Have you noticed your computer has gotten slower over time?  When you bought it a year or two ago it was so much faster than your old one, but lately it’s been taking  just a little too long to open Microsoft Word, or to pull up your home page in your internet browser, right?  Before you decide it’s just too slow to work with anymore, here are few things you can do to help speed it up and delay the cost of buying a brand new computer.

1. Add more memory (RAM).  Adding RAM is an easy and inexpensive way to do to speed up a slow computer.  Memory is where all of the work in a computer gets done, and more workspace helps the processor work more efficiently and reduces virtual memory swapping.  The caveat is that your computer has to be able to support more RAM.  Windows XP and other 32bit operating systems have a 3.5GB limit.  Check with a technician to make sure your system has available memory slots, and that will accept larger sized memory modules.
2. Increase your page file.  All Windows computer’s use virtual memory.  This is a bit of space on your hard drive that your computer uses as a temporary space holder so the processor can use more of the RAM.  Increasing the size of a page file can reduce fragmentation and allow larger files to be swapped more efficiently.  I recommend a static page file of twice the size of the physical RAM.
3. Defrag your hard drive.  When files are written to the hard drive, they can be broken up due to size and space considerations.  Over time, this causes your computer to have to pull files together from too many different places, slowing it down.  Defragging your hard drive will make files contiguous, thus improving reading and writing speeds.  Defragging should be considered about every 6 months, and Windows provides a handy tool in your Accessories => System Tools folder to accomplish it.
4. Update your PC.  This means your programs, as well as Windows.  I have seen a computer’s boot time cut dramatically after applying a service pack to the OS.  And, programs are sometimes re-written to improve performance.  Look for Windows updates once a week, or turn on Automatic Updates.  Program updates happen less frequently, so I recommend checking them every 6 months.  Also, check for hardware updates.  Check your PC manufacturer or component OEM for firmware updates about every 6 months as well.
5. Change your hard drive to a solid state drive.  The solid state drive, or SSD, is a fairly new component.  It is kind of like a thumb drive, but on the inside of a computer.  It has no moving parts, so reading and writing is much faster than traditional hard disk drives.  The caveat here is that they are still fairly expensive right now.  You can buy a 250GB SSD for about $250, as opposed to the same size hard disk drive which should only run you about $50.  If you have the cash and the need for more speed, I do recommend it.

You should talk with a tech about anything your feel uncomfortable doing to your PC, and you should always back your computer up before making major changes.  Any or all of these options could afford you additional speed, potentially delaying a full-blown trade up to a brand new system.

Q: What is the difference between my hard drive and memory?:  An analogous explanation of your computer components.

When talking with clients, one of the problems we often have as techs is explaining arcane technical details in a way that the client understands them. That’s because we speak in a different language; geek!  When we are trying to explain to a customer that they need more memory, they may not fully understand what difference that will make.  Most of the time they just accept our work and leave it at that; but others sometimes want an explanation of why they need the memory.  It was during one of these conversations that I came up with my analogy for computers.

Imagine , if you will, that your computer is an office.  An office may have decorations to make it more personal, but for the most part, most things in an office are there to facilitate some form of productivity.  It’s no different inside a computer.  The processor, the memory, the video card, and so on, are there to get something accomplished; to create a word document, to edit a photo, etc.

It all starts with the one component that actually processes data, the processor.  The central processing unit (CPU), is like the person who sits in an office, working.  In order for things to get done, all data is processed by the CPU.  A faster processor is like a more efficient employee.

At some point, all data is also processed in the memory, or RAM.  This component is like a desk in an office.  Let’s say you are an accountant and you are working on a client’s books, dealing with receipts, tax forms, and other papers to make the numbers add up.  If you only have one square foot, how much work can you actually do?  You wouldn’t have enough room to work on multiple pieces of the account all at once.  You would be constantly swapping what was on your desk for something else you need to look at or make a change to.  What you need is a bigger desk, something like four times as big as your original.  You now have quadrupled the desktop space on which you can work.  You can spread out and do the task much faster, without having to swap off as much as before.  Since the swapping takes time and slows you down, you’re able to be much quicker and more productive with the larger desk.  That’s how memory works, you add more to give the process a larger workspace.  The more memory a computer has, the less it has to swap to virtual space.  It is noteworthy to mention that RAM is volatile; that is to say that when you turn off a computer, what is in memory is deleted.  For permanent storage you need to look at the hard drive.

