Amazon have launched their own entry into the tablet market, the Kindle Fire.  Amazon's tablet is a 7-inch device based on a heavily customised version of Google's Android software. The Kindle Fire is designed to give users convenient access to Amazon's huge range of digital resources.  It includes only 8GB of storage space, but users get free web-based storage for any digital content they buy from Amazon.  Users also get a free month's subscription to Amazon Prime, Amazon's premium shipping service. The most appealing aspect of the Kindle Fire will be the price - US$199, which is less than half the price of the cheapest iPad.  Of course, Amazon can match Apple in terms of the digital content they have available, which is what makes the Kindle Fire a more credible rival for the iPad than many of the existing Android-based tablets. The Kindle Fire is very much designed as a media consumption device rather than a media creation device, even more so than the iPad, but for anyone looking for an inexpensive,...

Many businesses taking advantage of the rise of cloud computing services have worked on the assumption that they no longer have to worry about system outages, business continuity or disaster recovery.  A spate of cloud service outages over the past few months has shown that to be a flawed assumption. Cloud service providers can certainly provide a greater level of redundancy and use better quality components and design than small to medium businesses, so downtime for cloud services would be expected to be less than the average SMB's in-house system.  However, over the last few months, the likes of cloud service providers Amazon, Google Apps, Microsoft Online Services and Yahoo Mail have all suffered outages, not to mention many smaller cloud service providers. This just goes to show that there will always be system outages,...

Via the Windows Team Blog, Microsoft have announced that Windows Thin PC will be available for download from July 1, 2011.

 Windows Thin PC is based on Windows 7 and allows you to repurpose older PCs as thin clients and extend their useful lives. This reduces the cost of VDI, which is a path that many businesses are now going down or at least investigating.

 As Windows Thin PC is designed to turn a PC into a thin client, so the range of applications that it supports is limited to applications such as Remote Desktop, Citrix and other terminal emulation applications, web browsers, media players and document viewers. Any more demanding applications would be expected to be accessed via a terminal server or remote desktop.

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"Phishing" is a term that covers several methods for Internet usernames and passwords, credit card details or other sensitive information through deception. One of the most common methods for achieving this is through fake emails that appear to come from a trusted authority such as a bank or reputable web site.  These emails usually include a link to a web site that will request your username and password or your credit card or bank account details.  These links then take the victim to a web site that looks legitimate, but is in fact a site set up for the purpose of harvesting sensitive information. One way that phishers hide the fact that these links are not legitimate is by displaying the real address of the establishment they are hijacking, but linking that text to the phishing site.  If you are unsure, a simple way to check for this is just to hover your mouse cursor over the link in the email and your mail client will display the address to which you will be taken if you click on the link. For example,...

Apple have announced details of the new version of their operating system for the iPhone and iPad - iOS 5 - to be released later this year. This article at the Unofficial Apple Weblog has a good rundown of the key features in this new version, but there are a couple of related features that I wanted to highlight. iCloud is Apple's expected move into cloud services.  iCloud underpins a number of new features and will allow users of Apple devices to maintain consistent access to data and apps across those devices.  Where this will really come into its own is in regard to iTunes, with purchased songs and apps to be immediately available across all devices linked to an iTunes account.  Purchase a song on iTunes and it will be available on your iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac via iCloud.  You will also be able to redownload iTunes items from iCloud if you have deleted them and want them back. The other feature that stands out to me fixes something that...

Microsoft Office 365 is Microsoft's forthcoming cloud-based Office suite and the successor to Microsoft Online Services such as Exchange Online and Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS).  It was announced some time ago and has been in beta since April and now it finally appears to have a launch date! Jon Roskill is Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Partner Group and recently posted the launch date to Twitter.  There is no official word yet on the Microsoft Office 365 web site, so we don't know whether this is a worldwide launch date or just for the US, but it will certainly mean that worldwide availability of the service (including Australia) won't be far off. Office 365 is bound to be a major player in the cloud space for productivity suites and will be a strong competitor for Google Apps.  It is a subscription based...

Internet Explorer 9 has now been released after several rounds of beta testing.  As with any new browser release (and particularly with Internet Explorer, it seems), it is important to test the new version with the web sites and web applications that you use to determine compatibility. My initial testing with IE9 has thrown up some compatibility issues, though not too many.  The biggest issue seems to be web applications that check for the browser version number and that have not yet been updated to recognise IE9.  One application that I use frequently refuses to run in IE9, telling me that I need to upgrade to "Internet Explorer 7 or later". So, what are the new features that stand out?  Well, if you have used Google's Chrome browser, then some of the changes to IE will look familiar.  The IE9 interface is pared right down to maximise the screen real estate available for displaying web sites.  The search box at the top right of the browser window is gone, but you can search by entering text into the...

Sometimes it can be hard to see the value of IT monitoring services.  Monitoring is certainly not a glamorous aspect of IT and sometimes it can be quite tedious to carry out, but today I had a very good example of why monitoring is a valuable service. While performing a regular trawl through server logs this morning, I found an interesting entry on a client's server that initially looked like nothing too serious. In fact, I almost dismissed it and moved on, but I decided to follow it up to see where it lead. In the end, it turned out that an important system file had gone missing on this server, which was causing a service to stop running.  The service that was not running was crucial to the functioning of the daily backups that run on this server.  The server appeared to be functioning fine and there were no errors being reported by the backup software, but this problem meant that some files were not being backed up properly. Without performing the in depth monitoring that picked up this problem, the...

Apple have announced the upcoming release of the iPad 2, with a keynote presentation from CEO Steve Jobs, who took on the launch despite currently being on medical leave.  Rumours regarding what would be included in the second version of the world's favourite tablet device have been circulating for a while, so it is interesting to see how the actual iPad 2 stacks up against the predictions.

MGR IT has been listed at number 15 in Australia on MSPmentor's annual global survey of managed services providers - http://bit.ly/elTP9B

The MSPmentor web site covers news and industry developments from the managed IT services industry around the world.  According to their own mission MSPmentor is "the ultimate guide to managed services and the leading global destination for managed service providers".

The annual MSPmentor 100 survey lists the top 100 MSPs worldwide based on criteria including size, growth and profitability.  This year's survey also contains specific lists for geographic areas, including Australia.  MGR IT comes in at number 15 on the Australian list and is the only MSP based in country Victoria to make the list.