This year will see IT spending rise for the first time since the global recession took hold, although a full-scale recovery is unlikely in the short term, analysts have predicted.

Around a third of businesses expect their IT budgets to increase in 2010, according to a worldwide survey carried out by analyst house Ovum.

Ovum is attributing this positive prediction to a general sentiment that the global economy is showing signs of recovery.

Source: ZDNet

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Microsoft said on Friday that it plans to finalise the code for Office 2010 next month and, as expected, it kicked off a programme enabling those who buy Office 2007 in the coming months to get a free upgrade to the new version.

In a blog posting, Microsoft said that it will have a business launch for the Office 2010 products on 12 May. The company has said it expects the software to be broadly available in June.

As for the technology guarantee programme, Microsoft says it will apply to those who buy Office 2007 between now and 30 September and will allow an upgrade to the comparable Office 2010 product.

Source: ZDNet

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Juniper Research has predicted a bright future for mobile cloud computing, finding in a new report that the number of enterprise customers using cloud-based mobile applications will grow to 130 million by 2014.

The mobile cloud relies on platform-as-a-service (PaaS) products, such as Salesforce.com's Force.com, Amazon Web Services or Google's App Engine. Juniper said on Tuesday that the success of the mobile cloud will be helped by broader use of PaaS.

Mobile cloud computing refers to a mobile application infrastructure where the storage and processing are both hosted on remote infrastructure. It opens smartphone-like app access to 'feature phones', which offer less processing power than smartphones but are far more widely used.

In a report published in August, ABI Research predicted that the majority of mobile applications will eventually be hosted on the cloud. Mobile cloud applications available today include Gmail, Google Maps and some navigation tools.

While the mobile cloud reaches beyond the world of high-end smartphones, Juniper said the success of the iPhone and its App Store has had a key effect in making mobile applications more attractive and in increasing the number of mobile enterprise applications.

In addition, cloud providers are increasingly opening up their application programming interfaces (APIs), making it easier for developers to create applications that work across multiple thin-client and browser platforms, according to Juniper.

The cloud-based ecosystem growing up around mobile enterprise apps offers benefits for developers and enterprise customers, the research firm added.

"For developers, the cloud opens up a far wider potential audience for their products; for enterprise customers, outsourcing application management to a remote third-party, costed on a scalable, pay-per-use basis, offers far more flexibility combined with a significant reduction in capital expenditure," said Windsor Holden, author of the the Mobile Cloud Applications report, in a statement.

In addition, the growth in mobile cloud applications will provide an opportunity for storage and infrastructure providers to introduce mobile-specific cloud services, according to Juniper.

Juniper said it believes enterprise applications will provide the majority of cloud-based mobile application revenues by 2014, with consumer applications such as games, social networking and music services generating more than one-quarter of revenues by then.

Source: ZDNet

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Excel headers and footers are a great place to display page numbers, titles, an author’s name, and so on. However, there is a limit to the number of characters the header or footer will accommodate. Excel will reject an entry of more than 255 characters. Most of the time, the limit isn’t a problem. But when you run into a situation that requires more text, you can insert it as a graphic in 10 easy steps. We’ll demonstrate the process by inserting a lengthy disclaimer in a worksheet footer.

1: Acquire the limit-busting text

It’s hard to imagine a header of footer with more than 255 characters, but they’re more common than you might think. For instance, the following text is a standard warning that many companies tack on to all their business documents:

The information contained in this document is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain proprietary and/or sensitive material. If you are not the intended recipient, please destroy the material in its entirety, whether electronic or hard copy. You are notified that any review, retransmission, copying, disclosure, dissemination, or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.

At 435 characters, without spaces, this disclaimer won’t fit.

2: Open an existing sheet as your guide

It’s best to open the sheet in which you’ll actually use the footer so you can use the existing margins and formats as a guide. If the workbook doesn’t exist yet, use one that closely represents your goal, even if that means creating a quick mockup. This technique isn’t an exact science.

3: Change the view

It’s easiest to work with the sheet in Page Break View so you can fit the text between the left and right margins. To switch to this view, choose Page Break View from the View menu. Figure A shows the sheet’s appropriate page and margin breaks.

Figure A

Switch to Page Break View so you can position the text between the margins.

4: Add a text box to the sheet

The next step is to add a text box, in which you’ll enter the footer text. Insert the text box as follows:

1. Display the Drawing toolbar by choosing Toolbars from the View menu and then checking Drawing.
2. Click the Text Box tool.
3. Insert the box as shown in Figure B. At this point, you’re just guessing so don’t stress over its exact size.

Figure B

Insert the text box using the Text Box tool.

It doesn’t matter where you position the text box, but inserting it just above the page break lets you see how much room the text consumes. You might want to adjust the width of the box to fit within the sheet’s right and left margins. Don’t worry about the text underneath. You’ll delete the text box later.

5: Enter the footer text and adjust for size

Once the text box is positioned, enter the footer text. Type it or paste it from another document. Increase or decrease the size of the text box as necessary. Figure C shows a text box that includes a few blank lines at the top to provide white space between the data and the footer.

Figure C

Resize the text box so you can see all the text.

6: Format the text and text box

At this point, you’re ready to format the text box and its text. Figure D shows the footer text in bold italics and aligned to the left margin. The font is Abadi MT Condensed, size 8. Experimenting will render the best results unless you have specific constraints. Toggling between Page Break View and Print Preview is helpful to get the right placement and size.

Figure D

Apply the necessary formats to the text.

You might want to inhibit the text box’s border and fill color as well:

1. Right-click the text box and choose Format Text Box.
2. Click the Colors And Lines tab.
3. In the Fill section, choose No Fill from the Color drop-down list.
4. In the Line section, choose No Color from the Color drop-down list.
5. Click OK.

7: Paste the text box into Paint

Now you can turn the text into a graphic using Windows Paint (but you can use any graphics program). First, copy the text box by selecting it and pressing [Ctrl] + C. Then, launch Paint (it’s in Windows Accessories).

In Paint, resize the background field to the approximate size of the text box. (This step may not be necessary in another program.) Simply grab any of the small circles along the field’s border and drag to resize it.

When Paint’s background field is the right size, paste the text box control into Paint by pressing [Ctrl] + V or choosing Paste from the Edit menu. Figure E shows the text in Paint with a similarly sized background field. If Paint’s field isn’t the right size, press [Ctrl] + Z to undo the paste. Then, resize the field and try again.

Figure E

Paste the text box into Paint so you can save the text as a graphic file.

8: Save the text box as a graphic file

In Paint, you can continue to alter the text box, but for now, just save it as a graphic file as follows:

1. From the File menu, choose Save As.
2. Navigate to the folder where you want to save the graphic file.
3. Name the file.
4. Choose a graphic format from the Save As Type list.
5. Click Save.

9: Create the footer in Excel

Now, return to Excel and insert the graphic:

1. Choose Header And Footer from the View menu.
2. Click Custom Footer.
3. Click a section.
4. Click the Insert Picture button (the second from the right).
5. Locate the graphic file you saved in step 8.
6. Select the file and click Save. Excel will display a code for the picture, as shown in Figure F.
7. Click OK twice.

Figure F

Insert the graphic file as a picture into the footer.

10: View the footer

Move the text box to an unused sheet; you might want to reuse it. Click Print Preview to view the footer, shown in Figure G. The graphic file you created in Paint appears as text. Excel interprets the file as a single picture — so there’s nothing to count! If the footer covers data at the bottom of the page, just adjust the sheet’s bottom margin.

Figure G

By inserting a picture of the footer text, you can overcome the footer’s 255-character limit.

Source: TechRepublic

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Microsoft's chief financial officer said on Tuesday that the company sees business spending picking up over the next 18 to 24 months, and expects to benefit as companies buy more PCs and servers.

"We feel very well-positioned for growth as the economy recovers," said Peter Klein, speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference in San Francisco. Klein said the majority of large businesses are making plans to deploy Windows 7.

"There will be an enterprise refresh cycle," Klein said. "It's not precisely certain when that will happen or how fast that will happen."

Source: ZDNet

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Telecommunications firm Aql has completed the first phase of its rollout of a fibre optic-based internet access service in Leeds, promising businesses in the city's centre download speeds of up to 100Mbps.

The service provides customers in The Calls area of Leeds with upload speeds of up to 20Mbps, Aql said in its announcement on Monday. It does this via a local fibre network in the city, which runs from the company's sites into suitable locations such as multi-tenanted offices.

In addition, the company maintains a fibre-optic link between Leeds and London that allows for faster data transfers between the two cities. The London and Leeds sites are among several Aql exchange sites around the UK.

The Leeds rollout arrives in the same week as fibre wholesaler Fibrecity announced the launch of fibre-based 100Mbps services in Bournemouth. Also this week, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) announced it has put up £1m to support a 100Mbps link in the Oxford Road area of Manchester, with work on the infrastructure to begin this spring.

Aql said it is planning to extend the service across Leeds city centre throughout 2010. The company has about 20,000 clients, including Ucas, Samsung and Deutsche Bank.

The Calls area of Leeds was the home of internet provider Freeserve, now part of Orange, and the city's marketing and media companies are concentrated there, according to Aql. VTR North, a television post-production specialist, said it is using the service to transfer large video files to partners in London.

"This model allows many businesses to get a head start on their competitors, reaping the advantages of high-speed-working long before the delivery of the Digital Britain promise," Adam Beaumont, managing director of Aql, said in a statement.

In its Digital Britain report last year, the Labour government laid out plans to give users minimum speeds of up to 2Mbps across the country, including Northern Ireland.

The Conservative Party earlier this month announced plans to roll out fibre broadband access to the majority of UK homes within seven years, if it wins the general election. The party said that by 2017, almost all homes will be offered broadband access speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Source: ZDnet

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The government's proposed 50p monthly levy on fixed-line connections, intended to fund speedy fibre access across the UK, would be regressive and poorly targeted, a parliamentary select committee has said.

The levy "would have a much greater impact on the less well-off who will pay for an enhanced service which only a minority will enjoy," the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Committee said in its Broadband report, published on Tuesday.

"The government's proposals to intervene more widely in the next-generation access markets are unwise at this stage," the cross-party committee wrote. "Early government intervention runs a significant risk of distorting the market and will not allow time for technological solutions to extend the market's reach across the country.

"Furthermore, there is little evidence to suggest a pent-up demand for this enhanced service with consumers currently unwilling to pay the premium for such services."

The charge, known as the Next Generation Levy, was proposed in the Lord Carter's Digital Britain report in June 2009 as a way of funding the rollout of fibre-based, next-generation broadband to parts of the UK — such as rural areas — where ISPs are loath to invest due to perceived poor returns. The levy is not included in the Digital Economy Bill, which takes in many of the Digital Britain recommendations, but will instead be included in the upcoming Finance Bill.

A spokesperson for BIS, the department in charge of the Digital Britain project, said on Tuesday that its analysis shows that "without intervention, the market will only reach up to 70 percent of the country, so it's vital [that BIS acts] now to ensure no area is left behind".

"The 50p duty we have proposed is modest, fair and affordable and is the best way to drive further investment in our networks," the spokesperson said. "The duty will generate some £1bn investment in upgrading our digital infrastructure, which will particularly benefit rural areas.

"We're currently consulting on the most effective way to deploy this investment with public and commercial benefits in mind, and will consider the committee's report in our final response."

The fund for extending next-generation access (NGA) across the whole UK is separate to that for providing universal 2Mbps coverage across the country. The latter fund, also proposed in Digital Britain, would use whatever BBC licence fee money is left over from the national digital switchover.

The Conservative Party has opposed the 50p scheme, proposing instead that the digital-switchover leftover pot should be used to fund NGA in areas ignored by the market when universal 2Mbps access has been achieved.

In its report, the BIS committee also weighed into Digital Britain's 2Mbps universal service commitment, agreeing with the government's proposals but suggesting that the government has not defined what 2Mbps will mean in practice.

"A clear definition is vital for early delivery of the Universal Service Commitment," the committee said. "We believe that definition should be the delivery of a minimum 2Mbps, under normal circumstances, to all users at all times."

The proposed 50p levy has also been criticised by some ISPs, who have argued that it would simply go into the coffers of large ISPs such as BT and Virgin Media. Upon the release of Digital Britain, Chris Smedley, chief executive of the fibre network provider Geo, said the government should rather look at lifting business rates on fibre deployments, to encourage investment by smaller players.

The BIS committee echoed Smedley's sentiment on Tuesday, arguing in its report that "government intervention at this stage should concentrate on changing policies to encourage investment in the NGA market".

"This could best be done through the tax and regulatory systems," the committee said. "The business rating system currently discriminates in favour of BT and against its competitors. We believe that the government should consider a reduction, or even a temporary removal, of business rates on fibre-optic cable. This would be a more effective use of limited public-sector funds than direct financial intervention."

The committee also recommended removing barriers that prevent access by ISPs to the BT duct network, municipal ducting, and canal and railway networks. BT itself said earlier in February that it was discussing the opening of its ducts with Ofcom.

There should also be a dedicated full-time minister to deal with the implementation of Digital Britain, the committee argued. The current minister in charge is Stephen Timms, who also works for the Treasury. According to the committee, these arrangements "create conflicts within the policy-making process and do not provide the appropriate level of ministerial oversight".

Source: ZDNet

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As of today Converge IT have moved their Head Office to the Daresbury Innovation Centre, a world class location for hi-tech business.

Director, Nigel Wright commented, "We are ideally located right in the centre of the North West allowing us to provide a timely response to all of our clients. The move is a strategic step towards the continued growth and development of Converge IT."

Contact Converge IT at our IT Support Centre for the new address details.

Microsoft has released retail prices for Office 2010 for British buyers, and has introduced a new product key-based version that is cheaper than traditional boxed software.

The prices, announced on Wednesday, cover three of the four retail versions of the suite, which is due for release in June. The three versions are Office Home and Student, Office Home and Business and Office Professional. Microsoft also plans to sell an academic version of Office 2010, but did not say in its announcement how much it will cost.

"We will be offering an academic SKU in the UK," said Chris Adams, Office product manager at Microsoft UK. "We will be able to give details of pricing in the near future."

When customers buy a product-key card, they get a code that will unlock versions preinstalled by manufacturers on new PCs.

The key card allows installation of the Office suite on one machine only, while the boxed version is licensed for use on two. The exception is Office Home and Student, which is licensed for three.

Office Professional, which has the largest range of updated tools, is priced at £430 for the boxed version and £300 for the product key card alternative. Office Home and Business, which Microsoft recommends for small businesses, will cost approximately £240 in a box and £190 in a product key version. Office Home and Student is £110 and £90 respectively.

Upgrade pricing is being dropped completely for Office 2010, according to Adams. Those who want to move up from Office 2007 must get the boxed version, or buy a new PC with it preinstalled, ready for unlocking with a product key card.

Adams acknowledged that in certain situations, this would make the Office upgrade more expensive than it had been in the past.

"In certain situations, it's potentially more expensive to upgrade, [for example] from 2007 to 2010 if someone already owns a PC, because we've removed the upgrade pricing," Adams said.

However, Adams pointed out that Microsoft's pricing structure for Office Home and Business means it is cheaper to buy the 2010 version than it was to upgrade to Office 2007. The upgrade to the full version of Office Home and Business 2007 cost £350, whereas the full boxed version of Office 2010 is £240.

"We're really excited about the Home and Business SKU," Adams said. "Compared to what customers would previously pay, this represents a huge reduction in price."

Retail prices for Office 2010 in the UK are consistently more expensive than in the US, if the prices are given a currency-exchange calculation. For example, the product key card version of Office Professional in the US is $349 (£223), compared with £300 in the UK.

Adams said the difference is due to factors such as exchange-rate fluctuations, as well as different expectations of pricing in the countries.

"In every region there are multiple factors that affect the final price," he said. "Currency fluctuations means sums based on currency base rates change over time, and can become better value. [Also] there are different channel-messaging expectations in the US versus the UK."

Starter, the expected replacement to the free, pared-down Office suite Microsoft Works, will also be broadly available in June in the UK, according to Adams. To the end-user, Starter will be free in the sense that it will be included in the cost of a new PC, he said.

Both Starter and Professional Plus will be available for volume licensing before the consumer versions arrive in June, he added.

Adams said Microsoft had received positive feedback to its beta, saying that more then three-quarters found Office 2010 to be improved. According to the latest available figures, the beta has been downloaded two million times, he said.

Source: ZDNet

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Research In Motion will soon begin giving away a free version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) Express will be made available as a free download in March, RIM chief executive Mike Lazaridis announced on Tuesday in a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress.

BES Express, which comes with free client licences, is server software that makes it possible to synchronise BlackBerry smartphones with Microsoft Exchange or Windows Small Business Server systems.

In addition, Lazaridis unveiled upcoming features that will be added to the paid-for BES, including video conferencing, "enterprise-class social networking", fixed/mobile convergence and PBX integration.

