Helix Group save over £30k with S2

One of the oldest and most well known British brands has saved over £30,000 per annum by outsourcing their IT support to S2 Networks.

Helix were established in 1887 and has evolved from a traditional British manufacturer of scholastic and technical drafting instruments into a dynamic global marketing led distribution organisation of innovative education, home & office and craft products.

It's Oxford maths set is brand leader and has sold well over 100 million sets worldwide!

Here at S2 we are extremely proud and excited to be working with such an iconic British company which is famous throughout the world. With offices and warehouses in the UK, Hong Kong, New York and Chicago the IT infrastructure is vital to the everyday running of the Helix Group. Our Virtual IT Manager service provides the 24/7, quick response support that Helix require at a fixed monthly cost realising huge annual savings for the group while at the same time improving support levels.

Mike Pell, Group F.D. for Helix Group PLC said,

“We are heavily reliant on our IT systems, S2 give us the same level of reassurance and service as a top quality in-house IT manager but without the associated costs. The high quality of S2’s on-going support demonstrates a real understanding of everyday user problems and this made them the obvious choice to provide 24/7 support for our business. The fixed monthly cost is also a great assistance in budgeting.”  

IT Upgrade Keeps McAuliffe Group Connected

With technological advances in the construction industry now at large, McAuliffe has taken a huge step forward making improvements to its IT infrastructure with a full scale upgrade from S2 Networks Ltd.

 McAuliffe has invested almost £9,000 to bring advanced technological changes to its national operation to ensure ongoing improvements to daily operations and efficiency savings.

John McAuliffe, managing director at McAuliffe said,

"By upgrading the IT infrastructure at our head office facility we can now provide instant access to all contractual information from any location in the UK with an internet connection. With this kind of technology at our finger tips, we can ensure improved communication with our construction sites, providing Site Manager's instant access to the latest project information and relevant drawings, without having to send a hard copy of information in the post."

This is a further advancement of McAuliffe Client Upload Facility which was recently launched with the new look website.  The upload facility allows large documents and multiple files to be instantly sent to any member of the McAuliffe team, removing the barrier of email size limits and the need to send hard copy drawings by CD or post.

As part of the wider improvement programme, McAuliffe has employed S2 Networks to handle both the initial upgrade and on-going out-sourcing of the IT maintenance.  S2 handle a multitude of SME contracts for companies based in the West Midlands and surrounding areas from their offices in Brierley Hill.

Chris Sargent of S2 was pleased with the progress made in such a short period of time, "McAuliffe has made a huge step in the right direction in streamlining their IT processes.  Delivering the latest technologies, including windows 7 and Small Business Server 2008 on advanced Dell hardware; we can proactively monitor and maintain the McAuliffe systems remotely. 

"This enables us to provide McAuliffe's with an efficient IT support service that reduces fix times and often means system problems are resolved before employees are even aware that they existed." 

Infected PCs Won't Be Allowed on Facebook

Facebook has joined forces with McAfee to provide discounted security services to all of its 350 million members.Facebook users will be eligible for a free, six-month trial of McAfee Internet Security Suite software and a discounted price thereafter.

If Facebook uncovers any sort of threat, the social networking site said it would take steps to secure a user's computer, a process that includes a sweep of the affected computer by McAfee technology.

"Now, if your computer is infected, you will be asked to run a scan and clean it before accessing Facebook," Facebook wrote in a blog post.

At launch, the McAfee software will be available to Facebook users in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Other countries will be added throughout the first quarter.

To access the software, click the "Protect Your PC" tab on the McAfee Facebook Page.

"Facebook is very serious about security and has made significant efforts to protect its users and service by investing in dedicated teams and sophisticated systems, and this partnership with McAfee furthers that mission," Todd Gebhart, executive vice president and general manager of McAfee Consumer, Mobile and Small Business, said in a statement.

"By partnering with a market leader like McAfee, we are taking an unprecedented step towards making the entire Internet more secure and reducing the possibility of threats being brought onto our service by unsuspecting users," said Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications, marketing and public policy at Facebook. "Keeping the Internet secure requires that users, security vendors and Internet companies all work together. We think we've developed an excellent model for this collaboration, and to ensure the greatest possible value to our users, Facebook will not accept any revenue from subscriptions. We hope this is something that other services will emulate."

In addition, Facebook and McAfee will work together to develop content for the Facebook Security Page, and McAfee will frequently update its own page.

