Neuron Computer Services Blog

Pretty much anyone who has dealt with ordering goods and services online or doing online banking has heard of encryption. But what exactly is it and how important is it really?

I would say it is absolutely crucial that any personal information being transmitted online be encrypted to the highest level possible. Modern web browsers such as Mozilla FireFox or Internet Explorer have good encryption and do a good job in letting you know if you’re about to send personally identifiable information to a third party. You should always look out for the yellow lock icon whenever you’re about to send a password, address, or other personally identifiable information. Anything less, you should avoid doing so.

Encryption does not end at web browsing and using services on the Internet, however. It’s also important to have strong encryption for your home or office wireless network. The most common type is WEP, which unfortunately, is not as secure as originally thought. With the right tool, it can be hacked in less than a minute. I recommend at least WPA encryption security, or WPA2 if your wireless router and laptop support it.

A growing trend in data privacy and security is the encryption of storage media such as the hard disk drive or even flash drives. I use a Lexar JumpDrive, which can be configured to have an encrypted, password-protected volume. There is a new flash drive called the IronKey. It not only encrypts and protects your data with a hardware Cryptochip, it can also self-destruct. Should it get in the wrong hands, it will literally fry itself so the data cannot be recovered.

For encryption of your files on your computer, there is a non-profit organization called TrueCrypt that has developed a great, free software program. Their program, TrueCrypt, allows you to encrypt entire drives, folders, or individual files with ease.

Here are some quick tips for making sure your data is safe and protected:

• Make sure the yellow lock is on and visible whenever you send information via a form online.
• Make sure the website address is prefixed with an https:// instead of just plain http://. This denotes Secure Socket Layer (SSL) SSL security.
• If you need to transmit sensitive information or documents via e-mail, you really shouldn’t. Instead use fax, certified postal mail, or a secure file-sharing service such as ShareFile.com.
• Contact me if you have any concerns about the privacy of your sensitive data.

For a great article on on encryption, check out How Stuff Works. It is rather technical, but still offers insights on protecting your information online.

In my previous newsletter regarding my take on Windows Vista, I stated that I was going to wait until Windows 7 comes out in 2010 before building myself a new computer. Well, I went ahead and took the plunge!

Despite the fact that I was going to push my circa-2005 computer into a 5-year stretch, I decided that it was time to upgrade to a Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit capable PC. The main reason in doing so is because I was getting tired of the pokey performance of my Intel Pentium 4 single-core 3GHz processor and limited motherboard capacity of 2 GB of RAM. This is especially evident when browsing media-rich websites like YouTube or a lot of tech-related websites I frequent. Those Flash ads and Flash videos really take a toll on older CPUs. Today’s software is simply more demanding, more “bloated”, and requires the latest hardware; especially dual or quad-core CPUs and tons of memory. With that said, let me introduce you to the computer I built for myself in October:

- Intel Quad-core Q9550 2.83GHz (that’s four 2.83GHz CPUs in one package).
- 8GB Memory
- Two extremely fast WD Raptor 150GB 10,000RPM hard drives in a RAID-1 mirror (this means that if one hard drive fails, I just put in a hot spare and it will rebuild with no data loss. It also means double the read speed for even faster Windows boot up time and program loading).
- Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition. (I have started to recommend going with 64-bit Vista if you’re going to go with a Vista PC. The reason being is that Vista is extremely demanding of memory and with 32-bit versions, you’re limited to 3 to 3.5GB or so and cannot upgrade to anything higher. Most modern computers today can be upgraded to 8GB or more. I consider 4GB the bare minimum for Vista, and with memory prices so low, it’s actually affordable).
- nVidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB Video card. (Considered one of the best budget graphics cards you can buy today).

The computer I built myself scores a 5.9 in the Windows Experience Index benchmark.

So what is this Windows Experience Index score? It’s a rating system developed by Microsoft to benchmark your computer. A score of 5.9 is the highest score you can get currently. Microsoft has stated they may increase the maximum score in the near future, but for now, if you want the best Vista computer money can buy, make sure it scores 5.9 across the board. Anything less than 5.0 for a Vista desktop PC or 3.0 for a Vista laptop should probably get upgraded in RAM or video. If that’s not possible, then a new PC or a downgrade to XP would be ideal.

The best part of it all, is my computer will easily be able to handle Windows 7 when it comes out in late 2009 or early 2010 simply because of the fact that Microsoft is working hard to minimize the “bloat” in their operating system. They are refining the operating system kernel and calling it “MinWin”. This means faster boot times, faster program loads, and easier ways to work with the computer. The future is looking good for PCs.

