emails accounts like gmail are used by small business and professionals as a quick and easy (free) email service but there’s a catch. If you get hacked there’s no one to call, you are out in the cold and left to your own resources.

Hacking is mostly not really about hacking, but guessing your password. We see passwords all the time that look like this:

abc1234

password

and so on. If you are running a business off this free email system you should be prepared for a disaster or you might never see your email again.

To mitigate the risk:

1. associate a mobile phone number with your account
2. if you are trying to regain access to a lost or hacked account it seems you should be doing this from the same computer you usually log in with, otherwise flags are raised and it will be more difficult.
3. setup a secondary email address in your account, though if your account is hacked this might be changed.
4. set up strong passwords, not the name of your cat you talk about on your social profiles.

You can also setup gmail to use offline so if you do get hacked you will have access to old emails. Follow the steps in this support article.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1306849?hl=en

example of a browser hijack with spyware

You will know it if you have a browser redirect virus, also known as the google redirect virus or malware. The various iterations of the dreaded browser hijack or redirect removal solution is a mystery to many on internet forums. It’s nasty and resists every attempt at removal. It is invisble, undetectable by all the malware scanners and antivirus programs including Norton’s Powerful Eraser tool, bitdefender speciality tools, eset’s usually very efficient scanner in ramdisk, in fact just about everything.

We had a business client with this infection and after struggling to remove it, we decided to persevere until we found the mechanism and methods to remove it. Unfortunately, it seems each variant or type of this infection has it own methods to provide a successful removal. There is no single access point to remove it.

But good news! We offer an online (remote access) service to remove this, along with all the other bugs on your computer. If you are anywhere in Australia call or email to arrange a good time for us to log in for you.

www.wiredoffice.com.au has been providing trusted service for over 15 years and is a Microsoft registered partner, and a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).

The hot topic at the moment is how to backup my ipad or iphone photos. There’s limited storage on ipads and iphones and those photos and family videos can grow out of control in no time. You can back them up to a PC of course but these days not everyone has a PC at home, preferring to use tablets and ipads. Also it is an inconvenience to plug your ipad into the laptop, open itunes and configure what you want synced to itunes and what you want stored. This is not a safe backup for irreplacable family photos because a drive in a PC or laptop offers no redundancy. It is also something people get into the habit of putting off, until the day you find you have 5% space left on the ipad and it’s time to panic. Are you relying on icloud to backup your photos? Remember icloud is a photo streaming service with limitations. It only backs up the last 1000 photos, these days people have much more. Videos are not backed up in icloud. icloud also states in its disclaimers that photos in photo stream will be deleted after a given time. If you want a reliable, safe backup you will need more than icloud.

Qnap and The Internet of Things (IOT)

Qnap is a network attached storage solution for home and SOHO users. This NAS system has many functions as part of its commitment to the coming IOT environment. It offers a range of apps in android or IOs to backup IOs device photos and store them in a protected RAID array on the NAS (if one of the multiple drives fail it will alert you and you simply replace the failing drive), there is an app for viewing your photos via direct streaming, keeping your ipad free of space hogs like photos and music. As part of the IOT you can run security cameras, upload to an FTP server to keep security images safe. You can use the device as an entertainment center on your TV.

No PC or laptop at home? The QManager app lets control the device from your ipad or iphone. The Qnap range has too many features to mention here and is one of our preferred NAS solutions. Call or email today for pricing and answers to your questions.

Some of the new Microsoft keyboards do not have a caps lock light which can be annoying as hell but there are a couple of easy to apply workarounds.

1. Enable a caps lock sound.

in the Ease of Access center you will find the toggle switch to enable caps lock sound. In Windows 10 or Windows 7 and Windows 8 type “ease” without the quotes into the search box in the lower left of the desktop.

You can turn off “always read this section aloud” before continuing. Scroll down to “turn on toggle keys” and also select turn on toggle keys by holding down the num lock for 5 secs. Click apply, then ok and close the remaining window. Now you have caps lock sound enabled. You can toggle off and on using the num lock key for 5 seconds.

2. If you prefer a visual display for caps lock go the Microsoft Keyboard Center, down the 32 or 64 bit bit version of the Keyboard software. It’s a free download and will display a caps lock pop up in the lower right hand side of the desktop.

One day we will do away with passwords altogether and the world will be a better place. The Windows 10 “Hello” is a leap into that kind of world with the kind of biometric logins we see in sci-fi movies that open doors and computers. Windows 10 Hello will see you coming if you choose to use facial recognition and ask you if you want to login. I look forward to the day when the dozens of websites I log into each week will recognise my face. Here is a look at Windows 10 biometric authentication – using your face, fingerprint or iris.

