For those of you who have children and want to control the sites they have access to, OpenDNS is a great free solution. Check out their website here. Basically you setup an account and follow the instructions on how to setup your router or modem with their service. You can do a variety of things with OpenDNS including; website filtering, view reports of sites visited, proxy blocking, and much more. Usually the free version is more than enough but if you want to include things like whitelisting, malware protection, and round the clock support then one of their paid versions will suit you better. In sum, OpenDNS will make your home or business network safer, faster, and more reliable. Good Luck!
OpenDNS
December 31st, 2009Windows 7
November 5th, 2009It’s been a few months now since I posted a blog. I’ve been very busy with work and raising my newborn son. I’ll try to be more active with my posts from here on out 
As of October 22nd, 2009 Windows launched their new operating system, Windows 7. I have been using it since the beta came out and it has been wonderful. We all know what a disaster Windows Vista was but Windows 7 is a completely different story. It’s faster, more stable, and most importantly it’s user friendly. There are a few versions out there but the one I recommend for just about everyone is the Home Premium version. With the exception of business users, this version will be suitable for just about everyone else. Here is a website listing all the new features of Windows 7, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features.
If you decide to upgrade your current operating system to Windows 7 it’s fairly easy to do with the upgrade CD. If you have trouble though, you can contact Catanoso Computing and we’ll gladly help you out.
Things To Consider When Buying a New Computer
June 25th, 2009When a customer is in the market for a new computer they usually ask me most of the same questions such as; desktop or laptop, which brand to buy, how big of a hard drive, etc. I am going to touch on a few of the major things to think about when buying a new computer.
The first thing you need to do is figure out if you want a laptop or desktop. Back in the day I would say desktops had the advantage in things like performance and flexibility. But now, laptops have become desktop replacements and can usually match them step by step in all aspects except for screen size. The only downfall is that they are a little more expensive, but if you need portability then it’s a no brainer. The best thing to do is to take a trip to Best Buy and take a look at both types and see what fits you better.
One of the biggest questions is what brand to buy. For me personally, I prefer Dell. I have always had good success with them and so have my customers who took my recommendation. Is Dell the best? Its hard to tell. I think in today’s world all the major companies (Dell, HP, Compaq, IBM, Sony, etc.) are all relatively the same. You can’t go wrong with any of them. They are all going to have problems that you’ll read or hear about so don’t let that sway you one way or another. Like I mentioned earlier, go to a computer retailer like Best Buy and see what brand and style PC catches your eye.
One of the most important things to look at when buying a computer are the specs of the machine like the amount of memory, size of the hard drive, and the speed of the processor. Here are the specs that I recommend as a minimum for today’s applications and Windows Vista:
1. 2 Gigs of Memory
2. Dual Core Processor (Intel or AMD)
3. Video Card with 128 megs of ram
4. 120 Gigabyte Hard Drive
If you purchase a computer using these specs as a guide you will have a machine that will last you a long time. To many times I see people buy computers with a below average processor and 1 gig of RAM or less. With an operating system like Windows Vista, which takes up a lot of resources, your computer will be slow right out of the box. When XP was still in the game you could get away with those specs and actually have a pretty fast machine if you kept it optimized. Overall, it’s usually worth it to spend the extra $100 to have more memory and a faster processor so your not out looking for another computer in a year or two.
The last thing I want to touch on is whether you should buy a computer in the store or custom order one online. If you aren’t in a rush and don’t mind waiting a couple weeks, ordering a custom computer online is the way to go. First off, you are getting a custom computer that is built just for you at the time your order it. Some of the computers that are in retail stores could be sitting on the shelves for over a year which isn’t really a good thing since they get outdated quickly. The other biggest factor is that when ordering online you get to choose exactly what you want in the machine and leave out things you don’t want. Lastly, when ordering online, you usually can get a way better deal in price. Dell for example has $100-$200 off coupons always floating around the Internet. These can’t be used in retail stores. Here is a good site for online deals > http://www.cheapstingybargains.com.
Hopefully this information helps you out when purchasing your new computer. If you need any additional help, feel free to contact me. Happy Shopping!
Internet Connectivity Problems
June 2nd, 2009This week I received a few clients computers who had trouble connecting to the Internet. The first thing I ask them over the phone before they bring in their machine is to make sure their Internet modem is working. You can do this by making a phone call to your provider. They will send a signal out to verify the modem is operational. If there is nothing wrong with the modem, there is a variety of things that can cause a loss in Internet connectivity. Viruses and spyware are one of the main reasons. Even if you remove them completely your Internet may still not work. Other instances include corrupt registry entries, incorrect network settings, and uninstalling certain software.
One of the best tools out there to help correct an Internet Connectivity problem caused by a virus is the Winsock Fix. It can be downloaded here. The Winsock Fix program restores corrupt network registry keys to help restore your connection. Once you run the program make sure to reboot your computer directly after. I have used this program several times with great success.
