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15/06/08
The question is
"How
waterproof are USB memory sticks?".
Well accidents do happen lets face facts.
I saw this miniature memory stick made by
Integral that's called a "flexi" in a local
store recently. Cracking looking little
thing, which flips open and then closes in to
itself to protect the connectors, and with a
small ring through the loop at one end of the
rubber enclosure it can be easily hooked on to
your key ring. 2Gb for around £15...not
bad.
So the day after I bought and part filled it
with regular drivers I need for everyday work /
house calls, I didn't clip it on my key ring, I
left it in my jeans pocket. The following
day it was located now not in my jeans pocket
but entirely loose and thumping around in the
tumble drier. Yes it had been through a 40
degree cycle in the washing machine and half an
hour in the tumble drier!
Needless to say I wasn't expecting the thing to
work! But work it did! No
damage at all!
So if it's a recommendation based on reality, go
for an Integral Flexi ....
Please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to assist you on choosing a
suitable data storage device.
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30/05/08
The
cup of tea (or the odd
sherry too) knocked over the keyboard of the
notebook
seems to be becoming a regular occurrence!
The most recent one in to us (a nice Samsung)
got involved with a half pint of
cider...unfortunately the client kept on using
the machine for a week until it finally stopped
working. The insurance company coughed up
as it happens, but other clients have not been
so lucky.
Whilst some manufacturers such as DELL and
TOSHIBA produce notebooks with spill resistant
keyboards, not all are made this way. We
recommend therefore keeping fluids (and that
means all fluids...even your favourite spaghetti
sauce) as far away from the notebook as possible
so there's no chance of a spill. I know
this may sound ridiculous but even a replacement
keyboard plus fitting is likely to run to £100
plus.
If you do have a mishap, switch the notebook off
promptly and turn it keyboard side down on a
towel or kitchen paper...no need to panic...call
us on 01279 724192 straightaway.
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14/05/08
This is becoming
an ongoing saga! This week we've seen
three more clients who need their pc's
rebuilding as they're so badly infected that a
complete strip is the only sure fire way to
correct the system problems...AND yet
again...when the clients got their shiny new
pc's and were prompted to
make their own recovery
software...for
whatever reason, they didn't!
Now as it happens
we did manage to get two of the machines to cut
the DVD's to create the software by persistence
and brute force, however the third will need new
XP software. The client is
understandably not happy because of the extra
cost.
So when you get your new pc, and you get the
prompt to make your own recovery software, it
would be advisable to do this just as it
recommends. Most pc's these days will have
a dual media DVD writer (ie: -R & +R) which
means you can get hold of good quality discs
easily. Just also remember though, making
your recovery software using really cheap discs
could result in the same as not having any at
all. Go for good makes.
If you're unsure of what to do when you get the
prompt to make the software, please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to assist you.
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30/04/08
Not all
USB TV tuner
adapters
are the same.
We've had opportunity to try a few this week for
one reason or another and you should be aware
that your available video memory has a dramatic
effect on what equipment you can actually use.
I bought a Freecom DVB-T USB Stick to run on a
not so new notebook. Good price, spec
looked OK, so should be OK? No
un-fortunately. Works fine on a notebook
with a good standard video capability, but on an
average 128mb un-accelerated integral video chip
running off system RAM, not so good at all.
So bought a slightly more expensive alternative,
a Hauppage Win TV Nova-T-SE usb adapter, (DVB-T
just like the Freecom) and it worked just fine.
Incidentally, the little antenna you get in the
box with these is OK if you are near the TV
transmitter, but if you live in a poor digital
reception area as we do, you're going to need to
hook in to the main TV aerial on the roof to get
reception that's any good.
All we can say is, if you're considering making
your desktop or notebook in to a TV, please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to assist you.
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17/03/08
After a customer
had read our comments in the blog week before
last about USB he contacted us to ask
"Can
my USB sockets be upgraded to USB2.0 ?".
Well here's the bottom line... if your BIOS for
your motherboard allows for switching USB1.1 to
USB2 you're in luck. If however the BIOS
or motherboard doesn't then your only option is
to add a PCI or PCIe card adapter with 2,4,etc.
sockets in a desktop/tower PC, and for a
notebook a PC-Card adapter.
Now as we've
answered this before we thought we'd mention
this again. Please don't think that you
can just buy a retail
USB2 High Speed Hub and
plug it into your USB1.1 socket on your PC and
get your PC to run at USB2 speeds.
The hub will only give you additional sockets at
USB1.1 regardless of what the packaging might
imply.
