supergeek-blogspot

Did I tell you to backup?

2011-09-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

Well I know its a well documented subject, but I really have to do this......
BACK UP YOUR DATA REGULARLY
I have had three laptops in this week with hard drives that suddenly failed badly, data recovery would be very expensive in all cases, and yet its so simple to insure against.

Everybody now has a digital camera and most people copy their photos to their PCs, but not everybody prints them any more. Unless you copy these photos (or any files for that matter) to another storage device, then those never to be repeated photos are in danger of being lost forever. Thats all a backup is, another copy on another storage medium, so there is no excuse when your wife asks for a copy of that classic shot of little Johnny that was taken when he was two.

Theres so many ways now from flash drives to online storage, so please make sure that you are safe by either calling us for advice or getting busy copying now. We recommend a free program called Cobian backup, just do a google search.

Please dont let it be you next.

Supergeek has moved

2011-09-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry for no posts for a while, not only have I moved house, but now the workshop has moved too. Only next door , to unit E3 on Bounds Green Ind Est. Check out the website for more details. Its smaller, bvut if you saw the old office, floor to ceiling in junk (ok I admit it) then you would know that I needed a clear out.

McAfee problems galore...

2010-08-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

Too much of a coincidence for 4 PCs to come into the workshop in two days with McAfee frozen, not working or generally causing problems isnt it? Or am I just a follower of conspiracy theories. Its just a rubbish program I think, the design is bad and unclear how to do the basic tasks, and it slows you down even more than the dreaded Norton now! Who would pay money for it? Not you I hope......

New Products, are things getting better?

2009-09-22T05:40:00.000-07:00

Well, its all good news at the moment:

Windows 7 is coming out shortly, and its already better than Vista was when it first came out. We`ve been testing it for a while and it does look a bit faster and lighter on resources, but for the life of me, I can`t see that it warrants a new name. "Vista with a few bells and whistles and trimmed down" would be my name, not catchy, but true.

The serious news of the day is the arrival of a few new AMD processors. The new Athlon IIs and Phenom IIs are just Phenom-inal (yeah I know its been done before). Look at Toms Hardware charts, and you`ll see that they just about rule everything, and with really good pricing I can foresee building loads of these little beaties. Call for details anytime 08003118622.

PCWorld again

2009-07-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

Its funny how the same old names keep coming up.....on a call today there was a sign maker discussing a sign with my client. He asked me what else I did (apart from setting up networks) and said he had just been to PCWorld paying £400 for reloading 5 computers.

Our price would be £125.

Guess who`s setting his new network up? (not PCWorld)

Sickmantec Products

2009-07-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Once again our old friends at Symantec have excelled themselves, not only do they produce the system gumming -up security suite, but then they go and sell it at 3 times the price it should be.

One of my clients (who happens to be 86, but thats just another reason to hate them) was coerced into renewing her version of IS2008 by Norton sales people, and eventually paid by card (it said auto-renewal on the invoice, so beware) the ubelievable amount of £78 for ONE years subscription !!!!!!! (isnt it 29.99 in PC World?)

It was an older PC with only 256MB memory, and she could not believe it when she saw her system running with a decent antivirus, positively zooming along.

Cheap PCs

2009-07-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

OK heres a deal for you bargain hunters...a full PC (2.4GHz, 40 GB hard drive, genuine windows XP) with keyboard, mouse, and (get this) a 15" flat screen monitor. all for only £50. This is only available to blogging viewers, contact supergeek now.

bundled programs and toolbars

2009-04-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

OK Im back after a long blogging break! My moan today is about bundled programs...you know you get ccleaner and it comes with Yahoo toolbar, you get foxit reader (try it, its 20X faster than adobe reader) and you get its stupid toolbar with loads of crap on it.

I understand the necessity of advertising and marketing, but when are they gonna learn that you make your own product less attractive by forcing this stuff on you...why not bundle it but have it unticked by default, and give the users a choice? Makes more sense to me!

