There really is no excuse for my month+ leave of absence on this blog, my apologies dear readers and customers. I've been so busy and creatively burnt lately that I haven't been able to think of any really good topics, so despite that still being an issue I'm going to start typing and hopefully at some point something useful or interesting will happen.

I guess I could start off talking about SEO, or "Search Engine Optimization". It's a series of techniques that expert web designers use to boost their rankings on popular search engines like Yahoo, Google, and Bing. The methods used to do this are shrouded in mystery and everytime a really easy method is discovered it's quickly circumvented by the search engines, so in order to really boost your site's rankings the site itself really has to be... well... good. It doesn't matter how much money you pay an SEO guy - nowadays if your site has no current content, no interesting links, a poorly worded description or header, is entirely flash based, or just a sad attempt to sell a bad product, you're screwed. 

Here's the formula for a top-ranked web page:

• Figure out what keywords people will be entering in to search engines in order to find you. For me it's "Portland Computer Repair". Use these words often but IN CONTEXT. Don't just place them all over the page willy nilly. Try to capitalize them whenever possible.
• Use image tags often and make them relevant - also try to include your keywords in as many as you can.
• Use meta description and title tags to ACCURATELY DESCRIBE YOUR BUSINESS and use your keywords at the top of your description
• If you're going to use fancy flash animations, make sure that all of the content in the Flash thingy is also in your HTML code somewhere. Google can't watch and understand your fancy Flash stuff, so whenever possible spell out what you're trying to describe as clearly as possible.
  

Once you've done all that, you're still not going to have a top ranked page. Why? Because if your page isn't interesting to anyone, Google won't rank you highly. How does Google tell if your site is interesting to anybody? By looking at how many people have LINKS TO YOUR WEB PAGE ON THEIR SITE. This is vitally important, more so than anything above. Good SEO guys will know how to get your page mentioned on popular blogs, forums, and web sites that deal with the kind of space that you're getting into. Having a popular blog yourself (ahem) that people are actually interested in and occasionally linking to can make a HUGE impact as well.

So, that said, the guy who did MY SEO is offering his services free to any business sector that he's not doing business with currently (like, *cough*, computer repair people). If you're interested he's good, local, and an all around nice guy. His website is www.bestjobpdx.info .

Look for my next post... err... within the next month at least! :P

With monitors being as cheap as they are, many of you may not be aware that support for two or even three monitors is built into Windows XP, Vista, and Mac environments. For those of you who juggle multiple windows and programs at once it can be a real boon to have a second screen, and it can sometimes be as easy as simply plugging in another monitor and configuring your display settings.

NVIDIA and ATI, the largest producers of video cards, offer specific tools to enable multiple monitor support. After you've plugged in a second one,you'll want to boot up Windows and right-click the desktop. You should see "ATI Control Panel" or "Nvidia Control Panel" or something similar to what's below:

Click on that and choose "multiple monitor configuration". To get a desktop like mine below, you'll want to stretch your desktop across both monitors. Now, when placed side-by-side, they'll function as one giant monitor.

 

There are some great tools out there to manage 2 and even 3 monitor desktops, and some amazing wide-screen wallpapers available to boot. Check out the free tool, DisplayFusion, to really work those many screens:

DisplayFusion

... and click the wallpapers below for some free, downloadable, and truly georgous backgrounds:

If you need help, I'd be happy to come out and install a dual or triple monitor rig for you! 503-523-1012.

See you next time!

First off, sorry for my delay in blog posts - I've just moved across town and it was pretty exhausting. The new business address is 2239 SE Oak St, 97214 - and hey to all you South Easters.

Microsoft has been resting on it's laurels for some time - a massive install base, ingrained technologies like Office and IIS, and strong customer loyalty. That massive install base has been eroded a little thanks to Google and Apple pecking away at it steadily for the past few years and the critically panned bloated monstrosity that was Microsoft's last OS release, Vista. With that in mind, it was absolutely VITAL that the team in Redmond pull off a hail mary and patch a few holes in the sinking ship with a solid OS release, and that's the hope with Windows 7.

