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Throw Away Technology

Posted on May 26, 2015May 2, 2024 by Gail Eddy in Tips

I was brought up by parents who grew up during the Depression in New England, and the Puritan frugality was bred pretty deeply in me. The whole “Reduce / Reuse / Recycle” motto was just the way things were during my childhood – especially Reduce and Reuse. Nothing was ever thrown away that might have another use sometime in the future. Protecting the environment by keeping things out of landfills was just a fortunate by-product!

Which is why I sometimes think our business is the perfect business for me. We help people repair or enhance their current equipment rather than dumping it and getting something new. Sometimes, it’s just one component that needs to be replaced, and that’s something we can easily do.

An older computer can have a new hard drive added to provide more storage, rather than getting a whole new computer.
Or, it can have a RAM upgrade to help it perform faster.
Or, change out the keyboard or screen on a laptop when they break.

However, with some of the technology being sold today, they are just not being built to be repaired! Some companies are now using cheap plastic clips to hold things together rather than the teeny metal screws. Extra care must be taken to remove the clips so that they don’t break or snap, and putting them back together again can be a challenge. This adds extra time to the repair work and makes the repair bill more expensive. And to all of those folks out there who say “It’ll cost $200 to fix my keyboard? I can get a new machine for that!”, I remind you that you get what you pay for.

We’ll always tell you when it’s more cost-effective for you to replace rather than repair. For example, it’s almost always more cost-effective to replace a broken printer then to repair it. A broken keyboard can go either way. If you’re like me though, the cost to replace will always include the environmental impact of adding to the trash heap.

If you’re wondering what kinds of services we can provide, please check out our services page.

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Chris Eddy of Geek For Hire, Inc. has been providing computer service to families and small businesses with Mac’s and PCs for the past eighteen years. Angie’s List and the BBB rate Geek For Hire very highly. You can find more on our website, or give us a call 303-618-0154. Geek For Hire, Inc. provides onsite service (Tier 3 support) to the Denver / Boulder / Front Range area as well as remote service throughout North America.

We’ve been using Amazon Prime for the past few years. We like the free and fast shipping. With Prime, we have access to online streaming too. Prime is usually $119/year, but you can get a free 30-day trial by clicking on this link: Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Smokin’ Hot iPhone!

Posted on May 19, 2015April 29, 2024 by Gail Eddy in Apple, iPhone, Tips

Last week my nephew shared a story about an iPhone in his town of Philly that had burst into flames in a young girls pocket.

Twelve-year-old Alexis Rolon has had her iPhone 5C since November and was carrying it in her back pants pocket when it started burning, giving her second-degree burns.

Since I had an iPhone last year that would get very, very hot, I wondered what the frequency is of cellphone fires and did a little research.

My search turned up several stories.

Another middle-school student in Maine had the same experience as Alexis with her new iPhone 5C.

She sat down in class with her phone in her back pocket. She heard a “popping” sound, and then felt a burning sensation. She was trained well, and did the “drop and roll” thing, though I think taking the phone out of her pocket should have been her first priority!

Remember when the iPhone 6 first came out and it had a problem with bending? Here’s an extreme case of “bendgate”:

Last October, an iPhone 6 exploded, then started burning in a man’s front pants pocket. He was in a minor accident and landed against a metal bar which bent the phone. Right after than the phone exploded and left him with first and second-degree burns.

Another story, this time it wasn’t in a pants pocket:

Last August a young girl had stored her iPhone 5 in her purse prior to boarding a plane for a flight from Israel. When the cabin of the plane started filling up with smoke, the girl realized the smoke was coming from her purse. When she opened the purse, flames were clearly visible. The airline blamed it on the lithium battery, though other stories blame it on a faulty screen replacement.

All of these stories make me really glad the Chris made me take my iPhone 5 in to be

checked last fall. It had been getting increasingly hot, and I was noticing that the screen was lifting up off of the body of the phone. We brought it into the Apple store in Boulder and made an appointment to have it looked at by one of their techs at the Genius Bar. Sure enough, the battery had expanded and actually pushing the glass screen up and away from the body of the phone. Apple replaced the battery and the screen under warranty. My phone no longer over-heated and I had a new scratch-free screen!

