News

AI COVID Cough Detector

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

MIT research has used an AI model trained on cough sounds to detect an early stage COVID cough.

Identifies Cough Pattern

Those who catch COVID-19 but remain largely or completely asymptomatic (and therefore do not get a test) are proving to be a challenge in stopping the spread of the virus. With this in mind, researchers have used the knowledge that coughs can be used to help identify multiple conditions to develop an AI model that can identify the individual pattern of a COVID-19 cough and thereby, aid diagnosis.

Which Conditions?

The nature and different sounds of coughs have long been used to help give information about many different conditions. Also, recently, research published in the Lancet, which also named one of the AI COVID cough researchers as a contributor (Mar Santamaria), used automated (AI) linguistic analysis to predict future onset of Alzheimer's.

How?

The research to identify the pattern of COVID-19 used forced-cough cell phone recordings of more than 4000 subjects to create a huge cough dataset. This dataset was then used to train an AI/machine learning model which used an adapted AI speech processing framework that could make acoustic biomarkers, thereby enabling it to tell the difference between coughs.

Results

Amazingly, when the AI model’s results were then validated with an official COVID-19 test, the model achieved COVID-19 sensitivity of 98.5 percent with a specificity of 94.2 and for asymptomatic subjects the sensitivity was 100 per cent with a specificity of 83.2 percent. This research appears to show, therefore, that it is possible for AI to pick out a COVID-19 cough from other types of cough and that, as concluded by the researchers:

AI techniques can produce a free, non-invasive, real-time, any-time, instantly distributable, large-scale COVID-19 asymptomatic screening tool to augment current approaches in containing the spread of COVID-19

It is understood that the research team are now working with hospitals to create an even more diverse cough dataset with plans to create an app-based diagnostic tool.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This shows how AI technology can be used to create unique diagnostic tools that could have a huge positive impact in tackling difficult world challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and how to test and screen accurately and easily. The researchers see this tool as having value in daily the screening of students, workers, and public as a way (after lockdowns) of helping businesses and transport systems to open and operate while helping to quickly (in real time) and easily and in a non-invasive way, spot spreaders and thereby potentially help economies and countries get back in control.

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Disposable Email Addresses For Office 365 Users

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft is making its plus addressing, custom email feature available to all Office 365 users by adding it to Exchange Online.

What Is Plus Addressing?

Plus addressing allows a user to create their own custom, disposable return email address so that, for example, when a user signs up to something (newsletter sign-up forms, contact forms, andother online forms), anything sent back will arrive in the normal inbox even though it has been sent to custom email address. For example, if a user creates a custom email address by adding a custom tag e.g. username+tag@mydomain.co.uk and signs up to something with it, all emails sent back to username+tag@mydomain.co.uk will arrive in their normal username@mydomain.co.uk email box.

Why?

The advantages are that a user can distinguish, separate and organise their incoming emails more easily. Also, those using business solutions such as support ticketing systems can add a case ID to an email address to help track support threads.

Announced Last Year

Although support for plus addressing was announced by Microsoft last year (at the Ignite conference) the roll-out only actually began in September this year. In fact, support for plus addressing was added Microsoft’s Hotmail as far back as 2013, but this is the first time that the feature has been supported by Exchange Online in Office 365.

Drawbacks

One problem that may arise from the wide-scale introduction of this feature is that because Exchange already supports email addresses that contain a ‘+’, enabling plus addressing could mean that these existing addresses don’t work.

Enable

Although plus addressing has been made available to all Office 365 users, the default is that it is disabled unless administrators choose to enable it. This can be done through the Exchange Online Powershell by running this command:Set- OrganizationConfig -AllowPlusAddressInRecipients $true.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This feature is a useful and practical way to help organise inboxes, direct, track, and measure responses, and for businesses using business solutions like ticketing systems, it can help them to manage the systems more easily and effectively. Plus addressing, therefore, can help businesses to save time and be more efficient. Although making the feature available to all has been on the cards for some time, it will be particularly useful now as remote workers seek to find the best ways to stay organised and to maximise the value that their business interactions generate in what has become an unpredictable and difficult business environment.

Tech tip - How To ‘Unsend’ An Email With Gmail

Desktop Screen Recording Software

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Recording your screen can be useful for training, marketing and communications and there are many different free and paid-for services available for recording desktop activity. This article takes a brief look at several different examples.

Recording Your Screen

At a time where we all make and share videos using phones and via social media channels and apps e.g. WhatsApp and YouTube, plus where many people are now used to attending video conference meetings (e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Meet), the power and value of screen sharing and recorded video instructions/meetings/training is clear. Being able to record your screen has two main different benefits such as:

The ability to save and capture any type of content e.g. apps, videos, software, online events, video calls and more.
The ability to create and publish/share content.

Examples

Here is a brief look at some of the main (mostly free) screen-recording programs and platforms available at the current time. This article is not an endorsement or recommendation for any of them but merely a brief look at some of the options that could be found in any online searches.

Windows 10

It should not be forgotten that Windows 10 has its own built-in screen recorder in theGame bar. Technically, it is not standalone, and it is not free (because Windows 10 isa paid-for SaaS) and to find it, type "Game bar" into search menu or hit the Windows key + G. From there you can press the record button or hold down Windows key + Alt+ R.

Skype

One of the more familiar free ways of recording screen activity is using the Skype video call platform. Skype calls can be recorded directly in the app and Skype screen sharing and call recording are completely cloud-based, thereby not affecting the user’s device's performance or storage space. Skype call recording is, however, only available for Skype to Skype calls but is an effective way of getting a reasonable quality recording of a training session or meeting.

ShareX

This free, open source screenshot and screencast app for file sharing and productivity.This app offers a wide variety of capture methods, including screen recording. ShareX lets users capture or record any area of their screen and share it with a single press of a key. In addition to screen recording / capture, it also enables the uploading of images, text, or other types of files to over 80 supported destinations. Details can be found here: https://getsharex.com/.

Screencastify

This free file extension for the Chrome browser can capture a single tab, a whole screen, or webcam only and allows users to embed their webcam anywhere in a recording, narrate with a microphone and to record offline. Once a recording has been made it is autosaved to Google Drive, and can be uploaded directly toYouTube or exported as an MP4, animated GIF, or MP3. For more information see: https://www.screencastify.com/.

Loom

Loom describes itself as “video messaging for work” because it enables short videos to be made and shared very quickly e.g. to use instead of an email. This is a free app which claims to have the best screen recorder for Chrome, Mac, iOS, and Windows. Loom also claims to have more than 7 million users across 90,000 companies. For more information see: https://www.loom.com/.

Kap

Kap is a free, open source screen recorder, built using web technology. Kap, which began as “a tiny side project” and is just on its first stable release, enables screen recordings to be exported as GIF, MP4, WebM, or APNG with optional audio, highlight clicks and trimming. This app currently only supports macOS 10.12 or later, and its collaborative, open-source creation may be one of the reasons why Kap claims that the program is loved by the community and is used by designers, developers and project managers. For more information see: https://getkap.co/.

Movavi

Movavi, which also has movie and video programs (converter, suit and editor) offers a free and paid-for version of a screen recorder for PC and Mac where users can choose the capture area of the screen, edit it afterwards, and use a SuperSpeed tool to convert the video to popular formats. The program also works offline i.e. users do not need an internet connection to record their screen and save the video. The limitations of the free version are that there is no system sound recording, no screenshot editing, the output video has a watermark, and a description or tags can’t be added to a video before sharing it on YouTube. For more information see: https://www.movavi.com/.

Screenpresso

Screenpresso is a video and screen capture program that is available in a free version and in paid-for Pro and Enterprise versions. The free version offers image capture, HD video capture with branding and a limited image editor. The Pro version, for example, offers many other features including Android capture, Text capture from images(OCR), a full featured image editor, sharing features, and priority support (for 1 year).For more information see: https://www.screenpresso.com/.

Camtasia

Camtasia, by TechSmith, is a paid-for software suite that offers an all-in-one screen recorder and video editor for businesses, educators, and entrepreneurs to create video tutorials and other instructional videos. Camtasia claims to have over 14 million users. As well as enabling video and audio recordings from the desktop, the suite also offers pre-built and custom video templates to simplify video creation, effects, music and audio, titles, annotations and callouts, as well as the ability to add quizzes and interactivity. For more information see: https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html.

Screen Capture Videos Popular With Businesses

With ever-more efficient, fast and easy screen recording and sharing apps being made available, businesses now have another way in which to save time and increase engagement in communication as well as being able to enhance training and to quickly produce training materials and quickly make quality, shareable video content.

HMRC Self Assessment Scam Warning

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

HMRC has issued a warning to those completing Self Assessment tax returns for 31 January not to be caught out by SMS messages and email scams purporting to be from HMRC.

Bogus

An upturn in scams using HMRC’s name has meant that in the last 12 months, HMRC has responded to more than 846,000 referrals of suspicious HMRC contacts from the public, and reported over 15,500 malicious web pages to internet service providers to be taken down. HMRC also reports that around 500,000 of the referrals from the public offered bogus tax rebates.

Personal Information and Bank Details Sought

Bogus HMRC scams, like all other scams, are designed as an easy way to get money, personal information, and bank details. With the current bogus HMRC scams, the promise of a refund is the carrot being used to tempt victims to part with personal details and the threat/stick of a fictitious tax bill that needs to be paid is being used to extract fast money.

HMRC warns that criminals are also using the personal information gathered in the scam to access bank details or to sell on to other criminals, thereby increasing the risk of being targeted in more scams and attacks.

What Do The Scams Look Like?

Examples of recent HMRC scam texts and emails show that customers are informed that they have a pending tax refund/rebate or must review a document relating to an application for a rebate. In both cases, customers are invited to click on a link. This link directs the customer to a phishing website made to look like the UK government website. Examples of these and also of recent COVID-related scams are shown on the real UK government website here.

Never, Never

HMRC is keen to point out that it NEVER:

- Sends notifications by email about tax rebates or refunds.

- Asks for personal or financial information in text messages.

- Uses ‘WhatsApp’ to contact customers about a tax refund. This is in response to a scam using WhatsApp recently.

- Uses social media to offer a tax rebate or to request personal or financial information. This is in response to a scam using Twitter recently.

Other HMRC-Focused Scams

HMRC has also highlighted another popular scam whereby a recorded call tells the recipient that HMRC is filing a lawsuit against them and that they need to press a number on the keypad to speak to a caseworker to make a payment.

What To Do

HMRC advises that recipients of these texts, emails, and calls should not reply, not click on any links, and not give any personal or financial details. Instead, recipients should send any phishing text messages to 60599 (network charges apply), and report full details of the scam emails, texts, WhatsApp and social media messages by email to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk. All scam messages should also be deleted from the recipient’s phone or email account as soon as possible.

Those who have fallen victim to this or other scams where there has been a financial loss should contact Action Fraud.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Scammers are always ready to exploit fears and desires and this scam plays on both. Essentially though, this is a phishing scam and phishing emails tend to have elements that give them away if the recipient can resist an immediate emotional response. In the case of this scam, and aside from the knowledge that HMRC does not communicate with customers in this way, the fact that it is unexpected, asks for money/personal information/bank details and is threatening should set alarm bells ringing. Other ways that phishing emails can be spotted include generic greetings (scammers are less likely to personalise), grammar/spelling mistakes, heavy emotional appeals that urge you to act immediately, and anomalies in the email address that a spam email has come from, or in the domain of the link to click on. Businesses should ensure that staff are made aware of the risk of phishing emails, how to spot them and what to do/what not to do (not clicking on links in emails). This is particularly important at a time when many staff are working from home and businesses should ensure that staff are kept firmly in the loop about security policy, security best practice, and current threats.

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Apple to Pay £85 Million For 'Batterygate' Scandal

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Apple is to pay $113m (£85m) to put an end to the 'Batterygate' scandal, where the company was accused of deliberately slowing down iPhone batteries to prompt users into buying a new iPhone.

What Happened?

Back in 2017, some iPhone users were sharing concerns online that their iPhone’s performance had slowed with age but had sped up after a battery replacement. This led to a customer sharing comparative performance tests of different models of the iPhone 6S on Reddit, which appeared to support the customer suspicions.

Technology website Geeknebench also shared the results of its own tests of several iPhones running different versions of the iOS operating system where some showed slower performance than others.

After customers concerns mounted and received more press, Apple publicly admitted that it had made changes one year earlier in the iOS 10.2.1 software update that is likely to have been responsible for the slowdown that customers may have experienced in iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, and iPhone SE. The slowing affected millions of people with thirty-three U.S states claiming that Apple had caused the battery-slowing to encourage battery replacement and new phone purchases.

Apple issued an apology to customers in January 2018 but said that motivation for slowing the batteries was a desire to prolong the life of customer devices by managing their ageing lithium-ion batteries and preventing the inconvenience of a sudden and unexpected shutdown.

Settlement

This latest $113m (£85m) settlement is on top of the $500m that Apple agreed in March to pay to affected iPhone owners as a result of a class-action lawsuit. Although Apple has not admitted to deliberate wrongdoing it has agreed to be more transparent over the next 3 years about iPhone power management.

Other Woes

Apple is also being sued by Epic Games in Australia after Epic’s popular and lucrative ‘Fortnite’ game was removed from the Apple App Store in August after it bypassed Apple’s (and Google’s) in-app payment method, thereby depriving the tech giant(s) of the revenue. Epic has long complained about having to pay between 15 and 30 per cent of transactions made through apps on iOS, and Android.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The whole debacle over appearing to keep quiet about something that essentially appeared to take away performance that customers had paid for and apparently prompt them to spend more money with Apple to fix it, and the obvious financial gain by Apple appears to have been a trust-damaging blot on Apple’s copybook. It is no surprise then, that Apple is reaching financial settlements and, no doubt, the trillion-dollar company will be hoping to move on quickly. It should not be forgotten, however, that whatever the reason for the phone-slowing update, it appears to have caused considerable disruption to the service that many customers had paid for, many of whom are likely to have needed their phones for important business matters. It was a shock to many customers, who chose Apple for many positive reasons and trusted the brand, that anything like this could have happened and this matter is an example of how managing customer relationships in an age where information is shared quickly and widely by customers via the Internet involves making smart decisions about transparency and being seen to be up-front with loyal customers.

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The Difference Between Cloud Backup and Cloud Storage

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This article looks at the difference between cloud backup and cloud storage and how each contributes to daily business life; business continuity and disaster recovery.

The Need For Storage

Businesses not only have limited hard drive space, plus they are having to deal with an increasing amount of data (primary and secondary), comply with stricter data regulations (GDPR) and are facing more security threats i.e. more criminals working in more sophisticated ways to steal company data. In addition to these challenges, as highlighted by 2020’s pandemic, more businesses have employees in different locations (working from home) but who still need work apps and data and information to be stored, synchronised, made secure and yet be accessible for work use (and for collaboration).

With this in mind, some of the reasons why cloud storage is now not only popular but vital for businesses include:

- It avoids the risk of data being lost to hardware/server failure/damage, outages and/or file corruption, the effects of environmental/natural disasters e.g. fire and flood, or damage to/theft of storage media e.g. USB drives or external hard drives.

- Cost efficiency. Cloud storage is relatively cost-efficient and the expense and responsibility of upgrading the storage hardware, data-centres and more rests with the cloud provider. Also, the customer saves in terms of expertise required in-house and resources (time and staff) that would have been needed to maintain its own cloud storage.

- Lower energy consumption. The energy savings of using the cloud add to the efficiencies mentioned above and can help bring ‘green’ benefits.

- Scalability and flexibility. It is relatively easy and fast to up-scale (or down-scale) in cloud storage capacity.

- Usability and accessibility. Cloud services typically come with an easy-to-use user interface and drag and drop, and help/support is available. With cloud storage, data can be accessed from any device and any part of the world.

- Increased capabilities. Cloud platforms and the apps and flexible storage that they support can boost a company’s capabilities thereby contributing to its competitiveness.

- Synchronisation. Cloud storage data can be synchronised with any device.

- Centralisation and better control. Having a centralised, synchronised, up to date copy that everyone can work on enables better data management and helps with day to day efficiency.

- Automation and convenience. Cloud storage only requires clicks from the customer rather than having to set up and swap around hardware solutions (removable hard drives or USBs).

- Supports multiple users. The same cloud environment can have more than one usage and it allows multiple users to work collaboratively on a common file.

- Security. Cloud storage provides compliant (GDPR), safe and secure storage for company data.

The Need For Backup

Things can (and often do) go wrong with company systems, data, platforms, and hardware. Theft, loss, natural disasters, cyber-attacks, data breaches, important 3rd supplier failure or the loss of key employees, and less serious digital events that cause business disruption mean that companies need to ensure, for the purposes of business continuity and disaster recovery, that recent backup (copy) of data is available. Backups are essential files that enable a full restore, and as such are an important element of ongoing good practice. The cloud also offers a convenient backup location for the apps that the business uses as these are also vital parts of the day-to-day running of a business. Although the Cloud is not the only way to back up data i.e. store a copy of data, it is now the preferred method for many of reasons mentioned in the previous section (about cloud storage).

The Difference

The basic difference between cloud backup and cloud storage is, therefore, that cloud backup is a service where data and apps on a business’s servers are backed up on a remote server so that a recent copy can be reinstated in the event of problems such as an outage, system failure, a debilitating cyberattack or natural disaster i.e. it provides a way for files to be restored in the event of data loss. Cloud backup is therefore strongly linked to business continuity and disaster recovery (and the plans for both).

Cloud storage is really a way to supplement and give greater flexibility to the business’s hard drive space and make it easier to access and edit files from different devices, from any location.

Cloud Types

The different types of cloud storage offer different benefits and businesses can choose which type or which combination suits their needs. For example:

- The Private Cloud (internal/enterprise cloud), as the name suggests, is inside the organisation, the resources are not shared with other organisations and are protected from the outside by a firewall.

- The Public Cloud is available to all, mainly paid-for, through third-party services from providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and more, and the resources are shared with multiple other public cloud users. Public cloud services are now extremely popular with businesses. Research by the Synergy Research Group (2019) shows that cloud-associated markets, such as the public cloud, are growing at rates ranging from 10% to over 40% and the annual spending on the cloud may double in four years. Big growth cloud infrastructure segments are infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) with a massive 44% growth rate.

- The Hybrid Cloud is, therefore, a mixture of on-premises, private cloud and third-party, public cloud services, with cross-over between the two.

Remote Working

The remote working resulting from the pandemic restrictions has now only emphasised the value of the cloud for storage, backup, communication and collaborative working but this has also translated into a big boost in spending on the public cloud and this is forecast to grow by 6.3 per cent in 2020 to $257.9bn, up from $242.7bn last year (Gartner).

Although software as a service (SaaS) is expected remain the largest market segment, the desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) segment, although relatively small, is forecast to experience a boost in spending (from $616m worldwide in 2019) due to the fact that it offers an inexpensive way for organisations with large numbers of remote workers to enable staff to securely access enterprise applications from multiple devices and locations. This has proven to be particularly valuable during the lockdown and beyond.

In Summary

Cloud storage, therefore, provides many benefits over more traditional, less secure or scalable alternatives and use of the cloud also makes it easier for businesses to ensure that valuable work and data assets are backed-up effectively and regularly just in case they are needed. One lesson that this year has taught businesses is that the unexpected can happen and this emphasises not just the value of the cloud to business operations, but also the value of the cloud to business continuity, disaster recovery planning and how cloud backups feed into these.

Desktop Screen Recording Software

Disposable Email Addresses For Office 365 Users

Carbon Pollution From Your Emails

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A Financial Times report based on work by Tim Berners-Lee has highlighted how sending fewer emails could help tackle climate change by reducing carbon emissions.

Emails and Carbon Production

The idea from Tim Berners-Lee, referenced also by Ovo Energy, is that although emails appear to be more environmentally friendly than using paper, a lot of energy is expended (and carbon produced) in order to allow emails to be used. For example, for emails to be written and sent energy must be used by servers, home wi-fi, and a laptop. Also, the carbon emitted to construct data-centre buildings could also be taken into when assessing the environmental impact of email as this represents significant greenhouse gas (carbon) production.

How Much?

Although each individual email is likely to be responsible for producing an incredibly small amount of carbon as a proportion of the 435.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses produced by the UK last year, there is likely to be a cumulative impact. This impact is likely to be made greater by the sending of “unnecessary” emails.

For example, Ovo Energy commissioned (Censuswide) research shows that the 64 million “unnecessary” emails sent every day could be responsible for contributing 23,475 tonnes of carbon a year to the UK’s carbon footprint. Unnecessary emails are categorised as those sent to friends within talking distance, or those containing replies such as ‘thank you’, ‘thanks’, ‘received’, and similar.

Polluting Anyway?

There is, of course, and argument that whether sending emails or not, having laptops, computers, Wi-Fi routers (and more) switched on all the time is contributing anyway to the production of carbon and that separating out the individual contribution of emails is difficult. It could also be argued that game and video streaming and cloud storage have more of a negative impact than sending emails.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Many bigger businesses and big tech businesses try, where possible, to reduce any obvious environmental impact but also rely upon carbon offsetting and the funding of environmental projects. Google, for example, says that, due to carbon offsetting, it became carbon neutral in 2007, has now compensated for all of the carbon it has ever created and plans to run all of its data centres on carbon-free energy by 2030. Organisations such as Friends of the Earth which points out that "in most cases, it seems clear that carbon offsetting doesn’t work in practice" and Greenpeace which says that “the way out of the climate emergency is just not that simple” and that “Offsetting projects simply don’t deliver what we need” are clearly more sceptical about offsetting.

Reducing the numbers of “unnecessary” emails sent sounds like a good, time-saving and hopefully, energy-saving idea anyway, but businesses clearly need to look at the bigger picture and concentrate more on higher-impact elements too.

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Disposable Email Addresses For Office 365 Users

Tech Tip – Windows 10 Emoji/Kaomoji Keyboard

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like a fast and easy way to include emojis in your writing or get access to a free resource of extra graphics when using Windows 10, you may not know that Windows 10 now has an integrated emoji and Kaomoji keyboard. Here’s how to find it:

To load the emoji/kaomoji keyboard:

- Press the Windows key + ;

- Click on the icons at the bottom of the emoji window to reveal lots of colourful emojis in each category.

- These emojis can also be used as graphics in documents by highlighting them and increasing the font size.

Tech Tip - Organising Tabs With A 'Bounce'

Tech tip - Optimising storage in Windows 10

Tech tip - How To ‘Unsend’ An Email With Gmail

Tech Tip - Organising Tabs With A 'Bounce'

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In Windows 10, if you would like a fast and easy way to stay organised by instantly getting a birds-eye view of each tab that you have open without interrupting the flow of your work this tip is for you:

Click on the tab part of the current window that you are working on
Drag the tab and ‘bounce’ it against the side of the screen
All the other windows you have open will appear on the opposite side of the screen
Select which window you would like to fill the open space.

Tech tip - Optimising storage in Windows 10

Tech tip - How To ‘Unsend’ An Email With Gmail

Tech Tip - Windows 10 faster start-up

Technology : Post-Brexit

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With the UK’s departure from the European Union set for 31 January 2020, we take a brief look at what is known about how technology and the technology sector may be affected in a few key areas.

Predictions and Warnings

Since the June referendum vote of 2016 led to Brexit, there have been many predictions about what this would actually mean for technology. The pandemic, and the need for businesses to adapt quickly to survive put many thoughts of Brexit on the back burner. With many businesses now getting used to ways of working around restrictions (home working), mass vaccination on the horizon, and leaving the EU less than two months away, we pick up on a few Brexit predictions and warnings and look at some of the tech areas that businesses are beginning to think seriously about again as the deadline looms.

Data

For example, back in January, the director of strategic policy at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Jonathan Bamford, urged businesses to prepare for a no-deal Brexit in terms of planning to stop interruption in data flows from Europe due to the fact that three-quarters of the UK’s cross border data flows are with EU countries. This was a reference to the fact that the UK will become a ‘third country’ because it falls outside of the GDPR zone (EU member states plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) and GDPR restricts transfers of personal data to third countries. The UK, therefore, still needs ‘adequacy agreement’ from the EU, showing that it considers the UK as a ‘third country’ to still provide a level of protection which is equivalent to that of the EU. This would allow data to flow into and out of the EU without the need for other safeguards. If there is a no-deal Brexit and is there is no adequacy decision in place for some time, businesses and institutions may find themselves having to use alternative legal mechanisms that could be bureaucratic, costly, and could cause delays.

Organisations that receive data from Europe and that use cloud services based within the EU may need to think about what risks and disruption they could face if no adequacy agreement is in place, and what other mechanisms and agreements they may need to seek. This could include:

- Finding out where company data is stored and who has access to it.

- Perhaps renegotiating data services supplier contracts.

- Global organisations operating in multiple jurisdictions may need to look at how data is transferred within their organisation and whether corporate rules need to be changed.

- Organisations may need to look at where their riskiest and/or more important data transfers are, and plan to get Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) implemented i.e. contractual forms approved by the EU Commission as offering adequate protection for the personal data of individuals.

- Some of the other best measures that UK small businesses that send and receive data to and from Europe can currently take are to make sure that they really do comply with GDPR, and to review privacy information and documentation to identify any minor changes that need to be made at the end of the transit. More information can be found form the ICO website here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-at-the-end-of-the-transition-period/data-protection-at-the-end-of-the-transition-period/

People and Skills

The UK has suffered from a tech skills shortage for many years and the Brexit result led to fears that skilled tech workers, many of whom may have come from overseas, may decide to leave, and that employers would find it difficult to attract new skills compared to other countries e.g. the U.S. Back in January, for example, a TopCV report found that 16 per cent of UK tech employees said they were planning on leaving the UK and their current job to advance their career due to Brexit and that the marketing, and it looked as though the media and design sectors could be most affected by employees leaving i.e. a quarter of professionals in those sectors said they were planning to head abroad.

The pandemic has severely curtailed all global movements and back in the summer, the Japan Times speculated that the confidence gained by UK companies through learning that they could still work effectively having a remote workforce may influence how they’ll approach recruitment after Brexit e.g. executives having roles local to headquarters, but other roles being based elsewhere.

Other commentators point to the fact that the UK already has five of the top 20 European cities for technology, there were large numbers of tech start-ups in January, and Facebook, Apple and Google had set up HQs in London, giving a promising sign of the UK’s tech future beyond Brexit.

Re-skilling and up-skilling from the existing workforce, and a promising number of home-grown graduates moving into the burgeoning AI sector in the UK have also been suggested as positives beyond Brexit, but how immigration laws in the UK post-Brexit affect recruitment from overseas is still a concern. The fact is that after 31 January, the UK’s immigration system will end the free movement for European citizens and will also bring the rules for EU workers in line with those governing non-EU citizens. This will mean that EU workers will face job, salary, and language requirements and that those companies attempting to hire new tech workers from outside the UK will need to try and understand some of the key requirements in order to help ensure the success of their recruiting processes.

Supply Chains

The pandemic has brought the importance of supply chains into sharp focus as global restrictions caused widescale disruption. Predictions about Brexit, prior to the pandemic suggested that UK tech companies may have rushed into trade completions with solution suppliers during the transition period thereby increasing the need for checks on supply chains to stop mistakes from being made. At this late stage in the Brexit process, after so much disruption to supply chains, some supply chain businesses closing and companies having to quickly find new supply chain solutions, supply chain auditing is an important issue for business. It is likely that UK businesses will face more stringent and thorough supply chain auditing processes after Brexit and will need to be prepared for this challenge.

One example of how technology feeds into trade and supply chains is in haulage and logistics. Unfortunately, in September, it was revealed that critical IT systems needed to avoid border disruption post-Brexit were behind schedule, raising the threat of border chaos for hauliers. These ten IT systems included the web-based Smart Freight Service for managing customs declarations for the movement of food and medicines. Concern remains that too few systems are operational and that there may not enough time to train users on the systems.

Reviewing, auditing, and planning as regards your business supply chain with a view to how Brexit at the end of January will affect it is an important consideration. A supply chain checklist can be found here: https://readyforbrexit.co.uk/supply-chain/

Other Areas

There are, of course, numerous other important technology areas on the Brexit and post-pandemic horizon e.g. a changed business environment and changed industries, new economic constraints due to economic and market damage, the influence on possible trade deals resulting from administration change in the US, re-structured workplaces and working methods, continuing physical travel limitations and advances in the use of the cloud and online platforms for business. Although beyond the scope of this article, how technology’s role will develop in these and other areas is important and something to consider going forward.

Looking Ahead

Much business planning this year has been devoted to survival, dealing with rapid change and uncertainty, and adapting to ensure effective business continuity. Brexit, however, is less than 2 months away and with technology playing a greater role than ever in our lives, how it will be affected by and the part it will play in shaping post-Brexit business will soon become much clearer. One thing that the pandemic has done is to add perspective to the idea of Brexit and with the many serious challenges that businesses have faced over the last year, this is likely to be another significant challenge that must be met and managed.

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UK COVID Vaccine Maker Targeted By Suspected North Korean Hack

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It has been reported that UK drug company AstraZeneca has been targeted by suspected North Korean hackers thought to be looking for COVID vaccine secrets.

Used WhatsApp and LinkedIn

Over the last few weeks, attacks have reportedly been launched on AstraZeneca's systems by hackers posing as recruiters. The bogus recruiters used LinkedIn and WhatsApp to target AstraZeneca staff with fake job offers and hid malicious code/malware in the job description documents that were sent to those staff members. Opening the documents would have launched malware that would enable an attack on the drug company’s systems.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Since the first attempts to develop a vaccine, governments and drug companies have warned about and prepared for state-sponsored attacks from many different countries.

AstraZeneca is currently one of the top three COVID-19 vaccine developers after working with Oxford University to develop a vaccine with an overall efficacy of 70 per cent, a lower one of 62 per cent, and a high of 90 per cent (for a half dose followed by a full dose). In the US, the FDA has said that any COVID-19 vaccine must be at least 50 per cent effective to be useful in fighting the pandemic.

