The most recent Features from Incisive Media

Public sector: Heart of the action

David Morgan — 2009-11-12T10:26:00.000Z

David Morgan, Accountancy Age, Thursday 12 November 2009 at 10:26:00

Attracting staff from the private sector can be tough, but the public sector needs talented individuals at the heart of their organisations to face the big challenges

As the private sector forges ahead and begins to climb out of recession, how can the public sector with its cutbacks and cost savings win the battle to keep and attract the best finance people?

Financial managers and accountants will have to place themselves at the forefront of their organisation to ensure, as far as possible, that impacts on vital frontline services are minimised. Their role will be to help form the future strategy of their organisation, helping prioritise limited resources to support core business services.

Peter Kane, director of performance and finance at the Home Office, says: “We can attract and retain good staff by highlighting the scale of the challenge and opportunities for the finance community over the next three to five years. It is a chance to be at the centre of the action and to demonstrate that we can add real value to our businesses. At the Home Office and in the wider public sector, it is a time when some of the most exciting and interesting jobs will be offered. We will need to be tough, resilient and agile in responding to the demands now placed upon us.

“We have to challenge any impression that we are simply back office or an overhead not only is this bad for morale, but it ignores the fact that frontline services can only operate effectively if they have outstanding support from finance. We need to demonstrate that we are lean and add real value.”

Skills wanted

Financial staff will need to build closer links and relationships with their colleagues, not least with procurement departments, to achieve maximum savings while ensuring standards are maintained. The need for finance personnel to communicate effectively will be essential as difficult choices have to be made and explained to the public and those within the organisation.

Duncan Whitfield, FD at Southwark Council, says: “Recruitment presents new challenges when the pressure is to downsize. However, new opportunities will still be available within our new structures we want senior finance managers who can work closely with service managers. They will have to build solid relationships and gain deeper understanding of services to make the best use of the limited resources we have to deliver services.”

Kane continues: “We have to earn our place at the top table, we have to raise our game making sure we have the right skills and the right knowledge at our fingertips. We need to communicate in an effective way to ensure people engage with us.”

Relatively speaking, accountants will be in a safe place as their skills will drive the changes to save costs across the public sector. Particular skills which will see greatest demand are:

* budget management;

* change management and experience of delivering major programmes of change; and

* resource accounting.

However, there will be a growing and much needed trend towards sharper, more commercialised financial skills to ensure targets are achieved. The weaker people will still be at risk as pressures mount to deliver the goods.

Less reliance on costly temps and interim accountancy staff will see a more permanent mindset return and immediate cost savings will be achieved.

David Morgan is a partner at Morgan Law

HOW TO RETAIN STAFF

As job security is now challenged, a more pro-active approach is needed to go and seek out the best people, to scan the marketplace, to look more widely at other sectors to find a better balance of experience and core skills from other areas of the public sector. Many of the best people are very busy and are not looking for a new job – they will need to be discovered. Specialist recruiters will help to deliver this need.

Retention will become a problem in a year or two but not yet as most people are looking for stability and will stay where they are for now. Even interims are starting to consider permanent jobs in the middle management levels.

John Headley, director of finance & information at Ashford and St Peters NHS Trust, says it has not been difficult hiring from the private sector. “While an element of this is due to a reduction in job security in the private sector, I think people have a lot of good will towards the NHS and want to join the service because it allows them to utilise their skills for a worthwhile end.”

FRESH INCENTIVES

The much heralded public sector incentives such as flexi-time, maternity and other holiday/leave packages are still hugely attractive to many professionals. This lifestyle choice outweighs financial incentives offered by the private sector and continued innovation in these areas will still ensure a steady flow of the best people into the public sector.

Headley agrees: “Remuneration for senior finance staff in the NHS is not uncompetitive. While there may be no annual bonus, pensions and annual leave are good. It’s important to enable people’s work-life balance with flexible working, family friendly working hours, etc.”

This point of view is by no means uncommon across the public sector including local government. As Duncan Whitfield, finance director at Southwark Council, comments: “We offer a range of soft incentives for finance professionals at Southwark Council - a central location, excellent accommodation, good quality facilities and flexible, remote working arrangements. During these times, it is extremely difficult to contemplate the development of enhanced financial packages.”

The savings target across the NHS is £20bn and everyone is aware of the cuts coming their way. Local government continues to pursue annual efficiency targets that become harder each year as service demands continue to increase for children, the elderly, waste recycling and carbon reduction. Both political parties have committed to a pay freeze, which could have a negative effect on attracting talent from outside the sector, as potential candidates see little or no financial incentive.

One of the biggest challenges in healthcare recruitment is that the employer often demands 100% NHS experience and rarely look outside this sector expertise. When faced with such a demand for cutbacks, it may make more sense to ‘grow your own talent’ - consider recruiting more effectively from other sectors and invest in training and development programmes for staff.

Sometimes we see an endless game of musical chairs being played - recruiting the same people from an ever decreasing circle of talent. The pool is now going to be reduced which will make the problem worse. Fresher thinking with new people may offer a more effective solution to provide the best workforce for the future.

Profile: Paula Bell, FD of Ricardo Group

Rachel Fielding — 2009-11-12T10:06:00.000Z

Rachel Fielding, Accountancy Age, Thursday 12 November 2009 at 10:06:00

Paula Bell has broken new ground for women in the profession and she is leading the modernisation of the automotive engineering company

Chugging down the A27 on my way to Ricardo’s technical facility in Shoreham, I’m overtaken by a silver Mercedes SLK350 sports car driven very assertively by a rather glamourous blonde. As I pull into the visitors’ car park, I spot the Mercedes two spaces down from my rather sad MPV.

Given Ricardo’s core business automotive engineering consultancy you’d sort of expect a few performance cars to litter the forecourt. There’s even a vintage sports car parked by the reception of the rather stark, modernist interior of the building. It’s a new reception area that opened in September last year and it still smells like a new car.

Paula Bell, now 42, has been in the financial driving seat at Ricardo plc since November 2006, and in that time she has played a major role in diversification of the business, and transforming Ricardo’s balance sheet and cashflow.

It’s very hard not to warm to Ricardo’s group finance director. The softly spoken Geordie has an uncanny knack of putting people at ease. There are no airs and graces, and not an ounce of arrogance. Bell is intensely professional, immensely good company and surprisingly feminine, in stark contrast to the male dominated industry in which she has carved out her career.

She’s not one to dwell on the issue of gender in business. Nonetheless, CIMA-qualified Bell has single-handedly succeeded in softening some of the slightly rough and masculine edges of Ricardo, which employs 1,700 people globally, of which around 900 are based in the UK across facilities in Shoreham, Leamington and Cambridge. The company’s annual report, an attractive tome adorned with splashes of colour and retro graphics, is a case in point. “That’s the feminine touch,” Bell jokes. “If it were down to the engineers, everything would be Ricardo royal blue, even the chairs in reception.”

Harry Ricardo started the business 100 years ago as a car manufacturer but quickly realised that consultancy would be a far more lucrative business to develop. The company’s core market is to provide technical consultancy to the automotive market, but in the last five years Ricardo has diversified very successfully into new areas and geographies.

Renewable energy, such as the technology behind wind farms, and low carbon research, will be a major focus, as will other forms of transport, including rail and marine. Bell believes Ricardo will generate new revenues of £30m from each in the next three years. Meanwhile Ricardo’s defence business it specialises in modifying Land Rover Defenders for the military by adding armour protection and mountings for weapons is a growing business both in the UK and the US as the war in Afghanistan rages on.

Despite the recession, Ricardo is recruiting furiously to plug skills gaps for its new areas of focus. “At the end of the day, this is a people business. If we want to move into new sectors we need to invest in the talent and experience of highly skilled people to create growth.”

Bell’s successful strategy to reduce gearing in the business from around 40% to its current level of near-zero net debt since she joined will also pave the way for acquisitions, although that’s certainly not something they’ll be doing in the next year.

“After that, if we see something attractive, there’s no reason why not,” she says.

There’s also a geographic focus to Ricardo’s diversification strategy. It already has facilities across North America, Europe and Asia and is currently in the process of building an engineering facility in Shanghai, with the aim of recruiting 300 people in China over the next few years, “because quite frankly that’s where the growth is going to be”.

The main thrust of the umbrella strategy has been to reduce Ricardo’s reliance on an automotive industry in crisis. It’s a recession that has seen General Motors file for bankruptcy in the US and just last week, GM said it plans to cut 10,000 jobs as part of a restructuring of its European operations. Toyota, meanwhile, has seen sales plunge to a hoped for 7.3 million vehicles this year. The British automotive industry alone has been in the front line of the downturn, with output falling faster and further than any other sector since the summer.

“Five years ago, Ford and GM together would have been 50% to 60% of our business. It’s less than 5% now,” Bell explains. “At that time there were two or three big project cancellations and a very profitable business turned into a low profit business overnight. That really set the scene and made us realise you can’t run a business model based on one or two key clients.”

Although the passenger car segment of Ricardo’s business still generates the majority of revenues (54% in 2009) that rather foresightful diversification has more than paid off. For the year to 30 June, Ricardo posted pre-tax profits of £15.7m, up 1% on the previous year, despite revenues falling 2% to £178.8m.

“We’ve weathered the storm extremely well,” Bell says. “You need a really strong balance sheet with cash flow to be able to operate a growth model and expand the business. My financial strategy has been very focused on cash. Diversification puts more pressure on good credit management processes. If we weren’t sure about a new client, we’d make sure we got paid up front to protect our cash position. We refuse to succumb to pricing pressure and we refuse to relent on our cash terms.”

Government legislation and the setting of new CO2 emissions targets for car manufacturers look set to be “a fantastic business driver” for Ricardo as harsh financial penalties will inevitably force the industry to invest in new technologies. “It would cost the 14 main car manufactures in Europe something like ?35bn (£31bn) if they don’t hit these targets and they’ve got to come to people like us to help them,” Bell says.

There is no softening of the CO2 legislation targets on the horizon, despite the economic situation. And, although Bell admits that car manufacturers haven’t rushed to invest in the new greener technologies, she’s confident that it’s only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, Paula and her finance team of 45 will continue to focus on improving the cash position of the business, underpinned by the concept of business partnering in finance. “That’s been a journey. We have ten FDs in the business who concentrate on making us more money. As an FD, you’ve got to have the integrity and financial controls to run your business successfully, but at the same time we’re here for one purpose to improve shareholder returns.”

Paula’s criteria for new finance recruits is stringent. “We want people with a commercial edge and the ability to influence and coach non-financial people. How do you influence an engineer to think about cash? That’s no mean feat. Finance people like that are quite hard to find.”

It was only by chance during a ten year stint at Rolls-Royce that Paula was given an opportunity to develop her own broader commercial skills, after the business unit she was in was restructured and she was propelled into a business development director role running the M&A programme for the group. “I was a long way from my comfort zone, but it was one of the most valuable parts of my career.”

Paula is adamant she’s no petrol head although judging from her driving style and choice of vehicle (yes, it was her in the Merc), she certainly has more than a passing interest in cars. She admits finding some of Ricardo’s projects exciting - working on the transmission for the new Bugatti Veyron and the Formula 1 side of the business using technology to help Formula 1 teams to meet regulations. “But a bit of detachment is good. I like to drive a nice car but I’m not so interested in the technology. My job is to make money from it.”

