Call us at (512) 267-5913 to take advantage of our full line of computer services to both residential and commercial customers. We come to you for a lower price than the big box stores. 

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

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.

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Older versions of Windows had a program called Clipboard Viewer in the start menu so you could go and see what was in the clipboard. But eventually Microsoft realized nobody used that program. They didn’t get rid of it, but if you want it you have to go and install it. But why would you want to? If you want to see what’s in the clipboard, you can open a program like Word and do a paste. But really, a copy/cut and then paste are usually done right after each other so you pretty much always know what’s in the clipboard. If you aren’t sure, re-copy before you paste.

The Windows Clipboard can only hold one set of information at a time. If you copy something into the clipboard and then copy something else, the newer one replaces the old one.

While we are on the subject, do you know the commands for cut, copy, and paste?

First, use the mouse to highlight text and/or pictures. Then you will use either the copy or cut commands to put what you highlighted in the clipboard. The only difference between cut and copy is that copy simply makes a copy whereas cut removes the highlighted information. When you use cut, the information is only in the clipboard and not where you highlighted it.

To do a copy, there are generally 4 ways. Most programs have an edit menu and you can choose Edit and then copy. Or you can right-click on what you highlighted with the mouse and choose copy from the pop-up menu. Or there are two keyboard shortcuts that can be used. Control-C or Control-Insert. Cut is similar. You can use Edit/Cut from the menu, right-click and choose cut with the mouse, or use Control-X or Shift-Delete.

Once you have something in the clipboard, you can now paste it somewhere. Click the mouse in the location where you want to paste. To paste, you can do Edit/Paste from the menu, right-click with the mouse and choose paste from the pop-up menu, or you can use Control-V or Shift-Insert.

I personally like using Control-C, Control-X, and Control-V.

If you make a mistake, don’t worry. Just hit Control-Z to undo.

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Before we get into how to make your email secure you may be wondering if you really need to secure your email. If you send and receive personal, important, or sensitive information via email, then you should make sure your email is secure. Most people don’t do that, so for most people, that’s not an issue. By the way, we don’t recommend sending personal, important, or sensitive information via email. But one reason everyone should consider making their email secure is SPAM. Spammers can intercept unsecured email and harvest your email address and then send you SPAM. They will also sell your email address to other spammers.

There are basically two ways to read your email on a computer. One way is to use a web browser like Internet Explorer to go to a website where you read your email. This is usually referred to as webmail because you are reading your mail on the web. The other way is to use an email program like Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail, or similar. We are going to have to speak to each one of these separately because they are very different. We will start with webmail because it’s simpler.

Webmail Security

With any email account, you can use a web browser like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, or Safari to read your email. All you have to do is go to the right website, put your email address and password in, and you can read and send your email right there in your browser. A browser can encrypt the communication between itself and the web server. You can tell your browser is in secure mode by looking at the website address you are accessing. If it begins with http it is not secure. If it begins with htpps then it is secure. The letter ‘s’ in https stands for secure.

When you login to your webmail account, it is always in secure mode. Once you have logged in, however, most webmail servers switch out of secure mode. That means that while you are reading and sending email, they are not encrypted and anyone can intercept them. If you use webmail, glace up at the website address and see if it says https. That will tell you right away.

Some webmail providers provide an option so you can set it so that everything you do in webmail is in secure mode. Gmail and Hotmail are the only two I am aware of that offer this option. If you use a RoadRunner, AT&T, Yahoo, or other email address, you may want to consider converting over to Gmail or Hotmail (includes live.com and msn.com). The nice thing about them is when you convert over to Gmail or Hotmail, you can have them pull in email sent to your old email address. That makes moving over to a new email address much easier.

In general, we do not recommend that you use the email address provided to you by your Internet Service Provider. It’s better to use one of the many free email services like Gmail and Hotmail because they are independent of your Internet Service provider. That way, if you change internet service providers, or if you move to another city, state, or country, you won’t have to change email addresses.

Email Client Security

For those of  you who use an email client like Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Mac Mail, Thunderbird, or any one of the hundreds of other email clients, the story is similar but not exactly the same. When your email client talks to the email server and when you download or send email using your email client, it’s generally not encrypted unless you are using a service like Gmail or Hotmail. It’s not the fault of your email client. It’s the fault of your email provider. In the early days of the internet, email used POP3 and SMTP protocols to download and send email. You may be shocked to find out that most email providers still use these same unsecure protocols to download and send email to your email client. It is possible for email providers to implement security on their servers using POP3 and SMTP. If they did, your email client could handle it. But most email providers don’t bother.