I've been running the pre-release version of Windows 7 on my production machine now for almost 3 months, and I've got to say - I LOVE it. This is truly the OS that Vista should have been, and finally gives the layperson a good reason to upgrade from the 8-year-old Windows XP. 

The good:

The UI - It isn't just prettier (although it is REALLY pretty), it's far more functional. The new taskbar is one of my favorite things. Each icon is not only used to launch the program, but also to keep track of files you've opened most frequently, to show you programs that are curently running in miniature little windows for easy and rapid access to the one you're looking for (I'm notorious for having like 4 different browser windows open with various streaming content - watching them all run in miniature is fun in a way that's hard to describe), and to show you at a glance what programs are currently active.  It's a comination of the old Windows XP "quick launch" bar and task manager bar, and it's awesome.

The Speed - compared to Vista's 77 pinto, Windows 7 is a Ferarri. It's obvious the team at Redmond has been focusing a lot on making necessary services start up faster, and unnecessary ones take less resources while coming to life in the background. It boots up much faster than even my barebones XP installation, and seems ready to use almost immediately without the usual Windows "Start lag" where it may LOOK like your icons are up and ready for action but in reality the hard drive and processor are being worked so hard that clicking on Firefox is a wasted effort for at least 5 minutes. 

The Compatibility - so far, I have yet to run into a program that worked well in Vista that hasn't worked in 7. In fact, the few games I play installed without incident and ran faster than they did in XP, which is the opposite of Vista. On top of that, if you have a REALLY hard core Windows XP program that you need to run, and for some reason it just isn't working in 7 (which means it probably wasn't working in Vista, either), Microsoft has harnessed the power of processor-level virtualization technology to allow you to run a full-fledged version of XP from WITHIN Windows 7 and run all XP-compatibile programs on it without incident. This "virtual XP" is completely unaware that it's running within Windows 7 and behaves exactly like XP, so anyway you look at it your covered.

The Future - some technologies that are still maturing but readily available in 7 are totally sweet. Want to stream all of your media from your home computer to your laptop or handheld device? Simply open up the new Media Player, click "Allow Internet Access to my home media" and bam, you've got your movies / music / TV library with you wherever you go. Makes you shed a tear for the poor paperback novel. Add to that the bevy of available multi-touch options and we're one step away from the eye-popping radness of those screens in "Minority Report". Sure, it's going to require that everyone buy a multi-touch enabled monitor or a screen to put on top of their old monitor, but damn, if you've seen any demos of this and not drooled all over your shorts you're a stronger man than I (or at least, a lot less of a giant dork). 

Windows Multi-Touch Tech Demo

There's tons more I could mention but suffice it to say that if you're buying a new computer today, make sure it comes with a "Windows 7 Upgrade License". Windows 7 is set to hit stores on new computers in the next few weeks and be available to end users very very soon. Being a computer repair guy, I can upgrade your systems for you of course. Just give me a ring!

That's all for now, Justin out!

Right off the bat, just want to say that I am extending computer repair service to the Lake Oswego area, so if you're out that direction feel free to give me a ring! Now, on to more interesting topics...

Keeping kids away from all of the filth on the internet doesn't have to be a difficult task, but it seems daunting. Let's face it, even the most innocuous search terms sometimes lead to some really horrifying porn. I can only imagine the kind of results you'd get looking up "Largest bone" for an anatomy paper, "exports of Bangkok" for geography or "Japanese schoolgirl outfits" for ummm... social studies? Ok, I'm done.

Recently, NPR ran an excellent program on "All Tech Considered" that did a great job of summing up all of the various programs out there to assist you in maintining your child's precious innocence for as long as possible. Therefore, I'm shamelessly stealing it. Here's the list:

• The McGruff SafeGuard software monitors Web activity and filters content and there's a free version available. Unfortunately, it only works with newer Windows PCs.
• Some of the kid-friendly Web browsers available include Buddy Browser and KidRocket.
• A guide to setting up parental controls and passwords in Internet Explorer.
• Two Web filters for the popular Firefox browser: ProCon Latte and FoxFilter.
• An excellent resource that tells parents exactly what to expect in video game content, What They Play.
• PowerCop and Time-Scout Monitor (pictured above) are two devices that allow you to control how much time your kids spend on the computer at the source: the power source. Maybe not such a hot idea for laptops, though.
• Chicago Tribune has tips for protecting your kids when they're using a cell phone.
• McAfee's Family Protection software and security software from Trend Micro.
• SpectorSoft has several versions of surveillance software that can record keystrokes and give you reports on your child's Web activity.
• Lori Getz has done a good series of articles for momlogic.com on these kinds of topics.
• Good recent article from Canada.com.
• Nine ways to keep tabs of your kids online this summer, from ABC News.