In a statement released on Tuesday, RIM said it was launching a free version of BES to serve small and medium-sized businesses that want the "enterprise-grade security and manageability" of BES, but do not need its more advanced features. The company also said it was trying to help IT departments meet employee demand for connecting personal BlackBerry devices to corporate email systems.

BES Express will work with Microsoft Exchange 2010, 2007 and 2003, and Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 and 2003. It uses the same security architecture as the paid-for BES, and will support email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks, and other business applications and enterprise systems behind companies' firewalls.

In his speech, Lazaridis also gave a quick preview of the upcoming WebKit-based BlackBerry browser. He demonstrated how the browser scored 100/100 in the Acid3 web standards test, and said the efficiency of the browser would help operators who are "facing an impending capacity crunch".

He also announced a new application strategy for the BlackBerry, called 'super apps'. These applications are integrated with other applications — examples demonstrated by Lazaridis included the ability to view and send tweets from the smartphone's inbox, and synchronise an eBay application with the phone's calendar to keep up with impending auction closures.

Source: ZDNet

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Microsoft has unveiled Windows Phone 7 Series, a heavily revamped version of its old Windows Mobile operating system.

Adopting much of its user interface from Microsoft's Zune media player, Windows Phone 7 Series was announced on Monday at Mobile World Congress. Microsoft has predicted that handsets based on the system will be in stores by Christmas 2010.

Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer said at the Barcelona launch that Microsoft was taking a new approach with Windows Phone 7 Series in its engagement with developers and partners.

"We want to see lots of different form factors," Ballmer said, adding that Microsoft wanted "greater consistency" in various manufacturers' implementations than was shown in earlier versions of its mobile OS.

Andy Lees, head of mobile communications at Microsoft, announced a common core hardware specification for Windows Phone 7 Series handsets that includes multitouch and accelerometer capabilities. The basic user interface will also be consistent across all devices, he said.

Similarly to Android phones, all Windows Phone 7 Series handsets using the OS will have three hardkeys — search, start and back. The OS also comes with a new mapping application that automatically switches to satellite view when the user zooms closely.

Bing search capabilities are heavily built into the OS. An application called the People Hub, which is also integrated, can draw together updates from contacts across Outlook, social networks and email services such as Gmail and Hotmail.

The Office Hub is the productivity section of Windows Phone 7 Series. It allows the user to synchronise documents between the phone, their PC and SharePoint. PC synchronisation is provided through Zune software, although the phone can sync with cloud services without a PC being necessary.

Microsoft has also introduced a new mobile browser, based on its desktop Internet Explorer code, that uses what the company calls 'subpixel positioning' to show webpages in great detail when the user zooms in.

The picture album application has become the Pictures Hub, which shows pictures taken on the phone alongside those uploaded by contacts to social networks. An Xbox Live tool also allows users to play online games and manage their games-related social networking on the phone.

T-Mobile, Orange, Telefonica, AT&T, Spring and Vodafone have all committed to carrying Windows Phone 7 Series handsets, according to Lees. Microsoft is working particularly closely with AT&T and Orange on implementing the new operating system in their phones.

Source: ZDNet

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Microsoft said on Thursday that it is planning an update to Windows 7 that will close a number of loopholes that counterfeiters had used to thwart the operating system's built-in antipiracy measures.

The Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7, which will be released later in February, closes more than 70 "activation hacks", according to Joe Williams, general manager of Microsoft's Genuine Windows unit, responsible for anti-counterfeiting measures. The update will also check with a server periodically to see if there are further hacks that need to be addressed, though Williams said no personally identifiable information about the user will be sent to the server.

In an interview, Williams cautioned about the dangers that come with using illegitimate versions of the operating system, citing a German study which looked at several hundred copies of Windows 7 posted online, and found nearly a third had some type of malware.

Source: ZDNet

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Interest in cloud computing among smaller firms is rapidly building momentum, a new study suggests.

Half of small and medium-sized UK businesses plan to use cloud computing in 2010, more than double the figure of 22 percent for 2009, according to research for ISP Easynet Connect by OpinionMatters, published on Tuesday.

"Cloud computing has been on the business radar for some time, and our report proves we are at the tipping point for mass adoption among small and medium-sized businesses," Easynet Connect managing director Chris Stening said in a statement.

In December 2009, the ISP repeated the small-business survey it had conducted just over a year earlier and found the number of companies saying they would never use cloud computing had fallen from 53 percent to 27 percent.

Those planning to use cloud computing within the next five years had increased to 73 percent from 47 percent — and 2010 was cited most frequently as the year when adoption would take place.

The number of smaller organisations already using cloud computing stands at 13 percent, a figure that shows only a modest increase on 2008. The survey suggests it is the larger firms in the small-business category, with between 100 and 250 employees, that are most likely to use the technology.

Cost savings and improved remote working were the most popular reasons for adoption at 51 percent and 43 percent, while barriers such as cloud security concerns and reliability polled only 13 percent and nine percent.

Source: ZDNet

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The main obstacle to the IT industry's shift to the cloud is the fact that entrenched technology providers have much to lose in such a shift, BT's chief scientist has said.

Speaking on Tuesday, JP Rangaswami told the audience at the Powered By Cloud event in London that he was "disappointed" at cloud adoption levels. He said there was "pushback" from suppliers about moving to cloud computing, as well as a lack of demand due to a paucity of innovative services.

The cloud represents an opportunity to "compress" wasted resources such as hardware and storage, Rangaswami said. He added that the prospect of cutting that waste, and of customers saving money that way, has to make providers "start thinking turkey, Christmas and kitchen".

"Who stands to lose, if the growth in the software required to manage that hardware eases up?" Rangaswami asked. "Who stands to lose if the way we license software changes dramatically? People don't like talking about the fact that there's a $200bn [£130bn] industry that's desperate not to become a $50bn industry."

Rangaswami added that if the IT industry does not contract through a shift to the cloud, "the cloud hasn't actually happened".

'Lack of imagination'

The second major barrier to the spread of cloud computing, according to Rangaswami, is "a complete lack of imagination" about the new products and services that are going to emerge for the cloud.

"What new business models have emerged in the last 18 months to take advantage of the cloud?" he asked. "I could die of boredom every time I hear about 'new ways to collaborate'. The demand side has a problem. If we thought the demand side was cost driven, guess what, we had the environment [during the recession], but there were no biters. The cost driver alone is not going to solve the problem."

Asked what BT itself is doing to move to the cloud, Rangaswami said the company is mainly focusing on educating its own staff by getting them to use the cloud within the organisation. However, he conceded that BT has not yet fully worked out what cloud services it wants to offer to its customers, and the company is itself wary of moving away from its current business model.

"Own use is a vague driver to getting the proposition understood," he said. "On the supply side, it's investment, but what do you invest in if you haven't got your proposition straight? We take [the cloud] seriously, but unlike other industries, we know something about declining business levels."

Rangaswami also suggested that potential customers' concerns about compliance and security in the cloud are "usually good for a delaying tactic".

"The cloud is not going to stop people being stupid," he said. "The cloud doesn't represent a change in security. I'm not denying we have issues to do with migration, data portability and data protection, but these are not new things. We have dealt with them for a while and will continue to deal with them. They are not reasons to avoid the cloud."

Regulations warning

Data-protection regulation could even become the new trade protectionism, Rangaswami warned, referring to rules such as those that force European companies to keep sensitive data physically within the EU.

"When I ask [customers] why this is important, I say: 'Do you know where your corporate voicemail resides? No. So why is it suddenly so important in the cloud, if you didn't know in the first place?"

This suggestion earned a retort from Microsoft UK's platform evangelist, Mark Taylor, who noted in a later presentation that "assuming that you can overcome the regulatory environments that exist in most businesses is probably not the case for most people".

However, Taylor echoed Rangaswami's point about legacy providers being wary of changing their business models in a shift to the cloud.

Asked when Microsoft is going to provide virtualised desktops as a service, Taylor replied: "For companies like Microsoft, it's really a matter of balancing the stake they already have within their customers against the opportunity that this presents. It's a commercial challenge and about ensuring the infrastructure that delivers it is up to snuff."

Source: ZDNet

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Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has been cut off from a national criminal database for more than three days because of a computer virus.

IT experts disconnected GMP from the Police National Computer (PNC) after finding the conficker virus on Friday.

It means officers have been asking neighbouring forces to carry out national checks on names and vehicles.

The conficker virus, a malicious worm, is believed to have infected up to 15 million computers around the world.

It was identified in the GMP system on Friday and quickly spread through the force, leading to the decision to cut off access to the PNC.

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Thompson said the virus was not destructive and no data had been lost.

"A team of experts is now working on removing the virus, and will not reconnect until we are sure there is no further threat," he said.

"We have systems in place to ensure this does not affect our service to the communities of Greater Manchester.

"At this stage it is not clear where the virus has come from but we are investigating how this has happened and will be taking steps to prevent this from happening again."

Conficker initially worked by exploiting a vulnerability in the Windows Server service, which Microsoft combated with a security update.

However, the virus can spread via portable devices such as memory sticks.

Source: BBC

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for advice on how best to protect your business network.

1: Does your backup application support all of the necessary platforms?

The most basic question you will need to consider is whether your current backup application will even work with the “foreign” operating systems or whether you’ll have to invest in something else.

2: Does your backup software support anything more than a file level backup of other operating systems?

This is one of the most commonly overlooked considerations. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, think about what is involved in backing up a Windows network. Some applications (such as SQL Server and Exchange) do not support file-level backups while the application is running. As a result, backup software must be specifically designed to accommodate the needs of such applications. The same thing goes for applications running on Linux or Macintosh. Just being able to perform a file-level backup of a “foreign” server may not be enough. You may have to invest in special backup software that can accommodate the applications that are running on those servers.

3: Does your existing storage media have the capacity to back up the additional servers?

This is a basic consideration, but it is important nonetheless. Does your current backup infrastructure have sufficient capacity to back up the new servers that are being introduced into the network?

4: How much money is invested in your current backup system?

If you’re asked to bring cross-platform servers into your datacenter, you may discover that for whatever reason, your current backup infrastructure just can’t accommodate the new servers. When this happens, it is important to stop and consider how much money you have invested in the current system.

If you’ve spent a great deal of money on the current system, you’re probably going to make someone unhappy if you suggest replacing it with something else, especially if the current system isn’t very old. In those types of situations, it may be better to implement a secondary backup system that is specifically designed for the new platform you are introducing.

5: If you end up replacing your backup system, what’s your plan for maintaining your existing archives?

Suppose you discover that your existing backup system won’t support the new platform that is being added to the network, and you decide to simply replace it with something that’s universally compatible. You probably won’t be able to simply get rid of your old backup hardware and software, because it was used to create all of your archives. You need to decide how long the existing backup system will be retained and how you will go about connecting it to the network should a restoration of an older backup become necessary.

6: Are you familiar enough with all of the operating systems to know what needs to be backed up?

In a Windows environment, there are multiple types of backups. For example, backing up a single server may require you to perform a file-level backup, an application-level backup, and a system state backup. Non-Windows operating systems may also require servers to be backed up at different levels to be fully protected. You must make sure that you are familiar enough with the operating systems on your network that you know how to back them up properly.

7: Can you store data from multiple platforms on the same tape?

If you plan to back up multiple servers onto a single tape, you must determine whether your backup application can write data from multiple platforms to a single tape. In most cases, this probably won’t be a problem so long as the backup software uses agents to communicate with target servers, but it is still something you should check on.

8: Are features such as bare metal recovery or restores to dissimilar hardware supported on the alternate platforms?

If you have been using your current backup software for a while, there are probably some features (such as the ability to perform bare metal recovery or restore to dissimilar hardware) that you have begun to take for granted. However, just because a backup application supports other platforms, it doesn’t mean that every feature will work with every supported platform. It is important to find out whether your backup application has any limitations in a cross-platform environment.

9: Does your proposed solution adhere to current service level agreements?

Most larger organizations impose service level agreements on the IT department. For example, you may be required to return the network to a functional status within a specific amount of time in the event of a failure. If you are going to begin backing up multiple platforms, make sure your intended backup strategy will still allow you to meet any required service level agreements.

10: Does your proposed solution comply with federal archival requirements?

Many larger organizations are required by federal legislation to retain archives for a certain amount of time. So before making any changes to your current backup solution, determine whether your intended changes will cause you to fall out of compliance with any regulations.

Source: Tech Republic

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for advice, design, implementation and support for your back up strategy.

Microsoft on Thursday reported net income of $6.66bn, or 74 cents a share, on revenue of $19.02bn. The results include $1.71bn in Windows 7 deferred revenue. That added 14 cents a share to Microsoft's bottom line.

The view of the quarter depends on whether the deferred revenue impact is discounted. The company was expected to report second-quarter earnings of 59 cents a share on revenue of $17.9bn (£11bn). If the deferred revenue is factored out, Microsoft's earnings beat projections, but revenue could be seen as light.

In a statement, Microsoft said Windows 7 demand was "exceptional". Microsoft said it sold more than 60 million Windows 7 licences.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Cenre to find out more about how Windows 7 can benefit your business.

BT has launched its fibre-optic broadband service for businesses, promising download speeds of up to 40Mbps with prices starting at £30 per month.

BT Business Total Broadband Fibre, introduced on Monday, offers a 'fast lane' to give business traffic the right of way at busy times — unlike the equivalent consumer service it rolled out last week.

The basic service costs £30 per month for a 24-month contract, with upload speeds of up to 2Mbps. For £45 per month, customers can get the 'Plus' version of the service, which offers upload speeds of up to 10Mbps.

BT charges more for 12-month contracts: £35 per month for BT Business Total Broadband Fibre, and £50 per month for the more advanced package.

All packages include 500 minutes on BT's Openzone Wi-Fi network, access to 24-hour technical support, 10 email addresses and 50MB of web space, among other features.

BT said it believes the 10Mbps upload speeds will be a particular draw for small businesses, which need to send ever-larger files. The company is targeting businesses that want to get into internet telephony, high-definition video conferencing, business-grade cloud applications and home working, as well as running standard email, web and FTP services.

"Twenty-eight percent of businesses are already using faster broadband to expand their website capabilities, and another 25 percent are using it to drive more processes online and employ more bandwidth-hungry technology, according to our research last year," BT managing director Nigel Stagg said in a statement.

Competition to BT's fibre services comes mainly from Virgin Media. BT has said its upload speeds are faster than those offered by Virgin, but this has been disputed by its rival.

BT's new service is based on fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology, meaning a local street cabinet is connected to BT's network via fibre, with copper used for the final connection between the cabinet and the premises.

The telco, which has five million broadband customers, is also rolling out fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and has pledged to spend £1.5bn on the combined build-out of FTTC and FTTH.

It plans to connect 10 million homes and businesses to fibre-based services by mid-2012, with 75 percent of those expected to have access to FTTC services. The remaining 25 percent, or about 2.5 million, are to be connected via FTTH, which will offer download speeds of up to 100Mbps, BT said.

The company said in December that it was ahead of schedule with the fibre rollout.

BT said on Thursday last week that it plans to make FTTC available to four million homes and businesses by the end of 2010. Openreach, BT's local-access division, began selling fibre services from enabled exchanges on a commercial basis two weeks ago.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for advice on the best broadband solution for your business.

1: Saving a file directly to an external drive

Those external USB drives or flash memory sticks provide convenient extra storage. However, you should avoid saving an application file, such as a Word document or PowerPoint presentation, directly to such a drive. Save the file to your internal drive and then copy it to the external one. If you save the file directly to the external drive, it may become corrupted during the save, especially if you accidentally break the USB connection. In that case, you’ll get the dreaded “[name of application] cannot open the file” message when you next try to use that file.

2: Working directly on an attached e-mail file

Your boss or co-worker has sent you an e-mail with an attached document you’re supposed to revise. So you click on the attachment, spend hours on revisions, then save the file and forward the message, with the attachment, back to the original sender. Don’t be surprised if you get a call asking why that file is still in its original form.

Yes, you can make those revisions to the attachment. You can save them and then close the file. You can even click on the original message attachment again, and see that your changes are there. However, if you send that message to someone else, chances are that your changes will be ignored, and all the recipient will see is the file as you first received it. Therefore, to be safe, first save that attachment to a non-temporary folder on your hard disk before working on it. Then, upload this revised file when are ready to return it to the sender.

3: Sending recipients a file in an incompatible format

Have you just installed Word 2007? Be careful if you’re sending your .docx files to others. If those users haven’t upgraded and they haven’t installed have the Office Compatibility Pack, they may not be able to work with your files. Check to make sure that recipients have at least the same version of software as yours, if not later. Otherwise, you may want to save your file in an earlier format, if possible. Better yet, if your recipients are only viewing and not changing the file, consider sending your file as a PDF. You can download and install Microsoft’s Save as PDF or XPS add-on for Office 2007 or look for a standalone product such as this free PDF creator.

