Apps now available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry

NMBS are proud to announce that their latest development, the merchant locator is now available on all 3 main smart phone platforms - iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

The merchant locators allow the user to find merchants close to their current location or entered postcode. Based on chosen criteria it then displays a list of merchants and allows the user to view their contact details and even location on the map.

The apps were created as 'launcher' style apps. What this means is that you have an app that sits on your phone, however when you launch the app it creates a gateway to the NMBS website and then launches web rich content in the app. The major benefit of designing the app in this way was it allows us to make changes quickly and easily without having to send a new version live every time. Due to updates to merchant details and new additions had we not done it this way it would have meant regular updates for the user, which in turn would mean if the user didnt update they would not have the latest data on the app. The second benefit is that because we launched on all 3 platforms, it meant that the main back end coding is the same for all 3 versions, this mean that when we make a change for the iPhone version we can easily make the same change for the Android and Blackberry. Therefore the majority of the coding is in HTML, had we developed all 3 apps to run locally then it would mean maintaining 3 different types of code and a lot of it, this way means maintaining 3 different sections of code but all written in the same way with the same style. The obvious requirement for the apps however is that to work there needs to be a data connection present, this however doesn't appear to be too much of an issue as most smartphone packages come with data downloads included as standard.

With regards to development of the apps, NMBS are continually looking to improve, with the next development allowing the user to search by town as well as postcode. If you have any questions about the NMBS apps or questions about smartphone app development then please contact us on it.department@nmbs.co.uk.

I Love Independents - Using Social Media

NMBS have been delving into the world of Twitter and Facebook to highlight their new campaign ‘I Love Independents’. Designed to showcase the benefits for the end user/tradesman to trade with Independent Merchants, the campaign has been a huge success to date, with over 70 fans on Facebook and over 85 followers on Twitter.

Social Media is becoming an increasingly popular form of marketing as it costs very little to get your message out to a large number of recipients.

Twitter enables us to leave snippets of information for our followers who can also send us direct messages – often your followers will re-tweet your messages to their followers, which means your message has the potential to be in front of hundreds of users.

Facebook provides a forum to start discussions, upload photos and keep Fans up to date with the latest developments – you can also include links to videos and other media to help keep your page interesting.

The main thing with Social media is to ensure that you actively show responses to all feedback/comments as and when they occur – even bad feedback can be turned around to something positive if you respond quickly enough. You can use tools such as Tweetdeck to keep an eye on what is happening on all Social Media which means that as soon as someone mentions you or comments on your wall you will be informed and can reply to them.

To find out more about the I Love Independents campaign visit www.iloveindependents.co.uk, become a fan on Facebook www.facebook.com/iloveindependents and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/loveindependent

Can you run a business on free software?

There is a wealth of free software available to companies on the market, no matter what job they need to do there will be some form of free software available to do it. What the user needs to ascertain is whether that software provides the same level of functionality that they require or that a paid equivalent will provide.

If you did decide to take the free software route, then there are two options available, complete system using free software, which includes operating systems, mail server, file server, web server, word processing packages, spreadsheet packages, graphic packages... the list is endless. Or you could just use free software for some of the roles required, e.g. instead of using Microsoft Office you could opt for the free Open Office application instead of Photoshop, you could use GIMP (Graphical Image Manipulation Package).

It is of course possible to run a business on free open source software. You can use a linux server such as Ubuntu, that can look after you mail and file servers. This can be extended to housing your own webserver using apache to run html or php scripts. Whether it is feasible is a different matter. Although there is a lot of support and help on the internet for Linux, it is still not close to Windows when it comes to setup and maintenance. Where Windows predominantly use GUI interface to run commands, Linux although is using more and more GUI interfaces, still requires a lot of command line functions to administer functions. This if you have the time to learn them is not a problem, however if time is an issue or if you are not IT trained and are just ‘dabbling’ to help provide support for the company then using linux could be more costly in time spent setting up, understanding the systems and maintaining than it would be to buy an Microsoft setup that you may already understand. You could just decide to swap Microsoft Office for Open Office. Open Office is a free office application and with Office 2010 professional coming in at around £200 per license then it would be a change worth considering. Open Office fully integrates with Microsoft Office documents, and you can even get a portable version that can be run from a USB. So if you need to change a document and the machine you are on hasn’t got a office application installed, then you can just run it from your USB device and still make the change.

