Today, we use our computers more then ever. We store everything on them from pictures to important documents. Your data is like gold so you have to treat it that way. If your computer looses all its data and you have no back up, your system becomes an expensive paperweight. We see so many times when a customer will call us with a bad virus infection or a computer that will not boot and they are begging us to save their pictures. The first thing wee ask is “do you have a backup?” Nine out of ten times the answer will be no. With all the online services that are out there today, there is no excuse for not having your data backed up. The new Microsoft One Drive (formally Sky Drive) is a free back up that can get you up to 10 gigs for free. They give you bonus gigs for signing up friends and backing up your phone pictures. In addition if you use Bing as your search engine, Bing gives you points for using the service and if you accumulate 100 points, you can get 100 gigs of space for a whole year. This is a great deal and the service works really well. In addition to back up options that are online, you can also buy USB sticks or external hard drives. What I personally like to do is to image my drive. When you image a drive, you actually save every bit of information that is on the drive and it is bootable. If you image your entire “C” drive to an external hard drive, you can actually swap the media in the event of a failure and boot your computer with it. There are a number of programs you can use but our personal favorite is Casper. This program has never failed me yet. Whenever I made a backup with this program I never had an issue getting it to boot into Windows. In short, be sure you have a backup of your data. Do not rely on chance because it is not a matter of if you will have to format your computer but rather a question of when. Posted by,...
Read MoreIn the old days when you had a computer issue you had to pack up your system, take it to a shop and wait about a week until you finally got it back. Today, that is not the case. Things are a bit different. Now, all you do is call Ring A geek and talk to one of our friendly technicians and everything is done right over the Internet in the comfort of your home. There are a multitude of benefits from having your system repaired online. Probably one of the biggest reasons to do remote is to save gas. Fuel today is not cheap and the prices keep creeping up a little at a time. Once you get used to paying 3.59 the price will go up to 3.65. It will stay there until you get used to that price and then it will go up again. That is the trend with almost everything except remote computer repair. The prices for this service have actually dropped over the past several years. That is why it is such an affordable solution. The second reason that you should use a remote company is time. Time is something that is a premium now days. The days are never long enough to get everything done that needs to be done. When you get your computer serviced by a remote company, you can continue to go about your business around the house or office while your system is being serviced. The next reason is convenience. There is no unplugging, lugging or dragging. When the repair is done, there is no trying to figure out what wire goes where. Your system remains intact through the entire process. Did I mention that it is fast? You system will be ready in an hour or so instead or a week or more. Privacy is a huge concern these days. When you drop your computer off at a shop, the system is out of your sight for days while a tech works on the system. You never know when prying eyes might be looking at your personal stuff or pictures. In a remote call, you can see everything that is going on all the time....
Read MoreIf you are like most computer users, you have had to deal with at least one virus infection in your lifetime. The problem seems to happen when you open your web browser and you are suddenly directed to a new search page that you never saw. Or, you might see a pop up telling you have 2000 errors, click here to remove these errors. Of course, you never installed these programs yourself but where did they come from? Well, the exact answer will most likely never be known but in the following, I can give you some ideas of where you might of picked up the bug. Most virus infections come from overseas and there is no way to track them. What I can say is that you either got it from an infected e-mail or possibly from a bad website. There are tons of websites out there that are infected and if you stray away from the mainstream often, you will eventually find one and get an infected computer. If you are using Outlook, there is a good chance that you eventually will receive an e-mail that is infected. You should never click on links or open attachments unless you are 100% sure what it is and you were expecting it. The safest e-mail system is actually accessing e-mail through the AOL Desktop application. All e-mails are scanned before they reach your desktop. I have never received an infected e-mail through AOL. In addition, you need to be sure Flash is up to date and Java is either uninstalled or set at the highest security setting. If you update your software, be sure you are on the correct website for the software you are updating. We have seen so many calls where the customer went to the wrong website to get the update and received a ton more surprises then they bargained for. For example, if you want to download Firefox, be sure it is coming from the Mozilla website. There are tons of third party locations that offer it as a download and almost all of them mean trouble. Facebook is another place where caution is needed. Be careful where you click. Most operations...
Read MoreSooner or later you are going to want to buy a new laptop. This is especially true if you are still running XP since the end of support for this great operating system is April 8, 2014. Microsoft has delayed this date several times but it looks like they are sticking to their guns this time around. When shopping for a new machine they are lots of factors you will need to look at before making your purchase. First and foremost is the operating system. Almost all computers that are sold at retail stores will ship with Windows 8.1 installed. For many folks, this will not be a comfortable option. Windows 8 is not user friendly unless you are using a touch screen computer or laptop. In addition, it is slower and more sluggish then Windows 7. I have yet to see a “snappy” Windows 8 computer. If you do want a Windows 7 system, you will need to look online at Tiger Direct or HP online. Both places have them available. The next thing you need to decide is what brand you want to purchase. The truth is, most manufacturers get their parts from primarily the same places. They are almost all made overseas and are similar in quality. I would put more emphasis on how much you can get for the money over buying a specific brand. Many folks have a pet peeve for a certain brand and that is fine. For me, I like Toshiba laptops. They have a great looking screen and the ones I have seen are all fast, as long as you get Windows 7. So brand should not be a limiting factor in buying a new laptop. All brands have certain “bugs” that might show up in certain models, as it did for us a few years back from Dell. Overall, almost all the Dells that we purchased were perfect and ran fast. Next, you need to decide how you will use the machine. If you are doing mostly browsing and a few word documents, the standard video card that comes with the laptop will be enough. If you like games and working with videos a lot, then a more powerful video...
Read MoreWhen running an organization, it is necessary to back up important files. Now, one should not simply save data to a local storage device. No, an entrepreneur should put his or her important files on the cloud as this will give everyone another level of comfort. With this in mind, here are five tips about online storage space and how it can help a business. Quality provider One thing about online storage that most people love is the accessibility. In the past, with old methods, one would have to be in the office to access any files. Now, with a dedicated server or other option from Hivelocity, one can reach their data from anywhere in the world. This is a tremendous advantage as it makes it easier on clients and customers who need to download a file or two. Automated Ideally, when saving files to the cloud, one should use an automated system. This is not hard to set up, and an IT professional can do so in minutes. This will allow the company to set the time of the day and week when to send the files to the cloud. This will allow, with one click, anyone to save all the company files. Not everything It is often tempting to save every file on the cloud. But, this is a time-consuming task that will not yield a lot of benefits. Instead, a smart entrepreneur should sift through the files and decide which ones are pertinent and which ones are not important. This will save a lot of time and money in the long run as the company will not waste storage space or time sending the files to the cloud. Security Now, one must remember that files on the cloud are not fully secure. While this is true, with a couple of steps, one will avoid most problems. For starters, a company owner should choose a solid file host. Secondly, and just as importantly, one should use a secure connection and a password that is hard to guess. Compress When sending batches of files, one should compress them. This will allow a person to send them faster and avoid problems with finding files in the future. For a...
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