Welcome to our first blog of 2015, it’s another brand new year and therefore it’s the perfect time to change things up a bit. Don’t worry we’re not talking about making unrealistic new years resolutions, like vowing to go to the gym every night or eating healthy, we’re talking about how to improve your digital life for the better.

Back it up
Now it has been said that if you want to ensure you never lose a document again, you should have three copies of it – the original copy, a backup at home, and a back up off site. Okay, so you probably already back up your computer at home with a memory stick or an external hard drive, but it’s always important that you have that third copy, just for extra reassurance.

It’s always worthwhile choosing a back up service that gives you the option to encrypt your data without having to provide that service with your encryption password. Obviously, this will leave a lot of the responsibility down to you, but it’s a good idea if you want to keep your personal data as protected and secure as possible.

Be Careful What You Put Online
Remember the hacking scandal that hit the headlines back in August 2014? Well that was just another reminder that you need to be seriously careful about what you put online, because we can assure you that hacks of personal data won’t be going away any time soon. Remember, any photos you take with your phone might automatically be backed up to Cloud storage services, so check your settings and don’t put anything online that you don’t want anyone else to see.

Invest in a Solid State Drive
2015 is definitely the year to invest in an SSD. The price of SSD’s are steadily decreasing and are finally becoming an affordable storage drive. If you ask us an SSD is a great investment, it’ll speed up your PC and make it feel speedy and brand new. If you buy anything tech related in 2015, make sure it’s an SSD!

Security Security Security
Yes we’re going on about security some more, but it really is important for 2015. There isn’t much you can do to protect your passwords and usernames. Generally, passwords are often scrambled using a technique that’s called hashing – this requires hackers to unscramble your passwords for the logins to be valid. As we’ve said it’s hard to protect them, but choosing a lengthy password that includes letters, capitals and lower-case, numbers and symbols can go some way to preventing your accounts being hacked. Also, we know it’s a lot to remember, but if you can use a different password and username combination for each site you use, you’re less likely to get hacked. Password managers such as LastPass are great for helping you remember your unique log-ins.

Re-purpose Your Old Technology
So a new year generally means out with the old and in with the new, but if you’ve just got a new PC or tablet for Christmas, why not consider re-using your old PC as one that you just use for watching movies or so that you can play games on it. If you’re old PC is a bit slow and run down, you don’t to throw it away, why not consider making a few simple tweaks to it – like upgrading to an SSD?

There you have it, our digital new years resolutions, and don’t they sound so much better than going to gym every night after work?