There are many arguments for and against using free software, it is down to each individual to weigh up the benefits and costs of switching over to new systems, new maintenance screens, new software packages. If your company users Microsoft office now, what would be the fallout if you switched over to open office? Below are a number of resources used to help put this article together and also a list of paid software solutions and the free alternatives.

Please use the blog and the Tech Club forum to post you thoughts on using free software, have you a good or bad experience? Are you considering the switch? If you have switched over, what were the benefits or implications if any?

Resources

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7506682379.html

http://www.linuxforsmallbusiness.com/

http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/running-your-business-on-free-software-2860285.html

NMBS SMS Text Message Service

NMBS will soon be going live with their own text messaging service which will allow users to send up to 5000 texts per day at a cost of 5p per recipient. Each message can be up to 160 characters long and can be scheduled to be sent at a certain time. The message can also be personalised come from a company name or entered telephone number.

The service is quick and easy to use, and you can send a text within 10 simple steps. Each user also gets 5 free texts each day to try the service.

Once the system goes live, all potential users will be notified.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact the NMBS IT department on it.department@nmbs.co.uk

Portable tools all on one USB!!

Portable Tools that you can carry around on a USB

In recent months there has been an increasing output of free tools that can be run from a USB device. What this gives you the ability to do is carry around your PC tools with you. Put yourself in situation where you are out of the office, but need to make an amendment to a document. You have access to a PC/Laptop but no access to the application that can edit the document. By carrying a usb, with a free version of the portable application, you can simply run the application from the USB, make your change to the document and away you go.

Of course this means that the document would need to be in the same or compatible format as the portable tool, however most applications such as this are cross compatible nowadays.

Please see below a small list of tools that you can carry around on USB and use without having to install

• 7-Zip Portable – portable file archiver for zipping and un-zipping files
• CheckDisk Portable – a tool to search and repairs errors on disk drives
• Dr Web CureIt! – Standalone Antivirus utility
• Foxit Reader Portable – portable PDF viewer
• Google Chrome Portable – portable web browser
• Emsisoft Emergency USB Stick – portable malware removal tool
• RoboForm2Go - gives you the freedom and flexibility to carry all your passwords, contacts, and bookmarks, with you for use on any computer
• Restoration Portable – allows you to recover deleted
• Open Office Portable – carry a free portable office suite around with you
• PortableApps.com – portable installation application that hosts a number of apps that you can run from your USB device.

Resources

http://www.magnesiummedia.com/pcutilities/pcuguideto8.html

http://www.portableapps.com/

Google Chrome OS

The Google Chrome OS was launched in beta in December last year, and should hopefully be winging its way to our shelves in the first half of 2011.

The underlying principle behind Google Chrome OS is that it is all web based. You run all your apps in the ‘cloud’, they are all browser based apps not desktop. However they should still work when you are in offline mode. The OS is device independent, it is designed to give the same experience no matter which device you pick up. Google are also claiming it is the most secure desktop environment ever shipped, having a guest mode to allow other to use your machine without viewing your information, and also a boot verify, so if the OS have changed since last boot you can roll back to the last know good configuration.

The OS is fast, allowing you to go from being switched off, to being live and ready for action in 10 seconds, this is due to both the fact it uses solid state storage and also fact Chrome OS has been optimised for speed. Once the results of beta are back, hopefully google will start to ship the devices and the OS.

For more information please use either of the below links -:

http://www.talkincloud.com/google-confirms-chrome-os-netbook-cloud-enterprise-plans/

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/google-chrome-os-what-you-need-to-know-914070

Cardboard USB Stick

A company in Russia has designed a cardboard USB stick that is said to be the first green USB device. The stick can be branded with your own logo or written on. Once major benefit for users are that they are lightweight and can be posted anywhere at a small cost, it also means you can hand them to others without worrying about getting your USB stick back. Although they are yet to go into production, so how cost effective they are is still to be seen, could this be the end of CDs and DVDs as the rewritable media that can easily be handed out to other. Someone asks for a copy of some files, it usually ends up on a CD that they can keep, with this it can be a USB stick that they can keep.