Technica Solutions Blog2012-05-19T21:29:06ZTechnica SolutionsCopyright 2012, Technica SolutionsSPHPBLOGMake your Windows machine run faster
Are you having problems with your Windows machine? Here are some top tips to make it run faster. Share your experiences, has this worked for you?
If you would like to ask questions in more detail about any of these suggestions please leave your comments on this blog.
• Don’t run too many applications at the same time Each application on your machine uses whatever available resources there are. When you have a lot of programs open, they need to share those resources, and will run slowly if they don’t have enough to do what they need to do.
• Cleanup your startup items When software is installed, it often adds something into startup so that it runs when your computer starts. Many of them aren’t necessary. When you have a lot of these programs installed, your computer can load a lot of unnecessary things to slow it down.
• Don’t run more than one antivirus program Antivirus programs scan files when you use them to make sure that they aren’t infected. Having two antivirus programs means that each file is scanned twice, making everything twice as slow and often unusable.
• If something doesn’t open immediately, wait 5 seconds before trying again When you double click on an icon and the program doesn’t immediately open, your first instinct will be to click it again, in case it didn’t work properly the first time. This can sometimes lead to the computer opening two or more versions of the program, all trying to run at the same time. A few seconds of waiting after trying to open a program can be enough to avoid minutes of waiting and closing duplicate windows.
• Set your antivirus to scan files less frequently Depending on your antivirus solution, your computer may run a scan automatically first thing when you open the computer. This scan can slow down your computer while you run in the background. Reschedule it to run at a time when you’re not using the computer, or only on certain days.
• Make sure to keep at least 10% of your drive space free Windows computers use free hard drive space to create a file that helps your computer run faster. If you have no free space, there is no room for this file and everything can run slower because of it.
• Change your visual settings for performance rather than quality If your computer is lagging, disable Windows graphic effects can speed up performance slightly. You can set your profile to not animate windows, show certain shadows which can give your machine a slight boost.
• Upgrade your computer There is only so much you can do to tweak your computer to make it run faster. If you’ve tried everything but it still runs slowly, consider adding more memory to help it run a bit better.
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry120510-1216232012-05-10T00:00:00Z2012-05-10T00:00:00ZBe prepared for smartphone theft or loss! "Question: I was using my phone when it was stolen so was unlocked. What do I do to wipe it? He's disabled location services"
Our team were on this straight away with offering technical advice, along with many other twitter users. This has prompted me to share some information with you about quick ways to act when losing your phone.
The victim of the mugging, also a Tech Reporter who posted the above question has since written a blog to advise people how to password protect location services settings on the iPhone.
"The other thing I learnt, is how valuable it is to have my social media community around me in a time like this. Some of my Twitter followers have been out looking for a cyclist on that street (I assume he targets it regularly), others gave me really useful advice on how to deal with the technological challenges that the incident threw up."
This really does emphasise the power of social media, and how experts in certain fields and the community in general can help others in times of need.
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry120503-1151352012-05-03T00:00:00Z2012-05-03T00:00:00ZTo Change or Not To Change. My experience shows that generally companies are happy with their IT service. Some may be on a rolling contract and others may schedule a review at a specific time of year.
There are occasions where a prospect is unhappy with their IT partner and an immediate review is required.
This blog post is more of a question to anyone reading this.
Whether you are a large multi-site business or a business with 10 or more members of staff, what are you looking for from your IT partner and under what circumstances would you consider taking on a new IT partner?
I was inspired to write this blog after a conversation with a prospect who simply said “Moving is more hassle than it’s worth”.
I'd love to hear from you.
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry120410-1635522012-04-10T00:00:00Z2012-04-10T00:00:00ZGET LINKED IN WITH TECHNICA Twitter is great for this, 140 characters of data linked to interesting articles via @vaness_technica. www.twitter.com
We want to get more involved with our audience and invite you to join in the discussions too!
Get linked in with us and share your opinions with like minded technical enthusiasts. Whether you are a technical geek or a casual computer user, let's all get involved.
Technica IT Support discussion group is now an open group on linked in:
Whether you read our blogs, follow us on twitter or in our discussion group, we look forward to hearing from you.
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry120326-1038002012-03-26T00:00:00Z2012-03-26T00:00:00ZPhone calls aside, what do you use your smartphone for the most? http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/08/16/15 ... le-iphone/
Jeff states that apart from the obvious use to make phone calls there is a per centage breakdown of all the other uses.
This just shows how much we rely on our phones. Feel free to comment about what you most use your smartphone for in the comments section. Click on the link above to see the per centages from Jeff Bullas' research.
1.Send or receive a text 2.Take a picture 3.Access the internet 4.Send a photo or video to someone 5.Send or receive email 6.Download an app 7.Play a game 8.Play music 9.Record a video 10.Access a social networking site 11.Watch a video 12.Post a photo or video online 13.Do online banking 14.Access Twitter 15.Participate in a video call
Is there anything on this list you would add?
