If you have more than one computer or a computer and a mobile device such as an iPhone does it frustrate you that you can’t access your information, files, email on the device of your choice?

Increasingly we want to be able to access and use files and edit information stored on different devices that we own.  We’d also like that information to sychronised across these devices so not matter which device we use we see the same view of the data.  Until recently this was quite challenging to achieve and very expensive.  However, massive improvements have been made over the last couple of years that now make this reasonably straightforward and cost effective to achieve.

How would you like to be able to see your email, appointments and tasks via the internet, your desktop, your laptop and your mobile phone?  How would you like to be able to reply to email from any of these devices and have that reply reflected across all those machines instantly?

Depending on your requirements you can achieve this using free tools provided by Google or for a more elegant solution take advantage of a remote Exchange Server service offered by a third party for less than £10.00 per month.

What about being able to access your documents, spreadsheets and presentations wherever you happen to be?  What if you need to make changes to them or email them to someone when you happen to be out?  Believe it or not this can be achieved at a very low cost and in most cases without buying any additional software.  There are a number of services that provide this capability our current favourite being dropbox.

With the right solution you can even access your mail, files, music etc. safely and securely on any internet enabled computer anywhere in the world.

It is quite possbile to set up your computer technology to achieve all of this yourself, but, as with anything in life it is much easier, and dare we say safer, to use the services of a business that specialises in configuring remote computing and mobile network solutions.

We offer such a service for individuals and small (server less) businesses that wish to take advantage of the massive advantages that these solutions provide in terms of convenience and efficency.  To find out more why not talk to us today to discuss your requirements.

Need help to fix computer problems?  Be it hardware or software we are able to lend a hand  As more and more of our electronic devices share our wireless networks and broadband connections the challenges of making everything work together seamlessly grow more complex.  We specialise in helping our customers to:

• Fix Computer Problems
• Upgrade Hardware & Software
• Install & Correctly Configure WiFi Routers and Modems
• Remove Viruses, Malware & Spyware whilst minimizing the risk of re-occurrence
• Ensure their data is fully protected and backed up appropriately
• Configure networks to allow multiple devices to share and synchronize data.
• And many, many other services.

Please call us on 01258 858466 to discuss a specific solution and we’d be glad to tell you if or how we can help.  We offer a very competitive priced service which can include remote support.  We guarantee to fix computer problems
or you don’t pay.

Do you need a computer health check? When your computer is new it is properly setup and has very little software installed and as a result it works very efficiently. Over time software is added, updated and removed and this process causes the computer to slow and it’s performance to suffer. Your computer is also subject to infiltration by virus, spyware, trojans etc. all of which impact performance. In this article we look at 6 ways to improve your computers performance.

Computer Health Check Tip 1

Spring Clean – Like me I’m sure you install software to try it out or have software installed that you no longer use. We often neglect to remove this from our computer which can lead to significant effect on performance. We recommend you review software installations twice per year removing any old and/or no longer used programs.

Computer Health Check Tip 2

Windows Registry – The registry holds many of the vital files needed to run your PC. Unfortunately many programs leave behind bits of code that are no longer needed when software updates are carried out and when programs are removed. Over time the strain really tells and a poorly optimized registry file can bring your computer to a virtual halt. A registry repair tool is an excellent way to return the registry to health and one of the best is available free of cost. It is called ccleaner and it is simple to use but very powerful. You should however exercise extreme caution as should essential files be removed by mistake it can lead to an unusable computer.

Computer Health Check Tip 3

Computer Pests – Unfortunately, if you use the internet, your computer is under threat on a daily basis from viruses, spyware, malware, trojans and various other malicious code. These pests often reside on your computer unnoticed and can have a dramatic affect on your machines performance. Make sure you have appropriate software installed to combat these threats. One of the best solutions for those requiring a simple solution is Norton Internet Security 2011

Computer Health Check Tip 4

Startup Programs – One of the biggest causes of a slow computer is the number of programs that load automatically when you first turn on your computer. There is no real friendly way to manage these which is freely available. They are all a bit techy. The best is called WinPatrol but you do need to understand what you are doing when making any changes as you can easily create more problems than you solve. Probably the best way to manage startup programs is to make sure you remove any software from your computer that you no longer use. That way you know anything that does load when the computer is turned on is genuinely needed.

Computer Health Check Tip 5

Fragmented Disk – Essentially your disk drive is very lazy. When data gets saved rather than keep it in chronological order (like a book) it saves it wherever it feels like. This means the data is broken into a number of smaller pieces and scattered all over the place. When you want to access that data your disk drive has to track it down and put all the pieces back together again which can take a lot of additional time. To keep your disk drive in optimum health you should run a disk defragmentation utility. Auslogics provides an excellent free utility to carry out this task called, funnily enough, Disk Defrag.

Computer Health Check Tip 6

Insufficient Memory – With software becoming ever more complex and powerful the computing power required to run programs at an acceptable speed requires upgrading every 3-5 years. That said many home computers lack sufficient memory to perform at their full capacity. These days memory is very cheap and this is an inexpensive purchase that can give new life to an aging PC. To find out what memory you need check out Crucial who will help to ensure you buy the right memory for your machine.

Computer Health Check Summary

If you have not previously implemented some or all of the above suggestions then doing so should dramatically improve the performance of your PC. I have attempted to put this information in none technical terms and I hope it enables you to diagnose and solve basic performance problems making a noticeable improvement in your computers health.

If you think your pc  might benefit from a computer health check then please do not hesitate to give me a ring on 01258 858466 to discuss your requirements.

If you have never lost any computer data or wished you could recover an older version of a document you have overwritten then you have been very lucky in deed.  Having had more than one computer failure and lost many documents in the past I am eternally grateful that I was taught early on in my IT career of the value of regular data backups.

What would you do if somebody stole your computer and you lost all you data?  Maybe you’re reading this article because that is what has happened to you.  It doesn’t bear thinking about yet many home computer users have never taken a computer backup nor fully appreciate the importance of doing so.  Worse still, many have made backups only to find out that they cannot then restore the data because of missing disks, compatibility issues or incorrect backup choices.

A sensible backup strategy comprises of 3 components, a drive image which allows you to rescue all the data on your hard drive, a file backup allowing individual files to be recovered as and when needed and an online file backup needed in case someone makes off with your computer.

I honestly believe it should be mandatory to backup data if you own a computer but if you are not technically minded choosing the right solution and ensuring it works correctly is a minefield.  If you want peace of mind and the knowledge that you are guaranteed to be able to recover data in the event of a system failure or just accidental deletion of data; then take advantage of a disaster recovery service provided by a local IT firm.

There are many programs available for purchase that help us to protect data but many have serious shortcomings that can leave you spitting teeth when you need them most.

Take for example the backup facility that comes with Windows 7.  This looks a great tool.  It backs up quickly, efficiently and is pretty simple to use.  However, if you hard drive fails and you need to restore data it is likely to present a huge raft of problems unless you have an identical hard drive on which to restore the data.  If the replacement drive is made by a different manufacturer, is of a different capacity then any attempted restore may well fail.

If you’d like another example, one of the best selling backup programs is Acronis True Image.  It was a great program, I used it personally, but check out the reviews on Amazon for the latest version and you will see it is now beset with problems making it a desperate choice for many.  When testing it on my own computer not only did it crash continually, it corrupted my hard drive and didn’t uninstall correctly

What is Needed to Backup Data?

• Backup Software
• An External Disk Drive
• An online backup service