The Helpful Book Company Ltd

24/12/2024

Merry Christmas from all at Helpful Books🎄

Our office is closed for the Christmas break so staff can enjoy time with their families. We will be reopening again on the 2nd of January 2025. All queries will be replied to then🎄

26/11/2024

Did you know that this week is BBC’s Scam Safe Week? Their programme “Scam Interceptors” is on BBC1 at 2pm every day this week, and it’s a good watch. (You can watch it on BBC iPlayer too.)

While you’re thinking about online safety, why not take a look at our book dedicated to helping you keep yourself safe online? It’s suitable for laptops, PCs, Macs, tablets and smartphones.

The information in this book shows you what to do and what you need to know to be safe. on the internet - viruses, spyware, scams and other internet nasties. The answers are all in this fully updated book, along with what else you need to know to use the internet safely.

04/11/2024

6 tips for Black Friday

Any day now, you'll start being flooded with adverts and emails about Black Friday. And I wouldn’t blame you if you just wanted to delete all of them in one fell swoop.

Black Friday used to be all about saving money on big expensive things like tech products, but you now get everything from Lego to Mountain Warehouse fleeces to eco-friendly deodorant bars to vitamin supplements being advertised in Black Friday deals. Every seller wants in on the act.

But you can get some amazing deals through Black Friday sales, so I wanted to dedicate this newsletter to giving you some tips on how to make the most of it and how to not get sucked into deals that aren’t actually deals after all.

Here are my top tips for keeping your head above water:

1. Make a list
It’s a good idea to make a list of the things you want/need before you start looking at any of the sale prices. It might feel too early to be thinking about Christmas, but if you know you want a particular Lego set for a grandchild or the telly’s on its last legs and likely won’t see you through the festive season, it’s sensible to think about it now, at least, while bargains are afoot.

2. Don’t forget the details
Make sure you note down any important details too, like how big it needs to be, whether it needs to have Bluetooth, etc – so you don’t get carried away by a brilliant bargain, before remembering that the new laptop you’ve just bought doesn’t have enough storage, or the right number of USB ports that you wanted.
3. When is a deal not a deal?
One of the big things I’ve seen with Black Friday deals is that they’re not always as unusual - or as amazing - as they appear to be. For example, Amazon’s “Prime day” deals in October can be just as good (although they’re only for Prime members). And sometimes a deal might be labelled “Black Friday deal” but actually it’s only a very small reduction. And some more unscrupulous companies have been known to inflate their prices in the run up to Black Friday week, just so they can say they’ve taken more off the price. It doesn’t mean the sale price isn’t reasonable, it’s just that it might not be as big a saving as it looks.

4. Do your homework
All this is to say - do your homework beforehand. Work out what you need and what you’d normally expect to pay for it. If you’ve no idea how much it should cost, there’s a really handy feature on the website pricerunner.co.uk where you can click on “Pricing History”. This shows you the price that product has been sold at for the last 3 months. So if it’s frequently on sale, you maybe don’t need to be in such a hurry. On the other hand, if it’s normally double the price, then you might want to grab the bargain now.

5. Shop around
Not all companies will have the same deals on – one company might have your ideal TV reduced by 10%, another by 17% – so definitely look around for the best price. And you can jot this down on your list, so that you remember which company had the best price – especially handy if there are a lot of things on your shopping list.

6. Set up your accounts with the relevant companies beforehand

Sometimes you might find a bargain, but once you’ve decided to buy, it can take a while to set up a shopping account with that company. And if there were limited numbers available, you could miss out. I have hesitated with a brilliant deal on a Lego set before now, only to find out they’d sold out by the time I wanted to buy. Some deals are just so good that everyone wants them, and stock is often limited.

To avoid missing out, it’s a good idea to get yourself set up with an online shopping account now with any companies you’re likely to want to shop with during the Black Friday sales – so that when you’ve decided, it’s quick to check out and you're much less likely to be disappointed.

