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I n f o B u l l e t i n
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October 2002 |
coopsys.net |
Co-Operative Systems |
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Less waste, more fees
Two new EC directives due to pass into law later this year will enforce equipment recycling and ban hazardous wastes. The European Commission's Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive and Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive are aimed at recycling and 'cleaning up' IT equipment life cycles. Although manufacturers are to be responsible for recycling their obsolete products, industry analysts speculate that consumers will bear the increased costs eventually, an industry bill of £3billion according to DTi estimates.
All fired by the Web Employees are more likely to be disciplined or sacked for Internet and email abuse than for any other form of misconduct at work. A survey by KLegal and Personnel Today that the total number of actionable offences for dishonesty, violence and H&S violations combined, were outstripped by those involving email- and Internet-related ones like distribution of emails or accessing Web sites containing pornographic material. Of the companies surveyed, 49% allow access to the Internet and 63% to email. Only 12% of companies do not monitor emails, but of those who, fewer are still failing to comply with the law and notify employees of the checks, dropping from around 20% to less than 10%. Software to restrict access to undesirable Web sites is employed by just 53% of firms.
HP switches office
Microsoft's Office software is too expensive for Hewlett-Packard. The world's largest PC manufacturer announced it is switching to Corel's WordPerfect suite for the HP series of Pavilion computers. The Canadian-originated WordPerfect beats the MS Office price tag by about $100 while still offering most of the standard office features.
Star pupils
Sun Microsystems is giving away its StarOffice software for the benefit of students in Europe and Africa, in an attempt to dislodge Microsoft from its dominant Office software slot. 'Giveaway deals' with ministries of education in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Chile has added an extra 24 million potential students into the pool of 200 million student StarOffice users.
Trading online? Then step into line!
A law under the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002 gives online traders until 23rd October to fall in line with new e-commerce regulations. Failure to comply with basic electronic processes like acknowledgement of receipt of orders and completion of a contract may result in fines, imprisonment or a 'trading shutdown' order by the Trading Standards Department.
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New Jaguar roars into life
Apple's new release OS X version 10.2 is going down a storm with existing users and new converts alike, selling over 100,000 copies during the first weekend of its release. The Unix-based (read "stable") operating system is claimed to have over 150 new features, like easy Mac/Windows file-sharing and swapping, networking and VPN - all designed to eat away at Microsoft market share.
Critics currently have gripes about lack of device drivers (no doubt more printers and scanners will be supported soon) and the impact this has on Rendezvous - an automatic networking technology that just recognises other computers and peripherals when you simply switch on your Mac. However, when stacked up against features such as improved system performance on existing Mac hardware (both laptops and desktops) for faster launching of applications, improved search tools, an intelligent junk mail filter and support for high-resolution, multi-channel audio, Apple's excitement over it's new upgrade is understandable. A host of Universal Access features for the physically-disabled and the elderly clearly aims to attract the broadest audience too. And all for under £100.
"I'm Mandy - text me!" Now you can fly and text and the same time. To become part of this exclusive mile high club, you have to board one of Virgin Atlantic's 4 specially-kitted aircraft. Seatback-mounted TV screens allow passengers to send emails and SMS text messages to terrestrial phones. But you'll hang around on board until the end of the year to get any replies, when Virgin upgrade their connections. Standard 160-character texts cost £1.75.
A new cumulative patch for fixing various issues (aka bugs) in Internet Explorer versions 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0 has been released by Microsoft. Find the patch details in Security Bulletin MS02-047here.
Mind Your Own licence
Microsoft is introducing Multi-Year Open (MYO) licence for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) in Europe. Designed to claw back many MS customers who suffered financially from the Licensing 6.0 programme that start on 31st July or stayed away altogether, MYO actually creates confusion for organisations with upwards of 250 PCs by bringing to 6 the number of possible MS licensing options to decide between.
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1. Clean up your own back yard, IT's the trend
Disaster by disaster, global warming is gradually making its presence felt through its attendant symptoms of floods, droughts and hurricanes. And the polluting IT industry is making little direct contribution to stemming this increasingly polluting burden on the planet's resources.
