A Bogus Call From "Windows" Reveals Scam

Be wary of anyone claiming to be from "Windows"

A few weeks ago my friend Monique called me and reported that someone from "Windows" called her and said that her computer had been sending out private information about her and the person wanted her to download and install something.  She told the guy that she didn't really know much about the computer and asked if he could call back in half an hour when her husband would be in.

That's when she called me.  The big red flag for me was the fact that the guy said he was calling from "Windows."  I asked Monique if she was sure he said "windows" and not Microsoft.  She was sure.  So I came over and we waited for the phone to ring.  I was not disappointed.

When I got on the phone I asked the guy where he was calling from and he said England.  He had a bit of a non-British accent but I'm not sure what it was; possibly Indian, I'm not certain.  He confirmed he was calling from Windows and I asked him if he meant Microsoft and he repeated that he was calling from Windows, from the technical division. He said that a technician would help me solve the "problem" and it may cost money if the problem was really severe.

I pretended to play along to see what he was up to.  He wanted me to download a file from a website which would allow him to "inspect" the computer.  I was familiar with the program because it is a legitimate program similar to VLC used to log onto people's computers, usually used by technicians and engineers to take over a PC.  I deliberately frustrated him by pretending I just couldn't log onto the site, claiming it must be the virus that is interferring.  And he did get frustrated much to my pleasure.  He kept trying to get me to log onto a different website which was a redirector to the legitimate site.

If I had been a bit more keen I would have asked for his name, number and company name.  Instead, however, I just thanked him for the information and said I would reload my machine from scratch which would thereby destroy the virus.

In conclusion, let me tell you that this was indeed a scam which I looked up after the phonecall.  Here's more info from Microsoft's site.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-security/phone-call-scam-received-call-from-a-technician/6ed2b99c-20ff-468b-a69b-aec78b93f287

I'm glad Monique called me because I have not had to deal with that scam before or since then and it was good to have that experience.

That's it for now.
Happy computing!

Big Mike

A Little Tap'll Do Ya

Recently I was asked to try to save the data on a failed hard drive.  This was a fairly new 2 terabyte Western Digital "green" drive.  I was told the drive just "up and stopped" one day and the drive letter disappeared.  I've had the opportunity to retreive data on lots of drives before, and this, I thought, would be no different than the hundreds of others I had managed to get data from.

I hooked the drive up to my test machine and hit the power button.  The machine took a long time to initialize the drives, and then gave me a failure message from the one I had hooked up.  I felt the top and bottom of the hard drive and it didn't feel warm, nor did it feel like it was spinning the platters inside.

My first thought was that it was indeed 'hooped" and beyond my level of repair.  So I called my client and told him what I had discovered.  He said he was between backups on that drive and that there was some stuff on there that was very important.  I told him there were some data recovery companies in BC and we could ship his drive over to one of them but it was not a cheap process.  He wanted to know how much and I said it was at least several hundred dollars for sure.  I told him I could do some research for him and come up with some sort of plan.

I called around and talked to a few recovery companies on the mainland, and came up with the best deal I could find and that was about $750, and if no data could be recovered, then no charge.  But I also had to send a second drive for the data to be copied to and provide a list of the most important folders on the drive so they would at least have something to search for while the drive was running in some capacity.

After working out a deal and confirming with my customer how to proceed, I was getting ready to send in the two hard drives via Purolator.  But during a quick meeting with my engineer friend, I had an idea I would try.  He said it was possible that the platters were just "stuck" because they were in the middle of a read/write when something happened.  He suggested I try holding the drive parallel to the floor and quickly spin the drive back and forth with my hand.  The idea, of course, was to make the case spin faster than the platters, thereby breaking them free.  I tried that a few time but it didn't work.

Then I had another idea.  I was thinking of times when I have had worn brushes on a car starter and had to tap tap tap on the side of the starter to make it move just enough to move past the flat spot so I could start the car.  I took a little hammer and tap tap tapped on the edge of the hard drive in the same manner.  Then I hooked the drive up again to my test machine, and VOILA!  It spun up.

I was so excited.  I allowed my test machine to boot up and I was able to read the drive.  It needed to run a CHKDSK to correct a few small errors, but after that it was able to operate normally.  I called my client and told him the good news.  He was all smiles.  I told him of my new plan to copy his data to a spare drive I had and then to run a thorough diagnostic on his drive.  He agreed.

