CJ Systems IT Support and Services Blog
Microsoft
Making light of the Office 365 plans for businesses
Apr 17th
OK so there have been some changes to the licensing for Office 365 in line with the release of Office 2013. Is it time to make a decision? Well if you are planning on buying new computers you may want to check what version of Mail Server you’re running…FACT: Outlook 2013 is not compatible with Microsoft Exchange 2003.
Not a problem if you’re running Small Business Server 2008 (Exchange 2007), or SBS 2011 (Exchange 2010) but if you’re running SBS2003 then you need to contact us to discuss the options for migrating away from this operating system. If you have a PC fail, and need a replacement, or a new starter who needs a new PC you may be stuck as to how to install Microsoft Office for them.
Even if you don’t use Exchange, and you have POP3 mailboxes, or perhaps you use gmail or even a btconnect account? Now is the time to take advantage of the wealth of opportunity presented with Office 365.
But which of the licensing options is best for you?
Well, if you have less than 25 employees and aren’t planning on going over this number for the foreseeable future then one of the Small Business Plans is right for you.
Next you need to ask what version of Office are you currently running on your PCs? plus do you have any Windows XP machines that need replacing?
If you’re already running Office 2007 or Office 2010, or maybe even Office 2013 then these are compatible with Office 365 so you would need either Email Only, or Office 365 Small Business if you also wanted document storage, collaboration and SharePoint.
If you’re not, and you need to either replace PCs. or upgrade Office, then SMB Premium is the one for you which includes a desktop copy of Office 2013. Bear in mind that this will not install on XP, and also the good news is you can mix and match the licensing between any of the Small Business packages so suit your needs.
If you have over 25 employees, or may well do in the foreseeable future, then the Enterprise packages are the ones to go for, again you can mix and match so take a look at what versions of Office you’re running, and perhaps how many PCs need replacing (XP!) and make a decision based on that. E1 doesn’t include the desktop version of Office, but Office 365 Midsize Business does – up to 300 accounts.
Once you’ve decided on licensing – give us a call on 01823 478515 and we can set this up for you – you can have a 30 day trial for free.
We look forward to hearing from you…
Awareness: Phishing Email Appearing to be from CRM Online
Mar 1st
| We have learned of a recent phishing email that mimics an official Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online email with a subject line similar to “New Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Invoice.” The email states that there is important invoice information available for review, and provides a link to a website that is not affiliated with Microsoft. This email was not sent by CRM Online and is spam. Both customers and non-customers of CRM Online received this email, and we have no reason to believe the sender has access to any customer information. If you receive this email, please delete it.
Note that official Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online emails always come from an “@microsoft.com” address, and that web links route to official Microsoft-hosted websites. We would like to remind you that you can always check your invoicing information by visiting http://billing.microsoft.com. If you have questions about your invoice, you can also talk to a billing representative by phone by simply calling your local CRM Online Billing Support phone number. For tips on keeping you safe online, including pointers on recognizing phishing scams, visit our Microsoft Safety and Security Center. |
| The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Team |
Spotlight on Office 365
Jan 21st
CJ Systems
Your Technology Specialist
When most people hear “Office 365”, they only hear “Office” and think “Word, PowerPoint, Excel”. And when they hear “cloud“, they think web apps only, thinking this is only a browser-based version of Office, similar to Google Apps.
Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud-based service hosted by Microsoft. It brings together familiar Microsoft Office desktop applications with cloud-based business email, shared calendars, instant messaging, video conferencing, and file sharing.
It’s designed to work with the Office you already know so you can get things done faster from virtually anywhere. It provides enterprise-grade tools for a predictable monthly cost and no upfront infrastructure investments, backed by robust security and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Transitioning to the cloud also helps open new opportunities to better integrate with business applications. Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online together can help your sales, service, and marketing staff collaborate more effectively to better serve your customers and grow your business.
What’s unique with Office 365 too is that it is designed to help you work seamlessly online or offline. If you‘re working on a proposal and want to get feedback from your partner or customer, you can start working on it on your own computer, share it securely [using SharePoint Online] with partners or customers for feedback so they can access the documents and work on it with you online instead of emailing different versions back and forth. If you go offline, you can still access the documents and work on it offline [using SharePoint Workspace], and it’ll automatically prompt you to upload as soon as you have connections again.
What’s also great with that scenario is that when you share a document using Office 365, you can access that [using Office Web Apps] from anywhere using any major browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome). When you open or edit a file with the browser, you can be sure that it will not have messed up the formatting you spent hours perfecting. Which is not the case with other collaboration tools.
Another thing unique to Office 365 is that these are all business-grade services designed to give you the reliability and security you expect. Microsoft say they do not violate your privacy or confidentiality requirements by reading your emails for targeted advertising, unlike some other providers.
For SMBs managing IT costs and the fact that Cloud-based data is always backed-up are two of the most important benefits to Office 365, followed closely by security against viruses and spam.
There are a number of different plans ranging from individual packages for Exchange, Dynamics and Sharepoint, through the Small Business P1 package to larger corporate, or just because of the excellent offering, E1 and E3 packages.