If you'd like to see their full blog it's right here.

Once more, don't forget that if you're in Lake Oswego and need your computer fixed, pick up the phone!

A while back I mentioned how awesome Firefox is and how much better and safer it is than running Internet Explorer. Well, a fellow tech geek has just validated that statement and made it about ten times more accurate with this article:

10 Firefox extensions that help keep you safe

Being safe while you surf the web is extremely important, yet safe surfing sometimes seems like an oxymoron. For users of the Firefox browser, downloading security extensions can help increase your level of protection from worms, hackers, phishers and the like.

I should note that even with these extensions installed, you won't be perfectly safe. Visit sites only of trusted sources, and don't download unknown files.

He mentiones the following Firefox Add-ons: BetterPrivacy, BlockSite, Dr. Web Anti-Virus, FormFox, Ghostery, Locationbar, NoScript, Password Hasher, QuickJava, and Web of Trust.

Read the full article here!

Wow your friends! Terrify your enemies! Cause women to tremble and faint! It's all part of being an uber-geek, and any self respecting geek will tell you that it's all about the tools.

When you're fixing computers, you can bungle around with built-in windows apps like task manager and command shell all you want, but if you want to fix things FAST and RIGHT you've got to have a well-stocked USB flash drive. That's where the Technibble forums come in.

GAWD how I love these guys. First off, if you're trying to fix some crazy once-in-a-lifetime issue there are techs that watch those forums that make me look like a complete n00b (that's computer idiot, for you computer idiots). On top of that they've got this thing called "Repair tool of the week" which has made my life about 20x easier. 

Take a look over at technibble.

Here's where you can find all of the "Repair tools of the week".

A few standouts:

Dial-A-Fix is like a swiss army knife for techs. It fixes all kinds of common windows problems. If you think you've got an issue you can safely just run all of the tasks in that sucker and a fair amount of the time your problem will be solved.

ATF Cleaner I've mentioned before, but it's the easiest way to clean out your crap and junk files.

FoxIt Reader and PDF Creator are free replacements for Adobe Acrobat. FoxIT Reader is also about 1/10th the size of Acrobat reader, faster, and just better in every way. PDF Creator is an excellent poor-mans alternative to shelling out $700 for Acrobat to create PDF documents.

Enjoy, thanks for reading, and see you next week(ish)!

I might be shooting myself in the foot professionally by writing this entry, but I feel like the number of people reading this blog before they call me has got to be pretty slim. With that in mind, here are a few steps to take before calling a computer repair guy like myself:

If your computer's acting weird and you suspect you have a virus:

1. Install Malware Bytes (malwarebytes.org), let it update fully, then run a full scan. It's free and they catch a LOT of new viruses.
2. Install SuperAntiSpyware (superantispyware.com), update it, then run a full scan. Also free, also good.
3. Run GMER (www.gmer.net). If anything pops up in RED TEXT then you have a rootkit infection. Do the safe mode thing below and run the virus scans again.

If those things don't work or don't help, try doing them from Safe Mode.

How to get into Safe Mode:

1. Reboot the computer. Just after the initial loading screen and before the windows logo comes up, start tapping the F8 key on your keyboard repeatedly.  If you see the windows logo you've missed your chance, reboot and try again and start tapping F8 sooner.
2. If you did it right, you'll see a diagnostics menu with an option for "Safe Mode" on it. Choose "Safe Mode with Networking".
3. Perform the steps above again.

If your computer is no longer booting all the way into windows:

If you're still seeing the windows logo for a brief amount of time before your computer crashes or reboots, there's hope!

