The UK Construction Blog

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Access your data online, from anywhere with our Cloud Computing Products which include solutions for storing your documents, managing your property portfolio and running construction projects online.

Clouds UK products enable you to share only the information that users need to see with our sophisticated and flexible permissions system. Users benefit by having a simple view of the data they need; businesses benefit from strong security without sacrificing the advantages of online information sharing.

Cloud Computing means that you use secure websites to store your documents and run your business processes, rather than buying expensive and complicated servers. It’s fast becoming the standard way for businesses to manage their data.

Access your data from anywhere

Data is available online through a website, so all you need in order to access it is a computer (or a BlackBerry, iPhone, or PDA) with an internet connection.

Cloud computing is increasingly being used by companies who want to increase home working, increase efficiency by making it easier to work out of the office, or even do away with offices and work entirely online.

Having identified staff as their most expensive commodity, Cloud Computing reduces staff downtime by allowing them to continue working whilst waiting in an airport lounge, railway station or hotel room — places that they had previously been unable to work from.

Save money compared to traditional IT

Companies using Cloud technology are able to budget for a known, fixed cost for their IT requirements — no more surprise upgrade bills or license renewals. Customers get to use the best quality equipment and software which is continually upgraded in the Cloud, all for a single fee.

No more calling out expensive technicians or consultants to upgrade ageing computers or install complex new systems.

Secure your data

Traditional computing is insecure – few employees know about security best practices, and will happily keep data on USB sticks, email, their laptops, on CD-ROMs in their briefcases, etc.

With Clouds UK, your data is held centrally on a secure server guarded by high-quality firewalls and administered by professionals.

Spokesman John Irvine said: “Following a strategic review, Grosvenor is refocusing its development activity on building a larger portfolio of medium-sized, retail, residential, and mixed-used projects rather than concentrating on a few large, long-term, city centre regeneration schemes.

“We were determined to see the Tithebarn scheme through to planning consent, which was approved recently, and we wish Lend Lease and Preston City Council every success.”

After the 37-acre development got the go-ahead from council planners in July, progress was delayed in September when it was called in for public inquiry.

Partner Lend Lease insists that the scheme will still go ahead. Spokesman Richard Coppell said: “We wish to continue working with Preston City Council, and believe in the potential of both Preston and the Tithebarn scheme.”

Cloud Computing

What are the benefits of Cloud Computing for Small Businesses?

You’ve heard the buzz, your IT manager has muttered something about it, or maybe you’re wondering what it’s all about.

We’re talking about Cloud Computing.

More to the point, you might be wondering: “what’s in it for me?”

The idea behind Cloud Computing is that computer resources – either raw processing power and storage, or software to help you run your business – should be a commodity just like electricity, and as with the National Grid, end-users should have no concern as to how the system works, so long as they can plug into it.

We’re a long way from that ideal, but there are ways you can use Cloud Computing to save you money, time and worry today.

Using Cloud Computing in an SMB

A small business with one or two offices has little if any budget for servers to store their data on. They might store payroll information, inventories, sales reports, employee records, marketing brochures, procedural manuals, etc.

Keeping these on individual PCs is messy and unworkable, but the traditional solution – a central server – is expensive and complicated to install and maintain.

The new alternative is to subscribe to a Cloud service: the data is held online in a central location, and made available through a simple, friendly interface. The Cloud provider looks after the complicated stuff for you.

There are many Cloud services to suit a wide range of needs, from simple document storage to property portfolio management, human resources, accounting, scheduling, customer relationship management, and more.

Mobile CAD Surveying Ltd and Clouds UK provide a wide range of products for SMBs.

Better IT for less money

Economies of scale mean that a central Cloud Computing provider can invest in high-quality equipment, which it then rents out to customers for a fraction of the price that it would cost them to buy and install it themselves.

Access your data from anywhere

This is the killer feature of Cloud Computing. Your data is available online through a website, so all you need in order to access it is a computer (or a BlackBerry, iPhone, or PDA) with an internet connection.