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What is it ?
| More than 1 million computers each year are taken to landfill sites and buried in holes in the ground |
Granted, the explosion of email and text messaging in the last 10 years has no doubt reduced significantly the number of fuel-guzzling road miles travelled by letter-laden post office vans, with some detriment to the businesses of Royal Mail/Consignia/Royal Mail and such. However, but the same decade has witnessed a mounting tide of toxic sewage as we (individuals and organisations alike) churn our way blindly through regular upgrades of IT hardware, with the majority of this industrial excreta still ending up in the planetary bin, and euphemistically called 'landfill' - like we have room to spare!
I can't do anything about it
One of the many problems we all suffer is lack of negative feedback.
Just about every IT dept has the obligatory 'computer graveyard' of half a dozen old machines awaiting an uncertain end - sound familiar? Now imagine having to deal with all your organisation's waste paper, printer cartridges and old computers on site - one soon develops a terrifying impression of what 'landfill' means in real terms.
If that sounds too difficult or expensive, try this for joined-up enviro-thinking ...
A key government department finally pulls the plug on your lifeline funding, because environmental protection measures and toxic cleanups have hit Treasury budgets hard in recent years.
Your favourite corporate has had to reign in its charitable giving in order to offset impending pollution taxation and the cost of cradle-to-grave decommissioning of its products for which it will shortly become responsible.
OK - enough of the bad news ...
Let's not forget some of the positive aspects of 'digifying' and 'Web-erising' our information systems. Three major contributions to preventing our forests turning into pulp are the good old telephone book, via BT Directory Enquiries, Yellow Pages and the train timetable provided by Railtrack.
Almost imperceptibly slowly (environmentalists say too slowly), things are changing - at least in Europe. Increasingly, EU directives require manufacturers of any product - from fridges to cars - and including IT equipment, to make their component parts capable of being recycled and take them back at the end of their lives - the 'polluter pays' principle.
What you can do now ?
| Each monitor contains between 5 and 18 pounds of lead and other toxic substances which can leak into the ground, polluting water supplies and the food chain. |
Green guru Jonathan Porritt, Director of Forum for the Future and recently outspoken Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission is keen on action we can take ourselves, so here are a few tips to set you on the path to 'ecological righteousness' :
- Do you really need to print that email ? Read it, act on it now. 100 fewer printed pages per week will save £200-£400 per year!
- "Sneak a preview": Do make use of Print Preview (available in all Windows applications) before you commit reams of paper to the bin!
- "Kick the skip": Get into the habit of recycling old PCs. Anyway, monitors count as a biohazard!
- Buy recycled paper for all your copiers and printers - good quality affordable paper is easier to obtain these days
- Recycle your old printer consumables (toner cartridges, laser drums, jet cartridges), buy development kits to make lasers last longer - read more in this issue
- Buy rewriteable CD-RWs in preference to write-once-only CD-R discs - the former are re-usable and the cost difference between the two types is narrowing all the time, indeed your volume purchases will help accelerate that process
- Send email-outs instead of postal mailouts - fewer delivery miles equals less diesel and petrol consumed
- Green shoots! Choose a digital camera in preference to film-based or disposable ones, to save on media and the toxic by-products of film-processing.
- Switch off PCs at night, give our power stations a break! - read more in this issue
- Get a KVM switch for your servers - read more in this issue
Benefits
- Reduce long-term costs for your own organisation
- Environmental peace of mind, having 'done your bit'
- Help push down costs for the voluntary sector as a whole
If the Johannesburg Summit has taught us anything, the IT industry should at least try to follow its "Commitment to increase access to modern energy services, increase energy efficiency and to increase the use of renewable energy".
Contacts
www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/forum.htm
Forum for the Future
Sustainable Development Commission
The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) is an independent, not for profit organisation dedicated to the analysis and development of European environmental policy, and environmental aspects of other policies such as transport, agriculture, fisheries and regional development.
www.ieep.org.uk/
Huge number of (American) articles on recycling computers:
www.recycles.org/byte/news/
Environ - Leicestershire's environmental charity
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2. Interpreting KVM switch technology
A typical server room contains 1 swivel chair on castors, 86 miles of cables and a deskload of servers and monitors all belching out heat ...
