New Technology Era

Camping Gear Gadgets

If you love camping as much as my family do, you probably already have a packing list of those essential items that you take with you on every family holiday. However, if you enjoy camping holidays on a regular basis, you may find it worth investing in a few extra camping gear gadgets – small items which can make the outdoor life so much more pleasant.

Over the years, we’ve tried various camping gear gadgets on our trips. Some have been worth their weight in gold because they are so useful, while others would have been better left on the shelf (that solar powered battery charger was discounted for a good reason!). Here are our top three gadgets – the ones that really do what they say “on the tin”.

The SteriPEN

Sometimes when we travel abroad, we find that the water quality is not always as high as we are used to getting at home. This is where the SteriPEN comes in – a clever camping gear gadget designed to purify water of bacteria and viruses. The SteriPEN utilises UV light to get rid of all the microscopic nasties which can make you very ill. While you may not be planning on drinking water from rivers or lakes, if you are not 100% sure that all the water you will drink and cook with while camping is clean, it is worth using a SteriPEN for extra peace of mind – after all, who wants to contend with a stomach bug while on holiday?

LED Wind-Up Torch

Everyone knows that when you are camping, a torch is a definite essential – it can get very, very dark especially in areas where there are no street lights ! However, the standard battery powered torch does have its downfalls, the worst being that the batteries always seem to run out at the most inconvenient time (on a late night trip to the toilet, for instance) and then, of course, you never have spares to hand. This is why we decided to upgrade to an LED wind-up torch, the theory being that if it isn’t powered by batteries, then you’ll never be subjected to an unexpected blackout! We opted for a heavy duty high-powered torch, which has super bright LEDs, and charges with just a couple of minutes of winding. It hasn’t let us down once, and has been useful at home too, during power-cuts caused by winter storms.

Portable Kitchen Sink

My husband loves to joke that when we go on a camping holiday we take everything, including the kitchen sink! Actually, he’s telling the truth – my portable sink was one of the first camping gadgets that I purchased and is one piece of kit we use every day while on vacation. We found that, even on camp-sites where washing up areas are supplied, it is usually easier just to fill up our own sink, which unfolds to hold a capacity of five litres and clean our dishes closer to our tent.

Published January 9, 2012 – 2:42 pm Categories: Gadgets | Post a comment

Will You Need Your IT Support Company ToInstall Your New Business PC

It comes as a shock to many business owners that their newly purchased PC’s don’t work straight “out of the box.” In fact they need a fair amount of IT Support setup. Usually this is done by your IT Support Company

After your new PC is unboxed and on your desk here are some of the things that your IT Support Company needs to do before you can start using it:

IT Support Company

Complete initial Windows configuration:
- Windows product key
- Date
- Time zone
- Language
- Input type
- Computer name
- Local administrator username and password.
Update the Windows operating system with the latest patches
Register the Microsoft Office licence with Microsoft online
Update Microsoft Office with the latest patches
Set the virtual memory to the size recommended for Microsoft Windows. This will improve the speed of your PC
With laptops ensure network card is always on when it’s operating on battery power
Uninstall any trial applications that clutter the machines memory and use up space.
Install Adobe Reader, Flash & Shockwave
Install afree PDF writer such as CutePDF Writer
Install the latest version of Java – some applications may require it
Install Anti-virus and Anti-spyware – use your company standard software. You may need to purchase additional licences
Create a VPN connection for remote users or laptops.
Join the PC to the company network domain enabling it to use server resources and come under the server management
Provide access to network printers

You may also have a few additional IT Support setup requirements specific to your company such as:

Company specific operating system configuration
Installation of company specific applications
Installation of company specific plug-ins and templates
Setup network profile specific to the nominated user
Login as user and setup email software if PC is designated for a specific user

And potentially some IT Support setup requirements specific to each individual user. For example:

Any personalised operating system configuration
Installation and configuration of personal software applications
Migration of personal settings to new machine, where possible
Migration of personal data to new machine

Setting up a PC is time consuming and as you can see beyond the skill of most users. After all they are not IT Support Engineers! Clearly this is going to require some assistance from your IT Support Company. Your IT Support Company does this time of work all the time so can get the IT Support work done in a few hours. In contrast the average not IT Support users would probably take all day, but most couldn’t do this IT Support setup no matter how long they had!

Published January 5, 2012 – 12:33 pm Categories: New Technology | Post a comment

Technology in Carpet Cleaning Machines

Most of us don’t have an extra £200.00 or £300.00 to spend on a carpet cleaner. Things are tight for almost everyone but keeping your house and carpets clean is important for your health and for the investment you’ve made in your home. You can still keep your carpet clean without breaking your budget. There are several choices available in carpet cleaners all for under £150.00.