The future for car manufacturers may hang in the balance but Ricardo is well placed to thrive, thanks in no small part to Bell. She’s off on maternity leave at Christmas for the second time, but you get the feeling that she’ll still be in the driving seat while she’s away.

“Doing the family thing is my new chapter. You can do both I thought it would be impossible.” I just wonder whether she’ll be trading in that Mercedes for a more sensible family car.

ON THE RISE

Paula Bell attended comprehensive school in her native Whitley Bay, just east of Newcastle, and began her exceptional fast track career by training as a chartered management accountant while working for the Port of Blyth. In 1989 she followed in the footsteps of her father and joined Rolls Royce; five years later – at the age of only 26 – she was finance director of Rolls Royce Industrial Controls, becoming its youngest ever appointed director.

A five-year stint as director of finance for Anglian Water – another female first – was followed by an eighteen-month spell as finance and property director of Gatwick Airport, before returning to the technology sector with Ricardo.

Earlier this year Paula was awarded the prestigious First Women Award for Science and Technology 2009, sponsored by the CBI, which recognizes trailblazing and pioneering women in business.

Since Paula joined Ricardo, the number of women in senior management positions has risen to 35.“It’s still only 10% but it was zero when I joined,” Bell says. “We don’t recruit on gender but if you have more women in senior positions, women are more open minded about joining the company. It means we have a bigger pool to fish from.”

She admits working in a male-dominated environment has its challenges. “You can get excluded from conversations in the boardroom. If you think something is a bit unfair, you need to constructively challenge. If you’re confident enough to do that the problem will go away.”

From ancient to virtual worlds

Dave Bailey — 2009-11-11T15:59:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, Computing, Wednesday 11 November 2009 at 15:59:00

In a bid to increase business, brands are looking to connect to web communities and community-inspired content. The results can be spectacular

The notion that your customers are only 10 seconds away from your competitor’s web site still holds true. But while the server and network infrastructure needed to deliver a web site that stays up 99.999 per cent of the time is one aspect of delivering a good online experience, the phrase “content is king” is equally relevant, and just as important for customer retention.

Would a better way to engage customers be by spicing up that dowdy site with some visually stunning graphics, tied into standard e-commerce transaction middleware?

For visually stunning graphics, read virtual worlds, whose genesis can be traced back to the multi-user dungeon program MUD, which originated in 1978 at Essex University. But it was many years before what people now think of as a virtual world was realised – a 3D, immersive world, available 24/7 via a web connection.

So the question for businesses is how big is the opportunity to monetise commercial web sites by introducing a virtual world of online activity?

UK firm Rezzable is one company pushing the boundaries of virtual world technology, both technically and in identifying how such a business model could work.

“There is a convergence with content delivery that is creating a new opportunity, and a lot of effort is being focused on making this happen now,” says chief executive Jon Himoff.

Such content delivery will span the web, TV and mobile devices, and Himoff believes the internet is not a destination any more – just a place to engage with brands.

“We can see that all the content delivery pieces will come together, but currently it is very fragmented,” he says.

Such fragmentation is something Rezzable is addressing with the launch of its first brand, Heritage Key. This aims to draw together various content delivery mechanisms to see if such a virtual environment boosts visitor numbers.

Himoff describes Heritage Key as “the first solid example of a do-it- yourself immersive, virtual online grid”.

“We’re starting to deliver projects for customers that make the most of this technology and we’re hosting it for them as well,” he says.

The first site Heritage Key has worked on is a virtual museum that allows users to explore King Tutankhamun’s tomb in a digital Valley of the Kings (see http://heritage-key.com), which Rezzable had previously set up in Linden Labs’ Second Life environment.

Second Life is a 3D virtual world running on a compute grid that also offers “tools for business, educators, non-profits, and entrepreneurs to develop a virtual presence,” according to its creators.

Himoff says Rezzable previewed its King Tut Virtual area on Second Life earlier this year, but decided to move to its own grid infrastructure. He says the main reasons for the move were integration and costs.

“Second Life is a closed platform but we use OpenSim [a 3D application server used to create virtual environments] that is open source and free,” he says.

Himoff says this gave Heritage Key a lot of options when configuring the software, hosting it, and integrating it with the Drupal content management system, which is also open source.

“The costs are dramatically lower and we can host more concurrent visitors on our servers,” he says.

Heritage Key is the first of what Himoff calls a content-oriented community, bringing together differing content strands. This includes Flickr, for people to share pictures, and also Facebook and Twitter for people who want to interact with each other, as well as providing information about their own experiences in the virtual world.

However, the community will be focused around a type of content that Himoff admits site owners “will have to interest [users] in,” and which would become the foundation of that community.

“Within this picture, one of the things we find interesting is the migration of user-generated content, which has a lot of issues about copyright infringement,” he says.

“There is also all the management of this user-generated content into a kind of mature version of that, which we think of as community-inspired content.”

Himoff added: “We looked at this in terms of the marketing opportunity, because everyone wants to visit an ancient world site physically, but not just turn up and see a bunch of rocks.”

A common problem for popular ancient world tourist sites in real life is access and sustainability, which a virtual world helps to address – even if it can never entirely replicate the experience of actually being there.

In the case of the actual site of Tutankhamun’s tomb, Himoff points out that currently the tomb is closed, because wall paintings have been attacked by bacteria transported onsite by tourists.

“They are spraying these paintings with penicillin because they have this weird fungus on them,” he says.

“Remember – these places were never meant to be opened. They are extremely dry, and so when the tour buses show up and everybody sweats all over the place, the walls act like a sponge, since they have never been exposed to that much moisture.”

Himoff says that in 20 years’ time, the only way people will be able to see the tomb could be through some kind of virtual world.

A further example of Heritage Key’s thinking around community-inspired content is another virtual world it is working on, which will soon go live: Stonehenge, the prehistoric monument in Wiltshire.

Himoff says that a virtual site can build on the many theories about what functions the stones performed.

“It fitted with our idea of community-inspired content that needs a catalyst to boost site visitors and interactions between them,” he says.

“Our view is that there are three levels of content. First, traditional commissioned content. Then there is curated content, where you look at the web and pull back information. Finally there is computer-generated data and content, where all the content is put together.”

If the virtual world concept works for real-life historic sites, then growing a community adds value and makes the site more interesting, generating a critical mass online.

“We’re seeing that around Stonehenge, where we’ve connected with some of the community members, researchers and writers, as well as people with more extreme views as to what Stonehenge is all about,” says Himoff.

“The upshot is all kinds of information that you would not have had you just gone to Wikipedia, or you just went to Stonehenge and walked around with the audio guide.”

So how do sites such as King Tut Virtual and the Stonehenge virtual world cross over to the harsh world of retail trade, online brands and e-commerce?

Himoff says brands need a more relevant way to connect to communities on the web.

“The nature of cost-effective online advertising is about reach and making it cheap – but actually, brands need to find better ways to spend more to participate in the right online communities,” he says.

Brands need to work with quality online communities and take a more active role in supporting new content and media events, says Himoff.

“For example, we have co-creation programmes where we make unique content for brands, which has more relevance for them, and will get those brands above what I call the noise level of today’s standard web sites,” he says.

Heritage Key is aiming to create content-rich, visually stunning, immersive 3D spaces, which offer visitors lots of options for interactivity and engagement, while cross-linking between online and real worlds, and pushing the boundaries of virtual worlds.

How firms are exploring the money-making potential of virtual worlds

As online sales continue to climb, firms looking to differentiate themselves from the competition are increasingly examining virtual worlds.

But there is a distinction to be made between revenue from virtual goods and revenue from physical goods bought through a virtual world.

For the former, investment bank Piper Jaffray predicts global sales of virtual goods to be more than $2.2bn (£1.3bn) this year, rising above $6bn by 2013.

As an example of the latter, PC vendor Lenovo launched its “e-lounge” virtual showroom earlier this year. Based on Nortel’s Project Chainsaw – also known as web.alive – Lenovo’s virtual world is constructed using Epic Games Unreal Tournament application programming interfaces and engine, seen by many experts as better than Second Life’s OpenGL graphics interface.

Users can wander through the lounge, check out Lenovo’s product range and interact with anybody else on the site, although buying a product links back to Lenovo’s conventional web site.

Letting users buy virtual goods is one way of driving revenue, but the new generation of customers exposed to games, social networking and other 3D online environments is likely to be attracted to retail brands that are able to sell physical items through a virtual world.

Inevitably, there are potential drawbacks to running virtual world e-commerce environments as an adjunct to standard web sites. Perhaps the biggest challenge is how to report to real-world administrators about what virtual customers are doing.

Although conventional middleware can be interrogated about standard online transaction behaviour, tracking how virtual customers behave inside a virtual world and mapping that to their purchasing decisions will be a whole new task for marketing executives to tackle.

How to use Diskstation as a mail server

Alan Stevens — 2009-11-11T11:01:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 11 November 2009 at 11:01:00

Use Synology’s Diskstation as a mail server and experience Windows Live Syn

I previously mentioned that Synology had released new software for its family of network-attached storage (NAS) appliances with, among other enhancements, a local SMTP mail server.

I also said I’d be trying out the mail server and reporting back.

Mail on storage

Synology Diskstations come in a variety of formats, from single-disk models, such as the DS-106j, selling for just under £100 ex Vat, all the way up to the DS-508 that adds Raid protection across five disks.

The hard disks required don’t come with the appliances, but with 1TB Sata disks now available for around £80 that’s not a major issue and you can choose how much storage you need.

You can also plug in external USB devices (both disks and Flash memory keys) and share them on your network. Backups can be taken to external drives too and you can share USB printers from a Diskstation appliance, like on a server.

Another reason I like the Synology product is the software which, unlike that used on most small Nas devices, is quick and responsive with a lot more to offer beyond basic file sharing, such as the ability to stream music from iTunes and other software around your network, share photos and videos and set up and run your own web server, complete with PHP and a MySQL database.

Most of these options are enhanced in the new software release, plus you can now host your own email server with support for POP3 and Imap mailboxes together with webmail, albeit via a fairly rudimentary web client.

I’ve got mail

Before I could configure my Synology appliance to act as a mail server I had to do two things.

Download and install the latest 2.1 version of the Diskstation software (in beta at the time of writing, but scheduled for release in March 2009), then log on to the appliance and do the same for the add-on Mail Station package.

Both proved pretty easy and the whole process took around 10 minutes once I’d downloaded the necessary files to the PC I was using.

As with similar appliances, management is via a web interface which is easy to navigate.

It’s also very responsive, which is unusual for a device of this type, most of which have low-powered processors.

This doesn’t normally affect the file-sharing performance as the processor has little involvement, but it can make the management interface very slow.

When configuring the Synology Mail Station, the usual constraints apply.

If it’s just going to be used on the Lan then no major changes to the network setup are needed.

However, in order to receive messages from other servers over the internet, your public DNS settings must include an MX record pointing to the Synology host.

