How to Avoid Computer Internet Viruses

One thing that nobody wants is a pesky computer virus ruining their day! So these are the steps to properly save you the headache and loss that a virus can bring.

1. Use a safe and competent web browser, one that is being updated constantly. My top pick would be Google Chrome. With Google Chrome installed you have the ability to install extensions. And the number one extension you should install is Ad-Block Plus. Ad-Block Plus will prevent you from clicking on a lot of those “fake” links that are floating around online. And this greatly limits your exposure.

2. Viruses love to disguise themselves as Songs. If you’re a big music buff, chances are you will try to download music. And virus makers know this. Sooner or later you’re going to find yourself trying to download a song which is infected with a virus. Websites like bearshare, limewire, and frostw ire are notorious for being unsafe both online and offline.

3. Watching TV & Movies online can be fairly safe, but they do harbor bad links which are designed for you to think they are the real one but they are in fact a trap. When a false link is clicked on these sites they are going to send you to a “puppet” site which presents you with fake download links which harbor the virus files.

4. And lastly, another common way of being infected with a virus is connecting your USB Flash drive to a computer that is compromised. Moving a potentially infected file into a USB drive would compromise the integrity of the drive.

Avoiding computer virus online can be the trickiest thing in the world, its something everyone tries to avoid but like anything else there are always those unfortunate few. In my case however, I am very lucky to never have been infected with a virus, I might have had some bugs or some weird stuff happen but nothing that I couldn’t just sit and tinker with myself. I always had this knack to explore the unexplored and completely divulge myself into figuring out why some things in the computer would not work when I wanted them to. I was a bit of a geek and I probably spent more time on the computer than I should have but by the time I was older finding information and going through articles and websites was a breeze. I became an expert at not being an expert, but I became an expert which knew how to use his tools. And with my tool I had access to something that was uncommon in any day and age which had preceded mine, and that tool was knowledge.
With this knowledge I can find out and get to the source of anything that I wanted to find out about, and If I wanted to dig deeper I could, It gave me unparalleled access to anything and everything. Once in a while I would come across websites with problems, but the information was usually on a sister site. I miss the internet of yesteryear, there was no fear of internet copyright

Be safe, download a good antivirus (Microsoft Security Essentials is a safe bet), and enjoy what the internet has to offer! And for your information, we here at USA Computer Store sell all types of computers and laptops and we are well know for computer repair Fort Lauderdale and computer repair Broward

Next Generation of Computers

To me it seems that as things become simpler, there are still people that don’t have a clue as to what’s going on. Revolutions are happening every day in the world of computers making everything it simpler to use than ever. And it allows for the most disorientated person to do anything with more ease and simplicity than the previous generation of computer users. Moreover people just need to be aware that such computer functions exist, it’s very simple to overlook many great feature because nowadays there is no true tutorial for any new operating system without sifting through a computer manual like a detective on the case of a cold crime.

This is where we see where I see the future to be headed, less instructions available upfront with the need of having a strong foundation in computers for the next generation to fully understand how the computer operates and works. This is most apparent when we see an elderly person use the computer the same way a baby explores any new object. However what the elderly person fails to do is take a risk by trying to click around and explore their way. But it is through no fault of their way since they don’t want to cause a problem that they would have to pay for later.
Computer makers have more or less expect us to already know how to use computers, which is fine for the majority of their customers, but there is a good amount that will never be able to grasp what is truly available to them. There is one thing that they are pursuing though, and its Apps. And it is through apps that they are trying to guide us through the internet by holding our hand and telling us what we can look at. Apps are going to be the future of bookmarks for many people as it will direct them to YouTube, Ebay, Google, etc. with relative ease.

This is where the masses will be heading, at least in America. In many third world countries whose computers are not nearly as adequate as ours which mostly rely on the older Windows XP to browse the internet at their local computer café. The fascinating thing about XP is that it is being used by the majority of businesses and countries due to its reliability with proper maintenance.

Computers are going to be around for a long time to come, and they are going to be around long after we have lived our own lives. And as with most technology these days they are getting smaller and smaller. Most notably it has manifested in our culture these days in the form of an IPAD and other notable tablet devises. These small tablets harness the power of full size desktops with many having the same attributes of a full Microsoft word suite to allow you to keep up with your documents and files. This fascinating ability coupled with long battery life has truly reinvigorated people’s desire to create, share, and stay connected in our ever growing social networks.

