The question is what can you do in FIVE hours. We did an extensive survey and here are the top things that we found that people would do in FIVE hours.

1. You could do all your Christmas shopping.
2. You could run the Dublin city marathon in FIVE hours.
3. You could go for a long lunch with some friends.
4. You could stay in bed one extra hour a day for a working week.
5. You could tell 100 people about this excellent offer from iPing.

iPing are happy to announce a limited offer of 5 free hours of IT support to the next 15 Dublin based companies who phone 01 5241350 to take advantage of this offer.

This is the iPing try before you buy service where we are looking to show you how good we are at fixing computers and installing networks.

In these five free hours we will also provide you with an extensive IT / Computer / Network audit to find out exactly how your network is performing.

You can use this time to do the following for example:

• Tune up the computers on your network so they are running at peak performance.
• Set up a new computer on your network.
• Get help with resolving problems you are having with Microsoft software.
• Install a new printer on your network.
• Get help in recovering from an attack from viruses.
• And get many more computer related problems fixed.

To take advantage of this offer from iPing contact Mark on 01 5241350

Taking a look this week at the costs of Mobile Broadband to the average SME and trying to choose which plan is best for you and your needs.

Advantages of Mobile Broadband

• You have broadband no matter where you are (or nearly). As long as you can get mobile coverage then you can also get Mobile Broadband coverage. The better the signal – the faster and more responsive your broadband will be
• You don’t need a landline. Say ‘No’ to the still ridiculous notion that you need to pay a monthly fee for the line rental to Eircom – just to get broadband
• You can share it with friends/colleagues. Just unplug the USB dongle and connect it to your friends/colleagues laptop/PC
• You don’t need a laptop! That’s right – you can use it with your home PC if you just want basic internet and don’t want the hassle of wired broadband. Good for SMEs who may need the power of desktop PCs but may not always have access to a landline
• It’s almost as fast as basic wired broadband. Depending on your coverage you can get up to 3-5Mbs, which is just as fast as some of the starter broadband packages that require a landline
• You can manage the costs by using a non-contract plan and tailor the cost of having broadband to a plan you can afford.

Which Plan for me?

A better question is: “How much data will I be using per month?”

If you’re using it for email and web surfing only choose the lower end plans (1-5GB). It’s more than you need.

If you will be working with media (images/video) as well as the above or often work with large documents (excel/word/pdf) consider a medium plan (5-10Gb)

If you have the luxury of not having to worry about the cost, or will be downloading large volumes of data (cd images, streaming audio/video) then you should really consider a heavy-usage plan. Maybe even consider switching to fixed-line broadband depending on your needs.

Comparing the plans available:

( Prices in the above comparison are correct as of Aug 5th 2010 – always check back with the operator for the most up-to-date prices)

Recommendation

Start with a low-usage plan. Unless you really use the internet for a lot of audio/video data there’s no real need to get a plan greater than 5Gb per month.

What’s most important is that it works where you need it most – so be sure to check the coverage maps before you choose

Hay everyone I have been using drop box for a few months now and I am really liking it. This handy little app allows you to keep a copy of your important files in a virtual folder on multiple computers. i.e. if I save something on my work computer it will then also be on my home PC also. 

I use this for keeping device drivers and the like in that are meant to be on that USB key that I always leave in the back of a customer’s PC. It also works excellent for keeping important documents that you never know when you will need them. 

You can sign up for 2GB of free space here https://www.dropbox.com/downloading?os=win. It works on Windows 7, Apple and Linux so all the major operating systems are covered. 

I also have it up and running on my Nokia phone so I can copy photos from my phone into the drop box and then they appear on my dropbox that I have configured on my PC in the office. 

All in all a very handy app and it gets the iPing approval. Let me know what you think.

iPing are currently looking for a new team member to help with providing IT support to our growing client base. If you know of someone who is currently looking for work and fits the following description please let them know about us. 

The successfully person must have at least 3 years experience supporting windows servers, desktops and have a thorough knowledge of Computer Networking. The person must be reliable, flexible & personable. 

If you have worked in IT support for small companies before you will know the kind of applications and hardware that will need to be supported so please let us know all your skills. 

Send your CV to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Obfuscate: the concealment of intended meaning in communication, making communication confusing, intentionally ambiguous, and more difficult to interpret.

Or to us normal people: Hide, and in this context: Hiding Data I really can’t stress enough how important this is. For any web-based service that allows the storage or presentation of information that could be misused – that web-service should be obfuscating it’s data.

Common Mistake

The single most common mistake is that those creating the presentation and access layer (eg. The Web Developers) for that data often don’t understand what that data represents – to the web-developer it’s just information, in a table, in rows and columns that needs to be queried, filtered and presented

When there’s a lot of information to be processed there is almost always a unique identifier that’s used to filter all that information down to only a single result – ideally the result that corresponds to that unique user/item/profile.

The mistake made is that often that unique identifier is used as the primary key for data access and manipulation – without it being obfuscated!

eg.

• Your Phone Number
• Your Mobile Number
• Your Car License Plate

Surely this information isn’t important though?

Think about the potential once it’s possible to gather enough of this data. What if someone was able to collect all the license plates for the cars in Ireland? What if someone was able to collect all the mobile (cell) numbers for everyone in the country?

One word: Marketing

Or as it’s know to most of us: Spam

..and that’s just the best case…

Surely important information is protected?

