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What Kind of Antivirus to Use

May 31, 2007 Posted by Liz in : Tips , 4 comments

This is not a suggestion, nor is it a tutorial.  It is not to be discussed or disputed.  Just do this, and don’t talk back to me (I wish I could say this to my customers).

Norton Antivirus will not protect you. 

MacAfee Security Suite will not protect you. 

Antivirus programs that come free with your internet service provider will not protect you.

You do need antivirus, I don’t care what you do online, you still need it. 

You need Spyware protection, Virus Protection and a Firewall, you cannot get by with just one. 

That said, here’s my review of the various programs I use to disinfect the people’s computers who did not understand the message above.

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It is truly Elite

May 24, 2007 Posted by Liz in : Reviews, Uncategorized , 2 comments

During the torrent recently in Texas, water actually fell from the sky, as if it were the blood of tech angels, doing battle with the forces of corrosion.  It fell and like acid, damaged the roof of the store I work at.  Damaged it to the point that the roof offered no shelter from the tidal forces in the sky. As we ran around like madmen trying to protect customer units, display models and the stock(failing; forgetting the plasma televisions in the warehouse, 2 million dollars in damage- we have insurance) we had forgotten our precious tech stations.  The keyboards were mostly protected by an overhang, but, the ones up front were left to bear the burden.  The monitor survived, and the hole leading to the power strip was protected, but the mouse and keyboard were sacrificed for their benefit.

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Drain your battery in style: Motorola Bluetooth Stereo Headphones HT820

May 18, 2007 Posted by Liz in : Reviews , 3 comments

I’ve been battling with cords since I was a wee geek - wrestling, untangling, bundling, unbundling, plugging in, unplugging, kicking out of the wall when I was just about to win that ladder game, and of course, trying to exercise with earbuds.

In my experience, you can’t exercise with earbuds. In fact, I blame earbuds for at least 20 pounds of body weight I could easily be rid of if only they made earbuds for girls. This is why I’ve been searching for wireless headphones since I first began to… legally download music.

Finally, I found the Motorola Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Headphones, which are great. They claim only 30 feet of range but I have transmitted easily across my office of probably around 1000 feet or more, with interference from other Bluetooth devices. It’s nice to put my phone in my pocket and forget it’s even there(until it heats up to the point that you can see the glow from my pocket.)

ht820_r3qtr.jpg

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May 8th: Official Crazy Day

May 10, 2007 Posted by Liz in : Humor , add a comment

When you work at a tech help desk of a large electronics store, you meet a lot of… interesting people. Why is it, when one crazy person shows up, they all decide to follow? It’s like they travel in packs or something.

Story #1

Me: Hi, how can I help you?

Extremely Annoying Valley Girl Chick: My laptop, like, totally stops working when it’s not plugged in. (more…)

How-to: Find “lost” Windows Vista Drivers when adding a new device

May 9, 2007 Posted by Liz in : How-to, Microsoft , 21 comments

When trying to install a new device (like a USB mouse, printer, video card, etc.), Windows Vista might report that there is “no driver found for you device [sic]” and/or will not display the pre-installed Vista OEM drivers. Even by manually selecting the driver, you will still get the “no driver found…” error. This also tends to happen with HP printers (as we know their drivers are bulky and complex). You will get a red X at the end or it won’t find the drivers - again.

This is caused by a corrupted INFCACHE.1 file. This file is hidden, has restricted access, and can be found in “c:\windows\inf”. This file stores the location of drivers and their INF files. (more…)

How-to: Fix your Flash in a flash

May 6, 2007 Posted by Liz in : How-to , add a comment

Has your Flash stopped working on YouTube or Newgrounds or some other such site of funnery? Here’s how to fix it whether your computing style is “British royalty” or “Vlad the Impaler.” (more…)

Is it broken? Tips to try before you take it back, iPod Edition

May 1, 2007 Posted by Liz in : Apple, DIY, Tips , add a comment

nano_red_fronttif.jpgIf you’re having problems with your iPod, here are some troubleshooting tips to try before taking your iPod back to the store. Some of these tips are available elsewhere, but since I see these problems at our tech support desk all the time, it’s worth reprinting. 

1. Check to make sure the iPod is not on hold
I know this is a simple fix, but with laptops and mp3 players alike I have seen it many times, and it’s the first check. The hold switch is on top of the unit - make sure there is no red showing.

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Is it broken? Tips to try before you take it back, Laptop Edition

April 26, 2007 Posted by Liz in : DIY, Tips , 1 comment so far

Editor’s note: Liz is a tech support person and all-around electro-guru. She’s got all kinds of random fix-it tips running around in her brain, some of which occasionally make it to paper (or pixels in this case). Here are her tips for what to check with your laptop before spending the time and money to bring it to, well, her.

1. Remove the battery and plug it in with an AC adapter. If your laptop works fine with just the AC adapter, it means your battery is bad and you need a new one. I can’t tell you how many of these I see a day. You can order a new battery from your retailer or manufacturer.

2. Non-Destructive Restore- to do this, restart your computer and press the F11 key during the bootup process. Select “Non-Destructive System Restore” as the option. If there is no option to do this (such as on Toshiba or Dell notebooks), do not restore the laptop unless you are prepared to lose all your data. It’s always a good idea to back up your important files before doing any kind of restore.

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How-to: Not get viruses and not slow your PC to a crawl

April 25, 2007 Posted by Liz in : How-to, Humor, Tips , 1 comment so far

novirus.jpgEditor’s note: In a popular article “How-to: Get viruses and slow your PC to a crawl,” Jeff explained exactly what to do in order to catch viruses and otherwise debilitate your machine. We recognize that there are some of you out there who just won’t listen. Maybe your desire for those little animated icons is too great or you’ve got to have the latest Nickelback song but you just can’t bring yourself to pay for it (we don’t blame you for the latter).

Here, Liz suggests a few ways to have your cake and eat it too. For the record, we don’t recommend putting your computer at risk. As Jeff’s article shows, one wrong click could land your computer in some pretty dire straits.

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Top ten customer utterings

April 23, 2007 Posted by Liz in : Humor , 1 comment so far

There are so many things I hear people say at my job that annoy me and make me less apt to help a them. Usually these comments display ignorance and an ineptitude for learning. This makes me shut up, take their money, and move on to the next person. Here is my top 10 list of “annoying things customers say that get them on the tech’s bad side.”
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