Latest News

      • Free Microsoft ‘Cloud’ for Charities!

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      • ESP Projects

      In an unexpected but welcome development, Microsoft has recently announced that they are allowing Charities of all sizes to benefit from their Premier Office 365 cloud offering for FREE! The additional features offered as part of this service include:

      • Hosted Exchange – Allow Microsoft to host your emails, and take advantage of unlimited shared contacts, calendars and mailboxes
      • Skydrive Pro – A central place to access and edit documents and business information from virtually anywhere
      • Office Web Apps – Access Word, PowerPoint and Excel with an internet browser to allow you to work across multiple devices (including smartphones).
      • Lync – Save travel costs by using Microsoft Lync Online to conduct online meetings, including audio, HD video, and web conferencing

      More Inside ...

      • Windows XP and Office 2003 End of Life!

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      • ESP Projects

      On April 8, 2014, Microsoft will end support for the decade-old Windows XP Operating System.
      What this means for our clients is that any PC or Laptop with Windows XP will no longer receive updates, including security updates, from Microsoft. Support of Microsoft Office 2003, by Microsoft, will also be ending on the same date.

      The security and privacy implications of this event could have significant impacts on your business, so if you’re running either of these products you should plan to take action soon. Some of the concerns are detailed below;

      • Web Design Team Update

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      • ESP Projects

      ESP Projects’ web development team has been really busy in recent months and I’m delighted to share with you some examples of recently launched sites.

      Sheffield Cubed

      Launch date: 1st October 2013

      Sheffield Cubed is a third sector membership organisation designed to seek out and win contract and funding opportunities which enable our members to meet the needs of local people through the provision of high-quality effective client centred services. The live site can be seen here www.sheffieldcubed.co.uk

      • Google for Nonprofits

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      • ESP Projects

      Google for Nonprofits was launched recently in the UK (England and Wales only, apparently). The programme gives Registered Charities free access to 4 Google services:

      • Google Grants: Free AdWords advertising to promote your website on Google through keyword targeting.
      • YouTube for Nonprofits: Premium branding capabilities on YouTube channels, increased uploading capacity and more.
      • Google Earth Outreach Grants: Free licensing for Google Earth Pro and Maps API for Business.
      • Google Apps for Nonprofits: Free version of Google Apps for Nonprofits
      • Digital Region Network Closure

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      • ESP Projects

      You may have heard the news this week regarding the uncertain future of the Digital Region network. Digital Region is a scheme to roll out superfast fibre broadband to homes and businesses across the South Yorkshire region, backed by the four councils. This is a project that began in 2010 and has been slowly working its way through the postcodes in the region, to enable businesses and consumers alike to benefit from Superfast Fibre Broadband. ESP Projects has referred several of our clients to this service, and indeed use Digital Region at our own office.

      • Mobile Deals

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      • ESP Projects

      Many people contact us about iPhone, HTC, Android and other mobile phones. For some, they are thinking of buying a mobile deal for business, for others they have already bought them, but need them to be configured with the relevant settings for their email and calendars. We’d like to take this opportunity to tell you a bit more about these smartphones and what ESP Projects can do for you on this subject.

      • Windows 8 Hybrids, Tablets & Ultrabooks

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      • ESP Projects

      The last couple of months have seen a slew of new products on the market seeking to make use of the new Windows 8 operating system in some novel ways. Indeed, a whole new lexicon has been introduced to cover these computers! Terms like ‘Convertibles’, ‘Sliders’ and ‘Twisters’ try to describe the diverse ways the new devices can be transformed for different uses.

      • Nursery Management Software

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      • ESP Projects

      Whilst there is some concern nationally at the high cost of Childcare in the UK, we at ESP Projects know from several childcare providers we support that this is not because they are making huge profits! Indeed the margins in this vital area of the economy are often extremely tight and many are only just able to stay afloat.

      All the more important then that these organisations can make use of IT to allow staff to focus on their jobs rather than on paperwork. To this end, ESP Projects has recently uncovered some interesting software solutions that can help manage early years childcare facilities. This is software designed and built purely for this purpose and helps in key areas such as:

      • Microsoft Safety Scanner

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      • ESP Projects

      Website readers might be interested to know of a handy little tool that few have heard of but that has been around for over year now. The Microsoft Safety Scanner is a natty little utility designed to run a one-off scan for viruses. It can’t be installed permanently and offers no ‘ongoing’ protection, so it’s not a substitute for Antivirus software. However, it’s free for all and easy to use- all you do is download and run it, and it can do a ‘Quick Scan’ in a few minutes.

