Gary Martin

System IT Website Refresh

2009-08-18T07:19:00.002+01:00

Leo and his team at Hydrant (http://www.hydrant.co.uk/) have been busy with a refresh of our website this week. We have refreshed the colour schemes to match our new brochures and marketing material, and also made the forms and 'call to action' buttons more prominent.

Have a look at the new site on http://www.system-it.co.uk/

Windows 7 Release Date

2009-08-17T14:20:00.004+01:00

Windows Vista will shortly be replaced with Microsofts latest desktop operating system, Windows 7.

Now, it's nearly ready. Windows 7 is on its way to manufacturers, and will be available on October 22nd 2009.

From our trials we are finding the product really very good, and will be reccommending this from its release date for newly purchased computers from System IT.

The vast majority of PC's supplied currently will be coming with Windows 7, free upgrade licences.

Contact us if you require any quotations on new equipment. 01228 56 22 11

Free online Virus scan

2009-08-17T14:16:00.002+01:00

We, and the vast majority of our customer use ESET NOD32 antivirus as our main defence against computer viruses, trojans and spyware. ESET also have a free online virus scanner which can be ran on an as and when basis to scan your PC for viruses, and remove them if any are found. This could be useful for home PC's, or for PC's not protected with the full force of ESET.

The scanner can be found on

http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

System IT - Computer Support & Maintenance

2009-08-15T16:59:00.001+01:00

System IT has been providing professional Computer Maintenance and Computer Support services in Carlisle and Cumbria for many years.

Our expert Computer Support staff provide a wide range of specialist Computer Support that will ensure that your computer systems remain in excellent condition. We are recommended by our clients in Carlisle.

Get in touch with us if you’re in Carlisle and need a Computer Support business that offers more than just a basic service and will go that extra mile to deliver you a personalised service as well as great advice on preventative maintenance on your IT equipment. We are well versed in providing all types of Computer Support. In most instances we will be able to recommend solutions that are good value from a cost perspective.

As a Computer Support in Carlisle we are well placed to offer tailored specialist advice to all of our clients.

We hope this reassures you that we are a professional team committed to delivering a great service which is individually personalised to you. Please call us for a free no obligation discussion to see how we can help you.

http://www.system-it.co.uk

Facebook

2009-06-21T10:54:00.001+01:00

For those facebook adicts amongst you, My Facebook account is :

http://www.facebook.com/garym2000

Hyper-V Snapshots

2009-01-01T17:50:00.003Z

Our servers are now moved over to a Hyper-V virtualised environment, but not without difficulties. The first thing to note about Hyper-V is that there is a really useful snapshot tool which you think is a wonderful backup tool, but actually is far from the truth.

In our environment we use .VHD files to contain the Hyper-V images which are used by the guest Virtual Machines. Now these .VHD in essence contain all your servers operating system, settings and of course data.

With a simple right click in Hyper-V manager you can create a snapshot of your virtual machine, which you would think just creates a snapshot allowing you to revert back to that snapshot in the event of a failure. However what it does not tell you is as soon as you create a snapshot the original .VHD file you think all your data is in stops being written to. Instead a .AVHD file is created with a hidden folder c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\GUID Number.

Now this is all well and good if you know this is happening, but if you created the snapshot a few days ago and then made a lot of changes to your server or indeed added loads of data as I did, having this all in the .AVHD rather than the .VHD can cause some major problems, especially as only the .VHD was being backed up! the only way to get the snapshots to merge back in with the original .VHD is to delete the snapshot (working backwards with the last snapshot created first), and then shutdown the Virtual Machine, the changes are then merged back in - a warning here though this process can take hours, and if you have many snapshots, it can take many hours.

So a lesson learnt, If you do use snapshots for example prior to installing a service pack which is good recommended practice, then please delete them once you have tested the change has been good and commit the changes back immediately but shutting down the VM.

Windows 7 Review

2008-12-15T19:45:00.004Z

Microsoft Windows 7, the new desktop operating system now in beta test from Microroft has been installed on my test PC for a week now, I have to say I am impressed.

First of all it seems to run much quicker than Vista, more like the speed of XP on the same hardware. Secondly that annoying User Account Control (UAC) has been toned down to be much less obtrusive.

There is a good article on here on more of the features. The beta can be downloaded from Microsoft.

