This month's hot special

Sign up for the Databias hosted Exchange service before the end of November and get 3 months free of charge. At the recently reduced price of R100 per month for a 2GB mailbox (we love a strong Rand), Databias has got to be the most affordable Exchange host in South Africa.

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What's in the next issue?

BlackBerry Enterprise - pimp your BlackBerry

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Email: info@databias.co.za
Tel: +27 028 316 1981
Fax: +27 086 508 5171
Web: www.databias.co.za
Physical Address:
6 Disa Road, Onrus River, Western Cape, 7201

Issue 1 | 27 October 2010

As an enhanced internet service provider, we at Databias pride ourselves in keeping up to date with all the latest innovations. Lately we have been hard at work investigating technologies that actually save you time and money, technologies that we South Africans can start using today.

Our series of newsletters are designed to help you identify what new technology you need now, what you can do without and what you should perhaps wait a little while longer for, all with a definite slant toward communications and specifically, email.

So, sit back, relax and read on. Let us take the hard work out of deciphering the techno-speak on the tip of everyone's tongues.

Best wishes,

Matt Faircliff (matt@databias.co.za)
Managing Member - Databias | Enhanced Internet Services

Featured Article

Microsoft Hosted Exchange 2010
by Jessica Faircliff

Data, led by innovations in networking and improved online storage, is moving off personal computers and into what is known as the cloud. Although online storage is an old concept, these days it is being fine-tuned to make our lives easier and safer. The possibility of losing data is no longer a problem as it is all stored centrally and accessing your information is as easy as logging into any computer with an internet connection.

Google pioneered the launch into the cloud with its suite of online applications (known as Google Apps) such as Gmail, Docs and Calendar, which offer the average layman the ability to create a virtual working desktop accessible from any computer. However, the other giants of desktop computing are catching up. Apple countered with MobileMe, a cheap online sync of data on your Mac, iPhone and iPad. Microsoft, realising that they were losing ground in the mushrooming cloud space, developed hosted Exchange, a Software as a Service (SaaS) version of the popular Exchange 2010.

One advantage of hosted Exchange when compared to competitors is the familiar Outlook mail client. We at Databias have a love hate relationship with Outlook - its support for web standards is almost non-existent which makes designing good-looking newsletters for Outlook a nightmare. Where it does trump all competition is its speed and ease of use when manipulating your online email, calendars and contacts. Global address books and shared calendars are other tried and tested benefits of the Exchange offering.

The ability to sync your email, calendar and contact data between Outlook, your Exchange server and your cell phone is a big requirement for most people these days. Microsoft's ActiveSync is a core feature of Exchange and is available natively on most cellular phones (Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Apple to name a few). In addition to this, Exchange supports the BlackBerry Enterprise Server which does the same (and more) for the range of BlackBerry smart phones.

But probably the most important feature of hosted Microsoft Exchange is the revamped webmail, Outlook Web Access. As one expects, OWA provides access to all email, contacts and calendars, however now it has organisational administrative functions too. Privileged users can add mailboxes, login to other mailboxes in their organisation, manage the global address book and set organisation wide message rules, amongst other things.

The bottom line is that Exchange is overall a far more enterprise ready solution than any of its competitors. It is a tried and tested collaboration platform with over 15 years of development having gone into its latest release. Thanks to hosted Exchange, these advantages are now available to individuals and SMME's for a fraction of the cost it would take to run in-house. Databias is one of a few select service providers in South Africa to offer this service and perhaps the only one to offer the latest version, Exchange 2010 with service pack 1.

Site Spotlight

Dropbox - www.dropbox.com

Dropbox is a file hosting service which has come a long way since the days when we first discovered it. With increased space and support for Windows, Mac, Linux, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad and Android it should cover all the bases for most people. Best of all, it's completely free!

App of Note

WhatsApp - www.whatsapp.com

If you don't use it already we know you are going to love WhatsApp. It's a smartphone messenger capable of sending free MMS messages between a wide range of phones. Now iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia devices can all communicate via a single app. That's what we call progress!

Tip of the Day

Are you an Outlook user? Supercharge your Outlook by disabling unused Add-Ins. Go to: File > Options > Add-Ins > Click the 'Go...' button at the bottom and uncheck Add-Ins you don't use.

Quote of the Day

"The difference between e-mail and regular mail is that computers handle e-mail, and computers never decide to come to work one day and shoot all the other computers." - Jamais Cascio