Hello everyone, today I will be typing up 3 ways cloud technology can benefit accountants.

1. Can be used remotely As an accountant you’ll probably be required to move around a bit, either going to different customers or working from home. Doing this means that you’ll have to take all the documents you need and the applications to do your work on with you. That would mean having a laptop that is capable of running all the required applications on it, applications installed on it to do the work and plenty of space to store the data. This will cost a lot of money to get a decent laptop to do this work and cost more for the licenses for the software. This would be ideal for a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). A VDI is a virtual computer that runs on a server on the internet. You can access this from anywhere as long as you have a device with an internet connection. The VDI will have all the applications you would require to work and access to all the data you need (such as worker shared drives). This can be accessed on a cheap laptop that has WiFi capabilities. The VDI would be what you would do your work on, essentially becoming your office desktop. All that work can be easily accessed from you clients site or from home.
2. Can be used effectively in the office In an office that utilizes the traditional IT model (i.e. desktop computers, servers e.t.c) a lot of money is spent on running and maintaining the IT systems. Everyone would require a PC and you would also require multiple servers to run services (in a large office this can cost a lot on the electricity bill). Your IT support costs would also be high. Desktops have a life span of 3 years, meaning that plenty of money will need to be spent to replace them every couple of years an even more to roll out new applications a software to the desktops. If you have multiple branches then you will also require VPN’s to be setup so that all the works are connected to each other and have access to the data they need. Adoption of cloud technology can change this. Instead of using traditional desktops you would use a ThinClient (an 8th of the size of a standard PC). This would be used to access your VDI. The great thing about the ThinClient is that it has far less parts inside it than a desktop. With few parts its uses less electricity and its life span increases to 5 years. This takes a good chunk out of the cost for the electricity bill and maintained costs. All servers can be moved to the cloud as virtual servers. This would free up space and take away the cost of running and maintaining server rooms. With all your works running on VDI’s they would be able to access the same data. The VDI’s would be setup on the same network. This would mean that works all around the country would have access to the same network drives. The centralization of the VDI’s also makes it easier for IT support to access the VDI’s and fix them. An IT Technician can monitor, control and remotely access the VDI’s in seconds. From a central management console they can roll out updates and applications in minutes, compared to a technician going round each PC in the office and installing software on each individual computer. By doing this, it means that down time of the office computer is greatly reduced. Meaning less money is lost to maintenance
3. Securely store data in an easy to access place Accountants have to handle their client’s most sensitive data. With the rise of cyber crime this data should be made very secure because if the data fell into the wrong hands it could cripple the company. However, securing it can make it harder for those who need to access it. Having it on the cloud can tailor for both worlds. Cloud servers are typically stored with the IT technicians; giving them direct access to the server should anything go wrong. The data would be backed up and secured on encrypted servers at the data centre (protecting it from cyber criminals and other hazards) but at the same time would allow the people who need access to it easy access. You would be able to access the data remotely as long as you know the passwords and have the permissions to view the files. This allows the accountant to do their work whilst keeping out the unwanted.
4. Thank you for reading.

Hello everyone! Today I will be discussing how to add, and remove, contacts and calendars permissions for users of Office 365 by using PowerShell. This can be useful should you have trouble trying to add permissions over Outlook.
The first you need to connect to the Office 365 Exchange Powershell, open a Powershell session and enter these commands, providing your Office 365 admin account details when requested:

$cred = Get-Credential

$session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $cred -Authentication Basic –AllowRedirection

Import-PSSession $session

Now you can get on with the adding and removing user permissions.

Check current permissions
Before you start adding permissions, check if there are any existing permissions on the folder first. If a user already has permissions for another user’s contacts/calendar folder then you won’t be able to change them until the permissions are removed. To do this, type in the following code:

Get-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity [email protected]:\Calendar| Select User, AccessRights, Deny

Change [email protected] with which ever user you want to view. Also Calendar can be changed for Contacts if you want to view who has access to the contacts folder.

Add Permissions
Now that you know the permissions for the folder, you can start adding and removing. First we shall look at adding permissions. Before adding permissions for a user, decide which permission you would like to give them. Below are the options:

Owner

Create, read, modify, and delete all items and files, and create subfolders. As the folder owner, you can change the permission levels others have for the folder. (Does not apply to delegates.)

