We provide a full line of computer services to both residential and commercial customers. Our goal is to provide high quality, proactive service with a smile. We care about you, your computer, and your business.

We can fix your computer remotely or we can come to you. We strive to prevent downtime and other computer problems.

Our B.E.S.T. plan for businesses, and our R.E.S.T. & H.O.S.T. plans for residential and Home Office customers monitor your systems to prevent downtime and save you money.

Please explore our website. We have many articles here that we hope will be helpful to you. You can scroll down to see the most recent articles. You can browse by categories or use the search box to search for keywords.

The Cedar Park, Texas location primarily serves Cedar Park, Leander, Jonestown, Lago Vista, and Northwest Austin. We also serve other nearby communites.

New Customers: Mention that you saw this on our web page, and receive a 10% discount on labor on your first service call.

We are getting closer and closer to the October 22nd release date of Windows 7. I recently upgraded my computer to Windows 7 Release Candidate 1. This newsletter is being written on a Windows 7 computer. I have to be on the bleeding edge of technology so I can learn the new technology and support it.

Microsoft is still fixing bugs with Windows 7, which is normal for pre-release software, but this version of Windows 7 seems just as stable and reliable as Vista, if not more so. I really like the new task bar interface. Overall, I prefer Windows 7 over Vista, but Vista is good too.

In one of our recent newsletters we told you that Windows 7 will not include a mail client like XP (Outlook Express) and Vista (Windows Mail). We also told you that there are several good free e-mail programs you can download and use, so it’s no big deal.

There are, however, other programs that are not included by default with Windows 7, but you can download and install them for free. Here is a list of them:

Windows Messenger

Photo Gallery

Movie Maker

Parental Controls, now called Family Saftey

They aren’t installed by default with Windows 7, but you can download them from Microsoft and install them for free. Just go to download.live.com.

And by the way, download.live.com isn’t just for Windows 7.
You can download all of the programs listed above even if you have XP.

If you use Outlooks Calendar feature, you may have wanted other people to be able to see your calendar. Or perhaps while travelling, you would like to access your calendar while you are away from your computer. Or maybe you want to be able to access your calendar from any computer in your home or business.

For a small or medium business, you should have a server with Microsoft Exchange on it. This not only allows you to see your calendar from any computer, it allows others to see your calendar and schedule meetings with you. It also can be set up with Remote Web Workplace which allows you to access your calendar and e-mail from remote locations.

But home businesses and home users generally don’t have servers with exchange. What are the options for them? For a home business, especially if you travel a lot, the best solution might be hosted exchange. This gives you all of the features of Exchange without having to have your own server. It’s not free, but it’s not very expensive either. For example, Sherweb provides a hosted exchange service for $8.95/month for each mailbox. If you have a smartphone with a calendar, you can directly sync up your phone’s calendar with Exchange.

If you are a home user, or you are looking for a free solution to this situation, you have some options.

Outlook has a feature in it that allows you to publish your calendar to the Web. However, this feature simply doesn’t work very well.

You probably know that Google, Yahoo, MSN/Hotmail, and others provide free calendars. You can synchronize your Outlook calendar with one of these free calendars. Then you can access the free calendar when you are away from your computer. For example, you can download and install Google Calendar Sync. Then you can synchronize your outlook calendar to your Google calendar before you leave and access your Google Calendar while you are away. You can make changes to your Google Calendar while you are away. You can also download Google Sync to your mobile phone and synchronize your phone’s calendar to Google Calendar.

Programs like Google Calendar Sync, however, are not without their problems. You can end up with duplicates. Old appointments can magically come back. Back when I was using Google Calendar Sync, I once had a reminder for a year old appointment come up. That was some time ago. I haven’t tested the latest versions of Google Calendar Sync, but I hope they have fixed the problems. For more information about Google Calendar Sync, click here.

There are other programs on the market that help you share your calendar as well. Products like WorkgroupShare allow people on the local network to share their outlook calendars. But these types of products generally only work on the local network, so if you are travelling, accessing your calendar, or someone else’s, isn’t that easy. Products like WorkgroupShare aren’t free either. For a 5 user license, it’s $175.

We talk about wireless computers, but how wireless can a computer really be with today’s technology?

On a desktop system:

Your mouse and keyboard can be wireless.
Your internet can be wireless.
Your speakers, headphones, and microphone can be wireless.

But that’s pretty much it.

You still have to have a power cord going from the A/C outlet to your computer.
Your monitor needs a power cord and it has to have a cord going to the computer.

The closest thing to a wireless computer is a laptop. But it’s not totally wireless because you still need a power cord to charge the battery. But when the battery is charged up, it’s completely wireless. New technology is in the works for wireless power so that they power cord to your computer and monitor could be eliminated. But that technology is still years away.

Want immediate help with your computer without having to wait for someone to come to  your home?

Or perhaps you want to save some money.

Or maybe you would like both?

We provide remote online support at a discounted rate.

We can fix many problems remotely saving you money over an onsite appointment. All you need is a computer that boots and can get on the internet.

For remote online support, click on the button to the left where it says Online Help.

When you click this button, it will initiate a chat session with us. From there, if you want us to, we can work on your computer remotely.

Note that you should be on the computer with the problem when you click the button. If the computer with the problem cannot access websites, but your e-mail is working, we can send you an e-mail that will initiate a connection as well. Just call our office at 512-267-5913.

Initial reports indicated that Windows 7 is a lot faster than Vista. But now that we have release candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows 7, what do the benchmarks tell us? Right now they say that Windows 7 is about 5% faster than Vista. That’s not very much. To be fair, however, drivers for Windows 7 are often non-existent or still in beta. So the only fair test would be to wait until Windows 7 is released and run the tests on systems with released Windows 7 drivers. But means waiting. So indications are that Windows 7 is faster than Vista, but we aren’t totally sure by how much yet.

If you are running XP on your system, we do not recommend upgrading to Vista or Windows 7. It’s better to purchase a new computer with Vista or Windows 7 on it. If you are running Vista, upgrading to Windows 7 should be OK.

If you purchase a new computer with Vista on it, you are entitled to a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out in October. If you are planning to purchase a new computer with Windows 7 on it, make sure you check out our article on buying a new PC.