As tablets go up in sales, laptops start to dwindle, which I predict will cost more to produce in the future. However, I would keep my eye out for a hybrid tablet, with a style much like windows 8. Which would be the size of a tablet with its own docking station for a desk; with this the computer monitor enlarges on the display. Our computers of the future will be something to behold and marvel at. They will be a mark of what we as humans are able to accomplish in a relatively short amount of time.

Thanks for hearing me rant on this week’s discussion! Don’t forget to come by and visit me at USA Computer Store in Broward County, Florida and we are mostly well know for computer repair Broward and Laptop repair Broward

Should I Ditch Windows XP for Windows 7

Like the smell of a brand new car the sight of a sleek, shiny, and any new Windows Operating System creates a lot of newsworthy buzz. You may ask yourself this as you look at your computer, “Is it worth it?” The biggest reason you might want to switch to the new Windows 7 is because of your very old and slow computer. If your computer is starting to have hardware problems, and wouldn’t want to be bothered with the hassle of having it repaired you might start looking at new computers in the store. And these days all the new computers in the store are running Windows 7.
How about if your computer is running just fine, and you have Windows XP chugging along just fine. Then you shouldn’t worry about upgrading to Windows 7, because in the end you’re paying for the looks. All the programs that you were to purchase in the store will still be compatible with Windows XP to a large degree. Windows XP, although being about 7 years old, has built a reputation for being a very reliable solidly built operating system with excellent support provided by Microsoft since its inception. With a Total of 3 Service Packs having been released you can rest assured knowing that the computer is going to run just fine, there’s just one problem however.

Viruses are a big issue on Windows XP, the security updates just aren’t coming anymore and any Virus that is any good will only able to completely decimate Windows XP. If infected with a virus you will notice the most erratic behaviour with the computer running at a snail’s pace. Although you may be inclined to get a new computer because of this extreme infection, I must advise that the effects of a virus are not permanent nor will it damage the hard ware in the computer itself. There are rare incidents when the Virus itself might damage a hard drive beyond the breaking point. If the case, the computer itself is no longer able to properly operate, thus needing the hard drive replaced for it to run Windows again.

The biggest hurdle that many people face when changing their Operating system would have to be their files. If you are a person who has a wealth of information on the computer it is highly advised that you backup all of your personal information on an external hard drive. Windows 7 does make a portion of this easy by allowing you to directly install it on top of the previous Windows installation, however any programs like Microsoft Outlook or QuickBooks would need to have had been backed up manually. However if you have taken all the appropriate measures, then you should be comfortable knowing that transitioning to Windows shall be a relatively harmless one.

If there is one thing that Windows 7 manages to do that it completely excels Windows XP is its file searching capabilities. With Windows XP looking for a lost file or program was a bit of work. The search system was clunky but it worked for the most part. Many times however the returned result was something not desired. The smart search capabilities of Windows 7 were very refreshing and so easy to use. So easy it became that If I wanted to look for anything on the fly without wanting to dig through a mountain of folders all it involved was one button click. That’s what is truly great about the smart search system. By simply hitting the windows key on the bottom left of my keyboard and then by just starting to type I see the results appear on the screen above. It works much like magic in any sense of the word.
Hopefully this info helps! Don’t forget to come by and visit me at USA Computer Store in Broward County, Florida and we are well know for computer repair Broward and computer repair Fort Lauderdale

Used Computers And You.

Used computers these days are a dime a dozen. Almost everyone has a used computer and now old computers are simply lying around just collecting dust, and you know what it’s time to put that computer to use. A lot of people are unaware that a computer that isn’t working just needs a new installation of Windows and a new installation of can easily be achieved by using the CD which came with the computer. Another good idea would be to open the computer up and blow out the innards with a hair dryer to clear out that dirty dust.

Once the computer has been through all this, what’s next? Well you’ll be presented with two options.

1. You can sell your old computer for money.
2. You can keep it as a reliable “Going Online” machine, or even gift it to a young or old family member.

How much can you get for your machine?

