There’s a good reason why businesses rely on email providers such as MailChimp to send high volume broadcasts and this became obvious to one worker last month who inadvertently crashed the entire NHS mail system.

It’s that time of year when a deluge of new malware attacks try to lure you in with infected email attachments in messages which purport to be from legitimate companies – the types of companies you would expect to be emailing you at this time of year. Amazon appears to be the worst culprit right now – or rather emails containing intriguing subject lines such as ‘Your Amazon Order Details’. Of course, it’s not really Amazon sending these bogus messages. Instead they originate from cyber criminals hoping you will open the attached file and thereby unleash havoc on your own PC. What a lazy (but effective) way to propagate malicious code! Naturally, the malware you might inadvertently install by opening an infected file threatens to compromise the performance of your machine or, worse still, the security of your personal data. Besides fake order updates from Amazon, other variations are also doing the rounds – ‘important notifications’ from HMRC containing PDF attachments and, of course, the traditional bogus documentation from all the major banks: Barclays, RBS, HSBC and Lloyds to name but a few. What can you do to protect yourself? So if your inbox is full of messages that you were not expecting on subjects you do not recognise, what can you do to avoid falling foul of the hackers? Here is some simple advice that may prevent you compromising your security. Know your sender – our simple message to you is this – do not open email attachments from unknown senders. Beware malicious files – invoices and delivery notes from Amazon and other suppliers are designed to tempt you to click. However, most online retailers do not send file attachments with their order updates and Amazon for one have made a statement to this effect in the past month. Be careful what you download! There is no such thing as a free lunch and ‘freeware’ as well as P2P programs are amongst the biggest culprits. These software applications are frequently bundled with copious amounts of bundled spyware. Phishing and ID theft. Be especially wary of hyperlinks contained in messages that appear to originate from your bank, building society, telecoms provider, PayPal account etc. A useful tip is to hover your mouse over any such link to reveal whether the URL actually does originates from the website in question. Update your antivirus – your antivirus software should be set to update at regular intervals and manual checks are advisable too. If you have any questions regarding your own internet security software, please contact us to discuss this matter as a matter of urgency.

Fifteen million UK internet users have undertaken a ‘digital detox’ in a bid to strike a healthier balance between technology and life beyond the screen, according to major new Ofcom research. The majority of internet users say they’re ‘hooked’, spending a day a week online and the Ofcom study revealed some of the effects of excessive internet use on sleep, school, family and relationships.

Excel Sparklines were introduced in Excel 2010 version. It is small line chart that could be easily embedded with the text and gives a great presentable output for easier depiction when aligned next to the tabular data. They are supported in Excel 2010 and above version only. Although sparkline’s design is not limited to lines they can also be represented as columns or win loss. The below example depicts how sparklines look: When to Use: Excel Sparklines can be useful if you have your data in a tabular format. You can place the sparklines next to each row to give a clear graphical presentation of the data selected in that particular row. How to Use: Below listed steps give a clear understanding on how to use excel sparklines: Click on the cell where you want to insert the “Sparkline(s)”. Go the “Insert” tab on the top ribbon. Select the Type of “Sparkline” (Line, Column, Win/ Loss), in this case we will take “Line Sparkline” as example. Line Type of Sparklines So, this was all about how to use excel sparklines. You can also do formatting, add markers, axis, etc to enhance the sparklines. Below section suggests on type of sparklines and their formatting. Type of Excel Sparklines: Line – These sparklines are displayed in the format of simple lines. You could change the style of line, sparkline color and marker color. Column – These sparklines are displayed in the format of bars. If the data is of positive value then the column would be lying on the upper axis. For negative data value the column would be below the axis. Likewise for zero value the column would not be displayed and an empty space would be left at that data point. In these sparklines too, you can change the style of column, sparkline color and marker color. Win / Loss – These sparklines are displayed in the format of bars like “Column” sparklines although these only represent profit or loss. If the data is showing profit (positive data points) then bars would be above the axis and if the data is showing loss (negative data points) then the bars would be inverted and will be below the axis. If the data is of zero value then the column would not be displayed and an empty space would be left at that data point, as shown in above figure as well. In these sparklines as well, you can change the style of column, sparkline color and marker color. You can change the type of sparklines for the whole group or for single row by un-grouping the sparklines first. Thus each row can have a different type of sparkline.

When it comes to cyber security, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond MP has recommended fighting fire with fire (or maybe firewalls with firewalls).