North Korean?

The attacks on AstraZeneca have been identified as likely to have been the work of North Korea-based hackers because the tools and techniques closely resemble those been used as part of an ongoing hacking campaign that first targeted defence and media company systems.

It is likely, therefore, that the shift in focus followed recent announcements of the success of the Oxford vaccine development.

China

Back in July, it was reported that hackers linked to the Chinese government had targeted vaccine research developer Moderna Inc in the U.S.

Microsoft Says “Cyberattacks Targeting Health Care Must Stop”

Microsoft recently posted on its blog to say that cyberattacks targeting health care must stop and identified Russian hackers known as “Strontium” and two hacking groups from North Korea known as “Zinc and Cerium” as being recent culprits. Microsoft said that Strontium has been using password spray and brute force login attempts to steal login credentials, Zinc has been using spear-phishing lures for credential theft, and “sending messages with fabricated job descriptions pretending to be recruiters”. Microsoft also reported that Cerium had been using “spear-phishing email lures using COVID-19 themes while masquerading as World Health Organisation”.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

State-sponsored attacks and attempted interference in the processes of other countries are now widespread, expected, and is an area of a kind of ongoing ‘warfare’ that all countries must deal with. COVID-19 has severely damaged economies and laid waste to many businesses. Getting effective vaccines approved and into the population of many countries is a vital step in enabling businesses to have a chance of finding more stability and making a recovery and, therefore, attacks on vaccine-makers are clearly a real cause for concern. This is one of the reasons why Microsoft’s President Brad Smith, has recently called for more to be done by world leaders to take action to uphold international law that protects health care facilities and to enforce the law in attacks by government agencies and criminal groups that governments facilitate/enable to operate.

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Big AWS Outage Affects Large Proportion of the Internet and IoT

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A big Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage last week affected a large number of Internet services and gadgets at a time when making online sales and using cloud-based remote working platforms are vital for struggling businesses.

AWS

AWS, which is responsible for around 15 per cent of Amazon's massive overall revenue, is made up of 175+ products and services such as computing, storage, networking, database, analytics, app services, mobile, developer tools, and tools for the Internet of Things (IoT). AWS revenue in 2019 was $35.03 billion.

Critical

The popularity and size of AWS as the biggest of the cloud companies (IaaS and PaaS) means that it is a critical backbone of a huge number of websites and apps worldwide, which is what makes a big outage such a potentially damaging event with economic knock-on effects that have been felt around the world.

What Happened?

Last Wednesday, until 4.18 am on Thursday morning an AWS outage affected 23 AWS geographic regions with representatives from many apps, services, and websites taking to social media to describe how they had been impacted. Those highlighting the effects included Roku, Adobe Spark, The Washington Post (owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos), and iRobot and Flickr.

IoT Casualties

The outage was reported to have caused IoT gadgets such as robot vacuums and smart doorbells to suddenly stop working. For example, the Home App responsible for operating iRobot’s Roomba robot vacuum stopped working as did Amazon's own Ring smart doorbells.

The Cause

Ironically, the outage is believed to have been caused by Amazon introducing a small addition of capacity that was intended to improve the service.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Although it didn’t last for long, the fact that so many businesses now rely upon AWS, (which has more than 45 per cent of the global cloud computing market), meant that the effects were widespread and are likely to have been disruptive, costly and potentially dangerous in some cases. This incident could, therefore, be viewed as an example of why having only a few large companies managing cloud computing globally is not an ideal situation. This is an issue that has been the subject of discussion and suggestions in recent times, such as the study from Roland Berger and the Internet Economy Foundation (IE.F) which highlighted the possible benefits of multi-cloud solutions for companies and public administrations and state rule-setting to help ensure fair competition in cloud computing.

Companies and organisations around the world have needed to rely heavily on cloud-based services e.g. communications and collaborative working platforms due to the pandemic which makes this outage all the more worrying.

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New Competition Rules for Facebook and Google in the UK

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that Facebook and Google will face new rules next year to prevent abuse of their market dominance.

The Issues

For the CMA, the issues that were highlighted back in July and are now in the forefront again focus on the facts that:

- A massive 80 per cent of the UK’s expenditure on digital advertising, which is the equivalent of £500 per household, goes to Facebook and Google.

- Google a has 90+ per cent share of the UK’s £7.3 billion search advertising market and Facebook has a greater than 50 per cent share of the £5.5 billion display advertising market.

- Google has doubled its revenue per search since 2011, and Facebook’s average revenue per user has risen from under £5 in 2011 to over £50 last year.

- The massive user bases of both are sources of market power e.g. in the training of Google’s algorithms compared to other search engines and in enabling Facebook to enjoy ‘must-have’ status for communications.

- Both have un-matchable access to user data and use their default settings to gain more user data.

- Unlike many rivals, both companies have been able to acquire positions in other markets.

- The media industry has lost a large proportion of its advertising revenues to Facebook and Google.

Meaning?

From the CMA’s perspective, these facts represent serious potential barriers to new competition and appear to show that Facebook and Google now have unassailable market positions that make it very difficult for other companies to compete on equal terms.

New Rules in 2021

The new rules in 2021 will take the form of a statutory code of conduct, enforceable by a new Digital Markets Unit (to be set up in April 2021) working with Ofcom and the ICO. The government says that the code will give consumers more choice and control over how their data is used, give businesses a chance to better promote their products online, and support the sustainability of the news publishing industry to rebalance the relationship between publishers and online platforms.

Expectations and Requirements

The new code will set-out expectations for the behaviour of Google and Facebook in terms of their interaction with competitors and users and will require platforms funded by digital advertising to be more transparent about their services and how consumer data is used. These platforms will also be required to give consumers a choice over whether to receive personalised advertising and to not place restrictions on customers that make it hard for them to use rival platforms.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The figures appear to show a very clear market dominance by Facebook and Google. New rules such as these would, therefore, be good news for rival platforms, media companies and other publishers. Such a 'Unit' with statutory power working to create more of a level playing field for them could help to lower the current competitive barriers. For advertisers, new rules could be the beginning of having a greater choice. Although Google and Facebook have a weight of experience, data and services that are used by businesses to advertise effectively and, therefore, provide a valuable service to businesses, there are many who share the view that the dominance of just a few big tech companies brings less innovation, higher advertising prices, less choice (and control for consumers), and can curtail the growth of the sector, ultimately impacting upon the businesses that use their services. There is, however, some scepticism about how effective the government will be in trying to enforce rules upon powerful and influential tech companies that have resisted and avoided many attempts in the past to control them.

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Stay Safe Online This Christmas

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With Christmas just around the corner here are some suggestions for how you and your loved ones can stay safe online over this festive period and beyond.

The Shift Online

The pandemic has prompted a huge shift online this year for work and now, with the second wave in full flight, for online shopping. Back in June, an Alvarez & Marsal and Retail Economics survey showed that 17.2 million British consumers (25 per cent of the population) were planning to make permanent changes to the way they shop i.e., by shopping more online. This Christmas, this trend is now becoming a reality as online sales surge as well as an extra forecast surge of online purchases on Christmas Day as soon as retailers lower prices on Christmas Eve.

It is no surprise therefore that the Christmas spending period of November and December is a favourite time of year of fraudsters, many of whom may already have cashed in with COVID-19 scams earlier in the year e.g., fake investment, test and trace, PayPal email and vaccine scams.

With all these potential threats around, here are some suggestions for how you and your loved ones can stay safe.

General Tips

Before going online shopping, make sure that you have:

An updated, latest version of your operating system.
An updated version of anti-virus software.

Online Shopping Tips

Be wary of links to offers in emails as these could re-direct to phishing pages. Similarly, beware of unexpected emails, texts or posts suggesting clicking on a link or attachment, or potentially fake parcel firm delivery messages which may contain harmful attachments.
Beware of any phone calls/voicemails/SMS messages purporting to be from banks or well-known retailers regarding purchases or requesting personal details/confirmation of account details.
Research retailers online that you are unfamiliar with and take extra time to browse the website to make sure that it appears legitimate and trustworthy.
Check that payment pages have HTTPS at the beginning, there is a closed padlock in the address bar, and that everything looks right.
If setting passwords as part of an online account/purchase process, use a strong password that you haven’t used elsewhere, use 2-step verification, and consider using a reputable password manager e.g., LastPass.
Consider paying by credit card as this offers more protection, even from fraud, and (unlike a debit card) doesn’t give any details related to your bank account. As a secure intermediary, PayPal is also a secure way to pay that doesn’t give card numbers that can be stolen and used elsewhere.
Log out of your account after paying on a website as simply closing the page may not do so.
If giving event/holiday tickets for next year as a gift, make sure that you are buying from official online outlets such as box offices, sports clubs, reputable fan ticket exchange sites, and travel agents/tour operators with an ABTA/ATOL number and checkable information and independent reviews.
Check to ensure that you are not purchasing fake/counterfeit goods online e.g., via an unfamiliar eBay store, as these could pose risks to health and home.
Only download any new apps from official, legitimate sources e.g., Apple’s App Store, Google Play, or Microsoft Store.

Devices and Gadgets

Many (smart) gadgets and devices and IoT items are given as gifts at Christmas. These could include fitness watches, toys, and household as well as computer devices. Some of the ways you can minimise security risks include:

Changing any default password on new gadgets/devices to your own, individual, more secure password (that you haven’t used anywhere else). This is because many smart gadgets and devices come with the same default password that may already be known to cybercriminals or may a simple password that is easy to crack.
Make sure that any new phones, tablets, and computers are protected by a security app/software and a PIN or passcode as soon as they are switched on.

Children

Christmas is a particularly special time of year for children, many of whom will either receive a tech gift or will be using technology for entertainment and communications, and who may be out of sight for longer periods of time while the adults are involved in other Christmas activities. Ways to help keep children safe and happy online and when using gadgets and tech games over Christmas include:

Setting up parental controls on Wi-Fi and making sure that inappropriate or adult content is blocked and time limits for usage are set. See https://www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls/broadband-mobile/.
Setting agreed boundaries and ground rules in advance e.g., for screen time, number of games, and to ensure that any phones or tablets stay out of the bedroom overnight to charge.
If children receive games for Christmas, play the game with them to be more aware of the benefits and the risks.
Ask for access to any games and apps that children are on and ask them to allow you access to the phone.
If online games appear to use Adobe Flash, consider disabling it because there are now several security concerns about it.
If you have purchased a console, smartphone, or tablet for Christmas for your child, make sure that it is set up with the right control settings, and is charged and ready to use before you wrap it up.
Make sure that you have seen and dealt with any settings for e.g., online searching or “in-app” purchases.

Parents can find more helpful advice about apps, games (TikTok, Roblox) social media and more from Netaware https://www.net-aware.org.uk/ or Common Sense Media https://www.commonsensemedia.org/.

Happy Christmas

You may already be using many of these suggestions and a good helping of common sense as part of your online routines. In order to make sure that you have a happy Christmas in the online world, therefore, the message is to be prepared and always check and take a minute before clicking.

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IR35 Tax Status Checker Tool Problems For 20 Per Cent of Users

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Doubt has again been cast on the effectiveness of HMRC’s IR35 tax status checker tool after news that it failed to provide a response in nearly 20 per cent of cases.

IR35

The IR35 tax reform legislation that is designed to stop tax avoidance from 'disguised employment', which occurs when self-employed contractors set up their own limited company to pay themselves through dividends (which are not subject to National Insurance), and through deliberate misclassification of themselves. From April next year, medium-to-larger private sector organisations will be made responsible for determining whether their non-permanent contractors and freelancers should be taxed in the same way as permanent employees (inside IR35) or as off-payroll workers (outside IR35), based upon the work they do and how it is performed. The responsibility for determining whether contactors are inside or outside of the legislation currently lies with the contractors themselves.

The legislation changes next year will mean that the tax liability will be transferred from the contractor to the company that directly engages the contractor.

CEST – The Tax Status Checker Tool

The Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) service was introduced by HMRC in 2017 to help employers, hirers, and workers to determine the employment status of workers and to ensure the correct tax and national insurance is paid for the work being done.

In 2019 HMRC tried to enhance the online CEST tool to improve the service. The online tool, available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-employment-status-for-tax asks the user a series of multiple-choice, checkbox-answer questions and delivers a decision based on the answers given about whether the off-payroll working rules (IR35) apply to a contractor (inside or outside the IR35 legislation) or if some work needs to be classed as employment or self-employment for tax purposes.

Inconclusive

HMRC figures show that tool was used 975,416 times during the 12 months to 24 November 2020 to determine the IR35 tax status of contractors but, in 19 per cent of cases (188,719), the tool was unable to return a conclusive response.

Problems Back In 2018

The CERT tax tool had similar problems back in August 2018 when it was found to be getting the wrong result in almost half of cases.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

If HRMRC itself cannot reliably use its own tax calculation tool to give an answer to users in 20 per cent of cases, equals many people will feel very frustrated at its apparent unreliability and if the official tool cannot help, what chance would many contractors have themselves of working it out by having to study complicated tax rules and regulations? This news comes at a bad time for already hard-hit medium-to-larger private sector organisations that will soon have the responsibility for correctly determining the tax status of contractors shifted onto them, and who may need help (such as using the CERT tool) in doing this. HMRC, however, does advise those who are not able to get a decision via the tool to contact them for help, but it is important for contractors to know where they are as soon as possible as regards their tax status to avoid potentially facing a large tax liability due to wrong decisions or delays caused by indecision or inconclusive results.

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Hyundai Buying Robot Company

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

South Korean car manufacturer, Hyundai Motor Group, has agreed to buy a controlling stake in robot maker Boston Dynamics.

Boston Dynamics

Boston Dynamics, which is currently owned by Tokyo-based multinational conglomerate holding company Softbank Group Corp., is an American engineering and robotics design company founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company was sold to Google in 2013 and then to SoftBank in 2017. Boston Dynamics describes itself as “a world leader in mobile robots” and is famous for making robots with legs that give them mobility and dexterity.

The Deal

The new deal will see the Hyundai Motor Group and its chief take a combined 80 per cent stake in Boston Dynamics, while Softbank will retain only 20 per cent. The split on the Hyundai side will be 60 per cent to Hyundai Motor and its affiliates Hyundai Mobis, and Hyundai Glovis, and 20 per cent to its chairman, Euisun Chung.

Why Buy?

Hyundai Motor Group and its chairman are purchasing a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics because they want to:

Gain an advantage over competitors in an innovation race among car companies. For example, Ford Motor partnered with walking robot maker Agility Robotics last year (as well as leasing two ‘spot’ robots from Robot Dynamics last summer).
Leverage robot technology to expand automation at its unionised vehicle factories and to help it to improve its design of new products like autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars, drones, and delivery robots.
Combat the threats by other tech-based players in the market such as Tesla and tech firms with ridesharing, self-driving, and other technologies. For example, Hyundai recently partnered with Uber on an electric air taxi development project.
Make the transition and to re-position itself from a manufacturer to a broader mobility service provider as this is perceived to be the future for traditional vehicle manufacturers.

Challenge

Although some commentators see the turning around of Boston Dynamics from being a loss-making company ($103 million net loss for the year ending March 2020) to being commercially successful as a big potential challenge for Hyundai, others see buying into a robot company as more of a way to showcase what Hyundai is capable of doing.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Traditional car manufacturers are having to broaden their vision of what they are and what they can produce in order to leverage new technologies and fight off competition by news types of entrants to the mobility market. Although electric is a common thread for all going forward, there are now many opportunities for tech and other companies to become part of the future of mobility and transport as the world tries to use and combine different technologies to leave the negative aspects of fossil fuels and traditional congested and underperforming transport routes and systems behind.

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Google’s DeepMind AI Makes Dramatic Breakthrough

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Google’s DeepMind AI machine learning program has solved a genetic protein challenge, the result of will dramatically change biology and could bring many medical benefits.

The Challenge

Proteins are the building blocks of cells and, for more than half a century, scientists have been trying to find a way to accurately predict the 3D shape and the folds of protein structures from their amino-acid sequence. This is because a protein’s function is intricately linked with its shape and, therefore, the ability to predict a protein’s structure is the key to the understanding of what it does and how it works. This area of study is called Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (CASP).

Why?

Being able to do so will mean that the function of the thousands of 'unsolved' proteins in the human genome can be identified and disease-causing gene variations that differ between people can be better understood. This could make it much faster for humans to develop medicines and treatments for more conditions, could have a huge impact on life sciences, and make it possible to study living things in new ways.

DeepMind AI

Google’s machine learning, AI network offshoot ‘DeepMind’ used a program called AlphaFold to beat 100 other teams trying to solve the same problem. The AlphaFold system achieved a median score of 92.4 GDT overall across all targets meaning that its predictions have an average error of only 1.6 Angstroms (the width of an atom). The system was ‘trained’ using publicly available data consisting of around 170,000 protein structures from the protein data bank as well as large databases containing protein sequences of unknown structure.

The methods that have been closest to solving this long-running scientific challenge in recent years have been advanced X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) but DeepMind’s AlphaFold program produced results that took leading scientists in the field by surprise and were far ahead of those results by the nearest competing teams.

GameChanger

Andrei Lupas of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, who has been working on this same challenge for a decade, said: “This will change medicine. It will change research. It will change bioengineering. It will change everything”.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This is a huge success for Google and its DeepMind project and shows how concentrated power of AI can dramatically speed up the solving of problems that have eluded scientists for decades. Not only is this a validation of Google’s AI efforts but also opens up opportunities for medical research and pharmaceutical companies, and could bring benefits to humanity in terms of being able to develop treatments for conditions that have offered little hope up until now. The pandemic has taught the world a powerful lesson in the importance of being able to develop fast ways of understanding new diseases and developing effective treatments and this is one area that DeepMind’s discovery could make a very positive contribution towards.

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Tech Tip - Windows 10 faster startup

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If your computer’s getting a little slow and you would like to save time by having a faster computer startup with Windows 10 by trimming down the number of programs that try to load on startup, here’s how:

Go to Settings > Apps > Startup.
Look at the list of programs, whether they’re enabled, and what impact each has on your startup time.
Select the ‘off’ toggle position for those programs that you don’t need to load every time you start your computer e.g., the programs you don’t use often.

You computer should then boot faster having turned 'off' selected applications you don't often use.

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Those Who Understand Stats Less Prone To COVID

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

New Research from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), suggests that people who understand statistics and data are more likely to take COVID-19 prevention advice seriously.

The Results

The research results, published in the paper 'The Role of Statistical Literacy in Risk Perceptions and Behaviour During the COVID-19 Pandemic’ suggest that people are more likely to voluntarily comply and wear a mask, practice social distancing and get vaccinated to prevent others from getting infected if they understand statistics and data. The research results also suggest that statistical literacy leads to a better understanding of the virus threat, the ability to keep up with changes in the situation, and the ability to more accurately incorporate new information in the formation of expectations.

By the same token, researchers Professor Daniel Metzger and Dr Mikael Paaso from RSM and Dr Vesa Pursiainen from the University of St. Gallen’s suggest that those individuals who don’t have a good understanding of statistics can make less well informed and potentially inappropriate decision making which could make them more likely to catch the virus.

Confidence in Science

Those who more are statistically literate also have a higher level of confidence in science and in healthcare and this is thought to be one of the main reasons why statistically literate people generally consider flu vaccinations more important. It follows, therefore that statistically literate people may be more likely to voluntarily receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

The research results also suggest that statistically literate people are likely to have been less satisfied with communication by the government during the pandemic, as well as being less satisfied with advice coming from media and science.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The research results appear to show that those who understand statistics and data may be better equipped to protect themselves (and others) during the pandemic and to act in a way that appears to be responsible given the messages from science, the government, and the media. The results also suggest that there is an education gap in the population that could be contributing to a higher infection rate. This means that more effort is needed by government and health organisations to clearly explain and present any statistical data and how this relates to government advice and measures. Clear explanations of what figures, charts/graphs and pandemic statistics mean could lead to wider understanding and acceptance and could make more people voluntarily compliant in a beneficial way. This is particularly important as regards to information about the new vaccines and how safe they are, given what appears to be a fast development time. Employing other methods such as showing influencers, celebrities, and people who appeal to many different reference groups receiving the vaccine and endorsing advice and measures may also help. It should be remembered, however, that there are many different influences on attitudes and opinions in addition to just statistical literacy and a more holistic approach may be needed to tackle what is a critical issue.

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Bitcoin Skyrockets

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The value of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency has risen sharply, reaching a value of £22,000 for the first time ever.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a digital web-based currency that operates without the need for central banks and uses highly secure encryption to regulate the currency units and to verify transfers of funds. Bitcoin, which was first produced in 2009, uses the ‘Blockchain’ technology. Blockchain is an open and programmable technology that can be used to record transactions for virtually anything of value that can be converted to code and is often referred to as a kind of ‘incorruptible ledger’.

Bad Times

Back in 2017, after a meteoric rise in value, the Bitcoin value ‘bubble’ famously burst and took a nosedive in 2018, hitting a 4-month low in November 2018. At the time, this crash was attributed to factors such as the overconsumption of bitcoin in the first place, extra regulation in the US., investors' fears over the currency’s volatility, security fears and Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission of initial coin offerings and crypto exchanges, as well as too long a wait for the January 2019 launch of bitcoin futures by Bakkt, Intercontinental Exchange’s crypto platform.

Good Times Back or Another Bubble?

Bitcoin’s value rose again in March and, on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, by November 2020 the number of bitcoin futures and options contracts open had quadrupled since the same time in 2019 (Bloomberg). This boost in value carried on through December as Bitcoin reached £22,000 for the first time.

Why The Rise?

The latest rapid rise in Bitcoin’s value may be attributed to several factors including:

More speculation and/or Investors seeking safety after an uncertain year at the hands of COVID-19 and its effects on the global economy.
Some investors e.g., family offices, looking for an alternative investment to gold as a way of protecting against inflation.
Recent falls in the value of the US dollar.
Encouraging noises about Bitcoin from the world’s biggest payments groups. For example, PayPal is allowing US customers to buy, sell and hold bitcoin (and other tokens) in their online wallets, Square buying $50m in bitcoin in October because of its perceived future growth potential, and major banks e.g., European Central Bank, considering getting into cryptocurrencies.
A greater acceptance of cryptocurrencies by younger investors.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The benefits and the need for digital currencies have been understood for some time but their adoption by mainstream financial players was delayed by many issues including a lack of regulation and security fears. Despite the continued volatility of Bitcoin, the uncertainty of the current economic times, the attractiveness of Bitcoin as an investment appears to be a possible replacement for gold in some portfolios, and apparent commitments from big payment players have made Bitcoin look more attractive now than it has for years. Some critics still see its purchase as too speculative and suggest that this is another bubble, but economies have undergone massive unforeseen changes over the last year where digital transformation and faith in technology have been accelerated. There is also a general feeling among some big investors that the benefits Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are now beginning to outweigh their drawbacks and that there is a general willingness to see what positive aspects they can offer if given the chance to be used more widely.

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AI in 2021 For Small Businesses

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In this article, we look at some of the ways that SMEs can access and use AI to improve efficiency and add value.

SMEs Optimistic About AI

Contrary to a popular belief that AI may still be a little ‘pie in the sky’ for many SMEs, an Adecco study (2017) showed that small businesses are more open and optimistic about AI and its potential to boost business growth than larger companies. The study, which took into account the views of 1000 workers in 13 sectors across the UK showed that companies with more than 5,000 staff are almost twice as sceptical about the business impact of AI compared to businesses with less than 250 employees.

Machine Learning and AI

Just to clear up some of the popular terminologies that are often used interchangeably, artificial intelligence (AI) is the encompassing concept that machines can execute tasks "smartly" whereas machine learning contributes to this as machines (through algorithms) can be trained, can learn, and can adapt through experience.

Business-Led Approach

Business-led (rather than technology-led) applications of AI are likely to yield better results as this approach leads to a focus that can mean AI solving real problems in a value-adding way.

Already Using AI

Some examples of how SMEs are already using existing AI-powered tools in a business-led way as part of their daily/regular work include:

Operating systems and add-ons + digital assistants. These include Windows 10 which has Cortana, Teams, and other AI-powered features. Apple incorporates the Siri assistant and Amazon’s AI-powered digital assistant is, of course, Alexa.
CRMs. These include Salesforce and Zoho, with its ‘Zia’ AI-powered assistant.
Popular email platforms. In September for example, Mailchimp launched a set of AI-based tools to give small businesses access to the same kind of capabilities as their larger competitors. These include personalised product recommendations for shoppers, forecasting tools for behavioural targeting (of those most likely to buy), a tool to help businesses design their own visual asset and a tool to help write better email subject lines.
Banking apps. For example, the Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland banking app use AI to give customers mobile notifications which can be customised to track their spending and transactions.
Online and mobile advertising e.g., AdWords and Facebook adverts.

Resources

There are many resources and solutions to be found online that can help SMEs to access and use AI. Some of the AI resources include:

Google’s AI Tools. Google’s online AI tools at https://ai.google/tools/ include the TensorFlow browser-based library for training ML models, and ML Kit as well as guides to ML and AI at https://ai.google/education/. Other AI products such as AI platform (for building machine learning models), Cloud AutoML for building ML models with minimal expertise, and AI Building Blocks can be found at https://cloud.google.com/products/ai.
Microsoft’s (Azure) AI platform ‘Microsoft AI’ offers tools and help to develop AI solutions in conversational AI, machine learning, data sciences, robotics, IoT, and more. See: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/ai-platform/. Also, Microsoft BI uses AI to model and visualise business data to help with decision making. See: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/what-is-power-bi/
Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a set of set machine learning tools for businesses here https://aws.amazon.com/ai/ plus a number of resources and guides here https://aws.amazon.com/ai/resources/.
Funded by UK Innovate, the GoSmarter Toolbox gives SMEs six automation tools to easily and quickly automate invoice processing, meeting management, online bookings, sales processing, social media listening and more. See: https://gosmarter.ai/.
The UK government website provides many guides related to the use of AI, such as https://www.gov.uk/guidance/planning-and-preparing-for-artificial-intelligence-implementation.
Various ‘out of the box’ AI-based tools can help solve common problems for SMEs. Examples include Timely, an app/digital record of all project and team time (https://memory.ai/timely), and Sage Ap Automation to help work with freelancers or external contractors this AI-based tool manages outgoing and incoming expenses and does the banking reconciliation. Other interesting ‘out of the box’ examples include Brisk which uses real-time data feeds to automate the monitoring of risks and opportunities for small businesses e.g., late-paying customers, supply chain disruption, online reputation, cybersecurity, employee well-being and more (https://www.getbrisk.com/), Scribless which enables small businesses to create handwritten messages at scale (replicate the handwriting of clients) to help create more effective marketing campaigns (https://scribeless.co/), and multiple applicant tracking/recruiting/HR solutions such as People HR (https://www.peoplehr.com/recruitment.html) and GoHire (https://gohire.io/).

Real-World Examples

Real-world examples of how SMEs are have used/are using AI to leverage their resources and add value include:

Predictive Algorithms. For example, as highlighted by NatWest, hotel technology specialist Noetic have developed predictive algorithms for hotels, based on data gathered through their websites that can identify what makes a good guest and can help the hotel to keep the guest and rely less on travel agents by offering these cheap to acquire, high spending guests more of what is known to attract them and keep their loyalty.
Virtual customer service agents. For example, SoDash, a social media and digital customer services agent can make customer service more efficient by collecting messages from many different channels e.g., Twitter, Facebook, email, and SMS, categorising them and sending automatic responses to common enquiries.

In Summary

In summary, AI can be used to enhance and improve many different aspects of business for SMEs including improving marketing and sales (making them smarter and improving insights), reducing repetitive, mundane tasks and freeing up more valuable resources, helping to manage finances, HR and recruitment, expanding the team with a chatbot, tracking a website user’s journey (and analysing their behaviour), and much more.

Using a business-led approach, looking closely at particular work challenges, and conducting an inventory of what skills are available within the business, companies can decide how they want to begin using AI e.g., an off the shelf solution, buying in initial expertise or committing in-house development time and resources in order to start gaining real-world benefits from AI that could translate into important competitive advantages.

Looking Ahead

The extreme disruption caused to global markets, business and supply chains by the pandemic and the realisation that more future business will be online lends itself to greater use of AI. With more accessible and affordable AI products and resources available than ever before, many SMEs may now be seriously thinking about how AI can help them at least improve efficiency and improve automation as they look towards making the best of the recovery when it comes.

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Tesla Delivered (Almost) 500,000 Vehicles in 2020

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Tesla reached its target of producing 500,000+ vehicles in 2020, although it very narrowly missed its target of delivering that number of vehicles.

Target

Electronic vehicle company Tesla’s own target set five years ago under CEO Elon Musk, of producing half a million vehicles in a year was reached in 2020 when deliveries in the fourth quarter of 180,570 pushed it over the line to the tune of 509,737 electric vehicles. As for its (guidance) target of delivering 500,000 electric vehicles in 2020, Tesla only marginally missed this milestone as it recorded delivering 499,550 electric vehicles. Near miss or not, this still represents a huge 36 per cent increase in vehicle deliveries on the previous year.

New Models Helped

The Tesla sales boost in 2020 was helped by the launch of the Model Y, the mid-sized SUV, and a general rise in demand for the company’s more affordable and newer models e.g., the Model 3 and Model Y vehicles of which it delivered 161,650 in the fourth quarter.

The increase in model Y production was enabled by Tesla operating a new car plant in Shanghai, and the addition of new battery cell suppliers (as well as its existing partner Panasonic) contributed to growth by allowing more high voltage battery packs to be added to Tesla’s electric cars.

More Factories

Future growth of Tesla car sales looks likely to be boosted by the company’s building of more new factories in 2021 in Austin, Texas and Brandenburg, Germany, although it is understood that these new factories could take 12 to 24 months to hit full capacity (slower than the Shanghai factory).

