Above Board I.T. | Computer repair service

Above Board I.T.

Phone: +61 414 183 626

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23.01.2022 Hi all, Our previous helpful info & tips article was inspired by remembering the trauma caused to our kids once when they suffered the dreaded file corruption problem by keeping the only copy of their Uni work files on a USB stick and not ejecting it before unplugging it too many times! As a natural follow on from this article, here is our next one about handling USB sticks & external hard drives & their file contents: As USB sticks have no moving parts and are small compared... to external hard drives, they are generally more robust and portable. Unfortunately their size makes them easier to lose! External hard drives can generally hold a lot more files than a USB stick but have moving parts which means they have higher potential for failure if mishandled and, like any other mechanical device, will eventually fail due to wear & tear. The main point here is that it's never a good idea to have the only copy of your working files on one of these devices, as they are mainly intended to be used as backup or to transfer files from one device to another. As far as handling these drives go, it is always best not to expose them to direct sunlight or high temperatures for long periods of time, like most other electronic devices. Also, as external hard drives contain moving parts, the best way to treat them to prolong their life and keep the files you're using safe, is to place them right-side up on a reasonably flat, non-moving surface, plug them into the USB port on your device then try to avoid moving them while they are plugged in. If you need to move them while plugged in, pick them up gently and hold them as flat as possible then gently place them in their new position. When you have finished using them with your device, be sure to eject them first and wait for the message on your device screen to indicate that it is safe to remove, unplug them from the USB port and wait about 10 seconds while the internal parts stop moving, then you can safely move them again. Also, while it might be convenient to work on files directly off one of these devices, this isn't a good idea as it's quite easy to accidentally knock them out of the USB port they're plugged into, or forget and unplug them without ejecting first. The safest practice is to copy the files you need to the device you're working on, then copy them back to the USB stick or external hard drive when you're done. Once you've safely copied the files back you can always remove the copies from the device if you don't want or need to leave them there.

22.01.2022 Hi all, It's more than time for our next helpful hints & tips article so here we go. Some of us might think that computers are a bit too fast at doing some things, but until computers can do everything we want them to do at the speed of our thinking, they’ll probably remain annoyingly slow at many tasks we use them for.... Now although we all know that buying a new one will almost certainly give us more speed, there are usually ways to speed up what we already have that won't break the bank. As an example, having less than 4GB of memory (RAM) will make for a rather slow overall experience from either Windows or Mac computers, so this should be the bare minimum we have. Doubling this to 8GB (if possible) will certainly improve operating speed, especially when it comes to dealing with large apps, large files and working with multiple apps running at the same time. Also, many computers still have a hard disk drive (HDD) which are a minimum of 5 times slower than a solid state drive (SSD), so replacing your HDD with an SSD will give you a very noticeable speed boost, especially when it comes to starting up, opening apps & opening/saving files as all of these operations require files to be read from the drive and transferred into the memory to be used. There are numerous other ways computers can be sped up but the above-mentioned two are the most effective overall. If you'd like us to check your computer and give you an obligation-free quote for one or both of these options, be sure to contact us on 0414 183 626, [email protected], or here on our Facebook page. Also, our standard onsite service includes free software optimisation of your computer, so be sure to book your appointment ASAP.

19.01.2022 To all our valued clients, We'd like to thank you for your business throughout the year & to wish you a safe & very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. Looking forward to serving you again in 2019 & that it will bring success in all the good ways you've been hoping for.

17.01.2022 Hi everyone, Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas & New Year. To get 2019 off to a great start we're offering all new customers 25% off labour on their first onsite service during January, so be sure to take advantage of this opportunity to save while we take care of all your IT needs. Maybe you or someone you know got a new mobile phone, tablet or laptop for work, education or personal use - we can help set these up, show you how to use them, and even transfer the data from your old one so you can take up where you left off. If you have any questions or would like to arrange on onsite, please call us on 0414 183 626, email [email protected] or message @aboveboardit - you'll be glad you did.

