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Computer Tweaks, Tips and Tricks
Last modified: April 28, 2011
Follow these steps if you want your computer to run faster, longer...
By Tony Pirog. Posted: April 28, 2011
Over time, as you install more and more programs, you notice that your computer begins to get sluggish. This is preventable if you take a little extra time during the install phase. Almost every program you install will add unnecessary components that start and run in memory every time you boot your computer. What we want to do is minimize the number of programs that run automatically, and prevent those unnecessary extras that get installed when you choose "Express Install."
Here's the easy solution: Go to http://www.ninite.com and see if the program you want is listed there. If it is, select it (and any other programs you might want), download the installer at the bottom of the page, and run. It will install the latest version, without any extras, or unneeded toolbars (like Bing, Google, Yahoo, and Ask). You can also select programs that are already installed to upgrade to the latest version.
If your program isn't listed on Ninite, just follow these simple rules of thumb:
This will keep your browsers uncluttered too.
That's all for now folks!
Check out our new Remote Virus Removal Service HERE
Backing up your data: What YOU need to know.
By Dave and Tony Pirog. Posted: April 5, 2011
This may be the most important article you will ever read by us!
We know your computer data is important to you. If you haven't done anything about it yet, what's stoppng you? Give us a call. We'd love to help.
Here's some food for thought:
THE PROBLEM
Scenario 1
Customer's desktop crashed and they called us. Their baby was 3 years old and all their baby pictures, from the day he was born, were on the hard drive. They had no other copy! We came armed with our trusty "hard drive to USB" adapter and a laptop, connected them up and there were the pictures, just sitting there nice and pretty. We had other work to do, and the customer told us to leave the pictures till later. We said, "No, let's do it now." So we got the pics copied off first and then we finished the rest of the work. By the time we came back the hard drive was dead and couldn't be revived. The customer almost lost 3 years worth of precious baby pictures!
Lesson #1: Back up your data!
Scenario 2
Customer came to us with a portable hard drive that crashed. He was pleased with himself because he did make a backup. Only problem was, he deleted the originals! Doh! The only copy he had was on the portable drive, and that drive crashed.
Lesson #2: Maintain at least two copies of your data!
Scenario 3
Customer thought he was covered because he had "RAID mirroring" on his computer. Right. All that means is it saves all your data to two disks at the same time. If the main operating system disk fails, all you have to do is replace it with the copy, insert a new one and you're back in business. Problem is he counted on that and didn't have any other backups. Somebody had given him some horrible advice! Long story short, he lost some really important data, and there was no way to get it back.
Lesson #3: One backup solution may not be enough.
SOLUTIONS
RAID Mirroring: This is primarily a quick way to get back up and running and should never be depended on for backing up your data for several reasons. What it doesn't do, is protect your data if the computer is destroyed or stolen. Like any on-site backup solution, a fire, flood, lightning strike, theft of the computer, or other catastrophic event could leave you with no backup at all. This is where keeping multiple external drives and online backup come in.
Multiple external hard drives: We encourage our business customers to buy two portable hard drives, swap them out and take one off site once a week. Then, if their system crashes for any reason they buy a new computer and reload their data fast. If the on-site portable drive gets stolen or damaged, they can bring in the other one while their computer is being rebuilt, repaired or set up, and quickly restore their data without losing more than 7 days worth.
Online backup: Covers the worst case scenario when all on-site hardware has been damaged and up to 7 days of data has been lost. Downloads from off-site locations can be slow, which is why we recommend the portable drive option. The off-site backup by our preferred vendor keeps as constant, complete, up-to-date copies of all your files as possible and allows for the recovery of that lost 7 days of data.
Call us at 888-847-2955 or 630-447-9067 to talk about our recommendations for online backup. Even if you're confident of your backup plan, it might be good to call us in to check it over. It can't hurt to get a second opinion.
