What to buy – a desktop or laptop? Computer guy Matt Bentley looks closely at both options on offer in this modern, plugged in world. The answer is complex and nuanced, but sometimes obvious. The obvious part is, do I want to move my computer around? Do I want to use it in multiple rooms,

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Computer guy Matt Bentley shares some useful fundamentals about computers. So listen up! This is going to be essentially a gripes article. Hey, everyone gets one right? In every single profession there’s stuff that most non-experts get wrong. I wouldn’t have the faintest clue about all the things I’m getting wrong about my car, or

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There are multiple ways you can lose your privacy online. Computer guy Matt Bentley takes a look. The ways to lose privacy include through the operating system, web browsers, search engines, email providers, through pirated software and malware, or your phone. Let’s look at each of these in turn. By default, Windows 10 sends a

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By now you’ve probably had some experience with or know someone who has had some experience with Windows 10.

Microsoft skipped 9, heading straight from Windows 8 to 10, which makes me think, how does Bill Gates tell time? Does he ever get up at 9am or is that just not an option?

It’s probably good that they skipped the 9, mind you, because that might’ve meant they would’ve had to put more time into developing their ideas, instead of giving me something that I have to fix.

If you’ve got some old computer equipment to get rid of I can recommend Dave from RecycleIT in Frankton.

It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s working. He will reuse, recycle and/or strip computer equipment for parts, and in some cases will even do pick-ups from your address.

The caveat to that is CRT monitors and TV screens, the big old clunky ones.

As I write this on my 10″ laptop, my desktop computer is currently packing a sad.

The hard drive suddenly failed to write a few things to disk, and as it rebooted I saw the all-too-familiar screed of errors indicating imminent failure or data loss.

I immediately stopped and took time to backup my existing data to an external drive before more damage occurred, but it was too late for some of it.

Things are tough online now – a business can get hacked and lose millions of customers’ details to hackers.

Unfortunately those details sometimes include credit cards.

There is also an underground industry of stolen credit card details, often funding illicit “deal” websites like G2A (a computer game re-seller) or other seedier sites.

So, it’s that time of year again, and you’re ready to get rid of some of that spring clutter. Of course you are.

But, before you go deleting all the things you think you don’t need, maybe you should invest some time in installing precautions, in case you get it wrong.

For the fact is, we’re all fallible, we make mistakes, that’s what being human is about. So with that in mind, I’m going to talk to you about backing up.

If I had $5 for every time I retrieved or reset someone’s password when they’d forgotten it or hadn’t written it down I’d have … well, about the same amount of money I have now.

It can take anywhere between one and ten minutes to get a password back depending on what’s required and the account in question.

One problem for many users is that computers can confuse you a bit by remembering your passwords for you.

A rising number of people have reported random calls from someone with a foreign accent, typically Indian or American, telling them they’ve got a security or other kind of issue with their computer.

This is obviously a scam and it’s worth knowing how it works.

It starts with that call, sometimes bounced through a NZ landline number, and the suggestion that there’s a problem with your computer.