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As you can tell we are undergoing some major updates and reconstruction. One of the things we wanted to do for 2010 was recreate how we deliver content to you, so over the next few weeks you will see a lot of custom content designed with you in mind. In the meanwhile, please excuse our dust... Dexter Nelson
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Do It Yourself, At-Home Computer Maintenance That Won't Cost You A Dime, Part 2
Posted by Dexter Nelson: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (6:23 PM) [MSG ID: 1217]
Do It Yourself, At-Home Computer Maintenance That Won't Cost You A Dime (Part 2)In the last segment I had just finished introducing the most important step to maintaining your computer, the cleanup, and introduced you to the first free software that allows you to do a better and more complete job than most other paid utilities.
What I didn’t go over was how often you should run a clean up, and what are the best times to do it.
The general rule of thumb about when to run a clean up is after an installation, or after a reboot if the installation requires one. This will alleviate the majority of potential problems as it will remove those orphaned registry entries and temp files along with stored files and trace information left over from regular usage.
As a bonus, as has been the case with many computers that I fix, when you accidentally install malicious software, a good clean up may also remove spyware, malware, and viruses before they can properly infect your system.
The cleanup described in the first segment describes a thorough cleanup that is best used once a week. There is a bit more to cover, but at this time I want to introduce you to a new tool that will cover the next two parts of computer maintenance, the standard cleanup you can perform everyday and defragging.
Advanced System Care Free (http://www.iobit.com
), at the risk of sounding like an ad, is a multipurpose utility that works very well at keeping your system running smoothly in between those heavy maintenance schedules.It’s pretty lightweight as system resources go and will run in the background every day little or no bother. After you install the program you can go to the section Maintain Windows and after updating, just click “Scan.”
It goes through Spyware Removal, Registry Fix, Privacy Sweep, and Junk Files. While it’s not as in depth as a deep utility scan it will get most things that affect your computer’s speed and performance. Ignore the numbers of errors that it finds, especially the registry errors. Not all of them are actual errors.
There is also a Diagnose System feature with a System Optimization, Security Defense, Disk Defragment, and Security Analyzer scan. Other than the System Optimization, which shows system configuration options that may speed up your computer, there are other tools which I will show you that does a much better job.
After you scan and fix the errors (if any), click on Utilities. There are three tools here that you will find useful. Game Booster (which does a lot more than what it’s designed for), Smart Defrag (which I’ll talk about next), and Shortcut Fixer. Click on them and install, (it goes very, very quickly).
Smart Defrag is a tweaked version of the System Defragmenter that is built in to your system and has three options that are pretty good. You have Defrag, Fast Optimize, and Deep Optimize.
I’ll tell you right now that I never use the regular Defrag. I use Fast Optimize once every other week and Deep Optimize once a month. Why? Because the optimize options also do a regular Defragment. The difference between fast and deep is where they run. Fast optimize works in the most commonly accessed areas of your computer, (program files, etc), and Deep optimize does everything.
Shortcut Fixer scans your system for orphaned shortcuts that may be left over from deletions, updates, uninstallation, etc. Orphaned shortcuts don’t affect your system speed, even if they are in startup as there is nothing to run. You may get a pop up error or two but that’s about it. I consider it optional for the paranoia in you.
Game Booster was designed to shut down services that run in the background except for system critical processes but it does much more than allow you to game faster.
My laptop runs a lot of software from development software, server software, applications that run in the background and more, so at its peak it runs a lot and if it gets too much it will slow down slightly.
Don’t use Game Booster to just game. It’s great when you have a lot running in the background and you want to free up resources for a task. Even if you shut down everything, your system will still run great and if you accidentally shut down something you need, restarting it is as simple as clicking a button.
When I’m running maintenance or nuking viruses on my client’s computers, since it shuts down everything but the system essentials, it allows me to work without the bother of having files locked by the system.
Advanced System Care comes with other tools as well, so feel free to check them out. I would highly recommend that you allow Advanced System Care to run at startup with default options. It will be your system running smoothly during and between regular uses, hands-free.
That’s all for this segment. Tomorrow I finish this series but yet another free tool to keep your system free of spyware, malware, and viruses. In fact, there are two that work well together.
Do It Yourself, At-Home Computer Maintenance That Won't Cost You A Dime
Posted by Dexter Nelson: Monday, October 26, 2009 (12:01 AM) [MSG ID: 1216]
Do It Yourself, At-Home Computer Maintenance That Won't Cost You A Dime (Part 1)Being in the IT field for so many years, doing it both for hobby and for a living, has allowed me certain privileges that the majority of people simply don’t have. I can write and install my own software, design my own website and applications, network my home and several other things that would cost anyone else a good deal of money.
The reason I am writing this article is to educate the home user about their computers. The majority of computers I end up fixing, either directly in-home or through one of the service centers in which I am contracted, didn’t have to be there to begin with if there was a regular maintenance schedule that was followed.
Yes. You read that correctly. They did not have to be there to start with. Everybody who owns a computer should know, (or be taught), how to maintain and keep their computer running smoothly and out of the service center.
What I’m going to outline for you is a step by step guide to maintain your computer using FREE tools that you can download and start using right now. Keep in mind, that over the years the tools that I use have changed as better ones became available, so in the future the tools mentioned in this article may no longer be the ones I use at that time. I will however keep an updated list of the software that I use to help all of you keep on track.
General Maintenance Tools
1.The Cleanup: This is by far the most crucial step. Have you ever bought a new computer and within the first couple weeks what was a fast machine turned into a crawl? Many have, including me.
