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Pondering thoughts and random ramblings from Hightrees Organisation Limited

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The joys of Broadband – Part 2
The joys of Broadband – Part 2 514 552 Small Business IT Solutions

A follow on blog from The Joys of Broadband – Part 1

Wednesday 15th – The client was texted a few times, to say that no network faults could be found on the line – as is alwas the way with random faults and could the fault be closed (there was no phone call as promised within 48 hours over a week ago!) read more

The joys of Broadband – Part 1
The joys of Broadband – Part 1 150 150 Small Business IT Solutions

Over a month ago, we were asked to have a look at a client’s broadband connection as they were experiencing drop outs and poor service of a random nature.

Upon doing some basic testing it appeared that they were suffering from a faulty micro filter as any voice calls would kill the ADSL connection.  New filters were installed but the problem persisted. read more

Equipment4Cleaning website goes live
Equipment4Cleaning website goes live 150 150 Small Business IT Solutions

Equipment4Cleaning,Industrial Cleaning Equipment Specialists and Suppliers of Machines, Parts and Accessories, launched their online store.

The store is using Magento to provide the framework for the equipment and accessory sales.

Equipment4Cleaning Logo

Wiltshire Concrete – A New Client for Web Hosting Services
Wiltshire Concrete – A New Client for Web Hosting Services 150 150 Small Business IT Solutions

A chance conversation over a pint led to Hightrees taking on the hosting of Wiltshire Concrete’s website

As well as reducing their hosting costs, certain key elements were missing such as basic SEO details along with the collection of web site statistics.  We made all the modifications, and painlessly switched the site hosting details over a weekend, meaning minimal disruption to website and email.

Plans are under way for some minor site changes and an increase in content on a regular basis.

You can visit the Wiltshire Concrete website by clicking on the Logo below.

Wiltshire Concrete

Blog : Domain Transfer in less than an hour ?!
Blog : Domain Transfer in less than an hour ?! 150 150 Small Business IT Solutions

After a client was sent a renewal fee of £59 for keeping their domain for another year, Hightrees Organisation recommend that the domain was transferred to a cheaper supplier, but that they should bear in mind that sometimes the domain transfer times can stretch to a couple of days (depending on the process and systems involved) and then there is the DNS propagation delay as the rest of the Internet play catch up with the changes.

We were more than a little shocked and amazed when the domain transfer completed in less than an hour on Saturday afternoon with full domain control and renewal options available after 2 hours !

Please make sure that you check your domain and hosting renewals carefully as you may be paying much more that you should be !

Revamped website for Ducis and Everleigh Village Show
Revamped website for Ducis and Everleigh Village Show 150 150 Small Business IT Solutions

Hightrees Organisation Limited were asked if they could help the Ducis & Everleigh Village Show (DEVS) with updating their website.

The DEV’s organising committee recently won the Tesco Fundraising Prize at the Tidworth Community Area Awards 2011 and are very busy organising this years show which takes place on the 10th September 2011.

The previous website was perfectly okay, but it was written in static HTML and “sprawling” which made updating the whole site a little cumbersome and needed quite a lot of work behind the scenes to bring the site “up to scratch”  to include basic Search Engine information and  image/link information.

 

We created a new Joomla CMS (Content Management System) site and sample template design, based on the old site design, and then replicated the content into the new system and got approval to use the new revamped site.

The flexibility of using a CMS system, allowed Hightrees Organisation to copy the content, change formatting and design styles and manipulate pages and bring a sample site together in less than 24 hours.  We have introduced Google Analytics to new site for helping to track visitors and site usage along with some extra functionality such as slideshow facilities.

 

Interestingly, the previous hosting company had sent through payment renewals for both the domain name and the hosting.  We’re not completely sure how you can justify a £59 fee for renewing a .co.uk address for one year, but needless to say we transferred the domain to UKReg to reduce the renewal fees and also offered a better hosting deal at the same time !

 

The new Ducis and Everleigh Village Show website is now available at http://www.devshow.co.uk and will be updated regularly over the next few weeks as the plans and activities fot the Show are finalised.

 

 

 

Replace, Reconfigure or Repair – sometimes a bodge is the only way….
Replace, Reconfigure or Repair – sometimes a bodge is the only way…. 150 150 Small Business IT Solutions

Hightrees had a call to say that there was no network or internet access and that a flashing “Red” light had appeared on the server and sure enough the machine would get as far as the BIOS and then shutdown.  The flashing light indicated an issue with the PSU or Cooling.

Popping the case open, nothing immediately obvious, all fans manually spinning, not nasty burning smells indicating a burnt out PSU, power up the server and everything works okay ?!

