All posts by remotehelpexpert

Power Failures and Computer Equipment

Technical Tips,

So you have all your computer equipment working in tip-top shape, up-to-date, and all of a sudden you get hit with a blackout. What do you do?

Since the recent surge in the market for laptops/notebooks/netbooks, chances are you have one of those at your place. So you could think along the lines of “Well, I’ll just use the laptop then, since it has a battery”.  True. But unless your laptop has a mobile broadband card attached to it (or you know how to use your cell phone as a modem AND the cell phone has the capability to act as one AND it has internet access enabled), you will lose Internet connectivity since your modem/router also require power to operate. So what’s the solution to that problem?

UPS = Uninterrupted Power Supply. Basically a rechargeable battery and some circuitry in a case, it can keep your electric hungry devices fed for a certain amount of time in the event of a general power failure. In the irreducible minimum case portrayed above, a small UPS can power an average modem/router for at least a couple of hours. Many UPS models exist that range from that to being able to power your whole set of computer equipment for hours. Of course the bigger the UPS the more expensive it is. But again in the case above, a small one should do.

One word of warning: when there’s a blackout, unplug any electronic equipment and only plug back in after power has been restored, especially if they are not connected to the power outlet through a surge protector. Why? When power is restored after a blackout, it is initially in the form of  a surge flow of electricity that can be damaging to your computer or electronic devices.

Choosing the Best Internet Connection Service

Glossary, Technical Tips

With the increase in computers’ processing speed, amount of memory, data transfer speed in hard disk drives etc., the Internet connection speed needs to be kept up as well. Remember, your computer is as fast as its slowest component. Gone should be the days of dial-up speed… and where thousands of data units were transmitted per second, millions are now.

There are several lines one can use to connect to the Internet. From slowest to fastest, they can be broken down into the following:

Dial-up: The oldest and now slowest connection type, it travels through the telephone lines in the voice band. The fastest ones currently would allow your computer to receive a big sized picture in about 4 minutes.

DSL: Stands for Digital Subscriber Line. Similar to dial-up in that it uses the telephone lines, it differs in that it can allow for data transmission WHILE the phone line is being used for voice transmission. The reason for this is that it uses a higher frequency for data transmission than the human voice band (dial-up uses the voice band) and thus voice and data transmission can coexist on the same line. It of course also differs in that it is much faster than dial-up. DSL speeds vary greatly, but let’s just say that the same picture used in the example above would take around 24 seconds in the low end of DSL transmission speed, and little over a second on the high end.

Satellite: Comparable in speed with DSL, Satellite Internet service is an alternative to dial-up in rural and remote areas where other high-speed connection lines don’t exist. Due to disadvantages such as cost of equipment, signal problems due to bad weather, Fair Access Policies on the amount of data that can be accessed per day some of the providers have (like Earthlink’s Satellite service), I don’t recommend this option where other high-speed services exist.

Cable: It uses the cable TV infrastructure to connect your computer to the Internet. Speed wise it would roughly transmit our sample picture in about 6 seconds for the low end, and half a second on the high end.

FiOS: Stands for Fiber Optic Service. A relatively new option, it offers connectivity through optical fiber (a glass or plastic type fiber that uses light instead of electricity for data transmission).   On the higher end, you could receive 6 sample pictures, of the same size as used in the above examples, in about a second. This service however is not available in all areas. As of this writing, only Verizon offers it.

So the above is the basic data on the subject. Of course cost has not been entered into the equation here so up to you to find the best speed for the buck. Sometimes the Internet connection service is bundled with other services, such as phone and TV, which makes it more attractive, price-wise. Also most of these services have more than one tier, i.e. a company will offer a basic DSL package that goes at a certain speed, and then a premium package that is twice as fast or even more.

What is the ideal speed for you? It depends largely on your use of the Internet. Basic emailing and websites browsing don’t need great speed, while video conferencing or big downloads will need something considerable faster. Also remember that if there are several computers at your place connected to the same line, the speed to your computer will be slower if someone else is using the line simultaneously. So take that into account as well.

Computer Basics – The Elements of Your Internet Connection

Glossary, Technical Tips,

There are some concepts that, if understood, may come in handy on this subject when one uses any kind of internet connection. Even if one is not an expert on the subject, a basic grasp of these will generally help keep an internet connection going, and make it easier if you are to explain to a technician what, if anything, might have gone wrong with it or if  he/she is to walk you through corrective steps when it goes down.