Pandemic Hit Car Industry

From March 2020 the lockdown measures, a mass loss of income and jobs, the closure of car plants and showrooms worldwide, and a huge dent in ‘consumer confidence’ hit the car industry hard and there was an inevitable downturn in the sales and registrations of new cars in 2020. Also, The Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) figures showed that only 4,321 cars were registered in the UK in April 2020 during the national lockdown. This was the lowest monthly level since 1946 and marked a 97 per cent plunge in sales from the same month in 2019 and large numbers of unsold cars were stored outside waiting for an upturn in the market; for example, a vast quantity of cars estimated to be worth £35 million were stored outdoors at Heyford airbase close to Bicester, in Oxfordshire.

At the end of the first national lockdown, however, ‘pent up demand’ led to a boost in car sales, and the cleaner air experienced globally during in the lockdown helped to highlight the benefits of electric vehicles. A change in policy by the UK government in November also led to the commitment that the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will end by 2030. Looking ahead, Bloomberg NEF has forecasted that electric vehicle models will reach 31 per cent of the overall car fleet by 2040, accounting for 58 per cent of new passenger car sales and that combustion engine car sales will continue to gradually decline from their peak in 2017.

Competition For Tesla

Although Tesla’s latest figures are promising, the company faces some stiff competition going forwards in both the luxury and lower-priced car segments for the big car companies, all of whom are now committed to electric models.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

These figures, the promise of new factories and battery technology, new models, hope in the marketplace for 2021 thanks to vaccines, and commitments by governments to boost the sales of electric vehicles are all good news for Tesla. Competition in the electric vehicles market is now set to go up a notch and Tesla are clearly positioning themselves to take on the big car manufacturers in different segments. The change to electric vehicles will also create challenges and opportunities for businesses involved in the supply chain and charging of electric vehicles as well as sales as customers commit to electric vehicles going forward. In the short term in many countries, however, the COVID-19 pandemic is limiting mobility and still having a serious negative influence on car sales.

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Tech tip - How To ‘Unsend’ An Email With Gmail

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you use Gmail and if you would like to avoid sending an email to the incorrect recipients, without the promised attachments, with the wrong subject line, or worse, here’s how:

Gmail settings offer the option of pausing an email delivery up to 30 seconds, thereby buying you valuable time to stop it from being sent and to make any corrections. To enable this

In Gmail go to ‘Settings’ and click on ‘See All Settings’.
Under the ‘General’ tab (left-hand side) find ‘Undo Send:’
Change the Send cancellation period from the default 5 seconds to 10, 20, or 30 seconds.

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WhatsApp To Share Users' Personal Info

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In a change to WhatsApp’s privacy policy from next month, users outside of Europe will have to agree to share their personal information with WhatsApp’s owner Facebook or leave the app.

Outside Europe

From February 8, 2021, a compulsory aspect of continuing to use WhatsApp outside the EU and EEA will be to agree to share personal information with the app’s owner Facebook. An in-app notice is informing WhatsApp users of the terms of service and privacy policy changes, which are an extension of changes announced in July last year and are the result of discussions with the Irish Data Protection Commission and other Data Protection Authorities in Europe.

Even though the UK has left the EU, it is understood that the need to agree to the new changes will not apply to users in the EU, EEA, and post-Brexit UK because WhatsApp does not share European region user data with Facebook to improve its products or advertisements.

What Information Will they Be Sharing?

The kind of information that could be shared with Facebook includes phone numbers and other registration information, IP address, battery level, connection information, language and time zone and identifiers of other Facebook products.

Why Are They Sharing User's Information?

The change is in line with Facebook’s current strategy of tightening up on data security in the light of the damage done to user confidence after the Cambridge Analytica data-sharing scandal and with trying to integrate aspects of its many products e.g., in November, Facebook added self-destruct messages to WhatsApp as a way of integrating and improving the interoperability of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. This latest change will also mean that user data can be shared with businesses using Facebook to store their WhatsApp messages.

Agree To The New Terms or Delete WhatsApp?

If users do not agree to the new terms and policy, they will have to use the in-app feature (Help Centre) to delete their account. Just deleting the app itself and not using the in-app feature to do so may not stop WhatsApp from keeping a user’s data.

Apple

Apple recently asked iOS app makers to list what information they collect from users, and although WhatsApp famously offers end-to-end encryption, it has faced criticism recently about how much and what type of user data it reserves the right to collect.

Alternatives

The news of WhatsApp’s privacy policy and terms changes prompted Elon Musk to use Twitter to recommend that users could switch to Signal as an alternative. Signal is a cross-platform encrypted messaging service, and Elon Musk’s suggestion, which was re-tweeted by Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey appears to have boosted Signal’s position to the top of app stores around the world, including the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store in some countries.

What Does This Man For Your Business?

Although WhatsApp has played down the implications and extent of the change to its policy and terms, and WhatsApp has been sharing user information and metadata with Facebook anyway since 2016, the ‘agree or be deleted’ aspect of this change plus privacy worries may cause some business users outside of Europe to decide to switch. Elon Musk’s intervention and influence may make switching more likely for some, which looks set to be good news for Signal which is already being overwhelmed with sign-ups. That said, there 2 billion + WhatsApp users, many of whom are likely to quickly agree to the change and stick with an app with which they are familiar. WhatsApp is trying to keep improving its features to retain users, especially business users, and looks likely to be introducing voice and video calling to its WhatsApp Web desktop version this year which will, no doubt, appeal to many business users who are spending more time working from home on the desktop.

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Trump Banned on Social Media

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Last week, following the storming of Washington DC's Capitol building, US President Donald Trump’s ban from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have led to some questions about the legal status and regulation of social media companies.

Twitter – Permanently Suspended

Twitter has been US President Trump’s chosen means of regular and instant, direct communication with the public, to bypass the media, and this has been one thing that has set his presidency apart from previous ones.

Twitter states in its rules relating to world leaders that “we assess reported Tweets from world leaders against the Twitter Rules, which are designed to ensure people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely”. Twitter said the permanent suspension of President Trump’s account happened after it had made clear “going back years” that world leader’s accounts were not above the rules and could not be used to incite violence. Following President Trump's 12-hour suspension on Wednesday, Twitter’s warning that any further breaches of its rules would result in a ban, Twitter examining President Trump’s tweets in the context of last Wednesday’s events, and following 2 further offending Tweets on Friday, Twitter stated that his account was suspended (permanently) due to “risk of further incitement of violence”.

Calls for Twitter to ban/suspend President Trump have been made over many years as highlighted by Michelle Obama’s tweet last Thursday which accused tech giants of having enabled his “monstrous” behaviour.

Facebook and Instagram

Last Thursday, following the events in Washington, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg banned President Donald Trump indefinitely from Facebook’s platform, and from Instagram. On his own Facebook account, in addition to pointing out that Facebook had removed or labelled some of the President’s content over the past few years, Mr Zuckerberg stressed the importance of a peaceful period leading up to Joe Biden’s inauguration, and said of President Trump “we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete”.

Parler App Suspended and Removed

The shocking events in Washington have also led to the Parler ‘free speech’ app, reported to be popular among supporters of US President Donald Trump and right-wing conservatives, being dropped by Google Play, Amazon’s AWS hosting service and the Apple app store. This has left the app offline and facing a very uncertain future as Parler’s CEO John Matze cited the need by big tech companies to “kill competition in the marketplace” and a war on “free speech” as the real reasons for the dropping of the app. Some users had been attracted to the app after being censored/suspended after expressing certain views on other platforms e.g., Facebook and Twitter, and there were rumours that President Trump planned to switch to Parler following his Twitter account being suspended.

Questions Over Regulation

The banning/suspension of President Trump’s accounts by Facebook and Twitter have led many, including the UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock to question whether, since the big social media platforms appear to be taking editorial decisions, they should be treated as ‘publishers’ rather than platforms and, therefore, subject to the same regulations as other publishers.

Section 230

Also, there is now some speculation that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) in the US, the law that gives tech companies the ability to decide how to moderate content on their own platforms and crucially, to shield their platforms from liability for what their users post could be under review when Joe Biden becomes the president. Despite being a keen user of Twitter, President Trump has also been one of many political and other figures who for some time have supported a review of Section 230.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The action taken Facebook and Twitter following the events in Washington last week may have strengthened the argument of many long-time critics in terms of the need to look again at whether the social media giants should be classed as publishers and whether they should have the protection so far afforded by Section 230. Facebook and Twitter may argue that it’s simply a case of clearly laid out rules being broken (see Twitter’s arguments about its approach to how World Leaders can use its accounts (refer : https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/worldleaders2019.html ). Although, with the new President Biden, some commentators are predicting that more pressure for change and possibly regulation may be heading Facebook and Twitter’s way.

The recent events in Washington are also an example of how brands can be very quickly and catastrophically damaged by bad behaviour linked to their owners/founders. Signs that the Trump brand is likely to be damaged beyond repair and to become somewhat toxic to other businesses and organisations are already starting to show e.g., the PGA now looking to move the 2022 PGA Championship from President Trump's Bedminster club.

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Rules & Regs : Social Media

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In this article, we look at the rules, policies and guidance around what types of content is - and isn’t - allowed on social media websites.

Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms reflect many different views and motivations and can be used for harm (as well as good) e.g., cyberbullying, hate speech, grooming and more. With social media forums positioning themselves as platforms rather than publishers, they are currently protected from the same regulation that publishers are subject to. Given that there are now vast quantities of rules and guidelines introduced and published by the social media platforms themselves to show that they can work without the need for regulation or other intervention, this article focuses mainly on Facebook and Twitter as examples.

Safe Posting

Safe posting on platforms such as Facebook relies not just upon the user’s own views and behaviour but also on how the social media platforms are able to detect (mainly through algorithms, reports from users and some internal reviews), moderate, and act where posts which break the rules are found.

Facebook – Community Standards

Facebook, for example, regards its social network as an online community and as such, issues guidance about the types of behaviour permitted or not permitted. These rules/standards are listed in its ‘Community Standards’. Facebook says that the goal of these standards is to “create a place for expression and give people a voice”.

Values Vs Expression

Facebook is keen to stress that it favours expression but when it does have to limit this expression, it does so because this expression is at odds with its published values for which are the preserving and protecting of authenticity, safety, privacy and dignity (rights).

Facebook justifies allowing some content that would appear to go against its Community Standards if it is deemed to serve a purpose for “public awareness” (in the public interest/newsworthy). An example of this could be a graphic depiction of war to show the consequences of war.

Challenges

Some of the challenges of moderating a social media platform were revealed in November 2020 when Facebook revealed (via its Community Standards Enforcement Report) that 22.1 million pieces of hate speech content had been found on Facebook and 6.5 million instances of hate speech had been found on its Instagram platform between July and September. 10 million instances of hate speech per month were recorded across Facebook and Instagram during those 3 months.

The same report detailed 13 million pieces of child nudity and sexual exploitation content, and more than a million items of suicide and self-injury being found across Facebook’s platforms in that period.

Facebook has also reported recently that it is making efforts to crack down upon misinformation relating to coronavirus, conspiracy theories, the Holocaust and QAnon (a far-right conspiracy theory).

In addition to guarding against racism, bullying, hate speech and more, as shown after the 2016 election, social media platforms also need to guard against state-sponsored political misinformation and influence.

Algorithms

Keeping up with policing a vast social media platform involves the use of complex algorithms designed to detect things like hate speech, racial slurs, bullying and more. Facebook, for example, is currently reported to be updating algorithms that detect hate speech and racism as part of its “worst of the world” project (WoW Project). This project is reported to be designed to make algorithms better at spotting abusive content aimed at people of colour, muslims, the LGBTQ community, and jews.

Subjects

Facebook has Community Standards rules and guidelines that are intended to protect its platform and users. For example, these standards cover:

Violence and criminal behaviour. This covers preventing potential offline harm that may be related to content on Facebook, stopping organisations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on Facebook e.g., terrorists or human trafficking, stopping posts relating to coordinating harm and publicising crime, prohibiting attempts to buy and sell regulated goods e.g., drugs and firearms, and removing content relating to fraud and deception.
Safety. This covers content related to child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity, sexual exploitation of adults, bullying and harassment (with a distinction made between public figures and private individuals to allow for discussion - Facebook also has a Bullying Prevention Hub for teenagers, parents and educators), human exploitation and privacy violations and image privacy rights i.e. "remove content that shares, offers or solicits personally identifiable information or other private information that could lead to physical or financial harm, including financial, residential and medical information, as well as private information obtained from illegal sources."
Objectionable content. This relates to stopping 'hate speech' which Facebook defines as "a direct attack on people based on what we call protected characteristics – race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity and serious disease or disability". Facebook separates any such attacks on its platform into 3 tiers of severity. Facebook lists how it approaches many issues relating to hate speech here https://about.fb.com/news/2017/06/hard-questions-hate-speech/ and quotes its own 2017 figure showing that it deleted "288,000 posts a month globally" relating to hate speech.
Integrity and authenticity. This relates to stopping fake accounts being created i.e., preventing impersonation and identity misrepresentation by removing accounts that are harmful to Facebook's community.

Within this section, Facebook also regulates matters relating to dealing with spam, cyber-security i.e., not allowing attempts to gather sensitive user information through the abuse of the platform and products, inauthentic behaviour (people misrepresenting themselves, or using use fake accounts for dishonest purposes), false news i.e., not removing it altogether but reducing its distribution by showing it lower in the News Feed to preserve satire or opinion.

Manipulated media - image, audio, or video (e.g. deepfakes).
Memorialisation. When a Facebook user dies, friends and family can request that their account is memorialised, whereupon the word "Remembering" is added above the name on the person's profile.
Respecting intellectual property. This relates to Facebook users respecting other peoples' copyrights, trademarks and other legal rights when posting on the platform.
Content-related requests and decisions. This relates to requests for removal of accounts, additional protection of minors (e.g. removal of child abuse imagery) and decisions referred to Facebook’s Independent Oversight Board.
Additional information. This relates to gathering information from ‘Stakeholders’ i.e., Facebook wanting to make policies based on feedback from community representatives and a broad spectrum of the people who use its service.

Reporting

Facebook offers fast ways for users to report posts and other users. For example, reporting a post involves clicking on the 3 dots (top right) and selecting “Find support or report post”. Other ways of reporting are listed here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/help/reportlinks/

Twitter

Twitter, of course, has its own extensive rules and policies designed to “serve the public conversation” which are published online here https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules.

Twitter’s online guidance focuses very clearly on what is ‘not’ allowed on its platform. For example, Twitter is very clear that users must not:

Threaten violence against an individual or a group of people.
Threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremists.
Engage in the targeted harassment of someone or incite other people to do so.
Promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.
Promote or encourage suicide or self-harm.
Publish or post other people's private information.
Post or share intimate photos or videos of someone that were produced or distributed without their consent.
Use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes.

There are, of course, many other rules and guidelines.

Enforcement

Enforcement (i.e. action taken by Twitter if these rules and guidelines are broken/contravened) can be taken at Tweet level, direct-message level and account level.

Tweet-level enforcement includes limiting Tweet visibility, requiring Tweet removal, hiding a violating Tweet while awaiting its removal, or placing a tweet behind a notice explaining why it is a public exception (in the public interest).

Direct Message-level enforcement includes stopping conversations or placing a violating Direct Message behind a notice so that no one else in the group can see it again.

Account-level enforcement includes requiring media or profile edits, placing an account in read-only mode, verifying account ownership, and permanent suspension.

Trump – Permanent Suspension

One extremely high-profile, recent permanent suspension of a Twitter account was that of President Donald Trump following what he said in Tweets prior to his supporters descending on Washington, and after an initial temporary suspension. Interestingly, Twitter has specific guidelines relating to how world leaders are permitted to use its platform. See: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/worldleaders2019.html

Non-Violating Content

Twitter can also act against non-violating content. This can include:

Placing a Tweet behind a notice (e.g. adult content or graphic violence).
Withholding a Tweet or account in a country - e.g. where laws in a specific country may apply to Tweets and/or Twitter account content.

Reporting / Complaining

There are already mechanisms built-in-to Twitter that enable users to report a Tweet, account, or conversation on the grounds that it is abusive. This usually involves clicking on the 3 dots/more icon and clicking the appropriate reporting link from there. Information can be found here: https://help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/report-abusive-behavior

Your Safety

Part of using social media safely involves taking steps to protect yourself in terms of privacy and data security. Ways this can be achieved include:

Not sharing personal information online, not ‘over-sharing’ and not sharing anything you wouldn’t want your family to see.
Not sharing too many personal details that could be clearly linked with your identit (e.g. real date of birth, address details etc.)
Checking privacy settings, reviewing what you make ‘public’, and being careful when sharing location information.
Being very wary of accepting friend requests from complete strangers or requests from those you think you are already friends with (this could be a sign of a hacked account).
Watching out for phishing scams i.e., following links that could direct you to malicious websites.

Safe Posting

Advice for safe posting on social media websites, therefore, could include:

Be aware of the rules of the platform.
Keep it "light and interesting", without revealing too many personal details.
Post within the rules of any group.
Avoid getting involved in heated arguments with members of groups or other less familiar Facebook friends.
Be careful not to use language or express views that could upset others.
Report abuse/offensive posts and behaviour.
If you have children who want to use social media, set guidelines about social media use, make sure they’re not posting personal details or photos of themselves and not accepting friends requests from people they don’t know or joining inappropriate groups, keep their profile private and check the privacy settings, and keep an open dialogue with them about their digital activities.

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Brexit – Temporary Data Adequacy Granted to the UK

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Worries about the disruption of the flow of data and the effect of this on trade between the UK and EU countries with Brexit have been addressed by the granting of controversial, short-term data adequacy status to the UK.

What Is Data Adequacy?

For third countries, i.e. those outside the European Economic Area (EEA) of the EU (outside the DGPR zone), to be allowed to be granted cross-border data transfer without the need for further authorisation from a national supervisory authority or extra compliance burdens, the third country must prove that it has the right data protection measures and laws in place (i.e. those that are compatible with and are approved by the EU). If these are in place, the third country can be granted data adequacy status which enables the free flow of data. Countries which have data adequacy status include Andorra, Argentina, Canada Faroe Islands, Guernsey, Israel, Isle of Man, Japan, Jersey, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Uruguay. Data adequacy status is also granted to sectors of an economy, or international organisations as well as countries.

Prior to the final Brexit date, the UK had not yet been granted full data adequacy status, so a temporary measure was needed in the interim.

Temporary Data Adequacy Granted

Under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement concluded in December 2020, the EU granted temporary data adequacy status to the UK. For data, The EU is, therefore, still currently treating the UK as part of the EU (not a third country), subject to certain conditions i.e., UK ministers cannot use Exit Regulations to determine or revoke data adequacy decisions.

For How Long?

TCA agreement on the data adequacy status means that it could apply for four to six months from 1 January 2021, or when data adequacy is fully granted. There is, however, some mutual consent between the EU and UK Partnership Council that could give further flexibility to this agreement.

Issues

Critics, such as Douwe Korff, professor of international law at London Metropolitan University, have argued, however, that there many reasons why the idea of the UK being granted this temporary third country status under EU law is unacceptable. In short, Professor Korff argues that there are five good reasons why the UK being granted this kind of status are unacceptable in law, which are that:

This undermines EU data protection law as guaranteed by the EU Treaties, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the EU data protection instruments as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the EU.
The issue of data protection (including in respect of transfers of personal data) should not be addressed in a free trade agreement.
UK mass surveillance, which is directly relevant to the issues of data protection adequacy and data transfer, is not being considered.
The specified four to six months period can be extended by the EU and the UK at will.
It appears to be assumed that a positive adequacy decision on the UK will be issued within the “stipulated period” i.e., four to six months. This is not a certainty.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Since the UK has recently departed from the EU and, therefore, was already up to date with EU data protection laws, it would have been unfair to immediately treat the UK as a third country, hence the temporary arrangement. The secure free flow of data without the need to comply with additional regulations or to face costly, complex, or time-wasting hurdles are essential for UK businesses to maintain their competitiveness. The fact that this temporary agreement is flexible (e.g. four to six months or longer by agreement) is a double-edged sword because although it is convenient now, it doesn’t provide certainty going forward. It is also worrying that some legal expert commentators have spotted potential legal flaws in the existing arrangement which could represent another threat for UK businesses looking for consistency and more certainty. If the UK, at any point chooses to let its data laws and practices fall below EU standard, this could lead to negative consequences for businesses dealing with EU countries, so it is in the UK’s interests now to make sure that the increasingly important matter of data and data security are areas where standards are continually monitored and improved.

Technology : Post-Brexit

Tech tip - Optimising storage in Windows 10

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

You can make sure that you are making the best use of the space on your computer by using the Storage Sense feature in Windows 10. Here’s how:

When enabled, Storage Sense will automatically work in the background when your PC is getting low on space to free-up space by ridding your system of unwanted, unused files and content in e.g., the temporary files folder, recycle bin, and the download folder. To put Storage Sense to work for you:

Go to Settings
Select “System” and “Storage”
Set the toggle to “On”
To clean up unused files now, rather than when space is running low,
click on the “Configure Storage Sense or run it now” link.

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Electric Cars Allowed in Bus Lanes Pilot Causes Concern

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Cambridgeshire County Council’s pilot scheme to allow electric vehicles to use bus lanes from December 2020 has caused safety concerns among cyclists, who also use the bus lanes.

December Decision

Under an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO), a pilot scheme running from 14 December 2020 until 13 June 2021 (with the option to extend up to 18 months), Cambridgeshire County Council is allowing electric vehicle drivers to use the bus lane on the Elizabeth Way Bridge in Cambridge. Prior to the new ETRO, the bus lane in that area could also be used by taxis and cyclists but the new ETRO in December also gave the go-ahead for motorcycles and fully electric vehicles to use the bus lane.

Why?

In its published “Statement of Reasons”, Cambridgeshire County Council says of its scheme to allow (monitored) fully electric vehicle use in the bus lane “The Government has legislated to ban the purchase of petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2035 and is encouraging drivers to purchase ZEVs. By allowing them to use bus lanes, it is hoped that this will provide an additional incentive for people to buy ZEVs”.

As regards the reason for allowing motorcycles to also use the lane as part of the experimental order, the council says “Motorcycles are more fuel-efficient and use less road space than cars, so the Council wishes to encourage greater use of them. Allowing motorcycles to use bus lanes is an additional incentive for people to purchase and use powered two-wheelers in preference to private cars”.

Cambridgeshire County Council has given anyone wishing to object to the order being made permanent or to make any other representation regarding the scheme has 6 months to do so in writing.

Cyclists Concerned

Cyclists have voiced concern over the council’s pilot scheme. For example, CAM Cycle, a Cambridgeshire cycling campaign group says that the move “should be extremely alarming to anyone who cares about cycling safety and public transport” and that “Electric cars are still cars. They take up a lot of space on the road, may endanger people who are cycling and will surely congest a facility that is meant to help public transport function more smoothly”. The group is also concerned that this move will set a precedent that could destroy the idea of public transport priority as well as making life more difficult and dangerous for cyclists.

CAM also stressed that instead of choosing a temporary pop-up cycleway in one of the lanes on the other side of the Elizabeth Way bridge to help people during the pandemic, the council instead chose “a backward form road spacer reallocation” by instead opting for an ETRO that gives more space for cars at the expense of buses and people cycling.

Motorcyclists Delighted

The news that motorcycles, as well as electric vehicles, have been given the go-ahead to use the bus lane on the same bridge in Cambridge on the grounds that “motorcycles are more fuel-efficient and use less road space than cars, so the Council wishes to encourage greater use of them” has been met with delight by the local Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) members. The County Council also stressed the benefit of being able to “reduce the likelihood of motorcyclists weaving between lanes of slow-moving traffic to avoid queues”.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

There is now a general global agreement that climate change is real and that greenhouse gasses need to be drastically reduced. There are obvious congestion problems in many developed countries on the roads, as well as environmental targets to meet by governments. Electric vehicles, therefore, which have now been fully committed to by the big car manufacturers provide an important way to maintain mobility and drastically reduce emissions. The UK is aiming for only fully electric vehicles being sold after 2035 and so, from now on, more temporary schemes and ideas like the one in Cambridge are likely to appear on UK roads as a way of encouraging a switch to electric and a move to at least more fuel and space-efficient options like motorcycles on UK roads. For cyclists, however, who are already using a green (and space-saving) way to travel, it is understandable that the threat of silent electric vehicles or motorcycles hitting them is causing concern and annoyance. At the moment with lockdown restrictions in place, the full impact on the roads (and on the accident rate with cyclists) may not be possible to measure, but when lockdown restrictions have been lifted, the consequences of schemes like these may become clearer.

Data About You Held By UK Government

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In this article, we look at not just the story of how a staggering 400,000 police records were accidentally deleted but also at the wider picture of what information is held about us UK citizens by the authorities, and what powers we have over that data.

Deleted

After first being reported in the Times newspaper, momentum has grown around the story of how it appears that due to “human error”, according to Home Secretary Priti Patel, some 400,000 police records have been deleted from the Police National Computer (PNC) database. When the story first broke, it was reported on some UK TV news broadcasts that 150,000 records had been deleted and that these were for people where no further action was needed on their cases anyway.

For example, policing minister Kit Malthouse has been widely quoted as saying that “the affected records apply to cases where individuals were arrested and then released with no further action, and we are working to recover the affected records as a priority”. Mr Malthouse has also said, however, that he is not entirely sure yet whether the loss of data of these police records could have an operational impact on the work of the police.

Types of Records

The types of records believed to have been deleted include 200,000+ offence records,175,000 arrest records, and 15,000 person records, as well as 26,000 DNA records, 30,000 fingerprint records, and 600 ‘subject’ records.

Human Error?

It has been reported that the human error that is being blamed for the mass deletion relates to mistakes made on a routine “weeding” session of surplus data and the running of “defective code”.

What Now?

Despite the deletions, it is understood that work is underway to write a new code to somehow restore the lost data.

Public Safety

Clearly, losing the records of potential or known criminals could jeopardise investigations and adversely affect UK justice and public safety as well as letting down victims of crime and their families.

Data Security

In addition to being a threat to public safety, the mishandling or loss of personal data is normally a matter for data security laws. In this case, the data has been deleted and so isn’t in danger of affecting the privacy of security of data subjects. That said, there is an important distinction to make between data handled by businesses and by law enforcement, and to clarify what the data law situation is following Brexit.

The introduction of GDPR saw UK businesses having to upgrade their understanding of (and dealing with) personal data. Since Brexit, the DPA 2018, which already enacts GDPR’s requirements in UK law has been amended by and merged with the DPPEC (Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit)) Regulations 2019 amends the DPA 2018. The new amended and merged post-Brexit data laws in the UK are now known as ‘the UK GDPR’.

Unlike data held and processed by UK businesses however, data held by law enforcement and for the purposes of national security is (according to the ICO) not covered by GDPR (i.e. UK GDPR), which is similar to being exempt. Police data, used for the purpose of investigating a crime, for example, is subject to the rules in Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Exemptions and Your Data Rights

There is also an exemption in GDPR for the processing of personal data for the prevention and detection of crime. According to the ICO, if there had been a data breach from the police, the exemption under GDPR would mean that the police would not have to notify individuals of a personal data breach if that data had been processed as part of crime prevention and detection. In essence, this appears to suggest that if your data is stolen from a police computer, you don’t have the same rights as if it was stolen from a business computer (i.e. you have lost some of your data protection rights).

What Kind of Data is Stored Where?

This case has triggered questions about the kind of data that is stored about UK citizens by the police and other authorities, as well as where and how that data is stored.

Police ‘data’ could refer to criminal convictions, cautions warnings, and reprimands, but also includes biometric data such as fingerprints and photos, CCTV footage (your image is your personal data), mobile phone messages, texts, emails, other written documents and more.

Police data can be stored by the local police force in your area as well as one of many national databases including, as in this case, the Police National Computer (PNC) or the National DNA Database (NDNAD), National Fingerprints Database (IDENT1), Custody Suite Imaging System (CSIS), and more databases besides.

For How Long?

According to the UK’s College of Policing, information about how long your data can or should be kept by the police is guided by a principle rather than a hard and fast rule, although a policy setting standard retention period should be set “wherever possible”. The "Fifth principle” of data storage limitation says that for law enforcement and general processing personal data should not be retained for longer than it is needed, and police need to be able to justify how long personal data is retained for, depending on the purposes for holding that information. This principle acknowledges that individuals have a right to erasure if that information is no longer needed although it also states that “personal data can be kept for longer if the police are only keeping it for public interest archiving, scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes”.

For Biometric Data (i.e. fingerprints and DNA) in most cases, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 amends to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) to allow police in England and Wales to keep a person’s biometric information indefinitely.

Criminal Records Check

Employers can request a basic, standard, or enhanced AccessNI check from the police records which discloses different types of information about a person’s criminal record history. Basic and standard checks can take about 10 days whereas an enhanced check can take about 3 weeks. Convictions for certain crimes will appear on these checks but some cautions, fines, offences and spent convictions won't appear.

The different levels of checks are:

Basic - for details of all convictions considered to be unspent.

Standard - containing details of all spent and unspent convictions, informed warnings, cautions and diversionary youth conferences.

Enhanced - contains the same information as a standard check and police records held locally. This type of check is usually required for work with children and vulnerable adults, the check may include information held by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

Requesting Your Data To Be Removed From Police Records

There are some circumstances under which a persons’ data, including biometric data in some cases, can be removed from police records on request. These circumstances are detailed here: https://www.acro.police.uk/Services/Record-deletion and guidance about the process is given here: https://www.acro.police.uk/ACRO/media/ACRO-Library/Deletion-of-Records-from-National-Police-Systems-(Guidance)-v2-1-April-2020.pdf.

Freedom of Information Request

In addition to much of the work of the police being kept secret for obvious reasons, much of the work of the UK government is also subject to laws relating to (national) security and privacy, although there is a wish to allow transparency where possible and where risks are minimised. The government actively publishes a lot of information and engages with the media as part of this transparency process.