Publishing Editor

Create, read, modify, and delete all items and files, and create subfolders.

Editor

Create, read, modify, and delete all items and files.

Publishing Author

Create and read items and files, create subfolders, and modify and delete items and files you create.

Author

Create and read items and files, and modify and delete items and files you create.

Contributor

Create items and files only. The contents of the folder do not appear.

Reviewer

Read items and files only

Custom

Perform activities defined by the folder owner.

None

You have no permission’s. You can’t open the folder.

Once you’ve chosen the permissions you wish to give the user you can add the permissions using PowerShell. Use to following code to do this:

Add-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity [email protected]:\Calendar -AccessRights [Permission goes here] -User [email protected]

Replace the [email protected] with the mailbox you want to add permissions to and [email protected] to the mailbox you want to have access. Also change [Permission goes here] to whatever permission you wish to use from the list above.

Remove Permissions
Lastly, if you want to remove some permissions then you can use this line of code:

Remove-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity [email protected]:\Calendar -User [email protected]

I hope this has helped you. Thanks for reading!

I have decided to write this article after spending weeks troubleshooting Exchange 2003 on Small Business Servers with various active sync issues.There are many issues and many solutions, I will try to describe the majority of problems which I have come across and troubleshooting steps. 1: Check your Exchange services are started ( default services settings)

2: Service pack 2 for Exchange 2003 Not a part of standard update to download follow this link: http://goo.gl/of9DE. To check if you have service pack installed, go to Exchange System Manager, right-click your server and go to properties. This is required by iOS 3: Check that your firewall allows traffic on port 443 4: Check the Exchange network connection is at the top of the list in advance network settings 5: Check directory security in IIS Exchange Virtual Directory

• Authentication = Integrated & Basic
• Default Domain = NetBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany*
• Realm = yourcompany.com
• IP Address Restrictions = Granted Access
• Secure Communications = Require SSL IS ticked (very important)

Microsoft-Server-Activesync Virtual Directory

• Authentication = Basic
• Default Domain = NETBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany*
• Realm = NETBIOS name
• IP Address Restrictions = Granted Access
• Secure Communications = Require SSL and Require 128-Bit Encryption NOT ticked

Exchange-oma Virtual Directory

• Authentication = Integrated & Basic
• Default Domain = NETBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany*
• Realm = NETBIOS name
• IP Address Restrictions = Restricted to IP Address of Server
• Secure Communications = Require SSL and Require 128-Bit Encryption NOT ticked OMA Virtual Directory
• Authentication = Basic
• Default Domain = NETBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany*
• Realm = NETBIOS name
• IP Address Restrictions = Granted Access
• Secure Communications = Require SSL and Require 128-Bit Encryption NOT ticked

Public Virtual Directory

• Authentication = Integrated & Basic
• Default Domain = NetBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany* (no more than 15 characters)
• Realm = yourcompany.com
• IP Address Restrictions = Granted Access
• Secure Communications = Require SSL IS ticked (very important)

6: ASP.Net version should be set to 1.1 for all the above directories 7: HTTP keep-alives needs to be enabled Under Default Website Properties on the Web Site tab check if the http keep-alives is enabled 8: Advanced Website Identification Make sure this is set to All Unassigned with port 80 on the Web Site tab 9: Uninstall IPV6 Make sure IPV6 is not installed, if installed uninstall 10: SSL certificate Make sure the name on the certificate matches fully qaulified domain name for the ActiveSync, check on the Directory Security tab, View Certificate 11: import ssl certificate For the iPhone and windows mobile you will have to import the certificate to the phone, easiest option is to publish the cert on the web, then navigate to it with your mobile browser and install the certificate Godaddy Certificate Instructions To Install Your SSL in Microsoft IIS 6

