On 24 August 2020 Windows 95 celebrated its 25th Birthday. We often think about the evolution of the PC in terms of hardware. Spare a moment for the software. Many of the things we take for granted today – such as the Start menu or not having to reboot your PC every single time you wanted to play a game – started with Windows 95. Happy Birthday Windows 95!
Windows 95 was not the best operating system Microsoft ever released. Many people would apply that designation to Windows XP. However, it was certainly one of the most important iterations. In addition to introducing the Start menu, Windows 95 also made things easier by supporting long file names. Up to 250 characters, versus 11 characters previously. It also implemented plug and play functionality before fetching custom-tuned drivers from the manufacturer.
It was also the first Microsoft OS to really encourage gaming directly from within the operating system as opposed to going through DOS. There was a whole lot of resistance to it at the time, partly because it often made games run worse as the OS still stole some of your precious memory and CPU cycles, but also because it was a buggy mess at the start.
Windows 95 is twenty today. It’s hard to imagine it now, but the launch was greeted with the sort of hype that only Apple generates today. (Image credit: Microsoft)
Look where we are now
One of the greatest things about PC gaming is the sheer amount of hardware options to choose from. This is why plug and play was, and still is, such an important feature. It allows your PC to detect a peripheral or gadget and offer at least some basic functionality.
Other innovations included the task bar and recycle bin, both introduced with Windows 95, and later the addition of DirectX to the mix. According to Microsoft, Windows 95 sold 7 million copies during its first five weeks. That was quite a bit for the era it debuted in.
The launch event was a spectacle, which undoubtedly helped move some copies. Former late-night television host Jay Leno introduced Bill Gates at the Windows 95 launch event. Microsoft also paid The Rolling Stones $3 million to use its “Start Me Up” as the soundtrack for the festivities and subsequent ad campaign. And of course Steve Ballmer was bouncing up and down on stage and throwing fist pumps.
If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can kick the tires on Windows 95, right inside Windows 10, using an app uploaded to GitHub by Slack developer Felix Rieseberg. It’s a little less than a 300MB download.
Are you up to date?
Funnily enough LIS are also 25 years old this year. So, happy birthday Windows 95 and LIS. We have been around and seen it all. From the launch of Windows 95 through to Windows 10. We even helped clients resolve issues with Windows 8 and ME (we won’t talk about these versions 🙂 ).
Are your systems running slow? Do you have out dated hardware? What office package are you using? If your software is out of date, then you have security risks? Contact the LIS Help Desk to discuss your options.
Local authorities invest in networking and contact centre technology through IT outsourcing contracts. Helping local councils get connected.
Councils get connected and help the wider community
Cheshire East Council is working with technology service provider Capita to build a wide area network (WAN) to connect more than 500 public services sites. An article published yesterday by Computer Weekly explains all.
Councils to connect hundreds of its sites through wide area network.
Why set up a WAN?
A wide area network (WAN) is a data network, usually used for connecting computers, that spans a wide geographical area. WANs are used to connect offices, towns, counties and help councils get connected. WANs are often used by larger organizations to facilitate the exchange of data. A wide variety of industries have embraced WANs with facilities at multiple locations. Increasingly, however, even small businesses are utilizing WANs as a way of increasing their communications.
The benefit of WANs
Although WANs serve a purpose similar to that of local area networks (LANs), WANs are structured and operated quite differently. The user of a WAN usually does not own the communications lines that connect the remote computer systems. Instead, the user subscribes to a service through a telecommunications provider. Unlike LANs, WANs typically do not link individual computers, but rather are used to link LANs. WANs also transmit data at slower speeds than LANs. WANs are also structurally similar to metropolitan area networks (MANs), however provide communications links for distances greater than 50km.
Advantages of WANs
Do you have a wide area network (WANs) at your company? If you have multi sites or operate globally, you probably do. That is because WANs are powerful business tools. They make it possible for large organizations to communicate internally faster and more efficiently. They also make it possible for consumers to enjoy company benefits they could not enjoy in the past.
Boosts your privacy: Setting up a WAN allows you to share sensitive data with all your sites without having to send the information over the Internet.
