The data glut

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:14:04 +0100

We live in an era of too much data – there’s more ‘stuff’ than you can ever hope to read or use. So how do you get it organised and how do you keep a focus on what’s important to your business? This is the topic we’ll look at over the next three months.

New data in – old data out

Get started with Word styles

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:47:42 +0100

Styles are a great feature in Microsoft Word. If you have a house style for everything you write you will immediately be at home with styles in Word. If not, here is a paragraph of explanation.

Every publication has its own style. The style of the Financial Times is different from The Sun – each has their own unique and identifiable style. It&rsquRead More...

End of the road for Windows XP

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:43:04 +0100

Microsoft has announced that the end of the road for Windows XP arrives on 22 October when it will stop supplying it as an option for new PCs. No-one is expecting a rush to snap up the final few copies though - its successor Windows 7 has proved to be popular and uncontroversial.

Support for Windows XP is scheduled to continue until 2014.

Update 23/7/10: This change applies only to factory-installed operating systems. There are still 'eRead More...

False economy no. 2 - spending money

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:24:59 +0100

Did you know that you can now rent software licences from Microsoft instead of purchasing them? Renting often seems like a bad idea - cheap over the short term but expensive over the long term. But we're discovering that rental can make good sense for Riverbank clients.

Take a Microsoft server licence as an example. What we are finding is that over three years the software rental costs are tending to be slightly lower than the price of purchasing the licence. The crossover happens in yeRead More...

False economy no.1 - not spending money

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:06:57 +0100

You don't like spending money on computers during an economic downturn. I can sympathise with that because we don't like doing that either. But beware of creating a problem for yourself further down the line.

One Riverbank client recently complained that their computers were running slowly. One of the reasons behind this was that many of the machines were over five years old. Because the company doesn't have a programme of regular replacement of ageing computers they have reaRead More...

Data protection with teeth

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:05:00 +0100

Since April this year the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has had real teeth. It now has the power to fine companies up to £500,000 for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act.

Common breaches of the Data Protection Act include:

Loss of laptops, disks and data sticks containing client data. Insecure transmission of personal information.

Simple steps that you can take:

Make sure that all company laptops have full disk encryption (remeRead More...

Beware of calls from 'Microsoft'

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:26:39 +0100

"I was sitting at home one evening working on the computer when they phone rang. It was Microsoft warning me that they had a report of a virus infection on my computer. They would like to run a free scan on the computer to check it." So began the lament of a friend who got caught by this scam.

With 20:20 hindsight it's obvious that the call wasn't genuine, but it's not so obvious if you are taken by surprise. This particular episode ended with demands for money to remove the aRead More...

Can we buy you dinner for two?

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:47:31 +0100

Would you like lunch or dinner for two at Le Manoir, with the compliments of Riverbank? That’s our reward to you if you introduce a new client to Riverbank.

Growing Riverbank’s business is important to us, and a lot of our new clients come via referrals. It is important to us to make the most of that goodwill. So if you know of someone whose IT support isn’t as good as it should be, please tell them about Riverbank. As soon as they sign up for a Riverbank support contrRead More...

Cloud computing – better and cheaper IT?

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:28:22 +0100

There is plenty of hype around cloud computing, but are companies actually doing it? Many large firms are apparently holding back from making a drastic change to their IT systems, preferring to wait until others have gone before them and made their mistakes. Many smaller businesses are hesitant about making their entire business dependent on a single Internet connection. They are also worried about secRead More...

Economic clouds bring new opportunities

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:25:24 +0100

Every cloud has a silver lining, so they say, and if there is to be a double-dip recession we’d all better start looking hard for that lining.

If your customers are feeling cautious they are likely to want to avoid large capital expenditure. Can you help them with this? In Riverbank we can provide hardware and software as a service so there is zero capital cost. This even applies to traditional high-cost items like servers. It’s proving to be an attractive option for clientsRead More...

