Castle Computer Services Blog

VIRTUAL HOSTING CREATES INCOME FOR CAIRN HOUSING ASSOCIATION

In a unique initiative with Castle Computer Services, Cairn Housing Association is creating opportunities for other Housing Associations to make IT savings and Business Continuity improvements for other Housing Associations by hosting data on its own Castle virtualised servers while at the same time generating extra income for Cairn Housing.

Cairn is already hosting data for Abbeyfield Housing Association and expects to add several more associations this year.

Rory Gaffney, Head of IT, Cairn Housing Association, said:

“We have worked closely with Castle to achieve significant efficiencies since introducing VMware virtual servers in 2007. We have moved from thirteen servers to three, running over twenty virtual machines from three physical hosts. As a result, power costs have also been dramatically reduced because there aren’t so many servers to power and keep cool.

“The flexibility and robustness of the virtual environment means that we can offer secure hosting services to other associations at competitive rates.

It’s a win/win situation because the income is offset against our own IT costs and the other associations benefit from high value, high quality, secure hosting at an affordable price. We are selling our I.T. infrastructure capacity and expertise that we have developed with Castle over the years.

Andrew Cruickshank, Castle Computer Services, said:

“We have worked closely with Cairn since their original move to virtualising their servers in 2007 and they have maximised the opportunities for efficiencies that come with a virtualised system and furthermore generated an income.”

Cairn Housing Association serves a wide variety of communities throughout Scotland and has over 3,000 homes under management. In 2007, Cairn appointed Castle to design and implement a VMware virtual solution to improve performance, reliability and efficiency of its IT infrastructure.

 

Amazon Phishing E-Mails

There has been a marked increase in the number of phishing e-mails that are disguised as e-mails from Amazon. The screenshot below gives one such example:

View "Screenshot Image" here

There are several tell tale signs that this e-mail is not genuine:

1)      It is from amazon.com as opposed to amazon.co.uk (which on its own is not enough to tell as you may shop at amazon.com)

2)      The price is quoted in $ as opposed to £

3)      The subtotal, total and grand totals do not add up

4)      Moving the mouse over any link reveals that clicking on it will not take you to Amazon:

 
 View example here

There are a number of such e-mails in circulation just now and if you were to click on the link, one of two things will happen; either you would be taken to a web site that would attempt to download a piece of malware to your PC / laptop or you will be taken to a web site that looks like a genuine Amazon site that will ask you for your username and password. Once you have entered your username and password, the rogue site will collect your username and password and then divert you to the real Amazon site, so you will think that all is well but you have just given the bad guys your Amazon login details!

It is good practice to always hover your mouse cursor over a link and let your system reveal the actual destination before clicking on a link and if you are at all suspicious, do not click on it.

New SunSystems Accounts Housing Template Saves Time & Money

Castle Computer Services, has developed a unique new system that will reduce the time it takes to install new accounting software by up to a third.

 

Castle’s new housing software template has been developed from the company’s experience of working with over sixty housing associations in the UK. The new approach provides a core template for small to medium size associations that offers high return on investment, without compromise on functionality. It integrates fully with existing housing management systems and incorporates a high level of flexibility.

 

Alan Quinn, Managing Director, Castle Computer Services, said:

“Our experience in the housing sector is second to none and we have used that knowledge to develop a product profile for SunSystems finance applications that incorporates all of the key features required by housing associations. This approach results in much greater efficiencies in the implementation of a software profile that is specified to best meet the customer’s needs.  There is also no need for customers to invest in developing a detailed specification as we can provide this for them to adapt, rather than starting from scratch.”

 

“While we believe that this approach will offer genuine, measurable best value to the majority of housing associations, we recognise that large housing groups have more specific needs and we will continue to offer them a bespoke service.”

The Features of GFI Mail Essentials

Add Disclaimers  To Emails

GFI MailEssentials enables you to add disclaimers to the top or bottom of an email. Text and HTML formats are supported. You can include fields and variables to personalize the disclaimer. You can even create multiple disclaimers and associate them with a user, group or domain.

 

SpamRazer™: An Additional Anti-spam Engine
The latest version of GFI MailEssentials includes a new anti-spam engine, SpamRazer, which provides a second layer of protection. It has been designed for ease-of-use and, due to frequent updates, SpamRazer needs no tweaking to be fully effective in filtering the latest spam attacks such as NDR spam, CNN spam, MSNBC spam and many more. Not only will administrators benefit from out-of-the-box filtering but also they will gain protection from each new attack without the need to tweak GFI MailEssentials. With SpamRazer filtering, IP reputation filtering, Bayesian filtering and other advanced anti-spam technologies, our spam capture rate is well over 99%. GFI MailEssentials has a market-leading low rate of false positives, ensuring the safety of important emails.

