Internet

Help and advice relating to websites or software and services easily accessible from the Internet.

How do I find out what information Facebook holds on me?…

Ok, well this one has been in the news quite a lot recently – as in how Facebook may have been playing fast and loose with your personal information. It’s a great one for the conspiracy theorists of course but there is a reasonable amount of truth in the stories, of course the devil is in the detail. Did most of the people who had their personal information used give their concent by signing up to the Facebook third party apps in the first place? I guess we will never really know the full truth of it all, but whilst we ponder, there is something positive that you can do to discover exactly what information Facebook store about you and your friends by using their new service which allows you to download and view all of this information. Read this entire article »

How to refresh your Internet browser’s cache…

We all use the Internet. Whether we realise it or not the Internet has become such an integral part of our day to day lives. Most of us use computers (PC’s, laptops, tablets, smart phones) to look at information stored on web pages, this is called browsing or surfing the Internet and one of the “tricks” that computers use to try to speed up this process is a copy of the information you download on your computer, when you go to a website, on your computer. This is called cache (it’s pronounced “cash”). Read this entire article »

Amazon Smile – help charities when you buy from Amazon

Amazon Smile has been around for some time in the US, enabling users who purchase from amazon.com to gift a percentage of their purchase price to the charity of their choice, according to public record the amount donated to date is over $69 million!

Amazon Smile has (as of the end of last year) come to amazon.co.uk so if you purchase goods from the UK Amazon site then you can sign up to send a small percentage of your spend direct to your favourite charity. Read this entire article »

iOS 11 – Available Now For iPhones and iPads…

Are you lucky enough to be the proud owner of an apple iPhone or iPad? Then you probably have been receiving messages about a new operating system. It’s called iOS 11 and it’s free to download if you have an iPhone 5S or an iPad mini 2, Pro or Air or newer. This month we will look at some of the advantages of this new system but also some of the things you should check before you decide to press the upgrade button. Read this entire article »

Google Drive is being replaced…

If you use Google Drive or Google Photos on the PC or Mac then this effects you, Google will start to remove these products in December 2017 with a view to closing them completley by March 2018.

Don’t stress if you do use one of these products, however as Google will be replacing them with “Backup and Sync for Google Photos and Google Drive”. The good thing about this new piece of software is that it will enable you to “backup and sync” photos not only from your PC or Mac but from USB devices and SD cards – all to the cloud. Read this entire article »

Sonos – great quality gadget speakers for the home

Those of you that know me well, know that I am a gadget freak through and though – if it’s got a screen or flashing led’s then I will be interested in it!

This month we look at the growing trend in wireless speaker technology. More and more of us are using our mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) to listen to music. The problem is that the speakers that are integrated into these devices usually are not of great quality. Adding a wireless speaker to your device will give you both better quality and a longer battery life (because the tablet isn’t having to use its battery to play the music). Read this entire article »

Amazon Echo Dot – amazing voice recognition device

Well we have a new gadget / toy / essential piece of equipment (delete as appropriate) at BlueMoon Towers this month. Her name is Alexa and as an experiment in voice controlled, computerised assistant its pretty good, and is about the size of a black or white puck.

Amazon have created a thing called the Echo Dot. It is a small (and cheaper) version of the Echo which is a speaker that sits in your home and connects to your Internet connection and spends its life listening to its activation word. Once it hears this word it will attempt to interperet what you say afterwards and do whatever you instruct it to do. Read this entire article »

Google Maps – out of this world!

So, many of you realise that I have a keen interest in things “not of this world”. Here is more computer based astronomy stuff for you.

Most people will be aware that Google have mapped pretty much most of the planet we live on, Google Maps and Google Earth are great applications that can be used for many things from simply looking up places on the planet to using your phone as a satelite navigation tool for getting around.

What many people won’t be aware of is that Google haven’t stopped just mapping our planet, but they have been merrily mapping our satelite (i.e. the Moon) and Mars (the red planet) and the rest of the nights sky. Read this entire article »

Easily update the programs you use regularly…

We all have programs on our computers that we want to keep up to date and either don’t have the time or feel a little nervous about updating them because we are afraid of what might happen. Alternatively, perhaps you have a need to install a bunch of useful programs after you have refreshed your computer? If either of these describe you, then I have the easy and safe answer for you – Ninite!

No, thats not a typing mistake, and I’m not wishing you a great nights sleep – it’s the name of a company that you can use to update or install your critical applications, nice and easily. Read this entire article »

Making Your Wireless Signal Go Further…

Many of us nowadays use our computers, laptops, tablets, phones and even other devices wirelessly. It’s convenient and simple to connect our devices to wireless networks (well it is if our Internet Service Provider give us a nice simple password to use, eh?) and we use them on more and more things in the home; the problem is that the signal strength, when combined with our concrete walls here on the Costa Blanca, sometimes can be an issue – so what can we do about it? Read this entire article »