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Like us, you probably spend a good deal of time beetling back and forth on your wheelie-chair seeing to the various servers that keep your operations going. Not only does this interrupt your concentration, but - given that many servers are situated in an ordinary room space, rather than in their own locked room - the heat they kick out is making your office hotter or combating your summer-time air-conditioning.
Cut down the complexity
The main point of a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch is that you operate all your servers from one combination of keyboard/video/mouse. It simplifies your server room and installation is a simple matter of plugging in a few cables, obviously with servers powered down.
With only one monitor running, instead of say 3 or 4, you are more likely to switch it off when unattended, and that saves on heat produced as well as electricity bills.
Benefits
- Easier operation of multiple servers and PCs from one location
- Reduce electricity bills by running fewer monitors
- Free up space in your server area
- Liberate mice, keyboards and monitors to use as spares
- Reduce future server costs by buying CPU base units only (monitor-less pricing)
- Save on time and castor-wear in one go
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What's in the box
When such units first appeared they were largely crude mechanical devices with a rotatable physical switch that clunked from one port to the next. Apart from generating unwanted interference, the cheaper examples were also associated with static voltages developed from poor earthing to the monitor connections (CRT monitors create tens of thousands of volts internally to drive the picture-generating phosphorus).
Nowadays, a KVM switch box is operated by either touching buttons on its front panel, or by pressing 'hot-key' combinations on the keyboard or (on some models) by clicking certain mouse buttons, so all your preferences are catered for.
Such boxes - essentially a junction point for lots of cables - usually house 3 sockets for each 'port', a port being the capacity to connect to one PC or server; so a 4-port KVM switch will allow you to hook up 4 PCs to just one mouse, keyboard and monitor.
The three sockets comprise 2x 5-pin mini-DINs for PS/2 mouse and PS/2 keyboard each, plus one 15-pin D-shape connector for plugging in the video from a monitor. For older PCs with a large round DIN connectors for the keyboards, you can get inexpensive adaptors.
USB connections are also common now and often appear in modern 'reptilian' cases.
Small KVMs (2 to 8 ports) are little bigger than a filofax, but larger versions often come in rack-mount style to fit into your data cabinet.
Tips and features to look out for when buying
Find out whether cable kits are supplied. A small 4-port KVM box may only set you back around £50-£80 but if cable kits have still to be purchased, these can add up to £30 per port.
An "all-in-one" cable kit means that the three keyboard/video/mouse cables are bound together to form an integrated whole, reducing the usual tangle of wires behind the servers and rendering the installation tidier and safer.
Cable lengths are typically 2 or 3 metres, but longer stretches up to 10 metres are often sold for more remote servers.
Several brands feature 'simultaneous boot' whereby you can start all servers together from the KVM switch box.
Multiple platforms (Windows, Sun, Macintosh) are supported by some KVMs but tend to be more expensive than single platforms.
The main contenders in the market are companies Adder, Aten, Belkin, Rose and Siemens, some of these being respectable volume cable manufacturers.
How to make it happen
Want help with purchasing? Talk to us or write to us here.
Contacts
More info at:
http://www.kvmswitchdirect.com/
-IB-
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3. Change your diet - prevent spam
This summer, the European Parliament has voted to ban the sending of unsolicited commercial email, but will it lighten the weight of your digital postbag?
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A law that bites back - but without teeth
Sceptics remain, logically enough, sceptical - but with good reason.
The new European directive to come into effect in 2003 determines that people should be protected from junk email (or spam) by default and would have to 'opt in' to receive it. But since the legislation only affects European registered companies and the vast majority of emails originates outside the EU, or worse is untraceable, analysts are predicting No Change.
So is there anything we can do for ourselves ?
You can prevent the annoyance factor in MS Outlook fairly simply like this:
| Spam is up 8% from last year, reaching 36% of all e-mail traversing the Internet, according to Brightmail's interception figures |
In Outlook:
- Click Inbox
- Click Organize
- Click Junk E-mail.
- Click the "for more options click here" link.
- To change the commercial e-mailers list,
- Click Edit Junk Senders.
To add a spammer quickly to your list:
Right click the message, select Junk Email | Add.
However, you still suffer the ignominy and expense of downloading the stuff (some of which can be large) and the nuisance of checking and deleting it.
Beware that Outlook's curious algorithms may result in it highlighting a few bona fide everyday messages as "Junk" or "Adult Content"! To change the colours, you first need to click the "Turn Off" buttons.
