A home for all your Tech Advice & Support
If you want help in Growing or Modernising your Home or Business systems and solutions, we are here for you !
Whether its an on-Premises expansion, Backup, Networking, CCTV selection, Multimedia, Cloud Services or an Office suite we can recommend, supply, configure and support you as needed through a flexible, cost effective, tailored approach.
Feel free to contact us for a FREE appraisal.
Environments: Where and how do you use technology ?
Home Environment
If you have built up a collection of precious content such as photographs, music or course work on your PC or phone, have you considered their long term future?
There are several options available to preserve them, share and make future access more reliable. Don't ignore the need for backups for once they are damaged or gone its too late !
Are you struggling with in-home Wi-Fi connectivity ?
There are a variety of ways to improve performance and extend coverage so everyone can benefit.
Have you managed to join the Zoom, Teams and similar on-line Meeting world or are you falling behind due to your network and devices ?
Do you have aspirations for a Media connected home, any service in any room on any connected device; we can show you solutions to meet most budgets !
Business Environment
Are you at that point where your business has outgrown your current equipment and infrastructure ?
Before you go and buy more of the same, are you sure your ideas will meet your future demands and requirements ?
Consider discussing your plans and let us confirm your thoughts or possibly broaden your horizons.
Are you looking to add more people into the business but are not sure how best to keep everyone properly protected, how to best centrally store your data and what your legal obligations will be ?
Have you a data retention process in place so you don't lose data and can legally retrieve it were it required ?
Are you looking to expand your on-premises network or are you ready to consider a hybrid or a cloud solution ? There is no single solutions, all would be assessed in terms of your requirement, performance and budget.
Upgrades, Updates and More...
If you have a PC or Laptop which is well used and feeling rather slow, there are a number of ways to give it a new lease of life without having to replace it with a new one.
If something like an update or installing new software has rendered your device inaccessible, don't panic as there are usually work-arounds to get it back to a working state.
If necessary we can extract accessible information, rebuild the operating system then return your information to the device ready for you to use.
( Always keep a written backup of all the user names and passwords you use ! )
If you are looking for a new device but each family member has different aspirations and requirements, you are not sure what specification will really fit the bill. Before you go and make a purchase solely based on price or looks, talk with us for a no nonsense assessment to help you make an informed decision.
Software
What are your real needs for an Office Suite, Accounting Solutions, Anti Virus, Remote access and more ?
Do you have a need to work both within your premises and remotely while simultaneously accessing the same shared information ?
Do you know you need more or better software but find the cost challenging ?
There are powerful, compatible solutions available which can perform equally as well as many mainline brands at a fraction of the price.
Do you buy outright per person, pay a subscription &/or would you consider Open Source (often Free) software ?
We can help you identify the benefits, pitfalls and implications of software selection before you commit to any given solution.
CONTACT US
We’d love to hear from you. E-mail us now at helpme@techhome.uk or send a message using the form below and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
For your guidance, you will find below information with YouTube & article buttons covering the essential software systems used in Homes and Businesses alike.
We hope you enjoy the section at the bottom covering Headline ( important emerging ) technologies !
An operating system is the most important piece of software that runs on a computer. It manages all the computer’s computational activities associated with the hardware and provides services for the application programs to use.
The Functions of an operating system include resource allocation, file system management, memory management, and security.
At the core of every operating system is the kernel which performs the above functions (manages communication between hardware and software). An operating system converts the 1's and 0’s flowing around at the computer chip-level into human-readable output that can be seen and interacted with by a user.
All user software needs to go through the operating system in order to make use of the hardware, whether it be a mouse-click, a game or a complex cloud application.
The OS coordinates access to the central processing unit (CPU), memory, and storage to ensure each program gets what it needs from what is available.
Microsoft has produced the most feature rich and well accepted suite of integrated software on the planet. It may not be perfect but the range of options available remains unequalled.
- You can now sign up for a free On-Line only limited version of Office ( its Web Browser based only ).