For more information click here https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/compare-plans.aspx
With the main packages you get:
Office 2010 Professional Plus (E3 plan)
• Seamlessly connected and delivered with cloud services – for the best productivity experience across the PC, Mac, Phone and Browser. (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome).
• Pay-as-you-go, per-user licensing
• The complete, familiar Office experience with services integration in Office 365
• A simplified user setup to preconfigure services
• Always the latest version of the Office apps, including Office Web Apps
• ODF support: View and edit ODF documents in Office Web Apps.
• New Browser support: Use Office Web Apps with Chrome and IE9 in native mode.
Business email – Exchange Online
• Cloud-based email, calendar and contacts with protection from viruses and spam that’s always up to date.
• 25 GB Mailbox
• Outlook and Outlook Web Access
• Premium antivirus/anti-spam (Forefront)
• Shared calendars, contacts and tasks
• Mobile email for most mobile devices including BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia, Windows Phone
• Email archiving and compliance capabilities
• High-quality Office document attachment previewing with Outlook Web App and Office Web Apps integration
Document sharing – SharePoint Online
• Central online content storage and management: Faster and easier access to content, easier file sharing with customers
• People search (SharePoint Online): Faster access to internal subject matter experts
• Post, view, share and edit important documents, insights and statuses with colleagues from almost anywhere
• Keep teams in sync and manage important projects
• Upload docs to the Team Site in a few simple steps.
• Find important documents and people easily
• Stay up to date with company information and news
• Grant access to Team Sites and set permissions
• 10 GB per tenant + 500 MB per user
• External sharing and collaboration through Windows LiveID support for SharePoint Partner Access
• SharePoint Online addition of Business Connectivity Services (BCS) via WCF endpoint
• Site scalability up to 100,000 users
• Ability to connect to lists and document libraries with the Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” update
Web conferencing – Lync Online
• Cloud-based instant messaging, presence and online meeting experiences with PC-audio, video conferencing and screen sharing.
• Instant messaging and presence – quickly communicate or check someone’s availability.
• PC-to-PC audio and video calling – invite colleagues, customers and partners to Lync Online presentations and virtual meetings that include PC-audio, video and web conferencing.
• Click-to-communicate from Outlook, SharePoint and other Office Applications
• Online meetings with PC-audio, video conferencing and screen sharing – easily schedule online meetings in just a few clicks
• Single-click meeting creation and join from Outlook – External participants can also join via a web browser to view meeting content
• Calendar integration with Outlook and Exchange
• On-the-go communication and conferencing via Lync mobile clients across multiple platforms
• Apple-device integration with Lync for Mac client and iPad access
So, if you’re thinking of moving to the cloud and you’d like to know more about how Office 365 can work for you, and how CJ Systems can help you plan, implement and support Office 365 contact us on 01823 478515 or email info@cjsystems.co.uk today.
Internet Explorer: Microsoft plans ‘silent’ updates
Dec 16th
From January, Internet Explorer (IE) users will be automatically updated to the latest version of the browser.
Microsoft said it was starting the project to update millions of machines to improve security online.
Future updates to the browser would be applied without a user’s knowledge to help beat scammers catching people out with fake updates.
Those who did not want their browser updated could opt out or uninstall the software, said Microsoft.
“The Web overall is better – and safer – when more people run the most up-to-date browser,” wrote Ryan Gavin, Microsoft’s IE boss, in a blogpost explaining the plan.
He said the data gathered by Microsoft for its security intelligence reports showed that many cyber criminals targeted old or outdated software when they tried to trick people into installing fake updates.
To beat such scams, Mr Gavin, said that once the latest version of the browser was installed all future updates would arrive silently and be applied without a user getting involved.
Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos, said the plan would aid those who did not see the importance of staying up to date.
“Microsoft has been struggling with browser stragglers for years,” he said in a statement.
Demise of IE6
The giant upgrade programme will affect IE users running Windows XP, Vista and 7, and will first be rolled out in Australia and Brazil. Only those Windows users with automatic updates turned on will be enrolled in the programme.
Those using Windows XP will be upgraded to IE8, while those on Vista and 7 get bumped up to IE9. This will probably mean the demise of IE6, a 10-year-old version of the browser that Microsoft has been trying to kill off for a while.
Figures gathered by Microsoft suggest IE6 is used by about 8.3% of people around the world, with the biggest number of users in China, where almost 28% of people remain wedded to it.
Globally, Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser, with more than 52% of people using it, according to net market research firm Net Applications. Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome are battling it out for second place.
Microsoft said it had made tools that would let people avoid or uninstall the more up-to-date versions of the browsers if they wanted to stay with an older copy.
* Story from BBC News Website
Excel 2003 hangs when opening files from the network
Jul 22nd
Recently we have seen a lot of users experience extreme slowness or hanging when opening Excel files from a network location. PCs that are running XP and 2003 are affected whilst those using W7/Office 2003 or XP/Office 2007 or 2010 are fine.
After much searching the fix was actually a recent help article from Microsoft. After you install MS11-021 and the Office File Validation (OFV) Add-in for Office 2003 (KB 2501584), workbooks stored in a network location open slower over the network in Excel 2003 than they did without the OFV installed. The decrease in performance depends on the size of the workbook and bandwidth of the network and in some scenarios can seem to hang Excel.