By the way, I’m a PC!

Ever since I upgraded my computer to Windows 64-bit, as well as QuickBooks 2009 up from 2007, I’ve experienced a lot of lock-ups with QuickBooks. More specifically, these lock-ups would occur whenever I tried reconciling accounts, saving an invoice or estimate as a PDF, or sending an invoice via E-mail from within QuickBooks. Upon further troubleshooting, I discovered that the QuickBooks PDF Converter “printer” was erroring out with the document stuck in its queue. It was also setting itself as a default printer as well. Needless to say this was extremely annoying and NOTHING worked…until now.

I tried everything initially. Reloaded the PDF Converter numerous times by deleting it and letting QB rebuild it, upgraded to 2009 R2 web patch, and a bunch of other miscellaneous things. I was about to pick up the phone and call QuickBooks for $79 dollars a month. How lame! It’s a rip-off to pay a software vendor for support when it’s their own software that has bugs and doesn’t work! Googling like crazy, I finally came across this Knowledge Base article from Intuit’s site:

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/1007856

I was finally able to fix this annoying issue by following the steps to make the PDF Converter compatible with settings in a 64-bit OS environment. I’ve copied and pasted the exact steps below for our future reference:

Windows Vista:

1. Make sure that you are logged in as a user with administrator rights.
2. Click the Windows button, select Control Panel, and click Printers.
3. Right-click the QuickBooks PDF Convertericon and select Run as administrator and Properties.
4. Click Continue.
5. Select the Ports tab, then click the Add Port… button.
6. Select Local Port and click the New Port… button.
7. Enter PDF1 for the new port name and click OK. Close the Printer Ports window.
8. Ensure that the PDF1 port is selected in the Ports list.
9. Select the Advanced tab.
10. Select the Spool print documents radio button to make the options below it clickable.
11. Clear (uncheck) the box labeled Enable advanced printing features.
12. Select the Print directly to printer radio button again.
13. Ensure that Amyuni Document Converter 300 is selected in the Driver: drop-down arrow
14. Click the Apply button, and then click OK.
15. Important: In order for the changes to take effect, you must restart your computer.
    Reboot your computer and then try to print, email, or create a pdf from QuickBooks.

64-bit computing is GREAT, but beware of pesky little issues like these. Mental note to self: Whenever upgrading to 64-bit, make sure ALL hardware is compatible (i.e. have compatible 64-bit versions of drivers) AND make sure that software “printers” like PDF converters are also compatible. There are three other printers loaded on my system: Dell 3110cn Color Laser Printer (networked and fully 64-bit compliant - works great), Adobe PDF (from Acrobat 9 which is fully 64-bit compatible), and Microsoft XPS Document Write from Office 2007 (I never use it but it does work fine).

Now I can get back to business!

I am currently in the process of building myself a new server. This server will primarily serve as a file server as well as a learning platform for Windows Server 2008 and other various utilities such as Microsoft CRM 4.0, System Center, and others that come with the Microsoft Action Pack Subscription. I’m a Microsoft Partner so I was able to pass a test and literally be able to purchase tens of thousands of dollars worth of Microsoft software for just $299, all legally.

My original intention was to build my server with six identical 750GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATAII hard drives in a RAID-5, with 100GB of the 3.5TB partitioned as the C: drive. However, the RAID array never seemed to initialize properly. I had left the IMSM BIOS utility overnight for 2 whole days with it saying “Initialize”. Finally, I lost patience and gave up on it - especially after I had read some forum comments about Intel’s Matrix RAID slowness in initialization. I immediately tried setting up a RAID-1 array of two of the 750GB hard drives. The initilization was instant and it was immediately available and ready with a status of “Normal”. I then decided to RAID-5 the remaining four hard drives. Again, the initialization was instant and it was immediately available and ready with a status of “Normal”. At this point, I probably should have deleted the arrays and tried the full six disk RAID-5 array creation once more. But, I went ahead and went with the Server 2008 install. The down side to this RAID-1 and RAID-5 mixed setup is I basically “wasted” 1.5 TB of potential space, as two of the 750 GB hard drives have to be dedicated to the RAID-1 mirroring and the RAID-5 parity (although parity is actually distributed across ALL disks, equaling approximately 750GB total for parity data).

