New Tiny Island Computers Website

I've been playing with a new website for the business for almost a year but have never got around to finishing it but I recently realised how out of date the old one was and swiftly put up what I've got at www.tinyislandcomputers.co.uk.

An old boss of mine used to recite 'the cobblers boy always has broken shoes' when we complained our own IT systems weren’t as good as those we installed for our customers and I can see his point.  There's just not much fun in designing you own website when you know you could be doing the same work for someone else an being paid for it!

Vista - About to be put out of its misery

Vista has been a massive flop for and with Microsoft realeasing Windows 7 in October it's clear they want to move on.  MS will tell you that they have sold over 200 million copies of Vista - and while that might be true it's very misleading.  Take the 3 laptops in the picture right, they were sold running Vista but with an XP 'downgrade' option which I am exercising here whilst preparing them for an office that remains standardised on Windows XP.

So why was Vista a flop?  Well everyone has an opinion but here are a few of mine.
1) Business don’t replace their PC's as often as MS would like and often skip an OS as a result.  Many offices went straight from NT4 to XP without ever buying a copy of Windows 2000.
2) When Vista came out I predicted it's biggest problem was that XP worked so well no one would want to upgrade - I think I was right!
3) Users are very quickly irritated when the interface is changed.  I hear people say they 'hate' Vista - and I couldn’t even publish what they say about Office 2007!  If you’re going to change things you had better make the new system massively better than the old one or I'll keep on hearing the phrases 'if it isn’t broke don’t fix it' and 'why couldn’t they have just left it as it was?’ being bandied around offices.

So will Windows 7 be any better?  Well the previews are all very positive - but - all the new features seem like incredibly minor additions / changes / fixes.  It really sounds like the finished version of Vista and, if it is stable and compatible then I’m sure people will start to buy new PC's with it on (I bet we never see a 'Vista Downgrade!').  I’m sure enthusiasts will love it but for people who just want to get their work done.... well I just hope they haven’t moved things around too much!

Computer Networking

Tiny Island Computers took advantage of the Easter weekend to install a 39 point network for a customer in Grimsby using some 630 metres of cable in the process.

Pictured is the data cabinet featuring a pair of 24 port Netgear smart switches and a Cisco router.  IT professionals will recognise I take pride in a nice, tidy job here - not all data cabinets end up so organised!

I couldn’t impress the office staff with cabinet but they are happy that network browsing, printing and data transfers are so much faster and crucially that they are no longer loosing work due to the wireless network dropping out.  This morning the CEO extended his person thanks saying he was 'delighted' with the results which is great to hear.

Mablethorpe Webcam

Just a brief link to the Mablethorpe webcam (installed by Tiny Island Computers) which is back online after the last camera died.  The camera is hosted by the Extreme Horizon online surf shop and can be found by scrolling down its homepage.

Blu-ray - coming to a PC near you soon?

Now that HD-DVD is all but forgotten Blu-ray is quickly beginning to appear in PC's and laptops with internal BD (Blu-ray Disk) drives starting at £55 and writers around £130.  Blank media remains pricey however with 25GB blanks costing around £25 for 10 - still that's 250GB of backup - around 53 DVD's or 357 CD's.

Another reason to buy a BD drive would be to watch HD movies on your PC but beware.  Home movies aren't a problem but for commercial releases your setup has to support HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection), a system aimed at preventing copying of HD content that applies to your BD drive, graphics card, software player and even monitor.

Luckily CyberLink has created the free CyberLink Blu-ray Disc Advisor utility which scans your PC and reports which items are compatible and which need replacing - don't even think of buying a BD drive without checking - even owners of fairly new systems are likely to be disappointed.

Those poor folk who bought HD-DVD movies will be cheered to know that LG do a drive combining a BD reader, HD-DVD reader and DVD read/writer for £80 which may help them make the switch to Blu-ray without losing the use of their existing movies.

Finally an obvious point that seems to be lost on many - remember for the true HD experience you need 1080 horizontal lines and that means a 24" screen or larger!

Mobile internet access - buyer beware!

Mobile internet access has been around for a while but is finally going mainstream.  You add a USB 'dongle' to your PC, pop a SIM card in it, and hey presto you can access the internet anywhere you can find a mobile signal.

All the providers are on board with pay as you go and contract deals and despite being a fairly new product prices are reasonable.

However!  Tiny Island Computers urges you to decide exactly what you need to do with your dongle and be sure to buy the right one.  I have several customers using Vodafone dongles (both pre-pay and contract) to access secure VPN's via Citrix but not all providers would allow this.  Amazingly I have heard that the Virgin product doesn't even allow SMPT mail server access!