Oxinet have again been successful in winning the contract for hosting services for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for a further three years. Public sector regulation requires NICE to make contracts available for re-tender every three years, and we are very pleased to have helped this contract since 2000.

Are you a runner? I am, and a friend of mine (Matt, who is pictured) sent me this - Gmaps Pedometer.  IT uses the Google Maps API and lets you plan your routes (or track routes you've run) with a simple, clickable interface. It will even work out how many calories you've burned and shows mileposts for split timing.

Don't forget to go and run the routes you plan though!

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

One of those tasks that is always important but all-too frequently forgotten is backing up. In particular, although the important data may be backed up, all those programs and system settings that have taken years to get right may never be backed up, because it is often so difficult to do. This is especially true on a server which has to be online 24x7 and can not be taken down just to do a regular backup.

We have come across a very useful tool that can help, called DriveSnapshot.

Oxinet's success in developing the Envirowise website for Serco has been instrumental in gaining a new public-sector contract from the newly formed Quality Improvement Agency.  This is an organisation dedicated to setting up a central resource for further education providers. The project will see Oxinet develop hosting services, a content management system, and an online community using our Seahorse.NET and LUCENE expertise. We will be merging up to 12 websites into a single "Excellence Gateway" for use by students, teachers and Further Educational institutions.  The project is in partnership with Serco who will provide specialist education-sector knowledge, marketing expertise and editorial skills.