- A one time purchase of the current Office Suite (2019) to install on a single Windows or MAC PC.
- A monthly or annual subscription gives full access to the latest suite with many additional On-line facilities as well as letting you install on your Windows or MAC PC plus Android and IOS apps.
The availability and functionality of the core components and applications within the office suite do vary depending on the type of purchase and whether locally installed or Web Interface.
(Formerly Skype for Business)
A collaboration app that helps your team stay organized and have conversations — all in one place.
It is now tightly integrated into the Outlook application and within the Outlook Web browser interface. Video conferencing is a primary component in Team meetings to enhance the Chat, Voice and Conferencing capabilities.
- Teams - Find channels to belong to or create your own. Inside channels you can hold on-the-spot meetings, have conversations, and share files.
- Meetings - See everything you’ve got lined up for the day or week. Or, schedule a meeting. This calendar syncs with your Outlook calendar.
- Calls - In some cases, if your organization has it set up, you can call anyone from Teams, even if they’re not using Teams.
- Activity - Catch up on all your unread messages, @mentions, replies, and more.
( Formerly G-Suite )
- Businesses Custom email using your @domain.name
- Cloud-based (Web Browser Only) so no installation needed only internet access.
- Work remotely with confidence and use Google Meet to host secure, high-quality video meetings from your email or calendar
- Advanced security and admin features
- Ease of mind with 24/7 support
- Free 14-day trial, monthly charge after
With the Re-Branding prices and storage capacities have changed considerably.
If you are put off by the Microsoft dominance in the Office Suite Market, want a locally installed unconnected solution or Web only based experience or simply don't see the benefit in paying for features you are unlikely to ever use then there is no need to lose out.
There are numerous applications available for novice and professional users alike which perform all the same office tasks without the Microsoft price tag. In the main and with little effort these applications will read and write files in the same format as Microsoft so sharing files will not be an issue.
The exception missing from this list is the Outlook mail application which currently is the only application that can reliably work with the current Microsoft mail servers.
Previous attempts by other vendors to be Microsoft compatible for mail are falling away rapidly as the technologies Microsoft employ are not fully supported by anyone else. Outlook's integration with the modern 365 environment, its authentication and security measures are such that it is highly unlikely third party applications will function reliably if at all.
Recent security restrictions mean this is also true for Google & Yahoo forcing users to use Web access or Own Brand Apps to get to their mail.
Microsoft Project 2024 is the latest iteration of the Suite used to plan any form of project where component resources are listed, their dependencies to each other linked and time lines defined. Any complex set of tasks can be added and the progress of each with the influence on others monitored.
There are varying options available. Cloud only should work on any web enabled device &/or locally Installed client on a Windows 10 PC. Supports cloud links.
Like the MS Office Suite it is subscription based with updates and additional features or for locally installed only, a One Time Purchase is available.
Features:
- Grid View: A project view that is used to plan and manage projects with a task list.
- Board View: A visual kanban board view that helps with managing workflow and status.
- Timeline View: The traditional Gantt chart used for scheduling tasks over a project timeline.
- Communication & Collaboration: Teams can work together on projects.
- Co-authoring: Stakeholders and team members work together to edit and update task lists and schedules.
- Reporting: Pre-built reports that can track progress, resources, programs and portfolios.
- Roadmap: Track programs and project portfolios.
- Timesheets: Collect project and non-project time for payroll and invoicing.
- Resource Management: Manage resources by requesting and assigning tasks.
The options available for saving your precious memories are extensive however making the best long term decision is far from easy as you want your content to still be accessible in future decades when technologies will have moved on. Anyone have a BetaMax player still ?
- Apple iCloud
- Google Photos
- Amazon Photos
- Microsoft Onedrive
- Dropbox
- Plex
- and there are other smaller vendor options not listed here....
See the buttons above and below for useful information on the subject. Do check the current published pricing of all products and do not rely on point in time prices stated in Videos.