Microsoft Wall demonstrated by Bill Gates

2008-11-03T20:02:00.000Z

Gates Demonstrates Touch Wall (4 min 39 sec)Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates demonstrates Touch Wall, a new hardware technology from Microsoft that creates a touch-based “white board” interface that lets users interact more naturally with data and applications on their computer. Microsoft CEO Summit 2008, Redmond, Wash. May 14, 2008. .wmv file (27.7 MB) .mpg file (279 MB)

Internet Explorer 8 ie8 Beta 2 Released

2008-11-01T11:33:00.002Z

Download Here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/features/stay-safer-online.aspx

Stay safer online
As the web continues to increase in complexity, so do the number of ways that hackers and malicious websites can attempt to send viruses, damage computers, obtain personal information, and monitor online behavior.
Did You Know?
Malware is software that designed to damage your computer, such as a computer virus. It may download without your knowledge or permission.
Phishing allows criminals to obtain your personal information (like your credit card number) by pretending to be a legitimate organization, such as your bank.
Internet Explorer helps protect against these attacks and more. Delivering a trustworthy browser means providing a highly secure and reliable browser—one that respects user choice and helps keep users in control of their PC and their information.
SmartScreen Filter
Internet Explorer 8's new SmartScreen Filter builds upon our leadership in the detection of phishing sites and now helps protect you against inadvertent installation of malware—or malicious software—which can compromise your data, privacy, and identity while also damaging your computer and valuable data. Today Internet Explorer is detecting over 1 million attempts to visit known phishing sites weekly.
With our enhancements in Internet Explorer 8 and added telemetry and technologies, users are now afforded a higher level of protection from these emerging threats.
While we recommend all users enable SmartScreen, you can enable or disable it at any time. You can also help improve the web for everyone by reporting suspected malicious sites through this tool.
If the SmartScreen Filter is active and you attempt to visit a website that isn't considered safe, the below screen will appear prompting you to take alternative actions.

This site has been blocked by the SmartScreen Filter.
When active, the SmartScreen Filter will also notify you when you attempt to download software that is potentially unsafe.
Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Filter
Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attacks have emerged as a leading exploit against web servers and web applications. Internet Explorer 8 introduces the capability to detect malicious code running on compromised websites, helping to protect you from these exploits which can lead to information disclosure, cookie stealing, account/identity theft, and more.
Domain Highlighting
Domain Highlighting lets you more easily interpret web addresses (URLs) to help you avoid deceptive and phishing sites that attempt to trick you with misleading addresses. It does this by highlighting the domain name in the address bar in black, with the remainder of the URL string in gray, making for easier identification of the sites true identity.

The Microsoft.com domain is easy to read.
Data Execution Detection (DEP)
Data Execution Prevention (DEP), on by default in Internet Explorer 8 in Windows Vista Service Pack 1, is a security feature that can help prevent damage to your computer from viruses and other security threats by preventing certain types of code from writing to executable memory space.

Liven up PowerPoint with PPTPlex

2008-11-01T08:00:00.002Z

Fab tool for livening up PowerPoint 2007. Watch a demo here :

http://www.officelabs.com/projects/pptPlex/Pages/default.aspx

or download here:

http://msofficelb.vo.llnwd.net/o25/4fcaa65e-086d-4d49-a292-a5e764667263/1.1.0.0/pptPlex.msi

New System Group Websites

2008-08-29T20:33:00.002+01:00

New websites recently created by Hydrant http://www.hydrant.co.uk based in carlisle cumbria

http://www.system-it.co.uk/

http://www.system-group.com/

http://www.system-recruitment.com/

Office 2007 Service Pack 1

2008-07-01T16:14:00.002+01:00

Office 2007 SP1 download (220MB+)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9EC51594-992C-4165-A997-25DA01F388F5&displaylang=en

A free trial is also available for download below from Microsoft of Office 2007:

http://trial.trymicrosoftoffice.com/trialukireland/default.aspx

Online Backup and Storage

2008-06-28T21:10:00.001+01:00

Online Backup and storage are fast becoming alternatives to common backup strategies such as tape and network storage. For remote laptop users they provide an ideal (and sometimes free) means to securely backup important data.

I have been trialing 4 different 'free' providers, which are:

Carobonite (http://www.carbonite.com/)
Humyo (http://www.humyo.com/)
Mozy (http://www.mozy.com/)
Idrive (http://www.idrive.com/)

Each offer a certain limit to the amount of data they hold for free, and each have costs associated with them for larger upload limits. You can always use a combination of providers, perhaps using one to backup your music and another to backup your documents.

I am currently favoring i-drive for it's simple setup and set-it-and-forget-it incremental backup routine, which seems to work great backing up my own home PC. It has a standard 2GB limit, which is enough for me, but if you need more space the pricing is as follows (Converted from US Dollars at today's rate)

IDrive Pro for Personal Use
Storage Space Monthly Rate Yearly Rate
150 GB £2.49 £24.90

IDrive Pro for Business
Storage Space Monthly Rate Yearly Rate
50 GB £5.01 £50.10
100GB £10.04 £100.40
500GB £25.14 £251.56

Google Apps

2008-06-28T18:04:00.000+01:00

We have been testing google apps this week (http://www.google.com/apps/business/index.html). Basically it's an online file store, but has online editing facilities for Word and Excel documents. It also has a great online shared calendar which has a pretty funky way of being able to add appointments. I added a quick appintment simple by typing 'Dentist 9 am Sat', and in the appointment went scheduled for next saturday at 9am.

