Active Directory Explorer is an advanced veiwere and editor of AD. It makes for easier navigation of an AD database. You can define favourite locations, view attributes and object properties with out annoying dialogue boxes. You can view object schemas, edit permissions and perform detailed searhes that can then be saved for future use. Genious!

With AD Explorer you also have the ability to take snapshots of the database. These can then be saved for offline viewing and comparisons.  This can be navigated as if it were live. The conmparison functionality means that you can easily compare 2 snapshots to see what has changhed between them.

Usefull bit of kit, but why isn’t this built in with AD? That way you can start collecting snap shots fom the start. I think it would make an admins life allot easier. You can download this at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963907.aspx

Rumour has it that Windows 7 SP1 will be with us in the final quarter of this year. Although Microsoft has not made the date official. But the rumor mill has started up and are coming from some fairly reliable sources.

TechARP.com have made this latest prediction, and have been accurate in the past with service packs for Vista and XP. So i’d be inclined to think that the service pack will be out at the end of this year.

A registry key has already been discovered that points to SP1. Leading to the conclusion that the service pack will be out soon. But Microsoft will not confirm either way.

The counter argumenmt to this speculatuion is that if Microsoft didn’t bring forward the release of it’s service pack for Vista. And this was much needed. Then why would it do it for Windows 7. especialy considering how well 7 has been recieved. However, if you do the maths…The end of the year sounds about right really. Ask you IT support team about this and how it might impact your business.

Survey data is begining to show an increase in the demand for permanent and temporary positions in the job market. The job servey ran by KPMG in February showed a sharp increase for permanent positions since July 2007. Fourty Three percent of companies said they are increaseing permanent positions. Temporary billings from agancies are also slowly continuing to rise.  Vacncies have risen overall for five consecutive months.

The Clerical and Admin sector are in front when it comes to the demand for permanent staff. But the IT sector is in a strong second place. Permenant salaries have also shown a growth, with a small increase for temp rates. This could be down to a skill shortage or the fact that candidates are now demanding more.

But there are still widespread fears of  jobcuts for workers. Pay is still frozen as inflation rises, which means earning shrink in value. But it seems that you will be able to look on the bright side, if your a techie.

Acer have predicted that ASPs will rise this year. Which is pretty much unheard of. So consumers beware, the cost of you kit may rise, particularly affecting small businesses.

In the second half of last year Acer saw a revival int he PC business after recent doom and gloom. The future’s looking up, this revival is expected to pick up this year. Acer are aspiring to become a $30Bbn company before 2012. Which will mean a yearly growth of 15% between now and then. This should come from expansion in growing markets as waell as mature ones. the market demographics are expected to grow to include both young and old. Small businesss money is also expected to return this year, if only to rplace ageing devices. The company did not see oversupply in the compnents market either. Halting the decrease in tech prices. Further consolidation in the components, vendor and channel markets will help to drive prices up.

The Eurozone will be hit the hardest as currency is driven down by countries such as Spain and Greece. Prices could be up to 10 or 12 percent higher.

It’s not likely that consumers in th UK will see a 2 to 1 against the dollar any time soon. So it’s looking fruitfull for those companies who survived the crunch.

The Mobile World Congress has reinforced the trend to lower the cost of smartphone hand sets, making mobile internet more widley available.

The HTC smart seems to be paving the way. Operators too are rising to the challenge with their own branded user experiences. So too are the chipmakers, with a Marvel chipset that would make a Smartphone cost under $99. Orange too are bringing out an Android phone for under 150 euros.

This Mobile internet boom wont hit untill next year, hopefully offering a range of low , mid and high end devices. The availability of lowcost devices should push web services to the masses.  O2 will be exclusively launching the HTC Smart in the UK, Ireland and Germany. targeting the prepaid users aged between 16 and 22.

The major setbacks at the moment with pushing to the masses are issues of compexity and the fact they are curently costing more than laptops. The forthcoming trend for mass marketing the Smartphone may well open up opprtunities for non-traditional Vendors. With Samsung, HTC, LG, Nokia and even Alcatel battleing it out things should get pretty exciting.  And again the boom in use should mean a boom in need for IT support.

