Just fixed a bizarre problem in Outlook 2007, thought I'd share the solution.

Basically every time my client tried to open the calendar in Outlook, it stopped responding.

After some troubleshooting including creating new PST files and re-importing the information it became evident that the problem was related to tasks, and after a bit more work I narrowed it down to one particular task. Delete the task calendar works, put it back calendar stops responding.

I couldn't leave this task off my clients list (didn't want the blame if they forgot to take out the trash!) so I re-created it.... it caused the same problem, even with a different name. I finally got it working by changing the date from 11 July 2010 to any other date (I chose the following day).

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has had a similar issue? And is it the same date that causes the issue? I haven't had the chance to recreate the problem on another computer yet.

It is official, IT can make you HAPPY!

According to research commissioned by the Chartered Institute for IT, access to computers has a 'statistically significant, positive impact on life satisfaction'.

The study's author Michael Willmott said 'Put simply, people with IT access are more satisfied with life even when taking account of income. Our analysis suggests that IT has an enabling and empowering role in people’s lives by increasing their sense of freedom and control, which has a positive impact on well-being or happiness.'

For the full report please visit http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.35476.

This is the second post in our series on reducing IT costs. This post focuses on IT support and how getting the right IT support can help save companies time and money.

The Nominated IT Representative

One of the most common ways that companies try to save money on IT is by using a member of staff whose official job is in some other area of the company (e.g. sales, accounts etc. Sometimes even a director).  This person may be very good with computers, and may even have some training. However this scenario has many hidden costs, especially if the person in question is highly paid for their official job.

Let’s suppose that a member of staff has a computer problem which is stopping them from working. The nominated IT support guy is called to sort it out, and it takes him 2 hours to fix. What is the real cost here?

• Member of staff’s (who had computer problem) salary for two hours is lost.
• The nominated IT support member of staff’s salary for two hours is lost.
• Possibly 2 hours overtime paid to member of staff (who had computer problem) to catch up with lost work.
• Possibly 2 hours overtime paid to nominated IT support member of staff to catch up with work.
• If overtime not worked, then 4 hours productivity is lost.

Now let’s suppose an IT support company is employed, and because of their experience fixes the problem remotely within 1 hour. Now what is the cost?

• 1 hour’s support to IT company if Pay As You Go (nothing extra if on a contract).
• Member of staff’s (who had computer problem) salary is only lost for 1 hour instead of 2.
• Either only 1 hour’s overtime, or 1 hour’s lost productivity.

On top of this, due to time constraints, nominated IT representatives are generally less aware of new technology and software available on the market that if implemented can help increase company efficiencies. There is therefore the risk that the company could miss opportunities to improve efficiencies and could possibly fall behind competitors.

Full Time in House IT Support

Employing someone full time to cover IT support issues can be a very appealing option as it means that there is always someone available on site to fix problems immediately as they occur. However a full time IT employee is likely to be very costly, and is really only a viable option for larger companies. Not only this, but the employee will be entitled to holidays, and may also be off sick occasionally leaving the company with no IT support.

Most IT problems can be fixed remotely these days, so the need for a technician to be constantly on site to fix problems as they arise is not so great. An employee can just as easily call a remote IT support company and have them fix their problem immediately by remote controlling their equipment. This can offer a big saving over dedicated full time IT employees.

The Right Support Company

If you are in a company that has already decided against the above 2 options for internal IT support, you may already have an IT support arrangement with an external company. However you could still be incurring unnecessary costs if their service isn’t up to scratch. It may be that they take too long to respond to and fix issues causing more lost productivity than necessary, or maybe they don’t understand your company and therefore aren’t recommending the right systems and software to maximise efficiencies.

Hopefully this has highlighted potential areas where your company could save costs by changing its IT support strategy. If you’d like to find out more about how Broadbyte can help in this area, please contact us.

Many decision makers in companies often see Information Technology (IT) as an essential cost, and when implemented with this mind set, and in the wrong way that is exactly what it can become. Some companies can even fall into the trap of becoming less efficient through using IT by choosing inadequate solutions which are costing more to keep running than if they didn’t have them at all.

