Computer Tip of the Week

As you may have gathered from past posts I don't like ads. Not for what they are but how they are presented. The fact of the matter is that companies have to advertise there is no way around it and I don't blame them for doing it. More particular I am referring to web based ads.

Just about every website you go to these days is going to have some form of advertising, again this is fine for the most part. These ads will help pay for the site that your visiting. The way these ads usually work is that the person running the site will get a very small amount of money (like under 10cents) for each person who clicks on the ad. There are some sites that will plaster ads everywhere to the point it becomes difficult to click anywhere with out inadvertently clicking on an ad. The site will load with a splash screen with an ad you have to close before getting to the site and the top, bottom both edges, as well as a few in the middle will have banner ads. some of them will expand if you move your mouse over them. Then every time you click anywhere it will throw up ads and pop ups any chance they get.

This kind of behavior is unacceptable in my mind and I tend to avoid sites like this as much as possible. But there are times when you need information or what ever is on the site your accessing. Don't worry there is still hope there is a few programs out there that can help to block those pesky ads.

My recommendation is using an add-on for Google Chrome called AdBlock. Not only do I find that Chrome is a faster browser than IE or Firefox but also AdBlock is built in the browser so you don't have to have any extra configuration or separate programs running. You just need to follow the link above and click the install button and that's it. It is a free and legal program it also comes from the Chrome Web Store that checks it for viruses.

Once installed it will remove most ads that load on websites. So far I haven't seen any negative effects of using this. most ads don't show up at all but other times you'll see boxes where ads should be but are left blank.

Some people will argue that blocking ads will have a negative effect on the "Free Web" meaning sites that generate income by ads alone will be unable to maintain their site if too many people block the ads. I say that income generating ads have already been tainted and destroyed by those greedy people out there that over populate sites with ads as well as tricking and or in some cases forcing people to open ads that they don't want to click on.

On top of that ads are getting to the point where it is becoming a security risk. Some ads don't have the honest motive of selling a product or service. Some ads (not most) have malicious intent of infecting your computer with spyware, malware or viruses. The most common ads like this that come to mind are the ones that try to convince you that you have won something or that your computer has some kind of errors.

Last thing I want to mention on this post is that, First: you haven't won anything nor will you win anything just visiting a website. Second: There is no way a website can determine if your computer is infected or has errors or software problems or anything like that. (only exception to that is there is some sites that can setup scans and such but it requires that you download stuff before hand and I would recommend that you avoid it unless you know 100% it's a trust able site)

Computer Tip of the Week

This week we will talk about the golden rule: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP, and BACKUP!

No matter who you are if you use a computer there is a good chance (around 99 and 3/4%) that you have data. For the most part we like to keep that data. The time I spent working for Dell Technical support I replaced lots of parts for may people from my experience I have noticed The most common part of your computer to fail is: anything that isn't inside it(mouse, keyboard that sort of stuff) But usually it's minor and easily replaced. The second most common part of your computer is your monitor(yes it's not in your computer but I keep that separate because it costs much more then that other stuff.) It happens less often now that most people are using LCD monitors(my guess is most of the CRT monitors are broken or are horribly distorted by now). Close behind is your hard drive maybe even more so if you use a laptop.

Your hard drive is a little silver box and it holds all your pictures, all your program, and all your documents on it. Now I want you to close your eyes(second thought keep them open so you can read) and picture your computer(it should be easy sense your probably looking at it) and imagine that it explodes into little burning chunks. It's unlikely that this will happen but this would be a scenario that would make your data impossible to recover. Now think of all the data on the computer that you will lose never to get back again. For a few people this may not be much and may not mean much for others it may be a lot and may be a very big deal.

There is many ways to backup your data and all of them are good ways to protect your data from nasty bad things happening to them. The best way to determine what backup method is best for you is to find out how much data you want to backup and how often that data changes. I'll list the methods of backing up data followed by an explanation of each method. The listed by amount of data needed to be backed up:

Under 1GB: CD

8GB: DVD

20GB or less: Flash drive(sometimes called thumb drive)

25-50GB: Blu-Ray Disks

250GB to 1TB(1000GB): Internal/External Hard drive.

