Month: May 2014

This week we are providing a great deal on The Hp ProDesk 400 G1 SFF. Normally this office workhorse, with a 24” monitor and Microsoft Office would cost you £8.90 + Vat per week. However, for this week only we are providing this package for £8.00 + Vat per week.

That’s a saving of over £140 + VAT over the course of the 3 year lease. The Hp ProDesk 400 SFF might be a small form factor model, but there is nothing small about the power that this model punches. It comes with an Intel i5 Quad Core 3.5GHz processor, 4GB RAM, a massive 1TB Hard Drive, Intel HD 4600 graphics, DVD-RW, Keyboard, Mouse and Windows 7/8 Professional.

As part of the bundle we will provide a Full HD 24” BenQ GL2450HM monitor.  It features a dynamic ratio of 12M: 1, speakers, response time of 2ms and DVI and HDMI connector, this 24″ 16:9 LED monitor delivers you the audiovisual enjoyment.

Lastly, we will include Microsoft Office Home and Business 2013 giving you, Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. Together these three components provide any business with the perfect office workhorse.

If you would like to take advantage of our special Spring break offer email us info@localhost now.

To celebrate the Spring Bank Holiday we have put together a great package for those need a mobile workstation.

Based on Lenovo’s amazing ISV certified W540 Mobile Workstation, this package is ideal for people who require a CAD based machine but are always on the move.

The Lenovo comes with an Intel Quad Core i7 4700MQ Haswell 2.40GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, 15.6” Full HD LED Display, NVIDIA Quadro K1100M 2GB Graphics, DVD-RW, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Webcam, Windows 7/8 Professional.

We have paired this with a 27” LG LED Full HD Display and a Lenovo ThinkPad Ultra Dock Docking Station. Throw in a wireless keyboard and mouse and Microsoft Office Home and Business 2013 and you have one amazing bundle.

However, to really help those professionals who are on the move we are including 500GB of cloud back up for free! That is worth over £200 + Vat.

If you would like to take advantage of our special Spring break offer email us info@localhost now.

We have long been fans of Lenovo. There rugged laptops and ISV certified workstations have for a long time now provided excellent value for money and it would appear that we aren’t the only ones.

According to figures that were released last week Lenovo has now overtaken Apple in the US in personal computer sales. It has to be added that these figures were released by Lenovo, but if correct it puts the Chinese giant into 3^rd and only bettered by Dell and HP.

Considering the recent headlines about the PC being dead Lenovo stated that they had achieved “record sales and profits” last year and that they can continue to grow and deliver. In fact last year they sold 64 million devices and profits were up by 18%. Such bullish enthusiasm will be well received by supports of the PC who have had to witness the onslaught from Apple and the tablet sector for a number of years.

For more information about the Lenovo products that we can stock please call us on 0121 285 0098 or email info@localhost

Since Microsoft ended support for Windows XP on 8^th April 2014 it is thought that XP infections would increase by as much as 66%. With scammers aware that a huge percentage of enterprises still use the out dated Operating System, many are exposed to attacks.

We have already seem scams and fake software updates emerging and social media, forums and video sharing sites are all being used to spread viruses.  One such threat comes through YouTube videos that claim to be related to Microsoft and XP, but are in fact pushing adware and viruses. One of these is a malicious “Media Centre” which pushes other applications that damage the performance of the software.

Enterprise risks

One of the biggest risks is your business is in fact your employees. If you are still running XP, staff may unknowingly click on links and download malicious software. We cannot stress enough the importance of informing your staff to avoid clicking on links or attachments from people they do not recognise.

It’s therefore important to identify the machines still running XP and isolate them from the network. This will help prevent the spread of infection to your other systems.

If your business is still running XP based machines then please feel free to contact us on 0121 285 0098 or email info@localhost We are dealing with an increasingly large number of companies every week who have identified the need to upgrade their hardware to machines that are running Windows 7/8.1.

Our flexi lease can minimise the costs of replacing your old machines and you will benefit from faster, more efficient hardware that includes a full 3 years warranty plus telephone and remote support.

Last week the head of information security at Symantec told The Wall Street Journal that antivirus is dead as it only blocks 45% of attacks. Even though it accounts for 40% of his company’s revenue he didn’t see it as a money maker.