Increases bandwidth: Corporate WANS often use leased lines instead of broadband connections to form the backbone of their networks.
Eliminates Need for ISDN: WANs can cut costs by eliminating the need to rent expensive ISDN circuits for phone calls. Instead, you can have your WAN carry them.
Guaranteed uptime: Many WAN providers offer business-class support. That means you get a specific amount of uptime monthly, quarterly, or yearly as part of your service level agreement.
Cuts costs and increase profits: In addition to eliminating the need for ISDN, WANs can help you cut costs and increase profits in a wide variety of other ways.
Disadvantages of WANs
While WANS provide numerous advantages, they have their share of disadvantages. As with any technology, you need to be aware of these downsides to make an informed decision about WANS. The three most critical downsides are high setup costs, security concerns, and maintenance issues.
High setup costs: WANs are complicated, complex and expensive to set up.
Security Concerns: WANs open the way for certain types of internal security breaches. such as unauthorized use, information theft, and malicious damage to files.
Maintenance Issues: Maintaining a WAN is a challenge, no doubt about it. Guaranteeing that your data centre will be up and operating 24/7 is the biggest maintenance challenge of all.
The best solutions for your business
We are unable to predict when businesses will return to normal due to the pandemic. We all must try and operate in the new normal way of business. With staff working from home and some of the team working at the office, which solution is best for you? Make sure your business stays connected, secure and efficient.
Contact the LIS Help Desk to make sure your security is appropriate. Do you have good Firewalls in place, or do they resemble swiss cheese? Use encrypted connections when using online banking. Are your Virtual Private Network (VPN) secure? Our friendly and experienced team will asses your options for connectivity and be able to help you with your telecommunications.
Do you use Zoom or Teams for meetings? Are you bored of virtual meetings and how can you add the wow factor to your next one? USA Today have written a blog with some fantastic tips.
Don’t get bored at your next virtual meeting
First, make sure you actually need to hold a virtual meeting. Attendees should interact, ensure their voices and opinions are actually being solicited. This means: cut the monologues. If you’re making an announcement or sharing information that only requires your audience to listen, consider simply sending out an email.
Once a virtual meeting has been deemed necessary, try implementing these realistic tips to banish boredom, keep things interactive, and encourage participation.
Another virtual meeting? Make your next meeting more interesting with filters, polls and live animals. The important point to remember is make it interesting.
Set expectations
Before the meeting even starts, allow attendees to get into the right mindset by setting expectations for their participation. This will make sure participants will not be bored of virtual meetings.
Present a problem in the agenda and ask everyone prepare and present ideas for solutions. Request that all attendees be on video mode and in a quiet (or at least a private) space during the meeting. Set ground rules for conduct, such as “thou shalt put away phones and not work on other tasks”.
Dedicate time to checking in
Remote work can get lonely and isolating, so take some time before the meeting proper to let everyone share what they’ve been up to. Ask them about the highlights of their week or what challenges they’re currently facing. Better yet, get everyone to show appreciation to their fellow colleagues. Bored of virtual meetings will be a thing of the past with this type of communication.
Social bonding keeps team members engaged and encourages creativity, teamwork, and collaboration, so be sure to cultivate it even when on virtual platforms.
Let people take ownership
Assign people with tasks like time keeping, facilitating, and note taking. If you’re running an ice breaker or conducting a warm up (see below), you can assign one of the attendees to be in charge.
Also, ensuring that every attendee has a role – whether it’s decision maker, adviser, recommender or executor. This helps you keep meetings small, which is great because the more people at a meeting, the less engaged each person will be.
Start with an ice breaker
Jumpstart communication and break through awkwardness with ice breakers! Conducting a fun ice breaker will help activate the right brain. Set the stage for creativity and participation and get your attendees comfortable with speaking and interacting with each other. These are the perfect conditions for an effective virtual meeting.
Jazz up your material
Did you know that visuals increase engagement by as much as 94%? They also help increase audience attention and memory, boost feelings of inclusiveness, and encourage interaction. Try using visuals throughout your meeting to give context, illustrate a point, or provide levity.