The moral of the story: If your iPhone is feeling hot or you notice something off about it, bring it in to one of Apple’s retail stores and get it checked out. Prior to bringing it in, sync your iPhone in case they need to restore it to factory settings. Also, if you can, remember to go online and make an appointment ahead of time. That will save you the three hour wait I had for my appointment time. If they do determine that it needs to be repaired, you’ll need to leave it with them and pick it up when they’re done, usually an hour or two later.

Questions? Comments? Post them below.

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Beware of Click Bait!

Posted on May 12, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in Click Bait, Hackers, Phishing, Social Media, Tips

This morning, I was doing one of my morning rituals which includes reading through the recent posts on Facebook, and found that a friend of mine who lives on the east coast, liked a story. I worked with him many years ago. He was the manager of a major project which I worked on for many years. This was the largest project in my career, and I know that this system is still “alive” today because I have served a local customer twice who is dispatched by this system. Since I respect my friend, and he doesn’t casually like everything, the things that he does like tends to get my attention. The first thing I did was to like the story too.

The story told of a mother beating her son on national television because he was participating in the recent riots in Baltimore. My friend liked it, so it must be legit. I clicked on the link to the story, which went to a blogsite which I had never seen or heard of before. The content of the page had only a brief retelling of the title of the story, plus several advertisements, but there was no link to the salacious original video that grabbed my attention. Since I didn’t see what I expected, I thought this was a problem with the tight security settings of my daily browser (Firefox, with several add-ons), so I copied the URL from my “high security” browser and pasted it into my “low security” browser which works with everything (Internet Explorer), and fetched the page. The same page was displayed, but this time with many popup advertisements (pop-over and pop-under) which were really concerning to me. There was no salacious video or a link to it. I shut this down fast.

Still being interested in the salacious story, I went to YouTube and searched for the general words of the title of the story, and found several direct links to the video – without additional advertisement or commentary.

In this case, I fell prey to “Click Bait”. I saw a story that interested me, thought it was legit, and clicked on it. It wasn’t legit. I will be doing a total system scan of my computer to check for any residual nastiness.

If you think you’ve fallen prey to “Click Bait”, the best thing to do is to scan your machine for anything malicious. If you need help, give us a call!

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Myth – Mac’s Don’t Get Viruses

Posted on May 5, 2015October 19, 2020 by Gail Eddy in anti-virus, Apple, Hackers, iPad, iPhone, Mac's, Virus

More than once I’ve heard the myth – Mac’s don’t get virues.

Unfortunately that’s just not true. Mac’s can get viruses just as easily as any other kind of machine. It used to be that malware was written specifically for PCs and the Microsoft Operating System, because there were just so darn many of them out there. But if our experience at Geek For Hire, Inc. is any guide, plenty of our customers with Apples are getting all kinds of malware. This post contains affiliate links which means if you click and buy, we may make a commission at no cost to you. See our full policy for more details.

(By the way, “malware” is the catch-all phrase for any software you haven’t deliberately chosen to load onto your computer. Remember from high school Latin that “mal” means “bad”. “Malware” includes viruses, spyware, rootkits, and more.)

We use ESET to protect our Mac’s and PCs.

In fact, way back in 2012, Apple itself recognized the flaw. In April, 2012, more than a half million Macs were infected by the Flashback Trojan bug. Shortly after that, PC Magazine reported that Apple “removed from its website the claim that its Mac operating system is not susceptible to PC viruses.”, and changed its tagline to “It’s built to be safe”.

Today, even more malware is being written specifically for the Mac OS. And Apple does not seem to be on top of getting fixes out to their users. In an article by Digital Trends, they stated:

“Apple has also been criticized for being slow to deal with threats and shut vulnerabilities down. Rootpipe was discovered in October 2014, but the fix only came out this month (April 2015), and it only patches Yosemite, not older editions of OS X. To make matters worse, the patch doesn’t actually fix the problem properly. Apple’s big rival may have a bad reputation, but it has taken decisive action to tackle that perception.”

Don’t believe the Myth – Mac’s DO get viruses!

It’s best to protect yourself with a good anti-virus program for Macs. We’ve been using and recommending ESET for many years. And we like that they offer a discount for multiple devices and multiple year subscriptions.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

INFORMATION ABOUT GEEK FOR HIRE, INC.

