What Should You Do If You Want To Buy A Laptop?

 

YAY! You made the decision and it’s final. It is finally time to get a notebook that is new. You visit the shop with the money already starting to burn a hole in your pocket and then find the explanations read like they are written in klingon. What the hell is flash memory? Do I need four cores?  Four cores of what? It looks like computer stores overlook the fact that normal people are their customers instead of super geeks like me.


Don’t you wish you had me, to go with you and help out? Well I actually do that.  Me or a Doctor Ram’s Associate will go to the store will you and help you pick out a new laptop that suits your needs. Just tell us what you plan on using it for and we’ll help you get the right one. The salesman at the computer store is motivated to sell you the most expensive produt they can because they work on commission. You can’t blame them. But you don’t have to trust them.

We’ll be there to answer any questions you have. Then when you get home we’ll install everything and make sure your laptop computer is working with your internet and other devices. Printer, Fax Machine, whatever.

New Laptop Purchase and Installation FAQ

Is it expensive?

It depends on what you need the computer to do. Every computer is different and depending on what you plan on using it for the cost will vary.

New Laptop Purchase is not easy if you don’t know much about computers. Because of this, we can't advocate in good faith that you try this without an experts help. It’s a sad fact but you will almost always get a bad deal if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. We can help you get a good deal on a new laptop.

Let Us Help You Set Up Your New Laptop

All our associates are very skilled with computers and has certifications and degrees in information technology. We can help you  get  a good deal on the new laptop and also help you set it up to work with all your other devices so you can share pictures from your phone and wirelessly print from the other room, if it’s possible we’ll help you do it. Call us and speak to an associate now.

Ebooks Or Real Books? The Problem With The Amazon Unlimited Library

I read constantly, and I confess, most of the time I'm using my ebook reader. I try to get the best deal possible and when you factor time into the equation it often means reading ebooks instead of real books. A few weeks ago I read about the Amazon Kindle Unlimited Offer for $9.99 a month. The advertising says you can read all the ebooks you want, and keep them as long as you want for just $9.99 a month. To me that sounded amazing. The time and gas I would save going to the library would more than make the service pay for itself.

Well it turns out that I didn't like it that much, and here's why.

It's easy to sign up, the first month is free, you just have to give them your credit card information. I sort of hate this marketing tactic which seems to make money by taking advantage of customers forgetfulness, but whatever, I marked down the date in my calendar so I would remember to cancel my subscription and signed up.

This is the bad part. You know the book your friends have been raving about? Well chances are it's not in the catalog. Hell, even the books your friends were talking about last year aren't in the catalog. Why the hell is that? Because amazon doesn't have distribution rights with Penguin, Harper Collins or any of the other publishers that publish most of the best selling books. Apparently the publishing industry isn't too keen on amazon.

After all, you know why Jeff Bezos named it the Kindle right?

Almost every book I wanted to read wasn't on the list of availible books. I had a long list of books that I mean to read and none of them were on the list. Even older ones.

Many of the books that are on the list are young adult titles. So if you have a adolescent with a kindle it might be the right choice. There are enough young adult titles on the list to keep even the fastest adolescent busy all summer long. And perhaps that's the market that Amazon is aiming for. With the younger generation being more likely to adapt to ebook technology than their older peers it's not likely that it's a coincidence that the amazon library seems to cater to them.

It's not hard to get the membership to pay for itself, the real crux of my dissatisfaction was the fact that the library wasn't being marketed to me. There literally nothing there that I wanted to read. No Gresham, No King, Infinite Jest was not on the list.

Well that's what I think at least. Remember to read our blog to stay up to date on computer repair and tech news in general.

Tips On Keeping Your Computer Healthy - Part 1

Tips On Keeping Your Computer Healthy - Part 1

Are computers expensive? Yes. Should you treat your computer like a throw-away juice-box? No. Besides having your PC serviced by a technician there are many things you can to to increase the life of your system. I've created a list of steps you can take now to increase the life of your computer and save money in the long run.