1. From the Start menu, click Run….
2. Type mmc and click OK. The Microsoft Management Console (Console) opens.
3. From the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap In.
4. Select Certificates, and then click Add.
5. Select Computer Account, and then click Next.
6. Select Local Computer, then click Finish.
7. Click OK to close Add or Remove Snap-ins.
8. In the Console window, expand the Certificates folder.
9. Right-click Intermediate Certification Authorities, mouse-over All Tasks, then click Import.
10. In the Certificate Import Wizard, click Next.
11. Click Browse to find the certificate file.
12. In the bottom right corner, change the file extension filter to *.p7b.
13. Select the appropriate certificate file and click Open.
14. Click Next.
15. Select Place all certificates in the following store.
16. Click Browse, select Intermediate Certification Authorities, and then click Next.
17. Click Finish.
18. Close the Console window.
19. From the Start menu, go to Administrative Tools and click Internet Information Service console.
20. Right-click the website or host name for your certificate.
21. Click Properties.
22. Click the Directory Security tab.
23. Click Server Certificate..
24. The Welcome to the Web Server Certificate Wizard window opens. Click Next.
25. Select Process the pending request and install the certificate, and then clickNext.
26. Click Browse. Select all files, and select your certificate file.
27. Click Next.
28. Verify the Certificate Summary, and then click Next.
29. Click Finish.

This is another situation where a migration to our Cloud Email service would remove the pain of managing an aging SBS 2003 or 2008 system. Have a look around our website to see how our services can make your life easier. Usefull tools http://goo.gl/BA7ZJ http://goo.gl/Xsx3t Resources used http://goo.gl/rpqBh http://goo.gl/p2uwN http://goo.gl/Hm81o

Today I have compiled a list of 5 technologies to look forward to this year. I believe the item’s on this list will be game changing in their technological area: 5) Synaptics new range of touch interfaces Synaptic’s are touch pad manufactures who have been around since 1995. If you’ve had any device that has a touch device, the chances are you’ve used one of their products. This year they will be releasing a new range of touch products that will offer more than the current touch products around at the moment. These are: ForcePad, ThinTouch and the ClearPad. The ForcePad is their latest Touch Pad device. This uses pressure tracking sensors instead of the traditional mechanical switches that are in current use. What it does is measure the pressure that your finger is asserting on the pad. Light movement will move the cursor around on the screen and applying pressure will select. This is similar to standard touch pads. However, the pressure tracking sensors allow for extra features as it allows the tracking of multiple fingers. For example: When you use your current touch pad, to right click an icon you have to you the right click button on the bottom of the touch pad. What they have done is do away with the buttons at the bottom and made it so that taping the pad with two fingers is right click. The extra functions are supposed to work in conjunction with the new Windows 8 operating system (which is designed for touch input first). The ForePad allows the users to use all of the 8 touch commands that come with Windows 8 and has the technology to expand in the future. The next in their products is the ThinTouch. The ThinTouch is synaptics new range of keyboards that were originally designed for the ultrabooks and thin notebooks. The main difference is the thickness of the keys. Modern keys use a scissor technology. These range from 6mm to 3.5mm. In comparison, the ThinTouch is 2.5mm at its highest point. This allows for very thin laptops or larger batteries for the laptop. But, this isn’t the coolest thing about the ThinTouch. The whole keyboard is equipped with capactive touch sensors which will allow you to do gestures with the keyboard along with the touch pad. Since each key has a capactive touch sensor installed there is an electronic field over the surface of the keyboard. This would allow for near field gestures to be done as well (waving your fingers over the keyboard rather than touching the keys.) The last of their products is the ClearPad. This is designed for smart phones, tablets and notebooks in mind with up to 17” displays. This uses a single chip (a combinations of display controller and touch controller) to do the work. This reduces the energy consumed, the cost of the ship and reduces the latency as well (latency means the time between command and response). This allows for much quicker response times to your touch commands, increases the battery life of the device and brings down its cost. Overall the reason I’m looking forward to these devices coming out is because they will change the way we interact with the devices we use. It will allow for much more fluid control over the touch device and improve the PC human interface. 