I had a computer in San Diego that had pretty messed up multiple versions of Office installed. Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint all had problems as they wouldn't unistall or install. Microsoft has released some fixit utilites that worked great. For MCW purposes, I put them in our dropbox under Office\Uninstall Office Tools.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971179
*Kurt Rein* www.MobileComputerWizard.com <http://www.MobileComputerWizard.com> 858-345-0382 Office
Unfortunately, it's been discovered that MYOB's older versions don't run on Windows 8. MYOB installs OK and even connects to a client file, but the computer will display an error 1100 termination. Very frustrating! Hopefully MYOB will offer a patch. For now, the answer is to stick to Windows 7 or to upgrade to the latest version of MYOB. Not great solutions either way, sorry.
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office
We stumbled across an OEM installer for Office Starter in Korean. This is how I found out that Starter is missing a good chunk of options that are in a paid version. You can change the proofreading language and the hover-over tool tip language but not the main language (menus, etc.) Hopefully this saves someone 20 minutes of clicking through menus on the computer. Still on the hunt for an English installer.
San Diego Mobile Computer Repair
This is a very rare one, but you never know! Have fun!
"not enough server storage error" This error indicates that you are falling foul of the IRPStackSize bug. The problem is on the machine you are attempting to connect to, not the machine where you see the error message. On the computer you are attempting to connect to, check the event viewer for an event ID 2011. Usual fix : You need to fix a parameter called IRPStackSize On the computer you are attempting to connect to, Set the IRPStackSize back to the default (15 ). Perform the following steps: 1. Start regedit. 2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\lanmanserver\parameters. 3. Double-click IRPStackSize (or if this registry setting doesn't exist, create it with type DWORD and ensure the case is correct). 4. Change the base to decimal, set the value to 15, and click OK. 5. Reboot the computer.
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office San Diego Onsite Computer Repair
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Many of you may be on Mozy, Acronis or other programs. Don't worry, those are great too, no need to rush into a switch. We are just adding another option. If you are using "Plan Z", which involves luck and crossed fingers, then maybe you should give us a call. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Part Zero: History of NT Version 6
The successor to Windows 7 has two options: Continue improving the NT v.6.0 based legacy that began with Windows Vista or progress into new uncharted territory. The trend up until Windows Vista was to implement new versions of Windows based on new versions of NT. The consumer computer industry called for a move away from Vista and was answered with Windows 7 based on NT 6.1 It felt like a wrong was now righted. At that time, it became the highest-grossing pre-order in Amazon's history, surpassing sales of the previous record holder, the seventh Harry Potter book. This success can be attributed in part to a successful beta release program months in advance. I personally can recall using the Windows 7 beta version as my primary operating system on a high end gaming system without issues. We arrive at another Microsoft beta period; this time Windows 8 based on NT 6.2. I got my hands on the official Microsoft Pre-Release version and installed it on my trusty laptop that has [now] seen all versions of Windows NT 6.
Part One: Start Menu Overhaul
Windows 8 is not as groundbreaking as it appears on the outside. Really, it feels like a collection of individual Microsoft products combined to suit a range of devices large and small. The most striking feature is the complete overhaul of the traditional start menu. Our new menu closely resembles Windows Media Center. Large buttons, graphic background, and apps specially designed for a full screen environment. It resembles the app drawer on start phones and behaves in a similar fashion. This makes sense for tablets and media centers, but there is some inconsistent user interface control on the apps that is frustrating. Most of the built in apps are abysmal in design and control. Some are broken and others have a completely non-intuitive layout. This could be due to the pre-release, but as of now, it is not functional. The start menu is clumsy to access unless you use the “start” button on the keyboard… and you will beat that button to death before it is over. It does load very quickly on modest hardware, but this can be accomplished via RAM caching which makes it a resource hog at best.
Part Two: The Desktop and Explorer
The desktop we are more accustomed to feels empty. Really, there are very minimal icons on it from a clean install. It relies heavily on using explorer to navigate because there is no start button and no My Computer icon. That warrants repeating —there is no My Computer icon. After the installation completed, I spent a solid 30 minutes wandering around the OS trying to find icons and creating shortcuts that would make it easy to work. It pushed the user to use the libraries more heavily, which is good from a technician’s standpoint. The ribbon bar at the top is familiar for Microsoft Office users and can be hidden so it is less intrusive than it sounds. This feels like a step in the right direction to unify menus across the Microsoft platform. Overall the OS navigates smoothly on the desktop.
Part Three: Familiar and Unfamiliar Menus
For better or worse, the start menu is the only really steep learning curve. All of the familiar Windows 7 menus are present and behave in the same fashion. No surprises in Control Panel at all. Task manager has had a major face lift and mostly for the best. Resource management is clear and concise, revealing a great amount of detail about the hardware. Best of all, categories flash red when they are critical usage making troubleshooting efficient. The applications and processes list is a mess, but functional. The good news is that we don’t have to relearn basic system menus; the bad news is that they are clumsy to initially get to. I found myself making start menu shortcuts for very basic functions like “Run” and “Devices and Printers”. They can be accessed in other ways, but nothing felt intuitive. Even finding the shutdown command took a moment to hunt down. Are we at an age where everything is in hibernate or sleep as opposed to “off”? Does Microsoft realize that some hardware does not do this correctly?
Part Four: Multi-tasking
Potentially the worst part of this operating system is switching tasks. This was previously accomplished with a combination of taskbar icons and Alt-Tab maneuvers. Windows 8 still includes both, but there is a division in multi-tasking; Start Menu based Apps and actual running Windows programs from the desktop. This is really frustrating as there is no unified menu short of Task Manager that can close out or bringing programs to the front. This is confusing because Windows 8 gives the end user the impression that the desktop itself is its own self-contained app, which is just not true. If you kill explorer.exe, nothing works. It is exactly like Windows 7 despite appearances. The App selection window (gotten by moving the mouse to the top left corner and dragging downward) is near useless. It shows you minimized apps running and the desktop, but there are no controls here other than to click on them to bring them to the front. Two glaring issues here: One, you cannot see your current full screen app on this list. Two, the option to close a task can only be done with a right-click -> close selection. This menu is the antithesis of all the new Windows 8 menus and overlays: it looks bad and handles worse.
Part Five: Closing Thoughts
I installed this OS with the motivation to give it a fair chance to show me something innovative. The way it handles the start menu is very different and looks like it has far reaching implementation in mobile devices and media center purpose PCs. It runs smoothly and the screen transitions feel fluid. There is huge potential in using a Microsoft family email services such as @live or @hotmail as these services will use the Microsoft Sky Drive for a variety of utilities. Windows 8 uses familiar menus that will ease the transition from Windows Vista or Windows 7. With that in mind, there is a list of qualms I have as a technician and an end user. The start menu is not innovative enough.
I had one program that also could not be launched. In windows 7<http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/10388-63-maximized-window-problem#> it would launch and be only minimized in the tray and would never maximize. I killed the program and right clicked it to get properties and then chose to launch it 'maximized'. That worked to allow it to launch maximized. But it still would not minimize and maximize again, OR run in a windowed mode. The fix was to use the Windows 7 hot keys to lock it to the top and/or sides (window key + arrow keys). Then you can resize it. I think the main problem was that windows explorer had it's windowed size out of resolution or in an incompatible size. That was the only fix I could find anywhere. And by find... I mean get Greg's help!
