Craigslist competitors

Like a lot of computer repair guys, I advertise on Craigslist. Craigslist is a goood way to get a listing in front of the public, and I get a fair amount of work from my ads on Craigslist.

What frustrates me the most are people who say that a computer problem can be fixed in minutes, and for tiny amounts of money (free to 20/hr.)
I know I shouldnt, but I worry about the quality of service that these people, some of whom admit that computer repair is 'just a hobby', are providing their customers.
People trust advertisers on Craigslist more than they should, so a 'computer repair guy' who doesnt give a name, phone number or website could be looking for homes to rob. Probably not, but any reputable serviceperson, whether janitor, handyman, plumber, landscaper etc. provides information about themselves so that potential customers can see that they are "real".

Lest someone think that I am merely complaining because of being undercut, I am not. Anybody has the ability to advertise on Craigslist and it is up to me to make my ad more compelling than the next persons ad.

Even so, I wonder about some of these ads I see. What with the poor grammar, poor spelling and no contact information its a good thing these people arent trying to to make a living.

As far as the obvious competitors go, more power to them; every de-virused computer make the Internet safer for all of us.

New Places To Find Me

Well, I've gone and done it. I have just now registered on Yelp, signed up for Twitter and now have a Facebook page.

I guess I've truly joined the 21st Century now.

You can expect to see new posts there as often as there are new posts here...

Amd vs. Intel

AMD has long been the second-best CPU maker in the computer industry, behind Intel (maker of Pentium CPU's). A few years ago, when AMD came out with its Athlon line of CPU's, they took first place in the race to be best chipmaker.
After the release of the Athlon CPU's, Intel came out with several less than outstanding chips, allowing AMD to rest on its laurels as fastest chipmaker.
But, while AMD was resting on its laurels, Intel came out with a plan to release newer, better and faster chips every year and a half, while shrinking the size of the CPU and adding more stuff to them.
And so Intel has done exactly what they said they would, much to AMD's chagrin. In order to catch up, AMD has done several things, some very risky, which has led to new and underperforming CPU releases.

But now, it appears that AMD may finally have caught up to Intel with their new Phenom II CPU.

Revies are underway; if you are a gamer, you may want to check this chip out for your next system.

More Windows 7

Once i fixed my boot problems, the actual installation of Windows went fairly smoothly, wiuth the exception of one error message saying that my blank hard drive was not bootable. Once I got that issue sorted out, the install went quickly.

There is not alot of movement on screen to make it look like something is happening; you sort of take it on faith that Windows is doing its thing.
There are three steps Windows goes through in its installation routine:
Gathering information, Installing, and Finishing Up.

The installation is said to take about a half an hour. I didnt time mine so I cant say whether that is true. The installation did take a lot less time than Windows XP, and I was able to walk away without fear that something horrible would happen if I did not babysit it.

Once installed, Windows asks for the serial number ("Product Key") asks asks a few general setup questions, including 'do you want to activate the first time you are online?'

When the desktop comes up, which seems quite quick compared to Vista and XP, the default resolution (with a video card installed but no drivers) is a reasonable 1024 x 768. With drivers installed, the resolution increases to the native resolution of the monitor; in my case i have a 15 inch monitor with a 1200dpi resolution.

Installing Windows 7

I've just installed Windows 7 on an old computer to see if it could be done.

The installation is large enough that it requires a DVD, and a DVD drive. The only problem with that is that older computer generally cant boot from a DVD.

Windows 7 was designed to be installed on top of (or beside) an existing operating system, one that has DVD drivers already loaded.

To get around this limitation, I found it was possible to use a Vista Repair Disk that Microsoft provides. It has the bootloader and DVD drivers necessary to load Windows from the DVD.

My Windows 7 installation is running on an AMD Athlon 1.1 Ghz cpu, with 1GB of RAM and a Radeon 9550 video card.

People Search Engines

There are new search engines on the Web now that will attempt to find anyone based on the information you have already given out in various locations.
If you have a Facebook page, a Twitter account or other type of publicly available account where you list things you wouldnt normally want strangers seeing, be careful to adjust your privacy settings.

One such search site, Spokeo, boasts that it will "uncover personal photos, videos and secrets" that are "juicy" and "mouth-watering." If you dont want to be the next person who inadvertently ends up on the evening news, be careful what you put online.

Trojan Troubles: The Results

My customer had an ultra-portable laptop (that I had initially confused with a netbook) that he thought had trojan horse programs on it, and he wanted them removed and the laptop fixed.

He did have trojans; and viruses and spyware. Multiples. One of them had lodged inside the 'winlogon' service that allows you in to the desktop, and I couldnt remove it.

Usually this calls for formatting the hard drive and re-installing Windows. Not an exceptionally hard thing to do. Except in this case. No version of Windows that I installed would work properly; none of my three versions would install properly, nor his.
Upon further investigation, it turns out that Dell had (has?) some kind of mechanism that prevents people from re-installing Windows on that model of laptop without the specific Recovery Disk that came with the computer(or Recovery Partition).

