Hackers and Crackers

Most people refer to individuals who gain unauthorised access to websites, email accounts, bank accounts and online profiles as ‘hackers’.  That’s not accurate and, if you’re talking to someone who deals with technology, you may find serious miscommunication going on!...

The cost of open source software

Although the giants of software, like Microsoft, have a stranglehold on our desktops, most people have heard of open source software.  These are applications that have been developed and are free to use.  You may have heard of Linux and Open Office (the alternative to...

Climbing the search engine rankings

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a bit of a black art. The major search engines change their algorithms weekly, sometimes daily, so it’s hard to keep up. Here are a few basics to ensure you get your website as far up the ranking as possible without investing the...

Clever phone systems with competitive edge

We installed an internet phone system for a client recently, replacing a previous phone system. They were concerned about the work that would go into programming all the phones in the company with their frequently used numbers – their previous system required each...

Who goes there?

In all the best children’s stories the giant demands ‘Who goes there?’ and you need the password to get by.  Today we all have dozens and dozens of places for which we need passwords.  It’s impossible to remember them all – and it’s...

Do technical support helplines give you a headache?

When your broadband goes down and rebooting hasn’t worked you’re faced with calling ‘technical support’, that can be the beginning of a long, frustrating and sometimes expensive, phone call.  It isn’t what you want to spend all day doing...