Tucson Computer Repair - Laptop Repair | Saguaro PC Tech LLC
Quality Computer Service in Tucson
As a computer repair shop owner here in Tucson, I thought I’d share my experience and impressions of Windows 8 to help people make sense of this drastically new version of Windows that we’ll all have to get used to sooner or later.
I’ve been playing with Windows 8 since the preview release came out in the summer.
[Read more...]
Want a faster PC or Laptop? Faster startup times and smoother performance? Did you ever wonder about all those background programs running on your PC? Do you need all these running all the time? Here are some tips to help you.
Windows has a core set of programs, called “system services” that must run in the background so that the system can perform basic operations. However, you may not need to have all the services running, and disabling unnecessary services can enhance performance.
Here is a list of 10 services you can disable on your Windows 7 systems that will probably not negatively affect you at all. I say “probably” for a reason. Before you take drastic action, such as disabling a service on your PC, make sure you don’t need the service. This is not a definitive list of unneeded services, just some obvious ones.
Test your changes and undo them if you have problems. Create a System Restore point before making any changes, so you can undo them if you get into trouble. [Read more...]
With today’s hard drive technologies, people wonder if it’s still necessary to defragment their hard drives. By the way, what the heck is defragmenting anyway?
Defragmenting your hard drive quite simply means reorganizing the way information is stored on a computer disk so that all of the information belonging to a file is stored in a single, contiguous area on the disk. Believe it or not, a file (like a document, photo, etc) can actually be split up into smaller pieces. Its sub-pieces can be be physically spread out into different locations on the hard disk. This is what is meant by “fragmentation”. [Read more...]
Ever close a browser tab by mistake before you’re done reading the web page? Argh! That’s so annoying! You might panic because you found this great site, but you haven’t bookmarked it yet, and think you’ll never be able to find it again. I know, because it’s happened to me!
Well guess what? You can reopen it in a snap! All you need is a quick keyboard shortcut.
Just press the “Control”-”Shift”-”T” keys together.
This is just like you do the good old Control-Alt-Delete trick. Voila! That tab is back!
While we’re on the subject, you can reopen all your pages if you close the entire browser window!
Just press the “Control”-”Shift”-”N”.
This works with all 3 major browsers, Firefox, Chrome and IE. Not sure about Safari or Opera.
I hope this post make your browsing more pleasant. If you’d like to read more of our posts or learn more about our company, please visit our Tucson Computer Repair website at saguaropc.com.
What’s the deal with these sites that promise to double your PC’s speed with just the click of a button? Yes, we all hear the commercials where someone is ecstatically happy because his or her PC is running “faster than ever”. Oh really?
You may think I’m posting this because I’m a repair technician and get angry when I hear these. Well you’re right, but not because I’m afraid of the competition. I’m angry because these claims are mostly scams that take advantage of people. You can speed up your PC by downloading any of a wide selection of free utilities, versus paying these bozos.
Now I’m only talking about very basic cleanup processes on PC’s that are basically in good shape, because that’s all that these sites or the free utilities can handle. A badly under-performing PC that locks up and freezes, or gets Windows errors cannot be fixed like this. These sites dupe people into thinking they will, and that angers me even more. Then, they start charging extra fees for more extensive procedures.
Why not Clean Your PC Yourself, for Free?
I recommend a great little free program called “C-Cleaner“. It’s very popular among PC Technicians and is part of our arsenal of standard tools. You can download it from the “Resources” tab on our Saguaro PC Tech website, or at Download.com. There’s a paid version too, but you don’t need it.
To clean and tune a really slow PC suffering from lockups and errors, several procedures are required, including checking for viruses and spyware, checking the health of the hard drive, removing outdated programs, installing Windows and driver updates, etc. The list goes on.
Again, these sites will charge for more work, but many of these procedures can’t be done very well, or even at all via on line support. Don’t waste your time or money. You may find that taking your PC to a reputable local repair shop will be both cheaper and more effective.
Proper PC Usage and Habits – General Guidelines to Keep Your PC Healthy
This post presents some very basic and simple tweaks you can make to Windows 7. Of course there are hundreds more, but for now, these will get you started. We’ll be posting more later on.
Tweak 1: Make Internet Explorer 8 Faster and Smoother:
While the new IE 9 has replaces IE8, some of you may still like UE8. It is still a great browser, however it’s bogged down by some features that Microsoft thought were cool in the beginning, but have ended up being useless for the most part. Here’s how to make it smoother and faster.
First you’ll have to reset IE back to factory defaults. Here’s how:
You are now ready to set up IE8 without it’s unneeded default features. Follow these steps:
Tweak 2: Make the Recycle Bin Smaller:
Right-click the recycle bin, select Properties, and set a more reasonable Custom size. Typically 250MB to 500MB is more than enough. This will help reduce the clutter on your hard drive, as well as performance.
Tweak 3: Improve Windows Explorer’s Folder Options:
This tweak makes Windows itself more usable, giving you more options and menus to use. It also shows you more information about your files by showing the file extensions. This way you know what type of file you are dealing with. You may have read our post about virus threats, where we mentioned that a virus can hide it’s true identity if the file extensions are turned off.
Tweak 4: Change Your Desktop Icon Size:
Are you annoyed with the huge icons on the Windows 7 desktop, after getting used to having smaller ones in Windows XP? I know I am! What were they thinking? Well, you can make your desktop icons almost any size you want with your mouse’s scroll wheel. Here’s how.