If you can look at the front sticker that’s all you need to know (For the most part), but without getting to specific I’ll list the following reasonable asking prices.

1. Pentium III – $40 – $65
2. Pentium 4/Celeron – $70 – $85
3. Pentium D – $90 – $115

Keep in mind these prices might adjust due to the amount of memory and hard drive, but the prices wouldn’t really change all that much unless it’s a Pentium III computer due to the ever rising price of its aging and antiquated memory and if you keeping it for an internet machine, it should handle the job quite well. There’s no reason to completely toss a computer away unless it has a serious flaw and one should always consider the possibility of fixing it with a bit of online research.

These computers tend to typically have a long life span which can last for many years. Many computers built in the years of 2005 and before were built with quality and longevity in mind, which is why we still see many in service even today. The best example is a story I heard and it goes like this-

There was this fairly big company which had a good amount of employees, and it had a server room. This server room consisted of one main server which was a Dell Dimension 2600 which had NEVER been turned off. This Dell Dimension was very integral to the company as it answered every single phone call that the company received and thus if this computer would ever turn off, many customers would not be able to make their payments and many potential new clients would be met with silence.

The funny part of this is that the computer could not turn off or we can say that has not turned off… for 5 years. By this time the hard drive had failed and the computer was running on ghost memory and no backup had ever been created. Several people in IT had noticed the issue and impending doom looming over the horizon but upper management had felt that as long as everything was working nothing needed to be done… and nothing ever was.

One fateful day it was decided to upgrade the power infrastructure of the building, and you guessed it… the power had to come off for this to happen. Long story short, the computer went offline, upper management went into panic mode, coders and programmers worked diligently to piece back together the lost program and then everything was back up and running within a couple of days. But this story truly stands as a testament as to how powerful and durable these machines are. Even if not entirely American made these were some good computers made with irons not used in today’s market due to restrictions and red tape. But that’s the way it goes I suppose.

That’s it for now! And just for the record we here at USA Computer Store sell a variety of computers for any office or home situation and well know for computer repair Broward and computer repair Fort Lauderdale.

How to identify prevent and fix laptop overheating

For the last few years, the sale of laptops has increased by 25% whereas the sale of desktop machines has reduced. Along with increasing demand for laptops and a change in times, technology has been upgraded.

Day by day laptops are getting thinner, more compact, lighter, and better in terms of performance. Because of this, laptops are now being put into smaller and smaller casing, which increases the threat of overheating, as there is less room for air to circulate.


If your laptop overheats, it can cause permanent hardware damage or failure. In this article, I will try to teach you about how to identify, prevent and fix laptop overheating.

Symptoms of Laptop Overheating

Below are the three points which can help out to identify if your laptop is overheating.

• Sudden shut-down, done by the operating system to prevent hardware damage
• The fan speed increases – you should be able to here this
• A reduction in the laptops performance – things load slower, the CPU is busy more often etc.

The Root Cause of Laptop Overheating

Laptop overheating occurs due to insufficient cooling. This usually happens because either your laptop is clogged up with dust, blocking ventilation, or because a thermal grease compound is getting stocked between your CPU and the heat sink – the big metal cooler that is usually linked to the fan.

Steps to prevent or fix Laptop Overheating

Option 1 – External cooler

You could purchase an external cooler. This is a cooling pad you place your laptop on, and it keeps cool air circulating around the laptop. Before you but a cooling pad, it is important to understand the flow of air in and out of your laptop.

Cooling pads are more useful/effective when used on laptops with air vents on the base of the device. Cooling pad connect via USB, and consumes some of the laptops power – not a problem if you are plugged in. Usually these pads cost around £5-20 GBP.

Option 2 – Get a strong and level base

Most laptops have their ventilation grills on the bottom of the device. Therefore if you keep them on an uneven surface, such as a bed, lap or pillow, disturbance is caused to the airflow. Keeping your laptop on a hard surface, like a table or a strong hard tray is likely to get you good air flow..

Option 3 – Internal cleaning

The above two methods were external methods, however this method will require taking your laptop apart and putting it back together again – so only do it if you are confident you know what you are doing!

