Systemagic Technical Blog

Showing entries 1 to 4 of 26 from our blog | View Next |

How will changes to VAT affect your business?

Today there was a change announced in the rate of VAT from 17.5% down to 15%. Whilst this may seem a minor change, many businesses are unaware how many aspects of their day to day business life this will change. What about your financial software? Do you know how to change the rate of VAT? Do you quote letterheads include the words VAT at 17.5? Do you know how to update the settings on your EPOS systems or tills? Do you trade from your website and do you have calculations automatically made for VAT? All of these things will need changing by 1st December. Systemagic have already started preparing to contact all customers to ensure that they've thought through the changes that need to be made to their websites and online systems and their inhouse software. If you're unsure about any aspect of your business and how the change in VAT will affect you then get in touch with our technical team on 01225 426800 and we'll be pleased to advise you.

Added By: Alex on 24/11/2008

Fight the credit crunch - Optimise your website!

If your business is starting to suffer from the dreaded credit crunch then why not look at ways to improve your website so you get yourself a bigger chunk of the available cash that is still being spent. Optimising your website needn't be a costly experience and you may find that a few small tweaks here and there can make the world of difference to how your site is found by potential customers.

Nowadays Search Engine Optimisation is all about content. Content content content. Many years ago when we started designing websites we used to price on a per page basis. That meant generally clients had a few pages as possible. Nowadays you need to tell the world as much about what you do as possible. If you sell blue, red and green widgets, then have a page about each one detailing the advantages of each product. That way when someone searches for a blue widget your page has the content to reinforce the fact that you sell that very item. The more the search engine thinks your content is relevent to the search, the more likely your listing is to appear.

Systemagic utilise many Search Engine Optimisation Techniques to ensure your site receives the hits it deserves. With optimisation packages starting at only £50 per month, there's no reason why you too cant benefit from our services. If you're still in any doubt then get in touch with us for one of our Free Website Analysis reviews and we'll tell you how your site can be improved.

Our reporting and statistics software shows you exactly what's going on so we dont try and blind you with science and hide our results. Call now on 01225 426800 and ask to speak to one of our web and optimisation team now.

Added By: Alex on 10/11/2008

How does an iPod Touch or iPhone know where i am?

We have been getting lots of calls recently from people wanting help setting up mail on their iphone or ipod touch or syncing their iphone to their car bluetooth, so we decided it was about time we got in on the action and saw what all the fuss was about.... So, we're now have a shiny new iPod touch in the office (we use Orange for our phones, so can't get an iPhone just yet). Anyway, after upgrading the software to version 1.1.4 through iTunes and upgrading to the January software release we started playing around with the applications. For those of you who use the web alot you'll probably have come across Google Maps (http://maps.google.co.uk) which is pretty amazing. The latest release of the Touch and iPhone have a version installed. Right at the bottom there is a button which when you press it, assuming you're connected to wireless, it zooms the map in to where you are. Now, i could understand how this works if you're connected with an iPhone due to triangulation with phone masts etc, but as i'm connected through my office wireless, how does it know where i am? As with all problems that can't be answered straight away, I googled and found a useful explanation on someone elses blog. The link is below, so if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and you have wondered how it knows where you are, then take a look!

Also, if you have one of these gadgets and you're trying to work out how to get your email from Exchange at the office onto your device, just give us a call and we'll tell you all about IMAP.

Here's that link: http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2008/01/the-apple-ipod-touch-just-get-even-better/

Added By: Alex on 15/04/2008

Windows Home Server? In an office?

Windows Home Server was released at the end of last year with the aim of finding its way into peoples homes. We at Systemagic are also keen to test new software so once we had it up and running on one of our Fujitsu Siemens Primergy servers, we discovered (with a little help from Google) that infact the software can backup server operating systems as well as your usual XP and Vista home PC. So, for a small business with a combined network of 10 PCs and Servers or less, this is an ideal solution to your backup worries. Essentially Windows Home Server (or Windows Backup Server as we think it should have been named) performs a complete backup of each of your networked PC or servers each night and then holds an archive copy for up to 3 months. You're limited really only by the amount of disk space you have in your machine and with SATA drives being so cheap these days you can buy enough storage to do 10 PCs without breaking the bank.

We've already installed this solution into a number of clients and we ourselves have already benefited from having it running on our own network by completely recovering one of our laptops which died in under 30 minutes.

To allow our customers to take advantage of Windows Home Server in the best way we've packaged it up with a new Fujitsu Siemens Primergy Server and are selling it as a pre-installed bundle for under £300. You can read more here.

Added By: Alex on 11/02/2008