News

It seems Apple has ended support for QuickTime on Windows and there are two major vulnerabilities found.

These vulnerabilities will allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on Windows PC's running Quicktime.

Head over to the US CERT website, here, to see the full details.

Computer Culture's advice is to uninstall this program from all your Windows devices.

It appears that some users are getting Windows 10 installed automatically if they had reserved their copy of Windows 10 previously. If they didn’t reserve Windows 10 it will not be installed automatically.

The upgrade is now a “Recommended” update, so if you reserved it you should get a pop up like this one:

It will tell you that a time has been scheduled for the upgrade to happen. If you click the link to change the upgrade schedule, you can re-schedule or cancel the install, otherwise it will go ahead and install at the time it says.

If you don’t like or don’t want Windows 10 you have 31 days to roll back to the previous version of windows which is fairly painful painless.

In all likelihood you will know someone who has been a victim of a malicious piece of malware or had valuable data stolen through a well-orchestrated hack. Many organisations that suffer these and other attacks fail to take the proper precautions to prevent themselves from becoming victims.  Here are some of the precautions you can take.

Patching - Most attacks, whether they be malware or hacking attempts exploit weakness or vulnerabilities in Operating Systems and 3rd party applications. Normally, when an exploit is discovered, a publisher will release a fix to block it as soon as possible. If your system is maintained by our Managed Services, these patches will be applied automatically.

Mail Filtering - No small number of threats find their way into a network as an email attachment or link. Having a robust system to scan, scrub and quarantine these threats is essential. If you are not using Office 365 for your mail, we recommend Roaring Penguin for anti-spam protection.

Web Filtering - Blocking malicious websites from being accessed can go a long way to reducing the number of threats introduced to a network. 

Backups - A good backup and disaster recovery strategy should be in place to make sure that essential and business critical data is safe should the worst happen. Ideally, it should be located offsite. If you don’t already have an offsite backup solution, please call our sales team who will help you find a solution that meets your requirements.

Antivirus – We recommend our managed AV Defender to provide a strong defense against viruses.

Here are some important things to check for when purchasing a power bank.

1. Ensure the power bank is of a higher capacity than your phone's battery. Most smartphones have batteries that range from 1500 to 2500mAh. If your phone has a battery of 1800mAh and you purchase a power bank with a capacity of 5400mAh, you should get at least two charge of the phone. It is recommended that you do not to discharge the power bank completely.
   
   
2. Ensure that the power bank has USB connections in for both charging and discharging.  Also check that the unit has the correct cable to fit your device.
   
   
3. Check pricing and the quality of the unit by looking for reviews on Google
   
   
4. Make sure it has short circuit and overcharge protection.
   
   
5. Check the weight and dimensions of the unit as this may restrict the ability to carry these with you.

Batteries are a critical part of our mobile devices, and as such they need to be cared for properly. There is still a lot of inaccurate information circulating since nickel-based batteries were replaced by lithium-based batteries. We have provided some handy tips to help you keep your batteries healthy.

1. Battery Memory/Topping Off
You may have heard something about batteries and the “memory effect.” How if you don’t “teach” your batteries their full potential by going from completely full to empty, then they will “forget” some of their capacity. This only applies to nickel-based batteries, most modern devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops come with the lithium-based batteries. These should instead be “topped off” whenever you have the chance.
To get the most out of lithium batteries, you should always try to keep it above 50%, without charging it constantly to 100% either. If you go from 100% to 0% too often, it’s more likely to shorten the lifespan than improve it. So to summarise, to optimise the battery life, try going from around 40% to 80% between charges.

2. Hot and Cold
Heat can greatly reduce the capacity of your battery. When under load, batteries can heat up to high temperatures.
The main factor to watch out for is leaving or storing your devices in areas they can heat up externally – say in a hot car left in the sun – which will cause the battery to run down faster. Keep your device cool and avoid storing them in hot places.
On the other hand, extreme cold temperatures can also affect your battery lifespan. Don’t expose any battery to freezing temperatures if you live in a cold climate, and don’t put spare batteries in the freezer! This is a myth from the nickel based batteries era.

3. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & GPS
There’s a common misconception that turning off these services will prolong your battery life. In most cases this isn’t true, the only time they’ll actually drain your battery is if they are being used. In other words, having Bluetooth turned on, when you aren’t connected to and using a Bluetooth device, won’t drain your battery any more than having Wi-Fi on when you’re not accessing the network.
Though they may use an immeasurable amount of energy from your battery they will not drain it over the course of a day. Dimming your screen will do more good than switching off these services.

4. 0% Batteries
Do you have a habit of infrequent charging? If possible don’t leave your batteries in a fully discharged state for a long time. If it does get to 0% then you should recharge it ASAP. If you let the battery discharge all the way and leave your device more than a week before charging, it may become incapable of holding a charge at all, dying completely.

5. Batteries will always wear out
Even by following these tips, your lithium-ion batteries will eventually wear out over time, holding less and less charge. After these have reached the maximum number of full discharge cycles rated by the manufacturer, you’ll find that the battery will only power your device for shorter periods of time. The more you use them, the more capacity they’ll lose. Even though you can make your batteries hold a long charge for longer, there’s no stopping entropy. By the time your battery has worn out it will be time to consider a device upgrade!