With the reduced cost of flash drives compounded with the increased capacity CD's and DVD's aren't the best way to go they are better for sharing data with others. If you have a smaller amount of data to back up just stick with a flash drive for $20 you can get a good quality 8 GB drive and if you need a little more around $50 you can get 16-20GB. Blu-ray isn't gonna be the best idea unless you already have a Blu-ray burner. If you need to backup more than what a flash drive can handle your your wanting to backup your whole computer then an external (or internal) hard drive is the best way to do it. Right now 1TB external hard drive is going for about $100 and for peace of mind knowing your data is save it's not a bad deal. One of these drives should be more than enough to back up everything on your computer unless you have more data than the average user.

How should you back up data? There are a few programs that can help you backup data, some hard drives will even come with these types of programs. I was going to recommend some programs but I really can't because I haven't used many. The only one that I have used and like and would recommend is Symantec Backup Exec but that's more for Businesses and can cost over $1000. For my personal backups I use an external hard drive and a flash drive for other things. To manually backup your data all you need to do is open the location of your data and drag it to the hard drive. Once you see the data on the hard drive it's backed up and to restore it just do it the other way.

How do I make sure I backup everything I need? A great tip is to save everything you need in your "My Documents" folder (Just "Documents" in Windows 7). If you do that then all you need to do is open your documents folder and copy everything in there to your external drive. In XP and Vista it will contain your pictures and music as well, if you use 7 then just click on the start button (aka the Pearl) and in the text bar near the bottom type in "Libraries" and press enter. This will bring up 4 folders: "Documents" "Music" "Pictures" and "Movies" all of these folders should contain everything you need to back up. Don't get into a bad habit of saving things to your desktop, it's a bad idea and just makes it look messy. (it's also a pet peeve of mine) If you do just make sure to grab those files too, you can just drag and drop from the desktop to your backup location. Backing up programs that are installed on your computer isn't needed and even if you back it up it might not work if you copy it back, it's better to just reinstall programs if you lose them. If it's a program you downloaded off the internet and you want to keep it handy so you don't have to download it again just save the install file to your backup that way you have a way to reinstall it if needed.

Does email need to be backup up? If you use an internet email like Gmail, Live Mail, Yahoo, or anything that you can get to from a web browser then no you don't need to back it up unless you save it to your computer in some way. If you do save your emails just make sure to save them to your documents folder and your all set. Probably your work email will use an Exchange or POP email server this does require some more steps to make sure that it's backed up but I don't want to go so deep into that right now or this post will never end.

What about fires, thieves, or things that can physically damage data? If you keep data that would in some way be detrimental to you or others in any way financially or personally then taking extra steps to insure it's protection may be a good idea. There is a few companies out there that will help you backup your data over the internet like Mozy for a monthly fee. I would only recommend that you keep the data you backup over the internet to more critical data because backing up and recovering data over the internet can take much more time depending on your internet connection. But this will be able to access your data anywhere you can access the internet. Backing up data over the internet does also create new risks such as hackers trying to steal your data. It's a small risk and I'm sure the backup companies do everything to make sure that does stay at a minimum. Just make sure to keep a strong password. (I'll do passwords for another computer tip sometime.)

What do I do if something bad happens and I didn't backup my data? First let me say this: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!!! But really if your hard drive crashes or your computer breaks, your you accentually delete your important files followed by emptying the recycle bin not all is lost there is methods of recovering data but this can become very expensive depending on how bad it is and isn't something that I would want anyone to experience. (I'll cover data recovery on another tip)

I want to end this post with an experience I had working for Dell technical support. I had a collage student call in who had purchased a laptop from dell. She was calling because there was a problem with her computer not being able to start. She was very concerned because finals was in a few weeks and she had been working on a big project or something. (can't remember exactly what it was but it was vital to her graduation) She continually reminded me of this every few minutes as I walked her though some steps to run the diagnostics on the computer. Once the diagnostics came back with the results confirming what I thought was the problem. I had to break the bad news to her that the drive had gone bad to the point where it will need to be replaced. She realized the severity of the problem while trying to hold back the tears she asked about her data. While Dell will replace the bad hard drive with a new one they don't cover any data so she will have to find a method of recovering the data from some other place. While trying to calm her down from her sobbing I tried to reassure her that it's still possible to recover the data and recommended a few places that might be able to help her and encouraged her to make sure she keeps a backup of her data from now on. I don't know what happened after that other then that she got a new hard drive but I could speculate that she would probably wind up spending around $400 or more just to try recovering the data and even then it's not 100%. All of her anguish could have been prevented by a simple little flash drive that you keep on a key chain.

