IT Training & Coaching
How much is your time worth?
We’re going to be bold and suggest that the average business computer user could save at least 30 minutes per day if they went through a relevant, well taught IT education program. Not rocket science stuff, but the basics.
We offer remote IT Coaching by the hour (1 on 1) and classroom IT Training (<6 pax) by half or full day.
Subjects on the Mac or Windows Operating System include:
- Web Tips
- Office Suite Essentials
- File & Email Management
- Troubleshooting 101
- And more…
Prices are smaller business friendly with IT coaching starting at £60/hr, half days from £500 and full days £700 (Max 6 people per session).
To put it all into context. The average user needs ½ day per subject with an hour or two follow up to get from zero to hero.
Real ROI is hard to prove so we thoroughly understand why smaller companies often forgo IT Training and Coaching but consider, if we *could* save you half an hour per day, a full training program on any subject will pay for itself in less than a month. Not to mention reduce stress, empower the team, streamline efficiencies, deliver world peace and solve third world debt.
How much is that worth?
Other Training Courses We Run:
As we build and maintain IT networks for small business, we also understand how to leverage it to make the magic happen. Here is a teaser video from one of our early training courses about social media management.
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Blog: IT Knowhow
Summer Sale Madness!
June, July and August are typically quiet months for us (Maybe you too?).
So it’s a great time to do IT work while people are away.
Office moves, upgrades and updates, hardware refresh, training etc.
Book in a project (Anything not IT Support) over the summer months and recieve an additional 20% discount.
Call 020 3031 4734 or email eric@theengineroom.co.uk
(NB: August is now pretty much booked but July still has some out of hours slots available.)
IPv4 to IPv6. What you need to know
This article may look a little too geekalicious but it will affect us all very soon so I strongly recommend you have a read and at least get the gist for when you have to take action.
We’re running out of IP addresses. Latest estimates suggest we will run out by the end of this year. Every web device on the planet (Mobile, server, PC, website etc.) has an IP address. I’m sure you’ve heard the term. It’s the physical address of your ‘thing’ on the internet.
For example, www.google.com resolves to 165.165.38.147 which is the physical address of their server I am currently connected to (Note, they have gazillions of servers and therefore gazillions of IP addresses so if you ping them you will get a different IP). Want to know your own IP? Go to www.whatismyip.com
The history
In the early 70’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) http://www.darpa.mil/ created and developed the internet. IP (internet protocol) addresses were established which were allocated to individual unique internet plugins (users). A specific address is allocated which is called an IP (Internet Protocol) address. The original range is referred to as IPv4 (version 4). IPv4 uses a 32 bit address field which provides for 4,294,967,296 unique Internet addresses which I’m sure you’ll agree is a fairly large number. However, in 1992 it became apparent that this number as large as it may be is finite and at some point there would be a ‘drying up’ of available addresses, and therefore connections to the internet. A number of very intelligent people got together and with much chin rubbing and pizza ordering developed a solution to this ever increasing and speedily approaching problem. IPv4 has done a valiant and impressive job and continues to do so. But, whilst staying in the building please exit stage left and make space front and centre for the newly created and highly polished range of IPv6!
IPv6 uses a 128 bit address field quadrupling that of IPv4. So a mere 4,294,967,296 from IPv4 becomes three hundred and forty trillion, trillion, trillion with IPv6. Celebrate, break out the champagne, phew, crisis over, well, almost.
The implementation and adoption of IPv6 has not come about as quickly as originally predicted. This is due to the development of technologies such as NAT (network address translation), routers etc, which allowed for singular unique IPv4 addresses to be split thus spreading further and increasing the longevity of IPv4’s journey toward its inevitable exhaustion. If you work in an office, chances are your router is using NAT.
The introduction of this new ‘unlimited’ range comes with a couple of provisos. The technology that we all have bought and love, will need to keep up with the times. Many expect some disruptions as the IPv6 shift takes place. Web sites could be slow or inaccessible, companies could have a harder time setting up new services, Internet service providers could have a hard time keeping up with subscriber growth, and security will have to adapt to the new technology but do not despair, the internet will not collapse!