Chris Eddy of Geek For Hire, Inc. has provided computer service to families and small businesses with Mac’s and PCs for the past eighteen years. Angie’s List and the BBB rate Geek For Hire very highly. You can find more on our website, or give us a call 303-618-0154. Geek For Hire, Inc. provides onsite service (Tier 3 support) to the Denver / Boulder / Front Range area and remote service throughout North America.

Here’s a link to our Covid19 Policy.

What Is a Solid State Drive and Why Do I Need One?

Posted on April 28, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in Data Storage, Hard Drive, HDD, Laptops, Mac's, PC's, Solid State Drive, SSD, Tips

Check out our update on SSD’s in our more recent article.

For the past five years or so, whenever Chris had to replace a hard drive in a Mac or PC, or is designing a new computer for a customer, he always recommends that they get a Solid State Drive (SSD), rather than the traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Why?

First of all, here’s a great explanation from PC Magazine of how a HDD saves your data:

“The traditional spinning hard drive (HDD) is the basic nonvolatile storage on a computer. That is, it doesn’t “go away” like the data on the system memory when you turn the system off. Hard drives are essentially metal platters with a magnetic coating. That coating stores your data, whether that data consists of weather reports from the last century, a high-definition copy of the Star Wars trilogy, or your digital music collection. A read/write head on an arm accesses the data while the platters are spinning in a hard drive enclosure.”

And here’s a description from TechTerms on how the Solid State Drive works:

“While SSDs serve the same function as hard drives, their internal components are much different. Unlike hard drives, SSDs do not have any moving parts (which is why they are called solid state drives). Instead of storing data on magnetic platters, SSDs store data using flash memory. Since SSDs have no moving parts, they don’t have to “spin up” while in a sleep state and they don’t need to move a drive head to different parts of the drive to access data. Therefore, SSDs can access data faster than HDDs.”

For a long time, I just didn’t get it. Why is “newer” always “better” for these geeks?! Chris patiently explained to me some of the benefits.

More Robust:
Because a Solid State Drive has no moving parts, there aren’t any parts to break. This makes the SSD perfect for those who don’t count “grace” as one of their better qualities. It’s also a better choice for frequent travelers

Speed:
SSD’s are faster. I’ve read that they are 100 times faster than HDD’s. Machines with an SSD will boot faster, open programs faster, transfer files faster. Games process more quickly too. When seconds count, choose an SSD.

Lighter:
When you’re lugging a laptop through an airport, you want to shed every excess ounce that you can. SSD’s weigh slightly less than the HDD’s.

Downside:
SSD’s are more expensive to purchase than HDD’s. But, considering that the SSD will last longer, that’s only a short term problem.

Here are some additional articles on why the SSD is a better choice:
PC Magazine / OCZ / ThinLabs

Purchasing Recommendations:
If you are looking into purchasing a new SSD, C|NET has some great recommendations here.

Once you get your new SSD, we can help you install it – just give us a call!

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

iPad Games For Your Cat

Posted on April 21, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in Apple, Entertainment, Entertainment Apps, Games, iPad, Mac's

I’ve been hearing about games you can play with your cat on your iPad. I decided to try a few and see how Dot (our cat) liked them. I started with this article on MacLife.com.

I have a silly rule about applications for my phone and iPad. All apps (except for the ones required for business) must be free! Most of the free apps I found were published by Purina/Friskies.

If you don’t have a screen protector, I’d recommend getting one before letting your cat play with your iPad!

First we tried Cat Fishing 2. Dot seemed interested in the fish swimming around the screen and watched them intently. But she never tried to catch them or attack them in any way. The game makes two sounds. Dot didn’t seem to notice the fish bubbles, but when the iPad meowed at her, she jumped about a mile!

Next we tried Nifty Cat Games. It showed a fly buzzing across the screen. Before Dot could express an interest one way or another – a mere fifteen seconds later – this nifty screen popped up:

Next we tried Game for Cats. I’m starting to think my cat just is too cool for the iPad. Here’s a photo of her with the laser tag game:

I think we’ll just stick to the old fashioned cat toys!

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

What Do I Do With My MF (Multi-Function) PRINTER?!

Posted on April 14, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in Mac's, PC's, Printer, Tips, WiFi

I’ve updated this page – check out the new blog here.

