7 Things That Shorten The Lifespan Of Your PC

Computers like other devices have a short lifespan. Your computer gets noisier, slows down, and shows error messages which are signs that something is wrong with your computer. This problem occurs when certain things happen to your computer. In line with this, Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency shares 7 things to avoid if you want your computer to last longer.

Power surges

Power surges may be as a result of lightning strikes or sudden restoration of power. This can be risky as it can damage your computer’s motherboard, lead to data loss and even your charger could explode. It is advisable you use a stabilizer.

Battery drain

This is for those that allow their batteries to run out before they charge it. Just be prepared to perhaps buy another battery if you continue with this habit.

Limited ventilation

Your computer’s fan is not there for fun. And it is no gainsaying that heat is one of the major things that can harm your computer. This will make your system perform like a snail and your battery will quickly run out within minutes. As a rule of thumb, do not block the ventilation.

Software updates

Running an outdated software on your computer will automatically make it slower. This can make you angry that you hit it in a bid to let out your frustration. This can damage your PC. To make it faster, always keep software updated.

Loose cables

Searching and fixing loose cables is one of the easiest ways to make your computer durable. Properly place or fix any external cable that may affect your system. You can start with your charger.

Dust

Allowing dust to pile up in your computer will definitely affect its performance. Dust makes it prone to overheating as it can block the ventilation. When you notice any dust, use a blower to remove the dust.

Physical damage

If your fan is bad or your screen is cracked, you should fix it as soon as possible because if you do not, the damage can affect the overall performance of your system.

 

7 Reasons Nigerians ‘Love’ iPhone

iPhone and Android-operated have been around for awhile and there has been this raging about which is better. Even Nigerians are not exempted from this debate. Funny enough, you will find Android users if given the chance will ditch their Android for iPhone. That is the love Nigerians have for iPhone even if they cannot afford it. But the problem here is that their love is not based on an informed point of view because there are many Android phones that are far better than the iPhone. Regardless, Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency shares reasons why Nigerians love iPhone.

They just like iOS better than Android

Some Nigerians just like the iOS than Android because of what they have heard over time about iPhone. Thanks to the solid and strong Public Relations machine of Apple. They have made us believe that there are no other phones that are better than the iPhone. This is wrong. You have Samsung Galaxy S7, Huawei Nexus 6P, LG G5, Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and HTC 10.

iPhones support all of the apps you want

Almost all the apps you want is available on iPhone. So, whatever app you are using and is important to you, you will definitely find is on iPhone. In addition, there are a variety of helpful apps you will have access to.

 iPhone are durable

Should we say iPhone is overhyped? True. The reputation that Apple makes quality and stylish Phones is in our faces. Granted, iPhone may last longer but it does not mean that Android phones are not durable. iPhone and Android phones can last longer. It only depends on the manufacturer. We can all see how Samsung is competing strongly with iPhone.

iPhones are compatible with other Apple devices

iPhone works perfectly with other Apple devices including MacBook and iWatch. The connection is seamless. But it is a torrid time if you are attempting to connect your Android phone with a MacBook or an iPhone.

iPhone is immune from virus and malware

Many believe that iPhone cannot be infected by virus and malware. This is actually not true.  The fact is iOS apps can still be infected with malware and virus especially when you use unsecured Wi-Fi networks to download apps. Due to this, many Nigerians love and prefer the iPhone.

iPhones have better resale value

This is a major reason why Nigerians love iPhone. No matter how poorly used your iPhone appears, it will still sell for a good price than some Android phone.

To Show off

Being able to afford an iPhone means you have a deep pocket. The cost price of iPhone is as much as N400,000. Even if you are using a fairly used iPhone, people will still have the same perception.

5 Ways To Save Money On Internet Expenses

A good internet at home is essential whether you are a Netflix freak or you are just trying to keep up with your friends on social media. Unfortunately, every month your internet bill keeps rising that you want to stop subscribing. The fact is that you can reduce your usage and still get affordable internet service monthly. Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency shares ways to can cut your internet bill.

Get the best competitive price

If you are frustrated with your high internet bills, you can take time out to research the cost of buying data from several other Internet Service Providers. When you have done this, contact your service provider and let them know that their charges are on the high side. Certainly, they do not want to lose their customer. Hence, they have no choice than to review their prices. If nothing happens, you can move to their cheaper and fast competitor.

