Computer Repair - To pay or not to pay for anti-virus...

With the way the economy is, we are all trying to save a buck where we can. It's understandable; who wants to pay at least $49.99 a year for virus protection? Well, after reading you may see why it's justified.

Obviously there is going to be a difference in the quality of the free anti-virus product and the pay anti-virus product by the same company. For example, AVG has a free anti-virus product; it can scan files in real-time, stops viruses and spyware from entering the computer, checks webpages as you visit them and make sure that pages you click on are relatively safe. However, the free version doesn't monitor for root kits, spam, and virus infection over IM, nor does it have a firewall. While you are moderately protected with the free version, there are still many open doors for people to get access to your computer.

This model holds true with most antivirus vendors. The free version is always lacking some functions which ultimately leave your system insecure. Also, technical support is often limited to what you can find online through forums or other webpage’s, so if you have an issue with a virus, or have trouble installing or configuring an application to work with your anti-virus, you are left on your own.

The actual anti-virus / anti-spyware scanners are going to be the same in the free or the paid, but the other functions are what you should be concerned about. Once infected, a virus can cause many issues and often shutdown internet access or stop a computer from functioning. At this point you would have to take it to a professional to be cleaned, usually costing over $100! (Only $89.99 through me PLUS Free diagnostics and Free Optimization). If you are frequenting "bad" sites and becoming infected 2 or 3 times a year, it would make sense to purchase an antivirus product that is going to protect you from those attacks.

Norton Internet Security 2010 is what I have found to be the most useful in preventing infection. Like most top-of-the-line anti-virus products, its scanning method works well at monitoring files as they are coming in to your machine, rather than scanning after. It's this real-time protection combined with the ability to detect unknown viruses that allow it to be so effective. Without paying for an anti-virus, it difficult if not impossible to find a product that will protect you against unknown strains of viruses in real-time.

As an added measure, having an additional spyware monitor such as Spy Sweeper, can eliminate nearly all chance of infection. Both Norton and Spysweeper can run concurrently, and neither takes up a great deal of memory so the computer will still run smoothly.

So, to conclude, I would recommend spending the money to buy anti-virus/anti-spyware products. In the long run, the potential cost of a virus infection could be in the thousands if bank cards or identity is stolen. A free anti-virus just can't protect you from everything that is out there as well as a pay anti-virus can. Even the best defense can sometimes let viruses through.

Thanks for reading about my Computer Repair!

Dog On Fire - Computer Repair in Bellingham
Bellingham, WA
http://www.dog-on-fire.com

To get your new Computer running similar to your old one, you not only have your data to think about, but all the programs that you once had installed. There is some software on the market that claims to transfer data and installed programs from one computer to another. I would not recommend this due to the fact that when a program is installed it throws files and creates registry entries in many locations. It's nearly impossible to effectively backup a program and move it to another computer.

The best way to go about doing a data transfer is manually installing and configuring the new system with only the programs, drivers and settings that are necessary, and then copying the data to the new system.

Transferring raw data files from one computer to another is fairly easy as long as you know where the data resides on your old computer and where it needs to go in your new computer (which is usually the first stumbling block for non-technical users) Most users have no idea how much personalized data exists on their computer.

Everyone is aware of the their documents, pictures and music but what about your e-mail messages (not just your Inbox), contacts/address book, printer drivers, network settings, network shares, wallpaper and any of the customized settings in just about every program? The best possible solution to make sure that you transfer everything that you care about to your new computer is to take EVERYTHING to your new computer.

In my service process for a new computer, I remove the hard drive from the old computer and attach it as a second hard drive on the new computer and transfer everything from your old data folders into your new data folders, overwriting as I go.

My advice to anyone contemplating the purchase of a new computer that isn’t familiar with all the steps of data transfer is to negotiate the cost of this critical work BEFORE you make the purchase so you aren’t left to figure it all out for yourself AFTER the purchase. My charges for something like this are incredibly reasonable compared to other local establishments.

Back up your data, or otherwise if your hard drive fails there will be no data to transfer.

Thanks for reading my computer repair blog!

For any computer repair service issues, please feel free to come into my shop!

Thanks!

Dog On Fire

A disk imaging utility creates a snapshot of your disk at any given time, with the operating system included. So, the idea with this is that you do a fresh installation of windows, do all of the windows updates, update your drivers, install any programs you want running such as Open Office, Skype, IM clients, etcetera and then create an image of the drive. Obviously, you aren't going to have the tools to make the image right off the bat. You will need software to create this snapshot of your drive.

