BT Infinity for Business - just make sure you bin the router

We have had hells delight this week with a BT infinity customer install. BT installed the new modem and PPPOE router on Thursday. The router looks like a domestic 2wire unit, but with a cable connection rather than an adsl modem built in. It has BT Business Hub written on the box but that's about the only 'business' thing about it.
The BT engineer got me to demonstrate that the internet was working (using my laptop because he didn't have one) and then left. No matter that it was on the wrong subnet for the rest of the network.
I then configured it so that it would co-exist with the server and all other devices and tested the connection again. At this point you realise how dire the 2wire router is. It's possible to set up custom services and port forwarding, but you do so through an interface that is so poorly designed, it takes far longer than it should.
When finished it suddenly becomes clear that there's no option to back up the settings that you've just put in - none whatsoever.


Unfortunately a day later the infinity line went down and BT helpfully demanded a hardware reset on the router - wiping out the settings completely. This wasn't the fault and they weren't interested once the modem was connected again. The router and port forwards had to be configured all over again.


So, if you're installing BT Infinity for Business then please factor in the cost of a proper PPPOE router in to your costings, because the one BT provide really ought to go straight in the bin.

CES 2012

By the time you read this, the Las Vegas gadget fest that is CES 2012 will probably have been and gone. Microsoft, who have been keynote speakers at the show for the last 15 years, have announced that this may be their last show. Competitors Apple are not there this year, because they’re not there any year, preferring it seems to hold their own launch events.

If we’d followed last year’s show trends slavishly, then we’d all be using a (non-Apple) tablet and have 3D TV. Instead of books, we’d use an e-reader and quite possibly not the Kindle but one of the many ebook alternatives.

In the tablet world nothing has so far touched the iPad. At the 2011 show there were more than 100 alternative tablets displayed but of the ones that made it in to production, none has become a household name. In fact the word ‘tablet’ seems only to exist in the techysphere – iPad’s don’t get called tablets – it’s an iPad, obviously.

I was rolling my eyes at 3DTV in 2009, when half the stands at the Gadget Show seemed to be pushing it. In 2011 CES was full of it again and I still don’t understand it. Yes, Avatar probably looks fantastic in 3D but I can’t imagine it’s going to add much to Time Team. Besides, I already wear complicated glasses in order to see the screen – why would I want to wear two pairs.

So what’s new at this year’s show? Well nothing from Apple as they won’t be there. Microsoft will be talking about Windows 8 no doubt, but since it’s almost certainly not going to launch until the autumn it’s a little early. There are likely to be Windows phones on display, especially with Nokia’s conversion, but there are many commentators that believe this battle is already lost to Apple and Android.

One sector that has grown and will be on display is the new PC format, the ultrabook. There have been attempts to define ultrabooks as a new concept, much as Netbooks were defined a couple of years ago. But ultrabooks are essentially a really high-end laptop that’s been conceived to compete with the Macbook Air. Attractive though the Air undoubtedly is, there are real obstacles to adopting a Mac in a largely PC based organisation. Without an alternative, IT departments have been forced to shoe-horn Macs in to their corporate environments. Now, with high-end and very thin alternatives from Sony, Samsung and many others it’s possible to have the Macbook Air look but with a Windows operating system – and CES is likely to be full of them this year.

Finally, a technology that I’ve spoken about before is the Smart TV. The internet connected TV will offer the ability to browse and interact with on-demand services. It’s a natural progression from services such as iPlayer, LoveFilm etc and it’s no surprise that this year will see the technology incorporated in to a lot of new TVs. There is speculation that Google will use 2012 to enter the market with their own Google TV. Apple, indeed, may also launch their own service – but not at CES, because they won’t be there.

Thirty years of mobile computing

With the launch this week of the new Kindle tablet as a potential rival to Apple’s iPad II, it’s worth reflecting
that portable computing has travelled some distance in the last thirty years. In April 1981 the Osborne 1 personal (and portable) computer boasted a 5” screen. Unfortunately, this was surrounded by a couple of feet
of chassis, although Byte magazine’s reviewer at the time was “..impressed by it’s compactness; it will fit under an airplane seat.”.

