Windows Essentials 2012 is a suite of free programs that can help you organise and edit photos and videos, manage email, create blog posts, and keep your files in sync. You can choose which programs you want to install or you can install all of them. Windows Essentials 2012 works with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10. Windows Essentials includes the following programs:

  • Photo Gallery. Everything you need to organize, edit, and publish your photos.
  • Movie Maker. Tell your story in style. Make a polished movie from your photos and videos in just a few clicks.
  • Windows Live Writer. Create stunning blog posts in minutes, with photos, videos, maps, and more. Then publish them to any of your favorite blog service providers.
  • Windows Live Mail. Manage multiple email accounts, calendars, and your contacts, even when you’re offline.
  • OneDrive. With OneDrive installed on all your computers, you can get to the latest version of your files wherever you are.

If you are not using Microsoft Outlook or Windows Mail in Windows 10 to access your emails then you are likely using Windows Live Mail which is a component of Windows Live Essentials.  Windows Live Essentials will continue to run after the end of support date though some email service providers have moved to newer email protocols for improved security and reliability not supported by Windows Live Mail.  These email service provides may no longer work.Our recommended alternatives are:

  • Mail is available as a free built-in application for Windows 8.1 and above.
  • Photos is available as a free built-in application for Windows 8.1 and above.
  • Movie Maker will soon be available from Windows Store for Windows 10 users.
  • Live Writer is available as an open-source solution.
  • One Drive is an inbox feature for Windows 8.1 and above.
  • Family Safety is an inbox feature for Windows 8.1 and above.

Start now to prepare for your migration off the Windows Live Essentials platform to reduce interruptions to your services.

If you have a MacBook Air with a 128-gigabyte hard drive and have realised that it is fast filling up with high-resolution picture albums in the Photos app. If you don’t want to use iCloud and don’t want to store your pictures online. Here is how you can copy them to an external drive without messing up the Photos app?

Apple’s Photos app lets you create multiple photo libraries within the program, and even store those libraries on external drives. You can reclaim a chunk of your laptop’s drive space by moving your picture library to a new external drive (and deleting it from its original location), but this means you do need to have the external drive connected to the computer when you want to see, edit or share the pictures.

To choose the picture library you want to use, hold down the Mac’s Option key when starting up the Photos app.

If you prefer to keep your pictures on the ground and out of the cloud, start by getting an external hard drive large enough to hold your growing image library for the foreseeable future. Connect the new drive and quit the Photos program before you copy the library.

Next, go to your Mac’s Home folder and open the Pictures folder. Drag the PhotosLibrary.photoslibrary file to the new drive’s desktop icon (or onto its icon in the window’s sidebar). If you hold down the Command key while you drag the library file, the Mac will copy it to the new location and then delete the file from its original spot, but you might want to make sure everything is copied properly to the new drive first — and then delete the old library file manually.

To point the program to the library’s new location, hold down the Mac’s Option key and click the Photos app icon in the desktop dock to start it up. As the Photos program starts, the Choose Library box appears. Click the Other Library button, navigate to the external hard drive that now houses your library file, select it and click Open. The Photos app should now display your relocated picture collection.

Every year when the Holiday’s roll around things tend to get busier, everyone is more giving, and the shopping season ramps up to its peak. Unfortunately these aren’t the only things that increase during the holidays, criminals are out to take advantage of your holiday spirit. Check out our top five holiday scams to avoid this season.

In a perfect world when the holidays rolled around we would only need to worry about the warm apple cider, great decorations, and giving spirit. Unfortunately that’s not how it typically works out. All of those things and more are what makes this time of year my personal favourite, but it’s also the favourite for scammers. It’s very typical to see the amount of scam attempts rise by almost 10% at the end of the year.

Quick tips for avoiding all scams

  • If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.
  • Read carefully, scams almost always have improper grammar or spelling mistakes which you won’t normally see in a legitimate message.
  • Check the email it was sent from, it will often be easy to spot that the email didn’t come fromsupport@amazon.com for example.
  • If you click a link and are taken to a page looking for personal information, turn around. No company will immediately request that information from you to get a deal.

Now we’re here, it’s finally time for the list. Lets get rolling:

5. Fake Charity Emails

There is no doubt that during the holidays we tend to give more as a society. We’re all feeling happier, and are more willing to spread the cheer during the “giving season.” Cyber criminals are always on top of their best chances to scam you out of money and may even try to do it using fake charity emails. These could come in looking to get donations out of you, and may appear to be legitimate at first. Make sure to read carefully through the emails and look for their typical mistakes (typos, poor grammar, etc.). To be extra careful, if you’re looking to donate to a charity that came from a suspicious email, open your browser and manually navigate to their website. Using this process you ensure you’re not being fooled by any fake webpages and can continue to spread holiday cheer!