1.     Be consistent about turning your computer on and off. Everyone is trying to save electricity these days but constantly turning your computer on and off, twice a day for example, can shorten the life of the electronics. That doesn't mean you can never turn your computer off, it just means don't do it too much. Don't take this advice to the other extreme either though, never turning off your computer makes it hard to fix file errors or check for updates. A good rule of thumb is to cycle the power three times a week.


2.    Have a technician look at it every so often. Computers get dirty, they overheat, they become filled with spam and malware. The best way to address these problems is to take the PC to a technician for a tune up. Just like an oil change for your car, your computer repair is needed to keep your computer running at optimum levels.


3.     Don't let your computer get shocked. The way a computer works is by calculating the electrical charge on a circuit board. If your computer get's shocked then it basically goes crazy. The same way a human brain would. Buy a surge protector. If lightning strikes or there is a surge in the power line a surge protector will stop your PC from going haywire.


4.      Keep your laptop on a firm surface while you are using it. The vents on the bottom of a laptop are made to function while it is sitting on a flat hard surface. If you sit it on a couch or something equally soft the vents may be blocked. This can make the computer overheat. Are you starting to see a pattern here? Heat is bad for a pc.


5.      Buy compressed air and use it in the vents. The vents on the side of your system are there for air to circulate and keep the circuit boards inside cool. However they often get plugged up with dust after a period of time. By blowing compressed air through the vents you clear out the dust and allow the cooling system to work properly. You can simply blow compressed air throw the vents from outside the PC, but the best way is to take the PC apart that way you can actually remove the dust. One trick I use is a vacuum cleaner attachment with a horse hair or camel hair brush.

Check out Part 2 Of Tips On Keeping Your Computer Healthy

Dr. Ram

Bucyrus Computer Repair - Tips On Keeping Your Computer Healthy Part 2

Bucyrus Computer Repair - Tips On Keeping Your Computer Healthy Part 2

Read Part One First For More Computer Repair Tips

6. Use a good anti-virus program. Or two. I use malwarebytes and spybot. I use them passively but you can use malwarebytes as a active antivirus program. Your computer will get viruses just by surfing the web and checking email so it's important to run a good antivirus software every few days to keep it clean. I can't tell you how many clients computers I've been able to fix just by running an anti-virus program. 

7.      Use your electronics in a cool room. My cousin went on a peace core mission to Africa and obviously it's hotter down there. The computers didn't tend to last long. You may want to stick it out and power through the heat but your computer isn't as resilient as you are. Keep it in a cool room to make sure it doesn't overheat.


8.      Keep food and drinks out of the office! Seriously, get away from that screen for two seconds why don't you! Just kidding, but spilling coffee on your laptop is a great way to total it. If you must eat in front of your computer be careful and if you get food in your keyboard a great trick is to use that compressed air to get it out.


By following these hints you should be able to get those extra miles out of your pc. Your computer will be working fine by the time your neighbor has gone through two or three new computers.

Dr. Ram

Why Is My Computer Running Slow? Part 1

Why Is My Computer Running Slow? Part 1

In many ways a PC makes things easier. The other side of that is we can feel lost without one. The number one cause of computer unhappiness is slow speed. No matter how many people I ask, the constant answer is that they would like their computer to be faster. Often times a slow PC is just symptomatic of a underlying condition. Other symptoms of a badly functioning PC are blue screens of death and computer freezes. Unfortunately there is no magic bullet to make computers run faster. If there was I would copyright it and become rich, but it's more complicated than that. Many times it's a mixture of things that are causing the speed problem. It could be that the computer isn't running an updated version of windows, the PC doesn't have enough ram.


The Bucyrus Computer Repair Ninjas have done it again and brought you a list of things that you can fix to speed up your computer. If your looking for more tips check out my other blog about common computer repair problems.

1.  WAY TOO MANY PROGRAMS RUNNING

Windows allows you to run multiple programs at once, but there is a line that needs to be drawn. Running two or three programs is probably okay, but when you try to run five or six at the same time your computer is going to slow down. Think of your computer speed as a pie, each program is asking for a piece, if you cut the pie into too many pieces your going to have a very small amount of speed to go around.