What the experts say
“If you have a Web site, you are basically going to have some customers coming on wide gauge and on narrow gauge,” Daigle said. “Narrow gauge is going away.” Read more
Joe Klein, a security researcher with Command Information, says many organizations and home users have IPv6 enabled on their systems by default but don’t know it. They also don’t have protection in place to block malicious traffic, since some intrusion detection systems and firewalls aren’t set up to monitor IPv6 traffic, presenting an appealing vector through which outsiders can attack their networks undetected.
“Essentially, we have systems that are wide open to a network,” says Klein, who is a member of an IPv6 task force and will be speaking about the issue tonight at the HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference in New York. “It’s like having wireless on your network without knowing it.” Original article here.
IPv6 Day is on 6th June 2011 http://isoc.org/wp/worldipv6day/
What Happened to IPv5?
In short, IPv5 never became an official protocol. Many years ago, Internet Stream Protocol (ST) was considered IP version five by industry researchers, but ST was abandoned before ever becoming a standard or widely known as IPv5. Work on ST and IPv5 is not expected to ever restart. Original article here.
However, with the number of hosts on the Internet growing steadily, the larger address space will eventually be critical to further expansion. IPv6 also offers better security with IPsec, a part of the basic protocol suiteWith an entirely different address notation, called CIDR, and addresses written in hexadecimal instead of the familiar four octets of decimal numbers used by IPv4, there will be a learning curve for IT administrators. The time to tune up your IPv6 skills is now, before the transition becomes mandatory.
As a business, what do you have to do?
Don’t set your hair on fire just yet. As the year unfolds we will get a clearer picture of what needs to be done and when. Your IT Support will start getting in touch and simple configuration changes will be made to machines and backend IT kit. However, it is your responsibility to understand the changes and how they could affect your business. The good news is that your system is almost definitely IPv6 compliant already. The inevitability of the transition was best indicated by the fact that from Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 & Mac OS X 10.3 (Several years old now) IPv6 was enabled by default. The bad news is that the new system *may* open us up to new types of attack from hackers and malicious users on the web. We just hope the media doesn’t blow it out of all proportion like the Millennium bug fiasco.
Tech Trends To Watch In 2011…
2011 Tech Predictions:
Incidents of (state sponsored) tech terrorism will rise (as will inflation and interest rates):
Microsoft will continue to flounder everywhere (Sell shares soon!) except with the office staples such as Windows and Office (Office 2010 is rather good). Apple will continue to conquer & niche the covetable product arena (Watch out for the new iPad Spring/Summer 2011):
How Did We Use The Internet In 2010?
- More than 44 million people were online in 2010
- Broadband penetration is 70% of households (I believe in London that’s slightly higher in most boroughs, nearer 80%)
- 95% of people access the internet at work
- 41% at home
- 78% of the population go online every or almost every day
- 18% of the population have never used the internet
- Search and communities are the top website categories
- 90% use the internet to send/receive email
- 45% watch TV or listen to the radio
- 39% look for health related info
- Top 5 sites (by market share of visits) are: Google, Facebook, Windows Live Mail, YouTube, eBay
- 89% of the population has a mobile phone (31% of whom have used it to access the internet)
- 73% of smart phone users access the internet on it at least once a day – mostly for news, weather, social networking, search, sport or music
Their Conclusions Are…
- Most UK internet users are heavy users (See pic)
- Utility and entertainment value are fast replacing novelty as crucial drivers of consumer behaviour
- Video is keeping users online longer, and bringing energy/investment into display advertising
- Mobile is a whole new dimension
- It has never been more important to know your audience
These distilled nuggets are c/o LondonCharlotte
Thank you to eMarketer.
Dan
Google Zeitgeist – What We Searched For In 2010
Google have compiled a video showing how we searched in 2010. It’s very cute. Watch it.
Brought proudly to you by Dan the man