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Crashplan Online Backup Service     Those of you who utilize us for your computer support know that we have recommended and use ourselves Mozy Pro for online data backups. Earlier this year Mozy modified their pricing structure and did away with their unlimited plan for Mozy Home users. While this did not...

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Used Compaq Computer for Sale, Proceeds to Plano Sunrise... We have a used Compaq desktop system for sale for $75.00.  100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Plano Sunrise Rotary club. The system includes a desktop computer running: XP Pro, Service Pack 3 Pentium 4, 2.4GHz processor 1 GB RAM GE Force FX 5200 Video card with 256MB of RAM The...

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When is a deal not a deal?When is a deal not a deal?     What is the single most important piece of equipment used in your business?  In your home? Your computer!  If it's not at the very peak of the list it is certainly near the top. So why do so many people want to spend as absolutely little money as possible on what is arguably...

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Update This! Update That!     UPDATE MESSAGES As we use our computers we’re constantly bombarded with notices to update this program!  Update that program!  It gets to the point where we tend to do one of two things; we just ignore all the popups, saying ‘I’ll do that later’ but never do perform...

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Scurlock Systems - Now offering world-class desktop computers!Scurlock Systems - Now offering world-class desktop...     A great computer doesn't have to break the bank. http://scurlocksystems.com/products.html

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When is a deal not a deal?

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Posted on : 25-09-2011 | By : admin | In : New computer, Tips and Tricks
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Remote Computer Support Plano Computer Repair

 

 

What is the single most important piece of equipment used in your business?  In your home?

Your computer!  If it’s not at the very peak of the list it is certainly near the top.

So why do so many people want to spend as absolutely little money as possible on what is arguably one of the most important pieces of equipment that you use?

The adage is ‘pay now or pay later’, and nothing could be truer when it comes to your computer.

Sure, you can find a computer at Fry’s or one of the other big-box stores for $300 but ask yourself, ‘why is it only $300?’

In a nutshell, you get what you pay for.  The reason those systems are cheap is because they use cheap parts internally.  It may look good on paper – 4GB of RAM, 750GB hard drive, etc., but if you could see what we’ve seen – the frustration, the tears and the anger from folks who have purchased one of those ‘bargain’ computers only to have it fail after a matter of seconds (never boots up out of the box), minutes, hours or months you would want to stay very far away from these ‘bargain’ systems.

Computers are fairly simple devices – they consist of just a few main parts – case, power supply, motherboard, processor, RAM, DVD/optical drive and maybe a video card.  The cheap systems use cheap parts.  A cheap power supply can (and will) fail, potentially taking out the entire system with it.  A cheap motherboard will fail and when it goes the whole system is gone.  These are the two most common failures we see in the ‘bargain’ systems.

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars for a good system, but to date we’ve yet to find a quality business class desktop system for under $600.  Generally speaking most business class systems (systems designed to be used daily, all day) will run in the $700 to $1,000 range.  Those systems will contain quality parts, designed to last.

If you are in the market for a new desktop computer we would love to show you our *quality* desktop computers. We have models ranging from a solid home system for $650 to a business system with a SSD (think jaw-dropping fast) hard drive for $999.  More information can be found at this blog post, and our main website’s products page.

We’ll leave you with one example of what happened to one of our clients.

We got called out to a business client who had purchased two new computers and both of these brand new computers were running slower than their 5-year old systems.

We found that while the systems (desktops) looked normal on the outside, what we found on the inside blew our minds.

These systems were both made by a major name-brand – one of the top three in the market.  What they had done was use a full-size desktop case, but instead of putting in a regular motherboard, processor and RAM they had used a Netbook motherboard, processor and RAM.  A Netbook is a $200 sub-notebook with very limited power and memory.

What our client had was basically a netbook computer running in a desktop case.  The system was nowhere near powerful enough to run their business applications.  The client got a great deal on the systems (he thought) at $350 each, but he basically spent $700 and ended up having to purchase two more *real* computers.

Remember, pay now, or pay later.

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

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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.

Update This! Update That!

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Posted on : 21-09-2011 | By : admin | In : Tips and Tricks, Updates
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Remote Computer Support Plano Computer Repair

 

 

UPDATE MESSAGES

As we use our computers we’re constantly bombarded with notices to update this program!  Update that program!  It gets to the point where we tend to do one of two things; we just ignore all the popups, saying ‘I’ll do that later’ but never do perform the updates, or we click the ‘OK’ or ‘Update Now’ button for every update notice that pops up.

