Weekly Tech Review with Rob

Welcome back to my weekly tech review. Today I’m going to talk about Web Browsers and Office Clones.

A lot of people use Microsoft Internet Explorer, and I use it myself. I also use Mozilla Firefox. He is the link www.mozilla.org. It is a web browser that works very well. It has open source support and I like that it notifies you of new versions without you having to check. I always recommend that people keep at least two browsers on their computer. The best thing about Firefox is the fact it gets hit with less spyware then Internet Explorer. This may just be my personal opinion, but I rarely am called out to fix a problem with Firefox. Now, this may be because there are far more people using Internet Explorer, but I use Firefox myself along with Internet Explorer and I have not had to clean out bad add-ons and infections in it like I have had to do with Internet Explorer.

The second thing I want to introduce you to is Open Office. Here is the link www.openoffice.org. This is FREE Office clone. It has a word clone, a excel clone, a powerpoint clone and even an access clone. If you do not want to buy Microsoft Office then this is by far the best solution for you. It is a great little package and it’s totally free. In times like these when people are trying to save some money this can be a big help. You can use this in an office enviorment. The only issues I have found are macros in excel. They are a bit different, but most people who are using excel with macros actually have office already and should stick with it.

Next week I will be giving links for Anti-Virus, Spyware removal and other free tools to help you save money!

To Social Media or Not to Social Media?

I get asked a lot about social media and what accounts to set up and how to maintain them. I also get asked if they should just set up a social media account to say they have an account. My answer, do you have a business just to say you have a business and not maintain it? The idea of social media is to interact with your network and existing and potiential clients. I also get asked what accounts should be set up and maintained. There are tons of social media platforms people are using. The 3 main ones are still Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn. If you’re thinking of setting up any or all 3 of major accounts, take the time to grow and manage them. It’s better to have 1 great account then to have 3 sparse looking accounts. Some key things to work on:
1. Build your network, whether it’s through building contacts and endorsements on LinkedIn, or gaining more fans on Facebook and twitter
2. Have something to say. News articles links, blogs, words of wisdom, company happenings… will build interest for your viewers
3. Promote others. Don’t just focus on yourself. If you promote others, they’ll promote you.
4. Post often. Whether it’s you or multiple people within your company. Give viewers a reason to come back.
5. Integrate your social media platforms. If you do have multiple accounts, have them centralized in one place like your website. There are widgets that your web developer can install in the coding that will pull live feeds from your twitter and Facebook accounts (for an example, check out our website for our latest postings: www.redlineservices.net).

Cultivating your social media accounts take time. I run into businesses that get overwhelmed on what to do and time management. Redline understands that it’s not what you do, there’s where we can help. We manage multiple social media accounts. Redline has Social Media Packages that help fit your goals and budget.

If you have any questions concerning social media feel free to give Redline a call 904-281-0009.

Tech Review with Rob

Welcome back to my weekly tech review.

This week we are going to cover some questions regarding the purchase of a new computer.

So, you decided to finally upgrade the old dinosaur. It’s time to journey out into the wonderful world of buying a new computer. You have many different options here.

1) Go online, buy from DELL, Sears, Radio Shack, Best Buy, CompUSA or any one of a number of other retailers.
2) Go out to one of the above named retail stores.
3) Visit your local mom and pop computer storer.
4) Buy the parts and build it yourself.

Let’s look at option 1. You decide that the Internet has the best pricing right? So, why not go online and order it there. Well this does have a lot of advantages, you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home. You can get a larger selection and even compare different store pricing. But, there is a down side to this. The first is you have to pay for shipping, the second is if something is broken you have to ship it back and wait on a replacement. Then there is the delay, you have to wait for it to get to you in the first place and Finally, you don’t get too see and touch it before you buy it. I also forgot to mention there is no sales person to really stand there and answer questions. That wouldn’t be a problem for you though, because you know you can always call Redline to ask for help on a purchase. We offer free consultation on purchases.

