The portal isn’t yet taking subscribers as there’s still some work to do on the resources themselves, but with the portal now completed it made sense to unveil it for three important reasons:

1. It gives people who are interested in what we’re doing (and Google Analytics shows there’s a fair few of you out there!) an opportunity to take a look and to get excited about what’s coming.
2. It allows people to register for the newsletter and be kept up to date with resource progress and more importantly, the portal’s launch.
3. Finally, it allows the search engines to start indexing the site so that when we do launch, potential users will be able to find us.

Registrations on the forums are welcome to all those who are interested in the portal or who wish to ask questions or provide feedback. Naturally, the portal will also serve as a support forum when we launch.

Nokia’s site confirmed the claims and went on to describe the necessary steps – the first of which was that I’d need firmware version 31.0.0.8 or later. My phone was sporting version 21.*, and since I had checked for a new firmware not long ago I came to the conclusion that 31.0.0.8 must be brand new. Immediately I connected my phone to my computer and ran Nokia’s software update program. “No updates available”. What? I ran it again only to be greeted by the same message. I did some research and found that many people had had the same problem – months before! It turns out that version 31.0.0.8 has been available for a long time but my phone has always insisted that 21.* was the latest version.

Further research suggested that I needed to change the product code with NSS to a code that had the update available, and that my phone must currently be using one that had not had the update yet. This would make sense as I actually changed it from the factory setting about a year ago in order to get the 21.* firmware. I found a code that was reported to work, applied it to the phone and ran Nokia’s Update software again – still nothing.

I restarted my phone, thinking maybe it needed to restart for the product code to take effect. Nope. I closed all of Nokia’s software and ran it again, thinking maybe it had cached the product code. Nope.

Finally I ran a factory reset on the handset to force it to apply the installed firmware again (with code *#7780#), thinking maybe something hadn’t completed properly the first time round, and ran the Update software again – it worked* and the software informed me that version 40.0.0.5 was available to install! I installed it and then completed the rest of the installation steps for Nokia’s latest Maps software; the end result of which is that I now have free satellite navigation on my phone.

Ovi Maps as it’s known is, in my opinion, much better than Google’s solution as the maps can be downloaded and installed to the phone, which means it doesn’t need a continuous connection to the internet to provide me with navigation. This will save battery of course, but it also means that it will work where there’s no network service. There aren’t many places in the UK where there’s no network service at all, but there are plenty of places that aren’t covered by HSDPA or 3G networks and in these areas downloading map imagery from Google is a slow and painful process.

* I got it working in the end on a Windows Vista 32-bit laptop; Nokia’s desktop software continues to be slow, bloated and unhelpful crap and the Update application kept crashing/freezing on my Windows 7 64-bit machine with irrelevant and useless error messages. Research suggests that Nokia’s 64-bit support is currently lacking, so I’d advise running the Update on a 32-bit machine (or from the phone directly if you’re feeling particularly brave with *#0000#) until Nokia sort themselves out.

The cables were pretty expensive to be honest – pretty much double what we could have got them for online – but they were available there and then and we didn’t have to pay any postage, plus if there was a problem there wouldn’t be any faff in returning them to the store.

On attempting to connect the cables to the monitors, I found to my horror that the only connection the monitors had (22 inch Dell widescreens) were VGA! What the heck? Monitors that were bought just a month ago didn’t have anything better than VGA?! Fair enough no HDMI, but no DVI either?!

A couple of days later, Nicola went to take the cables back to CTWorld to return them, but despite the fact that she had the original receipt and was returning them mere days after buying, CTWorld refused to give her a full refund and instead offered 85% of the price because there was nothing wrong with them. Now, I accept that there was nothing wrong with the cables and that it was my fault for not checking the monitors first and just assuming they’d have DVI connections, but the vast majority of shops on the high street will take back goods bought in error and issue a full refund – even if just for a credit note – simply because they value that customer’s custom and want to demonstrate good will. All CTWorld did was point out that there was no legal requirement for them to take them back.