4) The rise of OLED When is comes to display technology there are 4 technologies used: Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Plasma, Cathode Ray Tube (still around but not in main stream use) and Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED). The last one in that list is the latest in display technology. It has been around for while and is utilized in small screen devices such as the PSP Vita and the range of Samsung smart phones. However, LG have very recently released their new 55” TV that uses OLED. The great thing about OLED it that it is much for energy efficient compared to LCD and plasma. It also allows for much thinner displays compared to LCD and plasma. Combining both of these qualities means it’s great for portable devices as it would offer greater battery life (or in the case of static displays less electricity being used which is great when we are all going green) and will either make the device thinner or offer more space inside the device to be utilized by other systems. The most interesting thing about OLED is that a number of people believe that OLED could herald flexible, “bendy” devices. The reason for this is that OLED doesn’t require a glass screen. This means that devices that are made from OLED will be lighter, more durable and can be folded away or even wearable. Samsung are already in the final stages of making their flexible phone (made from OLED) and should be released in the first couple of months of 2013 3) Google Glasses Google glasses are Google’s latest in mobile devices which run off the android operating system. It is a pair of glasses which displays the data on the inside of the glasses as a HUD (Heads Up Display). It is controlled by voice command and can be used on the move. Even though it isn’t the first pairs of HUD glasses it will probably be an innovation in its own right (such as the iPad not being the first tablet but it did kick start tablet technology). What the glasses allow you to do is to have a constant stream of data whilst you are on the move. So unlike smart phones (which you have to hold in your hand and look at) all the information will all ready be there in front of yours eyes. There are also rumours that Google are considering adding a phone capability to the glasses. With this capability it could completely change the playing field when it comes to portable devices. 2) Leap Motion Leap motion is a small box that sits in front of your keyboard. What it does is add a completely new dimension to controlling your computer. Traditionally you’d use a keyboard and either a touchpad, touch screen or mouse to select items. What leap motion does is it allows you to control the computer by waving your hand over it. It senses the gestures your hand makes whilst over the device and then translates and inputs it into the computer. To get a better understanding I highly recommend you watch the video on their website: https://leapmotion.com/ 1) Oculus Rift As a fan of video games I’m very much looking forward to the Oculus Rift. What most gamers want and enjoy about gaming is immersion, the feeling that they are actually inside and are apart of the game they are playing. This is mostly achieved by getting the biggest screens possible (or in the case of a number of avid computer gamers having multiple screens), having a good surround sound system and, if you are very serious about your gaming, a head tracker (this tracks to movements of your head and then uses that in your game). The only downside to all of this is that it costs a lot of money and is limited on the feeling of immersion in the sense what you see on the screen is limited in the field of view. What Oculus Rift does is take immersion to the next level. It’s a pair of goggles that you wear on your head. It will then display the game inside your goggles which will gives you a peripheral vision and a sense of depth, none of which can be achieved by a normal screen. It links up to your computer using a DMI connector and there are plans in the future for it to be used on consoles as well. They have a video on their website that demonstrates the Oculus Rift: http://www.oculusvr.com/ I hope you have found this blog interesting and will look forward to these new technologies with the same anticipation as I do. Thank you for reading.