4: Sending a file created in an obscure application

The same principle applies if you’re using some uncommon application that only you have. Sending someone a data file from your application in native format will probably do them no good. If it’s not practical for them to install that application, consider sending the file as a PDF. Alternatively, if that application has one, send recipients a viewer for the application. Such a version generally is free and will allow recipients to view a file but probably not to change it.

5: Relying unnecessarily on batteries

With respect to using power outlets, remember the same principle applies as with fueling your car or using the restroom: A wise person does so when he or she can, a foolish person does so when he or she must. Are you waiting for your flight at the airport gate area? Are you next to an available live outlet? Even though your laptop battery might be at 100%, take a second and plug your laptop into that outlet and run with electricity. You might later find that your airplane has no outlets or that you lack an adapter that lets you use it. If you run on batteries in the waiting area, you will have deprived yourself of battery power you later might need.

6: Losing that smartphone

Do you have an iPhone or similar product? If so, and you’re like most owners, your whole life is now stored on it. If you lose that phone, you may also lose sensitive information, such as credit card and bank account numbers. Consider password-protecting that phone. In addition, if you do have an iPhone, you may want to get a program such as MobileMe. (Currently, you’ll get a $30 discount if you purchase it when you purchase your iPhone.) This program will let you remotely erase the contents of your phone. In addition, if your phone is merely misplaced (say, in your home), MobileMe allows you to unsilence it and activate its ringer.

7: Ambiguity regarding email addresses

Have you ever been told, “I sent you an email already,” but you see no such message? It could have happened because you (like many people) have multiple email addresses: your address for work and several for personal use. Be sure you ascertain which account the other person has sent the email to. And if you tell someone you sent that person an email, be specific as to which address you used.

8: Dead batteries

The presentation is about to start. You pull out your laser pointer, press the button — and nothing happens. If you’re traveling with battery-operated equipment, be aware that it might accidentally be turned on, thus draining the batteries. Consider this trick I was taught long ago as a Boy Scout: Reverse each battery, so that the positive terminal battery is touching the negative connection of the device and vice versa. Of course, remember to re-reverse it before you need to use it.

9: Entering a bad link

Don’t rely on your memory or on manual typing of a URL when sending email or composing a document. One wrong letter or a wrong domain type may cause the recipient or reader embarrassment, irritation, or wasted time. Navigate to that Web site first yourself and confirm that it’s the one you want. Then, copy the Web address and paste it into your document or email. Alternately, if you do insist on typing the URL manually yourself, test it to make sure it goes where you are expecting it to go.

10: Cats

Cats are wonderfully cute but curious creatures. If you have or are about to get one, be aware that they may find your keyboard a warm and comfortable place to nap. If they’re heavy enough, and stay long enough, they may end up disabling the keyboard. Shutting down and restarting the computer may solve the issue, but the best approach is to keep them away in the first place. If you have to leave your computer, shut it down or put it in standby, then shut the lid. Most of all, you do not want that cat to have an accident while lying on your keyboard.

Source: Tech Republic

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for IT Support for your business.

Corridor Manchester and Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) have appointed Geo to install new fibre optic cables that will allow residents and businesses on the Corridor – the Oxford Road area of the city – to directly connect to next generation fibre broadband, creating a true open access network which will revolutionise ways of working and using digital communications.

Jackie Potter, chief executive, Corridor Manchester said: “The installation of the new fibre optic cables will create a new infrastructure on the Corridor that will not only deliver much faster broadband speeds but through the open access network allow organisations, businesses and even individuals develop and test their own ideas for uses of the new technology without being held back by current limitations.”

The most immediate impact for people living and working on the Corridor will be much faster broadband capacity of 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) and more, critically, for both download and upload uses.  Users will be able to buy services from different service providers on the network providing internet access, TV, telephone and other data services too, as the new network will be genuinely “open access” allowing all service providers to lease the optical fibre from Geo to provide services to their customers.  There is also potential for services and applications to be made available for free without having to go through an internet service provider.

The Corridor network project is managed by MDDA and funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA).  Once the first phase of fibre installation is completed, it is already planned to expand the fibre optic network to east Manchester and elsewhere in the city by using both the existing and planned Metrolink lines.

Damien Bourke, policy & partnership manager for NWDA, said: “This is the first step on a journey to help make Manchester an increasingly competitive international city – a city in which businesses can find new and sustainable markets which in turn will help drive the regional economy. What better place to start this process than the Oxford Road area, where next generation fibre broadband will only generate further wealth from the people, ideas and innovation that make the Corridor a unique place to do business.”

Geo was awarded the contract in December 2009 following a successful tender to deliver the first phase of the fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network in partnership with Manchester City Council (through MDDA).  The initial phase will provide connectivity to 200 homes and businesses around the Corridor area of Manchester.

Geo is expected to start the first phase of network deployment in the spring.  Further connections directly to 1500 homes and businesses, will be phased over the next 12 months.

Chris Smedley, chief executive, Geo said: “Geo is delighted to be working with Corridor Manchester and the MDDA to deliver this important infrastructure. Creating a true open access network with next generation fibre broadband capable of fully symmetrical world – leading broadband services will radically change the way people use the internet for business and social use.  Geo’s unique business model is ideally suited to helping the UK to meet the challenge of building the new networks needed for the country to compete on the global stage and we are proud to be associated with this landmark initiative.

Source: MDDA

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out about fibre provision for your NW based business.

The Information Commissioner's Office has criticised Lancashire County Council after highly personal data was found by the buyer of a second-hand filing cabinet.

The ICO said that Lancashire CC breached the Data Protection Act, and the council's chief executive Ged Fitzgerald has signed an undertaking to introduce a written procedure for disposing of office equipment.

It said the social-casework files, which were duplicates of those held by the county council, included extensive amounts of personal data, including ethnicity, religion and physical and mental-health conditions of clients. "The personal data contained in these records was extensive and, in one instance, provided an almost complete picture of the individual's life," it said in the statement of undertaking signed by Lancashire.

The ICO, which said it had been alerted by a newspaper article to the incident, added that it had considered remedial action already taken by Lancashire and had decided against serving an enforcement notice on the county.

Under legislation that comes into force on 1 April, the ICO will be able to fine organisations up to £500,000 for breaches of personal data.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for advice on security solutions for your business data.

BT has begun rolling out its fibre-optic-based internet access service, BT Infinity, which will offer download speeds of up to 40Mbps for a fee starting at £19.99 per month.

The company said on Thursday that it will offer two pricing plans for the service, with upload speeds of up to 2Mbps included in the £19.99-per-month plan, and upload speeds of up to 10Mbps for a monthly fee of £24.99.

The higher rate also gives users an unlimited monthly usage allowance, a better security package and unlimited Wi-Fi minutes on BT's Openzone network, the company said.

BT added that its cheaper fibre package offers 'a saving of £7.47 per month on Virgin Media's XXL highest-speed service'.

Infinity is based on fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology, meaning a local street cabinet is connected to BT's network via fibre, with copper used for the final connection between the cabinet and the premises.

BT, which has five million broadband customers, is also rolling out fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services, and has pledged to spend £1.5bn on the combined build-out of its FTTC and FTTH network.

The company has said it plans to connect 10 million homes and businesses to fibre-based services by mid-2012, with 75 percent of those expected to have access to FTTC services. The remaining 25 percent, or about 2.5 million, will be connected via FTTH, which will offer download speeds of up to 100Mbps, BT said.

The company said in December that it was ahead of schedule with its fibre rollout.

BT said on Thursday that it plans to make Infinity available to four million homes and businesses by the end of 2010. Openreach, BT's local-access division, began selling fibre services from enabled exchanges on a commercial basis last week, a BT spokesman told ZDNet UK.

"We want to give our customers the best possible online experience and are committed to rolling out super-fast speeds across the UK," BT Retail chief executive Gavin Patterson said in a statement.

Also on Thursday, BT announced a commercial version of the FTTC service, called BT Business Total Broadband Fibre. From Monday, BT said, it will begin offering this service to new and existing customers of BT Total Broadband and BT Business in areas with enabled exchanges.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out how your business can benefit from super fast broadband.

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have announced a three-year, $250m agreement to integrate their products for small and medium-sized businesses.

In a joint press conference on Wednesday, Microsoft and HP chief executives Steve Ballmer and Mark Hurd said the integration would reduce costs and increase productivity for their customers.

"We intend it to make it simple, fast and cost-effective for our customers to build IT systems that scale quickly", Ballmer said in a video statement. "We'll collaborate on an engineering roadmap, deliver a comprehensive set of integrated solutions, and we'll team up to provide integrated sales and support."

Hurd said in a separate video statement that the partnership would advance HP's "converged infrastructure strategy, converging servers, storage and networking, managed in a unified environment".

During a conference call, Hurd said 11,000 sales representatives were being dedicated to the alliance, which is non-exclusive and does not affect deals already in place between the companies and third parties such as Oracle or VMware, both of whom have agreements with HP.

Among the specific promises, Microsoft said it was going to integrate HP's Insight Software and Business Technology Optimization software portfolio with Microsoft's System Center suite, for virtual service management.

"In the near term, the technical result of this partnership is that we'll see data center management solutions based on both the System Center family of tools and HP's Insight Software," Microsoft technical product manager Edwin Yuen said in a blog post. "This allows for heterogeneous management of data centers, integrating not just monitoring but also provisioning and maintenance of both physical and virtual systems."

Yuen also said there would be "smart bundles" for SMEs, using HP servers, storage, and networking along with Windows Server and Insight software, all managed with System Center Essentials (SCE) and HP Operations Center.

Bob Muglia, Microsoft's head of servers, said that the agreement was aimed at preparing customers for a more cloud-based future.

"The key thing that created the imperative to broaden the relationship is the recognition that the cloud is an inflection point," Muglia said, adding that this shift means customers need a new application model, a new operational model and essentially a new way of thinking about their technology.

"The kinds of things we are doing is understanding how we can work together to enable developers to build systems that are cloud-based, always available and can scale out."

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out more about how Microsoft and HP solutions can reduce costs in your business.

1: Conversation view

OWA 2010 provides the same conversation view and experience as Outlook 2010: By default, messages are displayed in threads so that all the messages on a particular topic are grouped. No more searching for a previous message to check what the response is referring to. When a new message in a thread comes in, the whole thread gets moved chronologically to the date/time of the new message. Conversation view has its benefits and drawbacks, but if you don’t like it, you can turn it off. Just right-click Arrange By, scroll down to Conversations, and deselect Show Messages In Conversations.

2: Ignore option

If you belong to mailing lists, you’ll appreciate this new feature in Outlook 2010, which you also get with OWA 2010. Sometimes, the group will engage in discussions that don’t interest you at all. Now you don’t even have to see them. Just select Ignore Conversation from the action menu and any further messages in that conversation will be automatically deleted. This can be a real time-saver.

3: Forward as an attachment

It’s a little thing, but sometimes it’s the little things that matter most. With OWA 2010, you can forward an email message as an attachment. This can come in handy if you need to forward a message to someone but don’t necessarily want the person to open it immediately. You can create an original message where you can tell the person about the attachment — or example, you might forward a message that possibly contains a virus to someone who provides technical support for you.

4: Delivery report

Another new option on the action menu is Open Delivery Report. If you’ve ever sent an important email and then agonized over whether it got to the recipient, this feature will be one of your favorites. You can search for messages you’ve sent to a specified recipient, messages you’ve received from a specified recipient, or messages with specific words in the subject line. The delivery report will show you on what date and at what time the message was submitted and when it was successfully delivered.

5: Same premium experience without IE

One of my pet peeves about previous versions of OWA was that to get the best experience, you had to use IE. It didn’t work the same in other browsers, such as a Firefox. You got a “light” version of OWA instead. And if the only computer available to log on to the Internet was a Mac with just Safari as the browser choice, it was no fun at all. OWA 2010 supports the complete, premium experience on Mac OS X with Safari as well as with Firefox.

6: Integrated IM/presence information

OWA 2010 integrates directly with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2, allowing you to see the presence status (available, busy, away, etc.) of other users within your organization and even engage in a chat with them. You can also engage in multiple chat sessions with different people at the same time.

7: Opening another user’s mailbox

With Exchange 2003, you couldn’t open another user’s mailbox from OWA. With Exchange 2007, you could — but it opened in a new IE window and you couldn’t select the mailbox from the Global Address List (GAL). With Exchange 2010, you can select a mailbox to open from the GAL, and it “nests” into the left pane along with your default mailbox. OWA also remembers which mailboxes you opened and displays them when you log on the next time.

8: Side-by-side calendars

Another feature that’s been on the OWA wish list of many Outlook users is the ability to open up a shared calendar and view it side by side with your own calendar. This is invaluable if you need to make plans that include coordinating your schedule with someone else’s. You can share your calendar with other users of your Exchange 2010 server.

9: Exchange Control Panel (ECP)

In OWA 2010, the Exchange Control Panel replaces the Options page in OWA 2007. Users can do more with the ECP, such as creating and managing distribution groups, tracking their own messages, setting up retention policies for their messages, and updating the property fields information in their Active Directory user accounts.

10: Access to mailbox archives

OWA 2010 allows users to access archived mailboxes from within the OWA interface so that you can get access to the archived messages no matter where you are.

Source: Tech Republic

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out more about how Microsoft's Outlook can help your business.

The news in 2009 was dominated by the gloomy economy, as small business entrepreneurs hunkered down to weather the downturn. Looking forward to 2010, it won't rain money, but there are still some glimmers of a recovery. Not surprisingly, the technology trends shaping up center around getting the biggest bang for your IT buck and quantifying the return-on-investment for your marketing dollars.

So-called "cloud computing," where online services take the place of traditional desktop- or server-resident software, was a buzzword in 2009, and the din will only get louder this year.

Even if you've been following cloud computing since it was called SaaS (software-as-a-service) or, showing your age, ASP (application service providers), if you're like most small business owners you still haven't taken the plunge. But according to research by Microsoft and others, that's likely to change.

"We feel interest and adoption of cloud computing among small and midsize businesses will really take off in 2010," says Christoph Wilfert, corporate vice president and general manager for Microsoft's small and mid-market business solutions in the U.S. "Our research and conversations with SMBs show they are very interested in cloud computing, but are not yet fully aware how easy it is to employ the technology, its widespread availability and full benefits."

Source: Internet News

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Suport Centre to find out how our Cloud Computing service can imrpove efficiencies within your business and reduce the IT overhead.

Forrester Research looks ahead to an 8 percent increase in IT spending in 2010.

Is it too early to celebrate? Analyst firm Forrester Research has issued a rosy forecast for IT spending this year, declaring the recession "unofficially over.".

Forrester Research on Tuesday revealed a positive outlook for the information technology sector this year, predicting that global IT spending will increase more than 8 percent in 2010 to $1.6 trillion mainly on the strength of improved hardware and software sales.

"The technology downturn of 2008 and 2009 is unofficially over," Andrew Bartels, a Forrester vice president and principal analyst, said in a statement. "All the pieces are in place for a 2010 tech spending rebound."

The research firm predicts an 8.2 percent improvement in computer equipment sales and a 9.7 percent jump in new software sales. Communications equipment sales are expected to increase 7.6 percent while spending on IT consulting and systems integration services will grow 6.8 percent, according to Forrester's latest estimates.

By region, Forrester expects Europe to provide the strongest growth rate outside the U.S., with tech purchases now expected to increase 11.2 percent. Canada is projected to chip in a 9.9 percent increase while Asia Pacific and Latin America will rise 7.8 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively.

Source: Internet News

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for system integration services and hardware and software requirements.

As it continues to press forward with its ambitious designs on the wireless market, Google has rolled out a feature to its mobile search product that allows users to submit queries based on their location.

The "near me now" feature, which Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) previewed in December, is now live on the Google.com page on Android devices and Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone.

Once their handset provides location data to the search engine, users will be able to tap a near me now link to display local business listings in the area.

"We wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you're standing right in front of a business or if it's just a short walk away," John Eric Hoffman and Jussi Myllymaki, members of Google's mobile engineering, wrote in a blog post announcing the feature.

Google has made no secret of its intentions to expand its wireless offerings. Company executives have long talked about the tremendous revenue opportunity that mobile advertising holds, projecting that in the coming years, wireless ads will eclipse the PC business that has made Google one of the richest companies in tech.

Then in November, Google plunked down $750 million to purchase AdMob, a mobile advertising network, in a deal that has been held up by an antitrust inquiry.

And earlier this week, Google unveiled the long-awaited Nexus One, a handset of its own making that will compete with top-shelf smartphones like the iPhone and the growing crop of devices from other device manufacturers that run on its own Android operating system.

So Google, having every interest in making mobile search easier and more useful, is now trying to offer aid to anyone who might find themselves wandering around an unfamiliar neighborhood wondering where to get a decent meal.