So, for those of you who use email clients for your email, the answer is similar to what we said for those who use webmail. Don’t use the email address provided for you by your internet service provider. Sign up for Gmail or Hotmail. It can be set up so that if people send email to your old email address, it will go into your email client, but when you send email it will use your new one. Setting it up that way makes the transition from your old email address to the new one much more transparent for you and for those you email with.

For those of you who have email on your own domain, chances are that security is not available for downloading to an email client and if you use webmail access it’s only secure when you are logging in, not when you are sending and receiving messages.

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Well, a new variant of this has been released. It’s called Anti-Child Porn Spam Protection. This ransomware pretends to be from a legitimate government organization that states that the infected computer is sending out SPAM that contains links to child pornography sites. The ransom program then states that in order protect you, and others, it has encrypted your data using Advanced Encryption. The hackers then require you to send them a Moneypak, PaySafeCard, or Ukash card for values ranging from $500 – 1,000 USD in order to get the password to decrypt your files.

As usual, to avoid getting this and other infections, make sure you have recent, unexpired, up-to-date security software. Be careful surfing websites and be careful opening email.

You don’t want this infection! What’s really different about this variant is that if you get this infection, you have two choices. You can either pay the ransom, or you can wipe your computer clean and reinstall Windows. If you end up wiping your computer, you better have a good backup or you will loose all of your files.

One of the questions we are asked the most is about backing up. Everyone should back up. For most people, the best and easiest way to back up is to use an online backup service like Carbonite (www.carbonite.com). We recommend this type of backup over backing up to an external hard drive or flash drive because it’s automatic and because the backup is stored at a different location from your computer. This type of backup isn’t the cheapest, but it’s not expensive. It’s $60/year.

The fact that this type of backup is automatic is good because we humans forget to backup. With online backup you set it and forget it. The fact that your backup is stored in a seperate location from your computer is good because if your house or business burned down, your backup would be safe because it’s in a seperate location. If you just backed up to an external hard drive, your backup would be destroyed along with your computer. For critical business systems, you should have 2 backups. You should have a local image backup and online backup.

So in a nutshell: make sure you have good, unexpired, up-to-date security software, be careful, and back up your computer.

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Before we go any further, I want to explain what DNS is. Domain Name Service (DNS) is the process that translates web addresses into numerical addresses. When you type www.google.com into your browser, for example, DNS translates that into an actual numerical address so that your browser can find www.google.com.

It’s kind of like going to someone’s house. Let’s say you want to go to Joe Shmoe’s house. But you don’t know where it is. You might go to a phone book or an online phone book adn type in Joe Shmoe to find his address. Now that you have Joe’s actual address, you know exactly how to get there. In this example, Joe Shmoe’s house is comparable to www.google.com and Joe’s actual address is comparable to www.google.com’s IP address.

So now that you know what DNS does, you should know that there are a bunch of DNS servers on the internet. If you don’t change which DNS server you are using, then by default you will use the DNS server provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). You don’t have to use the DNS server provided by your ISP, but if you haven’t changed it, then you probably are.

What the DNS changer infection does is change what DNS server you are using. By doing that, they would now control where your web browser goes when you enter a website address. If they decide to redirect the name www.google.com to a different website, then when you try to go to www.google.com, you will actually go where they want you to go.

Even if your computer has the DNS Changer infection right now you may not be aware of it because your computer will work normally. The creaters of this infection currently have the DNS Changer set to operate like a normal DNS server. However, on July 9th, 2012, DNS Changer will no longer operate like a normal DNS. It will start redirecting your web browser to infected websites and so forth.

The media loves to dramatize these types of situations, but the fact is if you have a recent version of security software that is up-to-date and not expired, you are protected. Since this is an infection we know about ahead of time, all of the major security software already protect against this.

Computer Troubleshooters customers who are on our HOST plan are totally protected and also have our 100% guarantee that if their computer becomes infected, we will clean off the infection for free! So if your computer is on our HOST plan, don’t worry about it.

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Over the past several months, we’ve mentioned Windows 8 several times in this newsletter. We’ve been telling you all along that Windows 8 is expected to be released by the end of the year because that’s all we knew. Recently, however, reliable sources have said that Windows 8 will be released in October of this year (2012). That’s not an announced date from Microsoft, but it is pretty accurate.