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry120207-1021312012-02-07T00:00:00Z2012-02-07T00:00:00ZTechnica - a techie's viewThis month I’ve asked Vincent one of our expert technicians to tell us how he feels about working at Technica:
Vincent is a second line network support engineer and has been with us since July 2011.
"Technica differs from the corporate support companies I’ve dealt with because although we are corporate it still feels like a small friendly IT business. I came from a company that literally started out in supporting home users from a garage, and grew from there. We had a very personal relationship with many many clients. Technica feels the same but with a far more professional and focused vision, and this is surprising. Handling some of the large clients and complex systems we manage you would expect the normal ‘IT guy in the background’ approach but not so with Technica we know our clients well, some personally, this makes a massive difference.
Predicting the future of IT is impossible to say, but people are becoming more comfortable with technology in their every day lives. You might think that this will slowly push traditional ‘IT Support’ out of the picture but I think as the systems supporting all of this day to day technology become ever more complex, we will see an increasing need for IT support. It may even take on a life management type of role as these technologies become literally indispensable to people.
My strengths with regards to IT lie in support and customer relations. Making a client happy is top of the list of priorities, they often don’t understand how you are helping them technically but they always understand good service and communication."
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry111205-1039392011-12-05T00:00:00Z2011-12-05T00:00:00ZTurn your Mac into a Wireless Hot SpotDid you know that your Mac’s wireless network card has the ability to send Wi-Fi to other devices, as well as receive?
The Situation
You have internet on your Mac but do not have a wireless Access Point. Maybe you only have a 3G dongle or your ADSL router only has Ethernet. You don’t want to sit at your Mac all day while your Wi-Fi iPad, laptop or mobile phone remain offline. Your Mac’s wireless network card has the ability to send Wi-Fi to other devices, as well as receive!
To set this up follow these instructions:
1) Click on the Apple logo at the top right corner of the screen, and click System Preferences.
2) Within System Preferences, click the Sharing icon.
3) Click to highlight Internet Sharing, but do not click the check-box yet. You will see a drop-down menu next to “Share your connection from:” from here you will need to select the source of your internet connection. If you are using a 3G dongle, you will be able to identify this on the list. If you are plugged in via Ethernet cable, you would select Ethernet. If you are tethering from your iPhone, you can choose iPhone USB, etc.
4) In the “To Computers Using” section, tick the box next to Wi-Fi.
5) Click the “Wi-Fi Options” button to the bottom right of the window. You will be asked to give your network a name, though it will likely use your Mac’s name by default. Put something simple here as some devices struggle to connect to networks with complicated names.
6) Now, most importantly, in the Security option, choose 40-bit WEP and give your network a password. WEP keys can use numbers, or any letters from A to E. Repeat the WEP password in the Confirm Password box, and then click OK.
7) You will probably be prompted for your Mac password after clicking OK (don’t get this confused with the WEP key you have just created – this key is only for other devices to connect to your Mac’s wireless).
8) Now that we have set this up, tick the check box next to Internet Sharing and click the Start button when prompted. Within seconds you should notice your Wi-Fi icon at the top right of your screen now looks like a grey triangle with a white arrow pointing upwards – this means that internet sharing is now working through your Mac’s Wi-Fi.
9) To connect other devices, simply scan for Wi-Fi networks, find the network name you specified and type in the WEP key. You are now connected to the internet using your Mac as a Wi-Fi access point. You can connect multiple devices to this at once – as such it’s a great way to keep everything online even when your internet access is limited!
An Apple Certified Service Professional, Lee is an integral part of the Technica Solutions team and has spent six years in the IT industry. A self-confessed gadget addict he'll buy it regardless of whether he needs it - the electrical retailers dream customer! www.technicasolutions.co.uk ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry111110-1118032011-11-10T00:00:00Z2011-11-10T00:00:00ZMac Disaster Recovery 101: A simple short term solutionThe situation: Your Mac boots into MacOS but none of your applications work. Typical symptom of this is that the icons bounce around in the dock but never launch. If you need to get online ASAP, the following will help:
While all serious computer problems are best left to professionals to fix, sometimes you need to get online and cannot afford to wait. The good news is that, unlike Windows, the vast majority of software faults with MacOS X are what we call “profile specific”. This means that each and every file, setting, configuration for all your applications are stored in a Library folder within your user profile.
When these files become corrupted for any reason (inproper shutdown, interrupted update, etc.) all you need to do is create a new user profile and your applications will begin working again.
How to create a new user profile: 1) Click on the Apple logo in the top left hand side of the screen, and click System Preferences. 2) Once System Preferences is open, click on the “Users and Groups” button (Lion) or the “Accounts” button (Snow Leopard and below). 3) Click on the padlock icon at the bottom left of the window and type in your password (leave it blank if you don’t have one). You’re now ready to create a new user. 4) Click on the + button underneath Login Options. 5) In the drop down menu next to New Account, select Administrator. 6) Give the account a name – I usually use “Temp” as I rarely use this profile but you can call it anything you like. Give the account a password, then click Create User. 7) You have now created a backup user account. To log into this account, click the Apple logo at the top left again, then click the Log Out… option at the bottom of the drop down menu. 8) You will now be presented with a login screen in which you can select your new backup account.