Once users tap the near me now link, they have the option to refine their search by category, so the results would display only nearby coffee shops or bars, for instance.

Google's also offering an "explore me now" link, which offers information about local businesses, such as restaurant reviews, similar to the features Google and the other major search engines include in their PC versions.

The Near Me Now feature is available on Android phones running version 2.0.1 or later, and on iPhones running at least version 3.0 of that system.

Source: Internet News

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for advice on the best mobile solution for your business.

Interest in cloud computing among smaller firms is rapidly building momentum, a new study suggests.

Half of small and medium-sized UK businesses plan to use cloud computing in 2010, more than double the figure of 22 percent for 2009, according to research for ISP Easynet Connect by OpinionMatters, published on Tuesday.

"Cloud computing has been on the business radar for some time, and our report proves we are at the tipping point for mass adoption among small and medium-sized businesses," Easynet Connect managing director Chris Stening said in a statement.

In December 2009, the ISP repeated the small-business survey it had conducted just over a year earlier and found the number of companies saying they would never use cloud computing had fallen from 53 percent to 27 percent.

Those planning to use cloud computing within the next five years had increased to 73 percent from 47 percent — and 2010 was cited most frequently as the year when adoption would take place.

The number of smaller organisations already using cloud computing stands at 13 percent, a figure that shows only a modest increase on 2008. The survey suggests it is the larger firms in the small-business category, with between 100 and 250 employees, that are most likely to use the technology.

Cost savings and improved remote working were the most popular reasons for adoption at 51 percent and 43 percent, while barriers such as cloud security concerns and reliability polled only 13 percent and nine percent.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out how Cloud Computing can reduce costs and streamline your small or mid sized business.

Google introduced the Nexus One, an own-branded smartphone running a new version of the Android mobile operating system, in San Francisco on Tuesday.

The Nexus One can be ordered online directly from the company in the US, the first consumer hardware so available. Initial pricing is $529 (£330) without a contract or $179 with a T-Mobile US contract.

The device will be sold in Europe through Vodafone from the spring, although it can be ordered unlocked from the Google website by UK customers immediately. The Nexus One was described at the launch by Google product management chief Mario Queiroz as part of "an emerging category of devices which we call 'superphones'".

The Nexus One, which was initially distributed to some Google employees in December, has a 480 x 800 pixel, 3.7-inch Amoled touchscreen and runs on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. It has a five-megapixel camera with an LED flash. At 11.5mm thick and weighing 130g, and with no physical keyboard, it is slightly slimmer and lighter than the iPhone 3GS. It comes with 512MB internal storage and a 4GB microSD card, together with a removable 1400mAh battery.

As with existing Android phones, applications can only be installed on internal storage, although Android chief Andy Rubin said that a future software release would allow applications to be installed, encrypted, on the microSD card. Rubin also said that contrary to speculation, HTC — not Google — had designed the Nexus One.

"We're just merchandising it online on our store, similar to any retailer," he said, adding that Google's new online store was "not intended to be a channel that's going to replace other channels".

The handset is the first to run on Android 2.1, a version of the operating system that goes under the code-name 'Flan'. This iteration of the Linux-based operating system offers graphical enhancements over its predecessors, such as animated wallpapers and refined icons.

The new version of Android also offers server-side voice recognition that can be used in every text field on the device. This allows users to compose emails by voice alone. It does not currently support tethering, although Queiroz said that this was not due to strategic reasons and that "tethering is something we're looking at for future releases".

The Nexus One will be the first Android handset to be sold through Google's new web store. According to Queiroz, "you can choose to buy a phone without service, or you can buy a phone with service from one of Google's operator partners".

Queiroz said that in the US, in addition to T-Mobile US, Nexus One would become available on Verizon in the spring.

The Nexus One has light and proximity sensors, to let the device know when to save power by turning off or dimming the screen. Stereo Bluetooth support is included, as is a 3.5mm headphone jack.

According to Google, the handset also offers active noise cancellation through the use of two microphones — a first for Android phones. The metal bezel around the phone also includes a space for personalised engraved messages on the rear of the device. These messages can be set when the phone is purchased through Google's online store.

Google has introduced more graphically refined menus and widgets, along with animated wallpapers that respond to the user's touch.

The company also showed off Google Earth for Android, which lets users manipulate a virtual globe in much the same way as they can on the desktop version of the application, although voice control has now also been added. The app will launch soon in the Android Market.

Also on Tuesday, Google announced 13 new members for its Open Handset Alliance, the industry group behind Android. The new members, taking the total number to 52, include NEC, China Telecom and Freescale Semiconductor.

Source: ZDNet

For advice on business mobile solutions contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre.

With actual delivery still some six months away, Microsoft has announced packaging and pricing for Office 2010.

The announcement came in a post on Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Office 2010 Engineering blog on Tuesday.

"Office 2010 will be offered in four versions, to make it easier to choose a version of Office that's best for you -- Office Home and Business, Office Professional, Office Home and Student, and Office Professional Academic," the post said.

That compares with five packages in the current roundup of Office 2007 SKUs (stock-keeping units). Office 2007's SKUs, including Home and Student, Standard, Small Business, Professional, and Ultimate are similar to Office 2010's, but not identical.

Source: Internet News

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre today for advice on MS Office products for your business.

Heavy snow and icy roads have been causing chaos across most of the UK for the last 3 or 4 weeks costing UK businesses millions of pounds in lost earnings....but how can your business beat the chaos?

Mobile working is becoming increasingly popular and cost effective and can help staff to continue to work as normal even when the roads are closed. So what do you need to consider to improve mobile working for your business? Here are a few questions to ask internally:

• can your phone system be diverted to multiple home workers easily?
• can staff use a home PC to access their office data via a web browser rather than purchasing laptops or setting up expensive remote access technologies?
• will a PDA, such as a Blackberry, suffice when staff are out of the office?

For help with your business mobile working solution contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre today.

Windows Server 2008 R2 addresses cost savings in a number of areas, including streamlined management, less reliance on expensive third-party software, and more scalable application serving. Check out the attached PDF White Paper.

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out more about how Windows Server 2008 can benefit your business.

If early indications are correct, the strongest rate of IT spending in almost two years could begin next quarter -- and the industry has Microsoft to thank.

Market research firm ChangeWave noted in a report that due to overwhelming positive reception of Windows 7, businesses are ready to replace their creaky old notebook and desktop PCs.

In a survey of 1,753 corporate IT buyers, ChangeWave found 73 percent said their company will be buying laptops and 69 percent will be buying desktops in the first quarter of 2010, the highest levels for both since February 2008.

A key reason is Windows 7. Nearly one in five respondents said that the arrival of the new edition of Windows is making their firm quicken the pace of their normal computer upgrade cycle over the next six months. Ten percent of those surveyed said Windows 7 had created a "slight acceleration" in their upgrade plans, while 6 percent said it caused a "modest acceleration" and an additional 3 percent said Windows 7 had caused "significant acceleration."

Additionally, about 10 percent of the corporate IT buyers polled said that their company had already bought PCs with Windows 7 installed.

With the collapse of the economy a year ago, many IT shops froze all spending and stretched out the lifespan of their PCs for as long as possible. Various research firms, as well as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and hardware vendors, all encouraged IT shops to avoid doing so, however, citing the increased expense of maintaining aging equipment -- but to no avail. Sales remained stalled for most of the year, and many said they were waiting for Windows 7.

But Windows 7, which shipped in October after having been available in public pre-release versions since the start of the year, has lit a fire under IT managers. ChangeWave found that 93 percent of the IT professionals polled said that their company is satisfied with the new operating system, a one-point increase over a similar survey in July.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the release of a public beta of Windows 7 in January 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show. Right away, it earned rave reviews for its stability and performance. In the summer, Microsoft released a Release Candidate, showing near-final code, and again, drew high praise from reviewers and individual users alike.

The result was that anticipation of the new OS rather caused IT shops to hold off on buying rather than purchasing a new system with either Windows XP, which is now an eight-year-old operating system, or Windows Vista, which was widely disliked.

"Previous ChangeWave surveys found companies deferring their PC purchases in anticipation of Windows 7, the latest results show the opposite now occurring," ChangeWave Research Director Paul Carton and researcher Adam Golub wrote in a blog post.

The new PC rollouts are part of what appears to be a loosening of the purse strings across the board. ChangeWave's polling found that 22 percent of the IT buyers surveyed said that their company plans to increase its spending during the first quarter of 2010, a four-point increase since a similar poll in August. However, 21 percent said that their firm would reduce IT spending, also a four-point change.

Microsoft will benefit from this spending and seems to have earned renewed favor with IT companies. ChangeWave found 26 percent of those polled plan to boost spending on the company's products in the next quarter, up from just 16 percent in August and 10 percent last February.

But it's not hurting Apple. The company seemingly immune to recession is also not harmed by Microsoft's new glow. "Planned Mac buying has hit a new high in the latest survey, with 10 percent saying their company will be buying Mac laptops and 7 percent desktops in the first quarter," Carton and Golub wrote.

The 10 percent of IT shops planning to purchase MacBooks marks the best Apple has done since ChangeWave began following it in 2005, according to the analyst firm.

Source: Internet News

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre if your business is thinking about upgrading to Windows 7.

Rising prices and better alternatives may mean curtains for netbooks.

The small, portable computers were popular in 2009, but some industry watchers are convinced that their popularity is already waning.

"The days of the netbook are over," said Stuart Miles, founder and editor of technology blog Pocket Lint.

As prices edge upwards, net-using habits change and other gadgets take on their functions, netbooks will become far less popular, he thinks.

"Technology has advanced so much that it's outmanoeuvred itself," he said. "You wouldn't go for something so basic anymore."

His prediction stems from his belief that the netbooks of 2009 are losing touch with what made them so appealing.

Media heart

Asus kicked off the netbook trend in 2007 when it launched the Eee PC 700 and 701. The 700 sported a 2GB solid state hard drive, 512MB of Ram, a 900 MHz Intel Celeron processor and a seven inch screen.

It was cheap, cheerful and a boon for those wanting to check e-mail and go online while out and about.

But, said Mr Miles, the success of the small, portable notebook has been its undoing because it has spawned so many imitators.

E-book readers are starting to do more than just handle text

Many contemporary netbook models run Windows XP or Windows 7 which has forced the specifications, and price, upwards. Many, he said, now cost at least £350, a figure close to that for a more capable full-size laptop.

What people are looking for now, he believes, is a machine that can keep up with the demands of contemporary web users - far more than the basic e-mail and web browsing that made the first models so appealing.

"As soon as you want to do anything else you hit the same problem, it ceases to work," he said. "It does not have the power."

Those changing habits of web users, he maintains, are too complex for those basic machines.

"It's the internet's fault for making us much more multimedia savvy," he said. Uploading and editing still or moving pictures and handling audio all require far more power than the basic netbook offers, he said.

This could explain, he said, why many laptop makers are now turning out very thin and light machines that have power but not the shoulder-wrenching bulk.

All change

Ian Drew, spokesman for chip designer Arm, also believes netbooks are in for a shake-up. Consumers, he said, were chafing against the restrictions that using a netbook imposed on them.

"We have failed the consumer because we have imposed constraints on them," he said.

Changing web habits and greater use of social media will mean consumers will be looking for gadgets that are tuned to specific purposes.

The web is the king Christopher David, SonyEricsson

"It will be a lot of different machines for a lot of different people," he said. "This whole market will be exploding in the next couple of years."

Impetus for this change will come, he believes, from the phone world where many, many types of gadgets are already blooming.

"It's no surprise that your mobile has changed a lot in the last three years but your PC hasn't," he said.

Arm hopes that many more netbook makers will be using one of its designs as a core processor and turn to Linux as the operating system.

At the very least a crop of Arm-based netbooks might mean a big boost to battery life. Arm's mobile pedigree means it is designed to be parsimonious with power.

Dell already produces notebooks sporting Latitude ON technology that use both Arm and Intel chips so that they can boot into either Windows or Linux.

Editing tools

Battery life on Linux is in excess of 10 hours, for Windows rarely more than three.

Machines sporting Arm chips are also likely to be thinner as they will not need the heat sinks demanded by processors used in desktops.

Mr Drew said deals Arm has signed with Adobe will help ensure that future devices will be able to use the software maker's familiar video, audio and image editing tools.

What will also be worth watching, he said, is what happens when Google's Chrome OS is launched.

Many of the devices running that will be Arm-based as Chrome is broadly based on one of the Linux distributions. There are also unconfirmed rumours that either Windows 8 or 9 will run on Arm chips.

People are becoming familiar with multi-touch thanks to touch screen phones

Mr Drew also expects to see devices tailored to particular types of user.

E-book readers were an example of this, he said, and were evolving into devices capable of doing more than just handle text. Many can play MP3s or let owners browse the web.

Then there is the approaching wave of tablet computers.

Apple is rumoured to be working on one. Dell and Microsoft have shown off their own ideas of what one will look like and there are bound to be many more from established tablet makers such as Archos.

Mr Miles from Pocket Lint believes these are likely to take up the mantle from the netbook.

"I don't think people will expect it to do much more than you get from a netbook," he said, adding that they were perfect for those who needed a device that let them get online quickly to satisfy their curiosity.

They were more likely to succeed now more than ever, said Mr Miles, because of the greater experience people had with using such devices.

"It'll be helped by Apple which has educated people how to use multi-touch through the iPhone and iPod touch," he said.

Netbooks are also likely to come under pressure from smartphones as they get even smarter, said Christoper David, head of developers at SonyEricsson.

Phone makers, he said, have to position themselves to be more open and able to support the web habits of users no matter what they were or what they wanted to do.

"The web is the king," he said. Handset makers must work with those open web standards to ensure that the software on the phones they make is flexible enough to cope.

"Though," he added, "that is only the starting point of the journey."

What will not change, he believes, is the importance of the phone as a vessel for data about its owner.

"We're going to see phones coming along where the form factor will be less and less relevant in terms of what we carry about with us," he said.

Future devices will grab the best resources nearby whether that is a flat screen, projector or thin film display.

The ID credentials stored on what was our phone will handle all the logins and give access to all the sites and services we use.

The netbook, and its limitations, will be well and truly left behind.

Source: BBC

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for guidance on the best solutions for your business.

When performing mathematical equations, we usually turn to Excel, but Word can handle low-level calculations. The process isn’t necessarily intuitive, but it’s easy once you know how to use the proper tools. If you store values and formulas in a Word form field, Word can apply a data type to the data rather than interpreting everything as normal text. Form fields can store static values and formulas. Bookmarking the form field allows you to enter bookmark names in formulas, in essence using them as variables. In this example, you’ll create a sales form that calculates totals, but the steps are generally the same regardless of your calculating task. Only the values and formulas will change.

Step 1: Determine your needs

The first step to creating a calculating form is to determine the values you need to store and how the form will evaluate those values mathematically. For instance, let’s suppose you want to use a Word document to calculate the total purchase price of a particular item. In that case, you might need the following information:

• The product’s price
• The quantity purchased
• Current tax, if applicable

The information will vary from task to task, but before you do anything, determine the static values the form will need to store and evaluate. (By static, we mean a literal value and not the result of a calculation.)

Step 2: Flesh out the calculations

By referring to static values (Step 1) in formulas, you can calculate extended information. Before you start entering operators and operands, though, it’s a good idea to work the formulas out with pen and paper. In the case of our example sales form, you might want a subtotal — the result of multiplying the product’s price by the number of items sold. You’ll definitely want a grand total — the subtotal plus any applicable tax. Both formulas follow:

Subtotal: =Price * Quantity

Grand Total: =Subtotal * Tax + Subtotal

Step 3: Design the form — use a table

Once you’ve listed all the static values and formulas, you’re ready to start building the form. Tables aren’t a prerequisite for adding calculating fields, but we recommend them because they help manage your data. For instance, Figure A shows the table that will store and display values for our line item sales form.

Figure A: Use tables to corral and manage values.

To create the table, choose Insert from the Table menu and select Table. In the Insert Table dialog box, specify two columns, five rows, and click OK. Then, enter the appropriate heading text in the left column.

Step 4: Display the Forms toolbar

With your table ready, it’s time to start entering form fields, which allow you to enter data at a specific location. Our example needs form fields to store the three static values and two formulas. Form fields provide a data type and use formulas that can refer to those values, similar to using a variable.

Form fields aren’t available from the standard menu or toolbar. You’ll need the Forms toolbar (Figure B), which you can display by right-clicking any menu or toolbar and choosing Forms. We’ll use the Text Form Field button to insert form fields into the table.

Figure B: Display the Forms toolbar so you can insert form fields.

Step 5: Insert a text form field

A text form field stores several types of data: text, numbers, symbols, and dates. It’s a little strange to store numeric and date values as text, but don’t let the term confuse you. This type of form field doesn’t limit the field to storing data strictly as text.

