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Panda Antivirus Pro 2011 Review (Mac Version Also Available)
Image via Wikipedia
Panda Security has been in the PC data security and protection business for 20 years. The company offers a host of data protection products geared for home and business (enterprise) users this review covers Panda Antivirus Pro 2011 software.
Download Trial here and Contact Techsonthego.net for the activation key.
The Antivirus Pro 2011 software includes the following features:
Automatic and continuous antivirus and anti-spyware protection A personal firewall that shields your PC from worms and hackers Wi-Fi network monitoring Vulnerability checking Technical support service and automatic upgrades Bottom LineWith more than 2,000 new threats released “into the wild” daily, consumers and business users alike must be vigilant about PC data prot
read more December 16th, 2010 at 02:32 pm / #Security #antivirus #internet explorer #personal computer #technical support
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Untitled
Image via WikipediaRAM or Random Access Memory is a critical component for a computer to run properly. Having not enough RAM can render a computer useless over time due to too many programs or applications being used at the same time. The more applications a person opens, the more RAM is needed to run those applications. Today, most computer manufacturers sell new computers with at least 512MB of RAM. Compared to a few years ago, the minimum amount was 256MB. And before that, the minimum amount was 128MB or even 64MB. The increase is due to the complexity of the software and Operating systems that are being installed on the computer. For example, Windows XP has a bare minimum RAM requirement of 64MB to operate. But according to Microsoft, it is recommend
read more November 30th, 2010 at 11:26 am / #Microsoft #windows vista #operating system #windows xp #personal computer
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How to Speed Up Your PC
Dust the cobwebs off your aging PC and get it back in top form with these simple tips for speed.
You can find entire websites and enthusiast communities dedicated to cutting your Windows boot time by milliseconds and squeezing every last drop of visual performance from your system in high-end games like Crysis, but what does the average Joe do when his once-trusty steed begins to limp? Put her down and buy a new one, usually.
That’s a pretty poor option when many people are struggling to even make rent and pay mortgages, and as most tech-savvy geeks know, it’s usually not necessary, either. Therefore we’ve rounded up a few simple ways to go about unclogging the congested arteries of your poor machine and restoring it to its former athletic glory, along with inexpensive ways to upgrade it without springing for a brand new desktop.
The following tips stack up in order of increasing difficulty: Steps one through three represent rela
read more November 30th, 2010 at 11:13 am / #windows #ipod #itunes #personal computer #avg
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Free Web Hosting.
GHTime Code(s): nc read more November 16th, 2010 at 10:09 am / #techsonthego.net
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How to Tell If Your Laptop DC Power Jack Needs to Be Repaired Or Replaced
Image via WikipediaDC jacks are the part of your laptop where you plug the power adapter in to charge. This is a very common piece of the laptop to get damaged because it it constantly being tugged at and pulled. If you are on the road and are constantly plugging and unplugging your laptop, there is a good chance that after 2 years, you will notice this jack start to act up.
Some common symptoms of a bad DC power jack are:
1. The computer is plugged in but it is not charging
2. If you wiggle the power adapter at the jack location, the computer goes from getting power to not getting power
3. The battery is not getting charged over night
4. the actual jack inside the computer is loose
read more November 15th, 2010 at 12:43 pm / #business #laptop #power supply #solder #universal serial bus
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Laptop DC Power Jack Repair
A laptop DC power jack endures a great deal of wear and tear during the life of the laptop. With frequent plugging and unplugging, as well as the motions of every day use, all that shimmying will take its toll on the laptop’s DC jack. Eventually, the metal connectors that hold the laptop DC jack in place will break loose.When the laptop DC power jack becomes temperamental, your laptop’s power can cut off at any time. This can be annoying, but more so if you suddenly lose power after completing a lot of unsaved work that can be lost. Losing external power can also drain your laptop’s battery, if you’re not paying attention.
read more November 15th, 2010 at 12:24 pm / #hardware #London #laptop #motherboard #ac adapter
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How To Use Backup and Restore in Windows 7 and Windows Vista
Image via Wikipedia
The backup utilities in previous versions of Windows have been less than spectacular resulting in a nice market for third party applications. Today we take a look at the Backup and Restore feature in Windows 7 that may be their best backup tool yet.
