Ever needed to buy a HDMI cable for your Blu-Ray player, games console or set-top box and not known whether to buy the premium, “gold-plated” HDMI cable or it’s much cheaper equivalent?

The answer should always be the cheaper one- A) because you like to be careful with your pennies and B) because all HDMI cables are the same.

In short, the data sent from your HD device to your TV is just a series of 1s and 0s, so the picture that comes out at the end is either exactly what it’s supposed to be or not there at all- meaning that your need to buy a new HDMI cable because the one you’re currently using is faulty or damaged.

In this article from CNET, Geoffrey Morrison explains, in more detail than I can, the science behind why it doesn’t matter which HDMI cable you buy, because they all perform the same function of transmitting data to your HD television the exact same way.

So, don’t be too easily convinced into thinking that you need to buy an expensive HDMI cable. £5 or £50, it’s the same cable and will do the job as well as any other. Besides, cheaper is always better.

Join members of Edward’s Trust Honourable 100 & Top 250 Business Clubs at their fantastic FREE expo and networking event in the heart of Birmingham City Centre.

Order tickets via Eventbrite at http://edwardstrustexpo.eventbrite.co.uk

Venue: Oceana, The Ice Room, Hurst Street, Birmingham, B5 4AS

Date: Tuesday 7th February 2012

Time: 4.30pm – 7.00pm

Edward’s Trust is a local charity supporting children and families during serious illness and bereavement.  JamesCash.co.uk is a supporter of the charity; as member of The Honourable Hundred and by providing IT support without charge.

Our technicians here at JamesCash.co.uk have had our fair share of assisting our clients with setting up their iPhone, BlackBerry or other assorted Android handset with access to company email, contacts and calendars, all of which vary in terms of how easy it is to set up and how functional it is once configured.

My opinion is that out of them all, the iPhone is by far the best choice if you are deciding on a company phone with the easiest and most functional business connectivity.

But Why?

My colleagues and I configure and support the enterprise connectivity of smartphones for our clients, so we have varying of experiences of how this works depending on what device the user has.

My least favourite smartphone to configure is the BlackBerry

If all you want is email, it isn’t too bad. Using BlackBerry Internet Services (BIS), you can set up your BlackBerry so a copy of all your mail is sent to your BlackBerry device.

The typical way we set this up is to go to a web address, enter the device’s PIN and IMEI, and then enter a few settings on a page a click “Next” a couple of times until it is complete. Most users can do this, but they have to know the right details to enter (for a guide on how to do this, click here).

However, that only gets you email.

If you want to be able to sync your calendars and contacts too, your organisation must have BlackBerry Enterprise Server in place. This an application installed on a server which interfaces with your email server. Depending on the version of BES you want to use the and number of users you have, you can either install it on your existing mail server, or you may need to install it on a dedicated server of its own.

This is because BlackBerrys have no built-in Microsoft Exchange connectivity- they are not capable of connecting directly to your company mail server (which iPhones and Android phones are).

So, additional work required just to be able to use your BlackBerry for work purposes. There is a potential for server down time, the Enterprise Activation process to connect the phones to the server isn’t the easiest for non-technical users to do (and harder troubleshoot when it goes wrong) and overall the overheads in your IT support’s time and your business’s costs can be considerable.

Android devices are a lot easier

Because Android devices have built-in Exchange options, they can be connected easily to your company mail server just by going through an email setup page on your  device.

The problem with Android, however, is that because it is open source, phone developers can customize the layout- so some of the menus may look subtly or entirely different. In case therefore be awkward to give a user a set of standard steps for Android as a whole- it may vary depending on which Android phone you have.

For a guide on how to set this up on your Android, click here.

iPhones are even easier, though

So long as your company already has remote email set up (which is required for all of the above), your iPhone is very easy to connect.

All iPhones have the same simple, easy-to-navigate menu screen, and once configured your company email, contacts and calendars integrates seamlessly into the iPhone’s screens. It’s quick and easy, and just works.

Plus, many people already have iPhones, and have already experienced using them outside of work. Therefore it will simply be a natural extension of their current iPhone experience to have company email, contacts and calendars on it too.

