Some users prefer to store thousands of emails in their inboxes whilst others ruthlessly delete messages that have been dealt with or forwarded to colleagues. But whether you’re a hoarder or a spring cleaner, all of us struggle to find the email we’re looking for sometimes.
Outlook offers a search bar, which you may have already tried, but did you know it is possible to create more advanced queries using specific search criteria and logical operators?
Facebook users that found out their most-used words on the social networking site could have opened themselves up to a world of data insecurity.
Though it boasts more than 1.44 billion users across the world, Facebook has long been plagued by complaints of data harvesting, with some even going so far as to suggest that the active user count wouldn’t be nearly as high if people were aware of how much personal information was collated.
Now, a seemingly innocuous app that creates personalised word clouds for users has brought the issue back into focus, after data analysts discovered some potentially spurious clauses in its Privacy Policy.
When you click through to our blog articles this month, you will notice something slightly different. We have given our website and blog a fresh new look. Whilst maintaining the M2 Computing brand design, images and strapline, the overall idea was to create a simpler modern look with easier navigation. The new website is created on a more responsive platform, making it easier to view on multiple devices.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Microsoft’s defining operating system, Windows.
Though it’s been 30 years since Windows became formally available to the public (on November 20, 1985, to be precise), it came after a long gestation period. Microsoft first unveiled its operating system in 1983, with the two year gap leading many sceptics to consider it ‘vapourware’.
When first in production, the system was going to be called ‘Interface Manager’, which many developers thought would go on to become the final name that went to market. However, ‘Windows’ trumped it, not just as a more concise title but one that accurately describes the new “windows” that made this system so revolutionary.
The idea of connectivity passing via light into our devices may seem fanciful, but teams of researchers from Edinburgh and Estonia have created a system to do exactly that.
This so-called ‘Li-Fi’ technology works by flickering the light in a way that would be impossible to spot with the human eye. However, this flickering can be picked up by nearby machines and acts similarly to Morse code, sending messages across the air. Harald Haas, who first came up with the idea, discovered that one simple LED would be enough to transmit far more data than even a cellular tower.
The team at M2 Computing are delighted to welcome a new client, Taurus Asset Finance. Taurus Asset Finance is a London based financier with operations in Los Angeles, specialising in alternative asset classes such as real estate, intellectual property and media.
Following a complete systems review, we made a number of recommendations to improve their overall IT performance. Last month, we moved the business across from an on-premise exchange email server to Microsoft Office 365, with a view to migrating all their data to Sharepoint Online and implementing OneDrive for file storage.
We have provided new workstations for all employees including those based in the U.S, replacing their previous PCs running on the unsupported Windows XP platform. We now provide IT support for Taurus Asset Finance across both locations with M2 Assist Gold for London based employees and M2 Assist Silver for those located in the states.
The new IT setup will vastly improve the computing experience for Taurus Asset Finance, particularly for remote users who will no longer require a VPN connection for remote access. They now have the benefit of high availability through M2 Cloud with fast and convenient access to their emails and documents from anywhere, at any time, on any device.
Outlook users, if you find yourself entering the same things into email messages, you should take a look at the Quick Parts feature, which saves snippets of both text and images for easy reuse. While Gina briefly mentioned this feature in her guide to Tweaking Outlook to empty your inbox faster, let’s take a closer look at how to use it.Open up a new email and create the “Quick Part” that you want to save for later re-use, then find Quick Parts in the Text section, and choose “Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery”.
Give it a name and a brief description so you can easily find it later.
Now, any time you want to enter that snippet of text, you can simply pick it from the drop-down button menu. Hovering your mouse over it will show you the description that you entered above. If you want to edit your Quick Parts, you can right-click on any one of them, and choose “Organize and Delete” from the menu.
This will bring up the Building Blocks Organizer window, where you can preview, delete, insert, or get back to the Edit Properties dialog that you were shown when first saving it. Unfortunately you can’t actually edit them from within this dialog.
If you want to edit from Outlook, you’ll have to insert it, make your changes, and then save it with the same name, and you’ll be prompted to “redefine” the building block.
Every web user in the UK will have their browsing history stored and made available to the police and security services, if home secretary Theresa May’s controversial new laws are approved by parliament.
