Switch Systems Blog

Friday, December 21. 2007

Switch Systems office hours:
Christmas Eve: Closed
Christmas Day: Closed
Boxing Day: Closed
Dec 27th: Closed
Dec 28th: Open as Usual
-- weekend --
Dec 31st: Closed in Afternoon
Jan 1st: Closed
Jan 2nd: Open as Usual

Phones will be re-directed during closure days to a 24 hour engineer, so you will always be able to get through for urgent enquiries!

Wishing you all the best for the holiday period!

Kris & Ruairi

Posted by Kris Sum at 09:43 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Vote for articles fresher than 14 days!

Current karma: -5, 16 vote(s) 287 hits

Monday, December 17. 2007

I am now an Associate Member of the Free Software Foundation

Without even realising, you and the companies you work for are benefitting directly from free software. Free software is often misunderstood, as it is more than just receiving software without monetary cost.

Free software, by definition is software that grants you rights to modify and redistribute the software as long as you publish your modifications in kind. This method of distribution is behind the majority of infrastructure that powers the entire internet, and can be found in anything from Set Top boxes used to record television programs, to your wireless router at home sharing your internet bandwidth.

The Free Software Foundation works on protecting these freedoms granted to software developers. Often there are legal issues that entangle free software developers, ranging from Intellectual Property claims (often predatory and false!) and also targetting legal proceedings at people who try to modify free software without releasing their changes. They also sponsor some key projects, and provide online information on free software practices and also advise on predatory software practises like consumer-hostile digital rights management and anti-competitive measures taken by some proprietary software vendors.

Learn more about free software here, read the Free Software Definition:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Join the Free Software Foundation: https://www.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom/join_fsf?referrer=6008

Posted by Ruairi Fullam in Business at 13:58 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Vote for articles fresher than 14 days!

Current karma: 0, 4 vote(s) 236 hits

Friday, December 14. 2007

Microsoft's CoffeeTalks get off to a good start

Yesterday evening saw the 2nd ever Microsoft "CoffeeTalk", a new informal and intimate event designed at getting closer to us admins who don't have time to travel across the country to go to larger events! Exeter's QueenStreet Starbucks filled up quite nicely, and we got to meet a wide spectrum of industry attendees.

Martin Parry and Viral Tarpara presented on Sharepoint for Developers and Microsoft Sharepoint Search respectively. Despite the limited time we had, a lot of ground was covered and I now know a bit more about all of the tools and programs that are sitting unused in our Microsoft Action Pack folder! Many thanks to Viral and Martin for an information stuffed evening. And the free coffee

I hope Microsoft continue these smaller get-togethers, it's great oppertunity to demo new technologies and to see how other organisations are putting MS software to work. I'd love to see a whole host of topics such as windows server 2008, administering windows vista for business etc.

Viral used the ZoomIt presentation tool aid, something which I will be putting to use in my University presentations soon!

Posted by Kris Sum in Ideas and Thoughts at 13:26 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Vote for articles fresher than 14 days!

Current karma: -1, 3 vote(s) 169 hits

Thursday, December 13. 2007

D-Link Routers get an overdue facelift

Some of you may have had D-Link routers in the past, known for their clunky silver / grey boxes, the aquamarine logo and awful looking administration interfaces. Luckily, they've had a visit from the taste brigade and managed to update all the shortcomings in their market approach. The boxes are now cheaper, smaller, and much better presented. I bought a DIR-100 Ethernet Broadband Router to see what it was about and I'm quite impressed! The new firmware has had its control panel redesigned in an attractive black and green theme, more facilities including Game Mode and QoS (Quality of Service) prioritising. It's much much better and snappier than its existing incarnations. Shipping versions currently have the 1.00 firmware - a 1.01 firmware has been released which addresses issues with Application Rules amongst other minor things. The box itself is a small black and silver number, well presented considering the cost (under £20 from ebuyer). For cable modems, this may potentially be the router to shift me from my favourite, the Netgear 624.

Posted by Ruairi Fullam in Tech at 16:10 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Vote for articles fresher than 14 days!

Current karma: -1, 4 vote(s) 216 hits

Wednesday, December 05. 2007

Midweek News

Grisoft has bought Exploit Prevention Labs and their software "LinkScanner", which checks the safety of websites before allowing access to them. This is going to be part of AVG's internet suite, and will also be bundled with AVG's Free Edition

I only just noticed,but the Hospital Records podcast is back to full strength, with two new releases (#46 and #47) from the Coleman himself.

I finally got Lego Star Wars for the Wii (I had to get Game to refund my pre-order, and then I purchased the game from GameStation in town) - the Wii controls don't add anything to the game, as all they do is replicate button presses! It looks pretty much the same as other games, there is a bit of slowdown in places, but it's a good timewaster.

Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii is excellent. You don't need the gun attachment (i think it would probably make playing the game harder!), two player is great fun, and the graphics are simply gorgeous. Lots of people are slating it, but they don't realise that it was never intended to be anything more than an on-rails shooter.

Posted by Kris Sum in Ideas and Thoughts at 09:19 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Vote for articles fresher than 14 days!

Current karma: 0, 0 vote(s) 166 hits

(Page 1 of 1, totaling 5 entries)

Home:www.switchsystems.co.uk
Portal:portal.switchsystems.co.uk
Blog:blog.switchsystems.co.uk