News
- 27 July 2010, 8:36 am:
Are you running out of hard drive space on your computer? Would you like to see what is taking up a lot of your space? SpaceMonger is one of our favorite tools; it displays all of the files and folders on your hard drive as a treemap. It is so EASY to see what folders or files are taking up a lot of space. If you see something that you don't need (movies, music, games, etc.), you can click on the file or folder and delete it. You can download SpaceMonger here: http://www.sixty-five.cc/download/
- 22 July 2010, 8:20 am:
Roxio & Nero disk burning programs are "bloatware." They are programs that are full of features that you don't need and they hog your valuable system resources (slow your computer down). The best fix for bloatware is to uninstall it from your computer (Click on: Start menu -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Program (or Programs and Features) find the program you want to uninstall and click Uninstall). The best and free alternative to Roxio & Nero is CDBurnerXP. You can download it here: http://cdburnerxp.se
- 17 July 2010, 4:14 am:
Tired of forgetting your passwords? You probably have dozens of different passwords that you have to remember. You might even have one "master password" that you use for everything. Sometimes you can't use that same password due to security requirements (password length, special characters, must include a number, it expires monthly etc.) and it's a pain to memorize it along with other passwords. Password Safe is a free simple program that lets your store all of your passwords in one place, which are accessible with one password. Get it here: http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/
- 13 July 2010, 9:01 pm:
We are finally getting some hot weather here in Seattle! Love it or hate it... but definitely your computer hates it. Heat is your computer's worst enemy -- try to keep it cool! :) Here are some tips for protecting your PC in hot weather: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/desktop-hardware/2006/07/06/top-10-tips-for-protecting-your-pc-in-hot-weather-39278265/.
- 4 July 2010, 10:02 am:
Happy 4th of July! We hope you have a safe and happy Independence Day!
- 1 July 2010, 5:38 am:
Are you looking for a FREE alternative to Photoshop? GIMP is one of the best raster graphics editing software available. You can download the latest version of GIMP from http://gimp.org.
- 18 June 2010, 5:54 pm:
Running out of hard drive space? CCleaner is an awesome free tool that removes temporary files and unused files from your system. This frees up valuable hard drive space and helps Windows run faster. CCleaner also does other things and you can download it @ http://piriform.com/ccleaner.
- 9 June 2010, 2:52 am:
Today Microsoft released 34 security patches for vulnerabilities in Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer. This is the largest release of patches for the year so far. Be sure to run Windows Update to take advantage of these patches. XP users visit: http://update.microsoft.com. Vista & 7 users: Click the Start button, click All Programs, and then click Windows Update.
- 6 June 2010, 8:22 am:
Are you looking to buy a new laptop, but not sure about which brand to buy? The 3 brands that have the highest fail rate in the first 3 years: HP, Gateway, & Acer. The 3 brands that have the lowest fail rate in the first 3 years: Asus, Toshiba, & Sony. Stay away from HP and if possible, buy an Asus laptop! One popular PC shop in Federal Way sells no other brand of laptop except for Asus.
- 30 May 2010, 11:04 pm:
Want to keep your hard drive healthy? Run Disk Error Checking (Check Disk) and Disk Defragmentation (Defrag) monthly. You can find these tools by clicking on "My Computer" -> Right click on your hard drive (C:) and select "Properties" -> Click on the "Tools" tab.
- 24 May 2010, 9:37 am:
Web browsers: About 46% of internet users use Firefox, about 16% use Internet Explorer, and about 13% use Chrome. These are the top 3 players and they are free to download. Internet Explorer is the least safe browser because of its security holes and it is targeted the most by malicious hackers (AKA: Crackers). You can download Firefox from http://getfirefox.com or Chrome from http://google.com/chrome.
- 19 May 2010, 8:26 am:
The part that breaks most often in a desktop computer is the power supply (the box that you plug the power cord into). Unfortunately, power supplies die slowly and it is usually impossible to detect that one is dying. A dying power supply causes intermittent problems: Sometimes the computer works fine and sometimes it doesn't. Those problems can be boot up problems, error codes, lockups/freezes, etc.
- 5 May 2010, 6:13 am:
Whatever you do... DON'T USE NORTON! At one time Norton WAS the leader in anti-virus programs and other utilities, but now its a huge resource hog and as hard to remove as a virus. Norton was the cause of the internet not working on one of our customer's computer after it was uninstalled. We had to use a special "Norton removal tool" from the Norton website --- JUST TO GET RID OF NORTON!
- 28 April 2010, 10:52 pm:
We redid our homepage and it is no longer
cheesy! ;) What do you think?
- 27 April 2010, 4:40 am:
How much do computer backups cost? It all depends on where you decide to backup your files to. On Newegg http://bit.ly/newegg-com you can buy 100 CD-Rs for $20, 100 DVD-Rs for $35, a 16GB USB Flash Drives for $35, or even a 250GB portable USB hard drive for $50. Whatever you do, BACKUP your files and not just to another place on the same hard drive. Burn your files to CDs/DVDs and/or copy to a portable hard drive.
- 25 April 2010, 11:04 am:
Why are computer backups so important? All computers crash; your computer will crash, and even our computers will crash. Mac or PC, it doesn't matter. If your computer crashes and data is lost, you WILL lose your important files (photos, documents, etc.) if you don't have a backup! Backup your important files or greatly regret it later...
- 21 April 2010, 10:42 pm:
What exactly is a computer backup? It is the process of making additional copies of your (important) computer files. Backups can be stored at another location on your hard drive; portable hard drive, CD/DVD, flash drive/thumb drive (USB), or even online. It is best to use multiple storage methods (IE: portable hard & DVD) for your backups.
- 15 April 2010, 12:51 am:
In the next few posts we are going to cover information about computer backups. We all have heard that computers NEED to be backed up, but... What exactly is it? Why is it important? How much does it cost? [Stay tuned for more information!]
- 1 April 2010, 4:41 am:
Seattle area business owners, are you listed on http://Biznik.com ?
We're giving out 10 ProVIP 1 month sponsorships for free! Post your
Biznik profile URL in the comment for a free sponsorship and feel free
to add us to your network!
- 28 March 2010, 10:30 pm:
We just got back from an emergency service call. If your computer doesn't power on or boot up, it is possible in most cases to retrive your files from the hard drive. The process is fairly quick and you'll be on track to meet your deadline. Of course, provided that you have another computer to work from (friend, library, college, work, etc)! ;)