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office San Diego's Best Computer Repair
A customer in Rancho Penasquitos was having a problem with their HP Laserjet. No matter how many copies of a document they requested to print, only one came out. What the heck?
It is caused by an HP printer option called Mopier Mode being enabled by default. This mode causes only one copy to be sent to the printer which should then use its internal memory to print the multiple copies. If there is no suitable internal memory only the one sent copy gets printed.
It's important to know that the driver used was the HP Universal Print driver, which is often the only driver available for older printers, like the Laserjet 1200. It's also the driver that Windows Update installs when searching for software for said printer.
To disable Mopier Mode in Windows 7: Click Start; Click Control Panel; Click Devices and Printers; Right click your Laserjet printer; Click Printer Properties; Click the tab Device Settings; Scroll down to the bottom; Click on Mopier Mode which is the last of the Installable Options; Click Disable in the selection window that appears; Click Apply.
You will now get multiple copies when you request them. Wow!
Best Regards,
Kyle B. Hanson Mobile Computer Wizard
619-796-4629 Mobile 858-345-0382 Office www.mobilecomputerwizard.com
Just a heads up, I'm doing a data recovery for a client in North County San Diego. His computer crashed. Really, it's more of a recovery from backup! Skim this if you've never done it... but using the Mozy restore manager is the best way to do a download if you are grabbing files to be moved later. If interrupted, it will resume... the other way, the old way, breaks them into 2GB chucks, which with 50GB is really annoying.
If the PC still works and you need just one file, then for sure do it from the Mozy virtual drive that's located in the "My Computer", that's the fastest way to get one old version of a file.
http://www.numion.com/calculators/time.html
That website is great to have an idea of how long to download, OR how long it will take to upload a new backup.
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office Computer Repair in San Diego at it's Best.
Windows 7 is a masterfully crafted piece of modern software, but I have come across a disturbing glitch in its install process. At install time, if there are any other hard drives or devices that could have Windows potentially installed on them, the boot record for Windows may be incorrectly placed on the wrong hard drive. This can be frustrating because now if the device with the boot record is ever removed or reassigned, Windows will not boot.
Part Zero: Discovery
After booting into the Windows 7 Repair Menus I went to the command prompt and noticed first that the Windows partition had been relocated to D:\ and the System Reserved partition was the new C:\. Doing a DIR command I found the boot record was located in the System Reserved partition.
Part One: Changing the Partition Letters
The Windows partition needs to be labeled as the C:\ drive and mark it active. This is done via command prompt using the DISKPART utility. The commands are as follows:
x:\<source>\diskpart -- starts DISKPART
DISKPART list volume --lists the partitions, use this menu to identify the volume #/letter
DISKPART select volume 2 -- # will vary based on the list volume menu
DISKPART remove letter=C --letter will vary based on list volume menu
DISKPART inactive --marks partition as inactive
DISKPART select volume 1 --changing partition to re-assign drive letter
DISKPART assign letter=C --changes partition to C:
DISKPART active --this ensures partition is marked active
DISKPART rescan --refreshes partition info
DISKPART list volume --confirm the changes made
DISKPART exit --leaves DISKPART utility
Part Two: Moving Boot.sec to the Proper Location
That is certainly a lot of commands to swap drive letters between partitions, but now the boot record does not match the partition labels! This can be confirmed via X:\sources\bcdedit command. At this point, the easiest way to resolve this is to copy the boot folder and the boot.sec file to the correct partition. For this I used MiniXP on the Hirens Boot CD. Once you have confirmed the new location, reboot into the Windows 7 Repair Console and open command prompt again.
Part Three: Rebuilding the Boot Record
The last portion will force a rebuild of the boot record and rediscover where Windows is actually located. In command prompt:
C: --change drive letter
cd boot --navigate to the boot folder
attrib bcd –s –h –r --necessary attribute changes
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old --back up old BCD file renaming it bcd.old
bootrec /rebuildbcd --rebuilds bcd file. May prompt to confirm Windows location
Part Four: Follow up
After that, the system should boot into Windows. It may want to run a system startup repair, which is fine. I have found that I still need to remove a drive letter from the System Reserved partition via Disk Management. Now the partition letters as well as the Boot Record are all accurate.
As a reminder, remove all unnecessary drives from the computer when installing Windows 7.
You will get a sending issue 0x80070057 Windows Live Mail 2011 added a terrible feature that forces users to log into and have a Microsoft Live account and to push you towards uploading images to some photo service called Skydrive. It's a terrible feature and makes sending photo via Picasa and even just using the windows 'send to' feature useless when sending photos.
A couple of notes in addition to the steps below. - You may need to create a Live Account, I was not able to find a way around this, just create a new one with the same username/password. - The contacts seemed to be linked to the new account, which is blank, so back them up before doing this. (IMPORTANT) - You may or may not also have to change this option. Options > Mail > Compose > and unchecked "Convert messages to photo emails when adding photos,"
There are tons of frustrated users, but at the end of the day this adds exactly 3 clicks to the process you used to do to send pictures as regular attachments. If this all makes you too crazy, use Outlook or Thunder bird. This issue is not a Picasa issue, it is a Windows Live Mail 2011 issue.
Via Windows Explorer: 1. Select the photos you want to send 2. Click the ‘email’ button 3. Select the size you want and click ‘attach’ -- Or Picasa will get you to this same point. 4. When the email window opens click on the album to select it 5. Click the ‘format’ button at the top of the screen 6. Click on the paperclip icon on the left and the pictures will be regular attachments.
Kurt Rein Mobile Computer Wizard 619 255-1215 Office
I had a client in north counth San Diego needing an address book exported from an application that used CSV. The incoming application only used vcard as an import option. Sounds like a pain, but using an empty gmail account provided an easy conversion as gmail address books support both. Special shout out to my friend Lance for letting me borrow his address book!
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office San Diego Computer Repair
Just a quick heads up to our friends, family and customers...
Yet another nasty virus is making it's way around San Diego: Windows Security Platinum 2012.
It typically arrives through an e-mail claiming to be from UPS, alerting you to a "package" on it's way to you. There is an attachment that also claims to contain a tracking number, but don't be fooled! If you click and open the attachment, the only thing that will be delivered to you is a vicious virus. If you haven't clicked the attachment or a link, just delete the e-mail... and you should be OK.
If you have received something like this recently or suspect you may have a virus, give us a call right away! This virus isn't one to be trifled with!
You may want to forward this warning to your friends and family, as we did. You never know!
Kurt, Kyle, Greg, Brett and Doug Mobile Computer Wizard 4805 Mercury Street Suite K San Diego, CA 92111 858-345-0382 http://mobilecomputerwizard.com
Acronis 2012 True Image Home 2012 Update 2 Build 7119 has a known glitch in that it doesn't keep your email notification settings. You can set them up and test them, but the settings you enter won't stick. Thankfully, for our clients using this in San Diego for backups, the actual backup IS still running, it's just the notifications never happen via email. The previous build, 6154 works, and so does a recent release version update 2 - build 7133 fixes it. Getting that build is done only by logging into your Acronis account and downloading the 7133 build and installing it. The built in updates in Acronis tell you you are up to date, but that's not true. For Mobile Computer Wizard internal purposes, Kurt has an Acronis account as has the 7133 version on file.
