Nowadays, of course, Video Games are big business – Hollywood Movie Blockbuster like budgets are assigned to games and the market is dominated by big players. Breaking into that market is virtually impossible for the individual programmer.

But then along came Smartphones and with them, Apps. The Apple AppStore and Android Marketplace have hundreds of thousands of apps priced at a few pounds and under – and in many cases, free of charge. Suddenly, it’s not quite as impossible to put together a Smartphone based Video Game and make it available to the masses.

But it still takes time and money to put together such an app. Juggling developing an app with a full-time job can be a challenge, as Paul Chambers, a Brit living in New York with his new wife Zoe, found out.

Paul and Zoe have spent the evenings and weekends of the last six months, and the first six months of their marriage, developing their first game for the iPod Touch, iPad and iPhone – Islands of Diamonds.

Paul explains the project came out of an exercise on his part to learn some new software (it’s Unity 3D for those who are interested) and a mid-career, “I should do something else” crisis.

Thus, the couple founded HappyMonitor – an independent Video Game studio based in New York.

“Islands of Diamonds” asks players to guide a perfectly round coconut called Seamus through a group of thirty islands of physics puzzles in an effort to reach every last diamond before the time runs out. Paul and Zoe are on target to release the game in the Apple AppStore in early March, but this comes with another challenge – how do you get your game noticed in a sea of 100,000’s of Apps?

One way to raise awareness of your game as well as raise funds to help with development is the web-site KickStarter.

KickStarter is a site that provides the tools to allow creative entrepreneurs to attract micro-transactional funding with a crowd of supporters raising money for the project, and then give thanks to those supporters in the form of creative rewards for their contribution.

It’s not just Video Games that KickStarter supports. A quick browse of the KickStarter web-site shows Film, Art, Design, Food, Publishing, Music and Technology with some examples including recording a CD, putting a play together and producing a short film.

Simply put, you list your creative project on KickStarter along with a description, a video and a target funding amount. There’s no charge to list your project, and KickStarter only take a fee if you reach your target.

If you attract enough pledge money to meet your target by the deadline you’ve set, then you get the funding and away you go. If you don’t raise the right funding by the deadline, contributors keep their money.

Paul and Zoe have listed Islands of Diamonds at Kickstarter with a $3500 goal with the intention of porting their game to the Android marketplace. I’ve pledged – and many others have too. Here’s a short video from Paul and Zoe to explain more.

Quite apart from the pledges though, using KickStarter as a platform gives your app visibility. After all, without KickStarter I might not be writing this blog post talking about Islands of Diamonds!

I personally love the KickStarter concept, the visibility and the leg-up it gives to many small developers like Paul and Zoe.

If you’d like to pledge to their project, visit the KickStarter page for Islands of Diamonds and if you’d like to find out more about Islands of Diamonds then you can visit the Islands of Diamonds homepage or the Islands of Diamonds Facebook Fan page. You can also find HappyMonitor on Twitter.

Good luck Paul and Zoe – I hope to see Islands of Diamonds on my HTC Sensation Android device soon!

Nowadays, of course, Video Games are big business – Hollywood Movie Blockbuster like budgets are assigned to games and the market is dominated by big players. Breaking into that market is virtually impossible for the individual programmer.

But then along came Smartphones and with them, Apps. The Apple AppStore and Android Marketplace have hundreds of thousands of apps priced at a few pounds and under – and in many cases, free of charge. Suddenly, it’s not quite as impossible to put together a Smartphone based Video Game and make it available to the masses.

But it still takes time and money to put together such an app. Juggling developing an app with a full-time job can be a challenge, as Paul Chambers, a Brit living in New York with his new wife Zoe, found out.

Paul and Zoe have spent the evenings and weekends of the last six months, and the first six months of their marriage, developing their first game for the iPod Touch, iPad and iPhone – Islands of Diamonds.

Paul explains the project came out of an exercise on his part to learn some new software (it’s Unity 3D for those who are interested) and a mid-career, "I should do something else" crisis.

Thus, the couple founded HappyMonitor – an independent Video Game studio based in New York.

"Islands of Diamonds" asks players to guide a perfectly round coconut called Seamus through a group of thirty islands of physics puzzles in an effort to reach every last diamond before the time runs out. Paul and Zoe are on target to release the game in the Apple AppStore in early March, but this comes with another challenge – how do you get your game noticed in a sea of 100,000’s of Apps?

One way to raise awareness of your game as well as raise funds to help with development is the web-site KickStarter.

KickStarter is a site that provides the tools to allow creative entrepreneurs to attract micro-transactional funding with a crowd of supporters raising money for the project, and then give thanks to those supporters in the form of creative rewards for their contribution.

It’s not just Video Games that KickStarter supports. A quick browse of the KickStarter web-site shows Film, Art, Design, Food, Publishing, Music and Technology with some examples including recording a CD, putting a play together and producing a short film.

Simply put, you list your creative project on KickStarter along with a description, a video and a target funding amount. There’s no charge to list your project, and KickStarter only take a fee if you reach your target.

If you attract enough pledge money to meet your target by the deadline you’ve set, then you get the funding and away you go. If you don’t raise the right funding by the deadline, contributors keep their money.

Paul and Zoe have listed Islands of Diamonds at Kickstarter with a $3500 goal with the intention of porting their game to the Android marketplace. I’ve pledged – and many others have too. Here’s a short video from Paul and Zoe to explain more.

http://kck.st/znzH8U

Quite apart from the pledges though, using KickStarter as a platform gives your app visibility. After all, without KickStarter I might not be writing this blog post talking about Islands of Diamonds!

I personally love the KickStarter concept, the visibility and the leg-up it gives to many small developers like Paul and Zoe.

If you’d like to pledge to their project, visit the KickStarter page for Islands of Diamonds and if you’d like to find out more about Islands of Diamonds then you can visit the Islands of Diamonds homepage or the Islands of Diamonds Facebook Fan page. You can also find HappyMonitor on Twitter.

Good luck Paul and Zoe – I hope to see Islands of Diamonds on my HTC Sensation Android device soon!

What does this mean for you as a Google user? Well, Google are being very clear that if you’re signed in with a Google account (which you may well do via Google Search, YouTube, Google+, GoogleMail or any one of a number of other sites) then they may combine information gathered about you from any of those platforms.

This will present itself as you’ll see a much more integrated service from Google. So if you search for a certain technology brand, you may see search results that incorporate videos or blogs that others have shared with you on YouTube or Google+.

On the downside, not everyone is happy about these changes from a privacy perspective.

An interesting site to visit is Google.com/ads/preferences. From here you are shown the type of ads you’ll be served up with on Google sites, based on the assumptions Google have made from the data they’ve collected about you.