This needn’t be the case, when implemented correctly IT can help save companies time, reduce their ongoing costs, and ultimately increase their profits.  Whenever a Broadbyte consultant reviews a company’s IT systems they don’t just see it as an IT review, but a business process review too. How can IT save the company time? How can IT reduce their costs? How can IT streamline the company’s processes and make it much more efficient as a result?

This blog post is the first of a five part series in which I will analyse how each of the following areas of IT can help increase your company’s profits:

• IT Support
• Computer Software
• Computer Hardware
• IT Security

(As each follow up post is published over the next few weeks, a link will be available to it above)

Each post will analyse where time and money can be wasted on each of the above, and illustrate with examples how common pitfalls can be avoided with the right IT advice.

If you can’t wait for the follow up posts, please feel free to contact Broadbyte, and we will be happy to discuss ways that IT can reduce your organisations costs through the implementation of IT.

I had a client contact me over the weekend who had received a message on his computer that there were 42 threats found on his PC. If he clicked on it he was offered the opportunity to buy an additional anti virus package which would remove the threats. Fortunatly my client contacted me before he bought the software. This is a scam, and generally results in the unsuspecting user installing threats on a PC which was otherwise uninfected. I advised my client to leave it and I would prevent the message popping up again.

The general rule here, is that if something just pops up saying you have threats, and you don't recognise the name of the software reporting the treats, do not click on it. Also if something reports threats and then asks you to pay to fix them, again don't proceed, there are free ways to check for threats, and remove them as listed further on in this article (Follow this link to read a news article on fake anti virus http://www.itpro.co.uk/616429/cyber-criminals-make-big-bucks-with-scareware).

If you do receve a message like this and you already have anti virus software installed, ensure your anti virus is up to date and run a scan. You will probably find that there is nothing wrong.

If you don't have anti virus software installed on your PC, you can do a free scan from a reputable security company. Try any of the following links:

• Sophos
• Symantec
• Mcafee

Or, try downloading one of these free anti virus packages for scheduled scanning of your PC, and removal of viruses:

• AVG Free
• Microsoft Security Essentials

Or for a complete security product for up to date ongoing virus protection to put your mind at rest try the following paid for anti virus software

• Kaspersky
• Symantec (Norton Anti virus)

I'd only recommend the above for home users, or small companies with less than 5 PC's. For larger companies looking for a reputable security solution please contact me via our contact us page, and we'll recommend the best security product for your company.

Many small businesses owners would probably agree that their most important data is held in outlook, especially all of their business contacts. So this is probably the one single store of information that they can't do without. That being said, it is also probably most likely to be the one thing that isn't being backed up, that is if you have a backup solution in place. Following from my last post about online backups, I thought I'd just do a quick post to show what you should be backing up in order to make sure all of your outlook data is safe. Quite simply there is one folder that you should back up:

• On Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<your_username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
• On Windows Vista or 7: C:\Users\<your_username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

If you have that folder backed up, you should be able to recover your outlook data should your PC fail, or get lost or damaged. I'll post in the future on how to actually perform the restore, but if you need to know before hand please contact me and I'll be happy to divulge the information.

NOTE: I should mention that the above only really applies if you aren't using an exchange server. If you are using an exchange server then all of your important information will be backed up on that.

Whenever I think of backup solutions, my mind always wonders back several years to when one of my best mates turned up at my front door clutching his desktop PC in a state of panic. He’d got married a few months earlier and all of his wedding and honeymoon photos were stored on his hard drive.  His PC would no longer boot up, and the new missus was none too happy that he had not backed everything up to CD.

I tried the usual tricks to retrieve the data from the hard drive, however it was seized solid and the only solution was to send it to a lab to retrieve the data. All ended well, but only after a lab had spent hours meticulously taking apart the hard drive, and a whopping bill upwards of £600. This sum was well worth paying to retrieve all of those memories, but one that could easily have been avoided with the multitude of online backup solutions available today.  However with such a choice, how do you know which solution is best for you and/or your business?

