Today I’d like to talk about custom computers. How many out there in Portland would love a custom computer? C’mon, raise your hands…

Well, every single desktop machine I have personally owned has been a custom computer. Over the years, I think I’ve logged about 18 or so machines, not counting the custom server I’m sitting next to. That also includes a home DVR (Digital Video Recorder, like Tivo) I used in Europe that has 2TB (thats Terra-Bytes) of space, a huge amount for a typical home user. While I love custom computers, I’ve built them for friends and family as well that want something very specific.

But it’s interesting how people look at custom computers vs a larger name brand. Most people see a larger name brand and compare that to a custom solution. That’s great, until you look at the price tags between the two. A computer with very similar stats can be VERY different and a lot of people don’t see the value in going with a custom solution. I’ll use a car analogy to prove my point:

You go to a car lot and see a 6 cylinder Kia for sale and it’s loaded – power windows, CD player, the works. Let’s say it’s going for $18,00 since it’s their top of the line. You go next store and see a BMW with the same amount of cylinders, same power windows, a CD player, etc, but it’s twice the price (ok, custom computers are not twice as much – unless you want a “Lamborghini”….) But, those two cars are different, in terms of quality of components, looks and feel as well as speed.

That’s exactly why I custom build my computers. On top of this, many times, I can personally build computers that are monsters, in terms of storage and memory, and they’re not near as much as their counterpart with a bigger company. In one of these instances, I built a custom server for half as much as a name-branded server that had roughly the same configuration.

If you want a computer that’ll just work for surfing the web or working through email and word processing, a name-brand machine is fine. If you’re more into gaming and heavy duty applications like 3D rendering, Photoshop and all that, I would strongly suggest that you speak with someone about a custom machine.

Custom machines can be large, or small and are built according to what you need. The right computer repair or sale shop will sit down with you and interview you to get your usage requirements before suggesting a machine. If you go into a shop and mention a custom machine and they hand you a flyer with their computer packages, you’re getting the same quality as the brand-name stores… If you’re just not sure what the shop owner is talking about, when you talk about your new computer, ask them to tone their language down to your level. If they get upset, or just can’t – walk away. Choose your new computer wisely and you won’t be disappointed.
Justin

I was in the Beaverton Best Buy earlier today buying a movie and I always walk past the computer section to see what they’re selling. While I was browsing around, I watched a gentleman walk up with a group of his friends and ask the first rep he ran into for “the best Netbook with a solid state drive”. The rep pointed to one and the guy just picked it up and walked away to buy it – no questions asked, all while his friends started in with “thats sooo cool!”

Well, I don’t think I would have done this, nor do I think it was cool.

Solid state drives aren’t up to par with certain regular hard drives yet. The price for a solid state vs a regular hard drive leaves much to be desired. On top of this, the “solid date Netbook” this guy bought really wasn’t as good of a deal as he may have thought… He bought a Netbook with some VERY cheap memory attached to the motherboard. The read/write speeds of these particular chips are very low (comparable to a cheaper laptop hard drive, if that). A respectable solid state drive from Intel costs about much as a netbook from a bigger store… For the “best” solid state drive on the market right now, you’re looking at at least twice as much as a Netbook.

Just because something has the newest technology doesn’t mean it’s the best thing in the world. The only thing that his “solid state drive” had over my regular hard drive Netbook is about 20 minutes extra power (I get about 3.5 hours as it is)… In the end, if his “drive” dies, he has to replace the motherboard whereas I would just need to swap the drive and keep going.

New technology is just like a first model year of a car. Sometimes you should step back from the excitement and see how things go first…
Justin

There are A LOT of people here in Portland asking for repairs and fixes for spyware and viruses. Many of you – ok, most of you, have asked how you got infected. Aside from the standard industry answer of sultry websites you shouldn’t visit, there are multitudes of websites, blogs and different types of software that can infect your computer. This is actually why Protocol16 recommends not running your computer in Admin mode (another story for another day).

As a case in point on how you can be infected, it can happen simply by viewing a nasty ad on any normal webpage. Drudge Report, Lyrics.com and even Horoscope.com were recently hit by some nasty ads. These sites didn’t know these ads were listing on their site since they all used the same company to display ads.

