Newsletter 2011.08

 
 
Posted: Posted in: Newsletter

Welcome to the METHOD IT Newsletter for August 2011

Monitoring with PRTG

Businesses rely on their networks for data, communication, and backbone operations. Slow performance and outages can impact the bottom line of your business. Continuous monitoring enables you to find problems and resolve them before they escalate:

  • Avoid performance bottlenecks and proactively deliver better quality of service
  • Reduce costs by buying according to needs and increase profits by minimizing downtime

Why Outsource your Data Center?

Even if IT is your core business, setting up your own data center or computer room is an expensive proposition both in terms of money, time and deployment of human resources. Apart from the high capital costs, there are the high day-to-day management costs. Routinely adding new services or upgrading to the latest technology is also not feasible. In this scenario, it makes sense to outsource this service to a co-location, carrier-neutral data center.

Office 365 Migration

METHOD IT recently migrated three small businesses to Microsoft’s new Office 365 service. Fully Office compatible web apps, Exchange email, Sharepoint and Lync in the cloud with 99.9% uptime and world-class security. Work from virtually anywhere with almost any device.

Tips & Tricks

OS Keyboard Shortcuts

Getting into the habit of using keyboard shortcuts for often repeated tasks can increase productivity, reducing time spent needlessly using the mouse or trackpad while typing. Both Microsoft and Apple maintain lists of common shortcuts for their Operating Systems –
Windows XP | Windows 7 | Mac OS X

Wunderful Wunderlist

We’re loving this free, simple tool for making and checking off to-do lists that stay in sync across all your devices. Great for everything from work-related tasks to shopping lists. Works in the browser with versions also available for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android.
More at wunderlist.com

News from the Web

Google Buys Motorola

Undoubtedly the biggest tech story so far this month is Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. A serious entry into the mobile hardware market for Google perhaps?

$1 Trillion Apple?

For a brief few hours on August 9th Apple overtook Exxon Mobil and became the biggest company in the world. Analysts are speculating that Apple could be the first $1 trillion company.

SNS & England Riots

The recent riots in England showed both the good and bad inherent in Social Networks. Rioters reportedly used BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook and Twitter to gather, trade information and even post pictures of themselves posing with their loot, prompting the UK government to consider a crackdown on Social Media when used to incite criminal activity. On the positive side however, the same websites are also being used to co-ordinate clean up operations, such as #riotcleanup on Twitter.

Japan to Get First Mango Phone

The world’s first smartphone running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5 OS Mango, the Fujitsu Toshiba IS12T, will be released in Japan on KDDI’s au network some time ‘after September’.

Hulu Japan

The online video service Hulu is coming to Japan later this year. This will be the first overseas operation for the company, one of the largest providers of streaming TV shows and movies in the US.