The main characteristics I always look for when choosing an online backup utility are:

1. File Retention

Many of the solutions available will keep deleted files for up to 30 days, however what if you had deleted a file by accident and didn’t notice for a couple of months? It would be gone if the solution you had chosen didn’t retain deleted files.

2. Continuous Backup

This maybe a little over the top, but I always look to cover the worst case scenario. The worst case when backing up data is that you have just completed a document which will hopefully win you a massive contract when your PC crashes and is unrecoverable. In this situation I’d want a backup solution that continuously backs up files as they are amended, not one that just runs once a day.

3. Incremental Backup

Backing up data over the internet can take a very long time depending on the amount of data you have. Therefore it makes sense to use a solution which does one initial full backup (which could take days or weeks) and then to only backup the data which has changed in the future (which should take only seconds or minutes). All of the unchanged data is still retained from the initial backup.

4. The ability to backup open files

If you are working on files when your backups run (most likely if you are using continuous backup, mentioned above) you don’t want the files you are working on to be missed. So it makes sense to be able to backup open files.

5. Security/Encryption

Sending all of your data over the internet is a big security risk. It could leave your sensitive data susceptible to theft by cyber criminals. Any online backup solution you use should therefore encrypt your data. I’d recommend that it should at least encrypt the data on your PC before uploading to the internet, and that the upload should be over an SSL connection and that the data should be encrypted when stored by the backup provider.

So Which Solution is Right for You?

I’m afraid there is no one solution which will satisfy everyone’s requirements, however if you are a home user, or a small company with only a couple of computers (but no server) my current favourite is IDrive. It satisfies all of the above criteria, is relatively simple to set up, and costs as little as £3.05 per month for a 150Gb account (going by today’s exchange rate as pricing is in dollars on the IDrive website). You can sign up for a free 2GB IDrive account to try it out yourself by clicking here. There are other very popular, and similarly priced solutions such as Mozy, and Carbonite, however they don’t satisfy all of the criteria listed above.

For larger businesses that use databases, or exchange servers, I’d recommend talking to your IT advisors about the most appropriate solutions. There are many solutions available to you however it is best to have expert advice to tailor a specific solution to your needs. If you don’t have an existing IT advisor, please contact us and we’ll be happy to recommend a solution to match your requirements (See our web page on Security and Backups).

I have been really surprised over the last few months at the amount of people who have been referred to Broadbyte with email capable mobile phones that they have never been able to get working properly. Either they have no access to e-mail at all, or they can only receive e-mail. These people, or their company, have spent good money on the latest smart phone technology yet aren't reaping the benefits of their investment. This trend hasn't been confined to one particular phone, OS or manufacturer; I have seen these problems on Symbian, iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.

In my opinion, none of these problems have been a fault of the individual phones, the OS, or the email software. In fact in general they are all very straight forward to configure. However if you do run into problems then they can be a little tricky to resolve if you don't have at least a small amount of knowledge on e-mail protocols. The alarming recurring theme amongst all of these problems is that the mobile carrier was either unwilling or unable to help, or at least point the customer in the right direction for a solution.

The main problems users of the phones faced when setting up their email can be split into two categories of email, SMTP (for POP3 and IMAP email), and Exchange Server. I'll deal with both of these separately.

SMTP (for POP3 and IMAP email)

In the majority of cases where this is the problem, users have managed to set their phones up to receive e-mail, however they are unable to send e-mails. This is generally because the incorrect SMTP details have been entered. Even if you have entered the exact same settings as you have in Outlook (or other email client), they may not necessarily be appropriate for your mobile. The reason for this is that many POP3, and IMAP email providers recommend that you use your ISPs (Internet Service Providers) SMTP server to send e-mail. ISPs generally only allow their SMTP servers to be accessed from devices connected to their broadband network. Therefore this will work fine on your PC when using outlook (or another e-mail client) as it is connected to your broadband, however, as your phone doesn't use the broadband connection these SMTP settings won't work for sending e-mail on your mobile.

