Category Archives: Tips

Computer’s Freezing

Posted on February 10, 2012 by admin

My laptop keep freezing and sometimes it won’t start, what can I do?

There can be many reasons why a PC freezes, and there’s also a couple types of freezes. I’m assuming you have hard-lock freezes as you say you can’t turn your laptop on sometimes. What you’ve described is usually indicative of some type of hardware failure & there really is no tech that would be able to repair that for you that wouldn’t run in the $200-400 range after parts/labor. I’m assuming the PC is over 5yrs old (is usually when this happens), is better & cheaper for you to just buy a new PC at this point. If the PC is newer than that, give us a call and we can have a technician take a look and see what software could be causing the problem!

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I receive Spam from friends on Yahoo. Is their mailbox infected?

Posted on November 22, 2011 by admin

This week I’ve received 2 Spam messages from 2 different friends who use Yahoo Mail.
It looks like someone has been using their account to sent Spam to all contacts they have. Is it because their computer is infected by a Virus?

This is a  very common problem. Usually these hackers are able to gain access to email accounts (MSN/Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, yMail, etc.) without ever having to touch someone’s PC, so the odds of your friends’ computers being infected with a virus is low. It starts by receiving a suspicious email, there are all sorts of these. Usually curiosity causes people to click on the link within the email. Once you click on the link, you basically give the malware permission to access all your contacts, and then the spam begins. The best thing to do in this situation is to change your password AND security questions

That said, there IS a chance that their PCs (or at least one of them) are infected, so it is always good to have them checked over by a competent technician. If you think you may have been infected as well, have your PC looked at by a professional.


Posted in Computer Terms, Computer Training and Education, Gmail, Latest Questions, Microsoft Outlook, Tips, Virus Updates | Leave a comment

How do I remove Privacy protection? Is this a virus?

Posted on November 16, 2011 by admin

This morning when I started my computer a program called “Privacy Protection” started running a scan on my computer. It is telling me that I have all kinds of problems. Help me! I don’t know what to do!

Privacy Protection is a rogue antispyware program that spreads on the Internet with the help of Trojans. It makes computer users pay money for its useless version . That is another infection from the same family as Malware protection and Security Protection.

As soon as your computer will be supposedly scanned, you will be told that your system has been attacked by severe malware. The message will also say that as a result it can cause unauthorized access to your private information and hard drive data with a serious possibility of irreversible data loss and unstable PC performance. You may be also asked to install some software in order to initiate system files check. Later on it will download and install Privacy Protection program and right when you restart your computer, the fun part will start.

It is generally something you will not be able to remove without specialized tools and knowledge of the infection. There are guides online but they sometimes don’t remove all of the infection when followed. It is our recommendation to have a professional clean the PC to ensure it is completely done and done correctly.

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Deleting Temp Files

Posted on November 11, 2011 by admin

Is deleting temp files, add-ons, etc. the same as cleaning the disk? Also when I click on an icon it is slow to react?

Similar, but not the same. Deleting temporary files is best left to a program that is meant for doing that, such as CCleaner or windows Disk Cleanup.

Removing addons can be done through each individual browser, which will speed up browsing and load time of the browser.

If you have a lot of icons on the desktop and its slow to react, you may want to try removing some of the excess/unneeded icons that are listed there. This can help speed up the displaying of the desktop as well.


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Can you have too many anti-virus programs?

Posted on October 28, 2011 by admin

I have avast anti virus, spyware doctor, and malware bytes on my computer. My friend says it is to much and I’m just wasting space having this many programs. He says either have spyware doctor or avast and delete the other 2? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

You should only have one antivirus program. If you have more than one, they might conflict with each other. So basically, your friend is right. If you need help choosing the right protection for your computer, give us a call.

Posted in Computer Training and Education, Latest Questions, Tips, Virus Updates | 1 Comment

Missing iTunes Library

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin

The other day, I put a bunch of songs on iTunes. A couple days later they were gone. I didn’t think much of it, and uploaded the songs again. I got on the computer today, and they were all gone again! I also tried to print out an essay and it says the file cannot be found. I feel like files are being deleted off my computer. What can i do to fix this? And why is it doing this?

Sorry, this cannot be easily explained. And the two likely explanations I can come up with are not good. 1) Either you have a malicious virus going through & eating your files (those are quite rare actually) or, 2) Your hard disk drive is failing and starting to lose data. I recommend you turn off your PC & don’t power it back on again until you have a technician look at it. Since both options are pretty severe, I recommend someone physically look at your PC versus remote support. You can call us, or take it to someone in your area. Good Luck.

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Failing Hardware

Posted on July 19, 2011 by admin

my desktop computer SCSI?RAID controller is not working what do I do?

If your computer is saying the SCSI/RAID Controller is not working correctly it means that a piece of hardware inside of the computer is failing, or having errors. The only real option you have is to get an onsite company to come out and diagnose the problem, or call the computer Manufacturer. If it is still within warranty this is something they should handle. If not you would be responsible for paying to get it fixed. If you would like an onsite company to come out, please give us a call and we can arrange that for you!

Posted in Computer Terms, Computer Training and Education, Latest Questions, Tips | 1 Comment

Driver Recognition Issues

Posted on July 18, 2011 by admin

When I insert a SD card from my camera, my computer fails to recognize it. Card is inserted correctly and I have tried 2 different cards. Previously had 1 of your techs in to remove a virus and I’m wondering if i’m missing a driver or whatever. Thankful for any help you can give me.

There are 2 types of SD card, just a standard SD, which goes up to 2gb in size. Any card reader should read these. There is another type of SD card called “SDHC” for SD High Capacity. The SDHC card require a much newer card reader, and are a lot less likely to be read. You may be able to download drivers for a SDHC card reader from your computer manufacturers website, or give us a call and we can guide you through it!

Posted in Computer Training and Education, Latest Questions, Tips, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Virus

Posted on July 11, 2011 by admin

The only thing that works on my computer is Internet Explorer, what can I do to fix it. If I try to open ANYTHING it says “Choose the program you want to use to open this file:”.. and the only three on it are Adobe Reader 8.1, Internet Explorer, and Wordpad. Even if I simply try to open the calculator it says that, if I try to do the system restore button it says that. Basically IE is the only thing that works on my computer. I told Bestbuy in detail about my problem and they want $200 to do a full diagnostic something on it. A friend of mine said that the laptop (Asus) needs to be reset to its factory settings, but I don’t know how to do that.

What you have is an infection or at the least the aftermath of an infection. Without knowing the exact variant I couldn’t give advice on how to clean the computer. With the state your computer is in unfortunately you wouldn’t be able to run the tools to gather the information. If you have the cds that came with your computer you could restore it to like it was when you got it. You would lose all the information on the pc though. If you have a backup drive you could try restoring the computer too before you got infected then save the date to the backup. You would need the cds for that as well. In windows try. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-System-Restore If that doesn’t work you will need to Google system restore for your specific operating system. For the same price to diagnose your computer we could clean it for you. If you want us to work on it please call us at 800-990-4629.

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Multiple Backups

Posted on June 21, 2011 by admin

Recently I bought a new Dell desktop and an external harddrive. I also use your online backup in addition to the external harddrive. Dell keeps suggesting that I use their backup as well. This seems like overkill to me. What should I do about the Dell backup upgrade?
Having multiple backups is always a good idea and it sounds like, from what you have explained, you have that covered with our backup solution and your external harddrive. Dell’s backup, while a viable solution, is not necessary and can be disabled to prevent the constant notification. Please place a service call if you need further assistance disabling/removing the dell backup. Thank you.

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