IT is my day Job ( IT Manager)
SSD in Laptops/Ultrabooks
An investment which pays for itself
Processor technology has been going gang-busters, putting pressure on Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) to keep up. This led to the introduction of Solid State Drives (SSDs) which offer improved performance, longer lifetime and increased productivity.
Most laptop manufacturers offer both spindle (traditional) and SSD options for their laptops. The SSD options tend to more expensive than the traditional hard drive options. But the higher productivity it delivers compensates for this in a big way and the investment pays for itself pretty quickly.
Sceptical? A study sponsored by Intel identified that companies gained a boost in team productivity, quicker response times and happier users. Team members using SSD deployed on notebooks / ultrabooks worked, on average, 51 minutes more every day. As a business owner, this is the kind of stuff I want to hear!
Let’s look at the numbers. A quick online search showed a notepad / ultrabooks with SSHD to cost as much as $300 more than its standard hard drive equivalent. An office worker on minimum wage ($13.50per hour) would be able to make up that additional spend back in under a month from the boost in productivity. From then on those productivity gains will go straight to your bottom line.
SSD drives are also a MUST for anyone who is out and about, one of the most common failures of ultrabooks and laptops is hard drive related. Constantly picking up and putting of laptops cause traditional hard drives to degrade over time leading to problems. SSD drives have no moving parts which mean that the impact of moving around constantly is greatly reduced, meaning longer lifetime for laptops and no having to wait around for replacement hard drives to arrive.
To find out more about Windows 8 and what it could do for your business contact the solutions team on solutions@maclean.co.nz
Windows of Opportunity: Server 2012
Forget the features, focus on the future. The way IT is delivered and what is expected from an IT department has fundamentally changed over the course of this year. It’s all about being quicker, more cost effective, more flexible and delivering more for the business. This will gain momentum over 2013. At the core of any IT infrastructure is the Operating System and using the products of yesterday to keep up with the demands of today is an uphill battle that is only going to become more difficult. With the release of
Server 2012, Microsoft has effectively given IT professionals the building blocks they need to create the infrastructures of tomorrow. Out of the box Server 2012 is without a doubt bigger, better and faster. But more importantly it gives you options; whether it’s creating private clouds or implementing a line of business application in HTML5.
We put Server 2012 through its paces and believe there are three points that cannot be ignored:
Simplifies IT
- Robust virtualisation – Allows you to respond to business and provision new services faster. Future proofing for when you are ready to take that next step to the cloud.
- Simplified management – A broad number of management tasks can be automated, making deployment easier. This frees up your IT team (whether it be yours, ours or a hybrid) to create new services and innovate.
Saving Money:
- Affordable storage – With Windows Server 2012, vendor lock-in is a thing of the past. Choose the storage which best meets your needs or repurpose existing hardware to maximise investments.
- Reduced risk downtime – Keep all your business critical services (Exchange, Lync, CRM etc) up and running. Windows Server 2012 prevents downtime, speeds up recovery when needed, and can utilise online backup for an additional layer of data protection.
Growing the Business:
- Improved access – Your team is provided secure access to their personalised work environment, which they can virtually access from anywhere and on any device.
- Increased productivity – Your team also have flexible and easy access to data and applications, while simplifying management and maintaining security, control, and compliance
To find out more about Server 2102 and what it could do for your business contact the solutions team on solutions@maclean.co.nz.
Read about Windows 8.
Windows of Opportunity: Windows 8
Windows 8 is destined to be a game-changer for Microsoft. Once you get past the Start screen (aka Metro desktop) you find a system that is intuitive to use and significantly faster than its predecessors. But the most important differences are in the very obvious attempts to align the user experience across all devices – from a desktop or laptop to a smartphone or tablet. The redesign means you can easily move from one to another and instantly comprehend the interface.
In terms of use in business, we are advising a temporary ‘hold’. There is no doubt this multi-device alignment makes sense, but as we’ve seen before the first release has come with its fair share of teething issues.
To be fair to Microsoft, these don’t appear to be so much Microsoft issues – they have produced something special here; but the hardware vendors don’t appear to have kept pace and not all the drivers are available that you’re going to need to have an entirely pleasant transition.
If you’re going there anyway, our top tips are:
- Get used to using the Windows key. It is the fastest way to toggle between what you’ll recognise as a normal desktop and the Metro desktop.