The governments proposed broadband tax of 50p per month has been branded unfair by some MPs who believe the market forces should be able to control the level of service.

The tax is intended to raise £175m yearly for the implemantation of next generation internet access to rural areas.  The cross-party BIS Committee have rebuked the idea of all landline account holders paying for the expansion of faster broadband to these areas.

BT has said that it doesn’t believe it would be profitable to deliver fibre to sparsley populate areas in the country. Which covers about one third.

MPs are arguing that the tax will distort the market, and that perhaps a reduction in taxes on infrastructure would be a better alternative. Or that they should consider reducing or temporarily removing business rates.

It is unlikely that this tax, wich is part of the forthcoming finance bill, will be passed before a general election. The Tories have also announced that if they form the next government it will be scrapped ASAP.

A parallel policy that would aim on delivering a universal 2Meg service has been deamed to be more suitable by The BIS Committee. But what this will mean in practice is unclear.

What this will mean for the IT support industry is also unclear. Will better lines mean an increase or a fall in consumer need for support? A universial improvement to speed may mean that more business can set up in rural areas.

Microsoft and HP’s partnership (called Frontline) was been ‘upgraded’ to jointly make and distribute Windows based server stacks.

There have been numerous recent partnership announcements (VMWare, Cisco & EMC for one – calling themselves the ‘Virtual Computing Environment Coalition’ – google vblocks for more info).

There are no configuration details as yet but it looks like it’ll be based on Proliant servers, procurve switches and Storageworks arrays and SANs – It appears an SQL server based stack will be the first frontline release.

There will be around 11,000 people working on the project from the two companies which is a huge investment from both companies.

Keep an eye on their Frontline alliance page: http://www.microsoft.com/business/enterprise/partners/hp_alliance/default.mspx

Microsoft’s Windows division cheif  ‘Steven Sinofsky’ has given details of the strings that can be appended to folder names in Windows 7 (and 32bit versions of Vista) that give direct access to control panel applets.

The name ‘Godmode’ was penned by bloggers – and it’s a little over the top if you ask me as all it gives you is shortcuts to either all control panel applets or specific ones.

To get it working  – create a new folder and name it what you like, but append it with a full stop and then one of codes at the bottom of this article…

For example to create the folder with all the applets and call it All Applets name the folder:

All Applets.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

As a reference – here’s a list of the current codes and what they give access to:

All applets (godmode)  {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
Location Control Panel {00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33}
Biometric Devices {0142e4d0-fb7a-11dc-ba4a-000ffe7ab428}
Power Control Panel {025A5937-A6BE-4686-A844-36FE4BEC8B6D}
Taskbar Settings {05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}
Credentials Applet {1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}
Install Program {15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4}
Windows Default Programs {17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}
Windows Assemblies {1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43}
Wireless Networks {1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}
Network Neighbourhood {208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
My Computer {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
Printers & Faxes {2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
Desktop Connections {241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}
Windows Firewall {4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}
Computer Performance {78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}

Quite handy if you’re developing an app, or if you need shortcuts to specific apps….

Historically giving your users internet access before work, after work and during lunch didn’t pose any risk at all. The worst they could do would be to purchase an over prices Procul Harum record on ebay – oh how times have changed.

Small pieces of information on their own would appear to provide no security risk at all, but if a competitor could correlate information from a number of your employees - they could in some circumstances weed out snippets of information that would be considered sensitive by company management.

No longer is this the sole domain of the desktop or laptop computer – many mobile phones have the ability to ‘twitter’ or post messages by facebook and these aren’t even a part of the business infrastructure.

A written and signed security policy and user training is the antidote to this threat along with training of all employees of the dangers of releasing any information that’s publicly visable no matter how unimportant it may seem.

This basic rule applies – don’t write anything down about what you do or what you’re doing regarding work – ever!