In sequence, from far to close to the user, these elements are:

The Cloud:

Another name for the Internet, the term derives from the preferred way to represent it in diagrams and flow charts (as a cloud). The apparent reason for that it allows for a way to represent something that has no shape or a constant changing shape, but also conceals its actual complexity. Also in diagrams and such it is of no particular interest compared to the other internal elements of a network, which get more attention, definition and precise form. In any case, the cloud (Internet) is simply a collection of computers interconnected via a specific network protocol that allows for rapid transmission of data, be it websites, email, sound or video.

Connection:

This refers to the line that runs from the cloud to the entry-point device at your site. There are several types of connections that can be classified by method, media, or speed. For more details  see next week’s article about these.

Modem:

Regardless of what kind of connection is used, the entry-point device of your Internet connection is, as of this writing, always a modem. What is a modem, and what’s with the funny name? It’s a coined word from mo(dulator)-dem(odulator). Well that’s fine you might think, but what the blazes is modulation and demodulation then? Simply stated, modulation is transforming data into a suitable medium (audio for example) that can be transmitted over the chosen carrier (such as a telephone line); demodulation is merely reverting that process so that the data at the receiving computer matches what emanated from the originating computer.

Router:

Now that we have brought the internet connection inside (with a modem), and if one has more than one computer, normally one wants to split it. This is where the router comes in. Consider the router an intelligent signal splitter that knows what data to send to which computer. This splitting of the signal can be achieved through network cables that go from the router to each individual computer or, as it has become increasingly popular in recent times, in a wireless fashion. Remember, if you have only one computer connected to the Internet, it is possible to omit this device.

Gateway:

Sometimes in the name of technological convergence, a gateway is used instead of a modem and a separate router. a gateway is a multi-use device that includes a modem and a router, all in one. So it can take the internet signal from the street, demodulate it, and distribute it to more than one computer, wired or wirelessly.

Network card:

The next stop in your internet connection, your computer must have a network card to be able to plug a network cable coming from the modem, router or gateway (or a wireless network card to receive the wireless signal if your router or gateway is capable of supplying a wireless signal). The only exception to this is if you are using dial-up, since there are internal modems that can be in your computer and that will connect straight to a phone jack through a normal telephone cable for internet connectivity.

It would constitute a useful drill to locate and identify each of the above elements in your current setup.

Free tip of the day: Sometimes you might be asked, by your Internet Service Provider for example, to reset your internet connection by turning off and back on all the elements in this line that are under your control in order to resolve am internet connection problem you might be experiencing. Now you understand why it’s important, once powered off, to turn them back on in the proper sequence. The proper sequence is of course, modem, then router (if there is one), then your computer.

Need help with anything related to your Internet connection? Contact me.

The Blue Screen of Death – Part II

Glossary, Technical Tips

For those who missed it, this first part for this article can be found here.

So now that we have covered what a BSOD is and what it means, we can delve into what causes it and what can be done about it.

There is a variety of reasons a BSOD occurs. Namely:

  • Hardware incompatibility (conflict): This usually follows shortly after adding a new device to your computer, such as a printer. Resources already in use might be demanded by the new device, creating a conflict.
  • Software incompatibility/error: Under this we can include drivers, altogether faulty programs that make “illegal” demands from the computer, or perhaps a program not meant for the operating system installed in your computer.
  • Hardware failure: This is a broad sub-category. It includes defective RAM, an overheating component, a component that is no longer working, or about to fail (such as a dying power supply). From my experience the ones in this sub-category are perhaps the hardest to narrow down.
  • Malicious software (malware): Malicious code injected in your computer might, intentionally or unintentionally, cause a BSOD. An example of creating a BSOD on purpose is, your computer gets infected and you try to start your computer in safe-mode, but as soon as the computer starts in said mode, it crashes due to the malware trying to avoid removal. With the infections running around rampant these days, whenever a computer starts, without any explanation getting BSODs out of the, well, blue, and especially if combined with any of the other signs of an infected computer, one should get the computer thoroughly checked for malware.

So what can be done about it? as you might have guessed, a BSOD needs to be addressed on an individual basis, depending on the content of the diagnostic file created at the time it happened, and that is the first lesson to learn about how to resolve them. Because of the nature of these articles, I won’t include detailed information on how to use a debugger program to load the diagnostic files, much less how to interpret the output of the files. But if you are an intermediate user or above, there are internet forums where you can get help on doing that. Otherwise contact an expert – for example, me 🙂 – and have him/her guide you on how to resolve your computer’s crashes.

Driver

Glossary

It’s a file in your computer that the system can use to interact successfully with a certain device, such as a printer, a camera, a monitor, etc.

Installing a new device usually includes providing your computer with the right driver so the device can interact successfully with the rest of your computer system. From time to time drivers might become outdated and need to be updated.

The Blue Screen of Death

Glossary, Technical Tips

My bet is more users have experienced this in a Windows based computer than the number of users that know the above to be its name. Less users than that know what it is and what it means when it happens. Even less users know what causes it. And less than that, what to do about it. So I’m here to help change those numbers.

