Archive for the ‘Computer Tips’ Category

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FBI Virus now infects MAC OS

Posted by South City Computer

Mac FBI VirusMost Mac users will gloat to their Windows using friends that they use MAC because there are no viruses, malware, or in this case ransomware for MAC. Well those days are long gone! The FBI virus has found its way onto the MAC platform. Now NO Operating System is safe (::cough:: except Linux ::cough::), not even the blessed Mac OS.

The ransomware gets pushed onto unsuspecting users by browsing high-trafficed sites. The FBI virus locks down the Safari browser accusing the user of illegally viewing disturbing pornography, and that the user must pay a fine of $300 to regain use of their computer. The message will not go away by leaving the page or closing the browser. The user is unable to even “force quit” the browser. The ransomware uses the browsers “restore from crash” feature to reload the ransomware page each time the browser is restored.

You should NEVER pay the ransom, and should to bring your Mac to South City Computer today to get this virus correctly removed.

How to link your Facebook to Twitter

Posted by South City Computer

Today I’ll be showing you how to link your Facebook statuses to post on your Twitter account.

First, go to Facebook.com/twitter
Next, click “Link My Profile to Twitter”

It will then prompt you to enter your Twitter information.
Enter the information and then click “Authorize App” or “Allow Facebook Access.”

It will then give you a list of specific things you can post such as pictures and videos.

Once you hit “Save Changes” you are all set and ready to post Facebook statuses to Twitter!

How to import your old Outlook data

Posted by South City Computer

If you ever get a new computer or if you install a new version of Outlook you will probably want all of your old emails and files. I will show you how to import that data.

So before you do anything make sure you have your old data file from Outlook. If you still have the old Outlook installed you can go to
  File>Account Settings>Account Settings>Data Files
Here you should see a few files usually named “Outlook” and “Archive” you may have multiple of each.
Click on “Outlook” first and select “Open File Location”.
You should see the file selected ending in .pst or .ost.
This file will be located in:
  Windows 7 and Windows Vista
  drive:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
  Windows XP
  drive:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
You will want to save every file you see in this location that ends with the file extension .pst or .ost.
.pst files are you main Outlook files
.ost files are you offline outlook files
Go ahead and either put these files on your Desktop or anywhere you can easily find them next time or, if you are going to a new computer or are reinstalling your Operating System, save them to a thumb drive.

If you are going to a new computer or are reinstalling your Operating System, you can now install the new Outlook.

Once your Outlook is installed and ready to go (all of your server info is entered) you can import your file.

Go to File>Account Settings>Account Settings>Data Files and select add file. Browse to the location where you saved your previous Outlook files and select those. Or you can browse to the following file paths and paste the files manually.
  Windows 7 and Windows Vista
  drive:\Users\user\AppData\Local  \Microsoft&nbsp\Outlook
 Windows XP
  drive:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
Then go back to
  File>Account Settings>Account Settings>Data Files
And select the files from the previous file location and then add them.

If any of this was confusing or you had trouble doing this you can always bring your computer in to South City Computer and we will be happy to do this for you.

Is Your Phone Safe From Malware?

Posted by South City Computer

Everyone has an anti-virus on their computer. Afterall, you can get a virus from opening emails, visiting websites, downloading programs, and even just viewing pictures.

So why don’t you have an antivirus on your phone? You open emails on your phone, you browse the web, and you download apps. All of these are ways that malware can infect your phone and send costly $10 premium text messages or erase all of your contacts. Remember that along with all of your contacts, you also have logon information to websites and you may even have your credit card information saved on your phone.

When downloading an app you should always look at what permission it is requesting to use. An app for playing games shouldn’t be asking for permission to send text messages or make calls. Never download from third-party marketplaces. For the most part GooglePlay is safe, but everyone once in a while they do allow an app to be uploaded with malware.

As always, if you suspect your phone could be compromised, you should bring it in to South City Computer and we can scan it and remove any malware that is on it.

Keeping your computer virus free

Posted by South City Computer

The best way to deal with a virus is to not have to deal with one in the first place. However, in the event that your computer does get infected you should always have the tools to deal with it. In this article I’ll go over several tips to help prevent you from getting a virus.