In most cases you’ll need to configure your internet router and firewall to pass SMTP traffic (port 25) to the mail server. Likewise you’ll need to let POP3 and Imap traffic through to access messages remotely.

The Mail Station server I tested can only handle a single mail domain. But it’s easy to configure through the web interface.

You can set the SMTP authorisation and access protocols with a choice of encrypted or ordinary POP3 and Imap options.

You can also enable the Webmail client here, with a link to access it, and that’s about all you need.

Another requirement is to enable the optional User Home service whereby all NAS users are automatically given their own home directory where the mailbox folder will be created.

I configured a local email server and was quickly able to send and receive messages using both Outlook and the webmail client.

It appeared to work fine, but it is very basic and not the kind of product I’d be happy to use in a small business with, for example, no facility to scan messages for viruses or filter out spam.

Neither can you set up out-of-office responders or append disclaimers to outgoing mail.

Similarly, the lack of any facility to collect mail from a POP3 mailbox could be an issue for home users.

Fortunately you don’t need a PC or server to host the mail server, just a Synology appliance.

Foldershare becomes Sync

I want to talk about what’s been happening to Foldershare, Microsoft’s peer-to-peer file synchronisation service which I covered in PCW June 2008 (www.pcw.co.uk/2219686). Since then, the product has been refreshed and given a new name – Windows Live Sync.

It’s also a fully released service and existing users should all have been advised of the changes and invited to update by now.

But if you’re new to the service it’s worth listing what it has to offer and what’s new in the Live Sync version.

What’s changed?

The basic functionality hasn’t really changed.

As with Foldershare before it, Windows Live Sync is free and mostly used to synchronise files held in folders on a home or office PC with those on a notebook used when travelling.

Any changes made while out and about will be automatically applied to the desktop PC and vice versa, with manual updates available.

There are, however, some significant enhancements.

With Foldershare, for example, you were limited to synchronising just 10 folders each with up to 10,000 files.

The Live Sync release doubles that to 20 folders and 20,000 files. Despite this, there are lots of users who want more on the Live Sync forum.

And the previous limit of up to 2GB per file is now 4GB.

As before, you can give others access to your files. In Foldershare this was done using shared libraries, now called shared folders in Live Sync, but there is a small catch if you’re upgrading: you’ll need to recreate your shared folders as there’s no automatic upgrade possible from the Foldershare library format.

On the plus side, however, any personal folders will be converted when you update.

Lastly, it’s possible to remotely access a PC logged onto Live Sync and get to any of its files.

The service as a whole is very easy to set up and use, but here’s a quick run-through to give you an idea of what’s involved.

Using Windows Live Sync

All you need to do to get started with Windows Live Sync is go to https://sync.live.com where you’ll find both a Mac and a Windows client (XP or Vista), ready to download and install.

You’ll need a Windows Live ID to do this although, as part of the Live Sync release, no separate sign-in is now required to use the service.

Another enhancement is integration with the local recycle bin, plus there’s Unicode support to enable files in languages other than English to be kept in sync too.

Once the client is running you’ll see a new Live Sync icon on the Windows Taskbar.

Click on this and you can log on to the Sync website using your Windows Live ID and start synchronising files.

Naturally, you’ll need to tell the software which folders to synchronise with.

For convenience, there’s an option to simply synchronise My Documents and other standard Windows folders. I prefer something more obvious.

I’ve created a folder called MySyncFiles on both my desktop PC (Grumpy) and a laptop (Win7PC) specifically for use with Live Sync.

Then I have created a personal folder via the Live Sync website linking the two together, so any adition, changes or deletions in one folder are automatically replicated in the other.

The synchronisation activity all happens in the background.

You also get a little activity monitor to see what has been going on.

If any changes are made to a file the whole thing gets re-copied, not just the updates, but it’s pretty quick and the synchronisation traffic is all peer-to-peer.

Nothing is sent via the website and the traffic is all SSL encrypted for further security.

You do, though, have to be logged onto the Live Sync website (on each PC).

Live Sync also lets you share your folders with other users.

All you have to do is add them using their email addresses and tell Live Sync what rights they should have.

Plus, it’s possible to allow remote access to all your files, but only to yourself.

Solve Windows start-up problems easily

Will Stapley — 2009-11-11T09:30:00.000Z

Will Stapley, Computeractive, Wednesday 11 November 2009 at 09:30:00

When Windows won’t start it can be hard to know what to do we explain, step by step, how to get it started again

Problems such as programs not running properly or intermittent internet connections are frustrating, but when Windows simply refuses to load it can leave you feeling helpless. After all, how can you fix a problem if you can’t get the PC started to change anything?

Thankfully, all is not lost, as there’s a selection of tools available to help get things back to normal. We’ll take you through the process of identifying and then fixing hardware and software problems.

First steps

When Windows fails to load, it’s important to first work out whether it’s a hardware or software problem. If you get to the stage where the Windows logo is displayed the issue is most likely software related, but if the computer crashes before this point (or nothing is displayed on the monitor), the chances are that something is physically broken.

If you suspect a hardware fault it’s best to take a methodical approach to diagnosing the problem. If the computer starts up but the monitor remains blank, check that all the cables are properly attached and the monitor is set to the correct input if it has several sockets it may be trying to display the picture from a socket that’s not connected. Try all the inputs to see if any work. If you have access to a spare monitor, plug that in to see if your normal monitor has developed a fault.

Listen up

If nothing’s appearing on screen, try listening to your PC. If the hard disk is whirring away normally, the problem is likely to be with your monitor. However, if the hard disk is making a strange grinding noise (or no noise at all), it could have developed a fault.

If your PC has an internal speaker you’ll normally hear a short beep when you switch it on. If this changes to an unusual sequence of beeps (for example, four short beeps), it’s trying to alert you to a problem. Consult the motherboard’s manual to see what the different beep codes indicate; common problems include a faulty processor or memory module, and the beeps will often point towards a specific fix.

If nothing is happening when the power button is pushed, there’s a good chance it can be fixed at minimal expense. All PCs use a power supply unit (PSU) that turns the mains electricity into the lower voltages required by computer components, and these can break down.

If the PSU is broken, your PC won’t work. Thankfully, though, they’re relatively cheap (around £50) and easy to replace – our article on building a new PC describes how to install one.

However, before buying a new power supply, it’s important to rule out simple causes. Check if the fuse in the PC’s plug has blown by using a different power cable, and plug another device into the same socket to check that it’s working. Many desktop PCs have a second power switch on the back – has this been knocked into the off position?

Recent upgrades

Another important step is to think about what you’ve recently been doing to your PC. If a new piece of hardware has been installed it could be causing a problem that’s stopping Windows from loading, so try removing it. Similarly, if your PC has suffered a knock or recently been transported, some of the internal components may be dislodged.

If the PC still won’t start, try removing all unnecessary hardware, such as printers, scanners, USB modems and wireless keyboard or mouse receivers. If the PC still won’t start try removing any non-essential internal hardware, such as soundcards and TV tuners.

Before opening the PC, switch it off at the wall socket and press the power button. If Windows starts once the components have been removed then replace them one-by-one, turning the PC off each time to add one, to work out which is causing the problem.

Another thing to check while the PC is open is the components and cables. These should all be securely in place. If any appear dislodged (cables linking hard disks to the motherboard can pop out during transit) carefully but firmly push them back into position.

Also, make sure no screws have come loose and that there are no wires jamming any of the fans. If the inside of the PC is dusty, use a can of compressed air to blow the dust away.

Bios bothers

If your computer freezes before you see the Windows logo, there could be a problem with the Bios. Computers store settings for the Bios in a memory chip called the CMOS, and resetting this memory can fix the problems.

How to reset the CMOS depends on your make and model of motherboard, so it’s best to consult the manual. However, it’s often done by temporarily moving a small jumper on the motherboard or by removing the battery.

Your hard disk and the data stored on it won’t be affected by this, but all Bios settings will be lost, so you may have to reset the date and time when you next switch on. You may also have to reset the processor speed – usually by choosing an option called ‘optimised defaults’.

Software

If you get to the stage where the Windows logo is displayed, even just for a few seconds, you’re most likely suffering from a software problem. The good news is that it probably won’t cost any money to repair. The bad news is that it can sometimes take a while to track down the problem.

As with hardware faults, before you take any action consider whether you have recently installed any new programs or updates? If so, these may well be the cause, so you should uninstall them.

At this point, you’re probably wondering how you’re meant to uninstall an application when you can’t even load Windows. The answer is to use Safe Mode.

A feature of both XP and Vista, Safe Mode loads Windows with the minimum numbers of drivers and other software – the idea is that by skipping everything else Windows can get itself started, allowing you to make changes such as uninstalling applications.

To access Safe Mode, restart your PC and press F8 just before Windows starts loading (you might find it easier to start tapping the F8 button as soon as the memory check has completed). If the Windows logo appears, you’ll need to try again.

When a menu appears, choose ‘select Safe Mode’ using the arrow keys and press Enter. Once Safe Mode has loaded, you’ll be able to access the Windows Control Panel.

The F8 boot options menu includes other options that may help out. There’s a Safe Mode With Networking option, which installs the drivers required for you to access the internet – this could be useful if you need to download an update, fix or driver.

The last Known Good Configuration option is worth trying since it will attempt to take Windows back to a time when it was working properly.

If these tricks fail, try using the Enable Boot Logging option. This creates a log of every driver that Windows manages to load. Once it fails and crashes, run Safe Mode and look in the Windows folder for a filed called ntbtlog.txt – the driver listed at the end of this document is likely to be the one causing your problem. Go into Safe Mode with Networking, search the web to find out what program or product requires it, then uninstall that.

Error messages

No-one likes seeing error messages, but if one’s displayed when the PC crashes you’ve already got a headstart. By typing the error message into a search website (enclosing it in quote marks will narrow down the results), you’ll usually find valuable information as to the cause of Windows won’t start. Use Safe Mode With Networking to get online.

Both XP and Vista include repair tools. These can take some time and shouldn’t be your first step when you experience problems, but if things are looking bleak they can sometimes work wonders. By scanning the Windows installation, they’ll look for missing or corrupt files and will re-install them automatically.

You will need your Windows XP or Vista installation disc to use these tools. If your PC didn’t come with one, you may find the Repair option by pressing F8 (or another function key) when booting Windows – consult your PC’s manual for more information.

If you have the Windows disc, insert it into the drive, restart your PC and, if asked, press a key to boot from the CD. If the PC starts to load Windows and skips the CD, click here for instructions on setting it to load from the CD. After a short wait, a list of options will be presented.

In XP, the Repair option is joined by one to completely re-install Windows. Avoid this for the moment. Press ‘R’ and it will prompt you to select the Windows installation to repair (it’s likely there will only be one). The repair tool will then scan the installation, checking for errors.

Vista’s System Recovery Options tool is more user friendly than XP’s and has a few more options. The first is Startup Repair, which is similar to the Repair tool in XP.

This is joined by a System Restore option, which lets you revert to previously saved Windows settings without having to boot into Safe Mode. The Windows Complete PC Restore is only available for Vista Business and Ultimate users, while the Memory Diagnostics tool will check for problems with the PC’s memory.

