Leaf Technology provides IT services for small to medium business in Milton Keynes, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and the surrounding areas of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. We are here to make sure you get the most out of your IT and we’re on-call to repair your computer and resolve network problems if they go wrong.
In other words, we are your outsourced IT department. We can help you with any and every IT requirement or problem, whenever you need us to, on site at your office, by e-mail, by phone or remotely. Why face the cost of employing a full time IT technician when our computer engineers will work just as your own in-house IT department would, for a fraction of the price.
Take advantage of our many years in the industry and our pool of expertise in networking, data cabling, IT support and IT security. We also offer a full range of products including computers, servers, software, printers and other hardware. If you have a question and it’s computer or IT related – ask us. We’re here to help. Please contact our friendly team to find out more.
Finally it seems that the latest version Microsoft’s flagship product Office is soon to be released. The release date to the general public is set for June 17th 2010 (but of course that could change). Volume licencing is available now so if you have 5 users + using Office, that is a very viable alternative to buying retail products. There have not only been many changes to the suite of Office applications, but the editions have also changed a fair bit.
Microsoft Office 2010 Suite Breakdown:
- Microsoft Office 2010 Home And Student (Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint & Word)
- Microsoft Office 2010 Home And Business (Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word & Outlook)
- Microsoft Office 2010 Standard (Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook & Publisher. NB Volume & MLK Only)
- Microsoft Office 2010 Professional (Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, Publisher & Access)
- Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus (Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Communicator, Infopath & Sharepoint Workspace. NB Volume & MLK Only)
- Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Academic (Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, Publisher & Access)
What is MLK you might ask? It is also known as the ‘Product Key Card’ or OEM. When a manufacturer puts together a computer for purchase, if they wish too (most do), it will come with Office pre-installed for you to try out for up to 60 Days. You can purchase during this period a product key card which you enter into your computer and your software then becomes a fully licensed activatable copy. This is a very eco friendly route as it cuts down significantly on packaging and it is very easy for the end user to enter that key. The principle drawback is that the key is then attached to that computer and must stay with that computer even if you change PC’s, this is not an issue with Retail editions.
Needless to say there are many changes to Office 2010 since the previous version, but the ribbon interface introduced in Office 2007 has become far more streamlined and easy to use. Most hardened Office users will not find much not to like about the new release. It is fast, stable and most of all very intuitive to use. Some of the biggest changes are intergration with Microsoft Online allowing you to make use of many of the new cloud based features that Microsoft now offer.
If you would like to find out more, please do not hesitate to contact someone here at Leaf Technology.
Many businesses are nowadays linking up more than one location and are looking for effective ways to share data between them. A commonly offered solution is VPN (Virtual Private Networks). Unfortunately it is only to apparent that we lack the bandwidth in this country to effectively use VPN’s to connect two office space’s together, unless that is you are fortunate to have the ability to fund a leased line. Even then latency and speed still comes into play. One effective solution not always looked at is Remote Desktop Services (previously names Terminal Services).
RDS as we shall now call it allows remote users to log in remotely from any computer running the RDS Client to a central server(s) and be provided with applications, email and many other functions all through the RDS Client. Bandwidth is less of an issue becuase RDS is basically a picture of what is going on the desktop of the remote session, rather than the heavy transfer of data, the actual bits and bytes been transferred is minimal, this is not to say more bandwidth is not better as is usually the case.
The latest version of RDS on Windows Server 2008 R2 offers some amazing functionality including high security, personal virtual desktops (using Virtualization, very clever) and reasonable licencing costs. We have worked on a number of projects recently that have utilised this technology to good effect allowing remote offices to use inhouse applications and data whilst keeping everything secure in head office.
If you would like to find out more about how Leaf Technology can help you with a project that could benefit from Windows 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services then please get in touch, we are always happy just to have a chat to bounce ideas around or get our teeth into a project directly.
Snow At The Leaf HQ
Just a quick update to wish everyone a very happy christmas and a prosperous new year. With 2009 on the wane, and 2010 on the rise, it’s been quite an up and down year in all industries with the recession hitting hard for many businesses, we hope now that the worst is over and that 2010 will prove a prosperous year for everybody. This morning we were greeted with a good dumping of snow at the Leaf HQ, see the picture for the lovely view we had this morning. Also we wanted to let you know our opening hours for christmas. Due to the falling of the days this year, the interuption to service is quite minimal.
- Thursday 24th December – 09:00 to 15:00
- Friday 25th December – Closed
- Monday 28th December – Closed
- Tuesday 29th December – 09:00 – 17:30
- Wednesday 30th December – 09:00 – 17:30
- Thursday 31st December – 09:00 – 17:30
- Friday 1st January – Closed
After that business as usual.
I guess thats all for now, again let me wish everyone a very happy christmas, be safe if you’re travelling and have a great time over the holidays!
