Since there are so many programs out there to clutter the [SOMETHING] of AntiVirus, let’s start off with what we recommend! There are two programs that you can run simultaneously to keep you protected against the nasties. First off, Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s a completely free (yes, free!) traditional antivirus application that’s designed to keep you safe with very minimal user interaction. You don’t have to manually update, scan, or even open the application. We urge you to run that with MalwareBytes AntiMalware, which will keep the system free of the newer, unconventional viruses that have been extremely widespread as of late. MalwareBytes (or MBAM) is also fully automated and costs a $24.99 flat one-time fee.

Even if you’re running the best-of-the-best AntiVirus applications, you could still be at risk if you’re using an unsecure browser such as Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox is our browser of choice (though Google Chrome is a close second). Both of these browsers support the AdBlock Plus and Web of Trust addons, which add a great layer of security within those browsers.

AntiVirus programs and web browsers are only the first step, however. The first line of defense is always the user. If a website or email looks a bit shady, don’t click on it. If you’re unsure, definitely call us at 972-633-1111. We’re always happy to help!

Jimmy Faryewicz
Computer Specialist // Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

The key things you need to protect yourself against are fire, theft, and hardware failures. For you to be completely protected, we highly recommend using an offsite backup service such as CrashPlan Pro. Services like this back up your data online and keep numerous copies and revisions for you to restore at a moment’s notice. We also recommend keeping any CDs and CD keys, even if you’ve already installed the program. Should your computer act up and need replacing, having these accessible will save you time, money, and headache.

To see about getting CrashPlan Pro set up and installed on your computer, contact us at 972-633-1111!

Jimmy Faryewicz
Computer Specialist // Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

First off, they perform their namesake function which is to provide constant power in the event that your home or office power fails. This prevents sudden power-downs on your computer and the data loss and corruption that coincides with them. Your UPS also provides protection against the leading cause of computer power supply failures, “brown-outs”. A brown-out is when the power dips but does not go out. These events can be observed by the dimming and brightening of the lights in your home or office and can last from a tenth of a second to up to 10 seconds. During brown-outs, your UPS will switch to battery power to keep the power that’s being supplied to your computer a constant so the system won’t be damaged.

Having a UPS installed with your computer can provide the peace of mind that your system is safe from power damage. To find out the pricing and models available to you, contact us at 972-633-1111!

Jimmy Faryewicz
Computer Specialist // Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

In this series, we will discuss ways to keep your digital life free of problems and stresses while showing you the steps to take to best prevent disaster, even in a worst-case scenario. Check back every week for a new topic!

Planned topics of discussion:

• Battery Backups – available 3/20/2012
• Data Backup – available 3/26/2012
• AntiVirus/AntiMalware – available 4/2/2012
• Computer Alerts/Popups – available 4/9/2012
• Tune-Ups/Clean-Ups – available 4/16/2012
• Replace or Repair – available 4/23/2012

If there is a topic that you’re interested in hearing more about, please contact us at 972-633-1111 or email the author directly at jimmy@scurlocksystems.com.

Jimmy Faryewicz
Computer Specialist // Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

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 affect our Mozy Pro users as they were already paying by the GB, it did get us to thinking about pricing, and so we looked at other online backup services out there.

Today I want to tell you about Crashplan, a service that offers unlimited backups for both home and business users, along with a couple of other very nifty features.

Because Mozy charges by the GB of space you use, all we backed up was our core data.  We did not include photos or music.  I have a LOT of music, and the monthly cost to back it up would be in excess of $30/month for that space alone using Mozy’s service.

I installed the CrashplanPro software on my main office system, which took all of 2 minutes to download and install, then kicked off the backup.  My initial data was 102GB in size.  To back that much data up on Mozy would cost $54.95 a month, and the initial backup would take a very long time, measured in weeks.

One of the great things about Crashplan is that it will allow you to modify how much bandwidth to use.  I removed all restrictions, let her rip!

The initial backup took 36 hours.  For 102GB of data.  FAST!  I ran the backup during business hours, kicking it off on a Wednesday morning.  I had another tech who was also using Crashplan to backup 60GB of data on his system at the same time.  We did not notice any degradation to our network speed, but we do have a 25/25 FIOS pipe here.  I would imagine with a standard DSL line it would take considerably longer to backup your data.