17.01.2022 Hi everyone, We hope you found our last article about your landline phone & the NBN helpful. We thought we’d make our next one focus on NBN Internet access which is the main reason we’ll all want to switch. Most of us would have to admit that we can always do with a faster Internet service than we currently have. The ‘bad old days’ of slow dialup Internet are long behind us and most of us have had access to ADSL Internet for about 15 years, which is at least 25x faster. Probl...em is that as the speed increased, so did the amount of people using it and the number & type of things we do with it. We bank, shop, order food, social network, email, research, watch movies/TV shows/videos, listen to music & play games just to name a few. Also, everyone in our household is often wanting to do these things at the same time. ADSL speeds are very dependent on the distance your premises are from your local exchange and the quality of your phone cables as it is operated through original Telstra copper cable connections and as such is vulnerable to being affected by bad weather & corrosion issues. The NBN is designed to be a faster & more robust Internet service using better quality cable connections that can be up to 65x faster than ADSL, which more easily allows our entire household to do what they want to do quicker, without slowing down what others want to do. Most Internet providers will offer you 3 speeds for your NBN service - minimum (often referred to as Tier One) is 12Mbps download with 1Mbps upload, standard (Tier Two) is 25Mbps download with 5Mbps upload, & highest (Tier Three) is either 100Mbps download for Fibre To Premises or 50Mbps for Fibre To The Node, both with 20Mbps upload. You will usually find yourself placed on the minimum speed if you don’t specify that you want higher, and the higher the speed the more you pay on your plan, typically $5 to $15 extra per tier per month. Even though you need a new NBN modem when you are switched, these are generally supplied free by your Internet provider, especially if you are on or accept a contract plan. If you’re keeping your landline phone service, you’ll also probably find that your current phone handset will very likely work fine for the NBN too. If you’d like to know more or need your new NBN connection setup when you’ve been switched, call us on 0414 183 626, message on Facebook @aboveboardit, or email [email protected] to arrange an onsite - we’ll get you up and running faster in no time!

14.01.2022 Hi everyone, It's been quite a while since we posted our last helpful info & tips article, so about time now, hey? Having previously talked about the NBN, something we are finding quite often when we go to setup customer's connections, once they've been switched and are keeping their landline service, is that a number of things can get forgotten or messed up by their provider regarding this. So as a rule, we find we have to check for all of these issues and deal with them to ...get things back to how they were before the switch. At the same time we can make sure your landline handset is properly setup & configured to suit your needs - another good reason to use our services to get your new NBN up & running and working at its best for you. For this and any other IT needs you have, be sure to give us a call on 0414 183 626, email [email protected] or Facebook message @aboveboardit to arrange an onsite - you'll be glad you did

10.01.2022 Hi all, We hope you found our first article about avoiding email scams easy to follow and helpful. So following on, here's our second article: You're probably hearing a lot lately about the NBN (National Broadband Network), which is the federal government’s initiative to replace the original copper landline phone cabling system with a faster and more reliable connection directly to the Internet. Designed to bring our nation more up-to-speed with the capability and technology...Continue reading

09.01.2022 Hi everyone, We would like to take this opportunity to let all our loyal customers & those yet to try our services know, that despite all the madness of CoViD-19, we remain open for business & ready to take care of your IT needs, whether onsite or remotely if this is possible & preferred. Recognising the need to isolate but also realising that life goes on, most of us still need to access various services & work from home. So we would like to assure you that we are abiding by social distancing rules, using hand sanitiser before and after each job, wearing gloves & offer the option of sanitising your keyboard & mouse at completion of the job.

07.01.2022 Hi all, We hope you are enjoying our helpful info & tips. Please feel free to post requests if there are any particular topics you’d like to see appear in these articles, so we can make them more relevant to you. Here is our third article:... If you get your email on more than one device, such as your laptop, tablet & phone, does some of your email appear on one of them but not the others? This is caused by having it setup on the device as POP instead of IMAP. POP is an older method that relies on storing all your email on the device it is retrieved with. IMAP is the newer method that stores a ‘master’ copy of all your email on your mail provider’s system and your device simply synchronises the email between itself and this master copy. Using IMAP allows you to setup your email on as many devices as you need and be able to see all your email on all of them. Because the master copy of your email is always on your mail provider’s system, you can safely delete an IMAP email account from any device without losing any of your email, and you can still get your email back if you lose a device or the email on it. Unfortunately, some mail providers don’t support IMAP for their email so dealing with this needs a bit more planning. If you’d like our help to resolve this and any other email issues, please contact us on 0414 183 626 or [email protected]. We can make your email work the way that suits you best.