Of course, we can help you with your printer issues. Give us a call on 303-618-0154 and give me a run-down of the symptoms. If it can be fixed in a reasonable amount of time, I’ll let you know. If not, I’ll let you know that too.

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Outsmarting The Hackers

Posted on March 31, 2015April 29, 2024 by Gail Eddy in eMail, Hackers, Mac's, Passwords, PC's, Tips

Hackers are getting smarter and are finding it easier to log into your email, bank and social media accounts. For that reason, it is so important to regularly change your passwords on all of your accounts. If you think any of your accounts may have been hacked, change your password recovery email as well.

Some people have a hard time remembering their passwords. I’ve found that it is a good idea to use a couple of different words which are significant to you, but change it up a bit. Use numbers, symbols, and capital letters to make the password harder to guess, but easy for you to remember. As an example, using the word “PASSWORD”, I’ll show you how easy it is to change a common word into a secure password for you:

P@55w0rd! – Capitalize the first letter, change the “a” to the @ symbol, change the two Ss to 5s, change the o to a zero, and add an exclamation on the end.
P@55W0rd! – Capitalize the first letter, change the a to the @ symbol, change the two Ss to 5s, Capitalize the W, change the o to a zero, and add an exclamation on the end.
!P@55w0rd! – Start with an exclamation point, Capitalize the first letter, change the a to the @ symbol, change the two Ss to 5s, change the o to a zero, and add an exclamation on the end.

When you use this system, you can change it monthly by adding the date. For example, add “April”, or “04” to the end.

Its also better to use more than one word. Sometimes when Chris is setting up a new password he will use the title of a nearby book. For example, Mark Reisner’s “Cadillac Desert” is on my desk right now. Using Chris system, my new password could be:

CadillacDesert – with the first letter of each word capitalized and no spaces.
Cadillac Desert – with the first letter of each word capitalized and one space between the two words.
Cadillac_Desert with the first letter of each word capitalized and the underscore symbol between the two words.
C@dill@cDesert – with the first letter of each word capitalized and the “a” turned into the @ symbol.

You get the idea! Play around with some possible passwords for you. Once you have a few that work and that you can easily remember, it will be easy to change it up on a regular basis and to keep your online life that much more secure!

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Repair vs. Replace: Time to Get a New Mac?

Posted on March 17, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in Apple, backup, Mac's, Tips

We’re often asked when a customer should repair their current computer vs. just getting a new one. It’s a hard decision to make. If we’re able to fix it in a reasonable amount of time, we’ll always recommend not replacing. But “reasonable amount of time” varies from person to person.

Chris Eddy adds: “My standard recommendation is to keep the machine, until it fails to serve well as a tool, or is too expensive to repair. “

Here’s a case study for a recent customer considering a new Mac.

The customer had an older (2008) MacBook and wanted to know whether to upgrade it or replace it. It generally worked fine and performed adequately for most tasks, but the customer was encountering more times when they would be waiting for things to complete, and they were concerned about whether it would be adequate for installing and using SketchUp in the future.

General Findings:

Cosmetically, the machine was in beautiful condition. A backlit keyboard was not available at the time the machine was made and it’s a nice touch to have in a darkened room, but not the only reason to consider a new machine.
The hard drive still had about 80% of free space on it, so free disk space wasn’t a problem. I tested the hard drive, and no errors were found within 5 minutes, which is a good sign that the machine was probably not in danger of immediate detonation.
The machine had 4GB of RAM in it, which is the physical maximum amount of RAM that the machine can use.
Current Ram usage was at about 50%, which should support SketchUp Ram-wise. Any current performance difficulties the machine currently has will not be improved by the addition of SketchUp.

Monitor:

The customer wants to use a larger monitor than the 13″ display that this notebook machine has. It’s a nice screen, but it’s not enough screen real-estate for future use.
The customer could be served by a new Apple notebook computer with an external monitor.
The current Macbook Air can come with an 11″ or 13″ screen size, and the current Macbook Pro can come with a 13″ or 15″ screen size.
Another option for this customer is to possibly get an iMac, which is an all-in-one desktop computer that can come with a monitor size of 22″ or 27″. Both monitors are large and beautiful.
The choice of external monitor could be either an Apple monitor, which will be beautiful – but expensive because the Apple “Premium” is alive and well. A large monitor from a different manufacturer could be gotten from the open market, at a lower cost and still be good quality. Dell makes some absolutely beautiful monitors, especially the “U” line of monitors, and we get 30% discounts from Dell – which we pass on directly to our customers.

