Did you know that the time of the day can dramatically affect your download and upload speeds for the internet?

Many Internet Services Providers conveniently ignore this factor when advertising their download speeds and also their tests are sometimes from right next to the exchange. This distance will falsify the speeds obtained if you live further away as distance matters.

A graph obtained from the BBC using uSwitch’s information is shown below.

“Not many internet users enjoy the maximum headline broadband speeds offered by providers, and certainly not during the working week,”

The graph quite clearly shows a difference in 35%, The speed has been proven differ from an average of 35% up to 70% when comparing the early hours of the morning to peak time.

Almost half of broadband users are now on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps but the average broadband speed is 6.8Mbps according to Ofcom.

So in conclusion, when checking what deals are available for your internet packages, make sure the package you opt for will give you the speeds they advertise during peak time. Otherwise you could be paying for a service you won’t receive.

Telephone scams and fraud are commonplace at the moment with many cake companies pretending to be legitimate official companies such as microsoft or apple in an attempt to get money from you. Recently there has been a wave of scams that have been targeting PC users. They will claim to be from Microsoft and will phone you up telling you that your have errors or a virus on your computer which needs to be checked.

After this they would attempt to convince you to install software to allow them access to your computer, from here they would show you your log files and say that all of the errors are serious. The event viewer which they would use records all the computers logs, it’s natural that it has all the errors recorded, even from web pages not being displayed.

Once they have access to your computer they will then install malicious software onto your computer which can then track your keyboard inputs so that they can easily acquire your bank details or failing this they might invoice you for the fake work that they have done and request your bank details.

We at Mad Computer Solutions highly recommend that your inform those you know about the scams as we are well aware that numerous businesses and individuals have fallen for it already.

If you have let them onto your computer unknowingly it’s also a good idea to keep a track on your bank account finances over the next few months in the event that your bank security is compromised. Additionally we can offer a service to remove any potentially unwanted software which they may have installed onto your computer.

Remember: Microsoft Microsoft will never ask you to provide your user name, password, date of birth, country, credit card number, or any other personal information. Additionally Microsoft do not perform unsolicited phone calls to help fix your computer.

If on the unfortunate chance your or a friend or relative has been caught out by one of these scams and you think your PC may have likely been compromised, then please feel free to contact us using our Contact Form. We will perform a thorough check up on your computer to ensure that there is no residual software on your computer that may harm or steal your data.

Update – These calls do not only impersonate Microsoft, they have also been caught impersonating a company called Alien Touch.

Not quite what you would think, a harmless chunk of code labelled as “big boobs” can cause quite the controversy for one of the worlds leading computing companies, Microsoft.
In recent news a small hexadecimal string “0xB1GBOOB5” was discovered when when developers of the Linux kernel found it in a piece of software which helps a Microsoft program with with Linux open source software.

The piece of code executed every time that Microsoft program ran a virtual version of Linux.
“Somone (sic) was trying to be funny, I guess” as said by Kernel hacker Paolo Bonzini.
Microsoft was deeply embarrised by the mistake and quickly made a statement:
“We thank the community for reporting this issue and apologise for the offensive string,”

Also adding that they had prepared a patch that would change the spelling of the string in an update to come. Ironically the first form of the code, as pointed out by developer Dr Matthew Garrett was spelt as “0X0B00B135”, a rough form of letters and numbers which translates to “boobies”.
“Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that software development is a boys’ club where girls aren’t welcome,” had left speculation of possible sexism within the world of computing as noted by Dr Garrett.

The discovery of the string and the comments rasied by Dr Garrett have left a large debate on the Linux mailing list about whether use of the string was sexist and how male developers should conduct themselves. On Dr Garrett’s blog he questioned how easy it would to change the string considering that numerous services including Microsoft’s Azure cloud service are believed to make extensive use of it.

In early June, Microsoft suffered another embarrassment over ‘”vulgar” language used during a song and dance routine at a company conference.

It’s always a good idea to keep web browsers up to date as flaws are fixed and new features to improve your web experience are added. Outdated browsers can pose security risks such as the numerous exploits that are out there for Internet Explorer 6.

Internet Explorer:

Help -> About Internet Explorer
The best way to check for Internet Explorer updates is to check via the windows update tool.

Firefox:

Help -> About Mozilla Firefox
A nice feature that’s in Firefox is that when you go to check the version, it will automatically search for an update for you.

Google Chrome:

Click the Spanner in the top right corner -> About Google Chrome.
A nice feature that’s in Chrome is that when you go to check the version, it will automatically search for an update for you.

Opera:

Help -> About Opera
If you want to update Opera the update feature is in Help -> Check for Updates

If you find that you can’t find the help menu, press the alt key while in your browser and it should unveil a toolbar.

List of latest versions as of (July 23, 2012)

Internet Explorer – 9.0.8112.16421
Firefox – 14.0.1
Google Chrome – 20.0.1132.57
Opera – 12.00
Safari – 5.1.7

Want to find out more about how to check versions or update a browser that’s not featured here? Feel free to request it through our Contact Form.

Writing a blog isn’t as scary as you think – everyone can do it. A blog is like a conversation with a friend where you impart knowledge and share ideas as well as thoughts. A well-written blog will drive traffic to your website and hopefully people will stay long enough to buy the product or service that you are selling or they will tell their friends about your blog especially if they feel they can learn something from it.

Some blogs can be very boring because they just concentrate on one product or service and how to sell it and those tend not to keep your attention and you feel less inclined to linger. Ideally, you need to add pictures to break up the page a little and make it more interesting. Talking about other things too such as associated products or services, for example, if you are a wedding photographer try talking about venues, stationery, the latest trends and maybe include tips on how to choose a photographer. People love free things so tips are a great way of imparting knowledge and keeping people interested.

You may be wondering how you can drive traffic to your website via a blog and again this is not as difficult as you may think. Some of the best websites have a blog incorporated into them and this is easily done by using WordPress because your site can then be themed to your business brand. Each time you update your blog tweet about it and include a link to your blog that way people will go and read it, you can also use RSS feeds on your blog too so that when people subscribe to your blog they receive notification that you have posted something new. Adding tags to your blog will also help because people tend to search the internet for snippets of information and by using words that appear in your blog as tags then these make your blog more searchable. Remember too that if you comment on another person’s blog then add a link back to your own blog so that they can then follow you.

Top Tips for your Blog

1. Make the blog interesting by adding photographs to break up the text
2. Add RSS Feeds and Share buttons so that you can ping out to other search engines and your subscribers
3. Add tags as these will help your SEO and make your blog more searchable.
4. Ask questions of your readers – this will make them think and they will come back for more.
5. Share your knowledge to demonstrate that you are an expert in your field.
6. Be conversational
7. Add links to other webpages that you may own
8. Allow comments – that way you can build up a regular readership
9. Offer to write a guest blog for someone and return the favour by letting someone write for you, that way you get some blogging experience whilst at the same time putting a different perspective on things and offering your own readers something a little different.
10. Try and blog regularly.

Now it’s your turn..it really is that easy.