To insert a form field for storing the product price value, you’ll need a Number type, which you can insert as follows:

1. Press [Alt]+F9 to display field codes. Form fields are easier to work with if you can see the actual field codes while building the form.
2. Position the cursor in the first cell in the second column.
3. Click Text Form Field on the Forms toolbar.
4. Right-click the newly inserted form field and choose Properties from the resulting context menu.
5. Choose Number from the Type field’s drop-down list.
6. From the Format Number list, choose the currency setting, $#,##0.00;($#,##0.00)
7. In the Bookmark field, enter Price, as shown in Figure C. (We’ll reference the bookmarks in the formulas we enter later.)
8. Click OK.

Figure C: Enter Price in the Bookmark field.

Step 6: Insert text form fields for the remaining static values

There are two other static values, Quantity and Tax. Refer to Table A and using the process discussed in Step 5, enter two more text form fields.

Table A

Type	Format	Bookmark	Calculate On Exit
Number	0	Quantity	Check
Number	0%	Tax	Check

Be sure to select the Calculate On Exit setting for both static form fields. That will force Word to calculate the form’s formulas (which you haven’t entered yet) when you press Tab to leave that form field. At this point, the form has three form fields as shown in Figure D.

Figure D: This form has three text form fields.

Step 7: Insert a calculating form field for the subtotal

The three form fields store static values — the product’s price, the quantity sold, and any applicable tax. Now, it’s time to add a calculating form field that will subtotal cost. Add the subtotaling form field as follows:

1. Position the cursor in the fourth row’s second column.
2. Click Text Form Field on the Forms toolbar.
3. Right-click the new form field and choose Properties from the context menu.
4. From the Type field’s drop-down list, choose Calculation.
5. In the Expression field enter Price * Quantity. (Don’t delete the equal sign Word provides!)
6. From the Format Number list, choose the currency option, $#,##0.00;($#,##0.00)
7. Enter Subtotal in the Bookmark field, as shown in Figure E, and click OK.

Figure E: The Expression field stores simple formulas.

Figure F shows the form’s first calculating field. (We’ve increased the width of the column just a bit so you can see the field code unwrapped.) The code includes the formula, which refers to two of the static values, bookmarked as Price and Quantity.

Figure F: A calculating form field includes the field’s formula.

Step 8: Insert a calculating form field for the grand total

Now you’re ready to create a form field that will calculate the grand total. This one’s a little more complex, because you must calculate the tax and add it to the subtotal. To create this calculating field, do the following:

1. Position the cursor in the last row’s second column.
2. Click Text Form Field on the Forms toolbar.
3. Right-click the form field and choose Properties.
4. From the Type field’s drop-down list, choose Calculation.
5. In the Expression field enter Subtotal + (Subtotal * Tax)
6. From the Format Number list, choose the currency option, $#,##0.00;($#,##0.00)
7. Enter GrandTotal in the Bookmark field and click OK.

You’ve now inserted all five form fields. Figure G shows the completed form.

Figure G: This form has five form fields: three store static values and two store formulas that refer to those static values.

Step 9: Protect the document

Before you use the document, you should protect it so that users can’t inadvertently alter (mess up) your form fields. To do so, click Protect Form on the Forms toolbar (that’s the icon that looks like a padlock.)

Step 10: Use the form!

With the form fields protected, you’re ready to use the form. Simply enter values and watch how the calculating form fields update. To use the form, do the following:

1. Position the cursor in the first form field (Price) and enter a value, such as 3.
2. Press Tab and Word will select the Quantity field. Enter a value, such as 2.
3. Press Tab and Word will select the Tax field and calculate the two calculating fields, as shown in Figure H. Right now, there’s no tax figured into the purchase.
4. Enter a tax value, such as .06 and press Tab. Figure I shows the result of the grand total evaluating the tax value.

Figure H: The form calculates both form fields.

Figure I: Now the two calculating formulas have all the data they need to return different totals.

Source: TechRepublic

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all at Converge IT. Contact our Manchester IT Support Centre for help and advice with your business IT in 2010.

With Barack Obama installed in the White House, the global economy melting, and the banks reeling after near collapse in 3Q 2008, 2009 got underway.

January - Interim 'Digital Britain' report published

In mid January, south-coast seaside resort Bournemouth woke up to find something more pleasant than usual in its sewers – 100Mbit/s optical fibre connections, courtesy of network provider Fibrecity.

The next city up for a sewer Fibrecity is Dundee, although people thinking of going with the firm's website tagline of 'Touch Tomorrow Today', may want to think twice before complying.

At the end of January, Lord Carter of Barnes’ Interim Digital Britain report landed on our desks. The report was intended to be the blueprint that would put UK plc at the top of the digital pile.

Carter invited people to comment on the document – and comment they did, especially on the universal service commitment to provide all UK citizens with a broadband connection. And the download speed of those connections? The report was pretty modest in its aspirations, it said: "Subject to further study of the costs and benefits, we will set out our plans for the level of service which we believe should be universal. We anticipate this consideration will include options up to 2Mbit/s."

2Mbit/s?

Criticism surrounding the paucity of ambition came from all quarters, but one thing not defined in the report was the upload speed of connections. That parameter could be critical to the UK becoming a 'digital leader'. The final report was due in the summer - with everyone hoping for a network upgrade.

February - Could a new spectrum auction fool mobile operators again?

So February arrived, and with it UK comms regulator Ofcom held yet another consultation on 'liberalising' the radio spectrum, aimed at addressing mobile-operator service needs. However, having been fleeced at the start of the decade to the tune of £22.5bn by the then chancellor Gordon Brown, the mobile operators were understandably wary about such 'liberalisation'.

Particularly if it meant another Labour chancellor taking more cash. The Who's classic 60's record: "Won't get fooled again” springs to mind.

March - Ofcom gives green light to BT for next gen rollout

In March Ofcom released another document: "Delivering super-fast broadband in the UK: Promoting investment and competition", this time it was concerned with fixed line broadband services. The 90-page document looked at how it would regulate the costs of providing next generation access to the internet.

The document said: "we will ensure that any regulatory pricing allows investors to earn a rate of return that genuinely reflects the cost of deployment and the associated level of risk."

Cynics argued that the handshake between BT and Ofcom had already taken place behind closed doors, and that the incumbent was about to “stiff” the country again with the roll out of optical fibre connections.

April - Flexible workers of the UK unite

In April new flexible working legislation arrived, giving an extra 4.5m UK employees, parents with children under 16, the right to request to work flexibly. Would bosses be terrified by thoughts of remote workers sat at home watching daytime TV with their legs stretched out over a couple of crates of Timothy Taylor's Landlord bitter? (Describing your own homeworking habits there maybe? -Ed)

Possibly, but with the harsh wind of a recession blowing, homeworkers were more likely to be hell-bent on proving how productive they could be.

Meanwhile at Computing, a trickle – soon to be a deluge - of ISP and unified communications vendor press releases started arriving, each touting the efficacy of their remote working solutions, designed to address the flood of 'flexible workers'.

May - Google Wave's hello

In May, Google trumped Microsoft's upgraded search engine release – Bing – with an ambitious collaborative application called Google Wave. Although currently only available to selected users, Wave complements Google's drive to move applications to the end of the network cable, and not have them run locally on desktop PCs.

June - 50p Broadband Tax announced

June busted out all over with rumours that 'Digital Britain' author Lord Carter would resign after his final report hit Gordon Brown's desk. That report, all 238 pages of it, did hit the streets later in the month, with the universal service commitment upgraded from 'up to 2Mbit/s' to 'a minimum of 2Mbit/s'. Unsurprisingly there were no street parties held.

As for next generation network access, Lord Carter proposed a 50p per month broadband tax for rolling out such network connections to the 'final third' of the population who don’t have access to next generation network infrastructure.

July - Conservatives say 'Death to Ofcom'

In July BT announced trials of fibre-to-the-cabinet optical connections, in Muswell Hill in London and in Whitchurch near Cardiff.

News also surfaced that should the Conservatives win next year's general election, Ofcom would be disembowelled, and the broadband tax scrapped.

It was a busy month for Microsoft, which announced its entry into 'Cloud Computing' by saying it would launch Azure Cloud Services in November. The software giant also announced the delivery timeline and feature set of Office 2010 at its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in New Orleans.

In addition, it released the next version of its desktop operating system, Windows 7, bidding 'goodnight and thank you' to its hated predecessor Vista.

August - Carter passes the poisoned chalice

Step forward new Minister for Digital Britain, Stephen Timms, who took the posioned chalice from Lord Carter.

September - Bigger Oranges

France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom surprised the rest of the UK's mobile operators by announcing a 'merger'. This would give the new entity 37 per cent of the UK market with 28.4 million customers, revenues approaching £8bn, and over 50 per cent of the radio spectrum.

Meanwhile UK scientists at the University of Bristol claimed their first ever calculation on optical quantum chip. Easy factorisation of large prime numbers using quantum compute systems could render current encryption techniques used over the Internet useless. However, the boffins at Bristol eased fears by saying that fully functional systems wouldn't be around for 30-50 years.

Microsoft announced its Office Web Applications push with the availability of a technical preview. Computing 'kicked the tyres', but it was a very early preview, and not likely to be 'feature complete' until well into 2010.

October - Ballmer deafens UK customers at Windows 7 launch

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer came to London for the official launch of Windows 7 in the UK. After deafening an audience of customers with his booming voice, one of them piped up with: "I would appreciate your thoughts on how to simplify the applications licensing process."

Ballmer's reply:

"If there are specific things that you people consider to be complicated, or that have meant you incur unnecessary costs, I encourage you to email me. "

Meanwhile the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) did something useful by approving a one-size-fits-all charger for mobile phones.

November - Digging the dirt

The quote of the year was uttered in November, at a Westminster eForum discussing the, Future of Broadband in the UK. Here's Virgin Media executive director of broadband Jon James speaking about the company's first street digging-up exercise for several years: "The economics of new build remain challenging - the shovel has not advanced as a technology since the early cable companies went bankrupt digging up the streets of the UK."

At Microsoft's Tech. Ed event in Berlin, where celebrations for the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall were being conducted, Microsoft announced the general availability of Exchange Server 2010. In this new version, firms were encouraged to attach SATA storage to Exchange servers to reduce costs, and allow the user's mailboxes to be greatly increased. So after years of expert opinion saying that direct attached storage to servers was a no-no, we were told that it was now OK to do this.

December - ISPs to subsidise BT's pension fund?

Ofcom gave us another consultation. This time one guaranteed to have BT's competitors foaming at the mouth. It holds out the possibility, tiny though it could be, that BT would be allowed to bump up charges for phone lines and broadband connections to reduce its pension fund deficit.

Ofcom expects to publish a further consultation on BT's pension costs in spring 2010 with a statement to follow later in the year.

The government's chief medical officer for England Sir Liam Donaldson, updated the public about deaths from swine flu. For every 100,000 cases, 26 people died, and only one per cent of the UK population had contracted the virus. So that's a case-fatality ratio (CFR) of 0.026 per cent.

H1N1 is, on the scale flu pandemics are measured by - the Pandemic Severity Index (PSI) - small beer. The PSI is used in the US to delineate the severity of any pandemic, and currently Swine Flu H1N1 strain is classed as one. PSI one flu strains have a case-fatality ratio of less than one per cent.

Anybody who thinks this was quite a bad epidemic, needs only to be pointed towards Mike Davis's : "The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. "

Avian Flu is the H5N1 strain, which hasn't yet crossed over to humans, has a PSI of five.

How much remote working kit could a H5N1 epidemic sell for ISPs and unified comms vendors? Answers on a postcard.

Meanwhile, snow is falling in various parts of the UK, so at Computing we're standing by to delete yet more emails from UC vendors about how their wares could have helped thousands of unprepared businesses cope with snow chaos.

2010

2009 was the Chinese year of the Ox. 2010 will be the year of the Tiger, although probably not on the golf course. VAT is going back up to 17.5 per cent in January, and before the end of June there will be a general election in the UK.

Source: Computing.co.uk

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all at Converge IT. Contact our Manchester IT Support Centre for help and advice with your business infrastructure needs in 2010.

Spam is one thing. It’s annoying to get email messages that are nothing but blatant attempts to sell you something. But other than using up your bandwidth, they don’t really cause you any harm. Email scams are quite another thing. They aren’t trying to sell you something; they’re trying to steal something from you, con you out of or into something, or just scare you.

Email scams have been with us since the Internet went commercial back in the early 1990s. I remember getting those Nigerian scam messages back then. And believe it or not, they’re still around. But scammers have gotten more sophisticated, and some of the more recent email scams are harder to detect — unless you know what you’re looking for.

The holiday season seems to bring even more scammers out of the woodwork, perhaps because the average computer user is more vulnerable this time of the year. We’re busy and in a hurry and may be less likely to notice the signs that a message isn’t legit, and/or we’re in a generous and giving mood and may be more likely to fall prey to a well crafted story that plays on our sympathy.

Let’s look at some of the email scams that are currently going around the Internet and how you (and your users) can recognize them and keep from being victimised by them.

1: Fake Facebook “friend” messages

The popularity of social networking has surged, and scammers have jumped on that bandwagon to take advantage of the way the social sites work. For example, depending on your account settings, you may get email messages whenever someone posts to your Facebook wall or sends you a private message. Recently, I received a message with the subject line “Caroline sent you a message on Facebook.” As with real Facebook messages, there was a link to click on to reply. But I get a lot of those messages, and this one didn’t look quite right. Figure A shows the fake message.

Figure A

Fake Facebook message is close, but not close enough.

I clicked back to a Facebook notification that I knew was real to compare the two. Figure B shows real message (with the content blacked out to protect the privacy of the sender).

Figure B

The real Facebook message has subtle differences.

The first thing that caught my attention was the Reply To address. I expected the URL domain to be www.facebook.com, but the one in the fake message was facebook.montadalitihad.com. If you know how domain naming works, you know that means “facebook” is just the name of a Web server in the montadalitihad domain. As if that weren’t enough, I also noticed that the To field in the message didn’t show my name; instead it said “Undisclosed recipients,” indicating this message was sent to multiple people. All this was enough to cause me to check out the message headers (in Outlook 2007, you do this by clicking the Options icon. Figure C shows the headers.

Figure C

The Internet headers show that this message did not come from Facebook.

In a real Facebook message, the Received: field in the header would be from mx-out.facebook.com. In this one, it’s mail.illimail.com. Now I knew for sure that it didn’t come from Facebook.

I had opened the message in a virtual machine, so if there was malicious code attached, it wouldn’t affect my real OS. Now I clicked the Reply To link and found that it opened a page that looks very much like the Facebook login page. The red flag here was that I was already logged into Facebook with that Web browser. You should not get the login page if you’re already logged into the service. I did not, of course, enter my credentials. That’s the scam. If you do, the scammer will now have your Facebook user account and password and can hijack your Facebook site.

Of course, variations on this scam may use other popular social networks, such as MySpace or LinkedIn. If you’re in doubt about the legitimacy of any “friend” message, just log in to your social network account via your browser (not by clicking the link in the email) and check your Inbox. If the message is real, there will be a copy of it there.

2: Fake admin messages

You might just ignore a “friend” message (especially from a friend you’ve never heard of). But scammers know that a message from the site administrator is more likely to get your attention. This message pretends to be from “The Facebook Team” and purports to notify you of a policy change that requires you to submit a new account agreement. They try to scare you by warning that your account might be closed down or restricted if you don’t do it. Figure D shows this message.

Figure D

Scammers up the ante by sending fake administrative messages.

This time, the scammer did a better job with the From name, which shows to be from facebookmail.com, just like a real Facebook message. But the first clue that it’s a scam is the To address. That’s not my name, and that’s not the name of anybody in my domain. I have our Exchange server set up to forward messages to me when they’re sent to nonexistent addresses (assuming they don’t meet other spam criteria, which would block them at the server’s spam filters). Spammers and scammers often get hold of an email domain name and send messages to random names at that domain in hopes they’ll hit on a real one.

The second warning signal is the attachment. Facebook agreements don’t come as attachments; if this were real, it would direct me to a web page where I could read the new terms and click Agree. Attachments from strangers should always put you on alert.

I copied the attachment into a virtual machine and ran a virus scan on it. Sure enough, it was infected with a virus called VirTool:Win32/VBInject.gen!CN. Luckily, most antivirus programs that are up to date will be able to detect it. A check of the Internet headers on this message indicated that the Reply To address is somewhere in Germany.

3: Fear-mongering messages

While we think of scam messages as those by which the scammer profits, some don’t benefit the scammer at all — except for whatever gratification a person gets from causing others to be upset or afraid. Unfortunately, this makes some individuals feel powerful.

There are many examples of these types of messages, and they usually seem to play on the current headlines. A few years ago, there was a flood of such messages warning that if you saw another car on the road at night with headlights off and blinked yours to signal to the driver, you were in dire danger of being shot as part of a gang initiation. This article details the history of this email hoax.

