Blog

Refurbished Macs, PCs, Laptops

November 2, 2018 by Dan Jones

We have a range of refurbished machines available – all machines carry a 60 day parts and labour warranty (return to base).

2011 (2012 build year) 27″ iMac, i5 CPU, 500GB Hard Drive, Keyboard, Mouse – £350

2015 (2016 build year) 15″ MacBook Pro, i7 Quad Core, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Retina Display – £650

Dell 3450 Laptop PC, 14″ Screen, i5 CPU, 4GB RAM, 250GB SSD, Windows 10 Pro – £250

Lenovo ThinkPad T450, i5 CPU, 250GB SSD, 15.6″ Screen, Backlit Keyboard, GeForce 730m Graphics, Windows 10 Pro – £275

Microsoft Surface Pro 3, i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB Storage, some scratching to the case hence only £350

We take payment by card or bank transfer and have these machines in stock and ready to go.

Refurbished PCs

November 30, 2016 by Dan Jones

STOP PRESS!

WE HAVE A 13″ APPLE MACBOOK PRO LAPTOP FOR SALE

The machine has a 13″ screen, Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive and MacOS Sierra (Latest Version!)

The price is £350 and includes a new charger.

Bargain Refurbished PCs For Sale

We have a limited number of refurbished PCs available.

They are all a minimum of 250GB hard drive, dual core processor, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010.

They all come with a 17″ flat screen monitor, keyboard and mouse.

The cost is a bargain £60, with £10 from each sale getting split between Altrincham in Bloom and Altrincham FC Community Sports, 2 local organisations we work with.

Each machine is refurbished to the highest standard – we are a Microsoft Registered Refurbisher – see Microsoft’s page here.

Let us know if you want to reserve a PC, we’ll get it delivered anywhere in the WA14, WA15, SK9, SK7 postcodes free of charge.

Each machine comes with a 90 day hardware warranty (return to our office, see our terms and conditions) for peace of mind.

Please note, Due to licensing restrictions we can only sell these machines to charities, home users or early years education institutions.

We also have a limited supply of Apple MacBook Pro and Apple iMac computers, please ask for more details as stock changes quickly.

STOP PRESS!

WE HAVE A 13″ APPLE MACBOOK PRO LAPTOP FOR SALE

The machine has a 13″ screen, Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive and MacOS Sierra (Latest Version!)

The price is £350 and includes a new charger.

“My computer’s running slow…” Is a complaint we hear all to often. Usually it’s malware or the accumulation of years worth of crud in the fan, but every now and again it’s the sign that your hard drive may be failing.
Here, we are using manufacturer’s diagnostic software to check the hard drive in this Compaq laptop, and it’s picked up 12 errors before getting to 1% complete. The diagnosis? A failing hard drive.
Hopefully we’ll be able to rescue this customer’s data before the drive fails completely, and this customer sadly does not have a backup!
Is your computer running slow?
Get it to us for a hard drive check!

How one email attachment nearly cost one customer their whole business.

June 18, 2016 by Dan Jones

Not too long ago, we received a panicked phone call from a local business.
A member of staff in the office had clicked on an email attachment which was supposed to be an invoice, but turned out to be something quite different.
Instead of the promised invoice, the attachment was actually a Microsoft Word document containing a hidden nasty – a macro virus.
This virus gave no indication it was hiding their, and the document was blank, however the damage was being done in the background.
The macro virus had one job, to encrypt the documents, photos and spreadsheets on the customer’s PC and hold the company to ransom – in this case the ransom was approx. £800.

Sadly, by the time the customer realised what had happened, it was too late, the virus had done it’s job and locked up this machine’s data, mainly accounts information including staff contracts, client invoices and a customer database.
The member of staff knew something was wrong as soon as the desktop wallpaper had changed to a ransom demand, but with the damage done, what else could they do but pay the ransom?

Luckily for this customer, the backup systems had safeguarded the important data and Techknowledgey were able to get the customer up and running again in just a few hours, and this also gave us a chance to review the existing anti virus arrangements.
We were able to make improvements to the system to ensure that a repeat of this situation would be unlikely, including moving the email and document storage systems to Microsoft Office 365, ensuring data safety, continuity of business and a cost effective way of gaining the latest version of Microsoft Office on the office PCs and Macs.

iMac Repair in Stockport

March 14, 2016 by Dan Jones

A regular customer of ours is a photographer based in Stockport.
Recently, his main Apple iMac machine refused to power up, meaning he could not work!
We were able to source, install and return the machine within 24 hours,
the end result being his work could continue and the machine will be fit for another few years of service yet.

