This is a picture of a client’s 5-year old PC. It’s snuggly, but don’t think all that fuzz is doing it a favor. The most failure-prone element of any computer is the hard drive, and one of the biggest enemies of a hard drive is heat. I don’t advocate ripping a computer apart every other week, but if you notice it running particularly loud, and if you’re in an environment predisposed to a lot of dust, you may want to clean it out every half-year or so to keep things running well.

Outlook 2007 has been plagued with slow performance since its launch. After the first few months of release they issued a patch which helped, but it was still substantially slower than Outlook 2003.

Microsoft has released Office 2007 Service Pack 2 which brings substantial performance gains to Outlook 2007, both for startup/shutdown and normal operation. I also haven’t needed a time-consuming mailbox repair process appear since installation.

You can download it here. Microsoft will make it part of automatic updates in the coming months.

Online backup services have become very popular over the past few years, with companies like iBackup, Carbonite, and EMC providing offerings that promise to whisk-away your data to storage hidden deep within the Internet. If something happens to your computer, not to worry – you’ll be able to restore your data without missing a beat.

And to be sure, online if effective – but like any service, it’s not flawless. Here are some things to look out for when finding a solution that works for you.

(more…)

A security company has released the results of a yearly content pitting popular operating systems against hungry hackers. The grand price is $20,000 as well as the compromised computer.

(more…)

A client was nice enough to forward a warning that Quickbooks 2006 must be at the latest patch level before it will work with Microsoft’s updated Internet Explorer 7 browser. This posting mentions that QB2005 users don’t have a patch yet (if ever?)
(more…)

One of my clients recently had an emergency with their email system. Many of their customers’ servers were rejecting their messages, because my client was supposedly sending out spam.

We scoured their computers, but didn’t find any zombie systems that would normally be responsible for such behavior. But the firewall logs were showing emails being delivered directly from the client computers, which made no sense at all as they were using an email server.
(more…)

One of the first tasks I have to contend with when I’m brought into a new office is computer cleanup. And the first question on my client’s lips?

“Why is my PC so slow?”

(more…)

Before you hand over your old Treo to the local eBay shop or brother-in-law, read this article.

It’s important to properly wipe any confidential data. As mentioned, Blackberries make this pretty easy, but others have wipe options that are harder to find.

Check this site for your particular model.

The Internet is not very good at English. In fact, if you hope to get anywhere, you need a service called “DNS,” which changes familar names like yahoo.com to numbers, such as 209.73.186.238.

This operation is handled by a DNS server, which is managed by your ISP. When it’s overloaded, you might think you were back on dialup. Web pages load slowly, or not at all.

Fortunately, you’re not tied to your ISP for DNS services. One company, OpenDNS, has started the charge of third-party DNS servers. Simply point to their servers and you’re on your way. I’ve solved at least one company’s performance issues with this service. It does have some added benefits, including correcting your spelling (www.google.co becomes www.google.com) and blocking you from going to addresses that are known phishing sites.

It’s a five minute process to switch over and requires no signup. Pay them a visit, and let us know if it improves your surfing.

This is decidedly low-tech, but very important to my customers’ overall security. As it turns out, most locks are painfully easy to open using a modified key called a bump key. Have a look at this article, and decide if new locks are merited in your office.