Set the Backup
To set up a backup in Windows 7 or Windows Vista open up Computer right-click on your local drive and select Properties. Then click on the Tools tab and click the Back up now button.
In the Back up or restore your files window click the link to set up a backup.
read more November 5th, 2010 at 08:47 am / #windows #backup #mac os #microsoft windows #recycle bin
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How to Schedule a System State Backup in Windows XP Using NTBackup
Image via WikipediaThe NTBackup tool in Windows XP can be used to schedule a System State backup job so that it runs once in a week or month, or at a specified date/time. This is another way to keep the registry hives in the repair folder updated regularly.
Thanks to MS-MVP William Crawford for the idea.
Scheduling System State Backup using NTBackup1. Click Start, Run and type NTBackup.exe
2. Click Advanced Mode
3. Select the Schedule Jobs tab, and click the Add Job button
4. Click Next
5. Select Only back up the System
read more November 5th, 2010 at 08:40 am / #Microsoft #windows registry #backup #windows xp #microsoft windows
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Fake Microsoft Security Essentials software on the loose!
Image via Wikipedia
Last week, we saw the re-emergence of another new trojan that is disguising itself as Microsoft’s no-cost antimalware program Microsoft Security Essentials. This imposter is known in the technical world of antimalware combat as “Win32/FakePAV”. FakePAV is a rogue that displays messages that imitate Microsoft Security Essentials threat reports in order to entice the user into downloading and paying for a rogue security scanner. The rogue persistently terminates numerous processes such as Windows Registry Editor, Internet Explorer, Windows Restore and other utilities and applications.
This fake software is distributed by a tactic commonly described as a “drive-by download” and shows up as a h
read more November 4th, 2010 at 10:25 am / #Security #Microsoft #malware #antivirus #internet explorer
Mar
25
Mac Antivirus Needed
Mar
25
Older Postings Revisted
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We’re getting better in broadband. Or are we?
Posted Oct 18 2010, 04:28 PM by Howard Solomon
Another day another broadband study. The latest, funded by Cisco Systems Inc. and conducted by Oxford University’s Said School of Business, attempts to go beyond comparing speeds by measuring something called the “broadband quality” in 72 countries.
For the record, we’re 15th in something called broadband leadership, but 10th in mobile. But I’ll get to that in a minute.
I have a lot of trouble with vendor-funded research in general, because there’s an interest in the outcome. Broadband studies in particular also suffer because statistics used vary from country to country, despite international organizations that try to encourage standardization of data. Then there’s the arbitrary points system to give weight to various categories of data.
The Said report conjures up another standard: the number of countries ready to adopt the “Internet technologies of tomorrow.”
But if you
read more October 26th, 2010 at 10:43 am / #south korea #cisco systems #quebec city #international telecommunication union #broadband internet access
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Cyber attacks and terrorism head threats facing UK
Attacks on computer networks are among the biggest emerging threats to the UK, the government has said in its new national security strategy.
The report highlights cyber crime, alongside terrorism and a flu pandemic, among the key dangers to UK security.
There will be an extra £500m to bolster cyber security, focused on protecting key infrastructure and defence assets.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said that, unless addressed, this could threaten the UK’s “economic welfare”.
Continue reading the main storyThe Spending Review: Making It Clear Clegg on the offensive over cuts Flanders: How pain will be shared Making sense of the figures Key points at-a-glanceThe strategy will form the background for Tuesday’s Strategic Defence Review, where annual cuts of 8% to the defence budget over the next four years are expected.
The National Security Council, set up by David Cameron in May, has published an updated a
read more October 26th, 2010 at 10:16 am / #david cameron #william hague #ministry of defence #strategic defence review #bernard jenkin
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Hi-tech criminals target Vietnam
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
The net domain reserved for Vietnam has become a haven of cyber crime, suggests research.
About 58% of the sites using Vietnam’s .vn domain harboured malware found the McAfee report.
Those visiting the dangerous sites risk having sensitive data stolen or their computer being hijacked.
In all, it found, 6.2% of the 27 million live sites it tracks were found to be risky to visit. A figure up from 5.9% in 2009.
