BES or BIS - a common question we are asked here at Altrigen House.

In a nutshell - BIS - emails are forwarded to your Blackberry, replies are from a different email address than your corporate one, and (without a fudge) emails sent from your BB will not appear in your Sent Items folder on your desktop. All other desktop items have to be synchronised by plugging the BB into the Desktopp Manager software on your PC.

BES - For users with an Exchange server (or Lotus notes) - Provides complete over the air synchronisation of emails, calendar, contacts, memos and tasks. Emails are sent from your corporate email address and appear in Sent Items. Many configuration options and security features, including handset wipe in the event of theft. See our Blackberry page for more information.

And of course costs - Blackberry Professional Software (BES lite) is free and comes with 1 user license, additional perpetual licenses cost £99 each. Monthly data charges for BES will be more than BIS, but you will need to speak to your phone provider to see what deal is available.

Paul Frear, Managing Director, Altrigen Solutions Limited

Do you currently have a fixed external IP address? If so this will be allocated by your ISP and as such will change along with your ISP - this will have an impact on such things as email delivery and remote access or VPN connectivity. You may find you need to update your domain MX (mail exchange) records or change remote access details. Some ISPs provide external firewall services that may block incoming connections - these can normally be switched off if necessary.

You also need to consider how your new ISP will handle email relay. Some (eg BT) require that you register any domain name that is not managed by them in order that they will handle your outgoing email and as such any incoming email that is forwarded to another address may be rejected!

Finally, you will, of course, need to reconfigure your router to use the new ISP logon credentials!

Mark Fullarton, Technical Director, Altrigen Solutions Limited

It depends on what you want to do, but in a short answer :-
Netbooks are designed for access to the internet, and running web based applications. They are lightweight, have a smaller form factor and tend to have a lower spec processor and solid state storage (RAM disk rather than hard disk).
Notebooks are more multi purpose, and can do all of the above, but also have considerably more storage to internal hard disk, on which can be installed applications such as microsoft office, financial apps, everything that you would find on your desktop. They tend to be bigger and heavier, or though ultralight notebooks are available.
Netbooks are more often available with operating systems other than Windows (XP/Vista/W7) such as a flavour of Linux, which lowers the cost but operation for users unfamiliar with Linux might involve a learning curve.

Andy Cannon, Technical Engineer, Altrigen Solutions Limited

It sounds like your colleague is creating documents in a newer version of Office than yours. You need to persuade your colleage to save the documents he intends to send to you in an earlier format, for example Word 2003, using the save as option. Alternativerly, you can download the compatability pack from Microsoft which will enable you to open the documents. Either way you may lose some formatting.

James Brown, Technical Team Leader, Altrigen Solutions Limited

Microsoft advise that the Windows 7 experience is best appreciated on a new PC. A good way to check whether your hardware is suitable, is to download, install, and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

If you are happy that your computer hardware will cope, then an upgrade is possible. But, in Microsofts own words - should you choose to upgrade your current PC from Windows XP or another operating system to Windows 7, we recommend that you get help with this process from your local computer service provider (Thats Altrigen in case you werent sure !). You will need to back up your current files and settings, perform a custom (clean) installation, and then reinstall your files, settings, and programs

Whilst this FAQ is intended to give instruction and help, the best advice in this case is to contact an I.T. company (ideally us) to perform this upgrade for you.

Mark Fullarton, Technical Director, Altrigen Solutions Limited

Aha - another common question, but not one for which we can provide an off the cuff answer.
Business requirements vary dramatically from business to business, and we simply arent qualified to make this decision for you. We can advise on the basics of the packages that suit many small businesses, but we recommend that you consult your accountant who can help you further.

If you need help to contact an accountancy practice who have systems minded individuals who are able to recommend and implement a financial package, we can point you in the right direction.

Paul Frear, Managing Director, Altrigen Solutions Limited

Surprisingly, yes it is.
Courts have ruled (in 2008) that an employers monitoring of its employees e-mails and other computer related activities during work hours and/or on company-owned equipment, Internet, and e-mail accounts is not illegal.

Companies typically monitor employees online usage for the following reasons:
* To avoid claims based on sexual, racial, ethnic, and other forms of harassment.
* To protect against an employee sending or posting confidential information.
* To reduce exposure to intellectual property infringement claims.
* To decrease the likelihood that an embarrassing message attributed to the employer will be sent.
* To guard against computer viruses.
* To improve productivity.

It is recommended that employers create an AUP (acceptable use policy) that outlines what is and isnt acceptable use of electronic media and communications. If you need help in drawing up such a policy, please contact Altrigen, and we will advise you.

Paul Frear, Managing Director, Altrigen Solutions Limited

Many companies embrace the use of Facebook and MSN, and view it as a valid way of keeping in touch with customers. Other companies view the use of social networking and messaging as a drain on their staff resources and a waste of valuable time.

You may be able to set up rules on your network firewall or router to block these applications completely, or to limit the time these are capable of being used, for example lunchtime, or before and after office hours.
If your networking hardware cannot be configured to do this, you can install software on your server to perform the same function. As a last resort, client side software to block these applications can be installed on each desktop Pc.

Contact us for more information.

Mark Fullarton, Technical Director, Altrigen Solutions Limited

This is a topic which is becoming more and more relevant, and we have information on data security here.

Data theft is becoming more and more common, and companies have a duty of care to protect the information they hold on individuals and companies, under the Data Protection Act 1984 and 2006.

Todays phones often have sufficient memory to hold the data from an entire financial package, several client lists and all sorts of other confidential and business critical information.

Obvious security measures first - only allow access to data to trusted users, a user access policy is standard in many organisations.

We can provide systems which prevent users from copying data to cd, dvd or usb drives or memory sticks. These can lock down these devices and have a one time override password should they need to be used.

Altrigen also provide systems for encryption of emails, data or whole hard drives.

We have more information on data security here.

Paul Frear, Managing Director, Altrigen Solutions Limited.