Your Tech News

Update to the DNS Changer Malware – mark your calendars

Apr25
2012 Written by David Smith

We have an update to the previous story about the delay of the March 8th shut down of internet for some users who still unknowingly have the DNS Changer Malware on their computer. Now around 450,000 internet users will lose their internet connection on July 9th.  If you find that you are one of the 450,000 then you should know that this is a simple and quick fix . We have in fact had 2 customers that had this.

You have the choice to fix it on your own or you can come into our shop and we will run the quick fix on your computer at No Cost to you.

Your quick downloadable fix can be found here
You can also learn more about what this is all about at the following link
Internet doomsday on July 9th? Don’t panic!

Posted in General News

A tip about Facebook for Businesses and Organizations

Apr23
2012 Written by David Smith

Does your business have a Facebook Page or a Facebook User Profile? If you don’t know then you need to know, because it makes a big difference.

An excerpt from Facebook

Facebook profiles are meant to represent a single individual. Organizations of any type are not permitted to maintain an account under the name of their organization. We have created Facebook Pages to allow organizations to have a presence on Facebook. These Pages are distinct presences, separate from user profiles, and optimized for an organization’s needs to communicate, distribute information/content, engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fan’s recommendations to their friends. Facebook Pages are designed to be a media rich, valuable presence for any artist, business or brand. If you create a profile for your business, your account may be disabled for violating our Terms of Use.

Along with repairing computers, we also have a lot of experience in SEO(search engine optimization) as well as other online marketing solutions. We strongly feel we need to get a message out to businesses and organizations about one aspect of Facebook that some don’t quite understand or have chosen to ignore.

It is imperative to have a Facebook Page rather than a Facebook User Profile for a business or organization. Surprisingly this mistake has been made many times.

Why is it a mistake?

  • A Facebook Page was designed to allow a connection not just with being liked by many individual users of Facebook, but also by other businesses and organizations. Part of your potential audience is cut off when using a User Profile instead.
  • Not every business owner will want to choose to connect their own User Profile with your business that is also using a User Profile rather than a Facebook Page. A business with a Facebook Page does lose their intrusive ability to read other User Profiles that were connected to them.

Solution:
Use the links below to convert your User Profile to a Facebook Page and start making more connections.

Read this first to know how to prepare for the move when converting

Click here when you are Ready to convert your profile to a page.

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Screening emails before downloading them

Feb02
2012 Written by David Smith

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to screen your emails before they are downloaded. It would help keep unwanted emails off your local computer and keep it virus free. MailWasher is a tool that we use in the office and have for many years. It allows you to view the emails while it is still on the mail server. You will view the emails in text format and it is easy to read. This keeps you safe from would be infections. Simply delete what you know isn’t wanted or looks suspicious.

You also have the option to create rules so reoccurring spam or blacklisted items are already selected to be deleted. After you have decided what you want to keep then you simply press a button at the top of the program and it will open your default email software like Outlook, Thunderbird or whatever you use.

It is free to use with the only limitation being that only 1 email account can be used for the free version. If you would like to use multiple accounts then you will need the Pro version.

go to http://www.mailwasher.net and give it a try

MailWasher

MailWasher Free

Posted in Software

Sopa and Internet Censorship

Jan19
2012 Written by David Smith

It will be a sad day if SOPA  goes through. Censoring the internet would not be the way to go. Would you really know what was being censored if results from even Google just didn’t show up? Would you always know that you were hearing both sides of a story when doing a search on a political matter or something controversial in another country. What is the limit of this censoring or what would it turn into later?

The Piracy Problem:
It is understandable that piracy was bad at one time, but it isn’t quite as bad as it was in the past years and any problem that the movie and music industries are having was in the past. It has been blown way out of proportion.

Limewire  is no longer available for use by the everyday user, which made a huge dent in what is downloaded. Online file storage sites like RapidShare were forced to stop allowing pirated content to be on their sites, which made an even bigger dent against the more technically inclined users of the web. The only thing left as far as piracy that is left untouched is Torrents.

Torrent downloads have the same flaw as Limewire had. Your IP address, meaning a number that is assigned to you by your ISP(internet service provider), is in plain site and  it can be tracked very easily to you by law enforcement. If you use torrents to download pirated material you will get caught eventually.

