Tall Glass Ltd

01/03/2016

The next version of the beautiful British born board is here…

Today the new RaspberryPI v3.0 has been released with a full x64 bit processor and built in WiFi and Bluetooth on the board itself.

As early adopters of the the pico and the V2-B boards we were interested to test out the capabilities – but as always with these launches we weren’t able to get any near ordering one in on the first week!

One thing that we are often paranoid about when it comes to any integrated board and wireless system for IoT (Internet of Things) or other sensing is of course the power-consumption. Although naturally there are infinitely far lower powered solutions out there that we have used before (think BEI sensors http://ift.tt/1uBIYuQ and arduino or PICO boards for example) The new computing power and applications that the new board offer are impressive. Especially at that set price of $35!!

Anyway don’t take our word for it, read the power requirements and quick test here:



http://ift.tt/1XUnZgH



Regards – Tall Glass towers….



March 01, 2016 at 03:13PM

08/02/2016

The brave new future of computing often comes with its complications

A recent trip to the Microsoft customer excellence centre in Victoria with the Azure Users Group AUG – has been a very illuminating and insightful look into the heart of how huge companies such as Microsoft create the massively parallel and enormously scalable infrastructure that services millions of customers everyday.

The talk contained elements that showed the data centres, the networking and most importantly the new but fast evolving edge security and filtering services for SAAS and IAAS services. We got to see some of the hidden infrastructure that is required to run the worlds biggest data centres and we also got to see the interesting but as yet unconfirmed expanse into areas such as China and the middle east.

Barracuda have shown off their new completely web appliances that take load balancing from tier 4 and simple blob CDN capability to new heights with packet scanning and threat identification right up to tier 7 load balancing and sql injection filtering etc



For more info see http://ift.tt/1SaYLLr/





February 08, 2016 at 11:56AM

26/01/2016

Fighting Legacy Code – Legacy Code is your faithful friend, but like any old friend, is complicated….

Here at Tall Glass towers we are often asked to look at some old running (or sometimes more often than not) not running code. This is fine and we like a challenge but sometimes it really becomes a spaghetti junction labour of love. It sometimes surprises some of our customers when we let them know how much effort might be involved to try and save a system or adapt an interface to get data moving again because of a random change in a random system elsewhere.

We were struck when we read this blog article from ethode about how to approach the problems around old unsupported code, and we see pockets of expertise all too often – You may be surprised to hear that some of the biggest blue chip companies going! (lets think about all the VAX IBM machines still processing your pay at banks everyday for the last 40 years) are still running the oldest of cobalt code and legacy systems ever….

We generally try to mix the re-write and sustainability based on the customer and their circumstance as best as possible but please have a read of this post and let us know your views, It is always interesting to see the difference between the scary monolith enterprise customer and the quick backup and re-write small micro-service culture that is becoming more prevalent (although we all know the dist- deploy comes with its own challenges)



http://ift.tt/1PAuaq8

Tall Glass

January 26, 2016 at 06:49PM

08/01/2016

Looking to the future of portable, personal computing?

Here at Tall Glass towers we are constantly evaluating and testing new technologies so that you don’t have to. We can then pass on our pros and cons to you to make sure that emerging technologies can provide returns and aid your processes.

Today we have been tinkering with a pre-release version of a new Operating System that is set to provide an interesting new way to work&go “I think we might copyright that © :!)”

You can load a usb stick (or other storage medium) with your android powered operating system which is super lightweight, fast and well supported. You can then go and use any x86 machine, do your work, send your emails, edit your photos etc etc, without having to use any of the storage or installing anything on the machine you are using.

A world where everyone has their pc in their pocket (to a degree) opens up a lot of possibilities – A whole company that essentially has what was an 80’s term ‘dumb terminals’ but all employees have a cloud copied drive with their own desktop and files all securely encrypted could be a great step change, and a relief to network managers !

This portable computing solution isn’t new but the android component is, We think that the lightweight solution that is being developed here could have some very interesting applications, especially in businesses with very disparate user bases or mobile technicians etc





January 08, 2016 at 02:11PM

07/01/2016

End of support for IE? What do you do if you are an enterprise customer? Or even if you aren’t?!

So here in Tall Glass towers we are surprised by a rash statement and patch set (KB) that Microsoft are going to push out soon and we wanted to keep you up to date about how you can keep your essential applications and sites working in your companies etc

Yes that’s right, Microsoft is ending the support for Internet Explorer 8,9, and 10 on January 12th. This news has come as a breath of fresh air as it was considered a bane for many web developers, thanks to the endless security holes in the software.

On Tuesday, a new “End of Life” patch will go live that will ping the Internet Explorer users asking them to upgrade their browsers. This End of Life patch will mean that these older Internet Explorer versions will no longer get regular technical support and security fixes.

This step also means that Internet Explorer 11 is the last version of Microsoft’s vintage browser that’ll be supported. This patch will be delivered as a cumulative security update for these versions:

On Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 7 Service Pack 1 x64 Edition

Internet Explorer 10

Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 8

On Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 x64 Edition

Internet Explorer 10

Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 8

However, if you want to disable this update notification, follow these steps mentioned on Microsoft’s support page.

It’s expected that millions of users will choose to avoid these upgrade notifications, and thus will be prone to security risks. So, you are advisable to either upgrade your browsers, or switch to another web browser altogether.

As always – If you need any help avoiding OR implementing the patch or making changes to your applications, intranets or portals – Let us know at [email protected]

TG

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J

15/07/2015

Have a gander at our new site

www.tallglass.co.uk

We would love your 'constructive' comments :-)

IT and Business Consulting

01/04/2015

We are enjoying some of the seasonal posts at the moment! Some of us even think that this could be an interestingly nerdy move! :¬)

https://youtu.be/irJQDGw8Ptk

Today Microsoft launch MS-DOS Mobile, a new OS designed especially for Lumia smartphones. Microsoft are going back to where productivity started for millions...

15/03/2015

We are loving Microsoft's new foldable keyboard here at Tall Glass towers:

https://youtu.be/WyhGGIkvAZU

Perfectly portable, packable, and precise. Do more on your tablet and smartphone with the Universal Foldable Keyboard that is designed for iPad, iPhone, Andr...

11/02/2015

We are getting booked up! We are going to speak at trans.code, the institute for stats and with the data society in the next two weeks!

Looking forward to them all but it will be great to help out at the learning events the most...

See you there!

07/02/2015

WOW!

We even have rumors that Hans Rosling might be about during the conf, and wants to come and see our talks too!

More details to follow

07/02/2015

Courtney Pine, yes, him! is having a chat with us next week at a techno exhibition! 10 minutes of him telling us about being cool and us trying to be the chair of the session!. We hope we can keep things moving along and learn some things about the world too! .... See here for updates and the attendance of us both at the new digital and mathematics conf coming up soon, twitter feeds to follow.

28/01/2015

Where does the iPad live?

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/nobody-knows-ipad-good-anymore/

How the iPad could become the least practical way for people to traverse their digital lives.