Over the summer teachers at high schools in the Rockford School District are going to receive and then be trained on new laptops.

This IT upgrade comes after district funding was allocated to Rockford schools to invest in new notebook computers.

In total, $1.7 million has been used to invest in 1,900 Dell Latitude 13 Notebook computers, which will be used by teachers in the classroom.

The decision to upgrade the system was approved by the School Board as many of the schools had an out-dated AS400 computer system that was installed in 1992.

The new laptops will be used by teachers in the classroom to record attendance and to calculate grade averages over the term. They will also be used to plan lessons and automate many of the tasks that would have previously been done manually.

Connie Grod, a RESA Middle School history teacher, said, “It’ll give us more class time. The kids will benefit from us having more free time for them....

... The teachers are excited about what (the laptops and software) can do for us.”

Some staff are completely new to laptops so training sessions will be held over the summer to make staff familiar with the new technology. This training will be completed just in time for the new school year.

Based on the size of the overhaul the upgrade will happen over a three-year period, however the technology is expected to have an impact on students' reading and maths proficiency before the end of the year.

NVIDIA is now planning to release new 3D PCs after the company received backing and technical support from key IT firms within the industry.

The new 3D PCs are similar to notebooks yet offer display screens that can be used to play 3D movies or to have a 3D web-based conference.

The push for 3D PCs perhaps comes after large scale use of 3D technology in the recent blockbusters Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and UP.

NVIDIA has developed the new product in conjunction with Alienware, Dell, Microsoft, Toshiba and Asus.

Jerry Shen, CEO of ASUS, said, “ASUS has a strong track record of pioneering new categories of PCs, as we did with the netbook. Now ASUS is very bullish on developing the 3D PC category by shipping notebooks, desktops and an all-in-one PC equipped with NVIDIA 3D Vision.”

The company also wants to make the most of 3D sports coverage, such as the recent Masters Golf tournament, as well being in a good position to accommodate new 3D digital video cameras from Sony and Fujifilm.

Although the new PC is specifically designed for entertainment purposes, the technology could also provide businesses with a new way to hold virtual conferences. As a result, the new technology could be extremely beneficial to companies with several offices or clients in various locations.

Discussing this new technology Hidehito Murato, Chief Marketing Executive at Toshiba, said, “This is by far, one of the most captivating technologies ever introduced on the PC and has uses for practically every type of digital entertainment. The era of 3D is upon us!"

Over the next few weeks employees are bound to want time off work to watch specific football games and this is especially true next Wednesday when England coverage is set to start at 3pm.

As a result, office managers need to come up with a viable solution to ensure that football fans are not disgruntled when coming to work and also to ensure that productivity levels remain high.

Piers Linney, joint CEO of Outsourcery said, 'Businesses need to prevent absenteeism and by adopting greater flexible working practices they will benefit from a happier workforce while allowing their employees to be productive and patriotic at the same time.'

For employers there are various ways that this can be achieved as managers can allow staff to swap shifts or perhaps even start and finish work earlier.

However, there are also technical solutions that can utilise desktop virtualisation in order to get the most of out of office workers. For example, if company has a virtual desktop system then football fans could arrange with their boss to book the time off and then simply logon to their home computer and access the centralised network.

The benefits of this technology mean that employees can enjoy a more flexible working environment and that managers can still meet important deadlines.

By using such a system employers and employees could co-operate with one another to ensure both of their needs are met, which would result in productivity levels remaining constant.

Employees should also remember that Wimbledon is also on during the World Cup, so it is perhaps a good idea to accommodate tennis fans as well.

Expedia, the internet airline and hotel booking site, has recently upgraded to Windows 7, a process that was made relatively simple due to the use of virtual desktops.

In fact, it is not only Expedia that has decided to upgrade their computer system as a lot of companies and organisations have made the move to the new Windows OS.

Figures indicate that 13 percent of the global OS market is now using the system and an Expedia representative has revealed that this feat has only been made possible because of virtual desktops.

