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Its end of Financial Year – Do you need a tax deduction? Purchase a 5-hour block support from us and save $165 on your next lot of support from us. Contact tim@jethromanagement.biz now for details.

Block Support Hours

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Our adhoc support cost is $121 inc GST / hour billed in 15 minute increments. For onsite call-outs we charge $143 for the first hour. Pre-purchase a minimum 5-hour block and we bill to closest 5 minute and the cost is only $440 for the 5 hours – saving of $165. Call out surcharges still apply where applicable. See all our rates and charges.

Contact us today if you want to pre-purchase before the EOFY.

Top Ten Tools for Any Startup

I recently wrote an article titled The Top Ten Tools for any Startup. It is relevant to probably all small and medium businesses regardless of their age.

Effectively I recommend the powerful Office 365 Business suite ads the primary productivity tool. Depending on your subscription level you should have access to these major products and if you are not using them you are missing out on some amazing tools.

  • Exchange Mail, Tasks, People and Calendar – Accessible Online, Outlook for desktop, Mail apps in PC and Mobiles – Includes enterprise features such as unlimited archiving* 50GB mailbox, shared calendars, delegate access to mail, calendar and tasks, shared mailboxes, Out of office messages and much more.
  • Yammer – enterprise level social network – separate subscription required*
  • One Drive – 1TB per user of file storage
  • SharePoint – document management, workflow, mailboxes, external sharing, real time document authoring collaboration and much more
  • Skype for Business - Professional meetings and collaboration—all integrated with your Office apps. Online meetings, messaging, calls and video with up to 250 people.
  • Online Office Apps – Excel, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote
  • Delve – monitors interactions between people and the information they use. It then applies machine learning to these interactions in order to determine what is most relevant. Read more about why Delve should be the centre of your office.
  • Video – create shared archive of video for your business, available online anywhere. Public or private.
  • Sway – visually creative online presentations created in minutes with no coding skill required.
  • Planner – online task management hub – I write more about this below.
  • PowerBi – extremely powerful way of visually analysing your data from accounting systems, sql servers, excel files, google analytics or many other data sources.

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See the full suite of Office 365 products.

*Some features are dependent on the subscription level.

Contact us if you need help configuring or using any of these applications. If you don’t have access we can check your subscription level and advise how to upgrade.

Excel Dashboards

clip_image005[3]A dashboard reporting system is a fantastic way of quickly demonstrating trends in company financial, production or human resource data. Many employees spend hours and sometimes even days a month creating reports like this. I have spent months in some organisations automating these to be generated automatically in order to save valuable employee time.

If you want to create visually engaging dynamic reports like the one pictured, then you need Charley Kyd’s Excel Dashboard tool.

I have been an affiliate for Charley Kyd’s Excel Dashboard reporting tools for years. If you want to create professional dashboard reports in Excel 2007 and above, then check out his deals.

Contact us today if you need help purchasing or using the Excel Dashboards.

Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950XL Available at Telstra and Harvey Norman

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Microsoft’s flagship mobile phone the Lumia 950 and 950XL are now both available from Telstra. They have been available at Harvey Norman for over 6 months as well as the Microsoft Store. Right now Harvey Norman have them on a sale, $400 cheaper than when I bought mine!

Contact us today if you want to know more about Business Phones

Follow Us On Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces, then connect with me:

Once again malware, Trojans, web browser redirections and unwanted pop ups are the flavour of the month. We have been removing a steady stream of Trojans and cryptoware from clients PCS. A somewhat common source seems to be gumtree. Many of our customers who have been infected use gumtree regularly and we all know they have had many issues in the past. While not pointing the finger at them directly it seems likely that these or other similar sites loaded with sidebar ads have been infected with malware.

If you see pops up your screen asking you to call a number for immediate removal, then contact us – DO NOT CALL the number!

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Skype for Business Web Experience in Office 365

You can now launch and perform some basic Skype for Business tasks right from your navigation bar in Outlook on the web for business (Outlook Web App) in Office 365.

New features include:

  • Launch Skype for Business from the navigation bar
  • Search for people in your organization
  • View your contacts list
  • Start a conversation
  • View your active conversations
  • Leave a conversation

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We can help you understand and use these new features, and take advantage of the benefits of accessing your office online wherever you are.

Get more detailed information about the new Skype for Business Web Experience.

Talk to us about the Office 365 Features you are not currently using and How you Can Benefit from Them

Moving from Evernote to OneNote

We use both Evernote and OneNote extensively and have a lot of experience with using both for individuals and teams.

