Orange has today announced that they have reached an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in the UK. Orange have also confirmed they will be supplying the phone to the UK market this year, but have not specificed an exact date.
Orange are yet to confirm contract pricing but we shouldnt have to wait to long to find out, as we are fast approaching the end of the year.
The deal with Orange should be good news for consumers. Up to now, O2 had an exclusive deal as the UK’s only supplier but now they have some welcome competition although Orange has yet to confirm wether they will be undercutting O2′s price plans.
Our IT Department provide a full range of support services for iPhone users. If your business requires ongoing support for mobile email or voip then visit our IT Support London website today.
Elite celebrated its birthday today, 25 years after being launched for the BBC Micro computer.
Created by David Braben and Ian Bell, Elite was released on 20th September 1984. The pair wrote the game while they were university students.They never expected the Elite to be such a hit and initially they just wanted to write a game that they would want to play themselves.
Many consider Elite to be a milestone as it was one of the first games in the world to use 3D graphics. Initially a low key release, the game went on to sell hundreds and thousands of copies worldwide and it was eventually released on other formats such as Amstrad and Spectrum.
Every now and then a classic game is released and elite is one of the best examples. It was like nothing else available at the time, allowing you to explore new world with the objective of going from a harmless human, to an Elite.
Most of the IT Support London team have played the game, but few of them have completed it (SEO David is the exception 
). Our IT Department salute David Braben and Ian Bell for creating one of the best games of all time. We look forward to the sequel
Intel today launched their new range of “Lynnfield” Processors. In an effort to make their Nehalem architecture more affordable for the general public, the launch line up also includes the new “Core i5” processor which is a cut down version of the Core i7.
There are three new Quad Core Processors available, the core i7-870, the core i7-860 and the corei5-750. All of these processors are compatible with the Intel P55 chipset. The most powerful of the three chips in question is the i7-870 which runs at 2.93 GHz at stock. The i7-860 will run at 2.8 GHz and the i5-750 will run at 2.66 GHz.
A new feature implemented by Intel is the “turbo boost” mode. When active, turbo boost ramps up the speed of the cores in use to maximum effect while turning off the cores that are idle. The above chips running in turbo boost mode will see the following increase in power;
- i7-870. Up to 3.6 GHz
- i7-860. Up to 3.46 GHz
- i5-750. Up to 3.2 GHz
The new Core i5 lacks the hyper threading capabilities of its core-i7 brothers. Hyper threading doubles the number of threads that can be processed at any one time.
The gamers in the IT Support London office are getting very excited about these chips. The price bracket starts very respectable indeed with the corei5 processor starting from £150.00 at most online stores but at the other end of the scale, a core i7-870 will set you back a whopping £400.00+
Good news for UK customers!! Microsoft have made a u turn and decided to release an upgrade version of Windows 7.
Existing users will no longer have to format their existing version of Windows and install the new OS from scratch. This will be a big relief to a lot of users who were anticipating a lot of extra work after the initial news that an upgrade version would not be released.
However, Our IT Support London engineers do not recommend upgrading from a previous version of Windows due to the unreliability of upgrades. We would suggest backing up all of your data and formatting your hard drive, then installing the full version of Windows as this will be much more reliable.
Our initial testing of Windows 7 indicates that the operating system is much improved which is good news Vista was never popular with any of the techies here
latest news from the Microsoft camp.
Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will be released WITHOUT Internet explorer 8 included.
The EU have decided that the Internet Browser cannot be included with European releases due to concerns about the sufficiency of competition among web browsers that are available to windows users throughout Europe.
Amazingly, there is nothing stopping hardware manufacturers installing Internet explorer with new builds that include Windows 7.
Is this another case of EU madness or are the EU right to make Microsoft remove Internet explorer 8 from Windows 7?
IT Support companies have been made aware that they will need to install an Internet browser when upgrading clients machines to windows 7. Most engineers may find it sensible to carry a copy of the browser on a pen drive. Downloading from the Internet will be impossible on a fresh install because it will not have a browser installed!! The irony of it.
The windows 7 launch date in the UK has been confirm as October 22nd. The european version will be called Windows 7 “E” (European version).
Limited pre-orders will be available from July 15th so get in there early if you want a sizable discount.
A court in Sweden have turned down a request for a retrial of the pirate bay 4.
Lawyers of the 4 men that created and maintained the website requested a retrial on the grounds that one of the judges involved in the case were a member of certain copyright protection groups and that this should have been declared before the case went to trial. However the swedish court did not feel that this would have any bearing on the case and because of this, the retrial request was rejected.
The four founder members of the pirate bay were found guilty promoting copyright infringement. They all face prison sentences and claims for damages.
This has been a long running case that looks set to continue even further. The Pirate Bay is a peer to peer website where users could find links to download illegal content such has films, videos and computer games. The creator of the site have always insisted that they were never breaking any laws because nothing was ever hosted on their on servers, just links to download the material.
After the men were sentenced, Peter Sunde (one of the men behind the pirate bay) said that he would file charges against the Swedish government for violation of human rights.
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The recession is affecting just about everybody, and Internet marketing is no exception.
Statistics from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Pwc show that revenue generated by Internet advertising is down by at least 5% in the first quarter of this year. In America. the amount spent on Internet advertising was down to £5.5bn from 6.1bn at the end of 2008.
After almost 6 years of increases on Internet advertising, we are now starting to see a slow decline in what people are spending. The most noticeable dip was halfway through 2008 which was a 5% fall.
A statement from Randall Rothenburg, present of the IAB reads; Interactive advertising has taken its rightful place as a fixture on marketing plans across sectors, which means we aren’t immune to broader economic trends,”
But despite the fall, Internet advertising has been hit far less hard then other industries in America. Analysts predict that these figures will soon correct themselves once economic conditions improve.
Article by Our IT Department. IT Support London Based Company.
Could this change the way we think about using our broadband?
Virgin Media have announced that they are to trial 200 meg broadband in the UK. Information is low on the ground at the moment but we do know that Virgin will be using the Motorola BSR 64000 integrated CTMS solution with TX32 decoupled downstream modules. In short, its going to be fast and rumours continue to circulate that the service could be available as early as next year!
Aparently Virgin have already started to pilot test the service in the Kent area and a lucky few have been selected to try the service for 6 months in order to get customer feedback.
A statement from Joe Cozzolino, senior vice president of Motorola’s Home and Network Mobility europe reads “We are delighted to be selected by Virgin Media as it rolls out DOCSIS 3.0-based services, and we look forward to working closely as we head towards the reality of the 200-Mbps home”.
Exciting stuff indeed for us geeks, as if 50 Meg didn’t seem fast enough for us!! 200 Meg would certainly put the UK on the map for the fastest brodband connection, as currently the fastest speeds available for home users is 160 Meg in Japan. Who says we get left behind when it comes to the latest technology?
News provided by Our IT Department | IT Support London Based Company | 0845 129 9940
