Computers are used by a huge percentage of us every day. It may be that you use one for your job or that you use it in your own time for going on social media sites, editing photos, creating budgets or writing letters.

If you are using a computer in your working day then time is often money. If the computer is slow to start up and running slow when opening new applications or switching between them then you need to find out what the issue is and resolve it to allow you to work faster.

There are many reasons why your computer may be running slow and there are often simple checks you can do yourself before taking it to a specialist who will charge you to carry out these checks and changes.

Firstly you should ensure that your computer is free from viruses. Ensuring you have a good quality anti virus is essential. Make sure that you only have one running at a time as more than one, and you may find they conflict with each other and slow the computer down even more. Make sure that it is set to run a scan on all your hard drives as well as any portable devices. Viruses are one of the biggest causes of a machine running slow. 

Secondly check how much RAM memory your computer has. If the computer has little RAM then it will use the hard disk of the computer to run applications slowing it down. By increasing the memory in your computer, you can help improve speeds overall. 

As with all technology, over time it becomes out dated. You need to ensure that you replace and upgrade equipment as needed to ensure that your business is utilising IT equipment and software to its best advantage.

If your business has recently started using new IT equipment or systems then it may take you a bit of time to adjust to using it. You should be offered training on it initially but this may be very basic or you may be trained by someone’s who isn’t all that familiar with it themselves.

It is important to understand how the system works to make sure you are using it correctly. It will also allow you to find out all the features that are available, many of which may make processes easier and quicker, cutting down on the time you spend doing certain tasks.

Sometimes you can find good user guides online or better still videos of people talking through how you use something and what exactly it can do.

If you have recently purchased IT equipment, the place you purchased it from may offer training courses although this may not be included in the price. If not, they will probably be able to recommend companies that do offer this service.

When it comes to choosing a laptop you are inundated with options. Prices range from a couple of hundred pounds up into the few thousand pounds and many fall somewhere in between.
Certain laptops are better for certain tasks, so if for example, you play a lot of games on your laptop then you will want to opt for one that has a great graphics card and lots of memory.
If you use your laptop for work then it is important that it is fast and reliable. You should always do plenty of research and read reviews on a number of sites to get a true idea of how good a laptop is. Some of the main retailers such as Pc World, allow you to compare a number of laptops so you can see what you get for your money. As with many things, often if you spend a little bit more you can get a much better spec but you need to know where to draw the line.
SSD memory has been around for a number of years now but is being used in more and more laptops. SSD stands for Solid State Drive and not only does it make the laptop faster, but it can also mean it is more reliable as there are less moving parts. Laptops that have SSD memory fitted can be quite expensive compared to non-SSD models and you may find that you have to drop in hard drive size to make up for the additional prices.

If you often need to work on the go, such as on a train or in a café then you will realise how important battery life is. It is not always possible to plug your laptop in and even if you ensure you have a full battery to start with you may find that it does not last you as long as you need it to. Over time batteries lose their charging capacity and so even when fully charged, will not last as long as it did when it was new.

In order to try and preserve your battery, you need to ensure you do a few things. One thing that uses a lot of battery is the light behind the screen. Setting the brightness a little bit lower can prolong the amount of screen time you have. Another way to get more out of your battery is to switch off the WiFi (if it’s not needed). Windows 10 has an option to set your power status to power saving. Search for the power options and enable power saving mode to get more time out of battery.

If your laptop has a disk drive then be sure to eject a disk if you are not using it. Having a disc spinning in the drive is a huge drain on resources, and many programs constantly do this. Doing this will give you a few more vital minutes.

When developing a website it is vital that it displays and works correctly across multiple browsers. With more and more people using the internet to search for products they want or companies that offer services they require, it is imperative that your website is up to scratch.

Over time browsers get updated and code that may have worked years ago may no longer be supported. This can cause layout issues and functionality issues on older sites or sites that have not been checked properly before going live.

