Computer Doctor of Hampden

With prices dropping for desktops and laptops and increasing demand for more disc space for our expanding digital media ecosystem, one glaring side effect is the increase in hard drive failures.

In our computer service center, we see the results everyday. My explanation to customers is hard drives may go out with whimper or a bang. A whimpering drive may display symptoms like, slow boot times, freeze ups, diminished performance and unexplained shut downs. The bang is rather self explanatory. Upon start up you PC or Mac will not get very far before telling you the drive cannot be found or mounted.

Unlike most of the components of a computer, hard drives are mechanical devices with moving parts that wear out or break over time. They are also very susceptible to shock, such as if you drop  or significantly jar a running computer.

While shock damage can happen at any time, mechanical failures are more likely in the first few months, as manufacturing flaws show up. The good thing about that situation is that the computer manufacturer’s warranty is in effect. Mechanical failures however can happen at any time. As the drive ages the bearing that the spindle rides on become a key point of failure, while ball bearings have been phased out since ~2006 the new fluid dampened design is also prone to failure over time as the fluid even though sealed loses it’s viscosity. This is also a concern for temperature variations. If you leave your laptop in freezing conditions over night the hard drive fluid chills and thickens much like motor oil does. If not allowed to warm up the increased resistance can lead to immediate failure or weaken the drive and hasten it’s demise.

Power surges, either from lightning or a faulty power supply, can damage electronic components, both on the external circuit board and in the internal amplifier circuits. The failure may then show up either immediately or several weeks later. While laptop power adapters and the better quality desktop power supplies include some surge protection, we advise you always use a surge protector with your computer.

We also advise you to always use good quality power supplies and power adapters. For many years now we have warned against very cheap desktop power supplies, which have high failure rates, and which when they fail can allow a surge of high voltage to reach your computer. The same applies to some of the cheap laptop power adapters which you can find on sale on the internet, or even (at much higher prices) in many well-known chain stores.

Finally, heat kills hard drives, or at lest greatly increases the failure rate – their operating temperature should not exceed 50°C (about 120°F). Many laptop computers get far too hot (due to poor cooling systems and design or components, such as some nVidia graphics chips, that produce excessive heat) and this heat can be fatal for your hard drives. Our advice is to always try and use your portable computer on a hard, flat surface. On most models the cooling fan pulls in air from the bottom, if this port is blocked temperatures rise quickly.

One way to think about your hard drive health is this, if you own a car and think it will last forever and never have it looked at and it fails, well go buy another car. However with a hard drive if you ignore the signs or do not take action as the computer ages to check the health of your drive, without proper back up you run the risk of either losing your data or if you are lucky, paying for a data recovery.

When you find yourself in a situation where your hard drive is showing symptoms or for peace of mind if your system is over 3-4 years in age feel free to contact us and we can do a comprehensive hardware analysis for your system and review your back up plan for the inevitable epic fail of your hard drive.

We also specialize in PC/MAC data recovery. Please! Back up now!

Tablet computing the shape of things to come

With the announcement of Microsoft Surface the hand is writing on the wall, or in this case tablet. What once was a market dominated by desktop computers and subsequently a shift to laptops is being driven, no stampeded towards a new form factor… the tablet. Why the big change? Economics…Let’s put a small affordable device in the hands of everyone and I mean everyone. From toddlers to senior citizens the simplification of the UI is what makes the device work. No left or right clicking, no deep file hierarchy to navigate, minimal customization and an ever tightening sphere of application development and distribution. The power user’s will continue to cry foul as they see these draconian controls start to migrate from mobile to desktop platforms.The goal is clear, just like you need a $20,000 machine to diagnose your car, operating system developer’s want us to stay out from under the hood. The app store is the 21st century software delivery method of choice, my Dad brought this to my attention a few years ago as we reveled in the glory of the original iPad. Think about it, why just sell the device once and call it good. Everyone has or knows someone who has a 10 year old Dell tower running XP. Granted it probably cost $1,000 that long ago, but Dell got the money one time, done, fini, end of sale except for the kick back from bundling Norton Antivirus. Flash forward to today. What if we came up with a device that more folks could afford, they could operate with minimal instruction and we sell them all the software for it, but wait we will sell you all your music, videos, manage your pictures and make printed books and magazines obsolete and control the store that sells it, monitor the delivery system and make sure the programs don’t screw up your system. Talk about recurring revenue! That is why the app store is now on the Mac OSX Lion platform, and it will be baked into every future version of  Windows. Microsoft has been playing catch up with this new monetization strategy for awhile, Apple has beat them to the punch for all things consumer for awhile, think Zune vs iPod, Windows Phone vs.iPhone and now the latest battle ground, the tablet. With iPad and even Android (google) having such a head start and fan base Redmond is fighting an uphill battle. What makes this new Windows device appealing is the integration with existing software and a somewhat familiar UI, once you peel away the Metro interface. Microsoft has the largest desktop computing footprint on the planet, period, hands down. With that user base it really is their game to loose. Is it possible that as data migrates to the cloud and the information itself can be accessed, manipulated and shared from any operating system that how we get to the data will be less important? The kids that are playing with the iPads today are going to be less inclined to do cartwheels when being forced to use less friendly and less intuitive GUIs and operating systems. Touch and voice are going to replace the keyboard and mouse sooner than you think in the retail consumer realm. How we learn to embrace this change and figure out how we can leverage this up and coming paradigm shift to enhance our life is something we all need to consider. One thing for certain, we are going to see more and more amazing advances that have the potential to simplify acces to media and data, while lowering the bar in terms of technical know how and knowledge required to appeal to the broadest user base which is…Everyone.

