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Riding Shotgun with Adam

Don’t buy the cheapest computer out there

"Buy 'em cheap and buy 'em often" is a phrase that I use alot when helping people understand my approach to computers. Since any computer you buy, no matter how much you spend, is only designed for today's uses, I don't like to over spend on a computer expecting it to last longer. I suggest that you buy your computer based on the most you need right now and when new uses come along in 4-6 years, just buy a new computer.

However, I saw a brand new Dell today that was a good example of why my advice shouldn't be interpreted as "buy the cheapest thing on the shelf."

Dell loves to advertise $399-$499 computers in their ads. I saw one of those machines today. It had a 2.4 ghz processor, 256 MB of RAM, no recovery disks and a 60 gigabyte hard drive.

While this system will run, it does it terribly slow and newer software will really have problems running on it.

I called Dell and ordered another 256MB of RAM and recovery disks. Now their $499 computer is a $599 computer and the specs are still lower than what they could have got from a store for $600.

My advice should not be understood as a recommendation to shop by price alone. Make sure you know your product. Compare the specs from every brand and price to see if what you are getting is truly a good deal or just a cheap computer. Our current minimum computer should have the following minimum specs:

We don’t charge $100 per hour!

I will write another shotgun article later, but I quickly wanted to get the word out to our clients in Grand Junction, CO that Rick and I do not charge $100 per hour. Our rates did go up, but only slightly. Today two people said that they had heard that our rates have gone up to $100 per hour, last week I had one other person say it. Rick also had a client this week who thought that we were charging as much.

I don't know who is spreading that rumor, but I just thought I should correct it here since most of our clients use this website as a source for computer help.

For the record, Rick and I run separate businesses, but much of our pricing is the same. 

How do you explain HD to an SD world?

HD = High Definition
SD = Standard Definition

I knew you were wondering about one or both of those, so I had to get that out of the way first.

One of my clients was having a new TV installed when I was at her home yesterday. I didn't measure, but I think that it was a 52-inch model. It was one of the top Mitsubishi DLP models. Of course that means that it supported 1080p HDTV.

What? I lost you?

My client's husband had picked out the TV knowing that it was the best and the biggest he was willing to pay for. The picture looked beautiful in the store but when they got it home the picture was blurry.

GPS Trick or Treat Report

I live in the perfect Trick or Treating neighborhood. The homes are divided pretty evenly between families and a group that our family calls 'old people.'

Within a one square mile area the houses are packed together and every second or third house has its porch light on.

Last night I decided to take the GPS with me as we took our kids begging for candy. Here is the report.

Odometer 1.89 miles
Max Speed 7.4 mph
Total Moving Time 0:48:06
Total Stopped Time 1:15:00
Avg Moving Speed 2.5 mph
Overall Avg Speed 0.3 mph

 

Catching up after vacation

I took a short two-day vacation with my family. When I got back I had 31 calls to return. I was able to get back to almost all of them but I still have a few to call back tomorrow.

I am about ready to declare that computers are not yet perfect. With all of the windows fixes, anti-virus programs and teenagers out there to fix and prevent computer problems, we have made little progress in perfecting today's machines.

Some people call it job security, but I think there is plenty of job security just in teaching people how to use clean running systems. We don't need problems to keep good computer guys employed.

You can’t transfer programs – only data

I have setup as many new computers over the past couple of months as I have the entire five years I've been an on-site computer guy. I have become very good at backing up data and moving from the old computer to the new system.

Before I setup the new computer I explain that I can easily transfer data files from one computer to another, but I can't transfer programs.

Typically, this doesn't appear to be a problem. That is, until I have setup the new system and moved the data. "Where's my Microsoft Word?" or "How do I get into my AutoCAD?" are examples common questions I get after the work has been done.

Mac viruses up 75% over past 2 years

While reading through the news from last week, I came across this story at CNN about the increase in the number of viruses in Macs this year.

The story gives most of it's attention to a story from last week about a PC viruses that was found on very few iPods (less than 1 percent). Reading a little further down, I saw this little gem:

"Oliver Friedrichs, director of security response at Symantec, a leading anti-virus software vendor, said 72 vulnerabilities were discovered in the Mac's OS X operating system in 2006, up from 19 in 2004."

I’m not going to tell your kids what to do but…

I had one of my longest appointments ever today as I cleaned a computer free of almost 15,000 viruses, setup a network, installed a wireless card, removed bad security software and replaced it with AVG, did troubleshooting on a fax machine problem and installed Firefox.

I even left for lunch and to another appointment for a while. The appointment took 5 hours not counting virus scans (I went to lunch and another appointment once I saw that there were more than 500 viruses.)

Of course my client was curious how so many viruses got on the computer. I had to explain that it was all caused by infected files that were downloaded through a file sharing program.

USB flash drives 101

Flash Drive

No matter how many times we talk about USB flash drives on the show, or I recommend them to my clients, I am still surprised by how many people have no idea that they exist.

A USB flash drive is a small device the size of a key that plugs into any Windows ME, XP or 2000 computer's USB flash drive.

It works exactly like a floppy disk drive but it holds 100-16,000 times as much information.

If you need to do backup of finances, genealogy, or documents, you NEED a USB flash drive.