Make friends with Word’s dot leader

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:02:33 +0100

If the words “dot leader” don’t mean anything to you it’s time to get up to speed with using tabs in Microsoft Word. Other symptoms that you need tabs include struggling to line things up and adding spaces here and there until things do line up correctly.

Like so many aspects of word processing the ‘tab’ dates back to the days of typewriters. It was a mechanical stopping point along the carriage that enabled you to tabulate, ie to line up columns of Read More...

Kyle Allard profiled on Facebook

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:11:20 +0100

Kyle Allard, one of our recent recruits, has been featured in a Facebook profile by CompTIA. CompTIA is a non-profit organisation promoting standards and education for the IT industry.

Find out more about Kyle here.

See you at Venturefest?

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 07:36:59 +0100

We look forward to seeing you at Venturefest next Tuesday, 22 June, at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford.

If you have any IT issues you would like to discuss book a half-hour IT clinic with us at Venturefest. Are you thinking about cloud computing? Have you heard about SharePoint and wondering if it could help your business? Or maybe you just want all your IT Read More...

The power of monitoring

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:04:49 +0100

This week three of our customers' servers suffered disk failures. But no-one was affected. The reason was that we are monitoring their networks - the monitoring software gave us advance warning of problems so we could take preventative action.

Disks fail more or less at random so having three in one week is like the old joke about waiting for a bus - you spend ages waiting for one then three come along together. But it's a good illustration of thRead More...

Beware of fake e-mails - part 2

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:02:29 +0100

Today's second security alert concerns fake Twitter e-mails. Several Riverbank clients have received them this week.

Be alert for messages like this:

"Hi, You have 2 unread message from Twitter. Please click on the link below:"

The link looks perfectly genuine but clicking on it will install malware on your computer. As with my previous warning, just be careful with e-mails that don't look quite right. If you do get a message from Twitter remember that you can go to&nbsRead More...

Beware of fake e-mails - part 1

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:51:26 +0100

If you receive an e-mail that doesn't seem quite right, do not open it. Even if it's from someone you know.

Last weekend an employee at one Riverbank client had her Yahoo account hacked. The hacker sent out messages to everyone in her address list. The e-mail led to a fake anti-virus warning. For the unwary who clicked on the link it disabled the computer's anti-virus software and installed malicious software on the computer.

Have you got a private e-mail account? Is theRead More...

The netbook cometh

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:13:23 +0100

My Dell mini 10 netbook has arrived and with it my paper-free future, perhaps. First impressions are great. It runs the latest Windows 7 operating system and has 120GB of disk space. The ten inch screen is bright and easy to read, the keyboard is an ok size and it should run for ages on its battery. And most important of all it received the "cool" accolade from my chiRead More...

Get more from Outlook

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:56:08 +0100

Get more from Microsoft Outlook by making it work harder for you. Here are some bright ideas from the Riverbank technical team.

Auto-complete e-mail addresses
When you are sending an e-mail type the first few characters of the e-mail address then get Outlook to look up the rest of the address. Press Ctrl K to force Outlook to do this lookup.

Speedy send for e-mail
Type your e-mail then pres Ctrl Enter. This is the keyboard shortcut for Send. Save yourself precious secondRead More...

Web conferencing can save more than money

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:50:25 +0100

Web conferencing is set to become a mainstream business tool, and soon. There are a lot of pressures driving us towards it:
• rising fuel costs
• volcanic ash reducing the opportunity and desire to travel (“will I get back?”)
• climate change pressures encouraging us to reduce travel • economic pressures to keep costs down
• the feeling that whatever changes the new government makes will not be good news

TRead More...

Office 2010 – available now

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:47:02 +0100

Microsoft Office 2010 is now available. Major changes include closer integration of traditional Office components like Word and Excel with SharePoint, making it easier for multiple people to work together on a single document and making it easier to work online/offline.

The infamous ribbon, introduced in Office 2007 to replace the traditional menus, is now fully customisable. This should be a great benefit because you can put all your favourite options on one bar, making life faster anRead More...

Blog entries