The biting cold and snow has now migrated to a good part of The United States. Temperatures that are below zero have been common over the past few
weeks especially in areas like Chicago and Boston. The cold weather can take a toll on both your body and your electronics. The most common devices you might be carrying around in the extreme cold include Smart Phones and cameras.
It happens to all of us at some point. You turn on your trusty computer that has not failed you in the past 4 years and all you see is a black or maybe blue 
screen. In some cases the screen might even be white. In yet other cases, you might not see any activity at all. Your first response is a sense of severe frustration or even a slight sense of panic. This can be especially true if you rely on your system for your job. The only comforting thought is that you have all your information backed up on an external drive. You did back up your system, didn’t you?
For years we have been using a relatively slow networking protocol that had a maximum transfer rate of either 10 or 100 Megabits per second. Back in the Windows XP days that might have been considered fast but today, that speed is actually considered quite slow. The good news is that today, you have a new option called Gigabit Ethernet. This new technology is now built into most new routers and switches but in order for everything to work properly, you will have to have all your devices Gigabit ready.
If you turn your head and have a quick look around your home, you’ll find that there are plenty of energy-draining appliances dotted around. Many of them are essentials that you can’t do without, but even more are non-essentials that we use for entertainment. These consume a significant portion of our household energy, with 5% of our energy usage attributable to computers, laptops and printers. And yet, with a few simple changes, it’s easy to significantly cut costs and save energy. Here are some top tips to turn things around.
I cannot count how many computers we have tried to repair and the system was so slow because of the software firewall that was installed on it. Many of the high-end anti-virus programs run a very annoying software firewall that uses plenty of computer resources and often blocks common actions like going to a web page! The truth is if you have a router installed on your network, you do not need a software firewall.
All modern hard drives have a little built in app that many people do not know even exist. There is no direct way to see it and it often goes unnoticed for the life of your computer. The app is called SMART and it helps you to see if your hard drive is getting ready to fail.
If you could name the most important component that is housed inside your computer what part do you think that would be? To be honest, there are lots of parts on your computer that are essential for the system to operate properly so maybe we should rephrase the question. What component of your computer is most likely to fail? This question will narrow down the results quite a bit and the answer might surprise you. Your hard drive is the correct answer not just for the last question but also for both questions.
What is the one thing all computers have in common? They all require a monitor to view the contents of what you are attempting to display. If you own a laptop or a tablet, there is very little you can do as far as an upgrade goes. If you own a desktop computer, you can upgrade till your hearts content.
For many years, hard drives all had the same type of interface called IDE. IDE worked great and still works great if you have an older computer. As time went on, the 
demands for a hard drive increased and faster and larger drives were needed. The pictures and movies were getting bigger, programs were getting beefier and many folks needed lots of space to store their huge music collections.
To start let me tell you I am neither a computer technician nor a computer whiz. My husband deals with that side of the company I deal with more of the office side of the business. I am just trying to help out those who are nervous about purchasing a new computer and some of the tips I have learned along the way.
Some of our Happy Customers we have provided service for...