Oh and talking of toolbars why do people not realise that their web page viewing area is getting smaller and smaller by having these waste of time toolbars? If you dont use them more than five times a day get rid of them (view/toolbars/untick) and just maske a bookmark link instaed. I mean if you dont want to see the websites why dont you just get AOL? And if you dont use Google as your home page (how do you cope?) Firefox has a google search link on top anyway.

happy new year

2009-01-09T11:39:00.000-08:00

So welcome to the new year, and I hope the doom and gloom we`re all promised doesn`t materialize. I personally hope the year carries on as it started! We had a lovely weekend away in Broadstairs (a real hidden gem if you`ve never been there), then back to work on the fifth......and what a lot of work!

The repairs never stopped coming in, or the phone ringing. Its never been busier. Is this really a reaction to the credit crunch with people repairing their computers rather than replacing?

No, I dont think so, most of them are virus/spyware cleanups which just means the virus writers have no friends and just write more viruses over christmas. The others are results of cold computers being turned on after a long time and blowing various things.

Just goes to show, leave your computer on and keep it regularly checked.

Cute little Linux Puppy

2008-12-14T16:55:00.000-08:00

Once again Linux Puppy has gotme out of trouble.

After a fire at our shop (well more of a melting plug really) the power was turned off quickly and my old faithfull P3 office email machine went down taking the hard drive with it. It was slow so I thought I would replace it anyway, but having booted up with Puppy (woof woof) to recover the files it worked so well Im gonna keep it for a secure and clean internet connection for web payments etc. Come and see it in our shop, £5 worth of computer running as fast as a £100 one, just because of my little puppy!

What do your kids do on the computer?How much havoc do they cause with viruses and spyware? If you have a problem with puppy, 30 seconds to reboot and youre away! You can browse, type documents, chat, message, edit photos and a lot more for nothing! Worth a thought.

try http://www.puppylinux.org

Microsoft killer again! seems to be a theme

Open Office 3.0

2008-12-14T16:50:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, I nearly forgot Open Office 3.....while Im on the subject of Microsoft killers, why dont you try out Open Office 3? Still in beta but seems to work great, it now opens much faster and its just as good as Microsoft Office, just save as doc format and you wont know the difference!

Google Chrome

2008-12-14T16:34:00.000-08:00

Have you tried it yet? The new browser from Google has just come out of beta, and its looking awful good (or bad if youre from Microsoft). Its small, fast, clever, fast (did I mention that?), and its also fast!

When Firefox 3 came out, we tried it against IE6 and 7, and it blew it out the water for all practical applications. Chrome is even faster, by anoticeable margin, and its got 6 home pages! ...well sort of.

The Credit Crunch

2008-11-25T16:04:00.000-08:00

Whether or not we are in a recession, I dont know, but I certainly notice a strange effect on my business. About six months ago we were selling a lot of new PCs, custom built or off the shelf. Now, hardly any, but the number of repairs has shot up. Is this a result of the recession or is it just people reacting to the stories in the media?

Its not just me, we had our roof repaired a few weeks ago. The roofing guys told me the same story, hardly any re-roofs just loads of small repair jobs. Come on people splash out, the government`s doing its best, so you should help...buy a new computer today! just go to www.supergeek.co.uk for the best deals.(or give us a call to get the number of a good roofer)

House Numbers

2008-10-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

OK heres a different rant, not only to PC engineers but to anyone who has to find a house in the dark:
I know my eyes are bad (they told me it would make me go blind)(looking at a screen all day that is) but how can I see a house number cruising down a dark road if you put it inside a porch? Or what about no house number at all? Or what about black numbers on a dark green door? Or what about three houses in a row all with number 1 on them (yes Im not joking, it happened tonight)? Get the message?

If I have to come and sort out your computer at night, at least put your house number in fluorescent letters with a spotlight on it for me!

How many icons in your system tray?

2008-10-13T01:23:00.000-07:00

In the bottom fight hand corner of your screen is a thing called the System Tray. It gives you icons of some of the small applications that start when Windows starts, well those that want to declare themselves anyway. Have a look, and if you`ve got more than five or six.......its too many.

I was doing some research yesterday, and I downloaded a couple of small innocent programs from reputable sites and they ran well enough, did their job and I thought I might use them again so left them on my home laptop. When the machine restarted it hung, was slow, jerky mouse etc.

PANIC!!! Me, a computer expert with viruses? Turns out not, these little programs inserted another few little startup applets which either interfered with something else, or just plain confused my poor PC. Many scans later, and a trip to Start/run/msconfig/startup tab later, I foundand took off the culprits. OK here comes the rant......