As the above link points out, you can pick up some nasties anywhere… This is all the more reason to run antivirus software, at least a weekly anti-spyware check (if you don’t run the software full time) and a few other requirements to stay safe. Check back tomorrow for more recomendations as to what you should do to keep yourself protected even more.
Justin

There are a lot of people in Portland that have asked about alternatives to Microsoft Office. While I personally like Office, I know it can be a burden to those that can’t afford the licensing costs. Even businesses have problems meeting the licensing costs.

Alternatives
Well, there’s the Open Source alternative called OpenOffice and then there’s Google Apps. Some companies report decent success using both OpenOffice and Google Apps. Personally, I would move to OpenOffice out of the two. I would rather have the documents on my computer than on the web. Perhaps I’m paranoid about security, due to my training and what I’ve seen.

Office Web Apps
Well, now there is another option for you all: Microsoft’s Office Web Apps. You can test drive them, in limited form, at Skydrive.live.com (you’ll need a Windows Live account though.)

I played with it on Sunday evening while I had some downtime at home and liked the little bit that I was able to play with. Excel, looked just like Excel, even though I’m on a Mac using Firefox… If you create a new file, after you log in, you can play around in said file, just like the real program. While playing around, I noticed that Word isn’t working, but Excel is. I didn’t attempt anything else.

According to Microsoft and other news reports, Office Web Apps will be free to users of Windows Live. So, when it’s fully released, it might be a viable alternative to the Office Applications that you install.

This release of free Web Applications may also drive the price of Office down, but only time will tell.
Justin

I had a customer this evening, in Portland, that had called a Craigslist technician to repair his computer. Supposedly the technician found a bad hard drive and offered to replace it with a $120 “used” hard drive since new hard drives cost hundreds of dollars (NOT TRUE!). The customer gratefully agreed and ended up allowing the installation of the used drive. For an hours time, plus the used drive, the customer ended up paying $140.

Damaged Hard Drive From a Craigslist Technician (click it for the bigger version)

The drive worked for about a week until the customer needed to move out of his apartment into another apartment. This caused a general rumbling in the case, if you’re not careful. Well, this caused enough of a rumble to cause the hard drive to fail. The customer decided to call a company rather than a Craigslist technician and I present you with the picture here…

This doesn’t look like much, except a broken tab, but look closely (ok, click on the picture for a bigger version)… Notice the white grooves on the tab? Those shouldn’t be there. Neither should the discoloration under the smaller grouping of attachment points…

I give you… Superglue ladies and gentlemen. This technician sold a poor customer a 70GB hard drive that was superglued for enough money to allow the technician to buy a 1TB hard drive for himself. That’s a REALLY big drive, a full 730GB bigger than what he billed the customer for.

Fortunately, I managed to get the data off the drive and replace the drive with a larger one for the customer. In the end, the customer paid about $145 for everything I did, with a much bigger drive.

Some signs to watch for: The technician never had an anti-static bag to carry the drive in. These bags protect electronic components from damage due to static electricity. The customer never saw a price tag, but he only had seen the $20 per hour cost on the Craigslist ad. Worst of all, the cell phone number has been disconnected and the customer paid in cash – no way to trace the guy.

Please be careful when working with any type of technician. Protocol16 would love to have your business, but even if you don’t choose us, we always recommend that you ensure that your technician is Licensed, Bonded & Insured (we carry a card from our insurance company), has a permanent number on something – a business card, a car wrap, a phone book entry, etc, uses protective covers on electronics, and you see price tags on the merchandise that shows up with the tech.

Personally, I carry around a case that we call “The Football” (it’s a presidential joke) that has several hard drives in fully wrapped packages, with price tags attached, all in a fully padded case. In this situation, I showed up and opened the case and the first thing the customer said was “The last guy didn’t do anything like that, he had it loose in his backpack!”

While we do sometimes provide used parts for customers, in extreme situations, they are always quality controlled to ensure that this type of thing doesn’t end up in customer hands. Again, when calling on any company for any type of computer repair, please be careful.
Justin

So, it seems the big news in Portland right now is that Windows 7 is coming on Oct. 22. Yes, that’s very true, but there are some important things many of you need to know.

XP to Windows 7 = No-go
Microsoft has decided that Windows XP CANNOT be upgraded to Windows 7. I cannot stress this information enough. I really don’t want to see a lot of businesses and people needing to spend huge amounts of money on Windows 7 upgrades. Right now, the “easiest” way to “upgrade” is to use the Windows Migration Tool to copy your info before you install. (Note: Laplink has also decided to help out, for a fee.) Again, Windows XP going to Windows 7 must be a clean install – this means the hard drive is erased, but there are products you can purchase to help the upgrade.