Well, it took awhile to do all that but overall the result was good.  My customer paid me for my time and expertise.  And it was lest costly than 'Plan A,' so he was pretty happy.  Me too.

So the next time a drive doesn't spin up for an unknown reason, you have something you can try before you send or throw it away.

Happy Computing!

Big Mike

What's Wrong With 2 AntiVirus Programs?

I just finished repairing a client's machine that had stopped being able to boot with an accompanying "blue screen of death" (BSD). Every time I tried to boot the machine it would get to the part where it was about to display the Welcome Screen, there'd be a BSD, and then the machine would reboot leading to the same result.

Although I cannot say for certain, I suspect that if my client had taken this machine to FutureShop or Staples, he might have been told his computer would need to be reloaded with Windows.  What did I do to fix it?  I hooked his hard drive up to my Test Machine and ran chkdsk.  That fixed some garbled entries of the Master File Table (MFT).  I was then able to put the drive back into the client's tower and was then able to boot.

Once it was booted up I was able to make an educated guess as to what happened and why the machine crashed in the first place.  I saw three things right away that I believe were unwitting culprits.

1. System time was off by about 15 minutes. Windows Update depends on your machine being in sync with Microsoft's servers.  Some updates just won't happen if the time it out by more than a few minutes.  Having the time go astray is often the result of a low battery on the motherboard.
2. Recent updates had glitched after a reboot.  Once I was able to fix the MFT and get the machine up and running, it finished these recent updates.
3. There were two AV programs: BitDefender and Avast.

So what's wrong with having two anti-virus programs?  When I asked my client later he said that he thought two would be better than one and that they would work together as a team.  I politely informed him that this is not the case.  In fact, the two programs will compete to try to do the same job.

Suppose one program detects a virus and quarantines it (as it should).  Later, the second program scans the same machine, and finds the virus again, but this time it's found in the quarantine folder of the first AV program.  The second program will try unsuccessfully to quarantine it but won't be able to because the file has been locked (quarantined) so as not to contaminate the machine again.

What happens after that varies.  Sometimes the machine just gets really slow.  Sometimes it crashes.

Can you see how this would be a problem?  Two anti-virus programs do not work together "as a team;" rather, they will fight to see who can do the job first.  It is my hope that after reading this article you will know better and save yourself some future frustration and cash.

Happy computing!

Big Mike

Staples May Inadvertantly Sell Your Data

In the June 22, 2011 edition of the local paper I saw this headline:

"WATCHDOG: STAPLES RESOLD HARD DRIVES WITH PERSONAL INFO"

The article went on to talk about the federal privacy watchdog says Staples Business Depot stores failed to fully wipe personal info and data from laptop computers they resold.  Apparently this has been an on-going problem, which is not good.  After the audit Staples responded saying it was actively testing several means of fully wiping data from returned products without damaging or destroying hard drives or operating systems.

Today's blog is about how to make sure this does not happen to you or your data.

The article did not say exactly how these problems manifested themselves but I can make an educated guess.  I suspect a scenario where someone buys a laptop, uses it for a few days, and then brings it back saying it's not for them or they'd like one that's a bit better.  But in the meantime while they had it they set it up for themselves and copied or stored data, not thinking it needs to be erased before bringing it back.  Or, perhaps someone bought an external hard drive to back up their stuff and then realized it didn't have enough storage space.  So they bring it back and trade it up.

So what can you do?  Here's a simple solution.  And you don't have to be any sort of computer whiz to do this.  If you have purchased a new laptop from Staples or Futureshop or whatever, and you've used it for a few days and saved stuff to it's hard drive, what can you do to make sure someone else doesn't have to deal with your data?

1. Open the Control Panel
2. Find/Click on User Accounts
3. Click on Manage Another Account (Win7)
4. Find/Click on Create a New Account
5. Give the new account a name (such as "BigMike" or "User2")
6. Put the radio dot on "Administrator" account (rather than Standard User) and then click the "Create Account" button.
7. Do not create a password.
8. Log out of your account (for the last time).
9. Log onto the new account from the Welcome Screen.
10. Go into Control Panel, find User Accounts, and delete your old account.
11. If it asks if you want to keep the files, say NO.
12 Log back out and turn off machine.