Abbreviated BSOD, sometimes BSoD, it’s basically a fatal crash of your computer, and by fatal crash I mean an error involving core components of your system that makes it so the computer cannot continue operating, and if it could, damage to your system would possibly ensue. As its name indicates, you see a blue screen in your computer’s monitor, and depending on how it is configured, it might give you some data as to why it happened (although that initial data is not the most useful), and it might save diagnostic information in a specific file for troubleshooting purposes. Depending on how it is set up the computer might restart by itself once the diagnostic file is saved to your disk, or it might stay there until you power cycle the computer (turn it off and then back on). Depending on the cause of the BSOD, power cycling the computer might clear up the error that caused the crash (until the conditions are replicated) or it might go into a cycle where the computer is not even able to boot up without going into a BSOD, thus creating a vicious circle.

So what is it and what it means we have now covered. Next, what causes it and what you can do about it.

Stay tuned for part 2 next week. Same time, same channel!

User Account Control – What is it? Should I Enable it or Disable it?

Computer Security, Glossary

Users who in recent times have migrated to Windows Vista, and even more recently, to Windows 7, have run into this. More configurable in 7 than in Vista (probably based on the feedback of annoyed users who felt UAC was often getting in the way of their interaction with the computer) it is nonetheless still present (enabled) by default. So what is UAC? and what is its purpose?

UAC is a security mechanism that prompts the user for a choice to allow or deny certain actions in a computer. What kind of actions? they are called “elevated”, meaning actions that require higher-than-usual privileges in the computer – actions usually performed by an “administrator” as opposed to a regular user. Examples: installing or uninstalling a program, or device. Creating or deleting a file or folder in certain core locations of the computer.  One of the expressed purposes of this is to make sure those elevated actions are being approved by the user and not performed without his/her OK. To that degree they can safeguard against malware since malware often include elevated actions to carry out and perpetuate an infection.

One less known purpose of UAC is to annoy. While some might think I’m joking, I’m not. It was apparently put there so that software developers would be more careful in their creation of  the routines in their software to avoid abuse of elevation requests. If abused, it would translate in too many of the actions of certain programs causing UAC to prompt the user for approval or denial of the action, thus annoying the user.

While Windows 7 kept UAC, at least there is one difference in how the user can control it. In Vista, it’s either enabled or disabled, while in Windows 7 there is a “sliding bar” that gives several different levels of protection between “totally on” and “totally off”. This is a change, and some will call it an improvement (because you can set it to NOT be prompting you for OK constantly), but unfortunately in Windows 7 the default level opens the door to unauthorized applications executing elevated tasks, thus defeating the purpose of UAC as far as security is concerned.

So my recommendation, in Vista: leave it turned on, or turn it on if it’s currently turned off. In Windows 7: raise it to the top level.

Sure, it might be somewhat bothersome, but it sure beats  having malicious programs running unchecked  in your computer.

If you need help changing the settings for UAC, contact me.

Browsing Internet Browsers

Technical Tips

I’ve been often asked the question, what browser do I recommend? although the main alternatives I’m given are Microsoft’s Internet Explorer against Mozilla’s Firefox, there are in fact about three more main internet web browsers. Namely, Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Opera’s… well, Opera. Although all of them have nice features and pros, the main question in terms of usage, when it comes to Windows based computers remains Internet Explorer vs. Firefox. As a note though before I get into that, Opera’s mobile browser is very well respected and it’s in fact my current choice for my smartphone (currently using Opera 10 beta), even though I must say that the mobile version of Internet Explorer that came with Windows mobile 6.5 in my phone is a noticeable upgrade from the last one.

But I’m digressing. Back to the subject. IE versus Firefox in a windows based computer. I’ll jump right to the end for those who want the executive summary and want to skip the details and say my choice is Firefox.

Why? For those who want more data, Firefox differs from Internet Explorer in the layout engine (software that allows content such as found in websites to be displayed). Firefox uses Gecko, while Internet Explorer uses Trident. Apparently the implementation of the respective layout engines and the way they have developed makes Firefox less vulnerable to attacks, more add-on friendly, and aims at being able to render more content than Internet Explorer. All these features account for the increase in popularity of Firefox from its inception to recent times. It is also worthwhile mentioning that Firefox version 3.6 has just been released, and it’s supposed to have interesting new features such as less memory usage and faster warm start times.

So while my choice between IE and Firefox is clearly Firefox, I would not discard the other competitors as new versions are released. Try them for yourself if you have the time and decide which one works best for you.

If you need help upgrading, changing or updating your web browser, let me know.