Today I have mostly been fighting with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and our Office 365 setup, as we are still in the early stages of deployment we have not yet implemented our ADFS servers. Which means we have are experiencing some pretty frustrating issues with Office and authentication.
One machine in particular decided to really test my patience and blankly refused to authenticate, presenting the user with a constant reoccurrence of the “Welcome back to Outlook.Office365″ login box.
As it happened the machine had seemed to avoid the installation of several service packs, including Office 2007 Service Pack 3, and also what turned out to be some pretty important KB hot fixes. Leaving me scratching my head for what seemed like a lifetime… That was until today! When I finally managed to find the relevant KB hot fixes and install them manually..
You can find a list of the required KB fixes over here on this Wiki.
The journey to 365 has been a long and winding one… This particular highlights the importance of ensuring all machines connecting to 365 are bang up to date with Windows and Office updates and service packs… Lesson learnt.
Just when you thought that the word of mother and baby was happily geek and gadget free, along comes the transforming buggy. Or is it a bike? Well, in a mere twenty seconds of transforming time, it is both. Whether you want to win the war on baby one-up-man-ship at a mother and baby group or do something to work off the pregnancy weight, with your baby tagging along this could be just what you have been looking for.
The Taga Three Wheeler
In just 20 seconds your state of the art pushchair transforms into a state of the art baby carrying cycle. It is being promoted as being the must have accessory for the ultimate ‘yummy mummy’. It has been designed to carry an infant aged up to six years of age. It makes a breeze of taking the little one to the park or to the shops as once you arrive, you can quickly convert the whole thing back into a regular pushchair and stroll away through the crowds of happy shoppers. Think about it, no fuel charges, no desperately trying to find parking space in the centre of town and no car parking fees.
When the equipment is in cycle form, the child is carried in a forward facing seat so then can see exactly where they are going. The seat is nestled between the cycle’s handlebars and your little one will be safely secured within a five point harness. The seat also has a head cushion for extra comfort and parents need not be concerned about any clothing or body parts being able to get ensnared in the chain housing of the cycle as it is all fully sealed, denying access to even the smallest of fingers. It is also made to be much stronger than your usual bicycle, another safety feature.
Ease of Use
You are not going to have to find much storage space to put it away when you are not using it either as it is disassembled quite easily. There are also a range of accessories that you can buy to make it more useful to you in your daily life, such as a shopping basket or a rain hood for the child seat. The Taga comes in a range of colours and is the product of four years research and development. It is aimed mainly at parents that live in the city that have busy lives and want to be both environmentally friendly and spend time with their children.
Anyone with children who lives in a large town or city knows just how difficult it can be to get anywhere without facing challenges and spending a huge amount of unnecessary time sitting in traffic. With the Taga, both parent and child are travelling in an intimate and eco friendly environment, making going out and about together more of an adventure. Unlike travelling in the family car, where the child is usually strapped into the back seat, the Taga ensures that the child is up in front and really part of what is going on.
This post was written by Frank Smith; he works for Hippo Blue which is an online retailer of personalized baby gifts. During his time off from work, he enjoys writing on a variety of topics that interest him.
Technology has definitely helped many of us over the last decade, but the realms of mobile technology remain vast and somewhat unexplored. There’s just about an app for every conceivable business or pleasure requirement, but many of the latest additions are a definite must have for those of you who wish to produce the dream garden, but unfortunately lack the know-how or skills. What follows are some of the better gardening apps and technology aimed at both beginner and advanced gardeners:
This is a free Android app and specifically focuses on how to grow, cultivate and care for certain garden plants. In fact, there are full instructions and beautiful photographs that will help you produce up to 75 of the most stunning herbs, flowers and vegetables.
Now this is an app that most avid gardeners would kill for. Koubachi is a Wi-Fi sensor that will monitor some of the most important aspects of plant care. Not only will this app oversee certain information such as soil moisture, correct lighting and temperature of plant care, it will also send notifications to your smartphone informing you of the type of care (and when) that is required.
This guide is specifically aimed at those of you who enjoy producing a vegetable garden. It will provide a wide variety of tips and techniques on planting and growing vegetables. You will also be informed of other resources available to you to ensure that you produce some of the most mouth-watering and sought after vegetables ever.
Just as with the Garden Guide app, Fruit Garden is all about growing and cultivating the perfect fruits. It is available as an Android and iOS app and is once again aimed at both beginners and expert gardeners. You will be informed about how to prepare your soil, the best varieties of fruit, how to harvest, as well as a whole host of other great tips.
Well with the introduction on numerous “Smart” gadgets, welcome to the smart gardener. Click & Grow allows you to grow and fertilise your plants without the need for personal care or even water. This is actually a flowerpot (of sorts) that includes a pump, batteries, sensors, a water reservoir, seeds and plant cartridges and certain software. Basically you can grow some of the most beautiful plants by simply adding batteries and filling the water tank once right after purchase.
