Memory sticks, archiving, and broadcasting live

We finally moved into the office last week and straight away got on with the task of organising things ready for business. It has been busy, and time consuming, and there are still quite a few things to organise but mostly we are now waiting on the release of Adobe Creative Suite 5, due - hopefully - mid-May, so work can pick up on the first big project in an effort to push it to beta status for testing online.

One option was to sit around, tapping the desk with our fingers, waiting for the release of CS5, or get on with one of the many other tasks we have on our long To Do list for the business. The office is starting to take shape and look more like what you might typically expect. If you were one of the people logging in on our live video feed over at Bambuser last week then you will know the office still looks pretty empty (for the technically interested - the webcam is a Microsoft LifeCam HD).

Each day of trading surprises us as we're amazed just how much paper work is generated from outside sources (and don’t get me started on the emailed press releases). The filing cabinets are filling up rapidly with essential “must keep” documents and there looks no end in sight – we can only hope that two filing cabinets are going to be enough for the first year.

The 2TB data archiving drive, a Buffalo Linkstation Duo, is now in place and the appropriate shares and security permissions have been setup. The HP OfficeJet Pro arrived too, and it’s useful being able to configure the Scan to Digital Store button to point to the Buffalo unit – a quick and easy solution for long-term scanning and storage of documents. Whilst the Linkstation's role will be to archive, essential daily backups are being put on 8GB memory sticks – there are two we rotate although we are soon going to hit the ceiling – 32GB or 64GB sticks may be next. The memory sticks are archived to the Linkstation (which itself is mirrored) on a daily basis. This needs formalising into a routine - one of the tasks for this week.

The accounts laptop is in too – a 17.3in HP ProBook which I ordered together with Microsoft Office Standard 2007. Sage and the banking applications are ready to be configured (some minor hold ups as the version of Sage we have been sent isn’t the version we ordered!) – but there is still the all-in-one and netbook to obtain which we’re still pondering. In fact, we’re now thinking of getting an iPad instead of a netbook...

Jason Slater is a columnist for IT PRO and has just set up his own company.

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