If you are using Evernote then you may well have come across some of its limitations, including cost for premium product, no free form drawing, backups and other things where OneNote excels.

OneNote and Evernote are similar in many ways, but we think you’ll appreciate the advantages OneNote has to offer, including a free-form canvas where you can mix text, images, documents, handwriting, audio, video and more; free offline access; and unlimited monthly uploads.

Microsoft has now released an import tool to help you migrate. The OneNote Importer tool (for Windows initially) migrates all of your Evernote content into OneNote, giving you the opportunity to switch to OneNote and have all your notes in one place, on all your devices. They will deliver the Importer tool for Mac in the coming months.

More information and download the Evernote to OneNote importer.

If you want any more information on any of these features, how to use them or how they might affect you please contact us

Modern PCs

What is a modern PC? While not necessarily relating to form factors, there are plenty of new form factors around including 2-in-ones, tablets such as Surface and smaller tablet devices.

Let’s start with what is not a modern PC.

In the last 3-4 years a pc you bought would likely have been a tower PC desktop box, a thick and chunky laptop with not a lot of battery life – or you had to spend a lot of money to get a sexy thin one.

Now however we have available to us thin light tablets and laptops, incredibly long battery life and small form factor desktops.

A modern PC has these general characteristics:

  • Thin, light and sexy designs
    • Carbon, aluminium and shiny surfaces
    • Massive screen resolutions – all the way up to 4K screens
    • Touch screens, touchpads and keyboards with multiple functions and capability for swiping and gestures etc.
  • Hardware capability security features like facial recognition, voice recognition and so on (biometrics).
  • Great battery life. Full stop. A modern device should get 6 hours or more – no more playing 2/3rds of a DVD before your battery runs out on the plane!

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Most of these things are built around the new Intel 5th and 6th generation chips along with UEFI hardware security features. These new chips support the great innovations being delivered by Microsoft through Windows 10 – now being delivered as soon as they are designed through the new operating system update features. These include the enhancements to battery life and performance that give us these amazing results.

So if you are not getting these things then you don’t have a modern PC.

BUT - BEWARE. Most of the PC retailers are not telling you these things. They are shifting units in volume, and they have lots of stock left of old PCS. They are shifting them out for cheap prices and many people are being sucked into buying them thinking they are getting a good deal. Many of these units currently on sale are effectively sporting hardware that is 2-3 years old inside. It is already one cycle out of date.

If you are getting near to an update or refresh of your hardware, or frustrated with the speed, battery life, low screen resolution of your current unit, then please talk to us first. We can easily and quickly let you know if the devices you are looking at are a good idea or not. Make sure you future proof your purchase to give you at least a 3 year life.

If you want any more information on how to identify whether the PC you are looking at is old or modern or just advice on what to buy please contact us

Note: We are also a Flexirent dealer and able to assist you to lease a new machine, or purchase it outright

Follow Us On Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces, then connect with me:

Today I thought I would update you on all the services we offer. Often people are surprised at just what we can do and outsourcing jobs to us is often a way to get things done more efficiently and cheaper. I have also included some Office 365 news as usual.

Outsource Your Tech Today

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We have been in business here in Australia for 20 years. Some of our staff have more than 25 years’ experience in computing and business. We have been active in the web since 1995. As a result, we have a significant skill set that you can take advantage of.

First some reasons why.

Can your business afford?

  • Missed sales and opportunities
  • Negative feedback – people talk about your business in social media
  • Wasted money

Common Mistakes of DIY

  • Buying unsuitable equipment on “special”
  • Incorrect licensing of software
  • Making the assumption the cloud is free
  • Untested backups, DR and BCP
  • Leaving it to untrained Gen Y staff
  • Inappropriate use of social media for business

Some of the products and services we can offer you

  • Advice – we employ professionals in these areas:
    • Business Architecture and Digital Strategy
    • Web Development and Design
    • SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
    • SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
    • SMM (Social Media Management)
    • Reputation and Brand Management
    • Photography and Graphic Design
    • Sys Admins and Database Experts
    • Office Productivity Gurus
    • Writing and Content Development
  • Hardware:
    • Computer sales, repairs and upgrades – from basic business PCs to high end graphic design and gaming PCs
    • Mobile devices (phones, tablets) – sales, upgrades and connection
    • Internet connection – ADSL, NBN and Mobile Broadband
    • Wired and Wireless Networks – design, installation and security– design, sales, installation and configuration, racks and data storage
  • Software
    • Office 365 connection, setup and installation
    • Data migration – office accounting systems into the cloud, data storage into cloud
    • Website development, new sites, upgrades, ecommerce platforms, integration to store
    • Social Media - policy, setup and account management
    • Excel VBA development – spreadsheet design, automation, reporting tools and budgets
  • Training
    • Microsoft Office training – productivity and efficiency gains guaranteed
    • Website management
    • Social Media Use and Management