Deep in the bowels of your iMac

Hard drives fail. All of them…eventually.

I love my iMac, It is a finely crafted piece of aluminum that greets me everyday with a beautiful bright glow and serves me well, even when I force it to run windows on occasion. For many it is the central hub of their home and/or professional computing universe. If you are not backing up your system with Time Machine you are really playing with fire. For the cost of a cheap terabyte external drive (usually less than $100) you can recover from the inevitable hard drive crash, quickly and with less expense.

For those that like to throw caution to the wind let me paint an all too familiar scenario. “Good afternoon Computer Doctor, how can I help you? Oh hi, I have a problem with my mac, for the last couple months it has been really slowing down, updates don’t work and every once in awhile it freezes up, this morning it won’t start at all. All I see is a grey screen with a folder with a question mark. In response I ask if they have a back up. No, I have been meaning to get one of those, I really should one of these days.

From there it can go from bad to worse quickly. Replacing the hard drive on an iMac requires removing that glorious screen and digging deep into the heart of the system, this in itself is not for the faint of heart… Once replaced if there was a back up, the system could be restored to the last place in time where it was functioning correctly and all your pictures, movies, iTunes documents will be right back where you left them.

Without a backup, What can happen if your lucky, is a piecemeal recovery which can be very time consuming, followed by a new installation of OSX and then all your apps. That is if the drive is intact enough to extract data. If it isn’t there are techniques to coax the data out and some very expensive recovery solutions that require a clean room and a pocket full of cash.

If you are in the greater Bangor, Hampden region and are experiencing crashes, freeze ups, shut downs, grey screens and the “spinning beach ball of death” Call or email me @ Computer Doctor of Hampden, sooner than later and we can get your beloved iMac back in great shape. If it is running fine, please stop on the way home and pick up an external drive. You will thank me later!

Let’s face it, the data on our computers for most of us is much more valuable than the computer itself. At my business Computer Doctor of Hampden we do data recovery on a daily basis. There are many possible points of data corruption, the ones I see most frequently in order of frequency are:

1. Deletion/corruption secondary to computer virus infections.
2. Logical corruption of data from a failing hard drive.
3. Mechanical hard drive failure.
4. User error, either deleting or formatting files or partitions.
5. Raid 0 failure, either disc or controller.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (Independent) Disks.

On most situations you will be using one of the following four levels of RAIDs.

• RAID 0
• RAID 1
• RAID 5
• RAID 10 (also known as RAID 1+0)

This article explains the main difference between these raid levels along with an easy to understand diagram.

In all the diagrams mentioned below:

• A, B, C, D, E and F – represents blocks
• p1, p2, and p3 – represents parity

RAID LEVEL 0

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 0.

• Minimum 2 disks.
• Excellent performance ( as blocks are striped ).
• No redundancy ( no mirror, no parity ).
• Don’t use this for any critical system.

RAID LEVEL 1

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 1.

• Minimum 2 disks.
• Good performance ( no striping. no parity ).
• Excellent redundancy ( as blocks are mirrored ).

RAID LEVEL 5

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 5.

• Minimum 3 disks.
• Good performance ( as blocks are striped ).
• Good redundancy ( distributed parity ).
• Best cost effective option providing both performance and redundancy. Use this for DB that is heavily read oriented. Write operations will be slow.

RAID LEVEL 10

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 10.

• Minimum 4 disks.
• This is also called as “stripe of mirrors”
• Excellent redundancy ( as blocks are mirrored )
• Excellent performance ( as blocks are striped )
• If you can afford the dollar, this is the BEST option for any mission critical applications (especially databases).

As if there aren’t enough scams out there, here is another one to add to the mix. There are reports of residential and business users receiving call stating they are from a “global it center” and reporting that you have been sending out viruses and it is your responsibility to stop doing this. It is a pretty elaborate scam that hooks folks in by building fear and panic.

One of the claims they use is that your “Windows Warranty” has expired and because you let it expire, this is causing your problems and you are required to fix it”.