Carpet cleaning is a daunting task for almost everyone. No one wants to spend an evening cleaning their carpets. It’s just not anyone’s idea of fun. You can clean your carpets quickly and easily with the Bissell Quick Steamer Power Brush 2080 for around £95.00. It’s been reviewed positively by both professionals and non-professionals alike. This inexpensive device offers a dual-tank system that holds about a 1/2 gallon of carpet cleaning solution and water in one side. The other section of the tank collects all of the residue. It weighs a whopping 19 pounds, making it much better than other uprights as a carpet cleaning solution. It won’t break your back or you wallet. It’s only drawbacks are a less powerful motor and no ability to heat the water because it retires entirely on hot tap water.

Another value priced carpet clean called the Bissell Quick Steamer Multi Surface Deep Cleaner 2090 is available at around £105.00. It’s one of the newer models so it hasn’t been widely reviewed. There is currently very little feedback on the device. Customers wishing to purchase this machine should do so cautiously and make sure they do not dispose of any receipts. I would also advise choosing to purchase warranties just in case. Bissell usually makes good products but when a device is new to the market it’s always wise for a customer to be cautious. If these products are out of your price range you should considering hiring a professional carpet cleaning company.

There is also the Bissell Quick Steamer 1770. It costs about £80.00 but doesn’t have any rotating brushes. The carpet cleaning device weighs only 12 pounds and is the lightest carpet cleaning device currently on the market of his type. This device has received above average reviews at major sites like Amazon.com and Epinions.com. Most owners report the carpet cleaning device does an excellent job, considering its very low price but there are many comments discussing its inability to remove some of the other tougher stains. It also has a great deal of trouble cleaning heavily soiled carpets. Of course, most people do buy carpet cleaners because their carpets are heavily soiled or have lots of traffic so this particular budget carpet cleaning device might be one to be steered away from by most consumers.

Admittedly there are many bargains to be found in carpet cleaning devices but before you purchase any carpet cleaning machine budget priced or not, you should always read the reviews for yourself. While many carpet cleaning devices are adequate in features and function by reading customer reviews you can best determine what device might suit your particular situation the best.

Published December 9, 2011 – 7:33 pm Categories: Techonology Jobs | Post a comment

How to Fit a CCTV System at Your Home

One of the best ways to protect your protect is to look at some of the great CCTV systems around right now. These are ideal for making thieves think twice about making your home a target for their attacks.

Big name firms such as ADT offer really good quality systems and they are now more affordable than ever. However, maybe you are worried about how you will fit the thing once you buy it. You could get an expert to do it for you of course. However, as it is actually easier to do than you possibly think then you might also like to consider having a go at fitting the system on your own. If you want to do it this way then have a look at this guide of how to do it in three easy steps.

Choose Where to Put the Cameras

There are a couple of points to consider here; where is your property most vulnerable and where will the cameras be both partially hidden and well protected. Most people choose to tuck them against the wall near where it meets the roof, as this location give a wide angle view and it also keeps them safe from rain as well as vandals. Then you need to point them to the place where a burglar could try to enter. Your local Police officers may help you with advice here if you need it, while there are also computer programs available to help out. Once the positioning is sorted out it is a question of fitting the camera to the desired location.

Check Your Cables

You now need to see how to connect the cables. This really depends to a degree upon the model of system you bought but you should find instructions with it on how to connect up all of the wires easily.

Bring in the Cables

A good way to bring the cables into the house is to run them into your attic if you have one. You will also need to plug the system into the mains electricity supply. This part may be trickier if you have no existing gaps or holes into which you can fit the cables. If this is the case then you should take your time over picking a place to make a hole and then carefully do so before feeding the cable through. If you make it a bit too big for the cables you might want to fill in the extra space once the cables have been passed through it.

Your system should now be up and running, and capturing pictures of the areas you decided upon in the first step. This setting up part is pretty easy so if you feel the need to change the positioning of the cameras at any point you already know that it is going to be easy to do. Now you can relax and enjoy your home safe in the knowledge that you have taken a big step towards making it as well protected as possible.

Published December 2, 2011 – 2:27 pm Categories: New Technology | Post a comment

Internet Dongle Deals at Its Best

Internet dongle deals posted on the Web give you a choice in variety, style, cost, and more. Standard packages and other deals are offered on the Web. You can compare prices, plans, and packages by shopping on the Web.

Currently Three Mobile and T-Mobile is offer great value deals and standard broadband. Three offers up to 15 GB in download allowance and up to 7.2 Mp speed on a 24-month contract deal for only €15.99 per month.

You can compare all mobile dongle packages and broadband on the Web. Compare contract packages, pay as you go (PAYG), SIM only deals. Now is the time to find the best Internet dongle deals. Competitors are saying “Ho, ho, ho” all the way to the bank by enticing new customers to buy a package at the lowest prices ever. They are striving hard to ensure that they get new customers and beat out their competitors. Therefore, “deals on Dongles’ are available. Read More »

Published November 23, 2011 – 10:07 am Categories: New Technology | Post a comment

External Hard Drives Aren’t Just for More Memory

Isn’t it great when you buy something and discover that it is useful for more than you had thought? Even better is when someone else buys it for you and you then realise the extra uses.