If your getting that persistent message
"This device can perform
faster"
when you plug in your external hard drive, iPod,
flash drive, web-cam, MP3 player, etc etc., then
to get your data/music transferred 10 times
faster AND get rid of the message, then you'll
absolutely need a USB2 connection that the card
adapters can provide.
Please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to have a look and assist you.
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10/03/08
...and the
faulty USB socket
problem continues...
A customer reported that his Dell notebook was
running slow and had a error message appearing
every couple of minutes which he could cancel and
continue. Only however to see the
same message again few minutes later. The
error message "Power surge on USB hub" was odd
as there was nothing plugged in to the rear USB
sockets. It would appear that someone had
plugged in a USB connected item (an iPod again
evidently!) upside down and forced the socket
breaking off the small plastic divider which
protects the contacts/pins. The outside
two pins were crushed and folded over making
contact with the casing of the socket thus
shorting the thing out.
Unfortunately not really easily repairable apart
from bending the pins away from the casing in
the case of this notebook, and so a simple piece
of sticky tape over the hole had to suffice to
prevent further use of the socket.
We can only say again....with so much technology
these days utilising USB connections, care when
inserting the USB plug in to the socket is
really necessary to avoid damage.
Please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to have a look and assist you.
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03/03/08
A strange
faulty USB front
socket
problem had us going this week. It
appeared to be an intermittent overheating
problem as the pc kept switching itself off.
I've read about this recently but had not seen
such myself. The cause was a teenanger
with an iPod! The lad had plugged (rather
forced in his haste) his iPod in to the front
USB socket and crushed the pins of the socket
against the casing. With so much
technology these days utilising USB connections,
care when inserting the USB plug in to the
socket is really necessary to avoid damage.
Removing by
deleting
profiles/files
on a pc from "Documents & Settings" is not
recommended to be honest, as you should do this
via "Control Panel > User Profiles". If
you do the former you'll find that you can't
access much of the functionality of the pc such
screen settings, and any right click menu
options. Even "system restore" failed
along with booting in to Safe Mode to try a fix.
This was the case after a bit of keen activity
by a customer recently. Unfortunately the
result
was a complete software recovery of the pc to
correct the extensive damage to the system.
Fortunately we were able to save to disk most of
the customers files, then put them back on the
pc afterwards. If you're not sure, please
give us a call and check before you press the
button!
Please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to have a look and assist you.
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25/02/08
We're seeing quite a few
wireless network
problems (yes along with the endless very
sloooooowww computers) recently. The worst
cases are in close buildings such as flats and
apartments. Signal strength seems to be
affected because of so many wireless routers are
in close proximity and seem to be on the same
channel. Changing the channel to something
other than the one setup by the manufacturer as
the default seems to help. In the
case of the BTHomeHub or similar, turning auto
channel select off and selecting manual is
necessary.
Endless
slow computers
seem to
exist everywhere. Put teenagers, music and
video downloads together and there you go...once
you run low on hard drive space, yes the
computer will run very slow. As a rule of
thumb, you need at least 10% hard disk space
free for the computer to work reasonably well.
(eg. an 80Gb hard drive needs at least 8Gb free
space)
Please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to have a look and assist you.
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18/02/08
We've had a
few
very sluggish Vista
notebooks
in, strangely all Toshiba Satellite L30 bought
from PCWorld.
On inspection the systems are fine but the RAM /
Memory available to Windows System is low.
Vista needs a minimum of 512Mb (ideally 1Gb) to
work efficiently. So with only 512Mb
supplied out of the box and the video / graphics
wanting to take 32Mb at least, there's just not
enough memory available.
Adding an extra 512Mb of RAM in all the cases
has solved the problem. The video /
graphics gets a healthy boost so the screen
refresh is smooth AND the Windows System gets a
good uplift with more than enough to run
properly.
Please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to have a look and assist you.
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11/02/08
We thought that a
blog about what we're up to for our customers
may be interesting reading, then again if it's
not I'm sure you'll let us know...
We are asked repeatedly about what
Anti-Virus
Application
we recommend. With most new computers
coming with a complimentary 30 / 60 / 90 days
with either Norton or McAfee, when this needs
renewing, what is the best route we're asked.
Let's face it choosing a FREE download, albeit
minimum technical support option from the likes
of AVG or Avast!, can be attractive. In
fact in a previous Windows Vista Magazine
article, AVG was the recommended route for home
use computers as it works in a slightly
different way to the others and was less
demanding on the system, thus it didn't slow the
system down so much.
If your unhappy with what you have, it's up for
renewal, you could always try AVG or Avast!...
and if you are a business user there's a free
trial period offered before you pay a
subscription to the Pro versions.
Please give us a call on 01279 724192 if you
would like us to have a look and assist you.
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