Similar fear-mongering scams have warned about a serial killer who lured women out of their homes by playing a recording of a crying baby and a rapist who would approach women in parking lots claiming to have picked up a five dollar bill the woman dropped.

The latest in fear-mongering messages like to play on health fears caused by all the recent media attention to swine flu (H1N1). An email message has been going around the Internet for several months warning that “The CDC says H1N1 is wiping out entire villages in Asia and expect it to hit the U.S. in January, where it will kill 6 out of 10 people.” The message goes on to predict that martial law will be declared and you’ll be shot if you leave your house to buy food, and urges recipients to stock up now and to buy face masks, use Purell, and take Enzacta products to “keep your immune system strong.” If you weren’t already a little suspicious, you probably will be by the time you get to the end, where the sender says the pandemic was predicted years ago by a Russian mathematician and that it was caused by a tsunami. Here’s the full text of the message.

They always say that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The same goes for over-the-top bad news — especially if you’re hearing it for the first time in an email message. You can bet that if the CDC had really put out such an announcement, it would be all over the mainstream news outlets.

4: Account cancellation scams

It seems that around the holidays, more of these than usual start popping up. I’ve received a number of messages telling me that my account has been or is about to be cancelled — purportedly from Amazon, PayPal, even from the bank. Close examination of the messages show them all to be bogus. Of course, in many cases, I already knew that, because I don’t even have an account with the organization.

Here’s another clue: The message contains a link that looks legit, such as www.mybank.com, but when you hover your mouse pointer over it to show the actual URL, it’s something different, often with a foreign country code such as .ru (Russian) or .cn (China).

Still another clue is that these scam messages often contain typos or grammatical errors you wouldn’t expect from a legitimate company.

5: Bogus holiday cards

There are numerous Web sites through which you can send virtual holiday cards to your friends, and many people take advantage of this quick and easy — and inexpensive (no postage stamps required!) — way to send season’s greetings at this time of the year.

Scammers have co-opted the idea, though. They know that many computer users won’t think twice about clicking a link to view a card from a friend, so they send out messages notifying you that you’ve received a card, with a link to a Web site that will download malicious software to your computer if you aren’t properly protected.

So how do you tell the real card services from the scams? For one thing, when a friend sends you a card from a real service, it will almost always tell you the name of the sender. Scam messages are more likely to use the generic “A friend sent you a greeting.” The safest way to check is to do a Web search for the card service and read about it to find out if it’s a legitimate one. Or to really be safe, just ignore the card notification and send holiday greetings to your friends the old fashioned way (through the postal service) or by personal email, instead of using a Web service.

6: Phantom packages

Any other time of the year, you might be suspicious if you were notified that you had an unexpected delivery from DHL, FedEx, or UPS. During the holidays, it’s a common occurrence. Scammers know this, so they’re seizing the opportunity and sending email messages telling you that you have a package that couldn’t be delivered because of some problem with the shipping address.

This particular scam contains an attachment that’s supposed to be a form you need to print and fill out so you can pick up the package. However, there is no package and when you open the attachment, it infects your computer with a virus.

Also beware of variations on this theme. Many people know not to download email attachments, but they’ll readily click a link to go to a Web site. So more sophisticated scammers will send you to a site that looks like that of the delivery service, but that delivers only malware — straight to your system.

7: Threats from the government

A sharply divided partisan political system has resulted in a growing distrust of government in many circles. Some scammers are now playing on those sentiments. A recent scam email has been going around that purports to warn you that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have been informed that you’re allegedly involved in money laundering and/or terrorist activities. The email goes on to say that you can avoid prosecution by obtaining a certificate from the Economic Financial Crimes Commission Chairman — for only $370. Who wouldn’t jump at that deal?

Many similar scams use the names of government agencies. Of course, they’re all hoaxes. If you were really the target of a DHS or FBI investigation, you wouldn’t be able to buy your way out of it for a few hundred bucks. And those agencies would be contacting you in person, not sending threatening email messages.

8: Census survey says…

Another recent email scam also involves the federal government, but instead of accusing you of a crime, it uses your knowledge of real, routine government activities against you. Everyone knows that the U.S. government conducts a census every 10 years, and 2010 is the year. Citizens are required by law to answer the census-takers’ questions. Most people also know that many government-related tasks can now be done online.

Scammers are taking advantage of this to send phishing emails that claim to be from the Census Bureau, making it “convenient and easy” for you to fulfill your census obligation, either by filling out an attached form and emailing it back or by visiting a Web site to fill in a form. The form asks for all sorts of personal information, including the social security number and date of birth of everyone in your household, which can be used for identity theft.

In addition to asking you these personal questions, the emails may include attachments containing malicious code that can infect your computer. The same goes for the Web links contained in the email message. The Census Bureau does, in fact, send email regarding your participation in a survey — but it does not ask for detailed personal information.

9: In Microsoft (or Apple or Dell or HP) we trust

There are dozens of email scams out there that attempt to exploit users’ trust in the vendors that make their computer software or hardware. These messages say they’re from the vendor and range from fake security warnings with attachments that claim to be vulnerability fixes (but are really malware) to bogus “special offers” to “payment requests” that require you to download and install a “transaction inspector module” (which is really a Trojan) if you want to decline to have the payment charged to your credit card.

10: You’re a winner!

There are many new twists on an old theme: You’re a winner in the lottery, contest, or drawing. All you have to do to claim your prize is fill out a form and email it back. Of course, the entity awarding the prize needs your social security number because the value of the prize must be reported to the IRS.

The bad thing about this scam is that you will indeed have to provide such information to claim a prize in a legitimate contest. As a Microsoft Windows 7 Launch Party host, I was automatically entered in a contest to win a Dell laptop — and I won. When I got the email notification, you can bet I was suspicious. Before doing anything, I checked it out with my contacts at Microsoft. Even after confirming that the notice was real, I declined to send my personal information back via email; I printed out the form and sent it via snail mail (registered and certified) instead.

Even if you really did enter the contest that you’re being told you won, don’t get careless. Check into the legitimacy of an email notification of the good news. And I recommend never sending your social security number or other sensitive information in unencrypted email. A legitimate contest will almost always have alternatives methods by which you can submit your information.

Source: Tech Republic

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for advice on how best to avoid email scams and protect your business network.

Vodafone will sell the Apple iPhone in the UK from 14 January, the company announced on Monday.

For businesses, tariffs start from £30 per month for a 24-month contract, which includes an iPhone 3G 8GB handset supplied without charge, said the company.

Customers can pre-order the handset from Monday, Vodafone said in a statement.

"We're especially pleased to offer iPhone to business customers from launch, both directly and through a network of 20 dealers across the country — clearly demonstrating that Vodafone is the natural home for small business," Vodafone UK chief executive Guy Laurence said.

Vodafone announced in September that it would start selling the iPhone in the UK. The Vodafone Group also sells the handset through 13 of its operators around the world.

The iPhone was initially sold in the UK exclusively through O2. That period of exclusivity ended when Orange began to offer the iPhone in November.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for advice on the most suitable mobile solution for your business.

The European Commission announced on Wednesday that it has settled with Microsoft over its remaining antitrust issues. The Commission accepted Microsoft's plan to offer browser choice on PCs without bundling Windows and Internet Explorer together.

Microsoft has committed to offering European PC users their choice of browsers, and is allowing computer vendors the option to turn Internet Explorer off completely. The software giant has also promised to disclose its interoperability plans.

Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement: "Millions of European consumers will benefit from this decision by having a free choice about which web browser they use.

"Such choice will not only serve to improve people's experience of the internet now but also act as an incentive for web browser companies to innovate and offer people better browsers in the future."

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out more about Microsoft solutions.

There has been much hype over the last few years about Linux and Mac gaining market share, and even though their numbers are still small (both in single digits), some have gone so far as to predict that Windows is in danger and that Linux will “triumph over Windows” or that Mac OS is “set to become the dominant operating system in the world.”

The perceived failure of Windows Vista — whose death was greatly exaggerated by a series of clever but not entirely accurate Apple commercials — only added fuel to the fire. Based on some of the headlines, you would have thought that individuals and companies were abandoning Microsoft in droves and flocking to the alternative operating systems. The impressive sales of the original EeePC and other Linux-based netbooks seemed to support that contention. Then, vendors started making netbooks that run Windows XP and the reports started coming in that Linux netbooks were being returned at a rate four times that of their Windows-based counterparts.

As of October 2009, according to Net Applications, Windows still had more than 92% of the total OS market share but Windows 7 only made up 4%. On the other hand, Windows 7 achieved that number only two weeks after being released; it took Vista seven months to reach 4%. Linux is nowhere near that figure (at around 1%), and Mac is only slightly higher (5.27%).)

So how will it all play out now that Windows 7 is in the game? Here are 10 reasons I believe Microsoft’s new OS will rule the desktop operating system space just as XP does now.

1: XP users are (finally) ready for something new

Windows XP currently holds more than 70% of the OS market share, according to Net Applications. But XP was released in 2001, and despite three service packs, it’s getting a bit long in the tooth. Although service packs have added features as well as fixes, XP still lacks many of the usability features that were added to Vista and Windows 7.

Of more concern, especially to businesses, XP lacks many of the security mechanisms that are built into Vista and Windows 7, such as UAC, protected mode IE, BitLocker encryption (some editions), system services that are more isolated and run with fewer privileges, a new TCP/IP stack with better authentication and encryption, Address Space Layout Randomization, and more.

Even many XP diehards are beginning to yearn for something new, and companies that want to take advantage of enterprise technologies such as DirectAccess and AppLocker will need to upgrade.

2: It’s (usually) an easy upgrade from Vista

For those who are already running Vista SP1 or above, an in-place upgrade to Windows 7 is quick and easy on most computers. (However, note that there have been reports among a small number of users of an “endless reboot loop” problem with Vista-to-Win7 upgrades.)

Nonetheless, I have upgraded a number of adesktops and laptops from Vista to Windows 7 with no problems, and the vast majority of my readers have reported the same experience. Unlike with in-place upgrades with past operating systems, I have seen no performance or stability problems in the upgraded systems.

3: It’s better, but not too different

Moving to any new OS always involves a learning curve. Some people love discovering new features and learning new ways of doing things. Others hate change, even when it’s good change. In general, computer users just want to be able to get their work done. Most are used to the way things are done in Windows, and the basics are still there in Windows 7. Switching to an entirely different platform, such as Linux or Mac, takes much more getting used to.

It’s certainly true that the graphical user interfaces for Linux have gotten better over the years, but computer users coming from a Windows environment will still find some challenges awaiting them there. The terminology is different — you have a root account instead of administrator. The file system is different — you have mysterious locations such as /dev for your peripherals (mouse, keyboard, monitor), /bin for binary (executable) files, and /etc for editable text configuration files. An application’s files are spread out on your hard drive in different directories, not installed in their own separate subdirectories as they are in Windows. Installing a program may or may not involve having to compile the source code or create your own installation package. In addition to getting used to a new OS, in many cases you’ll have to get used to new applications, too, since many Windows apps don’t have Linux versions.

The Mac OS is a little more intuitive, but if you’re coming from Windows, it’s still a bit like entering a foreign country. There are none of the installation and setup problems you might experience with Linux, since OS X runs only on Apple hardware. However, you’ll find that things are “arranged” differently. For instance, a program’s menus appear at the top of the screen, rather than in the program’s own window as they do in Windows. Once again, many of the productivity programs you’re used to using won’t run on the Mac, so you’ll need new ones and, unlike with Linux, most of them are not free.

Windows 7 has a new, sleeker look and a number of new features, but it still retains the Windows feel. It generally takes XP users much less time to get to know the OS than when switching to a Linux or Mac platform.

4: Hardware requirements are reasonable

Many computer users were unhappy with the increased hardware requirements of Windows Vista. Those with older XP machines often found that their systems wouldn’t support the new operating system. That led some to switch to Linux, which would run on less powerful computers.

By almost all accounts, Windows 7 runs much better on old or low cost machines than Vista did. Many users have been able to install and run Windows 7 on computers that would not run Vista satisfactorily, if at all. Fewer users will be forced to buy new hardware to upgrade to Windows 7, which might mean fewer will be moving to Linux to get a new OS without upgrading the hardware.

Of course, the Mac OS can’t be installed on non-Apple hardware, so moving from XP or Vista to a Mac necessitates buying new hardware, regardless of how powerful your current system might be.

5: Most computer users aren’t geeks

Geeks love the challenge of getting the hardware and software to work, and they don’t mind spending hours or days experimenting with configuration settings or swapping out cards. Linux is the perfect OS for geeks — but most computer users aren’t geeks. They care about the task, not the technology. They just want to be able to get their work done or play their game without worrying about hunting down the right drivers or compiling code themselves.

When a geek is told to “Just extract the tarball and use flex or bison to compile the app,” hey, no problem. When typical home or office computer users encounter those words, they blink in confusion or cower in fear. Sure, new distros of Linux are easier to use than ever, but they still aren’t as easy to use as Windows — especially when you factor in the familiarity aspect.

6: Most computer users don’t care about “cool”

For some folks, it’s all about being cool. And Apple products are undeniably cool, from the super thin Macbook Air to the charming Mini to the sleek and sexy iPhone. The goal is to be on the cutting edge, to own what’s “in” (remember Cabbage Patch Kids?). Form takes precedence over functionality. It’s also about elitism: being able to afford the “very best.” Those people naturally gravitate to high priced, showy Macs.

However, the majority of computer users don’t use their computers to make a fashion statement; they use them to run applications… which brings us to the next point.

7: There are a lot of apps for that

No matter how nice those Macs look, they don’t run all the applications that many users need. Apple brags that one of the reasons to choose an iPhone is the fact that there are more apps available for it than for some other mobile phone operating systems. Well, that same principle applies when choosing a desktop OS — but in that case, Windows wins hands-down. There are more programs. Even more important, more of the programs that function as the de facto standard for a particular purpose (such as the Microsoft Office programs) are made for Windows. Yes, there’s Office for Mac, too, but it doesn’t have all the features and functionality of its Windows counterpart.

The same goes for Linux. There are substitutes available, such as Open Office instead of Office, or GIMP instead of PhotoShop, but it’s just not the same. Even though these alternatives may be free, most people who rely on their applications for important work prefer the commercial versions (which run on Windows).

Mac and Linux fans will quickly point out that you can always use Parallels or Wine to run Windows apps in a virtualized environment. But the fact that those options are so popular just reinforces the argument that Windows has the best apps.

8: You get more — and less

Windows 7 gives you more new features, while at the same time providing a leaner and meaner OS. You no longer have to install a third-party application to get handy little functionalities like Sticky Notes, and Windows 7 adds major improvements to the interface, such as multi-touch support. You also get more keyboard shortcuts to speed up input, as well as the ability to encrypt removable drives with BitLocker to Go, better support for solid state drives, and virtual hard disks. Windows 7 has built-in biometric support, and Windows Media Center now comes with the Pro edition (but can easily be blocked via Group Policy in the business environment). Standard built-in apps such as Paint, Wordpad, and Calculator have been made more feature-rich so that you can do much more with them.

Yet all of these additions don’t make Windows 7 a more bloated operating system. Microsoft also cut out many of the apps that were built into previous operating systems, but which many users never used. The email client (Windows Mail), more sophisticated Photo Editor (Windows Photo Gallery), Contacts, and Calendar programs are no longer installed with the OS. Yet for those who want them, all of those programs are still available as free downloads from the Microsoft Windows Live Web site.

9: The price is (generally) right

Sure, there have been many complaints that Windows 7 costs too much. But Microsoft actually dropped the price of the Home Premium edition, in comparison with the same edition of Vista, and it kept the prices the same for other editions. The list price for the full version of Windows 7 Professional is the same as for Windows XP ($299.99).

Although the full version prices may sound a tad high ($199.99 for Home Premium, $299.99 for Pro, and $319.99 for Ultimate), the vast majority of people will already have a qualifying Microsoft operating system. So they’ll pay the upgrade price ($119.99 for Home Premium, $199.99 for Pro, and $219.99 for Ultimate) or buy a new computer with Windows 7 preinstalled (with drastically discounted OEM pricing).

A number of discount programs are also available, such as the student discount (one copy of Home Premium or Pro for $29.99 for students enrolled in colleges and universities) and the family pack discount (three Home Premium upgrade licenses for $149.99).

10: Businesses care about the bottom line

Speaking of price, what it all comes down to in the business world is the bottom line. Companies compare total cost of ownership of different software options, not just the initial price point. That includes support costs, hardware costs, training costs, and productivity impact. And the majority of businesses, after doing such an analysis, choose to stick with Windows.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for more infiormation and advice on upgrading to Windows 7.

Microsoft recently released Exchange Server 2010, and it’s chockfull of new features. This article will introduce you to a few of our favorites.