So you decide to go with option 2. You jump in your car and head to the local Best Buy. When you walk in the store you see a decent selection of computers. So, you start to browse them. It’s not long before a sales rep pounces. This can be good and bad. Sometimes you get a very friendly and well trained rep who can really help you compare. But, it’s hit or miss with that, do they really know what they are selling? You see the size of the store, do they have true experience that you can rely on? Or are they just trying to make a sale? That’s one of the downsides to going out. The selection isn’t nearly as wide as online as well.

So, you leave the store and decide let’s try option 3. You find a local computer store. You walk inside and start asking questions. The person there is friendly and seems to know what they are talking about. This is great! Then you see they have only 4 to 5 computers on display. To make it even more confusing these computers are no name brand. How do you know you are getting quality parts? This is a small store and you wonder what will happen to your warranty if they close. Ahh, the draw back to buying from a small store can be down right a killer.

Option 4 sounds like a lot of work, is this really something you want to do? Well if you have some technical skill perhaps. But, most people do not have the time, ability or desire to do this. It’s reserved for techs like me and the others who work at Redline. But, if you decide to give this a whirl the Internet is full of guides and if you run into trouble you can always give us a call, we have done this many, MANY times ourselves. We would be happy to come out and help you get on track. It can be very satisfying to build your own computer. You get what you want and how you want it and for the best price.

There are a lot of different ways to buy a computer. We here at Redline sell them as well, we can sell them through DELL as we are a reseller, we can build one from scratch or we can just help you along the way. No matter which way you choose if you run into a wall, Redline will be there to help you.

Backing Up Your Data

As posted in my article last week, malware is pretty rampant on the internet right now. If your computer takes a really bad hit from a virus, or something in general goes wrong with your harddrive, you may be at risk for data loss. Data includes things on your computer that you have saved, such as: Pictures, Documents, Movies, E-mail, etc.. There are many different things that can cause permanent data loss on your computer, and without a proper backup you gamble losing all of it on a daily basis.

Here are some of the common issues you can run into that can lead to you losing access to your data, and some ideas to protect yourself from each one:

1. Sudden power outages-
This is a problem because most computers are set to run Windows Updates automatically. If your computer loses power in the middle of one of these updates, it can cause problems for your operating system. This problem can be remedied by turning off Automatic Updates (not reccomended, as updates are essential), or purchasing a UPS (battery backup, highly reccomended!). A UPS will maintain a consistent power flow to your computer, regardless of your power turning on and off, and some UPS even have software to safely shut down your computer when it sees that you have no power! If you can’t get into your operating system, it will be costly to repair it or to attempt to recovery your data (much more costly then an UPS!).

2. Electrical surges-
Similar to the previous problem, power surges can have more lasting effects on your computer hardware. If you do not at LEAST have a surge protector in the state of Florida on your computer, you should certainly invest in one. Fortunately, most power surge damage is halted at the computer’s power supply, which is a relatively inexpensive computer component to replace. However, this is not ALWAYS the case, and sometimes your computer’s internal components can be damaged…namely the harddrive (which contains your data). This can be prevented by using a UPS, as noted in the previous example. Recovering data from a physically damaged harddrive requires it to be sent to a specialty shop, generally costing several thousand dollars to recover!

3. Malware-
Read my article from last week for a more detailed explanation here. Malware can effectively shut you out of your operating system, and require a technician to recover your data. Use anti-malware software to help protect youself!

The best possible way to prevent permanent data loss in all of the above scenarios however, is investing in some sort of data backup. There are several different approches you can take in this regard, pending on how much data you require to back up. Here are some different common back up methods people use to protect their data:

1. Online Backup-
Online backups allow you to choose which files or folders on your computer you want to back up and, using your internet connection, upload them to a secure site on the internet where they can be accessed at any time from any computer using your security credentials. This method is convenient because it requires little to no user interaction after being intially setup, and automatically backs up any changed or new files that you have added to your folders! This is personally my favorite method, because the frequent problem with backing up your data is forgetting to do it…and I have an awful memory. If you are interested in getting an online backup setup on your computer, give us a call (281-0009) and we will be happy to help get you set up!