As always if you need more help with backup or recovery talk with me I can at least point you in the right direction, if not help you more.

Computer Tip of the Week

I'll try to post some other content between the tips of the week but you'll have to just deal with it for now.

This weeks tip is for general maintenance and making sure your system doesn't get slow. The number 1 cause of computers slowing down is "Virus/Spyware/Malware" all those nasty things you don't want on your computer.

At one point while working at my current place of employment they thought it would be a good idea to dip their feet in to the general consumer support rather than just businesses. They have sense changed their minds "with a big relief to me" but while they were poking their head in places they shouldn't they had purchased a company called iTOK (pronounced: "I Talk") iTOK was a Geeksquad type company but was web based. You could just go to their website and request help with any issue you might have with your computer and one of their techs would jump on your computer and fix it for you. For a while I was one of the techs that would be doing the fixing it was one of the worst few months of my life but that's for another post.

To get to the point of my babbling one of the big services that iTOK provided was computer maintenance. For just a mere $80ish per month a computer tech will jump on your computer and run maintenance to make sure your computer is running at peak performance. Before you all go running to get singed up for this service let me save you all lots of money, in fact all your money. The secret to iTOK is that everything they do can be done by anyone for free with little effort and/or computer knowledge. Every single program used by this company to keep your computer clean is available to the public for free. Aside from the legal issues with them doing this it's practically theft providing a service that you can do your self for free. It would be a different story if they used a program they had developed or if this was something difficult to do but it's not. Sorry if I go off on rants.

What I am going to do is provide everyone a list of tools you can install on your computer that will help keep your computer free of nasty things and everything in the list is free and legal to use. (what isn't legal is using these programs for commercial use.) This list will be up on the right side listed as recommended Anti-spyware/virus/malware tools. You can install all of these on your computer and they won't conflict with any other software that is already installed. There is one exception, you should only have 1 anti-virus software installed on your computer at one time. They have a tendency to compete with your system and cause lots of performance/stability issues.

The only Anti-virus software I recommend is AVG, it is free software and works just as well as if not better than other Anti-virus software. If you already have software like Trendmicro, McAfee, or Norton you shouldn't install AVG. If your not sure if you have any anti-virus it would be a good thing to check. Most store bought computer will come with a free trial of either Norton or McAfee and if your computer is more than 6 months old these have probably expired by now. You can check by opening your Anti-virus software it will probably tell you in big red letters if you have expired and will probably encourage you to purchase a subscription. Between Norton and McAfee I would go with Norton and would avoid McAfee at all costs (I prefer the AVG over the other 2). I may do another post going into more details on anti-virus preferences another time.

Here is the list of computer skills required to use the programs that are listed: web-browsing, program-installing, launching programs, and clicking the scan now button. So if you feel comfortable doing these things you can run these on your computer your self (even if you feel like you can't I bet you could if you tried). Once installed all you need to do is open the program and click the scan now button. This may take some time so it's a good idea to start them before going to sleep or while doing other stuff (unless you find real joy out of watching progress bars fill, I know I sure do!). Once completed the program will tell you the results, if it finds something it may ask you what you want to do and the answer is almost always "Delete", "Quarantine", or "Remove". Some of the programs like AVG will scan automatically and it will usually ask you to choose the time it scans when you install the program.

For the rest of the program you'll need to run the scans manually, the frequency is determined by what type of web browser you are. If you check a few of the same websites once a week or less and rarely download anything, then scanning once ever other month or even every 4-6 months would be fine. If your a moderate web browser who tends to stick to the sites that your familiar with and only download things from people or places that you trust, then running a scan once a month would be recommended. If your the kind of browser that love to type random words in Google and open up every page you find and loved to play whack-a-mole with pop ups and can't help but download anything and everything, I would recommend you run scans on a daily basis also I would recommend you give me a call and I can give you more tips on safe web browsing habits. (This may be a computer tip of the week soon)

Thanks for reading I know I can blab a bit and I'm not the best writer but hopefully this can help a little. Also you can feel free to give me a call anytime and I can help you out with any of your computer issues I love to do it. (if you don't know or can't find out what my phone number is, IE your not a friend or family member send me an email: warclark@msn.com and I'll see what I can do.)