All of the above phones are great to have for both home and business use, but from a business IT support point of view, the iPhone is the best. If you want your company users to have the easiest possible access to company email, contacts and calendars, then I recommend that you look into getting some iPhones.

For a guide on how to set this up on your iPhone, click here.

 When it comes to computer systems, we’re hearing “the cloud” and “cloud computing” mentioned more and more. But what is it?

Wikipedia says:

“Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network (typically the Internet).”

By that definition, then, there has been such service delivered via the Internet in different ways for quite some time- it’s just that, back then, no one had thought to call the Internet “the cloud”, or the technology “cloud computing”.

Take cloud storage- online storage for your files- for example. Services such as Dropbox (released in September 2008) and Windows Live SkyDrive (released in 2007) have been offering this functionality for a few years now, but I feel as though it has been much more recently- maybe in the past two years or so- that “cloud” has been coined as a phrase for this technology.

So, if you’ve been using online storage, you’ve been using the cloud. If you’ve ever emailed yourself a document or file so that you can either download it later or have a back up of it, this is also a crude form of cloud storage. Many people upload photos to Facebook, or to websites such as Photobucket or Picasa, as a way to back up and share them- this is yet another instance of utilising the cloud.

Company email is also available as a cloud service. Instead of having a dedicated server which processes and stores your emails, Hosted Exchange is a service available through different providers (including JamesCash.co.uk), whereby your Exchange server is hosted for you in a datacentre away from your office. Because you will be accessing your email as a metered service over the Internet, rather than having a direct link to a dedicated metal box in your office, this is another form of cloud utilisation.

As a concept, Hosted Exchange is not that hard to imagine. If you’ve ever used webmail such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail, then you have an idea of what Hosted Exchange is like; your emails are stored for you by a service provider and are accessible to you over the Internet. Hosted Exchange is simply intended for corporate/business use and is therefore much more powerful, scalable and comes at a cost.

So, while it seems it has become something of a buzz word or trendy phrase to use recently, I don’t actually think that cloud computing is the big new idea within the technology sphere that people make it out to be. This is by no means meant to discredit it, however.

If you’ve used the Internet in the past fifteen years or so, you’ve probably already used something similar before. It is, however, going to be on a much larger scale than we’ve ever seen before. 

Instant messaging has been commonplace for a while now, with people using instant messaging clients such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and MSN/Windows Live Messenger to chat in real-time to friends, family and business contacts. For the past couple of months the team at JamesCash.co.uk have been trying out Microsoft Lync.

Released in January of this year, Lync is an instant messaging client for enterprise use, and was formerly known as Microsoft Office Communicator. Lync is included in Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. The premise is to provide enterprise-level communication and collaboration through text, voice, video and screen-sharing via the Internet.

As of this month a Lync app is available for iOS devices (i.e. iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch), as well as for Android and Windows Phone 7.

As well as allowing you to chat and share files in real-time, it also allows VOIP and video conferencing, shows you the availability of your contacts according to their Outlook calendars and can even connect with Office to show you if another user is working on the same file.

It also includes advanced collaboration functionality, allowing you to share your screen with a contact and work on a document or project simultaneously.

The instant messaging client communicates through a Microsoft Lync Server, to provide better security and easier centralised management for your IT administrators.

So, if you want to use Lync you’re going to need a Lync server- either installed on a physical server in your office or a cloud-based Lync server- however, this should be something that your IT administrators can sort out for you.

You then of course need to install the Lync messaging client on each PC- the PCs must be Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Again, your IT guys should be able to help you out with this.

Personally, I say so far so good. It seems cleaner and neater than Windows Live Messenger and does away with any unnecessary clutter. It is handy to be able to open Lync, take a look to see who’s online and open up a conversation with one of the JamesCash team if I need to ask a question, send a file or share something I’m currently viewing or working on with them.

If you think you could benefit from using Microsoft Lync in your workplace, then let us know and we’ll see what we can do for you.

So we’ve shown you how to set up company e-mail on an iPhone and an Android phone, but don’t worry, we’re not going to neglect the BlackBerry- today’s blog will show you how set up company e-mails on that, too.