WHY do software writers continue to put in these stupid little startup applets WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ? I wouldnt mind if they actually did something! Even F****** MS Office puts in a quick start which does bugger-all. Add up the memory used in ten little startup programs (not even counting the extra time it takes to load them on startup) and its enough to drag your computer back into the nineties.

So the moral is , check regularly, and stop the rot of wasted startup apps. Nuff said.

Not too much software please

2008-10-03T14:01:00.000-07:00

So theres a lot of free software out there, some of it fantastic, some of it terrible. But why do people want all of it on their computers and yet only use about three programs in total?

I can understand wanting to try a few things out, but when youve had your fill, for gods sake, uninstall it. Wheb I get computers in for repair and I look through the list of installed programs, I always ask "do you know what that is?" or "do you use that program?", the reply is always.......NO.

Try it, but if you dont use it uninstall it. Oh and by the way those free screensavers come with adware, what a surprise!

Do I have to explain why? Emailme if you dont know

Credit Crunch

2008-09-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

So I know times are bad, but look on the bright side, compuuters are still getting cheaper! Ive just taken delivery of some lovely second user machines at great prices. We have 2 GHz machines from only £50, add a 15" monitor and keyboard and mouse, and you have a great PC for kids at only £80 complete!!!

If you want something fast enough for every day use, I also hav some 2.8 GHz Pentium 4s from only £80..

I know, who cares about the credit crunch ?

XP Antivirus2009

2008-09-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

Please, please, please be aware that this is a spoof program. I know it sounds genuine, but it s NOT. This week brings five new casualties to our workshops, so unless you want to make me rich (for removal just bring it to us at www.supergeek.co.uk ) do NOT click on any links purporting to be anti-spyware, do NOT try and view a video or web page and download an Active X plug in (unless you are 100% sure) and do not let your kids download from any file sharing sites.

Coming back from holidays

2008-09-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

Oh its so hard coming back from holidays and getting into work again. Three weeks back and still trying to catch up. Life would be much easier without the ever increasing problem of FRAUDULENT ANTISPYWARE.

If the trend continues it will turn into a major epidemic. XP Antivirus 2008(2009) is NOT a genuine program, it is pretending to be one to get your money! At £30 a time its not even cheap but when you discover it doesnt actually do anything you would be even more annoyed. This and many other similar programs must be stamped out. Please do not click on any anti-spyware Google ads or any other similar ads.

I see a few hundred clients a year and have already come across at least five people who have paid money for a useless program. Multiply this by millions across the world, and I anticipate quite a few fraudulent millionaires being created this year. Are you going to contribute?

pcworld special offer...YEAH RIGHT!

2008-07-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

ooh it makes me so angry, i know its a quiet time generally for this business, but if youre gonna advertise a special offer, surely you should make it a good one. PC World are offering a special deal for £399 with " an intel dual core processor, 2GB ram and a 19" widescreen monitor". Well thats a rubbish price! They will no doubt sell loads because of their advertising budget, but we can undercut that by at least £50!

Dont people shop around? Too many people I see just assume you can only buy new PCs from the big boys. Just contact your local suppliers people, you will get a better, easier to repair if it goes wrong, just as well built, and definately a much better after sales service.

If youre local to north london by the way, thats us at http://www.supergeek.co.uk/ . Not only will you get abetter warranty we will make sure its the right machine for you.

Super link

2008-07-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

www.supergeek.co.uk
just realised i can link to my webpage wonderful thing blogs.

welcome

2008-07-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

hey, welcome to my first blog, ive been trying to find a place to let off steam for ages.

i love my job but the main problem is dealing with the public. did you save your data before your computer crashed? no course you f****** didnt, and will you pay me to get it back? no course you wont.

When will people realise that hard drives are mechanical components and as such they are NOT foolproof , they WILL break eventually. ive always worked on fixed prices to try and be fair to my clients, but very soon its gonna have to be £35 plus...an indeterminate amount because you dont know how much f****** stuff you have or where it f****** is on your hard drive.

OK i feel better already.

oh by the way i starred the nasty words out cos i didnt want to tick adult content!