Now, if you know us at all, you know that we are going to advise you to avoid Windows 8 until we can test it and make sure it’s stable and not going to cause you a lot of problems. So don’t go out and get Windows 8 as soon as it comes out.

We are hoping there won’t be a lot of issues with it and we will be able to tell you that Windows 8 is OK within the first few months of its release. In case that happens, here’s what you need to know about Windows 8.

The first question you may be asking is, do I need Windows 8? The answer is no. Nobody NEEDS it. There’s not any software that requires Windows 8. It has some cool features, so you might WANT it. But you don’t NEED it.

By the way, if you’ve been reading this newsletter, you know that Windows 8 will also work on tablets and cell phones. As with computers, we don’t recommend going out and getting a Windows 8 tablet or phone as soon as they come out.

When Windows 7 came out, Microsoft was criticized for not providing a way to upgrade a Windows XP computer to Windows 7. Personally, I agreed with that decision because most XP computers don’t have the hardware to handle Windows 7. The same goes for Windows 8. However, with Windows 8, there is sort of an upgrade path from XP to Windows 8. It makes going from Windows XP to Windows 8 easier, but it’s not really an upgrade. It just saves your files, installs Windows 8 and then restores your files. None of your programs will be there. So it’s not a true upgrade. Even though Microsoft if providing this functionality, we do not recommend upgrading Windows XP computers to Windows 8 for hardware reasons. The resulting system will be slower because Windows 8 has higher hardware requirements than Windows XP. So if you have a Windows XP computer, don’t bother upgrading it. Just get a new computer with Windows 8 on it.

If you have Vista (sorry to hear that), you can upgrade, but like XP, it’s not a true upgrade. Your programs won’t be there after upgrading. Your files will be there. And, unlike XP, your windows settings will be retained. Most Vista computers should be able to handle Windows 8, so you don’t have to buy a new computer unless you just want to.

If you have Windows 7, you can upgrade to Windows 8 and it’s a real upgrade which includes programs in addition to files and settings.

One cool thing Microsoft is doing with Windows 8 is that you can purchase Windows 8 online, download it, and install it without having to go to a store or wait for something to be shipped to you. If you decide to try this, we highly recommend that you do a FULL BACKUP before proceeding. Obviously, we have not been able to test this since it’s hasn’t been released yet, so again, we recommend waiting.

If you would like to see a demo of Windows 8, click on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGbaAQyz8Q0

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If you use Vista or Windows 7, do this. Right click on Computer (either on desktop or in start menu) and choose “Properties” from the pop-up menu. Under the system section, you should see a number in a blue square and to the right it will say “Windows Experience Index” in blue.

Here’s what it looks like on my computer:

You can see here that the index considers the processor, the memory (RAM), Graphics, Gaming Graphics, and the hard drive. Let’s briefly talk about how each one determines the performance of your computer.

Processor
The processor is the brain of the computer. It’s what does the work. Processors can have anywhere from 1 core up to 8 (at the time this was written). They also have a speed rating in GHz. This says how fast each core can process. Most programs can only utilize one processor. So, the fastest a program like that can run is determined primarily by the speed of the core. So in that case, a core running at 3.0 GHz will run a program faster than a core running at 2.5 GHz. However, some programs can use what is called parallel processing. That means they can use more than one core at a time to speed things up. In that case, the more cores, the faster a program like that will run.

Even if you aren’t using any programs that use parallel processing, having multiple cores will still speed up your system because Windows will try to evenly distribute the load amongst the cores.

Memory (RAM)
The amount of memory has a huge impact on how fast your computer will run. The RAM is the working area that the processor has to work in. The processor can only process something if it is in RAM. If there is not enough RAM to hold all of the currently running programs, then Windows will swap out some programs to what is called virtual memory. Virtual memory is nothing more than a special place on the hard drive where it can store memory contents temporarily when there is not enough RAM to store all running programs.

So a system will a small amount of RAM will spend a lot of time swapping out programs between RAM and the hard drive and as a result, that system will be slower than a similar system with more memory.  When we get to the hard disk section of this article, we will expand some more on this, but I’m sure you already noticed from the picture above, the hard drive is much slower than the other components in the system. So the hard drive is often the bottleneck of the system. So anything you can do to ease the burden on the hard drive helps performance.