Afterwards, I returned the laptop to the customer, letting him know what I had done, what I had found out and what his options might be.

Trojan Troubles

A customer has just called wanting me to get rid of a pesky trojan horse for him.
For this I usually boot into Safe Mode and use MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware program.

Results later.

Troubleshooting 101

The other day, I had a customer ask to me to fix his sound. This called for Troubleshooting 101; figure out and solve the problem.

First, is there a defined problem? Yes; "the sound doesnt work."

Second, is the problem hardware, software or both? In this case, both.

Third, check the software:
Is the volume muted? Yes/No
Is the volume turned all the down, or otherwise turned off? Yes/No

Then check the hardware:
Are the speakers on? Yes/No
If no, are the speakers plugged in to power?
Are the speakers plugged into the computer? The correct plug?

Finally, check all other connections. Follow all cords to make sure everything is plugged in to its proper place, including sub-woofers and surround-sound.

If none of this works, then it is time to check for device driver errors. But that is Troubleshooting 102.

As it turned out, my customer had unplugged his sub-woofers power cord, and that had unplugged his speakers. So, I plugged the sub-woofer in and all was well.

Why Updating Windows Is Important

You might think that with all of today's security measures for your computer, that massive virus outbreaks are a thing of the past, but you would be wrong.

Right now, there is a worm called Conficker (also called Downadup) that is exploiting missing Windows patches. What Conficker does is allow other infected computers to attack yours, which would allow your computer to be taken over in turn and used to attack yet more computers.

Conficker has also been seen to allow downloads of fake antivirus programs that attempt to scare you into buying the fake program, when then gives your credit card number to criminals.

Windows Updates are an important part of keeping your computer healthy. I know that sometimes the update notifier can be annoying and a nag, but it really is important that you let your computer be updated.

If you are in the middle of an important project, let it go until you are done; but then find a time when your computer is not busy and install the updates.

Beware the fake stimulus

Email scams are nothing new; for example, look at the 'Nigerian Prince' (aka 419) emails.

But with the down economy, email scammers have a new tack, the 'fake stimulus' email. Because so many people are in trouble, either with their mortgage or with jobs and money in general, people are willing to be more gullible than ever if it means that they have a chance a getting some of the government stimulus money.
Emails are going out that look and sound official, as if some heretofore unknown government agency was telling people how to apply for government assistance. These emails do not come from a .gov address, nor do they have any official seals on them(even though a govt. seal is easy to fake).
People are just very willing right now to take a strangers word that this stranger knows how to get government stimulus money, that they are willing to share it with you, and it will only cost you a small administrative fee.

You should know by now that any email that says they know a secret way to get money from the government is fake, and a scam.
And, in addition, any email that asks for money is crooked and will only get you in trouble. Not with the government, but with your wallet.

So dont believe it. There is no stimulus money being given out to individual citizens. Even if there was, the government would not send you an anonymous email telling you so.

Why doesnt my Wi-fi work

If you live in an old house, that is, really old, your walls are probably made of a combination of hardwood sticks and a cement-like mortar; this is called 'lathe and plaster'.

Tests on wi-fi signal strengths have shown that lathe and plaster walls are so dense that they reflect the radio signals that make up your wi-fi signal. The next worse thing to have in your walls between you and your router are metal ductwork. The metal of the ductwork also reflects the radio signals.

The solution is one of two things: buy a stronger router(or a booster for your existing one), or move the router closer to where you want to work.

If you go the new router route, you will want to buy an "N" router(that means 802.11n, Draft 2.0); these are the newest and strongest routers, designed to bounce the signal around obstacles.

Printing (or not) from Mac's to PC's

Yesterday I had a customer whose daughter had an older iMac who wanted to print over the network to a printer hooked to a PC.

The PC was an older Dell and the printer was an older Dell All-In-One. Dell printers are made by Lexmark, the printer software is made by Lexmark, but the printer drivers are written by Dell.
(Drivers are small pieces of software that tell a piece of hardware how to operate; in this case how to print a document.)

It turns out that the Dell AIO did not have Macintosh drivers. The Mac could see the PC (who was acting as a print server), could send the print job to the PC, the printer would say "printing" and yet nothing happened.

The moral of the story: make sure your PC's printer has Mac drivers available.

More on the fake Anti-virus front

I've talked before about fake anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. Normally you can write down the name of the suspicious program and Google it or go to respected review sites for answers.

Now, maybe not.

The newest fake anti-virus, Antivirus-1 or AntiVirus2010, will change the listing of known good websites contained in your browser(this is called the hosts file), and if you try to go to a well-known website like PC magazine, ZD Net, etc. the fake antivirus will re-direct your browser to a fake site controlled by the virus' author, where it will show glowing, wonderful reviews about the fake anti-virus program.

The best way to avoid this is to have a good anti-virus program running and updated. Also, it is good to be suspicious of any program you dont remember installing.

New Security Threats

It seems like there are always more threats to look out for. Today, some new ones you might not have heard of.