Log on from a hotel room, an internet café, or from your home computer. Cloud Computing is ideal for facilitating home working, or even for companies that want to do away with a central office and work entirely online. It can also benefit employees on long-term sick leave, who can’t come into the office but are capable of working from home.

Rest easy – your data is secured by experts

Traditional computing is insecure – few employees know about security best practices, and will happily keep data on USB sticks, email, their laptops, on CD-ROMs in their briefcases, etc.

With Cloud Computing, your data is held centrally on a secure server guarded by high-quality firewalls and administered by professionals.

IT is complex, and you have better things to do

As an SMB, you probably don’t have the resources to build and maintain big, complex IT systems. Even running a single, small server can be time-consuming; could you afford to carry out the following checks every week?

• Check the disk space
• Investigate any errors in the event logs
• Download the latest patches and test them before installing, in case they interfere with any of your software
• Check for any intrusion or hacking attempts (this should be a continual monitoring process, and ideally you would set up an Intrusion Detection System to alert you – these are extremely complicated, so you’d end up paying an expert to configure it for you)

Can you afford to keep spare parts on-site for your server? Even something as simple as a fan breaking can take your server out of action for days until a replacement arrives. If you find an error in the logs, would you know how to troubleshoot it?

You don’t need to worry about any of that with Cloud Computing. You rent the computing power you need from a dedicated provider. They take care of the server for you, so no more worrying about whether Error ID#1382 is going to crash your server.

VPN isn’t good enough

If you’ve tried to use VPN, it’s likely you’ll have been disappointed by it. It’s slow, clunky, and prone to crashing your computer if you so much as dare to open a small Word document.

VPN is where you can connect from anywhere to the server in your office, and in theory work as if you were on the office network.

This isn’t entirely the fault of VPN as a technology; it’s more to do with BT, and the ancient telephone lines which simply can’t carry enough data to cope with VPN connections. Even the fastest ADSL connection can only carry a tiny amount of data compared to your internal network, and there’s nothing faster than ADSL on the market except for ultra-expensive fibre-optic connections, which start at around £10,000 per year.

Sharing data between offices is a nightmare

With traditional server computing, sharing data between offices is a nightmare. There are technologies that can synchronise data between servers in different locations, but due to slow internet connections there’s inevitably a long time lag between John saving a file to the server in HQ, and Jane being able to open it down in the branch office.

What if John and Jane both make changes to a file in different offices? Whose changes win? At best you end up with confusion, at worst corruption of your data.

You could rely on email to send files back and forth, but that quickly degenerates as people lose track of who has what, or work off an old version of a file on their desktop.

Cloud Computing keeps all your data in a central location. Everyone accesses the same website, and gets the latest version of every document. No more waiting for that document from John to synchronise, you get it as soon as he uploads it.

The development has been done

The Cloud Provider has already developed the software, and will be continually improving it over time. They will have incorporated feature requests from their other clients, and will have the resources to thoroughly test their software.

Developing software yourself is either extremely time-consuming or extremely expensive. You can outsource the development, but the programmers you hire probably won’t know much about your line of work, and so making sure they build what you want will take up a huge amount of your time.

And there will be bugs, which they’ll charge you to fix.

There’s no need to develop your own database, spreadsheet or software package to run your business. After all, why slog away fixing bugs in your own code, when you can simply lease someone else’s hard work, and make it work for you?

Upgrades are free and frequent

With traditional, packaged software that you install on your PC, you have to pay for upgrades: not just once, but for every PC you’ve installed the software on.

You could decide not to upgrade, but in many cases old versions of business software are incompatible with the latest computers – forcing you to either pay for the latest version, or keep a handful of ancient computers around the office to run your important software.

Cloud Computing does away with this. Because the software is web-based, everyone gets access to the latest version automatically, as soon as it’s released.

Mobile CAD Surveying Ltd and Clouds UK has an extra advantage here, as we don’t charge you for extra users – you can have as many people as you like using the site, all for a single fee.

Offshore wind activity is experiencing significant growth now in terms of capacity installed. However, the industry is struggling with the costs of development, which have more doubled in 5 years.

