Newsletter 16 – January 2007

In this Newsletter… Happy New Year, Cellular Wireless Number Portability, Outlook Add-In’s, and Windows Vista

You’re getting this Newsletter because you are a client, friend, prospect or just because you enjoy the content and want to be kept in touch with some of the trends affecting Small Businesses and Information Technology.

Happy New Year

I would like to take this opportunity of wishing you the Very Best of Success, Health and Prosperity for this 2007 Year. I trust that the holidays were pleasant and relaxing and hopefully you had some time off too?

For me and my business, it’s been another good year with continual, yet managed growth. So much so that I had not managed to get a Newsletter out to you since January last year. In fact, it was just before my trip to Cape Town, South Africa, which was last February. One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to get the Newsletter out on a monthly basis… hmmm, we shall see!

Table Mountain, Cape Town

I have planned another trip to see my mom and bothers again this year… for February. This time Barbara, my wife managed to beat me into submission and she’s coming along too. I’ll be leaving the late afternoon of the 7th February and will be back home the late afternoon of the 17th February. As always, I’ll have a couple of my associates available to take care of any immediate requirements that you may have. I’ll also be checking my email on a regular basis and will have a local cellular phone. Number to follow.

Wireless Number Portability (and why should you care)?

This from the CRTC Web Site… (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/t1021.htm) Currently, Local Number Portability is available to customers of wireless service companies in Canada that have undertaken to comply with the requirements to become Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs).

In December 2005, the CRTC issued a decision requiring all Canadian wireless telephone companies to implement wireless number portability (WNP) by March 14, 2007, in most of Canada.

By March 14, 2007 Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless and the mobility division of TELUS Communications Inc. will be required to provide WNP to their customers in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Québec. This means that customers in any of these provinces will be able to switch to any service provider in that province (wireline or wireless) and keep their phone number.

Throughout Canada, all wireless carriers will, by the same date, be required to release a phone number to another carrier (port-out customers) and by no later than September 12, 2007, to accept a phone number from another carrier (port-in customers). Anticipate some glitches!

Any guesses on who’s likely to loose a bunch of customers? I have mine!

Microsoft Outlook “Accessories” Individual and Team
  While doing a search on some issues with Outlook 2003, I came across this site and thought I’d share it with you. If you use Outlook® and have said, gee, if only I could…” here are some tools that would do just that.

The New Windows  Operating System

Well it’s finally out… at least in the business community, with the consumer editions due out imminently. I thinks it will have been worth the wait. In fact, when I gave a demonstration of the beta release (in September) my comment was “this is Windows that thinks it’s a Mac”. The graphics and transparency are excellent and the users tools available will enhance the user experience.

I’m sure it will manifest the inevitable bug or two, but I was impressed by the speed and functionality of the operating system. That said, I was running on a new system equipped with an Intel  Core 2 Duo Processor and 2GB of RAM. My guess Windows Vista will be in abundant supply late in the first quarter.

What I found really neat about Vista are the Document Thumbnails give you an idea of what’s in the document. A real picture of the content – not just an icon! The Internet Explorer 7 implementation has additional features including the ability to print a page/document so it fits on the page – not like the previous IE 6 that need us to print in landscape mode to get the full width on paper. Don’t forget to read more – the Vista logo above is a clickable link.

By the way move your cursor over the images, most of them will take you to web pages with more information on the subjects.

On the processor side, the move to Core 2 Duo and Quad Core is on. For most of use, with what we do, Pentium 4 or Pentium D will facilitate the computing capabilities we need. What’s interesting about the Core 2 Duo processors is the move away from CPU clock speed. Now it’s about processing performance and lower power consumption. Read more by clicking the Intel logo above.

In the upcoming issue… On-line Storage, your Own Web and Email Domain and more….

Once again, I appreciate your perspective on the content of my newsletter, both good and bad. I look forward to hearing from you. Just click this feedback link