Variations on 'phishing': Voicemail and Twitter.
Voicemail Phishing ("vishing"): A voicemail call (sometimes called a 'robo-call') from your bank or a company you've recently done business with telling you that a large transaction, usually something you havent done, has been held up.
The call includes a tol free number tha tyou are asked to call right away to fix the problem. Once you do, a voice menu prompts you to key in your credit card number, as well as the expiration date and 3-digit security code on the back. After which, the caller is usually hung up on, or placed on terminal hold.

Twitter Phishing ("twishing"): A fake tweet (blog posts on Twitter are called 'tweets') is sent to your account with a link that supposedly sends you somewhere harmless, such as youtube or Flickr, but really sends you to a fake login page where you are asked to give up all of your info.

Power Leeches

PC World had an article recently about electronic gadget and how much power they consume even when turned off, or even when just the charger is plugged in but not charging anything.

It appears that the answer to "should I turn my computer off at night?" is "only if you want to save money on your power bill." The tower itself consumes about $7 dollars a month if you leave it on 24/7. Your entire computer setup (tower, monitor, speakers, etc) can cost you as much as $60 month; even in 'power-save' mode.

Un-dunking your cell phone

If you've ever dunked, washed, or otherwise immersed your phone in water, you feel like you've lost everything. But what if you could undo the dunking?

Take your freshly dunked phone, get a cooking pot or deep bowl, fill it full of uncooked rice. Submerge the phone in the rice and leave it there for a few hours or overnight.
Afterward, it should work as normal.

It needs to be noted, however, that this is not guaranteed to work; but it should.

And now, a couple of things that you should definitely not do with a wet phone:

• Use a hair dryer to dry it off. The heat can damage components.
• Put it in the microwave. The metal will spark and internal components can short out, so even if they were to dry, they would be fried.
• Leaving it out to air dry. This would work with a CRT monitor, but not with a phone; the water would have no where to go, and could continue damaging internal components.

Also, this is intended to work with water or water-based liquids (like coffee), not with syrup based liquids like soda (the water leaves, leaving the sticky syrup behind).

Blue Screen Errors

Sometimes fixing similar Blue Screen of Death(BSoD) error messages isnt as easy as it seems.

When you have an IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error, the first thing you do is swap out the RAM; but when you add DRIVER_IRQL to the error message, it becomes much harder.
You might think, as I did, swap out the RAM first. That doesnt work. You might also think that there is a driver issue, after all, the error message says 'driver' in it.
Ok, but which driver? In my case, it was a video problem. Changing the video driver didnt help.

Now, you might be thinking, Google for the answer. I did; at least 4 different answers, including Microsoft's. All of them suggested something besides the RAM and the video drivers; so I tried them all (Microsoft's answer was to change the video drivers).

After everything was tried, I used System Restore and went back further than the time the problem had occurred. I got the rid of the video problem, but the Blue Screen remained.

If you know a definitive answer, I'd love to hear it.

A Bad Valentine

There is an email currently making the rounds that has a Valentines Day-themed romantic message. The email has only one or two lines of text and a link to a web page.

Surely, I dont need to remind you NOT to click on any links in mysterious or spam emails, do I?

But, if you do need the reminder, and you DID click the link, it takes you to a web-page full of cute little hearts and a message that says "Guess which one is for you?" If you click anywhere on or near the heart pictures, you will be asked to run a program. This program is a virus, and it will 'zombify' your computer(allow someone from the Internet to take remote control).

The virus doesnt happen automatically; the email contains no virus, visiting the website will not automatically virus your computer(as can sometimes happen), YOU must download and run the virus. You will even be asked 'are you sure?' If you are using the Firefox browser, you will be asked twice.

So why the concern? Because in the month the email has been circulating, the amount of infected computers has been steadily rising.

So dont click the link! If you do, dont click on the webpage! If you do, dont run the program!

If, after all of this, you do run the program, save up some money for the sooner-rather-than-later repair you will need.

What you might not know about the Digital Transition

With all of this talk about the transition to digital over-the-air broadcasting, some things have gotten lost. There is some confusion about what needs to be replaced, or added, or whatnot.

First, you do not need to replace your TV; your TV will work just as well as it ever has, but unless it can receive the new TV signal you wont be able to watch any programs.
With current over the air broadcasts, which are called analog (because they're simple radio waves), if you receive a weak signal it shows up as static, and you can try to tune in a better signal.

With digital broadcast signals, there is no 'weak' signal, it is either strong and bright or not there at all. If you live in a place where your current TV signal is weak, you will receive no signal at all after the changeover.

Consumer Reports suggests that if you receive the error message from a digital tuner(the add-on box you will need to receive the new TV signal) that says "weak signal" that you get a bigger antenna, move your current antenna near to a window, or to a higher point in your house, such as an attic, or buy a signal booster (which you can attach to the TV).

If you live in a Comcast service area, they are required to sell over the air channels at low cost (sometimes as low $11/mo); however, they are not required to tell customers that this service is available; you will have to ask for it.