How to Set Up Your Desk Ergonomically
If you work at a desk for long hours, you want to make sure your desk is set up properly so it’s comfortable and doesn’t bring you neck and back pain! How you arrange your monitor(s), keyboard, the height of your chair/table is crucial to helping your body feel comfortable while working.
Here are some tips and tricks to help you set up your desk ergonomically:
Chair:
Adjust your chair so that your elbows and your legs are bent to 90 degrees. If your elbows are at 90 degrees but your legs aren’t, a foot stool can solve this problem easily!
Monitor:
You want to ensure your monitor is at arms length distance so you can read what is on the screen without having to move from your 90 degrees posture. Not only that, you also want to adjust your monitor height so that the top of the monitor is at eye level. If you are unable to adjust the height of the monitor, you can always add things underneath the monitor to assist with the height.
Working with two monitors? If you work with mainly one screen, it is better to have the primary screen directly in front of you and the secondary screen to the side. If you work with both equally, it’s best that you are in the middle of the two.
Working with a laptop? Look for a stand that can raise it up to the proper height (with other things to raise it even higher if needed) and connect an external keyboard as well as a mouse to keep the 90 degrees in the elbow.
Mouse & Keyboard:
Your mouse and keyboard should be placed exactly where your hands land when you sit down. You don’t want to reach for the things on your desk if you are using them often.
Desk Phone:
If a desk phone is required often, place it on your non writing side to avoid having to talk on the phone with it between your ear and your shoulder, or alternatively look for a headset that you can connect to the phone itself.
Above are basics that you should look out for to ensure your desk is set up ergonomically. Stretches and basic exercises are recommended by experts after 10-15 minutes as we all begin to slouch. Wall Street Journal has some exercises you can do at your desk to keep your posture in check here. (In Step 5 starting at 2:27)
Source: Mayo Clinic & Wall Street Journal
Published: 4:17 pm on April 14th, 2021
Optimizing Your Bandwidth
We’re here to talk about how to maximize and optimize your bandwidth. But first off, what is bandwidth? Bandwidth and internet speed are often mixed up and cause confusion for people.
Bandwidth is the amount of information or data that you receive in a measured amount of time – calculated in megabits per second (Mbps).
Think of a bathtub faucet with a wide opening, more water can flow into the tub at a much faster rate than if the opening is small. The water would represent bandwidth and the rate of the water flowing out would represent internet speed.
Below are some tips that you can use to help optimize your bandwidth when you are at home:
1. Manage your streaming services
Streaming has become one of the major online traffic sources, you want to make sure that you don’t have devices streaming in the background as it does eat up the bandwidth and slow down the other devices you are using. Slower connection may result in watching things in a lower setting.
2. Adjusting your device and app settings
It’s also a good idea to ensure that you adjust your settings. Oftentimes your devices would have apps or software running in the background that are using up unnecessary bandwidth – as mentioned in a previous blog post, you want to make sure you close down those background applications.
3. Rebooting your router or modem
Giving your internet device a reboot will allow it to refresh the memory. Just like us! We need a good night’s sleep to rest up, so does the router. You can find out more details as to why it is important to reboot your devices from time to time in one of our previous blog posts.
4. Upgrading device or internet package
If you have increased your usage online and have more devices at home that require high-capacity activities, then you may want to look into upgrading your router or modem to ensure it is able to handle the heavier traffic. Alternatively it might not hurt to look into getting a higher tier internet package more suitable for your online activity needs.
We hope the above tips are useful and that it helps you understand the difference between bandwidth and speed. Should you have any questions or concerns, be sure to check out our support page first, otherwise we are available for Tech Support at 604.642.6688 or send us a direct message on Facebook/Twitter!
Source: Verizon & Citywest
Published: 5:11 pm on February 9th, 2021
What’s Managed WiFi?
Your Novus Internet service includes Unlimited Data and Symmetrical Speeds. But did you know that your Novus Internet service also includes Managed WiFi when using the router that we provide? Here’s what that means and some benefits as to why we suggest to use our router with our internet service versus using your own:
- When you are having issues with your internet, having our router will significantly increase the chances of us helping you remotely over the phone. Either to fix the problem on the spot or at least identify the problem.