Talk to us about significant advantages to your business by OUTSOURCING YOUR TECH

Office 365 News

Using Skype for Business? If not why? Either way here are 8 features you didn’t know you needed for online meetings.

New Feature: Filtering common malicious attachment types in Email. Learn more about creating organisation wide settings to limit attachments of malicious file types. Ask us if you want this feature enabled.

Upgraded feature: The People Profile experience is being updated in Office 365. We are already using the new profile pages and it is a definite improvement when working with Delve. Ask us about how to improve your organisations information usage and sharing.

New feature: Integrate Dropbox into your Office 365 online experience. Ask us to talk through and plan this upgrade if you are heavy users of Dropbox.

Office 365 is changing all the time, schedule your free 6 monthly audit with us to see how you can take advantage of the tools that are available in your subscription

Follow Us On Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces, then connect with me:

Last week I promised to talk about viruses – but I ran out of time and space. I have included a section today for you. Hopefully you are protected against these serious threats to your business.

Also there are less than 2 weeks to our seminar with Richard Bowles. Please register your interest by return email so we can secure the right venue for the number of people coming. This will be a great day of working on your business and not just in it.

As always I am available to respond to your requests and queries and provide you with answers.

Viruses are a Serious Business Threat

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Have you ever been hit by a computer virus? If you have you will know just how annoying they can be. Even the “non-malicious” ones can suck away time by popping up ads, redirecting your browser or just slowing your computer down.

In this short summary I will identify the main types, causes and protection against malware and viruses.

Virus Types

First of all this is more than just viruses as a technical definition. I have included all the potential threats that can be injected into your computer against your will (either by someone else or by yourself accidentally). I have also summarised them by the threat result not the signature or type as defined by the security experts.

Browser Redirect

This is where your browser settings are hijacked and when you type in a web address your browser sends you somewhere else. It may also include pop ups and potentially the sites that you are sent to won’t let you leave without clicking through a number of dialog boxes. Typically these come from an extension or add in that often was not deliberately installed.

Malware / Adware

These are usually “harmless” in that they don’t attack your system or data, but they do popup ads constantly when browsing. These are similar to the browser redirect but often they came in via some software that was deliberately installed and included unknown and unrequested additional software.

Data Attacks

These attacks are malicious in that they can overwrite data, lock data against use with ransom requests, or even delete data. Typically they are introduced via an attachment in an email.

System Attacks

I have grouped together here all the attack types that damage your system, including boot sector viruses, file infectors, directory viruses and so on.

How they come

The two main ways that viruses are injected into your computer are via an attachment in email or from an infected website.

In order to protect against either a complex layer of threat protection must exist. Stopping attacks before they can even be clicked on is the best form of defence.

Unfortunately many people use a mish-mash approach to threat protection. While an individual pc at home is reasonably isolated and an infection can be cut out fairly easily with usually minimal loss and cost, the same is not true in an office of connected PCs. One user who clicks on a payload that installs and then replicates over your network can have devastating effects on employee downtime, loss of data, cost to remove and rebuild machines, and subsequent protection.

Many businesses also play the “lets buy every protection we can get” game with multiple software based solutions including firewalls, internet protection software and antivirus software and so on. This is actually a false protection in many instances because these overlapping technologies create gaps and cracks, often caused by the users themselves “allowing” threats through.

In addition users are often the worst threat to a business by losing computers and mobile devices that are insecure, providing the recipients of the unlocked devices with legitimate access to the businesses data and IT systems, and in using insecure email applications to access mail.

Best Practice Protection for your Business

Microsoft are the leading computer and software provider in this space. The combined hardware and software layered approach to threat protection includes the following aspects:

Hardware

Bit locker is available to encrypt hard drives. A lost device is no longer something to worry about.

UEFI Secure boot. Windows 10 has introduced the ability to lock the boot process to secure OS only, reducing the chance that a corrupt OS (loaded with malware or viruses) can even execute.

Better passwords. Multi factor authentication is removing passwords altogether.