The unit came with twin floppy drives, no doubt partly dictating the dimensions of the design. It had no
internal hard disk storage.

A year later and a new company, Compaq Computer Corporation, was founded. Their first product was allegedly sketched out on a placemat in a Houston Pie shop and would become the first portable PC.

Later that year, from a company that we now associate with printers, the Epson HX-20 was launched. It only had a 4 line display, but being no larger than an A4 sheet of paper and capable of running on batteries it is widely regarded as the first commercial laptop or handheld computer.

Much as we are seeing a race to market of tablet machines today, 1983 saw the development and launch of a
number of portable computers, from Tandy, Commodore and others.

A large US Air Force contract in 1987 led to a rush to develop new laptops. Zenith Data Systems eventually won the order and supplied over 200,000 units, but the tendering process had brought hardware from IBM, Toshiba and NEC to the market.

The first battery powered portable Mac appeared in 1989, with the rather obviously titled ‘Macintosh
Portable’. It was almost 4” thick and with it’s lead-acid batteries, almost 16 pounds in weight. The unit was
really a ’luggable’ rather than a portable, but it was soon followed by the first Apple Powerbook (1991) which was the first unit to have a palm rest and a trackball.

From there on the development of the laptop progressed with faster processors, the change to colour screens
and improved batteries. Wifi, generally regarded as an essential component to laptop use, didn’t appear until
August 1999. The term Wi-Fi was suggested by a marketing firm called Interbrand Corporation that had been hired to come up with a name that was "a little catchier than 'IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence'".

Whilst the 90’s saw the laptop market mature, the benefit of hindsight lets us spot the development of the tablet market during this time. In 1993 Apple launched the much ridiculed Newton. A stylus controlled PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) that never really succeeded and was dropped five years later. In 1998 Fujitsu brought out the first colour touchscreen and in 2001 the Compaq Tablet PC helped popularise the
term ‘tablet’.

Many of the tablet machines that were produced in the years following the Compaq launch used a rotating/folding screen and a stylus. This allowed the unit to be used as a standard laptop when a proper keyboard was needed, but also as a stylus driven tablet with the screen facing outwards. With the current interest in tablets we’re starting to see the need for a proper keyboard repeated and devices such as Acer’s Transformer with it’s detachable keyboard play to this old requirement. What sort of portable devices will dominate in the coming few years is still unclear, but portable computing is nothing new and a great deal of change has happened already.

Kindle 3

There are many devices that have multiple functions now. It’s perhaps inevitable as manufacturers try to differentiate mature and similar products. My digital radio offers to play MP3 and my toaster wants to warm croissants, but all too often these enhancements detract from the original or core function of the machine.

As of Friday I am the proud owner of a 3^rd generation Kindle, the e-book reader from Amazon. Quietly proud perhaps, in a slightly embarrassed way because I like books and though I’m quite a long way from an avid reader, I do understand the appeal of real books – especially old books in an old book shop.

But the Amazon device is appealing too. If I am wary of the idea, then I do like the execution. I had heard quite a lot about how ‘readable’ the device was and I had already downloaded the kindle app to my HTC phone though this is little more than a gimmick because the screen is so small.

In your hand the kindle is about the size of your average paperback, but is very thin (.34”) and it’s about the same weight as a 300 page book too. The screen size is 6” across but it’s not like a laptop or tablet screen. For a start it’s monochrome and it’s not backlit – so you can’t read a kindle in the dark. It’s an LCD display, giving you the curious effect of leaving an image on the screen when the unit is switched off.

There are two main versions to choose from; the wifi only or the wifi and 3G unit. You need to have some way of downloading the books to the unit. If you have a wireless network available, either at home or work, then the wifi unit is probably all you need. The 3G version allows you download content through mobile networks around the world but costs around £40 more.