- Once you’re on the Metro desktop don’t bother with clicking through menus to find things – just start typing.
- Don’t feel obliged to use the Metro desktop when you’re on your laptop. It looks cool but isn’t as efficient as your normal desktop. Different story if you’re on a touch screen tablet.
- This is a major transition for users – perhaps even bigger than the Office 2003 to 2007 transition, which we all know created its fair share of frustration. We don’t think it’s wise to resist change – the longer you wait the harder it’ll get – but we highly recommend some user training or you’re likely to see a major drop in productivity for a week or two. This can be a cheap and cheerful as a YouTube video or as comprehensive as a professional trainer from one of our partners in this area.
To find out more about Windows 8 and what it could do for your business contact the solutions team on solutions@maclean.co.nz.
Read about Windows Server 2012.
Symantec Symposium 2012
The Symantec Symposium event series is taking place across Australia and New Zealand and will be held in Auckland on Tuesday 14 August 2012.
What you can expect at Symantec Symposium 2012.
- Keynote presentations by industry experts
- The latest industry practices and emerging trends
- Useful information and meaningful insights to help you overcome the challenges of cloud, mobility, virtualisation, management, security, backup, and anything else that threatens to slow IT organisations down or put business at risk
- Meet with Symantec executives as well as solution and industry experts
For further details and to register for this event go to Symantec.
A pictorial history of Operating Systems
Makeuseof.com
Created for MakeUseOf by Wix
Have you ever wondered how your favourite operating system got started? Well wonder no more as the following infographic gives you all the necessary facts, going all the way back to the very first OS back in the 1950′s.
Whether it’s Windows, Mac or Linux, you’ll find some fun, cool and interesting facts below that maybe you didn’t know about before.
Ditch Windows XP to reduce support costs
PC Magazine May 2012
Microsoft this week continued to push for the demise of Windows XP, arguing that it is more expensive for businesses to remain on the aging OS than it is to upgrade to Windows 7.
Pointing to a report it commissioned from IDC, Microsoft’s Erwin Visser wrote in a blog post that “staying on Windows XP is an expensive investment when Windows 7 provides dramatic savings.”
Specifically, IDC said that base IT and end-user labor costs associated with Windows XP are about five times as much as those for Windows 7. “That’s a significant amount of money IT shops could put towards modernizing their departments and adding value to the businesses,” Visser said.
Those prices are also still on the rise. “IDC found the longer you wait, the pricier supporting Windows XP gets: IT labor costs go up 25 percent in the fourth year of continuing to run Windows XP past deadline, and user productivity suffers as well, with an increased cost of 23 percent,” he said.
Read the rest of the article here
Symantec Internet Security Threat Report 2012
The 2011 Threat Landscape
- Symantec blocked a total of over 5.5 billion malware attacks in 2011, an 81% increase over 2010.
- Web based attacks increased by 36% with over 4,500 new attacks each day.
- 403 million new variants of malware were created in 2011, a 41% increase of 2010.
- SPAM volumes dropped by 13% in 2011 over rates in 2010.
- 39% of malware attacks via email used a link to a web page.
- Mobile vulnerabilities continued to rise, with 315 discovered in 2011.
Our PDF file of the Main Report includes all the notable and important information on the 2011 threat landscape. The Main Report does not include the large appendices of supporting material. Click to download the report
Group Policy update in Windows 8
ZDNet
The new Group Policy Update feature in Windows 8 could be a real time-saver for IT admins. Here’s how it works.
I’m taking a couple weeks off before the busiest part of Microsoft’s 2012 kicks into full gear. But never fear: The Microsoft watching will go on while I’m gone. I’ve asked a few illustrious members of the worldwide Microsoft community to share their insights via guest posts on a variety of topics — from Windows Phone, to Hyper-V. Today’s entry is all about a new administrative feature in Windows 8 is authored by Alan Burchill.
As most IT administrators know, group policy is the feature in Windows that allows you to configured large number of windows computer easily and automatically. These configuration settings are stored in Active Directory (AD) for the workstation to then poll on a periodic basis for any configuration changes. This polling typically take 90 minutes (with some random offset), meaning that any configuration changes that an IT admin makes takes up to 2 hours or more to take effect.