Check out promos

If promotional pricing is available, you should take advantage of it so that you get a short term price reprieve. Hence, always be on the lookout for these promos.

Reduce your speed

You might think that it’s best to get the internet package with the highest possible speed, but for most homes, a high-speed account ends up being a waste of money. Since you are not a business enterprise, you should get a low-speed internet plan so as to pay less at the end of the month.

Buy your own modem and router

You can also buy a modem or router rather than subscribing to a service provider which can be expensive. So, buying your own modem will significantly trim your internet spending.

Threaten to cancel

This oftentimes works especially if your internet provider is customer friendly. Whether you plan to cancel or not, sometimes threatening that you will is enough to get your internet bill reduced. This will prompt them into taking action to do something about your high bill.

7 Signs Your Social Media Account Has Been Hacked

It is no gainsaying that social media is now an important feature in our lives. It is used by almost everyone from celebrities to influencers, businesses, news platforms, marketers and individuals. Some persons have even leveraged on it to make money. So, it is important for your different social media accounts to be secured. Regardless, since you are online, and there are hackers prowling for accounts to hack, you have to be observant to know if your accounts have been illegally accessed or not. In line with this, Jumia Travel and Jumia Mobile Week presents 7 signs your social media account has been hacked.

You are unable to log into your accounts

This is an obvious sign that your account may have been hijacked by hackers. You have tried several passwords but you are still locked out of your account. Even the change password option is not working. It must have been a very sophisticated hack. The only way you can have your account back is to contact Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat.

Status not updated by you

This is perhaps the simplest way to know if your social media account has been hacked. You will see tweets or posts you didn’t share appearing on your timeline. It may be political or propagandist messages. You should immediately change your password.

Your number of followers significantly Jumps

You only have 300 followers on either your Instagram or Twitter page. Then you suddenly notice that it jumped to like 2,000 or 3,000. It is strange right and you never followed anyone. In fact, Instagram or Twitter will not allow you to garner 2,000 or 3,000 followers a day. If this is the case, it is highly possible that your account has been hacked.

Someone logged into your account from an unusual location

Sometimes, you may add the wrong location for reasons best known to you. However, if you see a location you never added, it is an alert that someone is illegally accessing your account from that location. You may want to do some checks to be sure you were not the one that changed it.

You cannot find all your posts

All your posts for years have grown wings and flew away. You cannot find them. You searched and searched but you still couldn’t find them. You logged in and logged out but the same thing. It is advisable you change your password or you have to deactivate that account and open a new one.

Too many spammy ads on your page

This mainly applies to Facebook. A seemingly interesting post is recommended to you to read. If you click it, you have opened the floodgate to spammy ads. That click will allow hackers to access your account.

Your cover image has been replaced 

If your cover image has been replaced with a naked woman or any other nasty picture or photo, it means someone is attempting to frame you or in the process of usurping your account. You should look out for this on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

7 Ways To Cool Off a Hot Smartphone

Your smartphone is hot as if it is on fire. If you don’t do something about it may damage your phone or your battery will run out within seconds. This can be likened to a baby running temperature. When this happens, you have to take action immediately. If you don’t know what to do to cool off your hot smartphone, Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency shares some tips to stop your phone from melting down.

Update your apps

Updating your phone apps are not just there for fun. It is to ensure that you get the current version of your apps as well as help address the bugs or problems with the previous version. If it has been a while you updated your apps, don’t be surprised when it becomes hot.

Fan your phone

This may be crude but it works. You can fan your phone with a hand fan or you blow it with your mouth. Do this until it cools off. What you should never do is to put your phone in a freezer or fridge to cool off.

Separate from other devices

The habit of stacking up all your devices like laptop, iPad, tablet, and camera in a bag will make overheating highly possible. This is because there is no space for the devices to breathe. So, desist from packing all your gadgets together.

Remove unused apps

Don’t allow apps you don’t use very often to take up much-needed space. If your phone is overheating, get rid of unused apps so that there can be space in your phone. It is difficult for a phone that has enough space to get hot.

Stop battery consuming games from running in the background

This is for those who use their phones for playing games. If your phone is hot, especially while playing the game, it may be time to delete it. However, if you don’t want to, ensure that the game is not running in the background. Always kill it.