Unfortunately, we aren’t all born with the knowledge and expertise on how to grow a beautiful garden. However, the garden can often be used for many different things. Some may choose to grow their own fruits and vegetables, whereas others look to entertain during the warmer months of the year by either firing up the barbeque or simply holding a garden party. If you happen to fall into any of these categories it’s likely you’ll want your garden to look as welcoming and beautiful as possible… and modern technology has made this even easier for you!
This post was contributed by Gavin Smith from deckitoutdecks.com.au. Gavin loves growing flowering plants and his company makes decks and pergolas in Melbourne area.
After one of the longest cold snaps we have experienced in quite a while it seems to be getting increasingly difficult to guess what the British weather will do next. With the weather starting to warm up and the usual mix of showers and sunshine on the horizon, staying up to date with weather conditions will come in handy when planning what outfit to venture out it. To help you avoid getting caught in any heavy showers I’ve put together a brief collection of the best weather apps currently available for the iPad. You’ll be a professional weather forecaster before you can say cumulonimbus.
Accuweather for iPad
This weather app covers all of the U.K. and is very easy to use. The app looks good works well and even offers you advice on how the current weather might affect your body: “An excellent time for reparatory health”, being just one of the pearls of wisdom you will be provided with.
Sunsafe
This app is perfect for the rare occasions we are blessed with plentiful amounts of sunshine. The app calculates the safest period of time to stay in the sun according to all skin types, giving you a better impression of what is safe for your individual skin tone. It also provides the UV index for your specific location and boasts a good number of sunbathing tips and advice.
Weather Pro
This is Europe’s foremost weather forecast app, and features reports from more than two million locations in up to three-hourly intervals. Coming complete with high resolution maps and radar images you can be confident that any adverse weather conditions won’t take you by surprise.
Met Office Weather
The Met Office is a highly reliable source of information with the majority of major television networks relying on them for their weather forecasts. This app gives you five day forecasts, a UV forecast and a handy ‘feels-like’ temperature guide that will help definitely you make sensible clothing choices.
Swackett
Swackett is a different kind of weather app, communicating weather forecasts visually by using ‘peeps’ who always appear appropriately dressed for weather conditions. When it’s cold outside peeps will appear dressed in winter hats or coats, and when it’s sunny the shorts and sunglasses will appear. A fun, fresh and useful weather app, Swackett converts complex weather data to easily understood, visual weather reports suitable for people of any age.
License: Creative Commons image source
Thanks to Les from The Snugg for this post. Les contributes regularly to a number of tech blogs and is a huge fan of mobile technology. Keep your iPad protected from the rain with the iPad keyboard cover at The Snugg’s Amazon store.
The All-New USB
Whatever your sector, storing digital information is an essential aspect of any day-to-day business life; whether saving client details, producing supplier databases or securing contracts. If you deal with sensitive data at work, ensuring that confidential information is well looked after can be stressful – after all, you’d be to blame should it end up in the wrong hands. Luckily, rapid technological changes have made it easier than ever to protect private data, particularly with the creation of the All-New USB – a gadget that should have come straight out of a James Bond film. This incredible data storage device is filled to the brim with security features which make it the ‘Fort Knox’ of portable data storage:
Remote Data Deletion
The biggest concern for most organisations working with mobile data storage is that should the device get lost, the information could be open for anyone to view. Although the USB has several techniques to avoid this, the most appealing feature is that at any point all the data can be remotely killed – even without an internet connection. With the input of Remote data delete, it will bring you piece of mind if you were to lose your USB device.
Secure Access with Located Based Locking
When uninvited viewers are a threat to your data, the All-New USB is the ideal solution to data privacy. It uses Security Guardian technology which allows the USB owner to manage and control the data from anywhere on the planet, without even being connected to a laptop or web connection. It also features high-tech GPS locking systems; this means a location can be set and only within this region can a user access the information.
SIM agnostic
If your mobile data hasn’t been backed up onto a permanent hard drive, the availability to use remote turn off is ideal. This locks your data, preserving your information but disconnecting it from the ability to sync with a computer. No one will be able to access or edit your information until you unlock it again.
Cloud management
Need to deploy data on the move? Forget sending confidential information by email and simply update their USB with further files via Cloud based management. This means you can share important documents within an instant without actually having to plug in the USB at your end. This functionality used a Security Guardian Console on the Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform but it can also be hosted on your own secure business network if required.
Incredible storage space
To top it off, this futuristic USB is not lacking in storage space either with a whopping 250gb available to safely store business, or personal, data. It’s easy to forget that just a few years ago a storage space of this size would have been significantly more expensive and yet have none of the aforementioned security measures.
With the typical USB stick offering little in the way of security, it’s no wonder that many companies opt for more substantial back-up devices for portable data storage. However this new USB design will lead the way to further USB developments meaning that USB devices are a truly safe way to get your digital info from A to B.
This article is brought to you from ExactTrak, a leading supplier of secure USB sticks, dedicated to taking mobile data security seriously.