Last ditch efforts

If all else fails, you may need to re-install Windows for full instructions, see our online Masterclass.

Remember, however, that doing this will remove everything from your hard disk, including all files and documents.

To avoid this fate you could buy a new hard disk, install it (see our instruction video here) then put Windows on that. Once it’s up and running you can plug in the old hard disk and access your old files.

Of course, if a faulty hard disk is the cause of your PC’s problems this won’t be possible. That’s another reason to remember that regular backups are vital: whether it’s burning your photos and documents to DVDs once a week or using an external hard disk, every PC user should keep some sort of backup.

Baffled by jargon? See our free online jargon buster

Six steps to greater datacentre efficiency

Doug Washburn — 2009-11-10T13:23:00.000Z

Doug Washburn, Computing, Tuesday 10 November 2009 at 13:23:00

Forrester Research offers best practice advice

To help IT professionals improve datacentre management while cutting costs and improving reliability and resiliency, Forrester Research offers the following tips:

Rationalise your application portfolio

The datacentre and its expensive and energy-consuming IT, power distribution and cooling equipment exists to support applications. And it’s not uncommon for applications to be severely under-used, which snowballs into IT infrastructure capital and operating expenses. Datacentre managers should liaise with users on the phasing out of severely under-utilised applications.

Consolidate and eliminate under-utilised servers

Datacentres are plagued with “dead” servers, or those with utilisation levels below six per cent, consuming power, cooling and space resources. Eliminating and consolidating these servers will free up capital and operating costs, and extend datacentre life by freeing up power, cooling and space capacity.

Increase your server virtualisation ratio

While nearly every organisation admits to virtualising servers, the savings potential from virtualisation is often not fully realised. Forrester finds that mature virtual production environments usually have about 30 virtual machines – and coupled with advanced automation tools, this could reach 50, without undermining service-level agreements.

Enforce “virtual first” policies for new applications

By stipulating that all new applications must run on virtualised infrastructure, you will benefit from improved disaster recovery and business continuity; rapid — or even automatic — restart of applications after an IT failure; and when used in conjunction with data replication between datacentres, it can restart applications at a recovery site following a primary site failure.

Increase storage utilisation and reclaim storage capacity

Storage environments are plagued with low utilisation rates and highly redundant data. IT professionals should consider thin provisioning and data deduplication technologies to improve utilisation and reclaim storage capacity.

Optimise your datacentre temperature

While manufacturers of IT equipment have set the allowable high-end temperature at 27°C, most datacentres are too cold, operating at 8°C to 20°C. With 60-70 per cent of datacentre energy consumption going to power and cooling, this represents a significant operating cost. Under supervision, turn up the temperature in your datacentre. For example, one IT manager took his datacentre temperature from 20°C to 23°C and recorded a 12.7 per cent reduction in energy use.

Doug Washburn is an infrastructure and operations analyst at Forrester Research.

Several Forrester reports are available free of charge to Computing readers by visiting www.forrester.com/computinguk.

Case study: Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust

Lisa Kelly — 2009-11-10T11:45:00.000Z

Lisa Kelly, Computing, Tuesday 10 November 2009 at 11:45:00

Consolidation opens up money-making possibilities

Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust (NHT) has consolidated IT systems at its datacentre to the extent that it is able to explore the possibility of renting out spare capacity.

In 2004, the mental health trust had a server room that was straining to serve the needs of some 7,000 users. “It was more of a broom cupboard than a server room. When it got warm, the smell of silicon was not good,” says Steve Wilkes, systems manager, corporate IT health informatics service, at the trust.

By 2006, the trust had a purpose-built datacentre where all devices had a dual-power supply, and it was equipped with a sophisticated under-floor cooling system designed by Wilkes.

“The datacentre is cool, stable, with guaranteed power and biometric access control to ensure security,” says Wilkes, but he wanted further improvements.

“We are a mental health trust so don’t do blood and bandages. A lot of our work is documented, such as clinicians’ notes, and we have 23TB of critical data across the trust that needs managing and protecting,” he says.

Virtualisation was the next step, and after experimenting with the technology, VMware was rolled out for production systems.

“Nearly 85 per cent of our server estate is virtualised, and we plan to do a further 10 per cent by Christmas. We have consolidated and simplified our datacentre,” says Wilkes.

Direct-attached storage was replaced by a storage area network (SAN) based on NetApp technology that works with the virtualisation software. The move has cut management time for Wilkes and seven systems engineers by 70 per cent.

Instead of 16 cabinets housing 170 servers, the Nottingham datacentre now has two cabinets housing the SAN, two cabinets with the virtualisation technology and three cabinets with Citrix servers.

Meanwhile, a sister site at the Rampton Hospital (above), which is connected to the Nottingham datacentre and mirrors data, has consolidated 50 servers to 12 VMware servers and six Citrix servers.

The result is a much greener datacentre.

“We have halved our requirement for cooling and power, but the real benefit is we have made available half the capacity we formerly used by freeing up storage space,” says Wilkes.

This opens up the possibility of “offering services for disaster recovery capability to like-minded trusts as a potential revenue stream,” says Wilkes.

Although no decisions have yet been made, Wilkes says this opportunity could enable the trust to meet the requirements of the government’s cost improvement programme, which demands efficiency savings of between 3.5 and five per cent per annum.

Irrespective of this happening, Wilkes has a datacentre that is flexible and easy to run.

“Life is easier for us,” he says. “If we roll out a new package on one server, we can check if it works and roll it out across the server estate. We have a manageable datacentre, which allows us to easily restructure, swap-out and scale up and out. This in turn gives us more free time to perfect the monitoring side of things so we can be more proactive.”

The evolution of the datacentre

Lisa Kelly — 2009-11-10T11:44:00.000Z

Lisa Kelly, Computing, Tuesday 10 November 2009 at 11:44:00

Lisa Kelly talks to three IT leaders from three very different organisations about the huge changes they have brought to their datacentre operations, and their plans for the future

Mark Ridley, director of technology at recruitment web site Reed.co.uk, is exploring the possibility of moving datacentre systems to the cloud to improve efficiency, reduce costs and increase flexibility.

“Reed has experienced an evolution of the datacentre rather than a revolution. We have come a long way since 2000 when we had a server room rather than a datacentre, to the point where we are now using virtualisation technologies and contemplating cloud computing for our 2010 upgrade,” says Ridley.

Reed’s original datacentre was rudimentary and “not an outcome based on a lot of thinking”, admits Ridley, but his appreciation of the power of the web and what it could do for the business led Ridley to focus on web application development, while a third party was brought on board to run the datacentre.

“Development, some of which was outsourced, was brought entirely in-house as we realised we had to invest more in online job posting, while Attenda became our hosting partner. Our core strength is development and understanding why and how the business wants to do things, but we have outsourced the datacentre to experts so we can access technology we couldn’t otherwise afford,” he says.

Ridley regards Attenda as a partner rather than a supplier, but investigates alternative providers as part of Reed’s hosting re-tendering process, which it undertakes every three years.

“Our last refresh was in 2007, but two years into the contract, we began looking. In the past we found we quickly hit our headroom for the server we had implemented, but this time we are not in that position thanks to the flexibility of virtualisation technology, which was introduced in 2007,” says Ridley.

Investment in standardisation of processes, procedures and platform has helped lower datacentre costs for Reed and improved performance. “Guidelines and policies are followed so there is a great deal of consistency of service, and Attenda knows how to deal with any incident,” says Ridley.

Attenda architects work with Reed to identify new areas where virtualisation can be employed.

Currently, Ridley is working with the supplier to implement a new VMware-based virtual server to run its StrongMail email system.

“We send about 25 million emails a month and StrongMail has improved our email delivery rate from 90 to 99 per cent. This has improved the efficiency of our datacentre as sending 2.25 million emails that don’t reach their intended recipient wastes processing power. We are always looking at ways to improve processes and energy efficiency and using a virtual machine to host the StrongMail box would make further energy savings,” says Ridley.

A green and efficient datacentre is important to Ridley, who is always looking for ways to cut his power bills.

“By ensuring good performance, you need fewer servers and less power. For example, a badly coded application will require high bandwidth and many servers,” he says.

In the past, Ridley has brought in-house any servers that are freed up at the end of its three-year contract with Attenda to run the company’s development environment, but now he benefits from using virtualisation.

“We bought three new HP DL380 servers and created a brand new, swanky virtualised environment that uses half the energy required by our old inherited servers,” says Ridley.

Over the years, the firm’s datacentre strategy has evolved. "In the early days, we wanted to own all the kit. Pre-2007, we owned the storage and firewalls, but now we make use of the common infrastructure shared across Attenda clients. This gives us access to superior kit, for example the storage area network (SAN) that uses virtualisation technology from VMware. We buy chunks of storage, which is cheaper and better performing than if we had to invest in dedicated storage,” says Ridley.

Non-ownership reduces management costs and increases access to external skills so Reed can concentrate on its technology priorities, he says.

“If a disk drive fails at 3am, we don’t need to know about it unless there has been a degradation of service affecting our service level agreements. A good hosting company has someone who lives and breathes storage and there is no way we would have that expertise on hand at Reed. We need to focus on development,” says Ridley.

Reed’s database cluster and web servers, however, have dedicated hardware and are run within a ring-fenced area in the Attenda hosting environment, but Ridley can foresee this changing based on his positive experience of virtualisation.

“Because our web servers and database are so critical to what Reed is delivering, we did not want to opt for a shared infrastructure. However, virtualisation and shared applications will change the way we buy datacentre power. I can envisage a cloud computing model where we say how much power we require without worrying about hardware. In the past I have had to trundle with a server in a white van across London, but that need not happen now,” says Ridley, who is looking at cloud computing for the 2010 datacentre upgrade.

“In the future, we will not be looking at the provision of IT as physical boxes, but the provision of a service to a client as a unit of computing power, and the expectation will be that it comes on just as water comes out of a tap when it is turned on,” he adds.

Cloud computing will especially benefit businesses such as Reed that are subject to spikes of demand, Ridley believes.

“Our busy time is the New Year, when many people look for new jobs. In the past, a big burst of activity has meant our developers had to throttle the number of people coming through to the site. With cloud computing we would be able to simply phone up and order more computing power for January,” says Ridley.

Cloud computing could also lead to shorter datacentre contracts. “We will not be tied into hardware costs – the hardware will belong to our hosting provider,” he says.

Another advantage, Ridley foresees, is not having to make guesses about the economy three years in advance and how it will affect use when ordering computing power.

“With a cloud computing model within the datacentre, IT provision will become more timely, efficient and easier to budget for as it will be aligned with what the technology group does with the business,” says Ridley.

Read our case studies to find out how Bolton Wanderers FC and Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust manage their datacentres

Six steps to greater datacentre efficiency

To help IT professionals improve datacentre management while cutting costs and improving reliability and resiliency, Forrester Research's Doug Washburn offers the following tips:

Rationalise your application portfolio. The datacentre and its expensive and energy-consuming IT, power distribution and cooling equipment exists to support applications. And it’s not uncommon for applications to be severely under-used, which snowballs into IT infrastructure capital and operating expenses. Datacentre managers should liaise with users on the phasing out of severely under-utilised applications.

