The State of Technology

#206 The Graying of Technology

2012-02-04T09:45:00.003-05:00

As we all get older, how and what technology we use is important to those making technology products. The "boomer" still outnumber most generations. Now I'm not talking about those big number phones and remote controls you see advertised (death to the first person that gets me one!). I'm talking about how being older influences what technology you buy.

Tablet PCs are incredibly popular by the elders. I would say 1/2 of my tablet sales have gone to the over 50 population. Why? Hmm, Well they are very easy to use. They are essentially simple Internet devices and for many people that is all they need. No mouse, no cords, no reboots. Surprising Microsoft has NO CLUE when it comes to tablets.

Large screen monitors also are big sales items. The eyes go first is the saying. Surprisingly we haven't see an uptick in big speaker sales. The other reason for this is the price is still dropping on large (22"+) displays. Why not buy the bigger monitor.

Boomers love their laptops. They like them lightweight, but with bright large displays. Many who have laptops also have a desktop at home. The younger generations just live with a laptop, no desktop necessary.

For some reason EVERYONE hates cords. So wireless mice and keyboards are also popular.

Webcams to Skype with the Grandkids are also popular. What could be better to just add a webcam to your PC and for FREE you can talk 3,000 miles away and SEE your progeny. My wife found an iPad app that will let her make FREE phone calls. Another big winner combining tablets and FREE calls!

I'm not sure how we older Americans feel about cell phones. I like the latest and best, but many friends just want a simple phone. They aren't much into texting and that is a huge difference with the young. I don't mind turning mine off for hours at a time, and that would threaten the lives of most 20 somethings.

Technology companies are heeding the call of the older American market. The latest Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas had enhanced products for each of the categories I mentioned above. Larger, thinner displays, lighter laptops and better tablets. I'm not sure Tech companies will ever say in public that a particular product is focused on the elderly, but behind the corporate doors, I'm sure they do.

#205 - 2011 Tech review

2011-12-29T10:20:00.002-05:00

As the year 2011 ends, I thought I would look back at the year in technology and the significant items that occurred.

For us at PCSS, the biggest technology change was the addition of our Asus Transformer Tablet PC. It only took a few weeks and we were convinced that tablets are the wave of the future. Other then heavy duty spreadsheets and word processing, you can do it all AND more on a tablet. We use ours for Weather, Internet, Stock market info, email, games and reading books. The latter being the biggest change in our life. We download e-books from our library and read them on the tablet. The format of the tablet - 10" size with back lit color screen - makes it ideal for book reading. Also the use of touchscreen also has changed how we do things. When I get on one of my notebook PCs, I have to stop myself from touching the screen. Goodbye mice and touch pads! The Kindle Fire and new Nook from Barnes & Noble are too small for my eyes, but they sold a ton of them this past holiday season!

Microsoft actually almost led a technology with the advent of Office 365 - the cloud based version of Office. Well almost is giving them something since Google introduced Google Docs several YEARS ago. The problem with Google Docs is simple. Its not Office! We have all been trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint to an extent that anything else just won't work in the business world. We had several clients change over to Office 365. Our warning to them was to have backup Office on their PC. And sure enough Microsoft had SIGNIFICANT outages of the Office 365 product after introduction. Start up problems I'm sure. The US still isn't totally covered by the Internet so you can't have a completely cloud based product, yet. Its coming though.

The big cell phone providers introduced the 4G network. Although we don't have it yet in Covington (coming soon!) we did try it out in the BIG cities and the speed is significantly better. I'm hoping when my cell contract runs out in 2012 that 4G will be more available. Faster is usually better when we are talking Internet. With my use of the new tablet, I don't use my phone for much Internet. Just email and some basic sites. Ideally for me would be a 4G powered tablet (android!) and a phone that just does email, calendar and calls.

The tragedies in Japan and Thailand had significant impact on technology availability. It makes us much more aware of the global nature of technology manufacturing. I wonder if any of the big technology companies will bring back manufacturing to the US to ensure a safer product channel? Right now hard drives are in very short supply and many laptops are getting that way. Solid State drives were not affected by the Asian disasters, but their prices are still too high to be put in all laptops. Apple is putting them in many of their smaller laptops.

The passing of Steve Jobs certainly had much of the press looking back at a remarkable career. If I were giving Steve a totem animal it would be the Phoenix. He resurrected Apple 3 times and that is amazing.

Google tried to get in the social network business with Google+. We joined but don't understand the interface and there just aren't enough people on it to get traction. Facebook rules and everyone else will fail in that area. Of course there were changes to Facebook that made all the users mad. The latest Timeline change will go forth in 2012. Let the social network whining begin!

We look forward to great things in 2012. One that won't be so great is Windows 8. Mark it down as another Microsoft problem child. Also coming out is the new Android operating system "Ice Cream". It has the potential to keep the Android (read that Google) system on top and beat back any Microsoft chance to get into the phone/tablet business. Have a very Happy New Year friends!

#204 Holiday Gadgets

2011-12-03T19:21:00.011-05:00

So what are the hot gadgets this holiday season?

Tablet PCs are very hot. iPads and Android talblets are in short supply and selling well. Inexpensive (less then $70) digital cameras are also hot. I have some customers that buy an cheap camera and just leave it in their car to have just in case. Flat screen TVs are very hot. The price of LCD, Plasma and LED TVs have come down and are available everywhere from Kmart to Walmart to any appliance store.

How about the Spynet Laser Trip wire? For $39 you can protect an area just like in the movies. Anyone that crosses the invisible laser light sets off an alarm. Pets will drive you crazy with this one, but kids love it "protecting" their rooms.

Want to know where your kid or pet goes? Garmin has the GTU 10 tracker. Just attach it to your kid or pet and you can go online and follow them around in real time or at your leisure.

Digital storage is also Big. We have 8GB flash Drives for $10 (a great stocking stuffer). External Hard drives to back up everything were hot, but are no longer available due to the Thailand flooding of most major hard drive makers. Solid State drives are now under $100 for 64GB sizes. These have no moving parts and are great for laptop replacement hard drives.

Last the ereader craze has been raised to a high level with the latest kindle and nooks. They are small (7" screen) but you really do get a lot for the cost. Just make sure you are getting complete Internet access with the ereader.

Wireless printers that let you print from anywhere in the house and from anything (phone, tablet, laptop) are also a very nice gift. You can also print to these printers from anywhere in the world with the e-print feature (HP exclusive).

Need help this Christmas? Just drop us a line for suggestions!

#203 - Scams, Phishing and Internet Safety

2011-11-13T13:42:00.005-05:00

We just heard from an acquaintence how their mother was scammed out of $8,500.00. It was a classic "Gammy Scam". The villian called grandma and posed as a beloved grandson. They say they are stranded/incarcerated in Canada or Mexico. Please don't tell the parents and send money. Surprisingly many seniors fall for this and wire the money to be never seen again. What is different about this updated scam is the detailed information that the scammer has about the relationship. They know the child & grandmothers name, details about the child and have somehow got the grandmothers phone number. It has to be identity theft or just getting info from facebook or other social media. Please tell your friends about this scam and to never wire money anywhere. Also be darned careful what you share online.

Phishing is the attempt to get you to reveal user names, passwords, financial information or other personal information via an email. I get about 3 of these a week. Messages that say your account over due or that your credit card has been canceled. The crooks think of what would worry you the most and send it out via email. Now the email by itself is not bad, It the link enclosed in the email that will tempt you to log in or ask information to make sure you are you. These links are the phishing mechanism. Never click on those links! If you don't know whether an email is legit go to the web site of the company via your normal method (favorites or typing in the address). I call the company that is supposedly having an issue using a verified number (on your credit card or in the phone book) to ask if the message is legit.

Keeping safe while surfing the Internet with a PC is increasingly tough. You just have to have a strong antivirus/antimalware program. The free versions of AVG, Microsoft Security, Avast or Avira used to be good enough, but we have been seeing problems with using just the free version. We increasingly do most of our Internet work on our Mac Mini or our Android tablet (they are safe from contamination for now). Consider upgrading to the pay version of your antivirus if you just have a PC and surf the Internet.

#202 - Steve Jobs and the end of an era

2011-10-24T21:46:00.003-05:00

My first PC was an Apple II. I was (still am!) a geeky engineer that was fascinated that I could have a computer in my house. I already could program (Fortran, Cobal and Basic) so getting a computer that I could train to do just about anything was amazing. Buying it in 1981 also meant I was at the very beginning of the PC revolution. My Apple II cost about $1200 and I bought it through the mail (none were being sold in Baton Rouge then). It came with a floppy disk drive and 64K of programmable memory. Wow!

I subscribed to 3 Apple magazines that had lots of programs I could type in, learn from and then modify to my needs. I also learned about the two Steves - Jobs and Wozniak. Woz the ultimate techno nerd and Jobs the great promoter. Woz would talk about the future stuff we could do to improve our Apples and Jobs would talk about where the world was heading due to a great technology revolution.

As good and successful as the Apple II was (they made it for over a decade!) The next two Apple PCs - The Apple III and Lisa were economic disasters. Even their successor the venerable Macintosh took literally years to take off. And somewhere in that chain of events, Apple let Steve Jobs go. As we all know he came back to start the "i" revolution. ipod, ipad, iphone...

Steve was always about design before function and design integrated into function. The PCs IBM made were boring, square and very functional. Apple PCs just looked better. So much better that there were Apples in museums of art! The importance of design over function lead the incredible success of all Apple products. They are innovative and usually first in class products. They are also pretty expensive. There is no "cheap" Apple product. Thus their tremendous margins and profitability. All thanks to Steve Jobs vision.

I'll miss the Apple product introductions that Steve was famous for. The demonstrations of products that catch your imagination and set you free from limitations the rest of the technology world impose. Vaya con dios Steve. You will be missed here.

#201 - The new PC

2011-10-03T18:30:00.004-05:00

My 4 year old Ultra PC was showing its age last week. Actually it was sounding its age with lots of grinds and hums and fan whines. So what to do? I need a PC to run PCSS. I have accounting and email on the PC that just doesn't work the same on my Mac Mini.

That pushed me to a new PC. Choosing a PC is always a tough decision. What processor? How much memory, What kind of Graphics? So lets see how I visited each of these questions and their answers.

The PC we went with is an HP 6005 Pro minitower PC. It comes with lots of options and flavors so that decision just brought more questions.

Processor did not mean as much to me as some other geeks. The Intel "i" series and the AMD Phenom series are their top end processors. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. For every day computing: Spreadsheets, Word Processing, Internet surfing almost any of the new processors would work. For me it came down to cost per speed. The winner was the AMD Phenom II x4 3.02Ghz processor. This is an upper speed mid range processor. Great multimedia performance with a reasonable cost. I got this processor in the HP desktop for the same price as a slower lower grade Intel processor.

How much memory? The PC came with 4GB of internal memory and a 500GB hard disk drive. Those are plenty for my needs. It came with Windows 7 Professional 64bit edition. I had a spare 2GB memory stick so I put it in for a total of 6GB memory. It seems faster then the Windows XP computer I left with 2GB of memory. Note that Windows 7 - 32 bit edition can only see 3.75GB of memory, no more.

I'm still working on Graphics. The HP PC came with ATI Radeon 4200 graphics internal to the motherboard. I'm going to get a bigger screen (24" vs 19" I have now) so I'll probably need a graphics card that can push more pixels on the bigger screen. The ATI will only do 1280x1024 resolution and I'm sure the 24" display will want 1600x1200 resolution. I'll let you know when I get this worked out.

The PC came with a nice DVD-RW drive with lightscribe printing on CDs/DVDs. I'll add another drive so I can do copies. I'll also put in a media card reader so I can put my camera card in without an add on item.

The tough part is the software. I'm going with Office 2010 (I've been using Office 2003!), Adobe Acrobat 9 (X is the latest version) and Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 7.0 and Google Chrome. Move all the files and favorites, install the AVG antivirus and more. Changing PCs isn't a whole lot of fun. Thank goodness its almost done!

#200 - Ten years later

2011-09-10T09:10:00.002-05:00

Its the eve of the 10th anniversary of the al Quida attacks on America. So much has changed in the world in the past 10 years. Just fly once and your life will be impacted by the hate of extremist 1/2 a world away. Lets take a look at the technology and how its impacted our response to being attacked.

We are now scanned, probed and much of our life closely monitored due to the attacks. Heaven help you if your name coinsides with someone on the No Fly List. Computers have a very significant role in deterring similar attacks. The US Armed Forces even has a Cyber Command to actively attack enemies and defend from same attacks. There is great worry that the next 9-11 will be a cyber attack that shuts down our important infrastructure, like power, Internet and communications. Imagine an attack that shuts down our cell phones? Its been tried quite recently.

The recent earthquake and several hurricanes that have hit Virginia have disrupted our power supply and all that means. We are so dependent on power. One week without power is like being transported back to the 15th century. Every time we lose power, I'm thankful for the battery back up system we have that makes shutting things down safer (no damage to valuable systems). I see the US having more of these back up systems in the future. Sales of back up electric generators is at an all time high in Richmond, Virginia. There have been good talks on how to make our power system safer and hardened to prevent terrorist attacks. I hope we move forward with these proposals.

The us of robots in combat has also come about in the war on terrorism. Drone planes routinely run missions in a very dangerous part of the world. Robots are used to diffuse bombs and go into dangerous areas. These technologies will soon move back into the commercial arena. The use of robots or remotely controlled vehicles will become more common later in this decade is my prediction.

The technology for body scanning was first used in medicine, but has had much research dollars spent on it for security purposes. I would imagine this increased spending will also come back to help the medical fields that invented this technology. Imagine a safe simple scan that can identify the vast majority of diseases in a human. You'll go to the doctor once a year for your scan and know immediately of any issues.

Let's remember the losses we were subject to 10 years ago, but lets move forward as a nation (or better yet world).

#199 - Tablet Follow up

2011-08-11T20:25:00.003-05:00

We've had the Asus Transformer Tablet PC now for over 3 weeks. The docking station came this week, but we still haven't seen the tablet sleeve cover. I've made a nice bubble wrap home made cover to protect the screen while traveling. We've made the rounds of many customers so that they can have a touch and feel of the tablet. Most are favorably impressed with the size, resolution, brightness and speed.

The remarkable initial impression of the Transformer was how quickly it picked up all my information. After opening the box and charging the tablet the first item you see is to enter you gmail account information. From this information the Transformer automatically updated our contacts, calendar, facebook, android apps, and even our wifi location settings (including passwords!) from our android Motorola Droid Pro phone. We only had to add our AOL email info and then download some specific android Tablet apps.

We've been looking for a better calendar app since the android app is pretty simple. We like to enter appointments in the field and see week/month activities fairly quickly. Both of those tasks are tough with the android calendar app. We found several and are evaluating them now. We also added the Opera Android browser. This is a fast browser that has tabbed windows and has a 6 panel favorite sites (like google chrome) you can quickly switch to. I wonder why there isn't Google Chrome for andoid yet.

The USA Today and the CNBC apps for android tablet are also very nice and I highly recommend them for news and financial updates. We put on several card games and of course Angry birds (regular and rio versions!).

Battery life has been very good (around 8 hours) and now we should get near 16 hours with the docking keyboard. My initial impression of the keyboard is positive. Having a trackpad is a huge help with editing in any app. Also nice are the dedicated keys that just make using the tablet on the Internet very easy.

We've had no problems getting on WiFi sites. The antenna seems strong and we have had very few Internet drops (less them my laptops!). The tablet is about the same speed as my Lenovo Windows 7 laptop. Some sites take a bit longer to load, but that happens on all Internet devices.

If you have any question just comment below or email me!

#198 - Tablet in the house

2011-07-24T19:03:00.006-05:00

PCSS now has an ASUS Transformer tablet PC! Shown on the left is the tablet and its docking station/keyboard. The Transformer is an Android Honeycomb tablet PC with the following specifications:
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• NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 1.0GHz dual-core CPU for excellent multitasking & HD video playback
• Android 3.1 Honeycomb O.S. with Adobe® Flash® 10.2 support*2
• Full QWERTY keyboard, touchpad input with Polaris® Office® for mobile productivity
• 16*1 hours long battery life for all day computing with docking station
• Brilliant IPS panel with ultra-wide 178 degree viewing angle made from scratch resistant and super tough glass
• One year of Unlimited ASUS WebStorage, two USB ports, SD and Micro SD card readers for easy sharing & storage expandability
• 3D stereo with max bass response with SRS premium sound
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That's a lot to chew over. First question I get is how does it compare to the iPad2? Its bigger (10.1" vs 9.7" screen), faster (Tegra 2 vs A5 CPU), has better screen resolution and can have a great docking station with keyboard that Apple does not make for the iPad2. To beat the iPad you have to be better all round then the iPad. We have put both side by side and the are very similar in quality and design. The Transformer had a textured back panel that makes it a bit easier to hold. Now there is no denying there are way more tablet based apps for the iPad2 then for all of the Android tablets. However the tablets will run nearly all the 200,000 Android apps from the Android Market. So no shortage of games, utilities (yes the bar code reader works!) and Internet browsing. Oh, did I mention that the Transformer runs Adobe Flash so 99% of all the websites can be shown on the Transformer?
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The last difference is that the Transformer costs $399 (Available from PCSS!) for the tablet versus $499 for the iPad2. The keyboard/dock is extra, but the iPad2 doesn't even have an Apple part equivalent.
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We'll be putting the Transformer through some rigorous testing over the next month. If you would like to see it let Nick know and he'll bring it by (Alleghany Highlands & Hawaii customers only!)

#197 - The Good the bad and the Ugly of Tablet PCs

2011-07-03T10:26:00.007-05:00

We've had access to two iPods (1 & 2 versions) and my android HP tablet that I got with my latest ink jet printer. Enough time to get comfortable with each and some of the apps that you can use on them. So here goes our first hands on review and if you have more or different experience please leave a comment or email us at pcss4u@aol.com.

Tablets are the wave of the future. They are selling at record numbers ( estimated 60 million iPads in 2012 alone). Everyone is trying to get into the act. Phone maker Motorola has the expensive Xoom, Monitor maker Viewsonic has the View, Samsung has the Galaxy and yesterday HP introduced its Touchpad. Important in each of these offerings is what Applications (apps) each has to offer. Apple has over 20,000 apps for the iPad. HP has 300 for the introduction of the Touchpad. The others use the Android system and have thousands of apps.

So what's special about a tablet? Why would you want one? Tablets are the ideal size for a handheld unit. With a 9" to 10" screen most tablets fit very comfortably in your hands. They all have gyroscope/accelerometers that let you view portrait or landscape modes automatically. #1 of importance is being able to get on the Internet. You can see your email, calendar, google the world, read online newspapers and news services. The screens are very readable, but not the best in direct sunlight. Interesting, because of Steve Jobs (Apples CEO) war with Adobe corporation, iPads (using the Safari browser) you can't see any website that uses Adobe Flash Player for animation. The number of sites that use Flash is still over 25%. The Android and HP tablets can all use flash player. The convenience of the small size, nice size screen and portability (they don't weigh much) makes the tablet a very attractive device and thus the huge sale.

Price wise, they all are in the $500-$600 range with wi fi access. You can also get many tablets with 3G Internet coverage via your cell phone company. Unfortunately that means you have to buy an Internet contract from that cell phone company at $30 per month. Free wi fi access seems to be decreasing in this country, not increasing so the phone companies may be on to a lucrative money maker.

Its all about the apps with tablets (good luck HP). We just put several new apps on the iPads that are fun and useful. Leafsnap let you take a picture of a leaf on your iPad and then it will suggest what species it is. You have information on the leaf (front & back), bark, flowers, fruit. You can then put the identified tree in your collection based on location. Very fun and informative. The tablets are made for games such as Angry Birds, that take little skill but are addictive to get a better score. Tablet apps to help in shopping or finding prices are everywhere!

