In an IT career spanning nearly 30 years you pick up a few things, mostly by making mistakes and hopefully learning from them.
The hard thing is watching the non IT-savvy set themselves up for a fall or struggle on when they don’t need to so hopefully these will help somebody out there, and if not you can look for Utah website developers near me for additional help… 🙂
Tip No.1 – Look out for those Tick Boxes when Installing Software
When you install software, take your time and always click custom and then read the screens carefully looking out for any tick boxes. Often companies are in cahoots with other firms to install additional software on your computer. At best these will clutter up your hard-drive and slow your computer down, at worst they are full of viruses / malware so beware!
Tip No.2 – Backup Using the Cloud
If your data such as your photos, your emails, your music and your contacts are important to you then read on…
Let’s look at some scenarios. What will be the outcome when one of the following happens?…
a. Your Hard drive dies and all data is lost (most hard drives are mechanical devices and are highly likely to fail within 3-4 years – I lost one after 6 months once!).
b. You have a fire and everything in your office is lost
c. Your laptop and backup drive are in the same bag and the bag is stolen (this happened to a friend of mine!)
Assuming your doing backups at all which I know for a whole heap of people they’re not, if you are backing up onto the same hard drive as your data drive then you are heading for a fall. If the hard disk fails you’ve lost everything. If you backup to a USB stick / drive and don’t take the backup drive off premises every time you’ve done a backup or store the drive in a fire-proof safe (and let’s face it who does that?) you’re also heading for a fall.
The only safe way to backup is to use a third party company that will consistently backup your data to the cloud. There are multiple options for this and if your data is 5-10Gb or less then you may well be able to do this for free using Google Drive or similar, however for a few quid a month (I pay £5) you can get heaps of storage and reliable software that will backup all your files to the cloud – storing your files on servers that are secure and backed up daily. Think of it like an insurance policy. These days our data is as precious to us as our possessions – if you’re not printing all your photos then losing them would be tragic right? Without getting too geeky, the way the software works is to initially backup all the files in one big hit. Now if you have hundreds of gigabytes then this will take a few days so leave your computer on and just let it do it’s thing – oh and if possible do it where there is a fast internet connection. Once all your files are initially backed up, from now on the software will detect any changes to those files and only backup the changes. That way (unless your creating large files like videos all the time) the backup will quick and painless. On some backup software you can set how much bandwidth it will use (a really useful feature). One thing to check is that the software will backup open files (like your Outlook .PST fiiles). If it won’t you’ll risk losing your emails (unless you just use webmail). I can’t recommend a backup service because it really depends on how much data and the nature of the data you have but I’d encourage you to do some research or contact me if you need advice.
So, you have been warned. Backup, backup, backup – to the CLOUD!
Tip No 3 – Posture!
If you use a computer all day long, you are at risk from a number of potentially serious ailments. I’m no doctor so I’m not going to list them all but I’ll mention three that are common – Back / shoulder ache, RSI and Carpal Tunnel. I suffer from two of these and I wish I’d learned this sooner. Physiotherapists call the area in which you restrict your movements ‘the box’. If you stop and think about it, we weren’t designed to sit still in one position for any length of time. But when we do we are under-utilising certain muscles. These can become stiff and weak and over time, constrict causing you to have a rounded back and shoulders. With your hands, repetitive strain is caused by repeating the same detailed work over and over. If like me you have to constantly click the mouse in very precise ways or you are not trained as a typist and your fingers are over-stretching, the chances are you will suffer eventually. Thankfully there are things you can do to prevent this. To protect your neck you should make sure your screen is at normal eye level (say one inch from the top of the screen). You can buy laptop stands that will achieve this if you use a laptop, like a huawei matebook, rather than a desktop. To protect your wrists when typing improve your typing skills using an online tutor and use a gel based wrist support in front of your keyboard. In terms of a mouse. Small cute mice are useless for posture! Consider buying an ergonomic mouse that works with your hand in a natural position rather than twisted at the wrist. Finally think about your poor eyes. Take regular breaks (all computer operators in the EU have a legal right to this), look up from your screen frequently and focus on a distant object – your eyes contain muscles for focusing that can also become weak from under use leading to eye strain, headaches and eventually poor eyesight.
