Cold Calling Scammers

Be very very wary of cold callers claiming your computer is infected by malware or a virus.

Look here for a run down on what can happen and the experience of one user.

http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/02/scamming-scammers-catching-virus-call.html

Usernames and Passwords

Usernames and passwords are critically important in the computer world.

They control your access to not only parts of your computer but the greater internet as a whole.

One way to make sure this information is recorded is to write it all in a small book that is then kept in a safe place, or create a file on your computer, or both!

When details change, as they sometimes do, update the recorded information, then if you forget some critical login information the book or file can be consulted to help with memory recall.

Sometimes a computing professional may create a login and password for you, perhaps to access some online service or another.  My suggestion is to login into that service and change the password soon afterwards, not forgetting to update your recorded information, so you know access is private.

The chances of that person using your information is low but better to be safe than sorry.

CTRL your Computer

The Control key, often abbreviated on your keyboard as CTRL, and located in the bottom left and right, is a pretty handy key.

For example...

CTRL and Z = Undo
CTRL and X = Cut
CTRL and C = Copy
CTRL and V = Paste
CTRL and B = Bold
CTRL and N = New

Also...

CTRL and A = All
CTRL and S = Save
CTRL and F = Find
CTRL and P = Print

Another use is with web browsers, hold the CTRL key and move your mouse wheel forward and back, the page will zoom in and out, awesome!

Backup Your Data!

Ultimately you are responsible for your data.

The best way to go about this for a home computer is to first consider what needs to be backed up.  Generally you only need to backup the files and documents that you have created, but figuring out how much of that you have can be tricky.

The easier way would be to find out how large your hard drive is, say 500Gb, then purchase a USB external hard drive of at least that size.  Some of the external drives come with some backup software, otherwise the more recent version of Windows have backup software as part of the package.

Using the backup software you can typically choose to backup your My Documents files and folders (this at a minimum), all files and folders on the hard drive or a selection somewhere in between.

Obviously the more data you backup the longer it will take so if a regular timed option is available then select a time when the computer is on but not in use for an hour or so.

Don't forget that programs backed up will often not worked if restored but some programs, especially accounting packages, do not store the files you have created in the normal My Documents structure so a full backup may be required to grab all these files placed into weird locations by programs not storing them in a standard way.

The final process is making sure your backups are actually doing that, it would be the worst feeling in the world to find out your safe files don't exist.

More Anti-Virus is not Always Better

From time to time I see computers which have numerous anti-virus packages installed.

For example it might have AVG, Bigpond Security Center and McAfee Security Software.

The problem with this is they don't like playing together, in fact it can cause so many issues that your computer operates very slowly, has problems with the internet, etc.

If I had to choose between the packages I mentioned above I'd only keep AVG and remove the rest.

My preferred option would be to remove AVG and replace with Kaspersky Internet Security, this does cost some money, approximately $50 per year, but well worth the cost for improved protection.

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VLC and Audio Sync

If you use the VLC video player then an option exists to fix some of those videos that may have the sound slightly out of sync with the video.

Goto Tools and then Track Synchronisation.

Then using the Synchronisation tab you can advance or retard the audio (amongst other things) compared to the video.  With a small amount of fiddling the audio can be made to be much more accurate if required.

Dust!

It is a rare computer tower that doesn't have an accumulation of dust.

Towers are almost designed to deposit this dust as the air enters, swirls around, drops some of the laden dust, and moves out of your computer case.  This is happening all the time your computer is on so even in the cleanest home or work place it becomes a problem.

It's a problem as the dust stops the cooling fans and heat sinks from doing their work efficiently, your computer gets hotter.

At some point problems can start manifesting as the temperatures in the tower as a whole or on individual parts becomes too hot.

Cleaning the dust from your computer is important, but it also must be done carefully as breaking components is a real possibility and we cannot forget the dangers of static electricity.

Cleaning computers is one of the many services that Cameron Computers offers.

Below is an extreme case of a dusty computer, and a link to many more.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/26/ventblockers_2/

Four National Broadband Network myths

An interesting article from The Register on the common myths regarding the NBN.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/27/nbn_myths/

Gimping Images

Has somebody sent you an image in the wrong format, size, etc.

Then GIMP could be the program for you.

I use it all the time as a great substitute for the excellent but expensive Adobe Photoshop.

All Power Supplies Are Not Created Equal

The good folks over at tomshardware.com have an article about cheap power supplies and what happened during their testing process.  As the article is called Don't Be Surprised When Your Cheap PSU Blows Up you can probably guess the outcome, but it is well worth a read anyway.


My experience is if you stick with Antec, Silverstone or Thermaltake you should be fine.

Anti Virus

It's an sad fact that we need anti virus for our computer systems.  Virus and malware creators are becoming more sophisticated every day and Microsoft Windows systems are the most targeted.

They are the most targetted for the simple reason they present the largest group of users compared to the low percentage of Apple or domestic Linux users.

From time to time I've had people say to me they don't need anti virus as they are careful not to be infected.

The fact is you'll be infected from sources you have little control over, like email, PDF files, web sites, etc.

So you need to protect your computer against these threats.

Try to avoid the many web sites or popups that advertise unknown anti virus products as many are in fact virus or malware themselves and will cause many more problems.

The genuine free anti virus packages are an option but the experience of my customers with many of these products has been poor, essentially you get what you pay for.  If I had to recommend one, at the moment, I'd say the Microsoft Security Essentials is very good and also unobtrusive.

Currently I prefer either the Kaspersky range of products or those of Computer Associates (previously known as VET Anti Virus many moons ago).

Using one of these products (two anti virus products installed at the same is an extraordinarily bad idea) and safe internet habits should keep your computer infection free for as long as possible.

These are available directly from the linked web sites or from leading computer stockists.

Defragmentation

Defragmenting brings the information together on your hard drive that should be together but was separated due to normal operation.  This helps your operating system (eg. Windows etc)  gather the required information it requires as the internal mechanical parts of the hard drive don't have to travel as far, thus it should be faster.

Due to various reasons it is not possible to defragment every single piece of information on your hard drive but by performing this task on the bulk of the data obvious speed improvements can be observed in most cases.

Defragmentation - Frequency

I prefer to defragment (defrag) my computer at the start of each month, it probably doesn't need it quite that often but the start of the month is an easy date to remember.

My main computer still uses Windows XP so I need to start my defrags manually (some third party programs will let you set this to run automatically), if you use Windows Vista or 7 your defrags should happen automatically.

However they are only automatic when your version of Windows detects your machine is on but not currently being used, in some circumstances this may not be enough time for a proper defrag.

Hence why a monthly regime is a good thing to ensure a well defragmented computer hard drive.

Defragging your hard drive can take quite some time, half an hour to a couple of hours is typical so planning a good time for this procedure is important.

As always make sure you have a backup of your important data on another device (ie. not the same hard drive) before doing any operation on your hard drive.