I’m not sure which is worse – not performing updates will leave you open to myriad security holes in programs, while doing every single update notice that pops up can get your system infected with a nasty malware program faster than you can say ‘Here’s the keys to my computer kingdom’

So what should I do?

The majority of the update notices are valid – things like your antivirus program(s), Microsoft updates, Adobe reader, Java and the like. When you do download and apply updates for valid programs be sure you take a close look at what you are downloading.  Many of them will try and add additional unwanted software to your downloads.  See our article about downloading unwanted programs.

When you get an update notice, determine what program it is that is wanting to be updated.  If it’s a program that you have installed on your computer go ahead with the update.

If it’s an unknown, such as ‘Windows Antivirus 2011’ don’t do the update!  The key is *knowing* what programs are installed on your system, particularly your antivirus/antimalware programs.  If you are using Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Antimalware (the two programs we use here at Scurlock Systems) and you get a popup from any other antivirus program do NOT do that update.  It’s a popup from an infected website just hoping you press the OK button.

A very common way for computers to become infected with nasties is by using scare tactics.  You’ll be surfing away and suddenly get a popup that says something to the effect of ‘WARNING! Your computer is infected by eighty-gazillion viruses.  Click here now to run a scan!’.  Whatever you do, do NOT run that scan.  If you press OK or run the scan you’ll be infected by a nasty and at that point you’ll be in a world of hurt.

If you get one of those popups simply reboot your computer and run a full virus scan using your valid antivirus program.

If you haven’t updated your computer in several months or more you might consider having a professional go over your system, perform the necessary updates and do a tune-up on your system.  Of course we here at Scurlock Systems would be honored to assist you via a remote session in updating your system, but whatever you do, make sure your systems are updated and stay that way!

 

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

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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 also make killer desktop computers.

When was the last time you rebooted your computer?

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Posted on : 02-09-2011 | By : admin | In : Tips and Tricks
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Remote Computer Support Plano Computer Repair

 

 

When was the last time you rebooted your computer?

We don’t mean putting it in sleep mode or hibernating, but an honest to goodness full shut down and restart.

Many of us (Scurlock Systems techies included) leave our desktop systems up 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

When you do that, you may notice that your system begins to bog down after a while, and may even begin displaying strange behavior (great name for a band…) such as programs locking up or not running, browser not loading some web pages and general goofiness.

What we do here is reboot our systems once a week, and by reboot we mean a complete power down of the system, then turning it back on.  This clears out the brain and allows for a fresh start of Windows.  If you are running XP, Vista or Windows 7 simply click on the Start button and choose either Shut Down or Turn Off Computer.  Once the system has been powered down turn that baby back on.

If you cringe at the thought of rebooting your computer because in the time it takes to boot up and load Windows you could have made a 7-course meal then you should have your system tuned up by a professional.  If you are in need of a tuneup to whip your computer back into shape we would be honored to have the opportunity to help you.  It’s something that can be done remotely, so there is no need for you to unhook everything and schlep the system around in your car.

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

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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.

Watch For Extra Passengers When Downloading Software

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Posted on : 31-08-2011 | By : admin | In : Tips and Tricks
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Remote Computer Support Plano Computer Repair

 

 

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

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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.

Windows 7 Trick – ‘Send To’ Options

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Posted on : 23-08-2011 | By : admin | In : Tips and Tricks, Windows 7
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Remote Computer Support Plano

 

 

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.

Standard send 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:

Shift send to

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

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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.

Windows 7 – Switch Between Monitors With Ease

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Posted on : 23-08-2011 | By : admin | In : Tips and Tricks, Windows 7
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Remote Computer Support Plano 

Have you ever had a laptop and one of those head-scratching moments while you tried to figure out which combination of buttons to press so you could use a projector or monitor that you plugged in?  On one laptop it might be fn+F8, while on another fn+F5 while on another it might be a button that you press that is somewhere on the laptop.

With Windows 7 Microsoft made it easy.  Press the Windows key and p.  That’s it.  Windows Key + P will bring up a window that will allow you to switch between your laptop display and a projector or monitor that you hooked up.  If you are running a desktop system with multiple monitors you can also use Windows Key + P to configure your displays.

change displays

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

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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.

Windows 7 Trick – Alt + Tab vs. Windows Key + Tab

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Posted on : 23-08-2011 | By : admin | In : Tips and Tricks, Windows 7
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Remote Computer Support Plano

 

 

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.

Alt Tab

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.

Window Key Tab

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

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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.