Typing on a tablet isn't too bad. The virtual keyboard is spaced far apart so that my fat fingers can almost touch type. I don't like that you have to switch from alphabet to numeric virtual keyboards. If you use a very secure password such as j1u2n3k4 you'll spend a bunch of time switching between screens and probably will make a mistake. The finger scrolling and gestures are great input devices. Unfortunately, not having a pointing device (no arrows either) makes editing very hard (my fat fingers again).

So I use our tablets for quick Internet access, some email and playing some games. Could I do away with my laptops for a tablet? Not yet. I'm writing this blog on my Thinkpad and I couldn't imagine doing it on a tablet. The input would take longer and editing would be cumbersome. There is a definite niche for the tablet and at its more affordable pricing many people will own a tablet AND a laptop. Comments?

#196 Windows 8 and will anyone listen?

2011-06-07T07:25:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the one month hiatus. I had a death in the family and am just now catching up on work, house and life. We are back to normal and that mean Microsoft announces a new operating system. Windows 8 has been announced, but there is no introduction date. It seems to be Microsofts answer to touch screen tablet PCs. Lots of features similar to the iPad. Microsoft is certainly not known for its innovation, just its marketing.

Now Microsoft didn't ask me what I wanted in Windows 8, but dear readers, let me fill them in via my blog. 1st and foremost I want a safer browser. Although Internet Explorer isn't really part of Windows, it has come with every version of Windows (if it quacks like a duck, must be a duck). Its been a sad excuse for a browser for over 10 years. Its one of the main culprits in malware getting on your PC. The latest version IE9 is better, but it doesn't work on Windows XP which over ½ of the PC world still uses. FireFox and Google Chrome remain better alternatives and PCSS highly recommends them to our customers.

Next would come speed. We have these tremendously fast processors with obscene amounts of memory and it still takes my Windows 7 laptop over 3 minutes to start up and about a minute to shut down. Check out a MAC Microsoft and learn how to start and stop an operating system in an efficient manner. It would also be nice to make it easier to join a network and share stuff. The Windows 7 Home Network (only works with Windows 7 PCs) just isn't universal enough. What business has all the same operating system when a new one comes out? Microsoft supposedly hires smart people. Maybe, but they don't have an once of common sense.

Lastly I would tighten up the rules for programs to run on Windows 8. Make the software people make their programs more efficient and easier to load AND unload. (again take a look at those crazy guys at Apple). Programs do anything they want and generally that isn't good when it comes to loading a program on your computer. Who thought it was a good idea to let any program put files in the operating system folders? ARGH as the pirates would say. Also new programs can take control of resources on your PC and when they close not release those resources. That is just silly.

Ok rant mode off. Those are just 3 items that I'd like to see in Windows 8, but you know they will never see to do them. Nope we'll make a more bloated operating system to try and catch up with the iPad and forget about the 1 billion PCs that exist world wide.

#195 - How fast is fast?

2011-04-27T19:35:00.002-05:00

First of all some definitions. Broadband Internet is also called "High Speed" Internet access. The speed of Internet is defined now by MBPS or Megabits per second. There are two directions of Internet speed: Upload and Download. Download is almost always faster and that is the number that most Internet providers give when talking about speed.

Now some context. The first Internet access was done via dial up phone modems. Their maximum top upload speed was rated at 0.056 MBPS. High Speed Internet was originally defined to be greater then 0.256 MBPS. Now I would say High Speed starts at 1MBPS.

There are several competing technologies to provide Broadband Internet for your use. DSL (digital subscription line) is a technology used mainly by telephone companies to provide Broadband over their telephone wires. This is done by sending the Internet at a much higher frequency then voice telephone conversations. The top end download speed for copper wired DSL is about 6MBPS. The other major Broadband provider for your home or office is Cable. Again Cable Internet uses their existing cable lines in your home/business to provide high-speed Internet. The top end download speed for Cable Internet in the US is probably around 30MBPS. One other difference between DSL and Cable is DSL is a dedicated line to your place while Cable is a shared resource. Meaning DSL won't slow down if your neighbor also has it and is on line, but if you both have Cable the more on the system, the slower the Internet.

Two other newer technologies for Internet are Cell phone systems (the 3G & 4G networks) and Fibre Optic. Cell phone Internet is a wireless system that uses the cell phone towers to provide Interet. Existing 3G technology is capped at download speeds of 3.1MBPS. 4G is the newer technology and could possibly go as high as 100MBPS. That is POSSIBLY. Right now the new 4G networks max out around 6MBPS. Fibre Optic is the fastest of all technologies. Using light waves to sent the Internet over dedicated fibre cables, Fibre Optic Internet can now run as fast as 40MBPS.

In our area Shentel Cable provides up to 20MBPS over their Cable network and ntelos is matching them with Fibre Optic system at 20MBPS. We have 3G in all the towns but no 4G yet. ntelos is going to provide up to 6MBPS to all their wired customers.

So what is the importance of speed? If you want to watch seamless Internet videos (no jumps, skips, bumps) you need over 5MBPS download speed. Multitasking videos, surfing, cloud computing all requires 10MBPS. Just like we keep increasing and using more memory in PCs, we'll keep using more Internet speed.

194 - What are those black dots and squares?

2011-04-04T18:41:00.005-05:00

The image you see below is called QRbarcode. Its used to code text, an Internet address (URL), or a phone number. You can read it with your smart phone and then go immediately read the text, go to the Internet site or dial the phone number. It has great potential use in advertising! The QR (short for Quick Response) barcode was developed by by Toyota. This two dimensional barcode has quickly been adopted in Japan and South Korea and a bit slower here in the west. Toyota used it for car part numbering. Its 2 dimensional design allowed for a small size. The QR contains more information then a standard barcode (limited to numbers). In fact the QR has been used for all sorts of interesting information coding.

QR codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards, or on just about any object about which users might need information. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR Code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the phone's browser. The code in the upper left of this article will direct you to this Blog. The one in the lower left to the PCSS web site.

Recently a real estate client used the QR code to store an URL for more information and placed it on all their hand outs. You could then go to the site that had more pictures and house plan layout. So let your imagination go wild, but first get a smart phone, wireless Internet plan, and barcode reader software. You can make your own QR code at several free web sites. We use: QR-Code Generator Just put in your URL then right click the image to copy the image to your PC.

#193 - The new printer with a tablet thrown in

2011-03-23T20:34:00.005-05:00

HP has released a new all in one that caught our attention. The HP Photosmart eStation 510a is a printer, scanner, copier and fax machine with one special twist. The control panel can detach and be an external 7" Android tablet. It runs on wifi and can take print from ipads, ipods and just about any other computer that can send a print document.

The print quality is the best HP makes for an inkjet printer. Top notch photo quality if you use the good photo paper. Ink costs about $45 total for Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Photo Black cartridges that do 300 printed pages. With max speeds of up to 33 pages per minute, this printer is definitely speedy. Because of the wifi tablet you can print to this printer from ANYWHERE! The HP ePrint service lets you print out your expense reports before you get home! You can print from Facebook, Yahoo or even Snapfish. Printing from the web is the new standard in printers and this one has all the rough spots already worked out.

The setup for wireless printing is pretty easy and soon all your desktops, laptops, tablet or even smart phone can print to the new printer. It can hold 125 pages of 8.5x11" paper and do up to 12 envelopes at a time. It doesn't have a large duty cycle (1200 pages per month) so don't plan on this one being an office workhorse. The scanner is a flatbed (no sheet feed) with 1200x1200 black/white & color operation. It has an SD card slot for data from cameras.

Now on to the 7" detachable tablet PC. It uses the Android system and comes with Internet browser, book reader, facebook, and other apps. It will be fully Android 2.2 compatible soon and have complete access to the Android market and 175,000 other apps. You get about 5 hours of battery time and just need to put it back on the printer to charge. It can be a digital picture frame, ebook reader or just a web browser.

Cost for all this? HP list price of $399. $100 less then an iPad. Amazing. Technology at the leading edge.

#192 - Tech musings on a rainy day

2011-03-06T14:55:00.005-05:00

I see that the ipad2 has been released. Same price as the ipad original. The ipad original is available for as low as $349 till the stock is sold. The new ipad is slimmer, faster and has 2 cameras to make your multimedia experience better. Still no Flash player support so 40% of the web pages out there won't work on the ipad original or ipad 2. There is a war between Apple (read Steve jobs) and Adobe. Seems sad the consumer is the loser. Good news is that the use of HTLM5 is growing and displacing Flash so the number of Flash only sites is decreasing.

PCSS has varied opinion of the ipad. I've played on several and enjoy the size and ability to surf much of the web and add apps that make it more useful. I don't like that it really isn't a full functioning PC. No Office applications that move the world. I think the day of the laptop as we know it will merge into the tablet type PC. I'm very excited about the Motorola Xoom (see last blog) and others that will move the tablet to be a PC replacement.

On the "you know this was going to happen" front, the Google Android app markets had 21 different apps infected this past week. The infection would send out your personal telephone information to the bad guys. Google stopped the distribution of the 21 apps AND more importantly initiated its Kill App program to terminate the 50,000 infected apps that were downloaded before Google found the infection. Who knew that Google had a Kill App program that could reach every Android enabled telephone? I wonder if Apple has the same on the iphone.

J.D. Power has declared that Verizon has the best call quality of the big nationwide cell phone providers. I think most knew this, but now there is data to back it up. T-Mobile was at the bottom of the list. Let the crowing ads begin!

And on the electric car front, although GM and Nissan aren't crowing about them the sales of electric cars in the US was released for February. A whole 281 Chevy Volts and 67 Nissan Leafs were sold. Wow are you impressed yet? As I will continue to say, Electric cars will NEVER be anything but a niche market until they can get 300 miles of range on a single charge. I'll stick with my Honda Insight and the 45 mpg I get on the highway and around town.

#191 - Tablet PC for the rest of us?

2011-02-20T09:51:00.004-05:00

The Motorola XOOM is scheduled to be released very soon. (XOOM SOON was tempting to put in type!) The Xoom is an iPad like tablet PC that runs the new Google Android 3.0 operating system. That means it runs all the Android aps that exist and can surf the Internet totally. It has the latest version of Adobe Flash player that is used by many Internet sites. That is a big deal because the iPad does not support Adobe Flash.

The Xoom boast the best specifications in a tablet PC. It also may boast the highest price. Verizon will be the lead seller of the Xoom, but probably won't be the exclusive sales company for long.

It has a dazzling 10.1" 1280x800 screen that is VERY easy to view. It has a 5 megapixel rear facing camera with LED flash and a 2 megapixel forward facing camera to allow for video conferencing. There is 32GB of built in memory and an sd slot for more memory. Its processor is a dual core 1GHz that allows for multitasking. It will initially work on Verizons 3G network but will be able to use their 4G network without a major modification.

I think tablets are the direction that PCs are going. These truly are PERSONAL computers. They are large enough to be able to see the Internet, yet small enough to take everywhere. Will the best tablet be the Xoom? I'm not getting on board till I get one in hand and see how it handles real world (read Covington) networking. Also the price may be a deal breaker. Watch your local newspaper for ads and reviews!

#190 - Playing safe on Facebook

2011-02-03T20:59:00.003-05:00

Facebook members just passed the 500,000,000 mark. That's a lot of Friends! If you have joined or are considering joining Facebook here are my guidelines to keeping yourself safe and enjoying your friends.

1. Keep your Profile to the minimum information. Your Profile is seen by EVERYONE on Facebook. No phone numbers and I'd even tell you to be careful with your email address. I use an email address I don't use much . You can get a free email address (Yahoo or Gmail) to put there when you register.

2. Set your privacy settings to Friends Only for EVERYTHING. Click on Account from your Facebook home page then Privacy Settings. Choices are Everyone, Friends of Friends and Friends Only.

3. Protect your information from the people that post Ads on Facebook. Click on Accounts then Account Settings and the Facebook Ads tab. Make sure No One is in the box and Save.

4. Be careful what pictures you post. Its obvious but Don't post pictures that put you or someone else with at risk behaviour. If you get posted and tagged in a picture you don't like, first untag your picture (untag button below the picture), then ask whoever posted it to delete it.

5. I don't recommend joining any games. They get your information and they USE it. That's why the games are free. They get your info. Nuff Said.

6. Disable Facebook Apps. Again the apps can access your profile and more. To do this click on Account and Privacy Settings. Below Apps and Websites click on Edit your Settings, Click on Turn off all Platform Apps.

7. Post cautiously. Letting people know when you are away from home isn't the wisest move. Letting people know you are looking for a job while still empolyed also isn't wise. Posting during work when your post is TIME STAMPED is also a bit silly.

8. Friend ONLY people you know well. Friends of Friends should not cut your friends list. There is no prize for having the most friends.

#189 Android Apps and why apps are so hot

2011-01-22T22:18:00.003-05:00

Apps stands for applications, which is a long/short way to say programs. I'm not sure why programs on phones/PDAs are called Apps, but they are and we'll just work with that. I'm also not sure why most apps cost less then $5.00. I'm not arguing for more expensive programs, but geez Bill Gates would only be Bazillionaire (Instead of a Trazillionaire) if Office only cost $5.00 for each program.

Well lets talk about Android apps, since I have an Android phone (Droid Pro) and have loaded up a bunch of free apps. The first one I downloaded was App Killer. It isn't easy to shut down apps in the Android system. App Killer does just that. Two clicks and most of the programs that are running on your phone are shut down. Seems silly that this wasn't part of the Android operating system.

I next downloaded Bar Code Scanner. This nifty app turns your phone in to a (surprise!) Bar code scanner. You can scan any bar code in on a product and the look up the price or information on that product. Very cool!

I've also downloaded two utility type apps: Free Dictionary is from the Dictionary.com people and does a nice job of what it should do. Google Translator is a very neat app that will Translate English words/phrases/Sentences to several other languages. It will also say the translation. So now in a foreign country you can type in what you want, translate it and then have your phone say it without an accent!

Lastly I have turned my phone in to an ebook reader. I downloaded Laputa reader after checking out the reviews. I've been pleased with this reader for ease of use and being able to access all the Gutenberg Projects free books. These books are out of copyright protection and include great classics as well as an interesting mix of turn of the 20th century popular fiction.

#188 - End of the Year - New Laptop, New Phone (again)

2010-12-29T14:58:00.008-05:00

I hope the holidays have been enjoyable for you and your families. We are finally on a 7 day vacation from work, so what do I do? Its get the last blog in for the year!
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Lets start with the Droid Pro saga. My new Droid Pro (see last blog) died after 3 weeks. It went into what I call "The Black Screen of Death" and the only way out was to pull the battery. I bought my Droid Pro from WireFly.com and they were very courteous in helping me get it replaced. I sent it off on a Monday and had a brand new one back on Friday. That is part of their 30 day anything wrong warranty. I purchased an extended warranty for $69 that is now in effect for a year. When I got the new one, it was pretty easy to get it back up and running. Once I entered my GMAIL account info all my contacts and calendar were good to go. About half the apps were missing, but no problem to download them. I've added a few more and will talk about them in my next blog. The biggest problem with the Droid Pro is the battery. Depending on what you do during the day, it barely makes it through on one charge. I've ordered their larger battery so we'll see how that goes. I also miss some kind of mouse or pointer. If I need to edit something on the Pro I have to use a fingernail to point to the position in the word. My accuracy isn't the best.
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I will tell you I love the Droid operating system. The apps you can get for free do just about anything you can imagine and things you can't imagine (who thought up the Bar Code reader and pricer???) Interesting over 60% of Droid apps are free as opposed to 33% of iPhone apps being free. Now apps don't cost much ($2 is an expensive app), but if you are like me free is a better deal if the ads don't drive you crazy. I like being able to read my AOL & Gmail email on the run and I can see Facebook updates from just about anywhere.

I also sold my two oldest laptops and purchased a new Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 15" model. The ThinkPad series is very well built and they have great tech support (called about setting up Bluetooth on the laptop today and got through to a lady in Atlanta in less then 3 minutes). Here are the specs: Intel i3Core M370 2.4GHz processor, 4GB memory (though Windows 7 Pro 64 bit can only use 3.75GB) 320GB Hard Disk Drive, 15.6" 1366x768 display, 3USB ports, HDMI port, VGA port, DVD RW disk drive, 2Megapixel webcam, wireless & Bluetooth, fingerprint scanner and a spill resistant keyboard. If you want to buy one from PCSS the same model costs $649 through January 15.
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I was looking for a 15 inch screen laptop with HDMI (TV connector) and good resolution webcam. I was thinking the cost would be close to $1,000. but was very pleasantly surprised when I found the Thinkpad Edge series. They also make a 14 in version and lots of variations of processors, memory and hard drives. PCSS prices start at $499. So far I've been impressed with the design and features. We'll let you know about the reliability down the road.
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I talked about Windows 7 in the specs and wanted to elaborate about Windows 7 and memory. I had a good customer order a Desktop PC with Windows 7. He said he wanted 6 or 8GB of memory. He was surprised when I told him the Windows 7 limitations: Windows 7 64 bit can only use 3.75GB and Windows 7 32bit (less expensive) can only use 3.25GB of memory. Anything more is just wasted money at this point in time. I haven't had any speed issues with Windows 7 and 2GB of memory so that is what I recommend to most customers.
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See you in 2011, HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!

187 - The new phone!

2010-12-06T23:04:00.006-05:00

The new PCSS phone is in my hand. After all the technology thoughts and analysis I decided to stay with Verizon and get a Motoroloa Droid Pro. Here is how it came down. I looked at providers first. My choices in the Highlands are Verizon, nTelos and USCellular. AT&T, Sprint and Nextel just don't have enough local towers to be options. After looking at the plans ntelos really had the best deal.

Then I started looking at the phones. ntelos did not have an android phone with a real keyboard AND the latest Android operating system (2.2 FOYO). They had an old Motorola phone (the Milestone) that had a slow processor. This is why Verizon and AT&T continue to lead the cell phone market. Its all about the phones! I didn't want to get an already out of date phone with a contract. The other issue was the ntelos $35 per phone activation fee for new service. Stupid fee that discourages people from changing carriers. I thought the idea was to get new customers.

Verizon had LOTS of choices. After looking at all their android phones I picked the brand new Motorloa Droid Pro. This one had a keyboard at the bottom just like my existing Palm, but a very nice larger screen. Since I already had Verizon there were no extra charges other then the data plan that I would have to get with any smartphone.

So what are the + and - of the new phone after 2 weeks? I love having the Internet just about every where. I can check email, Facebook and sync my calendar without a cable. The negatives are the battery life really is poor on this phone. Looks like I'll have to spring for the bigger battery. Also I can't sync my contacts from outlook to the phone. Can't may not be the right word, I can do a manual copy but it isn't automatic or seamless like the calendar is. Seems odd that Google (the Android system owner) hasn't fixed this issue yet. The last negative is silly, but the phone takes about 1 minute to turn on. That's lots more then my old Palm, but people tell me typical of Droid system phones.

I'll report back after I get the new batter and have more time on the phone.

186 - Cell Phone decisions

2010-10-30T10:18:00.002-05:00

Its been over 2 years since I got a new cell phone. My last cell phone got run over by a truck so I got the insurance on this cell phone and nothing happened! Of Course! I have Verizon service with a Palm Centro smartphone. I don't have Internet or text messaging. I use the phone as not only my mobile phone, but my contacts, calendar and data collection system. Most of those applications (apps) are by palm. The phone will also play music and I have a 4GB mini sd card for the music.

I'm giving you what I have before we take a look at decisions I'm contemplating. I hope by going over my decision making process it will help in your next cell phone selection.

