Category: IT News

Protect Yourself During the Holidays

Christmas is the biggest selling season of the year for retailers no matter where you are located. This no longer only applies to brick and mortar shops, but extends to the online world of shopping as well. Something that all shoppers need to keep in mind in their search for the perfect gift is to keep their personal information safe from harm. One way for web surfers to do this is by looking for the Padlock on the website. This ensures that the information they are providing is being given to a retailer with a SSL Certificate. Many companies use IT support Edinburgh has to offer to supply this.

Knowing who you are purchasing from is another way to be sure you are shopping safe online during the holiday season. Contacting the retailer prior to making the purchase is a terrific way to make sure the company is for real and truly in business. You should have no problem finding contact information on the website. Even if you find contact information that says IT Support Edinburgh you should be able to contact a person. Additionally, you will want to be able to find an actual postal address for the company.

When making purchases online you can safeguard your personal information by using credit cards with your purchase and not your debit card. This will limit the personal information that the retailer has access to. Even if they have the best IT support Edinburgh has to offer they will not be able to access your bank account if you are using your credit card. Even if you are located in Edinburgh Castle itself, they will not be able to access your personal information. They will be limited to your credit card information which is typically safe guarded by the credit card companies.

Choosing to shop online for the holidays is something that many people are doing now. This means that there are a many needs from the IT support Edinburgh professionals can supply the many websites based in Scotland. They are able to supply retailers with safe venues for customers to shop on. This is of great comfort to many retailers who want to supply excellent product and services to their customers. Using caution when shopping online even during the rush of the holidays will ensure that you are not giving away important personal information that could damage your finances for years to come.

One thing that any of the companies for business IT support Edinburgh can offer will tell you is that it is important that you safeguard your work. This includes encryption of your important data and company information. This is the only way that you can be sure that the information your company holds dear will be safely tucked away. Keeping the information safe from prying eyes is the only way to ensure that your personal and financial information is held safely. It also will ensure that your competition does not get their hands on any information that can be damaging to your business.

Choosing the right company to represent your IT needs can be a challenge. Knowing what you need is the key to getting the right services. There are many questions to ask when looking for business IT support in Edinburgh. Taking some time to really assess your needs before starting the search will help you find exactly what you are looking for and will assist you in making the right decision in a timely manner. Take inventory of where your business is today in its computer needs and where you hope it will be in the near and use this information to discuss your needs with your potential IT help.

Good business IT support Edinburgh offer will understand fully the value of encryption in your files and will help you to perfect this task to keep your information as safe as possible. There are a number of options available in computer security and making the right choice can be a little overwhelming. An IT professional can help you to assess your current situation and see what your safety risks are for your computer systems. From this point your IT professional can help you to assess any potential future threats that may become an issue.

Taking time to talk with a business IT support in Edinburgh, whether you are based in Midlothian or in one of the Edinburgh villages, will open new doors for your computing world. You will be able to assess any potential dangers and keep from falling into any dangerous pits that may damage your business. IT help can be hired on a contract basis or on an adhoc basis depending on what your specific needs are and how often you feel you would like services from the IT personnel. Taking stock of your company needs and reviewing this information with your IT professional will help you to make these decisions.

Consider IT along with fellow friends, won the Forth One “Grant Stott’s Big Daft Pub Quiz”!

Leading at the start, and then looking as though all was lost, we eventually came in with an astounding 129 points to take the winners trophy!

Pictures of the fantastic night out are on our Facebook page: Consider IT Limited Facebook and on Forth One’s Gallery

We also filmed Grant announcing the winners, and we were as surprised as everyone else: DENSA win Grant Stott’s Pub Quiz!

Consumers can leave their broadband providers with no penalty if internet access speeds are too slow, under new plans drawn up by telecoms regulator Ofcom. Ofcom has also urged advertising regulators to develop a new measurement, ‘typical speed range’, on which fair comparisons can be made. Research just published by Ofcom shows that the gap between the advertised speeds of broadband access and the actual speeds experienced by internet service provider (ISP) customers is growing.

