Neuron Computer Services Blog

How to Be More Productive with your Computer, Part 2

What to Look For in a Printer & My Perfect Office

I am a huge fan of laser printers for many reasons. They are fast, efficient, easy to network, and the toner cartridges last a very long time before having to replace them. Probably the best reason is their lower cost-per-page compared to inkjet printers. If it was a perfect world, quite honestly, I would abolish inkjet technology altogether. Don’t you find it to be quite silly that you’re paying $50 for a very tiny amount of ink? Gather up a bunch of ballpoint pens and you’ll see that you are getting majorly ripped off in the printer ink business!

So, here’s my brief take on what to look for in a printer:

• Technology: Laser, hands down. Forget the inkjets!
• Connectivity: USB is a given, but networking is a must if you want to share your printer with multiple computers. Wireless is even better.
• Speed: 20ppm or faster is generally the lowest rating to look for. Laser printers usually print in the 30-50ppm range easily.
• Color vs. Black/White: You’ll get the cheapest price tag if you go with a mono/black & white laser printer for sure, but color lasers have come down in price considerably in the last few months.A good, simple mono laser can be had for about $100.
• Brand: Canon makes the best laser printers for business use. Period. For home use, Dell offers great prices on all of their laser printers. HP is #1 in the market, but certainly not in my eyes. Their software and drivers are horrible.

Probably the biggest “downside” to lasers is the fact that they don’t print photos on glossy paper. For this, I just bring my photos to a professional printing shop that can do this for me at pennies per photo. Even then, I rarely print photos since it’s so much cooler showing them off on a 50″ plasma TV than a tiny 4×6 photo paper.

A lot of users buy inkjets because of the all-in-ones that are out there. I think all-in-ones should be abolished too! You’re putting all your eggs in one basket. I had an all-in-one Canon inkjet for about three years before the auto document feeder died. Then shortly after that, the print heads really got messed up. So basically it ended up being a glorified fax machine and flat bed scanner that can’t even print!

So my idea of a perfect office is this:

• Printing. I have a Dell Color Laser 3110CN Printer. It prints color, black and white, envelopes, and just about anything I need printed. I printed a 500 page book in less than 30 minutes and the toner hardly depleted.
• Faxing. I don’t have a fax machine. Instead, I use an Internet faxing service called SmartFax (www.smartfax.com). If I need to fax something, I just choose the Fax “printer” on my computer and it sends out a fax over the Internet. This saves the wasted step of printing things out and then faxing it with a fax machine. The best part about SmartFax is inbound faxes are free and unlimited. Sometimes I get junk faxes so it’s better to just delete the e-mail instead of wasting ink and paper.
• Scanning. I have a dedicated flat bed scanner for photo projects and I have a dedicated sheet-fed scanner called ScanSnap which makes it a cinch to scan in receipts, documents, tax returns, and anything else. It converts them into PDFs on my computer for easy searching and viewing.

By the way, my office 100% paperless, save for the shreds of paper in my shredder. I don’t even have post-it notes (there’s a program I use that puts notes on my computer’s screen)! Contact me to find out how to make your office paperless and how to get rid of wasteful technology. Be Green!

Extend your laptop’s battery life

With proper care, the expensive lithium-ion batteries in your notebook PCs and other portable gear can run well for many, many years.

Common battery-care mistakes will reduce your batteries’ run times and lead to needless environmental waste and costly early replacement.

Heat is the biggest offender to lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries. It is best to keep the laptop as a whole as cool as possible by avoiding direct sunlight, leaving the laptop on while storing it in a bag, or leaving the battery in while it is plugged in and already at full charge. When your laptop is running on AC power, it’s recommended to remove the battery pack and store it in a cool place, like the refrigerator (in tightly wrapped plastic bag). Low temperatures stall the inevitable and irreversible chemical changes that occur in Li-ion batteries.

In fact, if your laptop is mostly run off household AC power, you can greatly extend the life of its Li-ion battery by following the 40/40 rule: Run the battery down to about 40% of maximum charge then store it at 40 degrees Fahrenheit (in your fridge).
If you can, avoid running Li-ion batteries all the way down. It used to be recommended to run the battery all the way down, but that has changed with the Li-ion batteries.  It is best for the battery to be used between 40-100% of the charge.
Even when you are careful about the battery, your battery will still eventually go bad from normal wear and tear.