Disaster Recovery Plan: Our "Multiple External Drives and Off-site Backup" strategy is low-cost, assures virtually no data loss, and results in minimal disruption. The worst case disaster recovery scenario looks like this:
Image copy of system hard drive: The final option we offer and recommend to our business customers is to clone their system hard drive and take it off-site. In the case of a complete system meltdown or hard drive crash, the drive can be brought in, mounted and the system back up and running in no time.
Forensic data recovery: This is what happens when you haven't got a backup. We have a customer who paid a technician to set up their backup, and so thought they were set. When their hard drive crashed they found out that the backup plan didn't work and they were stuck with all their business data on a broken hard drive. They sent it to a lab and paid in the region of $2,000 for forensic recovery, their system was down for 2 weeks, and some of their files were never recovered. Even if you pay through the nose for recovery you can't guarantee all your data back from a damaged drive.
SUMMARY:
For business customers we recommend the following backup strategy:
For residential customers recommend at least:
It's still a good idea to sign up for online backup. Seriously, one backup really isn't good enough.
No one is twisting your arm, but if you don't act, and your hard drive crashes we'll be delighted to take your money to recover the data. We prefer if our customers and clients are educated and knowledgeable enough to know better though. Please do yourself a favor: spend the time and implement a backup plan so that you won't need to panic when calamity hits. We've told you what needs to be done, so what's stopping you?
CONTACT US:
Call if you need help setting up the right backup plan for your needs and budget, or if you need someone to review your current backup plan. Once again, our number: 888-847-2955 or 630-447-9067.
Computer Hardware Recommendations
Posted on March 11, 2011 by Tony Pirog
We just received an email from TECHNIBBLE (a web site chock full of great information for Computer Technicians) discussing computer (and computer peripheral) brands. They had asked their readers to tell them their opinions, and the results of the survey were presented. People often ask us our opinion on which brand is best, so we thought this would be a good time to present a summary of the technibble results for non technicians, with our comments added (in blue). Most Liked Hardware Brands: Laptops:
Hard Drives:
Printers:
Most Hated Hardware Brands: Laptops
We rate HP number 1 on our “worst list,” followed by Gateway. We're not huge fans of the cheaper Dells either. Hard Drives
Printers
Brand Specific Comments: Acer/Gateway/eMachines/Packard Bell Gateway, eMachines and Packard Bell are all owned by Acer so these have been grouped together. These brands were hated across the board because of their low quality hardware.
Apple Apple was in the middle with the Computer Technicians. Most people said that Apple generally has excellent support but if your hardware fails out of warranty, its probably going to be an expensive endeavor to fix it. Some people did express their displeasure of the overall price of Apple hardware.
Brother Brother laser printers got a few mentions both good and bad. However, there were more people saying they liked Brother laser printers than those who said they didn't like them.
Dell Many technicians didn't like their weird custom built hardware but they did say that they had fairly good support. Some technicians liked the fact that Dell usually provides restore CDs to make a technicians job easier. The readers also mentioned that their high end server and enterprise products were great.
Epson Good reliable printers, streamlined drivers and cheap running costs.
Hewlett-Packard/Compaq HP seemed to be hated by just about all of the Computer Technicians who responded with the exception of their high end server and enterprise products which are apparently very good. The low end HP printers seem to be the main cause of the hate towards HP. The support is dismal, the drivers are bug ridden and bloated (often many hundreds of megabytes in size) and the running costs are high. Most technicians said to avoid HP at all costs.
Lenovo Lenovo makes good and study laptops. Many technicians said they just don't see them fail much.
Lexmark Lexmark received a lot of hate, mainly for their printers poor build quality, bad drivers and even worse support.
Samsung Samsung laser printers got a few mentions as being great, low priced but reliable printers. Some readers said they didn't like Samsung printers and laptops.
Seagate The battle between Seagate and Western Digital was interesting. Some users said that they hate Western Digital hard drives and will only ever buy Seagate, while others said they love Western Digital and will never touch a Seagate.
