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Simple ways to ensure your mobile device is secure
In this day and age majority of us rely on our mobile device on a daily basis to perform various daily tasks such as sending text messages, internet banking for paying bills, surfing the internet to look up reviews on restaurants etc. Due to this most mobile phones often contain a fair amount of private information that should be stored securely. Mobile device security has become an increasingly important concern amongst mobile device users with the increasing number of cyber threats these days.
This leads us to the question of what exactly is mobile device security?
Mobile security is the protection of smartphones, tablets, laptops and other portable computing devices, and the networks they connect to, from threats and vulnerabilities associated with wireless computing. Mobile security is also known as wireless security.
Recent studies have shown that businesses are showing increasing interest in mobile device security due to the rise in cyber threats and business owners realise that majority of the mobile devices provided by the business to their employees often contain various valuable information which could easily be stolen.
There are various of ways to increase your mobile device security may it be your personal mobile device or as a business.
The most basic way of securing your mobile device is set a password, Personal Identification Number (PIN), passcode, gesture or fingerprint that must be entered to unlock the device. Don’t forget to put PINs on your SIM card, voicemail and also ensure the device is set to automatically lock.
Secondly it is recommended to install a reputable anti virus software on your mobile device. There are various kinds of anti virus softwares and if you’re interested we are able to provide you some advice on which to pick may it be for your own personal device or for your business needs.
Besides that, it is also advisable to leave Bluetooth turned off or in hidden mode (hidden) when you are not using it.
Record the International Mobile Equipment Identifier (IMEI) of your handset. Your IMEI is a 15 or 17 digit number often printed on a label under the battery or found in the Settings under General information about your device. If your device is lost or stolen, report this number to your provider and they can stop the handset from being used.
It would also be advisable to always use a VPN when using public Wi-Fi at public places like at the airport, cafes, shopping centres and hotels. These "open" networks also involve un-encrypted connections, leaving users at great risk. These hotspots are an easy target for hackers and nefarious people trying to steal login passwords, credit card information and content of communications or other personal details. These also pose other threats, such as man-in-the-middle attacks, Wi-Fi sniffing and malware.
Finally we also encourage users to switch on the remote locking or wiping function if the device supports this function to enable the user to remotely erase all the information in their device in case it gets stolen or missing.
Besides increasing the security of your mobile device we also encourage users to regularly backup their device either with a backup application or by manually syncing the device with a computer.
You may contact us if you are interested in finding out more about anti virus softwares or cloud services to backup and store your data for your personal device or business.
The rise in gas and electricity prices and how home automation could help you save money
Since July this year, several big energy provide companies including AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin have announced a hike in the prices of their electricity and gas prices.
AGL announced back in June that the price hike would be as much as $600 a year in some states and EnergyAustralia has announced electricity price rises of close to 20 per cent for residential and business customers in both South Australia and New South Wales from July 1. Meanwhile, Origin announced hikes of 16% in both NSW and South Australia.
EnergyAustralia blamed the impact of higher wholesale power prices following the closure of large coal-fired generators, increased demand for gas by liquefied natural gas projects in Queensland, and reliability issues with some big generators.
The price hike may be a huge concern to most households hence we would like to introduce home automation and how it can help households save on energy consumption.
Gone were the days when home automation only involved setting your VCR player to record your favourite tv show. Technology has advanced tremendously in the past decade.
What does home automation involve you may ask and how does it help save energy consumption?
Home automation is all about automating the ability to control items around the house—from window shades to pet feeders—with a simple push of a button (or a voice command) via your mobile device.
At first glance setting up your home with home automation may seem very costly and unnecessary but in reality activities, like setting up a lamp to turn on and off at your whim, are simple to set up and relatively inexpensive. Others, like advanced surveillance cameras, may require a more serious investment of time and money but yet not as difficult and costly as we may imagine.
Home automation helps households monitor and save energy consumption which directly translates to saving money.
For example, if all of your major appliances are integrated and linked via an automated system, the system will choose the best and most cost-effective time for each appliance to operate, rather than running all of them simultaneously, or in peak times.
Imagine leaving your home for vacation only to realise you forgot to switch off your central heating. With home automation you are able to send a command to switch off the heating in your house via your mobile device.
Best of all, you will be able to teach the system to automate what goes on or off depending on your living habits. eg. have the system turn off all the heating at 7 am in the morning before you go to work or turn on night light when it senses movement in the hall way after midnight. Or even open the garage door when you and your mobile is down the road on the way home.
Home automation doesn't just work for your home but it could also be installed at a work place to suit your office needs and help your business save energy and money. The concept is the same and you can use it to monitor your office energy usage via your mobile device.
