News - Kinetics

When is Windows 10 now Windows 11?

03 Jun 2018 Comments off

When Microsoft released Windows 10, they said it would be the last version – but that hasn’t stopped them enhancing it. The updates available in the April 2018 (Version “1803”) release continue to refine it in small but useful ways that add up to a significant improvement. Unfortunately, the update is significant and while it installs [...]

What’s in an Antivirus? ( or, when is ‘free’ the most expensive option?)

03 Jun 2018 Comments off

It is not uncommon for us to be asked why a business needs to purchase Anti-virus when Windows 10 already includes Anti-virus. It's true - Windows comes with a 'free' antivirus - Windows Defender is free with Windows and has been for some time. A few years ago, Microsoft was getting a lot of heat about Windows devices getting [...]

Sneaky devils – how insecure email led to a $150K loss

03 Jun 2018 Comments off

Recently I was lucky enough to spend some time with a group of my Ozzie peers. One of the things we did was share problems and solutions. During those discussions, I heard of the following hack. The IT Company I was talking to had a smallish client. They had five employees and their biggest cost was shipping/transport, with around $AUS150,000 a [...]

Keeping up with One Note

03 Jun 2018 Comments off

I reckon that OneNote's being used by about a third of the people I see in meetings. And that means that about two-thirds of people are missing out! I've been a big OneNote fan for ages because OneNote conquered my personal chaos of unstructured notes and paper everywhere. For the last several years, I've been able to find things, and that's [...]

Beware (again) – The Phishermen are after you.

30 Mar 2018 Comments off

The deluge of clever phishing emails continues. This one caught our eye, because it looks so authentic. Given that we look after Office 365 for this customer, it left us wondering how we'd have missed 'verifying' their account. Well, only a for a moment! When we looked more carefully, the link takes you to a site hosted in Taiwan. It's clearly [...]

Keeping up with Microsoft Office updates

09 Mar 2018 Comments off

If you have Office 365, then you have the latest version. Office updates monthly with new features – but are you USING them? Office gets smarter every month, but are you? The new capabilities can help you work smarter and be more productive, but only if you can find the time to assess and adopt them. But it’s so hard to find the time! As [...]

Clever iOS app scams

09 Mar 2018 Comments off

You could be forgiven for being overconfident about Apple's vetting of iOS apps. But you shouldn't be lulled into thinking that all iOS apps are safe - here is an example of an app that is effectively a scam. The free app offered encrypted chat messages. You enter a 4 digit pin and the recipient could only open the message if they had the same 4 [...]

FAKE Microsoft 365 Renewal

15 Feb 2018 Comments off

Another day, another scam. One of our clients forwarded this little number to us today You can see that the link to 'microsoft' is spelt wrong, with one letter missing. If you are busy, you might miss it, and by telling you your email access is about to be cancelled, you might be tempted to quickly log in and pay the scammers. Except of course, [...]

The Spectre of a Meltdown

15 Jan 2018 Comments off

The Spectre of a Meltdown - 2018 starts with a security headache. Unhappily, our New Year starts by warning you about yet more security vulnerabilities. Whoever names these must have a lot of fun! Spectre and Meltdown are the latest, and these two effect virtually every modern machine, including Mac, Tablet and Phone. These can be triggered in many ways, [...]

Christmas 2017

15 Dec 2017 Comments off

Its Christmas time again and the signs are its going to be great summer. No matter how good the weather is, we know that many of us need to keep in touch with our clients and our business. Kinetics will be open every business day other than statutory holidays. Evenings and weekends our on-call staff are available to assist if needed, at our [...]