What does it mean that my disk is heavily defragmented?

• When files are stored on your hard drive often the file is separated (example: FILE1FILE2FILE1) or there is unnecessary space in between the files so the computer requires more time to find the specific files.

Benefits of running the Disk Defragmenter:

• First and foremost, defragmenting your hard drive will result in faster load times and faster performance (not greatly, but small improvements).

• Because the files are sorted, the hard drive doesn’t have to work as hard to read all the necessary files. This protects the hard drive from potentially overworking itself and doing serious damage to your machine.
• Believe it or not, you may find that after defragmenting your machine that you have more room on your hard drive than your computer originally thought.

How do I run the Disk Defragmenter?

• Select “Start” or the “Windows Logo” in bottom left
• Go to “All Programs”
• Go to “Accessories”
• Go to “System Tools”
• Click on “Disk Defragmenter“ (See below)
• Select your hard drive (Usually C:)
• Select “Defragment”

Conclusion:

• This process isn’t going to provide great noticeable speed improvements, but will slightly increase file access speed and overall increased performance.

Once you have removed the infections and your files are still missing, follow the instructions below:

1. Open “My Computer”

2. Select “C:/ Drive” (or main hard drive is different letter)

3a. For XP, go to C:\Document and Settings

3b. For Vista/Windows 7 go to C:\Users

4. Now you are looking at what should be where all your personal data is stored.

5. You might not see anything in here as the Malware infection has hidden all folders

6. TO UN-HIDE FOLDERS: Go up to “Tools”, then down to “Folder Options”.  (If you don’t see the Tools menu bar, press “alt” and it will show the menu bar. (SEE BELOW)

7. Scroll down to “Hidden files and folders”, and select “Show hidden files and folders” (SEE BELOW)

8. Press “OK”, now you should see your user folder (named your user name)

9. Right mouse click on your folder, select “Properties”.  Now un-check the box that says “Hidden”.

10. Press “OK” and select “Apply to all sub-folders and files”, let the process finish and you should have all of your documents back.

11. You might want to perform the same option described in steps 9 & 10 to default user, or all users to bring back all of your start menu items.

12. When you have all of your files un-hidden, you will want to repeat steps 6 & 7 in reverse order to re-hide hidden folders.

13. Done, you should be malware free and have all of your personal files back.

Far to many of my clients pay lots of money to have a custom web site created for their business and have no idea of how to tell the effectiveness of their web site.  In this information age, data is king, and all site information is available!!  Why not know exactly how many potential customers are viewing your site daily, how long are they spending on each page, where are they coming from, etc.?

The solution is using Google Analytics to track all the information about your website visitors, and the best part is it is absolutely free!!! Google offers this service at no cost, all you have to do is have a Google Account and go to Google.com/analytics and setup an account, and put one line of code (provided by Google to identify your site) into your web site, and start monitoring on a regular basis.

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

So if you have online advertisements linking to your web site, or even just have a web site, you can not afford to not know the specifics about your web site traffic.  Sign up today and start measuring the effectiveness of your marketing materials.

There is an easy way to switch between multiple running programs in Windows which can be extremely useful.

1. Press and hold the “alt” button

2. Then press the “tab”

3. If you only have two windows open it will automatically switch to the other open window.

4. If you have multiple windows open, you will see an image like the one below (only with the programs you have open):

5. While still holding the “alt” key down, you can press the “tab” button to scroll to the program you want to open, then release.

6. Repeat to switch back and forth.

I hope that makes it slightly easier to navigate multiple applications in Windows.  The more key combinations you know and the less time you have to take your hands off the keyboard, the better.

The New York Times is changing from a full free online news provider to a subscription based service.  If you are are a home subscriber of the paper product, then you will continue to get free access to all of New York Times platforms (android, iphone, tablet, nytimes.com).

Excerpt from NYTimes.com:

This is how it will work, and what it means for you:

• On NYTimes.com, you can view 20 articles each month at no charge (including slide shows, videos and other features). After 20 articles, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber, with full access to our site.

• On our smartphone and tablet apps, the Top News section will remain free of charge. For access to all other sections within the apps, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber.

• The Times is offering three digital subscription packages that allow you to choose from a variety of devices (computer, smartphone, tablet). More information about these plans is available at www.nytimes.com/access.

• Again, all New York Times home delivery subscribers will receive free access to NYTimes.com and to all content on our apps. If you are a home delivery subscriber, go tohttp://homedelivery.nytimes.com to sign up for free access.

• Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles.

• The home page at NYTimes.com and all section fronts will remain free to browse for all users at all time

Prices from NYTimes.com

An NYTimes digital subscription provides ongoing access to our digital content. We offer three options, each of which provides unlimited access to the Web site. The differences between the options are based on which smartphone and/or tablet apps are included. The options and pricing are as follows:

NYTimes.com Plus Smartphone App:* $3.75 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $15.00)

• Unlimited access to NYTimes.com from any device
• Unlimited access to the NYTimes app for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android-powered phones

NYTimes.com Plus Tablet App:* $5.00 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $20.00)

• Unlimited access to NYTimes.com from any device
• Unlimited access to the NYTimes app for iPad, plus Times Reader 2.0 and the NYTimes App for the Chrome Web Store

All Digital Access:* $8.75 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $35.00)

• Unlimited access to NYTimes.com, plus smartphone apps and tablet apps
• Unlimited access to NYTimes.com from any device
• Unlimited access to the NYTimes app for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android-powered phones
• Unlimited access to the NYTimes app for iPad, plus Times Reader 2.0 and the NYTimes app for the Chrome Web Store

While helping clients here in Durango, Colorado I often find businesses which would like to share their Microsoft Outlook file (.pst file) with other employees either to create redundancy or share all communications with other employees .