Setting up an account is usually pretty easy to do – you just need to put in your email address and make up a password (write it down so you don’t forget it!). Some companies ask for extra information upfront, like postal address and/or credit card details, which they’ll save to make the checkout process quicker when you order something.

Hope those tips were helpful! For more tips like this, check out our book "How to Shop Online with Confidence" at the link below:
https://info.helpfulbooks.co.uk/three-reasons-why-shopping-online-can-be-a-good-idea-j/

Three reasons why shopping online can be a good idea…and two reasons people are sometimes put off Have you ever tried shopping online?  It can be great – here’s why: Shop online with confidence – with our new book. Read on… Click now to get your free trial copy Or email [email protected]...

22/10/2024

Do you enjoy bibliosmia too?

I’ve gotten back into reading ebooks lately, after a recommendation from my colleague Jess, and I came across something that I thought might be useful for you to know, if you also like to read.

Now don’t get me wrong – physical books will always have a special place in my heart. Physically turning pages, inhaling the smell of a new book (which is apparently a phenomenon called bibliosmia) and being able to hold a story in my hands will always be special to me.

But I prefer to read in bed before I go to sleep, and my partner is one of those early to bed, early to rise people, so I don’t want to disturb him by turning the light on. So instead, I use my tablet with the brightness turned down low so it doesn’t disturb him.

It reminds me of being a kid, and staying up long past my bedtime with a torch, reading under the covers and hoping my parents wouldn’t find out. Although that torch somehow never ran out of batteries… (thanks mum and dad).

However, since getting back into reading ebooks, I’ve found a mildly annoying quirk. I tend to use the Kindle app, because you can get it on pretty much any device, but as of a few months ago, you can’t actually buy ebooks from that app, or even from the Amazon shopping app.

Instead, you have to open your web browser e.g. Google Chrome or Safari, go to the Amazon website, and buy the ebook there. You then need to come back to the Kindle app, where you find the book you just bought and download it, before you can read it.

It’s a bit of a first-world problem I suppose, but it does seem a bit ironic considering that Amazon’s whole schtick is that they make things so convenient (in theory!) for their customers. But I did find a pretty easy way around it.

On an Android device, if you double tap on the Recent Apps button, it takes you out of your current app, to the previous app you were using. So if I come out of the Kindle app, open Chrome and buy the ebook on Amazon, I can just double tap on Recent Apps, and I’m straight back into my Kindle Library.

And I can do a very similar thing on an iPad or iPhone – once I’ve opened Safari, gone to Amazon and bought the ebook, I can just open the App Switcher. You do this either by double tapping on the Home button, or swiping up from the Home bar and holding your finger in the middle of the screen for a second or two. Then you just tap on the Kindle app to get stuck back in.

15/10/2024

Helpful Tech Tips is a FREE email newsletter full of tips, tricks and advice covering PCs, tablets and smartphones...

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30/09/2024

Last week I came across a news story that really tugged at my heartstrings, so much so that I decided to use it as inspiration for this week's tip. Apologies for the sad nature of the story, but I really do think it’s worth knowing about…

The story, which I'll link at the bottom of this post, is about a man who very sadly lost his wife recently, and wanted to access the photos stored on her iPhone to make a slideshow for her funeral (and no doubt to keep hold of many cherished memories). However, because he didn’t know the passcode to unlock her phone, he couldn’t get to them.

And unfortunately, because of the rules around data privacy, Apple wasn’t able to give him the passcode, and if they changed the code for him, the contents of the phone would have been wiped altogether. It’s terribly sad, and I thought I’d give you some advice (that you might not have expected from me) for how to potentially avoid this in the future.

It feels bizarre to say this, considering how often we’re advised against sharing our passwords with anyone, but this is one of the few times where I’d say it’s a good idea to tell a trusted loved one what your password is (or where to find a record of it) for your Apple account, or Google account, or the code to unlock your phone.

A lot of people keep a written record of what their passwords are – this tends to send techies into a bit of a tailspin, but provided you keep it somewhere safe and discreet, then it’s unlikely that some rotter would get hold of it and use it to “hack” you. Some people even put a note in their will explaining where to find their book of passwords, to make things that bit easier for their executors when they pass away.

