News from High Tech House Calls

July 2012

Welcome to High Tech House Calls

Greetings!

We are Experts in Integrating Apple and Windows Based Systems!

We Offer Technical Support and Tutorials For Computers, Networks, and Smartphones at your convenience, in your home or small business.

Got bugs and spyware on your mind?
Is your system down?
Are You Behind in Work?
Did your child download a virus... or worse?
Do your network problems make you feel cursed?

Call High Tech House Calls at 404.229.0839 to schedule an appointment.

Updating Your Computer, iPad and iPhone blog

How do you know if a message concerning the update for an application on your computing device is valid or an attempt of infecting you with a virus?

One of the things applying valid updates does is fix security holes that viruses use to infect your computing device. To protect you from viruses, it is critical to apply updates in a timely manner.

iPhone: Go to Settings-> General-> Software Update. This will check to see if you are up to date. You also need to be updating an Apps you installed on your iPhone. Go to App Store. Click on Updates (lower right corner of the screen).

IPad: Use the same directions as the iPhone.

Windows XP: Go to Start-> All Programs-> Windows Update. Once the screen opens in the Internet Explorer browser windows, select Custom. If you have not done this for a while, it can take an hour or more to complete the search for updates. Once the list of updates comes back. Select them all. Reboot your computer and go through the same search/selection/reboot process again and again until you do not find any more updates. You should go through this process weekly.

Vista and Windows 7: Select the Start button and click on Windows Update. Select Check for Windows Updates. Select all the updates presented, including the optional ones. Reboot as required and go through the process repeatedly until no more updates are found. You should go through this process weekly.

Applications on a Windows Computer: Applications such as Adobe Reader will have a Check for Updates option under Tools or Help. Follow the directions.

Apple OS: Click on the Apple Icon and select Software Update. Follow the directions. You should go through this process weekly.

Microsoft Office on Apple OS Platform: When any Office Application is loaded, click on Help and then Check for Updates. Follow the directions.

Apps Store Applications on an Apple Computer: Click on the App Store icon. Once the App Store has loaded, click on Updates (icon is on the top far right side). If an update is available, click Update to download and install it.

How Secure is Your Computing Environment?

What happens if your laptop or smartphone was stolen?

Can you replace the data?
Can the thief steal your identity with the data on your laptop or smartphone?
Can someone in their car by your house and read the data on your hard drive or intercept the data you send from your laptop to the internet from your wireless network?

Here are some things you can do to minimize your security risks:

Password protect your computer and smartphone.
Have a backup procedure in place for all your data. Test the recovery procedure to make sure your backups are working.
Use the strongest encryption protocols your wireless router supports to secure your wireless router.
Encrypt sensitive data so that only those who know the key can read your data.
Make sure your computing environment has up to date BIOS, hardware drivers, operating system and application software patches.

High Tech House Calls has achieved a CompTia* Security + certification. We can review your home or small business computing environment and suggest ways to minimize your risk of security breaches that don't cost much money or don't require drastic changes on how you interact with your computing environment.

* CompTIA is a provider of professional certifications for the information technology (IT) industry.

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Issue: 26

In This Issue

Updating Your Computer, iPad and iPhone

How Secure is Your Comuting Environment?

Making Your Nook Tablet Usable

Do you want more than what the stock Barnes and Noble Nook Tablet or Color eReader delivers?

Want to be able to read eBooks from Amazon, Kobo or other sources than Barnes and Noble?

Want a calendar application that sync's with your other computing devices?

Want to be able to synchronize your address book across other computing devices?

Find the applications available from Barnes and Noble limited and wish you could download better Android applications from Amazon or Google?

The answer was rooting your tablet, but rooting had many problems and was neither easy to do or maintain.

A better solution is loading the Android Operating System on your MicroSD card and running the Android Operating System from there. Without modifying your factory installed tablet operating system, you can have the best of both worlds.

High Tech House Calls can install the Android Operating System on your MicroSD card.

Access to both the Amazon and Google Android Application Library is set up.

Typical applications are downloaded and installed for you.

You are taught on how to boot to the Android Operating System and to the Nook Factory Installed Operating System.

One on one training is conducted to get you comfortable with the Android Operating System.

Answers to any questions you have after the training, are just a phone call or email away.

Continuing Education and Certification is Important to High Tech House Calls

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For Email Newsletters you can trust

Carl Thorne
High Tech House Calls
email: carlthorne@hthcatlanta.com
website: www.hthcatlanta.com
blog:www.hthcatlanta.blogspot.com
cell: 404-229-0839

Have a Charity That is Near and Dear to Your Heart?

We cannot write you a check, but we can

donate our services. If you have a charitable event that involves a silent auction,
High Tech House Calls is happy to donate a certificate for our services. We will also highlight your charitable event on our website with a description of the event and a link to your event website.

Please contact us for more details.