Toshiba Toshiba laptops has some good mentions, especially their mid-price and higher models.
Western Digital Same as Seagate. However, many technicians that said they liked Western Digital hardware specifically mentioned the Western Digital Black product line.
Xerox Xerox was mentioned a few times by the readers saying that their laser printers are great.
Final Thoughts: These results may be slightly skewed against some of the bigger names. When a Technician says that they see a lot of failed Acer laptops come into the shop, we need to keep in mind that there is a huge amount of Acer laptops out there. One person mentioned this skewing of results by giving the following example:
"It's like saying 90% of the cancer victims in Seattle, WA, worked at Boeing. Well, 90% of the people in Seattle WORK at Boeing."
Having said that, some brands such as HP was on just about everyone's hate list. So although HP is very common, being on everyones hate list is quite telling about the brand.
IM (Instant Messaging) Web App recommendation
(Posted January 4th, 2011)
Do you use Instant Messaging a lot, but don't always have your favorite software available? Want to use Instant Messaging but your boss doesn't permit you to install the software? Are you frustrated and lonely during the work day because you can't keep in touch? Here's what we use: http://www.imo.im. Try it, it's free, and you can sign in to all your favorite IM apps.
Note: you can also download it to your Android phone using the Market app. I have it and it works great! Open Office, an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office
(Posted December 19th, 2010)
So long as you don't use Microsoft Outlook (we do not recommend Outlook as there are many great alternatives that don't get you locked into paying Microsoft forever), Open Office is free, legal and Open Source and can do just about anything Microsoft Office can do.
Click on the image below to download it now:
We have to make some simply configuration changes to make Open Office compatible with Microsoft Office. (You only have to do this one time!):
That's it! Done! Enjoy!
SuperAntiSpyware: An excellent companion to your anti virus software
(Posted December 10th, 2010)
No matter what anti virus programs you have, SuperAntiSpyware is fully compatible and will keep you that much safer from being afflicted by some demented hacker's idea of fun.
Click on the picture below to download SuperAntiSpyware free edition:
What to do if you are flagged as having an Un-Genuine copy of Windows 7
(Posted August 5th, 2010)
For those of you who installed the Microsoft Windows 7 Activation Checker update (KB971033) you can still uninstall it. The reason users such as you may want to do so is because it is rumored that this update creates a new process/service that will slow down your system and that it may monitor the user. Some consider it to be "malicious software."
Click HERE to download instructions.
XP Repair install
(Posted August 15th, 2010)
Tune up your startup programs: XP, Vista and Windows 7
(Posted February 23rd, 2010)
Click on the Avira logo below to download our recommended free anti virus program. Select the "Personal - Free" edition.
(Posted December 3rd, 2010)
Disable UAC (User Account Control - that annoying prompt every time you try to change anything) in Vista
(Posted September 21st, 2009)
IE8 Running Slow? Try This:
(Posted September 20th, 2009)
Many people who install IE8 complain that it runs very slowly, sometimes completely bogging down their systems. This type of behavior usually signals a problem with system resources, but there may be a simple fix. Run this simple command from RUN under START, or from a Command Prompt:
regsvr32 actxprxy.dll
This re-registers the ActiveX Interface Marshaling Library, an obscure DLL that most people (even Microsoft experts) have never heard of. (Note that if you try this using Windows Vista, you must do this from an elevated Command Prompt window; type cmd in the Start menu Search box, right-click the Cmd.exe shortcut, and then choose Run As Administrator.)
I did this on all my computers, and the results were astonishing. IE8 is stable as well as performing faster. Best of all, it starts faster. You know that irritating "Connecting" message? It is virtually eliminated.
Windows XP Registry Hacks:
Right mouse on the links. 2: Save to computer. 3: Double click to add to your registry.
Cool Dark XP Themes
(Posted November 7th, 2009)
Free Windows Apps:
Browsers.
(These are all better than Internet Explorer!) |
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