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Quite regularly I come across people who are just starting out in business. Often this is due to dissatisfaction with a corporate career, change in circumstances or location. Many older people who are made redundant or leave their jobs feel they have little job prospects and decide to start a new business. Many are just starting something alongside their existing work hoping it will be enough to let them quit at some point in the future.

Some (not all) talk to an accountant or lawyer and set up the right business structure for their new enterprise. Unfortunately a common mistake many make is to not talk to a trusted advisor about their technology requirements. Too often I am called into help after the investment in retail consumer technology has been made already. Often it is too late to change things, funds have been spent and computers, tablets, printers and phones have been acquired.

The mistakes I have had to fix include:

• Retail consumer level routers that are not able to handle the demands of a small business
• PCs that were purchased with retail licences of the operating system, office productivity software etc.
• Tablets and phones on retail or prepaid phone plans and accounts
• Cheap PCs that were physically not capable of meeting the demands of the office software installed on them
• Hodge podge of retail cloud services, email accounts and domain names (usually no domain name) and no professionally integrated solutions
• Cheap printers that have high consumable costs and cannot handle the demands of a small office
• No understanding of customer data management
• No backup solution (or an untested hope and pray solution) or Business Continuity Plans (BCP)
• and so on

The recent court decision by a jury in a civil patent case in USA awarding $1B of damages to Apple from Samsung is very confusing. What does it mean to consumers? Listen to my discussion with 3CR Breakfast radio presenter Philippe Perez.

What do you think about this? Does it affect you?

Comment, engage us in social media and lets discuss.

Download this MP3 - (Right Click)

Sometimes i need to just dump stuff out of my head. Sometimes my kids just say the funniest random things. Judith went out to my daughter at the clothes line couple of days ago while she was hanging out clothes to get a peg. Jadeen just randomly said “I am a stegosaurus”. That phrase has been bouncing around this house since then amidst lots of laughter.

Our brains are amazingly complex things. Sometimes we just do no appreciate the incredible processing power of simple things like coordinating even our vocal cords, diaphragm, lungs and mouth and tongue just to say a simple word. I was listening to Doctor Karl on Triple J explain how Turrets Syndrome caused people to swear occasionally (its not the most common symptom of Turrets and most people with it don’t do this) and he just reminded me to think about how our brains work.

Last night I dream about alien people and apparently asked out loud for a sword (according to Jude).

Yesterday I was able to run 3 kms with no knee issues – I wish I was back to the running ability I had back in the year 2000. However I’m coming to terms with being 12 years older then I was then and my running is fine as long as I don’t try and run like a 32 year old any more. I did a 5km race a couple of weeks ago and managed a personal best in the last 5 years or so so I am slowly getting it back.

Do you run? if yes where and when, if no – why not? Get into the comments or hit us up on Facebook.

My cycling has improved a lot since I got the new road bike and have been focusing on my hill climbing. My Mountain biking climbing endurance has improved as a result. Unfortunately my Gary Fisher Fat Possum broke in half on my last ride. I am waiting on Trek to honour the lifetime warranty and replace her.

Work has been interesting of late. Since I am no longer employed by IT Integrity and have gone back to being my own boss the pressure on my time has reduced. I am doing far more photography, as that is part of our business and we have had a lot more work in that area. I am doing more of the things I love in IT, web design and Excel work. I am enjoying learning new photography and Photoshop processing techniques. I am really enjoying the sports shooting we do as well.

I bought a new phone. After a disastrous attempt to get an iPhone to work without using iTunes I bought a new Samsung Galaxy IIS and am loving its ease of use, its synchronisation with my Google account and my other android devices, the HTC Desire S and the Motorola Xoom 2 tablet. Its great having all my photos from each device synch seamlessly together with Dropbox, my notes in Evernote all synch across all my devices and it works as a phone out of the box without having to connect it to a computer.

I’ll leave you with a selection of my favourite photos taken recently.

From Jeff Alexanders Tech Net email.

Lots of good how tos and information on the Windows 7 phone how to page also.

Easier sharing, smarter applications and a better web - Mango is here!
Friday, 21 October 2011

Hi there,

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Australian TechNet Flash. This edition is all about Windows Phone and the recently released Windows Phone 7.5 Update that has just come out. First up what’s this update all about?

The good news is Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed Mango, is now available to Windows Phone 7 users in Australia! If you haven’t already been prompted for the update you will very soon. This latest update improves on the existing OS and adds over 500 new features to better connect you with people, applications and the web.

Some of my favourite features released in the mango update include:

• Groups - Organise your employees or work colleagues into a single group to quickly and easily email, text or chat with a whole group at once. You can also pin this group to your Start Screen and you'll be notified with any missed calls, new messages and even social networking updates from the group members.
• Outlook Mobile - Outlook Mobile on Windows Phone now also supports tasks and conversation view to offer an enhanced email experience on the go.
• People Hub - The addition of Twitter and LinkedIn to the people hub so you can now get your feeds from all your favourite social media sites.
• SharePoint Workspace Mobile - Makes it easier to collaborate with your coworkers when you're away from the office.
• Internet Explorer 9 - Harnessing the power of your phone's hardware for faster, smoother web browsing.
• My Windows Phone – Check out the new revamped My Windows Phone site and manage your phone on the web, find a lost phone or even reinstall all your applications easily!

These are just some of our favourite features, to learn more about the mango release as well as how to get it click here.

Now on to a personal story regarding this update. I got a chance to use the newly revamped My Windows Phone site and in particular the Find my Phone feature. My wife recently left her Windows Phone in a restaurant after a night out with some friends. Of course she was worried her phone was gone. Well the next morning I logged into the My Windows Phone site with her Windows Live ID. I got a screenshot like the one right.

The above is just an example but what it shows is the GPS built into my wife’s phone showed me where it was which turned out to be the place where she left it. At this point I had 3 options. I could Ring the phone, Erase it or Lock it. I decided to lock it and put a security PIN on it with a message to ring our home number.

Well we went back to the restaurant the next day when they opened and there was the phone locked with the message I put in along with a sad smiley face! A great result. If I did decide to erase the phone, reinstalling apps is much easier with Mango using the App Purchase History which is now part of managing your phone on the web.

Have a good one folks and see you next time!

Jeff Alexander
IT Pro Evangelist
Microsoft Australia
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