Category Archives: Technology

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Camping Essentials for the Tech-Savvy

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Nowadays, travelling is becoming more important for a variety of reasons. It’s a great way to relax in our own time, it’s a good way to learn new things and it can even affect our future career choices. However, many of us camp for the sake of getting some time to ourselves and relaxing our bodies, and as such it’s important to treat it like a leisurely trip to melt away stress.

 

Adventuring into the wild is a great way to connecting with friends and family and spend some much-needed quality time together. However, it doesn’t have to be all about sleeping in tents and becoming one with nature. Nowadays, there is so much technology around us that it almost feels like we can’t even go outside without carrying a phone in our pockets.

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Some people would scoff at the idea of bringing electronics to a camping trip because it doesn’t “feel” natural, but devices like smartphones can play a huge part in remaining safe and connected to the rest of the world when you’re out in the wilderness. If you want to bring some more tech on a camping trip, then here are a couple of great suggestions.

 

Lighting

 

Whether it’s a small torch or a floodlight to keep your campsite illuminated, companies like Nightsearcher will have you covered. From small torches and floodlights to solar-rechargeable lamps, there’s a huge variety of different lighting options to take with you on a camping trip to make yourself noticed, feel safer and also to make it easier on you when you wake up at night to go toilet.

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Smartphones

 

In addition to GPS being an extremely helpful tool to guide you throughout the wilderness, smartphones also come with many other useful features such as the ability to keep connected via the internet, take photos and record videos, and even have some fun and entertainment while you’re out in the wilderness. A lot of people go on camping trips to explore nature, take pictures and hike. However, what will you do in the evening when it’s dark but still too early to sleep? How about bringing out your phone and watching some films, listening to music or even reading a book?

 

Pressure Shower

 

Although it’s not as fancy as a smartphone or special lighting arrangements, pressure showers are a much-needed essential in camping. If you plan to stay out for a couple of days, then it’s a good idea to invest in a pressure shower. These are just bags that you can hand on a tree branch. When you fill them with water, you can give the pump a few squeezes and you’ll have access to a simple and hygienic way of cleaning off dirt and mud from hiking trips.

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Water Safety

 

Drinking water in the wilderness can come with some very nasty side effects. Luckily there are several ways you can ensure that the water you drink is nice and clear. For starters, you can buy a water testing bottle that uses UV lighting to show you if the water you want to drink from is contaminated or safe. You can also buy water filtration systems that clean water to make it safe to drink.

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Compute This: What Computers Can Do For Your Business

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Computers are doing it all for our businesses right now in this day and age, and they have improved how everything operates in business. Technology is never going to stop advancing, so we’ve only got more of the same to look forward to. However, if you’re not using computers in your business – you’re going to be at a huge disadvantage against major competitors in your area who are using them.

 

As we said – computers are doing it all for our businesses right now. Let’s take a closer look.

 

Computers can run software, and the ways that different types of software can help businesses is a list that frankly, will never end. Software can help business manage files, data, and documents on a basic level and on a more advanced level it can allow communication and creation. Computers also stored data in an effective way, and you’ll find it easier to search than a creaking old filing cabinet. Computers can help your business run on its own two feet. With computers and their software you can create promotional material, you can also prepare tax statements and manage your finances. Computers give us so much that previously would have been outsourced to a third party. Isn’t that quite the money saver?

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Speaking of saving money, technology and computers are constantly making services more affordable. Computing power allows for your work to be done faster and of course, more efficiently. This may mean that your business might hire fewer staff saving you money on your staff payroll. Networked systems can also allow you to share files, meaning that you won’t need file storage and copiers to share documents. Of course, computing technology can speed up your business as well – ordering business items, communication, customer service, and other areas can be fully digitized, meaning you’ll be completing these tasks faster and to a higher standard thanks to computers.

 

Thankfully, learning about computers isn’t rocket science – there’s plenty of advice on offer for you if you’re unsure. If you’re far too busy to handle this, then consider a hiring managed IT services. The benefits of bringing your business into the 21st century far outweighs the cost of upgrading. There’s enough nonsense in business today, so cut it out with computing.

