Hosted exchange is fan bloody tastic!!

If anyone has used hosted exchange before then you will know what a godsend it is. But for those who are not away of the medium and how it functions then this blog entry is for you!!

we recently moved over from our old POP3 accounts to Hosted exchange, the company is growing fast and it was a necessity for our IT to grow with it, because of this we have outgrown pop3 and needed to move over to an exchange server.
Unfortunately for me my boos does not believe that IT should take a priority on the company budget and I usually get left with the scraps after the company cars are purchased and new stationary is purchased.

So where do I start? new hardware is out of the question and software is definitely a no go, so I jump on Google to look for an alternative, if one exists...
This is where I found out about Hosted exchange, I always thought this term referred to servers that email providers used but Hosted exchange is actually a service that you and me can use, an exchange server that is accessed via the internet as opposed to a local server.

So is it any better than an in-house alternative? from a cost point of view I would definitely say "yes". It would have cost us over 4k to implement an exchange server and then the hardware and maintenance would be our responsibility. By using Hosted exchange you don't have to buy anything and the hardware is someone else's responsibility (thank god).

The functionality side is no different to before, you still access your email via outlook, web and even your mobile, you wouldn't know you are using the service unless someone pointed it out to you.

So I would recommend giving Hosted exchange a go if you are on a budget and need to do something about your email. I am very glad I did.

Hosted desktops, the way of the future?

The IT industry is abuzz with talk about cloud computing at the moment, this really is a hot topic of conversation and many people are feeling that this is the future of business networks. From my feedback on the system so far, I would agree. I work for an IT Support company and we are currently in the final stages of testing our Hosted desktop solution and I can tell you that this is definitely the way forward for business to work, it makes you realise that the existing way of working in a local network is quite primitive and that we should all be thinking about moving to a platform that provides a smarter way of working.

So why would you consider moving to a hosted network?
Well that question is quite easy to answer. One of the best reasons I could give is the fact that it is cost effective, and in these current times that can only be a good thing, when I say cost effective, I mean the following:

No initial hardware layout costs.
Everything is hosted on a cloud network so you can say goodbye to your servers!!! You only need a basic machine to work on a cloud network, thin clients are a popular choice already. Remember that you will also save money on your electric bills as you will not have a server/servers running 24/7 in your office!!

Applications available on a pay as you go basis.
This is a great feature of a hosted solution, applications can be installed as and when you need to use them, and you only pay for the apps you are using. If you no longer require the application, you simply request for it to be uninstalled. This saves a lot of money you would usually spend out on software that goes out of date in two years time. Pay as you go software is the way of the future.
Another great thing about using a hosted desktop is that all of the software gets automatically updated so you do not incur any upgrade costs which again, save you money.

Much more practical.
Access your desktop from anywhere in the world that has internet access. And remember, you are not accessing your desktop at your office; all of your data is stored on a cloud network meaning that it will be available to you 100% of the time. Gone are the days of dialling onto your Pc at work, which is old school.
So far the customers that have used the system love it, and they can be a fussy bunch!!!

Resources.
IT Support Essex based company that I work for. We are now supplying hosted desktop solutions and so far they have proved very popular.

Credit crunch isn't affecting the fashion industry.

If you like your fashion (like me) then you will spend a lot of time out on the high street browsing all of the latest brands and checking out all of the new stuff for summer. Now at the moment are apparently in a credit crunch, times are hard and we are all struggling to make ends meet. This is what we are all being told anyway, but is it really the case?

I raise this question as this weekend I went out shopping with my mum, Saturdays are notoriously busy as you know, especially if the sun is out but this Saturday was a massive exception. We went to lakeside down in Essex and let me tell you that EVERYONE was down there. There were que’s for just about every shop you went into, especially the fashion shops, with people gagging to get hold of the latest stuff for the summertime. I had to wait 20 minutes in River Island to try on a top that I fancied and it wasn’t just in there. Just about every shop you went in was packed.