Hello there, today I will be talking about the Alfresco Buffer bug and how to fix it. The buffer bug happens on multiprocessor servers running Windows server 2008 R2 or Windows 7. This issue occurs because of a race condition in the Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock (Afd.sys) that causes sockets to be leaked. Over time the application won’t be able to create new sockets (causing a “no buffer zone available” exception to occur) and all the available sockets will be filled up. This will mean that you won’t be able to remote connect to your server until the server has been restarted. If you leave Alfresco server running over night and when you fail to access alfresco in the morning (and the only way to do so is to restart the Alfresco server) then you most likely suffering from the buffering bug. To confirm this, go to the alfresco log’s on your server (they should be located in the C:\Alfresco\tomcat\logs\ folder). When you are in there, look for this error : java.net.SocketException: No buffer space available (maximum connections reached?):. If you have this error then we can determine that you have the buffering bug. To fix this issue you need to download a hotfix from Microsoft. This hotfix applies to the following Operating Systems: Windows 7, Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008R2 SP1. To download the hotfix, follow this link: http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=2577795&kbln=en-us Accept the terms and Agreement and you will have to fill out a form. In this form you select to hotfix you want (there is only 1 to select as the hotfix applies to all of the above OS’s) and fill in your email address. Once you have done this Microsoft will send you an email with a link to download the hotfix. Once you’ve downloaded the hotfix, do a back of your server (just in case) and install the hotfix. Once it’s installed, restart the server and start up the Tomcat and PostgreSQL server’s and see if it works by login into Alfresco. You will know if the hotfix is worked if you are able to access alfresco after a couple of hours. If this hasn’t worked then you need to contact Microsoft Support. I hope this article has helped you. Thanks for reading!