Sometimes there are situations where individuals and organisations would like to find out more from the government (or the police) than what has been published or made freely available. As the Institute for Government says, “Freedom of information, parliamentary questions and ministerial correspondence are important mechanisms through which Parliament and the public can get information out of government”.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows members of the public and press to submit Freedom of Information requests (FOI). If certain conditions are met, public authorities are then required under this act to release any information they hold relating to the request. The Freedom of Information Act applies to government departments and the executive agencies and public bodies they sponsor, parliament, the armed forces, devolved administrations, local authorities, the NHS, schools, universities, and police forces.

Submitting a Freedom of Information Request

Anyone can submit a Freedom of Information request (FOI) and there are no restrictions on nationality, residency status or age. A request must ideally be made in writing (or verbally if writing is really not possible) and be sent directly to the relevant organisation, stating clearly what information is being requested, providing the requester’s real name with a valid address (postal or email) to where the reply can be sent.

If the recipient (e.g. a government department) decides that the request is resolvable, it may choose to either provide all or just some of the information that has been requested and it may decide to withhold some or all the information that has been requested.

Numbers

Government departments usually receive up to 8,000 Freedom of Information requests every quarter. In Q2 of 2020, for example, 6770 requests were received by the UK government. Only 4956 of these were deemed to be resolvable and 1884 of these resolvable requests were withheld in full.

Guidance on submitting a Freedom of Information Request (FOI) can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request

Looking Ahead

At the time of writing this article, the matter of the deleted 400,000 police records is still ongoing and information about the incident is still being gathered. At the same time, questions are currently being asked about matters of responsibility and when the Home Secretary is going to be made available to answer questions about the incident.

The implications of this mass deletion of offence, arrest, person, fingerprint, and DNA records could be that the solving of other crimes committed by known offenders may not be possible because the data is no longer available to cross-reference. The loss may also already be having an immediate impact on fighting crime as data from the Police National Computer (PNC) is used in real-time checks. The best-case scenario now is, of course, that the data can be restored and that procedures are changed to make sure that the same error can’t happen again. If the data cannot be restored this could be a major blow to law and order which could adversely affect individuals, communities, and businesses, and represents a frustrating waste of valuable time, effort, and police resources in gathering the data in the first place.

Signal Crashes Due To Millions of Sign-Ups

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

With more than 30 million people joining the non-profit, end-to-end encrypted communications app ‘Signal’ in just a few days, users of the app have (understandably) been experiencing a few technical issues.

Mass Sign-Ups

The announcement that WhatsApp would be changing its privacy policy and terms to force users (outside Europe) to share their data with WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook, coupled with recommendations by Elon Musk and Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey of the Signal app as a worthy alternative led to Signal’s platform being swamped with sign-ups.

From 10 Million to 40+ Million Users

Last week, Signal’s user base soared from a respectable 10 million to a massive 40 million-plus, thereby immediately catapulting it to the no.1 social networking app spot in Apple’s App Store.

Issues

It appears that the mass exodus caused a need for greater server capacity which resulted in Signal users experiencing technical issues which included:

Delays in sending verification codes for new-user sign-ups.
Users seeing errors in their chats.
The app has stopped working altogether for short periods of time.

Capacity

The huge numbers of people joining and trying to sign-up to (and use) the app in a very short period meant that Signal was short of server capacity which is likely to explain many of the technical issues. For example, Signal said on its Twitter feed on Friday that “We have been adding new servers and extra capacity at a record pace every single day this week nonstop, but today exceeded even our most optimistic projections”.

Back on Sunday

On Sunday, Signal was restored after it had gone down altogether, and posted a famous clip from the film Rocky (where the boxer reaches the top of the steps and celebrates) saying “Signal is back! Like an underdog going through a training montage, we’ve learned a lot since yesterday — and we did it together. Thanks to the millions of new Signal users around the world for your patience. Your capacity for understanding inspired us while we expanded capacity”.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

WhatsApp’s announcement that users would be soon given an ultimatum (share your information with Facebook or leave) coupled with the Signal recommendation from two tech big-hitters seems to have been enough to cause WhatsApp users to jump ship more quickly and in larger numbers than maybe anyone expected. WhatsApp may have 2 billion users worldwide but 40 million+ is a lot of users to lose in just a few days. It may be that people working remotely (from home) during the pandemic made the message about WhatsApp get noticed and people take action more quickly and in larger numbers, and it may be that the closing of apps like Parler could have contributed at least some new users to Signal. It also appears, however, that people clearly value their data privacy and like the thought of having one popular end-to-end encrypted app for business and personal use. It may also be the case that Facebook is still suffering from a lack of trust in the marketplace left over from the Cambridge Analytica scandal and that people are hearing, seeing, and experiencing so many messages, rules, intervention, and changes from their governments at this time that having a new secure app of some kind, especially from a relatively unknown brand (not one of the big tech big brothers) is even more attractive. Digital transformation and the reliance on technology and apps in recent times may also have led to a greater willingness to (and less fear of) switching between alternative platforms and other tech services. The massive switch to Signal will fuel its growth even more quickly as one of the attractions of using a new communications app is knowing that your other contacts are also using it.

PC Sales Get Biggest Boost in 10 Years From Remote Working

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Global tech market analysts Canalys have reported that the worldwide PC market has received its biggest sales boost in 10 years as remote working fuels the ongoing digital transformation.

Highest Full-Year Growth Since 2010

Canalys reported on 11 January that the global PC market ended 2020 on a high with 25 per cent sales growth in Q4 of desktops, notebooks and workstations reaching 90.3 million units, and that total PC shipments in 2020 grew 11 per cent to reach 297.0 million units. Canalys reports that this is the highest full-year growth since 2010 and the highest shipment volume since 2014.

Lenovo Top

Lenovo tops the Q4 sales market with 23.1 million units and year-on-year growth of 29 per cent, followed by HP in second place with 19.1 million units shipped, Dell in third place with 50.3 million units shipped (up 27 per cent), Apple in fourth place (22.6 million devices shipped) and Acer in fifth place, shipping 20.0 million devices.

Canalys reports that just these top 5 vendors accounted for 78.5 per cent of PC shipments in 2020.

Reason

Most tech commentators agree that the pandemic has revived what was a declining PC market. Back in November, for example, International Data Corporation (IDC) research indicated that shipments of EMEA traditional PCs (desktops, notebooks, and workstations) would total 82.1 million in 2020, a 12.7 per cent year-on-year growth due to the increased demand caused by the need for people to work at home during the pandemic.

Digital Transformation

A survey by Studio Graphene in September 2020 showed that the need to quickly shift staff to working from home because of the lockdown appeared to be a driver and an accelerator of digital transformation for businesses. The survey showed that nearly half (46 per cent) of business leaders said that said Covid-19 had driven the most pronounced digital transformation that their businesses had experienced.

This Year

Even though the pandemic has caused some supply chain issues, there have been innovations on chipsets and the demand for devices has continued to remain strong into 2021, as it is expected to do for at least the first quarter. Some commentators have noted how the shift by many businesses to an indefinite remote working environment, coupled with factors like the need to educate children at home, look like favouring more mobile than stationary devices, going forward. That said, and as the sales figures show, PCs have been at the heart of a very large global digital transformation and as Rushabh Doshi, Canalys Research Director says, “the PC industry caters to a broader range of customers that bring with them new behaviours and use cases”.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Prior to the pandemic, PC sales were in decline but the need for people to work from home has provided a massive boost to PC sales. As the second peak has been even worse than the first and with more infectious new strains emerging, this shift to remote working has meant that PC businesses and their supply chains have thrived and struggled to meet demand. Many business customers have undergone an accelerated digital transformation, have put technology at the heart of their operations and have made changes to their whole businesses where possible that could see a more permanent shift to a remote workforce using PCs and other devices, thereby ensuring that the curve in PC sales does not dip for some time yet.

Tech tip - Stop Skype from opening automatically on Windows 10 startup

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like to stop Skype from opening and appearing automatically, every time you log into or start-up Windows 10, here’s how:

Go to ‘Settings’ (type ‘Settings’ in the taskbar and select it).
Click on ‘Apps’.
On the ‘Apps and Features’ page, left-hand side, click on ‘Startup’.
Switch the Skype toggle to ‘Off’.

To also stop Skype from carrying out tasks when you have not asked it to, go back to the main Settings page and:

Click on ‘Privacy’.
Left-hand side, scroll down and click on ‘Background apps.
Find Skype and click the toggle to ‘Off’.

Security implications because of changes in how we work

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The pandemic has resulted in significant changes in how businesses and people work, the pandemic caused the biggest change in ways of working and organisations had to rapidly adapt.

Staff have found themselves richer in a couple of ways, both richer in time, no longer having to commute, and financially by not having to pay for the commute as well, with some seeing themselves several thousands of pounds better off each year. It's therefore not surprising that a survey in August 2020 found that nine out of ten people who were working from home, wanted to continue to do so even after lockdown ends.

But these changes have also made businesses more susceptible to exploitation and attack because of the way that staff are no longer working inside the "trusted office network". This is why it is imperative for the business and staff to have the necessary security in place. This could be as simple as a written policy instructing staff with what to do if they suspect they have been targeted or it could be more sophisticated such as multi-factor authentication, end to end encryption and automated data policies.

The Silver Cloud Business has been working with many clients in Salisbury, Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire and in many cases far further as well, to ensure they have the best configuration of their systems to minimise their risk and exposure.

We can now also offer our clients Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation as well, allowing businesses to demonstrate to clients and third parties that they take their security seriously.

If any of this is of interest and you would like more information, please click here: Computer Security

Or call us on 01722 411 999 to discuss any needs or concerns with us and we will be happy to help.

Tech Tip – how to make instructions in Windows 10 using Steps Recorder

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Do you ever need to show someone else how to do something on a Windows 10 computer, e.g. how to format a document or make a graph in Excel?

The “Steps Recorder” facility does this for you, and creates a file or a slide show you can share showing the steps you take. The beauty of it is that they can save it for future reference and they can share it round their colleagues too.

To record your steps:

Go to the start menu and type in ‘Steps Recorder’.
Click on the Steps Recorder App.
Click the start button and carry out the steps you would like to demonstrate.
Click on the stop button at the end. The Steps Recorder will produce a document of your steps showing screenshots.
You can then review the recorded steps as a file or as a slideshow.
Save the steps as a .zip file.

Tech Tip – Colour Filters

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you're having trouble seeing what's on the screen, Windows 10 allows you to apply a colour filter which changes the screen's colour palette and can help you distinguish between things that differ only by colour. Here's how to use it:

Select Start
Settings
Ease of Access
Colour filters.
Switch on the toggle under Turn on colour filters.
Select a colour filter from the menu.

Tip: Try each filter to see which one suits you best.

To get to colour filter settings in previous versions of Windows 10:

Select Start
Settings
Ease of Access
Colour & high contrast.

More Tech Tips

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Thinking about moving to the cloud?

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Are you concerned about moving to the cloud?

A lot of business owners are put off with the idea of moving their IT systems to the cloud. This stems from concerns about security and where data is stored, worrying that the internet isn’t fast enough, thinking it is too expensive or simply not trusting something because of not understanding how it works.

It's not a matter of if, but when...

First and foremost, the cloud is where everyone will end up, it is not a matter of if, but a matter of when, because the technology firms are pushing for everything to be in the cloud in the near future so that they can get all customers on a subscription model.

Security is Key in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is very secure, it is in the technology firms’ interests to make sure their services are as secure as possible to protect their own reputation as well as their customers. Bad news travels fast, these businesses know that, so they invest in their security, however, this doesn’t absolve responsibility from the customer’s own security. It just means there are a lot of security options for the customers of the cloud service. The cloud service providers also work with each other to ensure that their services integrate with each other, making sure that customers are not blocked from choosing their service and can also work more collaboratively.

The other benefits of moving to the Cloud

Cloud service provides also allow customers to choose where they geographically store their data, this is to ensure that a customer can adhere to their country’s data policies such as GDPR so they can ensure compliance.

Cloud services are optimised so that they can work over a typical broadband connection. There are certain circumstances where using cloud services over a local service is detrimental, typically if working with large files such as video files or design files, then a slow internet connection will not help. But for most organisations data usage, cloud services are ideal, especially with the flexibility that working in the cloud provides. It is what helped a lot of organisations get their staff working from home so rapidly during the pandemic and if there is a user working from home, they typically find a similar or better experience working in the cloud as they do in the office.

One of the refreshing things about cloud services is the change in how they charge for the service, instead of a capital expense to buy a produce and refresh it every 3-5 years with another capital expense, it is an operational cost, with a small monthly fee per user for the service(s) the organisation consumes.

Organisations can flex consumption of services up and down each month as circumstances change. If an organisation needs to rapidly expand for a new project, then it can flex up subscriptions temporarily without committing to a long-term purchase. It also helps organisations with their cashflow by allowing the finance department to budget IT on a month-by-month basis, most financial teams prefer operational expenditure rather than capital expenditure, which depreciates.

Saving the best until the very last…… the cloud is ever green, in other words, the service you subscribe to from the cloud provider will always be up to date and current, no more using out of date software that is not compatible with other clients.

Fear of the unknown

The last thing that puts organisations off is not understanding how these services work, but this should not put an organisation off moving to the cloud, the best way to understand how cloud services work is to see it in action. We can setup a free 30-day trial for the majority of cloud service providers to help explain how it all works. Contact us for more information.

The Difference Between Cloud Backup and Cloud Storage

Building trust with customers

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Building trust takes time

One thing that is difficult to do is to quickly build up trust with new customers and clients, especially in this digital age when there are so many instances of companies losing customer data or suffering a security breach.

A sure-fire way to escalate building trust is to demonstrate that your company takes security seriously and you can do that with nationally recognised security accreditations for your business or organisation.

Introducing Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials is a UK Government backed scheme that will help to protect your organisation against the most common cyber-attacks and by getting one or both of the Cyber Essentials accreditations, you can reassure your customers that you take cyber security seriously. You can also use it to attract new business by promoting that you have cyber security measures in place.

Cyber Essentials is also necessary if you wish to engage with some government contract work. By achieving this accreditation you are opening up more opportunities for business.

There are two levels of accreditation, Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus. The Silver Cloud Business can help guide your business through the Cyber Essentials accreditation process.

Did you know that The Silver Cloud Business is Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certified?

Automation in the cloud and hardware deployment

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The cloud brings budget friendly, hassle free automations

One of the benefits that moving to the cloud can bring is a whole raft of automation without the need to invest in expensive infrastructure.

Microsoft 365 subscriptions for a business provide significant benefits in terms of security, automation and device management.

Why do you need automation?

Automation provides a business with consistency, consistency comes from how a new machine is built and configured, consistency is born from how data flows within the organisation and consistency depends on how data can or cannot flow outside of the organisation, providing new levels of protection which is vital in a digital world and GDPR.

Consistency across all computer hardware

Microsoft Intune coupled with Autopilot provides businesses with the ability to deploy brand new Windows built computers or laptops with a consistent build and company applications providing staff with a consistent and reliable computer. What is more, it makes supporting the environment so much easier because of the consistency and if there are any issues, such as the network drivers no longer working, the user can be talked through resetting the computer so that it rebuilds itself and gets the drivers working again without the need for a site visit or to provide new hardware.

If there is a problem that doesn’t get resolved by resetting the computer to rebuild itself, the member of staff can be assigned a new computer and have it shipped to them without even taking it out of the box or setting it up prior to sending. All the user has to do is unbox the computer, decide which country and keyboard layout to select, connect it to a network and the machine will then detect it is enrolled with the company, by checking in with Microsoft and Intune, and it will then prompt the user to enter their password. Once it has authenticated, it will set itself up with the automated build.

The Silver Cloud Business can help organisations create and develop their automation in the cloud - contact us to find out what we can do for you.

A typical configuration of Autopilot would comprise of:

Enrolling the new computer.

Assigning a profile.

Assigning a user.

Creating application packages to deploy to the build using group membership (allows different applications to be deployed to different users / departments).

Configure OneDrive to automatically sync My Documents, Pictures and the Desktop back to the cloud.

Create data configuration policies that sync corporate data into OneDrive that then allows users to see SharePoint sites and Teams sites within Microsoft Explorer.

Configure security policies on the computer such as automatic disk encryption, creation of a local support admin account, ensure the primary user account is a standard user, not a local admin account.

Configuration of remote management and remote resetting of the device.

Whilst the above is a typical configuration, it is not limited to this and any additional requirements to an automated build can typically be met through the configuration of policies included in Microsoft 365.

Contact the team for more information on how to get started.

Tech tip - Restoring files using previous file versions

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like to restore a previous file version in Windows 10 you can do this using the File History feature. Here is how:

The first thing you need to do is enable file history:

Click start, select Settings and in settings, select Update & Security
On the left-hand-side menu, click on Backup
Where it says Add a Drive, if no dive letter is listed, you’ll need to add one, for example, pen drive connected to a USB port.
Choose the drive you want to use and select Automatically back up my files. This enables File History and will toggle to On. This can be toggled to between on and off when not required.
The More Options link under the toggle allows you to select the time and frequency of the back-ups to occur, which folders and to select a different target drive.

To Restore previous versions:

To Restore a previous version of a file(s), open File Explorer, finding file or folder to restore, right click on the file or folder, select the Restore previous versions
Previous versions will be displayed as a list. Select the version you want to restore, select the Open button at the bottom to open it in the associated application or to restore it, select the Restore

Tech tip - Continuing where you left off with Microsoft Edge

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you want to keep and return to all your browser tabs the next time you restart Microsoft Edge, for example if the computer has restarted whilst browsing, here’s how:

Open Edge, click on the 3 dots (top right) and select "Settings"
Click “On startup” on the menu
Select “Continue where you left off”
Close the “Settings” tab

The next time Edge is closed and restarted your tabs will be where you left them.

To always open the same pages every time you open Microsoft Edge:

Open Edge, click on the 3 dots (top right) and select "Settings"
Click “On startup” on the menu
Select “Open a specific page or pages”
Select which page will be displayed whenever you open Edge
Close the “Settings” tab

Tech tip - Autofill and Sync Passwords

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you use Microsoft Windows and you would like to avoid remembering all of your passwords across all of your devices, the Autofill function can do it for you. It is being rolled out with the Microsoft Authenticator app, and as an Autofill extension on Google Chrome. Here is how to use it:

Autofill stores your passwords in your Microsoft account. To use it:

Open the Microsoft Authenticator app
Sign-in on the Passwords tab with your Microsoft account. Your passwords stored on Edge will then sync to the Authenticator app
To have a secure way to your Microsoft Edge passwords when you’re browsing on Google Chrome, go to the Chrome Webstore and get the Microsoft Autofill Extension and install it in the Chrome browser
The Authenticator app also lets you import passwords from a .csv file

Tech tip - Organising Files Using ‘Libraries’

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like an easy, fast way to collate files from different storage areas into one virtual folder that you can search at one time, use the Windows 10 Libraries feature.

Here’s how:

Go to/open File Explorer
If ‘Libraries’ isn’t listed e.g., under ‘This PC’, right mouse click in the navigation pane and click ‘Show Libraries’
To create your own library, double click on ‘Libraries’ and right mouse click > New > Library. There are also four default libraries that are already in user account
Click on the new Library folder you’ve created and, top left, click on the ‘Manage Library’ folder icon.- You can then click on the ‘Add’ and ‘Remove’ buttons to organise your virtual Libraries.

Tech tip - Reopen a closed browser tab

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever been in the situation where you accidently close a browser tab and instantly regret doing so? Did you know there is a handy shortcut to opening the tab without having to go into your settings and browser history?. Here’s how:

If you are using a PC:

press CTRL + Shift + T

If you are using a Mac

press Command + Shift + T

The browser tab you accidently closed will reopen.

Tech tip - Find Out If Your Email Address Has Been Victim Of A Data Breach

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know there is a handy tool that enables you to check and see if any of the companies that are storing your data have suffered a data breach that you are unaware of.

Go to https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Enter your email address
Click the PWNED button

If you are lucky the tool will come back with nothing however most likely it will show you which sites haven't protected your data.

Tech Tip – Adjust The Sound For Specific Apps

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If, like me, you are spending more time in online meetings in Windows 10 you have probably had different headsets to use during the calls but have you ever experienced the issue where the volume is too loud in the Teams or Zoom meeting and you would like to have control of the volume in the individual app? Especially if the master volume doesn't seem to adjust the volume in your headset? If you have suffered with this problem you are not alone and here is how to resolve it:

Connect your headset to the computer
Open the application you want to adjust the volume in (in my case Teams)
Open Settings (click start and select the cog wheel on the left hand side of the start menu)
Select System, then Sound
Scroll down to the bottom of the right hand window and under Advanced Sound Options select "App volume device preferences"
Use the slider bar to adjust the volume for the application you are using

Note: you need to be running the application for it to appear in the sound settings, if the application is not listed, open it and it should automatically show up in the settings list once it has launched.

Tech Tip - Windows 10 Timeline

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that there is a handy feature built into Windows 10 that lets you keep track of what you have been doing called the timeline? This feature allows you to pickup from where you last left off whilst also giving you a timeline of what you have been working on, so you can scroll back through your work history and find things quickly.

To get to the Windows 10 Timeline:

Press the Windows key and the Tab key together
Scroll up and down your timeline to select what you were working on

Note: This feature only works with some apps such as:

Microsoft Office
Microsoft Edge browser
Adobe Creative Cloud
Native Windows 10 apps such as News and Mail

However Microsoft has created tools to enable developers to integrate MS Timeline into their future applications so the list will keep growing.

Microsoft Industry Clouds

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that Microsoft makes industry specific cloud computing environments based on Microsoft 365 and Azure?

Originally it was designed for two industries, Retail and Healthcare but it has recently been expanded to five to include Non-profit, Financial Services and Manufacturing. These cloud environments leverage all the power of Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Platform tools and other Microsoft services to make seamless end to end environments. This provides a common data model to do away with disparate data sources and provides a single version of the truth. No more separate data repositories that hold different versions of the same or similar data.

Tech tip - revert to previous version of a document

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you are working on a file either collaboratively or on your own you can revert to go back through iterations by accessing previous file versions.

Office 365 automatically saves previous file versions, which you can access through OneDrive or SharePoint. To access previous file versions, click

File
Info and select View.
A tab opens and you to see all previous versions of the document, compare content, and restore prior changes if need be.

If you are using PowerPoint, the admin can compare a single slide’s editing history and the changes made by each author (if it was created collaboratively) to approve contributions made by each team member.

This ability to restore file versions by slide can maximise effort and allow roll back to previous versions of the slide.

Tech tip - Creating An Email List In Outlook

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a quick way to group contacts (e.g. work colleagues or customers).

Microsoft Outlook allows you to create a Distribution List (Contact Group in 365).

Here’s how:

Outlook Online

Log into Office 365 and select Outlook
On the Left-hand side, select Groups
Select New group
Give the group a name and a description then select Create
Add group members by searching by name/email address, and they will appear under “This person will be added.”
When you have added all the email addresses, select the ‘Add’ button, and select ‘Close’.
To send an email to the group, create a ‘New message’, in the ‘To’ field, enter the name of the new group you created

Outlook Application

In the desktop Outlook Application it is called a ‘Contact Group’ rather than a Distribution List.

To build a contact group:

Open Outlook and select ‘People’
On the toolbar select ‘New Contact Group’
When the windows opens, give the contact group a name
Add members by selecting ‘Add Members’ and choose where to get members from - Outlook Contacts, the Address Book, or create a New Email Contact
Search for the people/email addresses to add. When their entry is highlighted, select the ‘Members’ button (or double-click their entry) to add
When this is one, select ‘OK’, save changes, and close the window

The name of the Contact Group will appear as an entry in the Outlook address book so can be selected in the ‘To’ field when creating a new email.

Setting Up An ‘Out Of Office’ Autoreply In Outlook

Wed, 05 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like to have your email send automatic replies to people sending you emails when you are busy or away from the office such as being on holiday, do the following:

For Outlook desktop application:

Open Outlook
Click File from the menu
Select "Automatic Replies (Out of Office)
Select the "Send automatic replies" radio button and either choose a date and time range (to turn on in the future and turn off automatically or just to turn it on all the time until manually turn it off in the future)
Type the response you want to send to people "Inside My Organisation" and format accordingly
If you want to respond to external contacts, click the "Outside My Organisation" tab and ensure you have ticked the "Auto-reply to people outside my organisation" and choose to response to either "My Contacts only" or to "Anyone outside my organisation" and then type and format the message.
Click OK when done

For Outlook Web App:

Login to Outlook in Office 365 (https://outlook.office.com)
Select settings (the small cog wheel at the top of the page)
Select "View all Outlook settings" (at the bottom of the panel)
In the Email section, select "Automatic replies"
Click the "Turn on automatic replies" switch
Either choose to send replies during a time period or until you turn it off
Fill out and format the "Send automatic replies inside your organisation" message
If you want to reply to external emails, tick the "Send replies to outside your organisation" box and decide if it is to everyone or "Send replies only to contacts"
Fill out and format the "Send replies outside your organisation" message
Click on Save

Tech Tip – Add Or Remove Comments In Word

Thu, 13 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Using comments in Microsoft Word is a great way to comments and reply to review feedback in documents that you and your business colleagues are collaborating on. Here’s how....

To add review comments:

Open the document in Word
Click the Review menu tab
Highlight the section in the document you want to comment on
Click New Comment from the review menu
Type your comment in the box that appears on the right hand side of the screen

Alternately:

Highlight the work or section in the document
Right click on the highlighted section
Select New Comment from the menu
Type your comment in the box that appears on the right hand side of the screen

To reply to an existing comment in a document do the following:

Click on the top right hand corner of the comment
Write your reply in the text box that opens

Alternately:

Right click on the comment
from the menu select Reply to comment
enter your comments in the text box

Tech tip - "Alexa drop in" - how to use your Amazon Echo as an intercom system

Wed, 19 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If own Amazon Echo devices in your office or house (or both), the “Alexa - Drop In” feature allows you to use your digital assistant as an intercom or phone to your other Echo devices, or to anyone you know who has enabled external calls. Here is how to it:

Open your Alexa app on your smartphone
Tap “Devices” (menu option at the bottom of the screen)
Tap “Echo & Alexa” to list all of your devices and to enable the ‘Drop In’ feature on each device.
Select the device then Scroll down to “Communications”
Select “Drop In” and then select from:
- “On” (permitted contacts only) this allows anyone with an Echo in your permitted contacts list to drop into your device (it requires you to authorise the answer)
- “My household” (only devices in my account) which allows only your Echo device to communicated together (it doesn’t require you to authorise the answer)
- “Off” (Nobody can drop in)

To use the “Drop In” feature do the following:

For a specific device say “Alexa, drop in device name” (for example “Alexa drop in lounge”).
To speak to all devices in your account, say “Alexa Drop in everywhere.”
To end the Drop In connection say “Alexa, end drop in.” or “Alexa, stop”

Tech Tip – How To Delete The Last 15 Minute of Your Search History On Your Smartphone

Thu, 27 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you have forgotten to use Incognito browsing in Google on your mobile and would like a fast and easy way to delete the last 15 minutes of your browsing history do the following:

Open the Google Search app on your Android phone or iPhone
Tap on your profile picture (top-right)
Select “Delete the last 15 mins

To erase your search for a longer period:

Open the Google Search app on your Android phone or iPhone
Tap on the Search history button
Select the date range you want to clear

Alternatively, you can set up a custom auto-delete function via the search and location history in your Google account settings, contact us if you would like more information how.

Tech tip - How To Use Microsoft Edge To Check For Password Leaks

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Do you know you can use the Microsoft Edge Browser to check if any of the passwords you use have been compromised?

To do this:

Click "Settings and More" (the three dots top right hand corner of the browser) or press Alt + F
Click "Settings"
In the "Profile" section click "Passwords"
If any passwords have leaved you will see a notification, if the browser hasn't found any leaked passwords it will display a blue banner saying "No new leaked passwords found"
Click the right hand side of the blue bar, click on >
Click on the Scan Now button to check for leaked passwords

If you want to save time, in Microsoft Edge, copy and paste the link below to go directly to the password monitor section where you can scan for password leaks:

edge://settings/passwords/passwordMonitor

Tech tip - Re-Open A Recently Closed Tab in Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes you can accidentally close an important browser tab, we have all been there, done it.

But don't despair, here is a quick and easy way to re-open that tab.

To re-open a recently closed tab:

Press CTRL + Shift + T (yes it really is that simple)

Alternately

in the Chrome or Edge browser right click any of the open tabs or the area the tabs are (the title bar above the address field)
from the drop down menu select "Reopen closed tab CTRL + Shift + T"

Tech Tip – Exporting/Importing Google Chrome Bookmarks and Microsoft Edge

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re switching devices or need to re-install Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge from scratch but don’t want to lose your collection of bookmarks, here’s how to export and import them.

Google Chrome Export

From Chrome’s "Settings and More" menu (three dots at the top right) select
"Bookmarks"
"Bookmark manager"
Go to the three-dot menu (at the top right of this menu) and select "Export bookmarks"
Save the bookmarks as a html file

Microsoft Edge Export

Click on Favourites (the small star with three stripes at the top right) or press CTRL + Shift + O
Go to the three-dot menu (at the top right of this menu) and select "Export bookmarks"
Save the bookmarks as a html file

Import bookmarks in Google Chrome

Follow the same process for export shown above, but from the menu in "Bookmark manager" select "Import bookmarks" and upload your saved html file

Import bookmarks in Microsoft Edge

Follow the same process for export shown above, but from the three dots menu select "Import bookmarks"
From the Import Browser Data menu dropdown, select "Favourites or Bookmarks HTML File" then browse to the file containing your favourites
upload your saved html file

Alternatively turn on Sync so you can sync all of your settings, cached passwords and bookmarks / favourites across your account to different devices by going to settings (click the three dots at the top right hand corner) and enabling the sync option in either browser.

