Just a quick post to show how Chris and I looked after the Bristol 10k on Sunday the 9th of May. Looking forward to the Bristol Half Marathon now.
Post Bristol 10k
Chris and I are both on Twitter, why not follow us: http://twitter.com/CFalconerUK & http://twitter.com/JamesCookSG
The technology and the principal of ‘Hosted Desktops’ has actually been around for decades under different guises such as Citrix and Microsoft Terminal Services. As early as the 1960s many large companies invested in centralised mainframe servers which could be connected to by many dumb terminals (very cheap low powered computers). Although these super-powered mainframes were extremely expensive, they could power tens if not hundreds of terminals, which was fantastically cost effective with the economies of scale and it could all be centrally managed and secured. Up until the late 1980s this WAS the way to do computing and IBM was the standard bearer with over 90% market share. Personal Computers had been around since the late seventies but they were big, extremely expensive and not particularly reliable… so why did it all change?…
As technology improved, computer components became smaller, lighter, faster and cheaper, the PC became affordable and transportable, with a recorded 150 million Personal Computers world-wide by 1993. Before long there was one in every home and they quickly became recreational for learning and gaming. The consequence of this however is that they left ‘connectivity’ behind, the PCs could run their own software with pretty interfaces at top performance, better than what the mainframe could pump through to the ‘dumb terminals’. Mainframes were costly and bulky, there was no chance of having one of these at home or even in a small business so PCs were the new answer to business computing. As well as personal computers, the software industry rocketed, every computer needed the latest software and consequently the demand for IT support went through the roof. These were exciting times, by the end of 80s businesses and consumers could buy PCs running window, portable Laptops and Apple Macs and by the late 90s the internet boomed, giving us dial-up access to email and yahoo. There was new technology for business and new business in technology, everybody had more choice, was more mobile and more productive, exciting times indeed, but they were also very expensive times and had we lost something along the way?…
As a business owner I liked the centralised server, knowing that all the processing was taking place on these powerful mainframes, that all the business information was safe and secure on those servers and not sitting on laptops and home computers all over the world. These centralised servers were expensive but the maintenance costs were predictable, the ‘dumb terminals’ were reliable, didn’t need any setup or maintenance and they lasted forever because all the processing happened on the server. As a business owner my IT was a utility that serviced my business, I could have experts looking after the server and the rest was simple administration…
Over the last decade we have seen immense advancements in internet technology, broadband is more prevalent, faster and more flexible than ever before. With cable, ADSL, Public Wireless and 3G we’re always connected, at speeds that are more than capable of delivering high performance connectivity to centralised servers half way across the world. So has this development had an impact on all these problems we’ve seen with the emergence of personal (de-centralised) computing?…
The answer is yes, in at least two ways. The emergence of broadband has had technology innovators clambering over themselves to take the onus away from software and information running on the PC. Probably the most obvious development is web based software, sometimes described as Software as a Service or Cloud Computing. The aim here is to drive the software from centralised web servers, delivering it securely over the internet to users via a simple web browser. This fantastic way of delivering applications is not without its drawbacks, not least because it is an entirely different way of working than what most people are used to. However I’m not going in to that here, I’m more interested in the other development which is the ‘Hosted Desktop’. Now this technology is not new as I mentioned in the opening paragraph, but where previously it was a nice to have alternative to VPN when you were out the office and a handy administrative tool for an IT professional, now it can be the basis of your entire IT Infrastructure – If you want a picture painted based on a real life scenario check out my other post: The business case for Hosted Desktop.
There are many reasons to opt for a hosted Desktop architecture which I’ll cover in more detail in my next post but for a taster here’s a preview:
1.) Save money because there is no need for
a. Onsite servers
b. IT Support contracts
c. Redundant hardware
d. Backup systems
e. Anti-virus
2.) Monthly licensing for all your IT
3.) Scalable per/user pricing
4.) Predictable budgeting for your business IT and support
5.) Increased security on your data
6.) In-build Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
For more information on the Hosted Desktop services SpiderGroup provide take a look at our website on:
I found myself actually getting excited in the lead up to the iPhone OS4 announcement last week, what would it include? Would all the features work on my 3GS? and mostly – when can I get it?
Well Apple didn’t disappoint, announcing over 100 new user features would be available in OS4, like Apple I’m not going to talk through all 100 here; just those that I think will be most useful to me…
Multitasking 
Apple have finally got round to adding multitasking to the iPhone, meaning I can have multiple Apps running and quickly switch between them! No longer will I have to quit ‘DoodleJump’ to check my latest emails or stop listening to Radio 1 on ‘TuneIn Radio’ to read the latest news.
Apple of course claim to have multitasking nailed, they say it won’t affect performance or battery life. I don’t doubt they will have made it work great, just a shame it took so long.
Folders
Okay, so this is pretty basic functionality but it’s going to make life a lot easier on my iPhone. I currently have about 100 Apps on my iPhone, spread across 7 pages; three of the pages are just full of games! I’ll soon be able to put all these games in one folder cunningly called ‘games’; instantly taking me down to 4 pages of Apps!
Instead of six swipes of my thumb to launch another frustrating game of ‘Impossible’ I can have the Games folder on my first page of Apps. Folders also means I can now have over 2,000 Apps visible instead of the paltry 180 in OS3.