Once you log into this, it will be like logging into a brand new Mac and all your applications should work. Remember, this is just a handy workaround as all your files and settings are still in your old profile.
Prevention is usually the best cure – there is nothing wrong with having a backup account set up just in case, even if your Mac is working fine. After you’ve created your backup account, click the Login Options button and make sure your regular account is selected in the Automatic Login drop-down menu. This means that, while your backup account is ready to be used at any time, you won’t ever see any reference to it unless you manually log off of your regular profile.
An Apple Certified Service Professional, Lee is an integral part of the Technica Solutions team and has spent six years in the IT industry. A self-confessed gadget addict he'll buy it regardless of whether he needs it - the electrical retailers dream customer! www.technicasolutions.co.uk ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry111107-1033352011-11-07T00:00:00Z2011-11-07T00:00:00ZWhat I like in iOS 5 Apple boasts that there are 200 new features. Most of these you will not notice in normal use but the following features offer real improvement to the user experience:
Drag and drop email addresses
You reply to all, and then decide that you want to move someone in the CC: field to the To: field or to the BCC: field. Previously this was a nightmare to achieve and it was often easier to retype the addresses. Now you touch the email recipient for a few seconds and it floats and can be dropped on to an alternative field.
Formatting in Email
OK, it's not a full blown word processor interface but you can, at least, add a bit of Bold, Underline or Italic to your email as well as indent text.
Spelling and Word replacement
The really annoying iPhone/iPad word replacement feature is ever so slightly less annoying now that it really seems to learn words you use regularly. In addition you now have a full blown spell checker when creating an email with the red squiggly line that you get in Word like packages and spelling suggestions.
You also have the ability to select a word and look up its definition. Although I’m not convinced how useful this will be, as one would have thought you would know the definition of the words you are creating yourself.
Keyboard Shortcuts and adding Custom words
There is a new feature allowing you to create keyboard shortcuts. For instance you can create the shortcut: lbf = llamas are bigger than frogs and every time you type lbf it will replace these three letters with the phrase “llamas are bigger than frogs” But the hidden power of this feature is it allows you to add word and phrases without assigning shortcuts and once added these words/phrases are in your custom dictionary. Thus they are not auto corrected and they are even used as suggestions by the autocorrect and the spellchecker.
Alert sounds
Finally there is an easy way to change the sounds your device uses as email and text alerts. We may now see a time when a text arrives on somebody’s iPhone and everyone in the room doesn’t reach for their pocket at the same time.
Having said that, the new choices of sounds are all extremely annoying. Anyone who selects the sound “Update” or “Anticipate” will soon found themselves without friends.
Jason Ozin is a well-known IT professional, technical architect and joint owner of Technica Solutions - www.technicasolutions.co.uk. Jason consults leading UK and international enterprises on real world technical and IT issues. Jason specialises in business infrastructure and IT security matters. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry111018-2215022011-10-18T00:00:00Z2011-10-18T00:00:00ZDoes the New iPhone 4S make the perfect upgrade? - A Techy's Experience I had an iPhone 3GS shortly after launch and loved it. I did however feel that there were a lot of features lacking and being a self-confessed tech geek this left me wanting more. Many of the features we take for granted now, were not included in the iPhone operating system to begin with. Multitasking, the notification centre, custom wallpapers, gestural commands, wifi tethering, etc. were all excluded. Over time, Apple included more and more of these features into the operating system – likely, to a large degree, to discourage jailbreaking.
Apart from this the iPhone 3GS was a perfect device for my needs. However, 2.5 years of wear and tear, it had a dodgy battery and a few scratches and was in desperate need of retirement. Having sat out a generation in avoiding the iPhone 4 and enduring a year and a half of having it rubbed in my face, I felt it was time to get cutting edge with the 4S. The recent release of iOS 5 pretty much put the finishing touches on my iOS wish list with the notification centre and iCloud backup, so I was pretty confident that with the performance upgrades and additional features, this would make it a worthwhile purchase.
With my brand new iPhone 4S in hand, my laptop was at home and my 3GS was flat. I had no access to iTunes anywhere for the old mandatory iPhone activation and I figured there wouldn’t be much I could do with it until I got it home. To my surprise, it booted, connected to the 3G network, and activated itself! Secondly, I signed in with my Apple ID, connected to the nearby wireless network, and asked if I’d like to restore from iCloud. I hadn’t even realised that this was an option. Three minutes later, the device rebooted and it suddenly looked a lot more familiar. All my settings, messages, call history, etc. had been transferred. Next, it began downloading all the applications I had on my old phone from the App store automatically. Within 10 minutes of automatic setup I had an identical clone of my old iPhone, apart from my music and videos which would require a sync with my laptop. From now on, if someone has updated the software on their current iPhone and makes an iTunes purchase, that purchase will sync between devices but as I hadn't updated mine I had to sync with my laptop.
