Successful Remote Working

Remote working, when people do some or all of their work at home or in other locations away from company premises, can bring benefits to all concerned. But it can also cause problems for individuals and businesses if working systems are not thought out carefully from the start. Here are some of the possible pitfalls and their solutions:

Employees become isolated
People working on their own with little or no contact with work colleagues can feel left out of the team and lose track of what’s happening in other departments.

Setting up a Company Intranet is an easy way of ensuring that everyone has access to the latest information and company news. They can keep in touch with each other through blogs and message boards and everyone receives memos and updates as soon as they are published.

Computer problems
With people working in different places on a variety of PCs, laptops and mobile devices, technical failure or human error is not so easy to put right as it would be in a single office situation. If one person has to contend with a slow server, someone else has accidentally lost important data without backing it up, and others have been working on the same project but unknowingly using different software, the problems can quickly snowball.

The simplest and least expensive solution is to use a system called Cloud Computing or Hosted Desktops. All data and applications are stored on an external high-speed server managed for you by a specialist IT Support Company.

Everything is automatically backed up for added security and software is updated so you always have the latest version. There is no need to maintain your own server or store large amounts of data on lots of individual computers. All you or your staff need is an Internet connection through which you can access all the company files, programs and data.

Lack of professionalism
Imagine this: an important client calls and the phone is answered by a small child, or a jokey answer phone message! You can save such embarrassment by using a hosted VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) telephone system to give the impression that all your staff are working together in the same place.

There’s no need to install additional telephone lines or give out employees’ home or mobile phone numbers. Features such as call forwarding and voicemail to e-mail add to the efficiency and ensure that no calls are ever missed. Because VOIP works over a broadband connection, calls are also much cheaper than those from conventional network providers. Many, including those between remote workers, are free.

Remote working is becoming more popular with both business owners and their employees and the trend seems likely to continue. Much of the new technology being developed for use in conventional business can be adapted to make remote working easier, more efficient, and often cheaper.

If you, or your staff, already spend much of your time away from the office, or you are thinking of recruiting home workers but are not sure how it will work in practice, ask the advice of a reputable IT Support Company. You might be pleasantly surprised by the services they can offer.

Uninstall: How do I do it?

Is your PC running too slowly? Does it sometimes freeze or crash? The problem could be caused by unwanted programs cluttering up your computer. The obvious solution is to remove any programs you no longer need.

Simply deleting a shortcut to a program will not remove the program itself. The standard process is much more involved:

1) Open the Start menu
2) Select the Control Panel
3) Select the Programs link (it might be labelled Programs and Features or Add or Remove Programs)
4) Select the program you want to remove
5) Click on the Uninstall option
6) Restart the computer to complete the process

Unfortunately, the above method doesn’t work for all programs. Some of them might not have the uninstall option available in their Programs and Features listing. In these cases, you will have to look for it in the program’s folder. You can access this by opening the Start menu and then selecting All Programs.

If the default uninstall options are missing, or do not work, you can sometimes download other uninstall programs that have been developed for use with particular programs. For example, the Norton Removal Tool can be used to remove that company’s software if it is not working properly.

Worse complications can occur when a large or corrupted program is not uninstalled completely. You might not be aware that this has happened as the program’s folder appears to have been removed, but traces of some files, registry entries and shortcuts are left on your computer. It is this hidden ‘orphaned’ data that causes all the problems by interfering with the smooth running of your computer systems.

For this reason, even if a program seems to have been uninstalled successfully, you should always scan the registry and hard disk afterwards with reliable clean-up tools to detect and remove any orphaned data.

In theory, uninstalling unwanted applications is simple. In practice, it’s not always a straightforward job. If you are not sure how to do it, or you think you’ve done it correctly but your computer is still not running properly, it’s always best to ask an IT expert.

The iPad – what is it, and will it benefit my business life?

Is it a large iPhone? Is it a small laptop? What can you do with it? More importantly, what can’t you do with it?

Just 9.56 inches by 7.47 inches and half an inch thick, The Apple iPad looks like a tablet or slate computer with no keyboard or mouse. The main feature is its high-resolution, multi-touch screen. This highly responsive screen is obviously great for games, videos and photo sharing but the jury is still out on its usefulness as a serious business tool.

Here are some of the ways you could use it:

As an e-reader: Catch up with newspapers and magazines or read an e-book while travelling. Text on the iPad’s backlit screen appears crisp and easy to read, although some people might find it a bit too bright for prolonged reading. Its weight – 1.5 pounds for the Wi-Fi model and just a fraction more for Wi-Fi +3G – makes it as comfortable to hold as a large paperback.

For emails: The iPad works with all the popular email providers. Use the on screen keyboard to write your emails and save or delete incoming mail with a few taps on the screen.

Working on business documents: Apple’s iWorks software for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations has been redesigned with new features for use on the iPad. One drawback is that you can’t multitask as you might on a computer. For example, you can't have a browser window open while you're working on a document or spreadsheet.

Organisation: Calendars, contacts, notes and maps are all available to keep your business on track.

For presentations and meetings: The screen uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology to give it a wide viewing angle. This means you can see a sharp picture with excellent colour whether the iPad is flat on a desk, held up vertically or tilted, and the people on either side of you will see it equally well. It’s perfect for displaying photos, graphics, text and videos in group situations, and is easily handed round when more than one person is involved in creating or editing a piece of work.

The iPad will be able to use nearly 140,000 apps currently used on iPhones and iPods, and more are being developed specifically for the iPad. We’ll just have to wait and see how useful some of them will be for business.