It's ready to go back to the store now, or even to give to your neighbour or relative without fear of your data being accidentally left on there.  As long as you didn't store data in any other folder other than your own Documents/Pictures/Music folders, all your old stuff should be gone now.

The other thing you could do would be to do a Restore to Factory Default on the laptop.  This takes a long time, however, and is probably not necessary unless you've got a virus or corrupt data.

If I were the Tech Director at Staples, even though it would take extra time, I would insist all the techs learn how to restore to factory settings for laptops so there's almost no chance of any old data being found.*  That said, read how data is erased below.

Until next time,
Happy Computing!


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*NOTE: You have probably heard that even when you delete data from a hard drive it is not really "gone."  This is true but let me tell you what the means.  When you delete a file or folder from a hard drive, it normally goes to the Recycle Bin.  While in the Bin it can be restored if necessary, so you know it's not really gone permanently.  If you hold the Shift button down while deleting a file or folder, it will ask you if you want to "permanently" delete this file.  That's because when you hold the Shift key down while deleting it skips the Recycle Bin and erases the index entry on the hard drive.  In effect, the file is deleted and it would be difficult to get it back.  Difficult that is, but not impossible. 

When the index entry is erased, it's sort of like removing a section from the Table of Contents of book.  Just like a ToC in a real book, it doesn't delete the actual pages where the information is written, but it erases what page it was on, making it difficult to find again.  The file or folder can still be recovered again with not too much trouble if you know what to look for.  As soon as another file overwrites the spot where your file or folder was, it is essentially gone.  Same goes if the drive is defragged.  Your data is "gone" for all intents and purposes.

The RCMP has software that can get back data that has been deleted or defragged up to 6 times.  If you are REALLY paranoid, you can download something called the "Guttman" process which erases and overwrites the hard drive 7 - 32 times.  Very little chance of getting your data back if you run this process.  You could also defrag the drive and each time will push your old data further and further away from being resurrected.

Buy New, or Upgrade?

Which way do you go?

This week I had a client (whom I'll call "Joe") who has a diagnostic device that requires a serial port on a computer to plug into. For a long time he had been using a Compaq laptop, circa 2004, which had, as many laptops of the day, a serial port.

Well, Joe's laptop has definitely seen better days. The battery was toast and the hard drive was just about shot, but salvageable. It could use more ram too at only 768 megs. Adequate, but not great.

At this point, Joe is asking what it costs to replace all this stuff and I do a quick check and it would normally be well over 3 or 4 hundred dollars with labour and taxes. He figures he could put that money into a new machine instead of fixing up the old one. But a new one could be $600 and up after all is said and done. Then a person would need to purchase some sort of adaptor to turn USB into a Serial port. Unfortunately, there are potential issues with these adaptors and not ALL serial port devices will work through them. There was a chance Joe could spend several hundred dollars getting a new maching, only to find out later his usb/serial device works but it sometimes is flaky or inaccurate, or slow, or stops responding.

To upgrade, a new 160 gig drive to replace the 40 gig is about 80 bucks or so. As for a new battery, I called one place and they wanted $178!!!! I was a bit shocked. I called another place and was able to get one sent to me for about $80. Pretty good deal compared to the first quote, that's for sure. To max out the ram on that laptop would be about 130 bucks and bring it up to two gigs of ram. Great for Windows XP.

Since Joe didn't have much money we decided to upgrade, but not everything; just the hard drive and battery. These are the two most critical things. The ram can wait. So we ghosted over his old drive to a new one and replaced the battery, and now it runs like it was new. Joe is happy.

If Joe is happy, I'M happy.

Things that make ya go "hunh?!?"

Recently I worked on a machine that was giving me a false message. It was telling me on boot up that the bios needed to be updated and was asking me to insert either a cd with the xxxx.rom file or a usb drive with the same.

After a lot of time spend trying to "please the machine" by running bios updates in various ways, it became apparent that the real problem lay elsewhere. I removed all the pci cards and powered up. No change. There were four sticks of ram; I removed two of them them and powered up. Hey, it booted! Something with the ram. After trying various combinations I was able to determine which of the four was the problem.

This is kinda like your car stalling with a message on the dash saying you're out of gas. But then you get out and see you have a flat tire. You fix the tire and suddenly the low fuel light goes out.

Sometimes things aren't always what they seem when fixing pc's.