The program that I would recommend for disk imaging is Acronis True Image. I have used it extensively and have found that it trumps the competition by far. It is significantly more reliable and when you're making images of your drive; you want a program that is reliable and going to make a non corrupt image the first time. There are many features with this program that freeware alternatives don't have. With Acronis, and I will talk more about this in future blogs, you have the ability of backing up individual folders as opposed to backing up the entire disk. So, it could not only be used as an imaging program, but double as a means of backing up your data reliably. At the end of the day, it comes down to how much your time and frustration is worth. When using Norton Ghost and some other free alternatives, I have found that images I write are sometimes corrupted. If you have a corrupted image, the program cannot write it to your drive meaning that you have to reinstall windows from scratch, defeating the point of the imaging software.

My recommendation to you is this: Bring your PC in and let me run a free diagnostic on your hard drive. If it passes the tests, I can backup all your user data (documents, pictures, music, movies) and make sure it's virus free. Then, reinstall Windows on your drive, do all the windows updates and update your hardware drivers, install any programs you would want, copy your data back onto the hard drive, optimize windows as much as possible, and then create an image of the drive for you on an external hard drive or a separate partition on your current hard drive. By doing this, you will have Windows exactly how you want it, with all your relevant data virus free, updated and optimized so you can restore it after a few months when your computer begins to low down, or whenever you might pickup a virus infection. The restore process is simple, just a click of a button, and only takes a short amount of time. In the long run, this method is not only easier and less frustrating, but less costly and saves you a significant amount of time.

If you need any help with doing this, please feel free to give me a call or stop into my office. Dog On Fire - Computer Repair is located in Fairhaven @ 1001 Larrabee Ave. See my website for a map and directions: http://www.Dog-On-Fire.com

One, you want to do file backups in the case of hardware failure. If your hard drive begins to fail and you only have copies of your pictures or music on the one location, it's entirely possible that they will be lost for good. There are several different ways and medias to backup your data to and you can feel free to call me or stop in if you want to know more about it. I plan on writing a detailed blog in the next few days that will outline a simple backup plan that would be fairly cost effective. What it comes down to is the importance of your data. If you don't mind recreating moments of you life, or spending time re-downloading programs, then this probably isn't something you need to worry about. However, if these things are priceless to you and you had no idea that you could wake up one day and all hope would be lost, stay tuned for my recommendations in the next blog.

The other reason you would want to move files to several locations, and generally off of your main disk, is disk space. If your windows partition becomes bloated with files, the entire operating system is going to run slowly. The less free space the slower it will go. I would recommend moving large files to discs or external hard drives to free up space and make the computer run faster overall. After doing this it would be wise to run a disk defragment on your drives as well to reorganize the disk structure.

If you are interested in data backups, please come in and see me for help. I can figure out an easy solution that will meet your needs.

Thanks for reading!

Justin Vail
Dog On Fire Computer Repair

When you defragment the drive, it lines all the separate sections up so that when you open a file, the disk can go from one section to the next without searching back and forth. This significantly improves file access times, as well as the time needed to boot up or shut down. Have everything organized and in order is also a lot better on your hard drive's lifespan. The less that the head on the disk moves the better.

In Windows XP:
Click Start, goto All Programs, goto Accessories, goto System Tools, and click Disk Defragmenter.

This screen will come up. At this point, select the disk you want to defragment and click on Defragment.

In Windows Vista:
Click the Windows button at bottom left (Start), in the search box type "defrag", then hit the enter button.

This screen will come up. At this point, click on Defragment Now.

It's sometimes beneficial to do this a couple of times, and it would be in your best intrest to do it often. If you have any questions feel free to stop into my store at 1001 Larrabee Ave. Suite 101.

Thanks for reading!

Justin Vail
Dog On Fire

Software / Windows OS

1.) Security - When you upgrade programs or Windows, there are significant improvements in the security behind the product. Here are a couple examples:

a.) Norton Internet Security - From NIS 2008 to NIS 2009, the program was written to protect itself from becoming disabled in a more secure way. Malware trying to make the program non-functional is less likely to succeed, allowing the program to stay functional.

b.) Windows XP to Vista - Obviously a major upgrade in terms of security by means of User Account Control. Even if you find it annoying, it is still a great way of protecting yourself. UAC will prompt you before you are able to run a program that is trying to utilize system files. If you are changing the clock settings then great, accept the prompt and move on. If you are browsing the web however, and you get a UAC prompt, it would be best to deny it. FYI- if you are browsing the web and the UAC prompt appears, and you are not trying to change anything on the computer, click "cancel" and get out of that webpage.

2.) Performance - When there are updates to programs, they generally incorporate a lot of bug fixes. Not all bug fixes result in performance gains, but some do. Here are a couple of examples:

a.) Newsbin Pro - This is a program that gets updated frequently. In earlier stages there were issues with the way they handled databases which led to a lot of leaked memory that wasn't recoverable. This caused the program to run slowly. They released an upgrade for the program that fixed this issue.

b.) Windows Vista to Windows 7 - The average boot time is decreased, the average shutdown time is decreased, it takes less time to copy files from HD to HD or HD to USB, programs start faster, and networking performance is gained. All in all, the performance gain from Vista to 7 is quite substantial.

