February Monthly Update - 20 February 2023
Welcome to the latest edition of our monthly technology newsletter. In this edition, we bring you some of the latest news and trends in the world of technology.
Welcome back to our monthly newsletter….
We hope the festive period was a time of joy, reflection but most importantly… relaxation!
Now that we’re all refreshed, Technology Tree would like to start the year with some important technology reminders!
To keep up to date with what’s happening in the IT world on a regular basis, follow Technoloy Tree on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Office 365 is now Microsoft 365
With the rebranding, Microsoft 365 includes all the same applications and features that were part of Office 365, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and others. Additionally, the rebranding introduced new features and capabilities, including the ability to create and share documents in real-time, AI-powered writing assistance, and improved collaboration features.
The Microsoft 365 subscription also includes other applications and services, such as Microsoft Teams for collaboration and communication, OneDrive for cloud storage, and Microsoft's enterprise-grade security and compliance tools.
Overall, the rebranding of Office 365 to Microsoft 365 reflects Microsoft's ongoing commitment to innovation and improving the user experience of its productivity tools. By integrating advanced technologies and providing a more cohesive suite of tools and services, Microsoft is aiming to provide users with the best possible productivity experience.
Find out more about the changes here.
Windows 11 Version 21H2
Windows 11 H2 is a significant update that provides users with several new features and improvements to the Windows 11 operating system. It demonstrates Microsoft's ongoing commitment to improving its flagship operating system and providing users with the best possible experience.
Are you running Windows 11 H2, the latest release of the Windows operating system? If you are proactively managed by Technology Tree, then you will either have it already or it’s in progress for deployment seamlessly.
If you are not, then it may be that you are on our legacy PAYG plan and will need advice on this, or it could be that you are running old hardware. Anything older than 4 years+ is open to security vulnerabilities and is leaving your business susceptible to data breach, malware and worse still… ransomware attack from the hardware vendor.
Just like your phone, you need to keep it up to date, supported and running on good hardware as most vendors have limited hardware and software support.
Is your hardware old and not running a modern platform?
Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is a great number 1 benchmark in the marketplace with great value, performance and security, coupled with the ability to be built into you Microsoft 365 Eco system.
Contact the office to find out more about this product.
As always. Technology Tree are here to take care of all you IT needs, even recycling your old equipment securely.
Windows Tip of the month - Task Manager is back.
Microsoft has finally returned the Task Manager back to its rightful home on the Windows Taskbar.
Right Mouse click and see that it’s there! Handy when running legacy apps that have a habit of freezing - you can quickly kill them off from here once again.
We hope this helps!
REMINDER!
Windows Users
With the new Windows 11 22H2 being released, our managed clients will see this automatically flow through for update in the coming days. Service desk is available to assist with pushing down the update for all others.
Patch Tuesday: Microsoft regularly releases software patches usually every second Tuesday of every month for its software products. Please make sure you apply and restart you computer this week to have these updates applied to your device. For those of you who we managed under a service agreement we will be monitoring and will be in touch if they’re not being applied.
How to update: Allow yourself at least 10 – 15 minutes to fully shutdown and restart your system. This ensures patches are applied, this can also address (and solve) some problems you may be having with your system. You can also manually check by following steps that can be found here.
Apple Users
Mac users: the latest version of macOS is 13.2.1
iPhone users: the latest version of iOS is 16.3.1
iPad users: the latest version of iPadOS is 16.3.1
Apple TV users: The latest version of tvOS is 16.3.2
Apple Watch users: The latest version of watchOS is 9.3.1
What’s New
Microsoft business and Education store is retiring the month of March 2023. Read here to find out more.
How does this impact you?
· All managed clients will see their transition happen in the background.
· Non managed we will be in touch to seek approval do to so as there is a cost involved.
Benefits of the new Store
Greater amount of modern business and legacy business apps now available to be deployed and automatically updated, replaced, or discontinued.
That's all for this month's technology newsletter. We hope you found this information useful and informative. If you have any questions or suggestions for future newsletters, please feel free to contact us.
Office: +61 8 6161 7113
Email: servicedesk@techtree.com.au
For any after-hours support (charges may apply), please contact Derek Stewart directly on +61 412 000 063.