Mobile Device Management. Online management of all your mobile devices including remote wipe is possible with Office 365.

Software

In front of the business. Forefront security is provided in Exchange for all those using Office 365. Spam and Malware threats are removed before they can even come to an email user.

In the business. Outlook has a sandboxed approach to allowing access to attachments reducing the chance that an infected file can be even opened let alone do anything once it is opened by a user who ignores all the warnings.

Windows Defender provides real time attack management identifying and quarantining malicious files downloaded from the internet.

Internet Explorer contains a Smart Screen filter and other browsing enhancements designed to recognise and stop potential website injected threats from being accessed or deployed.

Afterwards

If you are attacked, then there are some things you can do. First remove the machine from your network immediately. Disconnect the network cable, or turn off the Wi-Fi. Better yet turn the machine off and deliver it to someone like us to clean.

Ensure you have a data recovery clause in your insurance policy. Check with your broker, these clauses normally cost nothing to insert and can cover you for at least $5ooo to restore data after an insurance claim for damage.

Summary

Businesses cannot legitimately ignore the real threats that malicious software can pose on their business.

A multi layered protection is necessary and that includes training users.

Using numerous different protection systems is usually worse not better.

Microsoft’s layered approach using Windows 10 modern devices, Office 365, Windows Defender and Internet Explorer provides the best possible defence system. Mac users are also protected by using Office 365 from spam and malware, but they are still open to website based attacks.

Contact us now if you need to determine if your business is secure against these threats. We can have an obligation free chat about your specific scenario and what you can do about it.

An Extremely Unique Opportunity By An Extreme Individual

20151003 rich bowles seminar invite 1Learn the latest strategies in mastering your own mind, so you can fully commit & engage in the goals that you have set for yourself.

Richard Bowles holds world records on pretty much every continent on the planet, running the world’s longest and most rugged mountain ranges spanning from 1000km to 5,500km in length. Running up to 95km a day for weeks at a time, while tackling some of the most hostile weather and demanding terrain that the world has to offer, while carry all that he needs on his back.

Crocodile infested waters, exploding volcano’s, angry farmers with shot guns and being in the centre of a middle eastern desert warzone under missile fire is all in a day’s work for Richard, all the time pushing through the mental and physical barriers to conquer his success.

Over the last five years he has worked with some of Australia’s leaders in psychology and human performance, unpacking his own huge achievements to explore what it takes to succeed at any goal that is set before you, no matter the challenges and adversity that will be faced.

As a commitment and engagement strategist Richard helps you understand what is vitally needed to gain the goals that you have set for yourself. From his in-depth research he helps you understand that, Goals guide us, they don’t drive us.

If you are looking at a plan that will see you bullet proof your commitment to what you set out to achieve, and have you working towards your goals with ease, dedication and without burnout, then this is a seminar not to be missed.

We are partnering with Richard Bowles in delivering this exclusive seminar here in Brisbane CBD on the 3rd October from 9AM to 1PM. The cost is $89 and we will have a venue and ticketing options available soon.

Contact us today if you want more information.

New Gen6 CPUs and Motherboards now available

As mentioned in a previous newsletter the Computer Resellers often attempt to offload old stock at discount prices to susceptible buyers. The Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 range of Intel chips are now in their 6th generation. The starting number of the chip name indicates the Generation. E.g. an Intel Core i5 6400 is a 6th Gen chip. If you are planning on buying a new computer there is no reason to purchase old technology as it will run slower, use more power and generate more heat. As the manufacturers improve the chips in each successive generation to use power more efficiently and produce more results so the capability of your machine improves. Saving $100 now can lead to hours of lost time “waiting” for your computer to catch up. It is also economically better to purchase a new machine now that will last for 4-5 years than an older machine that will last 2-3.

Talk to us today if you are in the market for new or replacement computers. We can sell all computer equipment and also provide financing if needed.

Free Business Digital Skills Webinars

Yes Free!

I will be running some digital skills webinars for free to any of our customers who would like to learn more about how to get the most out of their digital technology.

Each webinar will be aprox 20 minutes long and can be joined using a weblink. They will be run every 2-3 weeks on a Wednesday at 2pm. They will also be recorded and made available online.

Subjects will include:

· Mastering Email – tips and tricks for a zero inbox, reducing time spent in email and other shortcuts

· Basic Spreadsheet design

· Using OneDrive and SharePoint

· Understanding Social Media

· And more

Email me back on tim@jethromanagement.biz if you want to be added to the invite list. There is no obligation or cost to attend. You will need an invite link to join the webinar. I’ll add you to the list I already have and we will start once we have enough.