Next, I decided to test out Siri – the voice prompt technology that there is hype about. Asking Siri to direct me to the nearest chinese food restaurant was disappointing as it only does business directions in the US. Apart from that, the system works well. I was impressed with how fast it accurately recognised my voice and became nearly flawless. It is still a novelty and not a game changer for me, however I can imagine that some people might find uses for it.
I played around with the camera which is easily accessible from the lock screen now and it opens substantially quicker. This, again, could be a reason to buy for a lot of people, but I don’t really take anything other than the odd snaps here and there so this is another novelty for me.
All in all, the improvements are there, just not obvious. It is a lot quicker, and with the iOS5 features it makes it the perfect upgrade. In my opinion it is vastly better than the 3GS, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth upgrading to if you already have an iPhone 4. The technology is powerful and underutilized at this point while everyone holds back on the processing requirements of their apps to make them compatible with older models. Where I’m always left wanting more, Apple always seems to catch up.
An Apple Certified Service Professional, Lee is an integral part of the Technica Solutions team and has spent six years in the IT industry. A self-confessed gadget addict he'll buy it regardless of whether he needs it - the electrical retailers dream customer! www.technicasolutions.co.uk ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry111018-1033192011-10-18T00:00:00Z2011-10-18T00:00:00ZSPAM VICTIMS: BE AWARE, BE PREPARED!Spam emails affect all of us, whether it’s through business or personal methods. They are a nuisance and take up our time and use up our resources. In addition to the inconvenience, spam has the ability to transfer harmful viruses, adware and spyware to a computer.
Businesses need to fight back against this invasion of communication. According to a web site that specialises in anti spam laws 63% of all “Remove me from your list” requests are not honoured and 86% of email addresses posted on websites are used by spammers to send unsolicited emails.
We aren’t receiving spam just by email either. It has hit internet networking sites too such as twitter and facebook. Tweetjacking occurs when spammers reply to your @username, cleverly adding a URL which appears in your timeline. Whilst Twitter and facebook are dealing with this spamming activity, spammers are clever and are constantly finding new ways. Twitter users, have you ever noticed hash tags on trend topics? The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. Spammers are using these to build up their own profiles despite twitter rules specifically setting out its rules on Spam and Abuse.
BE PREPARED: When using a social networking site for business or personal use, think about what links you are clicking on and understand the way that spammers work.
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry111013-1031232011-10-13T00:00:00Z2011-10-13T00:00:00ZWindows 8, putting the happy smiley back for Microsoft users? Public opinion however paints a different picture. If there was an index measuring how strongly the general IT-using public wanted to associate with Microsoft products, the graph would be bouncing along at the bottom of the scale. Whether Microsoft consider that a problem while posting record figures is open to debate, but why are Apple consumers almost delighted to be allowed to pay top dollar for that company’s offerings, while people seemingly part with cash for Microsoft products under duress?
Image would be most people’s answer, but perhaps that’s as veiled an answer as it obvious. Steve Jobs’ attention to detail and focus on design are well-known and have no counterpart at Redmond. But that was also the case ten years ago and far fewer people then would have been as disparaging about Microsoft’s core offerings as today – desktop and server products were criticised on a regular basis, but such criticisms were the more traditional gripes founded on security issues of the accepted business choices for operating systems. People criticised precisely because Microsoft were the obvious choice for the majority of users, business and personal, but our imaginary index was not as low as today, when even grudging respect is waning.
Innovation is a clear issue. In the technology sector it would be no surprise to have two companies in similar fields producing similar products which actually need not even be competition for one another. Microsoft don’t need to produce anything funky provided their products are fit for purpose; business users want reliability, function and convenience. Innovation and image are broadly similar, public opinion of Microsoft is familiarly low for both, yet that has also been the case for the last decade.
Vista and Windows 7 have perhaps been the biggest contributors to the bottoming-out of our association index. Treating these two operating systems as one (Windows 7 can only be considered the fixed version of Vista that Microsoft should have produced in the first place), Microsoft innovated for the sake of it. End-users are resistant to change, but less so when changes are enforced by improvement. A lot of the changes in Vista appeared to have been made simply for the sake of presenting something new and unless those changes have obvious benefit to the end user, aesthetically or functionally, they are unlikely to be welcomed. Improvements in security and performance are easily outweighed by the changes that forced users to become familiar with a new OS that offered few tangible benefits. Who wouldn’t have gladly sacrificed their Aero screen in exchange for a working search facility, or explorer, or even XP-style desktop icons?
The IT industry has never had a period like the one we’re in now. NT4 was the OS of choice for business for 4 years. Windows 2000 lasted perhaps 3 years. XP was in place for 4 years, but voluntary uptake of Vista was almost non-existent. Even today, after 8 years of XP, most businesses are only being forced into using Windows 7 because of the difficulty of converting modern laptops back to XP. Users have never had the opportunity to vote in favour of retaining the feel of an OS, they've always changed so regularly to incorporate new, worthwhile features. The pressure, inadvertent or otherwise, to change to an alternate OS, viewed by many as inferior and certainly not appearing to carry enough benefit to outweigh the aggravation of learning and using a new OS, has not done Microsoft any favours.