Virtual IT Business Support
We understand the challenges we are currently facing in the business world. As well all know, there is nothing better than a face to face meeting. However, businesses need to be able to support their staff, clients and suppliers needs. Contact the LIS Help Desk to discuss your requirements.
Here at LIS we understand the challenges business are currently facing in this changing world. We all know there is nothing better than a face to face meeting, and all our clients get regular in-person contact from us, at least in normal times. However, most of our work (95%) is done remotely, often without our clients even knowing there was problem, let alone that we are fixing it! It’s second nature to our team because we have worked like that since we started nearly 25 years ago! So, if you have a bored technician who is making you sit through boring chat rather than just getting on with fixing your problem, call us. Our new clients tell us it is a refreshing change to enjoy calling tech support… it seems we fix people as well as systems. Who knew?
As businesses transition their workforces back to the office, hackers are distributing phishing emails and malicious files disguised as COVID-19 training materials. Return to work traps are becoming more common as cyber criminals take advantage of the pandemic.
Return to work traps take advantage of employees
According to a new report from UK Tech News, criminals are setting “return to work traps”, taking advantage of the training employees need to go through as they return to the office in its new form.
They claim many workers now need to go through various tutorials, webinars and training sessions. Ensuring they are compliant with new workplace rules set up to prevent viral transmission. Sensing an opportunity, cybercriminals are disguising malware as webinar recordings and other educational material, it was said.
According to the report, these new practices are mostly reserved for businesses in North America and Europe, where lockdown measures are slowly being eased up and people are being allowed to return to work.
Workers return to their offices and cyber criminals will abuse Covid-19 to spread malware and steal sensitive data.
Open emails and documents with caution
Make sure emails and documents are from a legitimate source from within the company. We are seeing a trend of hackers leveraging household names, such as Microsoft Office 365, to trick employees. One thing is for certain: the coronavirus pandemic is leading us towards a cyber-pandemic.
Protect you staff at home
Organizations are allowing employers to access work-critical information from their homes. This is a vulnerability as many employers working from home are in need for a VPN (virtual private network). Unconsciously they are downloading software from untrustworthy sites leaving their computers infected.
In addition, the tech support scammers will also emerge, pretending to be trying to fix an IT problem. They attempt to gain control of a target’s computer; and hackers may call pretending to be another department of an organization to get access remote and tricking general staff. On a bigger scale, cyber criminal groups in Russia, China and North Korea were exploiting the growing chaos to target national governments like the US, Japan, and Italy.
While some organizations are using tech to fight coronavirus, attackers are using healthcare organizations as a target. This will be particularly dangerous as those are the most vital among us at the time. A recent example was the ransomware attack against the University Hospital in Brno, Czech Republic. One of the largest COVID-19 research labs in the country, shutting down the entire IT network and causing anxiety to an already stressed staff.
Stay safe. Protect your business
Unfortunately, we do not see cybercrime going away in the near future. Cybercrime has rocketed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic as many try to exploit people’s fears. IS your operating system and software up to date? Do you use the latest Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam solutions?
Contact the LIS Help Desk to discuss the most cost-effective solutions for your company. Our experienced and friendly team will make sure you have the correct protection in place. We will carry out an IT Audit and recommend upgrades to hardware and software. Why worry about your IT security? LIS take care of all your IT requirements.
Companies are experiencing several challenges at the moment. IT issues affect productivity within the workplace. We are all working in strange times. Prioritising productivity will help your business succeed during these challenging times.
You’ve spent a significant amount of money providing your employees with the latest and greatest that modern IT has to offer, yet your general productivity levels have stalled out. Obviously, this is a problem with the person using the tool as opposed to the tool itself, right?
So, to help you, we’ve compiled a list of the biggest IT issues that could be affecting the productivity of your business. As well as suggesting some tips on how to fix them.
IT issues affect productivity for remote workers
Computer Weekly wrote an article about how remote workers air long-term productivity concerns. More than a third of the UK’s remote workers claim their home setup needs to be urgently revamped. As they need to ensure they can remain productive throughout the duration of the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak. This pandemic has caused problems as IT issues effect productivity. Due to the amount of home workers not being able to access the same technology as in the office.
