MGR IT

As announced on the Windows Essential Business Server blog and confirmed on the EBS web site, Microsoft is discontinuing further development of Essential Business Server and will stop selling it from the end of June.  The announcement talks about the changing market landscape behind the decision, which sounds like a roundabout way of saying the thing didn’t sell.  That’s a pity, because it is actually quite an impressive product.

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Strangely, Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services don’t seem to receive the attention of some of the newer entrants into the field, such as DropBox and Google Apps, but there are some very useful services to be had for free via Windows Live.  One of those is Windows Live SkyDrive, a file storage and sharing service.

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Various versions of Microsoft Windows have support end dates coming up that may impact on you if you use these versions.

Support for Windows Vista with no service packs will end on 13th April, 2010 and support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 will end on 13th July, 2010.  This means that to receive security updates, hotfixes and assisted support from Microsoft, you will need to upgrade these versions to a supported service pack.  The current service pack for Windows Vista is SP2 and the current service pack for Windows XP is SP3.

Also coming to the end of its supported life is Windows 2000, in all of its versions.  In this case, the Windows 200 product will end its Extended Support phase on 13th July, 2010.  This is pretty much the end of the support line for Windows 2000; Microsoft will no longer offer free or paid support for the product after this date and will provide no further security updates or hotfixes.  The only support remaining after this date will be self-help support such as online Knowledge Base articles and FAQs, which are guaranteed to remain available for at least twelve months after the end of Extended Support.  If you are running Windows 2000 on servers or PCs, then I strongly recommend that you upgrade to a more recent version of Windows.

You can find more information on the end of support for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista with no service packs here.  You can find more information on the end of support for Windows 2000 and some information about Windows Server 2003 support changes here.

Microsoft have announced that the next generation of their mobile phone operating system (currently known as Windows Mobile) will be Windows Phone 7 Series.  Microsoft have apparently pretty much started again with this one, so it promises to be a radical departure from previous versions in both usability and performance.

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The new HD2 Windows phone from HTC is now available and it looks like a real competitor to the iPhone. 

Windows Mobile has suffered in recent times in comparison with the business features of Blackberry devices and the usability of the iPhone.  Windows Mobile 6.5 addressed some of those issues, but seemed to have missed the boat through delays in its release.  The HD2 may get some momentum going back Microsoft’s way with its very impressive-looking hardware specs.

The most notable thing about the HD2 is its huge screen – 4.3 inches.  It is a capacitive multi-touch screen, too (think iPhone), which is a vast improvement on HTC’s previous resistive screens.  The drawback may still be the phone’s operating system, with Windows Mobile having a reputation for being buggy, something to which I can attest from personal experience.

There is a pretty thorough review of the HD2 here.  It certainly looks like a device worth checking out if you are in the market for a smartphone.

Google is going to begin phasing out support for the Internet Explorer 6 browser as of the 1st of March.  Google Docs and Google Sites will not support “older browsers” after that date, which means anything before Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0 and Safari 3.0.  Presumably other Google services will follow suit.

For anyone who keeps their systems up to date, this will have no impact, as Internet Explorer 6 is old (and seriously flawed) technology.  However, there are plenty of unpatched systems out there still using IE6 – over 10% according to the w3schools browser statistics site.

If yours is one of those systems, then you should make the switch now, either by upgrading to Internet Explorer 8, or by changing to another browser, such as Firefox, Chrome or Safari.

Having worked in IT support and consulting for many years, I know which calls tend to receive quick attention and which ones are left at the bottom of the pile.  Any decent service centre will have processes for determining the priority of support calls and escalating those calls appropriately, but service desks and call centres are manned by people, so human nature is always a factor in how support calls are processed and resolved.

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The worst kept secret in the IT world was confirmed overnight Australian time with Apple unveiling their new tablet computer, the iPad.  You can see some video of Steve Jobs announcing the iPad here.

In short, the iPad looks more like a larger version of the iPhone or iPod Touch, rather then a tablet form iMac or MacBook.  It’s very thin and light with a 9.7 inch touch screen.

I can certainly see a market for this in the consumer area, though I wonder if the pricing will put some off (as is so often the case with Apple products).  There are three models – a 16GB model for US$499, a 32GB model for US$599 and a 64GB model for US$699.  3G mobile network access is an extra US$130 on any of the models.  I have not seen any mention of Australian prices or release dates as yet.

As an avid iPhone user, I can appreciate the convenience of being able to quickly look up a web site or check e-mail on a portable device that is effectively always on.  The larger screen on the iPad can only enhance this experience if you are happy to pay for it.

While many people will first experience Windows 7 through buying a new computer with the operating system pre-installed, it will also make sense for many to upgrade existing computers to the new version, for some of the reasons I have touched on in a previous post.  For users of Windows Vista, there are potentially two ways of going about the upgrade.

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Windows 7 has been officially out for almost a month now and the reviews have been almost uniformly glowing.  Certainly, my own experience, starting from the beta several months ago, through the release candidate and now the final release version, has been very positive.

The benefits of Windows 7 have been discussed widely, though some of them are fairly intangible and not terribly compelling.  What I want to look at here are some cold, hard, real world reasons why businesses would upgrade from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7.

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