Riverbank It management

I met a business on Saturday where electricity is a chargeable extra. Truly.

I was in a local pub on Saturday and ordered lunch. While I was waiting I just needed to use my laptop for a few minutes. I asked one of the bar staff if I could plug it into the mains. Yes, she said, but we'll have to charge you for the electricity.

Instant Messaging (or IM) isn’t just something for the under-15s. It’s also a great business tool. It’s an excellent way to keep in touch with your team, wherever they are. IM also gives you information about presence, something that every manager needs.

With Instant Messaging you can ping a quick question to a colleague, knowing that you won’t disturb them and that they will reply when they have a moment. It bridges the gap between e-mail (will I get a reply today?) and a phone call (“Sorry to interrupt you but…”). It’s instant communication without the distraction of a phone call – a delay of a minute or two is not a problem.

Are you working in Word every day? Are you still clicking the mouse? Every time you switch from the keyboard to the mouse you are working more slowly than you need to. Let Word shortcuts turn you into a power user. They are easy to learn and once you get started you’ll be impressed at your own efficiency.

Start by moving around the document. Try these shortcuts:

Do you waste time searching for documents on your network? Is finding the right file like looking for a needle in a haystack? Don’t you wish you could find anything you need with just a simple Google search?

The solution, not surprisingly, is to have your own private Google. It takes the form of a Google search appliance, available as a corporate-sized version or as the Google Mini. It plugs into your network, indexes all your documents and away you go - the power of Google available to everyone on your network.

Riverbank client case study
“Having undertaken a project to digitise our paper archives in to pdf format we realised we needed a way to search and index it.
Riverbank suggested and demonstrated a Google Mini. It has proved to be extremely fast and powerful.
It has revolutionised the way we search and retrieve documents saving time and effort. The friendly Google interface also meant staff were instantly familiar with the interface and needed little or no training.”

Is your business prepared? Winter is just around the corner and influenza (swine or otherwise) still looms. You need to know that your business can continue if staff can't get into the office. And you know that it's no good waiting until there is a foot of snow on the ground before you take action.

If you don't have secure remote access to your network it's time to look at a SonicWALL SSL-VPN device; over 40 Riverbank clients use one.

If you do have remote access, are you sure you have sufficient licences to cover all your needs? The good folks at SonicWALL are currently offering a discount on additional licences purchased before the end of December.

Welcome to the slightly weird world of TV licensing.  It seems to be the case that if you let employees in your office view live TV via the web you need to have a TV licence. So far so good - your company is watching TV so you need a licence.

But why would your employees be watching live TV when they are at work? Arguably your PR people or marketing department might need to keep an eye on what's happening. But everyone else probably has no need to watch TV. So should you prevent them doing so?

 This is where web filtering comes in. Many Riverbank clients now use web filtering to prevent staff accessing unauthorised web sites (pornography, gambling etc), and that could include streaming live TV. By doing so you would protect yourself from the TV licensing authorities.

Do you have a different charger for each mobile device you own? One for the phone, one for the iPod, one for the camera, and so on. The lack of standardisation is very tiresome. 

Powermat could be about to change that. It's a new product that charges portable devices by induction. Just lay your BlackBerry (or other mobile device) on the mat and it will recharge.

But don't get too excited just yet. The lack of standards means that you have to buy a special Powermat back for your device, and that will limit its appeal. But at least it's a start.

Cisco yesterday announced that it is taking over Tandberg. Not exactly the most earth-shattering news of the week but it's an indicator that serious players in the IT world are willing to bet serious quantities of money that the web/video conferencing market is going to grow.

Cisco may not be a very familiar name outside of the corporate IT world, but its routing and communications equipment powers a large portion of the Internet. Tandberg is effectively the number two player in the video conferencing market, behind Polycom.  

So will we change the way we communicate? Certainly there are pressures on us to reduce travel - economic and environment - and that will drive the growth of video conferencing. But there are lots of ways to communicate. How do you decide what to use? In Riverbank instant messaging has become the way that we keep in touch with each other. If you haven't tried it, we can arrange a demonstration. We can also guide you to a whole raft of web conferencing options.