A summary of the features is here:

Work on the same document together, instead of sorting out changes in attachments

Share documents and calendars securely with your co-workers with a click

Access it all from any computer, and even from mobile phones

Invite other team members to join and share with you

Fuel Costs

2008-06-27T07:31:00.001+01:00

I know this is a major topic on just about everyone's mind at present, but I thought I would do a few calculations.

I drive a fairly economical car, a BMW 120d. On average I am getting 48 MPG, which is pretty damn good to be honest. Typically I do 18,000 miles a year.

Diesel is today £1.32 per litre. There are 4.55 litres to a gallon, so that's a cost of (4.55 x 1.32) almost exactly £6 per gallon. (Blimey, that's shot up, I recall it hitting £1 a gallon not that many years ago! )

At 48 MPG, my 18,000 miles uses 375 gallons of fuel every year. That's a whopping cost of £2250 a year in fuel, just to get me around. Add on to this servicing, insurance and road tax of then that's a huge chunk of my income.

So what are the options - Hybrid cars (Toyota Prius for example), these seem to be typically only economical around town however the vast majority of my mileage would be done out of town, so I doubt this is the route for me, until Hybrids get better of course. I can't walk, use public transport or bike, every day is differenet, I don't know where I may need to go on any given day, so need a car with me at all times. We need some more alternatives I feel.

Hunter Davies

2008-06-26T17:02:00.000+01:00

... Hunter Davies was born in Renfrew in 1936, brought up in Carlisle, educated at Durham University, and now lives half the year in London and half in the Lake District. As a journalist he worked on the Sunday Times, where he was chief features writer, and later editor of the Magazine.

Having recently read his book 'A Walk Along the Wall, regarding the coast-to-coast route from Wallsend near Newcastle, across the neck of England to Bowness on Solway in West Cumbria, it's got me thinking (see think time below).... Next summer I'm going to walk the wall..

2008-06-26T14:53:00.000+01:00

Microsoft has announced that it will extend critical support for Windows XP until 2014, three years longer than is usual.

The company also pledged that its next operating system Windows 7, will be available by 2010.
In the meantime OEMs will be able to supply systems with Windows XP preloaded as a 'downgrade' until 31 January 2009.

Given that Microsoft usually supports it's operaing systems for only 10 years after their launch, the move can be seen as an admission that it is expecting some businesses not to bother upgrading to Vista.

"Windows Vista is a very significant step forward, but our customers have made it clear that they want broader support for devices and applications in order to enjoy the overall experience," says the letter from Bill Veghte, senior vice president of the Microsoft Windows Business Group.

"During the last year, we have worked diligently with our hardware and software partners to improve compatibility to remove the barriers that prevent users from taking advantage of the important advancements Windows Vista delivers. It has been a year of exciting and critical progress."

New Website Preview

2008-06-26T07:22:00.000+01:00

System Group are launching a new website shortly, being developed by local company Hydrant (http://www.hydrant.co.uk/)

A preview of the new site can be found on http://www.hydrantdev.co.uk/

Let me know what you think....

2008 Server - Worth the upgrade

2008-06-25T07:33:00.001+01:00

We have been trialing 2008 server for some months now, and I have to say I'm very impressed. The ease of installation is terrific, the new way 2008 server has roles and features for the majority of the tasks you would want a server to perform is also excellent. For example to configure a 2008 server as a WINS server, you simply tick the WINS server feature in 2008 server manager, could not be simpler.

In some ways it's a bit to simple, all drivers for our Proliant server were just picked up, nothing to add, added it into our domain, all just really straight forward. Don't even get me started on Terminal Services in 2008, thats just fantastic. Remote App lets you publish applications in a very similar fashion to Citrix. I published the whole of the Office 2007 suite, so am now able to access full blown Outlook from home, or out on the road in lightning quick speed. The only restriction to accessing this is the client PC needs to be running Vista SP1 or XP SP3.

Think Time

2008-06-24T07:22:00.000+01:00

Bill Gates recently publicised that each year he goes away for a full weeks 'Think Time' - away from all the phones, emails, Instant Messaging, away from everyone in fact. I think everyone needs 'think time', time to reflect, time to come up with new ideas, and new ways forward. I'm not suggesting a week, but 15 minutes each day, time for you. Think about it.