Game Centre
This could be massive – basically Xbox Live for the iPhone! Games will be able to plug-in to the game centre for Leader boards and Achievements. You’ll be able to see what your friends are playing and challenge them to a game. With over 50,000 games and 50 million users this could be good.
One Inbox
At last, this has always been a bug bare for many; having to come right out of one email account to check another. Now all my emails can appear nicely in one list, who knows why we had to wait for OS4 for this one!
Exchange Server 2010 support
OS4 will support more than one exchange email account and Exchange Server 2010. SpiderGroup will soon be moving our own servers to Exchange 2010 so this is good news for all our customers using iPhones. Apple have also beefed up security in OS4, something they have previously taken flak for.
1500 new APIs
This doesn’t mean much at the moment to those of us who aren’t developers but later this year we can expect to see a host of new and updated Apps which use these APIs to deliver some great new features. The new APIs will give developers a great deal more flexibility and functionality to play – watch this space!
Roll on the summer
Apple have yet to announce if they’ll be releasing another generation iPhone in the summer, I’m betting they will and if the rumours are accurate we can expect a better camera with a flash, a forward facing camera and Apple’s new processor technology used in the iPad for a speed boost. I don’t imagine the physical design will change much, but Apple could go crazy and release some more colours!
Yes!!!… and, no probably not… I’ll explain.
I’m a SharePoint advocate and as such I’ll start with the negative and finish on the positive, it’s how I work.
Firstly, have you ever tried using a web-based document management system? It can be painful, it can be slow, it can time-out (which, because time correlates with how much work you’ve done, is highly inconvenient), it relies on browsers (I’m not even going to expand on this) and as for version control, who has a file on the web that doesn’t also reside in either their ‘my documents’ folder or on their desktop?…
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Q: So what’s the appeal of an online document management system and why is this the entry point to SharePoint for so many businesses?
A: A network file server is fantastic if you’re in the office, manageable (but sometimes painful) if you’re out the office on a VPN and basically impossible if you’re in a different organisation. So to share documents externally we look to email, the easiest and laziest way to share documents, completely unstructured and horrific for version control. Combined, these technologies get the job done but they are completely separate systems, impossible to maintain with any form of process and extremely inefficient: Where’s that document? It’s in my email.
Can you send it to me? I’m not sure which is the latest version.
What about the one on the file server? I edited it before I sent it out…
Any of that sound familiar?..
The point is, a single web based system for storing and sharing files can be accessed the exact same way whether you’re an administrator in the office, a director in the far east or a customer in another organisation. The principle is simple: Controlled access to the right document, anywhere you are, by anyone who needs it.
This is the reason an online document management system appeals to businesses and in turn, this is the reason businesses may look to SharePoint to meet all their document management needs.
It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that Apple have released their 3rd generation of the ever popular iPhone along with an update of the OS for all iPhone users.
The new phone itself isn’t much different from the older 3G version, boasting a very similar look and feel, but packing a few extras under the hood:
It is quite good that Apple haven’t updated the fundamental design as it means all the accessories and add-ons that were available for the earlier version work with the new one.
The interesting thing about this phone is that most people with the iPhone 3G will not be able to upgrade immediately, tied in as they are to an 18 month contract with O2. That said, sales of the new 3G S seem to have been pretty strong with many original version iPhone users upgrading (my wife upgraded on the day it was released) and a whole bunch of new customers drawn in by Apple’s impeccable marketing.
Of interest to all iPhone users is the update to version 3.0 of the iPhone software which brings with it a whole host of useful additions.
A few highlights are:
There are a lot more, I have only highlighted the particularly newsworthy ones and the ones that I personally have found benefit from. The keyboard update and the general user interface enhancement have made the whole experience more aesthetically pleasing and more practical. This is quite impressive considering the quality of the previous version, but Apple have done a good job with the incremental improvements.
Of all the updates I would expect the push notifications to have the biggest long term impact as it will allow developers to build applications that appear to stay open on the device when they have actually closed, this is going to be extremely important for instant messaging and social networking type apps.
Overall the latest updates are a good addition to the iPhone series; I wonder what they have up their sleeves for next year….
Microsoft has announced the release date of their new operating system, Windows 7, as the 22nd of October 2009.
Additional information available here: BBC
We have been trialing Windows 7 Beta and more recently Windows 7 RC (Release candidate) and are happy to report we are very impressed with the updates and changes from the previous version (Vista). We are looking forward to this being the stadard on all new PC’s.
During the first three months of 2009, sales of servers worldwide fell 25% against the same period last year. Market research carried out by research firm IDC indicates that global sales were the lowest figure (£6.14bn) since the firm began monitoring some 12 years ago. The outlook doesn’t get any better with the situation expected to continue throughout 2009.
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RIM’s BlackBerry Curve outsold Apple’s iPhone in the first quarter of this year, according to a US survey conducted by the wireless-market research firm NPD Group.
Whilst the figures are correct, Apple fans will argue there are many reasons for the apparent 2nd place.
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On April 15, 2009, Microsoft released a public beta of the next version of Exchange, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Previously known as Exchange 14, 2010 contains some big changes from 2007.
Most of Exchange 2007 appears to have been rewritten to better support large-scale deployments.
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