There are a couple of methods to choose from, but our preferred method- the one we reckon is easiest- is by using BIS.

What is BIS?

BIS stands for BlackBerry Internet Service. Depending on your service provider (e.g. Orange, Vodafone or O2), there will be a webpage you can browse to which will allow you to set up and configure your e-mails to be forwarded to your BlackBerry smartphone.

It is fairly straightforward- once you have entered your PIN and IMEI to create the account, all you need to do is enter a few simple settings and you will then be able to receive e-mails to your BlackBerry.

The only downside to BIS is that it does not give you access to your contacts or calendars- it is strictly for e-mail only. For additional functionality such as contacts or calendars you will need to have your BlackBerry configured via a company BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server).

How To Set Up E-mails in BIS

1) First of all you will need to go to your phone provider’s BIS webpage. For demonstration purposes we shall use Orange’s.

For Orange: http://www.blackberry.orange.co.uk/

For O2: https://bis.eu.blackberry.com/

For Vodafone: www.mobileemail.vodafone.net

For  T-Mobile: http://www.instantemail.t-mobile.co.uk/

For 3: http://3uk.blackberry.com/

2) Assuming you’ve never used BIS before, you will need to create a new account. Simply click on Create New Account , accept the Terms & Conditions and then put in your BlackBerry’s PIN and IMEI number and click continue. You will then have to specify a username and password for your BIS account.

3) Once you have created your account or you have already got a BIS account, browse to the BIS webpage, enter your BIS username and password and click Log In in order to proceed to the configuration page.

4) Once logged in, you will see the Email Accounts heading. Under Email Accounts click Set Up Another Email Account.

5) Make sure Add an existing email account (e.g. Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft Exchange) is selected. Then, put in your company e-mail address and password and click Next.

6) The page will return with a red error message saying the email address or password is incorrect or that you need to provide more details. Here you need to click either Next or Provide additional settings so that you can proceed to a page where you can enter your company’s e-mail server details.

7) On the Provide Additional Settings page, you will need to select Microsoft Exchange (using Microsoft Outlook Web Access) and then enter the following information:

Email address: your company email address

Email password: your company password

Web Access URL: this will be the web address of your company’s remote e-mail page (Outlook Web Access, something like https://remote.yourcompany.co.uk/exchange). If you are unsure of this, you will need to check with your IT support.

User name: the user name you would usually use to log into your company computer

Mailbox name:  usually the same as your user name

Following this, click Next.

Once it has finished validating your account, you should have successfully configured your BlackBerry to receive company e-mail.

If you require any more information on mobile e-mail/Exchange synchronization, give us a call and we’ll see what we can do for you.

On 28th November 2011, MiniMissMel asked on Twitter:

“Does anyone know if its possible to change the labels in #Microsoft #Outlook for the calendar? Change the colours to mean different things?”

In Outlook 2010, you can do this by following these steps:

1. Create a new appointment (or open an existing one) in the Outlook calendar
2. Click the “Categorize” button (shown in the graphic above)
3. Choose from one of the existing categories or click “All Categories” to edit/create one of your own

Cloud computing services are now becoming more prominent in business IT, and hosted exchange is one of those services- a service that we are now providing to our clients.

What is hosted exchange?

Hosted exchange is basically an e-mail platform provided to clients as a service rather than running on a physical, office-based server. Your e-mail storage is provisioned on an online storage space, and client computers will connect to that online storage to retrieve their e-mails over the internet.

It is in some ways similar to free webmail services such as Windows Live Hotmail and Gmail in that it is all stored “in the cloud” (i.e. on an external server), but is intended for use within businesses to provide a fully secure, scalable and customizable e-mail solution.

What are the benefits?

First of all, having your e-mail stored on an external server means that it does not require a physical metal server located at your offices in order to operate- these e-mail servers are instead located within a datacentre belonging to an external provider.

This will reduce costs of implementation when it comes to setting it up, as you will not have to purchase your own server or software, and it also helps to consolidate your physical assets and save you space.

Having your e-mail stored within a datacentre offsite also means that it is safe from any sort of catastrophic failure or disaster which would corrupt, delete or destroy the data (such as your server failing or physical damage caused by fires or flooding).

