Is Your PC Fully Recoverable?

It is a sad fact that the only people who prick up their ears and actually listen when I start talking about data loss and its prevention are those who have previously experienced the loss of a hard drive.  They KNOW the hassle involved and they really never want to go through it all again.  Everyone else just thinks I must be exaggerating – “ it can’t be that bad”. Well, believe me, it can! The first reaction I get when I mention backups is either a blank stare because my listener  doesn’t know what I’m even talking about, or, the more... Read more...

 

 

Just Installing AV software isn’t good enough

There are undoubtedly millions of computer users around the world who use a computer at work, at home, pretty much every day and have never had a virus!  Unfortunately, there are just as many millions who have experienced this ‘joy’ first hand.  And of those who have, many of them will have experienced more than one virus – possibly dozens. So what exactly is a computer virus, how do I catch it and, more to the point, how do I get rid of it and avoid catching more? What do I really need to know about ‘safe computing’? Firstly, let me say that... Read more...

 

 

Why Strong Passwords Really Matter

The recent publicity surrounding A-list celebrities having private pictures from their iPhone put on public display for all to see, just serves to highlight once again the downside of the ‘Cloud Computing’ model we are all being encouraged to adopt. This was an iCloud hack, so the pictures were only accessible because the celebrities concerned had synchronised their iPhone with iCloud.  But isn’t that what most of us do? That’s the whole point of it, isn’t it? The thing that they wouldn’t have known was that only 24 hours before the pictures... Read more...

 

 

Get used to it. This is the new normal

It seems to be impossible to read – or watch – the News these days without coming across some major new cyber-security warning urging you to take action now to protect your computer, or your data, or your money, or your identity, or something else, from imminent threat of theft, or worse. Now the problem is – the more you see these articles the more you just  ignore them!   This is because the threat is often described in technical language and it’s not clear what you are actually being asked to do  or,  you didn’t do... Read more...

 

 

About three-quarters of our callouts are software issues

If I look at the causes of IT failure which result in a callout to Si29 Computer Services for help, less than 15 % of all our callouts are caused by failing hardware, while about 20% are down to Internet connectivity or other networking issues and then, a staggering 70% or more of all problems we get are caused by some kind of software failure.   Of all these software-related problems, nearly half of them are caused by unintended downloading of rogue software (malware) or some form of virus / trojan infection. Now, while we all know that... Read more...