2. External Harddrive-
This method involves having a physical high capacity device that is seperate from your computer store your data. Generally with this method, you have to manually copy any files you want off your computer and move them to the appropriate location on the external drive. There is sometimes software that can do this process for you, however, you just have to find the right one. The biggest perk of this method, is you can generally store the data of multiple computers on a single device, making it ideal for a household with multiple computers. The biggest drawback is, if you leave it plugged in, it is vulnerable to the same types of things that can damage regular harddrives. As long as you are careful with them, and utilize them properly, external hard drives are an excellent option for backing up your data.

3. Thumb Drive-
Thumb drives are basically miniature versions of external harddrives. These guys are ideal for when you have small amounts of data that you need backed up, or that you access frequently. Generally they are meant more for conveniantly accessing certain files you use at multiple locations however, and most of these do not come with any sort of software to help you with backing up your data. The biggest perk for the thumb drive is portability. The biggest downside for the thumb drive is storage capacity.

4. CD/DVD-
This method is a little inconvenient, but certainly worth mentioning. CD/DVD backups are generally ideal for permanently storing old versions of data for archives, due to being very easy to store and a decent capacity. They are relatively inexpensive, so having multiple sets of CD/DVD backups is certainly a viable strategy for keeping your data safe. The biggest inconvenience of using them however, is the length of time it takes to burn to them. You can think of CD/DVD backups in the same way as thumb drive backups in terms of portability and storage capacity, but they are much less expensive and take much longer to write your data to.

If you are interested in protecting your data, give us a call (281-0009), and we would be happy to advise you on the best course of action to take!

Tech Review with Rob

Welcome once again to my weekly tech review. In this edition we are going to focus on upgrading operating systems (OS).

There is rarely a day that goes by and someone doesn’t ask me if they should upgrade to Windows 7. Microsoft is doing a lot of marketing trying to push this upgrade to everyone. There are some cases you should make the move and there are some where there is no reason to make the switch.

Reasons to upgrade:

If you have Windows Vista, or if you have a Windows XP that would have been a Vista machine but you choose to bypass Vista then an upgrade may be right for you.
In all likelyhood you have enough muscle under the hood to handle Windows 7. If you are using Vista or XP you are not putting all of that computing power to work for you. For once I can say, a Microsoft OS release is living up to the hype. It is a solid operation system with a lot of new upgrades and security. It’s faster and it also allows XP users to take advantage of new Direct X routines for graphics. A couple of things it offers over Vista and XP:

1) Better Drivers – Without a doubt this version of Windows ships with a incredible amount of driver support. If you system is 6 months or older chances are Windows will have everything you need already. No more hunting disks, or looking all over the web for them.
2) Better security – After YEARS of working on it, Microsoft finally has locked down some of this system without causing bloat. That is huge for most people as most of you who made the switch to Vista found it to be SLOWER then XP.
3) Updates to a lot of the old programs. Simple things like Wordpad, Calc and the other default programs are now more useful.
4) The ability to remove Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer 8. This is a big help to those of us in tech land as well. Sometimes you need to reinstall these programs as they are the ones normally targeted in malware attacks. This allows us to do it easier and if you use Firefox or another browser why not remove IE8?
5) Security updates – Sooner or later Microsoft will drop XP support. And already their best and brightest are working on Windows 7. NOT Windows XP or Vista. I’m not saying they don’t support them or give them attention, but let’s be honest. Windows 7 is where they want you to be. Windows 7 will get the updates first, the attention foremost and the neat bells and whistles.

Now one reason not to upgrade.
1) Got a Windows XP machine that is 4 years old? Don’t bother, I would not invest the money in the new OS. I would invest in a new computer. Windows 7 is fast, but it can only do so much with what you have. You do not want to upgrade if your computer can not handle it. Also, some people just read e-mail and surf the web. You don’t need much more then you already have. Every day you wait means your dollar can buy a more powerful computer.