      • Get What You Want With Amazon Wish Lists

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      • ESP Projects

      A couple of our Charity clients have mentioned recently that setting up an Amazon Wish List is an excellent way of obtaining products they would otherwise have to raise cash for. The way it works is that you do some hypothetical shopping, and then create and share a link to your Wish List via your website, twitter, email or facebook page. Potential donors can now easily buy you these products – or indeed suggest an alternative source – rather than giving you money.

      • Tablet Features for Business

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      • ESP Projects

      Our love affair with tablet computers shows no sign of abating, with 100m reportedly sold in 2012, compared with just 20m or so in 2010. According to some analysts, tablet sales may well exceed those of PCs before long and even last years’ sales are said to be more than trebling by 2015.  Such high sales figures just can’t relate to trendy ‘early adopter’ types sporting the latest sexy designs, so who is going to be buying all of these tablets?

      • Windows Phone 8 Review: First Reflections

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      • ESP Projects

      Here at ESP Projects, there is nearly always someone who just can’t resist tinkering with the latest kit, and this month it seems to be Morgan’s turn, with the arrival of his new Nokia Lumia 820 Windows Phone. It’s only been a matter of days, but as we’ve posted before, so much rests on the new generation of Microsoft’s operating system we thought you’d enjoy a sneak peak of his first reflections on the device:

      • Texting From Outlook SMS

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      • ESP Projects

      Have you ever wanted to text someone but haven’t had your mobile phone handy? Or needed to send information to staff who haven’t got access to the internet? Well now you can! Esendex is a new service that allows you to send text messages to mobile phones from Outlook va SMS ( Short Message Service).

      There are three main pricing packages available from Esendex:

      • Measuring Social Impact for Charities

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      • ESP Projects

      Views’ is the latest online project management and impact reporting tool designed for statutory and voluntary organisations. Developed with backing from NESTA and the Government’s Cabinet Office it helps frontline deliverers of public/social services to assess and improve what they do.

      ‘Views’ enables organisations to record and report against different outcome frameworks and to publish comprehensive reports in a variety of online and hardcopy formats from a single dataset. ‘Views’ helps users build detailed case histories, whilst also enabling organisations to aggregate, map and measure complex data. Whether that data is hard facts or in multimedia formats, ‘Views’ can provide a single solution for a range of different reporting requirements. Because ‘Views’ is a flexible data platform, it can be easily configured by system users according to national programme templates, or bespoke local requirements.

      • Improve Customer Relationships with Dynamics CRM

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      • ESP Projects

      Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform from Microsoft.

      Its single integrated platform aims to support any type of organisation and give them a customer-centred system with enhanced quality and availability of data. The highly flexible platform can be fully customised to meet any business environment, small or large, commercial or civil.

      • Windows 8 Launch is Nearly Here!

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      • ESP Projects

      Windows 8 is nearly here. Yes! It’s really true!

      For those buying a Windows 7 PC today, you can already buy a Windows 8 upgrade for £14.99. But if you wait just 6 weeks, new PCs will begin shipping with Windows 8 pre-installed. Incidentally, that day – October 26th – will also be the day that Microsoft release their own ‘Tablet’ device called ‘Surface’, which will of course feature Windows 8.

      • Open Licence Changes Mean Much Higher Prices for Charities

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      • ESP Projects

      That’s an attention-grabbing headline! What’s happened?

      There are many different forms of software licencing provided by Microsoft, and the whole system is quite complex to understand. However, many ‘Third Sector’ organisations, like charities, social enterprises and other not-for-profit organisations, have historically been able to benefit from so-called ‘Education’ discounts by virtue of being defined as ‘not-for-profit charitable organisations’. This particular price band means the cost of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional under an Open agreement for example has been around £60 instead of the full commercial rate of around £350.

      • Cookies and the New EU Cookie Law Explained

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      • ESP Projects

      The EU Cookie Law is a new piece of privacy legislation that requires visitors to give consent before allowing a website to store or retrieve any information from any device through the use of cookies. By educating visitors on how information about them is collected through the use of cookies, and allowing them to decide for themselves if they wish to allow it to take place, the aim is to protect online privacy for everyone.

      • Save Money on Printing!

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      • ESP Projects

      Everybody in these days of cutbacks is very cost-sensitive and has to make savings wherever possible. One area where there might be a false economy though is in cheap toner for laser printers.

      We’ve recently noticed a spate of low-price ‘refill’ toners resulting in very poor quality print and worse actually leaking into the printer, causing irreparable damage. The experience won’t the same for everyone of course, but we can say that you just don’t get these problems with the manufacturers own toner cartridges.

      • Charity Software Scheme Gets a Whole Lot Easier!

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      • ESP Projects

      Over the years we’ve done as much as we can to raise awareness of the amazing discounts available to registered charities through the CTX software donations program at http://www.ctxchange.org (run by the Charity Technology Trust). Dozens of our clients have benefited from £1000’s savings in purchasing licensing in this manner.