One great example of this sort of multipurpose item comes with external hard drives. Whether you treat yourself to one this Christmas or whether a kindly relative picks up the hints you drop, this is a device which can give you more than just some added memory.

A Local Back Up

A very common use for an external hard drive is as an automatic back up for your computer. This is vital if you are dealing with important documents or you work from home, but even if you just keep music, photos and games on it you wouldn’t want to lose them, would you? If a local back up still doesn’t sound good enough for you then you can back up to a Windows Home server as well, just to be really, really sure that you won’t lose anything in the case of a disaster.

Make a Clone

This is a bit more time consuming that the previous point but it would mean that you can get back up and working or playing again straight away. Making a clone of your main hard drive isn’t really necessary for most of us but if you have the time to do it and feel the need then it might help you sleep easier at night time.

Store Your Files

We all have different weaknesses which lead to our computers getting stuffed full of things. You might tens of thousands of songs, loads of games, tons of holiday snaps or even a massive collection of soppy love emails dating back years. Whatever you are storing on your PC that causes it to go on a go slow can be shifted across to external hard drives to keep it safe without affecting your machine’s performance.

Make the Switch

What about if you buy a really good hard drive and don’t give it the use it deserves? Well, in this case you could simply switch it with your PC’s internal drive and use the one you have taken out as the backup. Of course, this only really works when the new, external one you buy or get given is better than the one which came with the computer.

Back Up Your Wii Games

This is a very clever way to make sure that your Wii games are well protected and also to decrease the load time. If you are a huge fan of this machine you can do this and then choose to settle down for some playing time whenever you want to with no hassle about finding disks or waiting for them to load. It is a tad tricky to do and it will take you a bit of time. However, it could turn out to be a great move, so get yourself a cup of brew, settle down with some detailed instructions from a techie site and move your games onto somewhere safe and secure.

Published November 22, 2011 – 9:51 am Categories: Gadgets | Post a comment

Technology and IT Support May Not Be Critical To Your Business

Clearly computers and IT Support are not of primary importance to most businesses, unless IT is your business. But they are of secondary importance to many businesses.

By “secondary” importance I mean that IT is not one of the main businessdrivers.

For example, having an effective email system is critical to communicating in most businesses. Having a good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that enables you to store the contact details of all your clients and prospects and communicate regularly with them in a systematic mannervia the phone, post, email, newsletters, meetings, etc can really improve your sales and marketing efforts.

Published November 15, 2011 – 12:31 pm Categories: New Technology | Post a comment

Cloud Computing – why Ziptech believe in ‘eating their own dog food’

Everyone is talking about Cloud Computing. Running a company like our IT Support London business, Ziptech Services often has clients asking if they could benefit from making a move to the cloud.

They are interested in the benefits they are constantly reading about – no server in the office and so no replacement or maintenance costs, pay as you go approach to application ‘rental’ and easy access to data where ever, whenever and on whatever device they happen to be using (no wonder those old enough to remember the adverts have dubbed it ‘Martini computing’).

We know that it’s only a matter of time before Cloud Computing is the norm –and just like other epochs before it (remember how revolutionary client/server computing seemed) it will change the face of the industry.

We already have many clients who have adopted a Cloud hybrid approach – some applications are already running in the cloud – but they haven’t moved everything over. This is the situation Ziptech themselves are in and because we truly believe in Cloud Computing benefits and because we always eat our own dog food before we make recommendations to our clients, we will be running all of our applications in the Cloud by 2012.

After all – how can we truly understand the realities of the cloud for small businesses if we haven’t been through it ourselves?

Published November 14, 2011 – 2:37 pm Categories: New Technology | Post a comment

Dependence on Technology and IT Support

All businesses, from the smallest start-ups to large enterprises are developing a growing dependence on technology. As a direct consequence business owners have a growing reliance on their IT Support Companies.

Whether its e-mail, e-commerce and websites, database management, or accounting software, there is hardly a business alive today that doesn’t need some kind of IT Support to keep their business running.

The Upside of Technology

The upside of technological advances is tremendous. With the right IT Support technology can provide your business with significant competitive advantages in faster production, increased productivity, improved customer service, and up-to-the-minute reporting for strategic planning and decision making.

Downside of Technology

The downside of this vast dependence on technology and the associated IT Support Companies is that when it doesn’t work, it can become a tremendous source of frustration.

IT Support failure can put a major strain on production, sales and fulfilment.

The Necessity of IT Support Expertise

No business is immune from computer problems and failures. Without proper IT Support, the average business can end up with spyware, viruses, and system crashes that easily turn into major network outages lasting for hours; and that’s not including the daily computer “glitches” and problems that frustrate you and your employees.

Unfortunately many business owners ignore regular maintenance, only calling in an IT Support Company when something breaks or stops working. This reactive model of network maintenance is a guaranteed path to extensive downtime, lost data, and excessive spending on IT support, not to mention major disruptions in staff productivity, sales, cash flow, production, and customer service that can never be recovered.

Published November 9, 2011 – 3:08 pm Categories: New Technology | Post a comment