 

The internet also offers amazing tools for business. A company website can help generate sales and boost your profits. Operating online allows your stores to be accessed from customers dotted all over the globe at any time you wish – so store hours no longer need to factor. Of course, you can promote your business to people with the help of social media where you can speak to your customers and create content that will lure new patrons in. There are even cloud storage solutions, so you can store your files online and access them from anywhere in the world.

 

Computing gives us so many options, so it’s easy to see why businesses that refuse to upgrade get left behind. There’s plenty of help available so get moving!

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Improve Your Life With Simple Tech

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There is no point trying to fight it; the technological world is well and truly here. A such, it is time you embraced tech and opened your eyes to all the weird and wonderful ways technology may improve your day to day life. It is as the saying goes, “if you can’t beat them, join them,” and that is exactly what you should be doing now. Chances are you probably rely on tech more than you realise. You probably don’t wash you dishes in the sink, you use a dishwasher. You probably don’t have puppet shows in your house; you have a television. You probably got sick and tired of those noisy fan blades, and so you got a Dyson. See what we’re talking about. Luckily, the tech world is infinite and so there is something to make everything easier, as you are about to find out.

 

Robot Cleaners

Yes, the robot has arrived. It may not have eyes and arms and legs and mega-brains, but they are here and this is just the start of it: the cleaner. What they do is clean, but they do it without you needing to waste your time doing the cleaning because they are unmanned bits of kit that use sensors to work their way around your space (let’s say your kitchen) and clean everything off the floor. But you don’t have to be limited to the floor anymore. There are no robotic window cleaners too. These are incredible, especially the Winbot. All you do is put it on the window, hit that go button and let it do its thing, which is cleaning. This may sound lazy, but it is in fact a safer and more efficient way of cleaning your windows, especially when you consider getting the ladder out to clean the third floor windows, or if you live in an apartment block.

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Voice Control Speakers

The Amazon Echo; you have probably seen it over recent months as the backdrop to the Amazon home page. They have been pushing this one hard, but for good reason too. It makes life simpler on so many fronts, and that is because of how well designed it is. Ask it something and it will answer, which may seem like old technology but it’s been revamped in this case. How? Well, it can link up with other bluetooth devices, such as other speakers giving you full voice control while you’re doing the dishes, lets say. Your hands are all wet and soapy, and yet you can still ask what the weather will be like tomorrow or to play your favourite song to get you through the chore you’re stuck with. You could even tell it to play movies if it’s connected with your Amazon-fire. Now that’s pretty cool; lazy, but cool.

 

Well-being Tracker

No, we’re not talking about those wearable trackers that measure your fitness and food habits and diet and weight loss and all those physical things we concern ourselves with. We are talking about the wearable trackers that measure our emotional well being; your stress levels for example. How these work is pretty simple and yet pretty complex too. They measure certain aspects of your life and report back when it detects stress, allowing you to combat it before it manifests. It will also allow you recognise exactly what the cause of this stress was so that you can avoid in the future or, if unavoidable, learn how to better deal with it. Feel is probably the biggest of these trackers at the moment, but more are hitting the market.

 

TV

Cable is expensive, and yet cable is becoming more and more irrelevant simply because catch-up is now where it is at. Streaming service have dominated. Netflix now rules Hollywood. So why fork out hundreds of dollars every year to fund something that is in decline and less and less useful, just use the internet. Of course, you are probably thinking that you need some form of television box to access on-demand services, including streaming sites, but that is not the case. You could just use a computer console or, better yet, your laptop. All you need is a wire and you can turn your widescreen TV into a huge monitor. Just go online, check out www.techbaby.com, order your cable and start enjoying a less expensive and more improved life of great shows and better movies. It’s a total win.

