Calling all students!! Off to Uni soon and unsure of what to look out for when choosing a mobile broadband package? Follow www.broadbandchoices.co.uk hints and tips below to ensure you’re not caught out with a bad broadband deal that will swallow up your student loan in a nano second!

1. Go Monthly

If you are unsure of how your finances will be in 9 months time and worried about signing up to a long term contract, then a monthly deal could be the way to go. O2 currently offer a 1 month contract for £10 with a 1GB download allowance and a free dongle.

2. Download with caution 

Mobile broadband deals do not always have the most generous download allowances, so you need to be careful and not go over your usage cap with too many episodes of Skins! Excess usage costs can mount up to a lot of money, so keep an eye on the limits set on your contract.

3. Beware of so called ‘freebies’

 A free laptop may look pretty enticing but you should always compare the cost of an equivalent broadband package and laptop purchased separately before signing up. These offers frequently turn out to be poor value for money and you could find yourself paying for your ‘freebie’ after all through an extortionate monthly tariff.

4. Check your coverage 

 A mobile broadband connection isn’t much use if your chosen provider doesn’t have coverage in your area - rural areas are particularly unreliable. It is essential to do a postcode search with your chosen provider before signing up as patchy coverage could mean you are left without a connection when you need it most. Most mobile broadband providers offer a money back satisfaction guarantee in the first few days, so you can test the connection in your home. But if the signal is poor, don’t delay in taking it back.

5. UK Only 

 Keep mobile broadband surfing to UK shores as the costs of data usage charges when using your dongle overseas could multiply up to 000’s of pounds.

Top Tips

Christmas is getting closer (yay!) and most of us work and most of us like to shop. Check out these 5 top tips for staying safe when shopping on line in the holiday season.

1) Use your desktop PC, not your mobile device, to shop, because your desktop browser is likely to be more secure.
2) Protect sensitive information, like credit card numbers, by password-protecting both your mobile device and its memory card.
3) Make sure you update your anti-virus and anti-malware programs continually.
4) Treat social networking sites with the same caution as other web sites-social sites are a growing target for fraudsters and virus writers.
5) Be cautious of special offers. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Fake online offers and coupons may lead to harmful sites, so be suspicious.

How annoying is it when you get a follower on Twitter and you check out their page and they are a dodgey spammer. Top Tip: next time you suspect a Twitter user is a spammer, tweet their handle to @spam - Twitter’s spam watcher. It checks out the account and removes it if is just another spammer.

A small .gif or .jpg above or beside your signature can look quite professional when you’re sending out emails (a large one, however, just looks like you’re a saddo/narcissist).

Different e-mail clients make inserting an image easy, difficult, or nigh impossible. Here are some top tips for the various Microsoft clients, as well as for Google Mail. Woop Woop even Gmail.

This a really useful site which has real life advice for all you girls out there covering a whole variery of topics.

It’s a practical, speedy resource, all tips are short and to the point, and there is no need to plough through interminable, irrelevant chat. Tips are rated by users, so the best are soon evident. Tips can be found either by a keyword search or by browsing by particular categories.

Check out www.toptipsforgirls.com to have all your questions answered!