The next step was the installation of Server 2008 Standard Edition, x64. I have 8 GB of RAM installed on a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R motherboard with the Intel P35 chipset and a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz CPU. The hardware is definitely not server-grade, but it works well for a budget server and so far everything has been installed and running without a hitch. I’m fully going to rely on the RAID-1 and RAID-5 for my nearline backups and an online backup subscription to MozyPro for the more serious business data. This server will finally be the central hub for all of my data - photos, music, videos, documents, e-mail, and business-related data.

So the moral of the story here with Intel Matrix RAID is this: It’s great for a low-cost, budget PC or server but it definitely lacks when it comes to true RAID benefits and performance. A true RAID solution would have, at a minimum, support for up to 8 drives in a RAID-5, battery backup, and onboard dedicated RAM for RAID caching. These RAID solutions costs upwards of $500 for an add-on card alone. The Intel Matrix RAID costs $0 when it’s already included in certain motherboards.

Computers and the Internet have made all of us incredibly productive. Long gone are the days of writing letters on paper with a pen. With typing speeds on average of 30-45 words per minute, computer users can type up an e-mail and send it off far quicker than mailing a letter via the United Slow Postal Service. With such a dramatic increase in productivity with computers, it may be hard to imagine even faster ways to get things done and do things on a computer. Well, in this blog post, I’m going to talk about several ways to increase your productivity with your computer.

Use the Keyboard More
Moving your hand constantly from the keyboard to the mouse is a time-waster. For example, filling out a form online where it has fields that ask you to fill in your name, e-mail, and other information can quickly be navigated with the Tab key instead of using the mouse to click on each individual field. Here are some other great keyboard shortcuts to speed up your productivity:

Alt+tab: Hold down the Left Alt key and tap on the Tab key to quickly navigate the open applications that are running on your computer. Let go of the Left Alt key to switch to that application. The slow method: use your mouse to click on the application on the bottom task bar.

Windows Key+M: Need to quickly see your desktop screen? Hit the Windows Key (it has a logo of Microsoft Windows) and then M to minimize all the open windows on your screen. The slow method: clicking that minimize button one after the other with the mouse.

Ctrl+N: Need to make a new document, e-mail, or web browser window? Just hit Ctrl+N to create a new whatever.

Alt+F4: Close a bunch of windows and applications that are open by hitting Alt+F4 repeatedly. The slow method: clicking all those X buttons one after the other with the mouse.

Ctrl+Enter: If you use Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail, you can send off e-mails faster by hitting Ctrl+Enter instead of clicking the send button with the mouse. You can also do Ctrl+R for replying to an e-mail, or even Ctrl+F to forward.

For a more comprehensive list of virtually all available keyboard shortcuts, check out the following knowledge base article on Microsoft’s site.

Go Dual Monitor, or more
The more you see on the screen, the more information is there to help you get things done even quicker. Before, it was all about getting the bigger sized monitor so you can have the biggest desktop screen space. Nowadays, however, it’s not uncommon for businesses and individuals to have dual monitor setups. Personally, I started out with a 24-inch Dell widescreen monitor that sports a 1920×1200 resolution. I have tons of desktop screen space. However, I quickly outgrew it so I added another 17-inch monitor. The result is I am now, statistically speaking, up to 30% more productive with two monitors than with just one. For more information on this great productivity gaining idea, check out this article.

How about going Triple Monitor?!

Find & Open Programs Faster With Launchy
This great, free software lets me use the keyboard to launch any program I want that’s in my Start Menu or Quick Launch bar. All I have to do is hit Alt+Spacebar (by default; it can be changed to any keyboard combination you want), then type in a partial phrase of the program I want to launch. For example, I can type “quic” and right away it shows QuickBooks, which I hit Enter to launch. I don’t even have to worry about spelling. Wait a few more seconds and other program suggestions will come up. This increased my productivity tenfold because I no longer have to dig around endless Start Menu entries to find the one obscure program I’m looking for. Check it out here: www.launchy.net. Don’t forget to check out the Tips & Tricks of the program as well.

Do you have ideas for increasing productivity on the computer? Please feel free to share them with me!

In this post, I’m going to talk about one of the most hated things about computers and the Internet — spam. Spam, also called Junk Email, hits our inbox daily whether we like it or not.

Most of you already have some kind of anti-spam mechanism, whether it’s by hosting with me, using a big ISP’s e-mail, or using a free webmail service like Yahoo! or Google. These all have server-side spam filtering. However, anti-spam is not a perfect science, so some junk mail still slips through. Below, I have listed seven different tips on reducing or circumventing spam.