 

Security

It’s a pretty terrifying world out there and, whether we like to agree or not, even our homes don’t feel as safe as they once did. So why not get yourself some security. There are so many great products out there that help with this side of things; products that link up to your phone and let you know when movement is detected in your house. We’re talking Nest Cam’s. This isn’t just great for letting you know if there has been an intruder (even saving the footage to help the police in case of a break-in) it is also great for checking on your kids and making sure they are okay, and that they made it back from school. They also do a pretty amazing outdoor version that could be worth checking out.

 

Battery

Phones are smarter and cleverer and more incredible than ever, but what they are seriously lacking is battery life. There was a time, at the turn of the millennium, where our Nokia’s would last several months without a recharge, and now phone’s barely last a working day. As such, getting yourself a pocket-sized and portable charger will make life a little easier. It will mean you can use your phone as your SatNav, or talk to those family that live far away for longer. The benefits are amazing, and the kit is inexpensive. Always go for a reputable make though, someone cheap but good, a company like Anker. They are a staple go to for must tech, the kind that offer really decent stuff that will last you a long time to come (and they look slick too).

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Tube Talk: Is There Still A Point To TV When You Can Download For Free?

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Flickr Photo At: Esther Vargas

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As more and more people turn to digital devices, online streaming and paid for media subscriptions has television had its day? We wouldn’t go throwing away, or donating your old set just yet as our friend TV still has a few tricks up its sleeve!

 

4 K Colour

 

In the beginning it was all about black and white, then color, then HD, then plasma or flat screens and now 4 K, or Ultra HD is here. You might be thinking ‘it’s great giving it fancy names and numbers but what is 4K’? Put simply, 4K is referring to the number of pixels on the screen i.e. In this case 3,840 X 2,160 which is four times what HD TV’s currently have. Those in the industry are hailing 4K as a potential savior of television sets, giving viewers a bright, crisp incredibly detailed picture with a window-like experience so you should forget that you’re watching TV full stop. 4K is also designed to work on larger, flat screen televisions and film studios say the feel and finished quality is like watching industry standard 35 mm film.

 

Wider Screens

 

When it comes to technology it seems that bigger is definitely better. Recently we’ve seen phones that look like remote controls, phablets which bridge the gap between a phone and a tablet, and tablets themselves where screens are almost the size TV’s were originally. Nowhere is size more important than your TV, retailers are now regularly offering customers 55, 60 and 65-inch giant screens to choose from. Not to mention inbuilt wifi and on-demand video streaming platforms. Nobody wants a tiny, by modern standards, 30 or 32-inch screen and with sales of home cinema systems on the rise people want to have an authentic movie experience.

 

No Buffering Issues

 

Media streaming from television tends to be more reliable than via your smartphone due to the placement of your Wi-Fi system. Often, you’ll find that due to the necessary sockets you need to plug the router into it’ll end up sitting next to, under or beside the television. This means if you’re browsing Netflix, YouTube or Hulu the connection is going to be faster, quicker and stronger than it will be in say your bedroom. You shouldn’t have to wait while shows buffer with only a really irritating circle for company. However, if you’re really stuck the movie streaming app Showbox works seamlessly connected to Wi-Fi and mobile data, you can

Get the latest APK file of this app from here but do check your data bundle first as it tends to use a lot.  

 

It’s More Sociable

 

Ever wanted to show friends and family a video? Your holiday pics? Or the latest news updates? You’re tilting the screen one way and another, someone complains that they can’t see when they can, and you end up accidentally clicking on a clickbait link because you’ve been distracted by trying to stop Sara browsing Twitter. With television, everyone can watch easily, comfortably and all together from wherever they’re sitting. No one has to physically hold something, after a while iPads make your arms ache, and it feels like a shared family experience

Flickr Photo At: Peter Merholz

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Learn From Others’ Mistakes! Your First Web Hosting Service

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It’s certainly a good thing to learn from your mistakes, but in business it’s much better to learn from the mistakes of others. Far too often, you hear about businesses that have made some kind of poor decision with their web hosting, and end up suffering the numerous and expensive consequences. When you’re first setting up your web host and solution provider, you need to do everything you can to ensure you’re getting a reliable and cost-effective deal. Here, we’ll look at some of the most common mistakes business owners make when setting up their first servers.

