On the Net

with Chris Goh

IT supporting business

Thank you to those who provided feedback on last week's article. As a result we will have a two month series that will cover IT in business, from small business to large organisations with multiple sites, and articulate in more detail the range of products that can help you manage and decrease the total cost of ownership of your IT services as well as key strategies you can put in place to help you.

This week we continue to look at small businesses of one to 10 staff. We look at the network side and what you might put together and the expected costs. All computers now come with a network card and switching on your network can be relatively easy and painless. If you're thinking about the wired world, the most popular network hubs/switches for SME's are Netgear, Dlink and Netcom, and from experience I can say that Netgear hubs and switches are consistently great quality and excellent throughout. Many of these switches also come with a firewall and what we in IT call a DHCP service. This means that you can easily link up to the internet and your PCs can be given a dynamic address that can instantly and securely allow your devices to access the internet. The cost of these switches depends on how many ports you will have but I would recommend that you get a minimum of 16 ports even for a small business because it gives you flexibility to move and grow. You should expect to pay around $150 for a good SME switch from the above vendors.

Wireless has also come to town, and anyone who has bought a recent laptop now has wireless access. The majority of wireless devices out there are 8.011b thanks largely to Intel Centrino technology and that is up to a 11mb connection.

Wireless is an excellent alternative if you're doing general office work and do not have anything more than a file service on your server. When you have a large database and have more intensive applications, for reliability, performance and security, physical connections will remain a mainstay for a while (in later editions we will cover wireless security and other protocols). Finding a printer is also a tough thing for SME, and I always recommend one laser printer as the total cost of ownership for these are inexpensive. Kyocera has the most cost effective laser printer, but if you want a multifunction device and A3, the Canon 2010 is the best value for money proposition, sitting at $7000 for faxing, printing and scanning. Make sure to get the feature pack that allows you to do double sided. The best value for money laser colour printer is by Konica Minolta, which now has offerings below $1000. In an office environment, make sure your printer comes with a network port or else you will need to make one of your PCs the server. This may be okay if you're an organisation of one to five people but won't work all that well if you experience growth, and especially if your printing volume is huge. Next week we look at software suites to help your productivity.

HotNews

Alice Springs has decided to snub Telstra. Since 2001 Alice Spring has had an exchange capable of ADSL but Telstra hasn't offered the service, citing numbers. The Alice Springs Council is about to sign a five-year deal with Veridas to provide wireless access to the whole of Alice Springs.

ARIA (The Australian Record Industry Association) has been in the international news as one of the most active bodies tackling online piracy. CEO of ARIA, Stephen Peach, has commented that there is a direct correlation between online music piracy and ADSL pickup and ARIA has instigated action in the last few years to raid suspected pirate houses.

In 1996 IBM showcased technology that could use the human body to transmit information by passing a small electric charge. June last year saw Microsoft patent a process where you could transmit power using the human body. However, NTT Japan has been the first to create a practical application using technology, which they have called RedTacton. All of us have an electrical field around us, often referred to as 'auras'. Using photonics and the natural electrical field around the body, they are able to modulate the frequency of the current to pass data. This has great potential for medical devices, say a heart pacer that has to be tuned every so often, as this communication device can remotely manage and monitor the pacer.

AFP (Agence France Presse) is seeking damages from Google for US $17.5 million because they believe that Google's news service has lost them revenue by providing web surfers a snapshot of articles that would normally only be available to subscribers.

Microsoft recalled power cords several months ago because of several fires supposedly caused by faulty cords. Further investigation uncovered that the actual fault was in the power supply of the console itself and the cord was fine. After recalling the cords Microsoft replaced them with cords that have a trip wire inside. This may prevent potential fires, but has caused X-Boxes to fry inside.

After a four-year research project, Griffith University in Brisbane has successfully been able to grow adult stem cells harvested from the nose. The success has even prompted Cardinal George Pell to refer this breakthrough to the Vatican, and Pontifical Academy of Science. This research had been partially funded by the Catholic Church.

Fuji Xerox won a significant tender with RailCorp that will see them digitise half a million physical documents of maps, drawings etc. The project is scheduled for completion in 2007.

Apple has fixed a security hole in iTunes that allowed a third party software 'PyMusique' to download music without the digital rights management encoding and download a piece of music again. The fix however requires all ITunes software to be updated to 4.7. Apple has also released a fix for its Safari browser, which like Firefox and Opera, had a security flaw. The flaw allowed extended characters to be used to make a domain look legitimate and pass you to a fake website that could then steal your details.

Hotsites

Like Christmas, no links this week as you will no doubt be celebrating Easter with your loved ones.