Blog entries

High Performance Secure Remote Access

Stephen Welch — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:26:18 +0100

OK. So it has been quite a while since I updated my blog so I had better write something worthwhile! I have been involved in quite a few interesting projects recently and one of these was becoming a reseller for a very clever server appliance that provides my business with access to our lights out office using two factor authentication through a sec...

Ed Roberts - an inspiration!

Stephen Welch — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:31:33 +0100

Its not only really important not to forget the past but, also to learn from the past - to an extent! Whilst on holiday over Easter 2010 I came across the obituary in the Times of Ed Roberts.

Trying to build a small business in this industry (hectic family life included) is quite hard and the effort to climb the SME ladder is quite incredibly at times. Here, however, is man who did it - quite successfully by all accounts - during the pioneering days of computing, particular...

Remote Anywhere

Stephen Welch — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:04:52 +0100

We are just about to launch a new service for high secure remote access for schools and other establishments. The system comprises of a server c/w hardware encryption chips and all the SME server trimmings and a USB drive called a SPOK! (Secure Portable Office Key)

Inserting the SPOK into an Internet connected computer will automatically fire a secure connection to your office server. The SPOK can be built to run a number of portable applications such as an email clie...

Green technology: how schools can cut ICT spending

Stephen Welch — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:08:20 +0100

Simple efficiency measures in schools' use of technology are often all that's needed to save energy, resources and the environment.

It is very very frustrating working in schools at times. If we are talking about a green ICT agenda or dare I even say a green or environmental policy for a school then we would take a massive leap forward by just making the school or Head Teacher responsible for their financial budgets. To often these budgets are largely determined by wh...

Outsourcing your ICT

Stephen Welch — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:15:39 +0100

Outsourcing your IT to Invictus Technology will give your business many advantages over developing an in-house IT team.
Reasons to Outsource Your IT:
Cost SavingsInvictus Technology is all about IT. This specific focus gives us expertise, efficiencies and economies of scale that simply couldn’t be achieved by all of our customers individually within their organisations. We therefore are able to pass on our economies of scale to our customers.
No Hidden CostsIt is not just the salary costs...

Chartered IT Status

Stephen Welch — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:21:49 +0100

I have just graduated to a Professional Member of the British Computing Society from an Associate. Chartered status here we come!!

Professional Membership demonstrates both competence and a commitment to keep pace with advancing knowledge and the increasing expectations and requirements of your profession.

By becoming a Professional Membe...

Support for Vista and XP

Stephen Welch — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:10:12 +0100

Microsoft aims to end update support for Vista before XP and Windows 2000. Enough said! What a disaster Vista has been for Microsoft.

A colleague of mine was at demonstration or conference about two months ago and he was told by a Microsoft evangelist that the MS policy was not refer to Visa by name (Vista) but as the previous operating system!!

So the end is nigh for XP and W2K but so far Windows 7 seems a good replacement.

"The company said yesterday that...

Develop an Outstanding Company

Stephen Welch — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:16:05 +0100

8 Characteristics and foci essential to develop an outstanding company.

No matter what size of company you are, why settle for running a successful business when you could have an outstanding business?

Shaun Thomson, CEO for Sandler Training in the UK, has developed some inspirational guidelines for getting the most out of your organisation. Find out what his 8 top tips are.

Do you know where you want your company to be 3, 5, 10 years from now? Visionary companies...

Website monitoring made easy

Stephen Welch — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:03:55 +0100

Unless you are sat in front of your website 24 hours a day, how will you know if the site goes down? Wouldn't it be nice to receive an email or a text if for instance Joomla or Moodle stops responding? I happened to stumble upon the website below:

The free plan will check up to five of your sites at least 25 times per day and you get ...

Car Sharing...

Stephen Welch — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:26:50 +0100

Is your business or school encouraging people to car share in your organisation, either as part of their every day work or for people attending your venues for meetings and other events?