I encountered a machine yesterday that I could not figure out why the Internet was not working. The crazy thing was that I could ping web addresses in the command prompt. After searching and searching for possible solutions I finally came across something interesting. The article explained how Symantec software such as Norton Antivirus can cause Internet loss when the programs are uninstalled. It followed up with a link to the Norton Removal Tool. I called the customer and they confirmed that they recently removed Norton 360 when their license expired. As a last resort I ran this tool and to my surprise it actually worked. Internet connectivity was immediately restored to the machine once I rebooted. This tool will definitely be added to my flash drive for future use.
Nicholas Catanoso
Catanoso Computing
http://www.catanosocomputing.com
HP Laptop Recall
May 13th, 2009Over the past month I have received at least four HP Laptops in which the screen was blank, the machine would not power on, or the internal wireless card had malfunctioned. I researched this issue some more because they were all the same model. I learned that HP issued a recall on certain laptop models. These models include the Pavillion dv2000, dv6000, dv9000, and the Compaq Presario V3000 and V6000. From what I have read, HP received a bad batch of graphics cards. The graphics cards were overheating and damaging the internal parts of the laptop. According to the recall which can be found here, they are accepting laptops with the specified model numbers for an additional 2 years from your standard warranty. If your laptop falls under one of the specified model numbers I would contact HP immediately. Even if there are no problems with your laptop I would still call them to have the machine fixed. It may only be a matter of time before something goes wrong. HP can be contacted at 1-866-671-7362.
One additional comment I would like to add is if your laptop qualifies for the recall I would highly recommend backing up all your data before shipping it out. I have heard horror stories about people losing all their data when shipping their computer back to the manufacturer. If you need helping backing up your important files, feel free to contact Catanoso Computing. Good Luck!
Nicholas Catanoso
Catanoso Computing
http://www.catanosocomputing.com
Forget your password?
April 30th, 2009How many of you have ever forgotten your Windows 2000/XP/Vista administrator password? Usually you set this password up when you first get your computer. It’s easy to forget especially if your user account isn’t an administrator account. For myself, I come across this frequently when customers drop their computers off to me and have their user accounts password protected. I used to call them and ask for their passwords which sometimes created an awkward situation because I know they didn’t want to tell me because it may be their password to many other things, like their bank account. Now I don’t have to do that anymore. I came across this repair tool called Offline NT Password and Registry Editor. To keep this as less technical as possible, basically you take this tool and put it onto a bootable CD. You then load the CD into the computer in question and boot from it. Finally, you just follow the instructions and just like that it blanks out the password.
This tool as you can see can be very useful. It can also be used for the wrong purposes very easily. I had a customer come in from somewhere in Cape May County the other day that brought me a computer. He said he forgot his password and needed to get into his computer without losing any information. Sounds simple enough right? Well something wasn’t sitting right with me with this customer. I started asking him some information about the computer like the operating system that was installed, the specs of the machine, when and where he purchased it. He stumbled over most of these questions which told me one thing, the computer was most likely stolen. So to make a long story short I ended up denying service on that machine by telling him I wasn’t capable of bypassing the password. He wasn’t happy. Who knows, maybe it was his computer. Guess I’ll never know. Use this tool wisely…
Offline NT Password and Registy Editor
Nicholas Catanoso
Catanoso Computing
http://www.catanosocomputing.com
When to Reinstall the OS?
April 12th, 2009For this post I will be basing my opinion on the computers overall performance being affected by viruses and spyware. This question is going to be answered differently by many technicians. Some technicians reinstall Windows at the first sight of a virus instead of trying to remove it. Other technicians may receive a computer that is completely infested and may spend hours upon hours trying to remove the virus only to realize they probably didn’t achieve much of a performance increase in the end.
I usually fall right in between. Computer viruses today are becoming more and more sophisticated which in turn makes them harder to detect and remove. This is why your computer’s security is vital. If a customer brings in their computer to me at the first sign that something is going wrong then it’s usually fixable without having to reinstall Windows. On the other hand, when a customer brings me a computer that has gradually gotten worse over a fair amount of time, then it is usually not worth it to try and manually remove all the viruses and spyware because in doing so you are most likely not going to see an increase in the computer’s performance. This is when a clean install of Windows is necessary.
If the customer has their operating system cd and their program cd’s then it’s almost a no brainer to go ahead with a reinstall if the machine is pretty bad off. They are going to see the biggest increase in performance this way. Basically it is like starting fresh which in most cases is never a bad thing. It also gives you the peace of mind that their machine is clean of viruses and spyware.