How to identify spam emails
- emails are from people you have never heard of
- they include business proposals, anyone trying to sell you something unsolicited (cold sell)
- first part of email address is made up of series of apparently random numbers and/or letters
- same email is sent to multiple recipients in your organisation, especially when those people left some time ago
Get nearer to the source
My recent attempts to prevent FT.com from continually sending trial offers to a user who left my network over 4 years ago have failed miserably. And a site called elistmanager.co.uk seems to give free reign to a series of spam emails popping up under the funprs.co.uk domain, but don't be deterred!
Here are a few pointers to save your bandwidth and admin time ....
How to make it happen
- Don't reply to the spammer!
- Write to the spammer's ISP:
Every ISP will have a postmaster@... address, or even an abuse@... address to report accounts people who abuse the ISPs accounts by distributing junk mail through them. In serious cases, you could request postmaster@... to close down the account of the offending spammer.
- Set up a 'killfile' or (similar device that your email system provides) or anti-spam software to prevent downloading the spam from your ISP, based on a list of email addresses you supply.
Some sysadmins simply prevent all mail from yahoo.com and hotmail.com (two of the most prolific sources of spam), effectively blacklisting them; a fierce measure which guarantees to block the main culprits, but you may also end up refusing some personal mail too.
Ganging together - co-operative style
An interesting co-operative venture to combat spam has been underway for a year from Cloudmark and what's more the service is free. We have tested it from a home account and so far rate it as "fantastic!"
| How SpamNet works
When a spam message is submitted to Cloudmark SpamNet, the system generates a secure fingerprint or signature of each message. This unique, but indistinguishable, fingerprint can now be securely shared with all the other SpamNet users to identify the same spam message in their email. This system permits everyone to contribute to the fight against spam and ensures that all email remains private. |
The deal is basically that you make contributions to the network by reporting the spammers you hear from and in return you get a spam-free email system.
Operating like a kind of voting system, SpamNet works on the basis of trusted-user reports in a shared central repository. As a member, the more spam reports you make that are also reported by other members, the more likely it becomes that messages from those identified spammers will be quarantined.
CloudMark assures us that :
"no messages are ever deleted or blocked. If a message is identified as a known spam message, it is simply tagged as spam and moved to your Spam box. This process allows you to verify that all the messages in the Spam box are really spam."
At the time of writing, only MS Outlook 2000/XP were supported, but support for other email systems is on the way.
http://www.cloudmark.com/
Benefits
- Saves time
- Saves frustration
- Saves wasting your bandwidth
Preventing MS Exchange from relaying email
To prevent spam (or "unsolicited commercial e-mail" as Microsoft calls it) being routed through your MS Exchange server, this article describes the full procedure. Beware, this tome is not for the faint-hearted!
We are happy to help you or implement it for you under any FM programme you have with us. Want to know more? Talk to us or write to us here.
Contacts
A list of anti-spam services and software.
Brightmail anti-spam service:
http://www.brightmail.com/
Find out it works here.
GFI MailEssentials: operates at MS Exchange server level
http://www.gfi.com/mes/
McAfee SpamKiller:
http://www.mcafee.com/myapps/msk/default.asp
Spam Agent:
http://www.spam-filtering-software.com/spam-agent-corporate.htm
Lyris MailShield:
http://www.lyris.com/products/mailshield/
-IB-
Paul Craig
[Acknowledgements: Leanne Weekes]
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4. Greening your office - the Big Switch Off
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Drop in, log out and turn off
Expediency rules, OK?
We just leave our desktop computers running because it's quicker to get back to working that way, rather than waiting minutes for bloated operating systems to check and double-check themselves and finally allow us to log in to the network.
That means the PC sits there consuming wasted Watts during long meetings and lunchtimes while we are away.
| A desktop computer left running overnight could cost you £50 per year |
But some employees even leave their workstations powered up overnight. According to a recent CBI report, that overnight cost could amount to £50 per year. So if your organisation always has 20 such 'Watt-wasters', your electricity bill is getting slammed for an extra £1000 p.a. in additional energy costs alone.