This step is about removing your laptops casing to clean out any dust or dirt that might be restricting the airflow. Most laptops have downloadable user manuals, which can tell you all about the internals of your laptop, and how to take it apart, in order to clean it. This can void your warranty, so be careful and do your research! If you are not confident, you could of course take it to your local computer repair shop, and ask them to clean it.

If you are doing it yourself, once you have opened your laptop, you will need to clean the fans which provide cooling to graphics card and CPU. Before you do this, make sure that it is shut down and the battery is removed – don’t electrocute yourself! For thermal grease you may need to use a cotton swab, dipped in stain remover to remover.

For full, comprehensive instructions, research it yourself, and do not start opening your laptop up until you know what you are doing! Just to give back ground idea, we are well know for laptop repair Broward and laptop repair Fort Lauderdale.

Internet Security 2012

Internet viruses seem everywhere online these days, it’s to the point where viruses in pop culture are personified by a “worm” that goes around deleting files on your computer and rearranging things.

How about a virus that looks like a good guy, a wolf in sheep’s clothing per se. that has a solution, a costly one… It promises to take your computer to the promise land where it can frolic and lavish in an extravagant online lifestyle where the fear of viruses is nonexistent.

Where’s the catch in all this? That you’re going to have to pay up big, and what happens when you do pay? Nothing, you get billed with the virus still having your computer in lock down. At this point you are lucky if you can go online or view any if your folders. At this point you’re probably wondering what to do…

First thing is first, call your credit card company and have them cancel and refund your payment. Chances are this fake virus company is getting flagged with numerous complaints already and you may receive a call first. However don’t hesitate and take matters into your own hand and make sure that your accounts haven’t been compromised.

Secondly, how are we going to deal with this virus? Chances are you won’t have the tools or knowledge to properly remove the virus yourself, so you’re going to have to take a trip to the computer repair store. If you want to make sure your information is safe it is highly recommended to take it to the specialists.

We here at USA Computer Store have managed to remove countless Internet Security Viruses and have become incredibly proficient at it. We make sure that the virus is cleansed and that your information remains intact with nothing being lost.

Very funny story happened to me one day when I was a younger lad, as I tended to jump on my father’s computer every now and then without his expressed permission. He would always warn me as to which sites I can go to and which to avoid but I didn’t care much for danger as I was a brave young whippier snapper indeed.

This was the time where America Online was king and ever other person braved the internet which the infamous dialling sound the computer made whenever you were connecting to the internet. There was very little in the terms of antivirus, and what was there to protect your computer was rudimentary at best.

Most common places people would frequent would be the AOL chat rooms and websites you accidently found through a relatively quick AOL search… the world at my finger tips. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours, and hours turned to days.

In retrospect it all seems like such a blur to be consumed by something so new so powerful, it was like an interactive TV which played any show I wanted at any time of the day or night.

I did manage to get myself in trouble here or there but a lot of times it was for gags. One great one I pulled was on good old dad himself, one of my friends had this file that when launched it made it look like your computer turned against itself with every file being eaten by a monster and everything being erased.

And when the fake virus finished its devilish job the screen would go completely green and the words “Have a Nice Day” would transpire on the screen. This in turn made my dad completely freak out and raise his voice which made me burst out in cheery joy.

I laughed as he ran over and I said “I’m just kidding dad!”, and with a swift click everything was back to normal and my life had been spared. That’s all for now everyone and just for the record we are well know for laptop repair Broward and laptop repair Fort Lauderdale

How to Solve the Problem of Overheating Laptops?

For the last 6 years laptops sales exceeded the desktop sales in the world. As a manager of Computer Service Store in Fort Lauderdale, we have noticed dramatically the amount of laptops being used as opposed to regular desktops. In our laptop and computer Service centre, we see every kind of laptop problems like overheating, hard disk crash, screen problem and many more. In general I would say that one of the most common problems in a laptop is the laptop overheating. Excessive heat is the worst enemy of Laptop. The laptop internals, chips, motherboard were built to resist certain temperatures. When those temperatures are exceeded, chips on the board burn out and a serious damage is caused to the circuits causing failure of laptop.

Why regular PC Desktops do not overheat as much as Laptops?

The reason why Laptops commonly suffer from overheating as opposed to regular Computer towers (computer CPU) is the size. Laptops are put together in such a compact case that it represents a challenge to keep it cool. For Computer design Engineers, Ventilation in a laptop design is a main priority.

