CrashPlan for nearly FREE

https://www.crashplan.com/carboniteswitcher/

CrashPlan on the cheap is back in the mix and one of our clients in San Diego just successfully used this for free backup for a year. Actually, the $50 family plan was used. Worked great!

Kurt Rein MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office Mobile Computer Repair San Diego

MS Hosted Exchange and Outlook 2007 / 2013

For anyone that is looking to add an MS Exchange email account to Outlook 2007 on a laptop, be sure to preface with it may or may not work, and if it doesn't you'll need to upgrade to 2013.

I'm about 4/5 with it working but this last time it just wasn't happening. 3 hours of troubleshooting later, I had him upgrade to 2013 and it worked fine.

Brett Kline Mobile Computer Wizard San Diego 619 255-1215 Office

QuickBooks 2013 manual firewall ports or use the QB File Doctor to fix

In a Windows 8 environment for an office in San Diego the following firewall ports need to be open. The list below is painful, so we downloaded and ran the QuickBooks File Doctor. That too took 10 minutes to run and ultimately said the file was fine, but in reality it added 6 exceptions to the firewall.

OR - you can do it the manual way here!

The following files access through your firewall on ports 80, 8019, 56723, and 55353 through 55357 for both incoming and outgoing traffic:

AutoBackupExe.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

Dbmlsync.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

DBManagerExe.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

FileManagement.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

FileMovementExe.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

IntuitSyncManager.exe located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\Sync

QBCFMonitorService.exe located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks

QBDBMgrN.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

QBGDSPlugin.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

QBLaunch.exe located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks

QBServerUtilityMgr.exe located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks

QBW32.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

QBUpdate.exe located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBUpdate

QuickBooksMessaging.exe located in C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2013

OnlineBackup.exe located in C:\Program Files\QuickBooks Online Backup

Follow the instructions included in the QuickBooks file list above in combination with the instructions on the firewall maker’s web site (some common firewalls are listed below) to configure your firewall to allow Internet access to the QuickBooks files.

Note: Intuit is unable to supply information for all of the several hundred firewall programs available today. The links in the following list lead to information for some of the more common firewalls. If your firewall is not listed here, refer to your software's documentation or the software publisher's web site.

Greg Wilson Mobile Computer Wizard <http://www.mcwsd.com> Office: 619-255-1215

Gmail and your phone

Did you know, that earlier this year when Google eliminated the Free Gmail for Businesses, it also eliminated the active sync used for your email? In essence, if you get a new phone or delete the email account off of your phone and put it back on, you will have to download the Gmail for the phone and get your email that way or wait up to 15 minutes for it to get to your phone.....I personally don't accept that. BTW, they also did that for personal accounts, so now I have to use the app for both work and personal. :/

Eset Nod32 Outlook 2013 glitch

I give up! I had a few clients in north county San Diego having Outlook 2013 problems. It all related to the Eset Outlook plug-ins. Outlook would crash on send. You can turn the plug-ins off, but they turn themselves back on after about a month. Solution, sadly, is to remove Eset, even just the basic Antivirus.

Kurt Rein MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office

Great File De-Duplication Utility De Dup Duplicates

Fast Duplicate File Finder is a great program that comes in a free edition that works well to clean up duplicates. We had a client in the San Diego area who had made an accidental mess of his photos, this utility helped a lot!
http://www.mindgems.com/products/Fast-Duplicate-File-Finder/Fast-Duplicate-File-Finder-Tutorials.htm?postinstall=1
Kurt Rein MobileComputerWizard.com 619 255-1215 Office

Also... added later

I tried 3 programs I found in an article. Outright- do not install a program called "Duplicate File Finder" by Auslogics. You WILL get junkware.

Of the programs I tried, I got mixed results on how it determined which should be the master folder. Probably works fine between only 2 folders, but I got unexpected and inconsistent results from 3 folders or more.

The winner is free software called VisiPics. It will actually allow you to pick which is the duplicate to move or remove. I've attached the worlds fastest tutorial on how to use it.

Activating Windows 8 on Retail PC Without a Product Key Sticker

In an attempt to further reduce piracy of Windows. Microsoft has allowed manufacturers to hard-code the Windows 8 product key into the motherboard. This is a non-traditional solution. No pseudo-intellectual musing from me on this topic today. Perhaps I will do a follow up on the implications for end users.

Here's how it is done.

1) Reload Windows 8 from certified Microsoft or Recovery disk

2) Download and run RWEverything 

3) Under the "Access" menu, select ACPI

4) Select the "MSDM" tab at the top of the results

5) The product key is displayed here at the bottom. 

6)Copy/Paste into Windows Activation Menu.