Consolidate and eliminate under-utilised servers. Datacentres are plagued with “dead” servers, or those with utilisation levels below six per cent, consuming power, cooling and space resources. Eliminating and consolidating these servers will free up capital and operating costs, and extend datacentre life by freeing up power, cooling and space capacity.

Increase your server virtualisation ratio. While nearly every organisation admits to virtualising servers, the savings potential from virtualisation is often not fully realised. Forrester finds that mature virtual production environments usually have about 30 virtual machines – and coupled with advanced automation tools, this could reach 50, without undermining service-level agreements.

Enforce “virtual first” policies for new applications. By stipulating that all new applications must run on virtualised infrastructure, you will benefit from improved disaster recovery and business continuity; rapid — or even automatic — restart of applications after an IT failure; and when used in conjunction with data replication between datacentres, it can restart applications at a recovery site following a primary site failure.

Increase storage utilisation and reclaim storage capacity. Storage environments are plagued with low utilisation rates and highly redundant data. IT professionals should consider thin provisioning and data deduplication technologies to improve utilisation and reclaim storage capacity.

Optimise your datacentre temperature. While manufacturers of IT equipment have set the allowable high-end temperature at 27°C, most datacentres are too cold, operating at 8°C to 20°C. With 60-70 per cent of datacentre energy consumption going to power and cooling, this represents a significant operating cost. Under supervision, turn up the temperature in your datacentre. For example, one IT manager took his datacentre temperature from 20°C to 23°C and recorded a 12.7 per cent reduction in energy use.

Doug Washburn is an infrastructure and operations analyst at Forrester Research. Several Forrester reports are available free of charge to Computing readers by visiting www.forrester.com/computinguk.

Case study: Bolton Wanderers FC

Lisa Kelly — 2009-11-10T11:44:00.000Z

Lisa Kelly, Computing, Tuesday 10 November 2009 at 11:44:00

Bolton Wanderers transfers security to the cloud

Bolton Wanderers Football Club has tightened network security and taken pressure off its datacentre by moving web security into the cloud.

The club switched from having on-site hardware for its web security, which it found time-consuming to maintain and update, to using so-called security-as-a-service from ScanSafe.

“We moved our email security to the cloud model when we chose Mimecast and wanted to do the same with web security, and take costs and management out of the datacentre. Hardware has a single point of failure and if there are power outages, there are procedural issues about getting back up and running, which we were happy to relinquish,” says Dave Atkinson, IT director at the Premier League club.

However, the club’s core system is its electronic point of sale (Epos) system for tickets and Atkinson plans to keep it within the datacentre.

“I want to keep the Epos system close to me in an environment I can control, but in time it will become more cost-effective to move information and applications into the cloud,” he says.

He points out that 95 per cent of the club’s 130 users are onsite.

“We are not an organisation scattered over the world and administration takes place at one site. Currently, there is no justification to throw more applications into the cloud, but things change,” he says.

The ScanSafe technology has “enriched the user experience”, says Atkinson, which means his team is faced with fewer support queries and is able to focus on other projects. It also means the datacentre’s network is better protected.

“The Anywhere feature enforces uniform security policies on home users and roaming workers. It means that if someone takes a laptop home on Friday night, they are not going to infect the local area network on Monday morning,” says Atkinson.

The need to protect the network is paramount.

“If we suffered a denial of service attack, for example, it would impede our ability to transact with our customers and cost us money,” he says.

Taking “more tin out the network” and investing in virtualisation technology has decreased power consumption, but improving manageability of the datacentre and ensuring business continuity are Atkinson’s main concerns.

“We are moving towards a greener datacentre, but protecting the datacentre is key. Any organisation considered to be in the public eye [is a potential target] and we have to ensure that data is in more than one place at any time. Virtualisation has made onsite recovery management and replication a lot easier,” he says.

Atkinson’s plan for the datacentre is to ensure that “the organisation and systems can grow at the same pace”.

“We have room for growth over the next five to seven years. You don’t want to be going back to the board every two years and asking for extra investment,” he says.

“You don’t know what’s around the corner, so you must ensure the datacentre is able to adjust quickly to any change in business trends.”

Behaviour-based advertising explained

Anthony Dhanendran — 2009-11-10T09:30:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Tuesday 10 November 2009 at 09:30:00

Find out how websites use advertising

On the internet it’s possible to get news, pictures, music, video and all kinds of other information legally and without having to pay for it.

This is made possible by advertising – for example, when you read an article on this website, it appears on your screen along with a couple of advertisements that help us to pay for the site.

With new technology, though, companies can monitor what people do online and send them advertising that is appropriate to them, based on their habits. This ‘behavioural advertising’ has caused a huge amount of controversy – but is it anything to be afraid of?

Everyone’s a winner

The promise of behavioural advertising is that everybody wins. The advertisers get to show more appropriate adverts, so there’s a greater likelihood that they’ll be clicked, making them more effective. The websites stand to make more money from the adverts, which increases their profits. Internet users, meanwhile, don’t get bothered with adverts that aren’t relevant, instead receiving more useful offers and information as well as free access to the site.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) also stand to benefit. Some behavioural advertising systems, such as the Webwise system developed by Phorm, require special software or equipment to be installed at the ISP, allowing these companies to make money by striking deals with the advertising companies.

So if every party stands to gain from behavioural advertising, why has it caused so much controversy? There are two key issues that cause disagreement: whether users should be concerned about people keeping track of things they do online, and whether they have any choice in the matter.

Cookie monsters

It’s important to note that the idea of websites tracking where you surf online is not new. For years websites have used a technology called cookies to keep track of what their users do. These can track how often you visit a site, or which pages you view, but they are normally limited to a single website or a group of sites owned by one company. They’re largely innocuous, although some security software will classify them as harmful and remove them, and it’s easy to delete or block any cookies you don’t want.

Cookies should not be confused with adware – software that is installed on your PC and snoops on what you’re up to in order to display ads. This can normally be removed by internet security software. In general, though, both cookies and adware can be easily removed from your PC if you wish, leaving you in full control.

Your browsing can also be tracked by websites such as search engines. Google, for instance, monitors the words and phrases you search for, and uses this to display relevant adverts to the right of the search results.

This kind of technology isn’t reserved to search pages, either: when the Google Mail service was set up in 2004 the company made waves by announcing that it would subsidise it through targeted advertising. It reads emails that are sent or received by Google Mail addresses and displays advertising appropriate to the emails’ content.

If you have a Google Mail account it’s easy to see this working – log in and read an email, and you will usually see an advertisement on the page that bears some relevance to your message. If you’re emailing friends about booking a holiday, for instance, you may see adverts from travel companies.

Google promises that this is all done anonymously and that individual users aren’t being tracked but, in any case, with search engines users have a choice – if you don’t like the idea of Google Mail’s computers reading your messages, you’re free to find a different email service.

Phorm in a teacup?

With the new forms of behavioural advertising, it’s less clear exactly how much control users will have. Internet use will be monitored as information passes through their ISP, and stopping it won’t be as simple as deleting a few cookies or uninstalling some adware.

The best-known example of this technology is that made by Phorm. Its Webwise technology is designed to be installed by ISPs, where it will monitor what users are looking at online and serve them relevant adverts.

Rather than just noting when a user is online and whether they’re using email or the web, it examines exactly what you’re looking at or saying. If you search an online store for pet food, for example, it’ll spot this and serve you pet-related adverts. The level of analysis is far greater than that used by Google Mail.

Phorm says that it allocates random numbers to individual users rather than tracking them via their network address, and says this makes for ‘full anonymity’. Nonetheless, Phorm has faced significant opposition.

Early concerns about the system revolved around the idea of users having their internet use monitored without their notice or consent. BT ran a trial in the summer of 2007, monitoring the surfing habits of thousands of its users. It then ran another Phorm trial in 2008. Users were not notified beforehand that their surfing would be scrutinised.

The police, government and Information Commissioner’s Office (which advises the public and government data security) all received complaints from the public after Phorm’s first trials, but no action was taken.

Opt in or opt out

Other concerns about Phorm revolve around the idea of how users can choose not to be a part of the service. There’s a debate over whether users should ‘opt in’, choosing to take part if they want to see more relevant adverts, or whether ISPs can enrol all their customers and give them a way to ‘opt out’.

The Information Commissioner’s Office says that under the Data Protection Act, companies must choose ‘opt in’ only if so-called ‘sensitive personal information’ is being monitored. But the law isn’t clear what ‘sensitive personal information’ is, and BT claims that the data it looked at in its Phorm trial was not sensitive. It’s something the courts must decide on.

The European Commission has already taken action against the British Government for failing to ensure internet users’ privacy after receiving several complaints from UK users.

Viviane Reding, EU telecommunications commissioner, said in April: “The rules are quite clear. A person’s information can only be used with their prior consent. We cannot give up this basic principle and have all our exchanges monitored, surveyed and stored in exchange for a promise of ‘more relevant’ advertising”.

The Government has said that Phorm’s technology doesn’t break the law but privacy expert Richard Clayton of Cambridge University disagrees. “The EU has concluded that the Phorm system’s snooping is unlawful because permission has not been obtained from both the user and the website owner,” he told Computeractive in April.

Phorm has responded to the EU, saying: “Our technology is fully compliant with UK legislation and relevant EU directives. This has been confirmed by the UK regulatory authorities and we note that there is no suggestion to the contrary in the Commission’s statement today. Our system offers unmissable notice and clear and persistent choice to consumers.”

Websites want out

Some websites have already expressed a desire to opt their pages out of the Phorm system. The giant online store Amazon has requested its own removal from Phorm, and the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has done the same.

This stops Phorm seeing the pages users visit on their sites, but the Open Rights Group points out that Phorm can still see what items are being searched for as the words being searched for will pass through Phorm’s system at the ISP.

Phorm itself has fought back against its critics, describing itself as the victim of a ‘smear campaign’. It set up a website, www.stopphoulplay.com, containing allegations against a number of anti-phorm campaigners, some of whom it lists by name. One of them, campaigner Alex Hanff, told Computeractive the allegations on the site were ‘childish’.

The future of Phorm’s system is hard to predict: it faces vocal opposition, but several major ISPs have spoken of their plans to use it.

Some might suggest that behavioural advertising should be stopped, but that could have downsides: with the recession biting, websites and ISPs that currently rely on advertising to provide free or low-cost services might be forced to raise their prices.

Even if the technology becomes widespread we might, in future, face a choice between cheap broadband packages supported by behavioural advertising and more expensive ones with greater privacy.

Back from the brink

Scott Halliday — 2009-11-06T11:56:00.000Z

Scott Halliday, Accountancy Age, Friday 6 November 2009 at 11:56:00

The worst of the crisis is over, so what next? Scott Halliday predicts major changes ahead

Through bold government action and massive stimulus bills most of the major world economies are starting to pull back from the brink of recession, including the UK.

While it is far too early to call a recovery in the UK, economic indicators suggest we have hit bottom let’s not forget just how bad things got a year ago and some companies are showing tentative signs of emerging from a crisis of financial uncertainty and starting to plan again for the future.

