Archive for June, 2013

5 Signs of Computer Lightning Damage

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Computer Lightning DamageOne of the worst things for your computer is a fluctuation in the power source. Computers are pretty delicate devices when you get right down to it. The microchips and logic boards carry very distinct accurate currents that if overloaded will cause big problems. Unfortunately lightning thunder storms are also a fact of life in St. Louis, MO, and do not play well with sensitive computer devices and electronics.

Electrical surges caused by power fluctuation and lightning can cause odd behaviors in your computer.  The following are a few signs that your computer may have electrical damage caused by lightning or other power anomalies.

Not Booting (No Power)

If you computer will not power up at all, no lights turn on even though you press the power button and the computer is definitely plugged into a working outlet, then your power supply may have been fried by a lightning strike. The power supply is typically the computer’s first line of defense against a fluctuation in power like a lightning strike produces. The power supply typically can handle minor power fluxes, but the amount of power fluctuation a lightning strike causes can do damage to the power supply. If your computer is not doing anything after you press the power button, it may be time to have South City Computer test your power supply.

No Internet Connection (No network)

Lightning does not just travel down the power lines, it also travels through the telephone lines. Most computers are indirectly plugged into a phone line through the DSL connection, however some computers that still use dial-up modem may be directly plugged into an old fashion phone jack. If you computer boots up and appears to be functioning normally, but the Internet connection fails, the network card could have been fried as a result of a close lightning strike. Many times the cheap routers the Internet service provider (ISP) installs in your home or office do not have much defense against a power spike and cause that power signal to travel down the network wire to your computer’s network card. This typically causes havoc to the network boards sensitive electronics and causes it to stop working. Some newer computers that have the network card embedded on the mother board can really suffer from this power spike, and could even break the entire motherboard. If your Internet has stopped working after an electrical storm, you may want to have South City Computer test your network card.

Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

Are you seeing the infamous Blue Screen of Death after a lightning strike? This is probably caused by a corrupt system file that could have been corrupted as a result of a lightning strike. It is hard to explain exactly how these things occur, but basically the hard drive would have been reading or writing at the time of the power anomaly, causing an error to be written as 1 or 0 on the hard drive, corrupting a system file, which can cause the Blue Screen of Death. If you are seeing this BSOD error when you use your computer after an electrical storm, it may be time to bring your computer into South City Computer for a computer repair diagnostic.

Black Screen Blinking Cursor

After booting the computer and after the BIOS screen shows, the computer just locks up and shows a black screen with a blinking white cursor. This is usually caused by an error in the boot loader, and happens similar to the corrupted system file error that is typically associated with the Blue Screen of Death after a lightning storm. This issue usually arises after a power brown out as well, where the power in your home or office may have gone off and on a few times (known as a power brown out). You will probably need the techs at South City Computer to diagnose and repair this computer issue for you.

Hard disk error

The hard disk error is the worst sign that your computer may have been struck by lightning since your data is at stake here. The hard drive is a very sensitive device with a logical controller that cannot take huge spikes of electrical current, and in-turn stops working after power spikes or brown outs. You should bring your computer to South City Computer asap to try to recover any data if possible.

The best thing to do when you hear thunder or see lightning is to unplug you computer completely from the wall. This includes the power, monitor, speaker, microphone, and network cable. Basically make sure that no part of the computer is connected directly or indirectly to the wall since this is the only way the computer can be harmed by electrical storms other than being struck directly by lightning which is very rare.

Also if you are going out of town, going on vacation, traveling, or going to be away from your computer from an extended period of time it is a good idea to unplug your computer from the wall just in case a lightning thunder storm strikes while you are away.

Another time to consider unplugging your computer to save it from electrical damage is when you know or notice the power company servicing the electric lines in your neighborhood or area.  The electric company usually fluctuates the power off and on several times and this can cause damage to your computer.

Losing your data, having a computer that stops functioning properly, losing your Internet connection are all very frustrating experiences.  So be protective of your computer, don’t leave it in the hands of mother nature.

Setting up Facebook privacy settings

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With over 1 billion active users per month, you never know just who is looking at your Facebook profile. And with Facebook’s new feature “Graph Search” it makes it even easier and quicker to browse through all of the information on you profile. So I’ll be giving you a few tips on how to keep your social life between you and your friends.