You therefore have two options:

1. Use an SMTP server from another e-mail account. Most mobile networks provide an SMTP server that you can use if you sign up to their e-mail service (or you could sign up for a gmail account and use their SMTP server). The downside of this solution is that the actual e-mail address that sends the e-mail won't be the main account you want to use. This may not concern you as reply e-mails will still go to the correct address, however it can look unprofessional if you are using the e-mail for business purposes.
2. Find your email providers SMTP settings. Although many e-mail providers recommend that you use your ISPs SMTP server, they generally have their own as well but are not so forthcoming with that information. If you delve around deeply enough in their FAQs on their website you can generally find the correct settings, and if not you can always try phoning them for these details. This is the ideal solution as all e-mails will be sent from your actual e-mail address. If your email provider doesn't offer an SMTP server I'd recommend you move to another which does (please contact us for a recommended email provider). 

Exchange Server

For mobile phones which need to be configured to access an exchange server, the majority of problems I have found are actually due to the exchange server not being configured correctly (or at all) for mobile email access. In this scenario you really need to speak to your network administrator, or IT provider if it is configured or hosted by an external company. (Just a small plug now for my own company: we do configure exchange servers as one of our services, so if you don't have an IT provider or you do but they can't get your phone email setup please complete our contact us form and we'll quote to sort this out for you. It is only a small job so it shouldn't cost too much).

Due to the different setups that all organisations and e-mail providers have, I'm afraid this article can't give you the correct settings to fix your specific problem, however, if you are still experiencing problems sending or receiving e-mail from your mobile phone after reading this article, please enter details of the problem in our contact us form and we'll try our best to help.

Google Apps has now been available for a couple of years, and has recently been given an official non beta status by Google. I believe that with the improvements that Google have made over the past few years, Google Apps is now a viable, cost effective alternative to other email and office solutions. Here are 5 good reasons why you should consider Google Apps:

1. It's all backed up

All of your e-mail, contacts, diary entries, documents etc are saved on Google's servers. Therefore should you lose your laptop, or suffer a hard drive failure all you need to do is log on to another computer and they are all available to you straight away! No waiting, no restore process, you can just get on with your work. This is my favourite feature of Google Apps, as for small businesses their e-mail, contacts and diary are generally the one thing they can't do without and now they won’t have to. An alternative backup method could cost £10 a month for only 1GB of information. Using Google Apps you will have a whopping 7GB storage available for free (25GB if you use the premier edition for £33 per year).

2. Access it from anywhere

Wherever you have access to the internet, you have access to all of your important information. Maybe you are at a client’s office and need to arrange an appointment, you could check your diary on their PC. Or you can access it all direct from your mobile phone, or direct from the comfort of your desk via your favourite e-mail client (e.g. Outlook).

3. More cost effective than exchange hosting

Many businesses use either their own exchange server, or a hosted exchange server for sending and receiving e-mails as well as keeping track of their contacts and calendars. Hosting your own exchange server can cost thousands of pounds for the initial setup, plus ongoing support and maintenance fees. Subscribing to a hosted exchange service can cost in the region of £10 per month (plus setup fees) with a storage limit of only 2GB. Using Google Apps you get a hosted email service, plus calendar and contacts with a 7GB storage limit for free, or a 25GB storage limit for £33 per year.

4. Built in Antivirus, Anti-Spam, and Message filtering

Google Apps includes built in antivirus, anti spam, and message filtering services (message filtering on premium edition only). This saves you the cost of upgrading and maintaining your own email security and filtering software. (NOTE: you should still maintain good security practices on your individual servers and PC's and at the perimeter of your network).

5. Offline Access

A real concern that many have when using 'cloud' applications, is that if you lost internet connectivity you would lose all of your important information. With Google apps you are able to access all of your data offline so this needn't be a worry.

