CST News
The Windows XP rush has at last shown signs of slowing down. This has let the guys in the workshop draw a breath and take stock of what has been happening. Personally, I think we should have one of these events every year – it would do wonders for our turnover. But I think our customers might object.
Winter is not too far away with the evenings drawing in quickly now and fires on many nights now. Sue and I have a long weekend planned for the end of the month. A few days in Te Anau before the weather gets really cold will be a good battery recharge.
Sue has been really busy since we have just pulled out of Kip McGrath in Dunedin and moved to In2Learning. Keep an eye out for Sue’s car round town – she has just had it signwritten and is really pleased with the look. As well, we had an In2Learning meeting in Gore earlier this month, Sue had an Irlens training in Invercargill last weekend and we had a grand daughter’s 2nd birthday earlier in the month. Life seems to continue to be busy.
I continue to do a bit of teaching at Telford and in fact have picked up a few more hours. Hopefully next semester will see a few less again so that I can concentrate a bit on helping the team here. I am really lucky to have such a great staff that I can do things like the teaching.
It has been interesting at both CST and ProSouth to receive an increased amount of customer feedback recently. What is more interesting is that the feedback for both businesses has been really positive – customers who have taken the time to get in contact and comment on the great service of the staff. This is really rewarding for all of us.
“This is one happy customer after changing to Windows 7. I am delighted to be able to follow it relatively easily. Also enjoying the extended capabilities of the programme, even though I still have a lot to learn.
Thank you to Blake who is able to explain the systems in layman language” Sheila 16 April.
XP Runout
As I mentioned, the XP runout rush appears to be slowing. For those of you who have not yet done anything about it, a small, easy to read article here is worth a look.
It is also worth mentioning a couple of other things:
- At the same time as XP was put on the back burner, Microsoft also made Office 2003 end of line. This means that problems with any Office 2003 product will not be patched and phone and other support also ceased.
- Other “third party” software such as antivirus products, pdf readers etc will not be updated for XP. So it is not just XP you need to worry about.
- The first known vulnerability in XP has not been patched already which means that non upgraded systems are already at risk and will continue to become more and more at risk.
Scam Calls
The scammers are doing the rounds again – I had a call the other night. They offer to “fix” your computer because it is sending them mail. They will ask to get access to your computer and then take over. Goodness knows what they will do but they could leave behind a little programme (which you would not even know) which will record every keyboard stroke and report them back to whoever these clowns are. This means that they will have access to your PINS and other sensitive data stored on your computer.
Do NOT give anyone access to your computer unless you know who they are.
If you have let these ferals in, I would suggest you turn your computer off and let our guys have a look through to see if they can find anything that might have been left behind.
Making Symbols With The Keyboard
Have you ever wondered how to make those fancy symbols like hearts and such things. Try some of these.
Cryptolocker
We have had another really interesting nasty last week. This is a virus called cryptolocker. It usually enters your system disguised as a PDF or ZIP attachment.
What it does is encrypt all the data files on your computer so that you cannot access them – documents, spreadsheets, pdf’s, pictures and lots more. They are encrypted so tightly that they are impossible to unencrypt unless you pay the ransom fee demanded by the people who are releasing this nasty. This ranges from $US100 to $US500!
What my experts tell me is that it is very easy to uninstall this horrible beast but unfortunately that does NOT fix the problem – data files are still locked up.
What we finished up doing, both in the Balclutha and Dunedin workshops was cleaning the whole drive off, reinstalling Windows and all the customers’ other software and then restoring the data off a backup.
This is another situation where we stress the importance of doing regular backups for data you wish to keep.
Backing Up Data
This of course brings up the regular item about backups. Fortunately the customer mentioned above had done backups and so restoring the data was not difficult. However we have been involved with lots of cases where the result has been nowhere near as good.
There are lots of options available today to back up data – most are not very expensive these days.
The simplest option is to back up to a portable hard drive. These are relatively inexpensive today and give you total control over your data.
Another option is to back up to the cloud. This can be set up on free storage space and is available anywhere in the world where you have internet access. So using this, photos can be uploaded and the password to the cloud account shared with family in Australia or the UK or wherever.
The drawback of the cloud for some is that you do not control your data. This is the Dotcom saga – people who stored stuff on Mr Dotcom’s cloud lost it when all that trouble blew up. But 99.99% of cloud storage is reputable and reliable.
Understanding Women
Some Simple Tips To Make Your Cellphone Battery Last Longer
Smartphone batteries are notorious for draining at a rate that leaves many puzzled. You’ve only been using it to text, make a few phone calls, and play a few games, so why can’t it last longer than a day?
The answer lies in the fact that smartphones are doing more than phones have ever had to do before. That’s obvious. But it’s precisely because they’re doing more that the rate of energy consumption has skyrocketed. Phone batteries can only cope with so much activity before they’re down and out for the day.
So if you don’t want to carry an unwieldy phone charger around with you in the hopes that there’ll be a plug or USB port nearby, follow these simple tips to make your smartphone battery last longer between pit stops.
1. Tone down the display backlighting
Having a display back-lit screen that can be seen 50 miles away on a clear day is an unnecessary drain on your smartphone’s power. Usually the level of intensity is left as-is when your smartphone comes out of its box, as people think it’s simply normal to have it at that brightness. Consider changing the display backlighting to a more moderate level (usually found under ‘Settings’), to reduce energy consumption and make it easier on your eyes.
2. Turn off Push notifications
These are the things that pop up immediately on the main screen, like email, text, and game notifications, and cause significant battery drain. If you’re running low on juice, turn ‘em off!
3. Turn off GPS and WiFi
Apps don’t really need location checks, and you don’t need WiFi when you’re eating or driving. Keep these two services off, and only turn them on when you need them, to save power.
4. Turn off Bluetooth
Just like GPS and WiFi – Bluetooth is a power hungry feature and if left on, will only drain your smartphones battery even faster.
5. Turn off vibrate
Vibrations actually use up more power than ringtones. The sounds produced by ringtones are just very tiny vibrations in your smartphone’s speaker. Compare that to the shaking of the entire phone via vibrating a smart weight, playing a ringtone definitely zaps less of your battery.
6. Turn off keyboard tones
Not only are they really annoying, they are just going to drain your battery the more you type – so just turn them off.
7. Close applications
Apps consume battery power as long as there open. Shut apps down if they’re not in use, including nonessential apps running in the background.
8. Delete useless apps
Go through your phone and delete the apps that you downloaded for a laugh, but never use (Lightsaber Sound Effects app, anyone?). Apps all share a portion of your phone’s processor cycles, and burn through a lot of energy, even when you’re not physically using them. For all the other apps that you keep, make sure they’re updated to the latest versions, which are often more energy efficient.
9. Keep the temperature down
Overheating destroys laptops and it can wreck your smartphone, too. Excess heat causes the charge level on the battery to drop, meaning less power is available. Keep your phone out of the sun, and away from your body.
Thought For The Day
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.