Expecting a Cheap or Free Web Host Solution

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Image: Flickr

 

Nothing that’s worth having comes free in this world, except a few free WordPress themes! This rule certainly applies to your hosting service, and if someone comes to you offering a hosting deal that’s exceedingly cheap or even free, then you’re almost certain to run into various problems. The host may end up placing third-party ads on your site without your knowledge, you’re likely to have a poor loading speed, and there’s a good chance that the provider will give an extremely poor standard of technical support, or none at all! A free or cheap hosting provider can also have a detrimental impact on your SERP rankings. Google’s crawlers certainly won’t give your site equal importance when you’re running on a poor-quality server. I understand that your capital and other resources may be stretched, but this is one area where you really have to spend money to make money.

Thinking That Shared and Dedicated Hosting are the Same

When presented with the choice between shared and dedicated hosting, a lot of business owners will rush through the decision, believing that the two options are more or less the same. This is wrong. Choose a shared server on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of monthly cost, and you’ll be opening yourself up to all kinds of risks. This is mainly due to the fact that you’ll be sharing the retail space with thousands of other sites. If one of these happens to use maximum resources, or even worse, encounters a virus or some malicious coding, you’re going to feel the sting of it, even though you had nothing to do with the root of the issue! Furthermore, you’re almost guaranteeing that your loading times will be restricted, and occasionally the web host may have to shut the server down during your business hours. These issues, when they come up again and again, can cause your business to hemorrhage money. To avoid this, I strongly recommend going for a dedicated server, or finding a cheaper middle ground like a VPS Server for your hosting solution.

Skimming the Terms and Conditions

It’s 2017 now, and everyone’s more used than ever to scrolling swiftly to the bottom of a window of text and blindly clicking “I agree”. This may not be a big deal when it comes to the latest iTunes update, but when you’re setting up your first web host, skimming through the T’s and C’s can be a recipe for disaster. A lot of hosting firms will only really highlight the points of the agreement they want you to read, not what you should read to make sure you avoid any future issues. Make sure you go through refund policy, the terms of service agreement, the cancellation policy, and similar things. If you need any clarification on what certain terms or sections mean, be sure to contact your provider and ask them. It’s your duty to verify the service description, the deliverables and any related conditions before you put a single penny down.

Failing to be Clear on Bandwidth and Disk Space

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When checking out different hosting services, you’ll find that you have a lot of options in terms of the disk space and bandwidth. If you’re not a techy type, then all the different choices and prices can be a little confusing. However, if you want to make sure your hosting service really works for you, it’s essential to spend some time educating yourself on how these things will affect your hosting experience. For most start-ups, a subscription giving you 50MB of disk space and around 10GB of bandwidth will be more than enough. If you shoot much lower, you’ll encounter all kinds of problems like having to work within transfer limits and recurring downtime.

Forgetting the Basics

I know, entering into a subscription for a hosting service isn’t quite as simple as finding a desk fan on Amazon. However, there are still certain universal protocols which you need to follow every time you’re buying something online. You need to have reliable and regularly accessible contact information, so you can get in touch with the vendor if you encounter any issues. You should make a point to seek out customer testimonials and similar third-party reviews too. It’s also important to look for things like a money back guarantee, and to find out about the level of technical support the provider will offer you.

Ignoring the SEO Implications

Earlier, I touched on how the hosting service you choose can impact where your site appears on its SERPs. A lot of would-be successes choose their hosting service thinking that as long as it has a pretty good uptime guarantee, they’ll have nothing else to worry about. Again, believing this is a massive mistake! Hosting problems such as database connection errors, slow site speeds, and shared hosting with dubious spam sites can all bring down a site’s credibility, both in the eyes of Google’s crawlers and human users. If you have runtime errors that get dragged out, an exceeded bandwidth limit, and internal server errors, you can even end up knocking your site off of Google’s index! You may have the greatest SEO team to ever be assembled at a start-up. However, if you don’t choose a high-quality host, your digital marketing is invariably going to suffer. Don’t let the promise of big savings chase away your prospective leads!