Custom Building a Computer

If you are a small business and you need a computer to do a particular task, it might be a good idea to consult someone (such as myself) to see what sort of parts would make a good machine for your particular needs.

For example, if you wanted to edit video, you would need a much more powerful machine with higher end parts than you would to, say, create spread sheets or type a newsletter. Or if you were a serious hardcore gamer and had a really huge budget, you would want to build a better machine than what it would take to, say, surf the web and play your favourite movie on dvd.

But you know what? You don't need to be a computer whiz with years of experience to know what you want in a new computer for your specific needs. The hard part is deciding which way to play with numbers so you get the best bang for your hard-earned buck.

Here are a few pointers you may find helpful.

1. If you are into editing pictures with Photoshop, believe it or not, you do not need a high-end video card. What you need is lots of RAM power, rather than video power. So there's no need to spend a bunch of money for a video card unless you're doing something with video files or you're a gamer.

2. If you want to build a decent gaming machine, don't cheap out on the power supply; get a really decent one. If you buy a cheap one you're just looking for trouble. Remember that clean power is what your machine really likes. The power coming into your home is not "clean" power, meaning there are constant spikes and dips and noise on the powerlines. Having a battery backup power supply (or UPS) will clean the power for you so your power supply doesn't have to. Now, I say this about gaming machines, but really, my advice is to stay away from cheap, light power supplies altogether unless it's just an emergency temporary fix.

3. Don't worry about maxing out the ram on your motherboard. Just get what you can for now and fill in the rest or upgrade later. Just because your motherboard is capable of supporting 24gigs of RAM doesn't mean you have to make it full from the start.

4. Make sure the front side bus (or FSB) matches or exceeds the speed of your RAM. RAM will typically get faster and cheaper so you can fill up later. For now, however, it would be okay to get a motherboard with 1333MHz FSB and DDR3 RAM at 1333MHz. It would also be okay if your FSB was 2000MHz and your RAM was 1333 as this would still work well and you could always upgrade the ram later. It's not so easy to upgrade the motherboard.

5. Look for the "sweet spot" when it comes to getting the best bang for your buck with your CPU. For example, you could buy an Intel Core i5 2.8GHz for $173. But right next to it is the Intel Core i5 3.1GHz for $177. It's a "no-brainer." Spend the extra 4 bucks.

6. Harddrives. Have you noticed that some brand names of hdd's are using colours to designate various designs now? For example, Western Digital sells "blue" drives, "green" drives, and "black" drives. What's the difference? Speed. The Green drives are spinning at 5400 rpm while the Black drives are spinning at 7200 rpm. Black drives are almost twice the price of Green drives at the moment. If you can afford it, go with the Black drives. If you need a "value" machine, go Green.

As I mentioned, playing with the numbers is the harder part of building a new machine. In general, I usually spend the most money on motherboard, CPU, tower and power supply. The other stuff I don't mind "cheaping out" on like the DVD burner or card reader. Personally, I like spending a bit more on a nice case rather than just a ho-hum run-of-the-mill tower that everyone else has. But that's just me. Some people don't give a dang about how their case looks, just so long as everything fits.

Hope that helps.

i3, i5, or i7? Which is best for you?

i3, i5, or i7? Which is best for you?

I don't know if you can read this nifty little chart to the right here, but Intel has three main naming conventions for their CPU's.

Here's the short story:

ALL i3's are dual core

SOME i5's are dual core

OTHER i5's are quad core

ALL i7's are quad core

If you're going to be reading and writing emails on your computer and maybe burn a cd or two, an i3 is probably ideal for y our needs.

If you will be editing audio and maybe playing the odd high end graphics game now and then, you'll want at least an i5.

If you want to be using Autocad, hardcore gaming or any other 3D rendering stuff, or video editing, you'll want the i7's quad core processing power.

And, of course, they range in price accordingly, with the i3's being the least expensive.

5 Things to Consider when Buying a Computer

What to look for when buying a computer.

This is a rather huge topic so this blog post will hardly be "exhaustive" by any stretch. Rather, these are just a few simple things you may or may not already know about buying a new computer.