There’s various types of home automation devices that you can get ranging from a smart light bulb that allows you to switch on/off and dim it via your mobile device, security camera kits with sensors and power controllers which allows you to monitor your home via wireless camera and send commands to switch off electrical devices when you’re not home and also smart electricity meter displays which shows you your energy usage in your home which would enable you to identify and switch off appliances that are using too much energy in your household .
We stock a wide range of home automation products which you may directly browse here however if you’re interested in finding out more but do not know where to start do contact us and ask us more about turning your home or office into a smart home/office and start saving money.
Declutter your unused mobile phones and recycle it today
We all know about the importance of recycling in general but not many of us know about mobile phone recycling.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australians are hoarding approximately 23 million unused mobile phones, About 98% of mobile phones can actually be recycled. However figures show that only approximately 13% of mobile phones are currently being recycled. This means there are a lot of materials available that could be recovered simply through recycling.
There are 29 million mobile phone subscribers in Australia. About 9 million new handsets are shipped here every year, and most Australians upgrade their handset every 18-24 months.
The good news? It's easy to do the right thing. All you have to do is recycle your old mobiles and accessories, and encourage others to do the same.
Why recycle you may ask.
Recycling your mobile phone helps :
- Reduces pollution caused by hazardous materials from mobile phones entering the environment from landfill or incineration.
- It reduces the effects of global warming by reducing the amount of CO2 and methane gas entering our environment from decomposing waste in landfill.
- It reduces the waste and habitat damage associated with the extraction of raw materials like plastics.
- It prevents the reformation of environmentally damaging compounds such as dioxins and furans in the exhaust gas stream.
- It reduces disposal rates and impact.
Besides saving the environment mobile phone recycling could also help you earn extra cash for yourself or your business.
We at PhoneInc can assist you with mobile phone recycling. If you’re interested in earning side income for your business or just interested in recycling your old mobile phones to save the environment do contact us at sales@phoneinc.com.au today and ask us how.
4 Simple Ways to Take Charge of Your Finances
In today’s economy with the constant rise in cost of living and inflation, we are constantly looking for ways to increase our income and savings.
There are many ways we can increase our income and savings. Here are among some little things you could be doing to achieve your goal.
Never pay unnecessary fees
Welcome to 2017, and for some, welcome to another fee. If you're paying an annual fee on your credit card, ask to have it waived. Worst case scenario is your balance transfers to a better rate and a card with no annual fee – easy!
Also make an effort to ensure that your bills are paid on time. Certain companies offer their customers a small discount as an incentive for paying your bills early or on time. Credit card providers often charge additional fees and interest if you do not pay your balance off each month.
Use your virtual assistant in your smartphone to keep you reminded on the due dates as soon as you receive the bill. Siri and OK google does a fantastic job in noting reminders in your calendar.
Start spending wiser
Your daily work lunches might seem cheap at $10 a day, but then that's $200 a month and approximately $2200 a year (excluding a month's holiday). Dedicate an afternoon each week to grocery shopping, and pack your lunches rather than purchasing them. Make sure you take a pre-written list to avoid impulse buying.
Another good example of this is getting a mobile phone contract. Signing up to a 2 year mobile phone contract may seem cheap at first but over the course of 2 years it actually ends up costing the customer significantly more than buying the mobile phone outright.
Even if you can't afford to purchase a mobile phone outright, you can still purchase a mobile phone outright interest free off our website via ZipPay.
You can read more about ZipPay in the link below.
Creating a detailed account of your current expenditure will also help to create clear picture of where most of your expenditure is going to and in that way you can easily eliminate unnecessary expenditure. You can use spreadsheets on your phone to create detailed budgeting lists.
Do not save just to save but to invest instead
Investing may seem daunting at first but start off small. You may start off with looking into investing your superannuation.
We ain’t no professionals in regards to providing investment advice however we are able to provide you with some gadgets/devices that you can invest in to further help you save money.
For instance Solar Panels may seem costly at first however in the long run the saving does outweigh the cost of the solar panels.
Another good range of gadgets to invest in are home automation products. Home automation products have become more popular in recent years. They are not overly costly to set up but the savings you’ll earn from it is incredible.
The main key to building up a regular savings is to set money aside automatically. You can do this by automatically setting your bank account to put a set amount of money into a separate account on a weekly or monthly basis. This way you wouldn’t even realise that you have money set aside and before you know it you will have built up a substantial amount of savings.
Make side income
If you find that your main income isn’t enough why not generate a side income may it be by selling some of your creations from your existing hobbies (baking, knitting, card making etc) .
Uber and Airtasker are also great ways of generating side income. If you already own a car utilise it and be an Uber driver. Or utilise your man power to help someone move their couch on Airtasker for extra income.
In line with generating side income we will be discussing how you can generate additional income for yourself or your business by recycling mobile phones in our next blog post.
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