“The web is getting trickier to navigate safely,” said the report which tried to compile a global snapshot of the criminal activity perpetrated via the net.
Sites risky to visit could host so-called drive-by downloads that exploit bugs to install attack code on a PC. Others may be fake pharmacy sites or host virus-ridden files.
Vietnam had only become a favourite with hi-tech criminals in 2010, said t
read more October 26th, 2010 at 10:06 am / #myspace #crime #vietnam #facebook #personal computer
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Niagara PC | Mac | Laptop Repair Video
Check out our video on PC Clinic
This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.
We are a Canadian owned and operated Company, located in St. Catharines. Our primary goal is to get your computer system up and running with the least amount of downtime. Services and support is based on our years of combating computer related issues. We provide on-site services to both home users and commercial customers. Give us a call and we will make every effort to give you the local service you want and deserve. Techsonthego.net is a service company based on computer repair technicians ranging from the basic computer repairs to the in depth hard to solve issues. We strive in getting to the root of the issue the first time and saving not only time but money. Here at Techsonthego.net we are changing the way the end user uses computer repair service companies by making sure your issue is solved right the first
read more October 26th, 2010 at 09:05 am / #consultants #technician #personal computer #technical support #hard disk drive
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�?? Techsonthego.net: Check out our student and teachers discounts on all of our services offered at techonthego.net
Image via Wikipedia→ Techsonthego.net: Check out our student and teachers discounts on all of our services offered at techonthego.net: “Check out our student and teachers discounts on all of our services offered at techonthego.net”
read more October 25th, 2010 at 04:03 pm / #education #programming #student #tools #teacher
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Common Laptop Battery Problems and Solutions
Battery not charging
If your laptop battery does not charge here’s a simple troubleshooting instruction to help you know and solve your laptop battery problem.
Take out the battery from your laptop and try to turn it on using the ac adapter. If your laptop does not turn on, borrow your friend’s ac adapter to determine if your ac adapter is defective or not. If the second ac adapter does not work as well, then there might be a proble with the power circuit of your laptop motherboard. You can also try to check if your ac adopter can power up or charge other laptop’s battery just to test if your ac adapter is working or not.
If your laptop turns on using your ac adapter and it can also power up and charge other laptops then we can conclude that your ac adapter is good and working. Proceed to step you’re your ac adopter is properly working.
Try to use another battery that you know works and if it works on yo
read more October 25th, 2010 at 03:58 pm / #business #laptop #battery #power supplies #batteries
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The most common laptop hardware problem – The DC Jack!
Image via WikipediaOut of all the hardware related problems I’ve encountered over the years, DC jacks are some of the first things to go on a laptop. Although hard drives are up on the list, there is not much you can do from a failed hard drive other than swap in a new one. I will lay out the options of what to do in the event your dc jack requires repairs and discuss the best solution for each case scenario.
What exactly is the dc jack and why should I care?The dc jack is what you plug your laptops power adapter into and it carries the electricity to your laptop in order to power it on. The dc jack becomes loose over time from every day use. In addition the dc jack is very sensitive and can break easily if you put pressure on it, or bend the cord while its plugged into the laptop. To alleviate potential dc jack damage you may want to consider pla
read more October 25th, 2010 at 02:20 pm / #hardware #laptop #motherboard #hard disk drive #solder
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The most common laptop hardware problem – The DC Jack!
The most common laptop hardware problem – The DC Jack!: “Out of all the hardware related problems I’ve encountered over the years, DC jacks are some of the first things to go on a laptop. Although hard drives are up on the list, there is not much you can do from a failed hard drive other than swap in a new one. I will lay [...]”
GHTime Code(s): nc read more October 25th, 2010 at 02:00 pm / #techsonthego.net
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Why should I upgrade my PC to windows 7?
Image by Getty Images via @daylife Why should I upgrade my PC to windows 7?
This is a valid question and one you should strongly consider asking yourself as you weigh the pros and cons or upgrading to windows 7.
Its no secret that windows vista has received a bad rep and for good reason. This has left a bad taste for many including myself. I won’t get into many details of the pitfalls of Vista but let all agree it was a disaster! Its made me even more skeptical of upgrading to Windows 7. Lets say I think Microsoft got the hint and learned from their mistakes.