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PC Gaming Tech Just Got Serious: Here’s Why

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For years, pundits have been prophesying the death of PC gaming. It’s too expensive, they said, and with the rise of mobile platforms, there simply isn’t a market for it anymore. And for a time, it appeared as if they were right. PC sales plunged, and continue to do so, and mobile form factors, like tablets and phones, took off.

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But in 2016, things looked a little less rosy in the mobile space than most imagine. We reached “peak smartphone” meaning that the market was mostly saturated, and tablet sales actually fell slightly. Meanwhile, the PC, long considered to be dead, was actually going through something of a renaissance. We saw the rise and mainstream adoption of some fabulous PC gaming technologies, including things like Adaptive Sync, high refresh rates, 4K and low-APIs, all making the experience on PC far superior to any other platform, including the consoles. PC gaming is the Rolls-Royce of gaming, and although console owners would never admit it, something to which they aspire.

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According to CNET, PC games sales are expected to reach a whopping $29 billion dollars this year, eclipsing the $28 billion worth of video game sales in the console market. And if the trends are correct, that gap will continue to widen further. It seems as if we’re looking at the end of the era in which people play certain games on certain platforms, as this list of PC games like Clash of Clans makes clear. People want to be able to access players across platforms, including the PC, in order to play with their friends online and to have the experience of their choosing. Why should users be forced to play a game on their tiny mobile screen, just because it’s a “mobile game” when they have an enormous gaming monitor sitting in their study? And why should people who shell out for VR systems be cut off from the rest of the gaming community in special VR areas? This isn’t what gamers want, and the industry is listening.

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The problem for developers at the moment is the proliferation of the many ways in which people can play games. Just a few years ago, there were consoles and PCs. But now there’s VR, streaming TV devices like the Steam Machine and Nvidia’s new console, as well as all the mobile devices you can imagine.

 

Brian Blau, a researcher from the research giant, Gartner, says that this has played into the PC’s hands. He points out that often the only way to play the latest titles at high fidelity is to play them on the PC. The PC isn’t limited by size or space, unlike tablets, and so there’s physically more room for the high-end components to run games like The Witcher 3 and Ashes of the Singularity.

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The PC is also the only platform on which to have a pleasant VR experience. Consoles simply don’t have the horsepower to deliver what we might call “presence” in virtual reality. It all means that PC gaming is getting serious again, and we might be about to go full circle, from PC to console and back to PC.

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Unique Ways a Smartphone Can Help with Your Life

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If you haven’t already got a smartphone then you’re missing out! There’s a surprising amount of uses for the little devices and you’ve probably seen people at home, at work or even on the streets using them almost non-stop.

 

For starters, you can watch plenty of movies, videos and shows on them thanks to services like Netflix and YouTube being easily accessible from a phone. You can even download apps that can help you with your workout and track your exercise progress. Many phones also have the ability to take beautiful photos and record high-quality videos to share with friends and family. They’re the technology world’s answer to a swiss army knife—a device that can do anything we could ever need.

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However, with so much power packed into a small device, you’d be surprised that many people (many even you!) don’t use their phones to their full potential. To give you some ideas of uses that you may have missed, here are some unique ways that a smartphone can enrich your life.

 

Base Your Job Around Your Phone

 

Did you know there are dozens of jobs that only require the use of a phone? It’s not customer service either! With the ability to browse social media, type and take pictures, you could essentially run a blogging business or similar content creation job while on the go and from the comfort of your phone.

 

Travel around the world, take pictures and videos, share them on your website as you go and attract viewers to your blog. You can turn views into ad revenue, or you could even sell your photos as stock images for other companies to use. The only caveat is that if your phone dies, then you’re going to be out of luck! But thankfully, that’s what phone repair services are for and you could always have backup devices.

