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| newsletter@quarkit.com.au | www.quarkit.com.au | issue 9 | june 2005 |
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The Latest Virus And Worm Information |
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Quark Automation |
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Automation and the Smart Home Home Automation is a term that we often hear, but what does it really mean?. Automation, whether used in the context of business or the home, is probably one of the most misunderstood phrases used in the industry today. Automation is not just the B&D roller door going up and down when you press a button, automation is about bringing together a range of technologies to enhance your lifestyle. Automation is about Integration, making technology work for you. Just as Home Theatre and the Internet have made their way into the mainstream, so too Automation is becoming the expected standard for comfort, convenience, energy-saving and communication in the home and workplace. Home Automation is about creating a Smart Home, combining technology with convenience. Ideally, a Smart Home design will enhance the everyday experience of home life. When thoughtfully designed, these systems will often improve not only how we interact with our home environment, but can also be beneficial to re-sale property value. Business Automation is about creating a user-friendly environment with energy-efficiency, convenience and productivity as the primary focus. Quark Automation provides a complete range of Automation services based on the gold-standard for electrical automation - Clipsal® C-Bus™. For over 10 years, C-Bus™ has provided commercial industry with straight-forward, but powerful systems control. During this time, C-Bus™ has grown from an advanced lighting and control system to become a world-leading platform for electrical Automation control. Quark Automation can design, deliver and install a complete integrated solution for your home or business including:
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Quark Automation Our team of experts come together from a range of specialised backgrounds, combining skills in Audio/Visual consultation, electrical and hardware engineering, control systems software development, Information Technology, Industrial Psychology, and Project Management. With extensive combined industry experience, use of only proven products, and each system design tailored to your specific needs; Quark Automation has quickly established a reputation for quality solutions that simply work. Through their respective specialisations, Quark Automation team members have worked on some of the most prestigious residential and commercial installations spanning Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. Of recent note, a Quark Automation team member was contracted as Chief Program Designer for the Big Brother House at Dreamworld, working on behalf of Clipsal® Integrated Systems. Our contracted installation teams bring a wealth of experience in Audio/Visual installation, commercial and residential electrical (including medical installations such as hospitals) and datacomms. Our direct association with Audio/Visual engineers, security specialists, electrical and data experts, Microsoft® Certified Professionals, and Clipsal® C-Bus™ certified professionals assures you that by choosing Quark Automation for your integrated systems solution, you are receiving the utmost attention to detail from staff with the experience and backing of some of the most respected names in the industry. If you would like to receive some more information or make an appointment to discuss how Quark Automation can design a Clipsal ® C-Bus™ system to suit your home or office needs, please contact us to discuss your automation needs. 
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64 bit Computing |
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A bit of history So you have a better understanding of what "64 bit" means, I'll cover a bit of the history of computers and microprocessors. This will not be an in-depth history (that will likely be available on our website when I get the time to write it) but enough of an overview to clear up some terminology. In 1968, Intel was formed. In 1971, the Intel 4004 4-bit microprocessor was developed, running at 108 KHz with 2,300 transistors in it. It processed data 4 bits (a bit is either a 1 or a 0) at a time. It takes 8 bits to make one byte, and a byte can contain 2^8 (or 256) different values. A bit is abbreviated as "b" and a byte is abbreviated as "B". Merely one year later, Intel developed the 8008 which was an 8 bit CPU that also ran at 108 KHz, with 3,500 transistors in its silicon dye. In 1978 (six years later) Intel developed the 8086 CPU which was a 16 bit CPU running at 5 MHz and containing 29,000 transistors. The Intel 80386 was invented in 1985 - seven years after their 16 bit CPU. The 80386 contained 275,000 transistors and ran at 20 MHz. Intel released the 80486 range of CPUs in 1989 that were still 32 bit CPUs, running at 33 MHz with 1.2 million transistors, the Intel Pentium CPU in 1993, again a 32 bit CPU, running at 60 MHz with 3.2 million transistors, the Intel Pentium II CPU in 1997 with 7.5 million transistors running at 233 MHz, the Intel Pentium III in 1999 with 9.5 million transistors