I'm looking at a pretty big change this time. I'm going to add Internet and text messaging to my plan. I've seen a need in my business to have both of those features. Although my present Palm Centro can accommodate those features, the screen is so small that Internet doesn't show up so well. My choice really has two decision: 1. Will I stay with Verizon or will I go with a different wireless provider. 2. What phone platform will pick?

Verizon has been reliable and has coverage everywhere I go (except my home!). In the Alleghany Highlands the choices really are Verizon, ntelos and US Cellular. AT&T (and their attractive iPhone) has only one tower in the area so that is not a good option. Sprint, Nextel and other providers aren't in our area. We had US Cellular before Verizon and the coverage is spotty. Another issue is that their phones are always older models with few features.

ntelos is the new player in our area and I gave them a good look. Their plan for Cell, Text and Internet is actually a few dollars cheaper then Verizon. They also claim to have just as large of coverage area as Verizon. They partner with Sprint and Nextel to use their tower system. The kicker with ntelos is they charge a $35 per line (we have two) one time activation fee. So to encourage us to change to their system they want to charge me $70. Wow that's great marketing.

So I narrowed my choice down to Verizon and ntelos. The next step is to look at the phones. There are 3 platforms (or cell operating systems) that aren't Apple based (only AT&T has Apple). The platforms are Android (by Google), BlackBerry (by RIM) and Web OS (by Palm). Android is the largest seller of smart phone operating system (you've all heard the DROID ads!) It is an open system (that means anyone can write software for the systems) and has over 100,000 applications (apps). Blackberry is known for its email capabilities and web browser. The problem I have with Blackberry is I really dislike their sync program that transfers Outlook data to the phone. They also generally have small, lo resolution screens which is what I have on my existing phone. Web OS is the Palm (now owned by HP) cell system That is very easy to use and has 1,000 of apps that do most that you want. Its also very similar to the phone I have now.

So now I've narrowed my choices down to Android OS and Web OS. Given that criteria I then dropped ntelos. ntelos has no Web OS phones and only 2 Android OS phones. Of the 2 phones, one doesn't have a keyboard. I haven't found the screen only system that I can type on yet (maybe the iPhones). The last ntelos phone is a Motorola Milestone. An older (2 year old) phone with an older release of Android (2.0 vs the new 2.2). Not the most exciting phone out there. Verizon has tons of choices. They understand that cell phone choice is all about phone choices. They have 10 different phones with Android OS and 2 with web OS.

So for now, I've decided to stay with Verizon (no activation charges) and then pick from the multiple phone choices. I will say that HP (Palm) just announced a new phone from Verizon (the Palm Pre2) that I'll wait to see before I make my final choice.

#185 - New Browsers on the horizon

2010-09-30T18:48:00.004-05:00

Microsoft unveiled the first beta (trial) version of Internet Explorer 9 last week. Firefox (version 4.0) & Google Chrome (Release 7.0) also have new versions coming out before the end of the year. Lets take a look at these new browsers (or at least at what they are supposed to look like).

First lets talk about what we want in a new browser. 1. I want it to be fast to open, fast to display a page, 2. I want the capability to block ads and pop ups. 3. I'd also would like it to protect me from Malware & Spyware. Lets see if any of these will be addressed in the updates.

IE 9 is all about speed. The Microsoft engineers are tired of Internet Explorer being the slowest browser out there. They've put all their attention on speeding it up. The interface is very minimalist - no menus, toolbars or other distractions. It looks alot like Google Chrome. In a reversal from all the other Internet Explorers this interface is bare bones. "The browser is the stage and the backdrop, but the website is the star of the show,” Microsoft general manager of Internet Explorer Dean Hachamovitch tells Wired.com. “ We think the browser should totally take a back seat to the sites.”

Most testing of IE 9 say its MUCH faster then IE 8. Good for Microsoft! (I'm still not sure they really listen). OK check on the first box. Unfortunately there is NO information on IE 9 addressing #2 or #3. Being able to block ads and security improvements are actually the most important for me. We'll see if they get added before IE 9 is finally release. And by the way IE9 does NOT support Windows XP; Windows Vista or 7 is required.

Firefox 4.0 is also in beta release. Firefox is also leaner meaner. They have minimized the interface but still added new features. Tabs have been moved to the top of the screen. An Awesome bar now holds tabs and tab navigation items. There is a new Firefox button that will hold all the main items like Print, Save, list your History, etc. There is a new APP tab that hold the sites you keep up all the time - Items like Internet radio stations, Webmail and weather sites can be permanently in the Browser. It appears faster then Firefox 3.6 so that is good. The Add-ins that protect you from ads, malware and slow downs will still be there. Check, Check and Check.
And note that Firefox works on all Windows, Linix AND Mac OSX.

Google Chrome 7.0 is mainly just a faster version of the current 6.0. Several more web standards have been added, but still not many Add ins or protection devices. 7.0 will have an "Incognito" mode that will not save where you have been or what you are doing on the web. so Check, no check, no check.

We'll have fun over the next 3 months playing with these new releases and give you the final verdict early in 2011!

#184 - Acting might not be a good career path

2010-09-06T18:12:00.003-05:00

The growth of simulation animation has cut down on the number of acting roles in Hollywood. If it weren't for dubbed voices the future would indeed be very bleak. The use of Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) began with Toy Story (I guess #1) in 1995. This was the first movie COMPLETELY made by computer. Special effects had been using CGI for decades. Actually the first use of CGI was in the SciFi movie Westworld in 1973. The best of the CGI special effects came in Jurasic Park(1993) with those extra real looking dinosaurs terrorising real people on the screen seamlessly.

All the CGI was made possible by more powerful computers and in particular more powerful graphic processors used with those computers. The big CGI shops (Pixar for example) use banks of computers (computers tied together in a tight network) called a render farm in their graphic design. Thus the graphic load is spread out over many computers and not just one. The recent SHREK series, Toy Story series, Up and Finding Nemo are great CGI films that the characters in the films generate just as much emotions in their audience as real actors.

So when will the job of imperfect human actor end? Already you can have a virtual sales person for your business web site. No need to hire an actor, just go to the virtual actor site and pick out who (whom???) you like and type in their script. No mistakes to worry about and they are all cosmetically perfect. Finding perfect simulated actors for your next script can't be far behind. If my son or daughter announced they were thinking about being an actor, I might ask them if they wouldn't rather be a blacksmith or buggy whip salesman....

#183 - Things you should know about Technology today

2010-08-16T18:49:00.004-05:00

Did you know that you don't have to type www. any more in the address bar of your browser? Starting with Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3 you don't have to waste that precious time. Just type in pcss4u.com and off you go!

Did you know that only 3% of PC infections now come from email attachments? Most of the infections now come from links in email or on a website. They can mostly be classified as malware or spyware. That's why its important to have more then just a basic antivirus protecting your computer. PCSS likes AVG antivirus & antispyware. Only $39 for 2 years of protection.

Did you know that the built in Windows Media Player does not normally play DVDs? Not until the latest version (11) were the coders put into Windows Media Player to play commercial DVDs. PCSS recommends the free VLC (VideoLan Client) software to play ALL types of media on PCs and Macs.

Unlike on your PC, when you delete a file on a flash drive, it really does disappear. Actually PCSS can recover some flash drive deletions, but it certainly doesn't go to the recycle bin. That reminds me to ask: Have you emptied your recycle bin recently? Run the Windows Disk Clean up utility to clean out your PC (Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Clean up).

Did you know that in most programs holding down the CTRL and Z keys means Undo? Try it next time you make a boo boo. Another helpful short cut is the CTRL and F key to start the Find function.

Did you know that Laser Printers are MUCH cheaper then InkJet printers in the long haul? Even though they cost more up front, Laser Printers will quickly be cheaper to operate per printed page.

Do you know the difference between Reply and Reply All in email? Do you know how to do a blind copy (no one can see who is the blind copy recipient)? Did you know that you should NEVER attach files larger then 5MB in size? (most Internet providers have limits and filters) Just ask Nick if you aren't sure about these items.

The only way to truly delete items from your computer is to put zeros in all the "empty" places. PCSS uses a program called File Shredder that uses a Defense Department algorithm to really delete information.

#182 How small can computers go?

2010-07-25T22:01:00.003-05:00

Since the advent of the netbook, I've stated to many customers that I believe the netbook will be the smallest computer you can actually use until speech recognition technology gets alot better. Why no smaller? Its the keyboard. Anything smaller then a netbook and you can't touch type. You can thumb it in or peck and poke, but not type. Now typing may become a thing of the past, but as of July 2010 speech recognition just doesn't' work.

Many of you have seen/heard the infuriating commercials with the person calling a service center and having their words garbled by a computer answering system. "Did you say you want to buy a compactor?" When you are looking for a laptop. Now when speech recognition actually works then you'll be able to have the computer a size of a button. It's the input (keyboard/mouse) and output (monitor & printer) that are the most limiting in computer size. I just set up an iMac desktop computer at a local office and the size of the keyboard was that same minimum size of a typical netbook.

I know I'm amazed at the ever decreasing size of phones and the tremendous amount of capability they have. They now have so many features that computers have and many that they don't! GPS, music player, camera, book reader, database, calendar and on and on. I was amazed the other day when a person with an iphone showed me how to use it as a bar code scanner. They picked up an item in a store, scanned the bar code and immediately could look up the product for reviews, pricing and more information then you possibly could use. I certainly use my phone for way more then a phone. It has my schedule, contacts and a couple of neat games. It can translate several languages and connect to the Internet for information searches.

A complete computer computational power can now be on one chip. The input/output devices are what makes the computer large. I've seen demostrations of computers built in to clothing, sunglasses, pet collars even a tiny surveilance camera. How small can they make them? I guess we will soon see (or not!).

#181 The new Mac mini!

2010-07-05T08:25:00.004-05:00

The new mac mini has arrived at PCSS. We got our first mac mini in 2006. We have used it as our Internet device (browsing all over without fear) and as the home of our music and movie collections. Four years later and we were ready for a bigger hard drive, fast processor and the new Apple operating system Snow Leopard. There was nothing really wrong with the old one. So we have re-purposed it by reformatting the hard drive and installing just the essential programs. In fact we are typing this update on the old mini.

After healing a computer for the 3rd time this year, a customer asked if I ever get malware infections. The simple answer was no. I do the vast majority of my Internet work on the Mac Mini. I do email on my PCs (laptops and desktop) when I am home but that is about it. No Mac has ever been infected as of today.

So what else is new about the mini? Its shorter, a bit wider and has several new ports on the back side. Here is the rear and from left to right we have power, Ethernet, firewire, HDMI, mini display adapter, 4 USB ports, SDXC memory card reader, microphone & speaker ports. The top, 2 sides and front are brushed aluminum. The bottom actually opens up so you can easly upgrade the memory (yeah). Unfortunately Apple has filled all the memory slots so you have to remove memory to upgrade (boo).

We purchased the basic model. Intel 2.4GHz Intel Duo Core processor with 2GB of memory, 320GB hard disk drive, NVIDIA GeForce 320m graphics (Hi Def!), DVD burner (no blue-ray), Built in wireless & Bluetooth. Minis don't come with keyboards, mice or displays, so you can use any USB keyboard or mouse. It comes with a DVI adapter for display, but if you are like me and don't have a DVI display, you have to purchase the VGA adapter. Cost was $699 for the Mini and $29 for the display adapter.

We moved all our music and movies without much trouble. We are waiting for an HDMI cable to attach it to our flat panel TV. Plans are to get the AVATAR DVD to watch and see how we like that aspect of the Mini.

Let me know if you have comments or questions about this remarkable little PC!

#180 What do we use the Internet for?

2010-06-20T16:04:00.002-05:00

The Internet as we know it (a place where YOU can go) is about 20 years old. The actual architecture is closer to 40 years old. I only mention the age because I think that the it is amazing that the Internet has now become the major use of people owning a computer. Although word processing and spreadsheets are the backbone of business, it's the Internet that supports most activities on PCs. The first question I get from people buying a new PC is will the new PC make their Internet faster? Sadly in most cases the answer is NO. Internet speed is mostly decided by the speed of your Internet provider and not your PC.

So what are we doing on the Internet? Well right now I am blogging. A new word and action in the past 10 years. Most people shop on the Internet. I was looking for a vacuum bag for our Kenmore vacuum. Couldn't find one in Covington, but had lots of choices on the Internet. We've decided to stop our daily Newspaper and get our news online. We check the weather online. I purchase almost all the PCs and supplies I sell online. Someone in this household (not naming names) gets their sudoku puzzles online. I keep up with high school and college friends on Facebook. We use a wonderful site called Skype to see our distant friends and relatives. Then there are the sites that follow (you name the specialty) Virginia Tech sports, my mission group Episcopal Relief & Development, my church, the Covington Lumberjacks, and on and on. The sites are almost "TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!"

The Internet has become a powerful part of our lives. Indespensible for many in the world. So what do you use it for?

#179 Office 2010 arrives

2010-05-23T18:09:00.003-05:00

Microsoft released to big businesses their 14th version of their Office suite last week. Consumers will get to see the product in June. This new version is creatively called Office 2010. It includes updates to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, OneNote and Sharepoint. It comes in 6 different groupings of these products and in 32bit and 64bit versions. Confusion on which box to buy will again be the entertainment of early summer. There will also be online versions of the software (note not with the SAME features) that you can access from any Internet access.

There are lots of changes and we will take a look at them in our June updates. One big change is that the file menus (File, Edit, View, Tools, Help) are back. For some inexplicable reason Microsoft got rid of the file menu in Office 2007. They put in the Office "Ribbon" that was supposed to be quicker to use then the menu system. Mass confusion took over the software world as no one could find any of the features they normally. It only took 3 years for Microsoft to admit they were wrong. Note that 70% of the Office users in the world still use Office 2003 mainly due to this mistake. Outlook didn't get the ribbon in 2007, but does in 2010. Thank goodness the menu items are still there.

So will this be a "good" upgrade? The pluses are that this version should be faster. It takes advantage of the new Intel multi core processors. The 64bit version will allow for absolutely HUGE Excel spreadsheets (did you ever ask for a bigger Excel?). Changes in Word are fairly minimal other then the interface. Cut/Copy/Paste get some extra options and you can do more editing of pictures you insert into your documents. The Office 2010 suite uses a still different file format. So when one of your buddies buys the new version, if they send you a Word or Excel file, you probably won't be able to open in until a conversion utility is released. Outlook and PowerPoint seem to get the most upgrades and mostly for the better.

PCSS will install Office 2010 on our Window 7 laptop so that customers can take a peek. We'll take it through all the paces and let you know our opinion on whether to upgrade or not.

#178 Late April 2010 ramblings

2010-04-29T21:59:00.002-05:00

I got my hands on an iPad that a customer had last week. I was setting up the WiFi in their home so the iPad could pick it up and be Internet functional. It is lightweight and the screen is brilliant. You really can't multitask and if you surf the web, beware that any site that uses Adobe Flash (lots) won't look right since Flash is not supported by the iPad (or Apple). I played with some of the apps that come with the iPad and they all seemed fast and well designed. Still its a lot of money for single tasking item that doesn't do Word or Excel.

HP announced yesterday that it is buying Palm. HP has made PDAs for a long time, but they never could compete with Palm. HP has NOT been in the phone market, so this buy puts them in that group. Palm is barely a viable company. They only have a very few products and their old stand by PDA, isn't bought by most people since phones can do all a PDA used to do. I own a Palm Centro phone by Verizon and honestly if I had to get a new phone today, it would be a Palm. Why? Because the Palm's apps work better then most other phones Verizon sells. Also I've had a Palm for over 10 years so TRADITION! Will this be a good purchase for HP? I really doubt it. But you just never know in technology.

I'm looking to replace my venerable Suuntro Vertex watch. This watch has a clock, stopwatch, altimeter, barometer, compass, and thermometer. I mainly use the clock and altimeter. I'm considering a watch with a GPS. Nephew John has the Garmin GPS watch. He is an addicted runner and uses the GPS for training and race running. I'm a mountain biker and having a portable GPS would be especially nice. Let me know if you have any recommendations. So far I've looked at Garmin and Sunntro GPS watches.

The latest/greatest phone coming out is the Nokia N8. This is a super duper phone based on the Symbian operating system. The specifications just blow you away: 12Megapixel camera, HD Video recorder and player with Dolby Digital plus sound, 16GB standard memory with up to 48GB available with micro SD card, Free for life GPS navigation, Facebook and Twitter built in apps, WiFi Internet browser and it really is a phone. We don't know who(which phone company) will be offering the N8, but expect it in the US at the end of 2010.

#177 - USB 3.0 is on its way

2010-04-18T13:46:00.003-05:00

Earlier this year the people that standardize things in the computer world, have finalized the USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed) standard. You might not have known there was a USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 standards, but you probably use them every day.

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. It is a standard in computers for how equipment connects to your computer. Your Printer, Mouse, Keyboard, Camera, Flash drive, External hard Drive and even your speakers can connect to your computer through a USB interface. The first USB standard was used by MAC computers and not far behind were PCs. It began development in 1994 by a group of seven companies: Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Nortel. USB was intended to make it easier to connect external devices to PCs by replacing the multitude of connectors at the back of PCs with one simple interface that did not have screws. Faster speed and simplifying software connections were also goals.

The first widely used standard USB 1.1 was released in September 1998. It allowed for a 12 Mbps data rate. The USB 2.0 specification was released in April 2000 with the resulting specification achieving 480 Mbit/s, a fortyfold increase. The latest version, 3.0, has a maximum speed of 5Gbps or about 10 times faster then USB 2.0. It also has more power eliminating the need for 2 USB cables for external hard drives.

For USB 3.0 to work you need to have a device that support USB 3.0 and a computer that supports it. Presently the only way you can do that for an existing PC is to buy an adapter card for your PC or laptop (around $40-$45). USB 3.0 will be on most new computers coming out later this year and on more items (flash drives, external hard drives and cameras) this summer.

Faster is generally better in computers and PCSS is looking forward to the new USB 3.0 devices. Transferring pictures and music will be 10 times quicker and that is a good thing!

#176 - 3 D Technology

2010-03-28T15:23:00.004-05:00

The 3D TVs are arriving on our shores. The spectacular special effects movie AVATAR wows theater goers with its 3D displays. So what is 3D and why are we now getting this technology in our homes?

There have been 3 D movies in some form since the beginning of motion pictures. The hey day of 3D was in the 50s. I remember as a child going to a theater and putting on one lens red and one lens blue glasses to see the film. In all it was great for a kid, not so much for adults.

The old method of 3D production is called Anaglyph. This method has the movie makers taking two images and superimposing them through two filters, one red and one cyan. The two images are then printed in the same complementary colors on white paper. Glasses with colored filters in each eye separate the appropriate images by canceling the filter color out and rendering the complementary color black.

A newer method, Polarized, uses two separate images are projected superimposed onto the same screen through different polarized filters. Two separate cameras record the images at the same time from slightly different perspective. Special polarized glasses are used to display the 3 D effects.

The move of 3D to TV has taken much longer. Phillips developed Lenticular technology which uses a lens to send different images to each of your eyes. This technology requires you sit directly in front of the screen. Good news is you don't need special glasses. Hyundai developed the passive glass 3D system which has two overlapping images. You have to wear special glasses for this technology. A fairly new technology called active glass system is similar to the passive system but puts the all the technology in the very special (and expensive) glasses.

We don't' have 3D computers yet, but I'll bet that will come soon.

#175 - Is that a Hoax or what?

2010-03-21T19:57:00.002-05:00

An interesting show that I like to watch is Myth Busters. The show takes several premises (legends?) and by scientific method proves or disproves them. Great entertainment and usually good use of science.

Unfortunately on the Internet, there are lots of Hoaxes. People can say anything and send you an email or Facebook message that has no factual basis. How can you tell if a message is truth, lie or worse - a virus!

