For smaller businesses that have multiple offices/branches, consider setting up a domain for your business. A domain is a type of VPN that allows computers anywhere to connect up to a private network owned and operated by a business. The domain can be password-protected and is great for sharing files between offices. Domains are usually based on a mainframe server and can have policies implemented for any computer that joins it, such as access to specific drives on the server, various Windows settings enabled or disabled, automatic installation of specific apps the business uses, and much more.
Contact us here at ADVOTEC and we can help you get a domain set up for your business!
It is entirely possible to install Windows and Linux on a USB drive, allowing you to take your OS with you and access all your files and programs on any computer that can run it. This has been named Windows To Go, and is technically possible with just about any version of Windows and Linux, with the only limit being the size of the USB drive it is installed on. Windows To Go is brilliant for people who hotdesk a lot and tend to use whatever computer is available to them.
Bring a sizeable USB drive over to us at ADVOTEC and we’ll install Windows To Go on there for you.
Windows 11 moved the Start Button towards the middle of the taskbar, presumably influenced by the Macintosh design. You can move the Start Button back to the left of the taskbar by opening your Settings app, and going to Personalisation, then Taskbar, then Taskbar Behaviours, then changing Taskbar Alignment to Left.
From here you can also enable taskbar icon labels by changing Combine Taskbar Buttons and Hide Labels from Always to Never.
Alternatively, there are programs you can download which will replace the Start menu entirely with older versions, such as the Windows 7 version. One such program is called OpenShell, which replaces the Start menu with something more familiar and also changes the Windows Explorer UI a bit.
Here’s some keyboard tips:
– Use the PrtSc button to save a capture of your screen to the clipboard. From there, you can go into an image editing program (such as Paint) and use the Paste function to edit and save it. In Windows 10 and 11 onward, the PrtSc button can be set as a hotkey for the Snipping Tool.
– When you’re browsing the internet, instead of typing out the entirety of a web address (e.g. www.google.com) and pressing Enter, try just typing the name by itself and pressing Ctrl+Enter (e.g. type google in your URL box and press Ctrl+Enter). You can also use Alt+Left as a hotkey for the Back button.
– Press the Shift key five times to turn on Sticky Keys. Press Win+R to use the Run command. And, to make your messages a little more fun, press Win+. (Win + period/fullstop key) whilst typing to put emojis and gifs in your texts 👍
First-time computer buyers, consider the following to see what PC type will best suit your needs:
Windows – Very user-friendly. Compatible with most modern applications. Decent performance, great for media and internet browsing. Jack-of-all-trades. Good for computing beginners.
Macs – Sleek aesthetics. Tends to be high in performance out of the box. Great for image and video editing. Very secure, good for IT security.
Linux – Highly customisable and programmable. Open-source, great for programmers and coders. Good for hosting virtual machines. Can be set up to run just about any application from other OSes.
Get in touch with us at ADVOTEC and we’ll help you find the perfect PC for your needs!
If you have a subscription to Microsoft’s Office 365, you have a veritable treasure trove of useful productivity tools at your fingertips. Many people assume Office is just things like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but today’s version of Office actually has loads more apps. One of my personal favourites is PowerApps, which allows you to turn a simple Excel spreadsheet into a useful and user-friendly custom app for just about any need.
It does require some learning, but basically you can use PowerApps to create a mobile-friendly app into something like a form that you can use to make Excel data entry easier, or perhaps an app that can take data from an Excel file and present it in a pleasing way. For example, I once created an app that took addresses from an Excel file and displayed them on a map.
Apps created using PowerApps can be turned into mobile apps that can be downloaded onto phones and tablets, or integrated on to websites, making them very useful for businesses that tend to use Excel a lot.
You can find the complete list of ALL Office 365 apps you can use by going to portal.office.com.
It is incredibly useful to make a recovery drive for your operating system. All you need is a USB stick with at least 8GB of space. Most modern systems can help you turn it into a recovery drive; just do a search for “recovery drive” in the Settings panel. With a recovery drive, should your computer no longer boot, you can plug the drive in and boot from that to get access to useful recovery and repair options, such as system restore and the command prompt. Head on down to our premises and we here at ADVOTEC can make you a recovery drive for almost any system!
You can do a lot with a hard drive.
You can install it in a computer that already has a hard drive, giving that computer extra disk space. Or, if the BIOS supports it, you can activate RAID MIRROR mode, which turns the second hard drive into a backup drive; any file changes that are made on the master drive are automatically “mirrored” on the slave drive, so if something happens to the master drive, the slave drive can be used to restore the master.
You could install a second OS on the slave drive; this is great for project boxes and virtualisation. Or you could turn the hard drive into a built-in recovery drive, ensuring that you will always have an option to repair the master drive should something happen.
You can take a laptop hard drive and install it in a desktop (tower) computer, although usually you can’t do the other way around.
Visit us at ADVOTEC and we’ll help you take care of all your hard drive and computing needs.