For example, I have a law firm client and the lawyer wants his secretary to know all incoming/outgoing emails so that she is always briefed about client conversations.

The lastest, and best performing software I have found which allows the sharing of your Outlook file for multiple users is WinPST Share Outlook.

WinPST Share Outlook allows your organization to share Microsoft Outlook Calendars, Mails, Contacts, Tasks, Journals and Notes amongst its staff without Microsoft Exchange Server. In addition to sharing users’ personal folders with other members of staff, it is possible, using WinPST Share Outlook, to define public shared folders, for example, shared contacts and holiday calendars, which may be made available to any members of staff.

One of the great features about WinPST Administrator allows you to strictly define which data a particular user has access to through flexible access control lists.  So you can share the information you want to, but keep other areas private.

*To read more about WinPST or to purchase, visit their website by clicking here.

Back from medical leave, Steve Jobs announced the release of the iPad 2 yesterday (see video here).  The iPad 2 has many improvements from the original iPad without sacrificing size, weight, or battery life.  The iPad 2 now has the FaceTime application with a front facing camera (as well as rear camera) to allow video chat over WiFi.  The dual core processor, A5, is magnificent in the fact that you get double the processing speed without sacrificing battery life.  The iPad 2 still boasts a 10 hour battery life, identical to the first generation iPad.  With the HDMI out, it is now possible to watch videos from the iPad 2 to your High-Definition Television in your living room, wether it be a video you shot, Hulu, or Netflix.

Ipad 2 Highlights

Apple’s second-generation iPad features a 1GHz A5 dual-core processor, front- and rear-facing cameras, up to 1080p video out support via HDMI, a 9.7-inch screen with 1024-by-768 resolution, 10 hours of battery life, an accelerometer and three-axis gyroscope, and separate GSM (AT&T) and CDMA (Verizon) 3G connectivity options.

Release Date

March 11, 2011

Pricing

16GB: $499         |          32GB: $599       |      64GB: $699

More and more clients in Durango, Colorado have been coming to my company and asking how come our site doesn’t show up on the search engines (esp. Google) for the search terms that are relevant to our company?  Although your website may be ascetically pleasing and contain content about your business, there are many attributes behind the actual design which users will not see, but the search engines will use to determine your sites relevance.

the Computer Solution LLC offers SEO services to help users find your website for the search terms that are relevant to your products/services.  Contact us today.

General Information About Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid search results.

• What are meta-tags?

Meta elements provide information about a given Web page, most often to help search engines categorize them correctly. They are inserted into the HTML document, but are often not directly visible to a user visiting the site.

• What does the SEO process entail?

Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

Operating System: Windows XP

Anti-Virus Protection: AVG Free 2011

I have been doing some research as these both (AVG / MalwareBytes) are popular software which shouldn’t have any problems running together.  What I found is that there are steps you need to take within AVG prior to the install of MalwareBytes.

Exclude Files and Folders:

To exclude Malwarebytes’ from AVG (2011) Free:
Note: If not AVG, whatever your resident antivirus software is

• Open AVG and click on Tools and select Advanced Settings
• Click on Resident Shield
• Click on Exceptions then click Add Path
• Exclude the following directories:
• C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
  Note: For 64 bit systems it would be C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
  
  
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Malwarebytes
  Note: For Vista and 7 users it would be C:\ProgramData\Malwarebytes

  Click on Add List then copy and paste the text inside the CODE box exactly as written into the AVG window. Select the entries appropriate to your version of Windows:

• Windows XP:

C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbamgui.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbamservice.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\zlib.dll
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbam.dll
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbamext.dll
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\rules.ref
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbam.sys
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbamswissarmy.sys

• Windows Vista and Windows 7

C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbamgui.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbamservice.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\zlib.dll
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbam.dll
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\mbamext.dll
C:\ProgramData\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware\rules.ref
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbam.sys
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbamswissarmy.sys

Try that and let me know via email if that helps your situation, computersolutionco@gmail.com.

So as I have been using Google Chrome for the last two years and figured that more people would of tried it by now, but to my surprise I find that most clients are still using Internet Explorer (even 7.0).  Google Chrome is another internet browser (program to help you browse the web).

Google Chrome is a browser distributed by Google Inc. that is very lightweight and loads in seconds.  It is a very simple browser without many bells and whistles, which makes it quite speedy.  Also, you can search directly from the address bar (see below).

I would recommended everyone download it (PC or MAC version available), try it, and keep it if you like it.

Upon downloading and opening, you can import your bookmarks and favorites so that you still have all the links that you have gathered over the years.

It is secure, fast, and customizable and I am still surprised how many clients are still using Internet Explorer or Firefox.

To download Google Chrome, CLICK HERE