Mike Peterson, Expedia's manager of end-user technology, said Mr Peterson said, "We looked at the cost of just moving to a virtualized packaged or a virtualized instance of that application and we went from 24 to 30 hours worth of work to four to eight hours, a huge time and cost reduction."

It was so easy and cost-effective because the virtual system allows the new OS can to be installed centrally and then filtered through to user accounts. This then means that a technician no longer needs to manually install the OS to each computer individually.

Due to how simple the upgrade is, and how cost effective it could be, a survey by Dimensional Research has revealed that 42 percent intend to deploy Windows 7 by the end of the year.

Mr Peterson added, "It was a huge win for the team, because having to overcome application hurdles can be very time consuming and costly."

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) have recently revealed plans to minimise the amount spent on computers by adopting a new virtual desktop system.

The system will make the ADFG a lot more efficient by making the day-to-day routine a lot smoother for the 1,200 employees and 40 field offices that are throughout the state.

With the new IT solution the industry is also set to make a substantial saving on the $600,000 they spend per annum on actual desktops.

The ADFG finally decided to implement the virtual desktops as a way to deliver up-to-date information to their employees that are scattered across the state. This will replace existing hardware that was out of date and inefficient to run.

The virtualisation upgrade has also meant that the department can utilise some of the existing hardware as a way to cut costs, which is expected to save them up to $250,000 over the next two years.

However the decision to upgrade was not just based upon financial savings, as improvements needed to be made to improve the effectiveness of their IT system.

Corey Kos, the department's infrastructure manager, said, "In the rural areas of Alaska, we have sites connected with what I call ‘third-world country' bandwidth. We needed a solution to keep us innovative and ease some of those bandwidth constraints."

This recent upgrade now allows IT staff to centrally manage information in Juneau for various locations, including Anchorage, Fairbanks and Kodiak.

Mr Kos quipped, that the new system was a ‘catch-all’ solution as it solved many of the problems that were associated with their previous system.

International technology company Dell has announced the launch of 3 new storage products which they believe could signal the start of a new “virtual era”.

The first product to be announced was the new firmware 5.0 update for its EqualLogic range. The firm promise this new update will allow firms to concentrate on "intelligent data management”. In addition, the firm say the update would automatically create extra space on a storage array, without the need for human interaction. In essence, this would allow the software to adapt to changes much more quickly and effectively.

Another pro of the update is the ability for the firmware to copy data into a new virtual machine up to 72% faster than previous efforts – this will have a huge effect on all businesses which use virtual desktops and other online storage facilities. 

Crucially Dell’s vice president of storage, Darren Thomas, announced server virtualisation is fast becoming the norm in data centre.

Other products announced this week include the EqualLogic PS6000VS and PS6010XVS which enable the combination of SAS and SSD drives on one enclosure for the first time and two new PowerVault Storage arrays. These are aimed at small businesses in particular and Dell claim they offer twice the connectivity, capacity and performance of the previous models. 

In addition to the new products, Dell have also announced they will offer half day workshops for free to help set up the EqualLogic systems.  

The products’ compatibility with virtual servers makes them the ideal companion for virtual desktops and could mean faster turnover time and could effectively save companies a lot of money as a result. 

Loren Brichter, an Apple programme developer, recently revealed that Tweetie is going to be updated on the Mac and is set to be released extremely soon.

The new app will not only work on the iPod and iPhone but will also be specifically developed for use on the iPad, with many new features that are not available on the existing app.

He made the announcement after receiving the Ars Design Award for Tweetie on Mac and this news comes after much anticipation.

He said, "The goal is to exceed the Twitter iPhone app in the iPad. I swear the reunification is coming between iPhone, Mac, and iPad."

As a result Mr Brichter believes that the Mac is waning and will soon be replaced by the iPad, this is an opinion he shares with American writer Dan Lyons. However, this does not mean the Mac will disappear immediately as it is likely to remain popular for many years to come. In fact, Mr Brichter said that if this wasn’t the case then he would not be developing new Mac software.