A new code of practice on broadband speeds will give customers the right to leave their ISP without paying any contract penalties in the first three months of their subscription if their actual download speeds are far below the advertised speeds.

The new code of practice on broadband speed is voluntary and only applies to those companies which sign up to it, but Ofcom said that the country’s biggest ISPs – BT, Talk Talk and Virgin – have all indicated that they would sign up to it.

The new Ofcom code of practice can be viewed at: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/codes-of-practice/broadband-speeds-cop-2010/code-of-practice/

Ofcom’s research shows that almost one quarter of all broadband subscribers say they receive slower speeds than expected. Slow speeds are the most common complaint to ISPs (27% of all complaints)

At last! 3.2 is downloadable!

OpenOffice has now been released and boasts much faster start-up time than its predecessors. Not only does it start-up fast, but OpenOffice now lets you open and save files using Microsoft Office 2007’s “.docx” format giving you much easier access to files that have been saved on newer suites.

We believe it wont be long until you can run OpenOffice inside a web-browser, just like GoogleDocs.

OpenOffice 3.2 – can now be downloaded here for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Denmark’s recent Parliamentary decision means that as of April next year, all Danish state office communication will be sent in ODF format rather than Microsoft’s Office format.

According to version2.dk, Helge Sander (A Science Minister) told Parliament “My ambition is that in the future we will only communicate using open standards…”

If you want to test out open standards to closed standards you can grab a copy of Open Office here.

Google has begun to phase out support for Internet Explorer 6.0. The Microsoft browser that is still widely (read: wrongly) used in a lot of big businesses today has been identified as the biggest risk in cyber attacks on the search engine. Google announced that certain services, like Google Docs, would not “work properly” within the browser.

Following Google’s revelations, the French and German governments advised their citizens to switch to a different browser until the hole had been closed. Around 20% of web users still use the nine-year old browser, including many UK government departments. The online campaign ie6nomore, supported by more than 70 web firms, says that because the browser does not support modern web standards it restricts what developers can do and is “holding the web back”. Microsoft has said
that it will support the browser until 2014.

Google is not alone is trying to get people to stop using IE 6, and upgrade to a newer browser. Even Microsoft itself has been trying to push people to upgrade the browser. Google’s decision to list IE6 as an unsupported Gmail browser does not affect just consumers: Tens of thousands of small- and mid-sized businesses that run Google Apps hosted services may dump IE6 as well in order to get full Gmail-based features while accessing business email accounts via a web browser.

Fancy a real, up to date, secure browser? www.GetFirefox.com

Mozilla, the company that produces the Firefox browser, has released the final version of Firefox 3.6. Studies suggest that over 75% of the thousands of addons available for Firefox will be compatible with the latest version.

Firefox is an open source, fast Internet browser. It’s faster than Internet Explorer 8. So if you’re fed up waiting on pages to load, maybe it’s time to change.

Firefox can be downloaded FREE for Windows, Mac and Linux from http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a $290m patent infringement judgment against Microsoft, won by Toronto-based software company i4i in Texas. It alleges Microsoft’s software infringed on its patents that cover extensible markup language technology.

Microsoft must remove custom-XML editing from Word or face a permanent injunction barring the company from selling recent versions of the software, a federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled.

Microsoft has been given until January 11 to remove the custom XML functionality — five months from the original August 2009 ruling, according to Bloomberg.

With the failure of the appeal Microsoft must now pay i4i damages of $290m (£182m) and comply with an injunction ending the sales of some versions of Word.

Versions of the software sold before that date, including Word 2003 and Word 2007, will not be hit by the ruling.

Microsoft was accused by i4i of infringing on a 1998 XML patent in its Word 2003 and Word 2007 programs.  Word uses XML, or the Extensible Markup Language, to open .XML, .DOCX, and .DOCM files. The initial ruling in the court dispute between i4i and Microsoft was made in August. At that time Microsoft was found to have infringed the i4i patent and the Canadian firm was awarded damages.

Sources: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/microsoft_loses_word_patent_appeal/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8427474.stm