It appears these cold calls originate in India and are routed through US numbers. If you think you may have been a victim of one of these scams please contact your local better business bureau and credit card company.

If you have a question about the benefits of any performance , security or extended warrant programs. Feel free to give me a call at our office 207.862.7019 or email doc@oldersite.hampdencomputer.com

DV 6000 born to fail

The prices are way down on laptops and the failure rate is rising just as fast. The cost cutting is evident, I have seen sturdier plastic used in KFC sporks. They flex, snap and shed their bits of plastic and no one blinks. “Well I did get it at Walmart for $198.00 on Black Friday”

Thats just great, and if your only use for your laptop is to surf the web, have at it. Here are the caveats, cheap laptops have cheap hard drives, if you live on the web and all your data is stored in a cloud by all means run fast and cheap and replace it every 14-16 months.

If you use outlook or quickbooks or have a huge iTunes collection and 137 gigs of pictures of your uncle Wally’s trip to Disney in 1993, then please back it all up!

Back it up now and in 2 places, send it to the ether using one of the online back up services and then put it on a local external hard drive and keep it where your laptop doesn’t live.

You have been warned…

As a Computer repair specialist in the Bangor Maine area, I find myself in need of specific parts for PC’s and Mac’s and given the urgency that customers want their system’s back, I utilize every resource to get the right part ASAP. This brings me at times to Craigslist. I want to preface this by saying, not all craigslist deals are bogus, but I have found a disturbing trend of Spam generating specifically from replies I have made to craigslist. The ones I have seen are primarily sent from Russia and because I am responding to computer related sales, the Spam I am getting is for discount software. The way I was able to discern the Spam was coming from Craigslist specifically is actually the solution to the problem.

I started my online adventures in technology at a time when the internet for commercial use was in it’s infancy, so, yes right after Al Gore invented it! I was screaming across the internet at blazing speeds on my 14.4k dial up connection on my way too expensive 386/16 machine with 4 megabytes of ram, that was when someone actually published a hard copy yellow pages of the internet. As time passed I eventually opened up a yahoo email in 1997 and still have it to this day, it is now the repository of tens of thousands of Spam emails as over time I relegated this account as my garbage email address. Any online forum or inquiry that doesn’t have something to do with someone or some entity that I know or do business with gets replied to with my yahoo address.

This kind of tactic has kept my main email addresses on my own domain relatively spam free, not to say I never see an ad for a “genuine rolex” or queries on my need for Viagra or Cialis, which thankfully at 46 I am not in the market for. No I still get the occasional offer of ex Soviet block single ladies looking for Mr. Right in America, but in comparison my daily Spam intake is minimal. Out of haste one day I made the faux pas of replying to a Craigslist ad using my “good” email address. It took me a few days to make the connection that my new found techno based russian originated spam was a direct result of my craigslist responses, how I nailed it was to start another throw away account on my own domain. I quickly set up craigslist@oldersite.hampdencomputer.com and responded to a few ads, within 24 hours I had no replies to my inquires on items for sale, but started receiving  the russian based software selling spam 3-4 times a day.

My advise is to create your own “throw away” email specifically for correspondence with unknown entities. Save yourself the hassle of a spam filled inbox and possibly risking a virus attack. When you do make a connection with someone for a purchase here is what Craigslist recommends

• Insist on a public meeting place like a cafe
• Do not meet in a secluded place, or invite strangers into your home
• Be especially careful when buying/selling high value items
• Tell a friend or family member where you’re going
• Take your cell phone along if you have one
• Consider having a friend accompany you
• Trust your instincts

Not that we need another label to identify something we already know, I ran across this little article and thought I would share with you. As a computer technician and business owner, I see the impact that technology has in regards to enhancing productivity as well as the frustration  when things “don’t work as they should”. The millennial generation which has grown up with computers have a much greater understanding and sometimes more patience when dealing with the benefits and shortcomings of technology. As the “baby boomer’s” and to a lesser extent “Gen Xer’s” are forced to embrace technology either by changing job descriptions or peer and family pressure I see the frustration when things go awry and are not as intuitive as they should be. I have battled with tech support, usually advocating for a warranty claim for my customers, and  can see how someone without a technical background and an extreme level of patience would hang up and throw in the towel when faced with technology failures. Is there a solution? No, but realizing we are all in the same boat is a start. Don’t forget to BACK UP  YOUR DATA!

<Slow boot times, continually crashing PC’s and annoying tech support people all add to our overwhelming sense of Computer Stress Syndrome in today’s digital society, according to a new study.

We are all digital-dependents now, whether we embrace tech or reject it like modern-day Luddites.

As such we find ourselves “increasingly overwhelmed and upset with technical glitches and problems in [our] daily lives,” says a new report called “Combating Computer Stress Syndrome.”

