Those of you who who utilize our computer support services (thank you!) know that we aren’t fans of McAfee and Norton antivirus products, so you can imagine our surprise when we discovered systems that we had previously worked on showing up with a version of McAfee software installed on them.

The owners of the systems swore up and down that they never installed McAfee and they had no clue how it came to be on their systems.

What we found was that when downloading an update to the Adobe Reader program, Adobe in their infinite wisdom, *also* included the McAfee program with the Reader program.

We’re seeing quite a bit more of the bundling of downloads lately – from the McAfee program to Yahoo Toolbars to programs that change your default search engines.  More and more of the free downloads not only download what you ask for, but have extra software bundled in as well that you never asked for.

When downloading programs to your systems be sure you take a hard look at what you are downloading, and uncheck any boxes for additional programs that they try and tack on.

Below are a couple of examples of these extra software programs.  The 1st is from Java, which tries to install a Yahoo! toolbar, and the 2nd is a screenshot of Adobe’s Reader program download – the McAfee program is chosen for download by default.  You must uncheck the boxes.

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com and www.ssaremote.com

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

866.665.1750 | 972.633.1111

Scurlock Systems is located in Plano, Texas and provides both remote computer service and computer repair in Plano, Dallas, Richardson, Allen and surrounding areas.

When was the last time you tested your computer’s battery backup unit?

You *do* have a battery backup on your computer don’t you?

WHY DO I NEED A BATTERY BACKUP UNIT?
Battery backups do two very important tasks for your computer and networking equipment (router, broadband modem, etc.).

1st they do the obvious, which is keeping the power up should there be power failure, but the other thing they do (and this is, I think, the most import task) is to keep the power steady during dips.

I can’t tell you how many blown systems we’ve seen in our shop that were caused by dips in power and not outright surges or power outages.  Do the lights in your house or office ever flicker for a few moments like they aren’t getting enough juice?  That right there will fry your computer in a jiffy.

So what happens is the voltage dips and the power supply in the computer is working as hard as it can to supply the right amount of power and keeps trying and trying to supply power but he’s not getting enough juice from the outlet then *poof*.  Dead computer.  We’ve seen everything from a fried power supply to charred system board to dead hard drive to smoking RAM chips to ‘ghost’ problems like random lockups, blue-screens and general computer naughtiness.

A good battery backup unit will keep the voltage steady so that in those cases of power dips your computer never has to know there was an issue.  It can be a little secret between you and the battery backup unit.

We generally use APC battery backup units for ourselves and our clients, with the 1000VA being the smallest unit used in production.  We’ll use the 1000VA, 1300VA and 1500VA units, which range in price from $150 to $200 at most retailers.  APC does offer a 3-year warranty, and our only complaint with them is that they want you to pay for shipping if a unit fails.

GOSH, I’VE HAD MY BATTERY BACKUP FOR A LONG TIME – HOW DO I KNOW IT’S STILL GOOD?
You could always just pull the plug from the wall and cross your fingers and pray that your computer stays up, but we wouldn’t recommend doing that!

We test ours by 1st powering off all the equipment plugged into the battery backup, then unplugging the battery backup from the wall, then turning on the computer and monitor.

Most of the new battery backup units have a digital readout on the front panel which will show your the remaining charge of the battery.  You want to look to see if after starting up your computer on battery only power the remaining battery indicator begins to rapidly go down.  That seems to be the most common issue with older battery backup units.

You should test your battery backup at least twice a year to make sure it is ready to go to work for you when the power dips or fails.  The time to find out your battery backup unit is bad is not when you actually have an outage!

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com and www.ssaremote.com

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

866.665.1750 | 972.633.1111

Scurlock Systems is located in Plano, Texas and provides both remote computer service and computer repair in Plano, Dallas, Richardson, Allen and surrounding areas.

*This is a post from our old blog, moved over because, well, it’s a good story! -Daniel Scurlock

We all like to save a buck when we can, but I wanted to tell you a little story about what happened to one of our clients recently who purchased a Sony Vaio system from an Amazon seller…

And the saga begins…

For the sake of not typing ‘our client’ over and over we’ll call him, oh, Bob, and let’s call the Amazon seller Skippy.

So Bob find a great deal on a Sony Vaio desktop system on Amazon and orders it and receives it with no issues.  He installs MS Office and his printer and off he goes, happy as can be.

All of this goes down with no issues – the system is up and running; everyone is happy.

Flash forward one week…

The system starts hanging up, blue-screening, locking up, powering itself down, spewing green vomit, well, you get the idea.  Something is *definitely* not right here.

Bob contacts Sony, who determine that there has been a major hardware failure in the system.

Bob then contacts the Skippy the Wonder Amazon seller, and makes arrangements to send the system back for replacement.  Bob packs up and ships the system back, eagerly awaiting the replacement system.

A week or so goes by and Bob receives his replacement system.  He plugs it in and wham, same problem as before.  blue-screens, lockup, green vomit, it’s ugly.

At this point Bob is not a happy camper.  Skippy the Wonder Amazon Seller has simply shipped him back the same broken system without making any repairs or replacements.

Bob checks into Skippy’s feedback on Amazon and begins to find a series of unhappy recipients of Skippy’s computers with similar stories.