RPC over HTTP provides a connection to exchange servers, from outside the organization, without the need of a VPN connection. This is great thing if it works, but very hard to troubleshoot when it goes wrong and even harder troubleshooting somebody else’s server when you have no idea what  it is that has changed to break it. I’ll mention a great tool to point you in the right direction of troubleshooting as there is so much which could go wrong and blindly trying it all might even damage your server more. This tool was created by Microsoft and is found at https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com This is one of the best things from Microsoft. It helps to narrow down the issue to the exact part which is not working correctly. I was getting this message: The connection to the Microsoft Exchange Server is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action. I have had this problem before, but it’s not quite the same problem, so before you spend hours searching or guessing what the problem is, consider running the connectivity test and then pick the solution. My problem of course was not only one, but multiple issues. Easy solutions to this problem:

• Check all required exchange services are started (system attendant etc.)
• Check event log for any errors related to this problem.
• Re-install RPC over HTTP (add/remove windows components)

If any of these worked, then great, if not here is the harder part: Run the RPC over HTTP exchange analyzer, what the results showed for me was issue with the RPC ports. This is very useful tool to set your registry to the correct values http://www.petri.co.il/software/rpcnofrontend.zip remember to restart the server after making the change and backup your registry before, just in case. To check the port settings see following registry keys HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Rpc\Rpcproxy – required ports are 6001,6002 and 6004, strange range of ports up to 5000 was set in my case. Re-running the connectivity analyzer then showed an error with the GAL, which I suspected earlier, but being part of multiple issues this wasn’t resolved as I have reverted my changes back to original. I then remade the change to the GAL permissions, which should be list, read and open address list and the issue was solved!!! The easiest way of all to fix this problem is to migrate the customers email to our new Cloud Email offering and put the SBS 2003 server to rest and no longer have to worry about supporting Exchange.

Hello there. Today I will be discussing why small to medium sized businesses should invest in a fully integrated cloud infrastructure over a traditional IT model. Cloud technology has been around for a couple of years now and (with all things technical) businesses have been slow to adopt it. Most big businesses have taken the step to the cloud yet small to medium sized businesses are still choosing to take up the traditional IT option (physical desktops, on site storage etc.). So below I’ve made a list of reasons why small businesses should move to the cloud.

1. Flexibility Flexibility is a very important aspect to small and medium sized businesses. Being flexible allows them to manoeuvre and adapt to the ever changing business and economic climate we live in. So, how come they don’t apply that to their IT? The traditional business model for IT is only as flexible if you are willing to pay a lot of money. For example: as an owner of a business, you need a server to do specific tasks. However, to make the most of that server you will need to think 5 years ahead to decide on its requirements. So, to make it flexible in the future, you have it run on up to date hardware, the latest software and a lot of disk space for expansion. By doing this, you now have a high end server that should be able to meet future requirements. However, to get that ability you are now down by a large sum of money. Also, given that technology advances at a fast rate, you’ll find that (after a couple of years) your server will struggle to meet the demand of the tasks you give it. You’ll then have to pay more money to either improve performance or upgrade to a new server. In comparison, using a cloud server will already give you that flexibility from the word go. A cloud server can be changed and adapted to your needs in a matter of minutes. If you need more disk space more can be added in a few clicks. Software can be added in a couple of clicks. This gives you a degree of flexibility that you wouldn’t be able to achieve with a traditional IT model. By taking the cloud route, you can adapt your IT to whatever your requirements are in a short amount of time and for a low cost. Flexibility can also be used in terms of maintaining your IT systems. A problem with a desktop will take longer to fix than a cloud desktop as a technician would have either have to try and fix the problem remotely or come on site to fix the problem. If the technician would have to come on site then the down time is a lot longer as you’d have to wait for the technician to arrive. By having your IT systems in the cloud the technician would be able to take control of your computer and have the issue fixed in a shorter period of time.
2. Security Your data is the most important asset to your company. Should your data become compromised or destroyed then your company will struggle to recover it. With the traditional IT method, you’ll setup up your computer and servers to backup regularly, encrypt any data you store and have anti-virus installed. These measures should protect you against most threats such as viruses and unforeseen technical malfunctions. However, will it protect it from a major disaster? Should your company experience a major disaster (such s a flood or a fire) then you’re looking at major downtime in your business and lost or unrecoverable data. This, potentially, could be an event that your business won’t be able to recover from. By using utilising the cloud you can avoid these threats. Having all your data stored on the cloud takes away the risk of localized threats. For example: when using a cloud desktop you connect to the desktop over the internet. All the work that is done on that cloud desktop stays in the cloud. Should your PC break then all you have to do is go to another computer (that has an internet connection) and access your cloud desktop from there. All the work you were working on will be left the way it was when your PC broke. So should your whole office go down none of the work that you or your employees were working on will be lost. The same principle goes for data storage. With your servers in the cloud you will be able to easily access your data once you have a site setup.
3. Cost There are two main subjects when to the cost of IT: the cost to run those IT systems (electrical usage) and the cost to maintain those systems. With the traditional IT model the cost is far higher. Even with the advancement of technology your standard desktop still uses a lot of electricity. The same goes to your on site servers, which you should keep running 24/7. The cost to run these IT systems will increase each year as electricity prices go up and your PC goes out of date (in terms of technology). Over those years your PC’s and server’s will also degrade. The standard life span of a desktop is 3 years and in those 3 years the cost of maintenance will go up as your desktop struggles to cope with the tasks it’s given. This changes when you move to the cloud. A number of places offer thin clients to access your cloud desktop to access your cloud desktop. These are, essentially, compact desktops that run on minimum hardware. The hardware itself is barely used as all the work is done on the cloud desktop itself. By using these you reduce electricity costs as far less electricity is being used. Maintenance costs also go down because a thin client has far less to go wrong with it. Since the hardware is barely being used the thin client degrades at a far slower rate, meaning it lasts far longer.

