If you find you are constantly running out of time at work and that IT based tasks are taking up a lot of your day, then it may be worth completing an IT course. You will often find when it comes to working on computers that there are a lot of shortcuts that you may not be aware of. Even switching tabs or opening programs can be made quicker with certain shortcuts.

Of you use Microsoft Excel then you may not be aware of a number of different ways in which you can arrange and sort data. You can use simple through to complex equations to enable you to quickly solve sums across multiple columns, rows or even sheets.

Although you may feel like you do not have time to attend a computer course, one day out of work could potentially save you hours a week going forward and therefore makes it a very worth while task. Some IT courses are free to complete others may come at a cost, but if you can show your employer how it will add value to the job you do, they may be willing to pay or at least contribute towards the cost of it.

When running a business from time to time you may need to send documents via email to your clients, so how can you ensure these are sent safely and securely?

The first thing to consider is what does the document contain? If it contains data sensitive material such as personal details like name, address and date of birth as well as any financial details you will need to send the email using an encryption. There are different ways to do this depending on what email service you are using however normally you will find this option in your security settings. Encryption means that only the specified recipient can open the email ensuring it doesn’t get into the wrong hands.

You can also password protect and attachments that you are sending then issue a separate email with the password on for your client or set the password as something only they would know like their national insurance number or date of birth.

If you are sending contracts or legal documents you will want to make sure that these cannot be altered by any one and to do this you’ll need to send the document as a PDF. PDF means portable document format and it’s widely used to exchange documents and share files than cannot be altered.

When sending documents there are also programs available such as DocuSign that allow documents to be sent via a secure portal and then the client can virtually sign these documents and return to you quickly and safely.   

Many office workers are continuing to work remotely as businesses have seen the benefits of this across the board but remote working and cybersecurity risks, regrettably, go hand in hand. Cyber threats to individuals and businesses continue to grow and the only solution at the moment is to invest in strong technology solutions that protect networks and to train employees in cybersecurity so that they develop secure remote working practices. 

The first issue is to use strong passwords as they provide the first line of defence against any unauthorised access to devices and personal information. In this way it is more challenging for cybercriminals to gain access and disrupt the system’s networks.

Secondly, it is vital that software updates are installed as soon as they are released. Timely software updates (including antivirus updates) help patch security flaws and safeguard the computer system.

Lastly, employees who are working remotely should only access the network through a virtual private network (VPN) and should never turn it off. The VPN as an essential part of network security and is designed to secure information transmitted between employers and remote employees through data encryption.

A remote work policy for employees should be published and be read and agree to by all remote workers. Training should be provided for the employees in cyber incident response so that they are equipped to deal with any cyber incidents that may occur. 

You may not realise it but there are many things that can have an impact on your search engine rankings for your website. All website owners want to be found as high up as possible on the search engines and although they may know w bit about content and search engine optimisation, they will probably not be aware of all the elements that can have an impact, such as server location.

They may not know much about their hosting company, but it may pay to do a little research in to them. Often people mention about the physical location of the hosting server and if this can have an impact on your SEO. Google state that location of the IP address which your website is hosted on does play a part in the ranking algorithm. Google try and show their users the most relevant information so is likely to favour sites that have a closer physical location than ones that are hosted in other countries. So if your business is located in the UK then it makes sense to make sure your server is also based in the UK. You can ask your hosting company to confirm this for you.

It is without doubt a time when we all are experiencing the many advantages of being able to go online to keep in touch with friends and family, play games and share photographs of life during lockdown but how do we keep our children safe when they may be using the internet more now than ever?

Some of the restrictions that you will need to put on your child’s online activity will be dependant upon their age. For instance, young children should not be able to access the internet without you vetting what content they are viewing, and parental controls can be set up to ensure this is the case. Games they play on should have in app purchases turned off and be rated as appropriate to their age. It is a good idea at this stage to talk about the importance of keeping your real name, age and location secret to all but friends.