1: Legal hold

Over the last several years, it has become increasingly more common for an organization’s email messages to be subpoenaed as part of the litigation process. The problem is that email is dynamic in nature. Messages are constantly being sent, received, and deleted. Likewise, messages in the archives are often set to expire after a specific length of time. All of these factors have made it difficult to comply with litigation-related message retention requirements.

Exchange 2010 offers a new legal hold feature. This feature allows you to preserve the contents of an Exchange mailbox. Users can still use their mailbox in the usual manner, but copies of all items are retained, even if they delete them or if archived content would otherwise have expired.

2: Multi mailbox search

A complementary feature to legal hold is the new multi mailbox search feature. This feature makes it a lot easier for organizations to perform E-discovery. As the name implies, multi mailbox search allows a designated person to perform organization-level searches across users’ mailboxes. The search interface is designed to allow administrators to search for multiple keywords or phrases simultaneously.

3: Exchange Control Panel

The Exchange Control Panel is a new management tool built into Exchange 2010. While the Exchange Control Panel isn’t designed to take the place of the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell, it is definitely a welcome addition.

The Exchange Control Panel is integrated into OWA. It allows users to perform a few basic self-service tasks, such as changing their contact information. For administrators, the Exchange Control Panel provides a way of performing some of the more common management tasks remotely using a Web interface.

4: Database availability groups

Exchange 2007 provided several high availability features, such as Cluster Continuous Replication. Exchange 2010 takes things a step further with database availability groups. Database availability groups allow you to designate multiple servers to host copies of individual databases. In the event of a failure, Exchange can automatically recover. Databases are no longer server specific, so you are free to mix and match the database replicas that are hosted on each mailbox server.

5: Database-level failover

In previous Exchange Server cluster implementations, a failure required an entire cluster node to fail over. This meant that if a server was hosting multiple databases, and the disks associated with a single database were to fail, the entire server would have to fail over — which would be disruptive to users whose mailboxes weren’t even stored on the failed disks.

In contrast, Exchange 2010 supports database-level fail over. That way, if a failure affects only a single database, that database can fail over without disrupting the other databases on the server.

6: Voice mail transcription

In Exchange 2007, the unified messaging feature caused voice mail messages to be saved as email message attachments. While that seemed to work out fine most of the time, it did sometimes make life difficult for road warriors who didn’t always have the ability to play the message.

Exchange 2010 uses a speech recognition engine to automatically transcribe voice mail messages. Users still receive the voice message as an email attachment, but the email message also contains a written transcript of the voice message. Users can check their voice messages even when they don’t have access to a sound card. More important, the transcription feature allows the contents of voice messages to be indexed along with traditional email messages.

7: Call answering rules

In Exchange 2007, the auto attendant provides voice prompt menus for the organization’s primary phone number. For example, an auto attendant might be used to ask callers to press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish and then route calls accordingly. In Exchange 2007, the auto attendant is an organization level feature.

In Exchange 2010, though, each user has his or her own personal auto attendant, which Microsoft refers to as the Call Answering Rules feature. Call answering rules allows users to create their own call routing options. So, for instance, an important call might be forwarded to a user’s cell phone, while a less important call might go straight to voice mail.

8: Personal archive

In Exchange 2010, each user can now have two mailboxes — a primary mailbox and an archive mailbox. By using an archive mailbox, users can keep their primary mailboxes uncluttered. They’re free to browse their archive mailbox at will, and items can be automatically moved from their primary mailbox to their archive mailbox using retention policies.

9: Retention policies

Retention policies allow messages to be tagged in a way that reflects their useful lifespan and what should happen when they expire. For example, you could specify that items in one folder should be deleted after 30 days, while items in another folder should be moved to the archives after five years. Users can also apply retention policies to individual messages that are separate from folder-level policies.

10: Role-based access control

Exchange 2010 uses a new access control model called role-based access control. Now, administrators can perform delegation based on the role that the delegate will be performing. This means that rather than guessing which permissions the delegate will need, the administrator can simply tell Exchange which tasks the delegate will be performing.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out what Exchange Server 2010 can do for your business.

The UK is trailing when it comes to next-generation access, new figures show.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UK is placed 21st out of 30 in terms of speed.

That puts it below countries such as Greece, Portugal and Spain.

The report suggests that countries that invest in fibre networks are likely to see the best economic returns in other areas.

When it comes to broadband penetration, the UK is doing OK - placed 13th out of the 30 OECD members.

But most of these subscribers still access broadband via so-called DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) rather than via fibre.

Overall, nearly one in 10 OECD subscribers currently accesses the internet over fibre.

In Japan and Korea, most people do; it is also growing fast in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the US.

The report finds that many governments are subsidising the rollout of new broadband networks.

FASTEST BROADBAND NATIONS Japan - top advertised speed 1Gbps Finland - 110Mbps Sweden - 100Mbps Korea - 100Mbps Iceland - 100Mbps France - 100Mbps Denmark - 100Mbps Netherlands - 60Mbps United States - 50Mbps Spain - 50Mbps

It concludes that such subsidies are justified because of the benefits broadband can make in four key sectors of the economy - electricity, health, education and transportation.

"If you cut 1% off the costs of education, electricity, health and transport you would more than pay for a fibre network," said Taylor Reynolds of the technology division of the OECD.

"That is the type of thinking required by countries considering rolling out next-generation networks," he said.

Broadband tax

With the UK's broadband population standing at nearly 18 million, take-up of the technology is good but there are concerns about how quickly the UK is rolling out super-fast services.

The government wants to see super-fast broadband available to 90% of the country by the end of 2017.

Superfast broadband is generally regarded as speeds of 50Mbps (megabits per second) or above.

Currently BT has plans to offer a mixture of fibre technologies to around 40% of the country and Virgin Media has made cable broadband - capable of speeds of around 50Mbps - available to half of UK homes.

The government has announced a £6 a year tax on fixed-line phones to raise funds for the 30% of the country that it estimates won't get super-fast broadband via existing commercial broadband plans.

It hopes to raise around £170m a year through the levy, although the Conservatives have vowed to scrap the tax if they win the next election.  

Source: BBC

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out how your business can benefit from super fast broadband.

Got the urge to upgrade from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7 but are still afraid to jump in? Those who got Windows 7 pre-installed on a new PC are likely to have little or no trouble with the new system. However, smooth sailing is not a given for every upgrade attempt.

Tech support firm iYogi has put out a list of the top ten problems its customers have encountered making the move from an earlier release of Windows to Windows 7 so far -- along with instructions and tips on how to fix them.

At the top of iYogi's list is failure of an upgrade from Vista with a "62% completed" message accompanied by a system hang. In that case, the user can reboot and the system will roll back to Vista, or the user can follow detailed instructions on iYogi's site in order to successfully complete the upgrade.

In among the other issues that have vexed upgrading users, though, are issues that are not bugs but are still annoying.

Other Windows 7 gripes

Users' second most common problem occurs when the PC's DVD drive is no longer visible, even following a successful installation of Windows 7, according to the list of problems and the fixes posted on iYogi's site.

Again, iYogi provides detailed instructions -- two different solutions in this case, although the first cure is to edit the Windows registry, which can be a daunting task for non-technical users. The second fix is to use a Windows utility called the Computer Management console to change the drive letter to another and then change it back.

Problems three and four, meanwhile, relate to Windows 7's Aero user interface. For instance, Aero's transparency feature may not display correctly, or the ability to move a window while at the same time resizing it may not work.

Interestingly, the fifth hottest topic regards a failure of iTunes to synch with Windows 7 after the upgrade is complete.

For instance, one of the top ten user gripes is that applets that came with Vista -- such as Mail, Movie Maker, and Photo Gallery -- are not distributed with Windows 7. So on completion of the upgrade, those applets are no longer available on the upgraded computer.

Instead, users need to download them from Microsoft's Live Essentials site.

Another problem that is not a bug per se is that Windows 7 defaults to not displaying file name extensions.

Among the other user issues are custom icons that change when the visual themes are changed, as well as questions whether, when looking at the task bar, an icon is a running application or a "pinned shortcut," iYogi's discussion stated.

Microsoft provides technical support for users upgrading to Windows 7.

Consumers receive 90 days of free phone, online chat and e-mail support that begins on the day they activate their software license, a Microsoft spokesperson told InternetNews.com in an e-mail.

Source: Internet News

Contact our Manchester IT Support Centre for information on upgrading to Windows 7.

BT has been awarded a five-year, multi-million pound contract to build the fibre-optic-based communications infrastructure for MediaCityUK, a £500m business complex under construction in Manchester.

The contract, announced on Monday, will see BT Business design, implement and manage a private network. The network, comprised of more than 20 million metres of optical fibre, will give MediaCityUK's tenants connection speeds of up to 10Gbps.

BT Business is the division of BT Retail that sells to small and medium-sized businesses.

MediaCityUK, which is located at Salford Quays, is aimed at media companies. It has already signed up future tenants such as the BBC — which is moving Sport, Radio 5 Live and other London-based staff to the complex — and Northwest Vision and Media.

BT said its network will enable applications such as broadcast media transmission and the transfer of high-definition video.

The network will also carry the complex's telephony communications and support services such as buildings management and file sharing.

Cisco will provide a high-capacity backbone network to link the principal buildings of the development. BT said it would begin installing the network later this month, with the first phase of MediaCityUK planned for completion in 2011.

BT is investing heavily in fibre-optic networks, announcing in July it would roll out fibre connectivity to millions of UK homes by the end of 2012.

In November, research firm Point Topic published maps showing the likely distribution of the new fibre.

Source: ZDNet

Converge IT can help advise and roll out the latest communications infrastructure for your business. Contact us at our Manchester IT Support Centre for more information.

Google has launched real-time search to give users access to up-to-the-second information.

The search giant said it will draw real-time data from over a billion pages on the web.

The new feature will also include updates from Twitter and the social networks of MySpace and Facebook.

"Information is being created at a pace I have never seen before and in this environment, seconds matter," said Google fellow Amit Singhal.

At an event staged at the Computer History Museum in California, the company said this was the first time that any search engine has integrated the real-time web into its results page.

"There is so much information being generated out there that getting you relevant information is the key to the success of a product like this. It's all about relevance, relevance, relevance," said Mr Singhal.

Technical feat

The Silicon Valley company said the feature was now live and would take a couple of days to be rolled out across the world. Updates from Twitter will be included right away, while those from Facebook and MySpace are not expected to be integrated into results until the new year.

Real-time search will also be available on phones

The real-time stream of data will be shown within Google's normal results page.

The feature will also be available on smart phones, such as the iPhone and those running Google's Android operating system.

Google would not be drawn on the financial details of the deals it has done with Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.

Facebook has publicly stated it is not making money on this collaboration and that the updates it will give Google come from the public profile pages that can be seen by anybody on the web.

From a technical standpoint, the company said this was a landmark event in the world of search.

"This is a technical marvel, getting all these updates in seconds, making them searchable right after they are posted and making them available so that anyone in the world can find them," said Google's vice-president of search Marissa Mayer.

"The updates (on Twitter) are so truthful and so in the moment. That is a really, really powerful part of this. Are you at this event right now? Are you on this ski slope right now? And because of that 'right now' element of it , this is hugely valuable data," Ms Mayer told BBC News.

Twitter founder Biz Stone told reporters the company was "super excited to be doing this with Google. Relevance, relevance, relevance - they are good at it, we're not," he said.

Competition drive

Reaction to Google's announcement has been largely positive in the blogosphere.

"It looks really great and is a next step in search," said Bas van den Beld at Searchcowboys.com.

Microsoft has also done a deal to show Twitter's public updates feed

"The announcement signals an aggressive push by Google to maintain its mantle as search-innovation leader amid unaccustomed pressure from rivals," said Ryan Singel from Wired.com

Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand said with Microsoft pulling out the stops with its own Bing search engine, Google needed to show it had its eye on the prize.

"From the PR standpoint it would not have been helpful to be a leading information resource and have people pointing out that you don't have certain kinds of information, especially when you have a rival like Bing cutting deals and diligently going after Google," Mr Sullivan told BBC News.

Google has around 65% of the search market while Microsoft's Bing which has just done a deal with Yahoo commands nearly 30%.

Computer vision

The search giant also unveiled Google Goggles, a new visual search feature that lets consumers use a picture instead of keywords as the search query.

The tool compares the image users have taken with Google's database to return relevant information.

"In the nature of computer vision we are at the beginning here and the technology is just getting underway," said Google's vice-president of engineering, Vic Gundotra.

"This today marks the beginning of this visual journey. We are at the cusp of a an entire new computing era where devices will help us explore the world around us."

The feature will be available on the Android platform.

Source: BBC

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out more about how Search can benefit your business.

With the announcement of its experimental 48-core Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC), Intel has gone all Google.

It's not that the chip is designed along the same lines as Google builds its datacentres — although, intriguingly enough, it is — nor that Intel intends to become a near-monopoly supplier with the new idea. Intel's already there, and it has no intention of throwing away its current lead in the service of a new and untested idea.

The key advance that makes the SCC the hardware equivalent of a Google cloud is that Intel is effectively giving it away to its target audience — in this case, computer researchers. A chip of this complexity, made in such small numbers, would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if development costs were to be covered. Even if Intel is looking for a token payment from researchers (the company hasn't said yet), the money won't come close to payback. Like Google Wave, though, the value of SCC to the company comes in finding out how well it works in preparation for what comes next.

And like Google Wave, the SCC's value lies in creating a new way of doing things out of some very established ideas. Looked at from one angle, there is almost nothing new in there: the processing cores are very similar to early Pentiums, and the way they communicate is through message passing — an architectural concept almost as old as computing itself.

This is a huge advantage. As Intel knows only too well, there is absolutely no point in creating an enormously clever new design if its very cleverness prevents people from understanding it. Time and again, the company has produced radically different architectures in a attempt to move computing away from the bread-and-butter mainstream. Time and again, they've been ignored. Few today remember the i432 and the i960, and it is unlikely that the Itanium will ever be more than a footnote in computing history.

Sensibly, Intel has concentrated its efforts on making established ideas run fast and efficiently. The SCC has extraordinarily adaptable power management, which looks most out of place in a design intended primarily for architectural exploration: it's like building a prototype jet fighter and adding an HD in-flight entertainment system for the navigator. But it does make sense because Intel has this technology already from its Nehalem work and knows it must be a part of any future products. It also means it can put the chip into a standard format of motherboard and run it on standard power supplies in standard cases. That makes the practicalities of giving it away and persuading researchers to try it far more plausible.

Likewise, the message-passing core design must work exceptionally fast and with very low latency — attributes which 'just work' from a programmer's point of view, but take lots of silicon smarts. Incidentally, Intel has cheated a bit here by adding a tiny amount of shared memory that all the cores can access and that is is intended for out-of-band message synchronisation. This may go against one of the main advantages of message passing, which is that the architecture works efficiently off-chip compared to cache coherency. But that's the point of an experimental design, and one of the more interesting results will be how well this sort of acceleration measure works in reality.

Doubtless, there are plenty of other interesting things to learn about the SCC. Intel is keeping many details in reserve for the technical paper it will publish in February, although at the launch on Wednesday, the designers were talking tantalisingly about the extreme configurability of the cores.

The main question, though, is whether Google's approach to software — make it, give it away, capitalise on what evolution makes of the result — will work in hardware.

Tellingly, if Intel does find the SCC experiment worthwhile, there's a lot more it can do to develop the concept. The Braunschweig labs that had the lion's share of the development work on the SCC specialise in emulation, in creating hardware that can easily take on a myriad different configurations and pretend to be something else. Intel has already learned the value of that internally, where emulation has become a key design tool in coping with the complexities in creating, testing and verifying massive designs.

It makes sense to consider pushing that power out to the next stage, to the edge of market where new ideas meet practicality. Could Intel be thinking of creating a research platform that will accept many new architectures and let real people work with, and ultimately decide, which ones work? It's an enthralling idea, and one which opens up many strange new futures, where hardware takes on many of the attributes of software in a step beyond virtualisation.

But it demonstrates something that Google has always said, even if we haven't been listening: Google's big idea isn't about the web, or search, or mail, or services. It's about knowledge and availability, and finding new ways to give people what they want without getting bogged down in ways that just happened to work in the past. Intel is showing how that big idea could work a long way from web search.

Source: ZDNet

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to find out more about how Cloud Computing can benefit your business.

The Conservative Party has promised to enable superfast rural broadband by easing up on regulations and opening up access for those who want to lay fibre cable.

Conservative shadow innovation and science minister Adam Afriyie said on Wednesday that should the Tories win the next general election, they plan to look at the rules surrounding fibre provision.

"We don't believe in stuffing taxpayer money into the centre, we believe in freeing up superfast broadband by relaxing regulation," Afriyie said at the Business Cloud Summit in London on Wednesday.

One of the key areas being examined by the Conservatives is access to ducting, with the aim of beginning to allow any organisation to use it, the shadow minister added. "We expect companies to lay the fibre," Afriye said.

