Is your Gmail inbox filled to overflowing with emails you've already read? Want to mass delete them?

The problem with the Gmail app is there's no easy way to do a mass delete. Even when you try with the web-based version, you'll find you can only select 100 emails at a time. When your inbox is overflowing, that's not a good enough option. There is one thing you can do.

In this free PDF download Jack Wallen shows you how to clean up an overflowing Gmail inbox.

In addition to the COVID pandemic, analytics, automation, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and other tech trends are changing business needs more rapidly than in recent years. It’s also causing companies and workers alike to grapple with a growing skills gap that must be closed. Should companies offer employees retraining, upskilling or other educational and development opportunities to help close the skills gap?

TechRepublic Premium conducted an online survey to find out. The survey explored the different ways technology helps business leaders build their future workforce and how to keep employees’ skills up to date.

The survey asked the following questions:

• ow important is it for employees to be given an opportunity for retraining, upskilling or additional educational opportunities?
• Why do you believe this is important?
• Why don't you believe this is important?
• Has the coronavirus pandemic made the need for retraining and upskilling more important at your company?
• What types of training or skills focus has your company offered?
• What types of opportunities has your organization provided?
• How many employees have participated in the upskilling/retraining/additional educational opportunities at your company?
• Have you implemented any type of feedback/analysis process to determine how employees benefited from these endeavors?
• How did employees describe their experience?
• Do you have any plans to improve the process where needed?
• How much has your organization invested in these programs?
• How much do you plan to budget for these programs when they begin?

Survey respondents shared retraining and upskilling options offered by their organizations as well as rationale both for and against such programs. The majority of respondents (87%) reported that their companies consider any learning opportunity as either very important or important.

Businesses supported employee development and continuing education for varied reasons ranging from improving expertise and making employees feel valued to increasing employee retention and boosting productivity.

However, one-tenth of respondents don’t consider such initiatives essential for business operations due to it being budget prohibitive, not utilized when offered previously, deferred to employees to manage, or a staff flight risk, thereby wasting time and money invested by the company.

Slightly more than two-thirds of respondents recognized the need for retraining and upskilling following the pandemic. A much smaller number (14%) of respondents said that the pandemic did not enhance a need for retraining or upskilling employees, and 20% were unsure.

According to respondents, the most popular training or skills initiatives focused on leadership (47%), cloud services (32%), automation (32%), cybersecurity (29%), networking/VPN technologies (29%), and SaaS (25%).

Despite the fact that 100% of respondents described the training as “somewhat successful” or “very successful,” only 37% implemented an official feedback/analysis process to determine how employees benefited from such experiences. Further, 63% of respondents either did not contribute or realize the option existed.

Companies recognized the need to better promote and clarify feedback options. Across the board, 100% of respondents plan to improve their training, overall, reiterating the importance of such initiatives.

To read all of the results from the survey, plus analysis, download: Research: Workforce training is worth the investment, increasing employee productivity and job satisfaction.

With your free IBM Cloud account, you can try 40+ always-free products, receive a $200 account credit, and extend experimentation with trials and discounts. Explore our free tier and create your account today.

Source of article

Create a free account and access 40+ always-free products with no time limit. Plus, get a $200 account credit to use on any product in the IBM Cloud catalog.

Source of article

With your free IBM Cloud account, you can try 40+ always-free products, receive a $200 account credit, and extend experimentation with trials and discounts. Explore our free tier and create your account today.

Source of article

Create a free account and access 40+ always-free products with no time limit. Plus, get a $200 account credit to use on any product in the IBM Cloud catalog.

Source of article

Microsoft unveiled on June 24, 2021 its newest operating system, Windows 11—almost six years after Windows 10 debuted. Windows 11 will offer several updates and new features, including a simpler design intended to increase productivity, ease of use and creativity, ways to connect to people faster, better PC gaming experiences, faster ways to get information you need, an all-new Microsoft Store, and a more open ecosystem that unlocks new opportunities for developers and other creators.

This Microsoft Windows 11 cheat sheet details the operating system’s main features, lists system requirements for the OS, explains how and when to get it and more. Find out more in this free PDF download from TechRepublic.