This can be a little hit and miss. If you see the screenshot below, Google has correctly guessed I’m a 35-44 year old Male, and that I like Business & Industrial, Computers & Electronics and so on. But I’ve got zero interest in some of the other topics it suggests for me.

Google isn’t always so clever though. One young lady I know was listed as a 35-44 Male… Thankfully you can remove or edit these topics or information, or indeed, Opt-Out of these targeted advertisements altogether.

For the majority of people, they’re totally ignorant to the fact that companies like Google and Facebook are using our private information in this way. For others (myself included) I’m comfortable with this provided I know how the information is used.

It goes back to the saying – “If you don’t pay for a service, you are the product”.

As long as you’re aware of that and the implications, there’s no problem.

At the top of that list of individuals is Karl Palachuk. As well as writing what I consider to be the premier blog within the SMB IT industry – Small Biz Thoughts – Karl is a prolific author and has shared countless hours of knowledge through his blog posts, webinars and Podcasts that I personally have found invaluable, and I know many others have too.

Karl is now trying something new by hosting a 3-Day Online Conference specifically for Computer Consultants, in June 2012. The conference will focus on building successful business processes and will feature some of the best business and technology speakers in the U.S.

The online conference – Managing for Success 2012 – is the first event of its kind targeting technology providers and computer consultants.

Two of the keynote speakers at the Conference are Stephanie Chandler and Patrick Schwerdtfeger. Chandler is the author of seven books, including Own Your Niche on the Internet and Beyond. Her Business Info Guide web site – www.BusinessInfoGuide.com – is an extremely popular destination for small business owners. Patrick Schwerdtfeger is an internally recognized authority on social media marketing and the author of several books, including Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed.

Other speakers include some of the most influential pioneers and opinion leaders in the world of technical consulting. But this is not a technology conference. As Karl says “This is a business focused conference for I.T. Professionals. We want to help computer consultants to be better business people, with a vision for the future and strategies for success. That’s why we named the conference Managing for Success 2012. Conference sessions will cover managing a business, marketing a business, creating standard operating procedures, building a strong team, and even buying up your competition.”

The conference is online only and will run 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM EST on June 26-28, 2012. Whilst that might mean some late nights for those of us in the UK who will be participating, I’m more than confident that the content will be worth it and as attendees can choose to listen live or also have access to the recorded sessions – you can revisit anything you miss. In all, the conference will broadcast eighteen hours of programming in three days.

The conference registration and information site is now available – so if you’re interested in learning from some amazing presenters, I’d encourage you to check it out.

Good luck to Karl and everyone involved in the event!

Some of these conversations produce absolute golden tips and insight, and so there is many a time I wish I had recorded them!

So we’ve started to do just that! With the help of the folks at CompTIA UK, I’m recording regular Podcasts interviewing members of the UK Channel Community.

This month I’ve interview my old friend Matt Barton of Exmouth based Ostrich IT.

Matt is well known in our space for being a real road-warrior. Despite living on the South Coast, he’s up and down the UK’s motorway network visiting clients, his peers and user group meetings on a regular basis. In our Podcast, Matt shares his journey of moving from the Midlands to Exmouth to setup a Managed Service Provider in what would generally be considered a tough market to establish a foothold.

The Podcast will shortly be available via iTunes, but in the meantime you can download it to listen to directly.

Would you like to be featured in an upcoming Podcast?

Is there anyone within the UK Channel that you would like to hear from?

Do let me know!

There’s an impressive agenda planned, including a lively and interactive session on LinkedIn for business delivered by Social Media Guru; Mark Mapstone, a member focus presentation delivered by an executive council member; Mark Williams, Managing Director of Pensar and 2 interactive workshops focused on getting you talking about how to get more and better end-user leads to enable growth as well as how building effective partnering relationships with others can help you grow.

The event attendance is capped at a maximum of 50 delegates and I believe we’re close to that number, so if you haven’t already – get in quick and register at https://www.comptia.org/events/eventregistration.aspx?eventid=UK01232012.

Registration is free and open to both CompTIA and non-CompTIA members, and if you’re an IT Solution Provider, Managed Service Provider, Vendor or Distributor – I think you’ll get a lot of value from attending. Need convincing? Here’s three members opinions on their experience.

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with me, or contact the community manager, William Linard at wlinard@comptia.org.

But we all have on-line friends who not only aren’t as savvy, but frankly, never, ever seem to learn – no matter how much you try to educate them. Facebook is rife with them. They’re the ones who are always being caught by the “OMG! I checked out who views my profile and you wouldn’t believe it!” but despite you telling them not to click these links, a similar message pops up on their Facebook timeline a few weeks (or even days) afterwards.

Now Anti-Virus vendor BitDefender has come to the rescue with a tool which can help protect you and your friends from both Facebook and Twitter scams.

Safego from BitDefender is an App which you authorise via your Facebook and/or Twitter page, and once installed, protects your account from all sorts of trouble including scams, spam, malware and private data exposure.

I setup Safego for both my Twitter and Facebook accounts within minutes, and it immediately searched both Social Networking sites to ensure that I wasn’t already connected to anyone who was a spammer or scammer.

There are a number of additional features to the tool which are useful, such as the app advising you how secure your account is in terms of revealing personal information. My own Facebook account has both a City and Hometown displayed, for instance, which Safego suggests I remove on privacy grounds.

Once installed, if you go to click a dodgy link on Facebook or Twitter (via the web interface at least), Safego will advise you not to do this. If your friend falls for a scam, it’ll warn you – and depending on your app setting preference, allow you to automatically tell them they’ve been scammed too.

The BitDefender Safego tool is free, and I’m going to recommend it to all my friends and family. Most are very web-savvy, but all of us can be fooled, and I’m hoping this tool will persuade some of my less savvy online friends (who seem to have an unhealthy predication to clicking dodgy links) to act in a safer manner.

We’ll be covering a lot of ground in the 60 minute webinar including:-

• principles for using social networking
• ROI of social networking
• social networking vs. social media
• tips for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
• business reasons to blog
• what are content loops and how to use them
• third-party tools to better manage social sites
• how social networking differs from traditional business networking

We’ll also be taking questions via Twitter during the webinar, so Tweet your questions to @Autotask or @Tubblog.

Registration for the webinar is free and you can register now at http://www.autotask.com/WebinarRegistration/index.aspx?w=633741635&source=ew-pinv-rtubb-021612

See you then!

As promised, let’s now take a look at Voice-over-IP services (VoIP) and whether as an MSP you should be adding these services to your portfolio of client offerings.

