If you decide to purchase a new computer, there is something you should be aware of.  When you buy a new computer you assume that it’s all clean, tuned-up, and running as good as it can. Unfortunately, this usually isn’t the case. New computers often come with a lot of junk software installed on them. Free offers, trial versions, advertisements, and so forth. Often times these junk utilities run when your computer starts up. Not all of them are junk. They might just be programs you don’t need or use. All of this extra stuff on your computer that you don’t want or need takes up space and slows your computer down.

The hard drives on new computers are usually very fragmented as well lowering the performance of your new computer down by another notch. New computers are also not really tuned-up and configured for the best performance either.

If you purchase a new computer from Computer Troubleshooters, we take care of all of this for you before we deliver the computer to you. If you bought a computer from someone else, we can clean and tune your computer for you.

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Here are some cool features that Windows 7 has that Vista, or any other previous version of Windows, doesn’t have.

Let’s say you have a bunch of windows open. You want to minimize all windows except for one. Just grab the title bar of that window with your mouse and shake it back and forth. All other windows will minimize except the one you shook.

When a window is minimized, you can see that it is running because it shows up in the task bar. The task bar is that bar at the bottom of the screen that has the start button, icons, and the time on it. In previous versions of Windows, if you wanted to see what was going on with a minimized program, you had to open it. With Windows 7, all you have to do is hold the mouse over it in the task bar and it will show you a preview of exactly what that windows looks like.

With previous versions of Windows, if you had two windows and you wanted one to take up the left side of the screen and the other to take up the right side of the screen, you had to manually move and resize the windows. Having two windows on the screen like this is very handy, especially if you have a widescreen monitor. You can see and work in both at the same time. Windows 7 provides an easy way to do this. Just take one window by the title bar, drag it and slam it against the side of the screen you want it on. Then take the other one and slam it against the other side. Windows 7 Automatically resizes each one to take up that half of the screen.

For those of you with laptops who connect your laptop to projectors and so forth for presentations and meetings, Windows 7 now provides a key combination (Windows key + p) that allows you to duplicate or extend your display to the projector.

Windows 7 has changed the task bar. The start button is the same on the left. On the right, the time and icons there are the same. But in the middle is different. It’s hard to describe in words, but it really does work and I really like it. If you have ever used a Mac, it’s kind of like that, but not exactly the same.

There are a lot of other small but cool features that Windows 7 has that are improvements over previous versions of Windows.

For a tour of Windows 7, click the link below.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

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Starting with Windows XP, you could get Windows in 32 bit or 64 bit configurations.

Don’t confuse this with the idea of 64 bit processors. Processors have been 64 bit for a long time. But most versions of XP and Vista are 32 bit. The 32 bit version of Windows works fine on 64 bit processors, but doesn’t take full advantage of their power.

I don’t want to bore you with the technical explanation of the difference between 32 and 64 bit. But from a user perspective here are some of the advantages and disadvantages to the 64 bit version of Windows.

Main Advantages:

·         The 64 bit version of Windows can address more memory.
The 32 bit version can only address 4 mb of memory whereas the 64 bit version is limited only by the hardware, not Windows. The ability to have more memory is a big advantage to those who work with large graphics, video, CAD, and similar items or generally have a lot of programs running at the same time.

·         The 64 bit version of Windows is generally faster than the 32 bit version.

Main Disadvantages:

·         32 bit drivers won’t work on the 64 bit version of Windows.
64 bit drivers are available for most hardware produced in the last couple of years, but may not be available for old hardware. Most people don’t have any of these older devices anymore, but some do.

·         A few 32 bit software applications won’t run under 64 bit. However, most do run just fine. Some run slightly slower, but they run.

The bottom line is that, over time, 32 bit will be phased out and 64 bit will become the standard. This shift is happening faster and faster. The 64 bit version of XP was only used by geeks like me. You never saw it in a store. The 64 bit version of Vista is actually quite common. And with Windows 7, even more so.

If you are considering the purchase of a new computer, it’s important to know which version you are getting. Before making your purchase, make sure that all of your devices and software will work on the 64 bit version of Windows. We can help you with that. For most users, the 64 bit version of Windows will be just fine. So we recommend getting the 64 bit version unless you have a compelling reason not to.

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If you have decided to upgrade your computer to Windows 7, or you are planning to purchase a new computer with Windows 7 on it, you will need to decide which edition of Windows 7 you should get. Similar to Vista, there are several different editions of Windows 7. Note that prices are as of October 2009.

