Riverbank It management

I discovered last week that HM Government's recession-busting generosity extends to providing a tax break on IT equipment purchases. The scheme only runs for a year so it's important not to miss out.

My source was Cormac Marum of Harwood Hutton chartered accountants. Here is exactly what he told me...

 

A new standard for wireless networking (802.11n) was ratified last week. It's not exactly new because manufacturers have for some time been producing equipment using the draft standard. But it does mean it's now official.

If you have a wireless network that's more than a year old or so, you could get a higher speed connection and greater range by upgrading to the new standard. If you would like to check, contact Chris Jones at Riverbank.

Here's an idea that will save you a few minutes every day. Have you received an e-mail that you want to convert to an appointment in your calendar in Outlook?

With Outlook 2007 it couldn't be easier. Just highlight the e-mail in your list of e-mails and drag it over your calendar in the toolbar on the left-hand side of the Outlook window.

When you do this, Outlook creates a new appointment for you with all the information from the e-mail. All you have to do is set the location and date, and save your changes.

Your computer seems to gradually get slower. It has always been one of those mysteries about PCs, and you can overcome it. We offer three options – a regular security check and clean-up, tune your computer for speed, and finally just rebuild it from scratch.

 

Why does your computer get slower?

The main reason is the accumulation of ‘stuff’. Every time you install a new piece of software, eg for your iPod, your camera, or that new version of Office, you are adding to the burden on your computer. Most programs have some small part that sits permanently in memory; that’s how your computer recognises your camera and automatically fires up the camera software. Every program in memory has to be managed by the computer, and the memory used for these programs can’t be used for other applications. Each of these applications also has to be loaded from disk when you start the computer, which is why your computer takes longer to start up.

Don’t jot thoughts down on notepads, scraps of paper, or Post-It notes. Get organised and become more efficient by using Microsoft OneNote.

 

With OneNote you can keep all your ideas, thoughts and must-do lists in one place. You can have as many different lists as you want. You can categorise them, arrange them and colour-code them.

Bumbling idiots. That’s how one IT manager described his computer users. They are the threat within. They sit next to the sort of internal threat you might imagine – the disgruntled employee who knows enough about IT to try to inflict real damage. Together these two groups of people pose the greatest risk to your IT security.

 

So how do you reduce the risks from the people on the inside?

ADSL broadband speeds are going up to 20Mb as BT rolls out new technology into its exchanges across the country. The new ADSL2+ connections provide download speeds of up to 20Mb and upload speeds of around 1Mb. But it's not quite as simple as that...

 

The BT roll-out is scheduled to be completed in 2011. For some exchanges (like Oxford) the new service is already available, while for others (like Swindon) there is a much longer wait.

Getting the new higher speeds depends on several factors. Your ISP might want to charge you more for the new service, so you might need to upgrade, whilst others are migrating all their customers to the new service automatically.

Riverbank is proud to be a sponsor of the Martin & Audrey Wood Enterprise Awards. They are a celebration of the achievements of companies, innovators and entrepreneurs located in Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley area.

The Awards were established in 2005 by Oxford Innovation in honour of Sir Martin and Lady Wood, who co-founded Oxford Instruments plc and continue to support start-up and growing companies in Oxfordshire and beyond.

More information is available from Oxford Innovation. The closing date for applications is Monday 28 September.

If you were on holiday in August you might have missed the news that a US man has been charged with the theft of 130 million credit card numbers from a variety of US-based companies.

This case highlights the need to take IT security seriously. If you aren't confident about the security of your IT systems ask for a copy of the new Riverbank guide to IT security.

And you will be interested to know that the man charged by police was already in custody - charged with the theft of 40 million credit card details.

We are running a series of IT briefings to help you make your business more successful.

 Key topics are:

• IT security
• Communications and team work
• Backup and business continuity
• Flexible working

 If you would like to learn more about these subjects we would be pleased to invite you to a one-hour briefing at our Oxfordshire or London office, or at your office if you prefer.