Another option to avoid losing things like your photos and other cherished memories is to keep a physical back up of them, either in a photo album or a scrapbook, or by storing a copy of them on a memory stick or an external hard drive. Most smartphone photo apps are set up to also store a digital copy in the cloud, but of course, you need to know the password to be able to login to the account and download them.

So there you have it – the one occasion where sharing your password with someone you trust could be worth doing. Maybe don’t put it on a post-it note inside your phone case though…

A man whose wife died suddenly cannot recover precious photos of their wedding from her phone.

20/09/2024

Still interested in joining our Tech Inner Circle? Then you'd better get your skates on...
..because in 4 hours’ time, at 5pm, UK time, today (Friday 20th September 2024) the doors clang shut and we won’t be taking any more new members. I don’t know when the doors to the Inner Circle will open again, certainly not this year. Probably some time next year, but we’ll just have to see when the time comes.

So if you’re not quite sure, you’d best have a read of the information below and decide whether you want to give it a try (if you aren’t happy with it, just let us know within 30 days and you’ll get a full refund).

Computer, Tablet & Smartphone Help – Questions answered, how-to videos and free ebooks (includes help for laptops, iPads, tablets, smartphones and using the internet) HelloPicture this – has anything like this ever happened to you:You’re using your PC and need to (say) check your anti-virus se...

03/09/2024

Ladies and gentlemen... the doors to our Tech Inner Circle are now officially... open!

Members get access to all sorts of help with using their smartphones, tablets and PCs – articles, eBooks and video tutorials showing how to do new things and sort out problems, tech news and musings in the Journal, and the super-useful Clubroom where you can ask questions and get answers.

If you sometimes wish you could get more help on using your smartphones, tablets and PCs, it’s well worth you having a look at the full information to see whether it’s for you.

You can read more (and if you like, join) here:
https://helpfulbooks.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=42f01ff19ba3b6f32f098f9d6&id=2465efc65c&e=aedc4f71bc

28/08/2024

Slugs, snails, and Royal Mail

I’ve got a couple of great stories to share with you this week, and a tip for making sure your post doesn’t get eaten by snails (no, really…).

A friend of mine shared a wacky story with me the other day, about a time when he’d heard a strange crackling noise coming from somewhere near his TV. When he investigated, he found that the noise was coming from the power strip that his TV and DVD player were plugged into.

Naturally, he switched it off at the wall and unplugged both devices. He then decided to try to test out a few things to see if he could work out what the problem was – is now a good time to point out that my friend is a licensed electrician?

He turned it back on at the wall (with nothing plugged into the power strip) and one of the empty sockets immediately started sparking and flashing. Uh oh. After switching it off again and taking the casing apart, you’ll never guess what had happened…

A slug had somehow made its way inside the power strip (through the holes in the back that you can use to mount it on the wall) and had managed to touch both the contact points in the socket at the same time. This shorted the circuit and killed the slug, but being dead didn’t stop the electricity from shooting through his body like Frankenstein’s Mollusc. This could have been a serious fire hazard if my friend hadn’t got to the bottom of it, so that was quite the adventurous Tuesday night for him!

And hot on the heels of that story came a short story on the news about a postbox in rural Northumberland that had to be taken out of commission because snails were crawling inside the slot and chomping away on all the post! You can read more about it here if you’re interested.

All of which leads me to mention Royal Mail’s free collection service, for if you’re ever struggling to get to the Post Office (or if the local wildlife has taken up residence in your nearest postbox). The collection itself is the free service, where you book a slot for the local postie to come to your house and collect your items, and you just need to pay for the cost of the postage.

You can book a collection on the Royal Mail website by filling in the “Send” box in the top right – it’s all pretty straightforward, just make sure you pick a time slot when you’ll be in and have your letters or parcels ready to go when they arrive.

