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July |
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Newsletter | |
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Issue 12 |
| E- Waste Mountain |
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Notts housing association rolls out VoIP to cut costs |
E-waste, the term used for all our old laptops,. mobile phones, computers and PDA's is a world wide problem growing by epidemic proportions. The US alone dumps 30 million computers per year and the growing trend is to ship these to unregulated countries such as China and India. These countries literally have mountains of old computer equipment.
The main problem from old computer hardware comes from the chemicals and heavy metals used in their manufacture. These include:
In addition to this,the average PC uses 10 times its own weight in chemicals and fossil fuels during its manufacture. As consumers there are a few things we can do about it. Firstly buy 'greener'. Most mainstream computer manufactures offer 'greener' computer systems. These include; HP, Dell, Sony, and Fujitsu Siemens to name a few. On average these systems will costs the end user about 20% more but as they become more common this margin should decrease. Lastly as a business it is now your responsibility legally to make sure you dispose of your old computer equipment in a responsible way.Give us a call at First Stop IT to find out how easy it is to be responsible with your computer disposal. By Grant Peck |
Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA) has hired ntl:Telewest Business to roll out a new voice over IP call system to help it cut costs. The housing association, which has 10,000 tenants, is the largest locally based provider of housing in the East Midlands. The new system will support 655 NCHA employees located across eight offices. They will also benefit from faster internet connections. It combines data, voice calls and access to the internet over a single network, delivering “significant savings”, said the association. Cost savings and a return on investment are expected in less than 20 months, the association said. Robert Moorey, NCHA IT manager, said, “For us, IP is the only way forward. Not only will it improve our communication processes with staff and customers, but also save a lot of money. The more we save, the more houses we can build.” A new IP call centre will handle in-coming customer calls. NCHA tenants will be able to contact any relevant department using a single 0845 number for a low call charge. At the same time, call centre agents will gain the capacity to handle calls faster, monitor them better, as well as to record them for future reference, which should improve customer service. |
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Motorola Q |
Insider threat grows for UK businesses |
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Iin the next few monthslook out for the Motorola Q windows enabled smartphone. The design borrows much from the motorola RAZR. This is sold as one of the slimmest smartphones available, a fact which is certainly true although the rest of the dimensions make it larger than a normal mobile phone.
For me the most significant thing about this phone is the built in keyboard making it very similar in appearance and function to a Blackberry. What's it got? 4.6 x 2.5 x 0.45-inches in your pocket for one, a QVGA (320 x 240) wide-format display, QWERTY keyboard, Windows Mobile 5.0, thumbwheel, d-pad, 1.3 megapixel camera, MiniSD, and Bluetooth. Look out for a more in depth review when the hardware becomes available. By Grant Peck |
A survey by YouGov for Microsoft found that UK businesses face a serious security threat from inside their own walls. Nearly a quarter (22%) of UK employees admitted to having illegally accessed sensitive internal information such as salary details on their employer’s IT systems and over half (54%) would do so, given the opportunity. The study highlights the challenge facing IT, HR and finance departments in protecting confidential information from non-authorised employees. When asked what type of information would tempt them most, respondents said that HR and payroll information was the most popular target (36%), followed by their manager’s personal notes (28%) and their colleagues’ personal notes (25%). If an opportunity presented itself, 6% said they would steal a colleague’s password. |
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Goodbye Bill? |
Intel poised to ship Xeon server chips |
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Bill Gates has recently announced that he will be taking a much less active role within Microsoft. Announcing the two-year transition process to a 'part-time' role within Microsoft Corporation, the company said that after July 2008 Gates would remain as the chairman and an advisor on key development projects. He leaves to spend more time on global health & education work at the $29 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, formed with his wife in 2000. Current CEO Steve Ballmer will remain, and Microsoft announced that "Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect and begin working side by side with Gates on all technical architecture and product oversight responsibilities, to ensure a smooth transition. Similarly, Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie will immediately take the new title of chief research and strategy officer and will work closely with Gates to assume his responsibility for the company’s research and incubation efforts". Bill Gates' retirement codename "Fall Guy" is a Microsoft project. Microsoft are denying rumours that the project has already been delayed to 2010. By Grant Peck |
Intel is to start shipping its new Xeon dual-core server processors this week. The world’s largest chip manufacturer, which last week opened a high-volume semiconductor manufacturing facility in Ireland, is aiming to regain the highest share of the server chip market from bitter rival AMD. Last month, AMD – the world’s second largest chip manufacturer – trumpeted the selection of its dual core processor-based technology by hardware giant Dell to drive its forthcoming server range. Intel’s Xeon 5100 series server processors have been designed to give higher performance but increase energy efficiency. The new processors are expected to deliver up to a 135% performance improvement and cut power use by up to 40%. |
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