Welcome to PC Tech for Hire, Montgomery Alabama's affordable residential and small business computer repair and service provider.
 
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Welcome to PC Tech for Hire, Montgomery Alabama's trusted residential and small business computer repair and service provider.

Before getting to the topic, I want to encourage you to visit my blog next Thursday, the 27th of November, for a special announcement!

All About Net Neutrality
You've probably heard about something called net neutrality in the news. It sounds about as exciting as dry toast, right? But it’s an important concept and I’d like to explain why. This won’t take long, promise! (If you’re more of a visual person, here’s a quick two-minute video explaining it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L11kLmWha6o )

So what IS “net neutrality”? According to Wikipedia, “Net neutrality (also network neutrality or Internet neutrality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differently by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.” Sounds pretty good, right? This is, more or less, the system the internet functions on right now. However, in May of this year, the Federal Communications Commission proposed rules that could change all that. Under the new rules, telecom giants like Comcast, Charter, AT&T and others could create a tiered-internet system--pay to play, if you will--where they get to pick and choose what you get access to for a price. Consider how your satellite or cable TV service works right now. Charter offers several packages to choose from, starting with the most basic tier. The basic one gets you a few basic channels (and a bunch of other ones nobody really wants) for cheap. Pay more and you get more channels. If there’s just one channel you want but it’s in a tier above what you have, you have to pay for that whole other level just for that one channel, like it or not. Or you may not be able to get that channel at all. Maybe your provider doesn't carry BBC America for whatever reason. You’re out of luck! So far the internet doesn't work like this. You can go to any site you like and your Internet Service Provider doesn't choose how fast you can get there, other than the limitations of your modem and copper/cable lines. “Net neutrality creates an even playing field among content providers — both large and small — to the web. And it's great for consumers because they can access everything they want online for no extra charge.  Right now, consumers control what they see online — not Internet access providers — and that's thanks in large part to net neutrality,” says Business Insider. But again, all that could change if corporations like Comcast get their way. “Without net neutrality, the company that you pay for internet access could charge you more to visit certain web sites, or could block some sites altogether. Or they could also just slow some web sites down: for example the Comcast video site might work very well, while YouTube would be slow, etc.” says Business Insider.

If you don’t think this is a good idea, you’re not alone. Here are ways you can take action: http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2014/05/16/net-neutrality-so-now-what

Welcome to PC Tech for Hire, Montgomery Alabama's dedicated residential and small business computer repair and service provider.

There has been a lot in the news lately about major corporations being hacked and consumers information becoming compromised.  The Home Depot is the most recent one. Target is another example of a major corporation with compromised consumer data.  The Home Depot has been hit twice in the last year alone!  Millions of people use these companies, and the damage can be devastating for the consumer and the business.  I, personally, have had my debit card disabled twice because of these two companies.  I didn't lose any money.  But it was a huge inconvenience.  

What can you, the consumer, do when your information has been compromised by a business you use?  (From Privacyrights.org) First, a security breach doesn't necessarily mean you'll be a victim of identity theft.  Your first step is to figure out what type of breach has occurred.  That will help you determine the action that you need to take.  The four major types of breaches are:

• A breach involving your credit or debit card information at a retailer's point-of-sale terminal (cash register)
• A breach involving another existing financial account
• A breach involving your driver's license number or another government-issued ID document
• A breach involving your Social Security number 

Click on the link above to see what action you should take to protect yourself in each of these situations.

What can you do to help minimize the impact a breach has on your information?  When the breach involves your credit or debit card, there isn't much you can do ahead of time to help lower the impact.  You can swipe your card as a credit transaction instead of a debit transaction to help reduce the chance of your PIN being compromised.  Or, you can just use cash everywhere you shop.  And when your account information is involved, there are three things you can do.  First is, don't use the same password more than once.  Second, never use the same password more than once.  And lastly, don't ever use the same password more than once!  If you have a standard password that you use at every site you create an account on, you are asking for trouble if one of those sites is ever compromised and your password is leaked.  One of my recommendations is a program called LastPass.  LastPass is a highly secure password manager.  With it, you can generate a completely random password for each site you create an account on.  It will securely remember the password, and you never even need to know what it is.  It can be used on your PC, tablet, or phone, and it's compatible with just about every available browser.  If a site is ever compromised, the hackers will not be able to use the information they have on you at other sites.  

There is also a site called Have I been Pwned.  The site will check your email address to see if you've been "Pwned", (a techy way of saying that you've been "owned" and that it's time to change your password).  If it finds your email address, it will give you more information about what was compromised, and where and when it happened.  It's a very handy site.  The site also has the ability to notify you if your email address is involved in any future breaches.

Most of all, don't panic.  Generally, if you notice fraud, you're going to be protected.  Just report it immediately.  You may be inconvenienced, like I was with the two debit cards that were disabled automatically as a result of breaches, but in the end, your only loss will be time.  

Welcome to PC Tech for Hire, Montgomery Alabama's trusted residential and small business computer repair and service provider.

Slow System?
“Why is my computer SO slow to start up?” It happens to most of us--you go to start work on an urgent email, or finish that document you really need to print, or finally edit that photo of the kids--and five minutes later after you started your system, the computer STILL isn’t ready! It’s extremely frustrating, but there are things that can help. The first culprit that I usually see impeding startup time is malware infection. These insidious bits of software do everything they can to take over processing priority, and you’ll especially notice the performance hit at startup. Another common culprit is simply too many (legitimate) programs stampeding to load at startup, unbeknownst to you. These are the programs that load in the system tray by default, and 90% of them--especially non-Microsoft processes--don’t really need to load at startup, though they set themselves to do that. Finally, one of the more common culprits is low RAM. Many computers ship with the bare minimum needed to run Windows (this keeps the price enticingly low at the store), but does not exactly make them perform well on a daily basis in practice. It is fairly inexpensive to upgrade the RAM in your system. That said, if you REALLY want to speed things up, you can choose to switch out your hard drive for the newest variety, an SSD hard drive. These hard drives have no moving parts and are super-fast. I have these installed in almost all our computers at home. On my big rig this change alone changed my boot time from almost seven minutes to less than 30 seconds. They are smaller and somewhat more expensive than traditional drives, but if these trade-offs are worth it to you, the speed you will enjoy is quite nice. So if your computer is slower than molasses on a cold day, I can fix this! Just let me know.