Tag: work

So the time has come to try and get my head around the Honor MagicBook Pro laptop review. I have already done a long piece on the hardware which can be found in my unboxing post. That is well worth a read as it will give you an …

With a second coronavirus spike now sliding into view, the idea of “going back to the office” is fading into the background. Remote working is rapidly becoming the “new normal” and the idea of cramming ourselves onto public transport in order to spend time in an expensive office …

Sitting at home can be a solitary affair. The enforced coronavirus lockdown has led to many working from home and many companies have no plans for that to change any time soon. Many previously saw home working as an ideal solution to the stresses and strains of commuting, …

Good morning lockdown crew. Hope you’re well. Yesterday, and for the first time in a while, I found myself in a couple of local shops. There’s a mixture of coronavirus changes, with the local Co-op implementing a “one way only” and “one in, one out” system and keeping …

With schools closed down and kids spending more time in the house, parents will all have the same concerns. First, we’ve already hit the point where kids simply can’t go to each other’s homes. We’re also at the point where kids are sat all day playing on a …

With a growing emphasis on working from home at the moment, there’s an obvious concern that many just simply can’t do that. As an example, if you work in a supermarket, a coffee shop or a pub; working from home just isn’t really possible. For big IT firms, …

Every now and then it’s really quite refreshing to get a press release which isn’t about a smartphone. This one is a bit smart, granted. It has an on-board (non Android) app store and there’s WhatsApp and Facebook pre-loaded, plus there’s WiFi and 4G too. It’s a mere £109.99 on Amazon and …

Imagine if you found a home broadband provider who could offer you super-fast internet speeds for £30. Sounds good? For that you get 100GB of data to use and there’s no line rental or TV and calls package. No engineer, no waiting. This, then, is what Vodafone have …

My journey to work has got longer recently. This, I’ll confess, perhaps wasn’t my best career decision in terms of time away from the family. Luckily, thanks to the mobile tech we now carry around in our pockets, train journeys in particular can pass by quite quickly. I …

If you’re looking for a secondary job, want to make money online, or you want to do something part time, it’s now perhaps easier than ever. The guy that fixes and services my bike for example. He has a van. He has a mobile phone and a load of …

I went to Reading recently. Reading. It wasn’t that thrilling. The Holiday Inn is nice enough, but apart from the local Aldi and a business park, there wasn’t really anything to do. So there I was, in a hotel room, watching the free TV channels and getting bored …

Huawei and Honor remind me a lot of HTC a few years ago. There’s a definite drive, a tenacity, a push to become known and to show the world just how good their phones are. However, some years ago HTC seemed to lose that. It’s hard to pinpoint …

Have you heard about a Kanban? In Japanese it translates to a “billboard”. Kanban boards come into play to optimise and streamline workflows. I’ve used one of these in the day job so I’ve been interested to find out more about them. Working remotely isn’t uncommon now, and …

Remember my makeshift office / exercise bike? It was basically a free exercise bike I’d got from Freecycle and an old Chromebook that I strapped to the top. It was a bit naff, but it did the job – I could write articles while I trained for the …

I spend a lot of my day on my smartphone. However, I perhaps use it very differently to many others. Instead of browsing Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, you’ll instead find me working. Using either a Notepad or the official WordPress app to write stories, or editing and sharing …

If you work hard, and you’re lucky, one day you’ll become a manager. You might be a team leader or a shift leader. However, one thing that will have stuck with you on the way up the career ladder is the good and bad experiences where your work …

Have you ever heard about CMMS? Well, I hadn’t either. Not until I recently moved jobs. It stands for “Computerized Maintenance Management System”, or sometimes “Computerized Maintenance Management Software” and is basically a way to replace the classic pen and paper documentation. Back in the “old days”, if …

Things are definitely changing here at Coolsmartphone. Gone are the days when we used to just get emails about the latest smartphone being launched. Now, instead, we’re getting everything connected with smartphones. We’re getting Bluetooth speakers, headphones, VR glasses and everything to do with the Internet of Things. …

What do your facial expressions say about you during meetings? Getting meetings right can be tricky. Whilst some are productive and full of ideas, others can be a snooze-fest filled with a stack of irrelevant information and death-by-PowerPoint moments. CheatSheet says that small businesses waste about 37 billion …

I get up every morning, I get in my car and I drive to work. I’ve got a couple of monitors there, a laptop and some coffee. It’s been like that for a while now. I remember the big CRT monitors before that, and I’ve worked for one …