on getting better,” he said in an interview with TechRepublic. “And it’s become more sophisticated, which opens additional opportunities for leveraging that technology.” In the last year, Glass has leveraged ChatGPT to brainstorm software designs and software architectures. Asking the technology about best practices or design tradeoffs brings him “the corpus of all the designs that everyone’s ever done on that particular topic,” he said. “It’s gotten smarter,” added Curt Raffi, chief product officer at Acrolinx, a company using AI to proof content for technical documents and other writing-heavy jobs. He pointed out the improved performance of GPT-4o, as well as OpenAI o1. Raffi also explained that people have grown more comfortable with using ChatGPT. He works with engineers who have improved at prompting ChatGPT in ways that express specific business logic. SEE: The first meeting of the International Network of AI Safety Institutes, held this week, aims to manage the risks of advanced AI. Glass likes that ChatGPT search provides present-day information, calling it a time-saver for tasks like product comparisons. He also uses Advanced Voice Mode to chat with the AI out loud. Overall, ChatGPT’s additions over the last year have provided more options for people who want to use generative AI for technical work. “The most significant way generative AI assistants have changed programming and development over the last year lies in enabling people at different levels of programming to engage in software development to deliver solutions to real-world problems,” Houbing Herbert Song, a fellow with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, said in an email to TechRepublic. More must-read AI coverage What can’t ChatGPT do in 2024? AI is not immune to mistakes. For Glass, coding with ChatGPT often involves back-and-forth dialogue, including “reminding” the AI about details it may have overlooked. “While I think it’s a lot more reliable when it comes to design [in 2024], it still makes loads of coding errors,” said Glass. For example, Glass said about a recent task that it took 10 prompts for ChatGPT to build one function in JavaScript correctly. This still saved him time, but it shows that ChatGPT is still limited. He ascribed this partly to ChatGPT being trained on a finite, though enormous, corpus of code. Filev pointed out ChatGPT has become so reliable people may not easily notice when it makes mistakes. “It’s becoming so good that I started to let the guard down, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Filev said. For many tasks, he started looking for hard sources from Google Search or Perplexity AI before using ChatGPT. These might be better places to find reliable sources, he said, while ChatGPT is better for brainstorming. Regulations could affect ChatGPT The last year also revealed ChatGPT’s limitations and potential regulation. Raffi said his team is approaching AI-generated code carefully after a court case between developers and GitHub Copilot. The developers alleged GitHub Copilot violated intellectual property rights by using open-source code. Raffi noted that the commercial use of such code in marketplaces remains somewhat uncertain, making AI applications in coding a cautious and exploratory process. “Our IP is in our code, and if we suddenly were open or exposed to lawsuits, we could erode the value of our company,” Raffi said. How ChatGPT has affected early-career developers Over the past year, another key development has been the impact of ChatGPT on early-career developers. “Because this greatly improves efficiencies for developers to focus on higher-order design and innovation, perhaps more importantly, the role of a developer drastically shifts from creators to supervisors of AI-generated code,” said Dheerendra Panwar, IEEE senior member, in an email to TechRepublic. “Which brings us to a very important question: are we dumbing down the art of coding?” In some cases, junior developers may not be hired at all, as some tasks typically assigned to them are now being handled by AI. “These changes appear to be beneficial for senior programmers as it expands their role and importance,” Jen Stave, executive director of the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard, wrote in an email. “Because junior developers often lack the expertise to detect issues such as AI hallucinations or inaccurate outputs, this incredibly important role falls to senior programmers who need to now broaden their responsibility toward mitigating risks such as AI-induced code errors.” In other cases, junior developers might be more proficient at prompt engineering than seniors. “For junior programmers, the story

