Although you may not like it, most of us are now wholly dependent upon IT and, as business owners, our initial investment will have stemmed from a recognition that it helps with:

• Managing customer data
• Allowing a team to work more effectively
• Improving business processes
• Achieving better reporting

However, did you know that having the right system can have a hugely positive impact on growth? When you think about this, it’s quite logical since (when used well) IT systems can help you to more effectively analyse business data thus giving deeper insight into the way you trade and therefore revealing possible new sales avenues…

…what’s more, since IT can also improve the productivity of individuals AND enable flexible working you’ll probably find it possible to increase revenue without increasing staff overheads.

So growth may be easier to achieve then you think - even in the current climate.

Now, in some instances it’s true that all of these things are best supported by having your own server, but how do you know when you need one? Well. there are typically 10 signs that indicate this would be a good idea:

• You spend a lot of time searching for files or copying them from one machine to another
• Your computers are networked in some way but files are on different machines and everything runs slowly
• You need to restrict access to confidential files
• You want to accommodate flexible or home working
• You’d like to centralise key business data like diaries or customer records
• You want to improve your response to customers
• You want your own corporate e-mail address
• Instead of using one centrally, you keep buying new printers, scanners and fax machines when new people join you
• You’re suffering from paperwork overload
• You have lots of IT hassle, viruses, network problems and so forth

Of course, if you already have a server and are STILL suffering from the hassle factor you should ideally source an IT Support company that has proven track record in solutions for SME’s

Naturally, it‘s sensible to check for some form of accreditation with regard to competency and expertise and something that you can rely on is Microsoft’s Small Business Specialist certification. Basingstoke based www.tcgcomputerservices.com has recently been awarded this - MD Chris Timm explains “It’s a great honour to gain this for our business. The work we put into becoming a small business specialist is part of our ongoing commitment to customer satisfaction and proves that we are able to fully understand our customers needs from both a business and technical point of view” Now you know what to ask for!

Trading since 2004, TCG Computer Services has provided quality outsourced IT networking and computer support for small and mid-sized businesses in and around the area of Basingstoke and North Hampshire. It provides remote monitoring, proactive management, IT support, computer repair, and strategic IT planning/consulting Should you require further information about this article please contact Chris Timm via chris@tcgcomputerservices.com or 0845 838 8606

After installing Service Pack 2 for Office 2007, a client of mine experienced a problem with Microsoft Outlook. When they clicked on the icon, an error appeared saying "Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook.  Cannot open the Outlook window."

After Searching for a fix on Google, I came up with an article stating that the way to fix this is and thought I would share it with my peers. 

To fix this. click start/Run and type  “outlook.exe /resetnavpane”  (without the quotes) and this fixes the problem nicely.

Authored by, Chris Timm  Managing Director at TCG Computer Services Limited – providing  Computer Support in Basingstoke.  Find out more from Chris at  Twitter and linkedin.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been working with a customer who has had a number of issues with their broadband connection thanks to the incompetency of the ISP.  The long and short of it, is that we need to reboot the router daily, generally late at night so that it continues to work the next day.

So the challenge was how do I get the router rebooted, especially late at night.?   The answer was simple, write (or find and use) a script to remotely login and reboot the router.

To do this, you will need to create a batch file, with the script as below. Change the <Password> and <IPADDRESS> tags to be your own without the <> keys.

@ECHO OFF
:: Create SendKeys script
ECHO.set sh=WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")>_TEMP.VBS
:: Start Telnet session
ECHO.sh.run("telnet.exe <IPADDRESS>")>>_TEMP.VBS
:: Wait 1 second for telnet session to start
ECHO.WScript.Sleep 1000 >>_TEMP.VBS
:: Send password
ECHO.sh.SendKeys "<Password>~" >>_TEMP.VBS   <— Note that there is a ~ after the password, this is needed as its the key for ENTER

:: Insert your commands here followed by ~ for <enter>
ECHO.sh.SendKeys "sys reboot~" >>_TEMP.VBS

:: Run the script to send keys to Telnet window
cscript//nologo _TEMP.VBS

:: Clear away workfile
DEL _TEMP.VBS

Save the file as a batch file such as “Reboot Router.BAT” to the machine that you want to run it from . Once you have created the batch file, you can run it with a remote management tool such as CentraStage, or GFI MAX or alternatively run it using the Task Scheduler.

TELNET

In order to use the script above, you require TELNET.EXE to be installed on the system that you run it from. Windows 7,  and Windows 2008 do not include the telnet program.. or at least not by default. You can however turn it on :-

Click Start  

Then click on Control Panel and select “Uninstall a Program” under the Programs heading.