1. What will this computer be used for? If you want a travelling machine that you can take on holiday and type emails along the way, you don't need anything high end. Almost any cheap (or rather, "inexpensive") laptop will do. Creative writing, spreadsheets, databases, power point presentations are all pretty easy on any computer and none require a lot of horsepower. On the other hand, if you are planning to record and edit high def video, a cheap machine just will not do the job. If you're semi-serious about editing video then more than likely you'd want a desktop type PC that won't be moved around much after it's initial set up to get that job done, so a laptop will not likely meet your needs. Try to do at least a bit of homework by talking to some computer literate friends or co-workers before you go shopping and at lease figure out what you need this machine to do.

2. Does it need to be portable? Here's something to remember: a laptop is a compressed and flattened down version of a desktop computer. What is gained in space is lost to upgradeability. What is gained in portability is lost to less available internal components. Eight hundred dollars (at today's economy) can buy a pretty skookum PC these days, or a decent laptop. More than likely you'll get a better bang for your buck with the desktop than you would with the laptop. Also, desktops can usually easily be upgraded with a new video card, more ram, nicer monitor, faster harddrives, processors, etc., while you are pretty much stuck with what you get with a laptop.

3. Laptops are meant to be portable, not durable. They will not take much in the way of physical punishment. If you accidently drop a laptop or have one get yanked off the coffee table onto the floor by someone tripping over the power cable, you can almost be assured of some damage.

4. There are three main criteria I look for in a new PC.
- CPU speed. Amount of RAM. Harddrive space.
Firstly, I want to know the CPU speed in GHz (ie. is it a 3.2GHz, or 2.3GHz?). The higher the number the better and the number of cores is good to know too. There are single core processors, dual core processors, tri-core processors, quad-core processors, and even hexi-core processors. The more cores the better. The lower numbered ones will be cheaper, of course, but will be working the hardest to get the job done.

Secondly, I want to know how much RAM it has. Older 32-bit machines have a maximum of about 3 gigs of ram. Some can take 4 gigs but will only read 3.5 at the most. The newer 64-bit machines are usually 4 gigs and up. Sixty-four bit is the way to go if you're buying a new machine today. For those who have older software, SOME of it will not work on 64-bit machine, but that 'some' is very few. Most 32-bit programs will run on 64-bit machine just fine; there are of course exceptions. But we move on.

Lastly, I look for harddrive space. Usually, the more the better, but if you'll be using the computer to write a novel and keep notes and maybe some pictures, you won't need a whole bunch of harddrive space; even a few hundred gigs is probably far more than you'd ever normally use. On the other hand, if you're the person who likes to download stuff and collects every video your friends have sent you in the last 10 years, you'll want to make sure you get lots of disk space. As of today, a laptop sized 1TB sells for roughly $140 to $160 here in Canada. (In five years, if you are reading this blog, you'll either laugh at that price or cry. I remember seeing my friend pay about 800 dollars to upgrade his 486 from 4 megs to 8 megs of ram; when 2 megabyte chips were $200 each. Ouch! I myself paid over $500 for a 10gigabyte harddrive. You would be hard-pressed to even find a 10gig drive today. And it sure wouldn't be a months' rent for it either!)

5. If you are considering building a computer yourself or having one built for you, please don't buy a cheap power supply; and if your data is important, make sure you also buy an uninterupted power supply (UPS) to go with your power supply. That is so you won't have to deal with power issues later on. Get prepared now rather than wish you had later.

I hope that helps.

Upgrading Your Laptop

Most people think laptops are better because they are smaller and take up less space. This is certainly a selling feature of a laptop but there are limitations to laptops of which you should be aware.

Firstly, laptops are meant to be portable, not durable. Meaning, of course, they cannot take much in the way of punishment. If you drop it, there's a good chance it's toast.

Secondly, laptops are not very upgradeable. About the only things you can upgrade in a laptop is the hard drive and the RAM. You will not be upgrading the CPU or the video card.

In my line of work where I repair a lot of computers, a laptop really does me no good. I can't hook up someone else's drive to my laptop, I can not test their RAM or back up their data. But for someone who is on the go all the time and they need their computer, a laptop is awesome!

If you are going to attempt to upgrade either the RAM or the hard drive in your laptop, always remember to remove all sources of power so you don't accidently short anything out. Remove the battery and unplug the laptop before upgrading anything. It doesn't take much to render a stick of RAM inoperable with a static charge. Try to be standing on cement floor or wear a wrist strap and have it attached to ground.