20/08/2024

Have you ever clicked the wrong button by accident, and suddenly lost everything you were working on?

It happens to me all the time, particularly when I’m browsing the web. The number of times I’ve accidentally clicked on the cross in the top right and closed my entire internet window (usually with several different pages open) without meaning to, is a lot higher than I’d like to admit.

But all is not lost! Thankfully, web browsers have a really handy option as part of the “History” feature, where you can restore the browsing session you had open previously.

You can access the History to find websites you’ve previously visited in your web browser on any device – smartphones, tablets or computers – but this particular tip is mainly for computers (both Macs and Windows) as the smartphone and tablet versions of web browsers work slightly differently.

So here's how to do it on three of the most commonly used web browsers – Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Safari.

On Microsoft Edge, after you open the app you want to click on the three dots menu button in the top right, then click on “History” in the menu that appears. It’ll show you a long list of all the sites you’ve visited recently – if you just want to go back to one of those sites, you can click on it in the list.

But if you had several tabs open, and you want them all back to the way they were before, click on “Recently closed” near the top of the History box. You’ll see a list of sites you’ve visited, but some of them will have what looks like a little black Play symbol (like a triangle pointing to the right) next to them, and an icon of one square on top of another. Click on that squares icon to reopen the window you had previously.

On Google Chrome, after you open the app you want to click on the three dots menu button in the top right, then hover the mouse over “History” in the menu that appears. A side menu will pop out – look for any options that say “2 tabs” or “5 tabs" (or however many you had open) and hover the mouse over each one.

When you do that, another side menu will pop out (possibly to the right this time, just to confuse you!) and you can check which tabs it’s referring to. When you find the one you were looking for, click on “Restore window” to have them all open again.

On Macs, open Safari and click on “History” in the top bar. Click on “Reopen Last Closed Window”, or you can hover the mouse over “Recently Closed” to see a list of the individual sites you’ve visited.

12/08/2024

Have you ever had people staying at your house who ask you for the wifi password? And since most of us don’t know that string of gibberish off by heart, have you then found yourself scrabbling around at the back of the router, getting covered in dust and cobwebs (no? Just me?) while you shout out “Capital Y… 8… lower-case F…” like Rachel Riley on Countdown?

Well, if you ever do need to give someone the password to your wifi while they’re at your house, there are a couple of quick and relatively easy ways to do it on smartphones and tablets.

If both of you have Apple devices e.g. iPhones or iPads, then it’s extremely straightforward – your guest needs to open the Settings app, tap on WiFi, and then choose the name of your network. When they do that, you’ll receive a notification on your phone (provided it’s switched on and unlocked) asking if you want to share the password with them. Tap on “Share password”, then tap on “Done”.

If you have an Android phone or tablet, open the Settings app and tap on “Connections”, “Network” or similar, then tap on “Wi-Fi”. Tap on the cog icon next to your network name – or just the network name if you don’t have a cog icon – then look for a button that says “QR code” and tap on that (it might be tucked away behind a three dots menu button).

That will create a QR code, and all your guest needs to do is open the Camera app on their phone and scan that code. It doesn’t matter whether they have an iPhone or an Android, this method should work for both.

However, if you have an Apple device and they have an Android device, there’s no speedy way to share the wifi password between your phones – you’ll have to take a look at the router to find out the password and then your guest will need to type it in.

I hope you found this week's tip helpful – feel free to share it with a friend or neighbour (or a houseguest!). Or invite them to sign up to our free, weekly tech tips newsletter here:
https://www.helpfulbooks.co.uk/pages/join-the-newsletter

19/07/2024

A lot of services including banks, GPs, shops and airlines are experiencing IT outages today – even Sky News was temporarily unable to broadcast. Reassuringly, this isn't due to any kind of hack or cyber-attack, but rather a third-party software issue with some Microsoft PCs.

You can read more about it here:

Planes are grounded, and shops and healthcare services affected as major issues hit networks.

