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Smartphones in recent times have changed from luxury pieces of technology to almost essential tools for almost every businessman, tradesman and everyone in between.  But smartphones are not only used to make calls or send texts and it is in fact the other uses that are now being used more often. A study from 02, a mobile network provider, has found that people now use these devices more to go online than they do to make phone calls.

They found that the typical smartphone user uses their mobile for 24.8minutes per day to browse the Internet and a further 17.5minutes checking various social networking apps. Both these times are greater than the average time spend making calls and texting, which were 12.1minutes and 10.2minutes respectively.

Historically Apple’s iPhone has dominated the market for smartphones, with over 220million devices sold in total. However more recently the increase in the availability and range of Android devices has lead to Android operated smartphones to enjoy just fewer than 50% of the market share. Many analysts believe that this is set to change though with the release of the iPhone 5 around September. J.P.Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz states that the “revolutionary hardware enhancements” stand to reinstate iPhone as the leading smartphone in 2013.

Did you know that the internet launched in 1983? At its launch service provides introduced IPv4 which put simply gives every device connected to the internet its own address (an IP address). With hundreds of thousands of new devices being created every single day IPv4 is steadily running out of addresses and soon will not be able to host every single device in the world, meaning that millions of people will be left without being able to connect to the internet. Today Google and other major companies are launching IPv6 which allows for trillions upon trillions of original addresses, meaning that devices will never be left without internet connectivity again.

Google Drive

Have you heard the latest news yet? ‘The Next Web’ has announced that Google will be launching their own cloud service named ‘Google Drive’ within the next few days that will compete directly with Dropbox. TNW has released a screenshot of the homepage to ‘Google Drive’ which it has been given an early trial to by Google. The screenshot clearly shows text on the homepage stating that Google Drive users will be given 5GB of free storage before they have to pay a penny. This is compared to Dropbox which only currently offer 2GB free storage to each user without having to pay. Although Google are eventually planning to start charging for the service.

Twitter users took to the web on Tuesday trending the words ‘Google Drive’. Users of the social media website posted messages such as ‘RIP Dropbox’. Could this be a sign that Dropbox, the company which has had domination over the cloud market for so long, could lose all of its customers the day that Googles new service is launched? Only time will tell.

Google Drive is expected to launch Tuesday 24th April at the url: Drive.Google.com

What are your thoughts about this?  Let us know in the comments below!

'The New iPad'

Well, its finally here. On Wednesday 7th March Apple finally announced the ‘New iPad’ after months of speculation of when their next release would be. Perhaps the most memorable thing about this release is the name; not the iPad 3, not the iPad HD, simply: ‘The New iPad’. This has led to a lot of speculation of what will come after this release because after all, you can’t name the next iPad the iPad 4 if you haven’t given this one a name. Industry experts such as the guys over at Twit.tv were quoted on their live show suggesting that Apple are preparing to bring out a smaller ebook reader version of the iPad to compete with companies such as Amazon having made the Kindle.

To summarize the new iPad: It has a new 9.7-inch retina display which it boasts on its website as ‘Resolutionary’. It says it has ‘Four times more pixels than iPad 2, Razor-sharp text and Richer colors. The Retina display transforms the entire iPad experience. So everything looks and feels incredibly lifelike and perfectly detailed.’

It also has an A5X chip with quad-core graphics which drives four times the pixels of iPad 2, 10 hours of battery life despite the new display, 4G LTE which is ‘Built with the latest in wireless technology. The new iPad lets you connect to fast data networks around the world — up to 4G LTE.’, Dictation, iCloud, Airplay and the new iPad smart cover.

For an interactive tour of The New iPads features visit: http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/

OR tweet us @onestopsupport and we’ll be happy to answer any iPad/Other IT related problems!

Does it really surprise us that Research In Motion’s (RIM – the maker of BlackBerry) co -Chief Executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis stepped down yesterday (23/01/12)? Not really. Once the must have phone, a necessity for the city worker as it provided an easier method of communication between colleagues and the ‘in’ thing for teens communicating via BBM. How things have changed over the past year for BlackBerry. With 2011’s blackout, customers were left without internet access, e-mail and the use of sms, it was a disaster for BlackBerry as their system meltdown was not only a glitch but something that lasted a good few days across the globe, not quite the reliable smartphone for the city worker after all!
So the question we have to wonder is, what’s next for BlackBerry? Well, German executive Thorsten Heins has taken the bull by the horns so to speak to rebuild the good name for BlackBerry, both for the company and the smartphone itself, but will it really produce something better than its rivals Apple? We’ll have to wait and see as the year progresses!