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office Computer Repair in San Diego
Sometimes, a virus takes all the tools in your arsenal to get the job done... and sometimes, even those aren't enough.
The TDSS rootkit is a nasty piece of malware that has given us San Diego technicians a tough time over the past year, but we've licked it since we first stumbled across it, mostly by using TDSS Killer by Kaspersky.
But... what if TDSS Killer doesn't run, as it didn't in this case? It was obvious it was the TDSS rootkit, but no matter what I tried, I couldn't get rid of it.
After a little research, I stumbled across another TDSS removal tool that worked like a charm: FixTDSS by Symantec.
The beauty of this tool is that when you open it, the only thing it does is restart your computer. No fancy GUI, no options... just restart the computer. When your PC restarts, before explorer loads, there's FixTDSS... doing what it does best.
If you can't seem to get TDSS Killer to run, make sure you use this tool - keep it on your flash drive -- you never know!
http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/global/removal_tool/threat_writeups/FixTDSS.exe
Best Regards,
Kyle B. Hanson Mobile Computer Wizard
619-796-4629 Mobile 858-345-0382 Office kyle@mobilecomputerwizard.com www.mobilecomputerwizard.com
A customer in Clairemont Mesa was having an issue playing certain content in Firefox. There was no sound in some Flash and Java based items on the web and all web videos would show a blank white screen.
Updating Firefox, Java and Adobe Flash didn't help (although it's a good idea to have those updated anyway for security sake). Next, I checked the Firefox addons and plugins and noticed, after basic troubleshooting, that a half-uninstalled Real Player extension was causing the problem. A full uninstall/reinstall of Real Player (with a fresh Firefox extension) solved the problem! Sometimes, you have to dig a little to find your answer!
Kyle Hanson
Mobile Computer Wizard
"San Diego's Fastest Computer Support Team"
http://mobilecomputerwizard.com
619-796-4629
A new client called us to fix an issue that a previous San Diego Computer Repair company couldn't (yes, we fixed it!)...
It seems that after our new customer would send a message, the font of some, but not all of the email would appear huge... like 120pt huge!
Luckily, we isolated the problem fairly quickly. Turns out that his standard font size was 12.0pt and the crazy huge font was 120pt - - apparently, something was deleting the "." in 12.0pt and making it 120pt, but what?
I found an email scanner that was part of CA Antivirus Total Security, disabled it, rebooted and the problem was gone! I ended up uninstalling it anyway, as it's problematic and not as effective as others that we use... We replaced it with a recommended antivirus and all was well in the world of email shouting! :-)
If you're a San Diego business or home that needs computer help, done right the first time, give us a call!
Kyle Hanson Mobile Computer Wizard 619-796-4629
This is a little bit geeky, but the website ifttt.com (IfThisThenThat) can automate many things on the Internet. For instance, this blog post triggers an action to post this exact entry to our Facebook Page.
Give it a try, and see what possibilities you can come up with!
Kyle Hanson Mobile Computer Wizard San Diego's Friendliest Computer Repair Team
For years in San Diego to diagnose BSOD's on computers crashing we have used Who Crashed, which works fine, a quicker option if the PC still runs or you can copy the crash dumps out is Nirsofts BlueScreenView. Get it here! http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office Best San Diego Computer Repair
Here we are, solving e-mail problems again! What would you do without us, San Diego? Are you using Gmail or another IMAP e-mail service with Outlook? If so, read on!
If you've used a POP account or Exchange in Outlook, then you probably appreciate it when you get when that cool little e-mail alert fades in on the bottom right of your screen, with the name, time and brief little snippet of information.
BUT (and there's always a but.) when you use <http://www.lytebyte.com/tag/gmail/> Gmail or any mail account through <http://www.lytebyte.com/2009/04/25/how-to-setup-desktop-alert-or-email-noti fication-for-gmail-or-imap-accounts-in-outlook-2007/> IMAP, there is no message preview. only a tiny, sad little envelope icon in the tray, next to your clock. That's no fun!
But there's good news! You too can create a new mail alert in Outlook for Gmail or any IMAP account and you can get notified whenever you get a new mail. Really? Well, tell me Kyle-how do I do it?!
I'm glad you asked. here's the answer in 7 easy steps. set it and forget it!
1. Open Outlook -> Tools -> Rules and Alerts.
2. Under E-mail Rules, make sure you have choose the gmail.com account and click on New Rule.
3. Under Rules Wizard -> Step 1: Select a Template --> Find the "Start from a blank rule" area at the bottom and choose Apply rule to messages I receive --> Next.
4. Uncheck from people or distribution list and check the box for through the specified account. Now in the bottom of that page, under Step 2: Edit the rule description --> Click the underlined word specified. In the pop-up box, choose the Gmail or other IMAP account that you're using. Click Ok. Then Click --> Next.
5. On the next window, check the box "Display a Desktop Alert" .
6. Click Next and if there are any exceptions that you may want to include, you can add otherwise you can just click Next.
7. In the last step, if you want you can give a name for this rule as "I'm an E-mail Master!" or something. Make sure to check Turn on this rule. Click Finish and Ok.
Now if there is any new mail coming to your Gmail or IMAP account, you will get a desktop alert.
Aren't you awesome?
As always, if you need any help. we're here for you! Call us!
Cheers,
Kyle B. Hanson Mobile Computer Wizard
619-796-4629 Mobile 858-345-0382 Office kyle@mobilecomputerwizard.com <http://www.mobilecomputerwizard.com> www.mobilecomputerwizard.com
As an IT professional, I have always been untrusting of desktop email clients and their ability to eat your data. There have been many improvements, but I have functionally had cloud based email for the past twelve years. I like the idea of having a single unified email source that I could access from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. True enough that there are features lacking in popular webmail such as searching within attachments and that you can still access old messages when you are not able to connect to the internet. These benefits vary based on usage, but Microsoft has not been asleep at the wheel and has introduced Outlook.com.
At first glance, Outlook.com webmail feels like Gmail when navigating around and while it is still in beta, there are already tons of features built in; you can create vacation auto replies, email forwarding to other accounts, and fully customizable folders to help organize messages. It has a pleasant user interface that is probably a preview of what we can expect from Windows 8 as well as familiar calendar and contacts. Contacts can be web imported from a variety of sources including pre-existing Gmail accounts and Facebook account friends list.
Outlook.com email accounts will also be connected to a 7GB Microsoft Sky Drive that allows users to keep and send large attachments as well as edit Microsoft Office items without needing to download them. There is even an option to “opt out” of saving personal usage information. My only complaint so far for Outlook.com was the right side bar advertisements which do not appear to be removable. There are also some compatibility issues with some web browsers and the email fraud detection looks a bit buggy. These issues are likely to be fixed before official release. If this is where Windows Live webmail is heading, it is finally some good news for our San Diego clients.
San Diego computer repair techs try to avoid reloading an operating system if possible, however, it's sometimes the most feasible solution to a repair. Semper Driver Backup will copy all of your system's current drivers to specified destination making the reload process a bit quicker and less painful. Download here.
Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
The major US media has been talking about about the DNSChanger virus or malware that is suppose to hit Monday. Don't panic, there's a simple test you can run to see if you will be compromised.
