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Two new people at Riverbank

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:28:20 +0100

This week we said good-bye to Sarah Hunt, our office manager since 2005. She has done a huge amount for Riverbank and we will miss her. In her place we are delighted to welcome Karen Harris (karen@riverbank.co.uk).

We are also very pleased to welcome Marc Prole back to Riverbank following his return from his round-the-world travels. We're sure he will enjoy being in one place for a while and it's great that he has chosen Riverbank as the place to be. He is contactable at marcRead More...

Another day, another lost laptop

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:42:58 +0100

Today's security scare is courtesy of the Yorkshire Building Society who lost a laptop that contained "a substantial part of the customer database". Here's what they did wrong:

The laptop was not encrypted.The laptop was not kept in a secure location (it was under a manager's desk).Unbelievably the manager had written down the passwords and just to make things easy for themselves kept the password details in the bag with the laptop computer.

The building society has made formal undertakiRead More...

Data loss? That will be a £2m fine.

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:14:23 +0100

The FSA has fined Zurich Insurance £2.275m for a data loss. Not only did they fail to protect their customer data properly, they did not even notice they had lost confidential details of 46,000 customers. The problem was not so much the loss of the data - it was the lack of adequate systems that cost Zurich so dearly.

As a small business you probably aren't running the risk of a £2m fine, but you are running the risk of losing your reputation and your customerRead More...

New BlackBerry zealot

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:46:29 +0100

At Riverbank we like to be "vendor-neutral" - unbiased in real English - so our Business Development Manager, Chris Jones, happily took his iPhone along on a two-day BlackBerry training course this week. Bad idea.

He has returned a changed man. He is convinced that BlackBerry is the way forward for any serious business. He can tell you why the compression of the BlackBerry e-mail transmissions means lower costs, particularly when roaming. He can tell you how BlackBerRead More...

Cloud computing in demand

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:11:59 +0100

Cloud computing is beginning to hit the business radar. So what's the appeal?

The appeal for one Riverbank client is flexibility and scalability. Their staff work a lot from home and from client sites so they need a system that will work well from anywhere. They have ambitions for growth, and they like the idea of only incurring the cost as they grow. With cloud computing they can add one user at a time and know exactly what the additional cost will be. And in these uncertain timesRead More...

New people at Riverbank

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:36:19 +0100

We are very pleased to welcome two new people to Riverbank - Kevin Ya and Chris Davis.

Kevin is a recent graduate and is with us for a few months to help with the implementation of our new integrated management software. He lives in Clifton Hampden where his parents run the Plough pub and restaurant (highly recommended by Marc Juffkins).

Chris has joined us as one of our senior technical team. He has eight years of professional experience in IT. Chris has a degree in human bRead 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...

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...

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...

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...

Or would you prefer a Netbook?

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:33:19 +0100

Netbooks were last year’s revolution. With seven to ten inch screens these low-powered computers were designed to give you access to all the world’s information – the Internet. But that didn’t really happen.

What did happen is they grew larger and more powerful because people want to use them as small laptop computers. And this makes a great deal of sense.Read More...

Guess who's outsourcing their IT support?

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:35:10 +0100

It's Microsoft. In a deal announced earlier this month Microsoft is outsourcing its own IT support to Infosys. It just goes to show that as a business model, outsourcing functions like IT can be a very effective solution, whether you are Microsoft or a small or medium-sized business.

The lengths we go to...

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 01:49:06 +0100

...to improve the quality of our business. I'm at the HTG summit in Dallas, Texas, this week. It's the annual conference of a US/UK/Australian group of some 200 IT service companies, all dedicated to helping each other improve their service through sharing best practice and learning from leaders in their field. It has been a series of intensive 12-hour days, but well worth the effort.

It's a great example of "co-opertition". Any competitive feelings are put to one side in the interests Read More...

New technologies – social media

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:59:19 +0100

“Only old people use e-mail”, said my seventeen-year-old son. The young are busy communicating via instant messaging, text messages, Facebook and through whatever online game they are playing. Business might have taken over e-mail as a major form of communication but many millions of people have moved on to other media – the social media.