What we have seen is a new performance agenda emerging as boardrooms start to grapple with the lessons that can be learnt from change. Not all of these lessons are new, but they are taking on a renewed importance as organisations re-evaluate what it takes to survive and thrive in the current market.

This is the consensus after we recently canvassed the views of more than 500 of our partners from around the world on how the corporate, mid-cap and entrepreneurial clients we serve are responding to the new business environment in which we now all operate published in a new report Lessons from Change.

At the start of the year business leaders were telling us that they were doing all that they could to scrape together enough cash to pay their staff and suppliers. But the mood has shifted cash is still important, but it is not the number one priority for management. Even companies that are “cash rich” have a new focus on working capital management and funding.

What we are seeing out in the market are organisations re-evaluating their business models, implementing major programmes of cost reduction and restructuring and its happening across all sectors. Companies are also doing everything they can to optimise the flexibility of their operations and reduce the cost of capital for the business. The exact nature of this structure will vary by company. The starting point, of course, lies with income but also with effective tax rate and cash tax management strategies.

Getting the balance right on risk management has also challenged many companies. The recent crisis showed that many organisations had it wrong. Risk models were not robust. The scope of assessment was too narrow and excluded suppliers and customers from proper assessment. You could argue that risk management became overly concerned with regulatory compliance. There were certainly many cases where risk management was too focused on internal operations, rather than on external forces where most risks arise, such as the supply chain.

More generally we are seeing organisations cast a wider net for financing. Companies have had to seek out alternative finance options and new sources of capital have emerged from sovereign wealth funds, private equity and Middle Eastern and Asian banks.

And this cross-border approach is not limited to the finance function. Companies are aggressively seeking to increase their global footprint (see box bottom left). Normally this is in pursuit of new markets and hence growth. Rather than hiding behind national protectionism, as many had feared as a consequence of the recession, our clients tell us that they are already actively diversifying into new geographic markets.

Some sectors, such as automotive, have been forced to increase their focus on emerging markets. Major pharmaceutical companies are also looking beyond developed markets for acquisitions and other growth opportunities, spurred on by the removal of patent protection in more established countries.

Every business reviewed its operations at the start of the year and will continue to do so to either produce more with the same, or the same with less. Companies also took a rather short-term response to the crisis such as cutting workforce, moth-balling capacity and delaying programmes. But these practices are not sustainable as we enter a more complex and potentially more variable market.

Cost reduction may be the short-term goal, but increased flexibility is the longer-term objective. A more dynamic market calls for a more dynamic response not just the speed with which a company can recognise change or opportunity, but the speed with which it can actually execute its response.

Last week’s ONS figures underline that any recovery, when it comes, will be fragile the Ernst & Young ITEM Club has predicted that GDP in the UK will struggle to reach 1% in 2010. With government spending cuts around the corner and the likelihood of deeper and more aggressive regulation that could carry an expensive price-tag for business it is going be a bumpy ride.

The market will remain difficult and competition will continue to be intense. But competitive and performance advantages are relative not an absolute. The challenge and the greatest opportunity is to be ahead of the pack.

Scott Halliday is the managing partner, UK and Ireland, at Ernst & Young.

NEW HORIZONS

Emerging markets have, for the most part, rebounded quickest from the recession and our clients can see that, with 15% of the Fortune 100 now headquartered in the BRIC countries, the opportunities for higher growth and potential to expand are truly global.

Companies may well be focusing on their core competencies but that does not preclude them from looking for new customers and new markets.

LESSONS FROM CHANGE

Eight primary performance goals for organisations:

● Re-evaluate your business model;

● Optimise the flexibility of your operations;

● Optimise capital availability and deployment;

● Optimise your market reach;

● Accelerate your decision making and execution;

● Revitalise the way you manage risk;

● Strengthen your talent management;

● Strengthen your stakeholders’ confidence.

Profile: Kevin Chidwick, FD of Admiral Group

Kevin Reed — 2009-11-06T11:43:00.000Z

Kevin Reed, Accountancy Age, Friday 6 November 2009 at 11:43:00

FTSE 100 FD Kevin Chidwick is not bogged down by his title. In fact, he has to fit in to Admiral Group's fun-loving attitude

Cobwebs. Lots of them. Everywhere. FTSE 100 group Admiral’s call centre is covered in them you literally have to duck to walk about the 22nd floor of its Capital Towers head office in central Cardiff. They’re not real, but part of its decorations to celebrate Halloween, and certainly liberally spread enough to send most facilities managers into a quivering wreck.

“They do sometimes get a bit concerned,” says FD Kevin Chidwick. Then again, it’s no ordinary company.

Admiral was formed in 1993 by Henry Engelhart, and has flourished into a car insurer and comparison website owner heard of Confused.com? It is only the second ever Welsh FTSE 100 business and has been placed in the Times’ best companies to work for list since it was compiled. It also has a “Ministry of Fun”.

The ministry is a moniker given to a different department every month, which then has to come up with games and activities for the rest of the business during that period, Chidwick explains.

Confused.com, the price comparison site that already represents £66m of Admiral’s near £1bn a year revenues, and which Chidwick effectively serves as “executive chair”, is in charge of the ministry this month.

“We organise competitions: pin the tail, air guitar, quizzes... Then there’s egg roulette.”

Egg roulette is a lot simpler than it sounds. You pick an egg up and smash it against your head. If it’s boiled, there’s no mess. If raw then you’ll need a shower.

As Chidwick says understatedly, almost with a glint in his eye: “I’m 46 years old, worked in several insurance and banking businesses [over the past 20 years] and Admiral is exceptional, a very unusual company. The atmosphere is very team orientated relaxed in the sense that people feel comfortable here, right through. They’ve bought into it: it sounds cliched but is unusual, with little evidence of silos or politics we don’t take ourselves too seriously but know what we want to achieve.”

There is little bureaucracy, says Chidwick, a credit to the founder and how he leads from the front. “It’s the example he sets to the whole organisation. We give a lot of authority into the organisation, don’t tie it in red tape, and distract us from the simple things of flogging car insurance, provide a good service and make money.”

But an insurance business, devolved?

“There are risks with any kind of delegation. It’s about making the rules clear, so they understand what they can and can’t do but within that framework the people closest to customers can make decisions. It would be ridiculous for me or the other directors to think we know better about customer service than the guys who talk to them individually 50 or 60 times a day. As long as we’re clear about barriers around control, then you should be led by those who know what customer service means.”

Chidwick spent a year as deputy FD before taking over the board role in October 2006 from Andy Probert, who had served in the company since its formation and cheekily wished within Chidwick’s appointment statement to the stock exchange the company well “as I still hold a bushel basket full of shares”.

“It was tricky for me [when I joined], as I’d been taught for 20 years about how to behave in corporations, an FD of other companies, and the Admiral model is very different. One of our disadvantages is there isn’t a clear delineation between roles [but] this teamwork thing is extremely positive and as an FD I have free rein to get involved in parts of the business where it might be segmented in other companies.

When I joined I thought ‘what’s going on around here?’ But I think it’s true that the people who’d enjoy this environment tend to get recruited in.”

Another hurdle for Chidwick was stepping down to deputy after ten years as an FD even though succession was all planned, which makes him smile wryly.

“These things probably have a natural process to them. I was very happy to come in as deputy to Andrew with the understanding that the progression would happen in the fullness of time, and was relaxed about that. But, inevitably, when you have your best friends and family to stay around for a long time, you naturally reach a point where you think ‘come on let’s sort this out’. The timing was fine for both of us.”

Chidwick inherited a small team running the then UK-only business, and it has changed in recent years, because of its international expansion, but is still modest.

It now offers car insurance across Spain, Germany, Italy and most recently ventured into the US, with its Virginia-based Elephant car insurance.

“The team is surprisingly small. A dozen people. That’s testimony to how good the team is and how well structured the processes are. As we’ve grown as a business we’ve expanded and developed it. So we had to manage pulling in reporting, controls and budgets from autonomous units. The FCs here have that experience.”

Instilling Admiral’s “fun” culture abroad is just part of the battle for the group. It is in the FTSE 100 through strong business strategy focused on cost control and data analysis.

As Chidwick explains, car insurance is a compulsory purchase that people “want to get as cheap as they can”.

To gain a lead on the market requires keeping costs to a minimum. “You need to be the lowest cost provider to have a strategic advantage over competitors our expense ratio is around 17%, the market runs at nearer 30%. Replicating that low cost mentality and disciplined approach to spend is an important attribute we’ve tried to implement abroad.”

Analysis of customer data is crucial to understand at what price you can set premiums. Too high and they will choose competitors. Too low, and you lose out in the future when claims start to roll in.

“An important part of the culture is that we’re not led by brand or sales targets, instead just maximising the profitability of the business. That means you have to be very data-led. If the data tells you something about the car or pricing, you do it that’s not necessarily an obvious thing but needs to be instilled into each of the companies that we’re launching.”

The expansion is cautious, deliberate and organic, also in line with the company’s strategy. If it works, it works, if not then fewer fingers have been burnt. In turn, Admiral carries no debt on its books. But to fund its main business of car insurance and underwriting, it reinsures huge swathes of its insurance. The reinsurers then receive a cut of the take on those premiums.

“We are leveraged in a different way. As an underwriter of car insurance we share that with a number of reinsurers. We put in place profit-sharing arrangements with them, then get back the majority of profits made, but don’t have to provide the capital behind the proportions that they take. We only retain on our balance sheet about a quarter of the risks we write, the rest goes on the resinsurers’ balance sheet. So we’ve grown the business quite fast but not consumed capital as we go, and been able to pay out quite healthy dividend yields.”

The model sounds too good to be true. What could change it?

“If the reinsurance contracts offered to us weren’t as attractive as they currently are, then we might be persuaded to take more onto our own balance sheet then we might raise debt and leverage in a more traditional insurer way. We’ve locked in contracts until 2012, and for some longer. We’re quite happy where we are.”

Chidwick’s senior role at Confused, and his efforts in setting up Admiral’s Virginia office, could be construed as classic ‘FD lining up a CEO role in the future’ tactics. But Chidwick will have none of it.

For starters he points out that with three executive directors in the business work is “divvied out” between them.

He is not a great fan of the FD-to-CEO route, on the whole. “I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I had a grand plan when I was young that disappeared when I was 30, and never had a plan since.

“I’m not a great fan of FDs becoming chief execs, [there’s] a lot of it going on at the moment but I think there’s a danger there. FDs come to businesses with a very valuable mindset a crucial role and their relationship with the chief is a very important one. “Unless you’ve got the right kind of FD and he or she makes the transition into more sales and operational business-running capabilities, it’s a different skillset to that of an FD. Not to say there aren’t plenty who have made very successful chief execs, but personally I’m not sure it’s a great trend to see too many [make the move].”

Despite his reticence for number-crunchers to step up, he believes they are more important than ever. And the profession should be more in demand than ever following the focus on costs, risks and writeoffs. “I plead for them to be given more important roles in their organisations.”

The interview over, Chidwick makes his way through the cobwebs to prepare himself for his photoshoot, not before stopping to say hello to one call centre worker.

