Category: Cloud

Providing IT support and solution to small and medium businesses. Servicing Edinburgh, Livingston, Fife and surrounding areas. Responsive, Flexible, Professional and friendly local support.

Does Your Business Take Cash?

Cashless businesses that only take contactless card payments, such as cafes and bars may be growing in number in major cities but despite their apparent convenience for their target market, they are also attracting accusations that they are discriminatory. Cashless Bar The BBC, for example, recently featured a story about the Crown and Anchor pub…
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New Hashtags Feature For Google Maps

Google has begun the global rollout of its new ‘hashtags’ feature in Google Maps, which allows users to add hashtags to the end of the reviews they write, thereby helping others to find local attractions and businesses. How It Works When using Google Maps e.g. to find places to eat or local attractions, if a…
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Bitcoin and Other Crypto-Currencies Hit New Lows

After losing 74% of its value so far this year, Bitcoin’s value, and that of other crypto-currencies have continued to fall this month as a sell-off takes place in what some see as the natural course for the market, and as another opportunity to buy crypto-currencies at a low price. What’s Been Happening? According to…
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CNBC: Google is shutting down its Plus social network sooner than expected after second security bug found

CNBC: Google is shutting down its Plus social network sooner than expected after second security bug found. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/10/google-shutting-down-social-network-sooner-because-of-new-security-bug.html

Business Concerns Over ‘Secondary Data’

A study by data protection and management company ‘Cohesity’ has shown that most companies store up to 10 copies of their ‘secondary data’ in different locations and must use multiple products to manage it. The Problem With Secondary Data Secondary data (not production data) e.g. all the data that a company collects from other sources…
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Free VPN Tools May Be Linked To China

A new investigation by Metric Labs of the top free VPN (Virtual Private Network) apps in Apple’s App Store and Google Play has revealed that more than half are run by companies with Chinese ownership. What’s A VPN? A ‘Virtual Private Network’ (VPN) is generally used to keep internet activity private, evade censorship / maintain…
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Facial Recognition For Border Control

It has been reported that the UK Home Office will soon be using biometric facial recognition technology in a smartphone app to match a user’s selfie against the image read from a user’s passport chip as a means of self-service identity verification for UK border control. Dutch & UK Technology The self-service identity verification ‘enrolment…
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Tech Tip – Turn Your Handwriting Into a Font on Your Computer

In a creative and fun step, the latest update to Microsoft Windows now means that you can achieve maximum personalisation in your written communications by using the ‘Microsoft Font Maker’ to turn your handwriting into a font that you can install and use on your computer. Here’s how (N.B. It works best with a digital…
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New App-Based Banking Platform For SMEs From NatWest

NatWest bank is reported to be testing a new app-based banking platform called ‘Mettle’ that combines banking with other business services, and is specifically aimed at the needs of SMEs. Mettle – Independent From NatWest Bank Mettle is the first standalone banking app to be launched by one of the UK’s big retail banking brands,…
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Environmentally Responsible Blockchain

At its conference in Barcelona, VMware (tech subsidiary of Dell Technologies and CO2 emission-reducing evangelist) has announced that it has introduced a beta version of blockchain-as-a-service. Part of VMware Tools According to VMware, the new blockchain-as-a-service product will be integrated into existing VMware tools and will provide permissioned blockchain for enterprise consortiums, which will be…
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IBM Security Expert Says Prepare For Quantum

As businesses come to realise that they may be required to store some data for decades, encrypted data should be secure well beyond its useful life, and with this in mind, security architect for Benelux at IBM, Christiane Peters, is suggesting that businesses should start preparing now to implement post-quantum data protection. Post What? The…
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New App-Based Banking Platform For SMEs From NatWest

NatWest bank is reported to be testing a new app-based banking platform called ‘Mettle’ that combines banking with other business services, and is specifically aimed at the needs of SMEs. Mettle – Independent From NatWest Bank Mettle is the first standalone banking app to be launched by one of the UK’s big retail banking brands,…
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