Have a Battery Backup for your PC

This black box you see pictured here is called a "UPS" which is an acronym for Uninterupted Power Source (or Supply). It can save your computers' butt (and probably yours too) one day.

I know it says "APC" on it but that is the company that makes many UPS's. What this mysterious looking box does is provide automatic battery backup power for your computer and monitor in the event of a blackout. This leaves you ample time to finish what you're working on, and turn off your machine until the power comes back.

What happens if there's a black out and you don't have a UPS? A few things. Firstly, your computer will power down instantly, and if you happened to be working on something at that moment, or in the middle of saving a file, you will find that the data you were working on will most likely be corrupt. Secondly, your power supply can possibly get "surged" when the power gets restored, and that's not good for you power supply. It's like a punch in the gut.

A UPS is not just a back up power supply, it also provides "clean" power to your computer. The power coming into your home is "dirty" because it is not a steady stream or flow of electricity; it actually contains numerous small spikes and lulls in power. A UPS cleans this up and provides you with a steady clean stream of power and that's good news for your power supply.

A cheap power supply will not handle spikes and lulls well and it's components will become weak over time. And that can have an adverse effect on your motherboard and other components. A good power supply can handle them better because they are built with better quality parts (a heavy power supply generally indicates a good power supply). A surge protector is a good thing, and can usually do what it claims it can do, but it cannot provide the same protection that a UPS can.

When you buy a UPS, there's one very important thing you need to keep in mind. The number on the front (you see the 1500 in the picture above?) indicates the maximum wattage that it can handle being plugged into it for a certain length of time. Consider the power supply in your computer. If it's a 500 watt, it would be a good idea to get a UPS that is numbered as 600 or better. Some UPS's will have a "VA" in front of the number. VA is short for volt-amps. If you have 1000 watt power supply, get an 1100 or higher numbered VA. This way, you should be able to plug in your monitor, modem and router to your UPS as well. Often when the power goes out, your phone and cable still work, but ordinarily you can't access them because you have no power. With a UPS, you will. The higher the VA number, the longer you can remain powered during a black out.

So while the neighbourhood is dark from a power outage during the next rain storm, you'll be snuggled up behind your computer still happily pecking away on your keyboard. I say that tongue-in-cheek, of course, because the purpose of a UPS is not so much to keep you working during a black out, but rather to give you time to shut down properly without losing whatever you were working on.

You can be hacked at Facebook

ATTENTION! While on Facebook, look at your URL address (the very top box on your screen.)

If you see "http:" instead of "https:" then you DO NOT have a secure session can be HACKED. Go to Account - Account settings - Account security - click change. Check box (secure browsing), click save. Facebook by default has automatically set it on the NON-secure setting!

It's just a little thing but Facebook is a pretty huge place.

Tell your friends.
Surf safe. :)

Keep Your Folder Names Short

256 characters, maximum. That's all you have from the first character in "C:\..." to the last character in "...xxxxx.rar".

Here's an example of when that's a problem:

Let's suppose you acquire or download an album or even a single song, and the person who put this collection together gave it huge long file name so you'd know what it was. For example, you might see something like, "madonna_like-a-virgin_live_1992_super_rare_version_with_special_guest_Kate_Bush_and_Suzanne_Sommers.rar"

If you count how many characters that is, I'm sure it fit fine while it was on the creator's drive. What I've quoted above is 103 characters. If you add "C:\Documents and Settings\Nina_Lolobridgita\Documents\Music\" to the front of that and you can see how long that file name actually has become. Then copy that to a folder on the desktop called "Nina's Other Music Folder". All that added together IS the real name of the file, and if it's more than 256 characters, some bad things will happen; the least of which is that it will be very difficult to back up your music because whatever you are backing up to also follows the same 256 character limit and it will likely complain, or not copy at all and just tell you "an error has occured!"

Sometimes I have to back up people's stuff before I wipe their drive and re-install Windows. I have a licensed version of a really cool program called Vice Versa. It's basically an "X-copy" program (which was the command used to copy everything back in the DOS days) but with a Windows style formating. It comes in VERY handy for backing up data. What's really handy about it is that it can copy and move past files it is unable to copy without coming to a grinding halt to tell you about it.