Since you only use the wifi when downloading to the unit, I suggest you switch it off when you’re not using it. This will give you a battery life of a month – yes, it seems incredible when a mobile phone can run out of juice in less than a day. Charging is completed though a power or usb connection.

So what can you use it for? What the Kindle does best is allow you to read books which have been downloaded from Amazon’s extensive library of over half a million titles. You can read webpages on it, but it’s not very good at that and it won’t give you colour or videos. You can read PDFs and RSS feeds using services such as Kindlefeeder and this works ok if not well, but essentially it’s an ebook reader and that it does very well indeed.

It’s not a replacement for a book it just another way of reading a book. The technology takes some getting used to, but I’m now in to the second chapter of a proper book (downloaded from Amazon’s free selection) and I’m starting to forget how I’m reading and get involved in the book itself.

Taking the tablets

There is one development this year which will dominate computer use for the foreseeable future and that’s the rise of the tablet. I don’t own an iPad and neither did I feel any strong urge to rush out and buy one. But I have played with one several times and I can see the appeal – they are very playable-with.

I don’t have time now to get bogged down in my views of the iPad as a device or, god forbid, Apple as a company, but the format will – I suggest – be big. The iPhone introduced us to touch screens and Microsoft had to respond by trying to bring touch control in to Windows 7. Now all smartphones worth their salt use capacitive touch screens.

Once you use a touch screen for control it’s only a small leap to lose the keyboard. Without the keyboard you lose the laptop’s clamshell design and the device can be a variety of sizes. Apple are brilliant at marketing and design and have brought the iPad in at a price that makes it very difficult for other companies to compete – but that won’t stop them trying. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is too expensive – but technically it’s a good match for the Apple and the smaller screen size (it’s 7” instead of 10”) has some advantages.

We will get more tablet offerings this year from just about every major laptop manufacturer and quite a few phone manufacturers too. The launch of the iPad 2 recently does look a little like a spoiling tactic by Apple and it really is all about tactics. By getting the iPad2 out before the major Android rivals (announced but not yet launched) and by including a performance increase and cameras they have removed any edge the Android tablets might have had, which is why Steve Jobs was so bullish in his recent launch presentation.

So should you dive in now and get an iPad2 ?

You should consider whether you want to wait for the iPad 3. This is could launch as early as this autumn – perhaps with a significant technology change to the screen.  Also, these are interesting times – with Android Honeycomb devices hitting the streets in the coming months you’ll have a chance to compare a whole range of new devices against the Apple hardware.

If you haven’t bought one already then you’re not the sort of person who gets hypnotised by the Apple marketing machine or you do, but you don’t have a spare £350 lying around. The new iPad has cameras but still doesn’t have a USB port. You need another computer to use it and you have to buy applications through iTunes – that is, everything that Apple will allow.

Tablets will be a huge part of everyday life. Much as I’d like to play with one, I have no need for one yet. This isn’t because I’m surrounded by tech, but because I’ve not been convinced what they’re for.

Once you know what you’re going to use it for, you’ll know which hardware to use.

Websites and Blogs

Getting a website for your business is on that essential list that includes business cards, letterheads and brochures and it’s now quite rare to discover an enterprise that doesn’t have one.

But having a website written is almost always expensive and can be ultimately disappointing, as a new proprietor often underestimates the amount of work (and therefore cost) behind the corporate websites that we use every day.

Faced with this cost, many owners will decide to create their own site. But web design, like any design, is a skill and a predominantly artistic one at that. If you have an aptitude with graphics and are technically able to translate your ideas on screen then you’re fortunate. If not, then the danger is that you’ll create a site that looks amateurish and will create a bad impression as a result.

So the third way is to use an online website creation tool. Your first port of call should be your domain hosting company. If you don’t have a domain name registered then you’ll need to do this and large providers such as 1and1 (www.1and1.co.uk) and 123reg (www.123reg.co.uk) both offer good and straightforward web design tools that don’t need any technical or graphical skill.