4. Fake Shipping Notifications

This scam attempt is very popular at all times of the year, but even more so during the holiday season. We all tend to order more things online during the holidays which means Australia Post and FedEx are ramping up their deliveries to get all the packages out on time. Cyber criminals look to target this aspect by alerting you that your packages were not able to be delivered and you need to fill out forms with personal information to reschedule the delivery. As we all know, if Australia Post attempts to make a delivery and can’t they will leave a note on your door. You can also sign up for programs Australia Post and FedEx offer to monitor packages being sent to your address. This will allow you to skip over these shady emails and go right to your account to check a delivery status.

3. Black Friday or Cyber Monday Extravaganzas

We’re not the only ones who get overly excited for the steal of the year on that flat screen TV, cyber criminals look forward to Black Friday and Cyber Monday just like consumers. Cyber criminals have been preparing for this time of year and are often putting some serious dedication into their scams. In previous years entire “Black Friday Deals” websites have been created trying to lure customers into buying fake products on their fake website. These sites are showing even lower prices than normal stores are offering to try to prey on customers looking for the best deal wherever they can find it. Be sure to always purchase directly from retailers no matter what sites you see deals on.

2. Fake E-Greeting Cards

E-greeting cards are not something that really caught on as a popular trend but they’re still used as a cute way to spread some holiday cheer and happiness. They’re even sometimes sent out by businesses as a way to spread some cheer to customers and wish them a happy holidays. Because of this, criminals are out looking to take advantage of your holiday spirit and trick you into clicking their malicious links.

Sometimes these E-Greeting cards will come loaded with malware as an attachment, however they also may try to get you to give up personal information. This type of attack is focused on social engineering and will attempt to get you to enter personal information to win a “holiday contest”, or another silly excuse they come up with. Remember to avoid giving out personal information on the internet when possible, especially if it is solicited through a shady email or pop-up.

1. Fake Last Minute Shopping Deals

This year specifically be on the lookout for scams that could involve Wal-Mart or Amazon. They are two of the big powerhouses in retail store and online shopping, and cyber criminals see pretending to be them as an easy target. These scams could come in the form of last-minute sales or coupons that will often sound to good to be true. If you see a deal like this and want to see if it’s legitimate, go directly to Amazon.com or Walmart.com and see for yourself. If they’re emailing about a deal it will most likely be on the front page of their site.

Another way the criminals try to scam people with shopping related deals are free gift cards, that’s right FREE GIFT CARDS. They’ll often exclaim this offer in full caps to you in an email or malicious pop-up. A good rule of thumb for this one is no store is ever going to give you a free gift card for filling out a form with personal information. There are some instances where stores offer gift card deals with a purchase, these are legitimate and are often done by stores like Target.

Stay safe out there, and have a happy holiday season!

This advice comes from researchers at Barkly.com and it’s rather grim. As per their recent survey of ransomware victims in 2016:

  • 77% said the attacks bypassed their email filtering solutions
  • 95% of the attacks bypassed their firewalls (not surprising since ransomware is “allowed in” by unsuspecting users
  • 52% bypassed malware solutions that were in place
  • as for cash losses, 32% of victims said they were out of pocket $US100,000 to $US500,000 because of the attack!
  • Following the attacks, 65% of victims undertook security awareness training and 57% invested in better protection mechanisms and policies

Basically, ransomware is cybercrime’s most profitable business! Largely because most organisations do not have the right solutions to combat it.

Are you next? Where are your vulnerabilities? If you don’t know, then let us provide you with an audit and sound security readiness measures.

If you feel you’ve been the victim of an online fraud attempt, PLEASE REPORT IT IMMEDIATELY to ACORN (Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network)
www.acorn.gov.au

How can you tell how much free iCloud storage you have left and what’s using it?

Apple gives five free gigabytes of iCloud server space to every user to store mail and other data. If you exceed your allotment, you either have to delete files and old messages or buy more iCloud storage space from Apple. You can see how much space you are currently using on your Mac, iOS device or even a PC with the iCloud for Windows software installed.

If you use up your five free gigabytes of iCloud storage and don’t want to delete any of your files, Apple will rent you more storage.

On the Mac, open the System Preferences from the Apple menu or desktop dock, click the iCloud icon and then click Manage. In iOS 9 or later, open the Settings icon on the home screen, select iCloud and then Storage. On a Windows computer, open iCloud from the Apps or programs menu and click Manage in the box.