Social Media for Business

facebook_logo-200Social media is constantly changing and it can be hard to keep up. There are always new features being added to the major social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. Managing even 2 or 3 of these accounts for your business can make your life busy. And even if you have the “luxury” of delegating it to a staff member it can cause anxiety hoping they are doing it right.

Jethro has been active in managing social media accounts for many of our clients, from as little as creating the accounts and showing them how to use them to adding content and actively managing responses and engagement with customers. Just like you wouldn’t leave your phone ringing un-answered, so you should not leave comments and messages unanswered in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

We can establish networks relevant to your products and services, assist you to create and implement a social media strategy, run a one off campaign to improve engagement or around a specific event or just provide training for you or your staff in how to use these networks correctly for your situation.

If you want to talk more feel free to give me a call and discuss how we can help.

Follow us on Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces then connect with me:

All content © Tim Miller. Feel free to share or send these emails on. If you want to unsubscribe just reply with Unsubscribe in the subject.

Do NOT Upgrade Your Business PC to Windows 10 Yet

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There are several things that you must have right first. Of course you don’t have to have them right and you can ignore this warning and just go ahead and upgrade – your call. But I’m wanting to save you money so listen up!

I have now upgraded more than 10 machines including touch and non-touch laptops, various tablets, multiple screen PCs, single screen PCs, virtual machines and from a variety of Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 tech preview existing installs. None have had issues that couldn’t be solved. But there are some warnings in the list below. So either read carefully before proceeding or call us to manage tour upgrades in the best possible way to avoid disruption to your staff and customers.

Licensing – General Information

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Windows 10 is free to upgrade from qualifying Windows 7 or 8 versions. The version you are currently licensed with in Windows 7 or 8 is what will map to the version in Windows 10. The information provided by Microsoft is difficult to clearly figure out what is and isn’t the right way to do it – licensing has never been easy to understand and it’s still not. This website tells us exactly what is and isn’t qualifying, what it means for OEM licences.

Business licensing

Businesses should always be using the correct licence. Unfortunately many business owners go and buy a machine from a major retailer that is not correctly licensed for business. A home premium edition of Windows 7 or 8 will not translate into a Windows 10 Pro licence, and all businesses should be using Windows 10 Pro, not home. I won’t go into the significant differences here, but essentially to upgrade will require you to pay for the right license at some point. Either before upgrade, or after.

Installing v Upgrading

Upgrading an existing machine will use approx. 20 GB drive space, download approx. 3.5GB of data and is completely reversible. The process itself installs the operating system side by side so reverting to the old system can be done very quickly if there is a failure or some other reason to revert. The benefits include keeping all your existing programs and data, most settings and personalisation exactly the way they were before. The cons are the same. You may want a clean slate!

There is a tool that can be used to upgrade multiple machines with only a single download. This can be installed on a USB key and used to either upgrade or install machines.

A fresh install is possible, but requires a valid license to install. The product key isn’t needed – it just validates online afterwards.

User Accounts

This is probably the most important reason for businesses NOT TO UPGRADE to Windows 10 just yet.

If you are a standalone PC user who doesn’t have office 365 then ignore this section. If you have Office 365 or a server or business network DO NOT IGNORE THIS.

Authentication and security is one of the biggest reasons to use Windows 10. For businesses one of their single biggest points of risk is cyber security, stolen or hacked passwords, unauthorised access, crypto virus attacks, and other security threats. Can you imagine calling your insurance broker to advise that your staff members corporate laptop or phone has been lost or stolen and having this conversation?

  1. Is there confidential information on that device, e.g. email, customer data, credit card information, passwords or unsecure access to corporate data systems?
  2. Is the hard drive encrypted?
  3. Can it be remotely wiped?

It’s likely you answered Yes, No and No respectively. If so you may be in a lot of trouble. Possibly the best case scenario is that all that happens is that you get a massive premium hike. Worst case – they might refuse to accept a claim and if someone uses that information you could face a court case for failure to protect private information, being audited by your bank for your merchant processes, and potentially having your merchant facilities reviewed or cancelled (imagine trading without an EFTPOS machine).

Windows 10 is designed from the ground up to be more secure, and there are lots of new advancements. Some of these will not be noticeable until new hardware supporting it comes out in the future.

So the first thing most people are faced with when upgrading is to provide a user account and password. The big question is which one do you use?