There are several sites on the Internet that are there just to help you determine exactly that. We like SNOPES, ABOUT and Truth or Fiction. We also will just type an Internet claim into google and see what comes up (on our MAC of course!).

About once a month some friend will forward to me some fantastical message meant to scare or upset people. Items like "Facebook to charge fees", "Cell Phones explode when ....", "And every lie you can think of about our President. This isn't meant to be about politics, I'm just saying that there are hoaxes being put out and you should check them out before worrying about them and/or passing them on to your friends.

If it sounds outrageous, it is; If it sounds too good to be true, then it is. If it makes you angry then someone may be pulling your chain. Forewarned is Forearmed.

#174 - High Speed Internet for Everyone

2010-02-27T10:35:00.004-05:00

Roughly 40 percent of Americans do not have high-speed Internet access at home, according to new Commerce Department figures that underscore the challenges facing policymakers who are trying to bring affordable broadband connections to everyone.

In the Highlands of Virginia, some interesting changes are taking place. The Highlands have two high speed Internet providers. Shentel, the cable company, and nTelos the telephone company. Both have recently updated to fiber optic technology and can provide fairly fast Internet to many. Unfortunately there are still areas that have to rely on dialup or satellite Internet (MUCH SLOWER!).

nTelos has just received an $8 million grant that it will match to provide fiber optic Internet to every household in Alleghany County. The money comes from one of the stimulus packages. The time table is to complete this project by 2012. There are many of my customers who can hardly wait for this to happen. High speed (also called broadband) Internet has become a necessity in the USA. So much of our society has swung to doing day to day business on the Internet.

My mom is a good example of this. During our evening call last night, she asked if I could do her a favor. She had recently bought a new vacuum cleaner with a two year warranty. To activate the warranty she needed to register the vacuum on line. Mom has dial up Internet in Ohio (by choice - High Speed is available) and she said it was too slow so could I help? Well, of course i could, but I thought it was interesting that even vacuum cleaner manufacturers are using the Internet for day to day business.

The USA needs more projects like this nTelos one to get 100% high speed Internet coverage throughout the land. We have had 98% telephone (land line) coverage in this country for years. Next month, the Federal Communications Commission will deliver policy recommendations to Congress on how to make universal broadband a reality. Among other things, the FCC is expected to propose expanding the fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities and finding more airwaves for wireless broadband services.

#173 - Communication Style

2010-02-08T08:29:00.003-05:00

Serving on several boards that are concerned with communications, I'm finding it interesting that the different generations in this country communicate vastly differently.

Although my Mom has email, she would still rather talk to me on the phone. Her phone is her lifeline to the world and any disruption to phone service (like the genius that crashed into the phone poll this weekend) is tantamount to a natural disaster.

All my peers are very email oriented. I'm not sure why we are, but we have adopted the email as our main communication form. We have cell phones, some belong to Facebook, some even twitter, but its the email that gets my generation moving. I have so enjoyed reconnecting with my high school friends via Facebook, but I don't do Farmville or any of the other Social Network add-ons. This is mainly due to my time is limited for that type of activity.

The nieces and nephews do email, but they seem to have adopted Facebook more so then my generation. I believe their work requires the email so they mostly use it there. They are cell phone addicts and would never be caught without it. They text a bit and post pictures with abandon everywhere.

The younger teens and twenties are different. Email seems an imposition to them. Its all about the latest phone. Facebook and Twitter are the rage, BECAUSE they can be accessed by their phones. Their cell phone (Many can't remember a time without them) is their communications life. They ALWAYS answer their phone no matter what they are doing (use that to advantage old people!). Any restrictions on phone use are as if the Constitution is under attack. A phone is judged on how well you can text from it. I'm thinking that the next generation will have the most dexterous thumbs of any human.

Anyway you communicate - Keep talking. Silence may be golden, but it doesn't make anything better.

#172 - The iPad is here!, The iPad is here!

2010-01-27T19:55:00.003-05:00

A very highly hyped new product hit the streets today with a Bang! The Apple iPad was introduced to the world. As your able Technology commentator, I would surely be remiss if I didn't translate the hype and type a bit about this technology wonder.

So what is the iPad? Well like several other Apple products, competition doesn't really exist. The closest product would be the iPod, Itouch. Its not really a tablet computer. In fact lets take a paragraph to tell you what it is and a paragraph on what it isn't.

What it is:
It is nice size - 9.7" display (smaller then a netbook) and less then 1.5 pounds. I can run all the iPhone apps (140,000 at latest count). It can surf the Internet with the Safari browser. It can get let you buy books and display them like an Amazon Kindle. You can play all your iTunes music, display your Pictures, and view videos, movies and TV. You work with most email (on the Internet), get an app to edit documents, keep up your calendar and contacts. It does work on 802.11n WiFi (found many places) and if you buy a more expensive model it will also work on phone networks (data plan extra! Surprise!)

What it isn't:
I mentioned it isn't a tablet PC per say. It runs the iPhone operating system not OS 10. That means you can't run it like a MAC computer, you treat it like an iPhone or iPod. You can download a ton of iPhone apps, but remember they are designed for a 3 inch screen versus a 9.7 inch display (resolution sucks on apps played on the big screen). You can't run Firefox or Word or any other program written for the MAC. You can only run one program at a time (this is a biggy!). It doesn't have the phone function built in. There is no camera built in. It doesn't support Adobe Flash player and will only let you run Quicktime or Youtube type videos. So no Hulu or any other website that uses Flash video (another biggie). It has limited storage (16GB, 32GB or 64GB flash memory) which will eventually cramp what you save. (The smallest netbook comes with 160GB hard drive).

So first look, its pretty neat. Take a look at the apple iPad video: iPAD by APPLE
The first iPad's will ship end of March and I don't think I need one at this point, but hey I'm a gadget freak so you never know!

#171 Malware & Facebook

2010-01-23T08:10:00.003-05:00

I am constantly fighting malware on customer computers. These are the nasty bugs that infect your computer, send information to bad guys on the Internet, put pop ups that say you are infected and please hand over $39 everywhere, can crash your PC and literally destroy your hardware. Where did I get it? is always the question I hear.

One source is Facebook causes and applications. Many causes and groups are now being put out there by the bad guys to get you to join so they can have control of your PC. They do this by putting out something outrageous that will get people mad. Things like Facebook is about to charge you monthly or that Obama is going to put your grandma in a detention cell. Items that if you step back and look at, you know can't be right.

The bad guys also hijack legit web sites and put links on there for FABULOUS opportunities (free Macbooks, iPods, HD TVS) that make you click on them. Hey People, if it sounds too good to be true, IT IS! I know your mother told you all about that.

My recommendation is to just stay vanilla when on the Internet. Don't join groups you have never heard of, or have lured you to their site with outrageous or fabulous offerings. Its dangerous out there and there is only so much of PCSS repair to go around.

#170 - The high tech car

2010-01-10T09:51:00.007-05:00

Mr Gadget here! The new proud owner of a 2010 Honda Insight. THE GADGET CAR! It has more gee, whiz bang items then anything on the road. It looks pretty plain but with Honda the hidden stuff is all important. This is the hybrid car for the rest of us. Its priced reasonable(approx $20,000) and uses a conservative form of hybrid technology. It has an 98hp gasoline engine and a 10hp electric drive powered by regenerative batteries.

It has plenty of punch driving the mountains of Virginia. We go to Hot Springs from Covington twice a week and do fine in the Insight. We get around 43 miles per gallon over all and have gotten over 47 miles per gallon on trips over 1 hour using highways. The gadgets are all on the inside.

Here is the Insight's instrument panel: The speedometer is at the top and is backlit by a color rainbow that gives you feedback on how you are driving. All the instruments are learning tools to help you get better gas mileage. If you drive economically the rainbow is green, not so thrifty its aqua, press the pedal hard or brake hard and its that dark blue. It becomes a challenge to keep the rainbow in the green when you drive. There are "eco" guides, trip raters, real time and trip mpg feedback displays and lots more to keep you on the green path.

So the point of this car is changing your driving habits as well as using technology to get better gas mileage. I'm slowly changing how I drive not only in the Insight but in other cars. There are supposedly 3 computers in this geeks delight controlling everything from the continuous variable transmission to the trip computer. The heating/cooling system is even controlled to get better gas mileage!

I also enjoy the USB port found in the arm rest. I pulled a 16GB USB flash drive out and filled it with MP3 songs and plugged it in. The over 3,000 songs will take me a bit of driving to go through. Ain't technology grand?

#169 - Search Carefully

2009-12-27T09:08:00.003-05:00

There are now a few more search sites and engines out there. Bing is by Microsoft and you know about Yahoo search and Google search. If you upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer or get a new PC, you will automatically use the Microsoft Bing search engine. So what you say? Aren't all search engines about the same? Actually not. There are patents and secrets and schemes that each search engine uses to get to the answers you expect.

Google recently announced that 25% of the search requests it gets are unique. That is, no one has ever asked for to search for the exact same thing. So how a search engine goes about its search and how it filters results is important. People don't generally go past the first page in results. So having the relative important information on the first page is key to a search engines effectiveness. For example I did a search for "Cost of Milk" and Google and Bing had the same first entry: a USDA report on milk costs. Google had a Wikipedia entry next and Bing had a magazine article. From here the entries were completely different.

The Atlantic recently did an informal study of Google and Bing search engines and found Bing to not filter results as well as Google. False sites (ones that have malware and other baddies) come up much more frequently on Bing searches then Google.

There is a great site out there that will let you compare the two sites side by side on a given search: http://www.bing-vs-google.com/

PCSS still recommends Google as its search engine of choice. If you have Bing and would like to change there usually is a little down arrow next to the search box that can let you change to another search engine provider!

#168 - Free or Pay Antivirus?

2009-12-01T21:29:00.003-05:00

December 1st brings about the end of AVG support for AVG 8.5 free. Good news there is an AVG 9.0 free. You can get it here: AVG 9.0 FREE AVG 9.0 is quicker running and has more protection from fake Virus protection Malware. Unfortunately the AVG 9.0 FREE installation takes much longer then 8.5 and absolutely requires a high speed connection. Do Not upgrade your Free version of 8.5 to 9.0 Paid online. It will cost you more and has lots of issues.

PCSS sells AVG 9.0 Antivirus/Antispyware Paid version. Cost is $39.00 for 2 years. It provides quicker updates, more control of when scans and updates run, more Internet bad site protection and automatic removal of the fake Virus protection Malware. Call and we will come by and install the paid version.

So Free or Pay version AVG? Its a matter of risk. You get what you pay for. Don't expect complete coverage with the Free, but on the other hand you do have some protection. Can't afford the $39, then stay with the Free. PLEASE have some kind of Antivirus/Antispyware software on your PC. Of course you could buy a MAC an not worry about it!

#166 Windows 7 Arrives!

2009-11-01T09:35:00.005-05:00

Windows 7 arrived at PCSS this past week. We followed our own advice and did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate version on our Lenovo Laptop. The laptop previously had Vista on it so we didn't want to upgrade that disaster. We also wanted to give Windows 7 a fair shake. And it also means that PCSS has no more PCs with Vista installed! (YEAH!)

Even with a clean install (back up data & drivers, format hard drive). there were a few issues. It was surprising how fast the install went. It certainly installed a bit faster then XP and way faster then Vista. There were several hardware items on the laptop that were not initially recognized. We copied the Lenovo Vista drivers over to the laptop and got all but the finger print reader to work. We are still working on that issue. Everything else seems to work fine. We've also installed AVG, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Picasa, Adobe Reader 9 and Office 2007 without any issues.

Readers should know that Windows 7 is really Windows Vista faster and lighter. Many Vista "features" have been retained, but many have been chucked out the "Window". The interface (where buttons and utilities are located) is very close to Vista. That means if you haven't used Vista, you will have to get used to having things in different locations. For example if you click on the Start Ball and then Control Panel, you will see the reduced version of Control Panel. You will have to click on the View By: and pick small or large icons.

We will review different features of Windows 7 for the rest of the year. If your PC has Vista and you would like to upgrade to Windows 7 let PCSS know.

#165 - Fighting Back Against Malware

2009-09-16T20:37:00.004-05:00

I can't keep up with all my customer having malware issues. If you do get some bad guys you will know you have it because windows will pop up telling you need something to fix an issue. DO NOT GO THERE. The program trying to get you to buy something is the infection. What to do if this happens? Try and download Malware Bytes here: MalwareBytes; Install it and run it. If you can't do that then call PCSS.

A way to prevent getting malware is to use the Mozilla Firefox Internet Browser with a couple of their add in programs. The worst thing to do is nothing and go browsing the Internet. Here is the Mozilla Firefox Download Site: Mozilla.ORG. Firefox will import all you Internet Explorer favorites and home page. After you start Firefox then go to the Tools menu and then Add Ons. Click on the Get Addons button and search for two addons: AdBlock Plus and WOT (Web of Trust). Install these and you will have protected your browsing. AdBlock Plus blocks ads in web sites. Ads have been one of the worst transmitters of malware on the Internet. WOT will let you know when you go to a site (red/yellow/green indicator) whether it is infected.

Keeping your antivirus up to date and having a paid antivirus/antispyware program will also help. We recommend AVG paid ($39 for 2 years from PCSS). We've used the above items and have kept clear of any infections. Confused at any of this? Give PCSS a call.

#164 - Exercising your mind

2009-08-31T08:49:00.002-05:00

I saw an interesting article in the Roanoke Times on keeping your mind active. There have been many studies that confirm that exercising your mind is at least as important as exercising your body as you age. The Internet has some great sites that can help you to keep the "little gray cells" moving and grooving.

My spousal unit loves Suduku. She prints of pages of Suduku puzzles (evil only!) from the web suduku site. She always prints them on the back of used paper being environmentally friendly.

WEB SUDUKU

One of my favorites is to use your opposite hand in doing everyday tasks. Try brushing your teeth or hair with the other hand. Try hitting the space bar on your keyboard with the other thumb. This is harder then it looks. You can even wear your watch on the opposite wrist to get you thinking different.

Reading is fundamental. Read a book every week. Well we try. What I've done lately is try to read an entire series by an author. Pick up a James Patterson series, or Nora Robb, or even Janet Evanovich! The Internet is your friend when looking for a series to read. You can also read books online with the Google Book library.

There are even websites that specialize in exercising your brain. Here is one that does brain training by playing games MIND 360.

Crossword puzzles are very popular and the New York Times has some of the best. They charge a fee for online access. Here is some free crossword puzzles FREE FREE FREE

Learning more about your computer is always good. You probably have programs on your computer that you have never used. What is this Access thingy? I have all these Accessories, what do they do? Google is your friend here. Look up how to use these programs and try to use them.

Happy Exercising!

#163 - Flash Memory Card update

2009-08-16T11:41:00.004-05:00

Flash memory technology certainly has changed the way we live. It is the basis for digital cameras, digital camcorders, cell phones, MP3 players and of course thumb drives. The ability to store large amounts of information in a small space has changed how we work and play. It also has killed one industry (picture film) while creating many new ones (mentioned above).

Flash memory cards, used in digital cameras, have certainly changed since being introduced. The original flash memory card was the CompactFlash Drive made by SanDisk in 1994. This square drive (1.69 inches x 1.42 inches) had female pin connectors and was very large when compared to today's cards. Nikon used this format for almost 10 years before switching to the now standard SD media card.

The first thin and quite small card was the Smart media card introduced in 1995. This card is the grandfather of SD (Secure Digital) media card that is used by most digital cameras today. It had a gold plated connector that easily inserted into the appropriate device.

Sony and Olympus are still using their proprietary formats Memory Stick and xD respectively. There are some advantages to these formats (Memory sticks are pretty rugged and xD is pretty small), however the majority of new products have moved to SD technology. Most new laptops and netbooks have just an SD card slot in them.

SD has advanced to the new SDHD (High Density) cards that can be as large as 64GB. Unfortunately SDHD cards can NOT be used in older cameras and MP3 players that use SD technology. Be aware of what kind of card your electronic product can use. There are also Micro and Mini versions of the SD card used in Cell Phones and MP3 players.

It is pretty confusing keeping up with these standards. Wikipedia has an excellent page with pictures and information about all the memory cards: MEMORY CARD COMPARISON

#162 - Traffic Technology

2009-08-02T18:06:00.002-05:00

So I asked the wife, "What would be a good topic for the blog?" She says, "You've been traveling by car alot this summer, maybe talk about traffic technology". Ok so here goes.

My parents were amazed this summer when their town put in new traffic lights with detection cameras. We've had those in Virginia for a good 5 years. The detection cameras note when a car comes to stop at an intersection and then instruct a processor to turn the correct traffic light to green. Now they are fortunate that what didn't go up was a traffic enforcement camera. One that catches those that run lights by taking a picture of a car that goes through an intersection when the light is red. These are popular in Northern Virginia.

We've also seen some new surface technology in the small town of Covington. A new bridge over some rail tracks went in with a new composite surface that is supposed to last twice as long as either blacktop or new concrete. Its costs about 30% more, so should pay off in the long run and the costs should come down if more is used.

Another great boon to traveling by car is the GPS. The Global Positioning System box helps us get to our destination by showing turn by turn directions. Now let me be the first to say that there still needs to be some work on this technology. Take my last trip to Ohio with the spouse. She was driving on a West Virginia Interstate when a big traffic jam occured. We were near an exit and she proposed that we go off and let the GPS take us to the next exit. OK, fine. I'm up for an adventure and that's exactly what we had. 10 minutes later we were on a one lane dirt and gravel road winding our way in Deliverance country. 20 minutes later we were on a nice paved highway heading directly back to where we got off the Interstate. Total detour was about 30 minutes and we still had a 15 minute wait in the Traffic Jam. Isn't technology wonderful?

I do like the electronic signs on the interstates that let you know about traffic congesting and give you the opportunity, ahead of time to make alternate plans. That works great in Virginia where I have a fair knowledge of most of the major routes and potential back road detours. You can also go to most state DOT sites and get very current reports of construction delays and alternate routes.

Internet in your car is now here. Verizon and other sell an mini hub you can put in your car and use wireless technology to have Internet on the run. It is a steep cost now, but I'm sure the price will come down with more competition.

#161 - Protecting your Electronics

2009-07-29T20:46:00.004-05:00

I would say that 90% of every computer I see has at least a surge protector handling its power. The lightning in the Highlands makes it a necessity. If you use a surge suppressor strip, did you know it is only good for one surge? Its essentially a fuse with outlets. Once the fuse blows you have no protection. Thats why the light goes out or flickers. Take a look at your surge protector , NOW! It may need replaced.

Many have got the word and use an UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to provide not only surge protection, but brown out protection. Brown out means low power. Our friends, Virginia Power, consistantly provides less then 120 volts AC to the Highlands. A UPS can make sure that your PC sees exactly 120 volts of pure AC power. Prices start about $50.00 and can protect your computer investment. Many UPS have network and phone line protection that is necessary in the mountains. I've seen way too many modems and routers get fried by surges in their systems.

What I don't see is people using UPS with their expensive electronics. Stereos, HDTVs, CD/VCR players, and Satellite dish electronics should all be protected by a UPS. They are even more sensitive to surges and power fluctuations. Check out your situation and let us know if we can help.

#160 - Windows 7 is coming

2009-07-14T07:48:00.002-05:00

Happy Bastille Day! Today we'll take a first look at Microsoft's new operating system, catchily named Windows 7. This replacement for the disaster named Vista is due out October 22. Even now you can buy a PC from HP and get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out. Not sure I would jump on that wagon quite yet. So lets see what improvements Windows 7 has besides having a different name. All our comments are based on the "beta" (that means trial) version of Windows 7 available today.