Microsoft: Windows 7 Will Launch Oct. 22

Windows 7 is scheduled for an October 22 release, Microsoft confirmed Tuesday. Microsoft will also provide a "tech guarantee" upgrade option for those using older versions of the Windows operating system. The release to manufacturers (RTM) is expected in late July, a spokesman said. Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of Microsoft's OEM division, provided more details during a Wednesday morning keynote at Computex in Taipei. "Microsoft has been working closely with partners to help our mutual customers be able to enjoy the many benefits of Windows 7," he said in prepared remarks. "With that in mind, we're excited to say that there will be a Windows upgrade program available. Consumers can buy that new PC, whether for a student heading off to college or just because they need a new one, and know they'll get Windows 7 as part of the deal." Earlier this month, Microsoft said it expected to release Windows 7 in time for the holidays. Rumors of an October release date surfaced in late April, but were unconfirmed until now. "If the telemetry we receive from the Windows 7 RC meets our expectations in terms of quality, then we expect to hit [release to manufacturers] in 3 months or so," spokesman Brandon LeBlanc said at the time. Microsoft unveiled the release candidate (RC) for Windows 7 on May 5, a week after it was released to the company's TechNet and MSDN programs.

Microsoft Outlook: 9 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do

E-mail can be such a chore some days, it's no wonder most of us don't play around with its settings or know half the tricks it can perform. Read on for a few of our favorites.

1. Open Calendar, Contacts, or Task List in a separate window
Tired of clicking on the navigation buttons every time you want to switch between your Inbox and Calendar? Right-click on any of the Navigation buttons and choose Open in a New Window, and you can keep your Calendar or Contacts open in windows of their own. They'll stay open while you deal with messages; simply use Alt-Tab to navigate between the windows.

2. Display multiple dates in the Calendar
You can display multiple, noncontiguous dates in the Calendar by going to the monthly calendar display in the upper left of the Calendar window and Ctrl-clicking on the dates you want to view. Each date you Ctrl-click will appear as a column in the main Calendar display. You can also display any continuous range of dates by dragging the mouse over a series of dates on the monthly calendar.

3. Customize the flag and category icons
You probably already use the flag icon in the Inbox message list to remind you of messages that you'll need to look at in the future, or the category icon to help organize your mail. (The flag icon appears at the far right of each entry in Outlook's message list; the category icon is the rounded square just to the left of the flag icon.) You can specify which color flag or which color category will appear by default when you click on those icons. Simply right-click on any flag or category icon, choose Set Quick Click…, and select the category or flag that you want to use as the default.

4. Use shorthand abbreviations for dates and time
Outlook's Calendar understands both plain English text and terse abbreviations in its Start Time and End Time fields. For example, instead of typing a date, simply type "next Tue" or "next month" and the Calendar will insert the correct date. ("Next month" becomes the date one month from today.) In the time field, you can enter "now" or an abbreviated time like "4p," which Outlook will expand to "4:00 p.m." The same plain text shorthand also works in the Scheduling window, which means that you go to the Appointment Recurrence dialog and enter "next Thursday" as the Start time, and Outlook will specify the right date.

5. Modify Outlook's menus
Do you want the commands you use most often to appear at the top of Outlook's menus? Just choose Tools | Customize, then the Commands tab, and click Rearrange Commands... In the dialog that opens you can move menu items up and down in the list, delete items you don't use, and add ones that you want. You can also save time by specifying "accelerator keys" that will launch a menu item when you type a single letter while that menu is open. To change or create an accelerator key for a menu item, click Modify Selection in the Rearrange Commands dialog, and insert an ampersand (&) immediately before the letter in the menu item that you've chosen to serve as the accelerator key.

6. Add holidays to your Outlook calendar
If your company observes religious holidays, or observes the same holidays honored in a head office in another country, you can add those holidays to the Outlook calendar. Use Tools | Options; on the Preferences tab, click Calendar Options…, then click Add Holidays…, and place check marks next to the national or religious holidays you want marked in your calendar.

7. Insert calendar data into your e-mail
If your e-mail account is on a Microsoft Exchange server and you're writing to someone else who uses the same Exchange server, you can insert data from your calendar into an e-mail. In the message-editing window, go to the Message ribbon (selected by default), choose Calendar from the Include group, and specify the time period and level of detail that you want to include. This option isn't available if your account is on a POP or IMAP server.

8. Add a contact from an e-mail message
To add the sender of an e-mail message to your Contacts, go to the message itself (not the entry in the message list), right-click on the sender's name, and choose Add to Outlook Contacts.

9. Get rid of unwanted add-ins
Keep Outlook 2007 sleek and fast by removing add-ins that other software installs with asking your permission. Go to Tools | Trust Center… then click on Add-ins, find the Manage: item at the foot of the window, make sure that COM Add-ins is the current item, and click on Go…. From the COM Add-ins dialog you can disable an item by clearing its check box, or remove it entirely by clicking Remove.