Summary

There are of course many other advantages and some disadvantages to making the move to Google Apps, but hopefully this covers the big benefits and demonstrates that in the majority of cases it should work out cheaper. There will be many indvidual factors relating to each business that could effect your decision to move to google apps, and you should of course weigh up all of the pros and cons before you make the move.

If you would like a free consultation of the benefits and cost savings that using Google Apps could bring to your organisation please visit our contact us page and either complete the form, or contact us via one of the other methods listed.

One of the most common questions I get asked as an IT professional is 'My computer is soooo slow! How can I make it run faster?' I'd need more information than this to diagnose the exact problem, however, without additional information I would guess at a few candidates. It could be due to a virus, adware, incorrectly installed software etc. However, more often than not the problem can be attributed to there not being enough RAM installed on the PC.

Upgrading RAM is a relatively cheap way (costing approx £25) of increasing a computers performance and prolonging its life span. The rest of this article will explain how you can check the amount of RAM installed on your PC, how much you need, and where you can buy it from. There is also a brief overview at the end of how to install the RAM, however this will vary for each computer and you are therefore better off referring to your PC's manual for accurate instructions to install the memory on your PC. If you would rather not risk damaging your equipment please contact us, and we will be happy to install your RAM for you (prices from £15).

(NOTE: Before you continue: changing memory on a PC involves opening the computer which may invalidate its warranty and carries the risk of electric shock. You should always follow manufacturers guidelines when upgrading your PC. Neither the author of this article or Broadbyte bear any liability for any injury or damage caused to equipment or loss of warranty by following this article.)

Check the Existing Memory in your PC

1. Locate your 'My Computer' icon ('Computer' icon on Windows Vista) and right click it. (This will be located in either the start menu or on your desktop). 
2. From the menu that pops up select 'Properties'.
3. On XP a window called 'System Properties' should open up. If you are using Vista the window will be called 'View basic information about your computer'.
4. On XP ensure the 'General' tab is selected. Towards the bottom of the 'General' tab there will be information regarding the PC's processor and RAM. You want the number that comes immediately before 'of RAM' (e.g. 512MB of RAM, 1GB of RAM etc.). On Vista under the heading 'System' is a label called 'Installed memory (RAM)' next to which is the amount of RAM installed on your PC.

How Much Memory Do You Need?

So you know how much memory is in your PC, now how do you know if that is enough? As a general rule I always prefer to have at least 1GB in a Windows XP PC, and at least 2GB in a Windows Vista PC. I say at least, because it really does depend what else you have installed on your PC, and for optimal performance you should always install as much RAM as your system can take and you can afford. That being said if you are running a 32bit edition of Windows, (most likely) Windows won't recognise more than 3GB of the memory (3.5GB on Windows Vista) so there is little point adding more than that.

NOTE: If you noted down RAM with MB after it, e.g 512MB, 1000MB Equals 1GB. SO if you had 512MB, you have 0.5GB installed.

How do I know which type of RAM to use? (and where to get it from)

My preferred stockist of RAM is crucial.com. They offer a configurator allowing you to select your make and model of PC, which then returns a screen listing available RAM for your PC and the maximum amount of RAM you can install in your PC. Please click on the link below to view their website and find the right RAM for your PC. If you can't see your PC on the list, please contact us with details of your computer make and model and we'll do our best to advise which memory you should use.

How do I install the RAM?

Now this is a bit difficult to explain as each PC can have different types of RAM and it is usually located in different places. Ideally you should get a professional to install the RAM (please contact us if you'd like one of our staff to install it for you, prices start from £15).

If you'd like to have a go completely at your own risk, you should be able to find the location of your RAM from the PC's manual. If you don't have that, the usual locations are:

• On a PC: on the motherboard within the case
• On a Laptop: under a panel on the back of the laptop, or under the keyboard (if it is under the keyboard, please don't attempt to remove the keyboard and install the RAM yourself)

Once located the old RAM can be removed, by simply unclipping the clips either side. The new RAM can then be clipped into the same fittings.

If all goes well, your computer will be like new again.