You can 'check' your current DNS to make sure you'll be ok on Monday. Unfortunately, the main USA website is overloaded right now. If it doesn't load, it's because the news just ran a story, try the other testing sites listed below. All that these sites do is just tell you really quick if you are OK or NOT, if you are NOT ok, then you fall into the extreme minority and steps need to be taken. Call us, we'll surprised if we hear from anyone!
http://www.dns-ok.us --- USA, -- but down often, but try it first. It has been too overloaded. If it doesn't load, try Canada's or Sweden's checker site.
http://www.dns-ok.ca/results-en.html - CANADA -- ( just click I agree on the left side)
http://www.dns-ok.ax/index_en.html --- - SWEDEN's website, (in English) <http://www.dns-ok.us/> *Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office San Diego Computer Repair
If you get a new PC and want to continue to use your existing MalwareBytes Pro licence. You can, just enter it into your new computer as what you saved when you purchased it.
If you lost that there are 2 ways to recover it. 1. If you have access to your old PC, use regedit to navigate to :
In XP: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
or in Windows 7 it's much more buried, but it should be there. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
2. Email cs@cleverbridge.com with your email you used to buy it, but that's not as quick!
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office San Diego's Best Computer Repair
Mobile Computer Wizard's team did it's best to showcase the repair shop and talk about about our computer fixing skills. Watch our video with this link!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6fNAMQzbhI
*Kurt Rein* MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office San Diego Computer and Laptop Repair
Computer repair in San Diego includes a lot of emailing. All of Mobile Computer Wizard's techs use GMail, but one annoying limitation of GMail is that it caps email attachment size at 25MB. In order to send larger files to each other, we have to split the file up into smaller chunks and then reassemble them at their destination. FileSplitter makes quick work of this task. Just choose the source file and destination folder, then enter the file chunk size. Use 24MB if you are using GMail. To merge the file chunks, select file.chunk001 as the source chunk and then create the destination file. You must include the file extension for the destination file. FileSplitter will not automatically detect it.
Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
Ahh... the age old question! Once again, you probably won't get a straight answer. Shocker! This article links you to a bunch of opinions for your computer.
Kurt Rein San Diego Mobile Computer Wizard 619 255-1215 Office Onsite Computer Repair San Diego
This is a useful trick for our San Diego customers that use production software. When importing a file that isn't natively supported by a program, that program will sometimes compensate by converting the imported file into a format that it natively supports. Afterwards, the converted file is saved as a new file. This can be annoying as it leaves you with multiple copies of the same file in various formats. A solution to this would be to make a batch file that hides specified extensions and have it execute on startup.
This is one I use. Since I have hidden files set to show by default, I make them "protected system files" as well so I can't see them (Doug's idea). This batch hides .sfk's and .asd's and runs on everything in my C: drive, which takes roughly 2 seconds (10,000rpm drive, 160GB of data).
If you don't need to turn them into protected system files, remove the +s modifier. Use the first line to navigate to your folder if it you want to only run there. The /s modifier has it hit all subdirectories and the /d modifier doesn't. When you have edited the extensions, drop it in the startup folder.
So far I have not had any issues with my programs accessing or modifying any of the files that get changed, but I recommend testing everything after a first pass. Also, if the folder ever needs to be deleted, it can't contain system files. Navigate to the folder in command line and use:
attrib -s *.* /s
The Olympic games in London and fake offers for luxury goods all contributed to a big jump in malware in spam between April and May.
April and May were significant months for malware growth and increased spam and phishing attacks, as the volume of known malware swelled by more than a factor of 10, growing by 927.4 percent from April to May, according to German email security provider Eleven's "E-Mail Security Report" for June 2012. The volume of spam emails was also back on the rise, while virus outbreaks more than tripled, up by 251.6 percent, according to the report.
The increase in malware can be traced back to Trojan horses-Zbot is one well-known example-above all other methods of breach, the report noted, with fake delivery notifications, mobile phone bills and order statements among the most popular scams. Meanwhile, phishing attacks continued to rise, with instances up by 23.6 percent in May after an overall increase of almost 170 percent in the first quarter, Eleven's research team discovered. In May, offers for fake luxury items was the third most popular subject for spam emails, accounting for 14 percent of total spam. This was topped by pharmaceutical offers (34.4 percent) in the pole position. Casino spam (15.8 percent) nabbed the second slot.
Germany accounted for 2.8 percent of the world's spam, breaking into the top ten list of spammers, with the U.S. occupying sixth place. France placed seventh, while four Asian countries, and two countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America also made the list. London's upcoming Summer Olympic Games also had an impact on the rise of spam, with fake ticket offers and phising attacks contributing to the overall rise. The report suggests this influence will only grow strong as the opening ceremonies for the games near.
"The tendency toward using campaigns that specifically target users in certain countries also continued to become more widespread in April and May 2012. In addition to phishing attacks, however, there was a focus on traditional spam," the report noted. "Since the start of the year, the research team at Eleven has observed a marked increase in the volume of spam advertising male potency drugs and written in good German. This means that spam activities are also becoming increasingly region-specific-a trend that has been observed for a long time in phishing and malware campaigns."
The report comes on the heels of Mimecast's inaugural "The Shape of Email" study, based on a poll of IT departments on email practices and the contents of the average employee inbox. The survey found just 25 percent of email is considered essential for work purposes, with an additional 14 percent categorized as being of "critical importance." Nearly two out of three (61 percent) of emails are not considered essential, and an estimated 7 percent of emails inside the average inbox are considered to be spam or junk.
Mac Mail imap syncing with Gmail's sent, drafts and trash can be quirkly, especially when you mix in an iPad.
First, be sure to go into the 'manage labels' in you gmail online settings. CLean up any folders, specically, the 'sent messages' folder that Mac Mail can create. Also be sure the the real gmail 'sent' folder is 'shown in the IMAP list' It's a checkbox. Then, in Mac Mail, select folder you are trying to sync out of the gmail IMAP list in Mac Mail. Then, while it's selected, go to the 'Mailbox' Menu, choose 'Use this Mailbox for" - select 'sent'. The folder will then move up to the top left Mailboxes list and be uses across Mac Mail and Gmail.
Kurt Rein Mobile Computer Wizard 619 255-1215 Office Computer Repair San Diego
I ran into an interesting Windows 7 network issue on a Mission Valley client's PC. They have an local folder share and when she tried to access the folders, it would give her a permissions error. Other systems in the office were able to connect to it without a problem.
Modifying the Windows Credentials made no impact and when trying to disconnect the mapped drive, it would throw an error about how the drive was not connected. Interestingly, I could call the folder using \\FolderName, but I was unable to enter any folder beyond that.
This made me think that the problem was how Windows was recognizing the mapped drives and the problem spilled over to accessing the folders directly. I went into the registry: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2]
NOTE: A mapping to \\Shared\F will show a registry subkey named as ##Shared#F
I removed all of the references to the shared folders and restarted Windows. Sure enough, the mapped drives were disconnected and I was able to map them again.
I was able to use the resource monitor to determine that Live Mesh was causing the whole network to slow down in our San Diego office. The ping time exceed 1000 when it's running and under 70 when it's not. Live Mesh is a simple program without the ability to easily throttle it's CPU and network bandwidth. So for now, I had to exit the program. I do plan on giving it time to complete the sync, but unfortunately, many others have complained about this bug. Google Drive sync and Dropbox continue to work well and may turn out to me the permanent solution.
