Feel warm and fuzzy knowing your files are safe

You might have noticed via our various mediums, that we like to broadcast the good work of us IT people.  Via those channels we have been saying for a while now that having back-up systems are very worthwhile. The difficulty is that most of the time you won’t use them, so just think of them as a form of IT insurance, but trust me, when you need them your back-up systems are invaluable.

Now for the embarrassing bit: I arrived home yesterday and wanted to start work – dedicated you see. All seemed fine except Outlook couldn’t connect to the server, which normally just happens without any intervention on my part. As any good IT person will recommend, I tried switching it all off and on again, it’s a universal fix-all which remarkably still cures a lot of IT related problems – sadly for me, not this time.

Things then started to get even worse – suddenly I couldn’t connect to the Internet. So I engaged plan B for IT people find out what does work and what doesn’t. After much crawling under desks, swapping cables, and using a colourful array of bad language it turned out that the box that makes the connection to the React Computer Partnership head office was the cause of the problem.

So I managed to get it so that I am now in the position of being on the Internet, but not connected to our office. (Here comes the Backup plug.)

At React Computer Partnership we have a remote access system we use when away from the office or home. You go to a web site, put in user ID, password, and the random six digit number a special key fob generates and we are back on the network.

Sure it’s longer to get on and maybe slightly slower, but it works, even from home and I can now get the offending piece of kit repaired when I am good and ready with no urgent journeys up the A14  or calls to an IT line needed.

The cost saved in terms of time and travelling outweighs the cost of the additional equipment and certainly has prevented a lot of stress and even more of that foul language!!

I’m so glad I took my earlier advice.

If you’d like to take the pain out of IT backups or otherwise drop me a line at francis@reactcp.co.uk or call me on 01394 387337.

Remember the words of Corp Jones - Don't Panic!

Here in the IT industry we like to invent lots of wares. We started off with software, which we all know and love. Then came skyware, this was software that sounded brilliant, but wasn’t actually available yet. We then got Spyware, which sits on your machine without you knowing and watches what you are doing. Now we have Scareware, which is designed to frighten the whats it’s out of you to make you do something in a moment of panic that you wouldn’t normally do.

Typical examples of this are webpages that suddenly appear and say you have a virus and your machine is in danger. Click here and we will fix it for you. In a moment of blind panic we click it because if we don’t the whole machine is likely to be wiped and all our files and data, we believe are likely to disappear before our very eyes. Well guess what?  It won’t.

So if something like that appears on your PC, take a deep breath, and count to ten. Then ask what do I have already on my machine to stop viruses? Hopefully your answer to this question is Anti-virus software. So the next question to ask yourself is – What I am seeing, is it from my own trusted and installed Anti-virus software? If your answer is no then the simple solution is to shut the offending scareware screen down. If you want to double check, after you have shut down this web page, that all is now well again in your world, open your Anti-virus and run a scan. If it comes back clean you can safely go back to web browsing, but perhaps steering clear of the site you were on before.

A word of warning: these messages will look real, that’s their job. The latest information we have suggests it will look at you web browser and choose a message that fits. So if you use Firefox the message looks like it’s coming from Firefox.  But remember your anti-virus software’s job is to stop this, so if the message is from anything other than your own anti-virus software then beware!

The second type comes in emails. Initially, and yes they are still around, they looked like they came from your bank, although we aren’t as frightened by these anymore as they also come from everyone else’s bank as well, surely we can’t have all those accounts we have forgotten about?

The latest we have seen is an email scam which threatens to sue you, telling you it’s because you have sent them Spam. We have attached an example of the text below, it looks alarmingly genuine.

A quick Google search showed others were also getting it, and the purpose of the email is to get you to open the attachment and thus infect your PC.

There are one or two warning signs that all isn’t it as it should be. Firstly, for a legal document it’s not well written, and secondly the attachment has a .rar extension. If we were sending a document it would be .doc, .docx or more likely .pdf.

That’s why it’s called Scareware though, you’re not supposed to be thinking clearly and rationally when you receive them.  You should be thinking “I’m going to get sued!!! I need to act right now!!!!” Then in your panic you open it.

As a rule of thumb, if you don’t know the person and they have sent you an attachment don’t open it, at all, ever. In fact be very wary of any attachment. Better to get it sent again than risk infecting your PC.