Starter Edition
This is a stripped down version of Windows 7. It will only be available on new computers, mainly netbooks.

Home Basic Edition
This edition of Windows 7 will not be available in the US. It will only be available in countries considered to be emerging markets for Windows. Even if this edition was available in the US, we wouldn’t recommend it. It’s missing too many key features.

Home Premium Edition
Targeted toward home users, this edition will cost $120 for the upgrade or $200 for the full version. We recommend this edition for all home users.

Professional Edition
This edition is targeted toward business users. Businesses should use this edition or the Ultimate edition and avoid the Home edition. The upgrade costs $200 and the full version costs $300.

Enterprise Edition
This edition is only for large companies and is only sold through Microsoft Volume Licensing.

Ultimate Edition
This edition does everything the Home Premium and Professional versions do, and a little more. Most people, however, don’t need these features. We recommend home users stick with the Home Premium version. The Ultimate edition only costs $20 more than the professional edition, so business users may want to use this edition instead of the professional edition. If you want the ultimate edition, the upgrade will cost you $220 and the full version will cost you $320.

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You may be wondering if you should upgrade your computer to Windows 7. But the real questions are; can my computer handle Windows 7 and do I need Windows 7?

Do you need Windows 7? No.  Not really. Do you want it? It’s got some cool features. It does seem to be slightly faster and more stable than Vista. But you don’t necessarily NEED it. However, there’s nothing wrong with wanting it.

Can your computer handle Windows 7? Here’s the rule of thumb. If you have XP on your current computer, don’t put Windows 7 on it. The hardware requirements for Windows 7 are similar to those of Vista and much higher than the requirements for XP. Windows 7 will be slow on that hardware. If you’ve got XP and want Windows 7, get yourself a new computer with Windows 7 already loaded on it.

If you’ve got Vista, then your hardware should be fine to run Windows 7. But if your Vista computer is slow, don’t’ expect Windows 7 to supercharge it. The good news is that there are often some hardware upgrades that can be done to help with performance, whether you are running Vista or Windows 7.

If you do have a computer that will handle Windows 7 ok and you decide you want Windows 7, there are several ways to do it.  You can purchase an upgrade copy of Windows 7 that will upgrade Vista to Windows 7. History shows, however, that upgrading one version of Windows to a newer one can be full of problems and, ultimately, you end up with a messy system that doesn’t run very well. That is why we don’t recommend an upgrade. We recommend a clean install.

One way to do a clean install is to backup your data, wipe your hard drive, and install Windows 7. Another way, if you have a good sized hard drive, is to create a separate partition on your hard drive for Windows 7. Then you can do what’s called dual booting. That means each time you boot up your computer, you can either boot up Vista or you can boot up on Windows 7. It’s like two computers on the same hardware. The advantage here is that you can install programs and copy data over time and if you need to, you can reboot back into Vista.

There are two drawbacks to doing  a clean install. One is you have to purchase a full version of Windows 7 which costs more than the upgrade version. The second drawback is that a clean install is more work since you have to back up your data and then copy it back on and reinstall all of your programs.

We here at Computer Troubleshooters can perform any of these services for you. Call us for a quote.

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When you access music and video over the internet, there are basically 2 ways you can get the content. Some content is streamed to your computer while other content is downloaded. It’s a good idea to understand the difference, so we are going to try and explain it in this article.

Actually, you probably already understand downloading. When you download Music or Video from the internet, you download a file to your computer. You can place that file on  your computer wherever you want to. Then you can open that file and view or listen to the content. The file stays on your computer until you remove it. So you can generally come back and listen to or view it again and again.

Streaming, on the other hand, is different. When you access a media stream on the internet, no file is downloaded to your computer. The music or video comes in real time and is played real time. It’s not stored on your computer, so if you want to listen to it or view it again, you have to stream it again. It’s kind of like an on-demand live broadcast.

As you know, the most popular video website is YouTube. You may be wondering which of these models it uses. It uses downloading, but it downloads the file to a temporary location that’s hidden from view. Take a look at this picture:

This is from YouTube. You will see this at the bottom of any video you watch on YouTube. See the download position? That’s how much of the video has been downloaded to your computer. The playback position is where you are in the video as you play it back. If the playback  position catches up to the download position, the video will pause and wait until it downloads some more of the video before it starts playing again. If you run into this a lot, you can either get a faster internet connection, or you can pause the playback  yourself and wait for most (if not all) of the video to be downloaded and then play it.