It is important that your website is built with all different browsers in mind and not just the one or two that you or your client may use. A huge number of people are using smart devices such as phones or tablets to browse the internet, so your website needs to also be compatible with these browsers and the different screen sizes.

There are websites that allow you to input yor web URL and it will test its compatibility on the different browsers and versions although these are not always that accurate. You cannot program a site that will work on really old versions of a browser but making sure that it is compatible with all the latest versions is a must.

Printer ink can be quite expensive to buy and many of us have printers but few always have ink in. It can be easy to forget to order or buy ink and find yourself trying to print out documents that are patchy or simply blank due to lack of ink. It is best to try and order printer ink in advance as this allows you to shop around for the best price.

Some companies such as HP have launched a revolutionary way of ordering ink for your printer. HP have something called instant ink. Basically you sign up to one of their ink plans and as long as your printer is connected to the internet, they can see how much ink you are using and when you need more. They will post the ink out to you automatically so you have it ready when yours runs out. Packages are very reasonably priced and they even do a free package which allows you to print up to 15 pages a month and still benefit from the ink, if one month you need to print more than 15 pages you can pay one pound for an extra 10 pages as a one off payment. The next package is priced at £1.99 a month and allows you to print up to 50 pages a month. If you do not use all of your pages in one month they will carry them forward to the next month.

There are often times when we use our phone for work or to type letters etc but sometimes it can be a lot harder to do than using a laptop or computer. You may be in a location where you have no Wi-Fi available to you but do have signal on your phone. Most phones and tablets now will allow you to turn your device in to a Wi-Fi hotspot meaning that you can then connect other devices to your on the internet. Doing this will enable you to connect your lap top or computer and essentially use the data allowance on your phone. When doing this you need to be aware of how much data allowance you have remaining and keep an eye on what you are using. Some network providers will put a block on your allowance meaning that once it is used up you cannot go over without agreeing to pay extra.

You should also set up alerts that will tell you once you are getting close to your limit so that you can stop using it and spread it out over the remaining days you have left until you get your new allowance.

If you are a business owner then you may need to outsource your web design and programming project to a third party who has the skills and knowledge to allow them to create what you need.

Choosing a web developer can be hard as you will often have to go off previous examples of work they have done for other or you may be able to get a recommendation off a fellow business colleague.

It is important that you understand the basics of your website and what you would need to do should you ever have to move your site. Firstly your website will need a domain name. Ideally you should buy this yourself and then point it across to the web developer’s server or ask them to do that for you. This will allow you to save costs on domain renewal fees and also to ensure that you remain the owner of the domain name at all time.

You also should find out who the hosting company is if possible. You may not be able to gain access to the server but it may help in the future should you need to have the website moved.

If you are a web developer but use a third party to host your website you may often get frustrated with issues that happen that are out of your control. As often you are the middle man between the client and the hosting company, you will most likely have to try and resolve the issue and this may cost you a lot in time that may not be able to be recovered.

If you are experience slow loading speeds, first check your site on one of the free page speed test websites. This may give you an idea what the issue is and allow you to find out if it is a problem with elements on the page or if it is the server which the site is being hosted on.

If you are using an off the shelve content management system such as WordPress, you may find that certain plugins cause issues with loading speeds or even that they break the site completely. Some plugins will work fine but then may conflict with a new plugin you install. If possible it is advisable to

Test the plugins on a test version of the site prior to doing the live changes.

Back ups are essential to try and ensure that you can always access your data should something go wrong. Websites need to be backed up every time something changes so you can very quickly updated a copy on it on to the server again or on to a new server should the other one have failed.

Most hosting companies will take a back up of your website for you but you should always check how often this is being done and if you decide to do any major changes to the website then it is important to ask them to take an immediate back up so you have the vey latest copy. If back ups are not done then you may find that you have lost all your content and even layout of the website and have to start again. This can be a very costly mistake as you will not only have to pay or spend the time to have it all designed and programmed, you will have to rewrite all content and while the site is offline you may lose a lot if not all of your website rankings.

Don’t risk losing everything, ensure you have a solid back up procedure in place.