“When I joined I worked on the call centre for five weeks, she started on the desk at the same time as me.”

PEOPLE PERSON

Admiral Group employs 3,000 people in Wales either Cardiff’s Capital Towers, Swansea or its new office in Newport.

Boasting dozens of top employer awards,which are displayed across its office from reception onwards, the company has made a massive investment in the region.

So could it possibly even contemplate following other big companies to move head office for tax purposes?

FD Kevin Chidwick picks his words carefully. “Unlikely, but never say never… We have a responsibility to our shareholders to think about these issues. We have looked at them and will do again in the future. But it’s very unlikely.”

That doesn’t mean that Admiral won’t recruit staff from across the border in the future.

“The driver for us is probably going to be more if we run out of people we can employ here. We currently hold 7% of market share in the UK car insurance market. We’re still growing quite fast, but we will get to a point eventually where there aren’t enough people to recruit, hopefully a few years away.”

MORE TO LIFE

As fun as life may be at Admiral, FD Kevin Chidwick isn’t tied to his office. A keen sports follower, he holds a season ticket at Portsmouth, and more controversially at Cardiff as well, which was well noted during the 2009 FA Cup final between the two teams (see Taking Stock on page 24).

He has also undertaken triathlons and marathons, but is unlikely to do so again as “I’m old and knackered”.

Married for 23 years to his childhood sweetheart and with two teenage daughters, his career has taken him around the country, although pointedly not to London the hustle and bustle not conducive to relaxing away from work. “I have a tremendous lifestyle. Here is a capital city with its facilities, then in ten minutes you’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Fend off spyware and protect your identity

Scott Colvey — 2009-11-06T10:00:00.000Z

Scott Colvey, Computeractive, Friday 6 November 2009 at 10:00:00

Safeguard personal information stored on your PC by finding and fighting programs that secretly monitor your online activities

Internet users quickly become familiar with viruses and other types of malware. Spyware falls into a similar category, but rather than threatening to damage files and settings, it threatens personal data and privacy.

Such software is usually installed secretly and there are often no visible signs of infection. But tiny programs running in the background may be collecting information about the types of website you visit and the data that is entered into online forms.

We will explain everything you need to know about spyware including how to avoid it.

What is spyware?

Many computer users will be aware of spyware, even if they have only heard the word, and understand it is, as the name would suggest, a bad thing.

But before we look at the techniques that can be used to avoid and remove these unwanted pests, it is important to understand just what they are.

Like viruses and adware, spyware falls into the broad category of malicious software. It is software that has been designed to be secretly installed on a computer where it will then sit quietly in the background monitoring various activities.

This could include the websites that are visited, usernames and passwords entered into programs and websites, the people to whom emails are sent and much more.

This information can then be broadcast back to another (remote) computer, and there is no way of knowing who has this data or what they intend to do with it. But the fact that personal data is involved means that there is potential for id entity theft, fraud and other criminal activities.

Spyware infections

Spyware can be installed in a number of ways. One of the common methods of surreptitious installation is to hide it within another application, such as a game or utility.

Spyware may also be attached to emails, purporting to be either a helpful program or an amusing video, and there are also websites that when visited can, in certain circumstances, automatically install malicious software.

Be wary of links contained in emails from unknown contacts as this may lead directly to spyware, and remember that file-sharing services (the likes of Emule and Livewire) are common sources of infection, because it is often difficult to know what is being downloaded or its origins.

Occasionally, a program will let you know that it is installing additional components, such as advertisements. With this in mind, it is important to read the licence agreement that is displayed when installing software to check for references to unwanted elements.

It is sometimes possible to opt out of the installation of these parts of the program, but not always. If a program includes a compulsory advertising component, it is likely that attempting to remove it will be against the terms of the licence agreement.

Detecting spyware

But how can you tell if spyware is present? The problem with this type of software is that it does a good job of keeping itself hidden, and there are often no obvious signs of its existence.

However, an increase in the appearance of advertisements and pop-up windows, or an unwanted change to your web browser’s home page or preferred search engine, can be an indication that something is wrong.

Unexpected buttons and toolbars in a web browser, along with a decrease in the computer’s performance and reliability can also be pointers.

It may also be possible to detect an increase in internet usage activity may be noticed when there are no internet-enabled programs running, for example.

But suspecting the presence of spyware and knowing that it is there are two different matters, and by far the most reliable means of detection is to turn to a dedicated piece of software.

Just as with anti-virus software, there are a huge number of programs that have been designed to block, detect and remove spyware.

While some of these have a price tag attached to them, there are free tools available that are also up to the task. One such program is Spybot Search and Destroy.

Unlike some free programs, Spybot Search and Destroy can be used to detect spyware that has already infected a computer, and includes ‘real-time’ protection that can help to prevent spyware from being installed.

To get Spybot Search and Destroy, visit the program’s website safer-networking.org and click the Download link to the left of the page.

Scroll down the page, click the Download icon next to the entry for the latest version of Spybot Search and Destroy and then click one of the ‘Download here’ buttons they all point to the same version of the software.

Download the installation file and save it to the Windows Desktop. Once the download is complete, double-click the file and run through the setup process.

There should be no need to change the default settings. When the installation is complete, select the option to launch the program and the setup wizard will appear to guide you through the process of configuring the program.

Be cautious

It is important to take care when selecting an anti-spyware tool, as the offer of protection is itself sometimes used as a lure by malicious software manufacturers.

Advertisements for spyware protection that are found on websites should always be treated with extreme caution - some programs that claim to eliminate spyware are laden with spyware and viruses.

Spybot Search and Destroy is a trusted program that is used by people around the world, and there are a number of alternatives that are perfectly safe to use, such as Ad-Aware.

However, when an advertisement for an unknown product is discovered, do not be tempted to blindly trust the claims it may make - do a little research first.

Even advertisements seemingly related to well-known products may not be what they appear to be, and clicking a link could lead to a malicious website.

Keep applications up to date

Whichever web browser you use, be it Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox or an alternative, it is important to keep it up to date.

Many browsers will block access to websites that attempt to automatically install software, and it is only by ensuring that the latest version is installed that the most up-to-date list of malicious sites can be maintained.

As another free line of defence, users of Windows Vista will already have Windows Defender installed. This program helps to stop spyware and prevent unwanted changes to the PC’s settings that may be caused by malicious software.

Windows Defender can also be downloaded for Windows XP. It is not as effective as some other anti-spyware tools, but it is better than having no protection at all.

Scanning for spyware

When performing a scan for spyware, a large number of potential threats are likely to be listed once the results are displayed.

This is not necessarily a major cause for concern. There may be spyware present, but it is unlikely that there are as many infections as it first appears.

The reason for this is that many spyware-checkers classify internet cookies as a potential threat.

These tiny files can, in many cases, contain personal information, but that does not mean that they pose a threat.

Cookies can have legitimate purposes, such as saving personal preferences for a particular website or storing a username and password so it does not have to be manually entered at every visit.

Most spyware scanners assign ratings to suspicious items that have been detected. Anything that is almost certainly spyware will be flagged up as dangerous, while anything that is safe or likely to have a genuine reason for existence may be assigned a medium or safe rating.

But how is it possible to determine whether something that has been identified as potential threat is actually safe or not? Again, this is where research can be useful.

The spyware scan results will provide a good deal of information about any potential threats that have been found, such as the name of the files involved, where they are installed and information about the company or program behind them.

Search the internet using this information and you are likely to find sites that will help you decide whether or not to remove a particular item.

It is also usually possible to make a backup of any components that are removed. This means that once the spyware tool has removed potential threats, you can continue using Windows as normal.

If a particular program fails to run or behaves strangely it is possible that a vital component has been removed it can then be quickly and easily restored from the backup to enable normal running.

Always take the time to find out what other users think of a program before installing it, or use the software recommended by Computeractive.

To ensure a safe download, ensure you go directly to the website of the software manufacturer rather than relying on a link from another site.

In this way it is possible to be certain that reliable software is downloaded and installed, and that there will be no nasty surprises further down the line.

Just as with anti-virus tools, once an anti-spyware program has been installed, it is vitally important to keep it up to date.

Keeping the spyware database (or definitions) up to date ensures that the program is able to recognise and detect all potential threats.

As new threats are released on an incredibly frequent basis, working with an out-of-date spyware checking tool is little better than not using one at all.

Many protection tools will automatically check for updates whenever there is an internet connection available - check to ensure that this option is enabled but in the case of some free programs this check must be started manually.

In Spybot, it can be invoked at any time by clicking the Search for Updates button.

Get protected

The covert nature of spyware means that it is difficult to detect and remove by hand. As there is no easy way to determine what information is being logged, where it is being sent and what it will be used for, installing a layer of protection is essential.

It is only in this way that you can be sure no-one else is in control of your data and ensure valuable personal information does not fall into the wrong hands.

Spyware is a serious threat, and the number of examples continues to grow. To avoid falling prey to such malicious software, use the information in this guide to protect you and your PC.

How can I get Access 2005 menus in Access 2007?

Mark Whitehorn — 2009-11-06T09:00:00.000Z

Mark Whitehorn, Personal Computer World, Friday 6 November 2009 at 09:00:00

The Ribbon is not to everyone's taste

Q I can’t say I’m a fan of the thundering great ribbon that eats up so much space on my screen now I’ve converted to Access 2007. You used to be able to revert to the classic Windows look if you didn’t like trendy rounded corners. Is there any way of using the Access 2005 menus instead?

Peter Burton

A I’m sorry to say that Microsoft has put its foot down and said quite categorically that “There is no way to delete or replace the Ribbon with the toolbars and menus from the earlier versions of Microsoft Office.” So that’s that.

The only palliative I can offer you is the option to minimise the ribbon. If you do this, just the tabs along the top will be displayed so you don’t see the tool groups and their names. To toggle minimisation on and off, use the Control and F1 function key combination (Ctrl & F1). Or you can double-click on any of the tabs.

Clicking on a tab displays the ribbon and, once you’ve made a selection, it minimises automatically.

If you decide you want this pared down view as your default, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button (on the far right of the menu band beneath the ribbon) and click ‘Minimize the Ribbon’ in the list.

Reducing the ribbon certainly returns a proportion of screen real estate to you.

How to upgrade your PC to Windows 7

Jonathan Parkyn — 2009-11-05T15:06:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeractive, Thursday 5 November 2009 at 15:06:00

Windows 7 is here – but how do you get it and what do you need to know before installing it on your PC? We explain all

If you read our feature outlining 10 reasons you should upgrade to Windows 7, you’ll know that the latest version of Microsoft's Windows operating system (OS) brings with it a number of useful benefits, including new desktop features, improved home networking support, better overall performance and more.

In this feature we’re going to look at the practical question of how you upgrade; which version to opt for, how to make sure your PC is ready for Windows 7, what you need to do before installation and how to make the transition as smooth and painless as possible.

There are two main ways to get hold of Windows 7; you can buy a new PC with the operating system pre-installed or buy a copy of the software on its own and install it on an existing computer yourself (although PCs with Vista pre-installed are still on sale, and many offer a free upgrade to Windows 7). If you take the former route, you won’t have to worry about installation at all.