The offshore wind market is finding its feet across the globe, with major projects completed and under construction in the UK, swiftly gathering momentum for renewables under the Obama administration in the United States, increasing focus and investment in China, and new projects planned in Germany, Belgium and other European countries.

From virtually nothing in 2000, the industry today can boast 1.5 GW of installed offshore wind capacity, of which 334 MW – more than one fifth – was installed in 2008 alone, see Figure 1, (below). An additional 1.5 GW is currently under construction, and Douglas-Westwood forecasts more than 5 GW will be in the water by 2012.

Offshore in Europe

The United Kingdom, in particular, has assumed the mantle of leadership in the industry. With seven operating wind power plants sporting 530 MW of capacity, the UK leads the industry by far. And that gap will grow. The UK has six projects totalling 1.2 GW under construction, and looks to add another 900 MW by 2012.

The offshore industry can trace its lineage to the Danes, for it was Denmark which first championed offshore wind in scale. From 2001–2003, Denmark built 500 MW of offshore wind with its groundbreaking Horns Rev and Nysted projects. After taking a pause to gain experience in the operation and integration of wind power into its energy portfolio, the Danes will be back from 2009, and we expect them to add nearly 1 GW of capacity by 2012.

Germany looks to move from a testing and field trial phase to construction of operating wind farms in the next few years. From 2004–2008, the country installed only three offshore turbines — all near shore. These include a 4.5-MW prototype turbine at Ems Emden in 2004 and a 5-MW turbine installed at Hooksiel in 2008. But Germany is moving past the prototype stage, and its first significant project, the 60-MW Alpha Ventus wind farm, is currently under construction and is expected to be operational by the end of 2009. Germany is will continue to become a key player, and is expected to install 1.4 GW by 2012, second only to the UK globally.

Web Conferencing

Mobile CAD Surveying Ltd are now able to offer their customer software demonstrations and quick training advice via their Web Conferencing facility.

You know how useful conference calls can be. Now how about if you could do it with pictures? With their all new web conferencing service, that’s exactly what you get. A web conference that allows you to chat, present documents and share their/your desktop with your fellow conference callers.

Web Conference Demonstration of  Sitemaster Building Software – Point – Shoot – Drawn = Instant Floor Plans  &  Sitemaster Elevations Software – Elevational Drawings from Photographs are now taking place.

Looks like we construction workers and companies should be heading over to Turkey asap, if the UK Government is to be believed.

Turkey is to spend billions of pounds on major infrastructure and regeneration projects, which could provide work for UK firms. The UK government is encouraging British construction companies to look at “multi-billion pound construction opportunities” in Turkey including plans to build 600,000 housing units, a high speed rail link between Istanbul and Ankara and a 500ha regeneration project in Istanbul.

Sir Andrew Cahn, chief executive of UK Trade and Investment, the arm of government that helps British firms work overseas, said: “Turkey is a tremendously exciting market. Quality infrastructure is a key component to a successful economy and the Turkish government is committed to spend billions of pounds on major infrastructure and regeneration projects. UK companies have the expertise and capabilities to deliver on these initiatives.”

UKTI has produced a report on Turkey, which highlights the following upcoming projects:

Major infrastructure projects

• Nabucco Project – 3,300km pipeline which will bring gas from Asia to Central Europe. Cost approximately £8bn, to commence work in 2010.
• Bosphorus Crossings – upgrading two road bridges, new rail tunnel
• Istanbul – Ankara high speed rail project
• Izmit Bay Crossing
• New motorway proposals including 2,250km on new road (more than double current motorway network)

Regeneration

• projects

• Kartel Waterfront Project
• 500ha regeneration project in Istanbul – to include a port, marina, luxury hotels, recreational areas and residential and office blocks
• Masterplan for 2km continuous ecological corridor won by Llewelyn Davies Yeang

The report’s author David Howell from DMH Consultancy said that despite the global slowdown, Turkey’s economy is expected to grow by up to 3% in 2010 and it’s predicted it will be Europe’s third largest economy by 2050.