Kurt Rein Mobile Computer Wizard 619 255-1215 Office Onsite Computer Repair in San Diego www.MobileComputerWizard.com
Determining disk space usage on a Mac can be a bit of a struggle. This utility does a nice job!
DaisyDisk scans your disks and presents their content as interactive maps where you can easily spot unusually large files and remove them to get more free space. The map gives you an overview of your data, so you always know what your hard disks are filled with.
Kurt Rein Mobile Computer Wizard 619 255-1215 Office Computer Repair San Diego
Sometimes computer repair in San Diego can be quite a task. Now this will work in multiple situations, but I've found it to be most effective when working with a server in which the user does not have admin rights. First click Start then in the search bar type regedit right-click on the result and choose run as administrator. Enter the requested Username/Password if required.
Once in the registry as an admin navigate to HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Find your printer's name. ex. Brother MFC-7440N Printer (This can be found under Start>Devices and Printers. Copy the name down exactly as displayed. There will be something on the end of the Printer name. ex. Brother MFC-7440N Printer (Copy 1),winspool,Ne03: This signifies it as a network or local printer if leaving it as is does not work change it to Ne00 for a network printer or LPT1 for a local.
If the key gives an error about being unable to be changed Right-Click on the Windows registry key, click permissions and add your username with full control to the key.
Lastly, if the defualt still cannot be changed check the other users ex. HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-3496027142-1497543067-2469998129-1145\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows and repeat the process for each user there.
We have just began our video tutorial series and in this episode we will be looking at how to optimize Windows 7 startup as well as how to make sure you are getting the correct internet connection speed.
At Mobile Computer Wizard we use some great boot cd password removal utilities such as Offline Password Changer that, unfortunately, don't always work on certain retail machines. This is because some retailers install the OS over modified versions of NTFS making it impossible for the aforementioned utilities to locate and edit the Microsoft SAM (Security Accounts Manager) database where the account password info resides. The following password removal technique allows you to edit the SAM database via command line by exploiting a security loophole with Windows Accessibility, which was designed to help disabled people to log into Windows. This also bypasses the complication of locating the SAM database from outside of Windows by allowing Windows to find it for you.
The first thing to note is at the login screen, the Windows + U hotkey launches Utilman.exe, which resides in Windows\System32 directory. The trick is to replace this with cmd.exe to give you command line access at the login screen. You can modify these files from a boot cd, such as UBCD or Hiren's, or even the OS install disc's "Repair Your Computer" option (gives you command line access). Alternatively, you can pull the drive and hook it up to another system. If you use the "Repair Your Computer" route you will need to use the following commands for the Utilman.exe and cmd.exe swap:
cd windows\system32
ren utilman.exe utilman.exe.bak
copy cmd.exe utilman.exe
Otherwise, use roughly the same method. Rename utilman.exe, make a copy of cmd.exe and rename it to utilman.exe.
Once the tricky part is done, boot the system up and let it go to the login screen. Windows + U should now launch the command line interface. Reference the following commands for methods of access.
Reset Password
Warning: You will need to adjust/remove permissions to gain access to their files again.
net user JohnDoe hunter2
This will change the password for account JohnDoe to hunter2. If the account name has been changed so that Windows is not displaying the true account name, you can display a list of accounts with the following:
net user
Create a New User Account
This will create a new user account (UN: NewGuy, PW: abc123) and give them admin privileges.
net user NewGuy abc123 /add
net localgroup Administrators NewGuy /add
Revert Changes
cd windows\system32
del utilman.exe
ren utilman.exe.bak utilman.exe
Then reboot system.
net user NewGuy /delete
For removing the new account.
Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
San Diego Computer Repair
619 255-1215 Office
As many folks in San Diego still rely on Windows XP, here's a little snag you may find helpful. Windows XP's system restore feature is a little particular about how it reacts to removable hard drives, like USB ones. If there's a change in if the drive was connected or disconnected at the time of a restore point being created, the restore operation will fail. Also, a drive does not get acknowledged as connected unless it was plugged in at the time of start up. I can theorize you could manually restart the system restore service to work around a restart. Our advice would be to go into the system restore settings and specifically turn system restore OFF for secondary drives that only store data and NOT programs or settings.
Kurt Rein Mobile Computer Wizard Computer Repair San Diego 619 255-1215 Office
I stumbled upon a great database of all of those nasty 8-digit hexadecimal Blue Screen codes. Many users search for the word minidump which often accompanies these Stop Message errors. The fact that a memory minidump occurred tells you nothing except what you already know — that there was an error. It is the name of the error condition and its 8-digit number that help you determine the actual error condition.
Using this listing should help us expedite the troubleshooting process for our San Diego clients.
A common complaint I get in switching folks in San Diego to Gmail or Google Mail is that they aren't used to the threaded view of gmail messages. Outlook, Live Mail and Outlook Express show email messages in a different format. See the screen image for a simple checkbox to select in the settings for gmail after you are logged into your account! Happy computing!
Kurt Rein www.MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office
iCloud is pretty neat for the most part. But time and time again around San Diego I'm asked to fix our clients Outlook calendar reminders. I've researched it and it just come down to Outlook only supports reminders for the primary calendar. I've even tried to work around it and make the iCloud calendar primary, but that makes Outlook crash upon launch. Now were having fun! I suppose you can go to great lengths to have rules that make appointments copy to your primary calendar, but I haven't resorted to that yet. What a mess! Thanks Apple!
Kurt Rein Mobile Computer Wizard 619 255-1215 Office Computer Repair San Diego
Windows Reliability Monitor is essentially a visual readout of the contents of your Event Viewer. I'm not sure how I haven't stumbled on this before, but it certainly makes identifying error trends easier. To access it, go to Start, and type "View Reliability history". This should help expedite the diagnostic aspect of our computer repair in San Diego.
-- Brett Kline Mobile Computer Wizard 619 255-1215 Office
Still not sure whether you’re infected with that Flashback malware that’s been making headlines? A new free app from a Mac programmer can you help you verify whether your Mac’s caught the bug.
Download it here: https://github.com/downloads/jils/FlashbackChecker/FlashbackChecker.1.0.zip
Last week, Macworld outlined everything you need to know about the Flashback trojan horse, but the most important thing you need to know is whether your Mac has fallen victim to it. You could muck about in Terminal to get the answer, or you could grab Flashback Checker, a small utility from programmer Juan Leon.
Flashback Checker https://github.com/downloads/jils/FlashbackChecker/FlashbackChecker.1.0.zip
First reported by Ars Technica, Leon’s program handles the task of combing through your Mac’s contents to find any traces of the Flashback malware.
Leon, a Mac programmer for a software maker by day, told Macworld via email that he’s always tinkering on his own time, creating utilities and plugins or contributing to open source projects. Indeed, Flashback Checker is one of those projects Leon worked on during his off-hours.
“I saw on Twitter that [Mac IT professional and frequent Macworld contributor John C. Welch] had created some scripts to help folks out, and figured I could write a native application that checked for all the known variants in a single run,” Leon said in his email. “He suggested that I make the source available to earn more goodwill. I researched the problem and came up with the checker in a couple of hours.”
Leon says his side projects are usually inspired by finding a tedious task and making it easier to perform. “That was the case with the Flashback Checker,” he said. “People were struggling the the command line.”