In contrast to the Tory approach of deregulating and giving the market sole responsibility for deploying next-generation broadband access, Labour has proposed a 50p broadband levy on each fixed copper line. Lord Carter said in June that investment by operators would fund a fibre rollout to two-thirds of the country, while the levy would fund coverage for the remaining third.

"There's two models," Afriyie said. "You can take a big telecoms provider, provide £4bn and say 'here you go'. You stuff the money into the centre, and they roll it out. The other model is to relax regulation and release ductings."

However, Afriyie would not specify which regulations the Conservatives intended to ease, apart from those governing duct access.

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre to review your business broadband options.

For a lot of IT departments, the end of the year means a slower pace - which makes it the ideal time to catch up on a host of essential (but often deferred) tasks.

Year-end. Ah, a perfect time to roll into the office late, leisurely grab a second cup of coffee, and finally enjoy a slowdown on the help desk. With so many holidays, staff burning additional vacation, and year-end shutdowns, an IT department can finally catch its breath, right?

You already know the answer.

With large numbers of employees out of the office, this is a prime opportunity to get a little housekeeping in order. Here are 10 best year-end technology practices all small and midsize businesses should follow to ensure systems and data are properly maintained.

1: Restore backups to confirm proper operation

Sure, you’re running backup operations every day. But are those backups completing properly? And, the media upon which they’re stored — is it dependable? Gartner is routinely quoted as saying that as many as 71% of tape recoveries fail. Recover backups to test systems to confirm that the appropriate data is being backed up and that the backup media enable recovering the data properly.

2: Review disk image inventory and status

If your organization deploys workstations or servers using disk images or leverages disk images as backups, confirm that those images are current. Test redeploying disk images to nonproduction systems to make sure they enable proper deployment or recovery and make adjustments for any new hardware or software applications introduced during the past year.

3: Physically clean servers and PCs

Depending upon the physical environment, laptops, desktop PCs, and servers can become contaminated with dust, dirt, and debris. I once supported a manufacturing and processing facility that couldn’t afford to build a proper server room. So many metallic contaminants would collect on the motherboard that the risk of creating short circuits proved very real.

Open systems and remove dust and dirt from the intake and exhaust vents, CPU fans, cooling sinks, and the like. Use a special electronics vacuum, as canned air often just blows contaminants deeper into fans, heat sinks, and other components.

4: Defragment hard disks

Possibly the most tiresome task IT professionals complete, even in the age of supposedly self-defragmenting operating systems, is defragmenting hard disks. Laptops, desktops, and servers all require regular defragmentation, especially if you want to prolong disk life and maximize performance. Consider deploying a third-party utility or writing custom scripts to schedule defragmentation routines during off hours. Either way, any good year-end maintenance checklist requires confirming that disks are properly defragmented.

5: Audit software licenses and media

When failures or disasters occur, the biggest obstacle to quick recovery is the inability to locate license keys, registration codes, and installation media. All small and midsize businesses should regularly audit application licenses and installation software site-wide, including all branch and remote locations. Confirm that all license information and installation media are safely stored in a secure location. Spiceworks is one tool that can help automate the audit process.

6: Perform network stress tests

Over time, employees and departments install or deploy additional workstations, systems, and even networks. It’s not uncommon to find a bullpen space sharing a single Ethernet drop with eight additional workstations via a network hub or switch. Year-end provides a great opportunity to test networks for problems. Several network tools are available, such as Foundstone Blast and Wireshark, among others.

On a more simple scale, perform rolling ping (ping -t) checks to make sure workstations aren’t dropping packets when connecting both to local servers and WAN-side sites. Such sustained tests help confirm proper physical cabling, eliminate NIC issues, and verify routers, switches, and other network equipment is performing properly.

7: Audit user accounts

Human resources and information technology departments get busy. Various projects and initiatives arise throughout the year. Occasionally, users may leave the organization without word getting back to the IT department.

Schedule a quick meeting with an administrative staff member who can provide an accurate list of current employees and authorized contractors. Crosscheck that list against the user accounts listed within Active Directory (or your organization’s equivalent user database) to confirm that no user accounts exist for staff who have left the organization. Kill accounts that are no longer required.

8: Confirm equipment inventory

Perform a physical count of hardware assets. Build a detailed inventory. Catalog network devices, laptops, desktops, servers, and other equipment your department is tasked with managing. Include printers, monitors and similar peripherals within the asset list you build.

Finally, compare the asset list to the prior year’s inventory. Compensate for decommissioned or newly purchased equipment and confirm all organization assets are accounted for properly. Spiceworks, again, can assist in mapping a network and locating networked devices.

9: Clean printers

Printers are the workhorse of many businesses, yet the only maintenance many network printers receive is toner cartridge replacement. Visit all network printers. Vacuum them of loose toner, clear exhaust vents of dust and debris to ensure proper cooling, and consider running specially formulated cleaning pages to help clean internal components. You can also perform other laser printer cleaning tips, such as using toner cloth to clean printer cartridges.

10: Clean your cube or office

It sounds like an easy, breezy last step right? Clean your office? But it’s not, necessarily.

As you uncover scraps of paper, Post-It notes, and old mail, you may well find demo software applications you were supposed to test, software licenses and install media that need to be filed, invoices to pay, and old components needing repair or proper disposal. Just as year-end is the appropriate time to clean systems of dust, dirt, and debris, so the same is true for your desk and office.

Get organized. The start of a new year is just around the corner and you’re going to get to do it all over again.

Source: Tech Republic

If all that sounds like too much stress contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre and let our engineers do the work for you.

Like a lot of business software users, I’m a generalist. On any given day, my job may require a little number crunching and word processing, and maybe some page layout, slide show creation, or report building. For the most part, the various Office apps make it easy to meet these needs. But certain tasks just don’t come up often enough for me to keep them in my head. (Yes, I’m blaming the tasks here.)

Excel is a good example. I use it every day, but I seldom need to do more than enter data or a simple formula. So when a job requires something a little more sophisticated, I waste a certain amount of time trying to remember how I got it to work before. Then I waste even more time trying to extract a useful answer from online help.

Frustrating, unproductive, and a little embarrassing.

So I made a list of a few Excel techniques I occasionally need but inevitably forget. This is bunny stuff, and not for you power users out there. But if you’re a casual Excel user (or you’re on the help desk but don’t spend much time in Excel yourself), maybe this list will help you cut to the chase.

1: Toggle the display of formulas

When you need to see what’s going on under the hood of a worksheet, you may want to turn on Excel’s formula display. There’s a convoluted way to do this via Excel options (and Excel 2007 offers the Show Formulas button in the Formula Auditing group of the Formulas tab - if you want to remember that). But you can toggle the display on the fly just by pressing [Ctrl] ~. If you select a cell whose formula you want to troubleshoot before turning on the display, Excel will also show you the dependent cells for the formula.

2: Convert a formula to its results

Sometimes, you may need to replace a formula with its results - either to preserve a static value or to optimize your sheet by reducing calculations. There’s a pretty simple trick for this, but a word of warning: Be sure you really want to wipe out a formula before you do it. (There could be undesirable consequences.) In fact, a good practice is to create a backup copy of the workbook as a safety net in case things go awry.

To convert a formula, click in its cell and press [F2] to enable in-cell editing. Next, press [F9] to calculate the formula and display its results. Then, hit [Enter], and your formula will be replaced by the value it produced.

You can also copy the formula and use Paste Special | Values to paste the results someplace else, leaving the formula intact in its original location.

3: Create a copy of an existing worksheet

Excel offers an efficient way to copy a worksheet, either within the current book or into a different one - handy when you need to start a new sheet that includes some or all of the data and/or formatting of an existing sheet. It works like this:

1. Right-click on the sheet tab of the sheet you want to copy.
2. Choose Move Or Copy.
3. Select the Create A Copy check box in the bottom-left corner of the Move Or Copy dialog box.
4. Choose a different workbook, if desired, from the To Book drop-down list. (That other workbook must be open to show up in the list.) You can also select New Workbook.
5. In the Before Sheet list box, specify where you want the copied sheet to go within the specified workbook.
6. Click OK.

4: Start a new line within a cell

This may seem beyond simplistic - until the day you can’t remember how to do it. If you need to create a multiple-line entry in a cell, you can’t just press [Enter] to insert a line break, since that will propel you into the next cell. Instead, you have to press [Alt][Enter].

5: Unhide hidden rows or columns

From time to time, someone will send me a worksheet with hidden rows or columns. I usually don’t need to see the data, so of course I forget how to unhide it on the rare occasions when I do need to see it. It’s easy, though: Highlight the row above and the row below the hidden row(s) - or the column to the left and to the right of the hidden column(s). Then, you can reveal the data in various ways:

• Press [Shift][Ctrl]0 (that’s a zero).
• Right-click the selection and choose Unhide.
• Choose Column (or Row) from the Format menu and then select Unhide. In Excel 2007, go to the Cells group on the Home tab, click Format, choose Hide & Unhide, and select Unhide Rows or Unhide Columns.

6: Enter a fraction in a cell

Say you type 1/4 in a cell, wanting to enter the fraction one-fourth. Ordinarily, Excel will turn the value into a date - 4-Jan. To prevent that, just preface your entry with a zero and a space: 0 1/4. Excel will leave your fraction alone. Without the zero, you’ll see 1/4/2009 (or whatever year you happen to be in) in the Formula bar. With the zero, you’ll see 0.25.

7: Simultaneously copy data into noncontiguous cells

To copy data from one cell into adjacent cells, you just drag the cell’s fill handle across the cells where you want the copied data to appear. But sometimes, you’ll need to copy data into cells that are scattered around the worksheet. The most efficient way to handle that task is to copy the desired data, hold down [Ctrl], and select all the other cells where you want to paste the data. Then, press [Ctrl]V and Excel will insert the copied data into each of the selected cells.

8: Simultaneously enter data into noncontiguous cells

Similar to the previous trick, you can save time when you need to enter the same data into cells that aren’t next to each other. Start by holding down the Ctrl key and selecting all the cells into which you want to enter data. Then, type your data and press [Ctrl][Enter]. Excel will insert the data into all of the cells in the noncontiguous selection.

9: Enter text in the same location in multiple worksheets

This may not come up all that often, but it’s a cool trick when you need it. Let’s say that you’re entering month names as column headers at the top of a sheet - and you want them to appear on your other sheets as well. Click in the cell where you’ll be entering January. Then hold down [Ctrl] and click on the sheet tabs of the other sheets where you want the month names to appear. This will group the sheets so that what you do now affects all of them.

Go ahead and type January. Then (another cool trick coming…), drag the cell’s fill handle to the right across the next 11 cells. Excel recognizes that January is the first item in a built-in series, so it will insert the rest of the month names for you.

To complete the process, right-click on one of the selected sheet tabs and choose Ungroup Sheets from the shortcut menu. If you check those sheets, you’ll see your month names have been entered in all of them.

10: Transpose data from a row to a column, or vice-versa

Once in a while, I’ll set up a worksheet using one structure that seems to make sense, only to realize it would make a whole lot more sense if the rows were columns and the columns were rows. And apparently I’m not alone in this befuddlement, because Excel provides a Transpose option to facilitate the necessary flip-flopping of data:

1. Select the range of cells you want to transpose and click Copy or press [Ctrl]C.
2. Click in a new location (not overlapping your selection).
3. Go to Edit | Paste Special and select the Transpose check box. In Excel 2007, click Paste in the Clipboard group of the Home tab and select Transpose.
4. You can then delete your original, wrong-structured data.

Source: Tech Republic

Contact our Manchester IT Support Centre for more Tech Tips.

All of us in IT have been taught from Day One that performing regular backups is critical to an organization’s well being. Yet even seasoned pros sometimes make certain mistakes. Here are a few of the common mistakes I’ve encountered.

1: Not making system state backups often enough

In Windows environments, system state backups have a shelf life. For domain controllers, the shelf life is equal to the maximum tombstone age (60 days by default). After that, the backup becomes null and void. Even for non domain controllers, the age of the backup is an issue.

Each computer on a Windows network has a corresponding computer account in the Active Directory. Like a user account, the computer account has an associated password. The difference is that the password is assigned, and periodically changed, by Windows. If you try to restore a system state backup that is too old, the computer account password that is stored in the backup will no longer match the password that is bound to the computer account in the Active Directory, so the machine won’t be able to participate in the domain. There are workarounds, but it is usually easier to just make frequent system state backups of your servers.

2: Failing to adequately test backups

We all know that we should test our backups once in a while, but testing often seems to be one of those tasks that either falls by the wayside or that isn’t done thoroughly. Remember that making the backup is only the first step -if you can’t restore from them, you’re dead in the water. You need to ensure that those backups will work if and when you need them.

3: Not using an application-aware backup application

For some applications, a file-level backup is insufficient. A classic example of this is Microsoft Exchange, which requires an Exchange-aware backup application. Failure to use such a backup application causes the data that has been backed up to be in an inconsistent (and often unrestorable) state. It is therefore important to know which applications reside on your servers and to make note of any special application-specific backup requirements.

4: Shipping backup tapes offsite too quickly

One of the companies I used to work for used a courier service to ship backup tapes offsite. Each morning at 8:00, the previous night’s backup tapes were transported to an offsite storage facility. One morning, we had a server failure at about 9:30. Unfortunately, we couldn’t perform an immediate restoration because the tape had been shipped offsite. It was almost 4:00 before the tape could be located and returned to us. By that time, the server had been down all day. While you should keep backups off site, consider waiting until the end of the business day to remove the previous night’s tapes from the building.

5: Having a single point of failure

Always remember that your backups are your safety net. If a server fails, your backups are the primary (and sometimes the only) mechanism for returning the server to a functional state. Because backups are so critically important, you should construct your backup architecture in a way that avoids (at least as much as possible) having a single point of failure. If possible, have a backup for your backups. You never want to find yourself in a situation in which you did not get a backup the night before and you are just praying that the server doesn’t fail that day because you have nothing to fall back on.

6: Forgetting to plan for the future

Years ago, I managed the IT department for a large organization. While I was on vacation, some of my staff decided to surprise me by cleaning out a storage room that had become badly cluttered. In doing so, they threw out some obsolete computer equipment.

While this initially seemed harmless, some of the old equipment was in the storage room for a reason. Each quarter, the organization made a special backup that was kept as a permanent archive. Over time, though, backup technology changed. Although the company had decided at one point to switch to a newer tape format, I had kept the organization’s old tape drives and an old computer that had a copy of the backup software installed on it, just in case we should ever have to read any of the data from an archive tape. The lesson to be learned is that although change is inevitable, you should always make sure that you have the necessary hardware and software to read your oldest backup tapes.

7: Not considering the consequences of using backup security mechanisms

For most organizations, IT security is a high priority. But sometimes, security can be a bad thing. I have seen real-world situations in which a backup could not be restored because nobody knew the password that had been used on the backup tape. I also once saw a situation in which an organization used hardware-level encryption and then upgraded to a new tape drive that didn’t support the previously used encryption (which meant that old backups could not be restored).

There is no denying that it is important to secure your backups, but it is equally important to consider the consequences of your security measures. If you find yourself having to restore a backup after a major system failure, the last thing you need is an ill-conceived security mechanism standing in the way of the recovery.

8: Backing up only data

I once had someone tell me that I should be backing up only my data, as opposed to performing full backups that included the server’s operating system and applications. His rationale was that data-only backups complete more quickly and consume fewer tapes. While these are valid points, I completely disagree with the overall philosophy.

If an organization has a server failure and needs to perform a full recovery, it is usually possible to reinstall the operating system and the applications and then restore any data. However, time is of the essence when trying to recover from a crash. It is much faster to restore everything from backup than it is to manually install an operating system and a set of applications. More important, it is often difficult to manually configure a server so that it matches its pervious configuration. Backing up the entire server ensures that its configuration will be exactly as it was before the crash.

9: Relying solely on a disk-to-disk backup solution

Disk-to-disk backup solutions offer many advantages over traditional tape backups. Even so, a disk-to-disk backup solution should not be an organization’s only backup, because the backup server is prone to the same risks as the servers it protects. A hurricane, lightning strike, fire, or flood could wipe out your backup server along with your other servers. For this reason, it is important to dump the contents of your disk based backups to tape on a frequent basis.

10: Using a tape rotation scheme that’s too short

One organization I worked for used a two-week tape rotation. This seemed to work fairly well, but we found out the hard way that two weeks just weren’t enough. The organization had an Exchange server fail because of corruption within the information store. When we tried to restore a backup, we found that we had backed up corrupt data. The corruption had existed for some time and had grown progressively worse. Every one of the backup tapes contained corrupt data, so the server could not be restored. This is a perfect argument for periodically testing your backups, but it also underscores the importance of using a long rotation scheme or at least keeping some of your backup tapes as long-term archives.

Contact Converge IT at our Manchester IT Support Centre for advice and guidance on the most appropriate backup strategy for your business.