Infection!

I stumbled to my computer this morning and powered it on.  The familiar hum of the fans and harddrive and the instant flow of hot air from under the desk reminded me that I need to pick up an air conditioner.  High temperature is not something that I am particularly comfortable with, especially when there's a good dose of humidity.  I would much rather work in a freezer and dress up warm than work in a hot room and feel like I need to peel my skin off!

As the monitor came to life, I plugged my newly acquired iPhone in to sync (synchronize - make sure that what's on the computer matches what's on the iPhone).  Strangely, once iTunes started it began reporting problems.  Not unusual but different.  Immediately I decided to run Spybot (a program to check for malicious programs on the computer).  Whenever I run Spybot (excellent program, by the way), I always check for new updates.  This time, the updates could not be 'found' which is the first time that I've seen that problem.  Something is up, I thought.  I ran the check regardless, and straight away Spybot detected an issue with a piece of spyware called, win32.agent.ieu.  Not good.  I check on Google for this and it looked like I had a serious problem when many of the posts said that Spybot would not be able to remove it.  However, I also noticed that the post were one or two years old and that gave me some hope that the makers of Spybot, Safer Networking Ltd., had figured out a way to deal with this problem.  Eventually the scan completed and the computer appeared to have picked up a mass of problems.  This is very unusual as I keep the machines updated and scan every use.  Thankfully Spybot fixed the issues quickly and a re-scan indicated that all spyware had been removed.  Spybot has a feature that allows you to 'immunize' your computer so that problems that have been dealt with once don't have the ability to return later. 

As I left the computer running for a while before starting a day of work, I felt, for the first time, that the effort of the people at Safer Networking Ltd. really did deserve a donation for their time, effort and expertise.  And so, I will...

Tony

In USA

Today is Saturday. The 21st. It looks like it is a beautiful day. I really do enjoy the turn from Summer to Fall as the air gets cooler, less humid and the leaves start to change color. Being in New England that means that the visual treat of the foliage being every imaginable color from purple thru yellow is just around the corner. To write everything that I like would take too much space and time but maybe I should think about serializing those ideas. I have been in the States for four years now and the novelty and enjoyment still hasn't worn off. I don't say that to belittle my birth country of England but as a statement about how much the States has got right.

Today is my eldest son's birthday. He is 14 and a really wonderful kid.

Apparently, perhaps to be expected, there are errors on my DSL connection for the office which should have been completed yesterday.  It seems that the problem has never been with my connection but with the lack of connection at the AT&T office!

Will this Flyer catch attention?

Considering advertising

I know that it is critically important that people hear about Redcoat Computer Services.  Without people knowing that the company exists and how we can help, we can't help and we can't make any money to keep the company going.  So, the question is, what is the best way to get people to know we exist and what we do.
 
There are so many options out there that applying time and money to each would be very difficult and potentially leave no time to actually operate the business day-to-day.  I believe that one of the most important and influential ways to attract customers is by word-of-mouth referrals.  Do a great job for someone and ask them to mention your services to friends and family and repeat.  That relies upon doing a great service which should be at the heart of every business regardless of industry or profession.  But what about traditional advertising media, newspapers, radio, TV, flyers, community meetings, social media technology etc.  Well, I have begun to think about the key customer groups that Redcoat Computer Services will support and it's made me realise that there are definitely some channels to which I'll pay slightly less attention than to others. 

The first was the new social media tools such as Twitter and even this we(blog).  Given that we're aiming to solicit interest from people who might be intimidated or confused about what to do with a computer and how to do it, it's likely that they won't be following a Twitter feed or logging on to Facebook with any regularity.  It might be that family member may pick up on these posts but it's also likely that they'll be technically savvy enough to help the frustrated friend or family member. 

The other media that won't get immediate attention is the Mail-A-Map (Mail-A-Map East Lyme and Niantic) concept which is distributed from stores and town offices showing a map of the town and which carries advertising from local business, particularly restuarants and stores.  Since Redcoat isn't a walk-in or drive-by type of business there is little need to be placed on a map and I suspect that these maps are really only useful to non-residents like tourists who would not need the services of a computer repair business. 

It is much more likely that traditional print media and the yellow pages will be the key to success in advertising the services to less technically adept customers, one of the key local papers being the Lyme Times and that is where I shall start as soon as the website is live...

Tony

Thunder and lightning...

Much though I love it when it rains, thunders and generally is a miserable day outside, lightning storms can be fatal for computers and electrical equipment.  I think I like storms because, as a kid, it meant that I had a legitimate reason to stay inside and play rather than running around outside getting hot and sweaty. 

At the sound of thunder, I recommend unplugging, from the wall sockets the connections to power and cabling.  I've known modems and computers to be reset, at best, destroyed, at worst by a nearby lightninng strike at there's very little that can be done to bring a fried computer back to life.

Tony

Restore Point: A little peace of mind

Many of the computer problems that I come across would be relatively simple to resolve with a little foresight.  Easy to say but, like life insurance, it's not something you generally imagine you're going to need.  A recent problem with a system saw a blue screen and a mouse pointer but no fix could bring the windows installation back to life.  Ironically, even though its owner had sensibly installed a tape backup device in the computer and there were backups available to restore the computer to its pre-crash state, the particular tape drive and the Windows had a conflict and it was impossible to get the restore to work. 

So, here is something simple that you can do to provide a little insurance in the event that your computer crashes horribly and won't come back to life.  Create a 'system restore point'.  System restore point are generally created automatically by the computer when significant changes happen such as installing updates to Windows or programs.  However, it doesn't do any harm to create one of your own.  Bear in mind that this doesn't backup all your documents, pictures and such but important system files that will be needed if the computer ever needs to be brought back to life from the brink of electronic death.

To do this in Windows XP,

Open the Start menu
Open the Programs menu
Open the Accessories menu
Open the System Tools menu
Click on System Restore
Pick the option for setting a System Restore Point and click on the Next button
Fill in a name for the restore point so you can find it and click on the Create button
Click on the Close button when done

And that's it!  Even if you don't ever need to use this restore feature yourself it may be very useful to somebody else that's trying to solve the problem on your behalf.
 
Tony