Tech Talk

Manage your DNS settings for faster web browsing

Craig — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:12:50 +0000

In the Network Settings pane of your System Preferences, you may have noticed that you can manually set the DNS servers your connection will use. There are a few reasons for doing this, namely speeding up the time it takes to look up any given website, but also to bypass some annoyances in your ISP's (or IT department's) default name server. Such annoyances could include domain blocking, censorship and other things you may or may not know are even happening.

Our friends at TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog - explains how to use Namebench for Windows, Mac and Linux to identify optimal settings. Read on at http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/16/manage-your-dns-settings-for-faster-web-browsing

Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps is in Beta

Craig — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:11:00 +0000

Microsoft is tackling Google Docs head on with the release of Office 2010 Web Apps. Being a cloud based system, Web Apps, lets you access documents from virtually anywhere. Whether you’re editing a document from home or collaborating with someone around the world, Office Web Apps help you work the way you want. The applications are streamlined – dare I say “cut down” - versions of the new Office 2010 products. The interesting thing is that documents originally created on the desktop work fine within the Web Apps environment – but advanced functionality is absent. Copy them back to the desktop after collaborating or editing and the fidelity and functionality of the original is available again.

Office Web Apps come in two versions: Office Web Apps for home and school and Office Web Apps for organisations.

Whether or not you’re a fan of Microsoft and it’s famous productivity suite, Web Apps deserves a look. I’m confident that Redmond has raised the bar substantially – and Google, Zoho and everybody else will need to lift their game. Competition is a VERY good thing.

CASE STUDY: Business Club Australia

Craig — Sun, 09 May 2010 00:07:00 +0000

In 2006 the AchieveIT team was engaged by Business Club Australia, the business networking program for Austrade, to provide a registration system for events hosted around the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

We designed and built a custom software system to handle registration and participation of business delegates for Business Club Australia event using a barcode solution. This data was subsequently used for BCA's extensive business matching program that is used for identifying Australia's export opportunities.

CASE STUDY: Accreditation Online

Craig — Wed, 05 May 2010 23:10:00 +0000

Members of the AchieveIT team were engaged by the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Corporation to provide a high-profile web based system to capture all of the accreditation details for the entire Commonwealth Games community.

The scope of accreditation for M2006 included VIP’s, Athletes, Technical Officials, Media, Sponsors, Broadcasters and General Workforce (including Contractors). The total number of applications processed for accreditation was over 100,000 from approximately 1000 organisations worldwide.

The front end of the Accreditation system was a web based interface using Microsoft .NET technologies. Various organisations around the world were able to use the system to enter in individual or bulk accreditation applications and also upload single or bulk batch of photographs for those applications. A major function of the system was to provide extensive verification of so that any issue with the data was clearly communicated back to the user.

In 2010 the Accreditation Online solution was implemented in Delhi to capture all of the accreditation information for the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games. The expected number of accreditation applications will exceed 150,000

Run Windows 7 Virtually - Free for a year.

Craig — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0000

MOST PEOPLE WILL HAVE heard that Microsoft is only a few short months away from releasing Windows 7, their long-awaited replacement for the much maligned Windows Vista. In a huge break from tradition Microsoft is running a public beta testing program that is free for anyone to join. I've been running Windows 7 on my Mac for a few days now - and I have to say that it appears to be polished and fast. You can download Windows 7 from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx - and it will expire on 1 June 2010. A whole year of Windows 7 for free!

I love my Mac - but there are times when I just have to run Windows. For example when I need to test how a web site looks in Internet Explorer or I when need to work with Microsoft Project. In the past I have used Parallels on my MacBook Pro - but I didn't particularly want to buy another copy for those rare occasions when I need to run Windows on my iMac at home.

Add to that the great news is that Sun has released Virtualbox a fanatastic virtualisation platform that appears to be every bit as good as Parallels and you have the amazing ability to safely try out the new version of Windows for free while you are comfortably running your current operating system:- Windows, Linux or OSX.

One caveat. As good as Windows 7 appears to be it is still a pre-release product. Don't be tempted to do anything that might be regarded as being mission critical.