3.) Stability - Once again, it comes down to bug fixes. Programs are going to have bugs, no one can write a perfect program unless it's "Hello World" and I'm sure that has a flaw in it somewhere! So, when developers release a bug fix or upgrades that address several bug fixes, you generally gain an increased amount of stability. People test programs and look for ways to make them crash. When the program crashes they make a note of how it was achieved, then a patch/bug fix/update is released that makes the program more stable. Updating to the latest version of a program is almost always a good idea, from a stability factor alone.

4.) Features - As programs or Windows is updated, new features are rolled out. Some take place behind the scenes, performing tasks that you aren't aware of that make the program more effective and others are objects, such as new buttons that allow you to do different things with the program. The examples here would be countless. Whenever there is a program update with a new version number, you can rest assured that there will be new features included to enhance the experience for you.

Hardware

5.) CPU Upgrade - By upgrading your CPU, your computer will be able to process information faster. This results in programs loading faster, windows starting up and shutting down faster, and general responsiveness increasing.

6.) Memory Upgrade - By upgrading the memory, you have the ability to run memory intensive programs at increased speed. If you want to edit movies or play the newest games, a memory upgrade is a step in the right direction. Getting memory with low timings is going to be the best, but obviously the stick has to work with your motherboard. If programs are starting up sluggish, or the operating system itself is starting slower, a RAM upgrade might be the way to go. However, due to all the complexities of a computer, I would always recommend a diagnostic before a memory upgrade. While memory will boost performance if you have 30 programs loading at startup, if the computer is filled with viruses or the hard drive is highly fragmented, the gain will only be short lived.

7.) Motherboard Upgrade - Upgrading your motherboard can not only improve speed, but also give you features that you may not have already had. One such possibility is moving to a motherboard that supports PCI Express. PCI Express is able to achieve higher performance then a PCI slot, or AGP. Older motherboard styles typically had a few PCI slots for expansion cards, and an AGP slot for a graphics card. The problem with those styles is that they are slow and outdated. It's becoming increasingly more difficult to find AGP graphics cards, and if found, they won't produce the desired effect for playing the newest game or rendering a detailed graphic as opposed to PCI Express. With motherboard upgrades, you can sometimes have the ability to fine tune your hardware speeds, change how the fans are controlled, and increase the types and amount of ports available and many more options.

8.) Hard Drive Upgrade - Hard drive upgrades can be very beneficial to reliability and performance. From a reliability standpoint, adding a second or third hard drive in a RAID array can give you the backup feature you've needed by mirroring the data and storing it on each disk. If one hard drive were to fail, you still have the data saved to the second drive with no data loss. From a performance standpoint, going from and IDE to a SATA interface can increase the speed at which data can be written and read from the drive. Also, going from a 5400 RPM drive to a 7200 or 10,000 RPM can increase how fast data is accessed.

9.) Graphic Card Upgrades - If you are going to be doing any sort of gaming or graphics processing, you will want a graphics card that can handle what you are trying to throw at it. A good GPU that is well cooled will allow you to get high frames per second in games and decrease the amount of time it takes to render graphics, as more processing power is falling on the GPU rather then the CPU.

Personal Reason

10.) I just recently took in a computer for repair. It has been running slowly and coming up with an error message on boot about a missing .DLL file. This is where this blog post stemmed from. The computer in question is roughly 10 years old and is running Windows ME. The problem with this is that new programs don't seem to run on Windows ME anymore. It's incredibly outdated and insecure. There was a freeware anti-virus trying to run and it couldn't, because of the age of the operating system, and then giving a message about the missing .DLL. Now, if all you are doing is checking your email and you have literally all day to do it, then this wouldn't be an issue. Most people now days are more on the go and need things to happen quickly so they can jam everything into their schedule. To summarize the issue with this computer, you can't install programs. Anything newly written will not run effectively or possibly at all, depending upon what it was written in and what system files it requires. The speed of the computer is drastically slow. This is in part to the operating system itself, but a majority of the hardware components are severely outdated. The system itself is not secured by anti-virus software or a firewall making online transactions easily intercepted, and unfortunately, not many anti-virus software companies support such an old system. With this type of computer, I would recommend upgrading to Windows XP Home at the least, and strongly recommend replacement on a security standpoint alone.

Thanks for reading,

Justin Vail
Dog On FIre

Clean your computer regularly, don't let the dust build up inside. A blue screen or constant freezing can all be signs of a computer that is overheating. Bring it into my shop and let me clean it out for you, then let me run a free diagnostic to make sure all your computer components are still running top notch!

Thanks for reading!

Justin Vail - Dog On Fire