Tech Tip – How To Use Anchors (Bookmarks) In Google Docs

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’d like to make it faster and easier to navigate between different document sections in Google Docs, here’s how to insert anchors (known as ‘bookmarks’):

In Google Docs, type the name of the document in the Title column and open your chosen document
Put the cursor at the beginning of where you want to put the bookmark
From the document navigation bar select “Insert” > “Bookmark”
Go to the section of the document where the link to the Bookmark should come from and click “Insert” > “Link”
Type your link text In the Edit Link dialog box
Click on “Bookmark” in the “Link To” section to open the Bookmarks list, select your bookmark, and click on the “OK” button to complete the link.

Tech tip - enhanced searches in Windows 10

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If searches are taking too long in Windows 10, they can be sped up by doing the following:

Click Start
Select Settings
Select Search
Select Searching Windows

If the search is set Classic, it will only index Windows libraries and the Desktop

If the search is set to Enhanced indexing the search will index the whole computer speeding up searches.

A enhanced algorithm helps Windows adjust when it is indexing. This uses less resources while gaming or when disk usage rises above 80%

Tech tip - How To Check If Links Are Safe or Spam

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve ever had an email or sent a PDF with a link in it and you were unsure it was safe or not and wanted a way to check, here is how:

Five ways to check if the link is safe:

First you need to copy the link you are unsure of, don't worry, by copying the link into memory will not compromise your computer. Place the mouse over any highlighted link, click the right mouse button and select "Copy Hyperlink".

Then you need to visit one or all of the following websites and paste the saved hyperlink into the URL box displayed on the web page then click to search and it will tell you if there are any vulnerabilities you should be aware of.

Check the status of a website URL using Google’s Transparency Report, which uses Google’s Safe Browsing technology. Goto: https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search?hl=en
Use ScanURL to check a website for malware, phishing, viruses, and poor reputation. Goto: https://scanurl.net/
Use URLVoid to check a website’s reputation and detect potentially malicious links. Goto: https://www.urlvoid.com/
Use VirusTotal to scan a web page for malicious links. Goto: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/
Check any link that you suspect is a phishing site by using PhishTank. Goto: https://www.phishtank.com/

Tech Tip – Create Simple To-Do Lists Using Google Tasks

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Google Tasks (similar to Microsoft To-Do), which is integrated with into Gmail and Google Calendar provides a convenient way to create simple to-do lists.

Here’s how to do it:

Sign-in to Google
Open Calendar
Click on the ‘Tasks’ symbol (right-hand side, blue circle with pen symbol)
Click on “Add a task”
Add the title
details
date, and time, and click on the tick/complete link

You will notice that it has then been added to your calendar.

For bigger tasks:

Click on the three dots by the task name (right-hand side of Calendar) and select "Subtask"
add each subtask of the main task including time and date
Repeat until all subtasks are added
When a task is completed, right-mouse click on it in Calendar and select "Mark completed".

This will put a line through the task

In Calendar, clicking on the yellow light bulb symbol enables you to add notes via Google Keep.

Tech Tip – Help Improve Your Productivity With Microsoft’s MyAnalytics

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’d like to get an insight into your work habits to improve your productivity, you could try Microsoft 365 MyAnalytics to analyse your computer usage data. Here is how to do it:

Login to your Microsoft / Office 365 account
Select MyAnalytics from the app menu or click on the 9 dots square menu (top left) to select the "All Apps" page and click on the "MyAnalytics" link
This is where you get insights into (and are able to address issues like) "Focus" (which is the time you typically have leftover to focus on your tasks outside of meetings, emails, chats, and calls), "Well-Being" / "Quiet Days" (days that have no interruptions), "Collaboration" (the amount of your time, shown as a percentage, spent in meetings, emails, chats, and calls), and "Network" (If you are proactively managing your network of collaborators and by how much).
MyAnalytics also allows you to see what percentage of your week spent in meetings and what percentage of your calendar is booked when the week starts and makes suggestions on how to help you become more efficient with your time to ensure that well being is also taken into consideration.

Tech Tip – Accessing The Windows Clipboard History

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

There are times when you work with the clipboard a lot, copying and pasting information but there may be a time when you need to paste something again that you had copied several copies before. Here is how to use clipboard history in Windows 10 and Windows 11

Here’s how:

Make sure clipboard history is enabled, to do this open the clipboard history by pressing the Windows logo key + V together and then select Turn on if it is not already turned on
Open clipboard history (Windows logo key + V), locate the item in the history list (these are in time order, most recent at the top) and select it
Once selected, it automatically copies back in to the clipboard and you can paste it again in the usual way (CTRL + V)
To remove a copied item from the history list, click on the three dots next on the right hand side of the item and select "delete" (which is represented by a waste bin icon)
To enable your clipboard items to be availble everywhere from any other Windows 10 or Windows 11 device you use, select Start > Settings > System > Clipboard and then switch the "Sync across devices" to "On"

Tech Tip – Minimise Everything Instantly With The Show Desktop Feature

Wed, 04 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you want to know how to minimise all your open application windows with one click in Windows 10 and Windows 11, here is how to do it:

Move your mouse to the bottom right hand corner of your screen
You will see a small notification which says "Show Desktop"
Click with the mouse when this notification shows and all open windows will minimise
Click the same location to restore all open windows as they were originally

How And Why To Prepare For Windows 11

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the next few months Microsoft will begin rolling out free Windows 11 upgrades to eligible computers so it is best to prepare for what is coming and understand some of the nuances of the new operating system before your computer look and feel changes.

This is inevitable, no matter how hard you wish it weren't so, it is coming, despite what Microsoft said at the official launch of Windows 10 being the last version of windows and would only get updates moving forwards!

A lot can change in the tech world in six years which is why Windows 11 is coming and it will soon start shipping on new computers.

So how can you prepare.....

Check your existing hardware compatibility - this Microsoft article details the minimum system hardware requirements Windows 11 hardware requirements
Run a pilot - join the Microsoft Windows 11 development program and install Windows 11 on a spare machine so that you can prepare your business and staff for what is coming. Whilst the bulk of the code underpinning Windows 11 is predominantly Windows 10, the user interface is the first of many changes you will immediately notice
Plan for deployment, decide when it is best to move your business over to the new operating system and provide staff with enough notice and training so they are prepared for the changes and can continue to function without being lost in a new operating system
Decide what to do with equipment that doesn't meet the hardware spec, do you sweat the asset whilst still running Windows 10 or do you plan to replace
Make sure all your software will run with Windows 11, do not embark on an operating system upgrade without testing first, either by doing a pilot implementation to ensure all current software works (even if it means leveraging a virtual machine to run Windows 11) or by seeking assurances from the software manufacturers that their software has been tested and will run on Windows 11, however we would strongly recommend the first option of pilot testing as software manufacturers cannot test for every combination of application which could impact how theirs works on a new operating system
Identify early adopters, staff who are more willing to get up to speed with the new operating system and learn about the differences and who will be willing to assist their colleagues when the wider operating system upgrade takes place in the business
Have a contingency plan - even with all the testing in the world, there is always the chance of something not working, ensure there is a fall back plan, even if it is just temporary, to make sure you business can continue to function. This could be a physical or virtual machine that is running Windows 10 and the applications however please ensure that this fall back position is covered by the software licensing, remember that vendors license their software in a multitude of ways so ensure that having a fall back solution does not violate your software license terms and conditions.

If you would like more information about Windows 11, to see a demo or to have help in preparing, please call us on 01722 411 999 and ask to speak to Emma.

All The Emojis You'll Ever Need

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Emojis are a great way to create engaging content in social media or when communicating with others. Here is a link to a site where you can access all of the emojis you could ever want or need:

Open a web browser
Browse to https://emojipedia.org/
In the search box enter the description of the sort of emoji you are looking for or select a category to open to see the collection associated with the category (for example Food & Drink)
Click on the Emoji you want, this will open a new page with a "copy" button, click the copy button to copy the emoji to your computer or device clipboard
You can then insert the emoji from the clipboard into your document, message, text or application

How to speed up your Intel based Mac if Big Sur has slowed it down

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Apple released its latest operating system MacOS Big Sur in conjunction with the launch of their new processor architecture, the Apple M1 chip, which is being rolled out in newer Apple computers.

The problem is that some older Apple computers that have Intel processors, that upgraded to Big Sur have suffered with performance, here are a few tips on how to speed your Apple computer up if it is running slow

Tip 1. Check your login items and disable those you don't need. When you start up your computer, there may be applications that automatically start when you login, this could have a significant impact on your computers performance and it could be applications you don't even use. To check login items go to System preferences, select Users and Groups and then for your user, click the Login Items button on the right. Check which applications are running on launch and remove unwanted applcations by clicking the padlock in the bottom left corner to make changes, then selecting the application from the list then clicking the minus symbol below the list.
Tip 2. Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) and NVRAM/PRAM which should increase the boot up sequence.In order to reset your SMC you need to know which type of Mac you have as there is a different procedure for different models which we will cover here
Resetting the SMC on an iMac, MacPro, Xserve, or MacMini
Power off the Mac and unplug the power lead. Leave the Mac off for 15 seconds and then plug in the power cable. Wait for a further 5 seconds and then turn Mac back on as you would normally and the SMC will be reset
Resetting the SMC on a MacBook Air, a MacBook Pro, or a MacBook
Shut down and power off the Mac and unplug the power supply. Leave the Mac off for 15 seconds and then plug in the power supply. Press the left shift key, left option key and the control key all at once and hold down for 10 seconds. Release these three keys and then turn Mac back on as you would normally and the SMC will be reset
Resetting the NVRAM/PRAM. Power off the Mac and leave it be for 30 seconds. Turn your Mac on. Immediately press and hold down the option key, the command key, the P and the R keys at the same time. Keep holding the keys down until your Mac restarts and makes an audible beeping sound and the NVRAM/PRAM will be reset
Tip 3. Make sure your applications are up to date. When an operating system updates, the applications that run on it typically need to be upgraded as well to accommodate or exploit any changes in the operating system. Older applications may not be aware of new operating system which could impact performance.
For applications downloaded from the Apple App Store, ensure that automatic updates are enabled, to do this, launch the App Store and click on the App Store menu at the top of the screen, select Preference. When the preferences are displayed tick the Automatic Updates box. Then you will be notified of any apps from the store that need to be updated with a notification number on the App Store icon with the option to upgrade.
For other applications you can either check each application in turn (usually in the help or preferences sections of the application there will be a check for upgrade option), or you could choose to use a third party application such as CleanMyMac X which allows you to bulk check applications that were not purchased or installed through the App Store.
Software vendors such as Microsoft also have an autoupdate app that will periodically check for updates to applications and will notify the user.
Tip 4. Turn off the screen saver, I know it sounds daft but a lot of users have found that this simple trick improves screen refresh and responsiveness. Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective.

If you would like more help in speeding up your Mac, why not give us a call.

It's coming.... Windows 11 launch date

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has announced that Windows 11 will be launched on:

5th October 2021

All new computers running a Microsoft OS that are sold after this date will, unless otherwise requested at purchase, ship with Windows 11 pre-installed.

Microsoft has also announced that Windows Server 2022 officially launched on:

1st September 2021

however it has been shipping for the past couple of weeks prior to the official launch date.

How to improve your security in Google Chrome

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

There are so many browser-based security threats that are easy to exploit but also easy to resolve.

Here is a quick and simple way to enable two settings to protect you from common threats such as untrusted browser extensions and also phishing:

Open the browser:

click on the 3 dots (top-right) and select "Settings"
click on "privacy and security" (left hand-side)
click on "Security and Privacy Centre"
turn the toggles to the "on" position for the "Extension Guard" and "Anti Phishing"
close the browser settings

Tech Tip – Prepare for the phone network switch off

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It is surprising how quickly time flies these days which is why it is important to ensure your business is prepared for the copper telephone network switch off that is coming on 1st January 2026.

The old PSTN network (which has been around since the 19th Century) is being switched off and whilst a lot of organisations are preparing for alternate phone systems, one thing that often is overlooked is automated systems that also rely on the phone, such as plant room equipment (boilers, air conditioning units etc.) and alarm systems (burglar, fire, moisture etc.) which also use the same phone network.

Some of these systems may not support alternate pathways such as IP or mobile which is why it is worth noting that there are interim solutions available to help bridge the gap between the phone network being switched off and any equipment being replaced that supports the new fibre network solutions.

If you would like some help to source alternate systems such as dual path resilient PSTN emulators that present as the old phone network but covert the signal to either IP or 4G then call us and we are happy to help supply, install and test solutions to bridge the gap.

Tech Tip – A Quick Look At Your Desktop

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re browsing the Internet or working on file in Windows 10 but you need a fast look at your desktop here’s how:

While in a browser or working on a Microsoft Office file e.g., Word, find the tiny vertical line to the far, right hand-side of the bottom taskbar.
Click on the line. Everything will be minimised so you can see your desktop.
Click on the same line again to restore your Windows.

Alternatively, you can:

Right-mouse click over the line (far right of the taskbar) and select ‘Show desktop’.

Right-mouse click over the line (far right of the taskbar) and select ‘Peek at desktop’. Clicking on it will make a check-mark appear to its left.
If you hover your cursor over the “Show Desktop” button, you will see a quick peek at the desktop.

How to..... Stop ads popping up in YouTube

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you want a quick and easy way to stop ad from popping up in and around the frame when you are watching YouTube videos, here is how to stop them:

Choose the video you want to watch on YouTube
In the browser URL bar, insert “_popup” between the word “watch” and the question mark the in YouTube video URL and press enter
You can now watch a full screen, uninterrupted YouTube video without ads

Tech tip - How To Schedule Sending Emails in Outlook

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

There are times when you are working outside of normal business hours but when you would like to be able to send email at the certain time but cannot be there, so one option is to create your emails in advance and schedule them to be sent.

In order to do this:

Write your email as you would normally however instead of clicking send....
click on the "Options" menu
in the more options sub-menu select "Delay Delivery"
in the properties pop-up choose when to deliver the email (the wording used is interesting, it says "do not deliver before")
once you have put in the time and date of when the email should be sent click on close
Click the send button and your email will be held until it is scheduled to be sent.

How To Check Your Google 2FA Settings

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is essential these days and adds an extra security dimension to your accounts. Google is now heading down the route of automatically enrolling users into 2FA. Here is how to check if 2FA is turned on for your Google account:

Go to your account settings through myaccount.google.com on your desktop (or phone)
Click on the Security section (left-hand pane)
Scroll down to the Signing in to Google section
Click on the '2-Step Verification' option

How To Turn On WhatsApp Encrypted Backups

Thu, 21 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Facebook has released a new feature which is encrypted backups for WhatsApp messages when saving them to Google Drive or Apple iCloud.

The feature needs to be enabled because it is not enabled by default.

If you would like to turn on encryption in your backup for your important WhatsApp messages, here is how to turn it on:

Ensure you are running the latest version of WhatsApp (download from your phones application store)
Open WhatsApp and go to "Settings"
Select "Chats" => "Chat Backup" => "End-to-end Encrypted Backup"
Select "Continue" then follow the prompts to create your password or your 64-digit encryption key
Select "Done"

Your important messages should now be encrypted when backed up

Tech Tip – How To Automatically Delete Old Emails In Gmail

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If your Gmail account has filled up with old emails that look like they may take some time to delete, here’s a quick tip on how to set up a filter to delete these old emails automatically.

Open Gmail
Go to "Settings" (in the top right), and choose "See all settings"
Click on "Filters and Blocked Addresses" and then "Create a new filter"
In the pop-up box, type the following older_than:X in the “has the words” field. Note X is the time frame for deleting old messages, d days, w for weeks, m for months, and y for years. For example to change the time frame to be three years, replace the X to 3y
Select "Create filter" then click "OK"
Put a tick in the check box next to the "Delete it" option and to "Also apply filter to"
Select "Create filter"
Now emails older than the date you specified at X are now be deleted automatically

Tech tip - Outlook - receive important notifications only

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like Outlook to only alert you when important emails arrive, here is how to do it:

This involves a custom alert rule being setup for specific people who you feel are important and want to be notified about, for example Customers, mangers or the big boss!

To set up a custom alerting rule:

Open Outlook
Locate an email from the person you want an alert from
Right-click the email
Select Rules
- Create Rule
- Switch on the checkbox by the sender’s name
- Choose “Display In The New Item Alert Window” and/or “Play A Selected Sound”
- Choose the sound file to play for the alert
- Click ‘OK’ to set the rule

Repeat the process for the other contacts you would like to receive alerts for...

To set up a custom rule for a whole domain:

Click the Home tab
click on Rules
Manage Rules & Alerts
Click “New Rule”
Select “Apply Rule On Messages I Receive” and click the “Next” button
Scroll down and select “With Specific Words In The Sender’s Address”
Click the underlined “Specific Words” (underlined)
Add the domain you need to receive alerts for (@domainname.co.uk) then OK
The domain will replace “Specific Words”
Click “Next”
Choose whether you require a sound played, an alert displayed, or both
Click “Finish”
In “Rules and Alerts”, click “Apply” to turn on the rule
You will then get notifications if an email comes from the specific domian

How To Open A File Without Knowing The Extension

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

There are times when you may come across a file and it has no extension making opening it with the right application a trying experience. Trying to work out which application to use can be very frustrating and time consuming so instead of wasting time, try the following tip:

First check that the file has no extension by doing the following:

Right-click on the file, click on “Properties” and “type of file” should be displayed on the “General” tab of file properties. Note: if it just says “File” then it has no file extension, or....
Check the file extension from the “Type” column in Windows file explorer when files are displayed in “List view”, or.…
Select the “View” tab from the top ribbon bar and check the box beside “File name extension”

If the file has an extension listed but you can’t open it, this is likely to be because you don’t have the associated program installed on your computer or device.

Different ways to identify the application needed to open it include:

In a browser, go to fileinfo.com (https://fileinfo.com/), enter your file name’s extension in the search bar, and choose and install one of the suggested programs associated with that file extension
In a browser, go to toolsley.com (https://www.toolsley.com/file.html) and drag and drop the file into the browser for the website to identify it.
Open a browser and download the UK government’s DROID tool available here (https://github.com/digital-preservation/droid/) and use that to identify the file extension listed in the “Format” column
Use a hex editor, such as Free Hex Editor Neo which can be downloaded from here:(https://www.hhdsoftware.com/free-hex-editor) and then after opening the hex editor, open the file, scroll to the right end of the block of numbers, and you will see the file extension associated with the file

Microsoft officially launch Cloud for non-profit

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has formally released Microsoft cloud for non-profit into worldwide general availability as part of Microsoft's Technology for Social Impact Program. The program was made available worldwide on 2nd November 2021.

Microsoft has developed a series of tools and workflows in Microsoft 365 to allow Non-profit organisations to:

What does this mean for non-profits?

Well, it means that charities can now maximise their in house data and use the tools that Microsoft has developed in conjunction with industry leaders help increase donations and the number of donors, target specific groups with specific campaigns, manage volunteers, and benefit from additional levels of securing organisation data. All within the same security environment making it far easier to collaborate and leverage all of the organisation data.

This in on top of the $3,500 annual Azure grant, 10 Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses and zero cost Microsoft 365 E1 licenses.

If you would like more information about Microsoft Cloud for non-profits or the grants that are available through the Microsoft Technology for Social Impact Program, please call us on 01722 411 999 and ask for Duncan

What nasty surprises are lurking in your mailbox?

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Read on to find out how to arrange a FREE scan to see what is in your mailbox....

One thing that the pandemic has demonstrated is how sophisticated email attacks have become and how broad the threat vector is these days. A considerable number of these new threats have been able to slip through current email security, so people that think they are safe, may not be.

Another worrying trend is how many of these threats are still lying in people’s mailboxes, sitting there like unexploded bombs, waiting to go off.

We have recently worked with a client who had a very unfortunate incidence, hence this email because of what happened to them……

They searched through historic emails looking for a password reset message from a vendor so they could reset their password again. During the search they found an email that had been opportunistically send by someone phishing for passwords (and the email was a coincidence that they had the same vendor in it) The individual inadvertently clicked on a link in this malicious email, thinking it was legitimate and from the actual vendor they were looking for. The result was their username and password leaked to the hacker. The next thing they knew was getting called by some of their contacts asking why they were being sent invoices and had the business really changed their bank details.

The hacker tried to cover their tracks by deleting all emails they sent so owner of the mailbox wouldn’t see these in the sent items. It was only by luck that the first couple of recipients called to check otherwise things could have been a lot worse for this business.

The moral of the story is that you can see from the above incident that it is not good to have these potential threats sitting in mailboxes as they can become issues.

The Silver Cloud Business has partnered with Barracuda who offer comprehensive email protection. We are offering a full scan of your business email hosted in Microsoft 365 FREE OF CHARGE and we will generate a report highlighting all of the threats that are found.

This will scan every email and identify any threats that are lurking and that could potentially cause issues. The above incident shows that even if an email has been in a mailbox for months or even years going unnoticed, this doesn’t stop it being a threat to the business.

What have you got to lose by doing this?
Nothing, apart from a bit of time to go through the report and to remove any threats.

What have you got to lose by not doing this?
The potential of losing your business’ hard earned reputation and potentially losing customers to your competition which can be costly, and sometimes worse, fatal to the business.

If you would like to see what threats are in your company email, for free, call us on 01722 411999 and schedule in a free Microsoft 365 email threat scan and then we will spend time talking you through the report that is generated to explain how to remove the threats found.

Tech Tip – Using Google To Search In A Website

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’d like a quick way to search in an entire website (e.g. a competitor’s website for specific item or text) here is a speedy way to do so using Google.

Go to Google
In the search box type “site:” followed by the URL of the site and your search terms. For example: site:thesilvercloudbusiness.com Security
This will search the site and return all pages and associated images from the website that contains the search term you entered

Tech Tip – A Quick, Easy Way To Open Items From Your Taskbar

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’d like really quick and easy way to open the programs or shortcuts that are pinned to your Taskbar in Windows 10 and Windows 11, then here’s how:

Look at the Taskbar and count, from left to right, which number order the program or shortcut is that you’d like to open - NOTE the start button, search box and features like Widgets or Task View (in Windows 11) do not add to the count so should be ignored
Use the Windows key + the application number corresponding to the position of the pinned program or shortcut on the Taskbar
For example, Windows key + 3 will open the third application pinned item on the taskbar

How To Organise Your Microsoft Edge And Google Chrome Bookmarks With Folders

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like a quick, easy way to organise all your Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome browser favourites or bookmarks, do this by putting them in folders.

Here is how in Microsoft Edge:

To create a favourite folder:

Open Microsoft Edge on your computer
Click on the three dots at the top right of the browser
From the drop down menu select Favourites
At the top of the Favourties drop down click on the Add Folder icon
Add a new folder, named for its favourites contents

Here is how in Google Chrome

To create a bookmark folder:

Open Google Chrome on your computer
Click on the three dots at the top right of the browser
From the drop down menu select Bookmarks, then Bookmarks Manager
In the new window, click on the three dots at the top right hand corner and select "Add new folder"
Name the new folder for its bookmark contents

How To Run Older Programs Using the Windows 10/11 Compatibility Mode

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you’d like to run older, favourite, but no longer compatible applications, older programs, or games (in fact most legacy software) on Windows 10/11, try using ‘Compatibility Mode’.

Here’s how:

Next to the start button is the search function, in the search box, type the name of the program / app or game you want to use in compatibility mode
Right click on the icon of the application and select open file location
When it opens, right click on the application and select properties
When the properties open, select the compatibility tab
Tick "run this program in compatibility mode for" and from the drop down list, select the older version of Windows you want to use to run the program, app or game.
Next time you run the application, it will run using this compatibility mode.

What Are The Hardware Requirements For Windows 11

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Windows 11 is now officially released and in production and all new computers are shipping with this new operating system pre-loaded.

When is the time to switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and what are the hardware requirements for existing equipment?

System requirements:

Processor - 1GHz or faster 64 bit processor with two or more cores
RAM - 4GB or more
Storage - 64GB or more
System firmware - UEFI, Secure boot capable
Graphics - DirectX 12 or later and WDDM 2.0 driver support
Display - High definition (720p) that is greater than 9" diagonally across with minimum of 8 bits per colour channel
Internet connectivity - Windows 11 Home and Windows 11 S mode both require an internet connection to complete setup and make configuration changes

There is a handy tool that you can download from Microsoft to check if your computer is capable of running Windows 11 which you can download from here: Windows 11 PC Health Check

What if my computer doesn't meet the minimum spec?

There are Microsoft authorised hacks to enable people with equipment that doesn't meet the minimal spec but would still like to be able to use the hardware for Windows 11 that bypasses the CPU and TPM chip checks.

Note: the reason there is a minimum spec is to ensure Windows 11 performs and is secure, by using the authorised hack it may result in an insecure, poor performance and is not recommended.

To bypass the Processor and TPM chip checks do the following:

Open Regedit.exe with elevated rights (search for Regedit.exe, right click on the application and select run as administrator)
Navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup"
Click on MoSetup with the right mouse button, select New -> DWORD (32 bit) value
Rename the new DWORD entry AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU
Set the value to 1

This will then stop Windows 11 setup from performing the hardware check to see if the process and trusted platform module chip meet minimal requirements. This will not help if your computer doesn't have enough memory, storage or inferior graphics.

Tech Tip – Getting Google Chrome Or Microsoft Edge To Remember Your Passwords

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Popular browsers have built in password managers however there can be occasions when an issue, such as conflicting extensions that have been installed, cause the browser to malfunction and not remember your passwords.

Here is how to fix it for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge:

For Google Chrome:

Open the settings menu by clicking on the three dots in the top right hand corner and selecting Settings from the menu
Click on Autofill on the left hand menu
Click on Passwords
Click the Offer to save passwords toggle to enable the feature
Close the settings

For Microsoft Edge

Open the settings menu by clicking on the three dots in the top right hand corner and selecting Settings from the menu
Click on Passwords
Click the Offer to save passwords toggle to enable the feature
Close the settings

Tech Tip – 3 Helpful Chrome / Edge Hacks

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here are 3 tech hacks for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge to help with improving searches that can be entered directly into the address bar:

Hack 1 - search for websites that are similar

e.g. type related:gov.uk

This lists results that show similar websites to the Government (political) websites.
This can be used to list similar websites for any criteria used in the related search.

Hack 2 - search the contents of a specific website

Type what you want to search for and then use site: to specify the website to search

e.g. type Covid19 site:bbc.co.uk

this will search the bbc.co.uk website for Covid19 and will return links to each page found but only on that specific site.

Hack 3 - Use the browser as a calculator

Type in the calculation

e.g. type 3*9/4.5

This will bring up a calculator on screen showing the result, which in the above example should return the answer 6 and you can use the on screen calculator for more calculations if need be

Tech Tip – A Really Easy Way To Transcribe Your YouTube Videos

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you’d like an easy way to add text transcript to your YouTube videos, use YouTube’s built-in transcript tool.

Here is how:

Log in to your YouTube account and select YouTube Studio
On the left hand side, select Subtitles from the menu
Choose one of your videos to transcribe, choose the language to transcribe into and click "Confirm"
If you want to change the transcription select "Duplicate and Edit" from the right hand menu
Change the transcription to what you want it to say then click on "Publish"

Note: when you use the transcribe tool it will produce output that is all in lower case and will not contain any punctuation so you will need to edit it to tidy it up manually prior to publishing.

Tech Tip - use Google Forms to quickly and easily gather and process responses

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes you need to be able to create a survey or you may want to run a quiz or just have a means where you can gather responses from a target audience.

Here is an easy way you can by using Microsoft Forms:

Open a browser and go to forms.google.com
Sign-in with your Google login account
Select which form you need from the templates (Blank, Event Registration, Contact Information, RSVP, and more)
From the small, floating menu, select either add or import questions.
Depending on the type of form selected, choose your question type, for example short answer, multiple choice, checkboxes, and more
From the same menu, you can add images (from the computer, camera, Google Photos, Google Drive, or from a Google Image Search)
Again from the same menu, video can also be added
Select the theme and settings for the form
Share the form, choose to share by email or social media (Facebook and Twitter)
In the tool, use the "Responses" tab to access a summary of responses you have received

Note: Google also provides a quick tutorial on how you create forms

Tech Tip – Connect With Anyone Using The Chat Icon In Windows 11

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Windows 11 has a version of Microsoft Teams pre-installed as an app that users can launch from the Taskbar by clicking the "Chat" icon.

Here is how to connect with someone, if they're on Apple iOS, Google Android or Mac:

In Windows 11, click on the "Chat" icon on the Task Bar
Click the "Sign In" button - Note you need a Microsoft account to use this
Click on "Chat" on the left hand side
Click the "New Chat" button
Enter a contact name, email address or phone number of the person you wish to message
Type the message at the bottom of the screen in the box called "Type a new message" then click the arrow, below right, to send the message
The recipient will receive the message and instructions on how to reply

Tech Tip – Windows 11 - Quickly Organise Your Open Apps

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Organising open applications on the screen in a way that helps you can be a real boost to productivity and can save you time. Here’s how to choose the right application snap layout in Windows 11:

Hover your mouse over a window's maximise button alternately press Windows key + Z.
From the options displayed in the popup box, choose a snap layout configuration from the 6 different layout options and select the layout that works best
This will help arrange your applications so you can work in a way that optimises your screen space

Tech Tip – How To Make Sure All Data Is Removed When Re-Setting A Windows Device

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you need to “Remove everything” from a computer and reset a Windows device, ensuring you don't leave any data behind (a known current issue), here is the latest method of how to achieve this according to Microsoft:

First you need to sign out or unlink your OneDrive
Second you need to reset the Windows device

For instructions on how to do this, click here

If you have already reset the device without removing the accounts then use the following instructions on how to remove data, click here

Tech Tip – Personalising News With Widgets In Windows 11

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re finding that you’re keeping up with the news more lately, try using ‘Widgets’ to catch upon the news at a glance in Windows 11. Here’s how:

Sign into your Microsoft account.
To show or hide the widgets board, select the Widgets icon on the taskbar, press the Windows logo key + W, and click or tap anywhere outside the widgets board.
To add widgets, select the ‘Add widgets’ button at the bottom of widgets board and follow the instructions to add widgets.
To personalise your news feed widgets, go to ‘Manage your news and interests’ in the Widget settings dialog box. This will open the ‘My Interests’ page in Microsoft Edge.
Use the search box to find topics or publishers you want to follow e.g., war in Ukraine.
To fine tune your news feed, select ‘Tune your feed’ on the left side of the ‘My Interests’ page to be guided through the steps to set up your news feed.