Most people purchase spare batteries, but it is best to wait until you really need one for heavy mobile usage or you will have the same problem with it wearing out before it is needed.  If you do have a spare battery, store it in the fridge with about a 40% charge when it’s not in use.

It is important to check the manufactured date on the battery pack when buying a replacement.  It could have been on the shelf for a couple years, which defeats the purpose of buying it.
If carefully taken care of, you can get 300-500 charges from a battery and a happy battery life.
These two excellent articles provide more information on Li-Ion battery life:

• How to prolong lithium-based batteries from BatteryUniversity.com

• The care and feeding of Li-ion batteries from TechRepublic.com

Have a dead laptop battery or two? Give it to me and I will recycle it properly for you! I can also provide replacement batteries for your laptop.

The Future of Computer Storage

Most computers today might have what has traditionally been a mechanical hard drive; a noisy metal rectangle shaped box about 3.5 inches wide that generates a lot of heat and has little metal platters inside that spin about several thousand times a minute and holds your data and computer programs. But there is a new challenger on the block that is taking the computing world by storm, and for very good reason: it is so much better.

Mechanical hard drives are very, very common. Trouble is, they are very susceptible to damage and wear. Yes you may have one that lasts years, but many a hard drive has been found that has “crashed”, that is, the little “arm” inside the drive that sweeps over the metal plates to read your data has either scrapped or seriously damaged the metal platters, taking all of your data with it. In most instances, your data is irrecoverable. They are also incredibly sensitive to movement and a simple accidental drop or bump (even if the computer is off) could potentially kill the drive pretty quickly. A painful lesson for those who do not have a recent (or any) backup of their data.

The new drives, called SSD drives (the SSD stands for Solid State Device), use a special computer chip for storing your data, and these gems bring with them many, many benefits. Some of these are; [1] Using less than a tenth of the power that traditional hard drives use (save on your power bill!), [2] Have absolutely no moving parts that can wear out, which eliminates any chance of mechanical problems, [3] They produce very, very little heat, whereas a mechanical drive can get so warm they are too hot to touch! [4] They can be bumped, dropped, prodded and left in extreme temperature conditions and still be fully functional. In fact, you can do all of the above to an SSD drive while it is turned on and it still won’t be affected, [5] they are really fast. SSD drives can read your data over 1000 times faster than mechanical drives. Yes, that fast.

The only disadvantage with SSD drives is the same for every introduction of a new technology; they can be expensive and offer lower storage capacity than current desktop systems might have. However, all that was months ago, and today, they are more affordable, offer more capacity and they are more popular than ever.

A drive that is ultra reliable (even when the drive eventually goes bad, data rescue is much easier), ultra fast, produces very little to no heat, uses practically no electricity to run and is completely silent. That sounds like the perfect device for your computer. Fast, Reliable and Affordable. Mechanical drives used to make us choose two out of those three options with a compromise on a third option. Today SSD drives offer all three. They work just fine with the new Windows 7 too.

The Truth About Windows 7

Windows 7 will be released soon and bringing with it an injection of much needed new life for the IT world this October. Microsoft did themselves several favors with this upcoming new release. It is everything Windows Vista should have been, and much, much more. I can’t wait.

Windows 7 will be delivering everything that speedy Windows XP was, with the few added features from Windows Vista in a much slimmed down format, and will especially boast more security than Windows XP and faster response than Windows Vista.

The feeling of “this is a good thing” only happens once every so often in the computing world, and with Microsoft feeling slightly disappointed by the sales of Windows Vista, they have poured everything they could into making Windows 7 the new dream product that everyone should try out at least once, and it shows, it really does.

Some of the new improvements include much more realistic system requirements. Windows Vista really needed a lot of grunt to get it working at full speed, but Windows 7 will be much more reasonable, though the more system memory you give it, the more Windows 7 will be able to work for you more efficiently.

Just like Windows Vista, it will come in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. What does this mean? It simply means if you just want to browse the web, send some emails or listen to music, then you can do that. If you need a little extra processing power for image or video editing, playing games or just like to push the limits of your programs, now you will be able to do that too.