He said: “As well as major infrastructure projects like the Nabucco pipeline, the Turkish government is also planning several major regeneration initiatives. In Istanbul for example, it’s planning to transform 500 hectares of wasteland into a waterfront port and marina with luxury hotels, recreational areas and residential and office blocks.

“As the world’s ninth most popular tourist spot, with over 20 million visitors each year, there are also plenty of opportunities for British business stemming from the tourism sector. Additionally, 600,000 housing units are required per year to meet the demands of Turkey’s population growth.

“I encourage UK companies to take a serious look at this exciting market.”

The 0.8T Mini Digger has the ability to track through a standard doorway and has no problem with height restrictions due to the folding ROPS frame. It is remarkable not just for its compact size but also for the fact that it is very powerful, producing exceptional digging performance. With many optional attachments for good versatility.

Single acting auxiliary Pipe work fitted as standard, boom Pipe work optional. Compact and manoeuvrable design enables this machine to be used in the most combined of spaces. With an extending undercarriage, extending from 700mm to 1000mm on the Micro and 970mm to 1350mm on the Micro Plus. This machine is easy to operate and requires only basic training on handover.

MP400 Laser Level

Save over £300 today on this Sokkia Triax self levelling laser. Revolutionary design, Rubber Bumpers, Head protection, Horizontal/ Vertical self levelling, Chalk line, Scanning, Highly visible beam. Ideal for: Flooring, Partitioning, Ceiling, Building & Construction. Offer includes: Triax MP400 Laser, Laser Receiver with Clamp and Remote Control.

Specifications:
Range: ø300m
Levelling Range: +/- 10%
Accuracy: +/- 3mm at 30m
Accuracy of Chalk line: +/- 4.5mm at 12m
Laser diode: Visible 635 nm 2mW, Class 3R
Rotation speed: From 0 to 600 rpm
Scanning angle: From 10° to 35°
Laser Battery life: 2 Alkaline D size; 160 hours NiMh rechargeable; 40 hours
Charging time: 16 hours
Tripod mount: Standard 5/8” Size (LxWxD) 190x190x150 mm

Sitemaster Training Day

SiteMaster Building -Training Day – Mobile CAD Software
Learn How To measure and draw with professional results using Laser Measures and/or Total Stations

To measure and draw with professional results is no longer limited to professional surveyors, it is now open to architects,
engineers, estate agents, facility managers, craftsmen, interior decorators, interior designers and many others.
SiteMaster Building  does not require any special knowledge of CAD or surveying.

We are happy to provide Full ‘On Site/Office’ training of the Graebert Sitemaster Building software programme and its
features as part of an overall package or as a ‘stand alone’ product following your purchase of a kit or for those who
would like to see the power of this software prior to purchase.

We advise the training is best carried out either in your office or on one of your own ‘Live’ projects, that way you actually
get paid for carrying out the survey and learn at the same time. eg your customer pays your training costs.

The training fees will include all reasonable travel expenses to a location of your choice on the UK mainland and will walk
you through how to use the programme from the initial setup of the software through to surveying, measuring and
completed drawings produced  ‘on site’

We are also happy to give you some telephone support following the training until you are proficient with the programme.

A Few Key Points:

• How to set up the software
• Walk through of the CAD Icons
• Start drawing basic rooms
• Drawing rectangular and non-rectangular rooms
• Tri Draw – very important as most buildings are not square.
• Complex situations, such as drawing non-orthogonal rooms
• Insert, doors, windows, openings etc including windows with reveals both square and splayed.
• Insert chimneys, niches, recesses
• Insert square and circular columns including triangulation for those not parallel with adjacent walls.
• Adding dimensions
• Hatching of walls etc
• Adding symbols to your drawings and place them where you want them
• Place radiators easily
• Checking for mistakes on drawings and on screen thus avoiding mistakes and guaranteeing high quality.
• Insert text blocks
• Insert voice notes, photographs and videos into your drawings
• Inspection – check for measured distances
• Area, volume and perimeter calculations at the touch of a button
• Export symbols, rooms, doors, windows etc into spreadsheet to create door, window, room, symbol schedules
  in seconds.
• Floor management system and full layer support

Book Now! a Sitemaster Building Training Day