Posted on January 24, 2022 at 4:58 pm
A school website is a vital link
between school and home for parents who have children at school but also for
teachers, governors and other interested parties. It provides a way to stay
connected with developments within the school and a way to access important
information such as school term dates, staffing changes and future events such
as school trips and charity days.
The ongoing maintenance of the school
website, keeping it up to date and uploading content can be time consuming for
already busy teaching staff so the responsibility for updating the website
usually falls to the school administrator who may not have a great deal of
experience in this area and will therefore require specific training to raise
their skill level. It is for this reason that some schools decide to go down
the route of having a managed website.
Many web design companies offer a
support package to schools so that they can be contacted if there are any
issues that staff cannot resolve and will conduct regular maintenance work on
the website to make sure it is functioning as it should. Some will, for a fee,
upload fresh content onto the site and remove posts about past events.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on October 16, 2021 at 11:28 am
If you are looking for a career in
IT then the job of an IT consultant is a great choice. It allows you to do
practical tasks as well as management jobs. The IT industry is ever growing. As
technology advances the industry is likely to continue to get bigger over the
next few decades. Other industries are using more IT in their day-to-day tasks
and this is going to continue to grow.
It is vital for many businesses to
have a good grasp on what technology can do for them and how best to use it
within their business. Some companies take it upon themselves to research new
software, programmes and technology than can be used within the day to day
running of the business and to work out how effective these solutions will be
for them. Other businesses will instead
bring in a professional IT consultant to help them. The job of an IT consultant
is to offer the best advice on developments and offer cutting edge technology
strategies that are bespoke to the needs of your business. This may be anything
from upgrading internal PC’s to sending staff on IT related training courses.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on April 17, 2021 at 8:44 pm
If you are looking to buy a new
monitor then you need to think carefully about what it is going to be used for.
Some many of us now have laptops, that monitors are not needed as much as they
used to be. Some programmers and designers will have two monitors so that they
can switch between screens quickly.
When choosing your monitor, think
carefully about the specifications as they often differ quite a bit. If you
want your monitor for gaming purposes then it will need to be much more
advanced than if you want to use it just for word processing and browsing the
internet for example.
You first need to consider what
budget you have. Monitors can range from around seventy pounds upwards of a
thousand pounds. Once you know what money you have available, you can then
start to compare monitors to see what you can get for your money. A gaming
monitor will need to have a higher refresh rate and a quick response time. The
refresh rate can differ depending on what port you are using too so be sure to
check this.
If using a games console such as a
PlayStation or an Xbox then you will need to ensure that it has a HDMI port on
it preferably 2.0 or above as this will ensure that the monitor can run to its
best capabilities.
IF you are going to be using your
monitor a lot or leaving it on for long periods of time then the energy efficiency
rating is another area you may need to look at. Also, many of the monitors have
a function that allows you to instantly adjust the colour settings to reduce
the blue light. This setting can help lessen the strain on your eyes which is a
must for those that are working or gaming using a monitor for longer periods of
time. A good gaming monitor starts from around two hundred pounds but not all
will have the specifications easily listed, so you may need to do a bit of
research to find out all the details you need and to allow you to compare it to
another model.
If you go to buy one from a
computer or electrical shop, be aware that they may not always have the
knowledge to give you the correct answers on specification, in which case you
may be better to look online.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on March 9, 2021 at 2:42 pm
So many devices and gadgets we use
now need to be updated. Lots of people are used to having to have updates on
their computers, but often any device that can connect to the internet, may
require updates. Phone software and individual apps will be sent updates to be
installed along with you smart TV. It is important that you do these updates on
a regular basis as updates are important to ensure that the device continues to
work as it should. Updates are rolled out for a number of reasons. Sometimes they
include additional features that may be useful for you to have but they will
also often include security updates. These are very important as it may be that
the provider has found a way in which their software can be compromised and the
only way to fix this is to roll out an update which contains the fix. If these
items are not updated you often find that they do not work as well as they
should. There may be security issues along with glitching and software crashes.
If you have to do updates on devices that store information such as photos or
documents, then you should try and ensure that you back all of these up prior
to doing any updates.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on December 18, 2020 at 8:08 pm
It may be that within your office
you do not have enough IT equipment for everyone to have their own laptop or
IPad for example. This is not necessarily a problem as long as everyone can do
their job without having to wait around for use of a computer. What you should
try to do though is give everyone their own login. Setting up multiple user
accounts will mean you can give each person access to different files and
folders and also programmes. This can be very helpful if you don’t want a sales
person accessing account information for example. On some devices this is very
straight forward but on PC’s, this can be quite tricky so it is advisable to
enlist the help of a specialist IT company. IF you have multiple PC’s in the
office they will be able to build you a network on which they can all be
connected. This allows you to log on to any PC with your credentials and have
access to the information you need. Having an external server that stores all
the information, means that it is not just stored locally on the hard drive of
one PC.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on November 5, 2020 at 2:24 pm
Indexing is the process which the
search engines, such as Google, carry out to list your web pages in the search
engine results. Often Google will crawl a site and index all the pages which
will then show up for the relevant search terms. There are a number of reasons
why your page may not get indexed even if the home page pf your site is. If the
page is really poor and lacks content then you may find that it is not indexed.