Over the same period, Apple have continued to refine OSX. Cheetah, 10.0, appeared in 2001 and the path through to 10.7, Lion has been one of almost universal acceptance of the improvements and refinements. It was never necessary to make the size of changes that Microsoft needed to make and that familiarity and confidence - that the OS was right to begin with, so that only tweaking was required - cannot be underestimated. To demonstrate this, how many users saw the need for the change in Start button between XP and Vista, or the change in icon size? Why are things not broken being changed, unless they were wrong to begin with? Changing such basic, and irrelevant, items does not engender confidence, or loyalty.
So while our desire-to-be-associated index stays low, profits are high and a new OS has been released in Developer Preview Mode. This is the third OS (after Vista and 7) to retain the current look, which has now been with us for nearly 5 years. While there’s low acceptance because of the way the new look came into being (seemingly for no good reason other than for the sake of change) at least there is now consistency. And the Metro interface could be very popular indeed.
The convergence between PC’s, ultrabooks, tablets and the cloud suits Metro (and no doubt Mango, the Windows phone equivalent) perfectly. Selecting and using programs through touching the tiles is natural and even enjoyable. Touchscreen size will be important – the monitor must be within comfortable arm reach, which makes choosing physical size and resolution vital. A 30” touchscreen around 50cm from your face may seem like sitting in the front row at an Imax.
In a remarkable turnaround, which genuinely could reverse the index and feelings of the last 4 or 5 years, Microsoft could have a product that businesses and home users are enthusiastic about. It’s very early days – the Developer Preview is pre-beta – but the logic behind releasing it has to be that Microsoft recognise they have come up with something that is innovative and useful and even if people prefer not to use it they can continue with the becoming-familiar and accepted Windows 7 interface. Even where this is the case, the fact that Metro could be used with the right hardware may just make the recent reluctance to new Microsoft OS’s disappear entirely. It’s just possible that Windows 8 will make the Vista and Windows 7 years appear as the blip rather than the rule and Microsoft will resume their respected, if not liked, position. It’s not a position that would affect profits adversely.
Windows 8 is expected to be released in Spring 2012
David Izen: Partner at Technica Solutions, responsible for systems, planning and procedure. ER-6n (windy), MP33 (pants), 1dIII (occasionally decent), Beardies (stinky), 1990C4Cab (dry!) ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110929-1132352011-09-29T00:00:00Z2011-09-29T00:00:00ZTechnica - From the inside As I walk in the office every day there’s a buzz. Either the phone rings, or there’s computer banter between the team.
I’ve spent the first few weeks learning, observing, reading, researching, tweeting and blogging.
I had no idea how much goes on within a technical company. It isn’t just about clients ringing up about help with their computer problems and receiving excellent support. It’s also about forward planning, keeping up with the current technical ideas and communicating that to everyone, both internally and externally.
My first impressions during my observations were of the technical team on the phones and by email. Communication is a key factor for me and this is what I have found: The communication is tight, the phone rings no more than three times and the call is answered by a friendly voice. In front of me they can seem quiet but come alive on the phone. There’s no “pass the buck” feeling here at all. It is strong team work and I love it!
The three partners have their own offices separate to the technical floor, but instead of sitting in them they integrate themselves with the team downstairs on the main floor. Being a part of everything and staying connected to the team, this is fabulous for morale and communication and a will to do well from the team.
When multiple support calls take place it’s amazing, the floor becomes alive and an exciting buzz fills the room.
There is also a lot of email communication; if a client raises a “ticket” we all see it. It isn’t long before we all see the solution as well. Everyone knows what is going on with every client – it’s tight and from what I have observed each client is very special and important.
The IT technicians are so positive and happy to have helped with an issue. Not once have I heard a moan, just a strong work ethic, and an ethos that I am proud to be part of.
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110927-1031272011-09-27T00:00:00Z2011-09-27T00:00:00ZPPPoE Subnet Mask issues with SonicWallsHow to override the default 255.255.255.0 PPPoE Subnet mask used by a SonicWall device
Explanation
For some weird (and frankly stupid) reason, when connecting using PPPoE, like when using UK Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) connections, A SonicWall device chooses to ignore the subnet mask given by a Radius server and uses 255.255.255.0 as the subnet mask regardless.
This usually does not cause issues except when attempting to connect to a SonicWall, with more than one WAN connection, from an external address which happens to be within the class C subnet defined by the SonicWall for the PPPoE connection.
In addition the issue is only seen when the connection is to one of the other WAN connections.
So to give an example:
You have a SonicWall with 2 WAN connections. One is PPPoE and the other is simple TCP/IP to a router. The PPPoE connection will be given a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 regardless of what is intended by the ISP:
Example as follows:
X1 Interface: PPPoE connection: 22.22.22.22 Subnet 255.255.255.0 This should be: 22.22.22.22 Subnet 255.255.255.255
This is correct behaviour if the PPPoE subnet mask were accurate, as the X2 Interface should not be seeing WAN traffic from an IP addresses meant to be on the X1 subnet.