So, considering Symantec are a Fortune 500 company and makers of such products as Norton Anti Virus should we heed their advice?  The short answer is no. Obviously, we are seeing more and more sophisticated attacks. Late last year we blogged about the Cyrptolocker virus, that held people’s data to ransom, as an illustration of how clever and malicious these threats had become. Therefore, to remove an anti virus from your system would be foolish.

Microsoft users will be familiar with Microsoft Security Essentials and this tends to perform worse when compared to specific anti-malware products, but even then it stops more than 50% of threats.

Whilst we would never say that anti-virus is 100% perfect whenever we undertake an audit of a new customer one of our biggest recommendations is to always ensure that they have up to date protection. Whilst it is not fool proof it does prevent a huge number of threats and therefore, it minimises the downtime caused by a malicious attack.

If you feel that your IT systems are exposed feel free to call us on 0121 285 0098 or email info@localhost to discuss how we can make your network safer.

When it was announced last week that Apple was looking to buy Hip Hop artist, Dr Dre’s, Beats headphones business, analysts and Apple fans raised an eyebrow or two. Apple normally don’t splash out billions on a fashion accessory, especially one whose technology is questioned by aficionados.

Apple is only ever known to buy small technology businesses, which possess great minds or intellectual property that Apple wants to brand as their own. Indeed only Siri, has survived being purchased by Apple and kept its name.

So if the technology isn’t amazing, why is Apple effectively purchasing a brand, at way above market value? Essentially, it’s to boost its music offering.  For those of us who still believe downloading music is the cutting edge, the game has moved on. Companies like Spotify and their streaming service changed the game.  When you then consider that Beats Music launched its own streaming service earlier this year, suddenly the picture becomes a little clearer.

iTunes Radio hasn’t really taken off and whilst iTunes still defeats Beats and Spotify in Google searched the gap is reducing. So based on the assumption that the purchase of Beats is all about music streaming rather than a fashion accessory and we can start to expect Apple to provide a subscription service in the near future.

It’s been less than a month but in line with Microsoft’s recent move to being more responsive, Office for iPad has already been updated. The major news is that you can now print to any AirPrint compatible printer.  AirPrint was developed by Apple and it allows you to print wirelessly via Wi-Fi and many contemporary printers already come with  support for this connectivity.

The print options aren’t bad either. In Word you can decide which pages to print, whilst in Excel you can print a selected range, a sheet, or the entire notebook. In Powerpoint you are restricted to printing the whole presentation.

Apparently, a print option was the number one request for the new product and Microsoft should be applauded for responding incredibly quickly to what their customers need. However, we still feel a little aggrieved that you can only purchase the Office suite through an Office 365 pricing model. You can get a free version but that limits you to just open and reading documents, and you can’t edit or save amendments.

Has Office for iPad made the iPad more attractive to your business? If so call us on 0121 285 0098 or email info@localhost to discuss how our flexi-lease could make it affordable.

This time last year we were getting very excited about our trip to Apple’s WWDC 2013. It didn’t disappoint. Not only did we get a new Operating System, Mavericks, but we also got to witness the unveiling of the new Mac Pro and the MacBook Air.

So what can we expect from the 2014 version? Well the emphasis this year seems to be very much on Operating Systems.  Whilst it isn’t clear what OS X 10.10 will be, it is believed that the UI will not change but we might see a flatter appearance.

With iOS 8, all the talk is about better support for Siri, Maps and even a healthcheck app. Also there is the possibility that iTunes Radio will become its own app.

However, it is the hardware that we get most excited about but this year it is hard to determine what Apple have in store.  The Mac Mini is crying out for a refresh but apart from that the latest rumours surrounding Apple TV, a 12” MacBook Air and iWatch all suggest that these products will not be ready for a June announcement.

We can’t help but feel a little anti climatic. The buzz leading up to last year’s event and the launching of the Mac Pro was huge news. This year it is all a little quiet. However, perhaps that is what Apple wants us to think and perhaps WWDC 2014 will mark the launch a major new product. Here at GEEX we are certainly hoping so!