Putting Computers into Practice

Recently, there have been some news stories floating about regarding the security of Internet Explorer (and version 6 particularly).

Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001, which makes it practically an antique in computing terms.  In its day it was fine (and an improvement on both its predecessors and the competitors of the day).

However, as technology has moved on, IE6 has not aged well - the increasing sophistication of security threats over the last decade have highlighted IE6's limitations and vulnerabilities.

ANY business, regardless of its size, should invest in some basic minimums on the IT side of things.  One important investment is a server - good quality data-storage that lives in your office - keeping your core records safe and isolated from the day to day issues that can beset a laptop or desktop PC.

Recently, my old friends at UHY Hacker Young made the news as they celebrated the closure of a 34 year old Corporate Recovery case - there was only one person still at the firm who had been on the case when it started, and he is now the Managing Partner.

In the last few days, a cautionary tale has been unfolding in the world of cloud computing. There's a Smartphone offered by T-Mobile, called 'Sidekick'. It does the usual stuff - Internet access, email, diary, camera, contacts database, etc.

One of the key features it espoused was its close integration with 'the cloud' via a central datacentre for many of its functions. It was ahead of the industry in many respects, and gained a loyal following.

The product itself was created by a company called 'Danger Inc', which was bought by Microsoft last year.

The 2009 Software Satisfaction Award for Paperless Office was won by Spindle. What is it?

In this day and age - any way of saving on the running costs of a business has got to be good - when you can do this by reducing the amount of paper generated - then it becomes dear to my heart. I first heard of Spindle about a year ago, and was enthused enough to sign up as an agent for them.

Yesterday, Microsoft released their own Anti-Virus product - 'Microsoft Security Essentials'.

MSE is a no-frills anti-virus program, that works on Windows XP, Vista and Win7 - and it's free (the only requirement is that you are running a 'genuine' copy of Windows). You can download it from....

www.microsoft.com/security_essentials

As a Microsoft Partner, I got advance copies of Windows 7 (the full final version) for my own use.

Needless to say, and based on my own overwhelmingly positive experiences with the pre-release copies, I re-formatted my main work laptop and installed it. I also decided that now was the time to move into the brave new world of 64-bit.

Waterstone's today released the new version of the Sony Reader (actually two versions - one with a touch screen and a smaller 'Pocket' model).

Times are tough - and IT budgets are under pressure. Before spending money on new kit - it's worth making sure you are getting the best out of your current systems, and there are lots of (free) ways that your current systems can be optimised.

Here are a few...

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It's long been said that emails should be treated like postcards - only use them when you don't mind them being read by the postman.

Email, by its nature is horribly insecure. The underlying technology (SMTP) was designed and built by a bunch of Californian geek types (at UCLA, mainly) who gave almost NO thought to security because it was assumed that it would be used within a single organisation only.

When you send an email - it travels to its destination via other people's hardware - that's the way the Internet works. The exact route taken can vary from minute to minute.