As you use your computer everything you do leaves behind bits of information. Whether its temp files from an installation or uninstallation, registry changes, history from browsing the web, backups and shadow copies, and so on, these files and much more are left behind, even after rebooting.
Every time you use your computer this information doesn’t all overwrite or replace the existing information. In many cases it is a cumulative effect where more and more of your computer’s hard drive and system resources are being consumed. Eventually this leads to slow processing, bottlenecks, lock ups and crashes.
Regular clean ups of your computer will take care of the majority of computer problems, however tools already built in to the system, from experience, seldom does the proper job of removing everything so here are the two tools that I use.
The first is a very powerful tool and can actually do harm to your system by removing something it shouldn’t, so do not mess with the settings!
CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/download
) – This is by far one of the most effective cleanup tools out there and I’ve tried many of them. It cleans up everything including the clipboard, memory dumps, chkdsk file fragment, log files, old prefetch data and even every browser including the new Google Chrome.It also cleans up multimedia apps like Windows Media Player, Quicktime and Adobe, utilities like WinRAR, WinZip and AVG, and applications like Google Earth, Office and more.
Once you download and install the program, run it and click the Analyze button and it will give you a very detailed summary of all that it is capable of. But there is much more to it than just cleaning up crap on your hard drive.
After you’re done cleaning up the physical files, it also has a registry cleaner that does a remarkable job of finding things in your registry like missing shared DLL’s, unused file extensions, ActiveX and Class Issues, orphaned application paths and so much more.
Again, simply analyze to view the results and click “Fix Selected Issues” to get the job done. Oh yes! Always, ALWAYS make a backup when prompted.
It has other tools but that’s all that I recommend you use that program for.
2.Even More Cleanup: there is another place to clean up that no software should touch. That is your System Restore for Windows users. Your System Restore houses snapshots of your system and settings, (usually once per day or after an installation or uninstallation), the keeps that information available to you in the event that something goes wrong.
Well? It also hogs your hard drive! Cleaning all but the last restore point will recover a lot of hard drive space, quite often times several gigs for someone who’s never done a clean up of their System Restore.
But before you go opening your System Restore application the option to remove all but the most recent restore point isn’t there. It’s in your Disk Cleanup!
For those using Vista or Windows 7 you want to select “Files from all users on this computer” and for everyone else just run Disk Cleanup. It will go through a sometimes lengthy process of scanning what can be safely removed before opening fully.
When it does, click on the Advanced or More Options tab and you’ll see the option to remove all but the most recent restore point. Clean that up, (it will take a while if you’ve never done it), and click OK to let the program do the rest of the clean up.
Disk Cleanup will seem to have stopped responding during the clean up, but it is. It locks out user input until it’s done.
3.Two Hard Drive Killers: the last two places that everyone should keep under control are your download folders and your installed programs.
Installed Programs: I seriously advise everyone to uninstall any program that you’re not using, haven’t used, or come pre-installed on a new computer.
The ONLY software that you want besides the operating system are the ones that work with your hardware like DVD players, burning software, hardware utilities, camera assist software, etc. PLEASE BE CAREFUL when uninstalling programs. If you don’t know what it is for then ASK someone who knows!
Many times computers come installed with trial versions of software, pre-packaged software bundles from the retailer or other third party companies and you won’t ever use them all so it’s best to uninstall them, run CCleaner, reboot and get it over with.
Download Folders: These need special attention. Many times you will find that programs you install aren’t always stored in temp folders that will be cleaned up. You have to manually check these folders, like Downloads folder for Windows users, and program folders for applications.
Vuze and Real Player for example, have their own download folders that store downloaded files from browsing the web or their network. So does Windows Media Player. Please keep track of what you use to download files.
Tomorrow when I continue this segment I’m going to introduce you to two more free tools that will keep your computer running smoothly between cleanups, as well as introduce you to defragging (hard drive and registry).
You don’t want to miss this next segment because those same tools will also allow you to keep your computer safe from spyware and malware while you work!
Web Development and Hosting
Posted by Dexter Nelson: Monday, July 13, 2009 (9:19 PM) [MSG ID: 1212]
Effective today, (Monday July 13th 2009) TechDex Development & Solutions has added bck development and hosting to our services.We now offer Application hosting & Website hosting as very affordable rates.
TechDex designs are specifically targeted towards your business and the market in which it competes. All of our designs are cutting edge and utilize the best technologies available today. From simple HTML static sites and flash presentations, to ASP and Database driven sites, we will create a package that will help enhance your corporate identity.
What's more? We can actually promote your site. We own all of the tools and have the experience necessary to launch a successful marketing campaign both on and offline. You want traffic? We can drive it right to your site from targeted marketing and qualified leads.
For more information and pricing, visit our corporate site:
http://www.techdex.net/corporate/webdev.shtml
For more information on Application and File Hosting, go here:
http://fileshare.techdex.net
CGI Forum 2.0
Posted by Dexter Nelson: Sunday, June 21, 2009 (2:04 PM) [MSG ID: 1209]
Just a quick update. Now that the CGI Blog has been updated, the same dynamic changes are coming to the CGI Forum. In the next day or two, look for all of the features (special tags to post youtube, myspace, and hulu videos, and the css stylesheet and content manager) to be included.
More updates
Posted by Dexter Nelson: Saturday, June 20, 2009 (7:14 PM) [MSG ID: 1207]
The video type updates keep coming. CGI Blog now has it's own myspace tag, bringing the total to three, (youtube, hulu, myspace).
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