The key thing to consider is that you must Backup your libraries regularly or eventually you are guaranteed to lose some or all of the content !
Adobe Creative Cloud is a set of applications and services from Adobe Inc. that gives subscribers access to a collection of software used for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, along with a set of mobile applications and also some optional cloud services.
In Creative Cloud, a monthly or annual subscription service is delivered over the Internet. Software from Creative Cloud is downloaded from the Internet, installed directly on a local computer and used as long as the subscription remains valid. Online updates and multiple languages are included in the CC subscription.
Prior to the Cloud implementation the Adobe software was physically distributed, installed and licensed locally.
The software was initially developed for use on Macintosh PCs then when Microsoft Windows PCs demonstrated suitable capabilities it was re-written to use on the Windows.operating system.
Its capability and history has made Adobe the industry leading suite from Colleges to Workplace.
There is however considerable discontent over the implementation of the subscription model and its associated costs so those whose workflows are not tied to the Suite often look to use alternatives.
Autodesk are the pre-emanate vendors of software for the architectural and engineering sphere, from College to Workplace due to their long standing capabilities in this sector. The flagship package is AutoCAD with modified versions tailored with additional add-ins to suit specialist types of work. Autodesk acquired and started to develop the Revit Building Information Modeller as a separate thread and the balance of users is gravitating away from AutoCAD to Revit which has similar but more advanced capabilities the core of which involves the inclusion of Material DATA within the 3D modelled buildings including colour, finish & strength of each material. This information is retained permanently within the Model for the life of the building for future reference.
Autodesk products are now subscription licensed, cloud delivered, always connected with additional cloud sharing capabilities.
AutoCAD and its compatible competitors are still employed in situations where BIM data is not deemed necessary. BIM has its greatest advantage when used for large commercial structures.
AI is no longer the domain of Science Fiction with Giant Machines running amuck or controlling nations and societies every nuance. This is not to say that with inappropriate oversight this could not happen!
The development of small, fast and low energy micro-processors coupled with the continued development of learning processes from big-data sources has allowed the connected world to examine hither to impossible amounts of information and derive patterns and answers needed across the sciences, engineering, networks, education and retail.
You will see from the Video presentation that the advantages of AI has rapidly seen it applied in all aspects of our lives whether we realise it or not.
Were AI not present then it is unlikely the internet would function reliably, the Courier services, Supermarkets and On-Line shopping would not exist as we see them today.
Not withstanding Governmental interference or competence, without AI the goods shipped internationally by container would most certainly take far longer to arrive.
As with all new radical technologies, there will be losers in employment where the machine makes the person redundant however the benefits for all far outweigh the inconvenience to the few.
You would think in todays internet connected world with so much information at hand and so many freedoms, we should not still need to heavily rely on the major centralised players like we did in the analogue age.
Many of the processes that run our global financial system and the world at large, are still paper-based and at risk of human error from centralised authorities.
Blockchain technology is here to change that.
- A blockchain is a decentralised, tamper-proof database
- A blockchain is an ingenious system for ensuring mutual trust and collective consensus
A cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is just one of a blockchain’s many applications.
Contracts, digital identities, logistics, just about every kind of asset and so much more can also benefit from utilising a blockchain.
Cloud Computing AKA 'The Cloud'
When you link computers together they are said to be in a network.
When you make parts of a network accessible to external systems it becomes a Wide Area Network.
If part of a WAN is made visible to people outside your organisation it becomes the Internet or World Wide Web - 'the WEB'.
With individuals and organisations making their systems visible to the WEB then Search Engines were required so scattered systems could find each other.
As it is economic and efficient to cluster lots of computers into dense racks in air conditioned 'cooled' environments keeping all the safety and support infrastructure manageable, Data Centres came into existence.
Populations are varied, national network infrastructure is variable and peoples speak different languages so it is effective to place data centres near to the greatest population that will consume the information appropriate to that region.