 

They Can Make Your Life Safer

 

Whether it’s medicine reminders or alerts you that you’re approaching a questionable area, smartphones are full of wonderful bits of technology that can make your life safer. You can download apps that actually broadcast your location to a website or service where your friends and family can track you if you chose to let them. This is great to use if you’re worried about getting lost in an area or if you’re being harassed by people and need assistance. Tracking services are also great to activate on your children’s phones in case you’re worried they might get lost when you’re on a shopping trip or at the park.

 

They’re Changing How Our Brains Work
Researchers have discovered that smartphones have had a positive effect on the way we think. In the past, it was common for us to remember bits of information or write them down onto a loose piece of paper or organiser, such as phone numbers or important dates. With a push of a button on our phones, we can create reminders or search up information with the accessibility of a search engine and find that information on demand. This frees up useless facts and numbers from our brain and instead, we fill our mind with ways to get information instead of storing it.

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Car Problems You Honestly Don’t Need A Mechanic To Fix

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Some people grow up around cars, fixing them when problems arise and generally thinking nothing of it. But there’s a whole swath of us out there who think that if we tinker with our cars, we’ll destroy them forever.

 

The problem with this attitude is that it winds up costing you big time in the long term. Mechanics aren’t cheap, and there are plenty of common problems that you can solve yourself.

 

Fixing A Flat Tyre

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If your car is tilting to one side, or you hear a loud thumping noise, there’s a good chance you’ve got a flat tyre. You’ll need some top automotive tools with you in your boot to sort the problem out, including a car jack and a spare tyre. Put the jack underneath a metallic part of the car’s frame (not the plastic bumper) and pump the car up. Once the car is in position, remove all the lug nuts and put the donut on. Then tighten the bolts back up and bring the jack down.

 

Failed Head Or Tail Lights

 

The symptoms of failed headlights are pretty obvious at night: you can’t see where you’re going. Tail lights can be a little trickier to diagnose if you’re still sitting in the vehicle. The solution? Back up to a wall and watch out for that characteristic red glow. If the wall gets lit up, you know your tail lights are working properly.

 

Getting new lights is easy and you don’t need to go to your mechanic. Just drop by your local Advanced Auto Parts of Autozone and ask a member of staff which lights will work with your particular make and model of car. Usually, they’ll be able to point you in the right direction. Unless you have a supercar, you don’t need to buy ultra premium lights: regular lights will do.

 

Once you’ve bought the lights, pop off the old housing with the car switched off, remove the old bulb and slide the new one in.

 

A Dead Battery

 

Your car not starting is never a nice feeling. All of a sudden you’ve been cast adrift, unable to interact with the rest of society. Usually, a car that won’t start at all has something wrong with its battery, so this is the first place to look.

 

The first thing to do is to grab your tester and charger, if you have one at home, and charge up the battery this way. This is to make sure that the problem is the battery and not something else in the engine. If you don’t have a charger or a testing kit at home, most garages will check your battery for free.

 

Look to see if there is any corrosion on the surface of the battery and clean it off. Then unplug the positive and negative terminals of the battery and lift it out. Replace it with the new one, and you’re done.

 

The cool thing about a lot of these repairs is just how simple they are, once you invest the time in learning how to do them.

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What Do I Need If I Want to Build Software?

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A lot of people have cool ideas for software, which can include games or mobile apps. But how do people make these ideas a reality? Understanding how software actually gets developed is essential. Here what you’re going to want to acquire if you want your software plans to come to fruition.

Industry experience

The software industry is an exciting one, and getting some experience in it can be extremely helpful if you want to build your own software. It’s not exactly necessary – many successful developers created their hit software without having ever joined another software company beforehand – but it can be very useful. It helps you get a strong idea of what the process involves. If you’ve got skills in coding, designing, or testing, then try applying for a few positions.