This website might help get people to car share; it manages all the logistical organisation for you. Try it out: https://www.liftshare.com/uk/ NB Other car sharing websites may be available

Computer Power Down: Power-Saving for £0 or not - your choice

Stephen Welch — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:13:51 +0100

Measuring waste is key! Maybe you are already thinking about an IT energy management initiative for your organisation? Maybe you have already tried, but can you really tell the board how effective your solution is? Deploying PowerMAN will quickly tell you about your IT energy usage and waste. You can use this information to develop you...

ICT Energy and Carbon Footprinting Tool Updated August 2009

Stephen Welch — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:10:15 +0100

The SusteIT Project also produced a tool to help estimate the energy and carbon footprint of an institution's ICT estate.

http://www.susteit.org.uk/files/category.php?catID=4

Cost and Carbon Comparison Tool: Thick Vs Thin Clients

Stephen Welch — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:05:08 +0100

From the SusteIT Project, a tool to help you decide on what kind of client to use:

This is an Excel tool designed to help Education Institutions and businesses estimate the costs and carbon emissions of thick (PCs) versus thin clients over a given evaluation period. The tool is designed to be easy to use and contains a number of default assumptions which can be easily modified. Based on the input assumptions, the results are displayed in a worksheet within the tool.

This is an...

Remote Backup

Stephen Welch — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:48:55 +0100

Is it good enough just to take a daily backup?

Backups are needed not only to secure a copy of your data but to be able to revert to earlier versions for history. So you need to manage your backups in a cycle.

So you need to keep managed backups. Where should you keep t...

Wordle - Word Clouds

Stephen Welch — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:18:07 +0100

Wordle is a very useful tool that allows you to create word clouds from text (or del.icio.us tags). It’s very simple to use: you just copy text in any language, paste it into Wordle and it will sift through it and create clouds with the most commonly occurring words in the text...

Interesting ideas for the use of Interactive Whiteboards.

Stephen Welch — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:45:12 +0100

Tom Barrett has produced this wonderful Google Docs slideshow outlining, as the title suggests, 42 interesting ways to use your interactive whiteboard. While the presentation is geared towards the SMART Board the same principals / techniques and ideas could be applied to other types of whiteboard.

Please click here to access the slides.

Data Logging with LogIT Explorer

Stephen Welch — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:31:51 +0100

Data logging is the recording of information over a period of time. It can be carried out manually by making observations and then writing them down or electronically with a data logger. The former method requires the user to be there, observing the results and recording them. This can limit the data that can be collected and may prove to be inconvenient or even impossible.

An electronic data logger is a box of electronics that can be connected to the computer and into which sensor...

Full Circle - Issue 29

Stephen Welch — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:12:38 +0100

The latest edition (Issue 29) is out from the Full Cricle team. Get Full Circle here.

This Issue covers:

Command and Conquer
How-To: Program in Python – Part 3, LAMP Server – Part 2, Virtual Private Networking.
My Story – One Man’s Journey, and Walk With Ubuntu.
Review – Kompozer.
MOTU Interview – Iulian Udrea.
Top 5 – Physics Games.
Ubuntu Games, as well as all the usual goodness!

Keep up the good work.

Stephen

Top Tips For Using Netbooks

Stephen Welch — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:16:53 +0100

We realise that there may be quite a few owners of new netbooks that are trying to get started with their little laptop and since I have blogged about the various models that are on offer we decided it a good idea to compile some of this information here. In no particular order...

Set up a bigger monitor for home use: The ...

Space must be enormous - can you measure it?!

Stephen Welch — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:33:38 +0100

Posted by Stephen Fry on his twitter account. WHAT A TOTALLY AMAZING IMAGE!!

Cut and paste from Yahoo answers....

If the earth was the size of a BB, the sun would be a couple inches bigger than a basketball. YV Canis Majoris would be more than a mile in diameter.
This should be considered with th...