As with adding any service to your portfolio, the first question to ask yourself is “Will I spreading myself too thin?”. Whilst VoIP is based over traditional networks, switches and Routers familiar to most IT solution providers, it’s still an acquired skill to implement a successful VoIP system. Unlike other IT systems where an outage is tolerated and almost expected, in contrast end users have been educated to expect to pick up a telephone handset and for it to work 100% of the time. Any support ticket you receive for a VoIP handset issue needs to be resolved very quickly indeed.

VoIP can therefore be a chore to support and troubleshoot, but there’s a school of thought (which includes myself) that says even if you don’t offer VoIP services – your client will probably end up acquiring a VoIP system at some point which you will end up supporting. So you’ve got a straight choice – either get skilled at installing and supporting VoIP yourself, or create a Strategic Alliance partnership with a trusted partner company who specialises in it.

The third option is a mixture of the two. When I owned an MSP, we typically sold VoIP systems with ten handsets and less – specifically because the complexity was low and the expectations of the client were not unreasonable. Any system above ten handsets and we’d often partner with a specialised Telecoms business who could deliver the service.

In terms of delivering VoIP services, there’s a phrase I’m fond of – “Eat Your Own Dog Food”. Simply put, if you’re going to be delivering a service or technology to a client, make sure you use it yourself in-house. Once you’ve researched the VoIP system you’re going to install for your clients, deploy it to your own office. The advantages are that you become familiar with the technology and service, it’s pro’s and con’s, and you can set your clients expectations accordingly. This is especially important for VoIP – as selling a VoIP service is all about setting your clients expectations early on.

From your perspective, you need to understand why the client is interested in a VoIP solution. Alarm bells should be ringing if the reason the client is interested in VoIP purely based on reducing costs. VoIP systems typically have a lower up-front cost and cheaper on-going costs than their old Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) predecessors – but many clients assume VoIP equals free. That’s definitely not the case, as whilst call costs can be cheaper, you still need reliable Broadband (and often a dedicated Broadband line for VoIP alone) and VoIP handsets cost money too.

It’s important to help educate the client to the trade offs involved with a VoIP system vs. a traditional POTs system too. Don’t over promise. VoIP is cheaper, but will experience downtime at some point – whether it’s Broadband failure or another issue. Many clients are happy to factor this in based on the additional flexibility and feature set VoIP offers, such as Site to Site calls, call forwarding and call recording. But be sure to have this conversation up front with a client.

Location is also hugely important to VoIP. If your client is located in a Broadband dark-spot – and don’t automatically assume given a central location that they’ll have good Broadband as many industrial parks and City Centre locations have poor Broadband – then VoIP may not be a cost effective option for your client. Always do a site survey for Broadband before hand and be prepared to walk away from a deal if Broadband is poor – you’ll be setting yourself up for lots of headaches supporting a VoIP system with poor Broadband otherwise.

After all this, if the client decides VoIP is for them – offer them a trial of the service. Plug a handset or two in on-site and let the client use it in anger for a month or more. You’ll soon know whether they’re a good fit for VoIP or not based on how they react to using the handset.

When it comes to deployment, planning is everything. Do an audit of the existing telephone numbers and extensions in use, and plan well in advance for migration of DDI’s and other numbers. This is where a good VoIP service provider can make your life easy, or an incredibly frustrating experience.

Finding a VoIP service provider is key to your success. A good partner will offer you training, help you standardise your installation for multiple successful deployments, and train you and your staff with Best Practice advice – as well as offering timely Technical support as needed. It’s typically best to work with a VoIP provider local to your region – so if you’re UK based, don’t work with a US provider, and visa versa. Do your research – ask around for your peers opinions and experiences of VoIP providers. There are an awful lot out there, but not all VoIP providers are the same.

In conclusion, VoIP can be a great addition to your service portfolio – but only if you research and understand the market before you enter it. Failure to do so will see you bemoaning VoIP as an unprofitable service and a drain on your service desk.

But done well, VoIP services adds value to your MSP business by allowing you to offer a very useful service to your clients, increasing your “stickiness” with them and giving them another reason to work with you. It’s also an additional revenue stream, just don’t expect to get rich from VoIP alone – margins are typically thin – so don’t give up the IT business just yet!

Huge thanks to Craig Sharp of Birmingham based Abussi for all the help and education he provided to both me and the rest of the AMITPRO group and which subsequently inspired this blog post! Abussi are an experienced and premier supply of VoIP in the UK – so if you’re looking for a partner to work with on VoIP, look no further!

Ever tried to schedule a meeting with somebody, and played e-mail ping pong to try and find a mutually convenient time and date? I know I have – and it wastes an awful lot of time and effort doesn’t it?

Tungle eliminates the back and forth of trying to find a time to meet, and allows you to easily share your availability with anyone.

There are Tungle plug-in’s for Microsoft Outlook, and it’s compatible with Google Mail and other hosted services too – ensuring your availability information is always up to date.

You can block out particular times to make them unavailable (I don’t attend meetings before 10am or on a weekend for instance) and nobody gets to see why you are unavailable, only that you are unavailable for certain time slots.

I’ve found the tool invaluable in coordinating meeting times, especially with those in different time zones (Tungle does the Time Zone calculations for you) – and as the service is free, it’s well worth checking out!

There are three types of Telecoms services that will be familiar to most IT Solution Providers and MSP’s.

• POTS – Plain old Telephone systems
• VoIP – Voice-over-IP
• Mobile – Mobile Telephony, such as Mobile Phones and Mobile Broadband

The market for POTS is virtually non-existent. Nowadays, almost all multi-line business telephone systems (or PABX) run VoIP, at least internally, and analogue and ISDN lines are typically only used for external calls. There’s still an opportunity for MSP’s to provide these lines, but typically the margins are slim and best the MSP will end up with a small referral fee or tiny cut of on-going revenue. You could re-sell CLS (Carrier Line Select) services, where you help your client reduce their Telephone call bill by routing all externals calls via a cheap call provider, and I’ve seen some MSP’s make good margins out of this, but typically the POTS market is one you’re best off making referrals to trusted 3rd Parties who can better handle the work.

VoIP is the reason POTS is dying a death. It’s a solution that sits on top of existing LAN and Broadband Internet infrastructures, and it typically has a low cost of entry. VoIP is also typically associated with “free calls” by clients. That’s true to a certain degree – think Skype – but it sets a dangerous level of expectation that you need to be aware of. VoIP as a business telecoms solution certainly isn’t free.

Finally there is Mobile Telephony. Everyone has a mobile phone, and mobile Broadband such as USB Dongles are now very popular. There are some great deals out there from the likes of O2 and Three – and IT Distributors such as Ingram Micro and Computer 2000 offer a mobile re-seller service for MSP’s which allows you to sell clients a handset along with an eighteen-month, two or three year deal, and receive a commission as a result – so why shouldn’t you, as an MSP, get a slice of those deals?

