Back Office It Limited

29/01/2025

A tale (actually two tales) of sleight-of-hand verging on duplicity, from our favourite mega-corporation. Microsoft. Firstly, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Or the opening to a con. Your choice. This affects users of the Microsoft Edge browser - you know, the one that is installed automatically with Microsoft Windows, and spends a lot of time begging you not to switch to another browser....

This seems like forcing unwanted services (and cost) onto customers by stealth. Microsoft want (a) your money (b) to make you use Bing (c) make you use CoPilot.

03/12/2024

One of the ticking time-bombs we are all sitting on is the scheduled end of Windows 10. I did an article on what this might mean for you, so I won't go over that again. This article will deal with who can (or can't) upgrade to Windows 11. You will know if you can't officially upgrade your PC to Windows 11 because your…...

Can older, supposedly incompatible, PCs really be upgraded to Windows 11? Under some circumstances, yes they can! See what we can offer & how inexpensive it is.

19/11/2024

Bitlocker is Microsoft's preferred hard disk encryption system. Which makes it as clear as mud... Let's start from the beginning. Your laptop (or PC or similar device) stores all your stuff on a "hard disk". And your laptop gets lost/stolen. Apart from the annoyance & cost of replacing your laptop, your personal data is now in the hands of some unknown third party…...

Bitlocker is Microsoft's preferred hard disk encryption system. Which makes it as clear as mud... Let's start from the beginning. Your laptop (or PC or similar device) stores all your stuff on a "hard disk". And your laptop gets lost/stolen. Apart from the annoyance & cost of replacing your laptop,....

18/11/2024

One of our pet hates is pop-ups. They are intrusive, annoying and catastrophic to productivity. Not to mention that they are (nearly always) irrelevant. So here's an annoying one you might need to circumvent. For years the Microsoft Office apps (other office suites are available!) have had the ability to export their content direct to an Adobe Acrobat...

23/10/2024

Blimey- can't even get their scammy story correct! An email from 'NETFLIX' telling us our 'SPOTIFY' account is going to suspended. Cretins...

17/10/2024

The problem with being a cynical old pessimist is the number of times I’m correct. So when Microsoft announced that their Outlook mail client was going to become ‘free’ my bullsh*t detector immediately went to full red with sirens blaring. But – OMG – it started appearing as part of a Win10 or Win11 install. I tried it. It’s ‘not good’. Ho hum. Then it started. Users of ‘real’ Outlook getting nagged to switch to ‘new’ Outlook (those who tried generally were reduced to tears within minutes). Then the built-in Windows mail client started nagging. And now it’s compulsory to switch. So now our support lines are filling up with clients confused by this switch – especially as ‘new Outlook’ seems incapable of inheriting the setting from the ‘old’ mail app.

But it has all become crystal clear. Adverts. Yup, paid adverts are being inserted into your inbox by Microsoft, and there’s nothing you can do. Except switch to Thunderbird. Now, where’s that installer file?

16/10/2024

Updates. Why? It sometimes seems these days that everything you touch needs to 'update' before it will do what you purchased it for. It is one of life's endless irritations. So what is going on, why do we need them and are they important? Modern software consists of thousands - maybe millions - of lines of computer code. The reputable suppliers take a huge amount of care to try to get this code as fault-free as possible....

What are updates & are they important?

11/10/2024

It's a common misconception that we hear a lot. So what and why? To explain I need to go into some brief details on how you actually use 'The Internet'. 'The Internet' (at least the bit you use) is best thought of as a long chain of separate links. They all have to work in harmony, or you won't be able to use the system....

It's a common misconception that we hear a lot. So what and why? To explain I need to go into some brief details on how you actually use 'The Internet'. 'The Internet' (at least the bit you use) is best thought of as a long chain of separate links. They all have to work in

23/09/2024

WiFi 7 is here. The latest & greatest standard, offering lots of wondefulness. Should you upgrade? Probably not. If that sounds a bit killjoy, let me explain. For most people (at home or in the office) their perception of computer speed is governed primarily by the responsiveness of their PC when accessing the Internet. Websites, email, social media - it's all delivered via 'The Internet'....

WiFi 7 is here. The latest & greatest standard, offering lots of wondefulness. Should you upgrade? Probably not. If that sounds a bit killjoy, let me explain. For most people (at home or in the office) their perception of computer speed is governed primarily by the responsiveness of their PC when ac...

02/09/2024

I'm really not sure what to make of this. I've keeping an eye on a seemingly preposterous story centred on Logitech. These are the people who make mice & keyboards (amongst other stuff generically known as 'peripherals'). We like their mice & keyboards a lot - we use practically nothing else. The story kicks off with the Logitech CEO being interviewed by a tech YouTuber....

I'm really not sure what to make of this. I've keeping an eye on a seemingly preposterous story centred on Logitech. These are the people who make mice & keyboards (amongst other stuff generically known as 'peripherals'). We like their mice & keyboards a lot - we use practically nothing else. The st...

07/08/2024

No apologies for going back to the subject of mail compliance. And this time it's an obvious and easy trap that you could fall into when configuring your SPF record. By way of explanation, your SPF record is something you publish: it contains a list of the server(s) that you have authorised to send out your emails. When we send out an email from backofficeit.co.uk the recipient looks at the source server, checks it against our published SPF list, and gives it the go/no-go based on what it finds....

https://www.backofficeit.co.uk/an-easy-trap-to-fall-into

No apologies for going back to the subject of mail compliance. And this time it's an obvious and easy trap that you could fall into when configuring your SPF record. By way of explanation, your SPF record is something you publish: it contains a list of the server(s) that you have authorised to send....

05/08/2024

Apparently so. We're talking about Intel and the fiasco over their latest chips. To cut a long story short, Intel launched its latest chips (13th & 14th Generation CPUs) to the usual fanfare & premium prices. Only for some users to find that these chips were, in some cases, slowly failing. What was happening is that the chip was not regulating its own electrical power properly, and bit by bit it was cooking itself....

Apparently so. We're talking about Intel and the fiasco over their latest chips. To cut a long story short, Intel launched its latest chips (13th & 14th Generation CPUs) to the usual fanfare & premium prices. Only for some users to find that these chips were, in some cases, slowly failing. What was....