When to Vista?

Vista is now a couple of months past its release date, it's shipping with new computers and is available off the shelf to buy. There is no doubt that Vista is a great product but this greatness has to be taken with an element of caution.

Looking back Windows XP when first release had a number of problems. Applications and drivers plus bugs in the code meant that the early months of the operating system left users hanging around waiting for updates, Windows XP came of age at Service Pack 1.

The same is happening with Vista. No software product, even from a company with the resources of Microsoft ever gets fully tested until its public release, this means there will be teething problems with Vista. These problems are, software not working correctly or at all, and hardware drivers not being available for the new operating system. Some of these issue are not the fault of Microsoft, many application and hardware vendors have been slow to release hardware drivers and check software compatibility on the new platform.

My advice is to firstly check whether everything you need to run on your computer both hardware and software has been tested and validated to run with Vista, if the answer isn't a 100% yes then stick to Windows XP.

In a few months along with Service Pack 1 Vista for business will be the number one choice for business owners but for now let other people have the Vista problems and keep using the tried and tested, Windows XP Pro.

If you have any questions regarding swapping to Windows Vista Business please contact us here.

By Grant Peck

Motorola isn't all about super slim phones that sell you on the aesthetics rather than the functions. The newly announced MC35 handheld computer, for example, is far from being a looker, but it's got rugged functionality up the wazoo. Because it's so big and beefy, the Motorola MC35 is not being touted around as a mere personal digital assistant (PDA), it's an Enterprise digital assistant (EDA). It's an "all-in-one communication device that harnesses the voice and data applications people expect from an office setting and delivers them in the form of a durable and compact handheld mobile computer."

Like the MC50 and MC70 which preceded it, the MC35 is one tough cookie. Connectivity is not a problem with radios for GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GSM/EDGE. It's also got "laptop functionality", a camera, bar code reader, mission-critical business applications, an Intel XScale PXA270 416MHz processor, Windows Mobile 5.0, push e-mail, and who knows what else.

Vodafone offers complete mobility solution

Vodafone is positioning itself as a one-stop provider for businesses seeking to mobilise enterprise applications. The firm is offering pre-sales consultancy, integration and support, as well as offering the wireless service to connect mobile workers.

The Vodafone Applications Service can provide mobile access to key enterprise software such as SAP, Siebel, Oracle and Salesforce.com, the company said. This can increase productivity and deliver improved customer service by allowing employees access to data whenever necessary.

"We have a platform to enable us to mobilise many different applications and support many devices. It is future-proof, as firms can add new applications later, or swap over to different mobile devices," said Louise Spalding, product manager for Applications.

Vodafone's platform is based on a wireless middleware server that uses adapters to link with applications, including legacy code and anything based on SQL and web services. The company is even working on mobile Sharepoint access for one customer, Spalding said.

A custom application sits on the client device and serves as the user interface, with Vodafone supporting BlackBerry, Pocket PC or Symbian devices.

"One of the key things is to understand the needs of the user," said Spalding. "The user interface elements required when mobile can be very different from enterprise applications on the desktop," she added.

Because deployments will be different from customer to customer, pricing is split into two elements: the professional services, including customisation and integration costs: and an ongoing fee of £29 per user per month that covers the wireless data service and helpdesk support.

"It's a predictable fee, which business customers like. There aren't any extra charges," said Spalding. However, a separate roaming fee is incurred if workers travel abroad.

The US has slipped down the rankings of technology nations, falling from the top spot to number seven in the latest rankings from the World Economic Forum.

In 2005-2006, the US was number one followed by Singapore, Denmark, and Iceland. But this year's Global Information Technology Report puts the US in seventh place. The UK manages to crawl up one place - from tenth last year to ninth this year.

The report looks at 122 countries and judges their infrastructure according to 67 variables. It judges network readiness in three ways: a conducive environment in terms of regulation and hard and soft infrastructure; the level of readiness among individuals, businesses and government; and the actual use of information and communication technology by those three groups.

Denmark won the top spot this year, and all Nordic countries except Iceland moved up the list. China makes it into the top 20 for the first time - at joint thirteenth along with Taiwan.*

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Dell in Vista RAID debacle

Frustrated Microsoft Windows Vista Home PC users are pointing the finger at Dell for continuing to sell machines that foul up when configured with the RAID facility.

The apparent issue with certain Intel RAID controllers and Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista - which got its long-awaited retail release on 30 January 2007 - has been a hotly debated topic in online forums for several months.

RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive or Independent Drives) pulls together multiple hard-disk drives into a single logical unit, which should simplify what the operating system sees while improving fault-tolerance for the user.

Though it is a system typically used in servers where file-sharing is intensive, RAID has become increasingly popular with home PC users too.

However, Vista users are complaining that they have to disable the RAID facility to make their Dell Dimension 9200 PC work fully.

On Dell's "community forum" many of the posts say that an Intel iastor driver (iaStor.sys) error is causing Vista to regularly freeze.

It seems that combinations of RAID configuration, including striped (RAID 0) and mirrored (RAID 1), are affected on Dell's 9200 model, which ships with Vista and Intel's matrix storage system.

A Reg reader alerted us to the posts and said, "I'm pretty narked after spending a grand on a supposed high-end system that doesn't work reliably."

El Reg put in a call to the Dell home support team to try and work out why this has been happening and see what advice we would be given.

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Family converts dead dad into diamond

A Blackpool family has created a "fitting memorial" to deceased dad Mick Egan - by converting him into a synthetic diamond, the BBC reports.

Egan died last year of a brain haemorrhage and his wife Susan decided on a novel way of preserving his memory. A US company extracted carbon from Egan's ashes, heated it to create graphite and then compressed the result to create a rough diamond which was then cut to the family's specifications.

Susan Egan was evidently delighted with the result, enthusing: "We had to have a blue one because my husband's eyes are blue. I never visualised that it would be so beautiful until it arrived. He is my diamond geezer now.

"It was the right thing to do and it just brings me so much comfort that I've got it now to last forever. He loved being the centre of attention. He could light a room up when he walked in it. In some respects the diamond lights up, which is a memory of how he was."

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