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Get a FREE Cyber Security Assessment for your Small Business

I run a small business and I make use of the many benefits of the internet while running it. But according to Australian Cyber Security Magazine, a quarter (25%) of Australian Small to Medium Businesses would not survive the financial and reputational damage of a significant privacy breach.

The research, conducted by Zoho, which sought to understand cyber awareness amongst Australia’s SMBs, found that while awareness is growing, too many businesses are unprepared and unequipped to deal with a privacy breach or cyber incident. 

Based on the research of 784 Australian SMBs in industries including retail, professional services, technology, education and manufacturing, 24% said they would not survive the financial impact of a privacy breach, while 23.7% said they could not recover from the reputational hit. –

To assist SMBs across Australia we have enlisted the support of Harvey Norman’s ‘Technology For Business’, who are offering 50 FREE CYBER SECURITY ASSESSMENTS for Small Businesses. These assessments are conducted via 15 minute phone call and once done you will better understand the Cyber Security risks presented to your business. 

If you run a Small Business, click the link below, fill in the details and the Harvey Norman Technologhy For Business team will be in touch to talk to you.  

GET YOUR FREE ASSESSMENT HERE. 

Guests and Topics on the Show

It is Cyber Weekend, and with all the the great deals left and right, comes the scammers who are eyeing their next victim! We invited Dean Williams, Partner Specialist Systems Engineer from Nortonwho shared some tips on how to identify these scams and ways to protect yourself from them!   Oppo has launched their latest foldable the Oppo Find N3. We invited Michael TranManaging Director from Oppo Australia and excitedly shared how great this latest phone is.   The OPPO Find N3 Fold is the foldable smartphone class leader in almost every way. Better internal and external screens, performance, RAM, storage, battery, camera, and user interface make this the fold to covet.OPPO really took the opportunity to address every aspect of the Foldable format and got it 99% right. You can get a quick overview of the differences OPPO Find N3 Fold First-look – reader FAQs answered. Read our OPPO Find N3 Fold – the most advanced foldable smartphone in 2023 (deep-dive review)  Michael also talked about two different Smart Phones selling well this weekend with Oppo, and they are the Reno 10 5G and the Oppo A78 5G.

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Life and Technology – Saturday November 25 2023

Taking Photos Of The Night Sky – Try These Tips 

-Use Expert RAW mode in the camera app
-Turn on Astrophotography mode up top
-Make sure you keep your phone stable (use a tripod if you can)
-Choose between 4, 7, or 10 minutes for exposure time depending on the light conditions
-Press the shutter and wait

Here is our Guide On VPNs –

What are they? How do you use them and when do you need to use them. All the details are on CyberShack.
Try brands like Norton and Trend Micro first, its likely you are already paying for a VPN as part of your subscription. 
You can also try Nord VPN and SurfShark VPN, both well known and supported solutions. 

Guests and Topics on the Show

This week Apple’s Wonderlust event announced the latest iPhone, the iPhone15. We invited a friend of the show, Mike Boyd to talk about the key announcements.   iPhone 15 – Available Sep 22Pro models now feature Titanium chassis which Apple made a big sing and dance about.Much brighter screen across the range (up to 2,000 nits)Pro and Pro Max feature always on screens.Much better chips A17Action button to replace the mute button on the Pro modelsSpatial video that can be viewed on the Vision Pro (sounds desperate!)Pricing from $1499 up to an eye-watering $2,899!Apple Watch Ultra 2 – Available Sep 22I think this has been an unexpected hit for Apple and the update has been brought forwardBrighter screen, better battery, more robust.Priced from $1,399 Now, Mike might not have been too impressed with the announcements, but you will have the chance to read device reviews from Friday, once the embargo lifts for media who have been provided a pre-release event device by Apple.  You can read more about the iPhone15 range at HarveyNorman.com.au

motorola has also announced their latest budget phone, the g14. We invited Kurt Bonnici, Head of Motorola – Greater Asia Pacific, to discuss about this latest g phone.  The Motorola g14 2023 shares the g-series heritage for well-built, reliable, value-and-feature-packed smartphones. At $229 in Steel Grey or Pale Lilac vegan leather, it is one to consider if you are on a budget. To bring a phone in at that price, you can’t expect the kitchen sink! But this is pretty good! The Moto g14 is available from all good retailers, including HarveyNorman.com.au­

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And just like that, Holidays are over and kids are back to school. I’m sure you’ve heard of the brand Nokia – they are definitely back in the market and has some great BTS tech that you might want to consider. 

On the show this week, we invited Brenden Folitarik  Country Manager HMD Global ANZ and Pacific Islands who shared some BTS tech from Nokia.

The Nokia X30 and G60 Android smartphones and T20 Android tablet may just be what you need. Great brand, uses Pure Android, long 3-year warranty, and very keen prices are just the start. READ MORE.. 

I just came back from a month-long US trip and had some realizations and personal experience about International Roaming. 

In line with this, I invited Alex Choros Managing Editor Whistleout to talk about roaming options for your next travel. 

Currently, At&t has a requirement in place that smart phones that want to make calls on their network must be ‘certified compliant’. What does this mean? Well, a phone maker will engage a lab to run a lot of tests on your model of phone and once it passes, will achieve certified compliance for making calls on the 4g network (VoLTE). Ofcourse there is major cost to the lab in running these tests and as such not all companies are prepared to pay this, just so the handset will work on At&t. You can look up here if your phone SHOULD work, but sadly you don’t know until you land in the USA if it will. My wife has the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and its listed as being compliant, but it didnt work for calls on At&t VoLTE.

I took a range of modern smart phones on my trip, like the Oppo Find X5 Pro, and none of them worked. Why At&t has done this is beyond me, but this policy sent me running to a T-Mobile store (cursing the name At&t) disabling my Vodafone sim and installing a T-mobile sim card. After doing so i achieved sensational coverage and data speeds across the states i visited, including Nevada, Utah, California and Hawaii. For $60 Aud i was able to use my handset for the month, including phone calls, hassle free.

I still needed to check voice mail and sms of my Australian sim, but that was conducted by deactivating my T-mobile sim, activating my Australian sim, setting the phone to airplane mode and connecting to a wifi network. I could then send sms, check voicemail and make phone calls like I was in Australia.

You might wonder why we have not experienced the same issue in Australia? The good news is that Australian mobile companies don’t lock their networks. This is likely because we are too small a market and if phone makers were required to run expensive lab tests to connect to the network many would simply stop selling devices here and leave. This would reduce choice and go against the federal government policy of encouraging competition.  

I was amazed that there has been nothing discussed about this, but it will remain an issue while At&t maintains their VoLTE certification requirements and Australian Mobile companies choose At&t as their primary roaming partner for customers.

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Life and Technology – Saturday January 28 2023