Graphics/Gaming graphics
I’m lumping these two together because they are very similar. Graphics performance is related to how well your computer processes graphics. Graphics includes things like games that use hires graphics, or working with pictures, videos, or drawings. Because graphics are large and require a lot of memory, there is a separate graphics processor in your computer for processing graphics. Sometimes this graphics processor is inside the computer’s processor, sometimes it’s a chip on the motherboard, and sometimes it’s in a video card plugged into the motherboard.

If you don’t use any graphics intensive applications like the ones I listed above, then having your video functionality built-in to your computers processor, or having a chip on the motherboard is probably fine. But if you do use any of the graphics intensive applications I listed, then you will get much better performance if you have a good video card with a good amount of fast memory on it dedicated to graphics processing. And many games require video cards in order to function.

Hard Disk
Files and programs are read from and written to the hard drive. When windows boots up, it’s loading from the hard drive. When you click on a program, it’s loading from the hard drive. When you open a document, it’s loading from the hard drive. Most any time you do anything in Windows it’s accessing the hard drive at least a little.

While processors, memory, and graphics processing have been steadily getting better and faster, hard drive speeds have not. That’s why you can see from the picture above that the hard drive is a lower score and is the bottleneck. Also notice that windows says the overall performance score for the system is the same as the score for the hard drive. That’s because overall system performances is generally determined by the slowest component in the system, also known as the bottleneck.

The component that is the bottleneck of the system will also be the busiest component in the computer. When you couple that with the fact that the hard drive is the most likely component in the computer to fail, you have a recipe for disaster! That’s why it’s so important to not only make sure you have a sufficient amount of RAM in your computer, but also back up your computer regularly.

We now have Solid State Drives arriving. They are fast, but they are expensive. A couple of years ago, I had an SSD in my system and it was really fast. But the drive didn’t last long before it failed, so I have been running on an old fashioned hard drive since then. However, SSD technology has come a long way since then. Now they are reported to be much more reliable. And although the price has come down, they are still much more expensive than traditional hard drives, so I haven’t converted my system back to an SSD. But I plan to in the next year or so.

When I do, the windows experience rating for that drive will be well over 7, so my system will be screaming fast and the hard drive probably won’t be the bottleneck anymore. But it will still be very important for me to back it up.

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When Internet Explorer version 9 (IE9) was first released by Microsoft, it was available on Windows Update, but before it installed IE9, it would ask you if it was OK or not. Now, however, it’s not asking anymore. So if you have automatic updates turned on (recommended), it may have already installed IE9. If it hasn’t yet, it will soon.

This isn’t a problem really because we recommend upgrading to IE9. The problem lies in how Microsoft is doing the update. After updating your system to IE9, your homepage may be changed to msn.com, all of your toolbars will probably be gone, and several other features will be turned off.

Back in January, this newsletter featured an article on how to set up IE9 after you upgraded from IE8. That article covers everything except the change in your homepage. You can read that article by clicking on this link: http://www.ct-cp.com/?p=1145

Once you have followed the instructions in that link, you’ll want to set your homepage back to what it was. The first thing to do is get IE9 to the page you want to be your home page. To do that you can type the address in the address bar, use your favorites if you saved it as a favorite, or do a search for it. So make sure your desired home page is currently displayed in IE9. Then on the command bar, you should see a house icon. To the right of the house icon is a little down arrow. Click on the down arrow and you will get a pop-up menu.  Choose “Add or change home page” from the pop-up menu.  A little window will come up giving you two options. Click on the circle next to “Use this webpage as your only home page” and then click Yes. Now your homepage is set.

Some people like to have multiple home pages. If that’s you, get IE9 all set the way you want it to come up when you click on the Internet Explorer icon. Then follow the same procedure outlined above except instead of selecting “Use this webpage as your only home page” you should select “Use the current tab set as your home page”.

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If your Windows XP system has a dual core processor and at least 2GB of memory, then it should be able to handle Windows 7. To see what processor and memory you have, right-click on “My Computer” and choose properties. If your Windows XP system does meet those specifications, that’s great. But it’s not a simple upgrade. You have to back up, wipe, install Windows 7, and then restore data. Most systems with Windows XP, however will need to be replaced.