First, close all open windows so the desktop has the focus, then press and hold the Ctrl key while scrolling the mouse wheel up or down. The desktop icons will step through many sizes, from huge to tiny. Pretty cool, eh?
That’s it for this post. Please explore other posts in our blog, as we’ve got more tips already posted. Check back soon for even more tips and tweaks.
Also, please visit our website at www.saguaropc.com, or our Facebook page to find out more about us, or to have us help you with your computer repair issues in Tucson.
I often hear the question from my customers, “My Computer is getting old. What do you recommend I do if I can’t afford to buy a new one?” Here’s what’s happening and what you can do.
The major issues that deteriorate the performance of older computers are:
1) Insufficient Memory (RAM):
Machines that are in the 3-5 year range of life have low amounts of RAM by today’s standards. This is because as time goes by, all those Windows updates you’ve been getting have actually made Windows bigger, thus needing more RAM.
You may also have installed new software (programs) over time. Newer software has more features, and so is often larger than older programs, thus needing more RAM.
2) The Hard Drive:
This is the storage device inside your computer. It is a mechanical device and like any mechanical device, the more usage you place on it, the more it wears down. It can become increasingly inaccurate as it reads and writes data, thus causing file corruption, data loss and a slowing down of its operation. What can you do?
Defragment Your Hard Drive! This will make your hard drive last much longer and help your machine run faster. Why?…. Over time, the data on your hard disk gets fragmented and spread out all over the disk. This means the drive has to look all over the place to get your files and has to work much harder, stressing and slowing it down.
All versions of Windows have a built-in defragmenting utility, but in my professional opinion, 3rd party “Defraggers” do a better job. I like the free “Defraggler” program, made by Piriform Software.
What if this doesn’t help? Then it may be a good time to replace the hard drive. This gives you multiple benefits. The most important preserving your data. If you wait until it fails, you will lose your data, such as your pictures, documents, emails, address books and videos.
The second benefit is performance. With a new hard disk, you have the chance to reinstall or upgrade your Windows to a newer version. A fresh installation of Windows gives you a huge increase in performance. Your PC will “run like new”. Also, the newer hard drives are faster than older ones, giving you a further boost in speed.
3) Old Software and File Buildup (junk files):
A lot of the software that came with your PC is outdated and is taking up space. You may also have lots of programs running in the background that you’re not even aware of. Some of these programs came bundled with programs that you downloaded, but piggybacked themselves into the download and installed themselves without your knowledge. The biggest culprits here are Toolbars (Bing, Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc.). You should uninstall these unneeded programs, but be careful, if you’re not sure, don’t touch it. Call a professional computer technician.
Finally, there are many files that get created automatically in the background by the programs you’re running. These are only temporarily needed, but are left behind even after they’re no longer needed. Clearing these out with a good cleanup utility, like “C-Cleaner” can help regain performance. This free utility is also from Piriform Software, the same people that make “Defraggler”.
So there you have the basics. The two utilities we mentioned can be a great help. You can find these on our website’s links page, or at CNet’s Download.com site.
Did you know Windows constantly creates and indexes your data, and that this heavy chore can slow down your PC?
Actually, indexing is good if you have tons of files and you use the built-in Windows Search to find your data. The indexing makes the searches quick and easy.
But what if you don’t have tons of files and don’t need to do searches to find your data? Then you might as well reduce the activity of this feature, or disable it altogether. The result will be a faster computer.
To modify or disable indexing, open the Indexing Options applet in the Control Panel. Note that if you have your Control Panel set to “Category View”, you will not see it. Change the view to “icons” (large or small), and you will see the Indexing Options applet. Upon opening, you’ll see a window showing what locations are being indexed. Click “Modify” and remove locations (folders, etc.) being indexed. You might just choose to index only your Documents folder and nothing else, or choose nothing at all. It’s up to you. You can even choose what types of files are indexed as well.
If you do want to leave search indexing on, but find that it occasionally slows you down, you can stop its process when you need extra speed. Right-click on “Computer” either in the Start menu or on the desktop, then choose the “Manage” option. Then double-click Services and Applications, then Services. Find the “Windows Search” item and double click on that. From this properties dialog, choose “Stop”. You can also choose the Startup type, setting it to Manual or Disabled. For occasional use, set it to Manual and it will start indexing the next time you do a search.
Again, if you don’t have many files and you know exactly where you keep them, then disable it altogether and remove all locations. If you have a very fast PC with for instance, a Quad-Core processor and over 4GB or memory, this won’t make much of a difference. Go ahead and leave it on, as you might enjoy using the search feature from time to time.
If you have any questions about this or want help tuning and optimizing your PC, we can help (but only if you live in Tucson, of course). Our contact information is on the Saguaro PC Tech website.
Ever wonder why Firefox doesn’t show previews of all the open tab pages when you hover over it in the task bar? Well, by default, the Aero preview does not show them like IE does.
You can enable it as follows:
Open Firefox 3.6 (or later) and type about:config in the Location Bar.
You’ll have to click to get past this
warning dialog box and open the Preferences page. Use the Filter box (or just scroll down) to find
browser.taskbar.previews.enable in the list of preferences.
Note that by default it’s set to false. Double-click to toggle the setting to true. The value in the Status
column changes to user set and the entire entry turns bold to indicate it’s been changed.
Every tab (even if those tabs are in separate windows) is now visible from the taskbar previews. You can
change the focus to any tab temporarily by pointing at it, and you can close any tab from its thumbnail
preview using the X in the upper right corner.
This tweak was presented by Saguaro PC Tech.
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