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Rick

Make sure you have the disks

I do my best to support small local businesses, because I own and operate a small, local business. However, when it comes to purchasing a computer, too many times I have seen the small computer shop put together a machine that is more expensive with less features than a name brand computer. And worse, the computer does NOT come with the original Windows CD and accompanying license.

If you aren’t given and can’t obtain the original Windows installation disk when you purchase a computer, then the copy of Windows on your computer (and probably other software as well…think Microsoft Office) is illegal. The software will work fine, but when it comes time to reinstall after a hard drive crash or if you want to upgrade, you are stuck with having to purchase full versions of these programs. 

Check the Cables

Two common questions I get throughout my travels as a computer help guy are: 1) My sound doesn’t work, 2) My modem (dial-up or high speed) is acting funny.

Interestingly enough, a large majority of the solutions happen to be cable related. For the sound, make sure that your speakers are plugged into the ‘sound out’ or speaker jack. It usually is marked green on the back of your computer. If you happen to have two round green plugs on the back of the computer, always use the lowest one. Also, with most speakers, make sure that you have the power cable plugged into the speakers and the power outlet. And lastly, if your speakers have an on/off button, make sure that it is powered on and the volume turned up both on the speakers and on your computer volume control

sTRanGe Occurence

A client’s adult daughter had a problem where the ONLY site that she couldn’t pull up on the Internet was her bank. After thoroughly checking her computer for viruses and spyware, making sure firewalls were set properly, checking Internet settings and trying the site with multiple browsers, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She is a cable Internet user and was sharing the connection via a Linksys wireless router. Nothing I could think of made a difference.

Today, she called me and was gleeful about her computer…she could get to her bank’s web site, log in normally. Turns out that after she unplugged the router and connected straight to her computer, the site became available. I have never heard of a router blocking just a single site (routers do act as firewalls as well). I told her how to reset the router to its factory settings in case someone may have ‘tweaked’ the router to block the banking site. If the factory reset didn’t work, she would have to get another router in order to share the Internet again.

Spread out your backup

I had a client call me today to ask my advice on a new computer. Unfortunately someone had broken into her house and stolen not only all of her computers, but all of her backup disks too.

Bad guys are often smart enough to know that a computer is worth more if there are a lot of programs to go with it. So if your computer is stolen, chances are the theif will also take the opportunity to steal any disks he can find as well.

Keeping all of your backup in one place is never a good idea. Not only can theives get to it, but if any other catastrophe takes your home or office, chances are your backup will go with it, if you keep your backup with your computer.

RAID – It’s not just for cockroaches anymore

I worked on a computer this weekend that had two hard drives (150 GB each) in a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks) configuration. It was the first time I had worked with this type of computer. There are different flavors of RAID available and they are described as Level 0, Level 2, etc). In simple terms, RAID automatically makes copies of everything on the first hard drive to the second hard drive…also known as mirroring.

This is done for a couple of reasons. The first is obviously backup. RAID allows for continuous seamless (and transparent) backup from one drive to the other. Performance for some applications like high end graphics or Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) becomes slightly better with hard drives configured in a RAID format. Up until recently, RAID has been reserved primarily for computer servers (think large offices, Internet providers, web hosting, etc). Hard drive costs have dropped dramatically in recent years and storage size is skyrocketing. These two factors are propelling the implementation of RAID in personal computers.

How about a joke

Memorial Day week is always slow for business. Partially due to the holiday and partially due to the Junior College World Series (JUCO) that comes to town.

Since I don’t have much to relate about technology today, I will share a bad joke that I heard last night from some friends.

Ghandi was very old and frail but that never stopped him from walking without shoes whever he went. Even on the hot sand he walked barefoot, the calluses had built up over his life so that he could feel nothing on the bottoms of his feet.

Perhaps it was the life of service to others or his spiritual beliefs, but many of his followers claimed that Ghandi had special unexplained powers. He also was a strict vegetarian who attributed his long life to a daily dosage of garlic. However, this steady habit also gave him extremely bad breath.

The backdoor to your Outlook Express addressbook

If your hard drive crashes and you need to find your Outlook Express addressbook – here is where you will find it in Windows XP.

C:/Documents and Settings/(your user folder)/Application Data/Microsoft/Addressbook/(here you will find your addressbook).

Before you try this maked sure you go into Tools/Folder Options and choose to show hidden folders.

The addressbook will be called something like "addressbook.wab" you can also search for the address book by going to Start->Find/Search. Type in "*.wab"

eBay: Read the entire auction before asking questions

I have another camera up on eBay. Old cameras sell pretty well, but they attract a lot of overseas buyers. Everytime I sell a camera, I get about a dozen people asking the same questions.

Will you ship overseas? How much to ship to my country? Does the item work? All of these answers are spelled out as a part of the auction but people ask any way.

Here are the first two questions that I have been asked by potential bidders:

"hello.could you apply ship to taiwan?how much the delivery cost to taiwan?is it with registered and insurance?are everything work correctly one the camera and lens as that should be?does that with scratches,fongus and haze?or any other problems?thanks~~~"

RSS – Really Simple Syndication

RSS has been around for quite a few years already, but we have not brought it up as an official tip. We purposefully held off because we wanted the technology to mature and for the technology to truly become usable. We also delayed the idea a little until we perfected how we were going to offer this exciting web technology on our site.

This week, we just want to introduce you to the topic and then next week give you the step-by-step on how to best utilize RSS. RSS, originally developed by Netscape, stands for Rich Site Summary. Somewhere along the line, the acronym became more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication.

RSS allows web site owners to ‘share’ their content (articles, tips, pictures, audio, video, etc) with other sites or users. Instead of having to physically go to our site, for example, to see what is new on a given day, you could use RSS to check on the headlines from our site. The headlines would link you back to the site where you could read the entire article. Customizable portal pages like Yahoo, Google and MSN offer will let you add any RSS content to the page as well. Think of RSS as being able to truly customize and instantly receive the exact information and entertainment that fits you. No more schlepping through other people’s content, you can create your own!

For those of you who crave more in depth information and history of RSS, please refer to these two sites:

Wikipedia -RSS
History of RSS

Next week, we will teach you how to look for, compile and utilize RSS content or what are known as ‘feeds’.

“I want to go back to AOL”

This painful statement came from a customer of mine who made the leap to DSL (at the request of her kids, not me) a couple of months ago. She dumped dial-up and AOL and opted for DSL with a local Internet provider.

Changing from AOL is never easy and many ex-AOLers go through major withdrawls. However, once the shivers go away and a person gets settled with a real Internet provider, they are quite happy. AOL does things their own way and this keeps many a customer for them. Luckily, their high prices, slow connections, and abismal support has led millions away to a better place.