One of the great new features that Microsoft has added to Windows 8 is now the ability to force a group policy update to run. This new feature called “Group Policy Update” can effectively give admins the way to push out configuration changes to all the computers online in less than 10 minutes. This is of course very handy if you want to quickly push out a quick policy change or quickly undo a setting that you might have configured by mistake.
check out the rest of the post from ZDNet
Westcon – Datastor Forum
Imagine 2012 is set to be New Zealand’s leading business technology event.
It has been designed specifically for IT resellers, integrators and technology focussed end users. The event provides attendees with a wealth of information on emerging technologies and insight into the latest business tactics. With access to key industry figures and leading technology vendors this event offers insight into how to succeed today and how to plan for tomorrow’s world.
• Industry experts holding multi track and focused sessions on key issues around data security, networking, compliance, convergence, optimisation and virtualisation
• Networking sessions
• Live demonstrations
• An opportunity to connect with the IT experts from both NZ and internationally
• Over 27 Vendor demonstration booths for one on one discussions
• A leading Keynote presentation
Imagine 2012 consists of two full day events, the first taking place in Wellington on the 15th May at The Intercontinental and the second in Auckland on the 17th May at the Langham Hotel. Secure your seat for this rare line up of industry leading technology, business figure heads and global thought leader
IDC Predicts transformational change through ICT in 2012
By CIO New Zealand | Wednesday, February 01 2012
After several years of talking about the benefits of ICT innovations and industry transformation, market researcher IDC says 2012 will be the year organisations will finally embark on it.
The IT-enabled changes, however, will be conducted amidst economic turmoil, and will mean new challenges for CIOs.
“2012 is set to be another roller-coaster year for the New Zealand economy and as a result, newly emerging technologies that target productivity improvements will be top of mind,” says Louise Francis, senior market analyst, IDC New Zealand. “This trend is reflected in the heavy representation of mobility and infrastructure themes in this year’s predictions.”
“Technologies such as cloud computing, big data technologies and mobility are seen by many CIOs as a means to achieve economic objectives such as cost savings and productivity. However, IDC believes that more consideration should be given to their role as a foundation for innovation,” says Francis.
The analyst firm lists its top 10 ICT predictions for the year:
1. The UFB debate will finally move on from construction to uptake: Attention will shift from building the Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB) network to demand stimulation.
2. Structural separation will see Telecom compete aggressively and partner strategically: Being freed from many of its regulatory restrictions and scrutiny (through structural separation), Telecom will seek to leverage its customer scale advantage.
3. Mobile data growth will drive competition and co-operation: Telcos will look to mine the few pockets of growth remaining within the industry, as the squeeze on legacy revenue streams continues.
4. CIOs will face the double edged sword of smart device growth: CIOs face increasingly complex issues around the opportunities and threats surrounding the explosion in smartphones, including multiple platforms, security, BYOD and apps stores. “Choose your own device” is likely to have the edge over “bring your own device”.
5. The rapid ascent of mobility and BYOD will generate an upsurge of security threats: The increasingly ubiquitous nature of mobile devices integrated into the business will continue to create security headaches for IT departments and CIOs and will push mobile security up on the investment agenda.
6. Cloud moves from a cost management to innovation driver: The role of the cloud to help manage costs will move towards one that will encompass the cloud as a means to driving innovation within an organisation.
7. Business analytics will ride a new wave, sending “big data” further in motion: Big data analytics will become critical in verticals that are challenged by the huge amounts of data sets and the widespread use of collaborative technologies.
8. Client virtualisation will move up on CIOs’ priorities as a result of BYOD and consumerisation of technology: Demand for client virtualisation will move a step closer towards becoming universal, as the diversity and proliferation of devices is fuelled by the consumerisation of IT.
9. The government will reduce and reallocate IT budgets: IDC expects the New Zealand government to redirect some planned investments, including ICT towards the mammoth task of rebuilding Canterbury, as well as a focus on developing common capability, networks and infrastructure, and the sharing of business systems. The ICT industry will be invited and challenged to innovate in partnership with the government.
10. Enterprises will automate their environments en masse: Long-term structural constraints will create an incentive for organisations to invest in automation to keep up with the increasing scale and complexity of operational IT environments.
IDC Top 10 ICT Predictions for 2012
