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Business Class IT Solutions |
Simon Aronowitz, Managing Director of Support Lounge features in the front page story of this week’s CRN magazine.
In a story called “WEEE costs stifling smaller businesses“,CRN staff writer Sam Trendall explains that ITACS and its members have been raising issue with the implementation and proposed revisions to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.
Both Support Lounge and ITACS are grateful for media focus on this subject.
ITACS, the Independent Trade Association of Computing Specialists has criticised the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) over its implementation and handling of the European electronic waste recycling directives (WEEE). The Government ordered a review following more the introduction of more stringent recycling requirements by Europe.
Speaking to The Register, ITACS Chairman Matthew Woolley said the changes “aren’t good for the small person, costs are too expensive for retailers and the government’s response is ill thought out.”
When supplying new or replacement computer and networking hardware, Support Lounge fulfils its legal obligation by offering to take back the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) for appropriate recycling. Compared with larger computer retailers, Support Lounge and other independent IT firms face a disproportionately high cost for compliance with the recyling legislation.
The new website we’ve been working on is now live for Palmers Green & Southgate Synagogue.
According to reports in the press, four private equity groups are backing Niklas Zennström, the founder of Skype, for a buy-back of the company from Ebay, who Zennström sold Skype to in 2005. KKR, Warburg Pincus, Providence and Elevation Partners are reportedly offering to stump up the cash.
Since Ebay paid $2.6 billion for the internet communications company, many analysts have argued that the online auction house has failed to capitalise on its purchase an develop the business. Ebay has acknowledged that it overpaid massively for Skype after writing down the value of its investsment by $1.4 billion.
Whilst Skype achieved revenues of $145 million in the last quarter of 2008, the level of profitability at the company has not been so clear due to large running costs and the ability for current parent company Ebay to absorb as its own.
With constant development Voice over IP (VOIP) services from other providers and the availability of business level VOIP systems with real telephone handsets, the long term business objectives of Skype remain a mystery.
According to The Register, malware and botnets are appearing on Apple’s OS X. This is not simply a proof-of-concept attack, but one that is out there in the wild.
The story quotes an Australian web developer who awoke one morning to find his Mac running at 100% of computer resource usage with unfamiliar processes pushing it to the limit. The Register goes on to explain that
“The malware is surreptitiously included in copies of Apple’s iWork 09 productivity suite and Adobe’s Photoshop CS4 that are distributed on warez sites. Intego said three months ago more than 20,000 people had downloaded the rogue installers.”
We have recently heard reports of viruses or fake software turning up on Apple iMacs, and this story would seem to confirm it. Perhaps the days of Apple computers being resilient to viruses and attack are coming to an end.
Many business owners are missing a simple trick for getting their business found online.
Google has a feature attached to its maps called Google Local Business Centre (it seems they do both English and American spellings). This feature enables business owners to list their business in Google’s local directory.
When a search is performed at Google, in addition to the normal web page results, Google will show a map at the top of the page with relevant local businesses shown on the map and listed adjacently.
We have already seen excellent results for three customers whose Google Business Centre profiles we have either created or improved.
A warm welcome to our newest client Satellite Steve. Run by Steve Power, Satellite Steve provides aerial & satellite services in Wembley and Harrow. From freeview TV aerials to Sky distribution systems and LCD TV installation with hidden wiring, Satellite Steve can take care of it.
We’ve added another feeder site to our stable. This time the domain is
because we very close to Harrow and can repair computers in Harrow promptly.
We’ll see how this site performs for our search engine activities.
Here at Support Lounge, we regularly experiment to determine the best methods of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Feeder sites can be mini-sites that feed traffic to a main website based on certain keywords.
For example, because one of the things we do is fix computers in Wembley, we have just set up Wembley Computer Repair to help pick up on searches using that term. Should we keep the new site as a separate feeder page or should we re-direct the domain to this one.
We will experiment and determine which works best.
