Ada who? Is Ada Lovelace our first tech visionary? In many ways, she anticipated our Digital Age (in Victorian times!) and is certainly a celebrated role model for women in technology. In an article published in 1843, she imagined a future in which programmable machines would be essential to scientific progress, and might even be used to create art and music. Ada, the abandoned daughter of the romantic poet, Lord Byron, was put under a strict regime of moral and mathematical training by her mother who hoped it would counter any dangerous “poetical” tendencies she might have inherited from ..read more

Back in August 2021, Microsoft announced changes to the commercial & pricing model for Microsoft 365. The update on pricing reflects Microsoft’s perceived increase in value that is delivered to customers since its launch some 10 years ago. Microsoft has, to a certain degree re-invested to meet the changing needs of customers. For example, four years ago they introduced Microsoft 365 to bring together the best of Office, Windows, and Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS). That same year they added Microsoft Teams and since then they have added 24 apps to the suites—Microsoft Teams, Po ..read more

Around 7.5 million people could be working from home with old routers which are not secure  While working from home (WFH) your employees home router is a key component when connecting to your office-based IT systems.  That makes it a potential security weak spot. Routers keep us and our businesses connected to the internet and to each other.  They’re critical to WFH and hybrid working. An investigation by ‘Which?’ has looked into how secure older routers really are.  There are two main areas of concern.  Firstly, some of the models haven’t received an update s ..read more

We’re delighted to be announced as a finalist for the Liverpool Chamber Innovation in Business Award 2021.  Just to get to this stage is extremely prestigious in these highly competitive awards and means a lot to our hardworking team. Our CEO, Phil Bird, said, “The North West is a vibrant and exciting business community.  It’s competitive, sure, but it’s also supportive and therefore brilliant to be a part of.”  He continued, “We were blown away that our clients had nominated us for our excellent service and on the back of our recent international IT service award (NextGen1 ..read more

The Channel Futures 2021 MSP NextGen 101 Awards List sees The PC Support Group Ranked 33rd Among the World’s Top IT Managed Service Providers   The Channel Futures MSP NextGen 101 awards list honours the top 100 industry-leading managed services and technology providers across the globe who are driving a new wave of growth and innovation for the tech channel via the ground-breaking solutions they deliver for their customers. The Channel Futures NextGen 101 are those companies that hold great promise, offering leading-edge information technology and communication solutions including Th ..read more

Leading edge, or bleeding edge – what difference will Windows 11 make to your business, and should you upgrade?  Microsoft has revealed the first big change to its Windows platform in over five years since the release of Windows 10, and it delivers significant changes! Microsoft over the years has been subject to a ping-pong pattern of good and bad operating systems: Windows XP — Good! Windows Vista — Bad. Windows 7 — Good! Windows 8 — Bad. Windows 10 — Good! Is Windows 11 the operating system to break the pattern? Microsoft announced Windows 10 over five years ago, and unforgettably ..read more

Whenever I’m thinking about the topic for my next bulletin, my first port of call is always our support team, and they’ve asked me to talk about business data backups. These are the folks who spend their days guiding our clients, resolving issues, fixing problems – so they know better than anyone what’s going on. Maintaining a robust business data backup is hard work, it’s important to build the correct solution for your business and trust your IT support provider to look after it. It’s also critical to maintain a sense of urgency as a business owner to ensure you’re doing everything you ..read more

For many years, IT has been perceived as a necessary cost to a business. We all know that IT is crucial for success, but in recent times, many companies are choosing to work with IT support partners to help them transform their IT  from a business cost to a business enabler. When implemented and managed properly, IT should be a real asset and work as a key differentiator from the competition. Businesses won’t achieve their goals and thrive in today’s highly competitive and digitally connected world without having a well thought out IT strategy, put together with the right IT manageme ..read more

Whenever I’m thinking about the topic for my next bulletin, my first port of call is always our support team, and they’ve asked me to talk about business data backups. These are the folks who spend their days guiding our clients, resolving issues, fixing problems – so they know better than anyone what’s going on. Maintaining a robust business data backup is hard work, it’s important to build the correct solution for your business and trust your IT support provider to look after it. It’s also critical to maintain a sense of urgency as a business owner to ensure you’re doing everything you ..read more

With cyber-attacks on the increase the need to protect your business systems and critical data has never been more important. More home and remote working – with employees accessing data from various (often unsecure) devices – is a particularly relevant issue. There are many actions that can betaken to protect networks from criminals such as firewalls, anti-virus software and even undertaking vulnerability tests. But if multi-factor authentication isn’t in place, all these security measures can be bypassed. Criminals are now experts at gaining access to usernames and passwords.  They ..read more