Technology update

Presented by James

Sturgess – Owner/ Director

Sturgclan Consulting

16/06/2011 James@sturgclan.co.uk

0800 058 8929

Contents

1. Introduction 2. Changing perceptions 3. Internet Presence 4. Hardware/software

1. PC vs.. Mac 2. Android vs. IOS 3. Battle of the browsers

5. Security 6. Conclusion

Introduction

Thanks for having me

Today's talk – Technology update – I want to keep you abreast of the ever changing world of technology.

There a a few sections, however as the technology itself you will see that everything is starting to link together.

Cloud services have become a big player in the business world with SAAS (software as a service) becoming the new internet in many sectors.

As a result virtualisation has saved many businesses, large and small, time and money as well as increasing productivity due to less downtime and tighter controls.

Advancements in hardware mean more and more power hungry applications can run at higher speeds offering previously unheard of performance to suit all budgets.

Changing perceptions

Facts Internet usage has almost doubled

over the last 6 years March 2005, 13.9% of world population (about 888 million) used the internet, in March 2011 this has increased to 30% (2,072 million).

In 2010 every single day around 294 billion emails were sent, that’s about 107 trillion over however over 80% of these were Spam

Changing perceptions

Interesting stats but what does that mean for business? An effective online presence is vital. People know what they want and are more savvy. E-commerce was like the proverbial talking dog. It wasn’t about how well the dog could talk, it was amazing that the dog could talk at all.

Quote from <http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/03/5-top-trends-in-consumer-based-internet-businesses-for-2011/>

Internet presence

What is an Internet presence? How much Management does it require? Do you know where you rank? Do you have more than your website? Is your site compliant to W3C standards? Where else are you listed?

Hardware/software

Hardware Hardware is evolving faster than ever at present. • Processors have traded speed per unit

advancements for multiprocessing (eg. Dual core/quad core, and now hex-core)

• Solid state hard drives are starting to become a viable option, offering faster read speeds.

• Mobile phones now have at least as much function as a computer, often allowing greater flexibility due to their portable nature

• Cloud and virtualisation has meant that costs have come down for your end users, allowing no more than a dumb terminal with limited resources to run all the functions you require from a central server.

Hardware/software

Software •Windows 7 has meant that even lower spec devices such as net books can offer outstanding performance. •HTML5 is finally incorporating all of the elements such as video, audio and images into the main markup without having to use memory hungry 3rd party code (eg. JavaScript, Flash, PHP) •“The cloud” has allowed users to collaborate on projects like never from before, everyone from musicians, scientists, sales people to accountants can all work more efficiently.

PC vs Mac

For a long time, the PC has been the least secure option. This meant that a number of users switched to Apple,

allowing more interoperability with the infamous I-phone. The focus of the cyber-criminals has now shifted to Apple

technology. Modern PC security is thorough and requires little

management. PC’s are much more flexible as Apple use a closed garden

approach The majority of software and hardware manufacturers still

focus mainly on the PC market Windows 7 dominates the operating system market, with

the 64 bit version many designers are also switching their allegiances.

Android vs IOS

Android • Android is a totally open source platform

offering developers and manufacturers freedom.

• Android is used a number of high end devices, but will happily run on low end phones as well

• Android is open-source allowing developers to create whatever their imagination allows.

• This in turn makes Android more susceptible to security attacks, however there is adequate free software for protection.

• Every part of the Android UI is editable • Android is the best solution for 3rd party

applications using cloud technology

IOS • I-phone is the most successful

handheld device in history. Having an almost cult following.

• IOS is used only on Apple products, you cannot change the OS even if you want to.

• Apple control the content available

• The I-phone is very secure, but is limited in its capabilities

• You cannot change the UI on an I-phone.

Security

As a Windows user, today you need look no further than Microsoft for all of your security needs. For any business with up to 10 networked PC’s Microsoft Security Essentials is free of charge and offers unrivalled protection.

As a Mac user, you can no longer rely on the built in software, choosing which package is a minefield. Interestingly more and more users are installing windows on their Mac with their Bootcamp partition, they can then download MSE and an additional driver to scan the Mac partition.

Security

• The cloud used to be a great security concern – rather than having to get into each individual host machine, all a cyber-criminal would need to do is access the server. They could do this by logging into any of the host machines, meaning the security of the whole network depended on each individual user, now the protection is loaded directly into the cloud, protecting both internal and external attacks.