Public WiFi Security - Why you need to be vigilant

These days, it’s not uncommon for us to connect to Wi-Fi wherever we go, especially over the Festive season when you are out and about. In fact, we’ve come to expect there will be a Wi-Fi connection at hotels, coffee shops, airports, and now even on some flights, so pretty much everywhere! 

While the ability to connect to the internet to check your emails or Facebook is convenient, it also has opened the door for hackers to gain access to our personal information. By connecting to a public, unsecured network, wherever you are, you run the risk of having your sensitive data hacked.

While it may seem strange to worry about the bad guys snatching our personal information from what seems to be thin air, unfortunately it is more common than we think.

Basic Connection Tips:

• Turn off Wi-Fi. When you’re not using your Wi-Fi connection on any of your devices, it’s good practice to turn it off. That way it won’t automatically connect to any Wi-Fi that is in the area. Mobile devices will help save your battery life if your WiFi is off since your mobile will not be constantly searching for an available Wi-Fi connection.
• Only connect to secure connections and save your sensitive searching for home. Make sure that any network you connect to away from home, such as those in cafes and hotels, are secure. You can tell when a network is not secured because you will see a message when you connect saying that you are “connecting to an unsecured network.” And if you are using an unsecured network, do not shop online or access any of your personal and financial sites.
• Only use HTTPS. HTTPS, or hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) with secure sockets layer (SSL, hence the S after HTTP), is a more secure option set up by a website owner who knows security is essential. Look for “HTTPS://” in the address bar to signify you are on a secure page. Even on an open, unsecured wireless connection, HTTPS is more secure than HTTP.
• On your Mobile only use Official Apps for Facebook, Twitter and Banking as these have inbuilt security. For Banking it is advisable to wait until you are on a secure network.

These are a few tips that we recommend, please feel free to phone or email us for any further advice. 

OneDrive - How to Keep your free 15 GB of Storage

In November, Microsoft made significant changes to its OneDrive storage plans that ended up limiting the amount of storage available to most users.

Storage that you got for free as part of the service will be reduced from 15GB to 5GB. Users obviously are not very happy with this decision, especially if they use OneDrive for photo uploads.

Luckily, Microsoft had a slight change of heart, and as a concession for those users, the OneDrive Team is offering the opportunity to opt-in until January 31st, 2016 to keep it.

Keep Your Free 15 GB of OneDrive Storage

Go to https://preview.onedrive.com/bonus/ then click on Keep your free storage.

You will now have your base 15 GBs of storage in addition to 15 GBs for your camera roll.

This is great news for free users of OneDrive and makes the idea of saving all of your photos videos to OneDrive relevant again. 

However, Microsoft are not bringing back unlimited storage, but if you have an Office 365 subscription, you get a 1TB as part of the package. If you get the Office 365 family plan you get five accounts, and each of those accounts gets 1 TB of OneDrive storage. For the average user, this should be more than enough storage space.

It’s worth repeating: You have to sign up to keep your Free 15GB of OneDrive Storage before January 31st, 2016. Make sure you get it right away, it  takes two seconds to secure it.

Windows 10 - December Update

The excitement may have died down somewhat, but the free Windows 10 upgrade is something Microsoft are still offering. Windows 7 or Windows 8 can get your hands on Microsoft’s latest software absolutely free of charge. The free Windows 10 upgrade is a smart move for both users and Microsoft. 

We are getting on average every 1 in 6 customers who've upgraded to Windows 10 coming in with big problems. Most of the time we can safely return your PC to its original Windows 7 or 8 state, but worst case scenario we need to re-build your computer.

Why might I have problems upgrading?

Your computer may be compatible, but there may be drivers missing and drivers are what keeps your hardware and software communicating between each other.  Some software may be incompatible with Windows 10, meaning that when you upgrade, your favourite game or accounting package fail to work anymore, again causing big problems

Should I upgrade yet?

We advise to hold out a couple more months and wait for another major Windows 10 update, which will hopefully iron out some bugs and make your move to Windows 10 as smooth as possible.

We are more than happy to advise on whether to upgrade or not, so call us or pop into our workshop for some advice.   

Slow WiFi? It's probably your fairy lights

You know how it is, you put up your tree, stick up some baubles and fairy lights, then sit back and relax in a christmasy glow. But then, as you go to stream Christmas films online, it takes forever because your WiFi is horribly slow. .

Sure, this sounds like a load of rubbish, but it genuinely isn't. Ofcom did some tests that prove it does. In fact, around six million homes and offices could improve their broadband connection because they've set up things that interfere with their signal.

Ofcom say: “the app tests the Wi-Fi set-up and, if it finds a problem, will provide some troubleshooting tips to help improve broadband. For example, it may suggest you: move your router away from electrical devices: Halogen lamps, electrical dimmer switches, stereo or computer speakers, fairy lights, TVs and monitors and AC power cords have all been known to cause interference to broadband routers. Keep your router as far away as possible from other electrical devices as well as those which emit wireless signals such as baby monitors etc.”

“Move your router to a different part of your home: The walls and furniture in your house act as an obstacle to the Wi-Fi radio frequencies. Ideally routers should be kept centrally within the home and placed on a table or shelf rather than on the floor”

If the WiFi signal still doesn't improve, talk to us about our ENTERPRISE WIFI SOLUTIONS ! 

Ho! Ho! Ho!