 

Precise Real-time Dashboard
GFI MailEssentials also ships with a precise, real-time dashboard that gives administrators a graphic view of the software’s status as well as the server’s email flow. Components shown on the dashboard are: the status of key services provided by GFI MailEssentials; statistics of email flow; blocked spam; and also POP2Exchange logging.

 

Furniture Retail Customer Satisfaction with Castle Fortuna Dynamics

How Castle Fortuna Dynamics provides furniture buying customers with a better experience:

 

People like to be remembered – your sales team can see previous purchases and room layouts to help customers make good choices.

 

Everyone’s tastes are different, so all of the product options that are available on any of the furniture you sell can be seen and priced instantly. The all important product specifications are available too.

 

It’s frustrating for customers when they have to repeat themselves and can be awkward for Sales staff when filling in finance forms after already asking for order and delivery details. With Fortuna Dynamics, you only have to ask people for their information once and all forms are then pre-populated.

 

When a customer has made their choice it is important to them that they receive their goods as quickly as possible and that they receive exactly what they ordered. The Fortuna system does this by eliminating all delays, automatically placing the order with the manufacturer with information directly from the approved order to ensure no mistakes and ensuring that the order is delivered as soon as all elements have arrived in the warehouse.

 

Another common frustration for customers can occur when they have been told that their goods will arrive in 6 weeks and after that time they still haven’t heard anything, only to phone in and find there has been a delay. Fortuna Dynamics automatically updates customers of any delays and advises of delivery dates via email. It can also automatically send reminders out regarding pre-payment if required.

 

“In this day and age why do I have to take a whole day off to receive delivery of a coffee table?” With Fortuna Dynamics delivery routes are efficiently planned and you can give a much more accurate time of delivery, so the lasting perception of your service is a good one.

 

When goods have been damaged or need to be returned, customers appreciate an efficient and consistent approach. Fortuna Dynamics provides pre-populated stationery and systems for all circumstances, empowering your staff to deal with problems effectively.

 

To find out more go to www.expertsindynamics.com where we have a brochure, further information and a film of how you can analyse your business.

There are Firewalls, and there are Firewalls managed by experts

Castle’s proactive support service goes further much further than you would expect. When we install a Firewall for a customer, you would be surprised at all that’s involved to ensure their protection night and day. 

Your Firewall

A key part of the security of your network comes from the investment you have made in your firewall. This device not only protects the perimeter of your network by reducing the risk of server attack from the Internet, but it also allows Castle to continually monitor the security of the firewall. We know that some organisations simply install a firewall and then assume it will continue to be effective. At Castle, we ensure you remain protected as we proactively monitor not only the Juniper firewall itself but also your Internet connection, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Hackers launch SEO poisoning attacks, using Haiti appeals

David Paine, Technical Services Manager at Castle Computer Services writes:

A rising trend in the area of Information Security from the end of 2009 that is predicted to increase in prevalence even further in 2010 is a technique known as Search Engine Optimisation or an SEO poisoning attack. This occurs when a hacker compromises search engine results to make their links appear higher than legitimate results. This means that as you search for related terms the infected links appear near the top of the search results, generating a greater number of clicks to malicious Web sites, which may subsequently lead to malware being unknowingly downloaded to your computer. In the last year, attackers have used this technique to poison search results on everything from television awards to humanitarian disasters, and so we get to the Haiti earthquake...

Cheques to be phased out by 2018

According to a BBC Report, cheques are to be phased out by 2018.

How would this affect your organisation? Do you think they are archaic and have adequately been replaced by plastic or are they still important for receiving invoice payments?

Amazing QlikView stats

George today loaded 2.6m records into a new QlikView document for a customer in just 120 seconds, stored in just 11.7MB of memory. Each re-load thereafter will also take 2 minutes. To get that volume and level of detail loaded into QlikView in 2 minutes to allow them to analyse accordingly is astonishingly amazingly phenomenal! I could go on but I won’t, you get the picture.

Highly successful Castle SunSystems User event for Housing Associations

This well attended customer event for UK Housing Associations was a hit with 100% of customers rating this event positively in terms of value and over 77% of customers rating the day as Very Good or Excellent!

The agenda was packed full of topics such as: -

• SunSystems Update where over 90% of customers rated this positively, Hints & Tips Workshop and Support Service Update where over 50% of customers rated this as Very Good or Excellent. 

• Our new Business Intelligence solution,QlikView was met with interest and over 90% of customers rated this presentation Very Good or Excellent. 

• The day concluded with the Housing User Forum which was rated either Very Good or Excellent by over 65% of our customers. 

Thanks to all who attended and to those who provided us with this valuable feedback!  Some quotes of the day included, ‘very helpful…well planned and thought out…helpful to meet with other users and gather tips'