Microsoft provide three fixes:
Method 1:
To be able to have both the protection of the OFV, and typical performance over the network when opening files, upgrade to either Microsoft Excel 2007 or Microsoft Excel 2010.
Method 2:
Copy the file to the local workstation. Open and save it in Excel from the local hard drive. Copy the file back to the network location.
Note: If multiple users are accessing the same file, you must be cautious to collaborate with the other users before you copy the file back to the share so that you do not overwrite the changes that were made by another user. The Shared Workbook feature cannot be used with this workaround.
Method 3:
To use Excel 2003 and avoid the network performance issue, you can disable the Microsoft Office File Validation Add-In for Excel by using a registry setting. This removes the additional protection of the OFV for Excel while still protecting the other Office applications.
Realistically, the only short term fix is Method 3!
Instructions to disable Microsoft Office File Validation Add-In are:
You can use the EnableOnLoad registry entry to configure how you want Excel to handle opening workbooks for the OFV. By default, the EnableOnLoad entry is not present in the Windows registry. To add the EnableOnLoadentry to the Windows registry, follow these steps:
- Exit Excel.
- Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
- Locate and then click to select the following registry key: **EDIT** Thanks to Frank in the comments , the proper key is ” HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0″ Old key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\”
- After you select the key that is specified in step 3, point to New on the Edit menu, and then clickKey.
- Type Excel, and then press ENTER.
- Select Excel, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click Key.
- Type Security, and then press ENTER.
- Select Security, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click Key.
- Type FileValidation, and then press ENTER.
- Select FileValidation, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
- Type EnableOnLoad, and then press ENTER. Note: The default value is 0 which disables the validation.
- On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.
IMPORTANT
This fix needs to be applied at a user level, and for that reason it would be a good idea to include in your logon script. You can create a registry file called officefix.reg with the following content:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation]
“EnableOnLoad”=dword:00000000
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation]“EnableOnLoad”=dword:00000000
Then call the registry file with the following command:
Batch script
REGEDIT /S %filepath%\officefix.reg — %filepath% is the path to the registry file.
OR
VBscript
objShel.Run “REGEDIT /S %filepath%\officefix.reg” — %filepath% is the path to the registry file.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 is here – browsing hots up
May 6th
It’s finally here: Internet Explorer 9. Internet Explorer 9 is meant to revitalize Internet Explorer and maybe even turn some techies into IE users. Its web standards supports are exponentially better than previous versions, with much better CSS3 and HTML5 support than previous generations. It was also the first browser to introduce hardware acceleration and the fastest at the Sunspider javascript test.
THE NEW DESIGN: SNAZZY!
Of course, the first thing you’ll notice when starting up Internet Explorer 9 for the first time is that it looks… different. Just different. Gone are the lots of toolbars and too many buttons to count. In fact, Internet Explorer 9 is the one with the least browser chrome of the big three:
The way Internet Explorer manages to do this while maintaining large buttons is to put all the tools on one line:
(If you don’t like the small amount of space for the URL bar, you can simply drag the right side to make it bigger.)
PINNED SITES: INTEGRATE WEBAPPS WITH WINDOWS
If you use Windows 7, you’ve surely come across jump lists. These are the little boxes that pop up when you right click on a task bar item. Microsoft has decided to take it one step further and not only allow you to pin sites as webapps, but to actually allow them to create items on their jump lists:
These lists can allow for quick task jumping and make it easier to access things you want.
THE ALL-NEW DOWNLOAD MANAGER: MINIMAL AND USEFUL
If you’ve been using Internet Explorer for all these years, another thing you’ve had to put up with the lack of a download manager. Luckily for you, Internet Explorer 9 comes with a download manager that actively informs you about the percentage done, the status, and the size of each download:
One unique feature of this new download manager is Microsoft’s SmartScreen technology which uses a URL blacklist to determine how safe a download is, and to show an appropriate warning. It also performs some basic scanning, like Firefox and Chrome.
WEB STANDARDS SUPPORT: CODE FOR ONE, PUBLISH FOR ALL
One of the most amazing parts about Internet Explorer 9 is that it’s actually fairly close to being compatible with most current web standards. It still lacks things like form types and user interaction events, but Internet Explorer 9 is a leap towards actually working well with the rest of the world.
IT’S FAST(ER).
Internet Explorer 9 has tried to resolve another major problem with Internet Explorer: it’s slow. While Microsoft’s test sites are heavily biased, they’re still a good example of how much its javascript performance has improved. Here’s my average computer rendering a thousand fish in a virtual fish tank:
IT’S MORE SECURE.
Internet Explorer has often borne the title of least secure browser due to its many security flaws and large numbers of exploits. However, Microsoft has tried to get it better this time, and has introduced many new security features. There is, for instance, the scanning now used when downloading files. There are also several more technical aspects in Internet Explorer 9 that allow for less hacking and better security, including several techniques involving memory randomization.
Supported OS: Windows Vista/7Version