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Development skills

If you want to build the software yourself, then you’re going to have to know how to code. If you don’t know anything about programming yet, then don’t worry! It’s actually nowhere near as difficult as you might imagine. Once you’ve got a hold of how the syntax works, the process of learning can actually be quite quick. You’ve just got to make sure you’re looking at the right programming courses.  It’s also a good idea to test yourself and get an appreciation of the process from other angles. For example, there is a platform called the ocr C# library where you can read text and barcodes from scanned images and PDFs, which you can apply to websites and convert images to text, which you can use to develop your skills and begin appreciating it all as a language rather than a set of commands. As for the programming languages you’ll want to use, then languages such as Python, C#, Java, and HTML 5 can be very useful here.

Testing facilities

You can’t just build some software then release it! Just because the code looks stable enough and the program runs okay when you play around with it for a bit, it doesn’t mean it’s fit to release. You actually need to test your software thoroughly – and I mean thoroughly. Software testing is a rigorous, full-time job that’s nowhere near as simple as many people think. Thankfully, you can actually get testing software that helps with, well, testing software! Jira testing software is among the most popular in modern software development.

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The right hardware

Software development can technically be done on something as simple as an undemanding laptop. After all, it’s mostly just writing! But when it comes to actually running the software, things might get a bit more complicated. You should be using quite a fast, modern PC that can handle multitasking with ease. As you get further into development, you’re going to find that you need more power to keep everything running smoothly. You’re also going to need to consider what platforms you want to run this software on. If you’re building apps for phones, then you’re going to want to get both an Android and an iPhone for testing purposes.

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Connections

So how do you actually get your software out there? You might want to look into getting some networking done. Getting a bit of advertising done is essential – after all, thousands of new software are being produced every month. How is your software going to stand out? If you’re not in professional software development yet, then you should be networking with people who are. Networking is what can help you get funding, development assistance, and even exposure once your software is released.

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Your First Server Room: Tips For A Smooth Set-Up

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While cloud services can be very convenient for a small business’s storage and networking needs, they’ll only get you so far. More and more small businesses are deciding to set up their own in-house server rooms in order to get around various security and practical concerns. If you’re taking your first steps into the large and often complex world of dedicated server rooms, here’s a little advice for hitting it on the head.

With Server Racks, have a Plan and Stick to It

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Image from Wikimedia

Compared to a jumbled stack of It hardware in the corner of an office, a rack setup has a lot of advantages when setting up a server. However, if you set a server rack up improperly, or without taking the time to plan it out, then it’s going to be little more than a large and expensive shelving unit! To start with, you need to have a complete list of all the equipment you’re going to be mounting on the rack. This needs to include the servers themselves, network switches, an uninterruptable power supply, and any additional storage or security components. Setting up a server rack during the work day will only cause disruptions, so plan who’s going to be taking part in this after-hours work well in advance so you don’t screw up workflow too much.

Don’t Cheap-Out on Power

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Image from Wikimedia

Keeping power flowing to your servers is extremely important, and if this isn’t considered thoroughly you’ll only run yourself into all kinds of problems. Though it may be expensive, some offices can benefit from connecting their server room to a separate circuit breaker. This will save you from the kitchen microwave tripping up the servers, or any kind of routine changes or upgrades resulting in expensive downtime. Even if your office has brilliant power supplies, you’re going to need an uninterruptable power supply, as localised power failures can happen at a moment’s notice. This is the one sure place where you can’t scrimp, so limit your search to reputable vendors and brands like Riello UPS. While shopping around, make sure you’re referring back to the list you started with, and checking that the UPS you settle on has enough places to plug-in all the appliances on the server rack.

Lock Up

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Image from Wikimedia

A lot of business owners will switch over to a server room solution having had some kind of security breach through cloud solutions in the past. Having made the switch, they figure that they’re completely safe from any kind of security threats. This is totally false, and you need to make sure your server is protected from any damaging breaches. As soon as it’s operational, the server room should be strictly out of bounds to people outside of the IT department. Make sure that the door is closed and locked at all times, and put a password on the KVM console if at all possible. You can also make your servers a little more secure by installing IP cameras, which can be used to keep an eye on any equipment in the room.

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