Sony experiments with e-paper, creating new smartwatch

By on December 11, 2014 in Blog, New technology, Product releases

Sony has created a watch made from e-paper, a technology similar to that used in e-book readers, such as the Amazon Kindle.

The so-called Fes Watch has a battery that can last for 60 days, much longer than the majority of smartwatches currently on the market. However, it is lacking in features when compared to its rivals, and the design is rather minimalist. Even so, this clever technology allows users to choose several different styles of watch ace and strap, making the look and feel of the watch highly customisable.

[themecolor]Retro and cool[/themecolor]

Stuart Miles, a gadget expert from Pocket-lint, has described the watch as “retro and cool”. He believes that next year fashion will influence the wearable tech industry and help shape it further.

Electronic paper displays work by reflecting light rather than omitting it. This means the screen is easier on the eyes and can be read from a wider viewing angle compared with many light-emitting displays. It also has a much longer battery due to the fact it uses a low amount of power – indeed, no power at all is used when the image is not changing.

Sony purposely hid the fact it was developing an e-paper watch with a spin-off division, called Fashion Entertainments, working on the device instead. It even ran a crowdfunding campaign to fund the project, to see just how interested the public would be in this kind of technology. The campaign raised 3.5 million yen, equivalent to £19,000.

Fashion Entertainments is now working on a number of wearable e-paper gadgets, including bow ties, glasses and shoes. Although e-paper has its limitations regarding what it can and can’t display, Mr Miles does not believe this will present a major obstacle to sale, since most people only want a watch to tell the time. He pointed out that one of the most popular smartwatches, the Pebble, uses e-paper too.

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Wearable technology boom expected over Christmas

By on December 11, 2014 in Blog, Mobile devices, New technology

Wearable technology is coming to town this Christmas, with over £105 million worth of sales predicted for the festive period.

Figures released by the Centre for Retail Research suggest that a plethora of exciting ‘futuristic’ wearable products are going to provide the ultimate stocking fillers in 2014. Gadgets including smartwatches, health and fitness tracking wristbands and even Google’s £1,000-a-pop smart glasses are likely to see UK sales more than triple this month.

One in five adults in the UK already uses a piece of wearable technology, according to market research firm Mintel, and that figure is only expected to increase. Besides the aforementioned Google Glass, other popular products include the Pebble Smartwatch, which lets users add apps allowing them to tweak thermostats, adjust lights and control their television or sound systems, without even picking up a device.

[themecolor]Christmas 2014 – first true test of this new technology[/themecolor]

In total, smartwatches account for just 11 per cent of the wearable technology market, although sales are expected to have climbed by as much as 667 per cent once 2014 is over.

Fitness is by far the most popular wearable tech sector with Nike recently announcing plans to collaborate with Apple on its eagerly-anticipated iWatch, due for release in spring 2015.

Erol Sukan, business director for market research institute GfK, said: “It’s clear that as new brands have entered the market we have seen prices begin to rise across most wearables, however this is generally because manufacturers are positioning their first entries into the market quite high.

“As we are now starting the long lead-up to Christmas we could see many brands delivering price declines ahead of the festive season, or even introducing more entry price point models. Wearables will be a big gifting market, with Christmas 2014 the first true test of this burgeoning product.”

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3 simple Word tips you should know

By on December 11, 2014 in Blog, Tips & tricks

Changing Default Save Location

Word installs a default file location for storing documents – generally the Documents folder on your computer – and it’s amazing how many users never change this location, despite routinely saving all their work somewhere else such as a network drive.

Here is how you change your default file save location:

  1. Click on File
  2. Click on Options
  3. Look to the left side of the window that appears and click Advanced
  4. Scroll down to the button that says “File Locations” and press it.
  5. Select Documents and click on Modify
  6. In the Save File dialog box that appears, type or browse to select the path you wish to set as a default and click on OK to close the dialog box.
  7. Click OK to close the window.

Quickly Adding Borders to Paragraphs

If you like to use borders between paragraphs to help format your reports in Word, you might like to know about a quick trick for adding a variety of bottom border styles. It is simply a question of typing 3 special characters followed by Enter – go on give it a try right now.

  • Press – (hyphen) 3 times followed by Enter to draw an underline border of 3/4 points
  • Press _ (underscore) 3 times followed by Enter to draw an underline border of 1.5 points
  • Press ~ (tilde) 3 times followed by Enter to draw a zigzag underline border
  • Press * (asterisk) 3 times followed by Enter to draw a dotted underline border
  • Press = (equal to) 3 times followed by Enter to draw a double underline border

Move Rows Of Text In Table

This is one of those tips that you won’t believe took this long for you to hear about.

Sometimes when you’re laying out a table in Word, you may wish to move one or more rows in the table up or down without changing the table formatting. You’ve probably tried copying and pasting in the past but this method does risk losing formatting changes.

A better method, which ensures formatting is not disturbed, is to use ALT+SHIFT+UP arrow key to move the entire row up. Similarly, to move the entire row down, use ALT+SHIFT+DN arrow key.

NB. Please note you must select the row in question before you can move it using the ALT+SHIFT+Arrow keys.

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Merry Christmas from TEAMNERDYIT

By on December 11, 2014 in Blog, Company news

The team at M2 Computing would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  To celebrate this year, we are participating in the Save the Children Christmas Jumper Day on Thursday 11th December.  To support our team, please text TEAMNERDYIT to 70050 to donate £2 to Save the Children. As an added bonus UK Government have pledged to double every pound raised for the campaign. Jump with Jumper Joy!