On the storage-management screen, you can see a list of all the apps parking their files on the iCloud server — and how much of your five gigabytes each one is using. This can be helpful in deciding which apps to whittle down.

For example, if you see your iCloud Mail is taking up several gigabytes, you can delete old messages and attachments you no longer need to regain some space. Deleting iCloud Photo Library pictures you do not need (or want) also helps free up room.

If you do not want to delete any files, tap or click the Buy More Storage button on the iCloud screen to sign up for a monthly service plan. Prices now start at about a $1 a month for 50 gigabytes of storage and go up to about $20 a month for two terabytes of iCloud storage.

If you’re still holding onto an older phone — most likely a Nokia handset, because they were very much the style ten or more years ago — and you’re happy with it, I’m sorry to say that your happiness is going to be cut rather abruptly shortly. That’s because older candybar style phones are most likely 2G devices; the early 3G phones kept that form factor but the switch to a more “smartphone” style was pretty rapid, so they didn’t last long.

The issue is that all three of the nation’s big telcos have now announced when they’ll formally cease offering services on the frequency bands that service 2G-only phones. Telstra was the first to announce its plans to shelve 2G, with services on the Telstra network set to cease on the 1st of December 2016. If you’re a Telstra customer, that means the clock is well and truly ticking, although it’s not much better for customers on Optus or Vodafone networks. Optus will cease 2G services on the 1st of April 2017, and Vodafone has recently announced that it will terminate its 2G services on the 30th of September 2017, giving you a little under a year to prepare.

If you’re thinking for the moment that you’re fine because you’re not with any of those brands, think again. Outside satellite phone services, every single mobile provider in the country is operating on one of those three networks, whether you’re with one of the supermarket-branded telcos or an independent operator such as Vaya, MeU or any of the numerous other providers usually referred to as Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs). They’re using spectrum provided by Telstra, Optus or Vodafone, even if that’s not what comes up on your particular handset as the identified network.

So why kill off 2G? It’s partly to do with the age and utility of the technology. 2G is acceptable for voice and SMS, but not really for modern data needs, and maintaining that network not only costs money in maintenance terms, but also uses up bandwidth that could be re-used on the existing 3G and predominantly 4G networks to improve reception and data speeds for the vast majority of users. Telcos have been reticent to talk in absolute numbers about how many 2G customers are left, but it’s a small amount in any case, so serving the needs of the majority also makes sense here.

So what should you do if you’re still rocking (and enjoying) your older candybar-style phone? Essentially speaking, the time has come to upgrade, but that doesn’t automatically mean you’ve got to drop the $1000+ price point that premium phones like the iPhone 7 or Google’s new Pixel phones command outright. If you’re still on a contract for your 2G phone, talk to your telco, because the range of phones available at even an entry level price point are quite good these days, and understandably leaps ahead of your older 2G handset. There are also options for those who genuinely want a button-based interface if you find you can’t manage touchscreens for your telephony needs. This is also true if you use a prepaid service, although naturally you will have to buy a new handset outright. Again, though, budget phones can be had pretty easily for under $100 as long as your needs are modest, and you’ll find them a revelation coming from a phone that may have only been able to make and take calls, or if you’re lucky play a quick game of snake while waiting for the bus.

Speaking of waiting, however, you won’t have all that long to wait if you don’t plan for the 2G shutoff now. It’s also worth pointing out that while your phone is on the older side, it shouldn’t just go in the rubbish once 2G services are no more. Use a service such as Mobile Muster to sensibly recycle your old handset once you’re done with it.

Are you tired of the constant costs of IT problems?

Is downtime getting you down?

Are dead computers going to be the death of you?

The answer is simple. Managed Services!
There are two types of IT support in this world:

  • Remedial – where stuff gets fixed after its broken, and you get the nasty bill!)
  • Preventative – where problems are preempted and headed off before they become costly, by regular monitoring and maintenance. Just like servicing a car!

Obviously some things cannot be foreseen, but for the most part, managed services offers many benefits:

  • control over your monthly IT expenditure (you know what you’re up for)
  • reduced downtime (things just aren’t wearing out or failing unexpectedly)
  • greater productivity from systems that are performing in a healthy fashion
  • peace of mind knowing things are being monitored by experts 24/7

We can offer a range of “Proactive Care” managed services packages for home and business, starting from just $9 per computer per month! Please contact us today for more info

Prevention is better than cure …
… and its cheaper too!

