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Why you should work in the Cloud

You may have heard about using cloud technology but why should you use it ? – The main advantage is flexibility and cost. A cloud service is pay as you go so you don’t have to make capital investments into your own IT set-up. For example, rather than pay NIgel_Mills_MBMthousands of pounds  purchasing the hardware, software and expertise to set up your own Exchange Server you can pay a per user per month fee to purchase it as a cloud service. There is also flexibility to increase and decrease the number of users when required.

There are drawbacks – Sure Cloud computing is an option for your IT but certainly not the be all and end all. Firstly, if you have a cloud service then you are very reliant of your internet connection. If you lose internet connection you lose access to your service. Secondly, cost needs to be closely monitored. You are effectively renting someone else’s IT infrastructure and it isn’t always cheaper in the long run. Make sure you do the maths. We are happy to work with you on that.

In summary – Cloud computing is a welcome addition to the IT landscape. It gives another option with a “pay as you go” payment plan. Its quick to implement, flexible and can lower IT costs but make sure you do your homework We at MBM are happy to help and can put a cost-effective solution in place. Give us a call for a no Obligation chat.

Busy time as local company upgrades and when did you last back-up?

Its been a busy week or so at Micro Business Machines but we wouldn’t have it any other way !

Microsoft as ever moves on and a local company has taken the step to upgrade 33 machines to Windows 7 from Windows XP Pro. This has involved our engineers being on site at every stage of the process. Migration from XP pro was vital to our client as support for the product ends in April 2014. That date will soon come around – if you are still running XP please contact us to discuss the options available to you. Don’t leave it too late to plan your IT future!

MBM_42Emails_Blog_smallOn the other end of the scale we have cleaned up two Laptops  heavily infected  with viruses and successfully restored the data on those machines. The biggest issue that these problems highlighted was the lack of data backup. Had we not have been able to save the data then much of the work if not all would have been lost.

So what options do you have on Data back-up ?

The very least you should have in place is a copy of you files on some separate source – typically a hard drive stored separately from your laptop but that relies on you remembering to adhere to a strict back-up routine and removing the back-up source to a safe place. There are many options when it comes to cloud options – storing your work securely on the internet. A back-up solution can be put in place to automatically so no need to remember ! This solution will work from one to hundreds of machines and is available now.

And if you do nothing ?

So, please take a minute to think about how long your backup would take to restore and then consider if you can afford to be down for that long.

If you want an IT continuity solution that will get you working again in hours rather than days, please call us on 01902 324494 to discuss your requirements.

Techie Tip – New Documents in old Office

This month’s tip will help you if you still use an older version of Microsoft Office, and are struggling to open documents that are being sent to you in the new xml formats such as .docx or .xlsx.

Microsoft have a file you can install called fileformatconverters.exe which enables users of Office 2000, Office XP or Office 2003 to open the new files in their old versions of office.

Simply download the file from the link below, install the application and away you go, you don’t need to buy a new copy of office just to open the new file types. If you download the file and are still having problems why not give us a call on 01902 324494 and we’ll see if we can help.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en

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