|
|
February 2010
Volume 1 Issue 8
|
MisterComputer.com Newsletter
|
|
|
|
|
|
Welcome New Subscribers!
Now Available on-line Archive copies of the newsletter. Need a link from a previous issue or want to re-read an article, come to the archives. Click on Archive Link to the left.
Mr. Computer not only fixes computers, sets up networks, connects you to the
internet and removes viruses, but we also connect and integrate audio/video
equipment like that new Flat Screen TV. We do training.
FIX IT NOW? We can fix your computer REMOTELY! Need an appointment in the evening? Early morning? With the use of remote control software we can access your computer from offsite and fix 95% of what ails it, often in the same day. Remote calls can be less expensive too. If we can't fix it, there's no charge for the remote session so long as we schedule an appointment to come out and make the repair. Remote software is temporary and removes itself when the session is over.
|
Windows 7 Update:
Windows 7 is all it's cracked up to be, providing the speed and smooth
flow of Windows XP with none of the delay, clutter and snail like behavior of
its Vista predecessor. Whether you select Windows 7 - 64 bit or 32 bit, your
experience should be the same. Home users will be satisfied with any of the
Windows 7 versions, Home, Professional, Ultimate, etc. Here's what I look for
when purchasing a computer, with Windows 7, for a client and I'm passing it on as my advice to
you.
Get more RAM (Random Access Memory): For most of us that means 4 GIG for any 32 bit
issue and 8 or 16 GIG for 64 bit. The actual limit for 64 bit Windows 7 is 128
GIG, but most off the shelf desktops (and certainly laptops) will be
constrained to 8 or 16 GIG, a more than sufficient number.
Buy a fast processor, the faster the processor, the better the
experience. Processor speed is measured in Gigahertz (GHZ). A nice number for a "Duo core processor" is 3
Ghz. Speeds range from 1.83 Ghz up to 3.33 Ghz processor when you look to buy
an off the shelf machine. Two other factors affect true speed; one, the speed of
the front side bus, determining how quickly the processor can communicate with
the rest of the computer and correspond to, in some fashion, the speed of the
RAM in your unit. A great number to look
for in this area is 1333 Mhz. The second
factor is cache memory on the processor chip. The more cache memory on the chip,
the faster the throughput. Think of it as the number of people standing around you
trying to anticipate your next need and being ready to hand you that need.
That's exactly what cache does for the processor. Common better chip cache numbers are 6 and 12 megabytes.
Unless you are buying this machine primarily for playing
on-line interactive games, stick with a Duo Core processor and stay away from
the Quad Core processors. Quad processors are capable of processing four instructions
or operations at the same time and correspondingly Duo Core, two. But the reality
is that outside of some very high speed games which are designed for Quad
processors, most of what we do on a computer, like browsing the internet, email
and word processing, does not require this "Quadability" and the computer actually perform these common tasks better with a Duo Core processor.
Buy a video card with RAM right on the card. The more, the
merrier. The video card connects your monitor or LCD to your computer. It takes
images, one bit or pixel at a time, from the processor and passes them to you
in a timely fashion. Certainly the more ram on the card, [512] MGB is great, the
faster the image gets to you. Windows 7 implements an "Aero" technology, providing
an almost 3D near transparent desktop display requiring lots of video RAM. Frequently manufacturers will sell computers
with underpowered video cards containing no RAM (keeping the final price low) and relying on the computer's
RAM for storing the images that are next up to be displayed. Cards without ram are described as "Shared RAM"
because they share the computers RAM rather than having their own. Shared RAM video cards not only steal system resources but also cause "bottle necks" as
they wait for images to be transferred to them. No matter how short the
distance between transfer points in a computer, there's always a lag when
moving data (read video) from one place to another.
Finally, look for hard drives that revolve at 7200 RPMs
rather than 5400 RPMs. The hard drive speed is next in critical factors in
providing you a great Windows 7 experience.
When you double click on the icon representing some application that you
now want to run, like a browser or a word processor, that software needs to
come off the hard drive and move into RAM, so the faster the hard drive
revolves, the faster you get that application running. Defragmenting the hard
drive of your existing computer on a regular basis (any Windows, every month or
so) will improve hard drive response time.
While there are more factors or tweaks that can determine a
computer's abilities to perform, like the type of motherboard, the speed of the
DDR (RAM) on the video card, whether it's AGP or PCI express, and even the
capacity of the power supply in watts, none are as relevant and usually out of the
range of items you can change when buying an off the shelf machine.
|
|
Ask MisterComputer:
DF asks:Got this email last week. Is it a
hoax? Is it something I should follow? I have been getting my emails, but maybe
some of them might not have been going thru? Here is (the)message. Please let
me knows what you think:
"If you use an email client (e.g. Microsoft(R)
Outlook(R), Mozilla(R) Thunderbird(TM), etc.) to access your messages, change
your email client settings to leave your email messages on the server. If the
email client does not leave email messages on the server, the BlackBerry(R)
Internet Service may not be able to deliver them to your BlackBerry(R) device."
NOTE:
Blackberrys,
Iphones and a slew of email enabled portable devices and email capable cell
phones are becoming more common.
MisterComputer Answers:
That's
sometimes true. What this message is trying to say is that if you use a
Blackberry (and similar devices like the Iphone) to pick up mail from your
email post office (IE Optonline.net, Verizon.net, Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo), it
only picks up mail that has not already been picked up. If you leave your email
client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird) open on your laptop/desktop computer
and go out, your computer will continue to pick up your email and if not told
otherwise will delete it from your hosted post office.
As both your email
client on your laptop picks up mail on some sort of schedule (usually every
5-30 minutes based upon its default protocol or some modification that you
might have made) and the blackberry also has a pre-set frequency of picking up mail
(determined by whoever provides your blackberry service (Verizon, AT&T,
Sprint, etc.), It then becomes a game of chance to see if the Blackberry will
pick up email before the computer picks it up and deletes it. The
simplest solution is to set your computer to leave the mail on the server for
at least a couple of days after pick up before deleting it.
It's
a good idea, when you use an email client, like Outlook and whether or not you
use a Blackberry, to configure your email client to leave mail on your server
for a couple of days at least after picking it up. Why? Well, if your hard
drive fails, if you inadvertently delete that email, if you're out of the house
and you need to look at it from another computer, you can download or view
those emails for 5, 10, 30 days or even forever, if you've configured emails to
remain in the post office on the server.
How?
Go to control panel, (Microsoft products only) double click the mail icon, find your account and under
the advanced tab you will find an option to "leave your emails on the server"
for a selected period of time after picking it up. Be careful about leaving
your email on the host server forever because email hosts do have a limit on how
much mail you can store at their site and will stop forwarding emails when you
email box is full.
|
|
|
I hope you find this newsletter helpful. Look for future issues.
Sincerely,
|
Ish Y. Alter
MisterComputer.com |
|
|
|
Computer Renewal $150 (Save $100) - Back up your Documents, Pictures, Music
- Reformat Hard Drive
- Reinstall Windows & Hardware Drivers
- Reinstall Your Software
- Install Free Anti-Virus
- Restore Your Data
|
|
You must bring it to the shop and pick it up when ready. 3-5 day turn around. Surcharge for more than 2 gigabytes of music and or videos. Home clients only. Expires March 15, 2010.
|
|
|