Another (HUGE!) feature is that you can backup mapped network drives or NAS drives.  It does take a bit of configuration, and while it not officially supported, Crashplan did post a how-to article on how to set it up.  We setup a NAS drive here with about 700MB of data and ran a full backup on the drive in a matter of a few minutes.

And the icing on the cake? Android and iPhone access to your backups! Install the free Android or iPhone app, login and you can check the status of your backups, even browse and download backed up files.  Now that is slick.

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

Web
Main site: www.scurlocksystems.com
Remote Services: 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 also just happen to make rock solid desktop computer systems!

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 computer is a fresh load of XP with the latest drivers installed

All subsequent operating system updates have been downloaded and installed, and the following software installed:

• Mozilla Firefox with Adblock Plus and Web of Trust Addons
• Microsoft Security Essentials Antivirus

Comes preinstalled with genuine Windows XP Pro license, with the Certificate of Authenticity located on the desktop case.

This is certainly no gaming system, but would be perfect for someone needing a computer to check email, do homework and do some light surfing.

Please call us at 972-633-1111 if interested.  The system is available if you would like to take it for a test drive.

Thank you!

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.

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

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 have a (gently) used Compaq Presario desktop system for sale for $150.00

The system includes:

• Desktop Computer
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• DVD Writer with Lightscribe

The computer is running an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor at 2.4GHz with 1GB of RAM.  We installed a new 160GB hard drive and have loaded a fresh installation of XP Media Center Edition with Service Pack 3.

All subsequent operating system updates have been downloaded and installed, and the following software installed:

• Mozilla Firefox with Adblock Plus and Web of Trust Addons
• Microsoft Security Essentials Antivirus
• Malwarebytes Antimalware (free) Antimalware

Comes preinstalled with genuine Windows XP Media Center license, with the Certificate of Authenticity located on the desktop case.

This is certainly no gaming system, but would be perfect for someone needing a computer to check email, do homework and do some light surfing.

Please call us at 972-633-1111 if interested.  The system is available if you would like to take it for a test drive.

Thank you!

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.

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

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 you take your computer in for service one of the questions that you (I hope!) are asked is if you have a current backup of your data. Think this through fully before answering – if you have a backup from ‘several months ago, I think…’ then the answer is no, you do not have a current backup.

One of the services that we offer at Scurlock Systems to clients is to image their hard drive, which is a complete, 100%, bit by bit copy of *everything* on the drive. The cost is minimal ($45), and the process involves pulling the hard drive out of the computer, mounting it in one of our servers and obtaining the image.

The process takes all of 90 minutes to an hour to complete, after-which you *know* your data is backed up before any work is performed.

The next time you take your computer in for service and you aren’t 100% sure that you have a current backup, ask about getting your hard drive imaged as a precaution.

I’ll leave you with one example of how a simple image saved the day…

We had a client who needed several of their computers’ hard drives to be encrypted, and while the program used to encrypt the drives, PGP Whole Disk Encryption by Symantec, was world-class, anytime we perform disc encryption we take an image of the drive before beginning the encryption process.

We imaged each of the system drives, then proceeded with the encryption process. On all of the systems but one the process was textbook. Installed the software, encrypted the drive, rebooted, Bob’s your uncle, we’re done.

On that one system though… The software was installed and the encryption process run, the system rebooted, and… Nothing. Zilch. System would not boot. Seems something got corrupted during the encryption process and fried the drive.

After spending time on the phone with tech support it was determined that the only option moving forward was to reload Windows, applications and data. ‘I hope you have a backup…’ was all the tech could say at the end of the call.

Not to worry, we had a full image of the hard drive! We placed the image back on the drive, putting the drive back to just how it was before starting the process, booted into Windows with no harm done. We reran the encryption process, this time without any hitches, and all was right and good with the world. Had we not had the image, and even if the client had a full backup of all their data we would have wound up reinstalling Windows, updates, antivirus, applications, the list goes on…

The imaging software we use is made by Acronis.

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 also make killer desktop computers.