running at 450 MHz, the Intel Pentium 4 in 2000 with 42 million transistors and running at 1500 MHz (1.50 GHz). Then, in February 2005 - 20 years after the introduction of the 32 bit CPU - Intel introduced their Pentium 4 600-series CPUs that have 64 bit extensions to the 32 bit core. These CPUs can run either 32 bit code that has been around since 1985 (Windows 95 was the first Microsoft-based operating system to take advantage of the 32 bit CPUs - a full ten years after the CPUs were released) or on the new 64 bit code released by Microsoft and various Unix, Linux and BSD vendors. Please note that I have not mentioned the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Xeon nor Itanium series of Intel CPUs, the many different flavours of the CPUs mentioned above, nor anything about AMD (Intel's biggest competitor), Cyrix nor many other CPU manufacturers as this is meant to be a quick overview. :) What 64 bit means The main thing that 64 bit computing will mean to you is that you can now address more than 4 GB of physical RAM. Of course, if you don't have anywhere near 4 GB of RAM in a computer near you, this won't really be any big issue. However, for large database servers and large Terminal Servers, this will mean that they can now have enough physical RAM installed to make the machine run much, much faster. A 32 bit CPU can address 4 GB of RAM, the 64 bit CPUs will be able to address up to 4096 times more than this - up to 18 EB (exabytes) - and that's a mind bogglingly large number. Also, because of a number of advances in the CPU design itself when implementing 64 bit functionality, there is an improvement in the actual speed of processing data. A Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server will be able to handle approximately 55% more users just by running 64 bit Windows Server 2003 without increasing RAM or CPU speed. That is a very significant speed improvement. |
On the desktop Now, venturing back into the reality of what we actually use today, you will not really see any benefits by running 64 bit Windows on your Pentium 600 (or Athlon 64) desktop computer. More than likely, with the current state of 64 bit Windows XP Professional, you will notice a number of features that are more frustrating than if you were running 32 bit Windows XP Professional including the existence of both a 64 bit Internet Explorer and a 32 bit Internet Explorer each having Active X plugins that are incompatible with the other. However, if you perform high end mathmatical calculations using applications such as Mathematica, The Panorama Factory, Crafty, LightWorks or LightWave 3D, then you will likely notice the speed enhancements that 64 bit computing can deliver. Microsoft and 64 bit Windows Microsoft has had a fully 64 bit version of Windows Server 2003 available for the Intel Itanium (ia64) range of CPUs for some time now, however with the price tag of systems based on this CPU, this has not translated into a lot of sales for Microsoft, Intel or any of the Itanium system manufacturers. Recently Microsoft decided to release 64 bit versions of both both Windows Server 2003 and also Windows XP Professional for the Intel Pentium 4 600- and 800-series of CPUs as well as the AMD Opteron, Athlon64 and Athlon64 FX range of CPUs (x64). The actual architecture of the CPUs is very different from the Itanium (ia64) to the other (x64) CPUs, resulting in the need for a complete re-release of Microsoft's x64 products. While Microsoft has started making some of their products available in both 32 bit and 64 bit flavours, they are far from completing this transition. For example, while Windows Server 2003 (x64) is available, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (x64) is not yet available and Exchange Server 2003 (x64) will never be released. It will be some time before Microsoft has managed to release a complete range of 64 bit products - and this will likely be around the Longhorn release - the next Windows Server and Desktop operating system release scheduled for late 2006 (but more likely 2008 at my reckoning). So, for now, Microsoft has at best half-baked support for x64 applications and operating systems. This is significantly less impressive than the 64 bit Linux and BSD offerings, yet significantly better than other application manufacturers. We're basically at the beginning of the 64 bit era and are watching it unfold in the coming years. The future of 64 bit computing I honestly cannot see this as anything but rosy. There will be no incentives for application developers (other than plain old laziness) to not develop 64 bit code, especially as in the near future it will be close to impossible to purchase a computer with a non-64 bit CPU at its heart. With the speed and addressing enhancements that a 64 bit computing environment will bring, this will open the way for much more graphically oriented operating system desktop designs, and there's no possible way that a 32 bit server application will run more efficiently than a 32 bit server application. If you wish to know more about x64 and ia64 Microsoft and other products, please contact Quark IT to discuss your needs and the products available to you. |
Small Business Server 2003 Features:
Microsoft Office Outlook |
