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 Getting annoyed with the “lets finish setting up your device message” in windows 10?

To turn it off Go to System > Notifications & actions in the Settings application. Locate “Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device to get the most out of Windows” and untick the box. Issue solved.

Try Windows Key + CTRL+Shift+B.

This restarts the graphic driver and can cure some issues.

How many of these do you use?

F1: Open up help in the program that you are working in.

F2: Renames a selected object such as a file or document.

Winkey +D : Brings your desktop to the top.

Winkey +M :  Minimises all windows on the desktop.

Winkey +L : Locks your computer screen.

Ctrl Alt Down: if winkey+L has not been used !

Whenever a new PC enters the workshop, it is important to get a quick understanding of the specification of the PC and to scan for common errors.

This allows an initial diagnosis of what may be wrong and can be used to plan further work.

One way of doing this is to use a scan tool at www.scancircle.com. This site runs a simple script and allows you to print out a lot of detail about the PC on the bench.

We have supported all of these in their time.

We all have a lot of online accounts these days. What should you do if a social media, email of other online account appears to be hacked.

How would you know?

You may be locked out of your account, or notice many log in attempts perhaps at odd times or from other locations. You may start to see odd messages being sent from your account.

What should you do if your account has been hacked: –

1. Update your phone or computer and run an antivirus scan.
2. Contact your account provider’s security team and try activate the account recovery process.
3. Once you have recovered your account check all the security and account rules.
4. Change account passwords. Make it unique, use a password manager if needed.
5. If you have used the same password on other accounts, make sure that you check those as well.
6. Inform your personal contact that you have been hacked and ask them to be aware of any strange emails/ posts which appear to come from you.
7. Consider reporting to Action Fraud who may be able to help others being affected.

Improve your caravan internet connection

We are all so used to having an internet connection at home or when moving about via 4g data on our mobile phone. However, things tend to slow down once you try to use your mobile data inside a caravan. Caravans often located in rural areas which may not have the same strength or capacity of the signal in an urban area. However, using mobile phone data while inside a caravan also has to deal with another issue which is the signal blocking characteristics of the metal body of the caravan.

The metal skin of the caravan often acts like a faraday cage and reduces the signal strength inside the caravan significantly compared to that outside. This is true for all radio waves so both Wi-Fi and 4 g signal strength are reduced inside a caravan.

If your caravan site provides a site Wi-Fi service it is possible to fit an external antenna to you caravan matched with a suitable internal Wi-Fi router to provide a Wi-Fi service inside the caravan. This has not been possible if you depend on a 4g service.

A number of mobile providers have introduced “MiFi” systems. These use a 4G mobile signal to provide a Wi-Fi service inside a building. However, many will not work within a caravan due to the metal skin.

Now Vodaphone have introduced a new device called a GigaCube. This is similar to a MiFi in that it picks up 4 g signal and converts it to Wi-Fi for use in a building where traditional copper or fibre fixed network is not available. The Giga Cube can also be fitted with an external antenna. This means that, as long as your caravan site has a decent 4g signal from Vodaphone, you can now use a GigaCube with an external antenna to provide decent internal Wi-Fi to a caravan.

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