Then click on   on the Left hand menu.

At this point you will be presented with the Features window, and you can select Telnet Client and then press OK.

Telnet will now be installed to the %SYSTEMROOT% folder meaning that you should be able to just run telnet.exe from anywhere and it should work ok. The above script will now run ok.

There are a number of things you can do with the script above,  such as changing the Router IP address and various other things, for a full list of the telnet commands for the Draytek Routers, you can download the Telnet command guide from  here.

Authored by, Chris Timm  Managing Director at TCG Computer Services Limited – providing  IT Support in Basingstoke, IT Support in Reading and IT Support in Newberry  Find out more from Chris at  Twitter and linkedin.

In October this year CompTIA will be holding their Annual EMEA Member Conference. The event will be held at the Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel  on the 20th-21st October 2010.

The CompTIA EMEA Member Conference brings together more than 300 industry executives to network, collaborate and gain insight into the latest new technologies and business trends to provide attendees with new ways to grow their businesses so if you have never been to a CompTIA event, I would suggest you get yourself along to this event and experience it for yourself.

Last year, James Caan from Dragon’s den was the keynote speaker, this year there is an even more inspirational speaker, and in my opinion one of the greatest motivational and inspirational speakers of all , Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

If you would like more information on becoming a CompTIA member,  visit their website at http://www.comptia.org/membership.aspx.  Alternatively contact me and I would be happy to put you in touch with the right person.

More information on the CompTIA Member Conference can be obtained by visiting the conference website at  http://www.comptia.org/events/emea2009/home.aspx

Authored by, Chris Timm  Managing Director at TCG Computer Services Limited – providing  Computer Support in Basingstoke.  Find out more from Chris at  Twitter and linkedin.

Most people will know by now that we have finally resurrected the Thames Valley SBSC (Small Business Specialist Community) group which meets once a month at the Symantec offices in Green Park, Reading.

This month however we are treating our members to an additional event, which will be held on the 1st April. This is no April Fool Joke, I promise.

The reason for our special event, is that Karl Palachuk is coming to town. Karl is heavily involved in the SMB/SME Community and he has a very popular newsletter, blog and many other things. He has written a number of books, and is an expert on many subjects  such as Managed Services, Network Documentation, and Zero Downtime Migration + many many more. You can get a list of all Karl’s, books at his primary website  Great Little Book. If you have ever met Karl, or heard him speak, you will know that he is a great guy and a very very good speaker.

Karl’s latest book is  the “Network Migration Workbook”. This is a FANTASTIC 590 page book, crammed with information, checklists, diagrams and spreadsheets. There is also an accompanying website with customisable versions of the documents which will  continue adding value after you’ve read the book.  As I own a copy of this myself, I can tell you its well worth every penny of money you spend on it.  Karl will be bringing a copies of this Network Migration and many other books with him so you can purchase these from him on the night.. and if you are very nice to him, he may even sign it for you.

So what will Karl be talking about.. 

Well when he asked what subject he should talk about, I suggested ZDTM (Zero Downtime Migration).

Zero Downtime Migration Strategies are real, Karl has performed them many times. Yes that is correct, you can Migrate your clients servers with NO downtime, which will make your clients a lot happier and make you more profitable in the process. Karl will talk about how he has done it himself and will answer any questions you may have on how to do it.

If you want to know, if  ZDTM really possible and practical in your business?  You’ll have to attend and find out.

Ok so now for some details : This event will be held on Thursday April 1st 2010 at the Symantec UK offices in Green Park, Reading. The event starts SHARP at 5:30 and will end at 8pm. Please be there on time as we need to leave the building by 8pm due to Symantec’s security policies. There will be ample time before and after the event to Network and talk to Karl.  

You can find out more about Karl Palachuk by visiting his blog or at his primary site or many other places. Karl is also on Twitter

PLEASE NOTE :  There is no charge for this event, but is essential that you let me know if you are coming so that we can arrange for catering. if you are interested in coming along, or you have any other questions on this event, please let me know at info.zdtm@tcgcomputerservices.com.

Authored by, Chris Timm  Managing Director at TCG Computer Services Limited – providing  IT Support in Basingstoke.  Find out more from Chris at  Twitter and linkedin.

I have just been sent an email, which was supposedly from Facebook, saying that due to security reasons they have changed my password.   See below.

If you do get one of these please be aware that they are NOT REAL.. DO NOT CLICK ON IT AND CHANGE THE PASSWORD.

Remember all the warnings we get about these  kind of things, companies such as facebook, will never send you an email stating that “they” have changed your password and certainly will not tell you what it is in an email attachment!

