pchelp-south-blog

[pchelp-south-blog]

Facebook Offers Tips For Spotting Fake News

Car scammers are exploiting Ebay to sell stolen vehicles, banks are trying to keep access procedures minimal yet robust while Facebook has provided 'tips' for spotting fake news.

Perhaps the biggest (legal) scam is that some people are unwittingly being charged huge fees for accessing a directory enquiry services, with one company charging almost £24 for less than a minute on the phone! Thankfully this is being reviewed, as are claims about advertised broadband speeds which has long been a bugbear for some people. Still, on a more positive note, some boffins have invented a kind of electronic 'paint' that can turn walls, tables and indeed all sorts of surfaces (including irregular, uneven ones) into a touch-sensitive device ... so what can you think of to use it for?

Let's see how this will impact your business ...

Car Scammers Using eBay

Scammers in the Greater Manchester area are using eBay to sell cars that have been stolen and cloned. <More>

3 Steps To Banking Security Heaven In The UK?

The results of an online survey by YouGov, sponsored by credit reference agency Equifax have shown that 55% of British people think that 3 or fewer verification steps are needed to keep their bank accounts safe from criminals. <More>

Facebook Offers Tips For Spotting Fake News

Social media giant Facebook has published adverts in the UK popular press, giving readers a list of ten ways to spot ‘fake news’. <More>

£23.97/min For 118 Directory Enquiries

Ofcom is reported to be concerned about the high costs of calling directory enquiries- services, and this looks likely to lead to another examination of this area of the market. <More>

Broadband Speed Claims To Be Examined

A 10-week public consultation is to be held by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) about the advertised speeds of competing broadband services and whether they differ from real user experiences. <More>

Touch Sensitive "Paint" Opens New Doors

A new system called Electrick (developed by Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh) uses conductive spray paint and electrodes to turn any surface into an electronic touch sensor. <More>

Tech Tip  :   Set Power Button to Turn Off Monitors  

If you have the Windows 10 Creators Update, you can make your computer power button into a monitor switch that lets you turn off all your monitors. With this tip you can turn off your monitor and still leave your computer running. Applications won’t be closed, and downloads won’t be terminated. If you have multiple monitors set up, it will turn off all your monitors at once for you.

To set this up:

Go     to Start menu.

Type     Power Options.

Click     Edit Power Plan.

Open     Power Options by clicking In the Edit Power Plan Settings Window.

Click     on the Change advanced power settings link.

In     the Power Options window that pops up, find and expand 'Power buttons and     Lid' and 'Power button action'. 

Select     ‘Turn off the display’ from the Settings list.

Click     OK ... et voila.

[pchelp-south-blog]

CLOUD EXPLAINED

Office 365 Exchange Online vs. Exchange Server on Premise

There are presently an estimated 80 million paid Office 365 subscribers, representing 15% of the total Exchange market, which is expected to double to 33% by the end of 2017. Migrating workloads to the cloud is a hot topic in IT boardroom discussions, especially regarding the future of corporate messaging.  There are many advantages to moving to Office 365 Exchange Online, including freeing up internal resources, reducing corporate liability and lowering overhead costs.

Office 365 has now become the mainstream option for organisations replacing on premise Exchange servers.  Company’s migrating to Office 365 to the cloud is now a foregone conclusion for common workloads like email.   Companies that choose to resist these changes will find themselves in the minority, defending their decisions to keep Exchange on premise.

What are some common IT pain points driving this mass migration?

Another Upgrade vs. The Last Upgrade – Companies, look to upgrade their server every 5 years or so. The question they must answer is: Will this be the last upgrade they need to perform?

An advantage Office 365 has over its on premise counterparts is Microsoft’s commitment to continuously upgrade the platform with the latest features and capabilities for the core solutions, including Exchange Online.  If company’s migrate to Exchange Online, all future upgrades to the platform will be handled by Microsoft.  This is the last upgrade needed to perform for your messaging environment.

Reliability and Uptime – Email is a critical communications service that demands zero downtime.  IT departments are under pressure to maximize redundancy and resiliency with decreasing budgets for infrastructure.  Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into their datacenter infrastructure for hosting corporate email and therefore is able to offer 99.9% uptime guarantees with financially backed Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

99.9% may not seem like a significant number compared to other providers that offer multiple 9’s; however, it’s important to read the fine print of Microsoft’s Online SLAs.  There is zero downtime permitted – including during planned maintenance.  Many other providers offer higher uptime guarantees but have caveats for natural disasters, planned maintenance and holiday exemptions. Microsoft is transparent about their uptime guarantee, so you know what you are getting

Compliance and Security – What started as an obstacle to cloud computing has now become one of its driving factors for adoption.  In order to ensure the highest level of Enterprise security meeting the most stringent standards (such as ISO 27001, FISMA, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and EU Safe Harbor), Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into the infrastructure of its datacenters and operations.  As company’s take responsibility for protecting the data of their clients and internal IP, they must choose between investing in their own security infrastructure and ongoing management, and outsourcing to another provider.  Economies of scale prove that outsourcing to a major platform like Office 365 offers a significantly reduced expense coupled with Enterprise security capabilities that would be very expensive and difficult to maintain.

  Can we customize our company’s Exchange solution to our specific needs?

Management and Control – A common misconception about migrating to the cloud is that IT teams will lose control over the management and configuration of their company’s environment.  In fact, Office 365 – with its multi-tenant architecture – offers IT support teams significant management and configuration capabilities. Some of the functions you can continue to perform using Office 365 include:

Customization Changes via GUI and PowerShell

Role Based Groups and Policies

Retention Tagging and Policies

Complete ActiveSync Control and Customization

Transport Rules including Utilizing Third Party SPAM Filtering and Archiving Solutions

On Premise Journaling

Auditing and Delivery Reports

Microsoft continues to evolve and expand the features that are available to customise in Exchange Online.  For example, - size limits from 25MB to 150MB for Exchange Online.

What is the main benefit of moving to a Cloud solution.

Reliability. –With a guaranteed uptime from Microsoft you eliminate email downtime, in today’s business world communication is key.

Reduction in the need for Hardware and Software – Office 365 eliminates the need for physical and virtualized hardware, storage, and software licensing

Management and Maintenance – Microsoft offers full management and maintenance of Exchange Online with 24/7 Support

Backup – Microsoft provides automatic real-time backup and recovery to alternate datacenters

SPAM Protection – Microsoft provides built in SPAM and Anti-Virus protection with Exchange Online

Encryption and Archiving – Microsoft provides email encryption and unlimited online archiving with its E3 plan for Office 365

IT costs can be spread over monthly payments.

How easy is it for customers to move their services to the Cloud?

It is straight forward. At PCH we specialise in assisting customers to move to the cloud and support them through that transition, and into the future as services continue to be added to the Office 365 suite. Such as video conferencing and VOIP PBX, further reducing the running costs into today’s business.

CALL one of our team to find out how your business can benefit.

Call 01206 251119 ask for Paul

Email paul@pchelp-south.co.uk.

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