If you come back and try and watch a YouTube video again, it may not have to download it again. It all depends on of that copy of the video is still in that temporary location or not. Those temporary files get cleaned out periodically.

An example of a type of website that uses streaming is any radio station website where you can listen to their live broadcast. Another example is hulu.com. On that website, you can watch TV episodes, movie trailers, and even a few movies.

If there is media content that you plan to watch or listen to over and over, then it would be a good idea to try and find a source for that where you can download it to your computer. Especially if you have a slow internet connection, or if you have bandwidth limitations on your internet connection.

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A Domain Name Server (DNS) serves a very important role in on the internet. We humans prefer names over numbers. I know this because my name is Drew and not 48439834344. When it comes to computers, however, they prefer numbers.

Every computer on the internet has a numerical address called an IP address. An example of an IP address is 24.123.17.55. When you type in a website like www.google.com, that means something  to you, but in order for your computer to find www.google.com, it needs the numerical address. That’s where DNS comes in. A DNS is like a cross reference from the name of a website to its numerical address.

So, using our example above, when you type in www.google.com, your computer goes to your DNS and finds that the IP address for www.google.com is 208.69.36.231 and then uses that to contact www.google.com.

Your internet service provider assigns your computer an IP address and a DNS server. Sometimes, a faulty modem or router can prevent a DNS from being assigned to your computer. Your computer is on the internet, but you can’t do anything because you have no DNS server and so you can’t find any servers. That means you can’t access any websites. You can’t get your e-mail. You can’t instant message. You can’t do anything on the internet without DNS!

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What is computer networking? It’s basically connecting 2 or more computers together so that they can “talk” to each other. If you have more than one computer in your home or office, they are most likely networked together.

In the home, the most common way to create a network is with a router. Installing a wireless router in your home allows multiple computers to share the same internet connection and it adds wireless access. Any computer connected to that router, whether it’s connected with a wire or wirelessly, is on your network. Your home router creates your network.

In a business environment, and in some homes, a network is created with panels, switches, hubs, and so forth. But it’s the same concept. We are just hooking our computers together so they can share an internet connection. Networking computers together allows them to “talk” to each other so we can share files, share printers, play games together, send and receive e-mail, view web pages, and so forth.

The internet is a type of network. It’s basically a network of networks. When you sign up for internet service, you sign up with an internet service provider. That provider has a very large network of all of their customers. That internet service provider’s network is part of a larger internet service providers network. The large internet service providers have large networks of all of their customers, and their customer’s customers. They connect these large networks to each other and what you get is the Internet.

Because the Internet is a network of networks, the path a packet of information takes to go from one place to another may be different each time it travels. This is a good thing because if there is a problem on one network, there is another route your request can take to get where it’s going.

And you might be surprised to see the path your little packet of information takes to get where it’s going. Send an e-mail to your friend that lives 4 miles from your house, that e-mail could travel the world before ending up on your friend’s computer.

When you type in www.google.com in your web browser, a packet of information is sent out to the server that hosts www.google.com. Because the internet is a network of networks, this packet of information travels from server to server to server until it reaches the server that hosts www.google.com. Each time a packet travels from one server to another, that’s called a hop.

How many hops does it take for a network packet to get from your computer to www.google.com? It depends. It depends on who your internet service provider is. It also depends on how busy each internet server is. There is a command you can run on your computer that will show you all of the hops an internet packet takes to get from your computer to another computer on the internet. When I run this command on my computer to www.google.com, it takes 14 hops to get to www.google.com. Are you surprised at how many hops there were?

Try it on your computer. Here’s how.

If you have Windows XP

1.       Click on Start and then click on run

2.       Type cmd and click ok

3.       Type tracert www.google.com

4.       Hit enter on your keyboard and watch it list each hop.

5.       Try this with other server names.

6.       When you are done, type exit and hit enter.

If you have Windows Vista

1.       Click on the button formally known as Start

2.       Type cmd and hit enter on your keyboard

3.       Type: tracert www.google.com

4.       Hit enter on your keyboard and watch it list each hop.

5.       Try this with other server names.

6.       When you are done, type exit and hit enter.

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We all have to have quite a few passwords. For various reasons, you can’t have one password for everything. There are two ways someone might be able to get your password. They might be able to guess it, or they might be able to crack it.