For older children it becomes more problematic as you cannot always monitor everything, they do online however parental controls can be set so that whatever they access online can be viewed by the parent which in itself will restrict their viewing.

With older children conversations will need to be had explaining the pitfalls of posting images and comments online and the possible repercussions of this in the long term.

For some people who may be considered elderly getting to grips with technology is not a problem and they are able to confidently use their computer or smart phone to access the internet and carry out the tasks they wish to do but there is a section of society that struggles with digital content and activities becoming frustrated and worried about their lack of skills in this area. How can IT companies help these people to become digitally confident and develop their computing skills in a way that is non-threatening and supportive.

The first step is to find out what skills are needed to be developed. Do they want to be able to video call their friends and relatives, search online for information about hobbies and interests or access the abundance of music and video online by streaming content to their device? Whatever their requirements clear step by step instructions should be given ideally in a printout format so that it can be referred to repeatedly if necessary.

The language that is used to convey information should not be technical if at all possible and should be encouraging and familiar. Screenshots of the stages of a process is a useful way to convey information as these help people to know whether they are following the correct instructions.

If you are in the process of having a website built or are thinking of moving your hosting, you need to take some time to find out which type of hosting package is right for you. There used to only be two choices really, shared servers or dedicated servers but you can often now opt for a cloud server package instead if you wish. All of the different types of server packages have advantages and disadvantages and often which one you choose will be depend on what traffic you have to your site and cost. Dedicated servers are usually the most reliable and allow you to have complete control over how they are run. Your website will be the only one on there and if you have multiple sites you can host them all on one dedicated server.  If you decide that you cannot afford the monthly or annual fee of a dedicated server for your website (which can often be in the region of £100-£300 per month) then you will probably have to settle for a shared server. A shared server means there will be other sites on the server, which may not cause you any issues. If there is an issue with one of the other websites such as overloading the server, you will find that your websites will also be affected and go offline. If the shared server IP address gets backlisted as one of the domains is sending out a lot of spam, then you may find that your genuine emails also start to be rejected by many mail recipients.

Laptops and PC’s are great when they are working correctly, but as with any technology they can often be a bit temperamental, especially as they get older. Many of us rely on our computers for work and for in our personal life, storing important photos and documents, but how many of us back up our computers as often as we should? The answer is very few. We often carry on saving files and photos to our computers and then delete the originals thinking that we have a copy, but if something should happen to the computer, all your files can be lost in an instances and may not be able to be retrieved. This can happen for a number of reasons such as a corrupt hard drive, accidental deletion of files or folders and losing or having your computer stolen. If you have not taken backups of all or your files and folders, you may have lost them forever.

There are a number of way in which you can secure another copy of your files and folders. One is to purchase an external hard drive and back up everything you need on t that. You should also ensure you keep the originals or create a second back up on a different drive in case the first one fails. Another way to back up your documents is to use the Cloud. You can purchase cloud space through a number of different companies and back up your files to this account meaning you can access them anywhere you have an internet connection. This is a great way to ensure you will not lose the documents or photos you need but some people worry about the security implications of this.  

Unfortunately website hacking and security breaches are happening more and more. Websites need to be programmed in such a way that they are as secure as possible and there should be procedures in place to let everyone involved know what to do should the worse happen.

If you are in charge of running a business that has a website then you should have some sort of plan laid out of what to do should your website come under attack and get hacked.

Firstly you need to ensure that your website is up to date in terms of the software that you use, the servers it is hosted on etc. Your programmer should try to eliminate any possible hacks that can be done through good coding practice.

If you do become victim to a website attack you need to take action immediately. If website has been compromised and when a visitor goes through to the site it is directing traffic somewhere else or collecting sensitive data, you should shut the site down immediately. If content within your site has been tampered then this needs to be removed and you need to find out how they have got in and so you can rectify it and stop it happening again.