Category: General
The FBI recommends you check for viruses
Info from a variety of websites we have reviewed: Last November, the FBI in the U.S. solved a major computer hacking ring that had infected more than half a million computers worldwide. The FBI set up government issued backup servers to prevent internet disruption for all those infected computers until all the “Bad Guy’s” computers/systems came down. On July 9th the backup servers will be taken down.
What this means is if you are infected, after the servers are taken down your computer and internet will not work perfectly. The computer will try to redirect itself every time you try to access the internet. The good thing is, there is a way to find out if you are infected or not. If you go to www.dcwg.org and follow the simple on screen instructions it will tell you if you are infected or not. If you are infected, the website lists a bunch of helpful tools to get your computer back up and running. If you need help you can always Call That Girl at 612-865-4475 or fill out the form to schedule an appointment.
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Why peeking in the Junk Mail or Spam folder is important
Simple blog today folks.
I hear this on occasion, “I found your email in my junk folder,” so I felt there was value to writing up a blog about the junk/spam folder. When I am remoted into a computer repairing Outlook, I usually have to do an email test to insure it’s sending/receiving and many times…my email doesn’t show up on the client’s computer. The same email is in my inbox, but when I reply, it’s in their junk folder. It wasn’t junk! It was a test email and that should not be flagged period. But it is. The subject line was just “test”.
We have two things to discuss.
- Subject lines can get an email into junk
- Any email can get into junk
These two things are important to remember and you might have important emails sitting in your junk folder. I check mine daily and find tons of little goodies sitting in there. Emails from colleagues, clients, my staff, it doesn’t matter…it finds its way there. A good reminder for you is to check your junk/spam folder on occasion and make sure you’re not missing an important email.
My computer won’t turn on -Tips you can try
Nik here with the Call That Girl blog! Today I will be discussing something pretty simple, but something I find more and more people seem to have little idea about; hardware. More specifically what you can do if you are having problems simply getting the computer to start up, or if when you pressed the power button you could hear fans and see lights, or hear beeps, but the PC itself would not get activity on the screen, or get to the “Windows” splash screen. Keep in mind this will not fix major problems, and a deeper diagnosis may be the answer, but just for starters, here are some things you can do yourself without harming your computer that may help.
So basically you want to check all the things you would normally think are fine. You’d probably be amazed how many “problems” are fixed by the primary things.
- Go to the back of your PC tower and check all the cables.
- Jiggle cables and make sure things are secure, or to be certain…unplug them all and plug them back in.
- Check that the power from the wall outlet is working if the PC isn’t giving you any power at all. If you need to, plug it into another outlet or reset the surger.
- Check the power cable to make sure it has not been unplugged (especially in office settings, cleaning crews or other folks can sometimes unplug things.)
- Unplug external hard drives and basically anything you don’t need to have plugged in. I once had an issue where I had checked every connection except the video cable that physically plugged into the monitor itself, and had I checked in the first place, I could have saved hours of time.
- Also, if your PC has the small on/off switch in the back on the power supply (where you plug in your PC) make sure it is switched on, so the small line is pressed down, and not the power circle that is usually on the front panel.
After all is said and done, hopefully when you press the power button your computer boots up and everything is in order! If not, please Call That Girl and have your computer diagnosed at one of our service stations!
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Check back next week for part 2 of this simple guide to hardware and getting your computer to boot up!
5 Common Mistakes People Do to Their Computer
Ah, finally…it’s time for the Doctor to tell her patients what they are doing wrong with their computers. One thing I will tell you for sure not to do is, floss at night! But there are many things we find our clients doing that are just flat out bad, wrong and ugly. Your computer will thank you if you listen to this advice.
1.) Never restarting. Many of you keep your computers on all day and night. Give it a restart on occasion! It’s good for the computer to refresh itself.
2.) Never do your updates. I can’t tell you how many computers we look at each week that never get basic updates. These include Adobe, Java, Flash, Windows and your anti-virus.
3.) Shutting off with the power button. You should always try to shut down your computer the proper way by going to your start button and selecting “‘shut down”. This allows the operating system to shut down as it was intended. By just pushing the power button, you are forcing a shut off and sometimes the computer’s operating system will be corrupted after doing that. You may see some repair windows come up the next time you turn it on.
4.) Not buying enough memory for your computer. If you have had a tune up done by us, we conduct a 22 pt checklist and part of that checklist includes checking your memory. It’s important to have enough to make your computer time fun and fast! No one wants a sluggish computer experience. We can help you with memory; to set up an appt, give us a call!
5.) Overspending on a computer. Many of our clients have told us that they paid over $1000 for a family home computer. I’m going to guess that was years ago, because now you can get a decent home tower/desktop computer for well under $500. Before you go shopping, call us and get a consultation done and we will help you purchase what you and your family needs, save you money and save you shopping headaches! Many times we can help you buy it online, get shipped to your home and we can come help set it up!
Hibernation Vs. Sleep Mode: What’s the difference? And why you should know!
Many of our clients at Call That Girl call in with problems and sometimes they tell us that their computer doesn’t come out of sleep or hibernate very well. I have learned from the old XP days that not all computers are comfy in sleep mode. The computers may be sluggish and don’t want to spring back to life so fast, or they are just aging overall. When Vista came out, I called it the “Vista Coma”, and alerted all of those clients to just not use sleep mode as it usually caused them problems. Windows 7 is not so problematic though, I’m guessing because the computers are selling with higher amounts of hardware memory to allow the sleep and hibernate functions to work as they should.
Let’s do a quick review now of Hibernation vs. Sleep Mode in non-techie terms
Hibernation mode:
- Primarily a power saving function
- Saves data to the hard drive
- Turns off the computer
- Uses the least amount of power
- Use this mode when you know you are leaving your laptop and might not have a chance to juice up the battery and you don’t want to lose your data.
Sleep mode:
- This function is also power saving on your battery
- Puts the computer into an “as is” condition so when you come back, everything you were working on should be back to where it was
- Should take just a few seconds to resume back to how you left it
- Use of this mode is great for those that are fast laptop people, who up and leave the computer often, travel and those who need to close their lids quickly due to security purposes.
In a nutshell, as you read in the quick review here, sleep mode is the best to use for laptops. Hibernate is more like a shut down mode.
For those having problems, here is a quick guide:
- XP users with low memory – neither should be used if you are having problems
- Vista users with low memory – avoid using the sleep mode if you are having problems
- Windows 7 should not have problems, and if you do, you might want to get your computer looked at. Primarily, this is the best operating system for Microsoft so far and has the least issues we have seen with sleep and hibernate modes.