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Complete peace of mind for Thomas Mansfield Solicitors

By on December 1, 2014 in Case studies

Thomas Mansfield Solicitors are a specialist firm of employment solicitors, providing advice to both employers and individuals. They offer services for a range of employment law issues and a more in-depth consultancy service for HR strategy,organisational restructures and large-scale redundancies. Thomas Mansfield Solicitors pride themselves on their extensive employment law knowledge and their ability to consistently deliver high quality and cost effective advice to all their clients.Thomas Mansfield Solicitors operate using IT equipment across locations in London and Croydon. Key to the function of the business is access to their case management and time recording system.

“We are a firm of solicitors working to demanding deadlines. Since we contracted with M2 Computing to look after our IT requirements, the number of outages and downtime has dropped to next to nothing. In fact, IT issues no longer feature on our agenda. When a problem does occur it is dealt with quickly and efficiently by the friendly people on the helpdesk. I would have no hesitation in providing a recommendation’.

View Thomas Mansfield Case Study

 

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M2 named Microsoft Silver Partner for Cloud

By on November 18, 2014 in Blog, Cloud computing, Company news, Microsoft

We are proud this month to be awarded the Microsoft Silver Partner status in recognition for our expertise in Cloud computing and deployment of Microsoft Office 365.

“This is fantastic news for everyone at M2 Computing and it sends a very positive message to our clients that M2 has met the performance thresholds for providing cloud computing solutions for small to medium sized businesses.” comments Greg Roffe, Managing Director.

We have received Microsoft’s Cloud Productivity and Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions (SMCS) competencies which acknowledge consistent ‘capability, expertise and commitment’.

 

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Unlimited OneDrive storage offered to all Office 365 subscribers

By on November 18, 2014 in Blog, Cloud computing, Microsoft

Microsoft has confirmed that subscribers to Office 365 are to be offered unlimited OneDrive storage in a move that will give rivals Dropbox and Google something to think about.

Anyone interested in the deal, which is currently being rolled out, just needs to sign up to OneDrive to receive their unlimited storage space, although the offer may not be immediately available to all customers according to some reports, which suggest it may take several months to apply the changes to every account.

Subscribers to Office 365 Home, Personal and University are eligible for the freebie, which will hugely benefit anyone who owns a Windows Phone device, as unlimited OneDrive storage will mean photos and other important files can be constantly backed up on the go.

[themecolor]Google and Dropbox will need to react[/themecolor]

Several months ago, Office 365 subscribers were given 1TB of OneDrive storage space in a bid by Microsoft to head off its closest competitors, Dropbox and Google. This latest move, Microsoft says, is to make “OneDrive the world’s cloud storage leader”. Currently, Dropbox and Google’s unlimited cloud storage services with Office software cost more than Microsoft’s and Office 365 offers a wider variety of tools than the other two services.

There’s always a possibility that Google and Dropbox will change their offerings in response to Microsoft’s latest deal. Last time Microsoft increased its OneDrive storage to 1TB, Dropbox lowered its prices, but Google has not yet made a change. In the future, though, it may be forced to reduce its prices too.

Microsoft’s latest offer has been interpreted as a clear attempt to persuade people to invest in Office 365 and, as the price of storage continues to fall, maybe the likes of Dropbox will struggle if users are less willing to continue paying the same prices for cloud storage as they do for their software tools. Only time will tell if Microsoft’s bold strategy will pay off.

 

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Old Windows versions removed from general sale

By on November 18, 2014 in Blog, Microsoft

Microsoft has taken further steps to move users onto newer versions of its desktop operating system, by officially ending the retail availability of Windows 7 and 8.

As of 31st October 2014, consumers can no longer purchase copies of Windows 8, or the Home Basic, Home Premium or Ultimate versions of Windows 7. This decision affects not only stand-alone copies, but those already installed on desktop computers and laptops as well.

Although the Redmond tech firm has also stopped supplying the software to retailers and manufacturers, it will take some time before this transition is complete, since many PC builders still have large collections of stock to get through.

The decision has come as no real surprise, given that Microsoft had already announced its end-date. However, it does coincide with the release of new data showing that users are finally willing to embrace the more recent releases.

[themecolor]1 in 6 users still have XP[/themecolor]

With more than 16 per cent of PC users still relying on Windows XP, which was released over 13 years ago, Microsoft has faced a much-publicised struggle to get people onto newer, more secure alternatives.  Now it appears that Microsoft is finally beginning to achieve its goal.

From now on, Windows 8.1 – the latest version – will come as standard on PCs available to domestic shoppers, with the next major version, Windows 10, set to be released towards the end of 2015.

According to technology journalist Gordon Kelly, there are other factors influencing Microsoft’s decision besides the security of its users. He was quoted by forbes.com as saying that the policy signals “Microsoft’s determination to distance itself from the original form of Windows 8.”

While Windows 8 was released only two years ago, the major changes it brought to users’ PCs weren’t particularly popular. The updated version, however, went some way to fix the most common issues and was received relatively positively upon its release in October 2013.

 

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Government aims to tackle Britain’s ‘notspots’

By on November 18, 2014 in Blog, Mobile devices, Telecoms and mobile data

The government is considering new solutions to combat Britain’s ‘notspots’ – areas where it is impossible or certainly very difficult to obtain a mobile phone signal.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that not every part of the nation has network coverage. But did you know that these black holes currently affect a fifth of the UK, leaving mobile phone owners unable to send or receive phone calls and text messages in many areas?

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