Cloud firmly in the main stream

Cloud firmly in the main stream

Last week saw First Solution Technologies spend a day at the Cloud Expo Europe 2012 at Olympia. Overall the event was well organised and well attended. The exhibitors’ floor was dominated by hosting companies. There is an absolute proliferation of companies selling hosting services of all different shapes and sizes ranging from cheap on demand wholesale co-location to fully, if not a little over managed, managed hosting. As a consumer of data centre services we see the continued growth in available high end hosting facilities as an absolute positive as providers need to remain cost effective but also innovate in the manner in which they offer their services to the market. It is the innovation that is most interesting to us at First Solution Technologies.

First Solution Technologies are now delivering to a number of our customers on demand computing power to meet their changing business requirement and meet the changing attitude towards IT as a utility that enables business agility and supports business growth.

The lecture and seminar programme highlighted a change in attitudes towards computing in the cloud. Much of the talk was of the accelerated uptake of cloud services across all types of business from small medium business and through to the enterprise, as opposed to when or whether at all.

The key message remained that the SME market are still best positioned to take advantage of computing in the cloud and many early adopters are enjoying gains in efficiency and productivity that had only previously been available to larger businesses.

If you are a SME business and are wondering how cloud computing could help drive increased business performance in your company please check out our website www.firstsolution.co.uk and get in touch.

Hosted IP Telephony

Hello again, it’s been a while...

Well, new website, new technologies, I’m not even sure where to start!
After careful consideration, this will be the first of a 4 part series on hosted technologies.

Since I last blogged we here at FST have started selling hosted IP Telephony, and I can’t rave enough about it. As it is hosted, it doesn’t matter where you use it from. When it snows you can take your physical handset home with you, plug it into your home broadband and use it as if you were in the office, complete with transfer, ring groups and everything else you would get from a traditional phone system. With call rates from 0.9ppm the call spend is competitive, and with low capital outlay and Cisco 0% finance available on the handsets the setup cost is minimal.

To avoid any potential issues with the line we recommend using an internet connection that has an SLA on it, either a leased line, Ethernet first Mile or similar. If there is a major outage either with the provider or the physical line, we can move the phones over to your normal broadband and use that until the issue is resolved.
You also get access to a portal which allows you control over your number. For example, if you were unable to get to the office, and didn’t have your physical phone with you, you can log into the portal and divert your calls to another number.
You can also get a client that allows you to use your phone from your computer. Great for those days when you are unable to get into the office, just turn your computer on, plug your headphones and microphone in, start the client and your good to go!

Well, see you next time for our online backup solution.
Cheers,
Dave

We've done IT again!

Yes we’ve done IT again!

First Solution Technologies Ltd has once again maintained our Cisco Small Business Specialization going into 2011. We continue to be committed to staff training and personal development, for both Sales & Technical, to achieve vendor certification. This gives our Customers the confidence that First Solution Technologies have the in-house and experience needed to deal effectively with their IT & Communications challenges, both now and going forward.

For more information of how we can help you contact us now on 0845 83 82 998, or email sales@firstsolution.co.uk

Microsoft Office 2010

Microsoft Office 2010

Hello again everybody, Dave here!

Where to start? Microsoft have brought the file button back, and decided to cram it full of options designed to speed up everyday tasks like print and save. This is a smart move as many people will be moving from office 2003 straight to 2010. The ribbon interface is still there, and after 2 years of using 2007, I’m still in two minds as to whether I like it or not.

If you are looking to upgrade to office 2010 from 2007 then you will almost definitely be able to run office 2010 as the requirements are almost identical. The natural operating system for Office 2010 is undeniably Windows 7, the graphics complement each other nicely and the whole feel of Office seems natural.
If you’re reading this from a Macintosh, or are an avid Mac user, you will no doubt be glad to hear that Microsoft have binned Entourage and have given Mac users “real” outlook.

Whilst on the topic of Outlook 2010, in the past we have had customers ask if they can have two exchange accounts on one outlook profile, and until now that has not been possible. However, in Outlook 2010 you can have multiple exchange accounts in one profile!

All in all, having done a large portion of my college coursework in Office 2010, on Windows 7, I have found it a lot easier to use, perhaps it’s because I’m now used to the ribbon at the top (I find now that I only curse it once a month or so when I can’t find something).

If you are looking into Windows 7, Office 2010 or both then please give us a call on 0845 83 82 998 and we will talk you through the options and how we can help you.

Dave

Blog has moved.

As you may have noticed the Blog has moved.

The new address is blog2.firstsolution.co.uk

Please update any links you may have to this blog.

Thank you

Jame Clewitt.

It's been a good start to 2009/2010 for First Solution Technologies.

We are delighted to announce that Cisco and Microsoft have renewed our certifications for 2009/2010. This is in recognition of our continued growth and success in implementing and supporting ICT solutions.


Cisco Select Certified Partner

This means that we are accredited to sell, install and support Cisco solutions throughout the UK. We have already built a strong reputation for delivering these quality solutions which have made a real difference to our client's ICT environments.

Cisco SMB Specialisation

Being awarded this specialisation means that we can continue to promote and support Cisco solutions to small and medium businesses. This allows us to bring enterprise style technologies to the SMB, making them affordable and flexible to support growth.

Microsoft Certified Partner

Our continued development of our Microsoft skills allows us to install and support a wide range of Microsoft solutions to help SMB's to use technology to drive their performance and growth.

Continuous Improvement

With these certification renewed again, we are looking at the next phase of building our skills so we can provide an even better service to all our clients.

More information?

Give us a call on 0845 - 83 82 998

Even More From Windows 7

Hello again!
After more time evaluating (ok, playing with) Windows 7 I still believe it to be brilliant, one feature I particularly like is how you can drag programs around on the task bar. I have always hoped windows would add a feature where this is possible, because it’s good to be able to organise things the way *I* want, not the way I opened it.

The installation is really simple, as Windows 7 loads you are presented with a vista "orb" type logo while the set up wizard loads, the next screen is a blue box, with "Install now" in the middle of the screen, so you click it. Then the screen asking for which language pops up, when I change the language to English (UK) the keyboard changed accordingly, which is a small but nice touch. When you click next, you are presented with a screen asking which kind of install you would like to go for, with large buttons which give a brief explanation of upgrade and advanced, I went for advanced, as I am upgrading from XP 32bit to windows 7 64Bit (it is not possible to upgrade XP to 7 or 32bit to 64bit). The next screen showed my hard drives and asked which one I wanted to install onto, as I didn’t want to keep any of my old data I was briefly confused by the lack of format options, but soon noticed the "More options" button which gave me the format options. What surprised me here is that windows used the last 8MB which previously was left spare.

Ok, I have been using windows 7 for quite some time, and for me its perfect; however, I have been talking to a friend of mine who has said that he has an issue with windows 7 and his new hard drive, hopefully this will be resolved with the full version - only time will tell. This issue is unlikely to affect businesses with servers, as the same drive works fine if it is mapped as a network drive from a Windows Vista pc, which is built on a similar system to Server 2008.

I am still very excited about the release of this amazing operating system - I remember helping friends with various issues with vista when it first came out, I do not foresee any major issues with windows 7.
'Till next time

Dave