Here’s how Flashback Checker works: When you launch the app, click its one button—Check for Flashback Infection. If the results display includes the message “No Signs of infection were found,” you can breathe easy. If you’re infected, the utility alerts you. Leon’s code doesn’t remove the malware; instead, it points you in the right direction to go about cleaning up your system, which includes running some very specific Terminal commands.
Leon said he toyed with the idea of also removing the malware with his program, “but I thought people would be unwilling to supply thier admin password to an unknown app.”
The latest variant of the Flashback trojan horse is capable of installing without requiring your password, even if all you did was visit a maliciously-crafted webpage. The malware exploits a Java vulnerability first patched by Oracle back in February; Apple only released an update to patch those flaws late last week, after the Flashback malware had already infected more than half a million Macs.
Microsoft officially releases the new End of Support report for their flagship operating systems Windows XP and Windows Vista. Windows XP was widely popular and Microsoft has decided that all support for the now ten year-old Operating system will end in April of 2014. It has been in Extended Support for the last three years. Windows Vista is already beginning to show its unpopularity and will be entering Extended Support April 10, 2012; tomorrow as of this posting.
What does this mean for our San Diego Windows customers? When a new version of Windows is released, customer can utilize support tools such as: No-charge incident reporting, warranty claims, design change feature requests, and non-security hotfix support. This is part of their Mainstream Support Phase. Windows versions that are five years-old or two years after its successor has been released enter the Extended Support Phase which only includes paid technical support, security update support, and access to the web-based Microsoft Knowledge Base for that product.
What this boils down to is this: Windows XP will be shelved in 2014 which has been a long time coming. This date has been extended multiple times and Microsoft recognizes that it cannot continue to use man hours maintaining software that does not fully support current computer hardware. Windows XP users cannot properly enjoy the benefits of solid state hard drives, multi-core processors, more than 4GB of RAM , nor graphics cards with Direct X 10 or 11 support. Microsoft hasn't updated the Windows XP hardware compatibility since 2008!
Windows Vista is on schedule to leave Extended Support by 2017, so customers will still be able to get limited support until then. This is a good thing! There is no word as of yet when the Windows 7 Service Pack 2 will be released. Developers from older versions of Windows will be used to begin working on improving the already stellar Windows 7 or focus on new projects entirely.
-- -Greg Mobile Computer Wizard Office: 619-255-1215
Ahhh, the great mystery of how big a folder is on a mac or a PC. On either computer platform it's important to know the size of what you are needing to backup. Treesize works great on a PC by the way. Sometimes with this info you can arrange a low cost solution like a free Mozy account.
This trick in newer OS X platforms really helps!
http://osxdaily.com/2011/04/05/show-folder-sizes-in-mac-os-x-list-view/
This should probably be enabled by default, but the standard Mac OS X list view setting is to not display the size of folders and their contents. No big deal, this is easily changed:
- First, make sure to select list view from a Finder window - Now open “View Options” from the View menu (or hit Command+J) - Select the checkbox next to “Calculate all sizes”
Now when you open any directory in list view, you’ll see the size of directories and their respective contents. This also works with Cover Flow view, but must be set separately through View Options.
Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
San Diego Computer and Laptop Repair
Customers in San Diego and all over the United States can be helped with our remote software. The toolbox feature allows us to have a few shared 'tools' that we can use. I dropped a few of these into the My Docs folder as these are ones that I use frequently to do PC and Mac computer repairs. Though I admit, the Mac tools won't be cross platform!
Kurt Rein Mobile Computer Wizard Computer Repair San Diego 619 255-1215 Office
Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting
By Jacqui Cheng | Published April 4, 2012 5:08 PM
Variations of the Flashback trojan have reportedly infected more than half a million Macs around the globe, according to Russian antivirus company Dr. Web. The company made an announcement on Wednesday—first in Russian and later in English—about the growing Mac botnet, first claiming 550,000 infected Macs. Later in the day, however, Dr. Web malware analyst Sorokin Ivan posted to Twitter that the count had gone up to 600,000, with 274 bots even checking in from Cupertino, CA, where Apple's headquarters are located.
We have been covering the Mac Flashback trojan since 2011, but the most recent variant from earlier this week targeted an unpatched Java vulnerability within Mac OS X. That is, it was unpatched (at the time) by Apple—Oracle had released a fix for the vulnerability in February of this year, but Apple didn't send out a fix until earlier this week, after news began to spread about the latest Flashback variant.
According to Dr. Web, the 57 percent of the infected Macs are located in the US and 20 percent are in Canada. Like older versions of the malware, the latest Flashback variant searches an infected Mac for a number of antivirus applications before generating a list of botnet control servers and beginning the process of checking in with them. Now that the fix for the Java vulnerability is out, however, there's no excuse not to update—the malware installs itself after you visit a compromised or malicious webpage, so if you're on the Internet, you're potentially at risk.
Call us if your Mac is infected or need help making sure you're secure against future attacks.
Test Comparison: Which Browser Will Make Your Laptop’s Battery Last Longer? By Ciprian Adrian Rusen<http://www.7tutorials.com/users/ciprian-adrian-rusen>on Mon, 04/02/2012 - 16:07
Do you have a laptop or netbook with average or poor battery lifetime? If that’s the case, you might want to use an Internet browser that’s able to take advantage of the power saving features included with Windows 7 or Windows 8. We tested all the major browsers and had some very surprising results. Read on to learn which browser is best at squeezing more time out of your laptop’s battery. Is it Google Chrome? Is it Internet Explorer? Or is it Firefox? The Testing Procedure
For this comparison, I tested all the major browsers: Internet Explorer 9, Internet Explorer 10 beta (included in Windows 8 Consumer Preview), Google Chrome 18, Mozilla Firefox 11 and Opera 11.62. No addons were installed.
[image: Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Chrome vs Opera]
I used my two and a half years old laptop - an HP Pavillion dv7 2185dx<http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&product=3979540>with the following hardware configuration: Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q9000 @ 2.00 GHz, 6 GB of RAM DDR2, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650. This model is marketed as a desktop replacement and battery time was never its strength, and it is even less of a strength now that a few years have passed. I can barely squeeze two hours of battery time when using it. Therefore, understanding which browser to use, so that my battery lasts as long as possible, was important to me.
The tests were made on a clean Windows 7 installation, with all Windows Updates installed and no other software than the browsers being tested. I used the *Power saver* Power plan<http://www.7tutorials.com/understanding-power-plans-how-switch-between-them>. I had to modify its settings so that it did not turn off the hard disk and put the computer to sleep only when the battery reached its critical level.
Since Internet Explorer 10 beta is available only in Windows 8, I used a clean installation of Windows 8 Consumer Preview on the same laptop. The same power plan was used, using the same modifications to its default values as in Windows 7.
The benchmark used was the Peacekeeper battery test<http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/>, which tests your browser until your battery runs down and Windows puts your computer to sleep. I ran this test at least three times for each browser and recorded the results. Some of the test runs were unsuccessful due to various reasons: the Internet connection stopped working for a short while during some tests, Peacekeeper was not able to record the results of some tests while in other runs I encountered browser crashes.