Tech Tip – Windows 11 : Move the Start Button Back To The Left

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you are a long time Windows user who has just migrated to Windows 11 and you would rather the start button is on the left, rather than the default under Windows 11, which is centred....

Here's how to move it back:

Press the Windows Key + I which opens the "Settings" app.
Click on "Personalisation" on the left hand menu (Note: if you cant see this menu, maximise the settings page)
Click on "Taskbar"
Click on "Taskbar behaviours"
Click on the "Taskbar alignment" drop down menu, select "Left"
Close settings
The start button is now on the left

Tech Tip – You Can Add Notes To Passwords With New Chrome Password Manager

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A new feature has been added to Chrome’s built-in password manager means that means users will soon be able to store notes with their passwords.

The feature, currently limited to Chrome’s latest Canary release, means that:

A new "Notes" field will soon appear in Google Chrome's password manager. This will be located under the user name and password fields
The new "Notes" field will appear when either creating a new password or editing an existing one
The new "Notes" field is being added to allow users to give context to their password and account information, such as additional hints for security questions and answers that were used when setting up the account

Tech Tip – How To Reclaim Disk Space In Windows 10/11

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Getting back used-up space and clearing out junk files can help your computer PC perform better AND much faster.

Here is how by using the built-in Window "Disk Clean-up" tool to find and delete those old junk files and space hogging system files:

Click the search box (next to start) and type Disk Clean-up
Click on the "Disk Clean-up" application in the list
When the tool launches, if there is more that one disk in the computer, select the disk you want to analyse from the drop down, if only one disk, the computer will automatically do an initial scan
A list of files that can be removed will be displayed with tick boxes next to each file type to allow you to choose which ones to remove
NOTE: Bottom left is the "Clean up system files" button, click this to do a deeper scan which will offer the option to remove old Windows files (the Windows.old directory on your computer that is usually HUGE)
Select the tick boxes of all the file types you want to remove
Click on OK or Delete (depending on which version of Windows you are running)
The files will be removed, if you have chosen to remove old Windows files you will be asked to confirm this and reminded that by removing those files you cannot downgrade to your previous version of Windows
When the application has complete its task, it will close automatically
Open Windows Explorer and see how much space you have recovered

NOTE: it is best not to remove any ESD files unless you absolutely need to get space on your computer as these are recovery files to reset the computer back to factory settings which are handy to keep should you ever have an issue or want to reset the computer to as new

Tech Tip – Using Microsoft’s Floating "Edge Bar"

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The Microsoft Edge Bar is a handy, floating sidebar / mini browser (using the Bing search enging) that comes with the latest version of Edge in Windows. It makes searching and accessing email and other applications and platforms quicker and easier. Here is how to enable and use it:

Open Microsoft Edge
Click on the three horizontal dots at the top right of the browser
Select "Settings" from the menu
Select "Edge Bar" from the settings menu on the left hand side
Click on "Open Edge Bar"
The Edge Bar will open

You can use this to quickly search the web, display your widgets, search Outlook and Linked In (all added by default) or you can additional locations by clicking on the + symbol and following the steps.

Tech Tip – How To Organise Windows Using "Snap Groups"

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Windows 11 has upgraded Snap Assist giving Snap Layouts and Snap Groups. You can use these features to customise the sizes of the applications on the desktop, and to snap other applications in to your chosen layout.

Here is how to use it:

Hold the mouse over a running applications maximise button or press the Windows key + Z
Click on one of the zones in the layout of choice to snap the application to that particular zone
Use the Snap Assist tool to finish building a desktop layout of application windows
Selecting the group means that all of the associated applications will open in the same layout
If you add more Snap Groups, you can switch between them by selecting the Snap Group

NOTE: Snap layouts are tailored to the current screen size and orientation.

NOTE: Adding applications to a Snap Layout saves all the applications in that layout to a “Snap Group”. In the taskbar, hovering the mouse over an application in an existing snap layout shows all of the applications in that Snap Group.

Tech Tip – Setting Up "Gestures" In Windows 11

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Using gestures in Windows 11 on the touch screen or touchpad of your device can make work simpler, easier and faster. Here is how to set up gestures:

The types of gestures that are supported by Windows 11 zooming, tapping scrolling and three and four finger gestures.

Here is how to enable gestures on the touch screen of a Windows 11 device.

Click the Start button
Select Settings
Select Bluetooth & Devices
Select Touch
Turn the slider toggle to "On" Three and four-finger touch gestures

To enable gestures on the touchpad of a Windows 11 laptop (some will only work on precision touchpads) do the following:

Click the Start button
Select Settings
Select Bluetooth & Devices
Select Touchpad

This will enable Gestures on both types of Windows 11 device

Tech Tip - Type Faster With Windows 11 Using "Voice Typing"

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The Windows 11 "voice typing" feature uses online speech recognition so that you can input text on your PC simply by talking.

Prerequisites: Your computer needs to have a working microphone and have an internet connection

Here is how to use it:

Place the cursor in the text area you want to type (such as a Word document or a search box)
Press the Windows key + H
Click on the microphone icon (you should hear a bleep to let you know the mic is enabled)
Voice typing will start to listen, waiting for you to speak. Note: a text bubble with "Listening" will appear above the mic to show that it is listening, wait for this to show before you start to speak
It will then transcribe everything you say into the text area that the cursor is
To stop the voice typing either say "stop listening" or click on the microphone icon

Tech Tip – A Fantastic Way To Remove A Background From A Photo

Thu, 05 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you need to remove the background from any photo quickly and easily, you should to try "removebg". Here is how it works

Open a web browser
Go to www.remove.bg
Click the "Upload Image" button to upload the photo
Browse to and select the image you want to remove the background then click open
The website will then automatically remove the background from the image
Click the "Download" button to download a .png file of the image with the background removed.

Note: we have no affiliation with this app or website and have simply highlighted it as a fast problem-solver. Other tools and sites are also available.

Tech Tip – How To Slow Down Your Phone Battery Power Consumption

Thu, 12 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We all seem to reply (well most of us) on smartphones for a lot of aspects of our lives, both for business and personal use.

Couple this with electricity prices rising, here are a few handy tips on how to reduce battery consumption and save electricity. Remember, every little helps!

Here is how:

Enable Dark Mode (available if your phone has an OLED screen).
Force the phone to use 4G rather than 5G, unless you need to download large files quickly, after the download switch back to 4G
Reduce the screen refresh rate (this is an option in Settings)
Use old fashioned static wallpapers rather than live/moving wallpapers as your phone background
Avoid using always-on display and set the display time out to turn off the display regularly
Do not over charge your phone, when it is fully charged and at 100%, unplug it and let the battery cycle properly

Tech Tip – Backing Up Your Gmail Account

Thu, 19 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If, like many people, you have a Gmail account that contains all manner of important personal and / or business emails, Gmail’s "Takeout" feature provides a handy way to back them up. Here’s how to use it:

Log in to your Google and go to Gmail.
Click on the profile icon (top right) and select "Manage Your Google Account".
Click on "Data & Privacy" (left-hand side), scroll down to "Data from apps and services you use" and click on it.
Select "Download your data".
On the Google Takeout page, deselect all the options and scroll down to the Mail option.
Data can be exported in two formats: MBOX (to access emails using clients like Mozilla Thunderbird) or JSON (for user settings only).
Select "All Mail data included", preview the data to be exported, specify the required labels (or leave as default), click OK, and scroll to the bottom of the page.
Preview the export settings. Exports can be sent by email (a link to download the file locally), uploaded to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box. Exports can be run only once or scheduled to run once every two months for one year. Export files can be in .zip or .tgz formats.
Select the desired compression format and proceed to the next option. If there’s a lot of data, the content can be split up, e.g. export size is 10 GB, split size is 2GB x5 files for export.
Click "Create export" or "Link accounts".
Check your Gmail account - an email will be sent there to download and manage the export.
Clicking on "Download your files" requires password verification, followed by automatic downloading of the exported content.
Extract the archive to display the exported mailbox.

Tech Tip – Windows 11 : Customise Your Touch Screen Keyboard

Wed, 25 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you have a touch screen PC running Windows 11, the operating system gives you the ability to customise the touch screen keyboard with different colours and themes. Here is how to change the touch screen:

To enable the touch screen keyboard in the first place

Right-click the taskbar and select "Taskbar settings"
Click on the slider to the right of "Touch keyboard" to turn it to on

To customise the touch keyboard

Click Start, select Settings
Select "Personalisation" and "Text Input"
Select the colour theme you want to use
Alternatively, click on the "Customized theme" radio button
Select "Edit" to set up a touch keyboard theme with your own colour choices.
Click on "Save" to create and select your new colour scheme

Tech Tip – How To Share Your Location With A Friend On WhatsApp

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you are meeting up with someone, or you want one of your friends to know exactly where you are (especially for safety reasons such as meeting up with a blind date) WhatsApp has a quick and easy way to share your location with anyone you choose at the tap of a button.

Here's how to use it:

Open WhatsApp
Tap on the messages button at the bottom of the screen and select the contact you want to share your location with
Tap on the + sign or the paperclip next to the message box
Tap on "Location"
Agree to continue and decide how you would like to use your location if prompted
Tap "Share Live Location"
WhatsApp will then share your exact location with the other person in the messenger chat

Tech Tip – Identify What Objects Are In Photos Using Google Lens

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you use the Google Photos app, you can take advantage of "Google Lens" to identify a picture and show Google search results about the object(s) featured in the photo, for example a type of animal, of a building, or a car you took a picture of.

Here is how it works:

Open the Google Photo application on your phone (if running it for the first time, click on allow access to photos)
Open one of your saved photos from you camera roll
Click on the "Lens" button (it looks like a circle with three curved edges surrounding it and a dot in the fourth edge)
Lens will analyse your picture and search the web for results, which it will display under the image

Tech Tip – YouTube Navigation Shortcut Keys

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here are some easy to use keyboard shortcuts to save time and speed up navigating YouTube videos:

Press the space bar to pause or play a video
Press m to toggle between mute and unmute in the video
Press l (lower case L) to move 10 seconds forwards, press j to move 10 seconds backwards
Press f to switch to full screen and press the Esc key to go switch to the original screen size you started off with
Press the < and > keys (with the shift key) to speed up or slow down the video payback rate
Press 0 (zero) to restart / go to the beginning of the video, and press the End key to go to the end of the video

Give these a try and let us know what you think

Tech Tip - Sending A WhatsApp "View Once" Messages

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you want to add a layer of privacy to sending a photo or video in WhatsApp, for example a photo of a password, you can add a “view once” designation before sending the message. This means that the photo or video disappears as soon as the recipient has opened the message and closed the media viewer. Here is how to use this feature:

Open WhatsApp
Open a chat to an individual or group
Tap Attach (the paperclip symbol)
Either take a photo or video with the WhatsApp application or select an existing one from your phone image gallery
Tap on the view once symbol (a number one inside a half dotted out circle)
Tap "Send"
You’ll see an "Opened" receipt in the chat thread when the recipient has viewed the photo or video

Tech Tip – How To Colour Code Your Outlook Calendar

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Would you like to get more from "at-a-glance" organisation in your Outlook calendar and be able to track all items related to a project or task? This is where colour coding appointments and entries can help. Here is how to do it:

For existing appointments

Open Outlook
Select calendar
Right click on a calendar entry
Select "Categorise" Select the colour to use

For new appointments

Open Outlook
Select calendar
Create a new calendar entry (appointment, meeting or event)
Click the categorise button on the menu ribbon (located in the "Tags" group)
Select the colour to use

Note: To create more categories or to see additional ones, click on "All Categories" to open the "Colour Categories" dialog box. Select the check box next to the colour category you want to select

Tech Tip – Avoid Speeding Tickets With Google Maps Feature

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you are away on your holidays and going on days out making the best of the warm weather, there is an audible speed trap feature available in Google Maps that can help you keep an eye on your speed and avoid getting a speeding ticket.

Here’s how to use it:

Open Google Maps
Tap on your profile photo at the top right of the screen
Tap on "Settings"
Tap Navigation / "Navigation Settings"
Slide the toggle for "Speed Limits" to on

Tech Tip – Instant Google Search From Highlighted Text

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you are reading from a web page or blog in the Google Chrome browser and you come across a term or item you would like to know more about, Google has a built-in way to search for that term quickly and simply as a result of when you highlight the text with your mouse.

Here’s how it works:

Open the Google Chrome Browser
Highlight a word or term you would like to find more information about
Right click with the mouse on the highlighted text
Select "Search Google For" which includes the term you have highlighted
A new tab will then open with Google presenting the results of the word or term you want to search for

Tech Tip – An Easy Way To Copy Data From The Web To Excel

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Save some time and effort with this simple way to copy web data into an Excel sheet. Instead of copying and pasting bits of data one at a time, for example, from a table on web site, simply copy the URL of the page you would like to get the data from and paste.

Here is how to do it:

Open the website you want to get the data from and copy the URL
Then open Excel and either
- create a new spreadsheet
- open an existing one
Position the cursor to the cell you want to start the data copy into
Click on the menu option "Data" from the top menu bar and select "From Web"
Paste the URL into the field and click "OK"
Select the table you would like to copy and click "Load"
The table from the website should now load into the spreadsheet

Tech Tip – How Group Tabs In Google Chrome To Keep Related Pages Together

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

One way to become more organised when using Google Chrome is to open website tabs together as a group using one click to keep related the pages / sites together in one workspace.

Google Chrome’s "Group tabs" lets your give the group a name and it can be colour coded.

Here is how to do it:

Open Google Chrome
Go to a website you want to add to a group / collection of tabs
Right click on the browser tab for that page
Select "Add tab to new group" from the drop down menu
Click on "New Group" and give the group a name and at the same time select a colour for the tab group, OR, select an existing group from the list in the menu
Keep adding tabs to the group as required

To restore a closed tab group:

Open Google Chrome
Open the browser menu (press Alt-F or click on the three vertical dots at the top right of the browser)
Click on History
Click on the group tab name and select "Restore Tab"
The colour coded tab group will reappear on the tab bar in the browser

Tech Tip – How To Send A WhatsApp Voice Message

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you need to instantly deliver important, time sensitive information to your contacts and / or groups in WhatsApp, you can use "voice messages."

Here is how to use this feature:

To send a voice message

Open WhatsApp
Select an individual or group chat
Tap and hold the microphone icon and start speaking
Once finished recording just let go of the microphone icon
The voice message will automatically send.
If you need to cancel the message while recording it, slide left and it will put the recording in the bin

To send a longer voice message

Open WhatsApp
Select an individual or group chat
Tap and hold the microphone icon and start speaking
Whilst speaking, slide up to lock hands-free recording
If you want to pause the recording, tap the red pause button where you can preview a draft of your message
Tap the red mic icon to continue recording within the same voice message
When you are ready to send, tap pause, then the blue arrow to send the recording

Tech Tip – How To Backup WhatsApp Conversations

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

With so many relying on WhatsApp for important business or personal matters, it makes sense to backup chats.

Here is how to on Android or iPhone:

Android - Google Drive Backup...

Open WhatsApp
Tap on "More Options", which is the three dots
Tap on "Settings" > tap on "Chats" > tap on "Chat Backup" > tap on "Backup to Google Drive"
Select your backup schedule - Note: choosing "Never" disables the backup feature
Select your Google account that you want to backup the WhatsApp Chat data to
Select which network you want to use (mobile data or WiFi) by selecting "Back up over" and choosing the option that suits
Turn on end to end encryption by tapping on "Settings" > tap on "Chats" > tap on "Chat Backup" > tap on "End to end encrypted backup" and tap on "Turn On"
Create a password, passphrase or use a 64 digit encryption key
Tap on "Create" which will enable encryption in your backup

iPhone - iCloud backup...

Pre-requisites - You are signed in with a valid Apple ID and you have iCloud Drive enabled / turned on

Open WhatsApp
Tap on "Settings" > tap on "Chats" > tap on "Chat Backup" > tap on "Back Up Now" - this will do a one off backup
If you want to make your backup automatic, tap on "Settings" > tap on "Chats" > tap on "Chat Backup" > tap on "Auto Backup" and select the frequency, daily, weekly, monthly or off

Tech Tip – How To Use Notepad To Test Your Antivirus

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a simple tip using Notepad to check if your antivirus is working as it should.

Here is how:

Open the Notepad application
Copy the following text and paste it into Notepad
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
save the file using the file name test.exe or test.bat
note to save a file with a different extension to .txt in notepad, from the "Save as type" drop down, select "All files", this then allows you to use any extension you want on your file name
Scan the file with your anti-virus product - IF it lets you save it! Some products will block you from saving it which also shows they are working.

Note - this is just a quick test to determine if your anti-virus is running and scanning for viruses, it doesn't necessarily prove that it will stop everything

Tech Tip – How To Stay Organised With Microsoft To Do’s "My Day"

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like to see improvements in your productivity and you would also like focus more on daily tasks, but in a way that works with your existing habits and behaviours, and doesn’t create a forever growing to-do lists, "My Day" in Microsoft's ‘To Do’ cross-platform application might be just what you need.

Here is how to use it:

Open a browser
Go to https://todo.microsoft.com/tasks/
Login with your Microsoft 365 username, password and 2FA (if using 2FA)
To create a new task click on "Tasks", give you new task a name and click "Add"
On the right hand menu, click on the horizontal tab for the task which will then allow you to set a task due date, set reminders, set a colour scheme to help identify or group your task(s), select its repeat frequency or add notes or a file to the task
Also on the right hand menu is "Add to my day" which allows you to add tasks to specific dates.
Click on "My day" on the left and menu and see which tasks have been set for specific days
Group tasks together by creating a "New list", giving it a name and clicking enter. You can then go to a task, right click on it and select "Move to task" to join that task to a list to group tasks together
When a task has been completed, click on the radio button next to the task to mark it as complete and To Do will cross the task off the list

NOTE: Alternately you can access To Do from MS Outlook by clicking on the blue tick in the left hand vertical menu

Tech Tip – Get Creative And Save Or Share Sketched Ideas Using Google Canvas

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like a way to be able to sketch out your creative ideas on a digital canvas and to be able to download or share the image quickly and easily, try Google Canvas.

Here is how it works:

Open a web browser
Go to https://canvas.apps.chrome
If this is your first visit click on "Get Started"
From the menu on the left you can choose a pen, a pencil, a crayon, an eraser, the colour, size and opacity for your creation
At top right is the layers option where you can add and create new layers to your creation
when you have finished your design, click on the three dots to download the creation as a png format file
Alternately click on the three dots to share with one of your contacts

Tech Tip – Stay Organised In Chrome or Edge By Pinning Important Tabs On The Left

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you are working in a Google Chrome browser or Microsoft Edge browser, with lots of tabs open, but you would like to be able to quickly locate web pages, you should consider "pinning". This allows you to pin important tabs on the left-hand side of the browser tabs

Here is how to do it:

Open your browser
Open your frequently used tabs
Right click on the tab and select (for Chrome) "Pin" or (for Edge) "Pin tab"
This will pin the tabs in your browser so the next time you open the browser, it will have your pinned tabs on the left as smaller tabs but will always open
If you no longer want to keep one of the tabs as a pinned tab, right click on the pinned tab and select (for Chrome) "Unpin" or (for Edge) "Unpin tab"

Tech Tip – Customise Google Chrome

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like to be able to customise and personalise your Chrome browser to suit your taste better, including changing the colour scheme, the theme, and the picture / avatar....

Here is how:

Open Google Chrome
Click on the three dots (top right-hand corner of Chrome)
From the menu select "Settings"
Select "You and Google" on the left-hand side
Click on "Customize profile"
Select the colour theme, and avatar
From the left-hand menu select "Appearance"
To select a theme, click on the box with a diagonal up arrow to the right of Theme, Chrome Colours
Select the theme you want and click "Add to Chrome"

Tech Tip – Putting A List In Alphabetical Order By Surname In Microsoft Word

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you are using Microsoft Word, either using the stand-alone application or office package or if it is via an Office 365 subscription, and you would like to sort a list in alphabetical order based on the second word in each list entry, for example, sort it by surname in a list of names, here is how:

Open Microsoft Word
Select / highlight the data you want to sort
From the menu at the top click on the A-Z button (Home\Sort) and select "Options" from the bottom of the menu list
From the sort options, select "Other" under "Separate fields at" and clear anything in the box, before putting a space in the box by clicking on the box and pressing the space bar once, then click on "OK"
From the "Sort by" drop down menu, select "Word 2" to sort by the second word (in this example, the surname) in the list then click on "OK"
This will then sort the list of data into alphabetical order, sorting on the second word in the list

Tech Tip – Search Bookmarks And History Too From Google Chrome ‘Omnibox’

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The combo of address bar and search box in Google Chrome has been further improved to allow you to search your history, tabs and bookmarks, as well as searching the Web.

Here is how to do it:

Note: To use this new feature, you need to be running Chrome 105 which was released in September 2022

Open Google Chrome
In the address bar, type chrome:flags and press enter
When the page opens, type omnibox in the Search flags box
From the list of flags, scroll down until you find "Omnibox Site Search Start" and from the drop down menu, select Enabled
At the bottom of the screen you will be prompted "Your changes will take effect the next time you relaunch Chrome", close Chrome and restart it to enable the feature
You can now use the following commands in the Omnibox:
- @history - to search your browser history
- @tabs - to search your browser tabs
- @bookmarks - to search your browser bookmarks

Tech Tip – Annotating, Signing, And Saving PDFs In The Mozilla Firefox Browser

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

With the release of Firefox 104 in August users now have the ability to annotate PDFs, for example, to be able to sign PDFs directly in the browser, and then to save them.

Here is how:

Open a PDF in Firefox by either right clicking on the PDF and selecting "Open with" and choosing Firefox, or Open Firefox and drag and drop the PDF into the open browser
You should see the "Add Free Text Annotation" button at the top right-hand corner of the screen which looks like a large T, click on this button. If this button doesn't exist, scroll to the bottom of this page for details on how to enable it.
Position the cursor on the PDF page where you want to annotate the text and click, a red text box will appear, and you can start to add text. You will also see at the top right-hand corner the option to change the annotation text colour and size.
At the top right-hand corner, there is also a button that looks like a pen which is the "Add Ink Annotation" button. If you click this button, it allows you to do handwriting and markups in the PDF.
Once you have marked up the PDF, you can download it by clicking on the "Download" button which looks like a folder with a down arrow on it. This prompts you for the location to save the PDF to and gives you the ability to rename it.

If your version of Firefox doesn't have these options enabled, first check you are running the latest version of Firefox, to do this, open Firefox, click on top righthand menu, which is the three horizonal lines, select "Help", then select "About Firefox". This will show you the version of Firefox and tell you if your browser is up to date. It needs to be on version 104 or above.

If you are running a version of Firefox that is 104 or later and it still isn't showing the options do the following

Open the advanced preferences in Firefox, do this by typing about:config into the URL address bar and press enter
Click on the "Accept the Risk and Continue" button
Type pdfjs.annotationEditorMode in the Search Preference bar at the top of the screen and press enter
Click the pen symbol on the righthand side to enable you to change the value, change this to 0 (for clarity, this is a zero), then click on blue tick on the righthand side to save it
Then clear the text in the Search Preference bar and then type pdfjs.annotationMode and press enter
Again, click on the pen symbol on the righthand side to enable you to change the value, change this to 2 and click on the blue tick on the righthand side to save it
Close Firefox and reopen it to enable the features
Drag a PDF into the browser window and check the tools are there. If not, call us for further help!

Tech Tip – Planning For Power Cuts This Winter

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The national grid is making customers aware that there may be power outages this winter during the coldest months when there is peak demand, and potentially limited supplies, using a solution called rota load disconnection.

This is where they shut down parts of the electricity grid when there is too much demand and to ensure that it is fair, they will rotate through regions so it will not be a total blackout across the country.

For the first time, the national grid has said that there may be power outages at a specific time of day, namely between 4pm – 7pm on weekdays. Bear in mind this will be happening in the depths of winter and 4pm is when it starts to get dark.

Here are some ideas and a few tech tips to help you beat the power cuts this winter and continue to run your business however we appreciate that not all of these solutions will work for every business, for example it is pretty difficult to work from home if you are a retail business with a shop, or if you are a service provider such as a dentist so need to power a lot of equipment and have good lighting, however here are some ideas to consider:

Do you:

Close the business because there is no power? - not an ideal solution, businesses have customers everywhere so just because one region is having a power outage, it doesn’t mean your clients are, however sometimes it is just not viable to stay open.
Do you invest in some technology such as UPS devices? UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) is essentially a large battery that sits between the plug socket and your electronics. How long the battery can power your kit for depends on how big the battery is and how much power the equipment draws. How many do you invest in and make sure you cover off all the important elements of your infrastructure to ensure everything keeps working
Do you invest in a generator to power key bits of infrastructure? This is a way of keeping going and will typically run for a lot longer than UPS devices, however it would be prudent to have surge protectors in place to prevent any power spikes causing damage and you would need to ensure that the generator provides enough power for the key elements of infrastructure.
Do you have any staff that live in different power grid regions so you could get them to work from home where they have power if the business region doesn’t? Covid meant that a lot of businesses geared themselves up for flexible working, so it may be a case of dusting this off again and asking people to work from home if they have power and the business doesn’t.

When looking at these options here are some key things to consider:

Decide what is your key infrastructure.
Do you need the internet to work? How do you connect to the internet, is it wired or wireless connections?
Do you need the phones to work? Are there alternate solutions like using mobiles?
Do you need computers to work?
How much lighting will you need?
How is the business heated and what impact will a blackout have?
Does the business have an alarm or other monitored service such as environmental monitoring that will be impacted by a blackout?
How long will you need to work during the blackout? Would it be 4pm – 5.30pm or 4pm – 6pm or 4pm – 7pm?
What sort of internet connection do you have, and will it still work if there is a power outage?
Do you have alternate options for internet connectivity such as 3G/4G/5G mobile internet?

NOTE: in February 2022, there were storms Arwen and Eunice in the UK, where it became apparent that power outages meant that internet routers went offline, impacting the testing of emergency 999 calls which weren’t possible with a broadband only connection. This is the main weakness of VoIP compared to old-style analogue copper phone lines which have their own independent 50-volt power supply. It is also important to test any solutions you want to implement prior to needing it, so do test runs, work out how long your equipment will run for on your chosen solution if you are not shutting the business.

Do you need help working out how much power your key infrastructure would use?

Call us on 01722 411 999 and we can help calculate your power consumption needs and help with business continuity planning to ensure your business continues to operate despite the power outages.

Tech Tip – How To Keep Gmail Safe From Third-Party Access

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you have ever used your Gmail address to access any third-party websites, games, or apps, there is a way check which ones you have granted access to, you can clean up any apps, websites or games you no longer use, and help keep your account safe.

Here is how to do it:

Open you web browser
Go to https://myaccount.google.com
Click on "Security"
Scroll down to "third-party apps with account access"
Click on "Manage third-party access"
View the list of apps
Remove access to those you no longer need

Tech Tip – Free Online Image Editor

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you are in need of a photo editor there are a lot available online. In this tech tip we will talk about one called Photopea.

Photopea has lots of features and functionality and the best bit is, it's free to use!

Photopea allows you to edit photos, apply different filters and different effects, allow you to add and place text, crop and resize pictures and change orientation, all in your browser.

It also works with PSD files (native file format for Adobe Photoshop) and you can export your image in a number of different image file formats including png, jpg, and pdf.

You can also link it to your Microsoft OneDrive, Goole Drive or Dropbox. Photopea also offers its own "PeaDrive" cloud storage.

To try Photopea:

Go to https://www.photopea.com/
Drag and drop a photo in and give it a try
Down the left-hand side are image editing tools
Across the top are menu options and transformation controls
To start using click on the Learn menu option (top right) and go through the tutorials to get the most out of the editor

Please be aware, other photo editors are, of course, available as well!

Tech Tip – Prevent Password Risk From Google’s Enhanced Spell Check

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you have enabled Google Chromes "Enhanced spell check" it may well be sending everything you type, including passwords, to Google's servers.

Here is how to prevent it doing that:

First check if you have "Enhanced spell check" enabled by opening your Google browser and then typing (or copy the link from here) chrome://settings/?search=Enhanced+Spell+Check into the address bar (where you normally type in URLs)
If the radio button next to "Basic spell check" is selected you don't need to do anything, it checks your spelling without sending what you have typed to Google's servers
If the radio button next to "Enhanced spell check" is selected, you should change to selecting "Basic spell check" instead to stop the browser sending what you have typed to Google
If you want to turn off all spell checking, there is a slider at the top right of the "Check Spelling" settings area which when slid to the left will turn off spell checking

Note: this is also the location where you can select the language the browser uses to check spelling, by default it is set to English (United States), again by a slider, you can change this to English by sliding the English (United States) slider to the left and the English slider to the right

Tech Tip – How To Convert A Picture Of A Data Table Into Usable Data In Excel

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel is still globally one of the most widely used data manipulation tools in the market and it has some really powerful features that help save time and maximise the value of your data.

One of these tools is the ability to convert a picture of a data table into an actual data table.