To start off with, you’ll want to find an anti-virus program. If you have any Windows operating system installed I would recommend downloading the Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus. It’s free and works very well with Windows. Other anti-virus programs that are popular and offer free versions are AVG, Avast, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and my personal favorite SuperAntiSpyware. The aforementioned anti-virus software will scan and remove viruses, malware, and spyware. Spyware will sit on your computer and send information about you to a website. Malware is defined as any “mal”icious software that tries to harm your computer. No matter which program you choose, always remember to update it! An anti-virus with definitions from last year will be pretty useless.

Next, we will talk about tips to prevent your pc from getting infected.

  • Don’t download anything from a site you don’t trust
  • Don’t click on a link in an email from someone you don’t know
  • Make sure to click the correct link when downloading something
  • When entering login information on a site such as Facebook or the very popular Google+ look to make sure that you are on the correct site. “www.facebook.com/login” and “www.plus.google.com” respectively

The last tip on the list is a method known as “phishing” where people trick you into thinking you are on a site you trust by making them look similar and getting you to type in your login info.

One of the most common ways I’ve seen people get viruses lately is from couponing. Never download coupon software and try to avoid going to coupon sites.

Overall just be wary when on a site you do not commonly browse and you can save yourself the time and headache that comes with getting a virus.

In the event that your computer does get a virus simply running a virus scan may not actually remove the virus. A lot of the time it will only get part of the virus or the virus will keep reinstalling itself. If you do suspect that you have a virus it’s always best to bring it to a professional, like any tech at South City Computer, and we can remove it for you. We can even recover data from a hard drive if the virus is bad enough.

5 Signs of Computer Lightning Damage

Posted by South City Computer

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

Posted by South City Computer

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.

Backing up your files

Posted by South City Computer

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.

Laptop Screen Replacement in St. Louis

Posted by South City Computer

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.

Windows Repair in St. Louis

Posted by South City Computer

South City Computer can fix your computer.South City Computer offers Windows repair services to the St. Louis metro area. South City Computer can fix all Microsoft Windows versions including Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. Contact South City Computer for Windows repair services today!

Microsoft Windows is the most commonly used and therefore the most targeted computer operating system and often requires repair and support services. Some of the most common Windows repair issues are the infamous “Blue Screen of Death”, “BSOD”, or also known as the “Blue Screen”, or a black screen and blinking cursor issue and black screen with mouse cursor. Windows can sometimes fail to start and needs service. Sometimes the Windows operating system will only be able to boot into “safe mode” because possibly a system file has become corrupt or was deleted by a computer virus. Another very common Windows issue is that the network connection or the wifi “wireless” internet connection has stopped working and therefore the Internet stops working on the Windows computer. Most computer viruses are targeted at Windows computers since they are the most commonly used. Windows start menu is missing or will no locks up. Windows device drivers also become corrupt or have been deleted and need to be repaired. Windows user profile has become corrupted and can no longer access the desktop. Windows is slow and unresponsive. Windows can get stuck in an update and never boot again.

If you are using Windows XP, you may have noticed that it has become difficult, or impossible to run Windows Update. Microsoft announced some time ago that they had discontinued all support and updates for Windows XP, and that they had officially “end of lifed” the Windows XP operating system. Unfortunately this causes many issues for Windows XP users that still rely on Windows XP because they are invested in software that will only run on Windows XP, and therfore cannot upgrade to Window Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10.

Windows computer users may notice big user interface changes when moving into the Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 operating system. A new “Start screen”, similar to the one on the Windows Phone OS, includes live application tiles which some users find confusing when compared to the classic Windows desktop. While this is not a malfunction of the Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 operating system, it is rather a new feature that can seem confusing to some Windows 7 and Windows Vista users who are familiar with the classic Windows desktop and start menu.

Many of these are common issues of Microsoft Windows and can be repaired by the expert computer technicians at South City Computer. If you are experiencing any Windows issues, and need expert PC repair and computer support services then bring your computer to South City Computer today!

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