Tip No 4 – Google Have it Nailed (why fight it)
Google Keep for your To-dos (synchronized across all your devices)
Google Calendar for yours, your families’ and work colleagues’ appointments (also synchronized across all your devices and with access to multiple calendars)
Gmail for your email (using Outlook perhaps as your desktop app)
Google Maps for travel directions (walking, driving, bus, train) – does anything else even come close?
Google search – for your answers to almost everything man has discovered to date (but with the proviso that you engage your brain when reading anything on the internet!)
Google image search for access to a gazillion photos published on the internet.
Google video search for access to videos published on the internet.
Google Picasa for managing and editing your photos (sadly Google are discontinuing it but you can still download it and it’s fantastic and free)
Google Chrome – one of the best browsers out there (Mozilla Firefox being the other)
Google Translate – for simple translation tasks (the grammar might be poor but people will understand you).
“OK Google” – for hands free vocal commands and search on Android devices
Google Drive – for free / cheap cloud based backup solutions and file sharing with friends / colleagues
Google Photos – Online backup of all your photos with some basic photo editing capabilities (soon to improve) and the ability to create and share photo albums
Google Plus – an alternative to Facebook but as yet not really that popular
Google My Business – put your business on Google Maps and Google Plus
Youtube (now owned by Google) – A world of videos on every subject you can think of including (more recently) live TV channels
Google Chromecast – A cheap device to display your phone / tablet / PC’s screen and / or music on your TV.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few but you get the point!
Tip No 5 – Small is seldom beautiful in the IT world
Whilst technology is cramming more and more power into smaller and smaller devices all the time, there is always going to be a trade off.
If you’re impressed by little netbooks and tiny smartphones think twice. There’s three reasons. 1. The processing power will likely be significantly less because there’s not enough space for cooling vents / heat syncs to cope with more powerful processors. 2. The build quality will probably be poor. Bigger laptops / phones have metal chassis that make them stronger and consequently more robust. 3. They’re not designed ergonomically. If you have tiny fingers and don’t mind squinting at a tiny screen fine, but think about the impact on your posture from typing on a tiny keyboard or touch screen and also on your eyesight from reading smaller text.
Now I know this is a generalisation and the likes of Apple have packed a lot of power into smaller devices but you really pay through the nose for such devices.
People laugh at my laptop (a dell XPS 17) – because it’s huge, but it has a nice big screen a keyboard with a separate number pad, an i7 processor and two hard drives. Oh and it doesn’t burn my lap because the fan plus the heat-syncs work effectively. Enough said.
Tip No 6 – Use your Phone as a Wireless Hot Spot
Does your local coffee shop lack a wireless connection? If so you might still be able to get good internet access on your laptop/tablet by using your phone as a wireless hotspot providing it has a a reasonably strong 3G or preferably a 4G signal. I use the Foxfi app on my Android phone but there’s plenty of apps out there that do the same thing.
Just make sure that:
1. You use a strong password when you set up the hot spot. You don’t want others jumping onto your unsecure wireless hotspot and using all your data minutes!
2. That you have plenty of data minutes left.
3. You are careful in what you do when using your hotspot. You’ll eat through your data minutes in no time if you watch video or listen to streaming music services like Spotify.
Tip No 7 – A few helpful Windows tips
Forget the start button for accessing your applications. You can drag all the apps you use frequently onto your start bar – just find them in start and right click and drag them on there.
Once you have the likes of Word and Excel on there you can then add shortcuts above each icon to any documents / templates you use frequently. Just browse to the file in windows explorer and drag it onto the associated application icon and it will be pinned to it. Just right click on the app icon to access it. You will also find a list of recent files underneath the pinned docs.
Use hibernate rather than shutdown if you lead a busy life! Hibernate will leave your laptop as you found it when you switch it back on. This saves closing all your applications.
Keyboard shortcuts – there are heaps but here’s a few I use every day:
Alt+Tab to rotate through your open applications
Windows+E to open windows explorer / my computer
Ctrl+C for Copy, Ctrl+X for Cut, Ctrl+V for Paste
Ctrl+Z for undo, Ctrl+Y for redo
Windows+P if you are connecting a projector
PrtScr and paste (ctrl+V) into Word for a quick and easy way to capture and edit / print a screen shot of your screen. Use the crop tool in Word on the Format tab to crop the image.