Here is how to do it:

Prepare the image of the data table by cropping it as much as possible to remove any irrelevant bits from the picture, you can do this using a number of tools, such as MS Paint, Photos, Snipping Tool or even Word or Excel using the image tools built in, if you are unsure how to do it, Google is your friend
Open Microsoft Excel
Select the "Data" tab at the top (above the menu items)
Select "From Picture" from the menu and then select either "Picture From File"
Browse to the image file location and select "Open"
A panel opens on the right hand of the screen saying "Analysing" and a percentage progress wheel
Click on "Review" to see the data it has found or "Insert Anyway" if you are happy with the data table that has been produced by the import

Note: some of the menu options may be worded slightly differently depending on the version of Excel you are running

Tech Tip – Set Pages To Open In Different Tabs Automatically When You Open Chrome or Edge

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you'd like to save time by automatically making your most often used and/or favourite pages load at start up when you open Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge,

Here is how to do it:

In Google Chrome

Open Google Chrome web browser
Click on the three dots at the top right and select "Settings"
On the left-hand side, select "On startup" from the menu
Click on the "Open a specific page or set of pages" radio button
Click on "Add a new page" and type in the URL of the page you would like to load, keep doing this for each page
Close Chrome, re-open and check the tabs are loading correctly

In Microsoft Edge

Open Microsoft Edge web browser
Click on the three dots at the top right and select "Settings"
On the left-hand side, select "Start, home, and new tabs" from the menu
Click on the "Open these pages" radio button
Click on "Add a new page" and type in the URL of the page you would like to load, keep doing this for each page
Close Edge, re-open and check the tabs are loading correctly

Working with Salisbury Foodbank

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It’s getting towards that time of year when a lot of people think about giving and receiving gifts but unfortunately not everyone is in this position, during this cost-of-living squeeze, a lot of people are worrying about how they will feed their family, let alone thinking about Christmas gifts.

This is why we feel it is so important to support one of our customers, Salisbury Foodbank. It is so important to our local community, and it is why it is so important for us, as a local business, to help support the local community by supporting Salisbury Foodbank, not only by us donating refurbished technology for them to reuse but by also donating much needed groceries that are on their list of required supplies.

At the moment, Salisbury Foodbank is asking for donations of specific foods and toiletries, this is why The Silver Cloud Business has donated toiletries for Salisbury Foodbank to include in their food parcels.

In this period of financial uncertainty, every little helps, some people that have previously donated generously to the foodbank in the past and never thought they would be needing similar help, have now found themselves having to rely on donations. Unfortunately, we can’t predict the future or determine how our lives will pan out which is why it is crucial to have these safety nets.

If you can help, why not visit Donate food - Salisbury Foodbank and see what they need and help by also making a donation. Every donation, no matter how big or small, will make a difference to someone in need.

Tech Tip – Share Any Web Page With a QR Code using Google Chrome

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like a quick and easy way to share a URL from any website, Google Chrome gives you the ability to create and share a QR code for any page.

Here is how to do it:

Open Google Chrome
Check you are running the latest version by clicking the three dots at the top right-hand corner of the screen, then select Help, About Google Chrome and it will check if you are running the latest version. If not, upgrade the browser and restart it
Browse to the website page you want to share then on the right-hand side in the address bar look for the share icon, it looks like an open top box with an arrow coming out to the right, click on this and select create QR code
Click on Download to get a copy of the QR code so you can distribute it.

This is a quick and easy way to create and share QR codes that you can use either in printed material or email.

Tech Tip – Sharing Files In Microsoft OneDrive

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage, accessible at Onedrive.com or through your OneDrive client on the computer, allows users to share files and folders with others, with the ability to control who has permission to just view or to edit files and folders.

Links can be set to expire on a specific date and time and there is also the option to block users from downloading the data. This allows users to share and collaborate on the same data working together at the same time.

Here is how to do it:

Open OneDrive
Select the file(s) or folder(s) by selecting the tick box to the left of each item you wish to share
Click on the share symbol, which looks like an arrow leaving a box
Type in who you would like to share it with by using their email address, you can keep adding users if need be
At the top of the Share screen above the name section is a is a section marked "Send Link" which by default is set to "Anyone with the link can edit", click on the > symbol to get more link options
Change the permissions for the data as required, the options are...
- allow everyone with the link to access
- people only within your tenant / organisation to access
- people with existing access
- specific people
- can edit or just view the data
- set an expiry date, which will revoke access after a specific date and time
- set an access password
- block download
Once the options have been select you are taken back to the Send link screen, where you can type an additional message to accompany the link so that the recipient knows what it is they are being sent, then click send to send the link to the recipient.

NOTE: selecting the options of who to send the link to will determine what other features are available, for example, if you choose to send the link to specific people only, the link will not have the option to expire. If you select everyone with the link can access the data then it will have the option to expire the link on a set date and time.

Tech Tip – How To Use Google To Find Images With Transparent Backgrounds

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a quick and easy way to find images on any subject which already have a transparent background, using Google’s Image Search.

Here is how to use it:

Open you web browser
Go to Google www.google.co.uk
Click on “Images” at the top right of the screen, the will open “Google Images Search”
Type in what you are searching for, for example “Santa” and press enter use your mouse to click on the search symbol
When the results come back, click on “Tools” menu (at the top, on the righthand side, below the search box) and the tools menu will appear
Click on 'Colour' (misspelled Color, those naughty Americans) and select “Transparent”
This will then refresh the search results only showing images that have a transparent background

Enjoy! We hope you find these tech tips useful.

Tech Tip – Use An Image To Help With A Google Search

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Google’s Image Search not only allows you to search for images by name, but allows you upload an image (or paste in the URL) and do a reserve search to identify what a product is and where it can be found on the Web.

Think how handy this could be when looking for Christmas presents.

Here is how to do it:

Open your web browser
Go to Google
At the top right hand corner, click on "Images"
On the right hand side of the search box, click on the camera icon
The "Search any image with Google Lens" window opens
Upload the image or just drag and drop it into the search box
Google then tries to match the image by displaying the exact image or a close approximation to it
Click on any of the results images to visit the website the image was found on
It is also possible to narrow down the results using keywords to get a more accurate result

Tech Tip – Its That Time Of The Year To Spring Clean!

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As we start a new year, it is a great time to consider doing some spring cleaning in terms of your IT systems. Here are some suggestions on what to look out for and what the benefits are to doing the cleaning!

Did you know that if you store data in the cloud that is effectively stale (as in not accessed or used) it will get marked as archive data. The more of this data you hold, the more it will be flagged as archive and eventually all your services will be moved onto slower media and service, meaning the performance of the services, including email, SharePoint and Teams will plummet and staff will notice a performance hit. Move all stale data to appropriate storage so your business doesn't suffer from this form of performance degradation.
The ICO (Information Commissioners Office) expects businesses to hold data that is appropriate for trading. If you no longer need to keep data, remove it. The benefit of doing this means that if you do get a DSAR (data subject access request) you have far less data to search through!
The less data you hold on your device, the less risk you are exposed to. If you were to lose your device or have its security compromised you have far less exposure to the risk of something being leaked
The less data stored on the device means the less data needs to be indexed meaning that the performance of the computer will improve because there is less information to index and return search results

These are just a few reasons why you should consider having a spring clean. If you want more help or suggestions and advice about what to do, please call us for a chat on 01722 411 999

Tech Tip – Edit A PDF Using Google Drive

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that if you have a Google account, you can use Google Drive to not only open PDF files but also edit them as well!

Here is how to do it:

Open your Google Drive
Navigate to the PDF you want to open or edit
Click on the PDF with the right mouse key and select "Open With > Google Docs"
You can then edit the PDF
Once you have finished editing, you can re-save it as a PDF by clicking on File (at the top left) then select "Download > PDF Document (.pdf)"

Tech Tip – How To Search For Related Websites Or Synonyms Using Google

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you need to do something like research a competitors website and look at similar websites for comparison, or you need to search for information about something but don't know the right words to type in, well....

Here are two Google tips that will give you with what you need:

Search Tip Number 1 - How to search for similar websites

To search for a website similar to the one you are looking at, for example YouTube:

Open Google
In the Google search box, type: related:youtube.com
Press Enter and Google will list all websites related to YouTube

Search Tip Number 2 - How to search for synonyms (a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase) for example how to search for sites where you don't know the exact words to look for, for example using affordable computers:

Open Google
In the Google search box, type: ~affordable computers
Press Enter and Google will list all websites with different but relatively similar websites, for example cheap computers, budget computers, etc

Tech Tip – Handy Helpful Hyphens!

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can use a hyphen to refine a search in Google? If you want to exclude a specific word from a search, use a hyphen after the search term followed by the words to exclude them.

For example, if you want to search for a Typhoon referring to weather rather than the aeroplane, here is how to do it:

Open your web browser
Go to www.google.co.uk
Enter the words typhoon -jet in the search box and click search
the results will come back excluding any references to the term jet so you should be inundated with links and images to weather!

NOTE: if you want more than one word to be excluded from the search, you must have a handy helpful hyphen in front of each word, for example typhoon -jet -plane -aero which will exclude all three words from the search

Tech Tip – How To Disable Your Laptop’s Touchpad

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever had a time where you accidently move the curson about by accidently touching your laptop touchpad whilst typing?

Would you like to be able to temporarily disable the touchpad whilst typing? To disable the touchpad do the following:

On your Windows 11 computer, right click the start button and select "Settings"
From the menu on the left, select "Bluetooth and Devices"
In the right hand menu select "Touchpad"
When the Touchpad menu opens, move the Touchpad toggle from On to Off, this will disable the touchpad

NOTE: you may find it easier to have a mouse connected before disabling the touchpad as it would make it easier to enable it again, unless the device is touchscreen, then the touchscreen can be used to enable the touchpad again

Tech Tip – Fast Highlighting

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to be able to highlight a block of text like a sentence or paragraph and don't want to have to drag the mouse about to try to achieve this?

Here is a quick and easy way how to do it:

Use the mouse to click the start of the block of text you want to highlight
Press and hold the shift key
Use the mouse to click the end of the block of text you want to highlight and the entire block from start to finish will now be highlighted

Note: this works in reverse as well, you can click the end of the text, hold the shift key and click the start to highlight a block of text

Tech Tip – How To Check A Website Power Usage - Yes, I actually wrote power usage!

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that different websites have different power requirements? Why should this bother you? Well, if you are out and about and don't want to drain your laptop battery, Firefox can show you just how much power specific websites make your computer use.

Here's how to use it:

Open Firefox
Browse to the website you want to use
Click the three dots top right
Select "Tools" or "More Tools"
Select "Web Developer Tools"
Click on the "Performance" tab
Click "Start recording"
Hover your mouse over the power graphs. This will show you how many watts of power the website is using!

Tech Tip – Useful Keyboard Shortcuts In YouTube

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like a quick and convenient way to navigate through the videos in YouTube, and you would like some useful keyboard shortcuts.

Here is how to do it:

Open a browser and go to YouTube
Start a video
use the following keys (no need for he shift key) for the following functions:
- F - to open the video in Full Screen
- K - to pause or play (toggle)
- J - rewind the video by 10 seconds
- L - skip the video forward by 10 seconds
use the following keys + the shift key for the following functions:
- Shift + P - play the previous video
- Shift + N - play the next video

Tech Tip – How To Send Web Pages To Your Inbox Using Google Chrome

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Would you like a quick and easy way to email web pages you find interesting to your inbox rather than bookmarking them in Google Chrome?

If you would like this then maybe the InboxThis extension may be helpful to you.

Here is how to do it:

Open Google Chrome
Go to the Google Chrome Web Store (you can get there by Googling the term or by clicking here)
In the "Search the store" search box, type InboxThis and press enter
When the search results come back, click on the Inbox This extension (top result in the list)
Click the "Add to Chrome" button
Confirm you want to add this extension to Chrome by click on the "Add Extension" button
This will then add the feature to your Chrome browser
Next you will need to add the email address you want all the saved links to be sent to, type in your email address and click on "Save"

To test that the extension is working do the following:

Open Google Chrome
Browse to a website of your choice
Click on the Extensions icon (it looks like a jigsaw puzzle piece to the right of the address bar) and from the drop down list select "Email and read it later - Inbox"
You should then see a pop up saying "Page sent to your inbox"
You should also get an email with the link after a few seconds

If you need to change the email address in the tool do the following:

Open Google Chrome
Click on the Extensions icon (it looks like a jigsaw puzzle piece to the right of the address bar) and from the drop down list select, click on the three vertical dots to the right of "Email and read it later - Inbox" and select Options from the menu list
Change the email address destination and click on "Save"

NOTE: Microsoft Edge is built using Google Chrome, so the above extension also works in MS Edge and adding it and using it in Edge are exactly the same as with Google Chrome, have a go!

Tech Tip – How To Annotate PDFs Files In Google Drive On An Android Device

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Google has enabled new functionality so you can now use your finger or a stylus to annotate PDFs in your Google Drive app on Android devices.

Here is how to do it:...

Open the Google Drive app on your Android device
Navigate to the PDF you want to annotate and open it
In the bottom right hand corner of the screen is the annotate button, tap this
The annotate toolbar will show up allowing you to select various annotating tools, you can select it using either your finger or stylus
Tap and hold the annotation toolbar to snap it to the side of the screen you drag it to
When you have finished annotating the original PDF, you can save it as the original with annotations or you can save as a new copy

NOTE: If you save a new copy of the PDF with a new file name after annotating it, the original file will be remain unchanged

Tech Tip – WhatsApp, How To Add Emphasis To Your Words

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like to be able to change the look of your messages in WhatsApp and to be able to add difference emphases to words such as Bold or Italic, here is how to do it:

Open the WhatsApp application
Create a message
When typing, if you would like a word or words to be bold, put asterisks at either end of the word or words, for example *make this bold* will result in a message that says make this bold
If you would like to make a word or words italic, put an underscore at either end of the word or words, for example _make this italic_ will result in a message that says make this italic
If you would like to add strikethrough to a word or words, put a tilde at either end of the word or words, for example ~strike this through~ will result in a message that says strike this through

Tech Tip – Using The Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Not only does Windows 10 & 11 have Windows Defender, both operating systems have a Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT).

The tool is designed to remove hidden malware from your computer, it runs in the background and is regularly updated without you needing to get involved.

BUT... If you are worried and want to check that everything is ok, here is how to run a manual scan:

In your Microsoft Windows desktop operating system click the start button
Type MRT and from the list of options presented, click on the application called MRT
You may be prompted a warning asking if you want to allow this tool to make changes to your device, click Yes
Click Next to move on from the introduction screen and you will be presented with three scan options:
- Quick scan - this scans the most likely places that malware or malicious software may be lurking
- Full scan - scans the entire system but can take a long time
- Customized scan - this performs a quick scan AND any locations specified by the user
Select the type of scan you want and click Next
When the scan starts it will show how many files scanned, number of infected files, start time of scan and the duration of the scan
If it detects any malicious files, it will list the infected files and let you know if it has been able to automatically clean the files or not. The tool may not be able to clean infected files, if this is the case you will need another tool to remove the malicious file(s).
What is most likely to happen though is the tool doesn't detect anything and you can just click Finish

IMPORTANT - this tool from Microsoft should not be seen as all you need to prevent your computer from being infected, it should be seen as one of several tools you should be using. Computer security should be a layered approach using different vendor tools and we strongly recommend that you use a known, 3rd party anti-virus and anti-malware application such as Sophos Intercept-X as well as having the baked in Microsoft Tools.

NOTE: If you Windows computer doesn't have Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool, it can be downloaded from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9905

Tech Tip – How To Set Data Limits Used By WhatsApp

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that WhatsApp can use a surprisingly large amount of storage on your mobile AND can also use up a lot of your mobile data allowance by automatically downloading videos, large pictures / photos, and voice messages?

Here's how to limit the types of media that are automatically download and the amount of mobile data WhatsApp calls use:

On your mobile, open WhatsApp
If WhatsApp has 3 dots at the top right of the screen, tap the 3 dots and tap "Settings", if you don't have the 3 dots, tap "Settings" at the bottom right of the screen
In Settings, tap on the menu option "Storage and data"
Slide the toggle switch marked "Use Less Data for Calls"
On the same screen, in the section labelled "MEDIA AUTO- DOWNLOAD", change the option for each section, "Photos", "Audio", "Video", and "Documents", so that it is set to use "Wi-Fi" instead of "Wi-Fi and Cellular"

This will make sure that less of your mobile data will be used up by WhatsApp and that it will only download files when it has a wireless connection to use.

Tech Tip – Outlook Favourites to Help See New Emails in Multiple Mailboxes

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Do you have more than one mailbox connected to your Microsoft Outlook application? Would you like to be able to keep an eye on new emails coming in without having the scroll up and down multiple folders? Use Favourites in Outlook to highlight specific folders such as the inboxes for each mailbox at the top of hte folder list

Here is how to use Favourites:

Open Microsoft Outlook
Navigate to the folder you want to have at the top of the folder pane
Right click on the folder and click on "Add to Favourites"
Repeat this on all of the folders you want to have at the top of the folder pane

You should now see, on the left hand side in the folder pane, all of the folders at the top. This is really handy if you need to monitor the inbox of shared mailboxes or other colleagues that may be on leave and you need to monitor any new emails in their inbox.

The folders in Favourites will show the number of unread emails in that folder.

You can navigate to the folder by clicking on the favourite folder, it will show the folder contents in the folder pane and reading pane, helping to manage email more effectively and saving you a lot of time!

Tech Tip – Changing Your WhatsApp Wallpaper Background

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

How would you like to be able to personalise each chat session you have by using the picture of the person as the background for the conversation? Ot maybe you would like to brighten up an otherwise dull WhatApp experience. It is really easy to change the background of each of your chats from the default to something more your style.

Here is how to do it:

Open WhatApp
Open a chat conversation you have been having with someone
Depending on the version of WhatsApp either tap the three dots OR tap on the contact name at the top of the screen
Select Wallpaper
Choose from the options you are presented, either Bright, Darl, Solid Colours, or from your Photos
Select the image you want to have as the background
Adjust it to meet your preferences in terms of size and which parts if the picture to use
Once you are happy with the layout, tap on Set
Repeat this process for each chat background you wish to modify

Tech Tip – How To Ask For Sources In ChatGPT

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If ever you have produced any content by using ChatGPT, sometimes it would be good to check the sources because, as wel now know, ChatGPT can sometimes generate incorrect information.

Here is how to do it:

Go to ChatGPT by clicking here: Introducing ChatGPT (openai.com)
Click on the "Try ChatGPT" button
If you have an account, sign in, if not register then sign in
Click on the "+New Chat" button at the top left of the screen
Type your question or request in the "Send a message" box at the bottom of the screen
When you see the results you can type "can you show me the sources for your reply?"
ChatGPT will then list all of the sources that it used to generate the reply so you can verify if the information you have got if from a credible source, or, as sometimes happens, see if it is a work of fiction that ChatGPT has created
If you would like ChatGPT to find you more sources of information you can type something like "please provide me with popular links related to... (subject you want to search for)", for example: "Please provide me with popular links related to cleaning burnt saucepans"

Have some fun with it!!

Tech Tip – Using “Debug” To Clarify Why ChatGPT Came To Its Conclusion

Wed, 03 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you want to understand why ChatGPT provided a certain response or want to find out how it arrived at its conclusion, you can use the “Debug” command.

Here’s how:

Go to ChatGPT by clicking here: Introducing ChatGPT (openai.com)
Click on the "Try ChatGPT" button
If you have an account, sign in, if not register then sign in
Click on the "+New Chat" button at the top left of the screen
Type your question or request in the "Send a message" box at the bottom of the screen
When you get your reply type "Debug my question about the xxxxx" where xxxxx is the topic of your question
You will then get the results

Tech Tip – Getting ChatGPT To Produce Answers In A Tabular Format

Wed, 10 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can ask ChatGTP to provide you with information in different formats. For example. if you would like to save time and have the data organised you can ask ChatGPT to provide the output in a tabular format.

Here is how:

Go to ChatGPT by clicking here: Introducing ChatGPT (openai.com)
Click on the "Try ChatGPT" button
If you have an account, sign in, if not register then sign in
Click on the "+New Chat" button at the top left of the screen
Ask ChatGPT to list the benefits or two, or more, different ways of providing a list and to provide the answer in table format, for example "list the difference between formula 1 and formula 2 motor racing in a table format"
ChatGPT will then provides the answer in a table format, comparing the topics, side by side, in a table that can then be copied to anything you choose to
This can also be done to compare things like measurements such as weights, temperature, anything you can think of so have some fun and try it

Tech Tip – How To Use the 'Autocomplete' Command In ChatGPT

Thu, 18 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you want help to complete a sentence or if you need to get creative when writing content or copy but you don't have the time or are getting writers block, use the "/autocomplete" command in ChatGPT.

"/autocomplete" is a ChatGPT command that can be used to automatically generate text to completes the sentence you have partially written.

For example, if you are trying to write a description about something, you can type in the partial sentence and use the "/autocomplete" command to get ChatGPT to generate some suggestions about how to complete the sentence.

Here is how to do it:

Go to ChatGPT by clicking here: Introducing ChatGPT (openai.com)
Click on the "Try ChatGPT" button
If you have an account, sign in, if not register then sign in
Click on the "+New Chat" button at the top left of the screen
Type /autocomplete and press enter
Start to type some keywords or a partial sentence and press enter for ChatGPT to come up with results
Choose from the results the response you like and use it

Tech Tip – How To Delete Your ChatGPT Conversation History

Wed, 24 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like to protect your privacy and the privacy of your business when using and sharing information with ChatGPT, here is how to delete your ChatGPT chat questions history:

Sign into your ChatGPT Account (see a previous article about setting up an account)
Click on the three dots next to your name (bottom left of the screen)
On the menu that appears, click on "Clear conversations"
You will then need to confirm "Clear conversation history" by clicking on it again
This will clear your history in ChatGPT

Tech Tip – Creating and Sharing WhatsApp Call Links

Wed, 31 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you would like a way to create and share a WhatsApp call link so that anyone with a WhatsApp account can join your call by opening the link, here is how:

Tap on the call tab
Tap on "Create call link"
Select the type of call, voice or video
Tap on "Copy link"
Select "send the link via WhatsApp" or select "Share link" to share the link in another app

Note : Each time you create a new call link, it will generate a new URL so that it is secure and no one should be able to guess the link

Tech Tip – Customise Notifications In WhatsApp

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Would you like certain groups to have unique notifications so you know which group has receved a new message based on the noise / tone you get whe a new message arrives?

This is handy because it means you don't have to check all your messages, especially if you are listening out for a specific group.

Here is how to do it on an iPhone:

Open WhatsApp
Tap on the group chat you want to alter the notification for
Tap the name of the group at the top of the screen to get to the group's settings
Tap on Alert Tone at the bottom of the screen and a menu with all the different tones appears
Select the tone you want to use, by tapping on the tone, it will play it to you, so you can work your way through them all until you find a tone you like
Once you have selected the tone you want, tap on Save at the top right of the screen
Your group should now have a new tone so you can differentiate it from the others!

Tech Tip – Customise WhatsApp Notifications

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can use WhatsApp as a personal note taking tool which can allow you to organise and store your ideas and thoughts, save links and also important notes and information uou need to access.

Here is how to to setup WhatsApp as a personal note taking tool:

Open WhatsApp and create a new chat
Enter your own phone number instead f selecting a contact
Tap on your own number in the contact list to start a private chat with yourself, this is where you can add notes to your self
Save your thoughts and ideas, draft messages or important reminders and info
Use the text input area to write your thoughts or paste in information or links and you can also save pictures, videos or documents and attachments here as notes as well
To keep things organised, you can make categories or also use hashtags to label things into similar groupings
To access the info, just open the note to yourself and scroll though the information and saved messages to yourself
Remember, WhatsApp syncs across devices so you can access your information on any device that is signed into your WhatsApp account

Tech Tip – Collaborate By Using ChatGPT As A Brainstorming Tool

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you are working and need help to brainstorm but you are alone, you can use ChatGPT as an effective brainstorming buddy, generating innovative thoughts and generating fresh ideas.

Here is how to do it:

Sign into your ChatGPT Account (see one of the previous article about setting up an account)
Set up the context of the dialogue in ChatGPT by typing "Brainstorming challenge"
Wait for ChatGPT to reply with "Sure! I'm up for a brainstorming challenge. What's the topic or problem you'd like to brainstorm about?"
Start the conversation about the topic you would like to brainstorm
Encourage ChatGPT to think by asking open ended questions so that you get multiple answers
Generate specific output by providing clear, concise instructions
Pick out the best or most suitable content that fits your topic

Have some fun with it!

Tech Tip – How To Disable The Read Receipts In WhatsApp

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

WhatsApp can let you know if someone has read your message by displaying two blue ticks. However you might not want people to know you have read their messages by turning off read receipts.

Here is how to do it....

Open WhatsApp
Go to settings (Android three dots, iOS settings gear wheel)
Select Privacy
Scroll down until you find Read Receipts
Slide the toggle to the off position

After doing this you will no longer send read receipts to the message senders when you read their messages...! Enjoy

Tech Tip – How To Force Your Android Screen To Be Bright - Even If You Have a Low battery

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that Android phones usually automatically dim the screen when they get below the minimum battery power threshold (when the phone battery is getting almost completely flat), however there can be certain circumstances where you need to have a bright screen even though the phone battery is on its last legs of power.

Here is how to do it:

On your Android phone, open settings (usually the small gear icon)
Go to Display
Adjust the brightness slider to the level you want
Disable Adaptive (Auto) Brightness, this will prevent your phone from changing the display brightness based on ambient light
Go back to the main settings page and then select Battery or Power
Turn off Battery Saver Mode (if this option is there) as this will also try to dim the screen if enabled

NOTE: this will drain your battery considerably more quickly which could be an issue if your battery is already low, however there may be a time when you need the extra brightness in an emergency such as if you are in a very bright environment. It may be worth looking at alternate ways to save battery life to counter this, such as closing any unwanted apps that are running in the background, or putting the phone temporarily in airplane mode, or turning off individual elements only such as Bluetooth or WiFi.

Tech Tip – Five Ways To Speed Up Charging Your Phone

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever been caught short and found yourself with a phone that has a low battery and you need to charge it up but have limited time?

Here are five ways to speed up the charge time:

Put your phone in airplane mode - if you put your phone into airplane mode, it will turn off the bulk of the radio communications in the phone, which will dramatically reduce the amount of power being consumed by the phone, with the knock on effect being the battery will charge up faster.
Close all background running applications - applications that are running in the background can use a lot of power, if you look at your phone usage and list the applications, you can see the applications that consume the most time and power whilst running in the background. This will reduce the amount of power being consumed by the phone, with the knock on effect being the battery will charge up faster.
Use a wall power outlet - use a power socket with a power adapter to charge the phone rather than a USB cable from a device, such as a computer. This will increase the speed the phone charges up.
Turn off the phone - it is a simple trick but if you turn your phone off whilst charging, it will use very little power whilst it is charging up the battery, which will speed up the charge time.
Use a fast charger - If you phone supports it, and you have one, use a fast charger to charge the phone, fast charges (the ones that can deliver up to 30W of power) can charge devices up to six times faster than a conventional charger.

Tech Tip – Quickly Access Your Favourite Emojis

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Would you like a really fast way to find your favourite emojis in a Windows PC so that you can use them in your applications?

Here is how to get at them:

Open your application of choice that you would like to use the emojis in, for example MS Outlook, or MS Word
Put the cursor where you would like the emoji to be inserted
Press the "Windows" key and the "full stop" key together at the same time
This will bring up the emoji pop up window, you can type a description of the emoji that you are looking for, for example Wink
When you see the emoji you want, click on it and it will be inserted into the application you were in where the cursor was 😉
When you have done with the emojis, click on the cross at the top right hand corner, or just click anywhere in the original app you are using and it will close the emoji popup

Note: this tool can also be used to insert Gifs (animated clips), Kaomojis (text based), Symbols (various such as mathematic symbols and formulae, Latin, currency symbols etc.) and what is in the clipboard, so have a play....

Example Kaomoji - (❁´◡`❁) ||ヽ(*￣▽￣*)ノミ|Ю
Example Symbol - №℉™※€¥$௹

Tech Tip – How To Speed Up Your Windows PC Startup

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that with a couple of clicks of the mouse, you can speed up your Windows PC startup time.

Here is how to do it:

Start your Windows computer and login
Launch task manager by simultaneously pressing CTRL + Shift + Esc
Click the "Startup" or "Startup Apps" menu tab
Look at the Startup Impact column to see hat impact each application is having on starting up Windows
Select any applications that you know you don't need to automatically launch at start up, right click the application and select "Disable"

Note: be careful if you disable applications from starting up when Windows boots, especially if you are not sure what it does, you might speed up Windows but you might prevent certain things from working.

Tech Tip – How To Use Google Keep To Convert Handwritten Meeting Notes To A Text Document

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can use Google Keep to quickly and easily convert hand written notes into a text document you can save? Google Keep is an optical character recognition (OCR) application that can convert hand written notes into text.

Here is how to do it:

NOTE: you need a Google account to use Google Keep

Download Google Keep onto your smart phone (either from the iOS App Store or from Google Play), because you need to use the smart phone to take a picture of your notes for Google Keep to use to convert it to text.
Open the Google Keep application (first time you use it, you will need to sign into your Google account).
Create a new note (tap the +) and give it a name
Tap the + at the bottom of the screen and select "Take photo" and when you are happy with the picture tap "use photo"
Once you have your picture, tap the three dots and tap on "Grab image text"
The application will then convert the writing to text (as best it can), you can edit the text if it is not correct
When you are happy with the text, tap on the three dots and tap on send, here you can select what you want to do with the data such as "Copy to Google docs" or send to another app or save the file

NOTE: you can also use Google Keep for voice recordings as well

Tech Tip – How To Carry Out A Quick Check To See If Any Of Yours Passwords Have Been Leaked

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Google has updated Password Manager in their Chrome browser which allows you to quickly check if any of your passwords have leaked, been compromised or involved in a data breach.

Here’s how to use it:

Open Google Chrome browser
Click on the three dots (top right hand corner)
Select "Google Password Manager" from the drop down menu
Click on the menu "Check-up"
This will show you
- Compromised passwords
- Password uniqueness
- Any weak passwords
Follow the recommendations, such as changing any weak passwords for stronger or changing any compromised passwords
You should periodically check in with the password tool to check that your passwords integrity is sound

Tech Tip – Get More From Google Chrome

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Would you like to get more out of Google Chrome so that it makes your life easier?