Guessing a password is pretty straightforward. I can research information about you and try and guess your password since most people use passwords that contain names of family members, pets, and birthdates.

Cracking a password is much more complicated. The easiest way to explain this is to give you an example. Let’s say your password for logging onto your computer is fluffy, which is the name of your cat. You might think that the word fluffy is stored somewhere in a secret place in Windows so that when you type your password to login, it goes and looks to see if it’s the same and if it is, it logs you in.

In reality, Windows does not store the word fluffy. When the password was first set up, it ran the password through an encryption algorithm which takes the word fluffy and turns it into a string of letters, numbers and symbols. Windows then stores that encrypted string. Then, each time you login to Windows, it takes the password you enter and runs it through that same algorithm and then compares the resulting encrypted string to the one stored as your password.

There isn’t a reverse algorithm which will take the encrypted string and convert it back to your password. But there are sophisticated programs that can figure out an encrypted password. When you use an algorithm to try and figure out a password, that is called cracking the password.

I hope that’s not overly technical. The reason I explained that is that I want you to understand that these password cracking programs are limited. They can easily crack a simple password, but not a complicated password.

When you are setting up a new password, here are some rules to follow which will not only make your password nearly impossible to guess, they will make it very difficult if not impossible to crack:

1.       Your password should be at least 8 characters long.

2.       Include 2 words that have nothing to do with each other.

3.       Your password should contain both upper case and lower case letters.

4.       Your password should contain some numbers.

5.       Not all applications/websites allow symbols in your password, but in places where you can include a symbol in your password, do so.

6.       Don’t use names that mean something to you. Your name, the names of your spouse, parents, children, or pets.

7.       Avoid using numbers that correspond to your date of birth, age, address, phone number, or social security number.

A popular way to include numbers in your password is to substitute a 3 for E and a 1 for I or L. Don’t follow these popular practices as it makes your password easier to guess.

Here are some examples of good passwords:

·         ObJect4=OrangE

·         ;blOOd99BEEr

·         FAN-+graSS232

You get the idea. These passwords are hard to guess and hard to crack. When you come up with a password, make sure it’s something that’s not too hard to type. And, of course, make sure it’s something you can remember.

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Any plant that is in your yard or garden that you didn’t want there is called a weed. By the same token, any software that is on your computer that you don’t want or need, or didn’t install yourself is like a software weed. This unwanted and un-needed software takes up space on your hard drive. If that weed software starts up when you boot your computer, then it’s slowing your computer’s performance down as well.

Most junk software like this gets on your computer in one of two ways. Either it was on your computer when you bought it, or it was installed along with other software or an update to software.

Whenever you update some software or download and install new software, be very careful to read every screen and check all of the options because many times extra software is installed that you didn’t want and didn’t need. Sometimes changes are made to your computers settings you may not have intended. That extra software makes your computer boot up slower, makes it run slower, and takes up storage space as well.

For example, if you download or update Adobe Flash or Adobe Reader, if you don’t deselect the option for installing the Google Toolbar, it will install the Google Toolbar on your computer. If you download or update Java, you might get the Bing toolbar if you don’t deselect that option. Other add-on’s I have seen include the Ask Toolbar, MSN Toolbar, OpenOffice Installer, acrobat.com, Adobe Air, and many more. Thanks to this trend, I have seen people who had 5 toolbars in their Internet Explorer taking up half the screen and leaving little room to display web pages.

Instant messaging programs like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or the Yahoo Instant Messenger also will install similar things you don’t want. Many of these will also change your default search provider and your home page if you don’t deselect that option.

Basically, any time you install or update software on your computer, take the time to read the options during the install. Deselect any options for installing toolbars, changing your default search provider, changing your home page, or any other options you don’t want.

If you’ve got software on your computer that you don’t want, you can uninstall it. But make sure you know what you are uninstalling. You wouldn’t want to accidentally uninstall something important. Here’s how to uninstall software from your computer:

Windows XP

1.       Click on Start.

2.       XP Professional only: Click on settings

3.       Click on Control Panel

4.       Double-click on Add/Remove programs.

5.       You will now see a list of software on your computer. You can click once on one and then click the remove or change button.

Windows Vista or Windows 7

1.       Click on the button formally known as start.

2.       Click on Control Panel.

3.       Click on “Uninstall Programs”

4.       You will now see a list of software installed on your computer. Click on one and then click the uninstall or change button at the top of the screen.

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