If you are experiencing a very slow speed try closing some programs. Here's a good trick, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to see what programs you have running. You can sort them on the right by CPU Allocation and Memory Allocation. Memory is what you are looking for. If you are using a modern computer having a few programs running at approx 100K is OK, but five or six programs running at 100K is too much. That formula can also be used cumulatively. One program running at 600K is also too much. If you see that you have too much memory being used at one time try to end some of these programs that you are not using. You may realize that you didn't even know they were running.

Finally, if your computer is running slow make sure it is not conducting a virus scan. Virus scans take up huge amounts of CPU and System Memory. What I always do is set my virus software to scan for viruses during a time that I know I won't be using the computer.

2.  Excuse me sir, your hard-drive seems to be fragmented

Ok, now for a history lesson. If you create a file or surf the net or install a program or even move your mouse or type on the keyboard there are changes being made to your hard disk. Think of it as a record of everything your computer does. But it's linear, it thinks about everything in order so before do anything else it has to process the list of operations it has, it can't jump forward and backward. So if you delete a program or a file, the hard disk has to delete it from whatever space it recorded it to originally. That will be the temporal space that the hard drive was during the time the file was created. During this process, you computer ends up looking like so much swiss cheese. With tons of empty space where files or programs used to exist in a linear line, it now looks like a dotted line. The computer is smart and will try to fill these spaces up with new files you create, but often times they don't fit so the problem is never truly fixed. This is what computer scientists refer to as fragmentation. To get rid of it you should run a program on windows called the Hard Drive Defragmenter (creative name huh?) What this program does is goes through your hard disk and moves all the files around so there are less gaps or holes in the linearity of your hard drive. Because the hard drive is a physical piece of hard ware this will increase the speed of computer by consolidating all the files and programs in close proximity to each other.

This meme might be better if it said "I don't always break my pc, but when I do I pay myself to fix it." 

However I already made it and I don't feel like changing it.

Dr Ram

Group Policy Virus Malwarebytes Fixed

Malwarebytes - This Program is Blocked by Group Policy Virus

This is a post about a specific computer error, for more common pc repair problems and solutions check my other posts.

SOLUTION:

Delete the Windows Registry Subkey:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\safer\codeidentifiers\0]

If you already know how to edit the Windows Registry you can skip the pictures below. Just delete the folder "0" subkey and restart your computer. 

1. Open the Windows Registry by pressing "Windows-Key + R" and typing 'regedit'.

You will see this:

• Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

• Select SOFTWARE

• Select Policies

• Select Microsoft

• Select Windows 

  
  

group policy error malware

• Select safer

• Select codeidentifiers

• Select 0

•  Right click the folder named "0"

  
  

 That's it. Delete the folder "0" and restart your computer.

Dr. Ram

Why Is My Computer Running Slow? Part 2

Why Is My Computer Running Slow? Part 2

 You may need PC Repair if your computer is running slow.

3.  Your Windows Registry May Be Confused


The Windows Registry is a place where windows keeps all of it's settings for all the different programs and software on the computer. The settings in the registry tell your computer what default browser to use, which default email program to open if you click and email link, and many other things. Because windows uses the registry for everything it is quickly and easily damaged. One cause of registry damage is the constant installation and installation of programs on the PC. Every time a program is installed it creates a registry entry. So what do you think happens when a program is uninstalled? Does it delete the registry entries for that program? No. That would be too easy. This problem is referred to as registry bloat and it simply means that the registry has become full of unused entries. The good news is that are are programs available to fix this. One I've had good results with is Registry Cleanup.


4. Viruses, Viruses, And Viruses

When computers became ubiquitous so did computer viruses. Viruses are common to any information system and computers are no exception. While many of us many never understand the reason people create computer viruses, we do understand that they exist and must be protected again. Viruses can enter your system through web browsers, malicious emails, infected flash drives and many other vectors. In fact, the probability that your computer will become infected with a virus sometime in it's life is about the same probability that you will at some time in your life become infected with the common cold. In other words, it's almost inevitable. Once a computer is infected it can become very slow.

To protect yourself there are a number of different antivirus programs you can download for free on the internet. There are ways to set them automatically to check for viruses and many of the updated ones will protect you while you work, catching the virus before it has a chance to do any damage.

Dr. Ram