The best news is that Windows 7 is that it is faster and requires less resources then Vista. All the trial test show speed comparable to XP with slightly faster start ups and shut downs. The downside is that many of the Vista bells and whistles are still around - Aero, the graphics interface being one that not many will use, but take up huge amounts of Windows 7 resources. Windows 7 does have an "XP Mode" that will allow anything that ran on XP to run on Windows 7. This is a major big deal for business. Now whether the "XP Mode" runs as fast as original XP is what users will have to test out with their software.

The improvement's that Microsoft thinks we need are as follows: The taskbar has been given more functionality (hmmm sounds like Apple's OS X). You can pin documents and programs there and there are jump lists that open your most frequently used items. Thumbnail previews have been added in the system so you no longer have to guess at what is in a document when you hover over it with your arrow. Of course you may need bifocals or a magnifying glass to use this feature. For sharing files Microsoft has added something called Homegroups that makes it easier to share files in your group or at home between users. Microsoft calls Windows 7 their most "stable" operating system ever and that is what users want. The bugs and quirks of Vista have made many scared (and rightfully so) of new operating systems. An unstable release of Windows 7 might be a fatal disaster for Microsoft.

#159 - Keeping the planet green with Technology

2009-07-04T12:14:00.003-05:00

I've recently seen some interesting new gadgets that try to help us be more green. Lets take a look at some.

The Eco-Kettle tackles the problem of wasting energy by boiling too much water. The Eco-Kettle lets you select the exact amount of boiled water you need and then does the job. The kettle uses 30% less energy in boiling water to boot! Here is more information on the Ec0-Kettle:

The pressure sensitive bath mat takes a simple concept and works to save you money and water. Position the mat in your shower near the shower head. When you are on the mat you get that lovely hot shower. Move off the mat and the water stops while you scrub. Now why didn't I think of that? Samsung Design

We have often thought that getting a new cell phone every other year has to be a huge waste in for the environment. Nokia agrees and has begun making a cell phone made out of recycled materials. I hope Apple and Motorola follow Nokia's lead. Nokia Ink 01

There are several new composting machines on the market that you can put in your kitchen or garage to produce great soil for your home and garden plants. Here is a site with lots of information: Composting in the home!

#158 - Survivors of the Technology Boom

2009-06-10T18:18:00.003-05:00

So who is left? From the PC wars we have HP, Apple and Dell. I'm glad PCSS is a long time HP reseller we have see the company get better and better at making PCs and Printers. Dell's business model of direct sales is good for some people, but thankfully not for all. IBM, AST, Compaq, and hundreds of other PC brands never made it to 2009. Apple has been around since the beginning listening to a different drummer.

In the printer wars Lexmark (old IBM), HP, Canon and Epson are still making printers. HP has the lion's share of the market and gets very good quality ratings. Lexmark is low end, Canon and Epson make decent high end printers.

Monitors are made by just a few companies in China and Korea. They then put a label on them that you recognize (Viewsonic, LG, Samsung, Sony etc). The quality is so good that almost all monitors come with a little used 3 year warranty. Great Wall Computer, Hong Kong THFT Co., Daewoo, Ma Labs are some of the bigger manufactures. A very detailed look at your monitors documentation will let you know who makes it.

Network equipment is dominated by Cisco/Linksys, Netgear, Dlink and Belkin also hold major positions in consumer products. Cisco, 3Com, Nortel and Juniper are big in business applications. Wireless networks haven't changed the players, they just started to make wireless gear.

Is there room for new computer equipment manufacturer? Well they start up all the time in Asia, they just don't market here under there names. We tend to like nice western names for our computer equipment manufacturers.

#157 - Freeware - The truely free lunch

2009-05-30T19:44:00.003-05:00

We've all heard there is no such thing as a free lunch. If its free your really can't afford it. We've found those sayings generally true. There are some free things for PCs that we use every day. There are also items that are supposedly free that are really spyware.. Buyer beware so to speak. All of the programs mentioned here can be downloaded safely at www.download.com Here are some of our favorites:

For handling pictures we use Picasa from Google. It does a very nice job of photo organization and basic editing. For more advanced editing we use the Paint program built into windows (Start, All Programs, Accessories, Paint) or the great photo editing program GIMP. GIMP is more complex to use then Photoshop, but hey the price is right!

Managing music is more problematic. We use iTunes (free from Apple) to handle our music (we do confess that this is on our Apple Mini, but it works the same on a PC). We love how it displays and sorts our music. We aren't so thrilled about how it organizes the music on a hard disk (it doesn't and that can be a problem). Microsoft's Windows Media Player has so many issues that being free isn't a plus.

The best program to find out information about your PC is the Belarc Advisor. It does a thorough job of letting you know what hardware and software is in your system. Belarc will give you a nice print out that you should keep around. No shortage of good information here.

Browsers are free and there are no shortage of them out there. Our favorites are Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. They both are quick and have extra protection features for searching the Internet. Speaking of protection, You know we use AVG antivirus in both its free and paid versions. The paid version just has better real time protection. For removing spyware/malware on an infected system Malware bytes is the leader by far.

And last for this blog, but certainly not least is Open Office. This Microsoft Office Clone has programs that read and write Word/Excel/PowerPoint files and lots more. Beware that this is a huge download (not for dialup users).

#156 - Watching TV on the Net

2009-05-21T14:56:00.003-05:00

Its rerun season. For whatever reason - you know it has to be money - The major networks close out their prime time season in May and send us the reruns or the Class B shows for the summer. It used to be if you missed an episode (or even a series) you had to have recorded it or wait for the rerun. That's no longer the case. The networks own sites have full episodes of programs available for view (with commercials). There are also sites that allow you watch whole seasons of prime time content at your convenience. Hulu, and Joost let you pick which program you want to watch and then it comes up with reduced (but still there) commercials. NBC & ABC support Hulu and Joost has a selection of all network shows. There are live TV feeds on the Internet so if you have Internet, but no TV you can watch programs.

All this brought to mind where the future of TV is heading. We are so busy, that it is tough for us to commit to watching a program at the same time every week. The advent of the VCR broke that chain, but the actual implementation of taping shows wasn't so hot (who hasn't had to read the manual 3 times to make sure a VCR would record). Next came TIVO(DVR technology) - the Hard Drive that would record your programs automatically and keep them until you could watch them. Of course that technology was space limited and could screw up if a program came on late or lasted too long (think football games). After owning a DVR for a year, you find yourself constantly erasing old programs. It seems to me that keeping the programs on the web, where you could watch them and see the ads when you want is a better technology.

I see the networks not losing this valuable revenue stream and all will have "watch me later" options for all their prime time shows. They may even get smart and store old seasons of popular shows so that consumer can load the shows on the Internet and the networks can insert up to date ads. You know how popular DVDs of TV shows are. But who really wants to dust DVD cases? Its just better when someone else keeps the clutter!

Just hit the comment button if you would like to post your thoughts!

#155 - The mini notebook computers

2009-05-03T14:52:00.004-05:00

I'm in Denver airport today filling out this blog on the FREE wifi. Yeah Denver airport! I only had to watch a 30 second commercial to get to the Internet. Not a bad deal! In Atlanta it costs $7.99 for 24 hours of access.

Anyway, I'm using a new HP 2140 mini notebook computer that I acquired last week. So what does a "mini notebook" mean? It has a 10" diagonal screen (only 4" tall, more on that later). The keyboard is 92% of full size. That is about as small as I can use and still touch type. Every now and then I'll slip on a key. It only weighs 2.6 pounds. The case is made of aluminum and appears durable. The screen is scratch resistant and very bright. There is a touch pad built in, but the buttons are on the side of the touch pad instead of top/bottom that is normal on most laptops.

The mini 2140 I have has 1GB of memory, 160GB hard disk drive and runs Windows XP Home. There are 2 USB ports, an external VGA display port (for a projector), an Ethernet RJ45 port, an SD memory card slot and an Express 54 expansion slot (the new version of the pcmcia slot). It has wireless and bluetooth built in. (I'm on wireless now and using a bluetooth mouse). The processor is a special Intel ATOM 1.6GHz model that was specifically designed for the mini notebook market. It has a web camera built in with microphone and headphone ports. The only thing missing is a DVD/CD burner player. It's just too small to have one.

I've been using it for a couple of weeks with pretty good success. I love the size and the portability. It fits in everywhere. The screen is bright enough. The only issue so far is that the screen is short. In some programs you don't get enough information on the screen. In AOL I get about 3 lines of a message on the screen with the rest filled up with ads. The speed is great with the 1GB of memory and XP. It is as fast as my other HP notebook and faster then my Lenovo with Vista (it has 2GB of memory!). I got the expanded 6 cell battery so it will run to a max of 8 hours on one charge! That is remarkable. Cost for this model is $499.00. Acer (that makes the mini's for HP) makes a plastic case version with a 3 cell battery for $299.00! PCSS sells them both.

Here is a link to the Specs: HP MINI 2140

#154 - Things our Grandchildren will not recognize

2009-04-22T17:44:00.002-05:00

Nice title, no? I was having a conversation with a friend today and we talked about items that we are familiar with that people two generations hence (the imaginary grandkids) will have no clue about. Things like newspapers, phone booths, desktop computers, watches (kids use their cell phones for the time - more accurate), video cameras, photo & movie film, movie theaters, big box TVs, TV antennas to name a few.

We argued a while on when paper books would go extinct. Amazon has introduced their "Kindle" wireless reading device. KINDLE 2 Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds and no PC required! It remains to be seen if devices like this will replace their venerable past. I can see a time where you can have EVERY book you have read or used in school available on a reading device you carry around. Great concept!

Here are some technology dinosaurs: Hard Disk Drives (Solid State Technology Drives are now up to 80GB in size!); Floppy Disk Drives (people ask me all the time what to do with the boxes of old floppy disks they have lying around); CDs (just like vinyl records!); DVDs (Just like VCR tapes!); Answering Machines; Fax machines; Black & White Printers; paper photo albums; letters, snail mail and the one I'll miss the most: Local Stores!!!

Let me know what you think we will miss!

#153 - The LaserJets Birthday

2009-04-13T12:53:00.004-05:00

The HP LaserJet is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month. Although I never owned an HP LaserJet (1), I did have a LaserJet II at work. The first laser printer for IBM Compatible personal computers was introduced in 1984 by HP as the LaserJet (now called LaserJet Classic). It had 300-dots per inch resolution and 8 pages per minute speed. It sold for a tidy $3,495.

The next LaserJet was not the II, but the LaserJet Plus. It introduced the concept of "soft fonts". You could now bold your print or italic the print. HP introduced the world's first mass market laser printer, the LaserJet series II, in March 1987, list priced at $2,695. There are still LaserJet IIs in operation. It was the most reliable printer ever produced. The first personal laserjet was the LaserJet IIp introduced in September 1989 and costing only $1495.

The LaserJet brought the end to the dot matrix and daisy wheel printers that started the PC revolution. You can now buy an HP LaserJet printer for only $129.00. It has 4 times the resolution and 3 times the speed of the original LaserJet. Life is good!

#152 - A new Internet Explorer: Version 8

2009-03-26T07:18:00.004-05:00

Microsoft always seems to be catching up. First Mozilla Firefox came out with tabbed browsing. A year later Microsoft comes out with Internet Explorer 7 with tabbed browsing. About 6 months ago Google introduced Google Chrome - the fastest browser around. Now Microsoft has introduce Internet Explorer 8 - supposedly faster.

I downloaded IE 8 last week and have been playing with it since. I will say that the first thing I did with IE 8 was to turn off all the new fancy bells and whistles to make it look like IE 7 and at least that works. Microsoft is bent on changing interfaces just for the heck of it. Vista added very few innovations, but it did look different then XP. Microsoft Office 2007 is all about different interface, much to its demise. People HATE Office 2007. Maybe Microsoft has ffigured out it needs to keep the familiar interface to allow a program to be usable.

IE 8 is faster then IE 7, but I won't say it is faster loading web pages then Chrome. Here are some other features: WebSlices is a nice looking feature. They seem to work somewhat like Apple’s customizable Dashboard clippings, except in this case the clipping lives in the browser.
Say there’s a part of a page you’d like to track, but you don’t care about the rest — a weather widget for example — the WebSlice would allow you to bookmark just that element. IE 8 will then track changes to that portion of the page, alerting you when new info is available. Other new features highlighted on the page include a revamped Favorites Bar, automatic crash recovery and better phishing protection. Even with Tabs, it's easy to get lost amid too many open windows. Tab Groups organize tabs in relation to one another. For instance, tabs that you open from the same site are placed next to each other and marked with the same color. The tabs can then be closed or moved as one unit. The Smart Address Bar in IE8 turns the URL area into a search field of sorts. Wait, this is JUST LIKE CHROME! If you type a word into the address bar, IE8 searches through your browsing history, favorites and feeds to find sites related to what you are looking for. The search results are based on titles of pages as well as keywords within the Web address and are divided into three groups: History, favorites and feeds.

You can download IE8 here: IE 8 Download

#149 - To Text or not to Text

2009-03-01T20:58:00.003-05:00

I'm showing my age now. I don't get text messaging. I like a real voice to talk to or at the minimum an email message with real words spelled almost correctly. My cell phone plan allows for text messages to come in. I have to pay for text message out. So I'm asking my self, I don't have to pay for a cell phone call (till I meet my max minutes) so why bother texting when I can just call? I'm sure there are moments when texting makes sense. Like when you are at a game and can't hear, but hey you are at a game. Enjoy the moment!

States are passing laws concerning cell phone usage in cars. They are a few years late. When I drive around Covington, I'd say half the people I pass are on the phone. Now I really can't imagine how someone can drive and text message. I don't have enough hands to steer and type text message and my eyes don't split to be looking at the road and keyboard at the same time. Unless there is a massive crackdown with severe penalties, I don't think regulating cell phone use in cars will be effective. Its like the speeding laws. We see how well they work. What did work was $4.00 a gallon gas. I noticed people driving much slower when the prices were sky high.

Let me know what you think about text messages and texting while driving!

#148 - Email observations

2009-02-20T15:59:00.003-05:00

I believe I have covered this topic before but I have discussed email options with several customers recently. Never hurts to cover a topic twice!

Email comes in several flavors - the most used is the POP3 ( Post Office Protocol 3) model. In this email method e-mail is received and held for you by your Internet server. Periodically, you check your mail-box on the server and download any mail. This standard protocol is built into most popular e-mail products, such as Outlook, Thunderbird and Outlook Express.

POP3 is designed to delete mail on the server as soon as the user has downloaded it. However, some implementations allow users or an administrator to specify that mail be saved for some period of time. POP can be thought of as a "store-and-forward" service.

I'm not a big fan of POP3 type emails (nTelos, TDS, Verizon). Why? - Because you download ALL the email to your PC. Good, Bad and Ugly. It clogs up your PC and if your hard drive crashes and you haven't backed up your email (not an easy thing to do) your email is GONE!

The other type of Email is web based. AOL, Yahoo and Gmail are of this type, though quite different. In web based emails, the emails are stored at the hosts server site. It can be brought to your PC, but that isn't the standard option.

In AOL's case, it stores your emails on its servers until read and then for up to a week. If you want to store the email on your PC, you can save it there. You can also set up AOL to save all your email on your PC. In Gmail's case, it store emails forever on its servers.

You can set Gmail up to act like a POP3 and bring the email to your PC if you desire. Yahoo mail works much like Gmail. Both Gmail and Yahoo mail let you store just about unlimited email on their servers. AOL has limits as to the amount you can save on their servers. AOL has wonderful group and a great personal file cabinet to organize your emails. Gmail and Yahoo are plainer with less email organization features.

Which one is right for you? I don't know. Email is generally free so its a matter of personal preference. I have a Verizon, ntelos, Gmail, vt and AOL accounts. I mainly use the AOL and Gmail accounts. Set a new one up and see how you like it. If you do just email everyone in your contacts or address book and move to the better email! (just let nick know so he can keep you on the newsletter list!)

#147 - XP, Vista and Windows 7

2009-02-04T09:36:00.003-05:00

You know Microsoft may be slow, but they aren't dumb. After getting another earful on how horrible the Vista operating system is, they have delayed once again the end of XP. I feel like the boy crying WOLF. This time the last date that you can buy a new PC with XP installed will be July 31, 2009. I've been burned on this so much, I'll just say that I can still get dual XP/Vista PCs and leave it at that.

The new operating system, Windows 7, has been released in Beta form (that means you can download it and install it on a PC, but it will be very buggy and will expire in 2 months). It looks like a slimmed down version of Vista. If you are using special software in your business that will not run on Vista, it probably won't run on Windows 7. Windows 7 uses Vista as a base, but Microsoft is supposedly cleaning up much of the bloat and hassle factor.

Reportedly one bad move that Microsoft made with Vista will continue in Windows 7. The introduction of Vista found 4 different versions you could buy. Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. There were also 64 bit versions to ad to the confusion. We are hearing that there will be 6 versions of Windows 7. That is just nuts. I think you could dummy it down to two versions, home and business. Oh wait that's what XP had. Some people never learn...

#146 - What's New in 2009?

2009-01-14T22:30:00.002-05:00

There will be a big battle in the processor world in 2009. Both Intel and AMD have announced new families of processor chips that are significantly faster then the existing Dual Core technology. You will see these chips by the end of the first quarter in high end laptops and desktops. I'm not sure who buys those high end machines. My customers are mostly price sensitive and in the recent past you really couldn't tell the difference between a 2.3 GHz dual Core and a 1.8GHz Celeron processor running Word and Excel.

The mini laptops will make a bigger mark this year. Introduced in 2008, the mini laptops have screens around 8-9" diagonal. They barely fit a keyboard in (usually with tiny function and directional keys). They usually don't have an optical drive (CD/DVD). They only weigh 2-3 pounds and fit in just about any carry on bag you have. They are priced below $500.

Prices on LCD monitors are down right now. If you want to get a better display now is the time to buy. I'm not sure we'll see any bigger sizes, but prices on the larger 19 and 22" screens are what a 17" screen display priced out in January 2008.

I heard a rumor that the Wireless N standard will finally be complete in 2009. That should drive down the price of routers and we'll see the N standard in more laptops.

Windows 7, the replacement for the Vista disaster, will be sold before the end of the year. I heard this from a Microsoft employee who is fairly reliable. Microsoft sees the handwriting on the wall - Businesses are staying away from Vista in large numbers. Even if they just rename Vista it will help anemic Vista sales.

#145 - Happy New Years!

2009-01-04T19:14:00.002-05:00

I believe the whole country is looking forward 2009. I know Microsoft is. They will cut off Windows XP on January 31 and they hope will finally start making money on that horrible operating system Windows Vista. They are working on the next operating system, but it won't be available till the end of 2009 at the earliest.

Most tech firms are hurting this New Years. Sales of everything but LCD TVs are down. PCs, Monitors, Printers you name it, its not selling well. Business is generally the driver on tech sales and business has put buying anything on hold. Maybe the Obama stimulus package will work to stimulate the economy. We certainly need stimulating.

So what will be new in 2009? I would guess that PC's will continue to get smaller, memory cheaper and hopefully the Internet will get faster. I think GPS's will appear more new cars and phones. More tech companies will go out of business or get bought. We are still pleased that we sell HP products. They will be around for the long haul. Their printer sales will support the weaker PC market through this downturn.

#144 Costs are going up.

2008-12-17T16:20:00.003-05:00

HP Inkjet Cartridges, Print Heads, Photo Value Packs and LaserJet Supplies price hikes. As of Jan. 1, 2009, HP is increasing the list prices on Inkjet cartridges, print heads, photo value packs and LaserJet supplies by approximately 5% on average. Actual price increases will vary by part number. PCSS will be passing on this increase as well most retailers.