You have potentially 4 choices

  • Microsoft Account (default)
  • Office 365 Account
  • Local domain account
  • Local machine account

Knowing which one and why, and how, is what you pay me to do for you. This is a complex situation with the answers specific to each business so I won’t explain the differences here. Call me to upgrade!

Compatibility

Probably the biggest concern people have is, ”will my programs still work on Windows 10?” the answer is more than likely yes. Very old written for DOS or Windows 95 programs probably won’t work, but then they probably didn’t work on Windows 7 or 8 either. The upgrade process runs a compatibility check ensuring that applications and drivers are compatible. Generally they are. See the next section for exceptions.

Hardware

There are a number of exceptions to compatibility relating to hardware.

First of all let me say that generally if a machine was able to run Windows 7 or 8 it will be able to run Windows 10. This means that machines that are using Intel Gen 2 and 3 chipsets and motherboards are able to be given a new lease of life. And of course Gen 4 and the new Gen 5 chips are going to work. (Similarly with AMD but we generally don’t recommend or sell AMD CPUs and motherboards.)

How to find your chipset generation

Open My PC (Win + E keys) Right click My PC and go to properties. You should see this screen. The number after the Core TM ix (3/5/7) is the key. If it starts with a 2 its Gen 2, a 3, Gen 3, a 4, Gen 4, and 5 is the current latest chipset. Mine below is a Core i7 4771 so a Gen 4 machine.windows 10

The difficulties start with age and manufacture support. New machines will have manufacture support with drivers built for the Windows 10 OS released on their support websites. Older machines may but often don’t and very old machines definitely won’t. This isn’t generally an issue. Most essential motherboard drivers are updated by Microsoft via Windows update anyway. It is only very hardware specific drivers like built in webcams, Bluetooth and old Wi-Fi systems that might stop working. If you have an old machine (old is more Gen 3 or older and is likely on an old motherboard) than definitely contact us first.

Video Cards

The other specific issue I have encountered a number of times is with video card drivers. If you don’t have a separate video card ignore this section. NVidia have released new drivers for all their supported cards which is most going back a long way. I found drivers for 6 year old cards. The Windows 10 upgrade will drop the Windows 7/8 drivers and revert to a standard Microsoft one. Thus you will see the screen but in very low resolution and generally no multiple monitor support. The solution is to download the new drivers (preferably before you do the upgrade because of Java issues (see next section)).

Java

Oh how I hate Java! And I'm not alone. Chrome also hates it – and IE puts up with it. It seems Firefox is the only browser that really likes it. Windows 10 will probably mean an un-install and reinstall of Java. And to do it means using IE not Edge, the new browser in Windows 10. And of course Windows makes Edge the default browser when doing the upgrade. This is becoming a rant – but we now have a process to manage this for you if needed.

Contact us now to plan your upgrade to Windows 10.

How to not get ripped off when buying a “new” PC or laptop

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“The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has faded from memory.” Aldo Gucci.

This has never been any different in the past and probably won’t change in the future. And there are many companies out there offering up bargains on PCs and Laptops and tablets for those who don’t understand this age old maxim.

Before you go and buy a bargain for you, your school child or worse your business, please talk to us! I won’t charge you to advise you on your potential purchases. And of course if you are a business owner who we have developed a digital strategy for then of course we are doing this for you anyway.

See the section above about finding the chipset of your PC. The same chipset number system should be specified in the units being sold. I went and scanned the major computer retailers in Australia today for their lowest priced computers and laptops. It’s pretty safe to say that buying anything under $500 for a desktop and %700 for a laptop is a waste of time. You are likely purchasing something that has a 2nd or 3rg gen (in same cases even older) chip. While the unit is brand new this chip was manufactured possibly more than 5 years ago. It was not designed for today’s software or usage.

My recommendation is to always buy the most current chipset. The machines life then is measured in actual years from date of purchase and could be 4-5 and not by adding 2-4 years to that date and having an effective life of 2-3 years. Example, 6 years ago I bought a PC with the most expensive bleeding edge new Gen 3 chip I could find. That machine is still running solidly today (it has run nonstop almost 100% of that time) and is still going to be good for another 2-3 years. The investment at that point meant the machine hasn’t had to be replaced 3-4 years after purchase but will last twice as long. And it didn’t cost twice as much.

Talk to us about your device upgrade and replacement strategy today. Better yet let us develop a digital strategy for your business.

Follow us on Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces then connect with me:

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