So before considering the big move, I will give you legitimate reasons why you should upgrade your PC to windows 7.
Reason 1 to upgrade my PC to Windows 7: Compatibility is better in Windows 7.Do you remember all of those unrecognized devices after installing Windows Vista? This was a prominent issue when Vista
read more October 25th, 2010 at 01:44 pm / #Microsoft #windows vista #operating system #windows xp #personal computer
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PC or Laptop buying guide..
Here is an excellent article in which things need to be considered prior to making the leap to buying a new PC or Laptop.
http://www.pctechbytes.com/hardware/how-to-shop-for-a-computer/trackback
read more October 23rd, 2010 at 11:19 am / #techsonthego.net
Mar
25
Tech Postings
r
04
How To Use Backup and Restore in Windows 7 and Windows Vista
How To Use Backup and Restore in Windows 7 and Windows Vista
- Image via Wikipedia
The backup utilities in previous versions of Windows have been less than spectacular resulting in a nice market for third party applications. Today we take a look at the Backup and Restore feature in Windows 7 that may be their best backup tool yet.
Set the Backup
To set up a backup in Windows 7 or Windows Vista open up Computer right-click on your local drive and select Properties. Then click on the Tools tab and click the Back up now button.
In the Back up or restore your files window click the link to set up a backup.
Windows will search for a suitable drive to store the backup or you can also choose a location on your network. If you backup to a network location you might need the password to the share.
You can have Windows choose what to backup or you can choose the files and directories. Because I like more user control for this tutorial I am choosing what to backup but it’s completely up to you.
Note: If you let Windows choose it will not backup Program Files, anything formatted with the FAT file system, files in the Recycle Bin, or any temp files that are 1GB or more.
Select the files and folder to include in the backup. Also notice you can select the option to create an image of your local drive.
Now review the backup job and make sure everything looks correct.
Here you can also schedule the days and times the backup occurs.
Save the backup settings and kick off your first backup and while it runs you can monitor the progress.
Click the View Details button to see exactly what is being backup during the process.
When the backup is complete you will see the two backup files and image folder if you created one. I backed up 20GB of data and it took around 15 minutes including the system image which came to 11GB.
Double click on the backup file and can restore files or manage the size of the backups folder.
Restore Files from Backup
If you need to go back and restore a file from a backup click on Restore my files in the Backup and Restore Center.
Now you can browse or search the most recent backup for a file or folder your missing.
Next you can restore them back to the original location or choose a different spot then click Restore.
Progress of the restoration will vary depending on the size of the data and location it’s restoring from.
Manage Backup Size
Sometimes you may need to recover some disk space and Windows 7 allows you to manage the size of your backups. In the Backup and Restore section click on the Manage Space link.
Your given a summary of the backup location and what is taking up space from the backup.
Click on the View backups button to check the different dated backups where you can delete older ones if needed.
You can also change how windows retains older system images.
Backing up data is one of the most important but overlooked tasks for a computer user. If you have another backup app you might not consider letting Windows do it, but overall, the new backup and restore utility in Windows 7 is much better than previous versions.
This post has no tag
Mar
04
Laptop DC Power Jack Repair Continued
Laptop DC Power Jack Repair
A laptop DC power jack endures a great deal of wear and tear during the life of the laptop. With frequent plugging and unplugging, as well as the motions of every day use, all that shimmying will take its toll on the laptop’s DC jack. Eventually, the metal connectors that hold the laptop DC jack in place will break loose.
When the laptop DC power jack becomes temperamental, your laptop’s power can cut off at any time. This can be annoying, but more so if you suddenly lose power after completing a lot of unsaved work that can be lost. Losing external power can also drain your laptop’s battery, if you’re not paying attention.
Repairing your laptop DC power jack is a pretty tricky task. It involves taking your laptop completely apart and working directly with the laptop’s motherboard. It is possible to do the laptop repair yourself, if you’d like to save some money on laptop repair service and fancy yourself as a skilled electronics technician.
For first-timers, here are some quick tips to get you started:
The first thing to do is to troubleshoot to make absolutely sure that it’s not actually the AC adapter that’s causing your power outages. Many laptop models have an indicator light to show when the laptop is using external power. If the light is on, then the AC adapter is working properly.
