Good to Great

New PC’s are in the air for lots of us. This can be an awesome experience or this can be a pain trying to get what you want and setup the way you need. Most users forget some basic steps or they just haven’t been informed of them. We expect new PCs to run good, but how about making a new PC run GREAT, after all you did spend your hard-earned money on it! Here are some simple steps that will improve your new PC before you even start working on it.

1.Remove the extra- Most PC’s purchased from a big-box store comes with all kinds of extra tools,trails, and worthless pieces of software on these machines. This all needs to be removed. If you aren’t going to use it then REMOVE IT. These things are just taking up space and will cause problems on your machine.

2.ANTI- Virus and Malware ASAP- So many people either forget or don’t realize how important this is. Most users only think their pc has been attacked by a virus when the pc totally stops working, but this isn’t the case viruses and malware outbreaks progressively get worse over time. This should be the first thing done after a pc is taken out of the box. As soon as the pc has a network connection it is vulnerable to viruses and malware.  Also make sure you are only using ONE antivirus solution on each machine.

3.Maintenance – This applies to all Windows deployment that you have. Be sure you have disk Cleanup and Defragmenter set up to happen regularly. Do not depend on your end-users to do this because they will forget, after all we are human. When setting up your scheduled maintenance to take place also set up scheduled antivirus and anti-malware scans to take place along with daily definition updates.

4.Disabling Services- Windows machines have services that are not needed. Example You never send or re taxes through your PC. Why not make sure the tax service is not running? Each user will need to go through and find the services that are useless to them and then remove them. Before you disable any services make sure you know what it does before you disable it. The links below can help with that info provided by TechRepublic.

• Windows XP SP3 services that can be disabled
• Windows Vista services that can be disabled
• Boost security by disabling these 10 Windows XP services
• Video: Disable and enable Windows XP services
• Tweak Windows Vista Services the right way

5.Turn off Aero in Vista or Windows 7-  A PC can be slow right out of the box, if this happens it could mean it barely has the resources to run everything necessary. You can give it a boost by turning off the Aero feature in either Vista or Windows 7. This will disable all of the GUI elements of the OS, but give you back some speed. For Vista, right click on the desktop, select Personalize, and then click Window Color and Appearance. Next, click Open Classic Appearance Properties For More Color Options. In the Appearance Settings Dialog box select Windows Vista Basic from the Color Scheme list. For Windows 7 just right click the desktop, select Personalize, and then scroll down until you see Basic Themes, Select a basic theme and Aero will be disabled.

All pretty simple huh? There are many other ways to improve your PC, but these are the most basic and common things that can really help.

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The Speed of Lightning

 Our society is very fast paced and we tend to get impatient when things try to slow us down. Browsing is a perfect example, EVERYONE wants to be able to browse faster.The #1 complaint we hear from users is that the internet is running slow. Of course you can try to increase or change your internet provider, but there are a few free steps that you can take to increase your browsing speed without spending a dime.

1. Use a faster browser- Internet Explorer is the most common browser, but is not the only one available and is definitely not the fastest browser available. Google Chrome takes first place in being the fastest web browser available. If you have gotten very accustomed to other browsers you will see a dramatic difference in the speed with Google Chrome. This is by far the best way to increase speed. Also Chrome helps speed things up by allowing you to enter a search string in the URL address bar. This helps from having to add another toolbar.

2.Disable Flash- Flash is basically in all web pages now. Flash makes things look great, but makes your browsing speed decrease. You can have flash turned off by default and re-enable it to view what you need. The biggest problem with this is that some browsers require an add-on to block Flash. For Chrome, you need the extension Flashblock. There’s also a Flashblock extension for Firefox. Internet Explorer has a built-in tool you can access by clicking Tools | Manage Add-ons. In the Manage Add-ons dialog box, double-click Shockwave Flash Object. Then, click the Remove All Sites button. This will disable Flash for all sites. Need help let us know!

3.Save your Web files on a RAM disk- Since the RAM disk will be much faster than your standard hard drive, using it to save all your browsers temporary files will create a faster environment for your browser. However, this solution is not for the newbie, and you will need to use a third-party to better achieve this task. Learn more.

4.Get rid of all those toolbars- This is something we have all been guilty of at one time or another, having to many toolbars. These toolbars slow down the browser in many ways. Some take up memory while others just take up bandwidth by sending and receiving data. This is really a users choice, if you want or need more toolbars then just be aware you may run slower, but if you want speed then get rid of the toolbar baggage!

5.Use tabs, not windows-Too many tabs can also slow down your speed, but tabs are your best bet for browsing efficiency.  Why is this? Tabs are more effective in a few ways, one is helps stay organized and you can find a page much faster if everything is in a single window. Not only is this easier on you but browsers like Chrome treat tabs differently. Chrome treats each tab as an individual process. So when a Web site causes a tab to crash, you can close the one tab and not lose all the other tabs you have running. Not all browsers support this behavior so in order to insure this you will need to switch to  the Chrome browser.

To learn more about how Elad can meet your technology needs and protect your network, Contact us!

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Expanding our minds….

2012 is here!!! We all get excited about a new year its a fresh start for individuals and businesses, we are all able to look back on the past year and put a new plan into place. Well, we have our plan and we are ready to get it going, but we need your help!

One goal of ours is to provide user friendly information once a week for readers. This information will help you as the user to learn more about technology and hopefully walk away with some helpful tips. Our goal at Elad is to “Make technology better” and what better way than to inform users.

Here is your job….if you are interested in receiving helpful tips,news, and reviews from Elad we need your email address. All you need to do is reply yes or no to WorkIT and if you want to submit a friends email or a different address send that also.

Click here  to start expanding your mind with 2012′s first article!

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