I hope you have found this blog article interesting. Thank you for reading.

Hello everyone, today I will be talking about how to fix the error code 0x8024400A. Now this blog post ties in with my last one (How to Factory Reset Your Laptop) because after I had factory reset my laptop I had to update Windows XP. However, when I tried to update my laptop I got this error code: 0x8024400A. What followed was a series of Google search’s to try and find to fix to this problem.

What the problem turn’s out to be is that WUP (the program used to update Windows) is out of date and the way you usually update it is through Windows Updater. So it’s a nasty loop that you have to get out of. Luckily, you can update WUP via the Microsoft website. Follow the links below to download the updated WUP:

(32 bit) X86 – http://download.windowsupdate.com/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/7.4.7600.226/windowsupdateagent30-x86.exe
(64 bit) X64 – http://download.windowsupdate.com/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/7.4.7600.226/windowsupdateagent30-x64.exe

Once you’ve downloaded the file and installed it, restart your PC and try and update Windows XP again and it should work.

Hello everyone, today i will be discussing Bit coins. Some of you may already know of Bit Coins but the large majority will never have heard of it. So I will be explaining to you what they are, how you obtain them and what you can use them for. What are Bitcoins? Bit Coins are an online currency (also know as e-cash) that was created in January 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi is a cryptographer who came up with the Bit Coin Protocol. Bit coins are similar to that of local currency (such as that of town’s that have their own currency that you use in local shops) in the sense that the worth of the Bit Coin is decided by the online community. The worth of the Bit Coin will fluctuate depending on the amount and size of transactions though, unlike national currencies, the value of the bit coin can quickly recover. At the time of typing this, 1 Bitcoin (BTC) is equal to £8.239GBP or $13.32USD. Bit Coins come in 3 varieties: You have the Bitcoin (1), the Bitcent (0.01) and the Satoshi (0.00000001). All of these can be earned and traded over the internet like normal currency. These will be kept in your Bitcoin wallet on your computer. These wallets have their own, unique address (like a bank account number) that will be used to make transactions. The worth of the Bit Coin will fluctuate depending on the amount and size of transactions though, unlike national currencies, the value of the bit coin can quickly recover. How does it Work? Like all currencies, Bitcoin relies on the communities trust in the exchange for it to have value. By the community having trust in Bitcoin people will use, buy and sell Bitcoin. if no-one has trust in Bitcoin then no-one will use it. Unlike normal currencies, Bitcoin doesn’t have a centralized body that issues Bitcoins. Instead, Bitcoins are rewarded to “Miners” whom then sell their Bitcoins onto the community. The miners themselves are individual’s that are all connected to the Bitcoin network who either work by themselves or in groups (this will be discussed later). The number of bitcoins that can be “mined” is set at 21 million (at time of writing there are currently 11 million Bitcoins in circulation). Once 21 million Bitcoins have been mined no more will be created. This is outlined by the protocol that Satoshi came up with. By people abiding by the protocol and trusting in the currency is what gives Bitcoins their worth and makes the system work. In order to make counterfeiting impossible, all the transactions are stored on an online database called the block chain. The block chain is formed of blocks. Blocks are list of all the transactions that took place in the space of 10 minutes. Once that 10 minutes is up the block is added to the block chain and a new block is started. Once 6 blocks are put on top of each other the block chain the consensus solidifies so it becomes impractical to alter the transactions for your own gain. These blocks must meet constraints, dictated by the network, before they are added to the block chain. This mean that it is very hard for a person to cheat the system. How do you Obtain BitCoin’s? You can obtain BitCoins in 3 ways: exchanging for actual currency, trading and mining. Exchanging for actual money is used to get you started in the Bitcoin exchange. Once you have some bitcoins you can start trading with others in the community such in the same way city traders do. You can buy and sell Bitcoins and then exchange them for real currencies. If you own a business you can join the 1000 merchants signed up to Bitcoins and start trading your good’s for Bitcoins. The main method for obtaining Bitcoins is Mining. This is the process of finding a solution to a difficult Proof-Of-Work problem which confirms transactions and prevents double spending. This would be done by a node (a graphics card) on a dedicated server (it has to be dedicated as it requires a lot of electricity). These transactions are put into files called blocks every 10 minutes and then added to the block chain (an online public database that has contains a list of all the transactions). The block chain is only allowed to accept 1 block per 10 minutes. This block must meet stringent constraints dictated by the network. If the block hasn’t formed into the form it should then the block chain will reject it. The one block that gets accepted onto the Block chain will get it’s owner 50 Bitcoins as a reward for the work they’ve done. The downside to mining is the time, effort and resources it takes to get the reward. Mining uses a lot of electricity, data and takes place on Graphics Cards so it can be impractical cost money for the individual miner. For this reason, some miners pool their resources together and then split the reward they get depending on the work they’ve done. The only downside to this is you have to give up some of the reward you get but it can be beneficial in the long run. I hope this has given you a better understanding into the world of Bitcoins. Thank you for reading!

Sometimes with PC’s you will get a problem that only wiping the computer clean will fix. Traditionally you’d need your Windows (or whatever operating system you’re using) CD and do a CD boot along with a clean install. However, what if you don’t have the disk? Well with laptops they have the ability to reset to factory settings. So basically, what will happen is the laptop will wipe everything off of the hard drive that you are using and then will reinstall the operating system and applications it came with out of the box. To do a factory reset of your laptop, follow these steps: 1) Do a back up Before you do a factory reset remember to do a backup of all the document’s that you want to keep. Nothing will be spared from your clean wipe of the hard drive so back it up to and external hard drive. If you are doing a factory reset of your laptop due to a virus then be careful of the fact that the virus may be attached to your backed up documents and settings so make sure that you scan and destroy the virus before you restore your settings. 2) Find out which F key it is that you press during the computer boot to start the factory reset To do your factory reset you have to press a certain F key, when the laptop boot’s up, to start the factory reset. This varies from the different brand and model of laptop, an example being that for the Sony VAIO line of laptops you have to hold down alt+F10 during boot to start up the factory reset process. So before you start your factory reset, do some research on the make and model of the laptop to find out what you need to press. 3) Obtain the key for the Operating system that originally came with the Laptop All paid for operating systems require an activation code to activate your operating system. A number of times the operating system action code is on the laptop itself. This can be found off the bottom of the laptop. If it isn’t there then check the box or manual that came with it to see if it is there. 4) Start the Factory Reset Now that you know your activation code and the F key combination to start up the factory reset and that you’ve done a back up of your documents and setting then you are ready to do a factory reset. First things first, restart your laptop. When its booting up press the F key combination. This should bring up the system recovery console. Choose to do a full system wipe: this will wipe all the data from the hard drive you are using. Click next and it will start the process. Once it’s finished wiping the hard drive the laptop will then start to reinstall the operating system. Install the operating system and once you are finished with that then it will restart and ask to install the applications. Reinstall those as well. Once the OS and the applications are installed then you have successfully done a factory reset on your laptop! Now all that is left to do is update the operating system, install anti-virus software and then restore your backup. I hope this has helped you.