Your data will be backed up regularly, and having it stored on a server which belongs to a datacentre gives your e-mail a level of redundancy. It will also be proactively monitored and maintained by IT specialists behind-the-scenes, so you don’t have to worry about it yourself.

Interested?

Give us a call, or drop us an e-mail, and we’ll see how hosted exchange will suit your business needs.

It is can be important to make sure your e-mails are well presented, and contain company-relevant information and logos as required.

In today’s Outlook 101, we’re going to look at how to create an e-mail signature in Outlook 2010.

1. Open up Outlook. Then, click File, then Options.

2. Within the Outlook Options window, select the Mail tab, then in the main pane click Signatures.

3. To create a new signature, click New and give it a name. Then select the signature (e.g. named “New1” in our example), so that you are given a blank box under Edit Signature in which to start putting it together.

4. From here it’s very much like editing an e-mail, as it enables you to change the font, the text alignment and insert pictures and hyperlinks. If you know that there is already a signature you would like to use- saved in a Word document or in an e-mail sent from one of your colleagues, for instance, you can copy and paste the contents into the editing box.

5. When you’re happy with your new signature, click Save.

6. Once you have created your signature, you will want to make sure that you set it as your default for new messages and/or replies/forwards by using the dropdown menus under Choose default signature. You can of course create more than one signature and use different ones depending on whether you are replying or created a new message.

7. Once you are happy with your signature settings then click OK to confirm them and you are done.

Keep checking back for more handy hints and tips for Microsoft Office and other applications, here at JamesCash.co.uk.

Windows 7 has been out for a while now, but as stability is critical to businesses, many are still using good old Windows XP- and perhaps there are some still using Windows Vista.

However, switching to 7 really isn’t all that bad- in fact, you may even find it beneficial to your business if you do switch.

End of support

Perhaps one of the biggest considerations is support. As Windows 7 is the “current” Windows operating system, it will have maximum support available to its users. While they will continue to receive software updates for a few more years yet, mainstream support for Windows XP (that is, receiving hands-on technical support from Microsoft) ended on 14th April 2009, and Vista’s mainstream support ends on 10th of April 2012.

Furthermore, there will be more software released which is not supported on older operating systems like XP. At the moment  most software still accommodates for it, but this is something we can expect to change in the next few years.

It’s what Vista should have been

Windows Vista was released in January 2007, and was soon met with criticism for it’s bugs and mediocre performance. Microsoft would soon move to rectify this by releasing Windows 7 only two years later- a clear indication that Vista had not lived up to anyone’s- even Microsoft’s- expectations as the next big operating system.

Vista contained some annoying bugs, and the way it handled resources was poor. Some vendors sold Windows PCs with a sticker on which claimed they were “Designed for Windows XP / Windows Vista Capable”- and while they would have run fine on XP, they contained only 512MB to 1GB of RAM and were not really up to the task of running the somewhat bloated Windows Vista. Most of that memory was spent simply running the kernel and it’s shiny new user interface, before even actually opening any programs. Needless to say, many who upgraded to it would later regret it.

By comparison, a lot of these glitches and performance quirks were hammered out in Windows 7, and while it has slightly higher system requirements than XP it still works well on a wider range of hardware than it’s beleaguered predecessor.

Finding and installing hardware drivers is much easier

One thing I personally love about Windows 7 is the wide array of drivers available to you whenever you plug in a new device. Plug & Play seems to be a lot easier in 7, as with a larger catalogue of drivers it is usually able to download a driver for your printer, scanner, camera or smartphone with little trouble. It also makes things easier for us techies when it comes to installing components such as dedicated graphics cards or network cards.

By comparison, XP has lost a step or two with age, and quite often you will either have to use an installation disk that came with the device, or a driver from the manufacturer’s website. It is of course entirely possible that a recently-released device will not even have a driver available for older operating systems.

Click here to check out our blog which lists 7 Ways to Get the Most Out of Windows 7.

If you’re thinking of switching your business PCs over to Windows 7, then get in touch and we’ll see what we can do to help.