Keeping your old machine once you get a new one:

There is value in having one machine rather than two, because this is a major “life simplification”; all of your programs and your data is in one place rather than two, and you don’t have to worry about synchronizing the two machines. If something does go wrong you can focus on one machine rather than two. Sometimes people just want to keep their “old” machines as a backup. Or they want to keep the old machine to access old data, or keep the old hard drive to keep an archival copy of the historical record of your old data. My standard recommendation is to not keep the old machine, but do keep the old hard drive for at least a few months. Migrate to the new machine, and enjoy it. You probably won’t ever go back to the old machine. (If you do, you’ll soon remember why you replaced it!)

SSD:

Regardless of which machine you get, always upgrade to a Solid State Drive. The SSD performs /much/ faster than a physical hard drive, and even the Fusion drive will start to slow down soon after the machine is brought home. The SSD will provide the most consistent good performance over time, however it will be more expensive – remember the “Apple Premium”.

The new MacPro:

One possible option is the new MacPro. This is Apple’s new “Desktop” computer. (…and it looks like a small trash can!) The MacPro is a very quick computer and can be ordered with features that will make it outrageously fast – but remember the “Apple Premium”.

Buying Strategy:

If you do decide it’s time for a new Mac, head to the Apple store. BUT, go there with the specific intent of /not/ buying today. I’ve found that there is a reality distortion field within the store that has subtle influences to motivate you to want to buy a new machine right there and right now.

If you find something you like, fine, but buy it tomorrow – not today. This is going to be an expensive purchase of a new tool, and you are going to have it for a long time. It’s in your best interest to let the thinking of this new tool “Marinate” in your brain for at least 24 hours before actually pulling the trigger and getting the tool.

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!

Your Next Computer Might Be a Phone

Posted on March 10, 2015December 2, 2019 by Gail Eddy in anti-virus, Hackers, iPhone, Mac's

Do you find yourself using your phone or tablet more and more instead of the computer on your desk? You’re not alone! If you know anything about me, you know that I like to take frequent road trips. It doesn’t matter if I’m in Denver or Manhattan; as long as I have my iPhone with me, I can continue to make appointments for Chris, follow up with our awesome clients, or internet research. With my new tablet, I can do still more, like updating spreadsheets and even write our blog. Our son recently purchased the new iPhone 6 which reviewers are calling a phablet – a phone AND a tablet. He has no need for a “real” computer and can do any necessary technology on his new phone.

Wired Magazine has come to the same conclusion in this article, although they do think it may take another few years.

“But thanks to increased processing power, better battery life, vastly improved networking speeds, and larger screen sizes on mobile devices, the shift away from the desktop is accelerating.

“Will we always need a desktop? No, not all of us will,” says consumer trends industry expert and Kantar Worldwide’s chief researcher, Carolina Milanesi. “Some of us already don’t.” “

The article concludes with this thought:

“But paired with a monitor and a Bluetooth keyboard at work, or streaming over Wi-Fi to a TV set at home, in a few years, there’s no real reason why, for the vast majority of us, a smartphone couldn’t handle all our daily computing needs.”

There are a few downsides to not having a “real” computer. A full sized keyboard that actually plugs in is one that comes to mind. Geek For Hire has seen so many issues with wireless keyboards & mice, from connection problems to bad batteries, I have a hard time recommending their use.

Another downside is no CD/DVD player. For someone who gets all of their music and entertainment online, that’s not a killer issue. I still buy CD’s, so that is an issue for me!

Finally, please remember that your SmartPhone is a computer. It doesn’t matter what the size is or what you’re using it for. Just like your PC or Mac, please install an anti-virus and keep the anti-virus up-to-date. Just because you have an iPhone made by Apple doesn’t mean you’re immune to malware and viruses. Ransomware is one of the biggest new threats facing your technology of every size as this little girl from Tennessee found out.

Information about Geek For Hire, Inc.

I’ve created a Free Report on what to look for to protect yourself from “phishing” scams. Click here to receive it!