Why You Need An UPS

Assume your power goes out – pick any good reason, but I always like to think one of those pesky squirrels paid the ultimate sacrifice upon the alter of a transformer. Yea, I really don’t like squirrels. Assume it was out for the whole neighborhood. Garage doors would not open, lights would not turn on nor would refrigerators run.

In the midst of it all there you sit with your laptop surfing the web, writing emails or doing a little shopping while sipping on a fresh cup of hot coffee you just made. How? You may ask.

Let me give you a great tip that most computer techs, much less preppers, don’t divulge… get a few UPS’s. UPS stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply. They are like a surge protector on steroids. Most have several plugs that have battery backup and several that are just surge protectors along with protection for cable and phone lines. They also provide protection to your computer from brown outs. While UPS come in many sizes, length of run duration, and cost, even the most basic one will do the trick. Here are a few things I have plugged into mine:

Internet modem/router            

Alarm Clock

Telephone

Roku Box

In the event of a power outage due to some severe event you can still communicate via the internet or listen to a radio for updates. Should the power go out at night your alarm clock will still be fine the next morning.  While a UPS will not provide the duration of a generator, they are far less noisy, use no gasoline, are odorless, and in most cases cost less.

APC is my favorite brand. You can click here to see the many products they provide.

Enter for a chance to win a Roku Internet TV Box just in time for Christmas. Stream TV shows to your TV. Roku has over 500 channels to choose from including Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, the Wall Street Journal and Hulu Plus. Ready to “ditch the dish” or “cut the cable”? Enter now!

Drawing will be held on Dec. 20, 2012. Winner will be notified via email unless another form of notification is requested.

Comments or questions are welcome.

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Two popular cries today are ‘Cut the cable” and “Ditch the dish”. What if you could do one without going to the other? You can. The up and coming winner is going to be Internet TV. If you wonder what makes me believe that, just look at who owns Hulu TV… Comcast.

This is how it works. You purchase one of the available Internet TV boxes, hook it up to your TV, put it on your network either wired or wireless, go through a setup and you are ready to go. I have tested all the boxes and found that Roku is the most mature in stability, channels and setup. Roku must have over 500 channels available now along with many other private channels.

What about local channels? That is easy especially for those in metropolitan areas. You mount an antenna on the roof. Many are not much larger than the satellite dish so they are not an eye sore. Over-the-air HD TV is not compressed like it is with cable or satellite so the picture is striking.

If you want to DIY it is a fun project, not to mention the $$$ you will be putting back into your pocket each month with superior streaming tv programs to watch and choose from. If you want help with this or have questions don’t hesitate to call me, Rhonda, at 770-674-4644.

If you have ever lost your data due to a hard drive crash, whether it be hardware or software related, you know what a helpless feeling that is not to mention the frustration of not being able to get to your documents, pictures, etc. A Computer Wiz-Nerd can help you recover your data in many cases.

Consider this laptop. It was in a car fire. Yes, you read that correctly, in a car fire. They called us thinking all their files were gone. Since this laptop belonged to a musician and writer there were many music files and documents that needed to be saved.

I am glad to report that all the data from this laptop was recovered and moved to a new computer!

So if you have data loss call us to recover the music, pictures, documents and other data from your Mac, PC or laptop hard drive.

This will be the first time I have ever recommended a product – outside of my services, of course! It all started with a large ranch-style U-shaped house. The owners had tried in vain in the past to get a wireless signal thorough out the house. As it stood they could only use wireless devices in 1/3 of the house. Let me mention that the construction of this southwestern style was full beams, all tile and lots of granite.

My first, and erroneous, thought was to use wireless repeaters. The reason for the error is the loss of speed with each repeater used. If we had placed these throughout the house by the time you got to the last run the speed would be that of a turtle.

So I took the first basic step to place the wireless router in the center of the home. This meant placing it in the middle of the base of the U. I chose the Netgear N600 dual band router with the aim of covering the full length of the base of the U with a strong signal at each end.

Next came the left and right wings of the house. Since I had a strong signal at each end an access point seemed to be the way to go. (And this is where I begin to sing the praises of Amped Wireless products!) For this I chose Amped Wireless‘ High Power Wireless-300N Smart Access Point. The right side of the U was far longer than the left side – and included a three car garage with a workout room at the end – so I purchase two AP for each side and then added an Amped Wireless High Power 12dBi Omni-Directional Wi-Fi Antenna WA12 to the AP in the right wing.

We tested the wireless strength with an iPhone, iPad and wireless laptop. The left wing was the first to test. This is the access point with the spec antenna. The signal in the furthest corner was at full strength! So now we moved to the right side of the house. This is the access point with the 12dBi antenna. As we made our way down the house and into the garage I was shocked. The signal, even in the workout room, was a solid full bars!

The payoff? Having added a line of products that I can depend on and a new customer for life!

Today Apple released its new operating system OS X Lion. Considering the fact that at this moment Apple is trading at 387.54 up by 10.66 on exceptional quarterly earnings this is a banner day for Apple. The “new king of the desktop” is priced at an affordable 29.99 USD making Microsoft look somewhat stingy.

Once this blog is done I plan on downloading and installing the new OS on the Macbook and give it a whirl. Based on Apple’s website I expect to see an interface very similar to the iPad and iPhone with an emphasis on apps.

Stay tuned for an update on the download and installation update.

Oh, we are slap-app-happy!

Over 24 apps have been pulled by Google from the Android market because they were infected with malware.

“This weekend, multiple applications available in the official Android Market were found to contain malware that can compromise a significant amount of personal data,” Lookout said in a blog post. “Likely created by the same developers who brought DroidDream to market back in March, 26 applications were found to be infected with a stripped down version of DroidDream we’re calling ‘Droid Dream Light’ (DDLight).”

Back in March Google removed some affected apps from phones remotely and promptly issued a security update.

So the moral to the story?  Pay close attention to what apps you download. Make sure the apps are from a trusted site. Check out the app features and once you have installed them watch your phone for suspicious activity. But foremost, use a security app and an app to monitor all other apps activities.

Today Apple released Security Update 2011-003 a software update to affect the issue with Mac Defender. The information for the development of OS X 10.6.8 seems to indicate it will contain the ability to detect and remove variants of the Mac Defender. I guess this update is to get a solution out to the Mac community as soon as possible.

Here is the information Apple has on their website regarding the update:

There has been quite some buzz over the rogueware Mac Defender. Some say it is for real. Some say it is just hype. Well, Ed Bott shared an exchange with an AppleCare support tech on ZNet. The AppleCare rep states that, yes, Virginia, there is Mac malware, but that they have been instructed to not help Mac users with this malware dilemma. In other words, they will not help Mac users remove the malware.

What follows is the beginning of their conversation:

Over the weekend, I got an e-mail from an AppleCare support rep, who was responding to my recent reports of Mac malware being found in the wild. At least one prominent voice in the Mac community dismisses these reports as “crying wolf.” The view from inside an Apple call center says it’s for real:

I can tell you for a fact, many, many people are falling for this attack. Our call volume here at AppleCare is 4-5x higher than normal and [the overwhelming majority] of our calls are about this Mac Defender and its aliases. Many frustrated Mac users think their Mac is impervious to viruses and think this is a real warning from Apple. I really wish I could say not many people will fall for this, but in this last week, we have had nothing but Mac Defender and similar calls.

For the full article click here.