Another hobby horse: Don’t let your kids fix...

Yesterday I wrote about how much I dislike poorly custom built computers. Today I saw a similar situation – computers custom built by kids. By kids I don't mean children or young goats, I mean offspring. While at home this family's two sons had built and maintainted the two family computers. Now those two sons have moved away from home and married. I was called to fix things up and the call went something like...

Norton causes problems…blah,blah,blah

This is going to be a short one because I have to get to the digital photography user group soon. I just wanted everyone to know that I saw two computers with exactly the same problem today. They were connected to the Internet, but couldn’t view the Internet. In other words, they could get windows updates and use programs like Yahoo! Messenger, but they couldn’t view web pages. Here’s what I did to fix the...

Norton may slow computers down

ALERT!! Today I saw a client with a slow computer. I removed Norton Antivirus and the computer instantly regained the speed of its youth. Later in the day I saw another client with a slow computer. I removed Norton Antivirus and the computer instantly regained the speed of its youth. There seems to be a trend here because over the past two years I have seen dozens of computers with slowness problems. After removing Norton...

Alternative Operating Systems

Not really alternative, but I wanted to get your attention. Today, three of my customers were not using Windows XP. Two were Windows 98 and one was an older Macintosh. It’s always fun for me to keep my hands on some of these older machines to keep my mind agile. I am always amazed at how functional and quick Windows 98 can be. One of the customers called because their 98 machine was running extremely slow. Within 90...

Security is Paramount

I’m posting from the road today as I sit waiting for my last customer. An earlier customer made a neat comment/observation. She said, "Geesh, I didn’t realize there was so much to setting up the security on a computer." She had an expired version of Norton that we uninstalled. Then I loaded AVG Antivirus, Zone Alarm Firewall, and Windows Defender. Security setup seems time consuming and tedious during...

Why we recommend the stuff we do

Our listeners and subsribers have probably heard me say, "Don't let your kids fix your computer, no matter how old they are or who they work for." I say this because many of my appointments come as a result of a full grown son or daughter who "works for Microsoft" or  "Is a computer tech for ___________ University" coming home and "fixing" the computer. I have no doubts that said...

You have a virus, it is called Norton

I had one client today who had setup an appointment for me to get rid of a virus. Every time they turned on their computer and/or logged into their email, an error would pop up. The error in their email was so bad that they couldn’t even read their messages. I noticed that all of the errors were related to Symantec – the company that makes Norton. I removed Norton and installed AVG. All of a sudden the...

Typical Day Kickoff!!

Today was one of the best examples ever of a typical day. In fact, today was so typical that it was atypically typical. I began my day by giving the office manager at a local doctor’s office a lesson in Microsoft PowerPoint. Immediately after that I headed to Sam’s Club to purchase a video card for my next client. I barely had enough time to buy the card before I had to be at their house to install it. I have had...

Update your virus protection

One of the best ways to protect your system and keep it running smoothly is to update your virus protection program regularly. My current favorite anti-virus program is the free addition of AVG (see our link for it on the home page). I like not only its thoroughness, but the update utility is extremely easy (in fact automatic if you spend at least an hour a day online). After all, an anti-virus program can only help if it is...