It’s all down to context, or for want of a better description meta-data. If you don’t have the meta-data to process that information then there’s not much you can do with it.

And without the context for that information there’s no awareness that that data needs to be protected or obfuscated somehow.

It can’t be that easy – can it?

No?

• Lets take a very well known car manufacturer – ABC. (1 click)
• Lets have a look at their Used Cars (1 click)
• Want the chassis number of that car? No problem (1 click)
• What the chassis number of every used car in the UK from ABC? (one line command at a linux prompt)

We’ve contacted ABC cars to let them know about this and it will be interesting to see what they say…

This week I took part in the inaugural Technology Fast on the RTE 1 radio show The Business http://www.rte.ie/radio1/thebusiness/ You can listen to the show on the website.

This was a great opportunity for me to find out what it is like to have to survive without IT of any kind.

I had to hand over my laptop and my Nokia N71 smart phone. When I handed them over I was lost and it made it hard to work as almost everything that I do is based online.

All in all giving up Technology for 48 hours was an excellent opportunity but not something I will be doing again soon.

Mark

Windows 7 is shaping up to be the most significant desktop operating system upgrade since Windows XP was released more than eight years ago. In fact it is predicted that more than 170 million units of Windows 7 will ship by the end of 2010.

Do you think you or your company will make the big leap and get on the Windows 7 wagon?

If you are planning on working from home, there are some things that you need to take into account. If you follow this guide you may not need to avail of iPing’s IT services.
The first thing that you will need if you are planning to work from home is a dedicated room to work from. In most cases this will be the smallest bedroom in your house. This room may need to be renovated to include some extra power sockets. You may also need to have your telephone line moved into this room so you can have your broadband and telephone line close at hand.

If you are working from home for a company you will need to connect into the corporate network over a VPN connection. This is a secure connection that connects you into the office network and will let you access all of the resources on the office network.

If you are working from home only part time and you have a computer in head office, an alternative to using a VPN would be to use an application like logmein to connect to your head office computer. This would mean that you were able to work on the head office computer from home. This is something you would have to talk to your IT service department of company about as there are some security issues with this solution.

Some companies are now using Virtualization to improve the IT services that they are providing to their users. This means that you would be able to connect to a virtual computer and do your work from home with your laptop or home computer or even if you are out on the road.

If you are working from home and you have broadband in your home office, I suggest that you sign up for a VoIP telephone service.  There are many VoIP service providers and Google search will provide you with a good selection for your country. Large companies who have employees working from home provide them with VoIP phones to work from home with.

Another point to consider if you are using your home computer to connect to the corporate network, is that it is important to make sure that you have good Internet Security. I use Eset Nod and I would recommend this to my customers, as it provides excellent cover.

In addition, you need to have a system in place to backup your data if you are working from home. This is crucial. For people working from home, I recommend online Data Backup;if you would like some more information on this drop me an email.

E-mail has become indispensible now and if you are working from home you will need an IT service provider that will let you access your mail on your computer, online and on your mobile. If you work for yourself and are just starting up, I would suggest that you use the Software as a Service (SaaS) provided by Google Gmail for Business. This IT service will let you use Calendar, Chat, Blackberry sync etc. Your company may already use Microsoft Exchange to provide it’s e-mail service and you will need to contact your IT service provider to set your account up so as you can work from home.

For more information on working from home and the required IT services just give iPing a call.

I will begin by explaining what a print service is. A company comes into your office and they do an audit on your current printing usage. They will use some high tech tools that will connect to your network and find all your networked printers. This tool will be able to find out how many prints you have done on each printer.

Once they have worked out how many prints you are doing per printer, they need to find out how much you are spending on toner for each printer. This is the place where the real cost of printing sneeks into your printing budget. From my experience and from doing this research, the cheaper the printer that you buy – the more expensive the toner for this printer will cost. You may even find that some of the companies that sell you a printer will only let you use their printer toner in the printer. This is something that really grates, as they can charge what they like for this.

Another point to look at here is how much you are spending on geting your printers serviced. On completion of the print audit, having identified how much you are spending on printing and how many prints you are doing per month, in colour and black and white, the company will make a proposal to you that you will pay them an average cost of say less than 1c per black and white print and less than 6c per colour print.

• From my experience toner will generally cost you more than this alone.
• The key advantages of having a good external company provide you with a print service and the points you should be looking for are as follows:
• If a printer breaks down the company will fix it the next day or replace the printer.
• The total cost of your printing will drop by between 20% and 40%
• The company has a good print management software that lets them know when to send you toner before you know you need it and it just arrives.
• You know in advance how much your printing costs will be for the next few years so you do not get any shocks.
• The print management software provided by the company should give you the information to really streamline your printing service and help with total savings.
• By pooling printers in an office and using printers approprate for your office size you will find that the printing experience of your users improves.

There are some questions and matters to look out for when selecting a print service and they are as follows:

• What are the costs if I print above or below my monthly or yearly quota of prints. A good company will give you a rate nearly identical to what you have in your contract.
• If for some reason you need to remove some offices or printers from the contract what will the cost of this be. Again a good company will be flexible here.

If you are based in Ireland or around Dublin and you are interested in the idea of having print service, please contact someone here at iPing as we have some good companies we would like to put you in contact with.

Until next time,

Mark