My City
Hi, my name’s Steven Cook. I live in Aberdeen, Scotland with my wife, Shirley, 3 kids, a dog, a cat and a pet iguana called Manuel. I work as a computer consultant for an offshore oil company, hardly surprising when Aberdeen is the centre of the Offshore Oil Industry. The city is very multicultural because of the petroleum industry, so many experts and workers from many different countries certainly make it interesting. You can buy traditional fish and chips or haggis, an Indian curry, pizza or a typical Chinese meal of dumplings, duck and sweet and sour pork in a city that caters for every nationality.
I have been fiddling about with computers ever since I was a kid and that eventually led me to earn a computing degree at the University of Aberdeen. It’s a job and a passion that will not disappear in the foreseeable future. Computers and computing are always evolving and every day there is a new development, a new innovation that gets fanatics like me pretty excited.
My Work
The stuff I do for the oil company is pretty standard. I maintain their operating system, conduct a few tutorials and training for new starters and install and upgrade equipment as required. I used to get a chopper ride out to the rigs in the early days but after a couple of scares with severe weather and a dodgy helicopter, I asked that my work is restricted to the land based office in Aberdeen. I’ve been with them for a few years and they were only too happy to retain my services.
WIN10
With less travel in my work, I decided to start this blog to share a bit of knowledge I have gained over the years and maybe initiate a bit of a forum about computing issues which we all have. Even me! Most problems these days have to do with the Windows 10 installs. There have been quite a few glitches and upgrades are coming out of Microsoft faster than we can handle. Windows icon is not working, apps are not connecting and upgrades are not downloading are some of the teething problems. But the OS is pretty good and has been taken up by millions of users already.
Apps
The other big thing on the market today is the Android business with new models and so many Apps that they can drive you insane. Picking the right App can be expensive if you don’t know exactly what you want one to do. App developers are sometimes smart and sometimes greedy, the latter is not developing the App to the degree that a user will find to use it. They just don’t think of all the necessary contingencies.
Remote Maintenance
A service that many people are turning to for their PC problems is remote maintenance. Systems like TeamViewer are very handy and it’s the trend these days in a society that doesn’t like to move from the house or have strange people in their homes mucking about with their computers. With so much improvement in internet speeds and there being such a huge marketplace competing for your business, you can easily have a tech from the USA looking at your system crash in Australia. There is a trust factor involved too in that method.
This is just an introductory blog post to introduce me and to tell you what I do. Future blogs will get more specific about computers – PC’s, laptop, tablets and iPads. There are some very cleverly designed Smartphones out there too. If you have any questions you can email me here and I can share them with other readers. Maybe they have the same problem or question. Stay tuned!