In the download:

• What is Windows 11?
• What new features come with Windows 11?
• What do developers need to know about Windows 11?
• What are the system requirements for Windows 11?
• What are feature-specific requirements for Windows 11?
• When will Windows 11 be released, and how can I get it?
• And more!

Raspberry Pi released everything from cameras to computers in 2020, even as COVID squeezed supply chains and demand for its hardware skyrocketed. Time for a break? Not quite.

This download provides the magazine version of the article as a free PDF for registered TechRepublic and ZDNet members. You can also read the online version of this Raspberry Pi cover story.

From the story:

For Raspberry Pi, the passage of time over the past year has been marked by the launches of a series of new products (four devices in 2020, to be precise, plus another device in January this year), a feat the British computer maker managed to pull off despite the country being plunged into a series of COVID lockdowns.

Demand for its tiny computers soared due to the overnight switch to home working. On top of that, after the launch of Raspberry Pi's High Quality Camera in April 2020, the company went on to launch the 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 one month later. This would be followed by the Compute Module 4, the Raspberry Pi 400, and most recently, the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico in January this year.

"We went into the pandemic with this enormous pipeline of stuff to do," Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi creator and co-founder, tells TechRepublic. "Every single one of those [launches] moves us forward quite a long way."

When you consider the impact COVID-19 has had on supply chains and production lines throughout the world, that the Raspberry Pi team found the energy and resources to deliver five new devices seems like a pretty remarkable accomplishment. And while 2021 will see a change in emphasis, Raspberry Pi has big plans for this year, too.

With your free IBM Cloud account, you can try 40+ always-free products, receive a $200 account credit, and extend experimentation with trials and discounts. Explore our free tier and create your account today.

Source of article

COVID-19 has caused an increase in digital transformation initiatives, software deployments and tech spends, thus changing how enterprises build the perfect tech stack.

TechRepublic Premium conducted a survey to find out how companies are purchasing and deploying technology as well as selecting their vendors. The survey compared results to a similar survey conducted last year.

The survey asked the following questions:

• How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your technology spend in the past 12 months?
• Which of the following hardware software or cloud services is your company currently using?
• Which of the following hardware software or cloud services is your company planning to deploy in the next 12 months?
• What SaaS features and applications are deployed or will be deployed in your business during the next 12 months?
• What services and vendors has your company tried, tested or experimented with in the past 12 months?
• What is the most important factor for your business when selecting and deploying technology?
• What is the most important factor for your business when it comes to selecting a specific technology vendor?
• Which of the following people in your business are involved in technology purchasing decisions?
• Who in your business has the final say in purchasing decisions for major technology deployments?

COVID-19 impacted small business IT deployment and spending over the past year for 46% of respondents. Another impact of COVID-19 and the remote work mandate: when asked what services and vendors their respective SMBs tried, tested or experimented with in the past 12 months, respondents overwhelmingly answered Zoom (60%). In the previous year, only 27% experimented with Zoom. Most SMBs are also testing and experimenting with features, tools and apps accessed through common services like Microsoft Office 365 (56%), Microsoft Azure (43%), Amazon AWS (43%) and Adobe software (37%).

Consistent with last year’s survey results, SMBs are using an array of internal servers, cloud servers, hybrid cloud servers and SaaS to satisfy their IT and business needs. Yet in 2021, 46% of respondents rely on internal on-premises systems, which is a decrease from the previous year’s response of 63%.

It’s no surprise that SMBs are turning to cloud services for solutions. However, in 2021, some 44% of respondents are using a hybrid combination of internal and cloud servers, which is notably higher than the 2020 survey result of 39%. Furthermore, survey results show that 26% of respondents use more than one cloud service, which is up significantly from the 17% reported in 2020.

The 2021 survey also reports that 45% of respondents believe fulfilling business needs is the most important factor when making decisions on IT deployment. This reinforces the sentiment from the previous survey where 31% of respondents cited fulfilling business needs as the most important factor. In both surveys, fulfilling business needs was by far the highest percentage factor.

To read all of the results from the survey, plus analysis, download the full report.