PCSS will increase our hourly rate from $74 to $79 effective January 1, 2009. We increase our rates every 2 years so we maintain this rate until 2011. Thanks again for your support.

Our distributors (those who sell us the PCs & Supplies) quickly changed their freight policy when fuel prices went up. We used to get free freight on orders over $500. Now for one distributor we only get free freight on orders over $1000 and at another only if the order ships out of one warehouse and is over $1000. Since gas prices have plummeted no one has changed their freight policy back. This means PCSS can't order products every day. We have to wait until we get an order over $1000 or our prices will have to be higher to cover the additional freight cost. This is especially true on heavy items like PCs and Printers.

Good news is PC and laptop prices are as low as we have ever seen them. Remember Windows XP goes away in January 2oo9, so if you think you need a new PC order soon if you want XP.

#143 Technology kills the local store?

2008-12-07T19:46:00.004-05:00

In the holiday rush we'd like to ask each of our customers to consider doing much of their holiday shopping with local stores. A dollar spent locally goes around 3 times in the community. A dollar spent at an Internet store supports the Internet stores community not yours.

The new business model for sales may be strictly getting on you PC and ordering, but local stores also provide Internet sales. Take PCSS. You can check out our sales items on line or just email us with your request. We will get it to you before Christmas and make sure you have the right item.

If your local stores go out of business it will effect you eventually. A world of shopping that is nothing but Walmarts and Internet stores is a very scary future. Personal service is still alive and well in your local communities!

Buy Local!

#142 - The end of the mouse?

2008-11-21T14:04:00.003-05:00

No Mickey Mouse is safe as is the common house mouse (mus musculus). The mouse we are worried about is the PC mouse. Way back in March of last year we did a blog on the humble beginnings of the PC Mouse: #23 Mousing Around. Now we are talking about its demise?

Well technology changes and here are some of the successors to the mouse. Every laptop owner has an alternative to the mouse. The touch pad or the IBM eraser head is standard input devise on most laptops. Tablet PCs also have touch screens or stylus screens to get their input. The latest smart phones have touch screens and the newest Apple Mac laptops have no buttons just the Multi touch Track Pad. The Track Pad like the iPhone lets you pinch, drag or tap the pad to make know your desires to the computer. We've also seen cameras installed in displays the record your motions and translate them to selections on the PC. People have been embedded with chips that let your muscles tell the PC what to do (Sci Fi fans are thrilled, the ACLU not so much). Everyone in the Technology game is trying to get away from the electronic rodent.

Now you may say "Not so Fast" Nick! I love my mouse or my wireless mouse. I even bought one to use with my laptop because I hate the touch pad thingy. We'll that may be the case. However if touch screens become less expensive, I doubt you will still request a mouse when a simple point and tap will do. Virginia Tech has placed PCs with just touch screens as public PCs in the Inn at Virginia Tech. They take some getting used to, but it does seem like a better way to input your needs to the PC.

Now lets not talk about the end of the keyboard quite yet.

#141 - Windows 7 - Microsoft's Answer to the Vista disaster

2008-11-14T09:22:00.004-05:00

Good news. Microsoft supposedly listened to the avalanche of customer complaints about Windows Vista. A new version called Windows 7 is on the drawing board and supposedly fixes all the Vista glitches. Here is an excellent early preview: Windows 7 Preview.

Bad news is the predicted release date (the earliest we would see it) is for holiday season 2009. Only a year away! Also bad news is that Microsoft is still saying no more XP after January 2009. So Microsoft will have almost a full year of nothing but Vista complaints to wallow through from its customers.

Remember the preview version is just that and Microsoft has been know to carve out any "feature" that doesn't really work before publishing the software(and they've been know to leave in quite a few that don't work right!).

We will continue to sell and recommend XP until the last day it ships in new PCs.

#140 - To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade?

2008-10-29T04:35:00.003-05:00

One of the frequent questions I get is whether to upgrade a PC or buy a new one. With new PCs in the $400 range and cheap laptops under $600, it gets tougher to answer this question.

First lets get the Nick rant out of the way - unless it came with your PC NEVER upgrade to Windows Vista. Your PC is probably not ready for Vista - it requires a high power PC with lots of memory (>2GB).

Next memory is always a good and generally inexpensive upgrade. Windows XP has a maximum recognition of 3GB. I haven't seen much benefit of more then 2GB when using XP. Now Vista is a different story. It supposedly can handle 4GB maximum. I've never seen it actually recognize more then 3.5GB. Many PCs only have 2 memory slots so if you are maxed out you need to remove a memory chip to put a new one in.

Hard Drives are a double whammy to upgrade. The drive itself is not very expensive. The time to load Windows and all your programs and files is more expensive. Minimum cost to upgrade is $175. Now a faster hard drive is nice, don't get me wrong. Its just a bit expensive compared to cost of a new PC.

Graphics cards are mainly added for home use (read that kids want to play games). Since PCSS doesn't do much in that area we'll let it alone.

Adding a DVD burner if you don't have one costs less then $50 and is a good upgrade.

The only way we know to upgrade your monitor is to get a new one. Ditto on printers. Did we mention that printer prices are so low that getting a new one is almost always a great idea (HP Color LaserJet for less then $250.00!!!)

#139 Customizing Word #2

2008-10-13T08:15:00.002-05:00

Here are some other tips on making Word do what you want:

On the Tools menu click on Customize. The Toolbar tab lets you select what toolbars are displayed when Word Opens. The Standard, Formatting and Menu bar are default. If you use another tool bar frequently (like the Drawing tool bar) you can check it in this list and it be displayed when you open Word.

The Options tab should have both the following items checked: Show Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows and Always show full menus. I have never understood why Word does not have these checked as default If you don't have the first checked then all your menus are crammed together and unless you have a wide screen you can't see them all. The minimized menus are confusing (where did all the commands go). Head scratcher by Microsoft on this one. The remaining OTHER items are up to you to customize.

On the Tools menu click on Options and you have lots of tabs to play with. Other then changing the Default File location in the File Location tab we don't change much here. You can change how Word looks with the View Tab. The General Tab lets you change miscellaneous items like changing the background or measurement. The Save Tab allows you to create a backup document every time you save a file. It also sets the time for automatically saving your file. The User Information Tab lets you change your address and user info. The Spelling & Grammar Tab lets you control Spell check and Grammar check functions. We generally don't visit any of the other tabs, but explore at your own risk!

Did you know Word has a Thesaurus built in? Click on Tools then Language and point to Thesaurus (Wow is that complicated). You can also press the Shift and F7 keys. Now type in the word you want choices for and Viola Thesaurus at work.

Word 2003 and above also has speech recognition built in (it really isn't very good). Make sure you have a microphone plugged in then click on Tools and then Speech. Follow the wizard to set it up.

Enjoy your new Word!

#138 - Customizing Word #1

2008-10-01T18:20:00.003-05:00

I thought today we would go through some Word customization tricks. These apply to Word 2002 & 2003. All bets are off in Word 2007 (almost as useful as Vista!).

If you type the same long phrase over and over you can have Word type it in for you. For example I do the minutes for the Highlands Community Bank board. That means typing Highlands Community Bank many times. In word you can set up an AutoCorrect item so that when you type in HCB it will automatically put Highlands Community Bank in all your Word documents. To do this click on Tools then AutoCorrect options. Type in the letters or keys in the REPLACE: box then type in the complete phrase in the WITH: box. Now make sure you haven't made a mistake (you can edit it later) and click on OK. Now when you type in your short cut and then press the space bar your complete phrase will appear in Word.

Would you like to add a command to your Word toolbars? It is fairly easy. For example we use the Envelope command alot. To add this command to the formatting toolbar we follow these steps. Click on Tools and then Customise. Make sure that the Commands tab is selected. Then find the menu item you want to look at in the left Categories: box. For the Envelopes command we go to the Tools in the Categories: box and then scroll down in the Commands: box. We find the Envelopes and Labels item. We now drag that item into the Formatting toolbar at the top of Word and Viola the icon for Envelopes and Labels is now on our toolbar. We can take it off by just dragging it off the toolbar. This works with hundreds of Word Commands.

Would you like Word to open up a different folder then My Documents for your Word files? We have a Word subfolder in My Documents that we keep all our word files and use that when we click on Open or Save/Save As. To set up a different folder click on the Tools menu then Options. Click on the File Locations tab, then click on the word Documents and then Modify. You can navigate your PC for any directory. I know some customer that save all their files on an External Hard Drive and use this system to open a folder on that drive.

More on customizing Word next Blog!

#137 - Talking about upgrades

2008-09-22T20:57:00.003-05:00

I like to talk PC upgrades, because we get attached to our PCs. Love them or hate them we dislike to throw them out. So here are some suggestions to make your PC better and some of the costs to do it.

The best upgrade you can add to most computer is memory. You can upgrade most PCs with a 1GB chip for $40 or less. This will speed up your PC and lengthen the life of your hard drive.

Another great upgrade is to a bigger screen. A 19" LCD flat screen monitor costs $229. A 22" widescreen LCD monitor costs the same (great for movies!). As my eyes get older the bigger the screen the better!

The best way to back up your data is with an external hard disk drive. All your data can then be safe and easily transported with you. A portable 250GB USB external hard drive costs $99.

Many of our customers like wireless keyboards and mice. We aren't fond of them, but some hate wires more then having to put batteries in their keyboard & mouse. You can get a nice Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse set for $29.00

If you are like Nick and type a lot, the ergonomic keyboards are the best. Good bye carpel tunnel syndrome. We like the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard for $52.00.

Stop using Microsoft Internet Explorer for your Internet browsing. Firefox is safer and Google Chrome is faster. Firefox Download - Google Chrome Download

Getting a better printer for less is a great upgrade. Color LaserJet printers start at $299. Great color inkjet printers costs around $100.00. These are fast and cost efficient.

Make your PC better with an upgrade!

#136 - Why I can't open that file!

2008-09-01T16:26:00.003-05:00

Have you ever had an attached file that would not open up? Why can't your PC open all files?

Your PC must have the same program or a viewer program to open any file. How do you know what program will open the program?

You will get a message similar to this:

Generally, you will not know what program will open the file. I usually have to email the sender and ask what program will open the file. Once you find out what program will open the file you decide whether you want to install that particular file. You can also click on the Select the program from a list option and pick a general program like Microsoft Word to open the file. This will work in many cases.

Always ask yourself before you attempt to open an attachment: Do I really need to see this information? Many computer viruses come via attachments so you should treat them with great caution.

If you still are at a loss - just give PCSS a call!

#135 - Setting up you new PC

2008-08-05T19:21:00.002-05:00

I have been setting up a lot of new PCs lately so I thought I might tell you what I have been doing so that you can see if you have these same settings. Note these items are for Windows XP (I'll do the Vista version later {MUCH LATER}).

When I first turn on a new PC you have to set up the Date and decide whether to register with Microsoft and the PC manufacturer. I don't register anything anymore. I really haven't seen the advantage. The only exception is for upgrading the warranty. I definitely register that item. Next is the User decision. I like to leave the built in Administration user alone. So I create a new user (Start, Control Panel, Users) that is also has administrator rights and is in the new owners name.

I then log in the computer as the new user name and start making my changes. I get rid of Bloatware SEE THIS OLD BLOG for info on how and what to do.

Then right click the desktop and click on Properties. In the Display Properties window I click on the Desktop tab and then the Customize Desktop button. I then uncheck the Run Desktop Wizard item. Then I click on the Screen Saver tab and set up the Screen Saver and the Power Options. I then click on the Appearance tab and the Effects button. I click on Use the following method to smooth edges of fonts down arrow and pick ClearType (this makes the fonts look good!).

I then click OK and start on the task bar. I right click the Start button and pick Properties. I click on the Start Menu Tab and Customize button. I click on the Advanced tab and uncheck the Highlight newly install programs box. I click OK , OK to end that change. I right click on the blue task bar and Properties. I uncheck Hide inactive icons box then click on the Apply button.

That ends my initial set up and now I can start installing programs. (Wheesh!) And you thought my job was easy!

#134 Wireless Connections

2008-07-31T20:09:00.006-05:00

So now you have a wireless notebook computer. How do you find wireless networks and how do you connect to them? Bad news is the answer is it depends on what operating system you have (XP or Vista) and what hardware you have (does it use Windows for connection or its own special program). The question of hardware is the first one to answer. The 3 laptop manufactures that PCSS sells all do things different. HP uses the Windows wireless network connection. Lenovo and Toshiba have their own utilities. If you own Lenovo or Toshiba, I probably showed you how to find wireless networks when you bought the PC.

I'm going to outline the process of connecting under XP, but I have a link that will take you through the process in either XP or Vista: Wireless Connection with XP or Vista

Under XP you need to watch the task bar near the clock. Look for this icon: It may have a red slash or X through it if you are not connected. Right click on this icon and get this menu:

If you click on View Available Wireless Networks and you will get a list of wireless connections in your area. The list will also tell you if the connections are secure and the SSID (network name). If the connection is listed as secure you will need the pass code (from the owner) to log on that network and get the Internet. IF the connection is unsecured you can just highlight the networks name and click on Connect. IF there are no networks listed then there are no available networks where you are.

Once you connect the little icon in the task bar will no longer have the red X or slash and when you hover your mouse over the icon it will tell you what network you are connected to and the quality of the connection (Excellent, Good, low, very low).

Note that not all networks share the Internet. Some are there to share files or printers.

Here are two good sites to fine a free connection where you are: JWIRE

WiFi Free Spot

#133 - Wireless 101

2008-07-13T18:05:00.002-05:00

So here we are to try and clear up all the confusion about what wireless networking is and isn't. What is has been and what is in the future. So lets dive right in.

How does wireless networking work? A wireless network uses radio waves, just like cell phones, televisions and radios do. In fact, communication across a wireless network is a lot like two-way radio communication. Here's what happens:

A computer's wireless adapter translates data into a radio signal and transmits it using an antenna. A wireless router receives the signal and decodes it. It sends the information to the Internet using a physical, wired Ethernet connection. The process also works in reverse, with the router receiving information from the Internet, translating it into a radio signal and sending it to the computer's wireless adapter. The radios used for WiFi communication are very similar to the radios used for walkie-talkies, cell phones and other devices. They can transmit and receive radio waves, and they can convert ones and zeros into radio waves and convert the radio waves back into ones and zeros.

But WiFi radios have a few notable differences from other radios: 1. They transmit at frequencies of 2.4 GHz or 5GHz. This frequency is considerably higher than the frequencies used for cell phones, walkie-talkies and televisions. The higher frequency allows the signal to carry more data. 2.They use 802.11 networking standards, which come in several flavors

The IEEE (Electrical Engineering Professional Society) sets up standards the 802.11 is the standard for wireless networking. The flavors are alphabetical and start with: 802.11a the oldest standard. 802.11a transmits at 5GHz and can move up to 54 megabits of data per second. It was used by some technical groups, but never got broad use. 802.11b was the first widely used standard. It uses the 2.4GHz frequency (the same as some wireless phones so if you have any 2.4GHz phones you can't have a wireless network) and was fairly inexpensive to make equipment. The most popular standard is the present 802.11g. 802.11g transmits at 2.4 GHz like 802.11b, but it's a lot faster -- it can handle up to 54 megabits of data per second. The latest is 802.11n. This standard IS NOT FINALIZED yet, but equipment companies are selling what they call "draft n" routers and receivers right now. This standard significantly improves speed and range. For instance, although 802.11g theoretically moves 54 megabits of data per second, it only achieves real-world speeds of about 24 megabits of data per second because of network congestion. 802.11n, however, reportedly can achieve speeds as high as 140 megabits per second.

Well enough geek talk. Its enough to know that you probably own an 802.11g system and the future is twice as fast with 802.11n. Should you buy 802.11n now? The jury is out on how compatible the "draft n" equipment will be with the finalized standard. PCSS is living just fine with our 802.11g network.

Next post we'll talk about how you actually link up to a wireless network with Windows XP, Vista or proprietary program (see Dell and Lenovo).

#132 - Laptop Maintenance

2008-06-28T07:05:00.002-05:00

A great majority of our customers have laptops as well as desktop computers. Laptops are DIFFERENT and require different maintenance procedures. Many times we see customer who always leave their laptops plugged in. They aren't using them as a true laptop, just a small desktop. The risk in following this use model is the life of the laptop battery. If you leave the laptop plugged in always and don't use the battery then it will die a quick death and that will cost you over $100 to replace.

When you get a new laptop or batter you should fully charge it (6-12 hours) and then fully discharge it. Here is the recommended cycle (from the battery manufacturers):

1. Unplug the laptop and use the laptop until the battery fully drains.
2. while the computer is turned off, plug in the computer and charge it a minimum of 6 hours.

Lithium-based batteries should be given a full discharge/charge cycle once every 30 charge cycles. If the batter is not going to be used for more than a month, it is recommended that it be removed from the laptop and stored in a cool dry clean place. A charged battery will eventually lose its charge if unused.

Do not expose the battery to high heat or freezing temperatures. Do not leave your batter in your car in the summer. The life of a rechargeable battery operating under normal conditions is generally between 500 to 800 cycles.

Getting the most Usage Time with a Battery:

1. Turn off your WiFi if not using it.
2. Don't use your DVD/CD player
3. Disconnect all external devices (USB devices, PC Cards, Printers)
4. Adjust your screen brightness to the lowest acceptable to your eyesight.
5. Don't multitask. Run just one program at a time.

#131 - June wanderings

2008-06-06T14:07:00.002-05:00

Firstly, I still don't know when XP will go away. One distributor says they will have no more XP PCs come June 30, but Toshiba says the will have XP laptops through at least July. Go figure.

There are lots of great websites to set up tracking any event you would like. You can do a blog here at blogger.com to keep any trip of event up to date. I did it for my Mexico trip and it went over big with friends and family. You can also use a dedicated site like My Trip Journal.com. There you can load information, pictures and receive update notifications and comments.

We've see Wedding Planning sites that let you link family and friends to the important info on your wedding. The Knot.com has lots of help from registry information to setting up the particulars of the wedding for guests to see (location, times, dates, hotels, you name it!).

Pick an event and you can probably use the Internet to help you invite, prepare and inform your guests.

#130 Protecting your PC

2008-05-28T09:53:00.003-05:00

Our good friends at AVG have upgraded their antivirus protection software. Good news is they still have a free version and the new version (8.0) has spyware protection built in. You can download the new version here: AVG 8.0 Free Before you install the upgrade I recommend you uninstall at least the antispyware version of AVG. Go to Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove programs and find the AVG antisypware program in the list. Then click on Remove. Now you can install the new version. Its a fairly large download and not recommended for our dial up customers.

So what other protection do you need? Its good to delete your cookies when you close Internet Explorer. In IE click on the Tools, then Internet Options. Click on the Advanced tab and then scroll through the list till you see Security and under it you'll find this item: Empty Temporary Internet Explorer files folder when browser is Closed. Make sure it is checked then exit out.

We recommend you defrag your hard drive once a year {Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter}. You should do a Disk Clean up once a quarter {Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup}. One warning: DO NOT DO THE COMPRESS YOUR FILES OPTION.

Back up your files at least weekly and daily would be a better idea. If you need help in setting up a backup system let us know (that's how we pay the bills!).

Turn your PC off every night and if you aren't using the Internet at night shut down your Internet modem (a surge strip works great to shut everything down).

Make sure you are updating Windows with some regularity (Start, Control Panel, Automatic Update) and that your Windows Firewall is active {Start, Control Panel, Windows Firewall}.

#129 - Microsoft the company that keeps on giving

2008-05-19T17:30:00.005-05:00

So what has Microsoft done for you in 2008? Well they did delay the forced retirement of Windows XP, at least for a while. Vista has been a big disappointment in sales and XP is actually outselling Vista in the market place. So do they pull the plug on come June 30? Keep tuned here and we will let you know.

Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for Vista with not much fanfare in May. I can see why. I updated the Lenovo laptop I have with Vista on it and notice no difference. Still slow to load and shut down and it can crawl at times. Microsoft removed the Search button on the Start menu for some reason, but you can still use the search box found at the top of every open folder. That might take some time to get used to. Performance is supposedly faster, but not much. Copying files is faster, but still about the same speed as XP. That is the question I ask. Other then security what is better about this operating system? Nothing and that's why its going over like a lead balloon in the market place.

Microsoft has sort of released Windows XP Service Pack 3. Many computers can't upgrade due to a glitch in compatibility with of all things another Microsoft Service - (RMS). No loss there since there seems to be NOTHING worthwhile to most users in this last service pack for XP. It's not faster, safer or even more fun to use. Mostly techno geek stuff that you will never use. So don't worry about upgrading your XP.

Another great month for Microsoft, don't you think?

#128 - Saving Energy - Some Truths

2008-05-05T06:13:00.003-05:00

Energy and Technology are interwoven together so much so that you can't talk about one without the other. Today lets take a look at some ways to save energy that not only helps your pocket but the planet.

Your mom was right! Every time you leave a room you should turn the lights out. I saw a very entertaining Mythbusters show on the Discovery channel that studied light energy usage. No matter if it was florescent light bulbs or incandescent. Unless you jump right back into the room ( I think 3 seconds was the longest time) you should shut them off to save!

I've advocated for years that PC owners turn their PCs off if they won't be using them for an hour or more. Leaving a PC on 24/7 is NOT being a good steward of our energy resource. If you leave your PC and are planing to come back pick the Stand By mode that essentially shuts your PC down. If you haven't already changed, PLEASE get rid of your old CRT monitor and change to the slim LCD varieties. The energy savings are tremendous.

Great I'm turning my stuff off. I'm saving a lot right? Ah yes, but you might be able to save more if you REALLY turn them off. That means turning them off by cutting off electricity at the source. For PCs and peripherals that means turning off the surge suppressor when you leave for the day. Most modern PC equipment has a "sleep mode" that still draws a small bit of energy. Multiplied by millions of homes the energy used when a piece of equipment is supposedly turned off is great. So if you are going away from home or going to bed, turn off your surge protector to save the most.

Several ways to save energy at home include insulating the house every 10 years. Installing set back thermostats and programming them for your usage. Changing from incandescent to florescent light bulbs. Checking out the energy efficiency stickers and comparing them when buying an appliance. Having your heating/cooling system checked periodically for energy issues. Replacing that air filter in your heating/cooling system regularly. Not many high tech solutions but certainly ones we can implement!

#127- Green is the hot color

2008-04-27T08:22:00.003-05:00

After a week of Earth Day I sat back and thought a little about how conscious I am and my customers are of environmental concerns. How many recycle? How many buy recycled materials? How many have switched to CFL light bulbs? Have any started to use cloth bags for shopping?

I don't see many hybrid vehicles in the Alleghany Highlands. Honda and Ford sell them here (no Toyota). We do have a regional recycling of Paper, Cardboard, Plastic and maybe Glass. I sit on the board of the organization that recycles in the area (Jackson River Enterprises), but I'm not sure why the maybe. I would guess there isn't strong demand for recycled glass material. If its profitable to recycle JRE will do it aggressively. Ah the profit motive. The problem with recycling is that the state hasn't pushed the equation enough to make it profitable. In a capitalistic society its profits that drive decisions.

Our wonderful Virginia legislature has denied adding a deposit on glass bottles for 10 years in a row. A simple law that would get a big litter problem off our streets and create jobs. Many other states have a similar law so its not like its experimental legislation. San Fransisco has banned the sale of plastic water bottles. Maybe a deposit on them would help solve the problem. Stores charging for plastic bags would push people to use reusable cloth bags. Cost is a great motivator.

As a card carrying tree hugger, I urge all my customers to do more in their lives to conserve the resources that we have. What has this got to do with Technology? We'll see in my blogs during May!

#126 - How should one Email?

2008-04-21T21:52:00.003-05:00

I'm not talking about Email etiquette. I'm talking about what Email service should I be using? How hard is it to change? Why should I change?

As I have mentioned before, I use AOL for my email and until this year I have been very pleased. AOL updated their version to 9.1 and took some of the flexibility out of AOL email. I still think the service has some nice features (groups, good SPAM protection, the ability to say what email is saved on your PC and what isn't), but with the changes I'll remain neutral as to recommending it to our customers. If you have it and like it stay with it!

The services I don't recommend are those that use Outlook or Outlook express. They automatically download ALL your email to your computer. The good, the bad and the very ugly. Why would you want to download SPAM and Spyware email? You don't but if you use a email service (ntelos, tds, verizon, comcast) that you use the Outlook programs then you indeed do download all that stuff.

Services I like are Gmail and Yahoo mail. These are free email services that keep the emails on their site and let you leave them there forever. I use Gmail and it does a nice job of keeping SPAM out, but it does get a bit cumbersome organizing all those saved messages. You don't have to load a program on you PC like you do with AOL, so that's a plus.

So what should you do? Well if you aren't swamped with SPAM and haven't got a virus from you email then keep on using what you are used to. If you are getting a bit fed up then take a look at Gmail, Yahoo mail or even AOL free.

#125 Charging for the Internet

2008-04-14T20:22:00.003-05:00

One of the true mysteries of hoteldom is why the least expensive hotels (La Quinta, Holiday Inn Express, Marriott Courtyard) provide free Internet service and the most expensive hotels (Crowne Plaza, Sheraton, Hilton) charge for it. I guess the answer is because they can. Think about how much money they make on that service. The normal charge is $10 per day per room. I don't know about you, but for a dedicated line I pay around $30 a MONTH. What's more amazing is that you know it doesn't cost the hotel $30 a month for Internet service per room. Actually the cost is more like $5 per month per room. So it is like printing money. What can we do about it? Unless forced to stay in an Internet Charging Hotel, I don't. If I do have to stay in one of those nasty charging hotels I always complain about it on the satisfaction survey. Still when you are printing money you usually don't care what the rabble have to say. Remember how they used to charge out the roof for long distance and local calls? Cell phones ended that. Satellite wireless may eventually end this rip off someday.

#124 - Wireless Security

2008-03-31T07:22:00.003-05:00

My wireless connection at home isn't secure. I share it with a neighbor when they are in town. My other nearby neighbors don't use wireless, but that may change. If I see a car parked in my front yard with a guy hunched over I'll know whats going on. Security of your data should be important to us. What can happen if someone gets on your network? They can see all your files. That means steal the files, change the file and ultimates crash your computer if they wish. Even if you don't care about your files, you should care about your PC. (PCSS visits are welcome but can be costly!)

Securing your wireless network isn't the easiest thing to do. There are two parts of the security. #1 is to secure your wireless router. If you haven't changed its default password a hacker can easily get to the router and change ALL your settings including security. Even sneakier is for them to just pick up your security settings, thus opening up your supposedly secure network without you knowing. To secure the router you have to go to the routers built in management console. This differs per router, but you should have gotten documentation from the router manufacturer on how to do this (you can generally get that info from the manufacturers web page). Then you need to go to the security or setup section of the console and set a password. Make it a strong password with numbers,letters and symbols. Write it down so you won't forget it! After setting the password the router will reboot and you'll have to enter the new password to get into the console.

While you are in the router you should go to the Wireless security section and make sure security is turned on. The best security choice is WPA. Any security is better then none, but WPA is stronger and less likely to be hacked then the old WEP standard. I've seen WEP hacked in under 10 minutes with the right equipment. When you set up the security you'll be asked to give a passcode or you will be given a security number. Write these down, because your wireless devices will now need the code to get on your network. You'll also have to give the code/number to anyone you want to use your wireless network.

If you have questions or need help, we are here to oblige!

#123 - Monday Reflections on reliability

2008-03-24T08:12:00.003-05:00

Its a cool Monday after Easter in the Alleghany Highlands. My computer, printer and monitor started up without incident. Now that may not seem like a huge Woohoo moment but computer reliability is very important to the world.

Back in the early days of hard drives, keeping them running over a year was a big accomplishment. Just last week a customers hard drive crashed after 5 years of pretty heavy use. The drive sent out warning noises and even some funky error messages before passing on. The customer wanted to know why the hard drive ceased to function. The expectation has changed from I know its going to crash to Why do they crash?

Hard Drives are the key to all PCs. They are disks of metal spinning very fast (7500rpm in a desktop) with a magnetic head positioned millimeters from that spinning disk. Several mechanical and electrical components that can (and will) fail. The tolerances are very fine, the machining of the components exacting and fit and finish precise. Mean time before failure is 4-5 years of continuous operation. Modern marvels if you ask me, but still the main reason PCs crash.

Now if a desktop hard drive is amazing think about the laptop hard drive. One third the size with teeny tiny components. They get bumped all the time, put in strange positions and subject to extremes in temperature seasonally. Mean time before failure is approximately the same in portable hard drives. Now that is amazing. Actually a laptop hard drive is fairly easy to replace and if you get a new one they usually are faster speeding up the whole laptop.

#122 - Working on the web

2008-03-11T20:26:00.004-05:00

The latest rage on the web is office applications there. Not only do you save your files on the web, but your word processor, spreadsheet and calendar are run on the web and not on your PC. Benefits of being online include never losing your data (they keep it an back it up). Being able to access your data anywhere there is an Internet connection. Not having to worry about software upgrades (done on the web!). You also can use a MAC, PC or Linux machine to run literally all these applications.

There are literally thousands of applications now on line. The Google apps that we discussed in a previous blog: Blog #84 were some of the first and still are the best, but there are many more apps now online. You can convert to a PDF file, Edit Photos, do translations and of course play games. Here is a site with a listing of many of the applications: Web Application List Site

So how good are these applications and should you use them? We've tried many of the Google apps and though they are workable, we'll stick with Word, Excel and Outlook. The online Office wannabes are OK for sharing files with others but you'll be searching for features as soon as you try them. Life is really to short to have to learn more word processing commands. It took me 10 years to forget all the WordPerfect function commands I learned in the 80s!

Some of the applications are real good, like the Yahoo Babel Fish translation tool and the photo sharing sites (Snapfish & Shutterfly are our favorites). If you think you would like to try some go to the Web Application site above or the Google program site here Google World.

I do all my blogging online using google Blogspot. I type it up on line and then save it there. Its a wonderful example of a web based program that is intuitive. Now if Microsoft starts to move their applications to the web I may follow. They would have to run at least as fast as what I have now. I would like to have something different then Outlook. I really liked the Lotus Organizer program I used for 15 years. I hated to move to Outlook but the latest Palm software won't sync with Organizer, sigh...

Let us know if you like any of the online applications!

#121 - Technology in Mexico

2008-03-03T17:30:00.005-05:00

I just got back from 8 days in Mexico. Click here for a link to the visit blog. Here are some thoughts on technology there.

I had wireless Internet at both hotels we stayed at. It was free in the smaller town of Actopan, but it was a secure site so the desk clerk had to give us the pass code. In Mexico City, the wireless was pay as you go, but you could use a US provider such as Boingo ($10 US per day or $21 for the month). Speed seemed similar to US wireless sites, with busy times when they were slower and times (6AM) when they seemed very fast.

Cell phones were everywhere and people on our trip that got International access had the same "can you here me know" issues in the country. Two of the guys from Charlotte on the trip had Blackberry units and could get the Internet and email if they had telephone service.

I saw lots of old PCs and CRTs in the country areas. None of the people we were helping had PCs or cell phones (and you wouldn't think they could afford any with earnings of less then $5 per day). All of the staff people from Habitat had cell phones, though when I asked only a few had PCs. They had access to PCs in their office. Laptops seemed more rare though we saw several in our restaurant in the town of Actopan. There were many Internet cafes near middle and high schools. The cafes all had old PCs and CRT monitors. I believe they all had broadband Internet (I didn't see any dial up connections). We even saw painted adds for Internet cafes on very old lean to type buildings.

Not many laser printers were around, just inexpensive inkjet printers. The printed receipt I recieved from both the Actopan(small town) and Mexico city hotels were from inkjet printers and could barely be read (using the ink to the last drop).

I didn't see alot of computer stores, though that may be more what sections of town that I was in. I did go to an open market in Actopan and saw several people selling old Palm PDA units and lots of AC adapters (the blocks you plug into the wall) for all kinds of items. They were just on a folding table and obviously very used.

With the lack of PCs around, you would think Mexico would be an ideal place to export the old PCs, printers and monitors. I'm not sure that is happening, but I constantly get questions from customers on what to do with their old PCs.

#119 - Technology on the road.

2008-02-18T18:37:00.004-05:00

I'm getting ready to go to Mexico to participate in a Habitat for Humanity "Build 40 homes in 40 days" Lenten house build. I have most everything packed and am checking it twice. I'm taking my digital camera (of course to document EVERYTHING!) and an extra 1GB SD memory card (in case the first acts up). I'm taking my small laptop (the Lenovo Vista bomb). It just weighs less and and takes up less space. We'll be downloading our pictures at night and then burning DVDs or CDs at trips end. I'll have my Palm Pilot for playing music on the plane and contacts and calendar. I've decided not to take my cell phone since it won't work in Mexico and I don't need another thing to keep track of. I would lose my head if not attached.

Along with the above items I'm taking a USB ry card reader (my Lenovo will only take SD or MMC cards), extra battery and charger for my Canon digital camera, a small optical travel mouse and cables to handle most situations (Ethernet & Telephone). Of course we need the Lenovo battery charger.

Low tech items include a flashlight, water bottle, sunglasses, book and umbrella. I use my Ogio Backpack that has plenty of rum for my laptop, and all the other technology stuff. It has my Spanish/English dictionary and my airplane socks (experience travellers know what those are). I love all this fits in a backpack that can easily be stowed in the overhead compartment leaving my feet uncrushed.

I'll let you know when I get back (March 2) what the state of Mexican Technology in the boonies is like!

#118 - Cleaning up your new PC - death to Bloatware

2008-02-10T13:58:00.000-05:00

So you just paid big bucks (hey in this day they are all big bucks!) for your brand spanking new PC. Its now yours to work with and enjoy over the next 3-4 years. But wait! As soon as you turn it on you notice some programs, make that lots of programs, that you don't know what they are and what they are doing on your PC. Well there is the trial ware - trial versions of software that expire in 30 or 60 days out. Antivirus and Office products make up this batch. Then there is the software that is the limited version of the software. Utilities like PC Doctor and Diskeeper make up this group. Lastly there are programs you have no idea what they do or why they are on your PC. This Mac ad really gets the point: http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-fat_480x376.mov

This addition of software you didn't specifically ask for has been going on for years. Lately it has got way out of control. All the programs install resident versions for updates, checking out your Internet browsing and generally tying up your memory. Loverly! The first thing I do on a new PC is to get rid of as many of these extras as I can. I also get rid of every trial program that I can find. If you want to try something you'll just download it from the web. I use a program called PCDecrapifier (no kidding that's what it is called) that makes the cleanup a bit easier. Download it here: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/download

Here are some of the worst actors:

MS Office 60 day trial
Symantec Internet Security
McAfee Antivirus
WordPerfect Office
PC Doctor
Network Magic
Any toolbar but GoogleTool bar
Any desktop search engine
All photo programs

I hear that Dell gets $20 per PC to put them on. I wonder if they would charge $20 more per PC to leave them off?

#117 - Wireless future

2008-02-04T09:10:00.000-05:00

Technology definitely has taken a wireless route. We remember how excited we were when we first put in our home wireless router. Amazingly we still have that router (its a Linksys) though we have put big antennas on it and hacked the software for more range. We can now find out the latest on global warming from the comfort of our patio. There are plenty of new items on the wireless front that warrants a look from the "Technology Blog"!

Printers now come with wireless technology. You can set a printer up anywhere in the house or office and share it with everyone on your network. Wireless printers cost just a bit more so if you have a wireless network and need to replace your printer this might be a good upgrade.

The more expensive digital cameras have wireless built in so that you can send your pictures to your PC at a push of a button. We've seen some close up and really DO NOT like this technology. First it comes at a pretty high premium and the set up to get the pictures in the right place with the right names is not that good. I'd wait on this bit of high tech wizardry.

Next is wireless charging. With this technology you would be able to put your pocket devices (cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, even a laptop) on a special pad and it would charge them. The most promising of this breed uses inductive charging. Essentially the pad matches the resonance of your battery in close proximity (on the pad) and charging begins. No more plugging in those combersome power bricks everywhere. This great technology may be out by year end.

The last wireless technology is one I've thought of, but didn't know how to implement. How would you like to place your new 52" LCD/Plasma TV anywhere in the house and not worry about that cable/satellite wire? Wireless High-Definition Interface (WHDI) uses a transmitter to send 1080p high def video signal from a DVD player, game console or setup box up to 100 feet wirelessly. Its been shown at recent electronic trade shows so it should be at Best Buy soon.

#116 - PC Ergonomics

2008-01-29T20:57:00.000-05:00

Last week we talked about PC environments. This week we'll discuss where and how you should set up your PC.

First and foremost, the PC's location depends on the type of PC you have. Most recent desktop PCs have the mini tower format. These fit almost anywhere - and that could be a problem. I don't like putting PCs on the floor. It makes it easy for bugs to crawl in and dust bunnies congregate there. You can knock it over and/or hit it with vacuums. Any spill or leak ends up with water on the floor. So if you can (and my customers are sharp cookies) please keep your PCs off the floor. We have our desktop PC on our work desk. It makes for convenient access to the DVD burner, the memory card reader and USB ports (all located in the front of the PC)!

Next place your monitor DIRECTLY in front of your face. I like the top half of the screen even with my eyes, but many like the middle of the screen even with your eyes. Don't look up to the screen. That is a neck ache or headache waiting to happen. Having a chair that can change heights is a great benefit for easing where your eyes and hands are located. Make sure you aren't too close to the monitor (minimum 15 inches from your nose).

Speaking about hands, keeping them level from your body- not upward or downward - facing is key to avoiding arm fatigue. Having arms on your chair can also help. I use one of the ergonomic keyboard with separated key sections and wrist rests. It really makes a difference. A gel wrist rest for you mouse is also nice for web surfing.

Keyboards should have adjustment legs so that you angle them toward your body. Many have two levels of adjustment for your convenience. There are also comfort mice available. I haven't found one I'm thrilled about but many of my customers like the Logitech Revolution series of contour mice.

#115 - Cold enough for you?

2008-01-20T20:31:00.000-05:00

Boy its cold out. 7 degrees in Covington right now -20 something at Lambeau Field in Green Bay for the big game. I was thinking about temperatures and computers and thought I'd update you on where you should be operating your technology equipment.

PCs like to be operated at temperatures people like. 60 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit ambient temperatures are perfect for most PCs. Go above 75 degrees and if you stay there long enough you'll start to have PC problems. Your PC needs cool air to be pulled into your PC to help cool its internal components (the most important is the Central Processing Unit [CPU - the Pentium whatever]). Go below 60 degrees and your risk bringing in air that is cool and it will heat up rapidly possibly causing condensation (water vapor). Note that water and electronics are NOT a good mix. In fact starting up a PC (one that isn't ruggedized) near freezing temperatures is almost as fatal as trying to operate one at 90 deg. If you transport a PC in cool temperatures or store one there, you need to let it heat up GRADUALLY before turning the PC on.

Next temperatures to be aware of are the temperatures that your PC keeps track of internally. We use the free utility, Speedfan, to tell us internal info. You can download it here: http://www.download.com/SpeedFan/3000-2094_4-10067444.html?tag=lst-1

Maximum temperature of CPUs and other internal components is around 50 degrees C (122 degrees F). If your internal temps are much higher (above 70 dec. C) then the odds are good you are heading for a shutdown. There are several solutions as simple as cleaning up dust bunnies, cooling the room or getting a new internal cooling fan.

