Straight answers to the tech questions we hear most, written for homes and small businesses right here on the Kāpiti Coast.
No jargon, no scare tactics, and nothing written just to sell you something. Plain-English advice Sam would give you at your kitchen table in Paraparaumu, Waikanae or Ōtaki: why your laptop has gone slow, whether a cloud backup subscription is actually worth paying for, what an ageing Windows 10 computer means for you, how to protect your gear from power surges, what your car might be collecting about you, or whether AI is about to change how you pay for software.
A developer has used AI to build free, open-source rivals to Photoshop, Premiere and five more Adobe apps, and a new tool lets AI pull apart almost any program. What happened, what open source actually means, and whether paying monthly for software is on borrowed time.
Your car may know more about you than your phone does. What modern cars collect, where that data has ended up, and the evidence that proves it is happening.
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One power surge during a storm, or when the power comes back on, can kill a computer, router or Starlink power supply instantly. Why a proper surge protector is worth having, and what to look for.
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A frightening pop-up, or a caller claiming to be from Microsoft: these scams are built to catch anyone off guard. How they work, and exactly what to do about them.
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Macs have a reputation for "just working," and the nearest Apple Store is over the hill in Wellington. Here are the Mac problems we see most often across the Kāpiti Coast, and what actually fixes each one.
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Reusing the same password everywhere feels harmless until one forgotten site gets breached. Here is what a password manager actually does, in plain English.
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A low-storage warning is designed to make you pay quickly. Here is a plain look at what the cloud actually is, when backup genuinely earns its cost, and when it is really just another subscription.
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Nothing failed and nothing broke, yet the same computer that felt fast three years ago now makes you wait. Here is what actually causes that slow creep, from most frequent to least frequent, and when it is genuinely worth having someone look at it.
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Microsoft stopped patching Windows 10 in October 2025. Your computer still works fine, so what does that actually mean for you, and what is worth doing about it now rather than later?
Read article →More articles are added regularly. If there is something you would like explained in plain English, let us know and we will likely write about it.
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