Tag: computer services
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.
Coffee Shop Computing
This morning I had an 8:30 a.m. appt with a client and in a rush, I opted to not go to the office and just hit a local Caribou that was close to my friend’s house. I get in the Caribou and frantically look for an outlet close to the tables. I couldn’t find any! All of the outlets I could find where already being used or a family was sitting near it. I was close to getting a bit frustrated….I wandered around like a fool wondering how this busy little Caribou in Blaine, MN could only have two outlets for all the customers!
Then…doh. I look by the small tables in a row and see a strip right by the tables, installed so sharply that you can’t really see them up close, but they were installed as part of the window frame lol. I thought I had read years ago that coffee places had installed these power strips to accommodate the computers for the customers, but I guess I don’t go to coffee houses much to do real work.
So my doh turns to YAY. I plunk down and start to figure out all my junk and stuff; do my computer set up. Plug everything in, including my phone (my car charger just died and I was down to no juice!), turn on the computer, let it boot up and go get some java finally. Come back with coffee and find I can’t read my screen. UGH.
Go back to the counter, get some wet napkins, and clean my screen up. Now I cleaned all the crap off of the screen, but the glare is horrible (not getting a glare screen, because I barely ever need one in my day to day life), so I have to deal with the bit of glare. My body turns out to be a nice shadow against the windows, and I can see it enough to work.
My 8:30 appt starts. Then the next drama begins, the espresso machines are so loud that I can’t hear my client! LOL. I did really LOL out loud because I didn’t think of that noise before. Only now that I am on my phone I recognize it. I tell my client to just hold tight when they make espressos because I can’t really do anything about the noise.
While I am now done with my appt, I am still sitting here blogging, trying to enjoy the coffee shop experience. Now I can’t help but laugh…the guy next to me just made a phone call and immediately cupped his open ear so he can hear better, he has no power cord for his computer and has no bags to deal with. I can tell he’s a coffee shop pro.
10 signs that your computer may have a virus
Boy oh boy is this getting more and more common. We used to take calls from our clients who told us that they had pop ups and weird notifications, or even a huge flashing graphic, “You’ve been infected”. Seems lately, the viruses are doing more damage underneath, and not showing the usual suspects. And no…your AV program may not be catching these buggers either.
Here are a few ways to figure out if you may have a virus. 
- Your computer is acting up
- Websites aren’t loading right
- You try to Google something, and it takes you to a whole different page
- You see a “web certificate” page on a website you’re trying to get to
- Occasional blue screen of death
- Internet goes in and out
- Internet just completely goes out
- Mouse and keyboard aren’t working as they should
- There is a new icon in your system tray you’ve never seen before
- You cannot log into your online banking
While most people just blow these off as glitches, you may have a virus and if let go long enough, could result in a computer crash, loss of data and spendy repairs. We recommend that you get a tune up where we do a virus spot check included in our 22 pt checklist.
Click here to submit a request today
Delta Airline Ticket Virus Coming Back in Email
Just an FYI to my friends online, just watch for an email that has a zip file attached, Do not open it! Just delete it. It is fake and Delta has already been alerted of it, and sent out a release to their customers with a warning.
If you have opened it, the virus attacks fast. It deletes all of your icons and hides your programs and data. To schedule an appointment with us to remove it remotely, click the image below.
We are here to help!
World Backup Week, Are you backing up your stuff?
Today is World Backup Day, but of course it’s on a Sunday and barely anyone is going to do it. They should have scheduled it on a Tuesday or Wednesday when people aren’t relaxing and spending time with their families. Anyway, it’s April 1 and although my joke on Facebook that Best Buy sold Geek Squad and hired Call That Girl for their Minnesota onsite support got almost 60 likes in just an hour…. backing up your data…is no joke! Theft, fire, hard drive crashing, deleting your own stuff by accident, it all can happen…any time, any day.
Let’s talk about backing up! Solutions and stuff like that.
If you have never backed up your stuff, now is the time to consider it, at least do it once! Just think of all those pictures you would lose, memories gone forever. If you have never cried over missing memories, it’s not something you want to experience. Let’s also add in all the documents you have created, tax forms you have done, music collections you built, the list really can go on and on. So let’s get started….
For home users, I recommend monthly backup
For business users, I recommend daily backup
Here are some solutions
- External hard drives, they work great but can break and fail. The bonus of external hard drives is that you can take them from one computer to another fast and moving data in general is faster than online back up and restoring files.
- File sharing from two computers, using software such as Dropbox or other online sharing programs. I would not recommend this as your only backup solution, but it’s a good start.
- Online software such as Mozy. Click here to start a free 2 gig trial
- If you test it and buy it today (April 1) use this code to get 25% off your subscription Code: WORLDBACKUP
- Use this code for the month of April Code: MOZY4ALL
- Click here to just buy Mozy. Use the codes! They offer these randomly and I usually try to promote it as it’s a great deal. Also, as a preferred vendor of ours, we can help you set it up too for $59 if you would like our help. Their monthly payment plans are as low as $9.99 or $5.99.
- Click on the icon to get started or submit a request with us to help you do it. Sometimes it’s just easier for you if we do it. Many of our clients are thankful we have set them up with Mozy. And if you’re a Carbonite fan, I have had only problems with their software. I’m not a fan of Carbonite at all.