Latest and new Business Case: HP Dv Series

HP DV series are known for their bad ventilation design. At our computer store, we have seen hundreds of such laptops go bad due to overheating. The bad design in this HP DV series Laptops causes the Video Chip to overheat and go bad. Once the chip is burn out, the laptops stops working completely, also commonly known as the “no image” problem.

How to keep your laptop from overheating?

Your laptop is like a car, you need to service it. Overtime; dust, hair and dirt start building up inside your laptop blocking the laptops ventilation openings. Little by little, the laptop fan and vents are completely covered and the laptop has no way to exhale out all the heat produced by the motherboard components. I will recommend at least once a year, bring your laptop to a laptop service centre to have a Computer Technician disassemble your laptop and clean the internal parts. If you feel comfortable opening and taking apart your laptop, you can go ahead and do so. If you are not familiar with how to do a laptop disassembly, just go online or the laptop’s manufacturer website to download the Service Manual and get started. Cooling pad is one more option for you, but using cooling pad can make you little uncomfortable in handling, as where you carry your laptop you also need to carry cooling pad too. Also one more disadvantage of using external cooling pad is that it makes one USB port busy all the time. Usually the cost of local cooling pad is around $8 – $30.

By doing this you will increase the life of your laptop and in the long run you will save lots of money which can be best utilize in future. Just to give you the background knowledge, we offer this service at our USA Computer Service Centre and we are well know for laptop repair Broward and laptop repair Fort Lauderdale.

How to optimize your Windows XP computer to make it faster for free

We all hate when our computers takes forever to boot up or load a program. In this article I will describe some very useful tricks to tweak the Windows XP OS so it runs faster. First, make sure your computer does not have unnecessary programs running. For example, every time you install new software (ex. Skype, iTunes, etc), by default it places itself in the start-up menu. Every time you boot into system you will see the program running (An icon sitting on the Taskbar, next to time); that means, even though you are not using the program, the program is running and taking up your computer resources. We have to configure the start up menu so only the necessary programs run. To do this, you click Start/Run/ and type”msconfig”. This will bring up a new window (System Co nfiguration Utility) with 6 Tabs on the top. Click on the “Startup” tab to display the start-up programs. Uncheck all the unnecessary programs so they stop running when the computer starts. Remember this does not mean we are deleting/blocking the program, we are just disabling so Windows XP does not have load it. If you want to open the program just click the Program’s Icon. Personally, I always disable every program but the Antivirus.

Once we have disabled the unnecessary programs, I will proceed with what a call illusion trick. If you have not noticed Windows XP loads several visual effects that make interface looks nicer. All this effects (shadows, transitions, previews, thumbnails) take up memory and CPU power from your computers, affecting the performance. In order to optimize the computer/laptop we will disable all this unnecessary visual effects. Click on Start/Control Panel/System/Advanced this will display a list of Visual Effects. Check the option that says “Adjust for best performance” and click apply.

Another cool trick is to change the Start Menu time to display which is called “Menu Show Delay”. To do this you will click on Start/run and then type “Regedit”. This will take you the Windows Registry. Be extremely careful when making changes in the Registry. This is the backbone of Windows, so any change will affect dramatically the windows run. From the Registry Editor, navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop. Here you will look for “MenuShowDelay”. By default this setting is set at 400, change this to 200. They change will be automatically saves, just close and restart the PC.

Lastly, there is another setting within the Windows Registry that affects the amount of time that Windows take to load. It is called Windows XP Prefetcher. In the registry go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlSet / Control / Session Manager / Memory Management / PrefetchPara meters and change the value from 3.1 to 5 ( Recommended). They change will be automatically saves, just close and restart the PC.

Applying these four tweaks will increase your system performance by at least 50%. I have been in the business of computer repair Broward for more than 10 years and I have always gotten positive results applying this tricks. The great side is that you can achieve a higher performance without investing any money on increasing Memory Ram or upgrading the CPU. It is completely free and very easy to do. The results are instantly! Next time you are buying a new laptop/Desktop PC or Laptop repair Fort Lauderdale at the store; do not pay a Geek to optimize your PC. You can now do it yourself.