If you don’t have an indicator light (or even if you want to make extra sure) you can connect a voltmeter to the AC adapter in order to test it. Plug the power cord into a wall outlet. Then carefully connect one lead from the voltmeter to the inside of the DC plug and one to the outside of the plug. If the voltmeter shows a power connection (usually between 14-19volts), then the AC adapter is in the clear and you can now set your sights on the laptop DC power jack.
When you begin to work on your laptop, the first thing you need to do is make sure that the laptop’s AC adapter is unplugged and the laptop battery is removed. The last thing you want to do is give yourself a nasty shock!
Use a large working space. Clear off a large, open table to work on so that you can spread your laptop’s parts out. Also, keep a few small cups or bowls near by to hold all the screws and other tiny parts that you may need to remove.
Use a fine soldering tip for your soldering gun. Computer connections are very close together on a motherboard. If the hot iron burns the motherboard or if any stray solder accidentally touches other circuits, the motherboard could be fried. You’ll need a very fine tip and a steady hand to perform like a surgeon around all those components.
Apply solder to all connector pins. The break in the DC jack’s connections may not be completely visible and it may be more than one connector that’s damaged. To insure that all potentially damaged connector pins are solid, reinforce all of them while avoiding accidentally touching surrounding components.
As you can see, repairing the laptop power jack is very risky. One wrong move with the soldering gun and your laptop is toast. For this reason, it’s usually recommended that you have your laptop serviced by experienced professionals.
Triangle Laptops is happy to offer our own laptop repair expertise through our new laptop repair service. Our staff has years of hands-on experience with careful computer repair. We’re especially knowledgeable in more delicate repairs, like laptop DC power jack repair and replacement.
If you have any questions about our laptop repair service or request service for your laptop, please contact Triangle Laptops by email or call Techsonthego 905-397-9770.
GHTime Code(s): nc
This post has no tag
Mar
04
Replacing the DC jack
How to Tell If Your Laptop DC Power Jack Needs to Be Repaired Or Replaced
- Image via Wikipedia
DC jacks are the part of your laptop where you plug the power adapter in to charge. This is a very common piece of the laptop to get damaged because it it constantly being tugged at and pulled. If you are on the road and are constantly plugging and unplugging your laptop, there is a good chance that after 2 years, you will notice this jack start to act up.
Some common symptoms of a bad DC power jack are:
1. The computer is plugged in but it is not charging
2. If you wiggle the power adapter at the jack location, the computer goes from getting power to not getting power
3. The battery is not getting charged over night
4. the actual jack inside the computer is loose
In troubleshooting a bad DC jack, I tell my customers to first try a different power adapter. In rare cases, the power adapter is the root of the issue and the jack is fine. This is usually the cheapest fix because replacing the adapter is not that expensive.
I also suggest replacing the battery if it is over 2 years old. The battery has a life span and needs to be replaced every 2 years or so. If the battery is good and the adapter is good, your computer jack is most likely detached from the motherboard or broken all together.
Replacing the DC jack requires taking apart the whole laptop, soldering the jack that’s in there, cleaning up the general area of solder and re soldering a new jack. Depending on the laptop, the job usually takes up to 2 hours and requires a surgeon’s steady hand. The cost is usually around $150 for a good job and the jack will last the life of the laptop. You can find fly-by-night companies that do it for around $100 but the work is sometimes sloppy, they do not replace the jack with a new one and chances are the jack will not last the life of the computer.
We at Techsonthego only use NEW replacement DC jacks. Contact us by E-mail or by phone in St. Catharines at 905-397-9770. For all other locations outside Niagara region visit Techsonthego web site for other areas we service.
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Mar
04
Some Tech Tips
Fun fact: As you save and delete things from your hard drive, your data gets scattered across the drive in bits and pieces, rather than solid chunks. That means your hard drive may have to look in 15 places just to retrieve a single file, rather than one, and it slows things down in the process. Defragmenting the drive will rearrange the pieces in an order that makes more sense, speeding up access times. Just look for the defragment tool under System Tools in your Accessories folder, click “defragment,” sit back, and wait. Depending on how big your drive is, allowing it to run overnight might not be a bad idea.