So where is this credit crunch then? It certainly hasn’t stopped people from spending the or money that for sure, lakeside must have taken hundreds of thousands on Saturday alone and every clothes shop was heaving. Are people being that careful with money? Is everyone still maxing out their credit cards so they can get the latest fashion without regard to the bill that will await them for the month after?
People that have lost their jobs will no doubt disagree with me that things are bad, otherwise they wouldn’t be out of work, and I do agree with that as not everyday on the high street is like a Saturday. But people are still spending money like it is going out of fashion (excuse the pun).

Anyway, I work in the fashion industry and I can tell you that there isn’t the kind of money in the industry that you think there maybe, but at the same time no major label has gone bust yet, and in my opinion they never will.

Resources
Apparel software company that I work for. We have obtained another 2 major contracts this week so there must still be plenty of money going around the industry, otherwise we would be out of work and not making a profit.

Enough of the dog bling, lets get back down to earth people!!

You have to be joking me when you say that there is a £3000.00 dog collar available. You also have to be kidding me when you say there is a 1200.00 dog bed on the internet aswell!!

I have been looking around for a new bed for my dog online today and I have discovered some amazing products out there. No doubt that animal lovers reading this blog entry will know about this stuff already, but I didn’t and I find it truly amazing just what you can get for your pets nowadays.

So far I have found the following, a £3000.00 dog collar that is plated in 18 carat gold. AND if you want bigger sizes then it can go up to 5K. You can honestly tell me that someone actually bought one of these, if you did them we would love to hear from you. Imagine loosing it on your dog walk!! This must be a bit of a marketing product for the company in question and I have to admit, it got me looking!!!

Secondly we found what has to be the most expensive dog bed in the world. At £1250.00 this dog bed has to be the most expensive in the world, but what do you get for that money? Well I will tell you, VERY LITTLE. You get a dog bed that is big enough for a toy breed and no bigger, you get a personalised dinner set with your dogs name engraved on it and you get a personalised pet passport. Don’t get me wrong, it looks stunning but is it worth the money? If you re Paris Hilton then maybe....

So what else did we find? Well there was a gold plated dog bowl at £375.00 , a bling dog harness with genuine crystals and cow hide at £200.00. Before I knew it I was getting completely sidetracked and looking at more bling stuff then real life products that I can afford to buy, but it’s nice to pretend that you are rich and do some online window shopping sometimes.

So are there any of you out there that have spent this sort of money on bling? Or are we just browsing and looking at stuff that 1. We couldn’t afford and 2. We don’t actually need anyway? I for one would not spend this sort of money on my dogs, I love them very much but not that much I can tell you!!

Resources.
Dog Beds that we found on the internet. If you have a budget like david Beckham’s then fil your boots, otherwise enjoy some window shopping!!!

Stop Knocking Microsoft everyone!!!!!

I am a huge Windows fan so I was very excited when I heard that there was to be a new operating system being released at the end of this year.

Some of you may look at that statement and say I am completely mad as I know there are a lot of people out there who absolutely hate the operating system, but actually I think that it is a hell of a lot better than some people say. I must admit that Vista was a bit of a disaster, it was half finished when released and it has taken all this time to release a decent service pack, but I think that half the people that moan about vistas basic problems are the ones that don’t know how to use the operating system properly.

For example, the long running joke about vista asking permission to ask permission can be avoided if you know where to turn this off (user account control by the way) but the people moaning about it do not realise that. Permissions issues with drives are sorted if you run the correct updates and if you bother to run service pack 2 then the slow vista that you all know will disappear, replaced by a new faster vista!
I often hear techies banging on about how good their UNIX based operating systems are and how they are just as good as Uncle Bill’s efforts, but how many of you have actually installed a free Operating system and run it side by side Windows, because if you do, you will soon realise that they are actually worlds apart in both functionality and compatibility.

They are slower (yes they actually are slower at processing tasks) and the free applications that everyone bangs on about cannot touch the likes of Microsoft Office.
And what about if you want to play games? How the hell are you suppose to because most of the time you can’t. Now I know what some people will say, it’s all about market share, well that’s life, if your operating systems were much better then Microsoft then they would have taken over by now, especially if they are free......

If you have a different opinion on this (and I bet most of you will) then let me have it. But the bottom line is that Microsoft deserves more credit for changing the way we use computers, but it will never get it.