Well, the reason you shouldn’t re-sell mobile services, in my experience, is that it’s a major headache for very little return.

For mobile Broadband, the margins are too slim. With deals on the high street selling USB dongles with a 1GB allowance for £5/a month, where are you going to make your money?

For mobile phones, the advent of the consumerisation of IT and “Bring Your Own Device” (or BYOD) means that nowadays most people see a mobile phone, even for use in business, as a personal statement and want to choose from a myriad of available devices accordingly. This makes it very difficult for you as a an MSP to offer a small selection of handsets that you’re familiar with and more importantly, can be competitive on price with. The amount of time you’ll spend with your client deciding on the handset they want, and then trying to find the right price – only for them them to come back and say they can get a better deal on the high street – wipes out any profit you make. You could delegate this client work to an admin assistant to deal with, rather than an engineer, but the results will likely still be the same. By all means try it yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

So eliminating POTS and Mobile Telecoms, leaves us with VoIP.

Next, we’ll take a look at VoIP to see the pro’s and con’s of selling it as a solution to your clients.

*** Updated – 3rd February, 2012.

I’ve had some interesting feedback on my post, most notably from some of the larger SMB focused MSP’s who say they *are* making good margins out of POTS and Mobile Telecoms.

One such MSP said they’d done the following deals (quoted with their permission):-

“· A 20 handset mobile deal could make us £4-6k profit if it’s out of contract (they aren’t always unfortunately).

· A recent 100 handset VOIP deal gave us £20k commission (we don’t win a lot of these but the margins are nice for little work).

· Typically we’re seeing 10% of a customers spend on their landline bills and saving them money (this is a relatively east win, but it as a competitive market).

We end up providing support for the VOIP systems and the mobiles, especially BES Blackberry devices etc… so we thought we may as well make some cash from them and also improve the customer “stickiness”. We knew we didn’t have the skills in-house so we created this new business as a joint venture between ourselves and a local mobile reseller, it really is one of the best things we’ve done in the last two years.

I just wanted to give you another side to it.”

Really interesting feedback which I’m grateful to receive, and I’ve included it here as I believe it confirms that for a small MSP to make a profit in the Telecoms space, you need to be working with either larger clients or larger volumes, and to partner with somebody who can deliver the services cost effectively where you are unable to.

I think that for the majority of smaller MSP’s who typically work with smaller clients who don’t have corporate mobile contracts, the margins aren’t worth the effort required and they’d be better off focusing on their core competencies.

The point about ending up supporting VOIP systems and mobiles is a really important one though, and the focus on my next blog post! See you then!

Stuart and I have known each other for a long time, having been a part of the HTG peer group together back when we were both MSP owners. Now with each of us working to help MSP business owners on our respective sides of the pond, I’m really glad we’ve got this opportunity to get together to share some of our respective insights into the MSP market in 2012.

Registration for the meeting is free and open now at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/900742658

The meeting kicks off at 4pm GMT, 11am EST and lasts for an hour. There will be time for questions during the presentation, and if you’re on Twitter you can also ask questions by using the hash-tag #MAXBB to @tubblog, @GFIMax or @Ulistic accordingly!

See you then!

Therefore I thought I’d share a quick blog post with three apps that I now regularly use when on the road.

Waze

Available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Nokia – Waze is a free Community based traffic and navigation App. I initially downloaded Waze because I’m a tight-skate and didn’t want to shell out for one of the traditional paid-for Sat-Nav apps, but now that I’ve got it installed, I love both the concept and execution.

Fundamentally, it’s a free Sat-Nav app. Give it a destination, and it’ll use GPS to give you turn-by-turn instructions on how to get there. In practice, I found it good for short commutes – but frustrating for long-distance journeys. The on-screen display and voice instructions just aren’t as accurate as say, Co-Pilot Live, which is why I went and bought Co-Pilot for those longer journeys.

But Waze’s secret weapon is that every trip you make feeds back anonymous information on your journey to Waze, who then learn from this feedback to improve all future journeys for all Waze users. I’ve already watched Waze “learn” as I ignore it’s suggested route and instead take a route I know is quicker due to local road conditions, and the next time I take that route Waze adjusts its instructions accordingly.

Waze also gives you the opportunity to submit reports on traffic jams, hazards and road blocks as you travel. Other Waze users in the area are immediately updated to these issues, and can compensate accordingly.

Finally, I the fact that you can spot other Wazers on-screen whilst you are driving and then wave at them out of your car window. At least I hope I’m waving at other Wazers, and not just completely baffled (and probably scared) strangers.

Download Waze for free from http://world.waze.com/

EchoEcho

Ever out and about, planning to meet up with friends? Queue a series of SMS or ‘phone calls to try to find a mutually convenient location to meet up. Can be a challenge – especially if one of you doesn’t know the area.

EchoEcho is available for all major ‘phone platforms, and Windows Phone (sorry, couldn’t resist…) and allows you to send an “echo” to any of your contacts. If they also have EchoEcho installed, they’ll reply to your Echo with an… Echo… and you’ll be notified of their current location and visa versa. If they don’t have EchoEcho installed, they’ll receive an SMS that asks them to click a link to respond – you’ll then receive their co-ordinates anyway.

The fact that the App works with both users and non-users of the App is a stroke of brilliance, and opens use up well beyond your normal geeky circle of friends.

If you’re worried about privacy, then rest assured that EchoEcho only sends your co-ordinates when you respond to a request, and not on an on-going basis. Additionally, although EchoEcho will scan your contacts to automatically find other EchoEcho users, I’ve clarified with the EchoEcho team that it will *not* contact any of your contacts without your permission.

A fantastic application that I now use on a day-to-day basis – at least with those who aren’t scared of revealing their current location with me (and yes, that does mean I’m suspicious of your clandestine movements if you don’t respond to my Echo).

Download EchoEcho for free from http://www.echoecho.me/default.aspx

LocalMind

LocalMind is an app that allows you to send questions and receive answers about what is going on at certain locations, typically bars, restaurants and the like.

It picks up on your FourSquare, GoWalla and Facebook Places check-ins, and allows other LocalMind users to see the location you’re currently in and send you questions about it.

Questions I’ve received when I’m out and about include “Are the bartenders friendly?” and “Is the pub crowded?”.

I’ve asked questions like “What’s good to eat?” and “Do they have live music on?” when I’ve been exploring myself.

It’s a simple concept, but when you’re out and about, especially in a new town or City, it’s one way of finding out where you should think about exploring. I like the idea a lot!

LocalMind is available for iPhone and Android at http://www.localmind.com/

***

Have any travel apps you’re a fan of? Want to connect with me on FourSquare? Do share with me via Twitter or by leaving a comment below!