Local information is quicker to access and allows demands on the Data Centre and network to be efficiently managed.
Managing this enormous web of systems is extremely complex, redundancies and backups are essential requiring enough capacity in terms of network links, processing power, information storage and retrieval for ongoing demands. Then there is the need for continual updates, replacements and improvements.
The more providers of these services make available the higher the consumers demands and the greater opportunities that develop for ways in which to consume these resources.
The providers of all these services are commercial entities and are motivated to make available imaginative services that can generate revenue. Different organisations have different approaches which is why through historic evolution the three main global providers use quite different technologies to support their desired services including marketing their technologies for other providers to use to deliver alternative services.
Amazon Web Services offers a broad set of global cloud-based products including compute, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, management tools, IoT, security, and enterprise applications: on-demand, available in seconds, with pay-as-you-go pricing.
From data warehousing to deployment tools, directories to content delivery, over 175 AWS services are available. New services can be provisioned quickly, without the upfront capital expense.
This allows enterprises, start-ups, small and medium-sized businesses, and customers in the public sector to access the building blocks they need to respond quickly to changing business requirements.
In 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) began offering IT infrastructure services to businesses as web services—now commonly known as cloud computing. One of the key benefits of cloud computing is the opportunity to replace upfront capital infrastructure expenses with low variable costs that scale with your business. With the cloud, businesses no longer need to plan for and procure servers and other IT infrastructure weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can instantly spin up hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and deliver results faster.
Today, AWS provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of businesses in 190 countries around the world.
At its core, Azure is a public cloud computing platform with solutions which include
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),
- Platform as a Service (PaaS), and
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
that can be used for services such as analytics, virtual computing, storage, networking, and much more.
It can be used to replace or supplement your on-premise servers.
Microsoft Azure – IaaS, PaaS and SaaS
- Flexible – Move compute resources up and down as needed·
- Open – Supports almost any OS, language, tool, or framework·
- Reliable – 99.95% availability SLA and 24×7 tech support·
- Global – Data housed in geo-synchronous data centers·
- Economical – Only pay for what you use
Azure is a fast, flexible, and affordable platform, and its pricing and capabilities make it the best value public cloud offering on the market.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP), offered by Google, is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search, Gmail, file storage, and YouTube.
Alongside a set of management tools, it provides a series of modular cloud services including
- computing,
- data storage,
- data analytics and
- machine learning.
Registration requires a credit card or bank account details.
Google Cloud Platform provides
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),
- Platform as a Service (PaaS), and
- Serverless computing environments.
In April 2008, Google announced App Engine, a platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers, which was the first cloud computing service from the company. The service became generally available in November 2011. Since the announcement of App Engine, Google added multiple cloud services to the platform.
Google Cloud Platform is a part of Google Cloud, which includes the Google Cloud Platform public cloud infrastructure, as well as Google Workspace, enterprise versions of Android and Chrome OS, and application programming interfaces (APIs) for machine learning and enterprise mapping services.
CONTACT US
We’d love to hear from you. E-mail us now at helpme@techhome.uk or send a message using the form below and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
The following are some headline technologies which are likely to have an impact on our lives in the near future !
"From the biggest cities to the most remote areas, from the hottest places on Earth to the frozen polar regions, Ambri will store the energy gathered from wind and solar efficiently, inexpensively and reliably.
Our technology will fundamentally change the way power grids operate, increasing the contribution from renewable resources and reducing the need to build traditional power plants. Customers will see lower electricity bills and more reliable service."
"Electricity demand worldwide is growing as populations and digital economies are increasing
Massive growth in the renewable energy generation market is driving expected global energy storage market growth of 6x over the next several years. By optimizing the transmission, distribution and integration of generation assets, Ambri batteries meet the demand for large-scale, affordable energy storage.
Massive infrastructure investment is needed in the electricity grid worldwide. Renewable power generation and energy storage is a smarter, faster and less expensive infrastructure improvement choice. Storage will change how electric systems are engineered – building to average demand rather than peak."
