We have a number of email addresses that are used to receive mail only - they do not send mail.
If you have received mail from any of the following email accounts, upgrades, repairs, sales, print, systems and office followed by @hillierconsultants.com please delete them. They did not originate from our servers or anyone in our organisation.
Apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused.
We do not understand the mentality of people who misuse the internet in this way.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Accounts systems
Are you an accounts user? Are you locked into Sage? Are you paying high levels of support? Are you looking for accounts packages on non-windows platforms?
We have recently been investigating alternatives to the Sage Accounts programs. Not the we have anything against Sage as such. As a business system it does the business. The support desk in UK based and they have a lot going for them.
But what alternatives are there? Well, there is TAS books but that is now part of the Sage empire and we suspect product convergence over time. There is quick books but we know of no business using that system.
We have however recently investigated two particular alternatives.
The first, Accountz, is based on an installed program which runs on Windows, Linux and Mac systems. We have tested this out in the single user version. We tried to test to destruction. We created the data on an Ubuntu Linux system. We then copied the files across the network onto a Windows 2003 server mapped drive. We then installed to product onto a Vista computer and were able to access the data on either the Vista or Ubuntu system. It worked! This makes it very interesting from a Linux point of view - a topic we will return to in another blog.
The second, Kashflow, is a web based accounts system. There are no programs to use, simply use your favourite web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera) and you are away. The data is stored on the companies London based web server and mirrored to a backup server. Because of this the program is available on both Windows and Linux platforms, which makes it equally interesting to us as Linux users.
Both systems have a respectable UK installed user base.
For further details of this visit our website www.hillierconsultants.com or phone (UK only) 01268 548636 or email sales at our office.
We have recently been investigating alternatives to the Sage Accounts programs. Not the we have anything against Sage as such. As a business system it does the business. The support desk in UK based and they have a lot going for them.
But what alternatives are there? Well, there is TAS books but that is now part of the Sage empire and we suspect product convergence over time. There is quick books but we know of no business using that system.
We have however recently investigated two particular alternatives.
The first, Accountz, is based on an installed program which runs on Windows, Linux and Mac systems. We have tested this out in the single user version. We tried to test to destruction. We created the data on an Ubuntu Linux system. We then copied the files across the network onto a Windows 2003 server mapped drive. We then installed to product onto a Vista computer and were able to access the data on either the Vista or Ubuntu system. It worked! This makes it very interesting from a Linux point of view - a topic we will return to in another blog.
The second, Kashflow, is a web based accounts system. There are no programs to use, simply use your favourite web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera) and you are away. The data is stored on the companies London based web server and mirrored to a backup server. Because of this the program is available on both Windows and Linux platforms, which makes it equally interesting to us as Linux users.
Both systems have a respectable UK installed user base.
For further details of this visit our website www.hillierconsultants.com or phone (UK only) 01268 548636 or email sales at our office.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
SMEs that continue to invest likely to last.
We found this report by Simon Quicke in the 'Microscope' trade magazine, 8th December 2008.
It might seem like an odd source of research into the small business market but headset specialist Plantronics has reported that a Super SME is set to emerge to beat the downturn.
The emergence of those small companies that have invested in infrastructure, staff training and marketing are best placed to survive the recession.
Most of the SMEs that were surveyed revealed that they had been feeling the downturn for quite a while but only 22% said that the impact have been significant.
“During times of economic uncertainty SMEs tend to view investment in IT, staff training and marketing as luxuries instead of necessities,” Says Paul Clark, General Manager, Plantronics.
“This research shows Super SMEs bucking convention and investing wisely in some or all of these areas are the most confident about the future and better placed to operate in the changing marketplace,” he added. Last week the Chartered Institute of Marketing revealed that a portion of its members were worried about what next year holds and whether or not they would be able to hold onto their jobs.
It might seem like an odd source of research into the small business market but headset specialist Plantronics has reported that a Super SME is set to emerge to beat the downturn.
The emergence of those small companies that have invested in infrastructure, staff training and marketing are best placed to survive the recession.
Most of the SMEs that were surveyed revealed that they had been feeling the downturn for quite a while but only 22% said that the impact have been significant.
“During times of economic uncertainty SMEs tend to view investment in IT, staff training and marketing as luxuries instead of necessities,” Says Paul Clark, General Manager, Plantronics.
“This research shows Super SMEs bucking convention and investing wisely in some or all of these areas are the most confident about the future and better placed to operate in the changing marketplace,” he added. Last week the Chartered Institute of Marketing revealed that a portion of its members were worried about what next year holds and whether or not they would be able to hold onto their jobs.
Monday, 19 January 2009
Another Norton DOS attack
Another machine brought in with out of date Norton 360 security resulting in no access to the internet via Internet Exporer.
Norton and other Anti malware programs should be preventing Denial of Service (DOS) attacks not causing them.
Hopefully someone in Symantec might read this Blog and decide they need to do something about this problem.
See my earlier Blog for more details.
Norton and other Anti malware programs should be preventing Denial of Service (DOS) attacks not causing them.
Hopefully someone in Symantec might read this Blog and decide they need to do something about this problem.
See my earlier Blog for more details.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Expired Norton stops Internet access
Two machines have been brought into us recently with DNS errors on accessing Internet pages. In both cases these machines had an out of date version of Norton Antivirus / Internet Security installed. In both cases once Norton was removed Internet access was restored.
The problem is that you cannot always uninstall Norton after it has expired. This means that you have to use the Norton Removal Tool (or for the brave you can edit the Windows registry directly) but without Internet access you cannot download the Norton Removal Tool.
You can of course download the NRT to another machine, copy the files onto a memory stick or CD and then copy it to the target machine and run it. Remember to reinstall some AntiVirus software once you have deleted Norton. We recommend Panda Internet Security products.
To occupy the high moral ground I have to say that for a company such as Symantec with a product such as Norton AV to exhibit this behaviour simply because the license has expired is really unacceptable.
The problem is that you cannot always uninstall Norton after it has expired. This means that you have to use the Norton Removal Tool (or for the brave you can edit the Windows registry directly) but without Internet access you cannot download the Norton Removal Tool.
You can of course download the NRT to another machine, copy the files onto a memory stick or CD and then copy it to the target machine and run it. Remember to reinstall some AntiVirus software once you have deleted Norton. We recommend Panda Internet Security products.
To occupy the high moral ground I have to say that for a company such as Symantec with a product such as Norton AV to exhibit this behaviour simply because the license has expired is really unacceptable.
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