Posts by Andy Carroll

We were lucky enough to be invited by East Riding of Yorkshire Council to join their table at the Goole and Howdenshire Business Excellence Awards dinner last night and it was a fantastic evening. We were invited because of the work we have done with the I Love Goole shopping scheme so it was nice to get some recognition for our efforts.

The dinner itself was a great event and it seemed to be fully subscribed. The businesses that won the awards were a wide mix of large and small and covered many different industries. You will be able to see who won when they update the site. We don’t want to spoil their thunder.

As for ITexpress, we didn’t apply for an award this year but we aim to be up there next year so watch this space!

A little while ago Google updated their search engine results with an update called Panda. Basically the update was aimed at low quality content and providing better quality search results. Google have posted an update through their blog pointing out 40 new changes they are making which will effect search results and search engine optimisation(seo).

Here are a few of the changes they are making or have already made. You can read them all at Google’s Blog;

• More coverage for related searches. [launch codename “Fuzhou”] This launch brings in a new data source to help generate the “Searches related to” section, increasing coverage significantly so the feature will appear for more queries. This section contains search queries that can help you refine what you’re searching for.
• Tweak to categorizer for expanded sitelinks. [launch codename “Snippy”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] This improvement adjusts a signal we use to try and identify duplicate snippets. We were applying a categorizer that wasn’t performing well for our expanded sitelinks, so we’ve stopped applying the categorizer in those cases. The result is more relevant sitelinks.
• Less duplication in expanded sitelinks. [launch codename “thanksgiving”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] We’ve adjusted signals to reduce duplication in the snippets for expanded sitelinks. Now we generate relevant snippets based more on the page content and less on the query.
• More consistent thumbnail sizes on results page. We’ve adjusted the thumbnail size for most image content appearing on the results page, providing a more consistent experience across result types, and also across mobile and tablet. The new sizes apply to rich snippet results for recipes and applications, movie posters, shopping results, book results, news results and more.
• More locally relevant predictions in YouTube. [project codename “Suggest”] We’ve improved the ranking for predictions in YouTube to provide more locally relevant queries. For example, for the query [lady gaga in ] performed on the US version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in times square], but for the same search performed on the Indian version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in India].
• More accurate detection of official pages. [launch codename “WRE”] We’ve made an adjustment to how we detect official pages to make more accurate identifications. The result is that many pages that were previously misidentified as official will no longer be.
• Panda update. This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.
• Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.
• SafeSearch update. We have updated how we deal with adult content, making it more accurate and robust. Now, irrelevant adult content is less likely to show up for many queries.
• Spam update. In the process of investigating some potential spam, we found and fixed some weaknesses in our spam protections.
• Improved local results. We launched a new system to find results from a user’s city more reliably. Now we’re better able to detect when both queries and documents are local to the user.

It seems that Google is spending more energy on local results, which is excellent news for smaller businesses which don’t deal nationally, and those tourism businesses which depend on location for their results. There is a significant change in the importance of links in deciding the topic of the page. It seems that the name or acheor text may be less important.

All business owners know that keeping costs down is important, and there is a constant balancing act going on between how much money is spent on ‘back office’ type purchases, and ‘front end’ purchases, IT support usually being put in the ‘back office’ box.

There are a multitude of options available when selecting the level of IT support for your business. You can wait until things go wrong and purchase emergency support, or buy prepaid support tickets, and if you choose a support contract, then there are all manner of response times and service level agreement options.

What we usually recommend is to look at how important your IT systems are to you. Some businesses are not disrupted too much for a day or so with a machine down, whereas other businesses are completely reliant on IT and need priority service. Sometimes you can get a compromise by having some kind of contingency plan (one customer had spare machines ready to replace faulty machines in a factory environment, as the machines were needed to run the line, and if the machine was down, then the line was down).

We would normally recommend that you choose at least a prepaid level of service, as at least then the IT company may know your systems and be able to offer some kind of preventative maintenance advice, not to mention the savings usually gained in the event of on site visits.