Fix
The Fix is to hard-code in the correct subnet mask (in my case 255.255.255.255) using the hidden Internal Settings page on your firewall.
You get to this page by logging in to your firewall (say it is on 1.1.1.1) and then changing the address you see in the address bar to: http://1.1.1.1/diag.html
On this page is a warning and a button marked Internal Settings. Press this button. Work your way down the page until you find a heading called PPPOE Settings. Under this heading is an entry for PPPOE Netmask: Change this entry from 255.255.255.0 to the correct Netmask (in my case 255.255.255.255), scroll to the top and click Apply.
Now, back in the main SonicWall pages, make your way to Network/Interfaces, disconnect and then reconnect your PPPoE session and you will have the correct subnet mask.
Jason Ozin is a well-known IT professional, technical architect and joint owner of Technica Solutions - www.technicasolutions.co.uk. Jason consults leading UK and international enterprises on real world technical and IT issues. Jason specialises in business infrastructure and IT security matters.]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110923-0030002011-09-22T00:00:00Z2011-09-22T00:00:00ZNewbieThis is the first of many blogs from me so watch this space.
Vanessa Fisher, experienced marketeer and account manager has been brought into Technica with her optimistic and bubbly personality. Her attention to detail and 'can do' attitude provides a new friendly addition to the Technica family and for all our clients. ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110915-1029012011-09-15T00:00:00Z2011-09-15T00:00:00ZBluetooth Technical Issues My new Abarth 500 has something they call Blue & Me which seems to have been co-developed with Microsoft. It pairs to your phone and offers hands-free, and address book along with other fancy features. All-in-all it has been working far better than the Bluetooth in the BMW that proceeded this car.
However, this afternoon any attempted phone call just gave a type of extreme distortion mixed with a scratching, buzzing white noise. The other end of the call heard a very high squealing distortion noise, so loud they had to remove the handset from their ear.
I tried re-pairing, resetting, and deleting all bluetooth settings in the car. Nothing helped. I also found that using another phone gave the same issues. This pointed to it being a fault with the car.
After a bit of searching I found an Alfa Romeo user with a similar Blue & Me fault on an Internet forum. He reported that he took his car to the dealer and they fixed the fault by disconnecting the car battery.
So I found the internal fuse box and removed the three fuses that mentioned anything to do with dashboard, radio or console. The downside is this reset a lot of settings on the car, like the clock and disabling the driver's airbag. But the upside is it fixed the noise issue.
I decided to blog this just to help anyone else experiencing the same issue. I hope this isn't a regular occurrence as I don't really want to go through the same procedure regularly.
I'd be interested if many others experience this issue.
Jason Ozin is a well-known IT professional, technical architect and joint owner of Technica Solutions - www.technicasolutions.co.uk. Jason consults leading UK and international enterprises on real world technical and IT issues. Jason specialises in business infrastructure and IT security matters.]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110614-2153512011-06-14T00:00:00Z2011-06-14T00:00:00ZIt must be true I saw it on Facebook!It is definitely genuine as a good friend sent me it by email.
Here is a picture circulating by email and on Facebook. It shows some uncanny similarities between the Royal Wedding and the Disney movie, Cinderella:
It is an amazing coincidence or would be if it were true. Here are the real stills from the movie. Cinderella and Prince Charming as well as the Ugly Sisters look like this:
So it is a Photoshop special, right down to the hair colour. So the lesson: If you read it on Facebook, or got sent it by email there's always a good chance it's not actually true. What is it about the Internet that causes people to shed all cynicism?
Jason Ozin is a well-known IT professional, technical architect and joint owner of Technica Solutions - www.technicasolutions.co.uk. Jason consults leading UK and international enterprises on real world technical and IT issues. Jason specialises in business infrastructure and IT security matters.]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110519-1912222011-05-19T00:00:00Z2011-05-19T00:00:00ZChromebooks appear - a step in the right direction?TechRepublic.
While releasing a combination of hardware and OS at a low price point is to be applauded, there is a worrying trend where 'Cloud' type solutions - of which this is one, the laptops are very much thin clients, lacking power themselves to do much in the way of complex stand-alone work - appeal predominantly on price.
As mentioned in an earlier post, the short and medium term future of the cloud could easily develop into a price war which, rather than benefit the end user, results in a choice of products all of which are devoid of features and built down to a level where suppliers can still make a profit.
A little while ago I was asking the service manager of a leading UK server manufacturer why warranties were now sold separately from their hardware, a move which coincided with the standard support we got from the manufacturer declining noticeably. Cutting a long story short, putting two identical products on the shelves and selling them at different prices, one with better warranty than the other, resulted in zero sales of the dearer product.
My concern is that the cloud is in a state of infancy yet suppliers are banging away at how great it is. Undoubtedly the potential is phenomenal, but end-users are expected, or somehow feel the urge, to adopt something they've not had a chance to properly evaluate. Suppliers are fully aware there'll be a greater uptake of their product if the price is low, and end-users are getting carried away with the hype and considering products that simply don't suit them as well as better-featured (and therefore higher-priced) alternatives.