When disk failure strikes…

March 14, 2016 by Dan Jones

We provide IT Support to a local school.
Part of our service offering to the school is the monitoring of the computers in their ICT Suite.
One morning, our automated system generated an alert informing us that one of the machines had a failing hard drive.
As we carry a stock of commonly used parts, we were able to replace the drive over the lunch break, ensuring the machine was available for lessons that afternoon.
The smooth running of an IT network is vital and because the school operates a 1 PC per Pupil policy, downtime is simply not tolerated.

6 easy tips to keep your PC running smoothly.

February 19, 2016 by Dan Jones

At Techknowledgey Ltd, we get asked a lot of questions, and by far the most asked is “How can I speed up my PC?”

There are 6 easy steps to follow to help keep your PC running quickly.

1) Delete any files, you don’t need.
All those downloads, digital pictures of the floor, odd sound clips etc you’ve downloaded can clog your PC up over time – simply delete the ones you don’t need and empty your Recycle Bin – Easy!

2) Clear up temporary files.
Machines with cluttered and unused temporary files run more slowly than they should, and cookies and Internet history could pose a risk to your privacy online.
Use Cleaner (Free from www.piriform.co.uk/ccleaner) on your PC or Mac to automatically delete files that are no longer needed by your computer.

3) Defrag your PC.
Defragmenting is basically the process of tidying up all the files and bits of software your PC uses – it’s essentially like putting your CD collection in to alphabetical order!
All Windows computers come with a built in defrag tool, however Defraggler (Free from www.piriform.co.uk/defraggler) is a great tool, simply download and run (you might need to leave it over night!) and this will give a noticeable speed boost, especially if you’ve never defragged before.
Mac users – you don’t need to defrag as OS X takes care of that for you!

4) Use a better Browser!
Use a more modern browser such as Firefox (www.firefox.com) or Chrome (www.google.com/chrome) rather than Internet Explorer.
Firefox and Chrome are more secure by design than Internet Explorer, and webpages often load quicker in Firefox or Chrome than they do in Internet Explorer.
When you have installed a better browser, ensure you turn on the Do Not Track feature in the settings, this will help stop advertisers following you by using tracking cookies and utilise an adblocker such as Ad Block Plus to prevent obtrusive advertising taking over your screen.

5) Keep your PC or laptop clean!
We see a lot of laptops that are gummed up with fluff in air vents, this will slow your machine down because the heat has nowhere to go.
Use a vacuum cleaner or compressed air can to clear the air vents and always make sure you use your laptop on a flat, hard surface.
You can also buy a laptop cooling tray with a USB powered fan to help keep your machine cool – a cooler machine will last longer!

6) Do those Windows updates!
I know we all put them off, but Windows or Apple updates are there to help keep your machine safe and secure by applying up to date patches automatically.
Make sure you update your computer when it asks you to!
The same advice applies to mobile phones and tablets.

So, there we have it, 6 simple, free tips to help keep your machine running quickly.

You should also make sure you back up files regularly; our best advice is to back up anything you would miss if your computer suddenly died!

There are plenty of useful sources of information out there, and we, Techknowledgey Ltd, are here to help you and your business with IT support.

Please contact us on 0161 883 1692 or tweet us on @1techknowledgey and we will do our best to help you.

We are based in Timperley, and have clients across Trafford, Stockport, Cheshire and beyond.

Our clients range from estate agents to dentists, office supplies companies to schools and there is little we can’t help with, after all, we’ve got IT covered!

Hello!

February 19, 2016 by Dan Jones

Over the next few months, we’ll try and release a blog every now and again.

Some blogs will be for information, some will keep you up to date with our latest news and projects, some will contain our thoughts on tech news or contain a rant on modern business life!
We hope the blogs will be interesting and useful, please feel free to share with your contacts should you find them useful, interesting, funny or downright weird.

Dan.