Arbutus Ridge
Arbutus Ridge
works with you to find IT-driven ways of making your business run better. Our clients are small business owners who know that growth and value are held back if you depend on one or two key people being there all the time. Everything we do is about helping you improve the systems and processes on which you rely.
Testimonial
"The advice we received from Arbutus Ridge was invaluable and we are very pleased with their Jumpstart package.”
The owner of an Edinburgh glazing company
Want a copy of the case study? Email case-studies@arbutusridge.co.uk
The Doctor's In ?
Would you like to meet up for a chat over coffee about your business IT systems?
Perhaps you are struggling to get yours to work properly and could do with an IT advisor to help sort out some problems. Or are you thinking of upgrading your system, but would appreciate some advice on how to go about it and the pitfalls to avoid? We would be delighted to discuss these and other issues in an informal no-sales-pitch environment.
We are resident most Mondays between 5 and 6 pm at Starbucks - 30 George ST Edinburgh (Corner of Hanover ST). Look out for the Arbutus Ridge sign. Please call 0845 094 8487 if you would like to confirm an appointment, or to make a different, more convenient arrangement.
Looking forward to meeting you soon.
Top 7 employee bungles using Office
- Opening dangerous attachments. Viruses like Melissa ("I love you!") are a huge problem. The kicker about it is that everyone
acts flabbergasted and incredulous. "What sort of idiot clicks on these things?!" It's like Hootie and the Blowfish: the best-selling
debut album of all time has no fans. Have you ever met a single person who admitted to owning Cracked Rear View? Same with Melissa.
- Forgetting to include attachments. This is the evil twin of #1: in addition to clicking on harmful attachments, we
forget to include useful attachments. So when you see an email with the subject "Foolproof Plan for World Peace — Part Deux," don't get
too excited. As awesome as the plan probably is, it's almost definitely not attached to the email
- Replying-all to huge mailing lists. Any email to a large alias inevitably results in someone (no doubt a proud Hootie
CD owner) replying to everyone. The threads are always the same. Something rather mundane or obscure is sent to thousands of people. Then
the fan mail starts pouring in:
- "Why am I on this list?"
- "Unsubscribe."
- "Please also remove me!"
- "Please stop replying to everyone — there are thousands of people on this alias."
- "Me too!"
- "SERIOUSLY — STOP REPLYING ALL!"
- "Why are you shouting?"
- "We never talk anymore."
- Putting aliases in the "To:" field in order to see who's in them. To see names on an alias, you can put the alias in
the "To:" field of an email and double-click it ... if you're a complete idiot. A friend of mine ("Jimmy") almost got fired by an
executive for doing this. A product that this executive was in charge of was getting cancelled, but her team didn't yet know it. When
Jimmy heard the scoop, he wrote his boss an e-mail that essentially said, "Hey there, so-and-so's team is getting canned. Here are
the only three people worth keeping..." He then proceeded to add so-and-so's entire team to the "To:" line in order to find out the
names of the "only three people worth keeping." The rest of what happened is left as an exercise to the reader.
- Projecting a PowerPoint presentation. The amount of time wasted sitting in conference rooms waiting for the presenter to
get the slides to work is mind-boggling. Does the projector handle your resolution? Press Fn-F5! Click the little icon in the lower left to
resume your slide show. Not that icon! The other one! Oh, the screen saver's kicked in. Your laptop's suspending!
- Getting instant messages (IMs) during presentations. Once the presentation is going, IM notifications inevitably pop up
on the screen. This tends to happen most when you're presenting in front of hundreds of people. "Yo! How did the [blind-date/colonoscopy/
armed-robbery] go?" "Hi, [term of endearment]! I can't wait to [verb] your [adjective][noun] [now/tonight/again/forever]!" I'm told that
the latest version of Office fixes this. Let's hope so.
Note: From the Editor: In 2007 Office system, Desktop Alerts for incoming e-mail messages are turned off by default when you run a PowerPoint 2007 presentation. See Turn Desktop Alerts on or off for more info.
- Using Excel to cover up Unreal Tournament. Well, I've only seen this once, but it's so eponymous that it deserves to
be celebrated. A few years ago, one of my team members frantically maximized Excel as I walked into his office. As I began discussing a
technical issue with him, sounds of gunfire, grenades, and general human suffering erupted from his speakers. I had a difficult decision to
make while recovering from my brief initial confusion: Do I acknowledge what was already mutually embarrassing and awkward, or do I ignore the
obvious? I decided to conduct our technical discussion with the idyllic calm of a wartime correspondent. To his credit, I now know that should
push come to shove, my team member could calmly discuss a spec during Armageddon without batting an eyelash.
By Philip Su
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