Reboot, machine won’t start.

Swap UPS Feeds

Reboot, machine won’t start

Swap Power leads

Reboot, machine starts, then shuts down.

Repeat……

An hour later, a message is finally displayed on the console that a sysem fan is “missing” and the system is shutting down.

After stripping every fan fitted in the server, it turns out that one fan (actually two fans combined into one unit), had a loose wire. It looked like it must have been a dry joint which had finally given up the ghost and was randomly making/dropping the connection cauing the randomness of the server failures.

After a quick internet surf and call round and there were plenty of spares available, unfortunately, none locally based, so the question was

  • leave the site down and have lots of unhappy users until the new part arrived. – not really a viable option
  • reconfigure the network and use an alternative server, do-able but would probably take 2-3 hours
  • attempt a “bodge” ?

Due to the design of the fan, there was about a 4mm gap where it was just possible to squeeze a modified  soldering iron (modified as in use a bench grinder to butcher the soldering iron tip and then hand file to the right profile!).  The connecting wire was about 1.5mm in diameter and there was an IC chip carefully placed right next to the solder joint.  This was going to a be a one shot attempt.

40 minutes later, after much moving of the worklight, waiting for the hand shaking to stop, the smell of burning flesh and plastic and a modicum of profanity, there was a connection that was solid and no visible signs of accidently damage to any of the nearby circuit components.

Back to site, carefully re-assemble the fans in the holder, re-assembly the server and ….. SUCCESS !

The server has now been “up” for 18 hours and will taken down outside office hours when the spare part arrives.

With an unlimited IT budget, this would obviously never occurred as there would have been a redundant server available, a shelf full of spare parts and an engineer available within a 4 to 8 hour window, but we working in the real world here…..sometimes you just have to do the best with the options you have available.

Getting Ayrmer Software ready for 2011
Getting Ayrmer Software ready for 2011 150 150 Small Business IT Solutions

 

Thanks to the recent winter weather, getting down to Devon has proved a little tricky but that hasn’t stopped Hightrees Organisation from helping Ayrmer Software get ready for their new Sales Director, Vince McConville, who takes post in 2011.

We have remotely created the new emails addresses, new email aliases, reconfigured the Asterisk VoIP server wth new extensions and queue handling, added new VoIP handsets to the VoIP system as well as provided VPN Access, which has proved its worth in the last week where staff have been unable to get into the office.  The VPN access has allowed email and data access to the central server, allowing staff to work from home – in the warm !

 

 

 

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Upgrades for Amber Foundation
Upgrades for Amber Foundation 110 32 Small Business IT Solutions
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Hightrees Organisation Limited have been on site in Trowbridge recent to to upgrade Amber staff with new Acer Revo PC’s and with the standard Amber software (Microsoft Office 2003, Outlook with Google Apps Sync, Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox).  As well as the Staff getting some “new toys”, the residents or “Amberteers” also got some new PC’s for helping them with the Amber programme.
The Amberteers network uses LTSP/K12Linux based server, allowing their Acer Revo PC’s to network boot to provide a Linux Desktop along with OpenOffice, Firefox and other open-source applications for basic use of the Internet and Document Creation. Restrictions are place for preventing inappropriate Internet use.
The exisiting networks have been split to help with internal security and restrictions are place for preventing inappropriate Internet use.

Remote Access and Control methods are in place to allow the site to be remotely monitored and controlled in the event of any problems with any of the software installations, minimising the need for onsite visits for minor issues.

One member of Staff was so impressed with the Open Source Software they promptly went and installed it on their home PC – the verdict “Successfully installed Fedora 14 at the weekend.  It’s great!“

Castledown Radio – behind the scenes
Castledown Radio – behind the scenes 150 150 Small Business IT Solutions

Hightrees Organisation has been involved with Castledown Radio, a local community radio station since they first started in 2004.  We try and work on a volunteer basis wherever possible.

Recently we have donated time to helping with some “behind the scene”  work to help make life a little easier for the volunteers and listeners.

Castledown Radio’s internet radio feed was prevously limited to RealPlayer, however we have now enabled an MP3 stream making the station available to more internet users.

We’ve been making some changes to their website, by adding a new Events Calendar which will help both volunteer presenters update the website and listeners to find out what local events are on the the broadcast area.

We are currently testing a new server based systemto help centralise file and music storage to a Fedora based server which will allow more control over content as well as providing extra tools and utilities to the volunteers to assist with running of the Castledown Radio and its radio output.

The website is now enabled for Twitter allowing website updates and news to be followed by anyone with a Twitter account.  We shall be setting up a Facebook page in the very near future to help Castledown Radio reach an even larger audience.

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