So if all this is personal, why do I share it through a blog post? Well I’ve been writing this Year in Review for many years now – and whilst it started out, as many blog posts do, as a way of helping me clarify and summarise my thoughts – I now get a lot of feedback from people who say reading these posts helps them think about their own year and upcoming goals. An unintended but useful consequence of my ramblings!

So with no apologies for the introspective nature of this blog post, here’s my year in review for 2011…

Work

On a professional level, 2011 was the most exciting year for me in recent memory. At the end of 2010 I sold my IT business and exited the world of Managed Services, and started 2011 with a totally clean slate – some rough ideas of what I wanted to do in mind, but mostly deciding to go with the flow.

January 2011 was a revelation for me. Whilst friends and family had encouraged me to follow my heart and move into Business Consultancy, there’s always that negative voice in your head that suggests that nobody will want to work with you. But then as word spread that I was a “free agent” the ‘phone started ringing with one exciting offer after another. By the end of the first quarter of 2011, I’d realised that things were going to be ok!

The regular stream of offers didn’t slow down, and so that first quarter quickly taught me a valuable lesson – learning how to say “no”. I’ve learnt to no longer try to help everyone and instead now concentrate my time helping those who demonstrate that they really want my help. As one of my mentors told me at the close of 2010 “Don’t try to boil the Ocean”.

My work took me into two areas, both complimentary to one another. I now act as a Business Consultant (or Coach, but I’m still uncomfortable with that word for the most part) to a dozen IT companies and MSP’s within the UK, helping them scale their business up through sharing my experience and industry perspective. I’m pleased to say that every single one of my clients is a pleasure to work with and I get a real kick out of being a part of their team. I’m sure this is a result of my limiting my time to only working with those who really want to work with me and saying no to those who aren’t committed.

The other area I found myself in was writing and speaking. In March 2011 I wrote my first commercial White Paper – “Protecting Business Critical Services – E-Mail” and I’ve spoken at a number of events in 2011.

If you’d have told me two years ago I’d be enjoying writing about Technology and business more than fixing PC’s and Servers, I’d have thought you were joking. But I do – writing blogs, articles, White Papers and the like for IT Vendors and the Trade Press are things I find very rewarding. Therefore in 2012 I’ll make more time for writing professionally.

Public speaking, on the other hand, I still find terrifying for the most part. I’ve presented at half a dozen UK Conferences and the like this year – on a variety of topics close to my heart. It’s not something I enjoy, but it pushes me out of my comfort zone so I encourage myself to do it. I still feel I’m not a good speaker, but I’m passionate about the subjects I talk about and in 2012 I will continue to make an effort to learn how to be Technically better at speaking too.

Talking of passion – on an Emotional IQ level, I’ve learnt to be much more measured in 2011 than before. It still takes a lot of work!

I probably still undervalue my time. And by probably, I mean definitely. I’ve observed that this isn’t unusual as just about every client I worked with in 2011 does the same. One for all of us to work on, but in 2012 I will learn to place greater value on my time.

For the second year running I was appointed a Microsoft SBSC Partner Area Lead.

Also for the second year running, I was nominated to the MSP Mentor 250 list, and for the third year running I was nominated to the Computer Weekly Social Media Awards – in not just one, but two categories.

In January 2011 I Got Freshly Pressed – which led to a huge amount of visitors to the blog. In fact, the readership of this blog doubled in 2011, and in some surprising areas. I’m now getting a lot of readers in France, Germany and the rest of Europe. My goal for 2012 is to work on improving the blog and integrating it as part of my business.

One of my goals for the first quarter of 2012 though is to create a separate business web-site aside from the blog. It should explain what I do and who I work with – as I know there are still a lot of people who ask me the question, “What is it you do now Richard?”. The web-site should help explain that and encourage people who want to work with me to get in touch.

Community

After exiting my IT business in 2010, one of the goals I had was to dedicate some of my free time to working on business, social and community improvement.

Earlier this year I was honoured to be voted in by my peers as Chair of the CompTIA UK Channel Community, bringing together IT Solution providers, Vendors and Resellers to work on the betterment of the UK Channel. We’ve made good progress and I look forward to doing more to help CompTIA raise levels of professionalism in the Channel in 2012.

I hope I also help the SMB IT community through my blog, and it’s through my blog that an unexpected opportunity to help my local community came up.

After reading my post “It’s All About Communication”, my local Police Force, Birmingham South Police, approached me about helping them with their Social Media strategy.

Since that time I’ve really enjoyed working with the team at Birmingham South Police, and I hope my input has been valuable to them and in turn, has helped my local Community in Weoley Castle.

The work has also given me a better understanding of how modern Policing works, and I’ve a great deal of respect for the work West Midlands Police do to keep our streets safe.

I was also presented with an opportunity to join Sgt. Tim Evans in a car patrolling Birmingham South and live Tweet an afternoon in the life of a Police Officer. What an experience!

In 2012, I’m committing to continuing my work to support Birmingham South Police – as it’s both rewarding and a pleasure.

Travel

On the travel front, I tried to cut back on the amount of time I spent on the road in 2011. I had mixed results with this goal!

I passed on every opportunity to go Stateside in 2011, and genuinely loved being in the UK to spend more time with friends and family to celebrate birthday’s and other occasions – something I’ve missed over the past few years.

I did jump at the opportunity to do some work in Milan, Italy – somewhere I’ve never visited before – as well as Utretcht in The Netherlands. Both enjoyable trips.

But whilst I minimised my foreign trips, I spent a lot of the last quarter of 2011 on the road, in hotel rooms, living out of a suitcase. I struggled with this and 2011 was the year I went from finding travel a chore to regularly dreading it. As somebody who previously loved flying (I can still remember the take off and landing of an aeroplane being a thrill!) I now instead have sweaty palms and find it difficult to relax before and during a plane journey. Even longer car and train journeys seem a pain I want to avoid. The knock on effect on my productivity when I return to the office has been a constant challenge. I’ve countered this somewhat by making sure I travel First Class and thus in greater comfort wherever possible, but in 2012 I want to start enjoying travel again. Suggestions welcome!

With my increased travel, often to the North-West of England, one thing I did come to appreciate again was my 2nd property in Lowton, Cheshire which I’d previously come to think of as something of an Albatross around my neck. I’ve come to appreciate once more that it’s nice to have a base to work from instead of living out of hotel rooms when up that part of the world – of which I am, often. Therefore, one of my main goals for 2012 is to improve the house further to make it even more comfortable.