To start off with, if you click on the tiny cog wheel in the upper right-hand part of you screen it brings up a drop down menu. Go ahead and click on privacy settings.

You should see “Privacy Settings and Tools” and under that “Who can see my stuff.”

Who can see my stuff?
Lower on the page are three sub categories:

Who can see my future posts?
This decides who can see any posts you make in the future. You can set it to:
“Public” which would let anyone in the world on facebook see it
“Friends” which means that only people you have added as friends on facebook can see your future posts
“Me” which means only you can see your posts
“Custom” which lets only specific friends see posts or you can make groups

Reveiw all your posts and things you’re tagged in
In this section you can review any activity that is associated with you facebook profile. This ranges from liking photos, statuses, and pictures to adding new friends

Who can look me up?
The first subcategory limits who can look you up with your email or phone number. Setting this to “everyone” means that anyone with your email linked to the facebook account or anyone with your phone number can search it in facebook and it will bring up your account. Setting this to friends of friends means that in order for someone to look you up they would already have to be a friend of a friend on facebook.
The next subcategory limits whether or not you can be looked up on a search engine, such as Google.

Over in the far left column you should see Timeline and Tagging.

Who can add things to my timeline?

Who can post on your timeline
The subcategory of the top section limits who can post on your timeline or you profile page. This should be set to Friends.

Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline
The bottom subcategory lets you choose whether you want to review what people post on your timeline. So if Joe Schmoe decides to post pictures from a party 3 years ago you can let it post on your timeline or deny it.

Who can see things on my timeline?

Review what other people see on your timeline
In the second section you can do a quick preview of who can see your profile, you can set it to public or a specific person and see your profile through their eyes.

The next two subcategories go together and should be set to the same setting

Who can see posts you’ve been tagged in on your timeline
and
Who can see what others post on your timeline
These two subcategories let you limit who can see what others tag you in and post on your timeline, so mainly when someone interacts with you on facebook. I set this to Friends of Friends.

How can I manage tags people add and tagging suggestions?

Review tags people add to your own posts before the tags appear on Facebook
The third section relates to being tagged in posts. It is one of the best features in the privacy settings as it will notify you when you are tagged in a picture and you have to accept or deny the tag before it is posted for everyone to see.

When you are tagged in a post who do you want to add to the audience if they aren’t already in it?
The second subcategory decides who can see pictures/ when you are tagged in them. I recommend to set this to Friends.

Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded
The final option when you upload a picture that looks like someone, facebook will recognize them and suggest you tag them in it.

New Wonder Pill that remembers your passwords for you

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Password PillThere are pills for losing weight, there are pills for gaining weight. There are pills that reduce pain and pills that give you vitamins. Well now there is also a pill that can remember all of your usernames and passwords so you never have to type them in again.

Thanks to technology based on Proteus Digital Health there is a pill you can take that will send signals to your smartphone or tablet that will authenticate or type in your username and password for you. This isn’t just a pill for the forgetful though. This could also boost security if a website only allowed you to logon with your unique pill. Even if a hacker in the next state over managed to get your username and password, they couldn’t do anything with the information.

The pill has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It only contains a small microchip and a switch. Once ingested the pill activates when it comes in contact with the acid in your stomach. It does pass through your body within a day and is safe to take for up to 30 days.

Backing up your files

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There are as many benefits to backing up your files as there are ways to back up your files. Regardless of how you do it, it’s always a good idea to have a backup somewhere.

Types of Backups

First let’s start off with two main types of backups: On-site and off-site.

On-site backup is where you backup your files onto the computer that the files are stored on.
Off-site backup means that the files are either kept on a server miles away from you or on an external drive that you keep in your closet at home.
They both have their advantages.
On-site: easy to frequently update your backup.
Off-site: If your computer is stolen or destroyed, all of your backups are still available.

Once you decide whether on-site or off-site suites you better you now get to decide whether you just want to backup just your files or whether you want your entire system backed up.

If you back up only your files you can then put those on any computer and view them or manipulate them. In this method you do not save your programs, like Quickbooks or Outlook, so you will have to reinstall the programs and then change all of the settings back to how you had them before. To backup this way could be as simple as plugging in an external hard drive and dragging the files you want backed up onto it. There are also programs, such as Carbonite, that will backup your files for you on a schedule and store them on a server off-site. This method is usually much smaller, in storage space, than its counterpart.