Bob contacts Sony again, in the hopes that perhaps he can deal directly with them and have the system repaired under Sony’s warranty.

Now here is the meat of the story, and what prompted me to share this with you all…

Sony has Bob run some hardware diagnostics, and Bob is reading off the make/model of the individual internal components of the system.  Sony informs Bob that someone (Skippy!) had replaced the internal components of the computer with sub-standard, weak and broken parts.

So what Bob basically had was a nice shiny Sony Vaio case on the outside, but inside it was garbage.

Bob had been scammed.

Have I mentioned that Bob is a lawyer?

Bob contacts Skippy the Wonder Amazon Seller and explains to him that he will be refunding 100% of Bob’s money, shipping, etc. and what will happen to him if he doesn’t.  Bob also contacts Amazon and alerts them to the fraud that took place.

Bob now has his money back.  Skippy’s account has been banned at Amazon, and Bob has since ordered a NEW computer directly from Sony.

If you must order a computer from an individual online, but SURE that you check out the feedback for that user.  If they have negative feedback read them closely and if there is *any* doubt don’t send them your money.

Once you receive your computer have it checked out by a pro and verify that what you paid for is what you received.  Bob was extremely fortunate that he got his money back.  Not all of us would be that lucky if that were to happen to us.

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com and www.ssaremote.com

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

866.665.1750 | 972.633.1111

Scurlock Systems is located in Plano, Texas and provides both remote computer service and computer repair in Plano, Dallas, Richardson, Allen and surrounding areas.

We had quite an interesting job this last week…

One of our long-time client’s house was struck by lightning (for the 2nd time in as many years, but that’s a story for another post) and took out one of their computers.

Insurance covered the cost of replacing the computer itself, but there was a lot, and I mean a LOT of data on the hard drive that the client wished to recover.  The client had no backups of their data.  Nada, zilch, zippo  – this was a fall to your knees, pull your hair out and wail to the heavens moment.

We got hold of the hard drive and mounted it in one of our recovery boxes.  After powering it up we didn’t hear any loud clicking or banging coming from the drive (Good Thing) and the drive platters were spinning (Good Thing) but the system didn’t recognize the drive (Very Bad Thing).

We pulled the drive out and took a close look at the circuit board.

Take a look at the photo below.  Do you see the problem yet?  (Hint – look at the lower-right corner of the board)

Circuit board from hard drive that was struck by lightning

Still can’t see it?  Here’s a close-up view…

Blown chip on a hard drive circuit board that was struck by lightning.

One of the chips on the board was completely fried, which was (we believed) causing the problem.

At this point the client had two options:  One, they could send the drive off for data recovery in a clean-room which would run them over $1,000 (cheapest we’ve seen from those types of recoveries is $1,3000 to date) or we could try and find replacement board, or a PCB board, for the drive, swap it out and hope for the best.

The client opted for option two, and to make a long story short, we found a fantastic company, PCB Solutions, who worked with us to find a replacement board.  They were able to locate one and shipped it to us, we swapped it out and viola! The dead drive was dead no longer.  We were able to retrieve 100% of the client’s data and the part we needed?  It was only $40.  We’ll take $40 over $1,000 any day of the week.

If you ever experience a hard drive crash, before you go spend a WHOLE lot of money do yourself a favor and see if a simple PCB board replacement will fix the issue.

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com and www.ssaremote.com

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

866.665.1750 | 972.633.1111

Scurlock Systems is located in Plano, Texas and provides both remote computer service and computer repair in Plano, Dallas, Richardson, Allen and surrounding areas.

When browsing the contents of your computer you can right-click on a folder or file and one of the options you have is ‘Send to’.  Send to is handy, but somewhat limited in where you can actually send the file or folder to.

Now take a look at the additional places you can send the file or folder by simply holding down the <Shift> key while right-clicking and pressing the Send to option:

As you can see there are quite a few more places you can send your data to, including the Documents, My Music, My Pictures and My Videos folders.  Quite handy!

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com and www.ssaremote.com

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

866.665.1750 | 972.633.1111

Scurlock Systems is located in Plano, Texas and provides both remote computer service and computer repair in Plano, Dallas, Richardson, Allen and surrounding areas.

In various versions of Windows you can press the Alt + Tab keys to cycle through your open programs.  By keeping the Alt key pressed town you can jump from program to program by pressing the Tab key until the program you want is displayed.

Starting with Vista, Microsoft added a very slick new way to display your open programs called Aero Flip 3D.  It also displays your open programs, but displays them in a 3D (well, as close as you can get to 3D without wearing those silly glasses) view.  You can see your open programs and use your mouse wheel or Tab key to cycle through the windows.

To use the Aero Flip 3D view press the Windows Key (near the bottom left of your keyboard) and Tab key.

It’s that easy!  Next time you are flipping between open programs try using the Windows Key + Tab and enjoy the view.

The Aero Flip 3D does require a bit more hardware oomph from your system in order to display the 3D view.  Here are the minimum requirements to use Aero:

Minimum Hardware Requirements for running Windows 7 Aero:

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 GB of RAM

128 MB graphics card

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com and www.ssaremote.com

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

866.665.1750 | 972.633.1111

Scurlock Systems is located in Plano, Texas and provides both remote computer service and computer repair in Plano, Dallas, Richardson, Allen and surrounding areas.