The world of Humphs & MFW-Services

If you see (Not Responding) pop up in the title bar of a program you are using, it doesn't mean that the program has crashed, it's the computer saying this it is busy doing something else, so has just paused the program you are currently using. This normally happens during update downloads or installs. Windows 10 and 11, have a habit of just doing the download and then installing it without showing or telling you that this is what it is doing.  You do have the option of pausing updates, but to be honest it's not something I would recommend as the updates can include security tweaks to Windows, and even include Firmware updates for your PC, so should be done (as should be updates to your Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware programs). Updates are normally released by Microsoft on 2nd or 3rd Tuesday of the month, but it can take a few days (or longer) before your PC will download them (unless you have paused updates!), so don't expect your PC to always do the updates as soon as th

 A customer asked me the other day if I knew anything about Cyber Essentials. It rang a bell, but I couldn't really think why. A quick search online and found it.... What is Cyber Essentials? It is an effective, Government backed scheme that will help you to protect your organisation, whatever its size, against a whole range of the most common cyber attacks. Cyber attacks come in many shapes and sizes, but the vast majority are very basic in nature, carried out by relatively unskilled individuals. They're the digital equivalent of a thief trying your front door to see if it's unlocked. There are two levels of certification: Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus. So, what does this mean? Well I went through the questionnaire to find out, and after answering all the questions and in the end got a readiness report with 15 pages giving me an outline on what I should do to become certified.  Does it cost anything? Yes! Anything from £300+VAT to £500+VAT (depending on the si

 Not my normal computer related post, but hey 😐 As some of you may know, together with my wife Michelle, we had a rescue German Shepherd called Cela - her name was in honour of Michelle's Dad Alec who passed away 14 years ago, and when we were on the way to go and collect Cela (or Fanta as she was named then) it was on an anniversary of his passing, and the name just came to Michelle as it's Alec backwards. Well, just short of 9 years later, and I'm sad to say that Cela has passed over Rainbow Bridge. She was just short of her 12th birthday. She had a quite large episode (it was a 'brain fart' to be honest) over the weekend and unusually for Cela this meant that she didn't want her tea and it took quite a while for her to come back to normal. She was a little bit under the weather on the Sunday, but ate breakfast and tea as normal. She ran around chasing 'nothing' while barking in the garden and generally wasn't too bad. Monday, she came to work wit

  That’s a mouthful… but here we go with another Laptop review. This time it’s a Dynabook (Toshiba) 14” lightweight laptop. Again, this is one of my laptops, and it’s one that I carry around with me in my backpack in case I am onsite, or out, and need a laptop for any reason. It’s a small and light laptop is perfect for light use surfing the ‘net, dealing with emails and the odd bit of word processing, etc. It comes with an Intel Celeron dual core CPU running at 1.9Ghz, together with 4Gb ram (that is expandable), and a 128Gb SSD, loaded with Windows 10 Pro (Education edition). As stated, the ram is expandable and I’ve already upgraded it to 8Gb as Windows runs much happier with 8Gb – the only downside is that to upgrade the ram, you must remove the case bottom, and replace the single ram module with a larger capacity one. In general use, the laptop is fast enough, but not something that I would want to try and game on as the CPU is of an older design and only has 2 cores. It takes

I thought I would give an honest review of the HP 255 G8 15.6” laptop now that I have been using it for the last 12 months. Whilst the model number has stayed the same, HP have updated the laptop since I purchased it. The updated ones have a different CPU, now come as standard with Windows 11, and the colour of the case is different as well. But this review is based on what I have. The specifications of the laptop I have are: 15.6” FHD screen, a Ryzen 5 3500U CPU, 8Gb Ram (expandable), 256Gb SSD, USB-C, no optical drive and comes with Windows 10 Home as standard. So, what do I think of it, and would I recommend it? I have the laptop at home for general use, surfing the ‘net, emails, watching videos etc., and the odd bit of word processing etc., and it’s perfect. Screen is clear and easy to see, I have the resolution at it’s highest of 1920 x 1080 at 100% size so for some people this is a bit small but obviously this can be changed to suit your needs. The 8Gb Ram is a minimum for

I've been thinking about doing a random blog and linking it to my business website for quite a while, and today seems to be that day. It's not something that I am going to do every day, week or month, it's just something that will happen when I feel like it, and it could be about anything and everything. I know that there are other platforms that I could use to either 'vent', ramble or just moan, but this will be linked directly off my business website as I would think that it will mainly contain things that are connected to my business in one way or another. So as they say, Buckle up and get ready for a wild ride 😂