Other nifty features include built-in native handwriting recognition, which goes hand in hand with Windows 7’s increased support for touch devices such as tablet and touch screen PCs. Those using netbooks with Solid State Drives, or if you have an SSD in your desktop machine, Windows 7 includes all the latest support to fully take advantage of and self-optimize itself to work best using the new hard drives.

There will also be a built-in Windows XP Mode which will provide near full compatibility with all your existing software and hardware drivers by actually running a virtual “pretend” version of Windows XP at the same time as running Windows 7.

Other great changes include improved boot/start up times and streamlined features to ensure maximum speed and response during your work and play. A few old favorites are removed, but are available separately as part of Microsoft’s Windows Live suite.

So, will Windows 7 be a new challenger to the devoted Mac and Linux market share, or will it be another Windows Vista. Only time will tell, but things are looking like Windows 7 will be good. Really good. It is showing great potential and is proving itself to be a very worthwhile investment for your computer.

For more information on Windows 7, or purchasing a new computer with Windows 7 pre-loaded, or upgrading to Windows 7, please feel free to contact me.

How to Speed Up E-mail

If you use an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, you may notice that over time, it might seem to get slower and slower. This is most likely due to the fact that all of those e-mails you have saved up has slowed the e-mail program down. With attachment sizes regularly topping 5 to 20MB per e-mail, it’s no surprise that this can occur. Here are some tips on keeping your e-mail nice and neat as well as speedy.

For Outlook Users

• Consider saving attachments to a folder on your desktop or inside your Documents folder. Once you do this, you should remove the attachment from the e-mail message itself to keep it slim in size.
• Consider setting up AutoArchive to where it can automatically move or delete older messages out of your main personal folders file into one called “Archive Folders”.
• You can scan through all of your e-mails for large e-mails by using Outlook’s built-in “Large Mail” search filter. This will help you identify all e-mails that are larger than a certain size. I recommend anything larger than 500KB be moved out of Outlook or deleted.
• Regularly empty your Deleted Items folder. You can set Outlook to ask you to empty it automatically every time you close it.

Outlook Express or Windows Mail Users

Consider upgrading to Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 or another program such as Mozilla Thunderbird. Outlook Express does not handle large stores of e-mails very well and can end up causing errors over time.

Webmail Users

If you use a service such as Gmail, Yahoo, MSN Hotmail, your ISPs webmail server, or others, you’re probably okay. However, some webmail accounts have limited space so it would be wise to delete large attachments from your account if you want to ensure that you can keep receiving and sending e-mails. For a great, free webmail service, I highly recommend Google’s Gmail (www.gmail.com). They offer over 7 gigabytes of storage for your e-mails and climbing. You can also set up direct POP3 or IMAP access with an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook, for free.

I am offering a limited time remote support service to overhaul and optimize your e-mail client for $29 per PC/e-mail client*. With this service, I can:

• Perform a scan against your personal folders file to ensure it is error-free.
• Help you identify large e-mail attachments and move them out of your e-mails.
• Set up AutoArchive for you to ensure that you will always have a lean e-mail client.
• Configure other settings such as “Empty Deleted Items on Exit” and your own custom e-mail signature if desired.
• Remove unnecessary toolbars/add-ons in your e-mail client for better performance.
• Defragment and compact your e-mail files for even better performance.

* Note: This service applies to Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Windows Mail, or Outlook Express users only. If you are interested in switching your current e-mail client or webmail over to Outlook, or have any questions regarding this service, please feel free to contact me.

What is Spyware?

Spyware/adware, herein referred to as spyware, is software that covertly gathers user information through the user’s Internet connection. This occurs with or without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Spyware applications are typically bundled as a hidden component of freeware or shareware programs that can be downloaded from the Internet; however, it should be noted that the majority of shareware and freeware applications do not come with spyware.

Unlike viruses and worms, spyware does not usually self-replicate. Like many recent viruses, however, spyware exploits infected computers for commercial gain. Typical tactics furthering this goal include delivery of unsolicited pop-up advertisements; theft of personal information, including financial information such as credit card numbers; monitoring of Web-browsing activity for marketing purposes; or routing of HTTP requests to advertising sites.

Spyware does not directly spread in the manner of a computer virus or worm. Generally, an infected system does not attempt to transmit the infection to other computers. Instead, spyware gets on a system through deception of the user or through exploitation of software vulnerabilities.