In the longer term end-users will be able to make informed decisions as to whether lowest-common-denomiator cloud is for them or whether a more fully-featured solution is worth paying a premium for. In the meantime, hopefully common sense and an insistence on evaluating exactly how suitable various cloud offerings are will help avoid costly decisions driven by the need to be an early adopter.
David Izen: Partner at Technica Solutions, responsible for systems, planning and procedure. ER-6n (windy), MP33 (pants), 1dIII (capable), Beardies (stinky), 1990C4Cab (oily) ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110518-1315222011-05-18T00:00:00Z2011-05-18T00:00:00ZGet me in The Cloud Can you sum up what the cloud is? Since at least the early 1990’s, when dial-up accounts were beginning to be used by small businesses and homes, the internet was represented in network diagrams by a cloud. Today’s cloud is really no different. If the entire network of the world’s computers were mapped, the cloud is the area in the middle of the diagram that all of the outside, or private, firewalled computers connect to in order to share information. What has changed is that in the early 1990’s the internet was used to transmit a little e-mail and the shared information was principally universities’ academic papers. As internet speeds increased it became possible to conveniently view and download more than just text and websites proliferated. In the last few years, three things have happened to increase the versatility of the internet further. Firstly, connection speeds to the internet continue to increase hugely; in the early 1990’s the majority of users connected to the internet using an analogue modem that could receive data at somewhere between 9,600 and 28,800 characters per second. Today BT and Virgin roll out services to homes that will receive data at 40 and 50 million characters per second, and there are business solutions that move data to and from the internet at twice those speeds. Secondly, storage costs have dropped considerably. Hard drives of 10 and 20 Megabytes have been replaced by ones of 40 and 80 Gigabytes (a Gigabyte holding roughly 1,000 times more data than a Megabyte) and now 3 Terabyte drives are hitting the market, and remarkably the larger drives are also cheaper than their predecessors. Finally, continual advances in processing power and cheap random access memory (RAM) have allowed virtualisation to become a common part of the IT landscape. A powerful host server is configured to allow creation of multiple virtual servers, where each virtual creation appears to the end user as a fully functioning server. Because a virtual server is actually just one of many files running on the host, they can be created in minutes and offer all sorts of options to organisations and end users needing flexible access to servers performing all sorts of roles and running a variety of applications. The cloud is the space allocated to each user with a web account on an Internet Service Provider’s hard disk, it’s the space their e-mail occupies on Gmail’s servers, it’s a hosted server and it’s Microsoft’s, Google’s, Apple’s or Amazon’s (or a thousand other companies', Technica included) servers or disk space that is available to everyone to buy or rent for a variety of applications.
But the cloud is the future of computing isn’t it? It’s absolutely a part of computing, as it has been for nearly two decades. The internet is more accessible than ever. Storage space, connection speeds and virtualisation all mean we can do way more with it. But the excitement at the timing of these technology leaps and the prospects they bring, along with the confusion created by a new term that is applied to so many levels of computing – witness Microsoft’s ‘To The Cloud!’ adverts, where the cloud is the answer to our photo manipulation worries – has the public convinced the cloud is IT nirvana.
So the cloud is all hype? Absolutely not. You only have to consider the variety of services that are available, or soon will be, or that obviously suit the expanding internet with faster access speeds and therefore absolutely will become a part of everyday computing. The concern is that everybody has heard of The Cloud and the need to get in The Cloud, without too much trouble being taken to define the terms and explain the potential benefits or downsides. Perhaps remarkably, the hype is justified – the benefits to the internet will affect us all positively – but some of the larger industry players, as well as plenty of the smaller ones, are desperate to stake their claims in the cloud and impress their clients that they offer cloud services and all that’s happened is the waters are muddied and individuals and businesses are confused about this thing that they’re told they desperately need without being clear about what it even is.
How about some examples of what the cloud actually is? Here’s a few to demonstrate how a faster, larger internet can be used.
Amazon Cloud Player – Set up an Amazon Cloud Drive account and receive 5Gb of free storage for uploading digital music content, which can then be played on any Mac, PC or Android device using the Amazon Cloud Player. Purchases made from Amazon’s MP3 store are saved for free, not counting toward storage limits. Apple and iTunes have owned the mobile music market for so long, here is Amazon’s tilt at grabbing market share as a minimum and hoping to replace Apple as the dominant force in online music sales. Apple are believed to be revising their popular (more so with Mac users than the IT world as a whole) Mobile Me service, already an online file storage service, so that an entire iTunes library (music, video, pictures etc.) can be stored online and played from anywhere.
Cloud Virtual Server Creation – Many companies allow you to create a virtual server by using a web interface to their host servers and simply specifying the number of processors you need, memory, disk capacities and operating system, and a few minutes later you ‘own’ a virtual server you can transfer data to and begin working from. The same server would have taken days or weeks to build and commission and cost thousands of pounds to buy and has taken a few minutes to create. Costs are based on how much oomph your virtual server needs (processor, RAM and storage) and how long you keep it active for – use it for a few minutes or a few years, and grow it or shrink it as you need.