If you don’t have the option of a tool provided with your host, then you can still get a free site. Services such as Wix (www.wix.com) create highly graphical brochure sites and look very impressive, especially if you can add a selection of your own photographs.  You are limited to a few pages, but the effect is much better than most beginners could create from scratch.

The other problem with websites for small businesses is the knotty problem of updates.  It’s essential that the website has up-to-date information and ideally has specific product or service info rather than just generalisations.  That means that you’ll need to make changes to the website or request changes from whoever has written it for you, whenever your products or prices change.

In addition, it’s nice to get more up-to-date information online, such as case studies, testimonials and special offers. Once customers learn that your site changes on a regular basis, they’ll return to find out what’s new and these updates need to happen regularly – every month would be good – even every week if you have something to say.

But changing a website every week is a bit of an undertaking – we certainly don’t make changes more than monthly. For a more immediate interaction with customers we use a Blog. Blog sites are generally simpler than a website, typically presenting as a single page with perhaps a margin showing contact info and previous blog entries. This allows you to type a page or less about something of immediate interest to your visitors – how you’ve handled a particular customer problem perhaps or details of the latest technology in your field. It feels much more like a conversation and it’s no more difficult to do than writing an email.

Blog sites are generally free and are easy to set up. Visit ours at soundbyteresponse.blogspot.com for example. You can link to your blog from your website or perhaps it could even be your website – showing potential customers how you’re already helping others just like them.

What's in a name

A few years ago there was a Microsoft advert where a young entrepreneur is shown running a business from a sparsely furnished office, to the obvious amazement of his newly employed assistant. He manages to present his organisation as much larger than it is with the help of a Windows PC and the latest Office suite of programs.

Obviously it’s an advert and there are lots of elements (and not a few dangers) in making your organisation look larger than it actually is. All small businesses want to present a professional image, but need to do that whilst controlling costs. It still amazes me, however, to see businesses using clearly un-businesslike email addresses.

It’s fine to use a hotmail, btinternet or AOL address for your home email. After all, these are not organisations that are likely to disappear overnight. But there’s nothing that screams one-man-band quite as loudly as a free email address.

Fortunately this is not one of those cost conscious decisions. If you accept for a moment that acmediggers@hotmail.com  is not as good an address as john@acmediggers.co.uk then I’m going to point out a few more benefits.

By using a ‘proper’ address, you inform the customer of your website address. Even if you only have the one computer, you may have other staff that interact with your customers and they can have their own addresses. You can also add addresses for departments – ok, at the moment you may not exactly have a customer service team, but is service@acmediggers.co.uk such a daft idea?

If you’re still with me then let’s look at costs. The bit of an email address after the @ sign is called a domain name. All domain names are unique to the company that owns them, so if you’ve just launched a business called Bob’s Building Contracts then you’ll be disappointed to hear that bbc.co.uk has already been taken. I’ve known businesses choose their trading name based upon the availability of a domain name.

A .co.uk domain name with hosting will cost you from about £2.50 per month. Hosting gives you the name (such as bobsbuilding.co.uk), some web space (for your website) and storage for your email (usually 5-20 mailboxes to start with). That’s £30 a year for goodness sake. If that’s too steep, then just buy the domain name and have you email and web traffic forwarded to your current email provider. That’ll cost you about £3 per year.

Also when you choose your domain name, choose wisely. This is a big a deal. You can’t have extra dots and you can’t have spaces and domain names are not case-sensitive. I suggest you read your proposed email address out loud and see how it sounds. The process of choosing a name can be soul destroying as you find that your 1^st, 2^nd, etc choice is already in use. Don’t let this divert you in to strange spellings or punctuation – read bobs-building-contracts.co.uk out loud and you can see that it would be better without the hyphens. Domain names can be long – especially if shortening them loses the meaning (bobsbcs.co.uk).

Having a domain name for your business is essential. Changing email address is inevitable, but you can run both addresses alongside each other so it needed be painful. It’s not just about being presentable – it’s also aspiration for your business as it grows.