The coolest news around

N-Go rebrand takes centre stage

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Our old web site [which was about 2 years old] was getting a bit shabby, so it needed to retire. And not before time.

The new web site has been at the ideas stage for about 6 months, but we figured that unless we actually put something meaningful up as astarting point, we will still be dancing around our virtual handbags, making minor changes and considering several options in another 6 months time.

It's all a bit raw and edgy

Because we've taken a decidedly 'suck it and see' approach, there are parts of our web site that still need content, images and CSS adjustments.

It's basically there or thereabouts, but it does need some more time spending on it.

We have sold ourselves one of the biggest advantages of a good content management system, in that we can all chip away and do our little bits without waiting for developers or other people's content to be ready.

Our web site as the world sees it

We do hope you like our new [almost finished] web site.

We will continue to work it through in the next month or so, but if you have any comments or would like to ask any questions about our web site or any aspect of oour business, please contact us.

Windows 7

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Windows 7 has been around a while in Beta but has had about a week of life in the consumer world so how is it getting on?

With Apple recently releasing Snow Leopard, Ubuntu impressing with its not-so-well-know Karmic Koala and Google due to launch their desktop OS next year, Microsoft are probably in a make-or-break time for windows as we know it.

With Ubuntu gaining followers all the time, it is now seen as less fragile, more user friendly and a real threat to Windows and OSX for mainstream use. Available as a pre-install OS and boasting an impressive range of open source applications, many users who don't need to access OS prohibitive apps like Visual Studio, Adobe CS* and Office (For you Geeks, yes, Mono lets you run .NET apps on Linux, Wine is supposed to let you run some Adobe stuff and Open Office is a one-for-one office replacement) will fine that Ubuntu (and indeed most Linux based OS's) will let you do just about anything a Windows or OSX PC can. With the speed at which cloud apps are being developed, the need to comply to a standard set of GUI libraries is reduced even further.

So what is the advantage of a Mac or a Windows PC? Seriously, if you don't run games or productivity that is tied in to a specific OS, there isn't one. All the benefits of owning a Mac over a PC, like speed (honestly, they are quicker at many common processes. Firefox and Filezilla, which I use all the time on both PC and Mac, are a lot faster on the Mac), security and cool looks are kinda negated by the cost of a Mac when you compre it to a PC. If you compare it to something like Ubuntu, which is essentially free, well, it's clear that there is a new kid in [mainstream] town.

Ok, enough about the competition, what's Windows 7 doing a week in?

Well, scouting the usual suspect for signs of the [Windows] ne'er do wells and malcontents, nothing seriously amiss is being reported.

The Register does mention a few complaints about a promised browser choice option, but that seems to be about as bad as it gets there. Read the article on The Rgister.

There is far more buzz about all the new features in Windows 7 than about any teething problems. It seems that, as far as I can tell, Windows 7 has many really cool new features, is faster than Vista and probably faster than XP, is far more compatable with existing applications that Vista was and is facing far fewer hardware issues that previous versions of Windows.

So, all in all, it's been a good week for Windows 7 and Microsoft.

For more information:

Check Windows 7 out at the official Windows 7 web site

Check Snow Leopard out at Apple's web site

Check Ubuntu out at www.ubuntu.com

Other Linux builds can be found at distro watch

The Outlook is, errr, open?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I'm now starting to get really concerned about Microsoft.

Just last week, Windows 7 was launched and looks really cool, there are loads of really great things going on in .NET (like MVC and Ajax) and it has now been suggested that Outlook, Microsoft's flagship email and diary collaboration software, may soon be open source.

Oh what is going on?

Outlook stores its data in a big file, called a .pst. This stores e-mails, contacts, calendar events and other Outlook specific information.

In the past you needed Outlook and/or Exchange to use Outlook's data files.

Microsoft are in the process of providing information and specifications about the .pst format, that other companies and developers may use to access the data stored in them. It isn't known when these specifications will become available, but it is seen as a response by Microsoft to the demands from customers for more accessible and portable data.

I've never been a big fan of Outlook and Exchange, but you can see the point of it and, for most companies, it makes some sense. Whilst the applications may be bloated, slow, difficult to manage and prone to security issues, this is mostly within the applications themselves, rather than the data storage itself. What this means is that potentially, Microsoft could release what may be seen as a 'standard' data format for email, calendar and collaborative oftware that could be used in any application or environment.

This should mean that access to Outlook data from other clients, like Thunderbird, will be possible. I'm not sure what value it will bring, but it is another step in the right direction for Microsoft's image.

We could conceivably see 'lite' versions of the format, used for portable or web based devices but until the format is open, we won't really know what we can and can't do with it.

All I know is, there should be some clever Outlook mash-ups coming soon.