If the page has duplicate content on then often only one of the pages will be
indexed. Another reason for missing pages from the index is that you have
requested that Google not index them for some reason. This may be intentional
as certain pages you may not want to appear such as thank you pages or checkout
pages. It may actually be an unintentional error that causes your pages to not
be indexed such as an incorrect robot’s file or a setting in the admins system.
Wordpress has an option that says tick this box to discourage Google from
indexing the site. This may mean many of your URL’s are discounted from the
search engine results. This can have a huge negative impact on your rankings.
The issue is that even when you have fixed the issue, you are in the hands of
the search engine as to when they come back and reindex the site again which
can take weeks or even months.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on August 12, 2020 at 8:04 am
Businesses
need to take much care and attention when it comes to storing data. This data
may be used to contact customers, to advertise their products or services and
to allow a business to do their accounting correctly at the end of a financial
period. The loss of any sort of data to a company can be a nightmare and should
be avoided at all costs.
Many
companies are now migrating their services to use cloud based software. Cloud
based software has so many different advantages such as flexibility and easy disaster
recover. Software or data that is stored on the internal hard drive of an individual
laptop or computer can easily be lost if the files become corrupted, deleted or
non-accessible. IF you suffer any of these you will have to go through a costly
process of trying to get your data recovered and there are simply no guarantees.
Sometimes you may find that the information cannot be recovered which can be
detrimental to a business.
Cloud
computing offers a safety net when it comes to disaster recovery as the data is
not stored on one physical computer, it is essentially stored virtually meaning
it can be accessed from other places if needed. It is like creating multiple
backups of your data.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on July 13, 2020 at 11:49 am
Most
websites that are programmed today are done so with a content management system
attached to it. This CMS system may be a bespoke one which has been made by
that programmer or the web company or it may be an off the shelf one such as
Wordpress or Drupal.
If you are
responsible for setting up the content management system users for a website it
is important that everyone has the correct level of access they need. If you do
not give someone the right privileges then they will not be able to do the work
they need to, give them too many privileges, and they may end up deleting
things that they shouldn’t or having access to pages they do not need to. Always
give a client the minimum level of access needed for them to complete the tasks
they may need to this will reduce the likelihood of them doing something wrong
on the site. It is important to ensure that the website is backed up regularly,
ideally each day to ensure you can roll it back if needed. Most hosting
companies will be able to do this for you, but you need to check If you are
planning a big update to the site then take a backup right before you start.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on April 22, 2020 at 9:29 am
The majority
of people between the ages of sixteen and seventy have a mobile device of some
description with most of those having a smartphone that is able to access the
internet, but can a phone ever replace a computer or laptop? There are those
that say yes in this day and age for most people there is no need for a
physical keyboard attached to a laptop. I can send emails, view websites, do my
banking and order goods on my phone so why should I need to use a laptop? The
truth is for the vast majority of tasks that the ordinary person needs to do a
smartphone is adequate. It is only if you want to do a reasonable amount of
writing that it becomes difficult on a phone screen. People who have deteriorating
eyesight can sometimes find this an issue as peering at a small screen can
cause eyestrain.
If you enjoy
working on photograph editing software to enhance pictures that you have taken,
using a laptop is far superior to a smartphone again due to the size of the
screen. So, although our phones are becoming more and more indispensable not
all applications work as successfully on them.
Posted in IT Solutions
Posted on December 27, 2019 at 4:03 pm
Over the
past few years, hacking and online fraud has become an increasingly bigger risk
and is something that is a very real threat to many ecommerce businesses.
If you have
a website that sells products online then it is vital that you ensure that the software,
you use, or any applications are always up to date. As a responsible website owner,
you need to try and keep your customers security in the forefront of your mind.
The website needs to be coded in such as way that uses the latest advances and
offers protection against the code being manipulated. Updates are often created
to add in security features to programs and therefore if an update is not done
in a timely manner, you may be opening your business up to a cyber-attack. If
your website has a content management system, this will also need to be
updated. If you are using an off the shelf CMS system, you will usually be notified
when an update is available, and it is then up to you to install it. If you use
a bespoke content management system, then the programmers who designed it will
need to make updates for you.
Posted in IT Solutions
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