Resources;
IT Support London based company that I work for which provides both Linux and Windows support. I would admit that we fix more windows related problems, but it is all about percentages.

I think eBay needs a bit of completion.

eBay has been around now for 10 years (that has gone quick) but in all that time have we had any decent competition for this auction site that seems to have worldwide dominance now?

I don’t think we have, more to the point I think it’s a really bad thing that we don’t have any competition for eBay as any industry that has one company as a monopoly can end up doing ( and charging) exactly what they want, this can only be bad for everyone apart from eBay’s deep pockets.

So how can anyone compete with eBay? Well from now on it is going to be very hard as they have grown so big over the last 10 years. I think everyone has left it too late to try and tackle eBay as even large high street organisations have started to use eBay instead of trying to compete with it. I use eBay at lot personally and my company also does a lot of work for people that wish to use eBay as a selling platform for their business. I work for an IT Support company that provides e-commerce websites for clients in London and it is amazing how many of them want modules and add-ons to make the most of eBay, in fact most of them are more concerned about the look of their eBay store as opposed to the look of their shiny new website. It’s amazing how it has changed things over the last 10 years.

But I think eBay takes advantage of how big it is. For example, how the hell can a company with over 15000 members of staff worldwide manage to have such shocking customer service? Their service is truly dreadful and I have never heard anyone have a good word to say about them when it comes to sorting out disputes or problems with buyer/sellers. In short, once they have their money they don’t give a damn about you or your problem. Once I had an issue with eBay and I emailed them to explain the problem, the response I received May as well have been automated because they completely ignored anything I said to them, they also manage to break their own terms and conditions sometimes and this is truly unforgivable for a company so big. I also think there is something morally wrong with eBay owning the company that takes all the online payments from everyone, interestingly enough PayPal’s customer service is rubbish aswell.

Will we ever see a rival to eBay? I think things cannot carry on how they are that’s for sure, and if they do people will ultimately get fed up with eBay should they carry on how they have been for the last 5 years at least. Maybe they take the attitude that for every upset customer there are 50 happy ones so anyone with an issue is irrelevant to them.

I hope someone with investment can have a go at rivalling eBay, maybe then there will be a more level playing field and good customer service will prevail.

Resources;

IT Support Company that we use for advice on how to create custom HTML templates for Ebay shops. It is getting so popular now that we are considering getting someone in-house full time to create templates.

rescue dogs, are they a gamble?

My first blog is about the subject of rescue dogs and the need to select carefully.

When I speak with people about rescue dogs they can often get a little bit funny about the subject, some people are totally against the idea of purchasing a rescue dog as you "don't know anything about their history" others are quite keen on the idea of giving a dog another chance and cannot bear the thought of an animal being put down, while sometimes cost also comes into play, god knows some breeds can be very expensive.....

I personally will only have a rescue dog and have always done so , my husband and I have always taken on older animals that are very unlikely to get another home and probably do not have to much longer to live, it costs a fortune but every time my heart rules my head :)

my advice for anyone that is considering a rescue dog is not to go to the rescue home until you have decided which breed to purchase, otherwise you will be like a kid in a sweetshop and come out with something that looks cute but probably has the devil in it. Have a good think about your personal circumstances, how much time can you dedicate to the animal? do you have enough room? do you have understanding neighbours :)

Take a good look at the breeds history especially its temperament, some breeds are in the rescue home for the reason that the owners just cannot cope with the dog and have been forced to give it up. Others are there because they are lost strays and others because their owners have passed away, there are lots of reasons but never let this cloud your decision over which animal to choose.

Be patient with the animal, it will be in a new environment and it will take time to get used to you and its surroundings, it will all be new and very frightening so the animal so give constant reassurance to then, gaining their trust may take time.

Lastly, be generous!! you would be amazing how much it costs to look after these animals so when you do eventually re home an animal dig deep in your pocket and donate what you can, trust me it all helps!

Resources;

Battersea dogs home. Do an amazing job under pressure.

Luxury Dog Beds. If you feel the need to spoil them!!!