Here are some tips and tricks:

Turn on Sync in Google Chrome - if you turn on Sync in Chrome it means things like your history, favourite websites, passwords and other settings can follow you between different machines that you are running Google Chrome on and are signed into.... learn how to turn on Sync here
Make your own profile - Google Chrome supports multiple profiles meaning different people or different personas can have their own settings and customisation in Google Chrome.... learn how to make profiles here
Customise Chrome with different themes and extensions - change the look and feel of Google Chrome by adding different themes and extra features using extensions.... learn how to use themes and extensions here
Continue where you left off, or open a specific page with you open Chrome - Google Chrome can be configured to open your favourite pages as different tabs when you launch it.... learn how to configure it here
Use private browsing to stop your browsing history from being tracked - Google Chrome has "Incognito" browsing where the browser doesn't track you or save any browser history and will not load any pre-saved sessions which is very handy if you want to login to a website that has cached credentials and usually logs you in automatically with a different user account.... learn how to use private "Incognito" browsing here
Personalise your "New Tab" pages - you can customise your new tab page with different Chrome cards.... learn how to personalise your new tabs here

Have some fun with it and configure Google Chrome so that is works for your personal needs.

If you haven't already, why not kick things off by setting up a personal profile and a business profile to keep work and personal settings and sites separate.

Differentiate your personal and business profiles by using different themes.

These are just a couple of ideas to get you started and see what a difference customising Google Chrome can make to you....

Tech Tip – How To Assign Roles To ChatGPT : Using The "Act As ..." Prompt

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can get ChatGPT to write replies to questions in a specific style, as if they were responding as a well known person such as Joe Biden, or in a specific style of role such as replying to a question as a business person, or as a cockney! This is easy to do using the "Act as..." command in ChatGPT

Here is how to do it:

Login to ChatGPT (if you don't already have an account, follow the steps here to set one up)
At the question prompt type, for example:
- act as a Glaswegian offering directions to a tourist in London
- ChatGPT will respond with something along the lines of "Aye, pal, ye look a wee bit lost there, ken? Need a hand findin' yer way around this big city? No worries, I got ye covered!...."
You can use any sort of descriptor such as "business person" or "French citizen" and frame as a question, a response or scenario
Add more detail to the question to fine tune the response for your intended target audience

Have some fun with it, things we have tried are "Act as Donald Trump", "Act as a Glaswegian", "Act as a Brummie" and each of the results has been amusing and exactly the sort of response we were expecting. You can use it for more serious matters as well, other things we have tried are "Act as a sales person closing a deal" and "Act as a mechanic explaining what a cylinder head gasket is for" .

Although one thing we have noticed is that ChatGPT seems to like the word "mate" when replying as a style of person

Tech Tip – Take A Trip Back In Time With Google

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Would you like a reminder of how things have changed over the years, and you would like a nostalgic trip down memory lane? For a bit of fun here is how to get Google to look like it first did when Google first launched.

Here is how to do it:

Type "Google in 1998" into Google’s search box or search bar
Google will transform to look as it did when it first launched in 1998 including the exclamation mark at the end of Google
To get back either type "take me back to the present" or type something in the search box and Google will switch back to the present day

This is just one of the many "Easter Eggs" that Google has released over the years.

For a list of all the Google Easter Eggs, click here

Tech Tip – How To Backup Your ChatGPT Chats By Using Export

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can use the export function in ChatGPT to export and save your Chats, which allows you to backup your chat history and hold onto your data, otherwise it will eventually be lost.

Here's how to do it:

Login to your ChatGPT account
When logged in, click on the "three dots" at the bottom left of your browser, next to your login name
Click on "Settings"
Click on "Data Controls"
Click on the "Export" button
Click on "Confirm Export"
You will get notification that an email has been sent to your registered email address (the email you associated to your ChatGPT account when you set it up) . The message says "Successfully exported data. You should receive an email shortly with your data" and is a green banner at the top of the page
In the email is a "Download data export" link, click on this to download your ChatGPT chat history.
A ZIP file will download with all of your chat history in it
Save the zip file as your chat backup

Tech Tip – How To Share Your Location In WhatsApp

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Would you like to be able to let others know your location in WhatsApp, for example, would you like to share your location when you are out and about and meeting up with a group of friends?

Here's how to turn it on:

Open the settings on your phone
Tap on Apps (in Android) or just scroll down (in iPhone) until you find WhatsApp
Select WhatsApp and find Location
Set the Location setting to "Always"
Open WhatsApp on your phone
When you are typing a message and want to share your location, tap on the + and select Location
This will then share your live location for the duration you set

If you would like to turn off location sharing, follow the steps above and when you are in the location settings for WhatsApp, change it back to "off" or "when using the app"

Tech Tip – How To Organise Your Bookmarks In Chrome

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If you have a nice long list of Bookmarked sites in Google Chrome and it is not really in any sort of order, did you know that you can use "Bookmark Manager" to sort your bookmarks into the order you want and help you get organised, lake it easy to navigate and find things

Here is how to do it:

Open Google Chrome
At the top right hand side, click on the three vertical dots
Move the mouse to Bookmarks and it will expand the sub-menu and select Bookmark Manager
This will open a list of your bookmarks, there will be a list of folders on the left and the bookmarks in the current folder will be surrounded by the a border
Right click on the border of the bookmarks and select "Add new folder"
Give the new folder a name - Such as "social media" or "news" or what ever the group of bookmarks are
Drag and drop the relevant links to the new folder to sort them out

Note - you can nest folders, so have folders inside folders, for example, you could have a top level of "Social Media" and sub folders such as "Meta", "X", "Sina" etc... and then in each, have the relevant links, for example Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads into the Meta folder etc...

Tech Tip – How To Send Public (But Very Private-Looking) Messages Out In WhatsApp

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Do you ever need to message a large group of people, asking them the same question? Would it be a valuable time saver if you could use WhatApp to send out a public (but very private looking) message so that it looks like you have sent out individual messages to recipients when in reality it is a bulk message you have sent out to a group of people?

Here is how to do it in Android:

Open WhatsApp
Tap on Chats
Tap on Menu (the three dots at the top right)
Select "New Broadcast"
Select the contacts to use in the broadcast list by tapping on each contact you want to use (a green tick will appear next to each selected contact)
Once you have selected everyone you want to use in your broadcast list, tap create (the big green tick button)
You will then see the number of recipients for the broadcast with names at the top of the screen, with a message field at the foot of the screen
Compose your broadcast message and send to the group
If you need to change or delete any of the recipients in the list or delete the list itself, tap on the three dots at the top right of the screen and tap "Broadcast list info"

Here is how to do it in iOS (Apple):

Open WhatsApp
Tap on Chats
Tap on "Broadcast Lists" at the top left of the screen
Tap on "New list"
Select the recipients for the list by tapping on each one (a tick appears to the right of the contact)
Once you have selected everyone for the broadcast, click on Create (top right)
You will then see the number of recipients for the broadcast with names at the top of the screen, with a message field at the foot of the screen
Compose your broadcast message and send to the group
If you need to change or delete any of the recipients in the list, tap on the (i) at the right of the Broadcast list name, if you want to delete the list itself, slide the list name to the left and select delete

Tech Tip – How To Use Google Chrome's Link To Highlighted Text Feature

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What do you do if you have found a specific passage of text on the web and you would like to share that specific text with someone else? Google Chrome now has a built-in function that allows you to share a link with someone else that links directly to that text.

Here’s how to use it:

Open your Google Chrome web browser
Browse to the web page with the text you would like to share
On that page, highlight the text you would like to share
Right click on the highlighted text
Select "Copy link to highlight" from the menu
Share the link it has created

For example, this is a link to the Office 365 page on our website, linking to the first sentence on the page:

https://www.thesilvercloudbusiness.com/office-365-microsoft-365#:~:text=As%20you%20may%20be%20aware%20Microsoft%20has%20rebranded%20Office%20365%20and%20it%20is%20now%20known%20as%20Microsoft%20365.

Tech Tip – Prioritise WhatsApp Messages

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Would you like to be able to prioritise a particular WhatsApp message thread so that it is easily accessible?

It is pretty easy to do, you can pin a specific chat thread to the top of your chats list so that it is always easily accessible and the first thing on your list!

Here's how to do it:

On Android

On your mobile device, open WhatsApp
Find the chat thread you want to pin
Tap and hold the chat
Then tap the pin symbol that appears at the top of the screen
This chat thread is now pinned to the top of the conversation lists

On Apple

On your mobile device, open WhatsApp
Find the chat thread you want to pin
Swipe right on the chat you want to pin
Tap on the pin symbol
This chat thread is now pinned to the top of the conversation lists

Note: you can pin up to three chats in WhatsApp

Note: to unpin a chat, carry out the same steps above, but select "unpin" to remove the pinned chat thread

Tech Tip – How To Create Shortcuts for Important WhatsApp Chats on an Android Device

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Do you have an important chat you need to access regularaly? Or a chat you would like to access easily beucass it is important to you, such as with a family member?

Here is how to create a shortcut in WhatsApp in Android:

Open WhatsApp on your phone
Go to your chats and find the one you want to create a shortcut to
Press and hold on the chat you want to pin and wait until the menu opens
Select the three dots (More) menu at the top right
Select "Add chat shortcut"
Select "Add"
This will then create a shortcut to the chat on your device home screen so you can access it without having to navigate through lots of different chats in WhatsApp

Tech Tip – How To Capture All Of The Contents Of a Long Web Page Screen In Chrome

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know there is an easy way to capture long web pages in their entirety, for various uses such as for presentations, or for inserting into spreadsheets or documents or just to get all of the information from a website for later consumption. With Google Chrome there is a built in tool to do this.

Here's how to do it on a Windows PC:

Open your Google Chrome web browser
Browse to the page that you would like to capture in its entirety
Press the keys CTRL-Shift-I simultaneously, which opens the developer tools.
Press CTRL-Shift-P simultaneously to then open the command menu on the right hand side
In the menu, next to Run> type 'Screenshot" and from the list of options that come up, select 'Capture full size screenshot'
This generates a screenshot image as a PNG file that is saved into your downloads folder

Have fun with this useful, little known feature in Chrome

Tech Tip – Block Third-Party Cookies In Google Chrome Automatically

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Wold you like to be able to protect your browsing privacy, by stopping websites from tracking your web history other than the site you are actually visiting?

There is now a way to block third party cookies from other sites that track your movement, whats even better is that it is done automatically when enabled.

Here is how to do it:

Open Google Chrome
Open the browser settings by clicking on the three dots at the top right of the browser window and click on "Settings"
Pick "Privacy and security" from the left hand menu
In the new menu that appears in the middle of the window, select "Third-party cookies"
In the new menu, select the "Block third-party cookies" radio button

This will then prevent third party site cookies from collecting your browsing data.

Tech Tip – How To Make Your Passwords Really Difficult To Crack

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Password seem to be easier and easier to crack, especially as computers get more powerful. Things like a brute force password attacks where a computer just keeps on trying to crack a password by just constantly trying and trying with different passwords.

Here is how to add an extra layer to thwart attacks:

Use Emojis!

This may sound surprising but Kaspersky recently highlighted how some online service providers allow the use of emojis in your passwords to massively increase the strength of the password.

The up side of using emojis is that it increases the number of possibilities that the password complexity could jump from approx 100 permutations per character (which is what you would get with normal letters, numbers and punctuation combinations) to approx. 4000 permutations per character (which is what you get when you use Unicode emojis).

To put this in context, it would take the same time to crack a password of just five emojis, as it would to crack a traditional password with nine standard characters of letters, numbers and punctuation.

The longer the password length using Emojis, the more time it would take and it is exponential so for each unicode character / emoji that is used.

You need to do some investigating to see if your service provider does support emojis in passwords, for example we know that Dropbox and OpenAI both do and so can increase the difficulty to hack by many factors.

Try it and see how you get on! 😉😁

Tech Tip – How To Use Google Translate To Check For Any Mistakes In Your Content

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know you can also use Google Translate to check your digital content for any errors and mistakes and you can use it to read back your content so you can hear what it sounds like when someone else reads it aloud.

Here is how to do it:

Open your web browser
Search for Google Translate or click here
Copy your data (up to 5000 characters at a time)
Paste it into the left hand window in Google Translate and ensure the language selected matches your data (we will assume English)
Click on the speaker icon (it is called Listen if you hover your mouse over it and it will only appear once data is in the text box) at the bottom left hand of the left hand text box with your data in it
Listen to your content and make notes of any changes you would like to make

Tech Tip – How To Filter Video Searches In Google

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Do you need to find a specific video or the best quality version of a specific video? Did you know you can use Google Search to help you find specific videos by filter videos by length, source, quality and more.

Here is how to do it:

Open you web browser
Browse to Google or click here
Search for the video you want to find
When the results come back you can filter them by clicking on Videos which is below the search box
Click on Tools which is to the right under the search box
From the filters that appear, filter your search by using the drop downs by picking from Any duration, Any time, Any quality, All videos, Any Source
When you select a drop down, pick from the list to narrow your findings

Have fun with it!

Tech Tip – How To Stop Website Notifications Using Google Chrome's "Mute Site" Option

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Are there times when you go to a website and you feel a little bit overwhelmed by all of the pop up messages such as a customer service "live chat" popup window or various pop up messages about offers and discounts that are totally irrelevant and annoying.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to browse to a site and just get the information you wanted without being bombarded by these pop up messages and windows?

Here is how to do it:

Open the Google Chrome web browser
Browse to the website you want to mute popups on
Right click on the tab at the top of the page for that website (tabs are when you have one or more website open in your browser allowing you to switch between sites quickly)
Select "Mute Site" from the menu that appears (Select "Mute Tab" in Microsoft Edge Chromium)
You can now browse the site without having annoying popups appear each time you click on a link in the site

Enjoy!

Tech Tip – Use Chrome As A Simple Note-Taking App

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Do you use Google Chrome as your go to internet browser? Did you know you can take notes or jot down ideas whilst using Google Chrome without needing to open a seperte app. It will instead turn a new tab into your note taking scratch pad.

Here is how to do it:

Open Google Chrome
Open a new tab
In the address bar type the following "data:text/html, " but don't use the quotes
A blank page will open where you can type notes
You can even bookmark the page by clicking on the star at the right hand side of the address bar, which will allow you to access your notes later on

Have fun!

Tech Tip – How To Use Chrome As A Drag And Drop File Viewer

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can use Chrome as a single application to view different file types, such as images, text files or PDFs so there is no need to open multiple applications to view various different files.

Here is how to do it:

Open Chrome
Click on the + to open a new tab in Chrome
Drag and drop the file you want to view in the new tab, Chrome will open it and allow you to see the contents
This can work for documents and text files, PDFs, images and most video and audio files as well

Have some fun with it and save some time by not having to open multiple applications!

Tech Tip – How To Use Dictation In Windows

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know there is a built in dictation function in Windows; you no longer need to buy a third party application in order to produce your written content by just using your voice.

Here is how to use it:

Open the application you want to use for your written content, such as Microsoft Word.
Either open the document you want to modify or start a new document. If you are modifying an existing document, don't forget to put the cursor at the place where you want to continue your written content.
The very first time you use this function, you will need to enabled it, Press the Windows key and H which will provide you with a link to Settings so you can enable it, slide the toggle switch to on in order to enabled it.
When you have enabled it, close the settings page and return to your application where you want to capture your dictation and again press the Windows key and H which enables the dictation function.
Once you have done this the microphone symbol will appear at the bottom of the screen and you can start to dictate.
Everything you dictate will be converted into text and you can freely type away just by speaking.
When you've finished you can either click the cross or the top right hand corner above the microphone or you can click on the circle with the microphone in it to end the dictation session.

The contents of this web page were written by using the dictation function and it saved me a lot of time. Have fun with it.

Tech Tip : Pin Tabs In Chrome To Stay Organised And Save Time

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Are there websites that you go to regularly and would like to speed up how you work, pinning tabs can help you stay organised, here is how to do it:

Open Google Chrome
Type in the website address you want to visit
When you are at the website, right click on the tab
In the pop up menu select Pin
This will create a shrunken tab that will always open each time you open Google Chrome and you just click on the tab to go to the website that is pre-loaded each time you open the browser

Note: This also works in Microsoft Edge Chromium

Tech Tip : How to read Word Documents Without Distractions

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Do you have to read Word Documents but often find it hard to focus because of the layout on the screen?

Here is a way to convert the Document so it is more book like:

Open Microsoft Word
Open the document you need to read
Go to View (top left)
Select "Read mode"
This removes the distractions like the menus but still allows you to edit and narrate comments in the document

Tech Tip : How to use ChatGPT in Microsoft Word

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know you can now use ChatGPT in Microsoft word by enabling it as one of the many cloud based "Add-ins".

Here is how to do it:

Open Microsoft Word
Click on Add-ins which is the red grid symbol (top right of the menu)
From the list select "GPT for Excel and Word" and click the Add button
This launches a panel on the right hand side of Word with a brief description on how to use it
Click continue to show the second page of instructions
At the bottom is a box saying "Type here"
Enter your question or request and click the Send button and ChatGPT will respond.
You can then copy and insert the response from ChatGPT into Word

Tech Tip : Use "Sticky Notes" to create virtual Post-it notes on your PC

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Do you need to take quick notes or aide memoires and are often scrabbling around your desk for a pen and scrap of paper or Post-it pad?

Instead why not use Sticky Notes, an application that creates digital post-it notes? This very simple but effective application allows you to use virtual notes you can digitally stick on your desktop.

Here is how to do it:

On your PC, press the 'Windows and S' keys simultaneously, then type 'Sticky Notes' and press enter
This will launch Sticky Notes, if you haven't used it before, click 'Get started' and it will use your Microsoft account to login, the next time you launch it, you should not need to do this, it will just go right into the sticky notes
Click on + to create a new note
You can resize your notes, move them about on the screen to re-order them or move them to a more prominent position as an aide memoire
You can also choose different colours for your notes to help categorise them, to do this, click the three dots at the top right of the note and pick a colour from the pallet

See how useful it is and have some fun with it

Tech Tip : Add Another User To An Existing Outlook Conversation

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Do you use Outlook conversations and you would like to add someone else to an existing conversation without having to start a new one, for example if you have a new colleague that has joined the business and you want to include them in an existing Outlook conversation.

Here is a quick and effective way to bring a new person into an existing conversation thread.

Here is how to do it:

If you haven't done so already, open Microsoft Outlook
Find the conversation email that you wish to add someone to
Reply to the recipient of the email as you would normally, but if you want to add someone else, use the @ symbol and then type their name, for example, if I were to type @Emma it would bring up a list of everyone it could find in my global address book and personal address book in Outlook. Once I select the correct person from the list Outlook automatically adds them to the To: field in the email, including that person in the conversation
The new recipient will then also get the email conversation and can join in

NOTE: there are other ways of doing this, such as manually adding the person to the To or CC field or by forwarding the email conversation to them, however by including them in the conversation by using the @ symbol, it allows you to reference the person and Outlook does the rest for you, so it makes it more of a natural way to introduce them in the coversation thread.

Tech Tip : How to remove any personal or hidden data from a Word document before sharing

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that when you create a document using the Microsoft Word desktop application, it can leave a lot of hidden data in your document that you may not wish to share with others.

If you are using Microsoft Word for Windows, here is how to check to sure you don't overshare data:

Open the Microsoft Word Desktop application
Open the document you want to share
Click on File
Click on Info
Click on Check for Issues and select Inspect document from the drop down
In the box that appears, click on the Inspect button, this will inspect the document and show any metadata embedded in the document that you may wish to remove.
Each section of the inspection will show you an area that has data with the option to remove data if found
One you have removed data, the document will display a banner saying personal information removal has been enabled

You can do this on all documents before sharing

Tech Tip : Recover Unsaved Word documents

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Do you use the desktop application Microsoft Word?

Did you know that Microsoft Word automatically saves your documents as you work, even if you haven't set this up. What is more, you can also review these files and, fingers crossed, recover any data you think you may have accidentally lost.

Here is how to recover potentially lost data:

Open Microsoft Word
Click File
Select Info
Select Manage Documents
Click on recover Unsaved Documents
This will display a list of anything that it has saved in the background that you may not have deliberately saved
Find the document you are looking for and open it
Save the data

Hopefully this feature will save a lot of headaches in the future.

Tech Tip : Developing A Cohesive Brand Theme Using ChatGPT

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know you can use AI to help with running your business?

In this Tech Tip we look at how to develop a cohesive guide on your brands communication channels across the company.

Here is how to do it:

Define Your Brand Theme Attributes
- Start by describing the key attributes of your brand’s theme. Is it professional, friendly, authoritative, or something else?
- Consider any specific instructions about do’s and don’ts, such as avoiding tech or industry jargon or adjusting the tone for different audiences.
Compile Brand Theme Guidelines
- Open ChatGPT and input the information from step 1
- Ask ChatGPT to compile a set of guidelines that detail how to communicate in your brand’s theme.
- Include examples of appropriate and inappropriate phrases.
- For instance, if you need to draft an email, provide the key information and subject / subject matter, and ask ChatGPT to create the email based on the brand theme.
Review and Revise
- Review the draft created by ChatGPT and make any necessary tweaks to the content to align it with your brand’s theme.
- Apply these brand theme guidelines consistently to all other types of communications you write using ChatGPT.

Tech Tip : Make Microsoft Word Spellcheck Uppercase Words As Well

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the past, Microsoft used to ignore words that were typed in upper case when checking the spelling in a document. Did you know you can change this.

Here is how to do it:

Open MS Word
Click on File
At the bottom left select Options
In the options pop up menu select Proofing on the left hand side
Un-tick the "Ignore words in UPPERCASE" option
Click OK

Word will no include upper case words when checking the spelling

Tech Tip : Learn how to access Windows' secret menu option of "Send-to"

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that Windows has a Send-To menu item?

It can be used to deal with things like where to send files such as to a directory or into a zip file location.

Here is how to do it....

In Windows, open File Explorer
Select a file or files
Press the shift key, then use the right mouse button to click on the selected file(s)
Choose "Send-to"
Choose where to send it to including options such as
- Documents
- Mail recipients
- Compressed folder

Try it out, see how it helps you speed up work

Tech Tip : How To Rename Lots Of Files In One Batch Using File Explorer

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If you have ever had to rename a large number of files, one by one, you will know how tedious it can be. Especially if you are trying to organise a large quantity of like files, such as documents, photos or media files. It can be useful to help you sort and arrange them into groups or projects as well. You may wonder where you would ever use this, but scroll to the bottom of the article for an example where this would be good to use.

Here is a simple way to use Windows Explorer to rename files in bulk:

In Windows, open Windows Explorer
Browse to the location of the files
Select the files that you want to rename (either use the shift key and click the first and last files to select a sequential block, or use the CTRL key and click on each separate file you want to include)
On one of the files click with the right mouse button and from the from the down menu select "Rename", or just press F2
Type the new file name you want to use and press enter
Windows Explorer will then rename all of the selected files with the new file name and append each one with a unique sequential number to differentiate the files

Where would this be useful?

Let's say you have had a party at the weekend and you have taken lots of pictures.

You could upload the pictures to a folder and instead of them all being a generic file name and number for the pictures such as:

IMG_3892.JPG
IMG_3893.JPG
IMG_3894.JPG
IMG_3895.JPG

And change them to something more meaningful such as:

240302_Housewarming1.JPG
240302_Housewarming2.JPG
240302_Housewarming3.JPG
240302_Housewarming4.JPG

Whereby we have used the reverse date format (240302 equates to 2nd March 2024), what the event was, so a housewarming and then the sequential images, which should be in the order they were taken.

Tech Tip : Maximise Your Window Laptop Battery Life

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that you can configure different power plans on your laptop so you can optimise your battery life, depending on your usage?

You can optimise the power plans for your laptop and tune them to usage, so you can extend the battery life if you need to prolong usage, but require less processing power, or sacrifice battery charge to maximise performance for intensive activity.

Here is how to do it:

In Windows, right click on the battery icon (typically bottom right corner of the taskbar
Select Power Options
Alternately, open Control Panel, at the top right hand corner change the view to small icons, then select Power Options
Here you can find three pre-configured power plans, which are
- Balanced (Recommended) which is the default
- Power Saver
- High Performance
You can create your own plan tailored to your requirements if the above three are not suitable, you can choose from settings such as:
- Modifying the sleep timers (when the computer hibernates)
- Screen Brightness (which can be a significant drain on the battery)
- Processor power
Once you have it optimised for your needs, you can save it and use that configuration

Remember, you can switch your profile at any time to optimise the performance and balance this with power consumption.

Tech Tip : How To Use Windows Task Scheduler to Automate Tasks

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Are there things you find yourself doing on your computer over and over, repetitive things that take time but could be automated?

Here is how to do it....

Open Windows
Click start
In the search box type Task Scheduler and then open it
When it opens you can select Create Basic Task or Create Task
In this example we are using Create Basic Task, once it has been clicked it starts a Wizard
Give the Basic Task a name then click Next
Select when the task needs to trigger from the options which are:
- Daily
- Weekly
- Monthly
- One time
- When the computer starts
- When I log on
- When a specific event is logged
In this case we are going to open an application "When I log on", then click Next
On the Action page select what you want to happen:
- Start a program
- Send an email
- Display a message
In this example we are going to launch an application so selected "Start a program"
You will now need to browse for the program to launch, in this example we will select Outlook.exe to launch the email client. To speed things along, instead of browsing trying to find the application, click the Start button, find the application you want to use, click with the right mouse button and select "Open file location". Once Explorer has opened the file location, right click on the application and select "Copy as path" and then paste this into the Task Wizard in the Program/Script box.
Add any arguments (parameters) and where you want the application to start - leave both blank if you are unsure, then click Next
Then click Finish to add the task to your Task Schedule.

In this case each time I log on to the computer now, Outlook will be launched automatically by the Task Scheduler.

Tech Tip : How To Access Special Characters And Symbols Easily

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Are there times when you are writing a Word document and you need to insert a special character or symbol into the text?

If you are like me, you may have spent loads of time looking for the insert symbol option, then having to wade through screen after screen of different characters and symbols, its enough to put you off!

Instead of going through all of that, here's a quick, easy way to do it instead:

In Windows, click the search box (or click Start and just start typing) and enter Character Map and open the application
This opens a separate application that displays all of the special characters and symbols on the PC
You can even select multiple characters and symbols, stack them in a Characters to Copy box to save you copying each character or symbol, one at a time
You can search for characters and symbols that you want to copy and insert into you document, spreadsheet, email or presentation and you can quickly and easily switch between applications all whilst keeping the tool open

This really helps save time, especially if you are working on a document or presentation that requires a lot of different special symbols or characters, have a play with it and see if it helps speed up your work.

Tech Tip : Use Tech To Help Others By Showing Rather Than Explaining

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever found yourself trying to help someone with a computer issue who are less tech savvy than you and no matter how hard you try to explain the solution, the person you are helping just doesn't get it?

It can be really hard to explain to someone where settings are, or how to perform a task, especially if the person you explaining things to is not comfortable with what they are trying to do. Just think of times where you have had that phone call from someone asking for help, and that sinking feeling you get when you know you have to try to explain to them how to do something and you know that it will be a VERY long call.

Remember the saying a picture paints a thousand words? Well in this case steps recorder can save a thousands minutes of phone support!

Here is a tip on how to record what you are doing so showing replaces explaining by using Steps Recorder. Steps recorder will capture what you are doing on screen as a series of steps, showing what it thinks are prudent images that it captures as you go through what you are doing. You can also add additional information by adding comments on each step. The recipient can then also run through the output as a series of slides, so they can see as well as read how to do certain things. Steps recorder

Here is how to do it:

When you are in windows click on the Start Button
Type steps recorder and select and launch the application from the start menu
On the steps recorder application, click the Start Record button which will then record everything you do in Windows
Carry out all of the things you want to record and then click Stop and Review
This will open a timeline of the recording with images of what you were doing.
You are offered three options which are:
- Review the recorded steps
- Review the recorded steps as a slideshow
- Review the additional details
Clicking on Review the recorded steps takes you to each step and you have the option to add a comment. This makes it easier to explain what you are doing
Review the recorded steps as a slideshow does exactly what it says, shows the output as a series of slides
Review the additional details take you to a summary of what took place during the recording, at each step of the way.
Clicking on Save will save the recorded steps as a ZIP file that you can email or share with the intended recipient. The main reason it uses a ZIP file as the output is that it is compressed and also a format that most organisations allow through email filtering
If you open the ZIP file, you will see a singe file inside which is an MHT file, which is a browser archive file, so double clicking on the file will open it in your preferred internet browser, allowing you to see the content

Have a go with the tool and see how useful it is for sharing information with others

Tech Tip : Quickly Restore Accidentally Closed Files in File Explorer

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever been working on a file, been distracted and closed it accidentally? Have you then struggled to find the file again because it was buried in a deep folder structure?

Here is a tip on using Explorer to find your recent file quickly and easily:

In Microsoft Windows, right click on the Windows Explorer icon on the task bar
From the menu that pops up, look under the Frequent or Recent lists to find the folder your file is in
This constantly updates, allowing you to keep an eye on where you have been working

Give it a try and see if it helps your day to day work

Tech Tip : Enable Clipboard History for Easy Access to Multiple Clipboard Items

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Do you use a lot of copying or cutting and pasting in your role and are there times when you wish you could do it more than one item at a time without having to go back and recopy something you have previously used?

Did you know you can turn on history in MS Clipboard so you can keep a list of previously copied items that can be reused again later, without needing to go back to the source item and recopy it?

Here is how to do it:

In Microsoft Windows, open clipboard (you can do this by pressing the Windows key + V)
If it is the first time you have been into the clipboard this way, you will see a button offering to enable clipboard history, click it, it's that simple
If you have been into the clipboard before, you will need to go into the settings and turn it on using the toggle switch
Now it's enabled, each time you copy something to the clipboard, it will remain in the items list until you clear the history
You can now open the clipboard and select anything that has been copied since enabling history in a list, select the item you want and it will be pasted into your application
To clear the clipboard history, press Windows + V and look for the Clear History

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