Printers and Monitors like the same moderate temperatures as PCs. DO NOT try to operate a Printer below 40 degrees F. Lots of bad things can happen!

If you have questions about your PC's temperatures give us a call or email.

#114 - Moving up, Moving on - Best way to transfer files.

2008-01-13T20:55:00.000-05:00

With many customers moving on to new PCs, we struggle with the best way to move our data AND programs to the new PC.

Let's look at moving data issue first. Where you store your data is the main issue here. Hopefully you have organized your files in your My Documents folder. If you have done this then its not to bad to move the My Documents folder to your USB flash drive or an external hard drive. If you look at your My Computer you should see your flash drive or external hard drive as your E: or some other drive letter. Now double click on C:, double click on Documents and Settings, double click on your user name (might be Owner or Administrator), then click once My Documents. You can now click on the copy this folder item in the File and Folders task left side panel. It will prompt you for the copy location and you can find your E: (or whatever letter ) and click on it.

The problem in moving files happens when not all your files are in My Documents. You may be storing your Quicken or Quickbooks files someplace else. If you aren't sure where the files are stored, go into that program and do a Backup to the My Documents folder and you'll be covered.

Moving Programs to a new PC usually requires taking the original CD and installing it on the new PC. You then have to restore the data from your My Documents. YOU CANNOT JUST COPY THE FOLDER of the program to the new PC. You can't do this because most programs install their files in MANY locations on your PC, not just the Program File folder. There may be some other setting files you might need to restore, so you might have to contact the program manufacturer.

#113 - Keeping stuff up to date and running

2008-01-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year friends!

The new year is starting out with snow showers and windy nip in the air. If you are ready for 2008 here are some suggestions to keep you up and running.

If you use the free AVG antivirus and antispyware that we install on PCSS PCs, you need to make sure they are getting updated. Its automatic with the antivirus, but not with the spyware. Its also a good idea to actually run the scans manualy once a month. Double click on the AVG antivirus, then click on Test Center, then Scan Computer. On the Antispyware, double click on its icon, Scanner, Fast System Scan. Make sure you apply the actions to delete the spyware. If this all too much for you consider buying the McAfee Security product from PCSS. For $39 you get automatic everything.

Year end is a good time to organize your files. Create new 2008 folders for your Word, Excel, Quicken or Quickbooks files. Don't know how? Please give us a call and PCSS can help. Backup your files to a CD or DVD. This will protect you from a major problem going forward. Clean up very old files on your PC. We have some 2001 files that need to be backed up and then deleted off our Hard Drive. When you are in My Documents click on View, then Details. Then click on the Modified tab and your files will be in chronological order. You can then backup and delete.

See you soon!

So if not Vista what can I do?

2007-12-26T22:54:00.000-05:00

If you have been following this blog from the beginning you understand my loathing for the Vista operating system. Buy hey it's not just me. Almost every independent (read not in Microsoft's pocket) PC journalist has called it a bloated disaster. My favorite technology pundit John Dvorak called the Vista project a "botch". The king of PC alliteration, Sascha Segan called Vista a "bulging bag of bloatware" Well you know that story. What you may not know is what are your choices in 2008?

Windows XP will be around, at least until June 2008. I question whether Microsoft will pull the plug on XP then, it will almost be like corporate Hari Kari. XP, though superior to Vista in so many ways, is not a real answer. It picks up viruses and spyware like black velvet pants in a pet shop picks up hair. It will run the software you have and it will run the hardware you have. If you never went to the Internet, it would be a fine operating system. Unfortunately we all go to the Internet.

Mac's are all the rage and we have had a Mac Mini for about 3 years. No complaints, no slowdowns, almost no issues. It doesn't run alot of software and it is more expensive then almost any PC on a comparison basis. You can come to the PCSS training center to take a peak or go to the Covington Library and take a spin on their fabulous iMac. They both have Microsoft Office 2004{Word, Excel, Powerpoint} (compatible with all Office versions but Office 2007). It doesn't have Access or Outlook. It won't work with all hardware and I recommend adding Firefox for Mac as your Internet Browser. The Safari browser that comes with Macs is just OK in my opinion. Firefox is a much more robust and feature laden browser. Macs also run iTunes and iPods better.

The last and cheapest alternative is to go to Linix. We will be setting up a PC at our Training Center that will run the free Ubuntu version of Linix. It comes with Office compatible Word Processor, spreadsheet, and presentation programs. It also has Firefox as a browser and several other programs to do calendars, email, music, burning CDs/DVDs and other necessary PC tasks. It doesn't run Quickbooks, iTunes or Peachtree. It may not run your printer. It is different and takes some time to get used to. But if you are a wee bit tight, this is the operating system for you, cuz its free.

It really depends on what you do with your PC. Many home users can changed to Macs or Linix with little problem. Others are stuck at the Microsoft trough and will have to tough it out.

Happy New Year!

#111 - This isn't your fathers Library!

2007-12-16T08:52:00.001-05:00

The Covington Library recently received a grant from the Alleghany Foundation to upgrade its adult public access computers. The library working with its IT consultant (you may know him!, he posts here!) decided to provide new computers that would be useful as well as educational.

There are 6 Adult computers running Windows 2000 presently at the C.P. Jones Memorial library. When they were first installed, they were the first public access computers in the Alleghany Highlands. They had the MS Office suite of programs, typing tutor software AND the Internet! They receive extensive use and are certainly one of the main draws for many people that use the library. Shortly after the adult computers were installed, free wireless Internet access was provided by placing 3 wireless access points through out the library. Visitors to the Highlands can stop at the library and get on the Internet with their wireless laptop, PDA or phone!

The new effort will provide new Adult PCS of different flavors to enhance the computing experience. Four of the desktop PCS will be Windows XP models. They will have the complete Microsoft Office 2003 suite of programs (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Outlook, OneNote and Publisher). They have DVD burners with appropriate DVD burning software. The computer will be using the latest Microsoft public access control software that will protect the PCs from unwanted changes, viruses, malware, spyware and other nasties. The software essentially cleans itself back to the original set up state after every reboot. The 5th computer will be one equipped with MS Vista operating system. It will have the MS Office 2007 suite and will appeal to those who want to see what Vista is like or need to be compatible with the latest from Microsoft. All the Microsoft based PCs will come with new 17" LCD thin screen monitors.

The 6th and last PC will be an Apple iMac. This is will be the library's first Mac PC and will introduce the customers to the Mac world. The iMac chosen is an all in one design with the hardware, DVD burner and screen in one box. Its a gorgeous box with a 20" LCD screen! It will have MS Office 2004 for the MAC on it as well as the normal complement of MAC supplied software (With new versions of iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, and GarageBand included, you can create a photo book, make a movie, build a blog, compose a song, and much more). The iMac also has a built in camera for photos or live video.

All the new computers should be installed this week. So drop by the library and see what's new!

#110 - Microsoft rethinks its Vista

2007-12-01T12:49:00.000-05:00

Last week Microsoft announced that they will continue to sell Windows XP through June of 2008. This is good news for most PC customers. The former deadline of January was forcing many to buy PCs with XP early.

Now Microsoft isn't scrapping Vista they just gave their customers more time to deal with Vista. By June the first update release should be out and many corporate customers won't migrate to a new operating system until the first update is out.

So why has there been so much resistance to Vista? The reasons are many but here are some of mine:

1. Vista requires PCs with fast processors and minimum 1GB memory with 2GB more desirable. Even with the best hardware, I've never seen Vista run fast. You have to turn off many of the features to get to move so-so. I don't have the Gadgets on or the User Account Controls, because they just slow down my Vista PC too much. I guess the bottom line on this is Vista is a bloated memory hog that gives you not much in return. Its so bad I strongly suggest that if you have to have Vista buy a new PC with it installed. DO NOT UPGRADE to Vista!

2. Confusion: I'm not sure why Microsoft decided to issue 4 different versions of the operating system. XP had Home and Professional. More must be better. So we get Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. I guess we'll get 8 versions of Vista's successor. The differences between the 4 isn't well thought out. For instance I think every operating system should have a DVD/CD burner software build in. Surprise you only get it in Home Premium and Ultimate. Actually I don't know a reason why anyone would buy Home Basic other then the cheapest PC. There are so few features in that version that it's not worth the difference in cost versus Home Premium.

3. Incompatibility: This is the big reason corporate America hasn't embraced Vista. Vendors have been slow to come up with drivers for older hardware. Software people have just not made their software to run under Vista. Special software just doesn't work on Vista without an upgrade. So not only do you have to spend money on new PCs and Printers, you have pay for a new version of your software (if it is available).

Three strikes and your out. No wonder they can't make enough Macs. Sounds like a formula for disaster? We'll see how it plays out in 2008.

#109 - Thankful Technology

2007-11-18T06:41:00.000-05:00

If you have been reading the blog from the beginning you know I have a whiner streak I struggle to control. This Thanksgiving week, I hope to change over to a new leaf and talk about things that make me happy!

Lets start off with a strange one, HP Support. I had a good customer this week send me an email about the good response they had with HP. Their laptop had died after about 4 months of ownership. HP picked up the laptop, replaced the motherboard, hard drive and battery and had it back to them in 4 total days. This is with their STANDARD warranty. Wow, it made me proud to sell the product. Our other laptop that we sell, Lenovo, has also gotten great reviews from customers. We still recommend you get at least a 3 year warranty on Laptop, due to their fragility.

And speaking of HP, My LaserJet 2200 printer just won't die. I would love to get a new color duplexing laser printer, but my frugality says run this sucker into the ground. As long as you keep feeding it toner, it keeps on printing. I also have a DeskJet 6122 duplexing ink jet printer that has been very long lived. Its printed out a lot of class completion certificates over the years.

I can't say enough good about my Apple Mini Mac. Its 3 years old and runs just as fast as when I purchased it. I do much of my Internet surfing with it and no viruses, spyware or malware have slowed it down. It automatically defrags the hard drive and updates happen regular, but not every 5 minutes like those other guys.

I couldn't work without a USB flash drive. My latest is a Kingston 4GB model that keeps my documents and utility programs. I just plug it in and start fixing PC's. Much faster then my CDs and less damage to the environment. I used to burn a new Utility CD every month and throw them away. Now Its quarterly and only for those customers still using Windows 98 (you know who you are!). I also couldn't get on without external hard drives. I have 3. a 160GB that I use to help transfer customer files, a 250GB drive to backup my files from my Ultra PC and a 1 Terrabye (1,000 gigabyte) network drive to backup my backup and my Apple (mainly Itunes) and my class PCs.

I'm thankful for lots of technology that makes my life easier and my job more productive. I'm also thankful for my loyal customers. Enjoy the season!

#108 - Updates & Upgrades what to do?

2007-11-05T08:06:00.000-05:00

As computer owners, we are constantly bombarded with update warnings. Windows, Office, AOL, Hardware Drivers, Programs, it just never ends. I'm going to try and give some advice on when you should upgrade or update you PC in this blog.

Windows - You really don't have a choice in this one. Update now or Update later. You have to update your version of Windows. Now that doesn't mean you have to UPGRADE (change versions) just keep your current version of Windows up to date. Microsoft posts updates to Windows every Tuesday morning. Now depending on how you have set up your version of Windows Update the update will get to your PC eventually. If you go to Control Panel, Automatic Update you can chose how you have the update happen. I like the option "Notify me but don't automatically download or install them". This lets you pick the time and place of the update. If you don't pick this option Windows decides when it will download the update (lord knows how big it is) and when it will update your PC and usually ask you to reboot your PC (during an important presentation?).

Most of you know my opinion of Windows Vista. You should absolutely not upgrade your PC to Vista. If you have to get Vista (And you'll have no choice after January) then get a new PC designed for Vista.

We only update Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) when we are having a problem. Office is generally pretty stable and the need to update or even upgrade is minimal. Customers are still happy with Office 2000. I use Office 2003 and am not thrilled with upgrading to Office 2007. It's a radical change in the interface with minimal new features. Stay the course!

For those still using AOL (we are!) the new version of AOL VR (9.1 I think) isn't a bad upgrade, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It pesters you to update, but gives you the option to click on the X or cancel so do what feels right.

The most infuriating update nag for me is the Adobe reader. They seem to have an update every 3 days. I have NEVER seen the use for any Adobe reader update. Its just nag, nag, nag till you succumb. I honestly haven't seen anything bad about the updates other then taking you away from what you are doing.

We'll talk about hardware upgrades next blog!

#107 Maintenance is Essential

2007-10-28T19:37:00.000-05:00

If you didn't ever change the oil on your car would you be surprised if the car engine seized? What about if you never painted your house would it be a shock if the wood became rotten? Well if you don't perform some minimum maintenance on your PC, you'll likely have some problems. The first maintenance is basic cleaning and keeping our PC in a place that won't cause problems.

I hate to see PC's sitting on the floor. Several reasons: 1. PCs get abused by kicks, vacuum cleaners and pets. 2. Being on the floor lets spiders and dust bunnies into the PC case. When I've done maintenance on PCs that have been on the floor they are filthy inside. This can lead to overheating and possible electrical short. Get those PCs off the floor!

You should clean your keyboard and mouse monthly. Use one of the air can blasters to blow out the dust from your keyboard. Use a damp cloth to clean your mouse. Use that same damp cloth to clean your monitor screen. Run your Printers cartridge cleaning utility every other month. This is usually found as a program in the All Programs listing.

Windows has a system utility called Disk Cleanup you need to run every month. Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. This will get rid of those files that you don't need. Every 4-6 months you need to run the disk defragmenter so keep your hard drive running smoothly (All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter). Once a year run a hard disk scan and fix any errors - Start, My Computer, right Click on C:, Properties, Tools Tab, Check Now, check Automatically fix errors.

After all that run your virus scanner and anti spyware program. That should complete your Fall maintenance! Happy Computing!

#106 - the leopard lies in wait

2007-10-21T21:43:00.000-05:00

I've done a lot of complaining about the new Windows Vista. I'll be taking a closer look at the 4 flavors of Vista and what components they have later this week. Today I want to talk about the new Apple operating system - Leopard, due out October 26.

Apple's Leopard comes out this week and although most of my customer don't have Apples, I thought it might be fun to talk about what Apple thought was important in its new operating system versus what Microsoft was important. Microsoft had security first and foremost in mind when it designed Vista. Yes, they throw in some graphic tid bits (that slow things down nicely!), but by and large the only POSITIVE aspects of Vista are its security features. Just to let you know how that is going, Microsoft has had an update to Vista EVERY Tuesday since its launch to fix security issues...

Leopard on the other hand has over 300 changes that really don't point to any one feature as a major update. It does add the "Time Machine" that lets you recover files or folders that have disappeared. The Desktop has a 3D dock that holds your most used programs. It also adds the "Stack" feature that vertically shows you the files you recently have used in each docked application. The ever popular Finder now looks like iTunes (Finder is the Mac version of My Computer). You can set up "Spaces" that hold applications, folders and files that you are using on a project. Networking is a bit more simple (it wasn't at all hard in the old Tiger OS). There are strong Parental Controls that let you place limits on Internet access for kids. Lastly, if you have one of the new Intel based MACs, the Boot Camp program that allows you to run Windows on a Mac is included in Leopard. You still have to get a Windows CD with key to make it work.
Requirements for Leopard are:

Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor

512MB of memory

DVD drive for installation

9GB of available disk space

It looks like my 2 year old Mac Mini will take the update. I'm not sure that I will get it at this time. I only have a 60GB hard drive and I have 23GB of music on it so this may be a bit much size wise. Actually what I would like to see out of an Operating system is Quick on, Quick off, and fast Internet browsing. I'll check out Leopard and see if it can do those things.

#105 Setting up and Securing your wireless network

2007-10-14T13:58:00.000-05:00

Our last blog talked about setting up your home/small office network. If you have that straight and have purchased a wireless router, you need to set that up to protect your files and the speed of your Internet connection. Don't protect your wireless network and don't be surprised if someone starts to "borrow" your Internet and makes an attempt to see your files.

Most wireless routers come with a setup CD that they ask for you to run before turning it on. Some work OK, others leave a lot to be desired as far as security is concerned. If asked in the setup routine, always change the password for the router (password or admin is the default and everyone knows that). If they offer you to set up security take the WPA (WiFi Protected Access) encryption. This option makes anyone trying to get on your network have to know the special Code you set up.

If you don't get those security options then you'll have to tough it out and do it manually (or call Nick!). The setup program for your router is located in the routers memory and can be accessed by typing the IP address of the router into Internet Explorer or Firefox address bar. Most routers default to 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. How do you know which one? For Windows XP Click on Control Panel, Network Connections and then double click on Local Area Connection or Wireless Connection - Which ever you are using. Then click on the Support Tab. Viola! You will see your PCs IP address and the Gateway (ROUTER!) IP Address. Type the Gateway address into your browser address line.

You will be prompted for a User Name and Password. This information should be in your Routers documentation. Its usually generic admin or password. When you get in the Router Setup program you need to change the wireless security to WPA and change the password to something you will remember unique. Be careful when you are changing items in the Router setup program. You can completely disable the Router. Good news is that most routers have a hard reset button. Questions? Email or Call Nick!

#104 - Setting up your Home Network

2007-10-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

If you have more then one PC at home or if you have a laptop a home network makes sense. its nice to be able to move around the house (and outside your house) and still get your email and be on the Internet. Setting up a home network doesn't take a lot of work, but keeping it secure and troubleshooting that network isn't as easy.

In this blog lets talk about setting up a network to share files and printers. In the next blog we'll discuss securing the network - especially a wireless network. The router takes your Internet and spreads it out over the network. The switch allows for more then one PC to be on the network and assigns an IP (Internet Protocol) address to each PC so that they can be seen by the other PCs. We like Linksys, Belkin or Netgear router/switches. Simple to set up and generally reliable. They all have 4 ports for PCs, which is plenty for most homes. The router/switch can support just wired connections or wired AND wireless connections (a wireless router)

After getting your router/switch, follow the directions to set it up. Usually this is a matter of putting in a CD and following the directions. Now you have to connect your PC's to the router via Ethernet cable or by having a wireless adapter (most new laptops have this internally). Once you are connected to the network you have to setup a workgroup and then share something on your PC (folder or printer) so that you can work with other PCs. Note these instructions are for Windows XP only.

You set up a workgroup by right clicking My Computer, then Properties. Then Click on Computer Name and Change. Now pick a name for this PC and then choose a workgroup name. Note the workgroup name MUST be the same on all PCs, but the PC name should of course be different for each PC. After clicking OK you have to reboot the PC. To share a folder or printer you need to go to that printer via My Computer, My Documents or in the case of a Printer - Control Panel, Printers and Faxes. You then right click on the item and then Sharing and security. From here you may have to tell the system you want to share Items (just share!) Eventually you'll get to a box that says share this Folder/Printer. Give it a name and you are ready to Network. This procedure has to be done on all Networked PCs.

Now you can double click on My Computer, My Network Places and View Network Computer. Viola!

Next up Wireless security.

#102 The Blog is Back!

2007-10-04T07:53:00.001-05:00

After a month off, I've decided to take a new tact with the blog. I'm no longer putting PC info in my newsletter to shorten its length. I'm going to direct people to the Blog and change the content here to be more helpful and less opinionated, though with me that probably isn't a goal, more of a wish! (grin)

If there is a topic you would like for me to tackle, leave me an email at pcss4u@aol.com or if you can click on the Comment word below and leave one. I hope this will drive a bit more viewers to the blog and make it a bit easier to write, since the topics will be more factual and in my case, less creativity required. We don't want to tax my right brained head!

Thanks for your support!