So, think it’s time for an upgrade? Give us a call, we can help! 904 281 0009

Malware of the New Year: Internet Security 2010

With the new year comes a relatively new piece of malware I have seen a lot recently: Internet Security 2010. Over the course of this month, I have had several customers that have contracted this particularly nasty malware, with only a few out of many being happy endings and fixed computers after attempting to fix it. This malware is a little more invasive then the norm with mild symptoms consisting of fake alerts and scans, to fatal symptoms consisting of a complete lockout of all executable files as well as Safe Mode. Time is the most important factor with this malware, as the longer it has been on your machine the more likely it is to have corrupted your operating system; if it is caught shortly after getting it, it is relatively simple to remove without any damage whatsoever. The converse however generally involves a re-installation of the entire operating system due to the lack of methods available to fix it. Here are some tell-tale signs you should look out for that will let you know if you have the malware, or are about to possibly get it:

-A anti-malware scan that looks legitimate, but is a program you have never heard of before (generally named Internet Security 2010).
-A warning in your task bar on the bottom right hand side of your screen warning you that you have a virus on your computer and need to buy a specific program (or download a specific program to fix it).
-A sudden change in your desktop background.
-Excessive pop-ups and website redirection when attempting to use the internet attempting to sell you a product.
-An icon on your desktop for a program you have never seen before (generally named Internet Security 2010)
-The inability to run any of your own anti-virus programs
-The inability to open task manager
-Pop ups on your screen asking you to run, save, or install something

If you have any of these symptoms you should contact us immediately (281-0009) as to prevent any further damage from the malware.

There are some preventative steps you can take to lessen your chances of contracting this particular malware, which include:
-Having an actively running anti-malware program like AVG
-Using a 3rd party browser, such as Mozilla Firefox
-Do not download or install/run ANYTHING unless you are explicitly sure that it is something you want to download
-Avoid opening suspicious e-mails
-Avoid websites that are offering free wallpapers and “smileys”, these are the biggest traps on the internet

As always feel free to post any comments or questions. Be safe this new year!

Tech Review with Rob

Welcome to my weekly tech review.
I got a lot of questions from people who read my first review about video and picture editing. The most common question I got was: What software should I use for photo editing? I’ve got a lot of pictures I need to edit and post online and keep track of them. What would you suggest? That is quickly followed by, Oh I need something cheap(i.e. Free).

So today I’m going to talk about Picasa3 (picasa.google.com).

This is a great free program that allows you to edit your digital camera shots fairly easily. It even searches for new pictures each time you open it. You can do many features with this very quickly.

You can: crop, straighten, fix redeye, adjust contrast, adjust color, retouch, add/remove light and even add text to pictures. You can also make slide shows, posters, screen savers and things of that nature.

Those are just some of the standard things to do, you can do more advances photo editing techniques as well. For example I like to play around with the Tuning on pictures. That lets me adjust the lighting, highlights, shadows and called color temperature which adjusted the vividness of coloring. I also really enjoy playing with the special effects. I like the black and white setting and the glow setting. It is pretty near what you can do to images. You can really create some very nice and professional looking pictures with this software. It’s a great entry and medium level editing package that you get free.

Some of the neat features in this software is the ability to instantly post pictures to your blog, upload to web albums, or make a movie out of them. This software may seem confusing at first as it has a lot of options, but really you will find your way around it in just a little bit of time.

One of the main things I like about this software is the ability to re-size images. This is a question I get asked a LOT. How can I make my images smaller in data size, not really in actually picture size, but to make them fit on USB sticks or those neat little pocket lcd key chains that everyone gives to grandma and grandpa. This software has that ability but it is not easy to find. Here is how you do it:

Click on File, then click on export file to folder. That will bring up another screen where you have the option to choose location and the key: IMAGE size. Image size has two options, 1) Use original size or 2) Resize Image to: then it will have a option right under that to how many pixels you want to resize the images to. You can change this up or down based on how you want the picture to come out. Just remember the more pixels the larger the image will be in data size.
You next can choose quality. There are a few settings for this: Automatic, Normal, Maximum, Minimum or Custom. I suggest you use automatic at first, you can play with these if your pictures don’t come out the way you wish, but for most of us the picture will look the same to the naked eye. You also have the ability to add a watermark to the picture, this would be for copyright info or if you want to make it harder to edit.

