After much work, testing, and laborious hours, I’m proud to announce the launch of our new site and the return to having a life again! Just in time to enjoy the beginnings of some great weather in Connecticut. With your help and recommendations, the launch features a timeless layout, and style that is user friendly and welcoming. Now that it is implemented and if anyone has any final suggestions feel free to respond to this blog post or shoot me an email.

Besides the new design and layout, I’ve added a products page which includes some recommended software, hardware, and services we typically use. Now that that the site is out of the way you can expect more pc advice and information on the way!

After much debate iv decided to begin developing  a new look for Relieve my PC. Before I launch the site, I would like to take some time to ask anyone out there who has any suggestions to email me with features, content, and general ideas you may have to improve user experience on our current site. Im open to any suggestions no matter how bad you think they are =)

You can fill out the price quote form or even call me with your suggestions. Thank you!

With Microsoft offering a $250,000 bounty for catching the latest virus author, it goes to show you the havoc its caused to businesses and home PC users around the world. Conficker has been the thorn in Microsoft’s, Symantec, and other software giants side for the past 6 months. What makes this virus so difficult to deal with is that it keeps mutating into something more and more and more…complex. For this reason it is vital for you stay up to date with all your virus, spyware, and malware software updates. If you don’t have any you should download them…immediately.

It is hard to tell what is scheduled for the major release date of the latest conficker strain on April 1st but one thing is certain – it will not be no April fools joke. Attacks can range anywhere from taking over users pcs, sending mass spam, to stealing credit card and account information.

Precautions to take to protect your PC

As mentioned previously you MUST at the bare minimum have virus protection software and a firewall enabled on your PC.. Once you have downloaded this or purchased the software it is essential to get the latest updates. Symantec puts out an update every 5 minutes just to give you an idea of how important updates can be. It is recommended that you leave the automatic update feature enabled on the software you choose.

Secondly, make sure you refrain from clicking on any pop up messages that say “click here” or anything that says “click here” for that matter. This includes messages from friends at social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Linkedin. These messages could say something like “check out this funny video, check out this site, ect” It is imperative that you get confirmation from your friends and family that they did indeed send this message before you click on it. It is a good practice to send them a follow up message or a quick phone call. It may seem silly but worth it for such a big price to pay.

See the diagram below for a useful overview of the virus and other preventative measures.

As our culture becomes more complex and information becomes more readily available to us, we demand instant results! Over time that once speedy PC goes to a complete crawl. Now we get frustrated and occasionally break things. No more instant gratification.

As part of your PC maintenance I encourage all you PC users out there to defrag your PC! It can speed up start ups of applications by over 20 percent in addition  to the initial start up.

Ok ok I’m getting there relax! For all you instant gratification seekers who skipped through the entire blog post to get this far, here are the simple steps you take to perform a defrag on your PC.

1. Go to start
2. Programs
3. Accessories
4. System tools
5. Disk defragmenter -

   At this point you want to analyze your hard drives for fragmented files (if you have multiple partitions or hard drives you will see them listed).  Perform the analysis on all the drives and see which ones need a defragment. Once you found the culprit that’s slowing down your pc – click the defragment button. Sit back and wait (yes you actually have to wait). It could take a few hours in some cases, depending on how long your previous defrag was. I recommend defraging at least once every couple of weeks.

Ahhh relief…

More PC advice, information and PC how tos to come.

Happy new year everyone! I know it’s been a while since the last PC advice blog entry and as part of our new years resolution at Relieve my PC, we present you with the first blog post of the year.

Disabling start up services on your PC can be the most beneficial action you can take to speed up your PC. It is also one of the easiest things to do. Let us begin!

• Click on start
• Click Run
• On the box that pops up type in “msconfig”

This will bring up a new window with multiple tabs on it. I wouldn’t suggest tweaking any other settings unless you are familiar with the way they impact your PC.

The tab you are looking for is the “Startup” tab. This tab contains all of the programs that are running in the background of your computer as it boots up. As you can imagine the more programs that you have running the slower your computer goes. I would suggest disabling all of them except your virus scanning software, as well as anything that pertains to Microsoft or windows. If you are unsure what each “startup item” does and you do not want to disable it, you can actually research each one the web by Googling the startup item.

Once you are done apply your changes and close the window. You can then restart your pc and the next time it comes on you will notice how much faster it started up.

Don’t be alarmed when you see a new box that pops up when windows restarts that says you made changes to your system – Just check that box so you don’t see that message again.

That will be all for today – stay tuned for more pc advice, pc information and pc how to’s!

I’m sure everyone heard the term “firewall” once or twice before. What is a windows firewall? Without a firewall, think of your front door to your house being wide open. People can come and go as they please and have access to all of your personal belongings. In the computer world your personal belongings are your banking information, credit card information, and your identity. Think of your windows firewall as a security system installed in your home. It will notify you when someone is trying to gain unauthorized access. Ok now that you know this do you want to enable your firewall on your windows PC? That didn’t take much convincing!

To enable a windows firewall on your PC follow these simple steps:

1. Click Start on the bottom left corner of your screen
2. Click Run…->type in “control” and click ok. If you haven’t noticed you’re in the control panel right now.  Alternately you can click control panel if its present on your start toolbar.
3. Scroll down until you see “Windows Firewall” and double click on it.
4. On the general tab make sure its set to “on”

Done!

Stay tuned to more pc advice, pc information, and pc how to,

Who we suggest read this blog:

This blog was created with the intention of educating the world’s PC users of any technology, and PC frustrations they may encounter.  Our mission is to continuously educate the “not so computer savy.” We plan to accomplish this by periodically releasing informational articles consisting of anything from preventative maintenance to pc how to’s and general pc advice.  We will use a language that is friendly to your every day pc user and will cut out all the unnecessary technical jargon.

I don’t do too much betting, but if I was a gambler, I’d bet I know what most of the readers are asking themselves. “Why is a computer repair company offering free pc advice?” At one point we all were in that position of not knowing what to do when a virus strikes, our computer doesn’t automatically turn on or it goes slow as molasses.  None of us like being in that state of confusion, so we decided to introduce a new approach to customer service that very few computer repair companies use. Our number one priority of this service is to continuously educate our customers and readers in an attempt to relieve your pc!

We are very excited with this new blog release and are interested to hear your feedback. If you think this blog would be helpful, feel free to stop by every now and then for some helpful free pc advice. We encourage your contributions and questions!

Warm regards,

Relieve my PC, LLC