A computer can store information in many places, but the fastest and most accessible is the hard drive.  This part of a computer is analogous to a filing cabinet.  After you have worked on your project, you need to store it so you can work on another, as well as be able to find past projects you need to maintain.  A hard drive does the same thing for documents, pictures, and other data that you need to keep to work with later.  This data is not erased when you turn the computer off, just like turning the lights off in your office doesn’t empty your filing cabinets.  However, turning the lights off will keep you from seeing your desk.

Seeing the desktop of your computer would be impossible without the video card and monitor.  These are like the lights over your head, illuminating your desk and the documents on which you need to work.  Without these components, you would literally be in the dark as to what you were clicking on or typing.

There are other components in a computer, but the ones discussed here are the major ones necessary for a PC to be a productive part of your work environment.  Hopefully these analogies will aid you in discussing your computer’s issues when you need a technician to help you troubleshoot a problem.

One of the easiest and most important things anyone can do to secure their computers and the data it houses is to use a complex, or strong, password. Complex passwords should follow these guidelines:

• They should not contain all or part of the user’s account name
• Be at least eight characters in length
• Contain characters from three of the following four categories:
• English uppercase characters (A through Z)
• English lowercase characters (a through z)
• Base 10 digits (0 through 9)
• Nonalphanumeric characters (e.g., !, $, #, %)
• Should not repeat any character twice in a row

Now, you might say that sounds like overkill. “How are they going to guess my password? It’s not like using a more difficult password really makes that much of a difference.” Short answer: You couldn’t be more wrong.

Passwords can be broken in a variety of ways. To name a few, there are dictionary attacks and brute force attacks, not to mention the ability to use social media and/or social engineering to gain enough knowledge to make an educated guess.

Dictionary attacks are deployed using a program that runs through all the words in the dictionary to attempt access. So, if your password is something business related (like “tooth” for a dental office, or “kids” for a daycare), it’s just a matter of time before they find the right word. Brute force attacks are simply a human or computer program trying various common passwords to obtain entry like breaking down a door. Users who don’t have a password, or who use words like “password” are easy to crack. However, by simply adding numbers, symbols, and mixing the capitalization, the difficulty of using dictionary and/or brute force attacks is greatly increased.

But don’t think about using a birthday or anniversary as some of the characters designed to increase complexity. This is where social engineering and the use of social media come into play. Social engineering is a nice way of saying someone tricks you into giving them your password. It’s why you always see warnings from websites and web services that tell you they will never ask for your password. Yet the reason those warnings are all over the place is because users fall for that all the time.

Using personal, yet relatively public information is also vulnerable due to social media. Almost everyone today has a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and various other rapidly evolving forms of social media. The problem lies in that these programs and services are quickly outpacing all regulations and security that need defining and developing to make them secure. People post their birthdays, and their kid’s birthdays online. They tweet about the upcoming trip to celebrate their anniversary. They give anyone who cares to look a glimpse at the most common dates and people in their lives. Is that a terrible thing? No, but it should make you weary of using that same information to safeguard your systems and data.

So the next time you have to create a password, take a second to think about how “easy” it is to remember and type. Because the easier it is for you, the easier it is for the hacker who wants your data.

UPS Battery Backup

It should be no surprise that power outages happen, whether it’s the result of human error, a hiccup from your electrical provider or from a natural disaster. Power outages can wreak havoc on a business and can even shut the business down for hours or days.

That’s one reason that businesses need to invest in a device called an uninterruptible power supply or UPS. This is a device that gets installed between a power source (the plug in the wall) and the machinery for which the power is being provided, typically a computer or server.

Think of a UPS as a backup power supply for your equipment.  Many alarm clocks today have the ability for a battery to be plugged in so that when power is lost, your alarm clock continues keeping time. A UPS is just a much bigger version of that for computers. This way if the power goes out, systems and disk drives don’t crash, which could cause data corruption.

On a basic level, the UPS is stand-by energy that provides the user with a few extra minutes of power in the case of an emergency.  This extra time allows the user or an administrator to save what they’re working on, close out of all open windows and applications, and turn all the machines off in a methodical, orderly manner.  Without it, a power failure will cause a “hard shutdown” of your equipment that can cause damage to the internal hardware of the machine and corrupt data stored on the drives.  The more powerful (and usually more expensive) the UPS the longer you can continue to work before shutting down while the user is waiting for the power to return.  You should have an expert calculate the runtime based on the electrical load it will be carrying in the event of a failure to make sure the time available for shut down meets your needs.

Having a UPS is having a peace of mind, knowing the next time the power goes out you will have time to save what you are working on, and to shut the systems down the correct way and lower the chance of hardware failure and data corruption.