I recently received a customer’s computer in which I wish I did a clean install of Windows. They had multiple viruses and spyware on their system that were really rooted in. They were actually almost victims of identity theft because the viruses stole their banking passwords. In this specific case the customer did not have their operating system cd on them which left me no choice to try and manually clean the system. After spending several hours and a half of dozen scans later the machine “appeared” to be clean after every scan turned up nothing. I gave the computer back and several hours later they contacted me saying they still believed there was a problem with their browser although hijackthis showed nothing. Take note that some deleted viruses can actually rebuild themselves making them extremely difficult to remove. Anyway, since they had their OS cd I decided to play it safe and format their hard drive and reinstall the OS so I knew for sure I was giving them back a clean system.
**I just wanted to update this post to say that formatting the hard drive and reinstalling the OS is no longer 100% proof. According to an article on technibble, some rootkit viruses can now survive a format. Great…
Nicholas Catanoso
Catanoso Computing
http://www.catanosocomputing.com
Uninstalling Software
April 4th, 2009Many people like to try different software titles here and there and depending on whether or not they like them they either keep the software on their computer or remove it. The best option if you decide not to use the software is to remove it completely from your system. This way it frees up space on your hard drive so you have room for other important things. The only problem with installing and uninstalling software is that most of the built in uninstallers usually leave bits and pieces in the registry which over time can slow down your system. Some programs don’t come with an uninstaller which in turn forces you to leave it on your machine.
For my computer repair business I use Revo Uninstaller which removes any software in your system and then does a thorough check afterwards to make sure there are no traces left throughout your system. The best part about this software is that it is free. It can be downloaded here. All you have to do is install it and then run it. It will show you a complete list of software that is installed in your system. Pick one that you would like to uninstall and select uninstall. Revo Uninstaller will first use the programs built in uninstaller and then when that is finished I recommend selecting the “moderate” option. This will search the registry for any remaining parts of the software you just removed. After that is finished, delete the remaining traces, and then reboot your computer and you’re all set. This keeps the registry in order so your computer doesn’t begin to bog down. If your computer is already running slow and you’re in need of a tune-up, don’t hesitate to contact Catanoso Computing. We’ll take care of your problem and have it ready usually within the same day.
Nicholas Catanoso
Catanoso Computing
http://www.catanosocomputing.com
April Fool’s Virus
March 25th, 2009April 1st is a day in which malware creators like to have their viruses activate and this April Fool’s Day will be no different. According to this article from Yahoo, the virus named Conficker, will activate itself on April 1st. What this means is that there is a possibility that the virus is on your computer right now and is just in a dormant state. It is vitally important that you have the latest Microsoft Updates and Anti-Virus definitions installed on your machine. Please refer to my “Computer Security” blog post which gives you a list of programs that should be installed on your computer. These will greatly reduce your risk of coming in contact with this new virus. Also, if you haven’t done so recently, run your scans as soon as possible to make sure your system is clean and also make sure to do a system backup of your important data. There is also a free online scan here.
This virus has the potential of doing severe damage including wiping out your hard drive and stealing your personal information so be sure to not take this threat lightly. If you have any doubts feel free to contact Catanoso Computing. We’ll update your computer’s security and make sure it is virus free so you have nothing to worry about.
I will continue to update this post with any new patches and information that may come out in regards to this virus. Please continue to check back on a daily bases.
Nicholas Catanoso
Catanoso Computing
http://www.catanosocomputing.com
Free Software
March 20th, 2009Before you go out and spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on overpriced software from companies like Microsoft and Adobe, take the time to research open source software or other free software. Believe it or not, these types of software are highly reliable and completely compatible with the software giants applications. Let’s take Microsoft Office for example. This could run you a couple hundred dollars for the home user and three hundred dollars or more for businesses. Open Office, which you can download here, is an excellent alternative. It’s open source software in which programmers from all over the world help develop. They have a whole suite of programs including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. All of these are also compatible with Microsoft Office meaning that if you work on something from home on Open Office, you can then bring it into work and load it into Microsoft Office without a problem.
Google is another major player with free applications. They have Google Apps, which includes just about everything. See the complete list here. The best part about Google Apps is that it is completely web based. This means you run the software from there servers instead of having to install it on your computer. All you need to do is setup an account with them which usually takes less than 5 minutes. Once your account is created, you will have complete access to all of their apps.
Free software is going to continually get better and better which is great for people looking for an alternative. Below you can see a few of my favorites:
Picasa 3: This is a photo editing program from Google which enables you to do a world of things with your photos. It can be downloaded here.
Open Office: As mentioned in my post this is a suite of programs including word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentation, and graphics. It can be downloaded here.
CDBurnerXP: This is a CD/DVD burning program which gives you the majority of functions as a program like Nero would. It can be downloaded here.
Google Apps: See the complete list here.
Nicholas Catanoso
Catanoso Computing
http://www.catanosocomputing.com