So next time you get something on your PC that looks scary, remember the wise words of Corporal Jones “Don’t panic Mr Mainwaring!” It could save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

If you’ve received one of these emails or think you might have seen one of those  pop up web warning pages – tell us about it here.  If we can help you with any IT-related queries just email francis@reactcp.co.uk or follow us on Twitter or for more information about what we get up to check out our Facebook page.

Until next time, sleep well and don’t have nightmares

Francis

Backing Better Broadband for Suffolk 

Elves sorting through the mountains of letters to Santa

Santa's home in Lapland

Although its a hectic time currently in Lapland we’ve been contacted by one of Santa’s Elves. He said he thought it was time things were modernised in the grotto and was looking to progress his systems. He had seen our video on our website which tells you all about electronic document management. Santa liked the way our illustrated system improved productivity without the need for extra elves, so he asked one of his chief elves to get in touch.

He told us in the quieter period during Lapland’s summer Santa’s elves have created a database which could match names to things like mobile numbers and email addresses. Santa has asked us if  its possible to replace the normal letters children write with either SMS texts, emails, or a web-based contact form after all the children are getting on with technology far faster than the rest of us.

He felt this would help let him collate presents much faster, speed up production, and even mean that they could reduce delivery routes, streamlining the whole operation so perhaps he would also need less reindeer? We pointed out initially to him that we thought with Christmas he would need the full complement, Rudolph, Donna, Blitzen etc, but that conversation was cut short as he had to take a call back from a supermarket chain apparently enquiring about the tenderness of Reindeer meat.

Anyway after further discussions, we agreed that it would be possible to receive an email with Santa Wish List in the title, or a text with the same in the first line, which could then be matched to the database and create a production plan to select and wrap the presents.

Using digital mapping we could even optimise the delivery route and he’d therefore be pre-warned of any potential problems. We would combine this with satellite tracking and once he’d got to grips with laptop, the Elves felt sure Santa would know his location at any point. We thought about using a 3G system to minimise costs, but that would mean many children in Suffolk and Norfolk villages would end up with nothing!

So with this plan we’ve been over to visit Santa, (yes he does exist) before we went through our system I asked him about the traditions of eating mince pies and drinking sherry. I also asked when the hugging mum bit came in as I remember him doing that when I was little, and probably for longer than was appropriate. He looked a bit confused about that and said it was not something he was aware of. So we swiftly moved on instead to discussing the plan we had agreed with the Elves. Santa listened intently and then smiled and said that for many years he had used his current system effectively and the Elves had forgotten one major element of his current system; magic. That factor made sure that every year he was always ready by December the 25th and he could deliver millions of presents across the world in less than 24 hours.

Based on his excellent track record and the fact that each year we all get the presents we want (despite duplicating sock requests on numerous occasions) we felt in this instance our paper-less system was not going to make any improvement to Santa’s traditional production method – well for now at least.

Well we lasted four weeks and here’s the pictures to prove it. Admittedly for Alan’s picture we had to take it close up so you could see he really did manage to grow a moustache.  We’d like to thank everyone who sponsored us, although we wanted to raise awareness of men’s health issues we decided to send the money raised to a charity which is close to our hearts – St Elizabeth Hospice. If you want to know how we got on here’s our JustGivingpage.

Many thanks again from the newly shorn React Team

We’ve taken up the Movember challenge to raise awareness of men’s health and also to raise funds for St Elizabeth Hospice. Well when I say ‘we’ I do of course mean me and the other male members of the React team. Here I thought you’d like to see pictures of our first week’s Tash Progress. Richard’s looking rather fed up with the itchy phase, Alan’s ‘blink and you might miss it’ Tash is, wel,l it isn’t really. As for me – well I’ll let you see for yourself, I must admit I’ve gone rather ‘gone with the wind’ this week.
Till next week

Francis (Clark)

If you’d like to pledge your support you can do by clicking here for our JustGivingPage. You can of course log onto our website for full details of this special challenge.

Printers - are their day's numbered?