Censoring Porn sites:
Honestly, I, along with many other parents would love to see porn sites obliterated from the web. I don’t see it happening in that way anytime soon. Luckily their was a new domain TLD added as .XXX, so at some point all porn sites will have to go to this .XXX TLD. Then each family would have the ability to do their own censoring from their home rather than allow the government to do the censoring for you. The software you would need would simply block all .XXX domains.

What we want to see off of the web will take baby steps and slowly but surely the web is growing, even with the bad parts. Little by little we can take away those bad parts in pieces rather than one large bite like SOPA would have us do. If SOPA takes its big bite we lose one of our freedoms that are precious to us. Freedom of speech is a great thing to have.

Learn more about SOPA
Make a stand and let yourself be heard here

Let us hear your thoughts. Tell us on Facebook or here

Posted in Uncategorized

When disaster strikes and you have an itchy finger to fix things on your own

Dec28
2011 Written by David Smith

We have had computers coming into the shop lately, whereas the customer tries to fix their own computer and then brings it in after they are unable to fix it. If you have files that need to be saved then don’t try to fix your computer on your own or you take the chance of losing your files and possibly any chance of the computer coming back up. Many times we can bring a computer back from the dead. Trying online solutions can turn into disaster. At the first sign of trouble bring your computer in so it can be repaired.

A couple of examples of when things go from bad to worse

  •  A computer that won’t boot – starting the computer and shutting it down too many times can corrupt the drive.
  • A computer with a virus – removing infections can result in more damage than good at times when important system files accidentally get removed or windows settings change.
  • Computer is slow – Manually deleting random files and not knowing what they are for can result in system files or other important files not allowing the computer to start again.

A few reason why some customers don’t bring their computer in:
We do hear horror stories about customers past experiences with computer repair shops and we understand the pain you can go through having to wait weeks at a time to get a computer back or prices that are much more than they should be.

That is why we are here. Our prices are lower than everyone else and we attempt to have a 24 hour turnaround. We also have free consultation, so bring it in and we can tell you what it will take to get it functioning again.

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Why your wireless router should be secured

Sep02
2011 Written by David Smith

So you are living in the city and your super fast, high speed connection isn’t fast anymore. Your first question should be, “do I have a wireless router?” and the second question is, “Is the wireless router secured with a password?”.  If the answer to the second question was either that you “don’t know” or “No”  then be assured that anyone living near you may be using your internet for free and bogging your connection down. It is a very common thing to happen.

Your wireless router should always have a password set to keep others off of your connection. There are a few reasons why.

1. Anything illegal they may be doing on that connection comes back to you. You are responsible for anything being done on your internet connection. Luckily there are cases where the owner was able to convince authorities that someone else was using the connection.

2. As we already talked about, your internet connection can become very slow and even as slow as an old dial-up connection if the the others using your connection are downloading a lot of material or using file-sharing software.

3. Your own internet traffic can be intercepted and read by anyone else using the wireless connection. This is a bit more technical, but be aware that there are plenty of programs out there for free that can accomplish this very easily.

4. If you are sharing files on your own computer with other computers on the network in your own home then there is also a chance that the person using your wireless connection is also able to view your shared files and even print on  your network enabled printer as well. Note that windows 7 has become more secure in this area. An XP machine on the other hand wouldn’t stop sharing these shared items.

One thing you may not know is that every computer has what is called a MAC address that makes each computer unique. The special mac address belongs to one computer only. The MAC address would be the same as a phone number that belongs to your home only. While the intrusion into your wireless connection is happening, your router may also keeping a record of the mac address that connected to it. Your intruder is not quite as anonymous as they might think.

Each router is different as far as logging in to change settings. Refer to your paperwork for your specific router. Many times running the supplied CD that came with your router will ask what password and security level you will want your router at. You may also want to set up your SSID to not show for public connection.

If you need help to secure your wireless connection then give us a call

Posted in General News

Vipre Antivirus Premium

Aug15
2011 Written by David Smith

I have been bragging about this Antivirus software for quiteVIPRE-Antivirus-Premium some time now.

What is so amazing about it?

