News Archive
Email on the road
With the release of Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 and the use of Windows Mobile 5.0 devices, clients can have a different experience of mobile messaging using ‘Direct Push'. It provides a mechanism to ensure your device is always up to date with the latest information and changes to your Outlook mailbox.
With Direct Push, when a change is detected in your mailbox a trigger is sent to your mobile device to synchronise that change. The device then picks up any new email, calendar, contact or tasks information. Through this mechanism the device will always receive new items as soon as they are received whether the device roams, is on GPRS, WiFi or any IP based network.
Many people are familiar with the mobile email experience that Blackberry provides which is termed 'Push Email' with Blackberry as a new email appears in your mailbox - the first 2kb of that email is forwarded from your Exchange server to the Blackberry Network Operations Centre (NOC) and then on to your device.
Direct Push provides the same real-time experience as Blackberry in that when a new email is sent it is received almost immediately on the device.
The major benefit to our clients is that no additional hardware, such as a dedicated Blackberry server, is necessary and using ‘Direct Push' ensures that no data is sent to a third party.
Lightspeed
Quiss Technology plc has become a partner of Lightspeed Systems Europe. This entitles us to sell, implement and support Total Traffic Control (TTC).
The product is an excellent way to expand our standard business offering to clients. Its extensive functionality brings together six of the most vital areas of network security, performance and monitoring into a single unified product.
The functions of Total Traffic Control are listed below and the product can be customised to allow use of only the required elements:
Virus and Spyware Protection
Network and Desktop Security
Web Content Filtering
Spam and Email Filtering
Network Traffic Management
Network and Desktop Reporting
For more details, visit Lightspeed's website at http://www.lseurope.com
Solicitors' Notepaper
The Solicitors' Code of Conduct came into effect on 1 July 2007. It requires firms to put on their letterhead and fax headings "regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority" in place of "regulated by the Law Society".
The Solicitors Regulation Authority recognises the need for a period to allow firms to make the changes and use up existing stocks of notepaper. It has therefore been agreed that firms will be able to use either statement from 1 July 2007 until 30 September 2007.
From 1 October 2007, the notepaper must comply with the new Code and bear the words "regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority".
For more information visit http://www.sra.org.uk/news/245.article
Excel 2003 Pivot Table tips
GENERATE GETPIVOTDATA
When you have created a Pivot Table, you may want to enter formulae to create further analyses e.g. calculate each row value as a percentage of the total. In Excel 2003, when you create a formula which refers to cells within the table, the formula automatically generates the GETPIVOTDATA function and cell references are shown as absolute values ($A$3). If you would prefer to create a 'normal' formula, you can add a toolbar button that allows you to toggle between the two types of formulae.
To add this button select Tools, Customise and the Commands tab. From the list of Categories on the left, select Data and scroll down the Commands on the right. Near the bottom of the list you will see the Generate GetPivotData button. Click and drag this onto any toolbar (the Pivot toolbar is the obvious place to add this). Before you create your formula, click this button to toggle the GETPIVOTDATA feature on or off.
GENERATE CALCULATED FIELDS WITHIN A PIVOT TABLE
When creating a Pivot Table, you can drag fields that contain numeric data into the Data section. Double clicking these field will display the Properties of the field where you can change the field name and select the summary function required eg Sum, Count, Average etc.
Clicking the Options buttons gives Show Data as options, where you may select options such as Show Data as a percentage of another base field. For example show Amount Rejected as a percentage of Amount Received. When the Pivot Table is viewed, the data is sometimes shown with #N/A in the column.
To overcome this problem you can create a new Calculated Field within the table. To do this, click in the last column of your Pivot Table (within the blue boundary line) and select from the Pivot Table drop down on the Pivot toolbar, Formulas, Calculated Field.
Give the field a name (column heading) and in the formula box, create a formula. Note that you must keep the = at the beginning and can double-click on any of the listed fields to insert them into the formula.
Once you have viewed the table, you may need to return to the Field Properties to rename the field as extra text may have been added, and you can also set the number formatting using Number button e.g to a Percentage.
This new calculated field will be within the table and values will update if the data is refreshed.
Selecting Pivot Table, Formulas, List Formulas will display the formulae on a separate sheet.
Note that you cannot use Calculated Fields to create formulae that include a reference to a sub-total - these must be created outside the Pivot Table (see point 1 above).
Microsoft Office 2007
Microsoft released Office 2007 on 30 January 2007.
It contains a number of new features, including the Ribbon which displays tools in a far more intuitive way and replaces the menus and toolbars. The ribbon learns which tools you use most often and displays them automatically.
Office 2007 also includes new applications and server-side tools
- Groove is a collaboration and communication suite for smaller businesses
- Office Sharepoint Server 2007, a major revision to the server platform for Office applications, which supports "Excel Services", a client-server architecture for supporting Excel workbooks that are shared in real time between multiple machines, and are also viewable and editable through a web page
- Microsoft FrontPage has been removed from the Office Suite, replaced by Microsoft SharePoint Designer, for the development of SharePoint portals
For more information visit http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/products/HA101748901033.aspx
Microsoft Vista
Microsoft will realease Vista, their new operating system on 30 November 2006 and it will be available for retail sales on 30 January 2007.
Windows Vista contains hundreds of new features, some of the most significant of which include:
- an updated graphical user interface and visual style called Windows Aero
- improved searching features
- new multimedia creation tools such as DVD Maker
- completely redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems
- improved security
Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network using peer-to-peer technology, making it easier to share files and digital media between computers and devices.
For developers, Vista introduces version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write applications than with the traditional Windows API.
For more information on Vista visit www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features