07.01.2022 Hi all, We're going to start posting some handy IT info & tips starting next week and we'll try to keep them simple and short so they are easy to digest. Please feel free to comment/like or contact us if you have any questions.

07.01.2022 Hi everyone, It's time for our next helpful hints and tips article, which is a natural follow on from our previous article about backups. One of the most useful and convenient things our smartphones allow us to do, apart from calls and texting, is taking photos and videos. While not quite as compact and convenient, some of us also use our tablet for this. Though the quality varies from device to device, often they are as good and sometimes better than the results we get from ...the average point-and-shoot digital camera. Each photo & video we take is a unique record of a particular subject in a specific place at a specific time - something valuable we want to keep, so we need a way to get a copy of them outside of our device which can get lost, stolen or damaged. Also, even if none of these happen to our phone, most of us like to keep some or all of our photos on our device so we can take them with us and show others, but compared to our computers they have limited storage space so we will certainly have to remove some or all of those photos & videos to make way for others at some stage! There are numerous ways we can back them up, depending on the capabilities of your phone and whether you want to keep them private, carry them around with you or have convenient Internet access to them. At Above Board IT, we can help you choose one or more of these ways to suit your needs and show you simply how it’s done. Give us a call on 0414 183 626, email [email protected] or message us @aboveboardit on Facebook to arrange an onsite to do this for you.

03.01.2022 Hi all, It’s been a few busy weeks since our last helpful tips and hints article, but finally here is the next one about the most important thing we need to do after our work is done backup! Most of us use some form of computer technology whether for business, shopping, staying in touch or entertainment, and if there’s anything certain in computing life, it would be that we’re going to have to get a new device sometime because our existing one will fail at some stage and be... impossible/uneconomical to repair or become so slow that we can’t stand it anymore! Although it’s usually possible to get our important stuff transferred from our old device to a new one, we can’t assume this is always an option and this doesn’t even take into account that our device may get lost, stolen or damaged, taking our apps & files with it. Once we get our new or replacement device, when it comes to our apps, we probably have the install media (CD/DVD/USB stick) or can just download these from the Internet. But when it comes to our data files they are usually only on our device unless we have a copy of them on something outside of it. This is referred to as ‘backup’ and is the single biggest favour we can do ourselves when it comes to keeping our files safe, as we can then be sure they can be copied to a new device. So unless we don’t really need the information that we’ve got on our devices, backup is something that can and should be done for all of them. At Above Board IT, we know the value of having good backups and can set this up for all your devices. If you’d like to know more or would like to arrange an appointment for us to do this for you, please call us on 0414 183 626, email [email protected] or contact is via our Facebook page @aboveboardit.

03.01.2022 Hi all, I'd like to thank everyone who has kindly posted their much-appreciated reviews. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising and this will greatly help us get the business off to a flying start.