Web-based e-mail servers – Google’s Gmail is the best known example, though of course these have existed for years. Google now allow 7Gb of e-mail storage space per account, a huge amount, and businesses are looking at the costs of owning and maintaining their own servers against slashing costs and moving to Gmail.
Software as a Service – Rather than running software on your local workstation, why not use an internet browser to connect to someone else’s PC and run the software from there. According to Wiki, IBM and other providers offered a service bureau in the 1960’s to do exactly this and the service made even more sense as internet speeds improved and web-based interfaces allowed end-users to run their applications on remote dedicated servers. Today’s access speeds and storage levels make SaaS even more viable, with low-power netbooks able to control highly specialised processing tasks.
Sounds great. Isn’t the cloud environmentally friendly too? It can be. Even without the cloud, virtualisation has led to multiple individual servers being replaced with a single host server running multiple virtual servers. Rather than having, say, a separate file server, mail server and database server, there would be just one box using potentially a third of the electricity and generating a third of the heat, so needing less air-conditioning to keep cool. It doesn’t work out quite that way of course. The host server needs to be more powerful across processing power, memory and storage and will most likely consume more power and generate more heat than a single regular server. It is unlikely however to use three times the power and therefore virtualisation should be environmentally friendly, as well as saving space. A little while ago Google, who cannot be accused of being environmentally naïve, attracted criticism for the energy being used to power the server farm responsible for running their search engine. Before categorically assuming that cloud-based virtualisation is universally environmentally friendly, it would be necessary to compare the costs of running and cooling individual servers with server clusters and all sizes of server farm.
So we’re in the early days of the cloud. What happens longer term? Here’s where things get really interesting. The internet is a resource open to everyone, and the services that can be provided, whether they’re hosted servers, virtual servers, software, e-mail, data storage or music storage, can be provided by a huge variety of companies, large and small. Logically, long-term, the cost of internet-based services can only reflect the cost of the resource (i.e. the cost to a host of the storage media and the cost of making that resource available to you), a profit element (which will be low because otherwise you will use an alternate supplier, of which there will be plenty) and a cost for service; you or your business as the customer may choose to pay a premium for, as examples, a particularly reliable service, or one with extra facilities such as additional back-ups or redundancy. When Apple, as is likely, make it possible to store your iTunes library in the cloud, users may be prepared to pay a premium because compatibility with iPods may be of value to them; otherwise, users will use a similar service such as Amazon’s Cloud Player. In the medium term we are likely to see the same dichotomy of services evident in much of the IT industry, a quality versus price split. Companies, particularly the big players like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Dell, are desperate to establish themselves as cloud players. Some are providing services for free to gain a foothold and market share, others are looking, understandably, to profit. Before we reach the long-term position where cloud offerings mature and users select the service they need and choose from a selection of providers, service levels and price points, we are likely to go through a stage where providers compete almost purely on price and then adjust their service levels in order to ensure they are not running at a loss.
So…. Do I go to the cloud or not? Most businesses and individuals already use the cloud, for web pages, downloading music, online back-ups and any countless number of ways, but think of that as ‘just’ being the internet. Your decision process on whether to move all of your e-mail, or company’s data, to the cloud should be no different from how you decide whether or not you’d benefit from hosting your music library online rather than on your PC, or whether or not you backup your data locally or online – look at the cost, look at the feature set offered, consider the convenience and factor in the potential for not being able to reach your data/services if internet access was lost. It’s early days for the cloud as we know it. There will be less of a ‘must have’ feel as offerings and knowledge mature and individuals and businesses will be better placed to decide which services will make sense for them to move online. Take away the hype and consider the facts: what are the costs, are local and cloud-based services the same (and which, if any, might you be prepared to do without), how would you actually move data to the cloud (and perhaps from, if it didn’t work out), how well is your data protected if you do move it, and how would you be affected if you were unable to connect to it?
David Izen: Partner at Technica Solutions, responsible for systems, planning and procedure. ER-6n (windy), MP33 (pants), 1dIII (capable), Beardies (stinky), 1990C4Cab (oily) ]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110408-1712302011-04-08T00:00:00Z2011-04-08T00:00:00ZBest Geeks!Alexandra Palace for over ten years but even after all this time it is nice to still get compliments.
One of our key contacts remarked in an email today, "It's a pleasure working with a bunch of guys as helpful and efficient as you lot, I can honestly say hand on heart, you guys are without doubt the best bunch of techy geeks I have worked with :)."
"Over the last 18 months, you have also helped me to be less of a technophobe too which I really appreciate".
Joanne Hawitt-Phillips Alexandra Palace & Park Charitable Trust
Jason Ozin is a well-known IT professional, technical architect and joint owner of Technica Solutions - www.technicasolutions.co.uk. Jason consults leading UK and international enterprises on real world technical and IT issues. Jason specialises in business infrastructure and IT security matters.]]>http://www.tec1.co.uk/blog/index.php?entry=entry110125-1917432011-01-25T00:00:00Z2011-01-25T00:00:00Z