The other way of backing up your files would be to create something called a “system image” where it would save your entire system. A system image saves everything on your computer, including your operating system, all of your programs, and data. A system image is usually saved to a series of disks or .iso files. Using this method once you restored your backup it would make everything look exactly the same as you had it when you created the system image. All of your programs would still be there, all of your data, and all of your settings within the programs. With this method you can’t add data to it or go back and take a single file out, the whole system is stored as an image, and as a result leads to less frequent backups.

Whichever way you choose to backup your files you can always bring your computer into South City Computer and we can do all the work for you.

PS3 Firmware update 4.45 crashes console

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Sony recently released a new update for its firmware ,on the Sony PS3, that when downloaded and installed will cause the console to become completely unresponsive.

The update was originally supposed to add a trophy notification system and also make the system more stable.

Sony has since taken the update down to minimize the number of compromised systems.

As of yet, Sony has no fix for this problem and strongly advises against downloading the update.

Can’t create new folder virus

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Right-click, new, and…. the folder option is missing? Ctrl+Shift+N but all you get is a quick thinking mouse icon before nothing happens.

Not being able to create a new folder can be very annoying, a big waste of your time, and an almost paralyzing experience in a users computer work-flow. Whether it was a virus that caused it or an Adobe update the result is the same, no new folders.

There is no quick fix to this problem, for the average user, as most of the time it resides in Registry of a computer. This problem stems from this subkey:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\New\

Editing your registry can cause serious damage to the system and cause many core components of Windows not to work correctly. I would not change anything in the registry unless you create a backup and are very comfortable with it.

DIY Fix

This problem is just a symptom and is most commonly caused by either a virus or the latest Adobe update. The first thing you should do is scan you computer with an anti-virus software. If it comes up clean you can try to uninstall the latest update for Adobe and then reinstall it. If your computer does however have a virus then you will not be able to create new folders until the registry problem is fixed. If any of this was too complicated or you just don’t want to risk further damage you can always  bring your computer into South City Computer and we will easily remove the virus, tune up your computer, and fix any problems you have.

Laptop Screen Replacement in St. Louis

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Laptop Screen Replacement St. LouisUnfortunately laptop screens start to malfunction, go out and need repair long before the rest of the laptop computer. It is sometimes necessary to replace the laptop screen to buy a little more time from the laptop computer. However it may not be economically reasonable to replace the laptop screen since the cost of a new laptop may not be much more than the repair of the existing broken laptop screen. It really depends on the quality, the age, and the use of the laptop computer to determine whether the reapir is economically feasable.

Top Reasons Laptop Screens Break

When the CCFL bulb begins to dim or go out, you may be able to see the desktop but it is very very dim or totally dark, and needs to be in direct light in order to see anything. This is usually a sign that the CCFL bulb needs to be replaced.

A loose wire connection between the screen and motherboard could also cause the screen to flicker, or stop working completely. If your screen flicker, flashes, or blinks rapidly when you open and close the laptop computer, this could be caused by a loose wire connection, and may be a sign that it is time for a laptop screen repair at South City Computer.

An accidental drop or a “not-so-accidental” punch to the screen after the computer user experiences frustration with the computer is another common reason the laptop screen may break. While this is not a recommended way to use your laptop computer, we understand that these things happen.

A liquid spill into the laptop computer can also cause the screen to stop functioning properly. However this is probably caused by the motherboard malfunctioning rather than the laptop screen being broken.

DIY Fix?

Replacing a laptop screen can be a difficult computer repair that is not an easy task for the common everyday computer user. Finding the correct parts for the computer repair is not usually very straight forward, and can be difficult to source for some makes and models of computers. Most laptop computers (especially Apple products) have proprietary screws that require special tools to disassemble the laptop computer in order to replace the screen. There also are many pieces to account for when disassembling a laptop computer, and putting them all back together correctly can be a big challenge. These are just a few reasons you may opt out of the DIY fix. However rest assured that this is a totally common repair for the technicians at South City Computer, and you can just have our professionals replace your laptop screen for you.

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