Think of Solar Cells which are at least twice as efficient as the common silicone cells we see today while a tiny fraction of the weight, can be flexible, transparent and more....
Third-generation photovoltaic cells are solar cells that are potentially able to overcome the Shockley–Queisser limit of 31–41% power efficiency for single bandgap solar cells.
Building on the initial Silicon cell technologies, incorporating ideas of flexible thin films and then using multiple layers of varying materials it is becoming possible to extract energy from different wavelengths of light to optimise the power output of these cells.
The growing ability to produce cheap varied Perovskite films which can be sprayed or deposited onto various base materials in low energy manufacturing, each tailored to suit almost any environment. We are starting to see the introduction of solar panels powering devices including vehicles in places previously only dreamed of with the costs per watt at a fraction of the current established technologies.
Roundup of the latest awesome & interesting technologies to look out for in 2025
We should expect to see commercially run autonomous vehicles in cities within this decade which will align with the expected improvements in output and reduced weight promised by the myriad of new battery technologies ! If the 'holy grail' of light powerful batteries does not emerge as quickly as predicted then this will seriously incumber the worlds push for an electric future. Pony and trap anyone !
Batteries aside, the next biggest challenge for these technologies remains the Legal frameworks which govern National Air Space plus Air Safety concerns for without appropriate legislation in place the inventions will remain as mere prototypes, unavailable for public use.
With the world pushing for an electric future we can only hope the politicians can get it right at a pace to keep up with the emerging technologies
The push to a world of clean, electrically powered vehicles is not just in the Car and Aviation sectors. The world's need for non polluting solutions has never been greater and across the globe the advances in all these new technology has given every entrepreneur an opportunity to be inventive, resourceful and bring to market comparatively quickly a whole host of practical, ingenious and fun products.
This decade will see a flourishing of electrically powered and assisted forms of transport in all sectors of our daily lives. The costs to most will be relatively low given the sophistication of these products and the fact that modern 'printing' techniques means complex fabrication is available to all so its no longer the exclusive domain of large corporations.
The one point the governments of the world are very quiet about is where we will collectively get the generating capacity to power this all electric future as most countries are in the process of De-Commissioning their fossil fuel power stations while Wind, Wave and Solar generation is highly location specific and for Nuclear it takes 30+ years to approve and develop a plant as its serviceability and safety considerations are so stringent not to mention unpopular !
For those of you who have enjoyed the Computer Generated Graphics on the big block buster movies, looked at all the predictions represented by science fiction and envisaged a world where we can work in impossible environments with the help of robotic assistants - well its science fiction no longer for these machines are awesome already and will only get better !
We have all heard that through automation the repetitive tasks which need to be completed very quickly at high accuracy in challenging environments has lowered production costs, increased reliability and made available a world of consumer products previously unimagined.
The last decade has seen the development of previously only imagined technologies and the developments in AI have meant the capabilities of our robotic helpers have finally advanced to the point where they will be coming to a workplace near you very soon !
While these early devices have already made an invaluable impact in productivity, it is always at the expense of peoples jobs.
This has always been and will remain the way of the developing world so it is up to society to look for other forms of meaningful employment to replace the roles taken by the machines.
This new generation of robots is unlike any past automation for they now are largely autonomous so are far more versatile. Because of the advancements in AI the new generation of robots can be tasked with multiple roles in numerous locations rather than being purely automation for one static role.
We are now all familiar with the flying drones used commercially and for recreation but the technology is making rapid strides in numerous ways to increase the versatility and efficiency of these highly adaptable and imaginative devices.
Currently the only drawback to any of these technologies is the energy density of the power source with batteries making up the primary load carried and limit for the duration of use. The move towards swarm technology with cross device communications making a murmuration of drones as real as any flock of birds, each taking its queue from the environment and its neighbours.
At this stage it is very much watch this space...