Health

Looking back, one of my main goals for 2010, and 2009, and 2008… was to lose weight. I’d never achieved this, but in 2011 I didn’t focus on losing weight but instead of increasing my energy levels to do more of the things I enjoy. The result was I had lost 2 stone by my birthday in September 2011…

… and unfortunately by December 2011 had put a stone in weight back on! Remember all that travel I mentioned? Well I found it really, really hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle during that time. If travel is going to be unavoidable, in 2012 I want to find a way to travel whilst maintaining my health and fitness levels.

Relaxation

Of course, one trip in 2011 contributed to that waistline expansion, but I’d do it again! The GG and I visited Paris, France and then caught an overnight train to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest where I celebrated my 35th birthday around some really good friends. I loved this trip – Paris was beautiful, and the Germans certainly know how to drink beer and have a good time!

Another of my goals for 2011 was to spend more time with friends and family. I made a conscious effort to do this, and I also made some new and very close friends in 2011, all of which rewarded me with some great memories.

From the “he couldn’t get more geeky, but somehow he’s managed it” category – in January 2011 I decided to build myself a Subbuteo Table Soccer pitch, and shortly afterwards both I and a load of my long-time friends had re-kindled our childhood love of little plastic men. After a twenty year hiatus, the Weoley Castle Subbuteo Club was re-formed and we have had an absolute blast, even entering a few tournaments where we did our best to avoid finishing last.

In 2012 I’m going to continue to make a conscious effort to spend more time with friends and family!

Education

Another of my goals was to continue my Professional Development in 2011. I’ve had the good fortune to be able to work with a number of incredible mentors this year, and now have a regular business coach who I find rewarding to work with.  In 2012, I will continue to seek out opportunities to work with positive and successful individuals who are willing share their expertise with me.

I recently wrote a blog post about the benefit of reading books, and one of my goals in 2011 was to read more. Thanks to the Amazon Kindle, I’ve read an awful lot more – which has helped me learn and grow as an individual.

Additionally, one of my goals for 2011 was not only to read books, but to write one and become a published author! I’m pleased to say that in 2011 I was approached by a publisher, and with some hard work and dedication, in the first Quarter of 2012, I will become a published author! It’s a Technical Tome, so not bed-time reading, but I’m looking forward to getting it out there. A huge thanks to a really great influencer in my career, David Overton, for setting me on the path to this goal!

Conclusion

I had a stand out year! It sometimes didn’t feel that way because all the media headlines were about doom and gloom as a result of the financial recession across the world – and as a result it’s easy to “feel” as though things are terrible and are never getting better. But one of the benefits of regularly reviewing your personal progress and celebrating your successes is that you are conscious of how well you are doing anyway!

I’ve already laid out a number of my personal goals for 2012 above, and I have set myself many more personal targets both big and small. For me the bottom line is consistency – to keep heading in the direction that I’ve started on and to stick to it.

Thanks for reading my blog in 2011, and I hope to catch-up with as many of you in 2012 as possible! Please don’t be afraid to get in touch!

There’s the standard inbox – where you get messages from friends. But there’s also the “Other” inbox, where messages from Pages you’ve “Liked” and people you’re not yet connected to on Facebook go to.

Unlike your standard inbox – which Facebook notifies you whenever you’ve received a message to – the “Other” inbox fills up without you receiving any notifications.

Go ahead and check it now, I bet it’s full of messages going back months and months that you weren’t aware of!

To see your “Other” inbox…

1.  When logged into Facebook, within your Favourites on the left-hand side of the screen, click on the “Messages” link

2.  A new “Other” link will appear below the “Messages” link. Click the “Other” link.

3. On the right hand side, your “Other messages” will now appear.

Sadly I’ve not found a way to be notified when messages appear in your “Other” inbox – but at least now you’re aware of it you can check it from time to time so you don’t miss anything important!

Personally, I’ve very little shame in what appears on my Facebook feed (as anyone who is friends with me on Facebook will attest to) but I know that’s not the case for everyone and some friends have recently asked me for advice on how they can minimise the risk of others tagging them in photos they may not be comfortable with displaying to the world.

Therefore, here’s a guide on how to prevent yourself being tagged in Facebook photos.

To allow others to continue to tag you in photographs, but for you to be notified and given the opportunity to allow or deny that tag *before* the picture appears on your Facebook profile – take the following steps:-

1. When logged into Facebook, click the the Home button in the top right hand corner, then select Privacy Settings.

2. Around half way down the page, next to “How Tags Work” click the “Edit Settings” option.

3. In the pop-up options box that appears, next to “Profile Review of posts friends tag you in before they go on your profile)” click the default “Off” button.

4. In the “Profile Review” screen that appears, click on the “Disabled” button and change it to “Enabled”.

5. Click Back.

6. Click Done.

Voila! The next time somebody tags you in a photograph, before that photo  appears on your Facebook profile you’ll be given the chance to review that tag and either allow the tag (at which point the photo will appear on your profile) or deny the tag (at which point the photo will remain on your friends profile, but without your name tagged within it).

Of course there is no way of taking back the conversation you had with the boss whilst in the full swing of the “Christmas spirit”, but hopefully the above method will save you some blushes!

For those who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him at a Community event or Conference, Matt runs Ostrich IT based in Exmouth. As well as running a rapidly growing business – they recently qualified as Devon’s only Accredit UK qualified company as well as being chosen as the preferred IT Support partner to a £30mn business -  Matt is a regular contributor at the UK SMB IT Community groups. Matt often travels the insanely long drive from Exmouth to Birmingham to visit my local group, AMITPRO, for instance, where he presented earlier this year.

During the webinar, Matt plans to talk about the tools he’s used to grow his business and take questions from attendees.

Matt is running this webinar with no motivation other than sharing his knowledge with fellow business owners – which is no surprise to anyone who knows him and how openly he is willing to help others – so I hope you’ll support him with this webinar and get involved.

The webinar takes place on Tuesday December 20th at 4pm GMT, and registration is free – sign-up now!

I was lucky enough to have my laptop returned to me, but what would happen if you lost a mobile device such as a laptop, smartphone or tablet?

Earlier in the week I looked at tracking your lost device, but now I’m looking at protecting the most valuable part of any Laptop or other mobile device – your data.

In yesterday’s article I looked at using Encryption and Device Lock mechanisms to protect your mobile device data.

In the second part of my guide on how to protect the data on your laptop or mobile device, let’s take a look at how you’d recover your data if you ever lost the mobile device that data is stored upon.

Backing up your basic Data

For all mobile devices – including laptops – there are a plethora of backup  which involve synchronising your essential data – such as contacts and calendar – to the cloud, enabling you to access that data from other devices and restore it to the same or a different device.