Coolify

Coolify is an app for cooling off your hot smartphone. It ensures that your phone temperature is at a balanced and it also helps shut down background apps.

Stop surfing your phone in the sun

You are walking to your hotel room at Eko Hotel and Suites in the hot sun and at the same time, you are surfing your phone in the sun. The sun may affect your sun, thus making it hot. So, stop using your phone while going about your business on a sunny day.

7 Ways To Make Your Online Accounts Safer

A day scarcely goes by without a reported case of hacking. Millions of accounts are exposed and all sorts of information released to the public. Recently, over 500 million Yahoo user accounts were hacked. So, any account can be illegally accessed. You never know because hacking is becoming more sophisticated daily. This makes your online existence vulnerable. You must secure and protect your different web accounts. Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency, gathers ways you can make them safer.

Close dormant accounts

Inactive accounts easily get hacked. It is because they remain unused for a very long time. If you know you are not using a particular account, you should close it. As a rule of thumb, only open accounts you can use often.

Set up a password manager

If you find it difficult to recall your password (s), you should use a password manager. It will save all your login details for you. It can also generate unique passwords for you.

Add two-step verification

The two-step verification has been around for a while now. And it is just a way to make it difficult for your account to be hacked. The two-step verification prevents anyone from logging into your account from a new device even though they have your username and password. They need a code delivered via SMS to your phone.

Delete third-party account connections

There’s nothing wrong with allowing other services to connect to your Facebook and Twitter. But you should reduce these connections to your main account. And don’t forget to close third party apps you’re not using in order to block off any potential loopholes for hackers to exploit.

Change your passwords often

We all know that we must not use weak passwords and change your passwords often.

Be conscious of what you share online

Ensure your personal details that can be used to verify your identity, like your home address, and your birthday is not readily available online. Hackers may need this sensitive information to access your accounts.

Keep your software updated

You should keep your computer software as well as your online accounts updated. But most times these accounts automatically updates itself. You can still check to update others manually.

6 Things You do That Puts Your Computer at Risk

You rely heavily on your computer to get your jobs done. If anything happens to it, you may lose all your important files and other essential documents. This is why you should be careful what you do both in terms of hardware and software with your computer. This will prevent you from putting your computer at risk. Nevertheless, some persons don’t know the things they are doing that may be putting their computers at risk. Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency identifies some of them.

You don’t backup your files

This is arguably one of the crudest things you do that is putting your computer at risk. But still, some persons don’t consider it important to backup their files. If you don’t want to lose the work of a lifetime, you should never forget to save your files in a hard drive or any cloud services of your choice. You can access these files anytime and anywhere.

No antivirus

How can you use a system without an antivirus? In this age and time? Even if you don’t have money to buy antivirus, you can download free antivirus or you simply use windows defender. The rule of thumb is that you should never use any system without an antivirus.

You are using weak password

The function of a password is to prevent unauthorized access to your system. Therefore, you should avoid using a weak password. Worse still, some people don’t even bother to use any password. You may not only lose your files, you will also lose money depending on the type of job you do.

You are not cleaning your computer

Your computer is looking very haggard and dusty because you are too lazy to clean it. Soon, the dust will affect the fan. And you know if the fan doesn’t work, your system will begin to heat up and if you still ignore it, you may need to prep it for repairs or get ready to buy another one.

You still using Windows XP

Using Windows XP is like you are still in the Stone Age. The world has gone beyond and probably forgotten the Windows XP. This is because there have been several upgrades including Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Windows XP will leave your computer vulnerable because it lacks security features that will protect your system.

You just download anything online

You don’t have antivirus and you are still downloading anything that catches your fancy online. Before long, your system will be infected with a virus and if you are not careful, it will eventually crash.

5 Reasons Your Wi-Fi Network May Not Improve

Many offices and individuals rely on Wi-Fi to get jobs done or to surf the internet. A slow or snail-like Wi-Fi will no doubt delay your work and it can be very frustrating. This said, your Wi-Fi may not improve soon due to the following reasons discussed by Jumia Travel.

There are devices interfering with your Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is very sensitive to its environment. If you have devices that could interfere with your network, you should either remove them or switch them off. For example, Bluetooth devices and microwave can affect the strength of your signal.