It may not seem to be important or high up on anyone’s lists but IT support for schools and providing IT support for schools should be classed as a high priority. Especially as so many things are run through the same network in schools, if one little thing fails then so does everything else, very much like a domino effect.

Many schools may think they already have it sorted with one of their staff (who has an interest in IT) standing up to volunteer to keep an eye on things taking on the new and fancy role of ‘IT Co-ordinator’. If you really are an IT genius, your school e-mail and all your apps are running perfectly then you probably don’t have to read any further. As we say here, if it aint broke, don’t fix it! BUT if you’re still biting your finger nails in awe of what to do next, please read on!

This is the part where we come in. Here at One Stop Support in Romford, we want to work with you and offer you excellent quality IT support. We have been working with schools for 8 years now, so we’d like to think that through our experience we know what you’re after.

To make your lives easier, we have included our prices online, there’s no point in hiding costs like other IT support companies, what you pay is what you get with us and we’re proud of that.

So, let’s get down to the nitty gritty…

£5K a year gives you:

-       Access to our support team via our 0800 number.

-       An onsite engineer every half term to carry out any maintenance/updates/hardware and software roll outs.

-       A contract manager for you to contact at any point you may be having a technical emergency.

-       An annual performance review, along with an IT network strategy meeting.

£7k a year gives you:

-       All of the above.

-       Instead of our onsite engineer visiting you every half term, we will visit you weekly to carry out any maintenance.

We also provide an hourly service in case any of your current IT staff call in sick or you’re looking for consultancy.

Our hourly rate is £40

-       With the only exception, we ask that you have an existing in house IT team.

If any of our school support options sound like what you need, give us a call on:

08000 80 30 30.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Just like schools and charities, small businesses find it hard to spare the time let alone having to think about their IT support. It is typical that one of the employees or the owner/manager is involved in their own IT support. I guess you may think why pay out a bit of money when one of your own staff can do the job. Well maybe, but here at One Stop we would say to small businesses to consider 3 major factors when reviewing your IT support.

1. 1.      Planning = Profit

There can be unintended costly consequences when approaching IT, including operating system updates and not being aware of certain aspects of technology which may or may not increase company revenue. These small things can be costing your business money, so maybe it would be worth getting some expert advice from one of our IT technicians now, saving your company money in the future and hopefully increasing revenue.

1. 2.       Applying the right person for the job

As stated before, it is usually someone already in the company who manages their own IT support. Of course this may initially save the company money but if the employee is not an IT/tech whizz kid, then maintaining a healthy IT system will prove to be a problem, resulting in more money being spent on fixing errors.

1. 3.      Opportunity Cost

Following on from points 1 and 2, if the right person, (an IT professional) is applied to the job, then the company will be spending less money on outgoing costs of fixing IT problems. This would then be seen as an opportunity cost for the business as they will be saving money in the long term.

Through these 3 key points, we can see that it is important that small businesses look over their IT support team, if their system is playing up more often than not, perhaps it would be a good idea to get a professional involved. It could be saving your business money! If you would like a second opinion or some advice, give us a call on 0800 80 30 30.

We’re just about to enter the New Year so we’ve decided to try the new and improved Microsoft Intune. So what exactly is Intune? Well, Microsoft claim that it’s an end to all onsite servers, it’s supposed to ‘simplify how businesses manage and secure their PCs’. Sounds like it’s a programme that makes our jobs in IT support an awful lot easier! We’ll see how that turns out in a few weeks time.

What else does this magical tool claim to do I hear you say?!

For a reasonable monthly subscription (costs are currently undecided), your systems will be secured and managed whilst all administration problems are also solved and taken care of, including:

-        Patch and antivirus management

-        Troubleshooting

-        Centralised control over patches and security updates

It does seem as though it’s an ideal ‘cloud’ (as Microsoft like to call their apps), but who does it suit? The clever IT people have thought about a few types of businesses in which Intune would help…

1. Smaller businesses – Their PC management is so far down on their lists, it’s probably not even considered.
2. Organisations with a mobile workforce – They’re out and about with hardly any communication to their network, making it hard to pick up on all sorts of dodgy files being downloaded.

Intune would already be on each system, making it easier to keep a close eye on everything, picking up on those dodgy or corrupt files.

So with Intune claiming to be the next big ‘cloud’ to solve all PC problems for all of these organisations, will it actually fill its expectations? Here at One Stop, we’re going to give it a test drive to see if it’s what it is cracked up to be. Keep posted to see what we really think about it!

For more information and details of what the programme will do, visit http://www.microsoft.com/en/gb/mediumbusiness/resources/asktheexperts/windows-intune.aspx