LANcom Technology Blog

RecoveryPoint Desktop is a backup service that allows you to protect the important information stored on user’s computers from things like hardware failures and viruses.

Most businesses will have some crucial data stored on their computers and with RecoveryPoint Desktop this important information can be easily, securely and efficiently backed up online.

Here’s a quick look at what you get with LANcom RecoveryPoint Desktop:

• Automatic or scheduled - Backups can be automatic, performed when your computer is not in use, or scheduled to occur at a specified time of day.
• Near continuous data protection - This service can automatically detect and back up new and changed files every 2 hours, meaning you have near continuous data protection.
• Back up files even if they are open- With open/locked file support your files can be backed up even when they are open or locked.
• Access to multiple versions - You can restore previous versions of your files from up to 30 days in the past.
• Encryption to protect your data - Your data is transferred using 128-bit SSL encryption and is stored using 448-bit Blowfish encryption.
  
• Windows and Mac support – This service works on Windows 7, Vista, XP and Mac OS X 10.6, 10.5, & 10.4.

If you would like to learn more about RecoveryPoint Desktop please contact us at info@lancom.co.nz

Do you sometimes have sore eyes or have trouble sleeping after working on your computer late at night? Sitting in front of a brightly lit screen at night is not only bad for your eyes, but can also affect your sleep cycle.

F.lux is a free application designed to help with these problems by automatically adjusting your screen for night and day. This works by using your location to determine what time the sun sets, so it knows when to switch to night time settings.

To set up F.lux all you need to do is select the kind of light you will be working under at night, set the latitude and longitude of your location, and choose whether you want the transition between settings to happen fast or slow. F.lux will then run quietly in the background, just displaying a small icon in your taskbar.

F.lux slightly changes the colour of your screen, so if you are doing colour-sensitive work there is also an option to disable it for an hour at a time.

F.lux is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. To visit the site and download it, click here.

Hat tip to Makeuseof for the idea for this post

At LANcom we are currently in the process of changing to Windows Phone 7 mobile phones, so we thought we’d let you know a bit about what we about it.

1. The intuitive interface – One of the great things about Windows Phone 7 is that it’s really easy to use. It uses Panorama navigation, which means in most apps you just swipe your screen to the right to see additional info and options slide in to view.
2. The glance and go home screen – WP7 has a customisable home screen made up of Live Tiles. These Live Tiles constantly update so you can see at a glance the information that is most important to you. Depending on how you customise your screen you could see things like: the number of new emails, pending appointments, news and weather, and a friends Facebook status all from the home screen of your phone.
3. Integration with Facebook – Instead of just having an address book, WP7 has a People hub. This hub integrates data from Facebook and Windows Live, so you can see all the latest information from your contacts in one place.
   
4. Silverlight – One of the things we’re really excited about is that Windows Phone 7 can run the Silverlight applications that we are developing here at LANcom. This will allow us to make these applications available to users on the go.

As you may have heard, the main criticism that people have had about Windows Phone 7 is its lack of a copy and paste feature. The good news is that Microsoft has promised to resolve this with an update sometime early this year. It has been mentioned in the news recently that March 8^th is the likely release date for this feature.

Here’s a video of Windows Phone 7 in action

To learn more about Microsoft Lync 2010, click here to visit the website. To talk to someone at LANcom about Lync 2010 please send us an email at info@lancom.co.nz.

Wondering what features the next generation iPad will have? According to PC World, a reliable Taiwanese newspaper is reporting that the device will include: video calling, two cameras, new display and touch technology, and a USB port so it can easily connect to other devices. It has also said that this new device will be released in the first quarter of 2011.

This scoop comes from a newspaper that was one of the first to accurately report that Apple was making a tablet back before the iPad was released.

If you would like to read the full article on this from the PC World website, click here.

Looking for just the right picture for your website, PowerPoint presentation, or marketing material? There are a lot of great websites where you can buy images you could use, but if you’re looking for quality free images here are 3 sites you should try.

1. Freerange Stock - Freerange Stock is a website that provides quality stock photos that are free to use for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.To download pictures from here all you need to do is register with your email address. All the pictures on this site are in JPG format and are around 1mb to download. To visit the Freerange Stock website, click here.
2. Stock.xchng – Stock.xchng is a website that you can download images from without even needing to sign up for an account. They have a great selection of over 350,000 images and you can use them for almost anything. There are just a few standard restrictions e.g. you can’t resell images or use them as part of a logo. To visit Stock.xchng,
   click here.
3. Free digital photos.net - Freedigitalphotos.net is a site that allows you to use images for free provided you credit the photographer. They have quite a nice selection of professional images, both photos and computer generated illustrations. To visit the site, click here.

Looking for a way to eliminate paper notes from meetings? Note Taker HD is a note taking iPad app that we have found to be quite useful here at LANcom. With this app you can easily create electronic notes or sketch diagrams and you don’t even need a stylus to do it.

The best thing about Note Taker HD is that you can write large in the close-up window at the bottom of the screen and then have your notes automatically shrink to fit the page. This means you can easily write with your finger and still fit in a lot of text. You can also set this close-up window to auto advance, allowing you to write continuously without having to stop to move the close-up view across the page.

Here’s a quick look at some of Note Taker HD’s other features:

1. Group multiple pages together - Multiple pages can be grouped together, for if you need more than one page for each meeting.
2. Email your notes as a PDF file – One or more pages can be emailed as a single PDF file, so you can send your notes to others or to services like Evernote.
3. Organise your pages how you want – Pages are flexibly organised by date/time, tags, favourites, and more. This makes finding your notes when you need them easy.

Here’s a video of Note Taker HD in action.

Note Taker HD is currently priced at $4.99 on iTunes. If you would like to buy, or just read more about it, click here.

Thinking about buying an iPhone 4, or already have one? You might want to be a little careful with the screen. According to SquareTrade, a company that sells extended iPhone warranties, iPhone 4 owners reported 82% more broken screens in their first four months of ownership than iPhone 3gs owners did.

To come up with this figure SquareTrade analysed claims from over 20,000 iPhone 4 owners and compared them with over 20,000 iPhone 3gs claims. They found that in the first four months of ownership, 4.7% of iPhone 4 owners reported accidental damage, while only 2.8% of iPhone 3gs owners did. Cracked and broken screens accounted for the vast majority of these accidents.

The increase in damaged screens is most likely a result of the iPhone 4’s glass back, as there is now twice as much surface area that could break.

Even with this problem, SquareTrade says “the iPhone is still a very well-constructed device, with a non-accident malfunction rate much lower than most other consumer electronics”.

To read more about this from ComputerWorld click here. To view the SquareTrade report click here.