Instead of tech presents, give updates and help
If you are serious about what tech presents you’ll be able to hand out this yr, take a step again and take into consideration what’s actually essential: {hardware} upgrades and tech help.
Technology is usually not one thing I give as presents on the vacation season.
In a pinch, I’ll ask what an individual needs, or provide them money or a examine in the direction of a purchase order — however to purchase somebody a tech present outright? No. Because no matter I give won’t work with what they have already got.
Instead, the vacations are time to overview the well being and situation of the household know-how. You is perhaps nonetheless on the hook for a gift, however isn’t it the perfect present of all to ensure what you’ve got at house is working correctly and securely?
Here are my strategies on what to contemplate at this most great time of the yr.
A brand new arduous drive
If your beloved nonetheless doesn’t have an SSD drive of their day by day pc, cease and help within the means of upgrading. It’s fairly easy for you — the Geek of the household — to take away just a few screws, purchase an SSD arduous drive and a small exterior SSD enclosure, get a mounting bracket, and seize backup software program to make a precise picture of the drive. I additionally advocate having spare arduous drive cables.
Place all of the gadgets in a field and put a bow on prime to maintain issues festive. Then really assist the recipient set up the drive.
An OS improve
If your beloved remains to be booting up on a classic Windows 7 machine, bear in mind that Chrome and different browsers will cease supporting Windows 7 quickly. Very quickly, as in January. I’m not a fan of browsing on-line with an unpatched browser since today browsers are principally like an working system. (Even a brand new Kindle with its restricted browser could be higher than an unsupported and unpatched model of Chrome.) Take the time over the vacation season to ask why somebody is staying on that older platform and persuade them it’s time to improve.
There are many instruments — some free, some paid — that may make a Windows 10 or 11 system appear like Windows 7. If that’s all they need, assist them make the transfer to an OS that’s fashionable, even when it appears like one thing greater than a decade previous.
More than one monitor
At the workplace, each member of my agency has a minimum of two screens, and a few of us even have 4. (In my house, I’ve a number of screens.) If one display is now not sufficient, possibly two is the reply. And even if you happen to don’t have room for a pleasant, skinny mounting unit connects two screens facet by facet, there are transportable USB-based screens that may flip any laptop computer right into a twin monitor setup in a flash.
Simply plug in a USB cable and your pc will instantly both mirror your predominant display or prolong it. It makes engaged on a number of gadgets a lot simpler.
A working printer
This yr, Microsoft has been altering the print spooler software program to ensure attackers can’t entry programs by way of the print capabilities. (It’s additionally been making our interactions with printers a dwelling nightmare.) I used to take the sound of a working printer as a right. Now after I hit the print button, I cease and pay attention for the sound earlier than I can breathe an indication of aid.
If you continue to depend on printing at house or the workplace, it is perhaps time to present your self or beloved members of the family the current of a practical printer with a static IP tackle. I’ve additionally standardized on having a printer at house that’s just like the one within the workplace: a laser jet that’s networked to the router fairly than counting on wi-fi printing. And if you happen to give somebody the identical printer you employ at house, you’ll be able to stroll them by way of regular reset and reconfiguration processes when wanted. If you’ve ever needed to bear in mind the place a setting is on the printer interface, you’ll know the ache and struggling one has to undergo when making an attempt to troubleshoot a printer remotely.
Remote entry
Finally, have some technique to attain out remotely. When somebody within the household calls and describes one thing on a display that appears indecipherable, distant entry generally is a life-saver. (At a naked minimal, if you happen to don’t have distant entry, inform them to make use of their cellphone and take an image of no matter they’re seeing.)
Remote instruments resembling Splashtop or Teamviewer present low-cost choices for private use. It is value each penny to have the ability to distant into somebody’s pc a world away and clear up their drawback. Consider this a present to your self. And it’s a good way to get 2023 began off proper.