I have noticed of late that I use my printer less and less. While I am concerned about the environment I can’t say that it’s reasoning behind its lack of use. The reality is I just don’t print much to paper these days.
Most of the information I now consume is in electronic format and there is no need to print any of it. As I have said before on my blogs, personally I do have problems when it comes to working with pieces of paper, once I put them down I never find them again! I know there is such a thing as filing, but let’s just say I’m a stranger to the filing cabinet. However, if it’s on my PC or server I know exactly how to find it, and if all else fails, my computer can search for it. So I really don’t need to print.
If I run a report from the accounts system, I export it to Excel. That way I can change the way it’s sorted if I need to and use the search command to look for any particular piece of information I need. So it’s faster and more convenient for me than printing.
I used to print to proof read, but have found over the years that I can now do this better on screen, afterall I can make the type the size I find most comfortable to read, which is useful on some spreadsheets and complex documents. Also Word and Adobe can both read to you if you want. I admit the robotic, monotone American voice wouldn’t be good for a bedtime story, but it does a reasonable job.
What, I hear you cry, of the websites that say print this file for your records? Well there are two ways to achieve this. Either print to pdf, or my favourite, use Microsoft Onenote, one of their best products I think and store it there. Then, if I need to take a copy with me, most of the time I copy it to my smartphone. Again there is an advantage to that, because I always take my phone with me, and as I said I’m really not good with paper.
Taking a quote or proposal to a client still needs paper, and I haven’t found a better way of doing that yet, but with tablet PC’s improving maybe that will be the answer?
So the outlook for my printer is looking rather bleak, what about yours? Are you still creating a paper mountain and keeping a secretary busy with piles of filing?

Robots or Apprentices which would you take on?

So will your next member of staff be of human descent? There are plenty of research
projects being piloted around the globe to make more use of our metal mickey
friends. This month it’s a base jumping version. Paraswift is an extreme-sports
junkie; it can climb the walls of tall buildings and jump off just like a
human. However it’s far cooler as it cleverly deploys an inbuilt parachute to
soften its landing. ETH
built the Paraswift in collaboration with Disney Research. Geissmann presented
the robot earlier this month at the Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies
for Mobile Machines in Paris.

Now personally I’d rather they were developing personal
parachute technology rather than Wall-E style robotic hoodies. Imagine standing
in the check-in at Ryan Air, with the Gestapo-styled stewardess checking not
only the shape, size and weight and colour of your hand luggage but also checking
you out with your parachute neatly folded on your back. Anyway I digress, this
new robot made me think about whether in 10 years’ time we’d be talking in our
weekly management meetings about expanding our team by taking on a robot rather
than a human equivalent.  I think the  technology still has some hurdles to jump before we have a robotic apprentice if you take a look at this video of Paraswift you will see for all its wall climbing, soft landing expertise its progress is somewhat laboured.  So if you brought the same technology into your offices, it might be rather a long wait for that first round of coffees to  be brought to the boardroom in the morning.

However, imagine the possibilities and advantages of taking on a computer-based member of staff rather than a teenager.  You could program them to  wear trousers in a style that didn’t show their underwear and speak the same version of English that we learnt at school. I’d  imagine rather like your company car you’d need to build in some contingency
time for routine maintenance, but think about it, if you’d been told 20 years ago you’d have a television screen permanently placed on your desk which would answer messages for you whilst you were out, had the capacity to forward sales  orders to departments and file the paperwork, plus check up to see if the delivery time had been met all without you even being present would you have  believed it? We are already very accepting of current technologies, programming  our TV viewing from our phones, ordering our groceries without stepping into the supermarket, and setting off on holiday without tedious hours sat in front  of a bored travel agent.  So why not robotic staff?

Now before you phone me to rant about my lack of understanding of the young people, I will tell you we have this year expended by taking on a full time member of the team who is a young person. Rebecca is doing very well as are the rest of the younger generation we have in the office.  All of whom I’m happy to report have great people skills, excellent time-keeping and a thorough knowledge of the IT business. However, I’m still the one who has to make the coffee in the mornings.

Staff spending too much time socialising on your network?

I have spoken to a number of business people recently who tell me they have a problem with their staff and Facebook. It’s normally the same issue, nothing at all technical just simply that their staff are using Facebook when they should be working. This always leads me to wonder though whether Facebook is the problem or is it actually the person using it?
Take a look at one scenario; Let’s say one of your managers has just spent two solid hours working on a very important presentation. Then they come to a point where they get to the end of a section and decide to have a break for ten minutes before starting again. During the ten minutes they check their Facebook account while having a coffee. I am sure you will agree that with this particular person you do not have a Facebook problem, especially as once they have finished that particular member of your team continues on with their presentation for another 2 hours and completes it.
Now I will admit that we do come across improper use of Facebook and the internet in general, but I am afraid to say this is not a technology problem. For those of us who are old enough to remember the work place before IT are we claiming their people never found things to do that weren’t work related? Maybe we just had to be a bit more inventive. I can certainly remember working with someone in those days who would often just disappear. Mind you credit where it’s due, he was extremely good at it. No-one ever managed to find him during one of these AWOL moments and it was always a very important task he was completing during his absence.
Facebook does make it very easy for people to fill their working day with non-productive activity but this is, I believe much more a management and motivation issue than it is an IT issue. So while we here at React can implement controls and reports to show when people are using Facebook and even stop them doing it, don’t be surprised if they find something else that isn’t necessarily work-related to fill their time unless you also address what it is that actually motivates that person to begin with. Have you come across a similar type of person in your organisation? One who disappears for long stretches of time, usually when the work is piling up. Tell us about your experiences. Do you believe Facebook and similar social networking sites actually help your productivity perhaps? Email me or leave a comment.
Must go now and tweet, until next time
Francis
Twitter.com@francispledger
www.Facebook.com/reactcomputerpartnership