For each browser I recorded the results of three successful test runs and made the necessary averages to make the comparison between results. Observations: Google Chrome - Very Unstable & Internet Explorer 10 beta - Constant Results
Out of all browsers, Google Chrome stood out as the most troublesome. Most of the tests I made with this browser did not finish successfully. First, I had issues with the browser crashing in the middle of testing. I reinstalled Chrome and the problem was fixed. Then, many tests simply did not end well and Peacekeeper was not able to record the results, for unknown reasons. Also, during most tests, the screen of my laptop was becoming active at random intervals, as if mouse or keyboard movements were detected. I found this strange, as my laptop was simply sitting on a table, not bothered by anyone. This lowered the battery lifetime when testing Google Chrome, as the screen consumed more energy than in the tests made with other browsers. Again, the cause for this behavior is unknown and it was encountered only when testing Google Chrome.
I noticed that Internet Explorer 10 beta had the most constant results. The variations between tests were extremely small, both in terms of the average performance score and how long the battery lasted. For example, the difference between the best and the worst result was only of 4 minutes. The least constant browser was Mozilla Firefox. The difference between the worst and the best test result was 21 minutes.
All browsers, except Google Chrome, ran the tests without any major issues and were very stable in their behavior. Test Results: Internet Explorer Delivers the Most Battery Lifetime
Below you can see the averages of the results I obtained during my tests.
[image: Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Chrome vs Opera]
*If you want to choose the browser that gives you the maximum battery lifetime then your best bet is Internet Explorer 9 or 10*, depending on the operating system you are using (Windows 7 or Windows 8). Both browsers had very similar results, delivering an average battery lifetime of 108 minutes and 104 minutes respectively.
If you look at the average performance score, the winner is Google Chrome, by a huge margin (126% better) when compared to Internet Explorer 10. However, you get the worst possible battery lifetime out of all browsers (21% lower). It seems that Google Chrome doesn’t take advantage of the power saving features included with Windows 7 and maxes out all the resource available.
However, *if you want a mix between browsing performance and battery lifetime, your best choice is Opera.* Opera was always close to Internet Explorer 10 and 9 in terms of battery lifetime (only 7% lower) while delivering browsing performance that’s 78% better. Conclusion
If I were to pick the winners, they would be Internet Explorer and Opera. Depending on what matters most to you, they are your best choice while browsing the web in battery mode. Before you close this article, please share your experience with using different browsers while running on battery. Are the results above similar to what you have experienced?
http://www.7tutorials.com/test-comparison-which-browser-will-make-your-laptop-battery-last-longer
Best Regards,
Kyle B. Hanson Mobile Computer Wizard
619-796-4629 Mobile 858-345-0382 Office kyle@mobilecomputerwizard.com www.mobilecomputerwizard.com
Here's a great article about CrashPlan that's worth reposting...
http://lifehacker.com/5898366/the-best-online-backup-app-for-os-x
You should back up your hard drive. You've heard it a million times, but most people don't do it. So we're going to make it easy: CrashPlan is the best backup tool. It's what you should use to back up your data, both on-site and off-site.
Online backup services all share mostly the same feature set. They normally provide an capped plans for relatively low monthly costs, or unlimited plans for a little more; they offer strong encryption for keeping your data safe when it leaves your hard drive. Here are the basics:
Automatic, set-it-and-forget-it backup. You set your backup schedule (nightly, weekly, by-the-minute) and CrashPlan takes care of the rest—you don't have to remember to back up once you've set it up.
Back up locally. You can back up to any computer on your network, or any connected external drive. Assuming your house didn't burn down, the local backup is the one you'll go to first. (Just keep in mind that the off-site backup needs to be there in the event of a more catastrophic loss, like fire or theft.
Unlimited file size.
Incremental backup means CrashPlan only backs up the bits of data that have changed in a file—which means it doesn't have to back up the entire file every time something changes. This makes a big difference when you've got limited upload bandwidth.
CrashPlan keeps your files forever. Even if you delete a file locally, if it's been backed up to CrashPlan, you can restore it at any time unless you'd prefer they don't.
You can restore a file at any time from the CrashPlan client or via their web app.
CrashPlan shares most of the features above with most popular online backup services. Here's what sets CrashPlan apart:
Free on-site and off-site backup. That is, you can back up locally to any folder or hard drive connected to your computer (free on-site) or you can back up to a folder on a friend's computer (free off-site). If you really don't want to pay for backup but you want on-site and off-site redundancy (frankly, if you're backing up, off-site is a must), then CrashPlan let's you do so for free. That's pretty cool.
When you are ready to pay for your backup, CrashPlan has the most bang for your buck, featuring cheap unlimited online backup with a premium CrashPlan+ account. Unlimited online backup for a single computer is as little as $3/month. An unlimited family plan (2-10 computers) starts as low as $6/month.
CrashPlan is packed with useful features, and it's easily the most cost-effective backup option, but it's not as simple to set up as some of its alternatives. We've walked through how to set up an automated, bulletproof file back up solution with CrashPlan to walk you through the process. It's not too difficult, but you do need to set aside a few minutes to understand how it works.
For online storage, Backblaze is probably the most compelling alternative to CrashPlan. It's roughly $4/month per computer for unlimited storage (meaning if you're backing up more than one computer, it's going to add up a lot faster than CrashPlan's 2-10 computer family plan). Backblaze is a little more user friendly than CrashPlan, and it has a very cool Locate My Computer feature that helps you track a lost or stolen device. (Sort of like Prey, a free tool we've walked through how to set up.)
Mozy used to be our favorite online backup service, until they dropped their unlimited backups and introduced per-GB plans that made the service considerably more expensive than any of the competition.
For some, file-syncing service Dropbox is all they backup they need. It could not be simpler: Put a file in your Dropbox folder, it's backed up to all your Dropbox-connected computers and to Dropbox's servers. Dropbox isn't intended to be a backup service, though, and for large backups, it's not particularly well suited to the task. Depending on your backup needs, however, it could be a good option.
Last, there's the non-off-site option that's built into your Mac: Time Machine. Time Machine is still the only backup tool that made backup sexy, and if you're not compelled to perform off-site backups, Time Machine is a great tool, and assuming you've got an external drive to back up to, it's free. Just remember: If tragedy strikes in the form of a fire, for example, or theft, then your on-site backup is useless. If you care about your data enough to back it up, you should be using an online backup service in addition to your local backups.
Kyle Hanson Mobile Computer Wizard San Diego's Friendliest Computer Support Team 619-796-4629 http://MobileComputerWizard.com
Amped Wireless makes a solid router. I can say that now after using one for a few months. The signal is strong, the reliability is great, and for a geek like me, it has plenty of tweaks. Time Warner Cable is who I have as an internet provider as living in north San Diego County dictates. The 25 Mbps connection works nicely throughout most of the house. Cable internet, broadcasted wirelessly to 4 PC's and Macs and it's computer harmony!
Call us below in San Diego to have one of the wizards set you up!
Kurt Rein Mobile Computer Wizard in San Diego 619 255-1215 Office
Recently, a San Marcos client brought an old PC out of retirement to use in their conference room as a presentation machine, attached to a projector. Whenever they fired up Word 2003 or Excel 2003 documents, a prompt asking for sku011.cab would continually appear, along with a request to insert their Office 2003 CD for the file. They didn't have the CD any longer, and other than the annoying prompt, the programs appeared to work fine. Here's a workaround that does the trick:
Regedit (start menu -> run -> type regedit) Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Microsoft -> Office -> 11.0 -> Delivery There should be only 1 directory under Delivery, which is your DownloadCode (mine was 90000409-6000-11D3-8CFE-0150048383C9). Select that directory. On the right side of the screen, right-click on CDCache. Change the value to 0.