Authored by, Chris Timm  Managing Director at TCG Computer Services Limited – providing  IT Support in Basingstoke.  Find out more from Christ at  Twitter and linkedin.

Over the past few months we have seen more interest in server upgrades or first server installations within local small and medium sized businesses. Perhaps this is due to the relaxing of the recession? Perhaps those businesses with existing servers have simply struggled on long enough with their aging server(s) and are fed up with server crashes and poor performance? Whatever the reason, now is a good time to start thinking about getting your first server or upgrading your old ones. In fact, there has never been a better time. Why? You now have even more choice than before as to what server best matches your business needs.

Time to get your first server?

Traditionally most small businesses purchased Microsoft’s Small Business Server, as it was the only cost effective solution available to smaller companies. This has now changed with the launch of Windows Server 2008 Foundation in October 2009. Supporting up to 15 users, with all the features of a standard Windows server, Windows Foundation Server makes the sub £1,000 server a reality.

Time to upgrade your server?

Upgrading your existing server to Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 is now even cheaper with Microsoft’s Solution Pathway programme. Depending on your current server version you can access savings of up 30% of the cost of your Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 licenses.

Server Options and Benefit Comparison

The table below provides a high-level breakdown of the Windows server products applicable to small and medium sized businesses.

The table below shows a high-level comparison of the business benefits that can be obtained from each of the server products.

*As at the time of writing, Microsoft has recently announced that Essential Business Server (EBS) is to go end of life later this year (2010).

I was with a customer recently and we recently installed a new application for them on Windows 7, that required us to run a program as Administrator. It seemed the only way this would work was to right click on the icon and “Run as Administrator” so I wanted to find a way that this could be done without right clicking on the icon, and this is what I found, on the internet:

The best way to do this, is to create a scheduled task, and then set up a shortcut that tells the scheduled task to run. I am sure there are better ways to do this but this seems to work just fine.

Start by Creating the Scheduled Task Item

Open up Task Scheduler through the start menu search box (in Windows 7 search just type “task” without the quotes ), and then on the right-hand side click the “Create Task” link:

Now all you need to do is to give the task a name, something simple preferably without any spaces in it. Then check the box for “Run with highest privileges” (*very important*). If you are using Windows 7, click on the “Configure for” dropdown list and select the option for Windows 7.

Next , click on the Actions tab, click the New button, and then browse down to the application that you are trying to start.

Close out of the dialogs by clicking the OK button, which should create the new task in the list. You can right-click on it and choose “Run” at this point, simply to make sure that it launches the application the way you were expecting.

At this point our scheduled tasks setup is done, so you can close out of that if you want, as long as you remember the name that you used for the task.

Create the Shortcut to Start the Task

Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose New \ Shortcut from the menu.

Now here is where the real magic happens, we need to add a command that will run the scheduled task, passing in the name of the task that we used. As you can see, I used runregedit as the name for the task.

Make sure you enter the task name like this, replacing the capitalized letters for the name of your task. (It’s not case sensitive)

schtasks /run /tn “TASKNAMEINQUOTES” this is the name you gave the task when we created it, in this case “runregedit”

Now give your shortcut some useful name, and then click next to create it.

Viola, you now have an icon created that will launch the application in administrator mode.

As of 15th January 2010, Vodafone will release the APPLE iPhone to work on their network which means that you can now ANY iphone on the 4 networks that offer it whether or not it was supplied by your provider.

In order to do this, you will need to  get your existing iphone unlocked by visiting the  unlocking site of the provider, which in our case is O2, available at http://shop.o2.co.uk/update/unlockmyiphone.html.. Fill in the relevant information and in a couple of weeks, they will unlock the it  and then it will be available for use on any network.  Once you then synch with iTunes, you will be able to update the carrier settings and you are good to go.

Should you need any assistance on this,  please feel free to give us a call .

This week, like many other people , we have been affected by really bad snow and have been unable to get into the office and so have had to work from home.

However this does not mean that we have been unable to do any work,  because of the technology available today, we have been able to 100% effective and continue to be productive.

We have our systems set up to use Outlook, share files and folders with the workforce and also have our telephone extensions available at home, so that we can continue to communicate with each other as though we were in the office.  

The great news is that most small companies  have all, or most of this technology already available on the server, and  its a something that just needs to be setup.

So if your staff are unable to get into the office, rather than give them a day off (and watch TV or play in the snow) why not  let them remain productive ?

If you would like to know more about this then why not give us a call, so that we can set this up for you, and next time it  snows you wont get caught short. 

Why not visit our website and download our whitepaper entitled “Small Business Mobility”, it can be downloaded here