1. Boot into Safe Mode like I described above.
2. Run a disk scan by clicking on the "start" button, clicking on "run", and typing in "chkdsk /f". If you see a black window that's fine, just say "yes" if it asks you if you want to run a scan on reboot.
3. Reboot your computer.

If it's still broke:

1. Boot into Safe Mode like I described above.
2. Open MSConfig by clicking on the "start" button, clicking on "run", and typing in "msconfig". Choose "System Restore" from the tools menu.

Click "Launch". Follow the prompts and choose a date from a few days ago to restore from. This will sometimes fix the problem as well.

if it's STILL broke:

1. Remove any new hardware you've installed.
2. Boot into Safe Mode and click on the "start" button, then click on "control panel"
3. Click on "add/remove programs"
4. Remove any new programs you've installed.
5. Install the virus scanners metnioned above and run scans.

Hope that helps! See you next time.

I hate to be misleading with the title of this post but we're testing web crawler functionality and I had to put "Portland Computer Repair" in there. Anyway, I wanted to diverge a little from my usual "computing for novices" direction and just show you something that *I* think is really cool. For years I've been telling anyone who will listen that in the very near future we'll all have heads-up-displays that show us relevant information about whatever we're looking at, powered by the internet and turning everyone into (book-smart) geniuses. I was thinking of powered contact-lenses as a viewing device, or special glasses or at the far-end of believability some kind of actual brain implant, but these guys have gone ahead and done it with a personal projection system which is also a really cool idea. On top of that, they've actually made it FUNCTIONAL. You absolutely must watch this TED demo of the technology at work, as I promise you within 10 years we'll all have something like this (and hopefully it won't look completely ridiculous):

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

Think about it! How many times have you met someone you've met before and can't remember a thing about them? Awkward, right? Well, with something like this everyone you see will have their relevant information surrounding them, you will instantly know product reviews and price listings just by looking at an item, you'll know the quality of a restaurant's food and service while you're walking past it, you'll know if you're flight's been delayed while you're reading the morning news, etc, etc.

It's a brave new world and, for me at least, I can't freaking wait.

It's truly amazing how much money Microsoft pulls in from what is, in relative computer terms, ancient software. For most applications and software you purchase and buy online, if it's more than two years old it's worthless. This rule doesn't apply to Microsoft, though, the latest version of it's Office suite is nearing three years old now, and Windows XP, still the most popular OS by far, is almost SEVEN. The reason for this is that you're basically forced into owning these hobbling, wrinkled old testaments to mediocrity to do your work, right?

Wrong. Well, you're still sort of forced to own Windows if that's all you've ever used, but for Office there are alternatives. Better alternatives. FREE alternatives. Alternatives like OpenOffice, which does everything Microsoft Office does and is way cheaper. By way cheaper I mean it doesn't cost anything. Compared to the current retail price of Office 2007 ($150 for the academic version) that's a pretty suite deal (ha ha, see what I did there?).

You can download OpenOffice for naught a penny here:

www.openoffice.org

If you own a business and want what basically amounts to the corporate version, you can get it for $35 a license (wowza!) here:

www.sun.com

Oh, and if you're just trying to replace Outlook there's a great, free alternative out there for you as well. Thunderbird, by the makers of Firefox. 

www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Oh, and just a moment of gloating: I was totally right about Conficker. LOL. Okay I'm done.

I'm aware of the media freak-out regarding the oh-so mysterious Conficker worm and it's apparent payload of blowing the back out of your hard drive, poisoning your french fries and killing your dog this April 1st - my advice to you, don't worry about it.

This particular virus really isn't all that much different than a few thousand we've seen this year, it's just a little more streamlined and for some reason the media has got a scary stalker crush on it. You shouldn't be worried. If you're running virus protection (which, if you're reading this blog, you SHOULD BE BY NOW OR SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG WITH YOU) then you're ok. If you want to be really safe, download McAfee Stinger from here:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

and give it a run. It'll clean out Conficker if you've got it. Once you've done that, click the Start Button, click "All Programs", then click "Windows Update" at the top and get all the latest updates just to be sure.

After you're done, take a deep breath, relax, and go worry about something real like the economy for awhile.