Easy peasy!
Best Regards,
Kyle B. Hanson
Mobile Computer Wizard
619-796-4629 Mobile
858-345-0382 Office
www.mobilecomputerwizard.com
A San Diego client of mine was having print issues that I resolved by clearing the print queue. However, afterwards, she could no longer print from Quickbooks, but could print from every other program. Additionally, when she would try to open printer setup in QB, nothing would happen. This is caused by the QBPRINT.QBP file becoming corrupt. The fix is to rename the file so that QB recreates it. It is located in C:\\ProgramData\Quickbooks 20XX.
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
This article may be interesting to some (not so much to most), but at
the very end is a nice list of a bunch of Windows 8 keyboard
shortcuts.
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2012/03/08/getting-around-in-windows-8.aspx
Kurt Rein
San Diego Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
Computer repair in San Diego throws a variety of problems our way. When we encounter weird Windows issues that are rare we sometimes have to research fixes which can be quite time consuming. Tweaking.com's Windows Repair will fix a wide variety of Windows errors with the click of a button. It's a good replacement for Dial-a-fix, which was very popular among technicians back in the day, but it hasn't been updated in years and will not work for Windows 7 (and only half works for Vista).
Here's a list of common Windows problems that Windows Repair can fix:
I recommend only running sections of it at time. It's hard to say what applications would be affected by running Windows Repair with default settings. Download here.
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
858 876 2278 Mobile
Handbreak is a wonderful conversion utility, but many folks complain that it overheats the CPU then the PC shuts down. I had a client in San Diego experiencing this computer problem too. The repair was to use http://bitsum.com/index.php Process Lasso can limit the CPU usage. In my experience I tried to limit the CPU usage, but the only way I could do that was to use half of my threads. Handbreak runs the CPU at 99% which will end badly. I found that running about 25% of the CPU cores was the answer. Conversion times barely increase but the CPU temps would stay in a manageable range as teh CPU usage would stay at or below 50%.
I hope others find this post about handbreak overheating CPU max usage thermal shutdown. Search for those!
Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
Spam on web hosts in San Diego such as roadrunner email can be a nightmare. The built in junk mail is average at best. Use gmail to filter messages then ultimately switch out of RR altogether.
1. Set up a free gmail account.
2. Check your existing POP account with Gmail under 'accounts' in the settings.
3. Tell it to go to a particular label, create one before or use the email address it automatically makes.
4. You can also send and receive your old account thru the gmail website. You can also have your email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird check your email for you via gmail settings. Continue to send with your old account if you like.
This is a great way to switch to gmail.
See attached , the RED is the POP account it's checking, All of these messages were delivered to the person's old regular Roadrunner account. Gmail's Spam caught them!
Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
Best Computer Repair in San Diego
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If you attempt to drag and drop an mp3 into Live, it should automatically convert into the Live friendly wav or aiff formats. If it throws an error converting that says "Unable to convert (file). The file may be corrupt or unlicensed", just update
QuickTime to resolve the issue.
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
Computer repair in the San Diego area has consisted of many virus removals recently. Occasionally, we run across virus infections that have corrupted a profile before we arrive. If it's the only profile on that system, getting Windows to a point where you can begin to remove the infection is the first step. Rather than running live CD antiviruses in an attempt to fix the profile, I've found that enabling the hidden admin account and running the normal battery of scans in that profile yields better results. The command to show the admin account is ' Net user administrator /active:yes '. This can be run in the Windows Startup Repair command prompt if necessary (usually is). To hide the account when you are finished, the command is ' Net user administrator /active:no '.
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
858 876 2278 Mobile
Computer Repair in San Diego is always a challenge and Apple is making
it interesting. Apple's requirements for iCloud are simple, it your
stuff is older that 2007, throw it away! Windows XP and any Microsoft
Office older than 2007 is not supported. Here's a few bullets:
- icloud for XP IS hackable and will work with new versions of Outlook.
- - Photostream will NOT work on XP
Outlook 2003 or older will not work, period. Please correct me if you
find different.
iTunes 10.5 is required for any iOS 5 device. Outlook 2003 or older,
sorry! If you have older Outlook, and if your iOS device is running
4.x, you can still use iTunes 10.4 and older Outlook.
Keep the money machine going Apple!
Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
San Diego Computer Repair
Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
Apple's iCloud is designed for Vista/7 only. However, a nice lady in San Diego needed it installed on her computer so she could use it to sync her contacts and calendar with her iphone. Doing the XP hack for icloud is very easy and takes about 15 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR6JYM2wae8
Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
San Diego Computer Repair
I recently did a data backup on a laptop that required a reinstall of Windows. The first transfer to my tech machine threw about 80 errors in Directory Sync, but none of them were pointed at user/application data/local/microsoft/windows live mail. After transfering the data back to his laptop (0 Directory Sync errors on this transfer), I attempted to import his Live Mail and noticed that while all the folders were there, they were empty. I immediately checked the data backup on my tech machine and all the mail was there. In short, Directory Sync might not tell you when it fails to copy something. Double check your backups!
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
San Diego Computer Repair
858 876 2278 Mobile
Yesterday, I had a virus removal in the San Diego area and came across an infection that I had never seen. Combofix, Malwarebyte's, Hitman, and TDSS Killer failed to detect this virus, but Microsoft SecEss would pick it up with quick scans or idle time scans. Unfortunately, MSE fails to remove this infection, so I checked the file path (C:/Windows/assembly/temp/kwrd.dll) and navigated to it. Not there. Show hidden folders and files. Not there. After consulting the almighty google, I found this fix.
People in San Diego call us all the time with computer problems resolvable via the internet and our remote support software. I just got off the phone with a guy in Encinitas (North San Diego) who had an Outlook email problem. Outlook wouldn't launch! Turns out it was related to an antivirus issue and the quick fix was to reset his Outlook.xml file. I simple renamed it and Outlook launched. This type of fix hold true for many database driven programs, like Quickbooks also. Go into the App Data folders and rename some of these small auxiliary files by changing their file name. Additionally helpful was that the client knew it happened at 7:30 this morning and I was able to match that time to the Outlook.xml file. If you are wrong, just change it back!
Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
Best Computer Repair San Diego
iOS5 for iPhone and iPad work pretty well, but it's new and there's a few quirks. People in the San Diego area have been asking for help more and more for help in getting their PC, MAC, Android and iPhone's synced up. A few fun things to note are that yes, PC's support iCloud, but you must have at least Vista or Windows 7. A few google search's reveal that XP can be hacked to run the iCloud control panel. I will say too that iCloud syncs a lot, but maybe not as much as the commercial says, and maybe not as free!
http://xlii.be/2011/10/how-to-get-icloud-windows-xp-and-outlook-to-work-together/
Another quirk is how the iPad and iPhone deal with IMAP folders. Specifically, the sent and deleted items, Trash vs. Deleted Messages and Sent Items vs Sent Messages. It's a bit frustrating, but if you pay attention to the details, you can get them all synced up and happy. If you have any questions, I'm the guy to ask!
Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
San Diego Computer Repair