ClickUp fast facts Overall score: 5/5 Starting price: $7 per user per month Key features: Agile project management Variety of project views No-code customization Generative AI with ClickUp Brain Real-time reporting ClickUp is packed with features like customized views, advanced reporting and is well-suited for agile project management, which makes it a popular option among the top project management software. In this ClickUp review, I’ll explore its core capabilities and overall ease of use to help you make the best decision for your team. 1 Quickbase Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Small (50-249 Employees), Medium (250-999 Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees) Small, Medium, Large, Enterprise Features Agile Development, Analytics / Reports, API, and more 2 monday.com Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Any Company Size Any Company Size Features Agile Development, Analytics / Reports, API, and more 3 Wrike Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Medium (250-999 Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees) Medium, Large, Enterprise Features Agile Development, Analytics / Reports, API, and more What is ClickUp? Image: ClickUp ClickUp is project management software with advanced features that make it unique among its competitors. Its cost-effectiveness, impressive free plan, flexibility of its premium plans and high customizability make it a popular business solution. SEE: Learn how ClickUp compares to our list of the best developer project management tools. ClickUp review summary My first impressions from exploring the software prove that while it is modern, fast, and intuitive, it will take time to navigate the user interface (UI) and learn each function. The UI is customizable with options to change your theme in settings, use dark mode, and access multiple work visualizations. Criteria Score Features 5/5 Pricing 5/5 Ease of use 5/5 Service and support 5/5 ClickUp pricing Score: 5/5 Pricing plan Cost per user, per month(billed annually) Cost per user, per month(billed monthly) Free Forever – – Unlimited $7 $10 Business $12 $19 Enterprise Pricing is available upon request Pricing is available upon request ClickUp AI Add to any paid plan for $7 per user per month Add to any paid plan for $7 per user per month ClickUp delivers one of the most impressive free plans for project management software, as well as three premium plans: Unlimited, Business, and Enterprise. Free Forever The Free Forever plan has a variety of features that may satisfy the project management needs of individual users or small teams. Unlike many of its alternatives, ClickUp does not provide a user limit. However, the Free Forever plan is limited in terms of storage, workflows, organization, and integrations. Unlimited The Unlimited plan costs $7 per user per month when billed annually or $10 per user when billed monthly. It features guest permissions, unlimited storage, more integrations, and access to all work views like Gantt, teams, and map (with some limits on the number of unique views you can create). Interestingly, ClickUp offers a unique opportunity for prospective users to “make a deal,” inviting them to suggest how much they are willing to pay per user per month. This opportunity is available only on the Unlimited plan. Business The Business plan costs $12 per user per month when billed annually or $19 per user when billed monthly. In this tier, teams can use the majority of capabilities ClickUp offers from reporting to integrations, with some exceptions. It does not have much for security or support outside of SSO and live chat. Enterprise ClickUp’s Enterprise plan targets large teams, departments, and companies. To obtain pricing information, you have to reach out to the sales team. The Enterprise plan gives users access to advanced security and support offerings like HIPAA compliance and custom role permissions. ClickUp feature highlight Score: 5/5 When it comes to feature-packed software like ClickUp there is a lot to explore for new users—and that creates a learning curve. The bright side is the main features are intuitive and designed with productivity in mind so you can get started quickly and work your way up to more advanced functions. Agile project management ClickUp’s agile project and product management features set it apart from competitors as these features enable teams to collaborate on sprints, roadmaps, backlogs, and more. Users can automate their sprint workflows and streamline bug and issue tracking. ClickUp delivers customizable dashboards and sprint widgets to track progress. Views, including Board (kanban), Gantt, and Box, are easily adaptable to agile use cases. ClickUp also offers an agile project management template to sidestep the learning curve that beginners to this method often encounter. ClickUp agile project management template. Image: ClickUp Multiple views ClickUp delivers more than 15 views for users to organize work from different perspectives. These views include the List, Board, Box, Calendar, Gantt, Embed, Chat, Activity, Mind Maps, Timeline, Workload, Table, Map, and Whiteboard views. Board view. Image: ClickUp No-code customization The customization features of ClickUp require no coding knowledge or costly add-ons, making their implementation intuitive for a variety of users. The tool offers pre-built automation templates that users can either use directly or customize for specific use cases. ClickUp also offers hundreds of additional templates for users to customize and integrate with over 1,000 other tools. ClickUp automation personalization page. Image: ClickUp Collaboration Through a variety of collaboration features, such as chat, ClickUp makes it simple for teams to communicate on any kind of project. Its whiteboards provide a real-time visual canvas for collaboration on workflows and ideas and convert them into trackable tasks. Additionally, teams can send and respond to comments on any task within ClickUp, as well as proof and annotate all of their designs. Users can also communicate in real time using chat or send and receive emails directly within ClickUp. Sample chat in ClickUp. Image: ClickUp Real-time reporting With ClickUp’s real-time reporting features, you can set goals, keep track of progress, and increase the effectiveness of your resource