Help! My computer won’t come up and I need my data. What do I do???

Here’s what we don’t know: What is the condition of the hard drive in the computer?

If it is undamaged I can remove the hard drive from the computer, convert it into a USB drive and attach it to another computer. Then your data, but not programs, can be recovered from the hard drive.

If the hard drive is sort of broken, there are programs, including the one that I use, that will test every sector on the hard drive and recover files, whether the hard disk’s directory is damaged or not. This can be a lengthy process. I had one hard drive connected to my test computer and chugging through its recovery program for four and a half days before it finished.

If the hard drive is broken, meaning it cannot be attached to a computer by normal means, then the only recourse is a data recovery firm such as Data Tech Labs. But be aware that you are then looking at considerable expense.

The tricky part here is in determining how damaged the hard drive is. Many times  attaching the drive to a second computer  will result in the message: “The drive is unformatted. Do you wish to format it?”  Don’t do that!! If you don’t have the software tools to recover the files from the hard drive yourself,  bring it to someone who does, like me for instance.

Upgrades ‘R us!

I thought it would be good if I listed all the things I do when helping an individual transition from their current computer to a new one. That way, if you are planning an upgrade, you can decide which tasks you feel comfortable completing and which ones might require assistance.  Here’s the list:

1. Set up Internet connectivity on the new computer, either wired or wireless, and make sure the router is secured.

2. Install Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Reader.

3. Transfer from the current computer to the new the contents of My Documents, favorites, desktop, music, pictures and Outlook personal folders, if necessary. Plus look to see if there are any other folders on the C drive that need to be transferred.

4. Find out what the user uses for E-mail. If possible gather the E-mail settings from the current computer to apply to the new. Set up E-mail on the new and make sure that the user can send and receive and has all their previous e-mails, contacts and appointment information.

5. Make sure to get Quickbooks and Quicken Files. Sometimes they get stored in the Quickbooks or Quicken Folder along with the program.

6. Uninstall the trial Mcafee or Norton and install the free offerings from Comcast and CenturyLink.

7. Install all applications including Microsoft Office, Quickbooks, and any others that the user specifies.

In addition, I sometimes create icons for frequently used programs and do other custom configuration work to get the user ready to use the new computer productively.

If you need help with any of these tasks, I would be glad to help.

 

 

Why I love doing small business computer support

 

My stock in trade is computer support for the ordinary guy. I am a Geek-to-English translator. And that’s just what small business owners need. Most small business owners are not expert with their computers. They know enough to perform ordinary business functions. But when something out of the ordinary happens they are left in a quandary.  Most small businesses are too small to have a computer support person on staff. Yet they have regular needs that they can’t fulfill themselves. That’s where I come in. I like to establish a relationship with a small business owner.  Once this happens and trust is established, the risks involved in dealing with unexpected problems disappear. I am a phone call away for advice, diagnosis and upgrade information.

My business is highly technical in nature. But the reason I love doing small business computer support is because it’s about me developing a trusting relationship and helping people.

Small Business Network Setup

 

Small Business network setup can vary depending on how small a business you are talking about. For this post I will be talking about really small businesses, ones with five computers or less.

The first thing that has to happen is that a company has to be contacted that will bring Internet connectivity to your building.  There are a bunch of these including the two biggies, Comcast and Century Link. They will provide a piece of equipment called a modem. A modem is a gadget that brings a telephone or cable signal into your building and has one ethernet connection coming out of it. Now, if all you have is one computer, you connect it to your modem and you are done. Your computer will have Internet connectivity. But that really isn’t a small business network setup. A network implies more than one computer. With a modem you only have one Internet connection. What we need here is a gadget that turns one Internet connection into many Internet connections, connects all of the computers to each other, oh and by the way, it would be nice if this gadget also created a wireless network.

That gadget is called a router. It connects to your modem and hands out Internet addresses to all the computers that are attached to it. Most routers will have four ports and if you need more there is another piece of equipment called a switch that can provide more Ethernet ports. In addition, as noted above, the router creates a wireless network that will allow computers near it to connect.

Having a router provides several benefits. You can share printers and folders across several computers and all computers get access to the Internet.

If you need help networking a small business, Plain & Simple Computing would be glad to help.

What to do when an application installation goes bad

The other day I was helping a fellow who had interrupted an installation of Microsoft Office 2010. The installation was taking a long time and my customer suspected that it had hung. So he cancelled the installation and watched it roll back the actions that had been taken. Then he tried to start the installation again and discovered that the installation software would start and then, almost immediately fail. I have seen the same behavior before and especially with Itunes software. This has to do with programs that don’t entirely remove themselves when you do an uninstall. It was in one of these instances that I discovered The Revo Pro Uninstaller. This piece of software, which is updated regularly is excellent to use when a piece of software is partially installed and won’t install or uninstall.

