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Over the last 10 to 15 years, as computing has spread from being the domain of only the largest companies in the world to being available and accessible to everyone, including the small business, a “traditional” style of computer support has become prevalent.

You use your computers day in day out and they’re amazing.  They do everything you ask them to do (OK you need to reboot occasionally!) and they have completely revolutionised the way you work and the amount of work you and your company can do.  Imagine a call centre today using a Rolodex to find a phone number and then dialling every number by hand!

Then – BANG! – it all goes horribly wrong.  Read More…

Vivid IT Solutions become Microsoft Small Business Specialists!

In March, Vivid IT Solutions achieved the necessary skills and qualifications to be formally recognised by Microsoft as Small Business Specialists.

This means that we have been recognised as having the appropriate technical expertise and experience to be given access to resources from Microsoft that a non-qualified support company just doesn’t have. Read More…

How long can your business survive with no access to its premises?

How long can your business survive if you have no access to your computers?

How recently did you test your backups? Not just a file restore but a whole system restore?

Recent severe weather events in England have once again highlighted that we can no longer take for granted that the English weather, while being very dreary – miserable even, is mostly harmless.  Flood defences in Cockermouth were upgraded just a few years ago to cope with a “once in a hundred years” event – yesterdays was worse than ever expected.

A business continuity plan is a vital document for any business to have.  If done properly it’s not just about taking your backup tapes home, it’s a full analysis of risks to your business and a plan to cope with those eventualities.

How long before you get into real trouble?  How long before your customers lose confidence in you?

Most importantly what’s the plan to mitigate this?  We are not necessarily talking about fully managed (and expensive) workplace recovery solutions with your entire office replicated elsewhere.  We should however be looking at the practical aspects of how we get things up and running again for you.  Where does the management team meet? Who handles HR issues? Who looks after the phones (and who gets them diverted to a new number and how)? How and where do we get your computer systems up and running again?

It’s no wonder most small businesses don’t have a Business Continuity Plan, there are a lot of areas to consider and it’s very easy to put it off till later – after all “it won’t happen to me”.

The question is can you afford NOT to have one?  Do you really know how long your business can survive?

According to a recent survey in the USA by CDW Green IT is very firmly on the agenda for small to medium sized businesses.

The survey polled over 1000 IT decision makers and results showed that nearly a third (31%) of the small businesses questioned were planning on implementing Green IT initiatives in the next two years.

The major factors that were holding businesses back from including Green IT in their plans were lack of expertise (22%) and complexity of maintenance (21%).

Until now Green IT has been thought of as only really applying to the big guys, the Google’s, BP’s etc of the world.  While it is true that the world does tend to look to the big companies to lead the way this doesn’t mean that they are the ones with sole responsibility.

Equally, while it is the big guys who stand to make the biggest savings through reducing energy consumption it doesn’t mean that there aren’t real savings to be made by the smaller company.  How many small business owners are really not interested in cutting their bills without having to change the way they work?

Green IT projects come in a variety of different formats but the ones generally considered most applicable to the small to medium sized business are PC power management, server virtualisation and making use of cloud computing.

There are also technologies that can be used to reduce the environmental impact of operations such as online virtual meeting places, negating the need to all travel to one place for a monthly meeting , or advanced logistics management systems optimising vehicle routes and thus reducing emissions and saving money.

At Vivid IT Solutions, Green IT is the way we do things, it’s not a product we sell and we work closely with a company to make sure that they can get the most out of their IT while minimising outlay and maximising savings.

Many people don’t think of the money they spend on the electricity that powers their computers but it can be a significant amount.  We all know that standby on our TVs uses almost as much power as being switched on and few of us leave all the lights on at night, so why not apply the same thinking to computers – at home and at work.

Here are 5 quick wins to reduce your electricity bills (as with X Factor – in no particular order!)

• Disable your screen saver. Screen savers do not save power, if your screen saver is active your monitor is running at full power.
• Use the in-built power management functions (in Windows this is found in the control panel, in Mac OSX in System Preferences).  Set your monitor to switch off after 10 minutes of activity and suspend your computer after 15 minutes.  These days it really doesn’t take long to “wake up” a computer so you’re not hanging around for ages twiddling your thumbs.
• Switch off at night. With the exception of servers and routers there’s not much that needs to be on 24/7, so like your lights – switch them off at the wall, printers included.
• Unplug or disable external devices when not in use.  They mostly draw some kind of power when plugged in so unplug that camera or external hard drive if you’re not using it.  If you’re using a network cable, switch off the wireless network adaptor.  If you don’t need Bluetooth connected to anything, switch it off!
• If you still have a CRT monitor (old television style) replace with a flat screen TFT.  A TFT typically uses about a third of the power.

You’ll probably have noticed a common theme here – if you’re not using it switch it off!  Technology isn’t always the answer, sometimes we need to take action ourselves.  Saying that though, all the major manufacturers are taking energy efficiency seriously and a PC bought today is a lot “Greener” than the equivalent a couple of years ago – as with everything though some are better than others.

Just by making a few changes in your habits you can realise some very real cost savings – and you’re not really giving anything up.

Please feel free to comment or to contact us if you want to know more.

I got an email the other day, from one of the major retail electonics chains, titled “Windows 7 out now – time for a new PC”.

Clearly it’s a way of trying to sell hardware off the back of a software launch but it did inspire me to check out the system requirements for Windows 7, not something I’d done before because there had been no noise about it being a memory hog or needing vast amounts of processor time. Sure enough it’s not such a big deal, some older machines running XP might struggle a bit but most 4-5 year old PC’s (3-4 year old laptops) should be able to cope, or at least be upgradeable (if that’s a word). I won’t post the actual figures here but if you google “Windows 7 system requirements” you’ll find them easily enough.

In line with my interest in Green computing I would highly recommend that if you want to run Windows 7 but your PC doesn’t quite fit the bill, rather than throw it away and buy a new one look into the possibility of upgrading the main components (RAM, hard drive, processor) and if you have a desktop PC (rather than a laptop) possibly even the motherboard too. There are plenty of local computer people who can do the job very easily and, compared to the cost of a new PC, cheaply.

If you do have a real need (or even just a techy urge) for a new PC please make sure the old machine is recycled properly or even donated to a charity – just make sure that you wipe any data properly, delete and reformat is not enough.