While many people buy pre-assembled PC gaming machines nowadays -- including diminutive mini variants -- there is still much to be said for building your own computer. Selecting your processor, chassis, PSU, and memory can be extremely rewarding. You get the opportunity to create your vision, and sometimes it can be more cost-effective too. Today, G.SKILL unveils some system RAM which should make PC builders absolutely giddy. The company's latest member of the Trident Z family is a four-module 64GB DDR4 kit. What makes it so special? It can run at an insanely fast 3600MHz! "G.SKILL International Enterprise, is thrilled to announce DDR4… [Continue Reading]
Anyone who works in IT knows that there are times when it can be an extremely stressful occupation. Especially when you’re expected to drop what you’re doing and fix a problem. Meeting technology specialist Highfive has put together an infographic looking at some of the most common causes of stress and how they can be managed. From low stress tasks like troubleshooting and implementing BYOD to more stressful issues like connectivity and highly stressful ones like rollouts and security breaches, it offers tips for staying on top of things whilst keeping your blood pressure under control. A lot of this… [Continue Reading]
For all the recent buzz surrounding the cloud and big data, it remains a fact that at the heart of much business computing there is still some form of database. In particular the operation of digital currencies like Bitcoin relies on databases that are able to track large volumes of transactions and keep them secure. The solution used by digital currencies -- though it’s increasingly finding other applications too -- is the blockchain. First implemented in 2009, blockchain technology consists of blocks that hold batches of timestamped transactions, each block is linked to the previous one, thus forming a chain.… [Continue Reading]
Smartphone use at family dinners used to be something of a frowned on activity. But a new survey reveals that people are becoming more tech tolerant. The study from connected experience agency Sequence shows that while 35 percent of those surveyed say smartphone use at the holiday table creates tension, far more (65 percent) are bothered by discussing politics. In fact, 59 percent of consumers feel their family and friends are good about keeping their smartphones away during the holidays, which is a 20 percent increase from 2015. Nearly half of millennials (47 percent) say smartphones at the holiday table… [Continue Reading]
Google is actively pushing websites to embrace HTTPS, going as far as to warn Chrome users when they visit a page that can transmit sensitive data over the unsecured HTTP protocol. The search giant hopes that this will speed up HTTPS adoption, and to help us keep track of how things evolve it has updated its Transparency Report to reveal how HTTPS usage is increasing among Chrome users. Google says that the majority of pages that Chrome users access on desktops are now loaded via HTTPS, and two thirds of their time is spent on pages loading the secure communications protocol. The platform… [Continue Reading]
Have you ever needed to access an important piece of information from an old document, and ended up spending hours rifling through filing cabinets and searching for the folder where you think you might have put that required piece of paper? Or maybe you know what information you need, but can’t remember exactly which document it’s on. You’ve got shed loads of stored documents, and you know it could be a 'needle in a haystack' attempt to check multiple files and find the necessary document. It’s these time-consuming, frustrating and inefficient processes that document imaging addresses. When done correctly, it… [Continue Reading]
When Windows 7 checks for updates, the process can take an age. Often you might find yourself staring at the screen while nothing much seems to happen. Finding the list of updates for you to install should only ever take a few minutes at worst, but for many people that isn’t the case. Thankfully there’s a quick fix to try. What you need to do is download the 32-bit or 64-bit version of KB3172605 (depending if you have the 32, or 64-bit version of Windows 7), turn off your internet connection, and install it. You may encounter a "not applicable… [Continue Reading]
The importance of social media to businesses has long been recognized. According to a recent survey, time spent on social platforms represents 28 percent of all online activity, so if it’s important to customers, it naturally becomes important for companies too. While some firms are content to carry out intermittent checks on Facebook and Twitter, many businesses are now demanding more nuanced ways of monitoring social media content. Social relationship management, or SRM, is a software solution that promises to strategically analyze social network interactions to give your business a competitive edge. With organizations from a broad spectrum of industries… [Continue Reading]
Organizations are rapidly migrating to the cloud. According to the 2016 Cloud Migration Survey, the top reasons for the cloud rush are the promise of high availability, reliability and potential cost savings. Companies, however, are not taking a one-size fits all approach. They are recognizing the pros and cons of private versus public cloud and tailoring their migration strategies to meet their needs. The RightScale 2016 State of the Cloud Report, which includes responses from over one thousand technical professionals, notes that private cloud adoption by organizations will rise from 63 percent in 2015 to 77 percent in 2016. Because… [Continue Reading]