Revo Pro Uninstaller first uses the application’s own uninstaller, then deletes files, folders and registry entries exclusively for the program it has been told to uninstall. In the case of the failed Microsoft Office 2010 installation, after running Revo and rebooting the system, the Office 2010 installation ran to completion successfully.

Here comes the caution: The Revo Uninstaller is a powerful program. This program is deleting stuff and that can be dangerous. It will do what you tell it to.  Just be absolutely sure you are telling it the right things.

No, admin@quickbooks.com isn’t trying to contact you. Beware!!

I have received two messages recently, one from admin@quickbooks.com, one from software@quickbooks.com. Both have the following message with a link connected with the word here:

You will not be able to access your Intuit QuickBooks account without Intuit Security Tool
(IST™) after 31th of October, 2011.
You can download Intuit Security Tool here
After a successful download please run the setup for an automatic installation, then login
to Intuit Quickbooks online to check that it is working properly.

But the link shows the following if you hover over it:

http://ateaspoonofcolur.com.au/8nbzgn/index.html

Now this is interesting. We know that this isn’t coming from Intuit or the Quickbooks people who work for Intuit. Who is it coming from? That’s what we don’t know. I suspect it’s either a phishing attack or a malware attack. Acting with an abundance of caution, I declined to click on the link and deleted the message. I recommend you do the same.

Help! I’m locked out of my Windows system and I don’t know the password. What do I do?

 

 

The answer is, simply, I can regain access for you to your Windows system, be it XP, Vista or Windows 7. This can be accomplished by either setting the password to your account to whatever you desire or by removing the password.

The method of doing this is somewhat complicated and geeky. It involves creating a CD and then booting into a Linux system, and Linux isn’t even English-like.  So I simply offer it as a service. If your system is locked, I’m the locksmith.

 

The simple joy of listening to an audiobook on your phone…for FREE.

 

 

I have an Iphone. I also have a library card for the Jefferson County, Colorado Public Library. Why this is important is I can download audiobooks for free.

The Jeffco library has what they call the Overdrive Media Center. This is a location that contains many, many audiobooks which can be downloaded to Android and Iphone alike. There is a search feature and you can search by author, title, or subject.

Here’s how it works: You download a piece of software that uses either Windows or Mac called the Overdrive Media Console. Then, on your computer you choose a book and it will say either “place on e-hold” or “add to e-cart”. If it says add to e-cart, you can do so and then check it out. When you download the file that the e-cart gives you the Overdrive Media Console will open and you can download the book to your computer. From your computer you can then use the Overdrive Media Console to transfer the book to your phone. The book will play perfectly sequentially.

You can also download the Overdrive Media Console directly to your phone and download books directly. But I found that I had problems using the library’s search engine on my phone. And it will only download books when you have your phone connected to Wi-Fi.

This is not very complicated if you’ve seen it done once. The first time, however can be a trial. Plain & Simple Computing offers tutoring in all things Itunes.

I don’t recommend wireless printers

I think the idea of a wireless printer is magical. You set up your printer on an end table in your living room, it attaches to your router and you can magically print to this printer, WITHOUT WIRES!! This is all fine and great. But watch out. Here comes the disclaimer: Expecting this to work out flawlessly over the long term is like wishing to win the lottery. Forget it.

Here’s what happens: Most wireless printers ask your router dynamically for an address to join the Internet. this is called DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. And the router gives your printer an address. Then a driver is installed on your laptop or desktop that knows the address your router has assigned to the printer. Here’s the catch: When you have a power outage, like we all do occasionally, your router may not necessarily assign the printer the same address. This fouls things up completely. And the routines to fix this type of problem don’t work reliably. Sometimes you can get it to work and sometimes you can’t without taking drastic steps such as reloading operating systems. And you can spend hours talking to printer manufacturer support.

So don’t. If you have a laptop you can set up a desk with your printer and a USB cable that sticks out for attaching to your laptop. this is a much better solution than relying on wireless printing.

One antivirus to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

I’ve run into this problem twice in the past two days so I thought it was a good idea to blog about it: I think having an antivirus program is essential if you are a Windows user. But I’m seeing computers running two antivirus programs side by side. And folks, that ain’t good. The two antivirus programs fight with each other continuously and slow a computer down to a crawl. Most antivirus programs will do the job adequately, although I have my favorites. But just pick one. Uninstall the one or ones you don’t like and you will improve your computer’s performance instantly.

As to which antivirus I like, it is AVG Antivirus Free Edition 2012 available here.

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