Windows 7 Is Better
Windows 7 is considered, by many, to be Vista but with Service Pack 3. While mostly true, there are a lot of differences. The first thing most people will notice is that Windows 7 looks different. There’s no more green “Start” button, no more Circle start button – just a standard menu. A lot of people things it looks a lot like the Apple OS X menu.

Windows 7, at least in my personal experience, is actually faster as well. I’ve been testing it on a home laptop and have found it pretty speedy for startups and waking up from sleep. So far, we’ve noticed one issue with it, but it’s due to Toshiba not releasing the software for the problem.

Drivers
One thing that really helps in Windows 7 is that Microsoft has defaulted to the manufacturer for drivers. Drivers are the software that allows Windows to interact with your hardware. A driver would allow Windows to see your Webcam – without that driver, Windows doesn’t know how to work with it.Some people would call this a translation file to allow the two software pieces to talk with each other.

Older versions of Windows required you to visit the manufacturer and update your own drivers. This happened with Windows XP and all versions before it. Windows Vista allowed users to download new drivers from Microsoft’s generic driver repository. If Windows recognized your mouse as a standard mouse, it would update the driver for you. That’s all great, until you have a fancy mouse with 8 buttons… One day, it just goes back to a standard mouse again. Companies have done things to help guard against this, but it still can cause problems. It really causes problems with the component that controls your monitor: the graphics card.

Well, Windows 7 is doing something new. If you have hardware, Windows will see it and interact with it, but will only use the generic driver until your hardware manufacturer releases their version of that driver. Case in point: my wife’s laptop has a fingerprint reader. Originally, we couldn’t find the drivers for it (this is completely because Windows 7 isn’t officially released yet). Well, one day, Windows popped up and said “I found a driver for X device!” When I clicked on it, I figured it would be a generic driver – nope. Windows 7 redirected me directly to Toshiba’s website were I could download the driver directly from them. On top of this, I found other drivers that I needed as well that had just been released. Now, we’re waiting on one last driver that allows us to utilize the touch pad (mouse pad) to it’s fullest extent.

Performance
This is one of the most unique things for Windows 7. Windows 7 is one of the first Operating Systems (OS) that has been released that does not require a more powerful computer. If you remember, when you upgraded from Windows 95 or 98 to XP, you pretty much needed to purchase a new computer, or at least upgrade it. Well, not so with Windows 7.

Windows 7, technically speaking, is a toned down version of Windows Vista. It’s been cleaned up, run through an optimization process then given a few more bug fixes. When Microsoft did this, it actually caused Windows 7 to typically perform better than Vista. This means that if you’re running XP or Vista and your computer is basically speedy enough for you, you can keep on using it with Windows 7.

If you have any other questions about Windows 7 and what is going to happen with your computer, please let us know.
Justin

The title might scare you a little, but in the computer industry, a UPS is an Uninterruptible Power Supply. This is basically a batter backup for when the power goes kaput…

I personally use these at home for my computers and I recommend that my clients have at least 1 in the office for the most important person or computer. The most important person may be the secretary in the office since they effectively run the day to day operations. They’ll still be able to send email (as long as your router is on a UPS as well), still be able to get information off their computer, etc – all while the power is out.

For the most important computer, this is normally the office computer that runs the accounting software or is a server that everyone connects to. If that goes down, it could spell disaster for the entire office if the plug gets kicked. Computers don’t like being kicked off when the power dies, it can do very bad things to servers. Servers are unique due to the way due to how their disks are setup. If you have RAID on a server, you absolutely REQUIRE a UPS. The more expensive RAID enabled servers can survive a shutoff without major issues, but a UPS could mean the difference between a “can” and “will”.

UPS’ generally allow for automatic shut down in case of a power failure. This means your server or workstation can be automatically shut down if the power doesn’t kick back on quickly. If the power is off for 5 minutes, you’re still ok. If it’s off for 2 hours, find something for the staff to do, because a UPS will not handle that long of an outage, you’ll require a generator.

I would love to recomend a UPS online, but we’re still waiting on some paperwork to get back to us from a specific company. If you would like to know more about UPS’ or what type we would recomend, feel free to email us or give us a call.
Justin