Defragmenting a drive
Clean up Your Files
If your computer now runs significantly slower than when you first dragged it home from the store and plugged it in, it didn’t get there on its own. Somewhere along the line, you clicked “OK” on one too many checkboxes asking you to install something, popped in one too many CDs, and experimented with one too many pieces of “free” software. (You know what we’re talking about.) Now it takes five minutes to start up, gives you three different errors whenever you try to start your browser, and crashes every hour or so.
Many people hear this advice and take it to mean that simply having too many things on a computer’s hard drive causes it to run slow – a common misunderstanding – but in reality, how full a hard drive is has nothing to do with how faster a PC operates, unless it’s right to the brim and no longer has enough breathing room for Windows to write temporary files. The real issue is that many of the programs you install have components that run all the time, burdening your PC’s processor. For instance: iTunes is a great program, but did you know it has two components that run invisibly in the background all the time, whether you’re using them or not? Both are there to help iTunes communicate with an iPod when you plug it in, but if you don’t own one, they’re just gobbling up memory and slowing your CPU.
You can easily view a list of everything humming away in the background bring up by holding down ctrl, alt and delete to bring up the Windows Task Manager. However, we recommend a more user-friendly interface called ProcessScanner, from Uniblue. It will give you more details on vague process names (what is RTHDCPL.exe, anyway?), where they came from, whether you need them, and how to get rid of them if you don’t. Another, more complex app for this purpose is Processor Explorer, which Microsoft offers for free. You can right-click on any process and do a quick Google search for its name, which is the most comprehensive way to find out what it’s up to and how to deal with it. Windows XP users can also follow these simple instructions to effortlessly prevent unnecessary programs from loading at startup, while Windows Vista users can see here instead.
Processor Explorer
After combing through all the processes and weeding out ones that don’t need to run, your computer should perform significantly faster, especially on bootup when it no longer needs to load a dozen programs as soon as Windows opens. If not, it’s time to call in the big guns.
Start from Scratch
Now we’re getting into the territory where novices fear to tread – for good reason. Wiping everything off your computer and starting again from nothing can be quite daunting, but at some point, it’s also the only way to go. Even if you take relatively good care of your computer, it will eventually reach a point where it’s easier to start anew than try to track down every single individual problem causing it to malfunction or run slowly.
First, pull off all your important files, and write down the names of the programs you can’t live without. That probably means putting your MP3s and video onto an external hard drive, along with anything else you you’re hoping to save, like bookmarks, e-mail folders, and saved game files (it took you four weeks to get to that level!). An external hard drive is an inexpensive and easy way to preserve them all, but you can find nine other ways in our guide to backing up data.
Back up your files to an external hard drive
If you own a computer from a major manufacturer, reinstalling everything from scratch should be as simple as inserting a recovery CD and choosing the option (like “restore”) that will put your computer back to the way it was when you bought it. Some companies don’t even require a disk – all the information it needs is squirreled away on a hidden part of the hard drive that it will access when it’s time to start from a blank slate again. Lenovo, for instance, makes this available using the ThinkVantage button on its ThinkPad notebooks.
If you don’t have a restore disc, it’s just more work. You’ll need a key for Windows, which can sometimes be found printed on a label on your PC, and an install disc. We can’t cover the entire process in the span of this article, but Lifehacker has already done a great step-by-step install guide for those who need a helping hand.
Reinstalling Windows Vista
Upgrade
If you’re running a fresh install of Windows and still having issues running certain programs, like newer games, you’ve hit the upper limits of what you can do with the hardware you have. Sorry, no more software tricks. You’re going to have to swap out some guts to clear any headway.
But don’t let that scare you away. While hardcore PC tweakers may upgrade their systems piece by piece and agonize over each one, you only really have to think about a couple key parts in an upgrade scenario.
The first is RAM, which serves as system memory. If you tend to run a lot of programs at once and notice sluggishness when switching between them, RAM will speed things up significantly. To figure out how much you have, you can look at “System” under your Windows control panel. To figure out how much you can add, you’ll have to look under the hood, because it depends on how many sockets your motherboard has. We recommend checking out eHow.com for step-by-step advice on how to actually install the RAM, and PCWorld’s upgrade guide for specifics on selecting the right specs. RAM is incredibly cheap at the moment, so if you decide to do it, we recommend you go all the way and max out what your system can handle.