Most spyware is installed without users being aware. Since they tend not to install software if they know that it will disrupt their working environment and compromise their privacy, spyware deceives users, either by piggybacking on a piece of desirable software such as a free screen saver, or tricking them into installing it. Some “rogue” spyware programs even masquerade as anti-spyware software, and actually install the spyware they detect and offer to remove, for a price.

The distributor of spyware usually presents the program as a useful utility, e.g.: as a “Web accelerator” or as a helpful software agent. Users download and install the software without immediately suspecting that it could cause harm. For example, Bonzi Buddy, a spyware program targeted at children, claims that:

He will explore the Internet with you as your very own friend and sidekick! He can talk, walk, joke, browse, search, e-mail, and download like no other friend you’ve ever had! He even has the ability to compare prices on the products you love and help you save money! Best of all, he’s FREE!

Once installed, spyware can monitor user activity on the Internet and transmits that information in the background to someone else. Spyware can also gather information about e-mail addresses and even passwords and credit card numbers.

Spyware is similar to a Trojan horse in that users unwittingly install the product when they install something else. A common way to become a victim of spyware is to download certain peer-to-peer file swapping products that are available today. Spyware can infest the computer turning it into a “zombie” that will spoof email usernames and send spam to other computers without the user’s knowledge.

This will usually only occur on a computer with an “Always On” broadband connection since the dialup process can be easily detected by the user. If using a dialup connection, an indication that the computer has active spyware running is its constant attempts to dialup the internet connection. Another good indicator of a computer being infected with spyware is an extended boot up time. Since spyware is designed to do many of its dirty deeds undetected, there will be no reference to it in the system taskbar, or in the Add or Remove Programs dialog.

Aside from the questions of ethics, privacy and it being illegal, spyware steals from the user by using the computer’s memory resources and also by eating bandwidth as it sends information back to the spyware’s home base via the user’s Internet connection. Because spyware is using memory and system resources, it can lead to system crashes or general system instability. Spyware can get so resource consuming that it becomes impossible to use the computer.

Spyware exists as independent executable programs, and therefore has the ability to monitor keystrokes, scan files on the hard drive, snoop other applications such as chat programs or word processors, install other spyware programs, read cookies, change the default home page on the Web browser, and consistently relay this information back to the spyware author who will either use it for advertising or marketing purposes or sell the information to another party.

Licensing agreements that accompany software downloads sometimes warn the user that a spyware program will be installed along with the requested software, but the licensing agreements may not always be read completely because the notice of a spyware installation is often couched in obtuse, hard-to-read legal disclaimers.

Some likely sites that may try to push this spyware to you include free greeting cards, free games, free game cheat codes, free screen savers, free anything, etc. If the site is offering something for free, check it closely, very closely and be absolutely certain of the sites trustworthiness.

Even if all they ask for is your email address, it is entirely possible that they will be selling your address to spammers. This is one place where this old adage really applies, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.

Windows 7 Official Release Date Announced

Yesterday, I posted a blog entry and sent out a newsletter that discussed Windows 7 and speculated that it would be released sometime this fall. Well, turns out my speculation was spot-on, as today, Microsoft has officially announced the release date to be October 22nd, 2009. This date is 3 months ahead of schedule and puts it out just in time for the holiday season. Find out more here.

Finally, A Replacement for Vista and XP

It looks like Windows 7 is coming out very soon! Microsoft released the Release Candidate of Windows 7 last month and usually when they do this, the final release comes out 3-5 months later. I downloaded and installed the Release Candidate for Windows 7, which is publicly available to anyone who wishes to try it out (I do not recommend doing so on production computers).

The download should be available until at least June 2009. The software, however, is time-bomb trial-ware which will disable itself on June 1, 2010.

I installed it on my main desktop computer onto a secondary partition and configured it in such a way that it dual boots both my primary/production Vista OS and my Windows 7 Release Candidate OS. I have been playing around with it for about 2 weeks off and on. I can say that this new operating system will finally be a replacement for Windows Vista and Windows XP. I can tell the difference in performance and usability, even on the same machine, when doing similar tasks in both Vista and 7. It is stable, solid, clean, and feels very fast.  It uses a lot less hardware resources than Vista or even XP and puts all the computing power at the forefront for the user’s disposal rather than using it all up for its own thing. It resembles Vista a bit, and was built on the Vista core, but feels less flashy and more modest.  Applications that run on Vista should run on Windows 7, and hardware that runs Vista will run Windows 7. There are also several compatibility options for Windows XP-era applications as well.