We did an interesting count of our contract customers and came up with some interesting numbers. 24% of our residential contract customers have Windows XP while 80% of commercial computers are using Windows XP. 62% of our residential contract customers have Windows 7 while none of our business contract customers have Windows 7.

That’s dramatic! And it tells a story. Your average residential customer is much more likely to get a new computer than a business is. Businesses, especially small and medium sized businesses, tend to keep computers longer and are less likely to get new computers. There are several reasons for this.

The primary reason businesses are reluctant to replace computers is the cost. Most businesses have several to many computers depending on the size and type of business. Replacing those computers is a large expense that most businesses want to avoid.

In the case of many businesses, it’s not as simple as replacing an old Windows XP computer with a new Windows 7 computer. Many businesses are using old software that simply does not work on Windows 7. So not only do they have to replace the computers, they have to upgrade their old software to new software. That’s more expense. In some cases, there isn’t a new version of software that works on Windows 7. In those cases, we can still make it work on Windows 7, but it’s not a best case scenario.

In addition, many businesses have older devices (printers, scanners, imaging devices, etc.) that are also not compatible with Windows 7. That means those devices will also have to be replaced and that’s more expense. In addition to the expense, there is the hassle. If not done correctly, upgrades can cause downtime, hassles, complications, and frustration.

The key to controlling the expense and eliminating the hassles is research and planning. For example, a business does not necessarily have to replace all computers in one fell swoop. You can replace 1 computer a month, for example. Problems and hassles can be avoided by detailed research and planning. An implementation plan should be created and followed. If a complication arises that cannot be resolved in the allotted upgrade time, businesses should be ready to switch back to the old equipment until the issue can be resolved and a new implementation date can be scheduled.

The reasons why small and medium sized businesses tend to keep computers longer are logical. However, the older a computer gets, the more likely it is to fail. So although it seems like you are saving money, that may not be the case if you add in all of the expenses of keeping older systems running not to mention the costs associated with downtime, lost productivity, lost business opportunities, and sometimes lost customers.

Computers should be replaced every 3-5 years. Businesses should not wait until a critical system goes down to replace it. It will be less expensive, less downtime, and have less impact to your business if you replace critical systems before they fail. When you replace a system before it fails, you can plan for it and have a nice smooth transition to the new equipment thus avoiding downtime. When a critical system fails, your business is down. Everyone scrambles to do whatever they have to do to get the critical system fixed or replaced. Labor costs are higher due to the higher cost of emergency and after hours computer service. Your business suffers downtime. Customers are unhappy. Employees are unhappy. It’s not a good situation for anyone.

Can your business still operate without computers? Many businesses can’t. You should have a disaster plan that provides for procedures for operating your business in case of a critical failure in your systems.

The main point we are trying to make is that businesses should be planning to replace Windows XP system by April of 2014. Don’t wait until the last minute.

We here at Computer Troubleshooters can help. We can advise you or we can take care of the whole process for you.

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1. MONITORED security software
   We provide, monitor, and maintain security software. So you don’t have to purchase security software and you don’t have to worry about it expiring or having to renew it. Because it’s monitored, the security software notifies us of any potential problems.

2. System Health Monitoring
   Our software monitors the health of your computer and notifies us of any problems or potential problems.

3. Discounted remote support
   Remote support is billed at a discounted rate.

4. Full Maintenance
   In addition to maintaining your security software, we also keep Windows up to date along with other key security sensitive programs like Adobe Flash, Java, and Adobe Reader, to name a few. We maintain all of these so you don’t have to worry about it.

5. Remote Access
   You can remote control your computer from any internet computer just like we do. So if you are away from home, you can still access your computer as if you were there.

6. Infection Free Guarantee
   If your computer becomes infected, we will clean off any infections at no additional charge.

Now that you know the features of the HOST plan, here’s the problem with it. The problem is that all of this security, maintenance, and updates happen in the background without the user realizing it. All of this work is pretty much invisible to the user. The user may not realize how much work we are doing in the background, so they may not realize how much they are getting for their money. Their computer just works.

At $20 a month, the HOST plan is an excellent value and provides you with a worry free computer. You don’t have to worry about security. You don’t have to worry about Windows updates. You don’t have to worry about infections. And you don’t have to worry about updating Flash, Adobe Reader, Java, and all of those other pesky programs. We take care of all of that for you in the background. But if you do subscribe to the HOST plan, don’t forget about all the stuff we are doing in the background to make your computing experience as smooth and worry-free as possible.

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