When you think about finding your niche market, you probably sit there for a second perplexed and thinking everything has been done before. But hey, back 50 years ago people were probably saying the same thing. And you don't want to do anything in the current economic environment because we're in a recession so it's the worst time to be doing anything right now.
I disagree.
Why? Let me explain. So we're in a recession - about 50% - 60% of companies are pulling back the reigns saying hey lets hold onto what we have until the recession is over. So if they're sitting back and not wanting to invest in anything right now be it stocks, advertising & marketing, new ventures etc. Then wouldn't that present itself as the perfect opportunity to tap into that market you've been waiting for? As more people hold back from advertising and things to get their name out there - wouldn't you want to step out and make your presence known? Just because we're in a recession doesn't mean that if a pipe at home blocks that we won't need a plumber, or that people won't need life or income insurance - hello, people still can get sick or die during a recession so it's not that the need for your service disappears. It just means that the people that are looking for these services are going to be more picky about who they use and why they use them.
So - in summary, you know your market, the recession is your friend, now hit it while others are holding back.
So we're coming into summer now and we're all starting to think about
holidays in the sun and making the most of whatever time we have off.
The last thing you're probably thinking about is a bit of TLC for your
computer during the warmer season.
You should take a look at
your PC before we get too far into summer and think about giving your
computer a good old blow out with some compressed air (buy it in a
can). If your fans aren't spinning properly or if your cards and fans
have a thermal layer of dust from the winter month then you should be
looking to blow out your PC ASAP. If you don't your computer can heat
up too much and eventually over heat - either blowing your power supply
or even worse over heat and kill your CPU (central processing unit aka
chip) or your motherboard - both can be fairly expensive ventures.
Video cards are another common component to overheat. A can of air
will cost you around $20 - $30 from Dick Smith or PB Tech (or any other
electronics store). There are other places to get compressed air but
they're probably the more common ones. You could also however, talk to
a friend that has a air compressor and just use that to blow it out and
use the $20 to buy some sun block and an ice cold drink for when you're
relaxing under a tree at the beach. Be careful the compressor is not
too powerful!
Doing this can also improve your computers
performance as the cooler you can keep your CPU and the rest of the
inside of your PC the faster it can perform without worrying about
overheating.
We hope this helps someone out there. Let us know
by commenting or sending us an email if there is something specific
that you would like us to answer. Have a great week and enjoy the
beautiful weather!
Laptop batteries are ridiculously expensive and so any tips on how to save them should be shared.
Tips:
1. If you're not going to be using your laptop for a while. Take the battery off and put it in a bag and then put it into a freezer. This should help lower the risk of losing time on how long your battery charge lasts.
2. Don't leave your battery out in the sun or near anything that would expose the battery to high heat as the hotter the battery is, the quicker it will discharge.
3. Leaving the battery in the laptop while also having it plugged into the wall (an electrical outlet) will keep the battery in a constant state of charging which will decrease the life of your battery.
4. If you have a nickel metal hydride battery, then you should completely drain and recharge your battery once a month so that you maximize it's capacity to hold a charge.
If you have any questions for us here at Avantgate that you would like us to help you with - just fire through an email or leave a comment and we'll be more than happy to help. Have a great week.
Ok, nobody panic - things are going to be okay. I can see the computer technicians cash register going round in your eyes. But don't fret!
Before you decide to take it into the technician, first do some clearing out of your own computer because it could simply be that your computer is full of rubbish you don't actually need.
Firstly check how much of your hard drive space you have left. To keep getting good performance from your hard drive you should always keep 20% free. If you have much less than that - then you should look to removing some unneeded or unused programs. If you still need to free up space then would be good to back up any media (ie, photo's / videos / music etc) or anything onto a removable drive or another hard drive. It is good practice to always have two copies of anything though!
Next, you can delete cookies and temp files from your computer to free up more space as these can fill up rather quickly. Cookies (cache) and/or temp files are created either by the internet or other programs. They're basically a snap shot of a website or project you're working on, so that the next time you access that information it doesn't take as much time to load, because it already has an idea of how it looked before. So you don't have to worry so much when you delete these as next time you go into a website or project your system will automatically create another "cookie" or "temp" file with a new image.
Details on how to do it (These are the instructions for Internet Explorer):
Deleting Cookies and Temp files:
The easiest way to delete these is to open your internet browser
Click on 'tools'
Then Select 'Internet options'
Then click delete browser history'
Then click the 'delete cookies button' and then the 'delete files button'.
This may take a little time (a minute or two) especially if you haven't done it for a long time or at all so just be patient.
To delete the temp files and cookies in Mozilla Firefox follow these instructions:-
Click on 'tools'
Then click 'options'
Then click on the 'privacy' tab
Then click 'show cookies'
Then click 'remove all cookies'
You can also select the option to have your private data deleted each time you close your browser. By clicking the box so that the tick appears when you're in the 'privacy' tab. If you're running Windows there is also a disk cleanup tool that will do the above and more. Go to:
Start // Programs // Accessories // System Tools // Disk Cleanup
After you delete a bit of stuff (especially if you delete programs or remove things from your drive) it'd be a good idea to do a disk defrag so your drive is re-organized and back in order. To do this in MS Windows go to:
Start // Programs // Accessories // System Tools // Disk Defragmenter
Then select the drive you want defragmented (if you have more than one) and then click defragment and it will defrag the drive.
I hope this helps - if you use a browser other than the two I've used as examples then fire through an email or leave a comment here and we'll do our best to get instructions on how to do this same procedure for your browser. Have a great week!