In general PCs tend to consume more power the more processes they have running - you can see these in Windows 2000's Task Manager (typically run it as C:\WINNT\System32\taskmgr.exe or find on the Security screen by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del or simply right-click a blank space on the taskbar), so at least logging out - if not shutting down altogether - will force most of these to close and curb power losses.
| Fact: 10 active desktop PCs consume around the same power as a 2 bar electric fire |
There are security advantages too ....
Not many of us in the not-for-profit sector suffer from 'internal hackers' (because we're such a generally considerate bunch of folks!), but in many large firms and universities it can be a problem to be tackled seriously.
So if you have a high turnover of volunteers, visitors or contractors floating around the building, be sure to log out whenever you leave your workstation for some time.
Set up auto power-saving on your PC
... to close down the monitor and discs progressively, saving energy. Both will fire up again when a key is pressed or the mouse is moved.
- Click Start | Control Panel | Power Options
OR
Right-click desktop | Properties | Screensaver | click "Power" button
- Set a power scheme such as "Home Office/Desk"
- Click OK to exit
Tip: how to spot a computer that's on but just 'sleeping'
It's not always possible to see the power light on a PC, especially some of those mini-tower machines which stand under a desk (literally gathering life-shortening dust).
Tip: Look for the NumLock and CapsLock lights on the keyboard for signs of life. Alternatively poke the Shift key or Space bar and watch the screen spring back into life.
The consequences of powering off a machine that actually has many applications open could be disastrous for both the PC stability and your colleague's documents!
How to make it happen
Last one out switches off PCs, printers, photocopiers, scanners, franking machines
Lookout for the ENERGY STAR ** rating when buying monitors and printers. Printers are required to comply with directed standby power consumptions within certain times (typically powering down to 20 Watts within 15 minutes). Printers with faster page per minute (ppm) speeds tend to have higher consumptions.
The ENERGY STAR® programme was started by the United States Environment Protection Agency (USEPA) in 1992. Under the program, manufacturers can display the ENERGY STAR logo on their equipment if it meets established, ever-tightening energy efficiency standards. Beginning with standards for personal computers and monitors, it has expanded to cover photocopiers, printers, fax machines, scanners and devices do all those as well as photocopy, called “multifunction devices.”
Typical ENERGY STAR features on office equipment involve an ability to power down or 'sleep'. Operating your equipment via its ENERGY STAR criteria will reduce your electricity consumption by half compared to equipment that is not power-managed.
Contacts
Excellent Green Office guide supplied by Australian government (670KB PDF file)
Energy Star site:
http://www.energystar.gov/
(Turn on, Tune in, Drop out) Timothy Leary
-IB-
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5. Fit to Print? Moving from black and white to green
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Cheap today, expensive tomorrow
You can now pick up a printer for £30 - in fact any day now, we're expecting some manufacturer to offer them for free and not as part of a deal - but the low purchase prices of many printers belies the steep running costs you may be faced with during their working lives.
The situation has become sufficiently dire that the EU may step in and take action on the price of these consumables - jet cartridges, toners, drums and so on - in the name of regulating competition. A competition commissioner for the European Commission announced there may be an investigation into charges.
IT managers have long argued that cartridge prices are too high and have railed against proprietary designs that force lock-in and many look forward to the potential 'levelling effect' some sort of legislation could provide.
At 'Co-Op', we know our own HP4500 total running costs are 8p per page for black and white and 18p for colour! A set of refills sets us back about £300.
Stuck with expensive printers? All is not lost.
How to save money and energy
Avoid printing stuff! Simplest trick in the book.
Print in draft mode (saves ink or laser toner) if you know it is just going to be an ephemeral copy.
If you do have a laser printer, make sure its power-save or standby setting is configured to come on after a reasonable time idle say, 20 minutes. Find it by pushing the menu buttons or look in the manual that came with it.
At some point in their lives, most laser printers need refurbishing, usually at around the 250,000 page mark. A qualified printer engineer will be needed for this since the process varies between manufacturers - requiring replacement of one or more of the drum, developer and fuser. The capital costs will be recouped when weighed against the printer's extended lifetime and insurance and depreciation charges.
Buy reconditioned laser toner cartridges, or refills for existing cartridges. The quality of these is improving compared with authentic originals from the manufacturer and the cost is often less.