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What is Microsoft Office Outlook? Microsoft Office Outlook isn't just your average e-mail client, it is much, much more. We will go through the key features and benefits of using Outlook as part of the way you work. As you will see Outlook is a true Personal Information Manager (PIM). Some of the key features are listed below:-
Fully featured Personal Information Manager
Outlook brings together not only your email, contacts and calendar, but when integrated with an Exchange Server it allows you to share your company contacts
and calendar with those others in your business who need access to this information. This means that you can have a single Company Shared Contacts folder
that everyone uses instead of each person having their own copy of a contact's information, not necessarily all in synch with each other.This will enable streamlining of your businesses ability to keep up to date information about your clients and suppliers. It will minimize the chance of needing to contact a client and having obsolete details, and it will enhance the image your business portrays to your clients and suppliers. |
What if you are not in the office? Outlook 2003, when combined with an Exchange Server 2003 will allow you to receive your email wherever you are using either Outlook Web Access in any web browser, or using RPC over HTTPS (or, more politely known as "Outlook over the Internet"). Outlook Web Access gives you a great deal of the functionality of the full Outlook client on your desktop, however some features (such as background spell checking, message recall, plain text editing, message templates, Windows SharePoint Services integration, side-by-side viewing of multiple calendars and a browsable Global Address List) are unavailable in the Outlook Web Access (OWA) client. In comparison to OWA, Outlook over the Internet allows you to use your own notebook or home PC to connect to your work Exchange Server 2003 (either the Small Business Server 2003 located in your home or office, or alternatively by connecting to a "Hosted Exchange Server") and have access to the full Outlook client functionality just like you were sitting in your office. What this means to your business If you compare the functionality of Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail, Thunderbird, Eudora or many of the other email clients available to Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, especially considering that SBS 2003 comes with Outlook 2003 for every user or device that has an SBS 2003 CAL (Client Access License), then you can see that there is no real comparison - Outlook 2003 offers a much better experience for you and your co-workers. The integration between Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003 makes the choice of Outlook 2003 as your email and personal information manager client a "no brainer". What if you don't have an Exchange Server 2003? If you don't have an Exchange Server at your business, don't despair - ve haf vays... We can organise a "Hosted Exchange" solution for you. This is a solution that allows you to have a number of Exchange email boxes on a server that's hosted by a company specialising in this service, giving you full access to Outlook and OWA just like you would have from home if you had an Exchange Server at the office. If you install an SBS 2003 or Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003 solution at some point in the future, then we can migrate your email off the hosted provider onto your own Exchange Server when you are ready to move back home. If you think that you are a candidate for SBS 2003 and its Exchange Server/Outlook functionality or are interested in a Hosted Exchange solution, please contact us and we will perform a business analysis of your organization's email and PIM requirements and habits and will advise of the solutions that meet your specific needs. |
Signing off |
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That's about all from us for the June 2005 Quark IT Newsletter. It is unfortunately a lot closer to the end of the financial year than we'd like it to be (ie, this newsletter is rather late) and we all have only a little time left to think about buying those things that can be used to help keep our tax liability down, such as a new HP laser printer, printer cartridges, paper, PDAs, notebooks, power filters, UPSes and other goodies. It sure is better to have the money sitting on your desk than in the Tax man's pocket. Quark IT is working closely with SMBtelnet on the Sunshine Coast. Together, we are able to offer more services and expertise than Quark IT can on its own. In the near future we'll send en email to you explaining why we've decided to work in co-operation with SMBtelnet and the benefits that we can see this bringing to your business. Remember that Quark IT can offer not only IT support services to your business, but also your home computers and network. We have special pricing for home computers and home networks of our existing clients. Also, please be aware that if you have a NOD32 license for all of your computers at the office, then the main user of any computer can make use of that NOD32 license on their home computer as well. This greatly assists the reduction in virus, worm, spyware and other malicious code propagation. Please contact us if you would like Quark IT to assist you in ensuring that your home as well as your office network is supported as best it can be. | |