Poor location of router

The location of your Wi-Fi router also has a role to play in slowing your Wi-Fi network. Your router should not be far away from whatever device you are using to surf the internet. The closer the devices the better the reception. This may not be the case. Here, you may have to upgrade your router.

You connect to the wrong Wi-Fi

There are so many wireless networks on your phone or laptop that you don’t know the one to connect to. This may be because they have the same names. So, you just decided to connect your device with any available one. Unknown to you, the one you connected to was very slow. If you don’t want to be in this situation, you should find out from colleagues the fastest wireless network.

You overload Router

If so many people are connected to your router, it can affect the speed of your network. This is because the router can not distribute the signal equally to the different users.

You installed incompatible software

This usually happens when you update or upgrade your Wi-Fi router but you forget to do same for your computer. So, whenever you update your router, you should also uninstall the one in your device. This is to ensure that the software is compatible and up-to-date.

5 Ways Your Tech Gadgets May Be Affecting Your Health

Tech gadgets have no doubt made our daily activities easier. It seems technology has an answer for everything. However, what you should know is that for everything that has advantages, also has its disadvantages. In this case, the disadvantage or side effect of technology is its negative impact it is having on your health. Unfortunately, many tech geeks are unaware of this because the effect may take a while to manifest. As a result, it is important for anyone attached to any tech gadgets to be aware of its negative effects before it is too late. Jumia Travel, the online travel agency, gathers ways your tech gadgets may be affecting your health.

 Hearing loss

Some persons have their ears plugged for nearly half of the day. They are either listening to music or radio. Unknown to them, this regular music banging in your ears is affecting your eardrums. You should give your ears a break in order to prevent hearing loss or damage.

Insomnia

Insomnia is the inability to sleep. Many of us don’t get enough sleep because when you are supposed to be dozing off, you are fiddling with your gadget especially your smartphone. Then you complain that you are not getting enough and you are unable to function the following day. Some of the negative effects of sleep deprivation include heart attack, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke. Try to get rid of your gadgets if you want to get a good sleep.

Nomophobia

A smartphone is one of the most popular gadgets many of us cannot do without. In other words, you are anxious and cannot concentrate because you are not with your smartphone. This means you have nomophobia (no-mobile-phone-phobia). The dependence on your mobile can affect your health because you can be depressed if you are without your phone.You can try to leave your phone at home once in while.

Obesity

You spend hours sitting at a particular spot working on your computer or your phone. Unknown to you, the more you sit down for hours at that same spot daily, the more you are susceptible or vulnerable to obesity.  If you want to avoid obesity, stop spending too much time sitting surfing your phone.

Neck and back pain

Neck and back pain can be unbearable and most people suffer from this because of the time we spend on our gadgets. This is a health problem that you may overlook but if you are not careful, the neck and back pain may worsen and you may be required to go to the doctor.

5 Helpful Ways To Avoid Online Identity Theft

Identity theft is very common today because more people have access to the internet. In addition, almost everyone has a presence online, thanks to social media. This is why many celebrities verify their social media accounts to prevent impersonation. So, what happens to persons who cannot verify their accounts? You may probably be at the mercy of those who impersonate you to rip off friends and family. It doesn’t have to be this way. Jumia Travel shares 5 helpful ways to avoid online identity theft.

Don’t disclose too much info on social media

The easiest way for anyone to get information about anyone is via their social media account. Many of us tell it all on social media from personal phone numbers, house address, emails as well as other sensitive information that other people don’t need to know.

Shop on secure websites

There are so many e-commerce websites where you can shop. Of course, you can shop on all of them. However, to prevent identity you should shop on popular ones that are safe and secured. You are assured that your personal information will not end up in the wrong hands.

Protect your wireless network

Protecting your wireless network is a way to prevent identity theft. If anyone can access your wireless effortlessly, they have access to the personal online activities. Through this, they can get your personal profile which makes it easier to impersonate you. Always password your wireless network.

Download from safe websites

The rule of thumb for anyone who downloads any data online is to download from a safe website. If you don’t,  you may download virus or software that allows hackers or impersonators to steal sensitive information.

Use a unique password

Using a unique password has been over flogged. A weak password leaves you vulnerable to all kinds of attack especially if all your information is online. Importantly, you should try as much as possible to avoid using the same password for all your accounts.