15/07/2024

Gremlins and PEBCAK

I’ve got two situations with technology that I want to talk about today. The first one is that some tech problems have nothing to do with you, or anything you’ve done – sometimes the gremlins in the system just decide to run amok. And the second one is pretty much the opposite of the first, involving something called PEBCAK (read on and I’ll explain)…

On Friday morning, I was rudely awoken at 4 in the morning by an ear-splitting bleeping sound. After stumbling about in the dark for a bit, I discovered that the source of the noise was my work laptop, doing its best impression of a reversing lorry and showing me a message on the screen that there was something very wrong with my hard drive.

I took a quick picture of the error message on my phone to show whoever would need to fix it (always a good idea, where possible), and then I forced the laptop to switch off by holding down the Power button for about ten seconds. I unplugged it from the charger for good measure, and made a mental note to apologise to my next door neighbour for the disturbance at a more reasonable hour.

The second thing happened while I was using one of the spare work laptops while mine was getting a replacement hard drive. For some reason, the spare laptop kept locking the screen and asking me to log in again at random times, sometimes mere seconds after I’d just logged in.

It was very odd, and more than a little frustrating, until I realised that every time I went to do something on the laptop, I was resting my wrist over one of the laptop’s sensors. You might have wondered how a laptop knows to turn the screen off when you close the lid – well on this particular model, it uses sensors to register when the lid is closed, which I’d been confusing every time I went to type something or use the trackpad.

So this particular problem was a distinct case of PEBCAK, which is where the Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard. Or in other words, I was the problem – so while sometimes it’s the gremlins, and we’ve done nothing wrong… but sometimes it is us. Whoops!

I hope you found this week's tip helpful – feel free to share it with a friend or neighbour. Or invite them to sign up to our free, weekly tech tips newsletter here: https://www.helpfulbooks.co.uk/pages/join-the-newsletter

24/06/2024

Did anyone else's mum always tell them that if they sat too close to the TV, or watched it for too long, they’d go square-eyed? Thankfully, that never happened (my face also didn’t stay stuck like that when the wind changed) but it did get me thinking about the smaller square screen that I carry with me pretty much everywhere I go.

Of course, smartphones are designed to suck you in and keep you scrolling through their apps – whether that’s on social media, or checking emails, or reading through the news headlines. The bright light of the screen appeals to the little magpie in your brain that likes shiny things, and the ding and buzz of the notifications is designed to attract your attention and draw you back in even after you’ve put it down.

So while phones might not make your eyes go square, constantly looking at the bright light can really strain your eyes and tire you out, particularly late at night. So the phone manufacturers have come up with some settings that you can use to reduce the amount of blue light that your phone produces, which should cause less eye strain.

On iPhones, this setting is called Night Shift, which changes the colours on your screen to warmer tones, rather than harsh blue and white light. As you might have guessed, it’s mainly designed for night time, but you can turn it on manually any time you like.

To do that, open the Control Centre by swiping down from the top right of the screen (or swiping up from the bottom of the screen on older iPhones). When it opens, tap and hold on the Brightness slider with the sun icon to make it bigger and get some extra options at the bottom of the screen.

The one you’re looking for is “Night Shift”, which has an icon of a sun with a little crescent moon inside it. Tap on that to turn it on.

On Android phones, the setting you’re looking for is called something like “Eye comfort shield” or "Night Light", and you can find it in the Display category of the Settings app. Look for a switch labelled “Eye comfort shield” or "Night Light", and tap on it to turn it on. If you can’t find it, try searching the Settings app for “Eye comfort shield” or "Night Light".

You may find that if you’re doing something where colour is important, like editing photos, that you’d prefer to switch this setting off, which you do in the exact same way as turning it on. But hopefully, it should mean that using your phone has less of an impact on your visual health.

Hope you found this weeks tip helpful. Feel free to share it with a friend or neighbour. Or invite them to sign up to our free, weekly tech tips newsletter https://www.helpfulbooks.co.uk/pages/join-the-newsletter

18/06/2024

In last weeks Tech Tips email Kathryn wrote about several important deadlines, one is for MIDNIGHT TONIGHT! (18/06)

I'll start with some reassuring news… we’ve talked a couple of times in the past about how BT are planning to scrap the current system that they use for landline phones. Originally, the plan was to have made the switch by the end of 2025, but recently they’ve extended the deadline to January 2027.

