Tech Bits

Happy holidays, ’tis the season for scamming. It’s that time of year again where online scams begin to rise. It’s imperative to be on the lookout to avoid being a victim yourself. In today’s installment, we will outline some common scam schemes and how to avoid becoming a victim. The Tech Support Scam These scams rely on using scary sounding webpages to deceive you into believing your computer is actively under attack by a problem. [Read More]

Now that a vast majority of folks are working from home, a HUGE focus has shifted to home internet and the fun problems people experience. I feel like every other article I read anymore is about how you can solve your home WiFi issues with these 5 simple tricks… Ah, tech writing at its finest. In today’s post, I’m going to go over the basics of how your home WiFi works, and help you debug some common issues you might be facing. [Read More]

Here’s a fun one - When was the last time you opened up your laptop or desktop to clean it? Or better yet, have you ever opened your computer and cleaned it out? You might be surprised by the number of people that were entirely unaware that their computer should be cleaned at all… Questions aside, let’s talk today about cleaning the dust, debris, and potential gunk from the inside of your computer! [Read More]

Having computer issues but prefer to social distance? In today’s post, I’ll go over some common problems and solutions that you can purchase on your own. No calling someone. No handing your computer off for a few days. You might be shocked how simple USB devices can solve the more common hardware failures you might experience. And yes, everything is social distancing compliant, woohoo! WiFi - It’s broken or you have bad signal strength With the vast majority of folks working from home, WiFi has recently become a very, very essential thing. [Read More]

Sometimes all you want is your data off your computer instead of fixing it. I get it. Some repairs are just too costly or maybe you were just ready for a new computer anyway. No matter the circumstances, data recovery (when the drive is working) is actually quite straightforward. You’ll just need a few tools and an adapter. In this post, we’ll go through (at a high level) disassembling your computer (desktop or laptop), locating the hard drive or solid state drive, and getting it connected to another computer for data copying. [Read More]

One of the more difficult questions I get from customers nowadays is whether or not they need anti-virus software on their computer anymore. Gone are the days of “viruses” and instead you have password stealing malware or ransomware or some other kind of “ware”. The days of pop-ups and junk software are mostly gone. They have been replaced with new kinds of cyber attacks that don’t rely on taking over your computer. [Read More]

Hope you all are doing well out there. I know the world is in a strange place right now, but today’s post is hopefully going to help you solve your computer issues without having to get outside help. Windows 10 has some great built-in tools inside of the Start-Up Repair environment that can very well get your computer back into working order without having to get someone to fix it for you. [Read More]

The amount of times I have had customers come to me saying a recent Windows Update has broken their computer is honestly astounding. Because of this, I decided it was about time I wrote up what I typically do when a customer brings me a “broken” Windows 10 computer (usually caused by a Windows Update). Outlined below are the four options you have to recover your computer if it is acting funny or no longer boots up. [Read More]

There isn’t much time left before Windows 7 of considered End of Life by Microsoft. In fact, we are a little under one week away from the official deadline. However, all hope is not lost, you can STILL upgrade to Windows 10 for FREE in 2020. Yes, this is real, and I have no idea why Microsoft isn’t pushing this information more widely. Needless to say, this guide will help you upgrade from Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8. [Read More]

Windows 7 is being End-Of-Lifed (new verb, yes) on January 14th, 2020 - a whole 6 days from when I’m writing this. I’ve already been asked by customers what this really means to the end user a few times, so I figured it was about time to write something up. Here’s my quick summary on what the End of Life / End of Support for Windows 7 really means to you - the user of a computer who just wants things to not change. [Read More]