Making the most of your applications

Some of the calls we get asking for support are more about understanding how to get an application to carry out a specific activity than about things that fail to work. Having recently spent some time with a Microsoft trainer I’ve learned lots of useful tips that...

Christmas fun

Do not click any of these links if you have a deadline to meet!  Warning: highly addictive. Smack the penguin Christmas bubbles Bouncing reindeer Enjoy!!    

Managing expectations

When you use technology everything goes swimmingly as long as it all works, but, even the most robust systems go down occasionally.  Your IT support will do their best to get you back up and running as quickly as possible, but nobody can give you a 100% guarantee that...

False economies

IT support costs money – we all have to earn a living!  If you’ve got an internal IT support person or team then you pay their costs.  If you’re a smaller organisation you probably don’t need a full-time support person, which is where outsourced services come into...

Is your baby causing you a security risk?

Today’s homes are full of technology.  We have computers, wireless connections, smart meters for our utilities, smart boxes for the TV, games consoles, broadband direct to the TV and much more.  It’s easy to plug the latest gadgets into your system and just as easy to...

Can you work from home?

The winter is coming and for some people bad weather can prevent them from making it in to the office – does that mean that no work gets done? Whether it’s flooded roads that are impassable, trains that can’t run because of trees on the line or snow keeping your...

Routed out

One of my clients referred to a little box in her office as a ‘router’, but actually it was a Wifi access point and so a conversation about what is what ensued. These days most routers are three or four devices all in a single box and do some or all of the following:...

Out in the sticks

Living in rural England may be idyllic – until you want to connect with the rest of the world and then you could find there are problems.  There are still many places in the UK that either have no broadband at all or a really slow service.  Where many of us think...

Bits and Bytes

There’s often confusion over the difference between a bit and a byte in computer-speak so here’s the explanation. Bits are usually part of the calculation relating to the speed of uploading or downloading information so you hear about ‘X bits per second’.  Now that...

Clever broadband

If your business is completely dependent on your broadband connection what happens when it fails?  People sit idle at their desks, clients get upset and business suffers. ‘Ah,’ I hear you say ‘but how often does that happen?’  Fortunately, not often, but it only needs...