Although he did say that programming IT solutions will become a lot easier as soon as IT developers come to see the growing popularity of the iPad.

He added, "If you break the idea that we have to use software keyboards the traditional way, there's so much potential for insanely fast programming.

Think about keyboard buttons becoming whole variable names. You could become so efficient while programming!"

As Twitter has become a must have social outlet for media firms and businesses updating their web presence, the app may become extremely beneficial for many out of office web based workers.

Microsoft TechEd North America, a prestigious convention that reveals new ground-breaking technology, recently promoted new virtual desktop technology at their annual event.

This year’s event took place throughout this week at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center and the new solutions are set to make an impact on virtual security.

Specifically the displays and presentations revealed new integrated recovery solutions for disaster recovery, as a way to backup Windows for virtual as well as physical server environments.

These new computing solutions will be of particular importance to companies that find it difficult to locate the right solution for their business.

Eric Burgener, IT and virtual security expert, said, "Organizations that require application-consistent recovery options for mixed physical and virtual environments face many challenges in finding a single, low overhead recovery solution that covers all existing backup and disaster recovery requirements."

For example, companies need a solution that eliminates discrete backups, reduces hardware costs and increases productivity of staff, who would otherwise have to currently maintain the system. All of which enables administrators to recover application data immediately and reliably.

Another important feature that was demonstrated was an application-consistent recovery option for major Microsoft applications, such as Exchange, SQL, various NTFS based applications and SharePoint.

Mr Burgener added, “It's become clear that older, point-in-time based approaches to data protection that worked well on physical servers can't just be transferred to virtual server environments.

But disk-based 'continuous' technologies offer many options to address these requirements and make administrators' lives much easier."

A new iPhone app from Apple now allows users to virtually access any desktop on their phone, from any location worldwide.

This new app adds a level of convenience for office workers and allows them to open and edit documents as well as use many of their desktop programs.

The app is called LogMeIn Ignition and it demonstrates how easy working out of the office can be.

This type of software is ideal when you forget to bring your laptop with you and need to have access to important documents, for example when heading to an important business meeting. Although the size of the screen is not perfect, it is great as a temporary solution.

When using the app users just move the cursor along the screen and tap the touch screen to open a program. The app also contains a virtual keyboard, as well as shortcut keys such as "ctrl+alt+del" and "alt+tab", to make the software more versatile and easy to use.

As the Apple iPhone can access wireless or 3G connections, the software can be used in any location, which makes it invaluable for out-of-office workers.

In order to use the app it is necessary to download the software then configure it to match your iPhone and desktop security settings. It is also compatible with the iPad so the app will not have to be bought twice.

However, make sure you compare it to other products to ensure you get the right IT solution for your business needs.

Mercy Memorial Hospital in Monroe, Michigan, has recently upgraded to a new virtual security system to strengthen the security around patient’s records.

This new system is necessary as the hospital operates from 28 remote locations and uses over 200 servers and 900 desktop computers.

As a result the virtual security system will enable the facility to comply with HIPAA guidelines about the protection of patient information that exists in email communications, endpoints and the web gateway.

Eric Mynster, the ITS operations manager for the hospital, said, "We have to have systems that ensure our patient information is always guarded. We must go beyond simply meeting compliance requirements that target the protection of patients, and also integrate best practices for security within our business operations.

We need to do everything we can to block viruses, spam, and other complex threats to security and productivity."

This meant that Mercy Memorial had to adopt the most advanced virtual security system in order to complement their state of the art IT systems, existing virtual desktop system and recently renovated emergency and surgical department.

After evaluating various security products from different suppliers the hospital finally decided to go ahead with the upgrade.

Mr. Mynster added, "ROI for virtualized solutions is better than physical server or proprietary appliance deployments. Our virtual solutions help us shrink our data-centre footprint, lower power requirements, consume fewer IT resources, and increase service levels.”

As a result the hospital is now able to provide a more secure way to transfer patient records.