Have to keep track of something like a to-do list, shopping list or other items? There are multiple apps that will handle this for you and sync across platforms, allowing your lists to go on the road with you. That ability is one of the keys to choosing a good note-taking app, but things such as easy sign-in are also important for most users. You are, perhaps, used to seeing options that allow you to bypass entering a username and password and instead click a button that will log you in automatically. While Facebook is the primary thing to pop… [Continue Reading]
With Windows 10, Microsoft faced criticism for its heavy promotion of the new operating system. Windows 7 and 8 users became more than a little annoyed by the presence of persistent nagging upgrade prompts, and others have been irritated by the addition of 'promoted apps' to the Start menu. Now Microsoft is at it again. Apparently unhappy with the number of people using its Edge browser, the company is now trying to encourage people to switch from rivals by using popup ads to push Edge and Bing Rewards. Will the company never learn? As reported by PCWorld, Microsoft has started… [Continue Reading]
Two-hundred-and-five in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on Windows Store in the past seven days. Microsoft released a new Windows Insider build this week. You can check out what is new here. As always, if I missed an app or game that has been released this week that you believe is particularly good, let me know in the comments below or notify me via email instead. Check out last week's Best Windows apps post if you missed it. Discounts this week Some apps are discounted for more… [Continue Reading]
The Samsung Galaxy Note7 was one of the -- if not the -- most disastrous phone launches of all time. After numerous reports of handsets catching fire or exploding, Samsung was forced to recall the device -- but some people have been reluctant to give theirs up. The phone may have been banned from planes, and Samsung has even offered a financial incentive to hand over the Note7, but despite the potential danger many users are hanging onto their phones. In a drastic move to prevent them from being used, some mobile providers -- incoordination with Samsung -- are disconnecting… [Continue Reading]
The Samsung Galaxy Note7 was one of the -- if not the -- most disastrous phone launches of all time. After numerous reports of handsets catching fire or exploding, Samsung was forced to recall the device -- but some people have been reluctant to give theirs up. The phone may have been banned from planes, and Samsung has even offered a financial incentive to hand over the Galaxy Note7, but despite the potential danger many users are hanging onto their phones. In a drastic move to prevent them from being used, some mobile providers -- incoordination with Samsung -- are… [Continue Reading]
A new survey has revealed that IT professionals working in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) earn a substantially higher salary than their counterparts in the UK and Ireland. Computer Weekly and TechTarget's Salary Survey 2016 APAC found that the average salary of ANZ IT pros was between £50,000 and £94,000 a year. In order to learn more about IT salaries in the region, 450 IT professionals from Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia were questioned regarding how much they earned annually. A similar survey conducted in the UK and Ireland by Computer Weekly found that IT professionals in those countries… [Continue Reading]
If you visit Google Play on your computer, you can install apps to any of the Android devices you own. All you need to do is click the Install button and you'll then be presented with a list of your phones and tablets to choose from. Over the years, you've probably owed a number of Android devices, and it's possible that this list has become a bit unwieldy. Why should you be forced to make a selection when you only have one phone? Here's how to clear up the list and make your life a little easier. If you head… [Continue Reading]
IT experts will be doing a lot of job switching with the start of next year, according to a new report by Spiceworks. Releasing the report during SpiceWorld 2016 Austin, the company says more than a third (37 percent) of IT professionals will start looking for a new job next year. More than a quarter (26 percent) plan on accepting an offer next year, as well. A vast majority (69 percent) want to do it in order to advance their IT skills, but 64 percent say they want a higher salary. Four in ten say they want to work in an organization where IT… [Continue Reading]
Last month, Canonical released a beta of Ubuntu Core 16. This is not a typical Linux distribution, but instead, one that is focused on Internet of Things and the cloud. What makes the operating system particularly interesting is the use of "Snaps" -- an ingenious modular way of handling software. It combines applications and dependencies into one convenient package. Today, Ubuntu Core 16 achieves final release status. You can download it immediately for free for PC, Raspberry Pi, and more. With all of the IoT-related botnet news nowadays, this is arriving at the perfect time. "Gartner suggests more than half of new… [Continue Reading]
For anyone who is a Windows Insider, the release of a new insider build is something of a double-edged sword. There is -- of course -- the excitement of trying out the latest and greatest build of Windows, but there is also the prospect of a huge download; one that must be completed on every computer you use. Microsoft has a plan to reduce the size of update downloads. The Unified Update Platform (UUP) sees the introduction of differential download packages meaning that users need only download the bits that have changed since the last release rather than having to… [Continue Reading]