What you will need to do, though, is transfer the documents and folders from your old PC. This can be done using a handy utility called Windows Easy Transfer, which enables you to import user accounts, personal files, contacts, emails preferences and so on from one computer to another via a network, USB cable or external storage device.

On your Windows 7 PC, go to Start, click All Programs, go to Accessories, then go to System Tools, where you’ll find Windows Easy Transfer. Click it to run it and follow the simple wizard-based instructions to complete the process.

Windows 7 on a new PC

First of all, you’ll have to find out whether or not your current computer is up to running the task. As a general rule, if the PC is currently running Vista, it will be able to run Windows 7.

The minimum hardware requirements set out by Microsoft for Windows 7 are surprisingly low, which means that even if your computer runs Windows XP, there’s a good chance it will be able to run Windows 7 too.

As well as the computer itself, you’ll need to consider all the other hardware and software you want to continue using: printers, scanners, cameras and other external devices, along with any third-party programs and utilities you regularly rely on, such as CD/DVD-burning tools, photo-editing applications, office suites, games and security software.

There’s an easy way to test the compatibility of both the PC and all your other bits and bobs, by using the free Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. Download Upgrade Advisor, double-click the 6.3MB file to install the utility, then start it by double-clicking the desktop icon and follow the on-screen prompts to run the test. Make sure all your external devices are plugged in before you start and, once the test is finished, check through the results to note any potential problem areas.

Most of the things it picks up are usually minor driver issues that can be fixed easily by running Windows Update once you have finished upgrading the operating system (OS). Other issues will be flagged up by a red cross icon. These may include known issues with incompatible hardware/software or items that the Upgrade Advisor utility has failed to identify.

Assuming the Upgrade Advisor gives you the all clear (or, at least only points out a few easily solvable issues), you can move on to the next stage.

Version confusion

Assuming you’re going to purchase a boxed copy of Windows 7, there are a number of choices to make before you part with your cash. As with previous iterations of Microsoft’s OS, Windows 7 is available to buy in a number of different versions, each with its own set of features.

The most suitable version for Computeractive readers is Windows 7 Home Premium. All versions can be purchased as either a ‘full’ or an ‘upgrade’ edition; if the computer you plan to install the software on already has a licensed copy of Windows XP or Vista installed on it, then all you need is the upgrade edition.

To confuse matters further, you’ll find that your boxed copy of Windows 7 contains two discs. This is because all versions of Windows 7 come in two forms – 32-bit and 64-bit. If you're interested in the technical detail, read our short guide to the differences between 32-bit and 64-bit computing.

If you’re upgrading an older computer, the most likely scenario is that your current PC will need the 32-bit disc. If you own a more recent computer it’s worth double-checking which version you need. Open the Start menu, right-click on Computer and select ‘Properties’. Look under System Type in the Window that appears to see whether the current OS is 32- or 64-bit.

Clean machine

The next step is to decide what method you’re going to use for installing the new OS. The most obvious (and straightforward) route for Vista owners is to perform an Upgrade install (also known as an ‘in-place’ installation) of Windows 7 over the top of your existing software.

This will replace Vista with Windows 7 but leave your personal files, settings, programs and suchlike intact, so you can pick straight up from where you left off after the switchover.

At least that’s the idea. Most upgrade installations will work fine but we strongly recommend that you perform a complete backup of everything on your PC before you start, just in case.

You’ll also need to make sure your copy of Vista has been updated to Service Pack 2 or higher. This is likely to be the case if you have Automatic Updates switched on but to check, go to Start, right-click on Computer and select Properties.

Under where it says ‘Windows edition’ in the window that appears, you should see ‘Service Pack 2’ listed. If not, download and instal Service Pack 2 yourself.

Another way of upgrading to Windows 7 would be to perform a Clean install; this involves wiping your PC’s hard disk clean, erasing all traces of Vista and deleting all your files, settings and programs before laying down a completely fresh installation of Windows 7.

The benefit here is that you have a clean slate, giving your PC that factory-fresh feel and, potentially, a significant performance boost into the bargain.

Naturally, backing up everything before you start is even more important in this case, since everything from your emails and Address Book contacts to your digital photos, music and internet favourites will be completely and irreversibly erased during the upgrade process.

After the Clean install is complete, you will also need to restore all these from your backup copies as well as re-install any programs you require.

Windows XP users will only be able to perform a Clean install – the Upgrade install option is only available for Vista. You can’t perform an Upgrade install from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit one and vice versa. Again, a Clean install is the only way forward.

A final preparation tip is to make sure you have the username and password of your wireless network to hand, if one is in use. Some routers display this information on their setup pages, so check the router’s manual to find out how to access this. If you have mislaid the password, all is not lost – you can set up a new wireless network in Windows 7 with a fresh username and password.

For more advice on upgrading your XP PC to Windows 7 and upgrading your Vista PC to Windows 7 take a look at our online videos.

Boot camp

There is one other option and that is to install Windows 7 in a dual-boot configuration. This can be done on both Windows XP and Vista PCs and enables you to install the new OS alongside your existing operating system – the idea being that this will allow you to select the version of Windows you require every time the computer starts.

In order to set up a dual-boot configuration you will first need to partition your hard disk. This splits the main disk into two ‘virtual’ drives: one that contains your current installation of Windows and another empty one, onto which Windows 7 can be installed. To partition a Windows XP disk you will need additional software and it is a bit more complex.

Vista users have it a bit easier; they have a very simple partitioning tool at their disposal in the shape of the Disk Management applet.

If you wish to pursue this option, read our article explaining how to dual-boot an XP or Vista PC to run Windows 7 as well.

Take the plunge

Whether you’re going to perform a Clean or Upgrade install of Windows 7 – and even if you’re going to install it on a new partition for dual-boot purposes – we cannot stress enough the need to back up all your personal files and folders before you go any further.

If at all possible, use a disk image backup application, such as Acronis True Image Home 10 to make a spare copy of your entire hard drive as it currently stands before proceeding.

Once you’re sure that you’re covered for any eventuality it’s time to install the OS. Depending on your method of choice, however, there might be just one final tweak that needs to be made before you dive in.

Those opting for an Upgrade install won’t need to read this part, since the installation can be performed by simply inserting the Windows 7 DVD into the CD/DVD drive while Vista is running, and following the on-screen prompts.

Take a look at our full step-by-step video guide to the Upgrade install process.

If you’re opting for a Clean installation of Windows 7 or dual-boot setup, however, you’ll need to restart your computer from the Windows 7 DVD rather than the hard disk. Unfortunately not all computers are set up to do this, though it’s easy to set right.

If you do not see a message saying ‘press any key to boot from CD or DVD’ when you restart your PC with the Windows 7 disc in your CD/DVD drive, restart the PC again and this time tap the F2 or Delete key on the initial Bios screen to enter the Bios setup utility.

This is a basic menu that is navigated using the arrow keys and the Enter button, rather than the mouse. Look for a section called ‘Boot’ or ‘Advanced’, then head to the sub-section called ‘Boot Device Priority’, ‘Boot Order’, or something similar. Set the CD/DVD drive so that it is the first boot device in the list (there should be an explanation of which keys to press in order to achieve this), then exit the Bios, saving the new settings.

Now restart once more with the Windows 7 DVD in the drive and this time you should see the ‘press any key...’ message. Hit a key and Windows 7 will start loading the files required for your installation.

And if you’re dual booting, make absolutely certain you select the correct partition when prompted, otherwise you could end up deleting the very Widows Vista or XP installation you’ve been trying to protect.

Easy as pie

If you’ve done your preparation right, installing Windows 7 is a remarkably painless process – you just need to make a couple of simple but crucial choices during the initial stages and then sit back and let the installation wizard do its thing.

Bear in mind that an Upgrade install can sometimes take several hours to complete. A Clean install is usually a lot quicker – as little as 20 minutes – but in either case the best advice is to leave your PC well alone until the installation has finished. The PC will restart itself several times during installation. This is perfectly normal.

Once Windows 7 is up and running, upgrade installers should find all their user accounts, personal files and applications are right where they were in Vista.

Those who came via the Clean install route, however, will need to set up new user accounts and use their backup files to move documents back to the PC, as well as re-installing any applications from disc.

With all your post-upgrade jobs finished, it’s time to start making the most of those all the new benefits that Windows 7 has to offer, so head to Computeractive TV for our series of first-look videos, and watch out for the Computeractive Ultimate Guide to Windows 7, which features 100 pages of plain English expert advice on all aspects of the new operating system – out on 26 November.

Windows 7 improvements

Windows 7 provides a number of advantages over previous generations of the operating system. It’s not a radical overhaul by any means and if you’re coming at it via Vista, then much of the look and feel will be familiar to you. Subtle tweaks in the way the desktop works are the most noticeable new features.

The Taskbar that runs along the bottom of your screen, for instance, has been improved so it’s now much easier to access your favourite programs and see which ones you have running.

Other features, such as Jump Lists, Aero Shake, Peek and Snap, make it easier to stay organised and navigate your PC, while simpler networking features, better support for external devices and an overhauled Media Center are also key additions.

For a full exploration of what’s new and whether it’s worth upgrading, have a look back at our feature explaining why you should upgrade to Windows 7.

And for more on how to use the new features and make the most of what the new operating system has to offer see our special series of video workshops on Windows 7.

Which version is right for me?

There are a number of different editions of Windows 7 available. The main three are Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional (£190) and Windows 7 Ultimate (£200).

The Professional edition, costing about £190, includes a few extra features that are aimed largely at business users, such as the ability to back up over a network and built-in Windows XP emulation to help prevent compatibility issues with older programs that some offices might still be running.

The £200 Ultimate edition includes all the features of the other versions plus a few extras of its own, including added data protection and the ability to switch between languages at will. However, it’s the Home Premium edition that’s probably the most suitable for home users. Home Premium contains all the new easy networking features and Media Center.

Unless you have specific requirements, it’s almost certainly the version to opt for. It’s worth shopping around for Home Premium – substantial discounts are available until the end of 2009, and you should certainly pay no more than £80. We’ve found it online for £50 – check price comparison websites and large retailers such as PC World, Amazon and Tesco.

There are a few other versions of the operating system too. Of these, Windows 7 Starter Edition is the most interesting, as it’s a paired-back version of the software that’s suitable for low-powered computers such as netbooks. At the time of writing it seems unlikely that the Starter edition will be available to purchase on disc; instead it will come pre-installed on suitable PCs.

For more information on Windows 7 and videos explaining how the new operating system works, go to the Windows 7 section of Computeractive's website.

Computeractive Windows 7 videos

Upgrade to Windows 7 from XP part 1

Upgrade to Windows 7 from XP part 2

Upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista

Can my PC run Windows 7?

Use the Windows 7 Start menu

Use the Windows 7 Taskbar

Use Libraries in Windows 7

Guide to Snap and Shake in Windows 7 Aero

Use the Windows 7 Action Center

Set up Homegroups in a Windows 7 network

Control a touchscreen PC using Windows 7

The Windows 7 Control Panel

Set up a Wifi network in Windows 7

How to set up email in Windows 7

How to use Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7 part 1

How to use Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7 part 2

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