03.01.2022 Hi Everyone, As promised, here is the first of our helpful info & tips. When it comes to email, we all know how quick and easy it is to be able to send a simple message that the receiver can reply to at their convenience. Unfortunately it is just as easy for less-than-honest parties out there in cyberspace to send 'scam' email designed to trick you into giving up your personal details and/or hard-earned money to them.... Commonly known as 'phishing' or 'pharming' threats, these email are not a virus or malware themselves, but any file attached almost certainly is, and the links contained in the message directing you to click on them will likely take you to malicious websites designed to infect your computer with malware. This malware can then potentially spread to other devices attached to the same network or Internet connection you are using. It can often be difficult to know whether an email is a scam as the perpetrators can be quite clever at making them look legitimate by using relevant logos, pictures and the right wording designed to trick you into responding to it. If you are in any doubt whatsoever, DON'T OPEN ANY FILE ATTACHMENTS and DON'T CLICK ON ANY LINKS in the email, DON'T REPLY OR TRY TO UNSUBSCRIBE from the sender, but do directly contact the person or organisation it claims to be from (look up the legitimate contact details - don't trust any information in the email). If the person or organisation informs you that it's a scam and asks you to forward a copy to them, it is quite safe to do so. You can safely keep or delete the email at any stage. If you think you may have unwittingly opened an attachment or clicked a link in a suspect email, please contact us. We can advise you of what to do next and arrange an onsite visit to investigate and deal with any issues that might have resulted. We hope this has been helpful and if you have any questions or need more information, call us on 0414 183 626, email [email protected] or respond here.

01.01.2022 Hi all, It’s been a while since our last helpful hints and tips article so we figured it’s about time for a new one, this time it’s about your landline phone service and the NBN. When the NBN becomes available in your area, your phone/Internet provider will advise you to switch your service to it before Telstra disconnects your old phone line. You are given a cutoff date for this so it’s also a good time to decide whether you want to keep your landline phone service. For exam...ple, you might want to cancel it altogether if you have a mobile phone and are happy to just use this for your calls instead (especially if your get unlimited calls within Australia), because you’re already paying for this and can use it anywhere with adequate reception. Also, most current landline phone services are around $30+/month and won’t cost less when you switch, in fact may cost more as you’re automatically given Internet access along with it (even if you don’t want or use this) because all landline calls then go through the Internet instead. Now if you just want Internet access on the NBN, some providers allow you to have it without the landline phone service, which can save you some money. Others (like Telstra) give you no choice and always bundle a landline phone service in their NBN plans, which will almost certainly cost you more if you didn’t have the Internet before. Even though you could change providers to one that does give this choice, it can be quite a hassle to do, so in this case have your provider switch the phone to ‘pay-as-you-go’, which should cost less if you weren’t already on this before NBN. If you then ever need to use the landline service, you just connect a phone handset and away you go! If you do decide to keep your landline service, there are a few things you need to know: 1) Your current phone handset will probably work with the NBN, but it’s possible that it might not, so be sure to check this with your phone/Internet provider. 2) You’ll be sent an NBN modem by your phone/Internet provider and your phone will need to be connected to this instead of into a wall phone socket. 3) Unlike the old landline phone connections, you lose service if you lose power at your premises, and even though there are ways to get around this, having a mobile phone is a good contingency for these situations. Here at Above Board IT we can help you with any questions or issues you might have regarding the NBN or switching to it, so call us on 0414 183 626, email [email protected], or message us on Facebook @aboveboardit for simple & fast service you can rely on.

01.01.2022 Hi Everyone, It's been a few weeks since we last posted a helpful info & tips article as we've been quite busy, but finally here is the next one: We all know how handy a USB stick or external hard drive can be for back up, popping on a few files to take with us or giving someone a copy of something.These devices are referred to as removable storage & our computers treat them as a disk to store files on.... Unlike the internal disk drives in your computer which are permanently connected so you & the computer can access them anytime, you only plug in a USB drive when you need to use it. You can plug them in at any time, but before unplugging them you need to 'tell' the computer you want to do this by performing an 'eject' or 'safe removal' first. The reason for this is that it can be difficult to tell when the computer is attempting to read from or write something to it & simply unplugging it without 'ejecting' it first risks corrupting the contents - a real problem if that's the only copy of the files you have, and that gets messed up! When an eject or safe removal is performed successfully, a message appears on your screen to confirm this. If the computer is currently busy accessing it, a warning message is shown instead and in this case you can wait and try again a little later. If you get this warning repeatedly and you're sure you currently aren't copying anything to it or have any files from it opened, you can logoff and unplug it then log back on, or shutdown the computer then unplug & then power on again. This may sound like a lot of messing around but will ensure the files on them won't get corrupted.