When you copy and paste in Windows, and if you have a lot of stuff to copy and paste, what happens is that it will start copying until it finds a file that there is a problem with such as it's "read-only" or "file name too long," it will stop and tell you about it but the only solution it offers after that is to say "OK". Then what? You have to rectify the problem, then copy it all again. There's no easy way to make sure of how much or what you've already copied, so you have to start all over again and it will ask you, "Some of these files are already there, would you like to overwrite the existing files?" And of course, if you say "no" the process stops, and if you say "yes" then you are copying again the same stuff you had already copied before. Once you've done this a few times in a row, it gets really annoying and you just want to cry out and scream, "There's got to be a better way!!"

Okay, so I got a little off track there. What I'm saying is that you will invariably have problems if you allow your file names to get too long. Be careful when you unzip or uncompress a file with a long name. It is easy to open up a long filename folder as a .zip or .rar and make it so that it will create a new folder with the same long filename inside of a folder with the same long filename. Try to keep an eye out for this before it becomes a problem.

Keep your folder names short.

Heat is Your Computer's Enemy

It's a really great idea to make sure you clean the dust out of your desktop computer once in awhile. Here's why.

As dust builds up on the motherboard, (or any similar circuit board), heat will be kept close to the capacitors (or "caps" as some call them), and other components and the less heat that escapes, the harder those components will work, until one day they get weak enough to cause other parts to pull harder to draw the juice they need. It can be a cascading effect where one part of your computer gets weak and other parts have to work harder to maintain, until "poof"!

Don't let dust build up. It's bad because it doesn't allow heat to escape. Heat is your computer's enemy.

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Regarding laptops. Do not use them for extended periods of time actually ON your lap because it does get hot. In fact, do not leave your laptop on anything soft like a couch or bed where heat can't escape. Your laptop will die a painful hot death.

Ideally you'd want them sitting on something cool like a metal table. But barring that I'd recommend spending thirty bucks and getting a cooling tray/rack (whatever you want to call it) that it can sit on, hopefully in a comfortable place for your hands to type. The aluminum ones are the better ones in my opinion because it takes a lot to heat aluminum and it cools quickly once the heat is taken away.

The one pictured here is a pretty good design. I'd prefer holes all the way across rather than just the middle part, but that's just me. I'm sure this design works great.

Keeping it cool,

I'm Big Mike

Safely Remove Hardware and USB sticks

!!IMPORTANT!! SAFELY REMOVE HARDWARE

If you have a USB stick (some people call them a "thumbdrive"), you need to know something very important about this device. USB ports are powered all the time with 5 volts. Therefore, you need to power the port down before you remove the usb stick.

Here's how to do it: down by the clock there is little icon that looks like it has a green arrow on it. Right click on that and you'll see "safely remove hardware". Then, if there are several in a list and you aren't sure which one is yours, keep in mind that they are listed in order of the time they were plugged in. If yours was the last usb device to be plugged in to the computer, yours is the bottom of the list. So you choose your device, right click, and click on Remove Device. You should see a message saying, "you can now safely remove hardware" and you'll know that NOW it's okay to take your thumbdrive back and put it into your pocket again.

If you do not do the "Safely Remove Device" part, you may find your usb stick will not work the next time you go to use it. Either you'll see a message saying, "This drive is not formated, would you like to format it now?", OR you may see that it just seems dead and the computer doesn't respond to it. Either way, your stuff is gone.

If you get the first message, you may at least be able to use this stick again. The second one means you may as well chuck it in the garbage because it's dead.

Batteries LIKE To Be Used

It's true. Batteries like being used. That is how they live and thrive. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course, about the rechargeables used in laptops, cellphones and cordless phones.

Rechargeable batteries will develop a "memory" over time, and this is especially bad news if the battery is never allowed to drop below, say, 90%, before it's charged again to 100% where it usually sits at 99% for days on end.

What happens is that after a while the battery will believe it needs recharging when it gets down to, say 92%. So you've hardly used it at all (maybe 5 or 10 minutes) and it's complaining that it needs recharging!

There was a lady who came into the computer shop one day and explained that she had bought this nice laptop to save space and it sat in this one spot for two years without ever being unplugged. Then one day she decided to take it with her on a trip to Vancouver on the ferry and she was stunned to find out the battery wouldn't last more than 5 minutes and it would die. She couldn't understand why it wouldn't last longer, as she had never used the laptop battery. It had always been plugged in.