Computer Stress increases

The report was based on a survey of over 1000 American communications workers by a Customer Experience Board created by the Chief Marketing Officer Council.

It pointed towards “frustrating, complex computers and devices, technical failures, viral infections, and long waits to resolve support issues” as the primary reasons for computer related stress in workers.

The study concluded that: “The reality is that numerous, persistent problems are troubling most computer users, creating unnecessary anguish and anxiety as a result.

“Digitally dependent users are getting fed up and frustrated with the current state of computer related stress, and clearly looking for a better way to address and reduce it.

“Users face a continuous state of technical anxiety and challenge such as setting up new computer products, keeping up with software upgrades and migrating to new applications and operating systems, as well as dealing with malware infections, web threats, identity theft and more.”>

With the yet to be seen onslaught of hurricane Irene pending, as folks scramble for bottles of water and stashes of Butterfinger’s to ride out the storm, it might be time to consider a back up plan. While we may not be able to have a back up or do over for everything in life, isn’t it nice to know we can at least safeguard our digital memories and important data files. On a daily basis I see customers walk in with a dead laptop looking like their favorite dog just got hit by a car. After a bit of small talk and background information I get to the key question ” how is your data backed up”? Usually what follows is a long sigh…a look of despair and the inevitable answer, nothing is backed up.

With luck and some level of skill I can usually save the day and pull years of birthday parties, summer vacations and countless tax returns out of the firm grasp of a dying or infected hard drive. But the other option is the rebuilding of your hard drive in a clean room environment at the cost of hundreds to thousands of dollars, or even worse, that cherished picture of your crazy uncle who since passed away doing something incredibly stupid is gone for good.

So before the category three or tropical storm hits you here are some basics points to ponder.

• Computer don’t like water.
• If it gets wet leave it alone and bring it to someone who knows what they are doing, never mind the blow dryer  and the finger crossing. Don’t turn it on!
• Have a back up of all your critical data.
• Have another back up in a different location, either online or stored somewhere else.
• Remember your hard drive will fail, not if , but when and as computers get cheaper, hard drives fail sooner. I see it daily.
• If your system or primary backup system involves a raid array, make sure you have a back up system that doesn’t.
  

  Hurricane Irene is coming to soak your data

Having recently been diagnosed with tendonitis in both arms and wrists, I am trying to implement some changes to make working more comfortable. Here is some information to help promote work comfort.

Those include your posture, the way you are using the mouse and keyboard, and monitor position.

Frequent inaccurate use of a mouse when working on the computer can lead to a condition called as repetitive strain injury or mouse arm.

Arm pain includes tingling, numbness, and weakness in the lower arm and hands.

These signs are due to overstressing of the tendons and nerves due to repetitive motion.

What cause arm pain?

Constant clicking with the computer mouse and abnormal hand position can cause damage to the tissues and in the long run which can lead to inflammation of the nerve fibers. The mouse click movements on its own can also trigger pain.

How to reduce arm pain?

• Following ergonomic working methods can prevent RSI.
• Restrict the use of mouse and use keyboard commands, since there are many program functions that can be executed with keyboard commands.
• To perform the double click action there is the middle mouse button or the scroll wheel.
• The size of the mouse should be appropriate and is suitable for your hand.
• Use a wrist rest. They can guard against inflammation.
• Padded rests for the ball of the hand can also reduce the strain on your arm.
• Some other alternate input options like voice recognition or graphic tables can reduce arm pain.
• Regularly perform stretching exercises, natural arm and hand movements and also take frequent work breaks help keep the arm musculature relaxed.
• Use of forearm support can reduce supper body pain and prevent musculoskeletal disorders. This is a good solution for those who use computer for more than 20 hours per week.
• Maintain an erect posture to reduce pain in your arm.
• Adjust the arm support and work surface height so that forearms are parallel to the floor.
• Proper positioning of your keyboard and mouse can minimize the pain.
• Your chair height should be arranged in a fashion so that your thighs are parallel to the floor.
• When you are sitting and working in front of the computer, don’t twist your body.
• Keep your back at a right angle when your arm rest is at the right height.

One of the best things I have found is to get up and move. I have the benefit and curse of being self employed, so theoretically I can get up and move whenever I want. Sounds good doesn’t it? Well I tend to get engrossed in what I am doing and the time flies by. So I am now setting a timer on my computer to go off every 45 minutes to remind me it’s time to take a break, walk around and stretch.

I was happy to hear that I am not yet diagnosed with arthritis, come on I am too young for that, right? But this chronic pain really stinks, I thought I could rehab myself by cranking open every canal lock in the midlands of England, while fun and great exercise, I didn’t come home with forearms like Popeye or any less pain in my arms. I am hopeful that using some of these tips will help, voice recoognition is not the easiset way to get around a computer…yet.

Kevin