For Android users, Google already does a great job of making sure most of your basic data (such as contacts and calendar) is synchronised to the Cloud. Additionally, using an app like AppBrain ensures that all those apps you’ve installed are quickly and easily restored to any new device – albeit you’ll need to re-configure their settings. You could also use an App like SMS Backup+ to backup all your SMS, MMS and Call Log entries to GoogleMail, and Google+ ensures all your phone camera photographs are automatically synchronised on-line too.

If you’re using Microsoft Exchange or GoogleMail for your e-mail, then your E-Mail, Contacts and Calendar are typically automatically synchronised to a central server. Re-connect any device to Exchange or GMail and this information will be downloaded to the new device.

Even if you’re not using a Smartphone but an older more traditionally mobile phone – a service like Mobyko enables you to backup all of your photos, videos, texts, calendar entries and contacts on-line – so if you get a new device, you don’t have to manually re-input them all.

Typically though, all of these Cloud Synchronisation methods are aimed at backing up your most basic data – E-Mail, Contacts, Calendar, etc. What about the documents you work with such as Spreadsheets, Music and more?

Backing up your Files and Documents

A more robust Cloud based Backup solution will give you the option to select pretty much any set of data to back up, limited only by the capacity of the Cloud Backup provider you use.

Typically, this data would include your private documents such as Spreadsheets, Word Processor documents and more – but could easily be extended to include Pictures, Music, Videos and just about any other type of data you wish.

Apple’s iTunes software already does a good job of backing up your iPhone, iPod or iPad – meaning if you lost your device, typically your music, apps and purchases are easily transferred to a new device – even if your original device is not available. With iOS 5, iPhone and iPad users also have access to Apple’s free iCloud service – which backs up your e-mail, contacts, calendars and documents to the Cloud.

But for more flexibility, a service such as Dropbox is a must-have.

A free Dropbox account gives 2GB of Cloud based storage away for free, and has software clients available for nearly all major platforms – including PC, Mac, iOS and Android.

Dropbox works by making sure that any data stored within a folder you create as home for your data is automatically and near instantly backed up to the Cloud, and additionally can be sychronised to any other device you choose too.

For myself, I have Dropbox installed on my Laptop PC under Windows 7 and within my Dropbox folder have sub-folders containing all everything from work to travel documents. I then have Dropbox installed on my Notebook PC so that if I’m travelling I have access to all my work, and any changes I make are automatically backed up on-line and synchronised to my laptop.

Furthermore I have Dropbox installed on my Android Smartphone, iPhone and iPad, so I can quickly refer to any of my documents in a flash.

I therefore always have the latest copy of my document with me, whichever device I’m using.

The added benefit of Dropbox is that because everything is also stored on a secure central server, I can also access any of my documents from any other PC in the world via a secure login. What’s more, if I want to share documents with another Dropbox user – I can simply right-click a folder and grant them permissions (ranging from Read Only, to full Edit) and the document appears on their device for their use – and they can do the same with me.

Knowing all of your data is continuously backed up and available wherever you are in the world gives real peace of mind. Never lose or forget a document again!

Obviously, you need to be aware of the capacity limits of your free Dropbox account – start using it to backup your large Music or Picture collection and you’ll soon run out of space – but Dropbox do offer a paid for premium  account with much greater capacity should you chose.

There are a plethora of other free and optionally premium backup solutions out there too – such as Mozy – and many other Synchronisation tools such as SugarSync and Windows Live Mesh – and there’s nothing stopping you using more than one service! On my Home Server in addition to having a local NAS based backup, I also use Mozy for home documents, SugarSync for my Videos, and Windows Live Mesh for old Archived documents. All are accessible from a web-browser from any device, so I figure there’s no harm in having your data backed up in more than one place!

Full Device Backup

For real belt and braces backup of your mobile devices, you’ll want to take a full device backup in addition to cloud based backups of your ever changing data.

A full device backup will backup all the settings on your device and often all the Operating System files too, meaning that if you ever experience a faulty device or catastrophic software issue then you can quickly reset the device back to full working order by restoring from the original image backup. The restore will then be complimented with your most current data from your Cloud backup.

Android Smartphone and Tablet users have a number of other options for full device backup. Check out Titanium Backup Root and Sprite Backup amongst many others.

For Laptop computers and Netbooks, I use StorageCraft ShadowProtect to make a full image backup of my PC once it’s created and store this locally on a USB Hard Disk kept at home, as well as on a spare data partition. In conjunction with a Recovery CD or USB Key Disk (provided by StorageCraft) this means that even when I’m on the road travelling, in the event of a particularly nasty software failure I can restore my PC back to a working state using the original image, and have a backup stored at home in the event of a total Hard Disk failure.

Whenever you’re making a local backup of your device, always make sure that  any backup of your laptop or device is password protected (most backup software has this option) to ensure the data contained within that backup is safe. Otherwise a lost backup could offer someone the chance to snoop at all of your private data in one fell swoop!

Conclusion

I hope you’ve found this short guide, born out of the fact I thought I’d lost my own laptop, useful!

By making sure you use tools for tracking your lost laptop, smartphone or tablet, implementing both a Device Lock and Data Encryption, and ensuring that all of your data is backed up and synchronised to the Cloud, perhaps in conjunction with a full device backup – you should feel assured that in the event that you do lose your mobile device, you’ve given yourself every chance of recovering it and can rest safe in the knowledge that any data contained upon that device will remain secure.

Thoughts or feedback? Do you use different tools or strategies? I’d love to hear from you – please leave a comment or get in touch!

I was lucky enough to have my laptop returned to me, but what would happen if you lost a mobile device such as a laptop, smartphone or tablet?

Yesterday I looked at tracking your lost device, but today I’m looking at protecting the most valuable part of any Laptop or other mobile device – your data.

In my case, I had a Windows 7 laptop protected with a strong password – but I know from experience that someone who is well motivated and has even basic IT knowledge could get past a password alone. So what other measures can you take to protect your data?

Device Lock

A really simple one, this – but one many people overlook.

If you’ve got a Mobile Phone or Smartphone, then turn on the SIM lock – a PIN number which needs to be entered when you first turn the ‘phone on or put your SIM into another device. This prevents your lost ‘phone being used to make outgoing calls and racking up a nasty bill for you, or your SIM being placed in a new device for the same purpose.

In addition to a SIM lock, or if you’re running a device without a SIM, turn on the device lock. Every Mobile Phone, Smartphone, MP3 player and Tablet should have this functionality – which ensures that any time your device is unlocked, you need to put in a PIN code to begin using it.

For Laptops and Netbooks, turning on the “Start-up Password” or “Boot Password” uses a similar concept to a device lock. Before the Hard Disk boots, you need to type in a password to enable the process to begin. Typically these types of password are harder to hack than a simple Windows logon – but again, a well motivated and IT savvy individual could get around this with time and experience.

