If you know some simple IT fixes it can save you an amazing amount of time in an office.

In our case, working in an open office with IT staff on hand we are spoiled.

We ask, they show. But even then it is a shock to find how some struggle with simple problems that keep recurring.  

Our struggles with FCA’s Connect system this month of March have been heroic. It is what you pay us for! It took eight hours to submit a relatively straightforward variation of permission on the FCA site last week. Most of the problems were well known to our experienced staff but an inexperienced operator must surely have taken three days to overcome the same problems. They can be summarised as matters unique to the FCA and only discovered over the years via trial and error. We already know that the following actions causes the system to crash losing data already submitted: attaching any non-PDF documents; attacing zip folders, using any other browser than chrome; useage running over their famous “opening hours” of 8am to 6pm; using the figure “&” in a document title and many more lesser issues. But even armed with this knowledge the system crashed repeatedly on us. We can take these issues up with the Small business practitioner panel on your behalf.

Now for those tips: How to reduce the size of a PDF – use https://smallpdf.com/compress-pdf 
And to reduce the size of a photograph online https://tinyjpg.com
Small thing, but it can make a massive difference to your life.