In deciding what kind of support you need then a general guideline is that if you use IT systems within your sales or operations areas then you need to consider support carefully. If you are only using IT for a general accounting package then it’s not so important unless you are processing high numbers of transactions on a daily basis.

Remote IT support is fantastic. It saves so much time just being able to allow your support company to login to your computer and fix problems. There are a few problems which can’t be fixed however;

• Internet Problems. If you don’t have an internet connection, then how can anyone log in?
• Some Viruses. Viruses can prevent remote software from working, and can also render computers unusable.
• Networking problems. Some networking problems will need on site support, as cables can be faulty, and other computers can be the cause of the problem
• Printing problems. We can usually fix a printer connection, but it is hard to fix a printer over the internet when it siomply refuses to print
• Computer Hardware problems. If the PC isn’t working then obviously it needs an onsite visit. Also, if the PC will only boot up in safe mode then sometimes remote software will not work.

Remote IT support can solve many problems, but it is also only really a halfway step. If a problem takes longer than 20-30 minutes to resolve then it is probably better to have an onsite support visit. People sometimes forget that when a remote IT support worker is helping fix a problem, the operator is also not working, and sometimes even having to help the remote worker with the problem. Having an onsit visit usually means that the operator can go off and work somewhere else, or at least get some paperwork done whilst the technician fixes the problem.

You would think that in today’s world of high tech, with companies releasing gadget after gadget which supposedly simplifies our lives, that IT support companies would be a thing of the past, but if anything, we need IT support companies more than ever.

Up until a few years ago we seemed to be in a Microsoft only world, with mobile phones which were simply phones, and software that came in a box on a bunch of cd’s or dvd’s. Nowadays mobile phones are mini computers, able to connect to your business and even allow you to produce work on them. Software is now mostly downloaded, and more often than not, contains technology which allows you to store information on the internet (commonly known as the ‘cloud’). And finally, it is no longer a Microsoft only world. Google and Apple are producing hardware and software which business people want to use in their businesses and they want them to work seamlessly ‘as advertised’.

IT support companies who may have thought that the industry giants were finding ways simplify IT for their customers and take them out of the equation, now receive requests to connect businesses across the globe, using the usual laptops and desktops, and also mobile phones and tablets. If anything, the role of the IT support company has grown in recent years, as businesses have become so reliant on IT systems that it is hard to think of any business starting out without the need for an IT platform to help them sell to customers and purchase from suppliers.

The truth is that IT isn’t simple, and as the upgrade cycle continues to increase, it will become more complicated. As new industry leaders pop up and legacy companies decline, the creation of standard protocols becomes difficult, so none of the brands will really work simply together, and if you try to go to one brand only, then you are at the mercy of their upgrade schedule, which is very rarely in anyone interest but their own.

On the positive, this is all very exciting for IT support companies like ourselves and it should be exciting for businesses. With more innovations comes more opportunities for younger businesses to outpace older, more established businesses, as they can invest in these new technologies faster. Fun times.

It has to be said that most of our customers favour windows machines and servers, but there are a few customers who prefer Apple, and this number is steadily growing with the success of iPhone and iPad. We support and use both, and Apple announced some exciting news recently with the next version of their OSX operating system, Mountain Lion.

There are apparently over 100 new features being released with Mountain Lion. Here are some of our favourites;

• iCloud. Sync all your documents, pictures, movies, and music across all your Apple devices
• Messages. Apples unified messaging system
• Reminders. Apple’s to-do list app now syncs between devices
• Notes. Similar to reminders you can sync your notes
• Notification Center. We hate the notification center, but now you get it on OSX
• Share. You can share websites and other documents with a share button, which links with Vimeo, Flickr and others
• Twitter. Apple have integrated Twitter into OSX
• Game Center. You will now ba able to play those meaningless social games on you Mac too.
• AirPlay Mirroring. Want to push your desktop to your Apple tv? Well now you can.
• Gatekeeper. A security feature which aims to protect your mac from malware, by only allowing you to install software from the Mac store (don’t worry, you can turn it off, for now!)

We’re looking forward to getting our Developer Preview installed and getting a real look at the new upgrade.