You can read more about what’s happening and how it might affect you in Julie’s previous newsletter on the subject here https://helpful-tech-tips.helpfulbooks.co.uk/3069/ but in short, they’re introducing a new digital system where the calls are made over the internet rather than the old analogue phone lines. The concern is that this will affect people’s emergency fall alarms, which are connected to the analogue landlines so they can call for an ambulance if the wearer suffers a fall or other medical emergency.

So this extra time will hopefully give the people who make these fall alarms enough time to upgrade the technology so that it works with the new landline system.

I also wanted to highlight some important dates that are approaching, given that the general election has been announced for the 4th July. I mentioned a couple of months ago that to vote in person, you need to take some form of photo ID with you, and that if you don’t have any valid photo ID, you have a few different options which you can look into here https://helpful-tech-tips.helpfulbooks.co.uk/are-you-ready-to-vote/

I also mentioned the option of a postal vote, which you can read more about here https://helpful-tech-tips.helpfulbooks.co.uk/postal-voting-and-stamp-prices/

With the election approaching, here are some key dates for you to add to your diary:

If you haven’t registered to vote yet, you need to do so by the 18th June. https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

If you want to vote by post, you need to apply by the 19th June. https://www.gov.uk/apply-postal-vote

If you don’t have photo ID and are going to apply for a Voter Authority Certificate instead, you need to do so by the 26th June. https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-authority-certificate

So my top tip for this week is going to be how to set yourself a reminder on your smartphone for any of these dates that might be relevant to you.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Open the Calendar app on your phone
2. Look for a “+” symbol somewhere on the screen and tap on that.
3. You might be asked to choose either a Task or an Event – I’d go with an Event, personally.
4. Give it a title e.g. “Register to vote” by typing in the first box.
5. Tap on the date underneath (it’ll usually start with today’s date) and choose the date that you need from the mini-calendar that appears. Swipe from right to left on it to move to the next month.
6. Swipe up on the “Add event” box until you can see either the word “Alert”, “Alarm” or a little bell icon. Tap on that, or on “Add notification” to choose when you’d like to be reminded. For something like this, I’d probably go for the day before to give myself plenty of time.
7. Tap on “Save” or “Add” in the top right to save it.

If you want to sign up to more helpful tips from Kathryn please sign up here https://www.helpfulbooks.co.uk/pages/join-the-newsletter

Helpful Tech Tips, a newsletter for PC, Tablet and Smartphone novices, gives all that. You’ll get an email from us every Monday morning with tips, tricks and advice plus extra emails when there’s something we think you’ll find useful or interesting or that’s urgent. It's FREE and we'll never...

17/05/2024

Closing date is this coming Monday 20th May

Customer Service Assistant - Part Time Vacancy

If you have a good work ethic, like variety, have the patience of a saint, are good on the phone and aren’t scared by technology, this could be the perfect job for you.

Please take a look at our website for full details:
https://www.helpfulbooks.co.uk/pages/wanted-part-time-customer-service-assistant

Wanted: PART TIME Packing Assistant. The Helpful Book Company, MILLOM. We're looking for a permanent, part time packing assistant to work amongst our friendly team, based at our Millom warehouse.

03/05/2024

Customer Service Assistant - Part Time Vacancy

If you have a good work ethic, like variety, have the patience of a saint, are good on the phone and aren’t scared by technology, this could be the perfect job for you.

Please take a look at our webiste for full details:
https://www.helpfulbooks.co.uk/pages/wanted-part-time-customer-service-assistant

Closing date 20th May.

Wanted: PART TIME Packing Assistant. The Helpful Book Company, MILLOM. We're looking for a permanent, part time packing assistant to work amongst our friendly team, based at our Millom warehouse.