Which version of Windows do I have?

How can I find out what version of Windows I have on my PC?

Click on the Start button

If there is a Search Box above this, type the word winver and press enter. If not, click Run and in the Open box type winver

A box will pop up showing you details of the Windows version you have.

Checking Microphone Sound

How can I test if the microphone on my headset is working?

If using Windows XP:

• Click on Start
• All Programs
• Accessories
• Entertainment
• Sound Recorder
• Click on the Record button and speak - you will be able to see if it is working.

If using Windows Vista:

• Click on Start
• All Programs
• Accessories
• Sound Recorder
• Click the Record button and speak - you will be able to see if it is working.

IT Qualifications

Where can I study for an IT qualification?

There is an IT Diploma. There are approximately 141,000 newly qualified professionals required in the UK every year.

The following qualifications in IT are available:

IT Diploma - available for 14-19 year olds and designed in collaboration with Vodafone, BT, Cisco, EDS, IBM, John Lewis Partnership, Microsoft, Logical, Oracle Academy and CA. See a video http://www.e-skills.com/diploma.

The British Computer Society has information on IT qualifications. See www.bcs.org
Some IT courses are available via distance learning such as from The International Correspondence Schools:

Introduction to Computer Programming. See http://www.icslearn.co.uk/it-technical-courses/programming-game-design/computer-programming-introduction/
Topics include:

• Computer hardware
• Principles of Programming
• Elements of Computer Programming
• Operating Systems
• Data Processing and Organisation
• HTML and JavaScript
• Visual Basic

This course requires around 100 hours of study. The cost of the course is currently £341.10

Microsoft has it's own certification and details can be found at http://learning.microsoft.com/manager/catalog.aspx

Can you recommend any others?

Tweeters

Are you using Twitter?

Recommendations to follow:
http://twitter.com/computerweekly
http://twitter.com/guardiantech
http://twitter.com/googlenews
http://twitter.com/MicroSoft

Any other recommendations? Let us know!

Funding for new Technology projects

Great to see successful technology developers giving something back!

The Deshpande Center, established at the MIT School of Engineering in 2002 , aims to increase the impact of MIT technologies in the marketplace. Founded with an initial donation by Jaishree and Desh Deshpande, the Center depends on the financial and professional support of successful alumni, entrepreneurs, and investors to provide a sustainable source of funding for innovative research and guidance to help it reach the marketplace.

Since 2002, The Deshpande Center has

• Funded more than 80 projects
• With over $9 M in grants
• 18 projects have spun out of the center into commercial ventures
• Having collectively raised over $140 M in outside financing
• 13 venture capital firms have invested in these ventures

Anyone know of one of these in the UK?

Mobile analytics tools

Distimo has created tools to provide developers with mobile analytics.

These free tools analyze the performance of mobile applications’ across application stores.

As would be expected, all major app stores are supported, allowing developers to see how their work performs across platforms and stores. It has been called a 'Google Analytics' for mobile applications.

Online shift changing tool

Many new websites are appearing and we thought this was an interesting one.

http://havemyshift.com allows hourly paid workers to trade shifts. This will be really successful when people get their co-workers onto the site using it on a regular basis.

Clever internet tool that allows people to post the shifts they can’t make and allows others to pick up these shifts. The website searches through everyone listed on the site and makes suggestions.

What's your favourite new website?

take a photo. send a postcard

A new iPhone app allows you to take a photo and this converts into a postcard to send to your friends or colleagues.

Aimed at the US market to start with, goPostal delivers your postcard via U.S. Mail. Each postcard costs $1.29 when using the iPhone application, which includes postage. goPostal also uses state of the art SSL security to verify that all of your information is securely transmitted.

http://www.printyourlife.com/