Pogo Gold Coast Computer Repairs

20/05/2026

There are plenty of words and phrases that irk me. Irk being one, perhaps.

I hate the use of "price point" where "price" would suffice. Similarly, I hate "colourway" when "colour" would be just fine. (eg, "It comes in three colourways at a price point that makes it very competitive.")

I hate corporate buzzwords like reach out, touch base, circle back, and going forward. Who is going backwards in time?

What I don't understand is the whilsters. Whilst is just an archaic form of while. There is no use case for whilst that couldn't be replaced with while. We no longer use betwixt, methinks or twelvemonth, yet sometimes we go all Shakespearean when the word while comes up.

I've probably whilsted myself in the past. I may again in the future. But I hope not. Needless archaic words and phrases don't sound smart. They should stay in the past.

Until next time, fare thee well, Godspeed, and peace and grace be thine.

18/05/2026

If you're not using a password manager then you should be. There's no way you can safely manage different passwords for all accounts in a secure and convenient way without a password manager. (That password protected Word doc you're using is not safe!)

I've tried a tonne of password managers and have issues with most of them. I've recently moved to Vaultwarden, a free open-source version of Bitwarden. So far it's been great. There are extension for all major browsers which let me auto-fill for all websites. It's not asking me to save passwords it just auto-filled (looking at you Synology C2) and it has comprehensive sharing permissions built into it.

If you're not using a password manager, any manager is better than none. Nordpass, Dashlane, LastPass, Keeper, Zoho Vault, 1Password...just pick one. Then safely share selected passwords with your staff or loved ones. Please stop writing in a book or using your Excel doc or whatever you're doing now. Safety matters and passwords are right up their on top of the list when it comes to security.

16/05/2026

Would be rather not download ads when you browse? There's a better way than a browser extension. Block them at the network level before they even reach your devices.

Pi-Hole and AdGuard Home both sit on your local network and act as a DNS sinkhole. Any request to a known ad or tracker domain just disappears. Every device on your network benefits automatically, including phones, smart TVs, and anything else that doesn't support browser extensions.

The real power is in custom block lists. Beyond the standard ad lists, you can layer in lists that block malware domains, phishing sites, telemetry, and data broker, turning a simple ad blocker into a genuine privacy and security tool.

Pi-Hole is the original and runs beautifully on a Raspberry Pi or a low-powered machine you've got sitting around. AdGuard Home is a bit more polished out of the box and handles HTTPS filtering more easily. Both are free and open source.

If you're a Gold Coast home or business wanting cleaner, safer browsing across your network, or just want to stop subsidising the surveillance economy, give us a call.

I also use Pi-Hole for local DNS. I can map my internal services to a domain. Or I can map an external domain to a temporary address while I transfer a website. I've got a custom blocklist that blocks malware. And I've got a few whitelists, so I can open Google Shopping links.

🌐 pogo.net.au

14/05/2026

"James was a magician, I called him asking about fixing my baby monitor USB connection. I arrived 20 minutes after our phone call with my toddler in hand. No more than 15 minutes later James had it all sorted. Such a gentleman, a tech wizard couldn't recommend him enough and so affordable. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐" says Bianca on Google

★★★★★ James was a magician, I called him asking about fixing my baby monitor USB connection. I arrived 20 minutes after our phone call with my toddler in hand. No more than 15 minutes later James had it all sorted. Such a gentleman, a tech wizard couldn't recommend him enough and so afford...

14/05/2026

There's a controversy (read: storm in a teacup) surrounding the new Firefox logo, named Kit. Kit doesn't have a s*x. Firefox decided a cartoon logo doesn't necessarily need to be a she/her or a he/him. Kit isn't a they/them either. That hasn't stopped some people getting upset, demanding that Kit either man up or they'll take their browsing somewhere else.

Librewolf is based on Firefox and has a wolf as a logo. I doubt they've ever defined whether it does or does not have a s*x though.

A safer browser for them would be Waterfox. It has a W as a logo. A W can be non-controversially without s*x.

Or better yet, maybe they should leave the internet. It seemed to be making them too angry.

12/05/2026

🚨 One of the most common website mistakes I see — even on professionally built sites — is oversized images.

This one image went from 5.3MB → 42KB. That's 126× smaller. Zero loss in quality.

I recently worked on another site where multiple images were over 1MB each. Both sites had been built by professional web developers. It smascks of incompetence but happens more than you'd think.

Why does it matter? Because bloated images directly hurt:

📉 Load times
👆 User experience
🔍 Search rankings

Here's how to fix it:

✅ Run your images through an optimiser — I use Squoosh and TinyPNG, but a quick Google for "image optimiser" will give you plenty of free options.
✅ Ditch PNG. There's rarely a good reason to use PNG on a website. Switch to JPG or WebP.
✅ Size it right. If the image only displays at 400px wide, don't upload a 3,000px wide file.

Small fixes, big results. 💪

05/05/2026

"Very Professional, Great!!!!" says Seiya on Google

★★★★★ Very Professional, Great!!!!

27/04/2026

It's annoying that Microsoft chooses to add so much junk to their OS. We shouldn't have to opt out of Xbox, deal with the confusion of a "new" Outlook that shares a name with the paid version but is a completely different app, or babysit telemetry settings just to have a bit of privacy.

If you want to remove OneDrive, Teams, bloatware, and telemetry — there's a great open source tool called Win11Debloat (github.com/raphire/win11debloat) that automates the whole process. Or if you'd rather someone just handle it for you, that's what we're here for at Pogo. 🖥️✅ We're only too happy to remove the junk.

The new version is easier to use too. No more Powershell commands, just double-click run.bat. Be careful with it though, it assumes you know what you're doing. it'll let you remove stuff you might need to keep.

24/04/2026

My new favourite 3D printed peg board hook. Ikea Skadis is a popular pegboard for 3D makers. It is more robust and versatile than standard pegboard. As a result, the community makes a lot of hooks, shelves and accessories for Skadis. When they're as good as this, you print them first and figure out a use later.

20/04/2026

Our collection of 3D printed planter pots is growing. This one is a highland cow. Or yak perhaps, as one friend called it.

The growth of the collection required an extra shelf. I think now we've started on this we might have to get a full set of shelves and planter pots. There's probably no other natural way to end this.