2011 – Page 4 – Geek Easy Computers – Computer Repair in Kalamazoo

Its our Birthday!

Post author:Geek Easy
Post published:May 8, 2011

Everybody has a friend who announces his or her birthday waaaaaay before it’s time just to ensure that people remember. If you frequently forget birthdays like I do (including my own if I’m lucky), this can be helpful to ensure you don’t forget to celebrate, send birthday wishes, etc. But it can get a tad tedious to listen to that countdown (Two weeks until my birthday! One week until my birthday! My birthday is tomorrow! It’s my BIRTHDAAAAAAAY!). I mean, it’s not a nuclear missile launch, and it’s not your birthday. (more…)

Spring Cleaning

Post author:Geek Easy
Post published:March 22, 2011

The spring equinox is fast approaching the northern hemisphere, and it won’t be long until the phrase “spring cleaning” is knocking at our doorsteps. Spring is a time of regrowth, renewal and rejuvenation. It’s a time to start outdoor projects the winter has kept grounded for months on end and get around to all the things we’ve been putting off: cleaning the basement, painting the house, being cheerful, etc. So what better time to do a little “spring cleaning” on our home PCs?

I know I’m guilty of letting my performance computer with all its hard drive space just hold on to unneeded files, programs, updaters, etc. My desktop gets so cluttered from time to time that I’m not even sure what my background looks like. Files like dfd-setup.exe, DSC01308.jpg and sound_20987.mp3 are scattered everywhere, and it doesn’t help me get a single thing accomplished. I spend a lot of time wading through the garbage trying to find what I’m actually looking for when I could just clean up these useless files and move on.

Spring is a perfect time to do the computer cleaning that’s been a long time coming. Whether you’re desktop is littered with unnecessary files or programs you installed once, you have to close 3 different update programs every time you turn on your PC or you’ve been building a wig out of dust and stray cat hair inside your computer, all of these ills can be fixed. (more…)

The Cost of Business Downtime

Post author:Geek Easy
Post published:March 2, 2011

We’ve all experienced the headaches: “The server is down,” “I can’t print,” “Email won’t send,” “The computer won’t boot,” etc. When problems happen at home, a little lost Facebook time can actually be a good thing, it can give you a chance to read, spend time with family or tackle projects that have been put off repeatedly. But when computer problems happen at work, the toll computer downtime takes on a business can be catastrophic.

When you consider how much businesses rely on computers and electronic data these days, it’s easy to see how losing that data can cost a business big time. If one hard drive crashes among many employee computers, you might think that one small failure isn’t such a big deal, but unless the work data was backed up to external media or saved on a server, the loss of project work could set that employee back days, weeks or months.

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Lost in the Cloud

Post author:Geek Easy
Post published:February 10, 2011

If you’ve been paying attention to technology lately, the buzzword in the industry is definitely the “cloud.” Cloud computing, for people confused yet interested, isn’t some sort of magic technological breakthrough that harnesses the raw power of water droplets and ice crystals to load YouTube videos (although that would be pretty buzz-worthy). Put more simply, the cloud is a method of distributing services (like email, music, videos, documents and even video games) to end-users without having to run a program or save the data on a local computer; even simpler would be to say that it’s a way of computing entirely on-line. (more…)

Bloatware

Post author:Geek Easy
Post published:February 1, 2011

If you use a computer (and if you’re reading this, you must), you should ask yourself the following questions. Do I really need to update Flash, Java, iTunes, Quicktime and my HP print software every week? Do I really need a half dozen toolbars littering my browser window? Does every program on my computer need a speed launcher running all the time on the slim chance that I’m opening Microsoft Access or Adobe Acrobat or OpenOffice? Unless you have some sort of undiagnosed techno-compulsion, the answer to these is probably “no.”

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Nvidia Settlement

Post author:Geek Easy
Post published:January 28, 2011

Possible Repair or Replacement Reimbursement

If you have a bricked laptop sitting at home with video problems, NVIDIA might spring for a replacement. Last week was the start of the claim period for a class-action lawsuit filed against the popular graphics manufacturer NVIDIA for some faulty laptop graphics processors and chipsets produced in the last five years. The affected laptops were manufactured by Apple, Dell and HP-Compaq between November 2005 and February 2010.

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