• Don’t use any “auto-preview” features in your mail client. Examples of this are the Reading Pane in Outlook 2003/2007 or the Preview Pane in Outlook Express/Windows Mail. These should be turned off as they auto-load the e-mail. Most spam is easily identifiable by its sender and subject, which is okay to view.
• Don’t post your e-mail address in plain text on the Internet. Examples include having it on your website (use a contact form instead), posting in forums, chat dialogs, or blogs. Having your e-mail in plain text can easily be found by spam robots that crawl the Internet to harvest e-mails for spamming. Spammers are very sophisticated with this, much like how Google is sophisticated with web search.
• Don’t unsubscribe. Some spam e-mails have an “opt-out” link that simply verifies that you’re a real, active e-mail user who opened their junk e-mail message. Legitimate newsletters, however, usually have good privacy policies, are e-mails that you know you signed up for, and are from trusted, known sources.
• Don’t open suspicious/unknown attachments. Spam e-mails may come with an attachment that looks like it’s a picture or a text file of some sort. This is usually malicious in nature and will usually infect your system with a Trojan that gathers even more e-mail from your own address book. A good anti-virus solution usually circumvents this very well. In fact, AVG AntiVirus 8.0 does this very well. It has plugins that scan incoming emails for these malicious attachments and will either silently take care of it for you, or prompt you to do something about it.
• Don’t open spam e-mails with pictures. The pictures are downloaded from a spammer’s server on the Internet. This lets them track you and see that you opened their message. It’s a welcome mat for even more spam.
• Use a throw-away e-mail address. If you regularly find yourself having to sign up on various websites just to gather information on something, download something, or get something, it may be a good idea to have a “throw-away” e-mail address. This is an address that you can use for sign-ups only and it would be separate from your business or personal address that you only give to friends or family. Free e-mail services such as Google’s Gmail, Yahoo, or MSN Hotmail are easy to sign up for and use. On the more advanced side, I have my own domain “neuroncomputers.com”. So what I do is I create some random, jargon e-mail address like signups392@neuroncomputers.com and use that for awhile. When I see that it gets hit with tons of spam, I simply delete it and create a new one called signups405 and so on so forth.
• And the #1, perfect anti-spam solution is…Don’t Use Email! Of course that would be impossible since email has really become a staple in business and in our personal lives. The good news is, as technology gets better and better, so does the fight against spam. From my own observations with clients and how their email systems are set up, I’ve seen first hand that approximately 98% of all emails have been effectively blocked and discarded as spam. So if you’re actually getting 5-10 spam e-mails per day, that’s only a small fraction of the 2% of e-mails that are not being blocked. I’d certainly hate to have thousands of spam e-mails in my inbox!

If you have any spam-blocking/prevention ideas, questions, or comments, please feel free to share them with me, and I’ll be sure to add your comments to my blog and in my next newsletter edition.

A lot of people are confused about the transition from Windows XP to Windows Vista, especially since Microsoft has really pushed for Vista despite a rocky, well-published start. In this blog post, I’m going to talk about this very situation and give you my honest take on the whole deal with Windows Vista. Read on!

My Take On Windows Vista

For starters, it has always been my policy to stay away from any new operating system release until at least the first service pack (SP) has been released for that particular OS. I did this back in the days of Windows 98, 2000, and even XP. I held onto Windows 2000 the longest, for at least 4 years, well beyond the time frame of Windows XP’s service pack 1 release. I can even recall how people complained about Windows XP’s flaws and shortcomings when it was first released. I’ve seen reviews of the “new Fisher Price toy operating system that does not offer any new, exciting features over Windows 2000″. However, Windows XP is an exception to Microsoft’s line of operating systems because of the fact that it has been the operating system of choice for over 7 years now (it was released in 2001). As such, it has been patched, re-patched, updated, and is currently at SP3 level. The result of 7 years of Patch Tuesday updates has brought on a rock-solid operating system that millions of users have come to love and appreciate. As an IT tech, computer gamer, and computer hobbyist, it still remains my operating system of choice for myself, friends, family, and clients. I currently run Windows XP on my primary desktop PC as well as my “Tech Station” PC that I use to backup hard drives and serve out files on my network.