What type of person are you Morning or Evening?

We all know these days how easy it is to work remotely, in fact at React we have been working between our offices and home for the last 15 years, even before broadband. Thankfully we have broadband in our parts of East Anglia which has made it much easier to work remotely and a lot less frustrating too.

It’s fair to say now that apart from face to face meetings and the social side of working as a group, which should never be underrated,
there probably isn’t anything I can do in the office that I can’t do from my
home. With electronic document management that means even looking at our paperwork.

So now I can work from anywhere, why is it that I can’t work anytime? Everyone is different, we have ‘morning people’ and we have ‘evening people.’ I am in the latter category, definitely an “I like mornings, just wish they were later in the day” type of
person. So even when I work from home, why is it that I am at my desk at
9:00am? My answer, I believe, lies with the old adage ‘Give the customers what
they want’ because customers work from 9am they expect me to work from then
too.

Now let’s take a different type of job, something which is
task based. Surely as long as it’s done by a certain time it doesn’t matter
what time of day it’s done? What’s the problem then with letting people work
12:00-8:00 if they want too as long as the task is completed as needed and on time?  Do we really care when those involved are actually doing it?

Modern technology is creating all sorts of possibilities and
the main thing that holds back a lot of this change is attitude. We have
written previously on the React Blogs (link here) about how we feel a paperless
office is possible, although we need more technology natives in the work place
who are comfortable with it. Maybe this is the same; we are conditioned to
working fixed hours as generations did before us.

If someone is in the office I can see they are at work is one argument. Well maybe you can see they are there, how productive they are isn’t always that obvious. So if they do the same amount or more work from home in hours that suit them is it really such a bad thing? What do you think? When would you prefer to work? Are you already working your own hours to suit your lifestyle?

Let us know by leaving a comment or email francis@reactcp.co.uk Tweet me @francispledger or follow us on Facebook.com/React Computer Partnership

Are we living through a revolution?

Have you ever stopped to consider what a different world we live in now? One technology that made me realise this was a security light. One evening I discovered at 11 o’clock that I had run out of milk. Being a night owl I decided to walk to the local 24 hour convenience store and as I walked down the road several lights came on. Although I just took it for granted it made me think that my grandfather who died just over 20 years ago would have no understanding of how or why it happened.
Imagine then if I gave him a mobile phone said you ring someone on that. You can imagine the questions, where are the wires, where do you plug it in, just for starters. If we then upgraded him to a smartphone and it would show him where he was, where the nearest café was and how to get there. We are in Thunderbirds territory at this point all we need is a pink Rolls Royce to drive up the road.
Amazingly many of us just take it for granted as we do with other technologies. In his time no-one had a PC in their home. So saying if you want to buy something before we go we can look to make sure it’s in stock and if it is we will reserve it. No more just driving all the way to the shopping centre and hoping it’s there.
So much has changed so quickly and from what we can see we are accepting it and using it and getting on with our lives. One of my daughter’s teachers said we are living through an electronic revolution, but we don’t realise it. Just as the Victorians almost certainly didn’t know they were living through the Industrial Revolution they just moved from farms to factories and it took later generations to understand what had actually happened.
At React we work in a way that was inconceivable 20 years ago. Home and remote working, documents available wherever and whenever you want them by using a pc or smart phone link. The reason we accept it and use this technology without batting an eyelid is because it’s easy. I don’t need to be some high level technician, I click the icon, press the button and it simply works for me.
As for what will happen in the next 20 years I wouldn’t like to predict. The only thing that is certain is the pace of change will only increase, however being the adaptable creatures we are, I am sure we will just use it and our younger offspring will simply wonder what all the fuss is about.
Yours digitally, Francis