One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make usually involves assuming that any tech-related issues are actually people-related issues.
Q: I’m struggling to communicate with my colleagues
A: With most people still working remotely, communication and collaboration need to be front of mind. You can no longer lean over to ask someone a question. Nor can you easily meet a colleague for a coffee or meeting. Instead, all communication relies on technology. If you don’t have the right tech in place to facilitate effective communication, your business will suffer. Group projects will take longer, errors will occur, training will become less effective and important tasks may get overlooked.
Invest in effective communication tools. Applications like Microsoft Teams allows colleagues to connect with each other (and external professionals) via chat, audio and video functions. Colleagues can also collaborate on group projects together and the platform will automatically link to Microsoft Outlook, meaning calendars can be synced.
Q: I keep experiencing the same IT issues and there’s no one there to help!
A:Reoccurring IT issues will stunt the productivity of your business. Moreover, if your IT support provider is unreliable and unresponsive, it will take unnecessary amounts of valuable time to solve these issues. IT downtime will cause frustration and prevent employees from completing important tasks, which, overall, will be a significant and unnecessary cost to your business. IT issues affect productivity not just for colleagues working from home but the whole team.
Partner with an IT support provider that you trust and don’t just settle for the cheapest option. In the tech industry, cheaper rarely means better. Technology underpins every aspect of your business, so you need to make sure that your IT support partner is delivering genuine value for money. We’d also recommend an IT support partner who can suggest and implement effective cyber security. This will make sure your business is safe and secure.
Q: I’m stressed at work! I have lots to get done and don’t have the right tools to do it
Employees aren’t satisfied with the systems, platforms and technologies that are in place to help them do their job. During such challenging times, you need to ensure that working life is as stress-free as possible for your employees. For optimum productivity, your staff need to be happy and satisfied with the tools available to them. The happier the employees, the better the customer experience. This ensures a more productive business with greater the profits.
A:Use employee feedback software to gain anonymous employee insights and identify issues within your business. Employee feedback software provides your employees with a platform to raise their concerns in confidence. As such, you can discover what is or isn’t working about the tools and systems that you have in place.
Q: I can’t access my work and now I have to start again!
If data is not backed up or stored effectively it can be extremely difficult to recover. Staff will be required to re-do tasks. Wasting valuable money, time and effort.
A:Cloud computing will transform the security and accessibility of your data. Storing data in the cloud allows you to access it from any device, at any time, provided you have a strong internet connection. With a cloud based system all your data will be back up securely. Employees can access their documents using a separate device and secure login. This is especially useful when working remotely.
Q: Our tools and technology aren’t suited to the needs of our business
Ask yourself, are the tools, technology, systems and applications in place really best suited to the needs of your business? Slow PCs, broken servers and reoccurring IT issues will inevitably lead to IT downtime and reduced productivity. Are you fully utilising your CRM systems? Or are there areas where they fail? Are your staff having to complete things manually, because technology is failing to do so? Could you automate a process?
A:Speak to your IT support partner, as you will undoubtedly benefit from professional technology consulting. Implementing the right technology and automating processes will improve the overall productivity, efficiency and success of your business.
Q: Our technology works for us now but won’t be able to cope in the future
Outdated technology can be a major IT issue. Relying on technology because it ‘does the job now’ and overlooking its weakness will stunt your business’ growth in the future. You need to align your IT strategy with your business goals, so that technology will facilitate success, not limit it. Whilst business growth may not be at the forefront of your mind during these challenging times, you still need to plan and prepare for success in the aftermath of the pandemic. Don’t let technology and an ineffective IT strategy be the thing that holds your business back and leads to productivity loss in the future.
A:If you’re unsure of whether your current IT strategy is limiting business growth, contact the LIS Help Desk. At LIS, we’re passionate about digitally transforming businesses, so that they can use technology to thrive. We can make sure your IT issues affect productivity are fixed as quickly as possible.
Our experienced team will regularly review your systems. Make sure your security is up to date. As well as suggesting upgrades to your software and hardware. We look after your IT systems, making sure your team are more productive.
LIS – SECURING YOUR DIGITAL WORLD
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