Installing additional RAM
The second part to consider is your video card. Chances are, if you have an inexpensive PC, you’re using integrated graphics built into the motherboard, rather than a separate graphics processing unit (GPU) with a lot more power. If you’re having issues playing 3D games, adding a GPU (or a faster one than what you have) might be enough of a speed boost to let you play titles you couldn’t have played before. Just make sure your motherboard can handle the card you buy: Older PCs use an AGP port, while newer ones use PCI Express. You can reference your computer’s manual if you’re not sure which you have. Also, be sure to choose a card toward the cheaper end (under $100) of what’s available at any given moment, since the rest of your system will act as a bottleneck on high-end cards, preventing you from taking full advantage of their power anyway. Reference our guide to selecting a video card for more help.
Upgrade your video card
Though many people would recommend upgrading your CPU as an additional step, we feel the complexity of that sort of upgrade far outstrips what most people simply looking for more speed are willing to deal with. If you’re looking at a new processor, you might want to be looking at a new computer instead.
Stepping Back
It’s easy to get the impression that opening your pocketbook is the only path to better performance. But given all the options, it’s really just a last resort for the casual user whose PC seems to be approaching the end of its lifetime. Tackle the process of speeding up your computer one step at a time, and you’ll usually find that your PC returns to a useable state long before it’s time to start plugging in additional parts.
For service go to Techsonthego.net or click here to contact us, and get expert advice and service. Give us a call!!
Mar
04
Student and Teachers discounts
Techsonthego.net: Check out our student and teachers discounts on all of our services offered at techonthego.net
→ Techsonthego.net: Check out our student and teachers discounts on all of our services offered at techonthego.net: “Check out our student and teachers discounts on all of our services offered at techonthego.net”
Mar
04
How To Use Backup and Restore in Windows 7 and Windows Vista
How To Use Backup and Restore in Windows 7 and Windows Vista
- Image via Wikipedia
The backup utilities in previous versions of Windows have been less than spectacular resulting in a nice market for third party applications. Today we take a look at the Backup and Restore feature in Windows 7 that may be their best backup tool yet.
Set the Backup
To set up a backup in Windows 7 or Windows Vista open up Computer right-click on your local drive and select Properties. Then click on the Tools tab and click the Back up now button.
In the Back up or restore your files window click the link to set up a backup.
Windows will search for a suitable drive to store the backup or you can also choose a location on your network. If you backup to a network location you might need the password to the share.
You can have Windows choose what to backup or you can choose the files and directories. Because I like more user control for this tutorial I am choosing what to backup but it’s completely up to you.
Note: If you let Windows choose it will not backup Program Files, anything formatted with the FAT file system, files in the Recycle Bin, or any temp files that are 1GB or more.
Select the files and folder to include in the backup. Also notice you can select the option to create an image of your local drive.
Now review the backup job and make sure everything looks correct.
Here you can also schedule the days and times the backup occurs.
Save the backup settings and kick off your first backup and while it runs you can monitor the progress.
Click the View Details button to see exactly what is being backup during the process.
When the backup is complete you will see the two backup files and image folder if you created one. I backed up 20GB of data and it took around 15 minutes including the system image which came to 11GB.
Double click on the backup file and can restore files or manage the size of the backups folder.
Restore Files from Backup
If you need to go back and restore a file from a backup click on Restore my files in the Backup and Restore Center.
Now you can browse or search the most recent backup for a file or folder your missing.
Next you can restore them back to the original location or choose a different spot then click Restore.
Progress of the restoration will vary depending on the size of the data and location it’s restoring from.
Manage Backup Size
Sometimes you may need to recover some disk space and Windows 7 allows you to manage the size of your backups. In the Backup and Restore section click on the Manage Space link.
Your given a summary of the backup location and what is taking up space from the backup.
Click on the View backups button to check the different dated backups where you can delete older ones if needed.
You can also change how windows retains older system images.
Backing up data is one of the most important but overlooked tasks for a computer user. If you have another backup app you might not consider letting Windows do it, but overall, the new backup and restore utility in Windows 7 is much better than previous versions.
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