Let me clarify one thing, data size is how much space the picture will take up on your hard drive, usb stick, cd or dvd that you want to store it on. On your computer most people have plenty of space and limiting the size of a picture is not your concern, but what about that nice shiny new digital picture frame you bought for your wife to put on her desk at work? There are size limits there and I’m sure she has THOUSANDS of pictures she would want on it. After all we all know she just has to have 1000 pictures of little Johnny covered in cake from his first birthday! This is where shrinking the images down will pay dividends. After all you don’t want to have to reload this picture frame every week do you? Of course not, you want to cram as many pictures that on it that will fit. You also don’t want to have them blurry or cut peoples heads off because you shrunk it too much. That’s where Picasa3 comes in. It will make your life a lot easier and you can also add some special touches to those pictures. How about adding some text about little Johnny’s picture hugging mommy that says, “I love you Mommy!” Serious brownie points there people. You can also label the picture with text, “Johnny’s First Baseball Game” etc. I don’t know about you, but we have it a lot harder than past generations. Everyone has a camera, we take more pictures than ever before and sometimes you will see so many you will forget WHEN you took the picture. This can have very hazardous results. Looking at a picture of your wife and commenting that she had the glow while carrying little Johnny only to find out that was AFTER he was born could cause a lot of lost brownie points. Organizing times and events are easy to do with this software, it can handle multiple picture folder locations as well as time and date and event stamps on the images.

If you want to organize those pictures before it’s too late and you have millions instead of thousands get this software now! You will be thanking me.

Memory VS Harddrive Capacity

I frequently talk with people about their computers, and very often a common situation occurs. They will tell me their computer is running incredibly slow, and I will respond with “How much memory is in your computer?”, and a common (or similar) reply will be “750 Gigabytes, that’s a lot right?”.

No. Well, actually I suppose it would be “a lot” if that were remotely possible for your home PC, but that number you are giving me is your hard drive capacity.

Most people, when they hear the word memory, associate it with the storage space for permanent files on their computer (such as where you save pictures and music). This is very incorrect, and leads people to having false ideas about computers they purchase as well as confusion in regards to simply having programs installed on their computers slowing them down. Memory is actually temporary storage used as resources for active programs and applications that you have running. If you have complained about your computer running slow with 10 different programs running at the same time, it is very likely an issue with your memory. Basically everything you do on your computer uses some amount of your available memory. Once your computer runs out of available memory, it will grind to a slow crawl, if not a complete halt. Most of the time your computer will not fail from this, because it will allow you to use to your hard drive (permanent storage) as a resource, but it is a lot slower doing it this way. At this point you are probably not following me, so I will attempt to convey the purpose of memory using an analogy involving old school technology!

Imagine sitting at your desk (MEMORY) back in 1970. You have some important tax information you have stored in your filing cabinet (HARD DRIVE) that you need to look through. The amount of information you need to pull out is ridiculous, but you can easily look at multiple sets of information at the same time while you have the files out on your desk spread out. Unfortunately, once you run out of desk space, your job crawls to a halt because you have no more room on your desk and have to put the files on the floor, or look at them while they are in the filing cabinet, making things much more inefficient and difficult.

In this analogy, having a larger desk (the equivilant of having more memory) will allow you to look at more files at the same time efficiently. Having a larger filing cabinet (the equivilant of a hard drive) will allow you to store more files for future use. So what does this mean for you? If you want to store a lot of pictures, movies, documents, games, etc. on your computer you are going to want to invest in a larger size hard drive. If you want your computer to be able to have more movies, documents, games, etc. open at the same time, you are going to want to invest in more memory. Most computers nowadays will run with 2-8 gigabytes of RAM, and 400-800 gigabytes of hard drive capacity for the average home PC user. If you have any questions about what you currently have, or are interested in getting more, (or if you are still sitting in that 1970′s situation from my analogy) give us a call at the office (281-0009)!