Buy an inkjet printer where you can. Dot-per-inch resolutions are becoming comparable with laser printers as are consumable running costs, but they consume next to no power when on. Lasers need to keep a very hot fuser unit 'on the boil' to fuse toner on to the paper.
A novel way to cut printing costs is offered by "InkSaver" from Canadian software firm Strydent. Its software claims to reduce printer costs by up to 75% by analysing data before it is sent to a printer and optimising settings to decrease the amount of ink required. Inksaver cost around £30.
http://www.inksaver.com/
If you have a plain paper fax machine, feed it with paper that has only been printed on one side, eg from lasers and photocopiers, to re-use the paper and save on paper-buying costs.
In the market for a new printer? Look for the ENERGY STAR mark. This programme has resulted in much more efficient laser printers being developed which can rival the better inkjet printers in sleep
mode, although they still use more energy while printing.
Contacts
http://www.energystar.gov/
-IB-
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6. Eye tests - only seeing half the picture ?
Are your eyes all screwed up? They could be. Nearly half of us don't realise that computer screen is having a significant impact on the health of our eyes.
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What is it ?
Spending long periods looking at a computer screen causes eye strain and fatigue.
Now tell me something I didn't know
- Nearly half of us don't know that.
- You have the right to an eye test paid for by your employer.
- Any glasses you need specifically for looking at VDUs (visual display units, any sort of illuminating screen) must be paid for by your company.
A survey carried out for the Guide Dogs for the Blind indicated that 43% of screen users had not had an eye test in the past year and 31% had not been tested for 5 years or more. The inevitable concern is that encroaching sight defects are going undetected.
Guide Dogs to the rescue!
Face it - we never check our eyesight nor take a break from the screen at least every hour like we're supposed to. We need someone - or something - to poke us and remind us.
This where two revolutionary pieces of software - one freely downloadable - come in. Developed in conjunction with the charity's "One Vision" campaign and City University, the aim is to have a "massive impact on the eye health of the nation's workforce", according to Guide Dogs for the Blind CEO, Geraldine Peacock.
- Screenbreak Reminder
The Eye-Kon screen saver sits quietly in your system tray clocking up your 'eyeballs out' time and tells you when to take that hourly break by popping up fun reminders, some with interesting vision facts like "Did you now that gulls have built-in sun-glasses?".
Gulls have built-in sun-glasses |
We found such prompts invaluable, if only to make you suddenly realise you're bursting for the loo or dying for a cuppa - so Eye-Kon looks after more than just your eye health!
And if you take your full regulation break, you get to see the cute guide-doggy screensaver when you come back!
The "screenbreak" reminder and screensaver can be downloaded, free of charge, from the web site.
- Desktop Vision Screener
The Vision Screener can be carried out at your screen, whether at work or at home. A basic test of the ergonomics of your workstation is followed by a series of eye tests.
Ironically, the first requirement of this high-tech in-situ eye test is a plain old centimetre ruler! Having thus calibrated your own monitor and your viewing distance, you can get on with the fun part, scanning for flashing dots, detecting letters hidden within patterns of numbers, covering up one eye then the other, and so on.
And you don't have to sit squeamishly in a chair trying to respond to an optician's ever more devilish attempts to confuse you: "Is it better now? Or now?"
The middle part of the test requires special 3-D glasses (which can be ordered through the Guide Dogs' web site or at branches of Burton and Dorothy Perkins), but many of the others can completed without, the whole sequence lasting about 10-15 minutes. A detailed report of your results appears at the end, with useful recommendations about local lighting and positioning your screen.
The eye test software was originally made available free of charge for a short period and its use has been extended until the end of October 2002.
Contacts
Eye-Kon screen break reminder and screen saver:
http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/eyekon/eyekon.html
Download size: 2.9MB
Eye test:
http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/visionscreener/visionscreener.htm
Download size: 773KB
Eye facts:
http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/eyekon/facts.html
-IB-
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7. Become a Virtual ISP
Ever thought that being your own Internet Service Provider was too technical? Think again.
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What is it ?
Become a Virtual ISP.
Why would we want to ?
To earn money!
A new scheme has been launched that allows charities to offer ISP services to their supporters. Those who take it up can then 'donate as they surf' starting at a tenner a month. Your organisation receives a share of the monthly subscription fee thus earned.