Microsoft Office is the gold standard for business productivity suites. But it can cost a lot of gold; even today’s low street prices range from $119 for the 2013 Professional version to $399 for the 2016 Pro version. Fortunately, there are plenty of good alternatives to Microsoft Office; many are free, and even those that are not cost much less than Office. Here are some of the best alternative office suites…

I’m Not Gonna Pay a Lot For This Word Processor!

The word processor and spreadsheet are two of the most commonly used tools on any computer. Microsoft’s Office suite has Word and Excel to fill those roles, and they dominate the landscape. The downside, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article, is cost. The good news is that you don’t need to buy an expensive office suite. Let’s look at some of the best free and low-cost alternatives to Microsoft Office…


LibreOffice
 is a complete office suite, which includes free (and in some cases, superior) replacements for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and Access. You can use LibreOffice Writer as your word processor, LibreOffice Calc for spreadsheets, LibreOffice Impress to create multimedia presentations, and LibreOffice Base to create and manage databases. The Charts module lets you create all manner of charts, and the Math module offers a powerful formula engine with a graphical user interface.

LibreOffice is available for WIndows, Mac OS X, and Linux. In most cases, LibreOffice can import and export Microsoft Office file formats with very little trouble. This comparison of the two office suites lists the differences in features and compatibility.

If you have heard about Apache OpenOffice, you may be wondering how it differs from LibreOffice. Most users will have difficulty finding differences between the two, as LibreOffice is a “fork” of the original OpenOffice project. Perhaps the most significant edge that LibreOffice has over OpenOffice is the ability to embed fonts in documents, thereby assuring that a document will look the same even if it’s displayed on a computer that lacks the fonts used by the document creator.

WPS Office was formerly known as Kingsoft Office. It now comes in free and paid subscription versions. WPS claims to be “the world’s most popular mobile office suite for Android,” and there are also mobile or desktop versions for Windows, Linux, and Apple iOS.

More Options for Desktop, Mobile and Cloud

Softmaker Office 2016 does writing, calculating, presenting, e-mail, tasks and appointments. It claims to be fully compatible with Microsoft Office documents, and comes with the Thunderbird email client. The full Windows version costs $118; a 30-day trial version can be downloaded free of charge. Also, older versions from 2006 and 2008 can be downloaded for free; they are still supported with addons and service packs. Linux and Android versions are available.

And for those who still remember the days when Microsoft Word and WordPerfect were battling for supremacy, I’ll mention the Corel Office suite which includes the WordPerfect word processor. Corel Office saves documents in PDF format and makes sharing via email or Dropbox one-click simple. An upgrade is $199.95 or full version for $399.95. A 30-day trial version is available for Windows users.

Cloud computing has given us “office suites on demand” — software that resides on vendors’ servers and is maintained by them. Users no longer have to worry about downloading, installing, or keeping software updated with security and bug-fixing patches. The latest version is always automatically available, and operates within your favorite web browser.

Google Docs is the best-known free example of the cloud-based office suite. It does word processing, presentations, and spreadsheets, storing documents on Google Drive. It can be used on mobile devices running Android or iOS. Although it’s widely used, Google Docs is not as user-friendly as some other office suites, and lacks some of the advanced features of Office.

Zoho started as an online office suite, but has morphed into a sales and customer relations management suite. The word processing component is considerably easier to use than Google Docs; in fact, Docs offers Zoho as an alternative or addon in some of its applications. Trial and paid versions are available for Windows, iOS, Blackberry, and Linux.

Whether you need just a basic word processor or a complete business CRM system, there are alternatives to Microsoft productivity suites. Try the ones that seem to fit your needs. Even if you have to pay for your favorite, the price will be much lower than Microsoft Office.

Apparently there are now over 250 MILLION domain names registered out there in internet-land. That’s …um … a lot, especially when you consider that they all have to have “officially prescribed” domain suffixes, e.g.

.com for common commercial entities
.org for non-profit organisations
.net for internet=related business
.gov for government agencies

And maybe a dozen others.

This begs the question: aren’t we going to run out of meaningful names pretty soon? And the answer is yes!

So to that end, the ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) have decreed that about 300 common english words will now be “ratified” for use as domain suffixes! So now the people at say, “garysgumboots.com.au” can now just have “garys.gumboots“. Other available words include:

.accountant, .dentist, .technology, .builders, .coffee, .cricket, .finance, .healthcare, .mortgage, .pizza, .plumbing ….. ….. ….

The list goes on! This has the potential to be the biggest disruptor of internet growth since the invention of the domain name! Experts claim that domain registrations will DOUBLE by the end of the decade.

So how do you get yours? Easy. Just Get in Touch.  We can evaluate, advise recommend, and implement a domain name strategy that best suits your business needs.

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