Later that night after calming down a little, Nicola sent the store an email highlighting her disappointment with them. They never replied.

Ormskirk is a small town, and while that means there aren’t many places to buy IT equipment it also means that there aren’t that many customers for the shops that do exist.

Last year alone I spent around £3,000 on IT equipment and although most of that was spent online (I’d be happy to return to stores if they can start competing a little more on price) it would have been great for me to have a friendly, reliable and convenient local source for my IT needs for when I want something there and then. CTWorld unfortunately won’t be that store, and I’d urge anyone who walks into that store to consider what they would do if, for whatever reason, they needed to return their item for a refund. There’s plenty to be said about supporting local independents, but when it means paying over the odds for sub-standard after-sales service, I think next time I need something in a hurry I’ll drive down to PC World in Aintree.

For more information either check out the launch post at Quak Multimedia or check the Mercury website directly, where there is even a demo of the software showcasing some of its capabilities.

Mercury is viewed as a live product that will evolve and adapt over time with the needs of our clients, so this won’t be the last time I mention Mercury on this blog I’m afraid!

As well as the software itself, we’ll also be offering a development service where we will either help clients develop their eLearning or develop it all ourselves for an extremely competitive rate.

Any questions? Feel free to ask.

Dropbox

Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they’ll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you’ve installed Dropbox on (Windows, Mac, and Linux too). Because a copy of your files are stored on Dropbox’s secure servers, you can also access them from any computer or mobile device using their website.

I use the software to sync files between home and work, and if I want to show someone what I’m currently working on then I can send them a link to that file from within Dropbox too. I can also invite specific people to share files and folders like in Google Docs.

You get 2GB of storage free initially, but there are payable options if you want more space. This limit also increase by 250mb for every successful referral, so if you do sign up then please use the above link!

Harrison and Company offer accounting services at very competitive rates with a friendly and approachable manner, and they’re very flexible and happy to work in whatever way suits your business.

Nicola is very experienced. She joined her previous employer in August 2002 as a Trainee Accountant and successfully qualified in February 2006 with first time passes in all papers. She was made an Associate of the firm in April 2008 following her valued contribution and effort within the Practice and continued as Practice Manager until leaving the Practice last week.

She’s currently running an introductory discount that makes her pricing even more attractive than usual, but you’d best be quick if you want to take advantage of it as places are limited!

Around a year ago now I was working at my computer one night. Suddenly it made a few clicking sounds and immediately I knew that this was bad news. Unfortunately, while I considered my immediate backup options and tried to decide how best to save all of my files before my computer finally died, it blue-screened on me and refused to start up again. Yep, catastrophic disk failure. It hadn’t even given me enough time to make some essential last-minute backups.

I spent the next hour or so researching the best way to get my data off a broken hard drive and found a forum where one guy had frozen his drive in the freezer, arguing that the extreme cold would slightly shrink the parts inside and bring any contacts closer together. Why not try that? The disk had already refused to yield anything to the six different bootable recovery disks that I had tried so I felt that I had nothing to lose.

I wrapped the drive in a plastic bag to prevent moisture from getting inside it and placed it in the freezer. The next morning I removed the drive and found it to be so cold that my fingers stuck to the metal. I connected the drive to my computer and turned it on, not really knowing what to expect. Amazingly, it booted into Windows. I managed to move everything of any importance off the drive onto a second drive before the disk finally warmed back up to room temperature and failed again.

After buying a new drive and re-installing Windows and all of my other software, the first thing I did was look for a backup solution. I found one in Carbonite. Carbonite automatically and securely backs up the contents of your hard drives for roughly £30/year and offers unlimited storage. It’s continuous and automatic, secure and encrypted. It’s also available for Mac. The peace of mind that I get from knowing that even if my flat was to burn down to the ground, all of my music, my photos, my work – everything – is all backed up off-site on secure servers.

As a happy customer I’d recommend it to anyone.