Computer Tip of the Week

Been sick lately but I'll get these on a set time of the week at some point.

Tip this week is a list of 3 easy steps you can do to try to fix your computer problems before trying to get help from others.

#1 - This is the most important thing you can do it may seem simple and I don't mean this in an insulting way but it's a common mistake and you would be surprised by the number of people I talk with that don't even do this. Read the error message if there is one. Some times these messages won't make any sense to some people and that's fine but some times it gives clues to even the most un-computer savvy people out there. So if the message says something like "You must reboot the computer before running." you'll know that rebooting might fix the issue.

#2 - This brings us to the second simple thing you can do to try to fix your computer problems. Reboot the computer! This actually works with most electronic devices. Rule of thumb is to make sure the computer says off for 10 seconds before starting it again. This will give it time to allow the electricity to dissipate before turning it back on. Also if your internet connection stops working rebooting your router will almost always fix it and anytime you call your internet provider they will almost always have you do this first.

#3 - This one is and can be a bit more tricky then the reset of them but some times it can be super quick and easy is is always worth a shot. This step is your new slogan: Just Google it. Nike was close but didn't quite get it right. Be sure to be as exact as possible for searching for the error. For example if your getting an error message when trying to run a program type the exact message your getting and what program something like: "Critical Fault running Office Word 2007" also including what version of Windows your running may help if your using Vista or Windows 7. Before you say "Oh I'm using a Mac" don't bother that's a problem of it's own.

Some where out there Google probably has an answer to all your computer problems but finding them can some times be a challenge and then once you find the answer it may be too difficult or you might not feel comfortable with digging in places you've never been before in the computer and that's fine but your one step closer. Best thing to do is to avoid the pit falls of searching Google. Always try to stick to the web sites of companies you know of. Under each site listed in Google it will give you the address like www.microsoft.com/****** or dell.com/*** or what ever always look at those before even clicking on them. Never go to sites like computerfixit.com or fastcomputerfix.com or anything like that that includes fix or fast repair or what ever in the address. They might be legit but not worth the risk. I wouldn't recommend checking any forums sites unless your ready to roll up your sleeves and really get into it. Most of them will result in being something like first post is the person saying what their problem is and asking for help followed by 20 more posts of other people saying they have the same problems or it may be a similar problem but not the same that your having. It's best to just stick with sites from the company of the program or hardware that's having the issue or from Microsoft anything else might have the answer but can be hard to find. Also if you don't find it in the first few pages of your Google search it's probably best to give up or change the wording of your search.

If your still having the problem then you can confidently ask others for help knowing you have done what you can. I just want to leave you with one last word of advice. Never take your computer to geeksquad or other similar places they will over charge you for things that are not needed. Just give me a call I'll love to help you with your computer problems for free or even point you to the right people to help with your problems who will in many cases help you for free.

Tip of the Week

Going to start a new thing. You'll notice a section to the right called Tip of the week. I'll try to keep up on this. Every Sunday night I'll update it to a new tip and some where keep a log of all the old tips. This will just be some kind of random computer tip to help keep it running good, fix common issues, or in some way help to better your computer. I'll also try to keep things simple.

Edit: Decided that I didn't like the side bar format so I'll just add the tip of the week as a post that way it will archive it for me and I think I can organize them some how. So here is this weeks tip:

There is very little programs out there that you can download to fix your computer. Even if it is legitimate you should still be able to fix the issue without downloading a program. The only place that I would say you can 100% safely download tools to fix your computer is at support.microsoft.com most of their articles now have an option to just download a tool that will fix the issue your having but even still they do provide manual instructions on how to fix it. For the most part the tools for fixing computers that are found randomly while searching the web are just viruses. The same goes for websites or banner ads that say your computer is broken or infected.