Bitcats

15/02/2024

A long while ago I met an incredibly creative guy called Lewis. We met when I worked in Apple retail and had many conversations about all sorts of things. He's just shared his digital work and it's incredible!! What an absolutely mind blowing inspiration he is.

Please like and share!

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556533798115

This is just a place for me to show off stuff that I have made.

14/03/2023

Identifying Scam Emails

Phishing is the attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and, indirectly, money), often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

With scammers becoming more and more devious it is becoming harder and harder to identify a phishing email over a legitimate one.

I recently received a very legitimate looking email disguised as an invoice coming from Apple for an in app purchase of $16. Take a look at the attached screenshot and see for yourself how convincing this email may look! Luckily I noticed the word "visit" used twice which is not usually a mistake a company like Apple would make. I logged on to reportaproblem.apple.com and checked my invoices and no such purchase had been made!

Remember: NEVER give the following information via email..
Social Security Number
Mother's maiden name
Full credit card number
Credit card CCV code

This article has some great information on spotting phishing emails. It doesn't just apply to Apple users either. Lets become more digitally safe!

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204759

14/03/2022

DID YOU KNOW....

USB 3.0 devices can cause havoc with your WiFi.

If you have a USB 3.0 hard drive connected to you computer, you might be experiencing WiFi problems due to the interference caused by the cable!!!

Many people use USB 3.0 hard drives for things like PS4/5 extended storage, Backup drives, Network storage and more.

Due to the "noise" created on a 2.4Ghz frequency, many USB 3.0 devices will drastically reduce your network connection speed. The only solution is to move the drive as far away from your router and computer as possible by the cable length. Either that or you can use a powered USB 3.0 drive and turn it off when not in use.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of the issue, these two photos were taken just minutes apart. One was while writing data to a USB 3.0 hard drive in the same room... the other is when that hard drive was powered off.

Quite the difference.

19/01/2022

Can you help??...

A friend of mine is looking for I.T Trainers for mainly virtual training of Excel, and sometimes Word / PowerPoint / Ofiice 365.

Some full days 9:30am - 4:00pm and some half days.

Must be confident using MS Teams / Zoom to train business clients virtually.

Must be trustworthy and reliable as well as punctual.

If you think this may interest to you or anyone you know then please get in touch so that I may pass on details for a breif conversation.

14/04/2021

Why not have a peek at some of the photos I took during recent Halfords Autocentre / McConechys Tyre Services Ltd training that has been taking place on behalf of SeventhWave

What a great bunch to work with!

visit the LinkedIn post below to find out more.

For the last three years we have supported training within Halfords Autocentres and MCCONECHY'S TYRE SERVICE LIMITED's garages has been added this year...

26/09/2019

So I finally got my hands on the iPhone 11 Pro Max today - obviously in Midnight Green, right? - correct.

So what’s my favourite feature?

Night Mode! Hands down! I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t realise how good.

From dimly lit restaurants to moonlit beaches, the new Night mode uses intelligent software and A13 Bionic to deliver low‑light shots never before possible on iPhone. And it all happens automatically. You can also experiment with manual controls to dial in even more detail and less noise.

Still not sold? Have a look at the following images which show the actual light in my local cemetery in the first photo, compared to the SAME SHOT from the low light Night Mode on my 11 Pro Max in the second image.

That right there is a game changer!

05/06/2019

Celebrating 5 years today!

27/05/2019

Things like this are a bit of a minefield! Sometimes they can be great and sometimes they can cause more problems than you started with.

My biggest issue with these is that the majority of them only work on the lower 2.4Ghz networks.

This might not seem too much of an issue but remember that WiFi can only operate as fast as the SLOWEST node on the network.

In other words. If ANY 2.4Ghz device connects to a 5Ghz network, then the entire network and all devices on it drop to 2.4Ghz and this can slow down networks rather than speeding them up.

10/04/2019

Just a little reminder that it’s sometimes beneficial to change the channel that your WiFi broadcasts on in order to get faster connection speeds.

I encountered extremely slow connection speed on my WiFi this evening and just take a look at the result of switching WiFi channels.

Over 180% increase on my 2.4 GHz network
Over 70% increase on my 5GHz network

It is worth noting that most routers change automatically these days but it’s sometimes nice to give them a little nudge in the right direction.

16/01/2019

Do you know anyone who got some new gadgets for Christmas and could do with some help setting them up or getting started. Give us a shout and get a special New year rate of 20% off the final cost until the end of January.

Laptop Setup/troubleshooting
Syncing of mobile phones
Network setup/troubleshooting
Printer & Scanner setup
Backup solutions
Transferring data
And much more

Let us know if there is anything you need. Even if it's not listed.