PC Needs Help - Expert IT Services

Anywhere you have air flow, you'll find dust. It accumulates everywhere and depending on the environment, it can appear very quickly. Aside from taking the sheen and cleanliness from the surfaces of your home, it can suffocate your electronics, most importantly your computers. Dust accumulation on and inside of your PC can raise temperatures of its components drastically. This occurs because the fans get clogged, restricting air flow and efficient removal of heat, and a blanket of dust on the circuit boards prevents air flow from reaching their surfaces. If left unchecked long enough it "chokes" your computer parts in a blanket of hot air, regardless of how cool the ambient temperature is around the PC. The images above show how a dust bunny on the outside of the computer can affect air flow and subsequent heat build-up. The image on the left is a plain picture with a lot of dust where the arrow is. The image on the right is of the same area, but with a heat came...

By now I'm sure you've heard of a few pieces of malware, specifically being categorized as "ransomware", which effectively holds your data hostage until you send whoever authored the virus a certain amount of money and then allegedly, they will send you a key code to unlock your computer and decrypt your data. The first one that came about recently was dubbed "WannaCry" and did serious damage infecting many financial institutions, among other companies and individuals. It was a worldwide problem and hasn't stopped being a problem by any means; other ransomware is being developed regularly from the same code, but with more "mature" abilities that take advantage of other vulnerabilities to enhance its overall effectiveness. The newest threats that combine abilities are "Petya" and "NotPetya", the latter a day old and already infecting thousands of systems. All of these threats use an exploit that is resolved by applying...

What lurks, you ask? No, not rodents, though I suppose that's a possibility. I'm talking about digital rodents - viruses, spyware, worms, and whatever other terms fall under the broad category of malware. Most people aren't even aware they have a malware infection on their computer, unfortunately. Unless it's literally in your face, displaying advertisements and strange pop-ups on your screen at random times, malware tends to stay very well hidden like real rodents, not wanting to be found because that puts their purpose at risk. That purpose is what is truly scary in the world as we know it today. If your system is infected it could be sending your personal information, including passwords, online purchases, banking information, and virtually anything you type on your keyboard, to some hacker's database in the nether regions of the Internet. It may never be used, or someone could be using it to make fake accounts and purchases in your name right now. How do y...

These days most everyone has a smart phone with at least 16 GB of space and a high quality camera. That means lots (sometimes thousands) of digital photos and videos, many of which are treasured moments of friends and family. Those memories, along with other important files, like financial records or work/school projects and homework, can disappear quickly with a nasty virus, failed hard drive, or your morning coffee taking a dive onto your laptop. An old adage comes to mind; "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Investing in a Cloud or local backup solution can save you a massive headache and lots of stress when the inevitable catastrophe occurs. Instead of looking into disaster recovery solutions you can have a much more pleasant experience and then kick back and relax knowing your crucial files are protected. Give us a call or send us an email to see how we can help you prepare for disaster.

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