Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft has released two major updates for Windows 7 computers. Service Pack 1 provides security updates, OS repairs and speed improvements. We recommend installing it at your earliest convenience. It is rather large, so allow at least 1 hour for the process. Run Windows Update from the Start Menu to initiate the install. Call me if you have any questions or if you would like us to come and perform a complete tune-up on your computers for you. Internet Explorer 9 has also been released, but only for those already running Windows Vista or 7. This program will not work with Windows XP. I have installed it on all of my computers about two weeks ago. Microsoft changed the controls in the program so using different parts of the application will take both a little getting used to and some explorative trial and error. I have not had it crash on me or lock up my computer at all, but two different websites I use did not function the way they were supposed to. We recommend waiting another three months before installing IE 9. As always give me a call if I can help you.

Bad Emails

Hoping to add clarity to which emails you should delete immediately, I would like to address to specific kinds: The Phishing Email and The Dangerous Attachment Email. Both emails usually are crafted with the appropriate corporate logos and official sounding customer service tags. The Phishing Email usually informs you that there is something wrong with your account or the security on your account and that you will need to contact customer service or corporate security. Most often they want you to click on a link which will “help” you make things right. The link, if you followed it and the instructions you receive when you arrive, would take you to a counterfeit website, similar to, but not the same as the true corporate web site. Any information that you voluntarily provide on the counterfeit site would be used to steal your identity. In my experience, corporations almost never adjust customer accounts this way. Delete Phishing Emails immediately. The Dangerous Attachment Emails are different in the process that they will ask you to open the attachment to view the information, which they say is so important to you. Double-clicking the attachment usually will install a rogue virus on your computer, costing you between $50 and $200 to remove. Corporations will almost never send you information this way either. Delete Dangerous Attachment Emails as soon as you can. Remember, receiving these emails in your inbox will not harm you or your computer. They both require you to take additional steps to create a bad situation. As always, if you have any concerns about an email, feel free to call us. We do not charge you to answer a few simple questions over the phone.

To Defrag or Not To Defrag?

Defrag is short for defragment. Basically, the defragment process takes files that are split into various fragments on a variety of locations (sectors) on your hard drive and rejoins them in one contiguous path. The theory was that if the read/write head that is retrieving the information you requested doesn’t have to skip to another part of the hard drive to complete the task. In the olden days (before the year 2000) when hard drives spun at a slower rate, were smaller in size (we kept running out of storage space for our files), had less read/write heads and the computer operating system could only address so many files, defragmenting the hard drive was a regularly recommended maintenance item to allow us to store more information and retrieve it faster. In 2011, not so much. The drives are faster, bigger, have more read/write heads and the operating system is more savvy about finding files. Many technicians (including myself) feel that there is little or no value to defragmenting your hard drive today. You probably would not be hurting the computer, but you would likely see very little improvement in the computer’s function. So save yourself time and effort by not defragmenting your computer.