One of the goals of Microsoft was to improve the performance from Vista, and they have addressed this by both increasing the speed of the OS and by developing features that help the user operate more efficiently.
Overall, Microsoft worked on providing a fundamentally secure platform, helping secure anywhere access, protecting users and infrastructure, and helping protect data.

There are many new features to explore, but here is a quick bullet point list of some of the highlights:

• Improved desktop search
• Internet Explorer 8 for improved Internet security
• DirectAccess (automatically connect remote workstations to Windows Server 2008)
• BranchCache (used to sync files between corporate and branch offices)
• Improved BitLocker (drive encryption)
• BitLocker To Go (encrypt portable devices such as USB keys)
• Built-in Biometric support
• Improved taskbar
• Improved device management
• Better compatibility for both hardware and software
• Windows Touch (for touch screen enabled monitors)
• Tight integration with Windows Live online services
• Remote media streaming
• PlayTo
• Windows Media Center improvements

Before the Release Candidate was released, Microsoft fixed over 2,000 bugs that were reported by beta testers (including me). With the success of the Release Candidate, I have already decided that I will be upgrading to Windows 7 on both my production workstation and my laptop as soon as it comes to market. I’m not even worried about application compatibility or hardware compatibility as all of my applications already work fine in the RC and anything that runs in Vista should run in Windows 7 with no problems. My computers will feel like new computers again with the performance, reliability, stability, security enhancements that Windows 7 offers over XP or Vista.

Additional Microsoft Resources

Videos: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/videos.aspx
Windows 7 Home: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx
New Features: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/whats-new.aspx

What exactly is computer memory?

Most computer users are confused between the two types of computer memory. There is the one type of memory that if you increase it’s capacity, you get a dramatic performance boost. Then there is the other type of memory where if you increase that capacity, you get to store a lot more music, photos, videos, and the like. I sometimes get questions like “Will adding all of my photos from my camera onto my computer slow it down?” The answer to that question is no and I will explain why below.

There are two types of computer “memory”. There is RAM (or Random Access Memory) of which the operating system and programs you see on your computer’s screen resides in and there is hard disk drive storage memory. RAM is the “fast” type of memory. This memory works so fast that its speed is measured in nanoseconds. Hard disk drives are the “slow” type of memory. This memory is so slow that its speed is measured in milliseconds. Hard disk drive storage is in the hundreds of gigabytes and it is a permanent storage medium for all your computer’s data (operating system, pictures, music, documents, etc). This type of memory should be thought of as “storage” rather than “memory” because that’s where the terminology can get confusing for some users. The real type of computer “memory” is RAM and it’s the kind that runs all of your programs in real-time until you turn off your computer. That’s why computers take a long time to boot up because it has to pull all the programs off the slow hard disk drive back into fast RAM before you’re able to work on the computer. RAM is volatile memory – all your stuff disappears as soon as the power is turned off.

Now here’s where things get interesting. If you try to load so many programs at once to multitask in, or play a very resource intensive game, database application, or CAD type of program, your computer might actually run out of its fast RAM type of memory. Then guess what happens? It has to use the slower hard drive for additional memory! This is called paging or swapping. It will take those unused running applications that are usually in the background or minimized on your task bar and put those onto the hard disk drive in order to free up RAM for the newly launched application. This is why one of the BEST things you can do to speed up your computer is to add more RAM. For Windows XP, I recommend no less than 2 gigabytes of RAM for today’s common applications. For Windows Vista, I recommend no less than 4 gigabytes of RAM. For the upcoming Windows 7, we will be able to run a very efficient computer with only 2 gigabytes of memory again, just like Windows XP, because Microsoft has really scaled back all the “bloat” that plagues Vista.

So, if you find that launching multiple windows on your screen is very slow, then you just might need a RAM upgrade. Feel free to contact me for a free evaluation of your computer and its RAM upgradeability.