KINETICS NEWS

Humans like to trust.  We trust everyday as we drive down the street that the people coming the other way will stay in their lane.  We trust that the restaurants we visit prepare our food properly and hygienically. We trust that our doctor knows what they are doing when they give advice and so on.  It's natural to trust. With so many threats - [...]

Regular readers will know that we are strong proponents of keeping software up-to-date to reduce security risks. While updates typically add new features, they also address any bugs that have been found, and overcome any software vulnerabilities. Over the years, this has stopped all-manner of hackers from causing harm.  In fact, our 'Kinetics KARE' service [...]

If only life were so simple!   We have some clients that ask us about file security in the cloud as if the answer is an absolute.  Of course it isn't. Assuming we’re talking about a reputable mainstream cloud, the answer is an emphatic ‘YES’, mostly. It makes sense that a major provider can afford to put multiple layers of expensive [...]

We've warned before about vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown. The basic precautions are to keep your Windows, Office and other software completely up to date, and of course keeping your anti-virus current. That’s going to stop most things but lately we’ve seen hackers exploiting literally every vulnerability, no matter how small. That got us [...]

Microsoft's geek-fest is called Ignite and we've been following it from afar. It was a OneDrive announcement that caught our eye today.  With lots of choice, and ingrained user habits, everyone has their favourite cloud sync tool. There's an innovation race to be the cloud sharing tool of choice. As users, we're the beneficiaries of this and it's a [...]

Microsoft love tweaking the Office ribbon bar. I’m never sure if its an improvement or not, and that’s certainly the case now – is probably a personal preference. Actually, this time it’s not a replacement, although it may look that way – it’s a simplification option, although it looks to be ‘on’ by default. The intent is to keep the main [...]

No one likes bad news! Sometimes it can’t be helped. Sometimes it sneaks up on you. One of the most common ransomware attacks is through a compromised attachment in an email. It’s easy to say “only open stuff you expect” but that’s a bit naïve. Many of us get emails with attachments that we didn’t expect but can’t afford to ignore. The [...]

Yes, that’s right, there’s a new version of Office. If you have Office 2016, (or even an old version like 2010) then this is coming your way soon – in fact the beta (called ‘preview’) is available now and while the release date is unclear, we expect it to be this year. It’s available in both Mac and PC versions with Word, Excel, [...]

Now you can host your own live events, like a sales or information seminar.  You can advertise on social media and by email, grab an audience and run an event without leaving your desk or paying a fortune (or anything at all) All you need is something worthwhile to say (and Office 365) "Live Events" enables the broadcast of video from Microsoft [...]

Not too long ago, (some) businesses tried to limit websites that people could visit during working hours. They blocked social sites and Trademe and so forth. The logic was that people should be working, not surfing the net. Luckily this seems to have faded – staff are trusted, albeit tracking the website activity of your teams might still be of [...]