best-year-sticker-300pxHello!
As it is (nearly) the end of the year and I am already feeling very full of mince pies I just thought that I would do like all other Journal writers do and that’s an end of year review! Below are my own picks of the best Journal Posts of the year, some website stats and a note about Windows Vista.
If you have your own favourite journal posts (either on this website or elsewhere) drop a link in the comments below.
Click on any of the titles below which take your fancy to read the full post…

P.S. Our Christmas opening times can be found here.

Mike’s Top 5

Stay Safe

How-To

Some Website Stats, and a note about Vista…

Everyone loves graphs! So here are a few I thought you might find interesting. December 1, 2015 – November 30, 2016. Click an image to see the full-size version.

Top Operating systems IC members are using

Web Browsers IC members are using

Windows Vista use on the Inner Circle (sessions per month)

vista-use

April 2017 sees the end of Windows Vista support from Microsoft. This means after this date it will be unsafe to use a Vista machine on the internet. You can keep using it offline, but just don’t connect it to the internet.

As you can see from the graph Vista use on the Inner Circle has dropped off to almost nothing (the low there is 8 sessions in September). If you are still using Vista, now is the time to start thinking about a new computer / updating your operating system… As ever we will do our best to help, just drop us a message on The Clubroom.

You will probably read lots about this in the next few months… some reporting on technology is, erm, not the best. So just so we are 98.532% clear on what is happening here is what we know:

  • Vista Support from Microsoft will end on April 11, 2017.
  • After this time there will be no updates from Microsoft.
  • It will then not be safe to use Vista on the internet (even with firewalls and anti-virus installed).
  • Google Chrome, no longer gets security updates for Vista (as of April 2016).
  • Other programs tend to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps and end support for older operating systems.

We have removed “other” from some of these graphs to make them easier to read, for example, “other” web browsers has 18 total browsers listed, some only by 1 or 2 visitors…

Looking forward to speaking to you all in the new year
Happy Merry New Christmas Year!
Mike 🙂