Infund provides a variety of unmetered ISP packages for supporters including broadband, dual-channel ISDN and dial-up as well as making it easy to incorporate into your Web site with links like a flash-up banner, user admin section, webmail access and FAQs. Wireless broadband and 3G services are in the offing.
How it works
The service mechanism is possible through BT's Flat Rate Internet Access Call Origination (FRIACO) whereby companies can share in BT's phone call revenue as generated by Internet access that those companies initiate.
Users need BT access with a current Windows PC and browser and (of course) credit or debit payment facilities, but don't need to change any other equipment. Unlike a broadband ('always-on') service, unmetered access does not run continuously, so calls are limited at the BT end with 2-hour disconnection time limit on each call (although users can redial again immediately) as well as a cut-off after 10 minutes if the line remains inactive. Additionally, there is 200-hours-per-month online time limit with certain packages.
Benefits
- Attract more supporters
- Supporters visit your Web site more often - like a portal
- Earn a consistent revenue stream
- Technical support provided by Infund
- Subscription income is collected for you
Benefits for your supporters
- Flat rate Internet access - no call charges at any time
- 7 sub-domained email addresses (YOURNAME@SUBDOMAIN.mycharitysupporter.co.uk)
- 10 MB of web space
- Technical support via national rate number (0870), 8AM to 10PM, 7 days a week
- Email support
- Transparent charitable-giving while accessing the Internet
Drawbacks
Your Virtual ISP reputation depends on Infund's support and BT's delivery capability.
How to make it happen
Supporters sign up here, and can read their own FAQ.
Contacts
www.infund.co.uk
-IB-
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8. Supporting your communications system
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In most of our support contracts a new line now specifies "Support Communication System". This new item has generated a few queries and several clients have asked what it's about. What does it mean?
The 'interconnectedness' of things
Supporting network links out to the Internet accounts for quite a bit of work for us, as a percentage of support time on your contract. Much of that is usually beyond our anticipation or control for instance, - problems being caused by Internet Service Provider systems shutting down or mailservers and routers being turned off, etc. So on most of the larger sites we are budgeting about a day a year to handle such issues.
Benefits
Internet peace-of-mind for you.
Contacts
Want to know more? Talk to us or write to us here.
-IB-
Philip Anthony
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Overview of InfoBulletin
InfoBulletin is written and published by Co-Operative Systems and contains Information Technology tips that we come across during everyday research and support activities and which may be useful in improving your IT operations, either internally or on the Internet.
Viewing IB
This bulletin is presented as a Web page (in HTML) that can be read in any standard browser and most email clients. It is written in a compact format for fast viewing, short download time and ease of use for mobile computers. However, if you prefer to read it by alternative means, you could copy/paste it into your usual word processor or save it as a text file or even print it to be read later - on recycled paper, of course!
Subscriptions
At any time you can change your subscriber address or stop receiving InfoBulletin altogether. Simply reply to the team address below giving us your preferences.
If you need to re-direct this bulletin to a particular group or person within your organisation, set a rule in your mail forwarder to trigger on the address: infobulletin@coopsys.net and then fill in the internal address of your recipient(s). Alternatively, redirect this address to an internal public folder, noticeboard or distribution list of users you have set up.
Tell a colleague or associate
If you know someone who would like to receive InfoBulletin, tell them to send an email to:
infobulletin@coopsys.net
or email us and we will send them an invitation and sampler.
Implementation
InfoBulletin topics can be implemented by Co-Operative Systems if required on a chargeable basis or via Facilities Management (FM) for those with rolling work programmes.
Privacy
Under no circumstances does Co-Operative Systems supply lists of customers to other organisations.
E&OE
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Contact details
Sales & Enquiries: 020 7793 0395 team@coopsys.net
Support: 020 7793 7877 support@coopsys.net
Fax: 020 7735 6472 Fax us via email
Web: http://www.coopsys.net
Archives and Index
Read recent and past issues of InfoBulletins on the Web at http://www.coopsys.net/ibindex.htm or search our archives and subject index.
End of InfoBulletin
We hope you found it useful!
If you would like to comment on any of the articles or request particular subjects to be covered, mail us here.
Co-Operative Systems
Interpreting Information Technology
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