My Dell XPS m1330 Laptop Came Preloaded with…

I purchased my new Dell laptop back in November of 2007 preloaded with, you guessed it, Windows Vista. The first service pack was not yet released for Vista at this time, so I actually did break my own golden rule of “wait for SP1″. However, since I am an IT technician, I have to stay on top of the game and keep my knowledge and skills sharp with the latest software and hardware technologies. This was the only reason I chose to get my laptop preloaded with Vista. Despite all of the negative publicity surrounding Vista in terms of performance, stability, and most importantly, compatibility, I personally did not experience any problems whatsoever with my Vista laptop. However, with other clients’ Vista computers, the most common problems I faced were:

• Printer compatibility: Very, very rocky in the beginning. It was nearly impossible to get even a 6 month old printer to work with Vista as drivers were not released. Microsoft had completely changed the printing subsystem, so as a result, it broke a lot of applications’ printing capabilities as well as printers.
• Software compatibility: While Vista does have a “compatibility mode” feature where you can make programs run as if it were installed on Windows XP, for example, they were still flaky and unstable in some cases.
• Learning curve: The user interface of Vista has changed dramatically from XP. It took time for some clients to adjust to the interface. While you can turn off a lot of Vista’s new user interface features, and make it look practically like XP, it’s still a different and unfamiliar way of doing things.
• Performance: Forget about running Vista on less than 2 GB of RAM. You can also forget about running Vista’s Aero interface on a slower, older graphics card. Memory requirements for Windows XP are recommended to be at least 128 MB (512 for even better performance) whereas Vista recommends 1 GB. It’s such a huge leap in memory requirements, but luckily memory upgrades have become dirt cheap.

The Future of Windows XP

Microsoft officially stopped selling Windows XP on June 30, 2008. You can no longer walk into a retail store to pick up a copy of Windows XP. However, the good news is, OEMs like Dell or me can still provide copies of Windows XP on preloaded systems. You can purchase a Dell with a valid Windows Vista license and legally “downgrade” to Windows XP and the computer will come shipped with XP preloaded and ready to go. The same holds true if you want to purchase a PC from me, although there won’t be a Vista software DVD included - only Windows XP.

Windows XP patches and support will continue until the end of 2014, even though sales will officially end, regardless of Dell, OEM, etc, at the end of 2009.

So, in short, we have until Q4 2009 to get our hands on Windows XP but our investment in Windows XP is good ’til 2014.

The Bottom Line: Should We Embrace Windows Vista?

My short answer to that is yes, but only for very specific situations. If you are running brand new hardware and have business applications that do support Vista, then it would be an ideal choice. If you have a relatively new Windows XP computer that has absolutely no problems, then there is certainly no need to upgrade to Vista. You wouldn’t be missing out on anything if you chose not to go to Vista in that case.

In my recent experience with working with Windows XP and loading updated third party software, I have noticed some programs actually get broken with their latest update, since they were “fixed” or “optimized” for Vista. This has happened in some cases with clients’ computers and networks where business applications that were once rock-solid on Windows XP became very buggy and broken due to updates tailored for Vista compatibility. Ouch!

As for me, I love the fact that I’m running Vista on my laptop because it is great with managing battery life, networking/wireless connectivity in multiple locations, and has gotten much, much more stable with SP1. However, I’m not in a hurry to switch my main desktop PC over to Vista anytime soon. In fact, I have decided to hang on to my current setup, as-is, until at least 2010, when Windows 7 is slated to come out. At that time, I will upgrade with totally new hardware that would be more compatible and in line with the requirements of the next generation operating system.

ABBOTT: Super Duper Computer Store…. can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks. I’m setting up an office in my den and I’m thinking
about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO:! No, the name’s Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name’s Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don’t know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write
proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let’s just say
I’m sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I
need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue ‘W’.
COSTELLO: I’m going to click your blue ‘w’ if you don’t start with some
straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I
can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That’s right. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO: What’s bundled with my computer ?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn’t it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)

ABBOTT: Super Duper Computer Store…. can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Just click on ‘START’…

Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates is stepping down from daily operations at the software maker, to focus on his philanthropic efforts. Go here to see a cool time line of all the major events in the life of Microsoft, the company he co-founded in 1975, and in the Gates’ life.

Do you regularly backup your data? I cannot stress the importance of regular backups simply because it’s not a matter of if your computer or server’s hard drive will fail, it’s a matter of when. Also of equal importance are regular backup checks. Do you really know if your backups are actually backing up? Check out this great article, courtesy of pcmag.com.