Get your business ahead in the cloud

Cloud computing? No, it's not the new weather prediction system from the Met Office, but a highly efficient way of organising your business' IT!

Instead of paying for costly software and licences you do your work through an internet connection. Whether it's email, word processing, spreadsheets - whatever your business needs, it's there in the cloud.

Hang on though - how much does this cost? If it's over the internet how secure is it?

Because your computer desktop is on the internet, you might be concerned that it's not secure. Well rest assured that your documents are not only secure, but also constantly backed up - which is a definite plus over the traditional PC way of doing things. At onebyte we don’t' just back up once though, we back up twice... in separate locations!

The cost of working in the cloud is cheaper than buying all the programs you need individually (and don't forget that your costs don't normally end with the purchasing of software: there's licences, upgrades, updates, maintenance - the list can go on and on). You also get more storage and, because your computer isn't weighed down with files and documents, it works quicker as well!

The benefits of cloud computing don't end there though. Because you work over the internet, you can log in to work on any machine, anywhere there's an internet connection. But possibly the biggest benefit, particularly if you're a small company, is that cloud computing can provide a slicker and more secure way of working than you would be able to cost-effectively be able to do yourself. Couple this with the peace of mind and time you gain from not having to worry about your IT and you start to get the picture.

In fact, they should have called it sunshine computing - maybe we'll put that to Michael Fish next time we see him...

Saving money on software

We often get asked for money saving IT ideas. In particular software costs and installing them and how to get around those costs.

For instance, we charge £65 per user per month for a fully supported, software loaded, secure and backed up, hosted PC, with legal, fully licensed Microsoft applications.

If we were asked how much a copy of the software would be, without an actual license, we would approximate it would cost an extra £10,000 and up to 10 years in prison. Its a risk we won't take, and as IT 'experts', we advise you not to take that risk either!

My email has gone down, what shall I do?

Firstly, be still and breathe. I am now thinking of positioning our company as a ‘technology therapist’. This means I need to employ more women, otherwise the mandarin collared shirt and slim line ¾ length trousers (in neutral tones) I was going to make the team wear will just look ridiculous. According to America we all need therapy, and the more I delve into the technological world, the more depressed I become. It is a cold world of wires, binary, functions and code, bandied about by smug alchemists, masquerading as web designers, developers, IT consultants and SEO agencies. All with dark IT secrets to hide, feeding the world technology habit and charging vast amounts of money to do so.

They call us end-users…does this mean we will go through withdrawal? It seems so, if my email connection goes down then so do I, financially and spiritually. If the internet isn’t working the important drumming of key boards cease, and is replaced by the gentle whimpering of a work force whose only other option is to use the phone and drink coffee. Our dependency is total. Hi, my name is Byron and I’m an IT user.

So if your email goes down, don't worry, we shall fix it, and whilst we do you can enjoy a bit of human interaction.

But as I depend upon the technological beast for my supper, keep on using…and as I become your friendly IT pusher, we will continue to try and calm the rage, stop the tension and lift your IT soul, till your next fix.

Connecting to the internet is a legal right in Finland.

Would you Adam and Eve it, along with an education and clean air to breath, the internet is now a legal right...first Finland then the world, hopefully, take a read....http://thenextweb.com/eu/2010/07/01/today-finland-officially-becomes-first-nation-to-make-broadband-a-legal-right/

Open source - more free stuff

We all love a freebie...

www.opensourcemac.org/

www.opensourcewindows.org

Entourage and Exchange 2007 - Part 1 of 2

I've seen lots of posts about people having problems with Entourage not talking to Exchange 2007 via OWA (Outlook Web Access) but I haven't yet found a straight answer on how to get it working. I've just spent two day banging my head against this problem and thought I'd share.

I'll cover how I resolved the issue in two parts. The first part examines the relevant configuration for for the Client Access Service (CAS) role in your Exchange 2007 infrastructure. If you haven't got this configured yet then I've linked to a couple of articles at the bottom of this post.

The second part will look at the client side stuff. There isn't much to it and if your impatient then the quick answer is you need Entourage 2008 with the Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition add-on/upgrade.

CAS Server Role Configuration
Let's start with the server side first. We're only interested in the Client Access Service. Hopefully you have this installed on a separate box to your mailbox role, unless your running Small Business Server that is. There isn't much to it to be fair. As long as you follow any of the extremely good guides out there you should be fine. The key configuration is to get the correct authentication methods on the legacy OWA virtual directories. The three directories in question are:

• Exchange
• Exchweb
• Public

Where as you would use forms based authenticated for the main OWA directory you want Basic and Integrated for these directories. You get to those settings in the Exchange Management Console by browsing to following in the left hand pane.