The so-called Draft Investigatory Powers Bill would see the sites – but not individual pages – that every single UK web user visits over the course of a year stored. These sites will then be accessible by police services without a warrant.
Police bosses have come out in support of the bill, claiming it will allow officers to establish more about a criminal’s network or conspiracy as soon as a lead comes in. Critics, however, have called it “indiscriminate mass surveillance” and a violation of people’s rights.
Problems with the bill could come in the form of sophisticated security and encryption tools used by big technology companies. For example, WhatsApp would be required, under the new laws, to keep all communication between its users on record for 12 months.
The messaging service, however, uses end-to-end encryption, which means messages are coded in such a way that, technically, even WhatsApp itself wouldn’t be able to decipher the text.
Other encryption tools are used to keep personal data safe and secure. By removing these at the government’s request, companies could be putting themselves in danger of suffering a breach similar to that recently experienced by mobile operator TalkTalk.
Despite these concerns, the government is pressing ahead with the legislation, claiming that adequate protection has been put in place.
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Carlile told sky.com: “It is a significant and formidable bill which will enable the authorities to catch serious and organised criminals and terrorists and to protect the public. I think the protections that are built into it should satisfy any reasonable person.”
The bill will be examined by both Houses of Parliament, before a final version is voted on next year.
October 2015 saw one of the most high-profile corporate cyber-attacks ever, although this incident may be remembered as much for the ineptitude of the public relations that followed as for the breach itself.
Indeed several weeks after TalkTalk suffered one of the most significant hacks in recent memory, the business had still not offered its customers an explanation on how their data was compromised.
The attack saw sensitive information on more than one million customers put at risk. In response, the company offered an apology but explicitly refused to accept liability for its customers being victims of fraud as a result of its data loss.
UK businesses will draw many lessons from this unfortunate episode and, among them, will be the need for clear, credible communication in the immediate aftermath of an attack. In this case, the public statements made by TalkTalk appeared as ill-prepared as its online defences, and only time will tell what effect this may have on its long-term reputation and profitability.
Initially, following numerous reports of an outage, TalkTalk claimed that unspecified “technical issues” were to blame – there was no word on data compromises. Next, it told customers it had taken the site down temporarily, although behind the scenes it was informing police and stakeholders of an attack.
The first mention of a hack came more than 24 hours later, when a statement was released by the company admitting the recent issues had been the result of an attack. Only then were customers told their information could have been compromised. The statement admitted that the site was pulled down in an effort to protect customer data.
Despite admitting it had been hacked, it was a further week before TalkTalk opened up on what could have been stolen. In this announcement, it finally admitted that there was “a chance” that hackers had got their hands on “names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, TalkTalk account information, credit card details and/or bank details.”
After being pressed by the media, TalkTalk began offering confused and contradictory statements. First it claimed that the loss came as a result of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. However, these kinds of attack are only able to bombard a network with traffic, thus taking it offline. DDoS alone cannot retrieve information. Additionally, this contradicts a previous announcement from TalkTalk, in which the company claimed to have taken the site down itself.
More likely is that a DDoS attack took place in order to allow hackers the chance to take another route in. Or, as Trend Micro’s Rik Ferguson explained: “a DDoS was used to light a metaphorical fire in the front yard while the thieves snuck in around the back.”
More than two weeks on, TalkTalk has still not told customers specifically what information of theirs was leaked. However, this could be because of the sheer volume of victims. With more than one in 60 Brits affected by the breach, TalkTalk may not yet know exactly who was hit, and what was taken.
If you suspect your business has been hit by a cyber attack, contact your IT support team immediately.
It’s almost the season to be jolly. But before you can relax and enjoy the festivities, there’s a long list of tasks that will ensure your holidays pass without a hitch.
From buying gifts to finding the perfect turkey, all of this can take months of preparation. But first of all, there’s the Christmas card list. Friends, family, work colleagues, neighbours…the window cleaner…the list goes on and on! Each card needs to be handwritten and addressed for postage – which can be a laborious effort.
There is, however, a simple way to produce a list of labels that you can print and use to address your envelopes for posting. It’s called Mail Merge and, if you’ve heard of it but been put off in the past, thinking it to be a complicated process, never fear – this 3-minute video will demonstrate step-by-step how this feature can save hours in Word.
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