I explained to her about how laptop batteries develop a memory and there is a way to reverse the damage, or at least make the situation a bit better until you can get a new one. Remove your laptop battery completely and let it sit on a shelf for three weeks. Then give it good 8 hour charge before you use it. Drain it again and set it on a shelf for a few weeks and it will drain completely just sitting there. Charge it up again with a good 8 hour charge (some battery companies suggest 15 hours). If you repeat this a few times, you old battery will come back to life to a certain extent. But the damage is already done and you should think of buying a new battery soon.

Whenever you can, consider your cellphone battery, your cordless phone battery, and your laptop battery. They really do like to be used. If you can, and it's convenient, drain them right down as low as you can before you charge them up again. Rechargeable batteries will last much longer if you treat them this way.

Moral of the story? If your laptop is going to sit plugged in for months on end, take the battery out. Just don't move it around too much because if the power chord gets loose or something, you don't want to have you machine suddenly power down because the chord was yanked out. A battery would have saved you in that case.

Bottom line: use your battery. Or, if you have a laptop that is always plugged in, remove the battery completely.

Check the USB ports

If one day you go to turn on your computer from a "cold" state, and it won't power up, check the USB ports. Sometimes fans and some lights will come on but the machine just won't go further and power up. It can be frustrating, I know.

Check the USB ports. If you have something powered plugged into a USB port (ie, an external harddrive), some machines seem to believe they are already on because they are getting power through the USB port.

If you have nothing plugged into any USB ports, check the ports themselves visually. Sometimes a bent pin or wire can be shorting something. Sometimes people don't allow a USB plug to go in properly and jam it in the wrong way. That can mess things up.

So if after having checked all the USB ports on your desktop or laptop and nothing is damaged or plugged into them, check how much dust is in your power supply or exhaust fan. If there's a lot of dust, you might want to start thinking about purchasing a new machine, and then get this one cleaned out. You will probably need a new power supply.

If you're still not sure, have a professional have a look to troubleshoot your issue.

Don't Cheap Out on the Power Supply

If you are building a new computer, or find yourself needing to buy a new power supply for your existing machine, my best advice is to not "cheap out." The power supply is a crucial part of your computer and a lot of the time the ones they install into Acer and HP desktops seem to be built to be just enough for what's in that case when you bought it and anything more is a strain on it.

Let's talk about tolerance for a sec. Even though the speed limit is 100 kms/hr., most cars on the road these days show on their speedometers that they are registered to do almost twice that speed. Why? Why not make cars so they can only do the speed limit and no more? Because then they would be underpowered. You wouldn't want a car that was on the teetering edge of exploding when you're doing the speed limit.

The point here is to say that you should not buy a power supply that is just enough unless you don't care about your computer. A weak power supply can (and most likely will) cause other components in your machine to over work and become weaker as a result.

If a new power supply, locally, is under say, $50 - $60 range, and promises 500 watts and up, it's probably a cheap power supply.

Feel the weight. If it's really light (like under a pound), stay away. A good rule of thumb is that that the heavier a power supply, the better the quality.

What is "Switch User" for?

Sometimes when you go to log off your Windows XP or Windows 7 computer, you may have seen the option to "switch user". Here's an example of how this option could be used: Let's suppose you are working on a big project on your family computer and you have several programs open simultaneously. Then your significant other comes along and says something like, "I'm expecting an important email today. Do you mind if I check my email quickly?"

Well, it might be a bit of a bummer to have to close down everything you're working on and the thought of having to find all your stuff again in ten minutes may seem like a big task. What to do? You won't need to shut anything down if you switch user. Switching user allows you to leave everything your working on open, and then "Switch User" to the other person's account so they check their stuff. Make sure they LOG OFF afterward and then you can log back onto your stuff and everything is still there.

Here are a couple of things to remember when using this option:
1. If you are downloading something, your downloads will pause while you switch users.
2. Your machine has a limited amount of resources; resources are being used for each "user" that is logged on. Therefore, it's important to have as few people logged on to the machine as possible.

What I have seen a few times when someone complains their machine is slow and I've been called as a tech to come investigate, is that there are several users (like 4 or more) all simultaniously logged on. I see the Welcome Screen with multiple users all indicating they are logged on. This happens when all these users have used the switch user option and then not logged off afterward. So it's important to LOG OFF when you are done to give back the resources to your machine.