Microsoft Exchange
-> Server Configuration
-> Client Access

The select your CAS server in the upper-right hand pane and you will see a list of Outlook Web Access directories in the lower-right hand pane. For each of the above three entries do the following.

1. Right button click and select Properties
2. Click on the Authentication tab
3. Select the following options and clear all others

• User one or more standard authentication methods:
• Integrated Windows authentication
• Basic authentication (password is sent in clear text)

You will then need to restart the IIS service. This can be done from the command shell using 'iisreset /noforce'.

For more information on configuring Exchange 2007 here are some excellent articles I used.

Part 1: The Exchange 2007 Client Access Server (CAS) role
Exchange 2007 Autodiscover and certificates

I do have more somewhere but not to hand. I'll see if I can dig them out.

Hopefully that has pointed you in the right direction for the server side configuration. Next time we'll look at the client side.

Si.

Virtual desktop - figures for a business case

My business is IT.  It used to be publishing, a game I was fond of, trained in and therefore could understand. I know as much about IT as I do about my anatomy, which is to say, I know which bits need refreshing and when, when I need to be turned off, and need I say, turned on again.  The reason for this preamble, is that I want to get the point put across that the virtual or hosted desktop service being discussed as the future of IT actually makes sense to me as a business case.

This in itself is a miracle. I have spent the last 5 years writing and rewriting the benefits and reasons why people should consider moving to a hosted virtual desktop as a real cost saving business case.  But the overriding reasons are these: cost and performance.  It is now necessary to be able to improve your performance and reduce your costs, this is the business mantra of the present and future, and this is what virtual or hosted desktops offer.

A couple of figures to keep in mind, hosted desktops are 30% cheaper to set-up than a traditional on site set up and 20% cheaper year on year to run.  But this is an approximation and can actually be a conservative estimate on the cost saving benefit of a hosted desktop.

Another piece of advice is that one size does not fit all.  It’s quite a leap to go from needing IT expertise in the form of an employee, partner or resource and all the on site equipment currently cluttering your environment to the slogan rich ‘only £45 per desktop’ off the shelf approach being advertised.  A serious business still needs a robust and serious network and system, it can be cheap but it must be a well thought out advice led decision.  A hosted desktop is not as off the shelf as some would have you believe. 

Seek experts with back up, recommendation, experience and guarantees.  Then sit back, enjoy the service and the improvement to your bottom line. For any more IT layman type advice please call me direct  07760 396488, or if you want the technical low down visit our website www.onebyte.net or call the technical team on 0845 034 7760.

Excel 2007 can't open any files unless you use the 'File' --> 'Open' menu:

Problem:
When trying to open a file using any method other than the office button in Excel itself it tells you that it cannot find the file. So, if you double click an Excel file, Excel loads then shows a pop-up saying 'Windows cannot find make sure you typed the name correctly and then try again.' Same thing happens if you use the recent start menu item in Vista. Only if you use the office button in Excel to open a file does it work.

Solution:
Check under Excel Options, there is an option in the advanced section called 'Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)' - make sure this is NOT checked.

How to use VESA modes within Linux:

Although the Linux kernel allows user configuration of VESA modes at boot time using the 'vga' kernel parameter. This parameter does not directly accept VESA video mode numbers; instead, a Linux video mode number must be calculated using the VESA number.

To calculate the Linux video mode number add 512. The resulting decimal value can be passed to the kernel in the form 'vga=XXX', where XXX is the value. This calculation is not always accurate. It is a good starting point and you may have to do some experimenting to find the correct value.

How to enable Plymouth's graphical boot on Fedora with a 1680 x 1050 monitor:

Problem:

You want to enable the graphical boot available on Fedora 10 and above but you have a 1680 x 1050 monitor.

Solution:
The Linux video mode number you need to enable graphical boot with Plymouth using 1680x1050x32 is 'vga=873', this converts to VESA mode '369'.

So type the following into the terminal to configure grub:

su - nano /boot/grub/grub.conf

Then, within the grub.conf file, add the 'vga=873' at the end of the line starting 'Kernel' after the word 'quiet'.

Then 'Ctrl O' to save the changes and reboot.