  • It won’t bog down your computer like Norton and McAfee does.
  • The Internet Security Home  version allows up to 10 computers to be protected
  • I have yet to be able to infect a computer while Vipre is installed, no matter how hard I have tried. The makers of Vipre insist that no Antivirus is 100%, but I think they are being modest.

I highly recommend getting the Vipre Premium version though.
Check it out here – VIPRE Antivirus Premium

or download the 15 day trial version and take it for a test run.
Download  Link- VIPRE Antivirus Premium

Before installing Vipre, be sure to uninstall all other anti-spyware, anti-malware or other antivirus software. Many antivirus do not play nice with each other. This includes taking Spybot out as well.

 

Posted in Software

Tip: No need to buy the full version of Windows 7

Aug06
2011 Written by David Smith

Would you like to save a little money? Of course we would all like to. Here is a tip/trick to doing just that. Trust me when I say that Microsoft wont be happy that you know this information :)

Let’s say your hard drive stops working or you need to re-install windows and don’t have the installation disks to do it.  Microsoft would want you to go to Best Buy and buy a full version of Windows 7. Why, you ask? Well, the full version of Windows 7 Home Premium costs almost $200. It is all about making a dollar. The alternative to their full version is where the trick comes in.  You can buy an upgrade version instead and only costing about $109.

Even if you are using a drive that has never had an operating system on it before, you can still install the Windows 7 upgrade version on it.

Here is  how you do it.
1. Put your CD in and install Windows like you would do with a full version.
Note:You wont be choosing to install as an Upgrade on this 1st install.
2. At some point you will be asked for the installation key. Just leave it blank and hit “Next”
3. If windows is all finished being installed then move to the next step.
4. Let’s install windows one more time.  Sounds crazy huh?
5. Pop the cd tray open and close it again so the Windows Installation menu comes up.
6. Install as an upgrade this time.
7. During this installation you can go ahead an use your cd key that was provided.

That’s it. You just saved about $80-$90 and have a full working and licensed version of Windows 7..
All we did is fool the windows installation and performed an upgrade on top of an upgrade.

If we had decided to only install the upgrade once then the copy of windows would  have never of allowed the CD key to be used because it would complain that an upgrade wasn’t performed over the top of another windows version.

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Cleaning your LCD screen

Aug02
2011 Written by David Smith

We get asked this question quite a bit. The uncertainty on how to do this usually stems from a person being worried that they might ruin the screen. You certainly don’t want to look at your screen when it gets smudged with fingerprints or has a light film of dust.

It is recommended that you use use a non-abrasive microfiber cloth or soft cotton cloth. If a dry cloth isn’t doing the job, you can apply rubbing alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is used to clean an LCD screen before it leaves the factory.

*Be sure not to apply liquid directly to the screen. Always apply it to your cloth and then the cloth to the screen.

 

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Do you publish online, write many emails or chat a lot? If so then you will want this to be added as one of your tools you use everyday.

Jul20
2011 Written by David Smith

I have been hoping this would become free and finally it is.

Smart Type Assistant is one awesome program you can’t be without if you publish anything online, write many emails, or even just chatting. It will auto correct words that are spelled wrong on the fly as you type. The beauty of it is that it works system wide for anything you have open and typing in. It doesn’t just have to work with certain software to function.

You can program it also:
Have it change a word like “isnt” to “isn’t” or “cant” to “can’t”

Make it assign your special word like “myemail” to auto-correct the spelling to write “dave@yahoo.com”

It will also allow you to do multi-line text creation. If you type “signthis” then it can auto-correct it to say…
Fred Jones
www.MyWebsite.com
me@here.com
812-123-1234

Do you chat online? You can make it change all the chat lingo to full words as you chat. Like “wb” could be programmed to say “Welcome Back” and so on…

Many common spelling mistakes are already programmed into the software, but you can add anything you like to be fixed as you type.

The reason it is free now? It was being flagged by virus software as a virus although it isn’t one. The reason is is flagged is because of its ability to change the text as you type. Antivirus software looks at it as intrusive. It is perfectly safe to use and is from a trusted software developer.

I’m supplying the download from our website  Download here
The activation Name and Key needed are below.
Name: Smart Type Assistant
Key: HTNG-CWVV-HKES-UCTC

If you would also like to read more about it from the developers own site you can go to http://www.blazingtools.com/sta.html

Enjoy!

Posted in Software
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