- While in the process of identifying the problem, tests and monitoring may be required – using our router will give our administrators access to see further back end issues and/or do more in depth testing to resolve your issue.
- *Since we have access to the router remotely, we can assist you in changing your WiFi name and password if it is needed.
*If you prefer to make changes to your WiFi name and password yourself but don’t know how? You can check out our support page here.
Got more questions or having other issues? Be sure to check out our support page first, otherwise we are available for Tech Support at 604.642.6688 or send us a direct message on Facebook/Twitter!
Published: 6:27 pm on January 12th, 2021
Ways to Speed Up Your Devices
Have you noticed that your device is slowing down as time goes on? Many factors can be the reason for it, and below are a few tips that could potentially assist you in speeding your devices up!
1. Restart devices regularly
“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” is something that many people would always suggest when running into issues with technology.
A lot of the time the device would be overloaded with resources which decreases the speed. For example when a program uses too much memory, your device will constantly seek more memory to compensate for the lack of it; Therefore it would use up resources for other tasks that you are doing.
2.Power settings
Many devices now have different power settings – Balanced (typically recommended), power saving mode and performance mode. If your device is using power saving mode it could slow down your device to allow the battery to last longer.
At times you’ll have to go for the power saving mode when your device is low and stick with the slower device until you’re closer to an outlet.
3.Close background application
Try to close down background applications or softwares that you’re not using at the time to avoid the slow speeds. As mentioned in the first tip, some programs may take up too much memory when you’re not actively using it.
4.Disable programs running on start ups
Oftentimes, having programs run right when you boot up your device is extremely convenient. But a lot of them are unnecessary, it will be annoying to close them constantly each time since they just end up running in the background.
5.Clearing out old files
Having a lot of files can result in slowing your device down as well. Getting in the habit of deleting your older files or applications that you no longer need would help a lot with that. You can also look into getting extra storage or backing up your files onto the “cloud” so they aren’t taking up too much space.
We hope these tips will help with improving the performance of your devices. Remember these are general tips, if you are looking for further improvement, we suggest you refer to the device manual for more details!
Published: 8:30 pm on November 29th, 2020
How to Protect Yourself Online
With the ongoing pandemic, many people are still working from home, and businesses are asking people to do online orders and to provide personal information.
Making sure your identity and information are secure doesn’t take much effort. We should all be aware of how to protect ourselves online and here are a couple things you can/should watch out for.
1. Your password is the first line of defense, so make sure you create a strong password.
Below are some ways of making sure you create a safe and secure password.
– Avoid easy to guess words/phrases/number sequence like “password” or “1234”.
– Don’t use common quotes or movie/song titles.
– Stay away from using personal information for example birthday, pet name, etc.
Click here for more details on how to create a strong and safe password written by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
2. Don’t click on unfamiliar links or ads that seem too good to be true. Unfamiliar links could bring you to pages that take your information without you knowing. Advertisements or contests that show up on the sides, or pop up window boxes when you enter a webpage are also dangerous. Many of them would congratulate you or trick you into entering a contest by asking you for your personal information (e.g. Full name, address, email, credit card number etc)
A couple of our customers have received congratulations pop-up boxes indicating that Novus is giving away items, and asks for their personal information like credit card number. Please note that is NOT us, and if you do receive something like that and are unsure, never hesitate to contact us and make sure it is a legitimate prize.
3. Phishing has become more and more popular. It could come in the form of emails, text messages, phone calls. They are typically designed to trick you into giving your personal information by pretending they are sites that you trust like your bank.
The majority of the banks would not give you a direct link to go to when there is an issue with your bank account. They normally would recommend you to log in directly into your account by asking you to go to their website without providing a link or they would ask you to call them. It’s always the safest to log in from their website directly as well as contact the number listed there rather than the one listed in the email.
Click here to learn more about how to protect yourself from Phishing scams.
We wish that everyone stays safe physically and digitally – Remember when in doubt, it never hurts to take the extra caution step to contact the business directly to confirm if a specific email/phone call is actually legitimate.
If there are any questions or concerns, feel free to contact our Customer Service!