You can find out more information about Windows Hello here

and how to set it up here

Marcus Ash from the Windows Team discusses the history of Cortana (gamers first seen Cortana AI in Microsoft’s Halo) and the incredible presence of Cortana in Windows 10.

You might be wondering why you would want to do a reverse image search.

You might be wanting to check if anyone is using photos off your website, or who might be using your own mug shot displayed in business websites to impersonate you. You can keep tabs on your own images with reverse searching.

You may have an image you would like a better resolution of or to locate the original creator of the image. You can also use the search to carry out detective work.

Recently I was looking at a very unusually well priced campervan advertised on a forum at a popular Australian camping website. The owner claimed the low price was only due to the family wanting a deposit for a home and needed an urgent sale. It was all very convincing until I downloaded the image and carried out reverse search to discover the original owner had shown it for sale prior at a much greater price. As it turned out the ad was a scam and the ad was gone by the end of day.

You do not need any keywords or any other query to carry out the search, only the image.

There are quite a few image search websites, including google image search, but 2 of my preferred sites are:

www.tineye.com

www.imageraider.com

One of the big problems with laptops is their design. Some are designed so you cannot access them easily to view and clean dust, lint, fur and the like from the interior.

Dust accumulates over time and is often impossible to remove without a tear down of the laptop. You can find videos online on how to do this if you enjoy tinkering but beware not to use cans of air you find in tech stores because these are not air but chemicals that create pressure. Some will contain a refrigerant which is released when the can is tilted at certain angles. The gas from these cans is known as highly toxic so if you must use them be sure to wear a good mask in confined spaces.

Can you use a vacuum cleaner? The problem is access, there is no easy doorway you can open to clean dust from everywhere, and if you disassemble the laptop you must be careful not to let the nozzle touch anywhere and be sure to keep your antistatic strap on.

We have safe methods for cleaning laptops with overheating problems caused by dust buildup,  often within a standard one hour session. If you are in Perth’s northern suburbs drop it off to our workshop and pick it up the same day or next morning.

These 5200mAh charge bricks can get pretty expensive. I’ve seen them around for $99, the incase 2500mAh power brick at Apple store is currently selling for $49.

The thing to remember about power bricks is the power comparison to what you are charging. The ipad rechargeable battery is 11,560mAh while the iphone 5s is 1,570mAh. In our testing we found the PQI will save our ipad from crashing in the middle of the day but don’t expect a full charge or multiple charges.

However, with the iphone 5S we could charge 4 times on a single full charge. The blue power meter LED on the face of the PQI has 4 LEDS to indicate the charge level. 4 LED lights usually does mean 4 full charges.

We liked it so much we have been using it for months now and we are so happy to recommend it we are giving it away FREE to anyone who joins our exclusive email list and book a support or repair call to the end of March (2015).

Please note this offer is subject to stocks availability and cannot be backordered, exchanged or replaced with other offers.

Computers attract dust because of the negative air pressure, fan systems and no filters in your average generic computer case. The examples in the pictures might look like computers that are 6 or 7 years years old, but both are generic systems,  less than 2 years old and suffered hardware and hard drive failures as a result of dust.

Dust affects a computer in various ways:

•  The dust creates a blanket or insulating layer that makes computers run at elevated temps – running at high temps reduces lifespan by up to 70% especially in workshops and factory settings
• dust creates ESD (electro static discharge). We see many computers with dust build up every year that did not survive a power surge.
• dust makes the computer fans noisy and ineffective to keep temps down and maintain air flow

A computer with no build consideration for dust is a problem for offices everywhere, worse in workshop settings and can be very uneconomical because hardware or computers need replacing too often or short of expected life span. However, the two computer interiors in the image above are from home offices in the suburbs. Cleaning dust from a computer using canned air is not advised because most types of canned air are not air, but chemicals that create air pressure which in our experience can also be hazardous to the frail electronics of computers if turned on an angle. Vacuum cleaners are probably the least effective way to clean dust in a computer.

Minimizing dust build up in computers.

In heavy dust prone areas dust safes are available that are expensive, imported hardware. But for small home based business, workshops and trade shops dust can be minimised with the concept of positive air pressure. This is possible with small tower PC’s (laptops are more prone to dusty demise and cannot be cleaned easily).

Using a particular type of case with modified fan systems and dust filters we are able to significantly reduce dust build up. The dust filters are very easily removed for cleaning every 6 months or so. The cases (chassis) are small (mid towers)  and light and cost no more than our custom build model with SSD advertised on our new computers page.

In Perth or anywhere in Australia contact us to place an order or for more information. We specialise in small business and the home/home office IT settings.