Discus Diviner, October 2011

Posted Tue 1st Nov 2011 by Discus Systems

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The Discus Diviner

October 2011

Welcome to the October edition of The Discus Diviner. This month we are introducing a new feature - Business Tools to Help You Work Better.

'Collaboration' is a term that has been around for some time in the IT world, certainly as far back as the days when Lotus Notes was in the ascendancy. The 'collaboration' challenge now is for businesses to encourage innovation and modernisation in the digital workplace without incurring unnecessary expense and overburdening IT support.

This month we will have a brief look at Dropbox, a free service that lets you bring your photos, documents and videos anywhere and share them easily.

Discus Systems welcomes . . .

New customers Borshch Electrical, of Bordesley, Birmingham; Mercury Tool & Gauge of Coventry and JVM Castings of Tamworth.

Fowlers of Earlswood at Chees-y Event

The Westley Hotel in Acocks Green has held a cheese and wine event for local businesses to celebrate the completion of an £800,000 refurbishment scheme. Guests were able to sample handcrafted cheeses supplied by Discus Systems' customer, Fowlers of Earlswood, the oldest cheese making family business in England. And the company's David Fowler was on hand to give insight into the care, skills and traditions that have been passed on in the business from 1670 right up to today's 14th generation.

Dropbox - simplify your life

Dropbox is a handy tool for saving and accessing your important documents across multiple devices. The cloud-based service saves your work to an easy-to-access folder available on any computer as well as the Dropbox website. Dropbox protects digital files from crashed hard drives, frozen computers, and misplaced flash drives. It synchronises documents, photos, and videos across multiple systems, moving them from laptop to smartphone to iPad without so much as a single wire or USB cord.

Any file you save to Dropbox also instantly saves to your computers, phones, and the Dropbox website itself.

Your files are always available from the secure Dropbox website.
Dropbox works with Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.
Works even when offline. You always have your files, whether or not you have a connection.
Dropbox transfers just the parts of a file that change (not the whole thing).
Manually set bandwidth limits -- Dropbox won't hog your connection.

Dropbox keeps a one-month history of your work.
Any changes can be undone, and files can be undeleted.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption.

Dropbox is available for free (though users can only store 2GB of data) or for a monthly fee for users that want access to over 50GB of storage.

Discus Systems' Wireless Leased Line

Twiddling your thumbs waiting for the Internet? File transfers taking forever? Losing online business because of sluggish communications? You don't need us to tell you your pipeline to the outside world needs beefing up.

But before you contact BT, why not weigh up the advantages of a wireless leased line?

Substantially cheaper than a fibre-based leased line. For example, a 10 Mbps circuit can be installed for just £1000 with a monthly rental that is up to 80% cheaper than a wire-based circuit.
Much simpler to install - days as opposed to weeks.
A wireless circuit is uncontended - the full bandwidth is available to you exclusively.
No disruption to the physical environment. Do your bit for the planet!

For further information email u2us@discus.co.uk or for an informal discussion contact Terry or Martyn on 0800 880 3360

Small Business? Tight Budget?

Times are certainly tough for small businesses and, if the pundits are to be believed, they are set to get tougher. This is the time when every penny spent is scrutinised, every monetary decision queried. However, this can sometimes lead to false economy, especially in the world of IT.

At Discus, we constantly look for ways to save our customers' money without compromising quality. Many of them have been doing business with us for as long as we care to remember and value our well-considered strategic advice. In order to do this we have to keep abreast of a rapidly changing technology, and use our experience and judgement of what is good and what is not.

Two areas of potential cost saving are virtualisation and hosting. If you would like to know more about them, then all you have to do is call Terry or Martyn on 0800 880 3360. We would be delighted to receive your call.

Is your business newly incorporated?

If it is, your head will be spinning with the hundred and one things you have to do. So why make things more complicated by wrestling with your IT? What might start out as a server, a few PCs and a bit of cabling can rapidly escalate into a logistical nightmare, involving multiple suppliers. That's why we offer Discus Systems' Flying Start solution - one party to deal with. Let us take away the stress of setting up your IT.

Less time, less trouble, giving you time to deal with other things.

For further information email u2us@discus.co.uk or for an informal discussion contact Terry or Martyn on 0800 880 3360.