Smart Thinking Solutions | Octagon Technology

Stay Safe This Black Friday: Cyber Security Tips to Avoid Scams

Cyber Security, General, IT Support, Octagon Technology, Technology / By Martin

Black Friday is a prime time for cybercriminals to target shoppers. Here are some essential tips to help you stay safe while hunting for bargains online. 1. Beware of Phishing Emails Phishing emails often look like they come from legitimate retailers. Always double-check the sender’s email address and avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from […]

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Geek Christmas 2024 – This is the Year of Choices

General / By Clive

It is that time of year again, my annual list of present ideas for that geeky relation, friend or significant other. Completely gender irrelevant, the only requirement is a certain level of cult obsessiveness, geekiness or nerdism. (I am pretty sure some of those words are made up! ed.) I held out until November 1

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“We’ve always done it that way”

Technology / By Diana

One of Grace Hopper’s most frequently used utterances was – “The only phrase I’ve ever disliked is, ‘…we’ve always done it that way. ‘ I always tell young people, ‘Go ahead and do it.’” She was a computing pioneer and a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. Both of these achievements were phenomenal for

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Dr Gladys West – Developer of GPS

Technology / By Diana

October celebrates Ada Lovelace day by shining a spotlight on women who have made significant contributions in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM for short). Many of these women are uncelebrated, so I will attempt to redress the balance in a small way by dedicating our articles this month to female pioneers

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It’s Your Domain!

Technology / By pYdLxLgZ

I chose the theme for Octagon’s September Newsletter – Microsoft 365. Other members of the team have produced articles looking at some of the tools and features – me I want to look at a fundamental element of Microsoft 365, that is very often overlooked by clients until I undertake an IT and Cyber Security

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SharePoint Collaboration

General, IT Support, Technology, Technology Solutions / By Ben

SharePoint – A powerful collaboration tool Historically, Microsoft’s suite of Office programs revolved around the basic apps, Word, Excel and such, but now in a ever more connected world, collaboration and team efforts take centre stage in efficient and productive business. What was needed was a central area to exchange information and help people work

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Careful with that A.I. Eugene ! / How NOT to A.I. / Stop feeding the machine.

Cyber Security, General, Technology / By Ben

Stop feeding the machine. You may have heard a lot about A.I. recently, as lots of money is being thrown at large A.I. projects to explore the space and open new possibilities with computing. While at the moment it seems like a solution looking for a problem, in time it could prove to have great

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creat an image of AI on holiday on a beach in the sun with a cold beer and a Kindle

Copilot AI and the Phishing Email

Cyber Security / By Clive

Martin and Ben are the Octagon Technology newsletter editors this month and they have chosen artificial intelligence (Copilot AI) as their theme. They asked me to write the first article. Copilot AI and Word I had thought to write about how I use Copilot in Microsoft Edge, to help me with parts of the articles

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The Cyber Security Fallout of CrowdStrike Global IT Outage

Cyber Security / By Clive

Before I get into some of the cyber security fallout from the CrowdStrike global IT outage, you can read some of my thoughts on the incident here: The Wednesday Bit on Monday – CrowdStrike Global IT Outage In this article I look at just a couple of the cyber security implications of an IT issue

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