Encryption

The concept of encryption is based on complex mathematics, yet simple to implement. Using software, the data you choose on your PC is scrambled using a specific encryption password of your choice. When you enter the correct password (usually at start-up) the data becomes readable. If you don’t have the password – then even if you try to circumvent any other security measures to get to the data on the device – the only information you’ll be able to read is gobbledegook.

In my case, I implemented the Open Source (and therefore free) TrueCrypt on both my netbook and laptop PC. TrueCrypt is freely available for Windows 7, Vista, XP, Apple Mac OSX and Linux.

Once you download and install the software, you can choose to either create an encrypted folder or folders on your PC (perhaps containing confidential data) or alternatively, an entire Partition on your Hard Drive or indeed the entire Hard Drive itself can be encrypted.

If you create an encrypted folder then each time you use your computer and before you access the files within that specific folder, TrueCrypt prompts you for your encryption password. Enter the password and the folder looks and behaves like any other folder – you can work with documents, add and delete files, etc. But if you don’t have the password to that folder then you can’t gain access to its contents – in fact, the folder actually just looks like a normal file that contains data that can’t be read using any method.

As I wanted to protect all of the data on my laptop (including the temporary files that Windows creates – such as Web-Browser history, downloads, etc.) I chose to encrypt both partitions on my Hard Disk, the first containing my Windows data, the second containing my personal data.

The process was simple. Within TrueCrypt I selected “Create a New Volume” and then selected the C: drive. After creating a strong encryption password, TrueCrypt prompted me to create a recovery CD – which could be used to recover the data on my Hard Disk should I ever forget my encryption password.

TrueCrypt then ran a test to ensure my laptop would be able to handle the encryption. Once the test ran successfully, the encryption process began – which for my 60GB SSD Hard Disk took about 90 minutes.

I repeated the process for my D: (data) drive, and around an hour later I rebooted my PC whereon I was prompted for my encryption password.

Windows 7 booted up, and I continued to use my computer as pre-encryption – albeit safe in the knowledge that if my laptop was ever lost or stolen, the data contained on it would be near impossible for anyone to read without my encryption password.

The only downside I found to the process is that restoring my laptop from Hibernation (Sleep) mode was a *lot* slower than it used to be. I’ve noticed no perceptible difference in speed in using the PC otherwise though, so a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Other encryption software is available, including BitLocker on certain Windows PC’s, and Droid Crypt for Android devices. TrueCrypt remains my preference for computers though.

End of Part One

So once you’ve made sure your device isn’t easily accessed, and the data contained on it isn’t able to be read by prying eyes – thoughts then turn to how you’d recover your data if you ever lost the mobile device that data is stored upon.

Tomorrow I’ll take a look at the methods I use to backup the data on both my PC’s and Smartphones.

I was lucky enough to have my laptop returned to me, but what would happen if I lost a mobile device such as a laptop, smartphone or tablet?

Take it from me when I say that when you lose a device, your first thoughts turn to ascertaining whether the device has been accidentally lost, or actually stolen.

Fortunately there are a raft of Tracking and Anti-Theft software available – and in many cases, free of charge. The caveat with all of these methods is that they’re dependant upon an active Internet connection being live. If you have a continuous 3G signal – great, you’ll be on-line most places. But if the device is Wi-Fi only then you’re reliant on the device being actually connected to a Wi-Fi signal.

With that in mind, here are the three free tools I’ve installed on my mobile devices to track them in the event of a loss.

Prey Project

The Prey Project is a lightweight, Open Source (i.e. free of charge) application that is available to install on any PC – Laptop, Netbook or Desktop, Apple Mac, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Linux or Android device.

The application is quickly downloaded and installed, and using a single e-mail address you can protect up to 3 devices for free. There is also a Pro version available that allows you to protect many more devices and beef up your security further.

In the event that your equipment is lost, you visit the Prey Project Web-Site and through the Control Panel report your device as missing. Over the next twenty minutes, Prey then tries to communicate with the device and send you back a report via e-mail that highlights the devices GPS location, any Wireless networks found nearby and if available, a photograph taken using the devices webcam.

You can also perform actions such as set off an audible alarm on the laptop, display an alert on the devices screen (such as a message with your contact details) or lock the laptop keyboard – only to be unlocked by the password you specify.

When I lost my laptop I was fortunate enough to have Prey Project installed on it, but the laptop was never connected to the Internet so I never received a report. Once I’d got my laptop back though, I watched as within a few minutes of being connected on-line, Prey Project e-mailed me with me GPS location of my laptop (with me at home!) and a screenshot of me in front of the laptop. Prey Project is not fool proof, but you never known when you might need it!

Find my iPhone

The Find my iPhone service is bundled free with any iPhone or iPad, and for those running iOS5 using iCloud, it’s bundled in.

In short, once installed upon your iPhone or iPad, you can use any other iOS device to find it and protect your data.

You can track your device using GPS to show a Map Location, and you can remotely play a sound or send a message to the device – regardless of whether it is muted or locked.

You can also remotely lock the device, and if you choose, remotely wipe the device protecting your data.

If you’ve got an iPhone or iPad – go and grab the free Find my iPhone app from the App Store now and set it up. It’s very, very useful.

Android Lost

Much like Find my iPhone for iOS, Android Lost for Android Smartphones is a free tool that once installed enables you to remotely track your device, lock it, send messages to it, or remotely wipe the data from it.

But Android Lost also allows you to do many other things, such as take a photograph using the forward facing camera, use text to speech to make your phone say a message out loud (“I am lost! Please pick me up!”), notify you when the SIM card is changed, send a list of incoming and outgoing calls from the device via e-mail, forward your calls, erase any attached SD Card, read the phone status (to show Battery life, IMEI, SIM Card ID and more) and send commands via SMS from other mobile phones.

It’s hugely powerful, and as it is free, is an absolute no-brainer for any Android owner to install on their device.

Conclusion

In this blog post I’ve just covered PC, Apple Mac, Blackberry, Linux, iOS and Android devices – but as a former Windows Mobile and Windows Phone owner, I know there are similar tools for those platforms.

I’ve got Prey installed on my Laptop, Netbook, Android, iPhone and iPad, as well as Android Lost on my HTC Sensation, and Find my iPhone on my iPhone and iPad. Overkill? Maybe – but the overheads of these tools are so low, that there’s not much downside to installing multiple tracking tools on the same devices.

The key here is to install these apps and tools *before* you need them, because as I’ve already found out, whilst you think it’ll never happen to you – it’s very easy to lose a mobile device!

Tomorrow I’ll be writing about the measures you can take to ensure your precious data is safe in the event of a lost device.