Welcome to the first April edition of the OpenSure Free Press, or ‘newsletter’ as we called this sort of thing in the unenlightened past. Keeping “on trend” and moving with the times is important in business, especially in our field where things move so fast. Putting a toe into the cloud can make this as easy as falling off a log as at one stroke your company’s services are hosted on up-to-date, well-maintained kit capable of keeping up with the latest developments, and all without serious investment on your part. Just one reason why the cloud rocks.
Matesourcing
You may not have heard of this, but you’ve almost certainly done it. It’s not a new phenomenon, but Business Matters recently christened it and revealed that shocking numbers of small businesses rely on unofficial and amateur help with their IT. When you think of the consequences to the average small business of an IT glitch, never mind complete meltdown, this really is quite horrifying. If smoothly-running IT is important or vital to your company’s continued success, ensure it’s well looked after by professionals. The blog post above tells you what to look for when finding a company to do the job.
Massive Attack
You may have heard of the recent attacks spreading Windows Stability Center malware – this is not something you will suffer from on Linux – ie our systems. The attack was not exploiting a weakness on MS SQL itself but Windows web applications that used it, such as CMS and sites using MS SQL that were not updated and poorly designed. Don’t feel confident that your antivirus will protect you: only about 40% of antivirus scanners can pick up the Stability Center Virus. Please do talk to us if you’d like to move to a more secure system not vulnerable to this sort of thing. As TechNewsWorld says, “Are antivirus vendors asleep on their feet? If so, why are consumers paying for protection?”.
Hereford Open Source Day
Our Technical Director Kevin Dontenville flew the OpenSure flag at HOSD and helped to bring open source to the attention of yet more potential users. We were delighted to be presented with an award for promoting open source technology in the business sector, thank-you HLUG. Our account of the day is here, there’s a photo of Kevin receiving our award from the Mayor of Hereford here and the whole award ceremony is on YouTube here.
Other bits and pieces that have caught our eye recently include:
* World Backup Day – If this is what it takes to bring home the importance of backing up, then we’re all for it. As the site says, don’t be an April fool.
* StartUp Britain – Sounded good then was deconstructed and the site linked to malware, but it seems to have something all the same.
* Government Single Domain – I can’t help thinking this sounds like a wine, but is in fact the project alphagov, explained here by Jimmy Leach.
* To quote our friend Neil Rose, “Are you an ex or soon to be ex public sector employee thinking of starting a business?” Neil can help so please get in touch with him if you’re in this position. To quote BizMatters Magazine, “Think about those things that are scaring you right now. Is “losing my job” or “starting a business” one?”
* Updates for your computer? This little cartoon (scroll down a we bit) says it all.
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