Author: callduane

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Anti- Virus Protection

I get asked about anti-virus protection a lot. Questions like “do I really need anti-virus?” “What anti-virus is best?” Also, I get questions about specific anti-virus products and my opinion of them. So here are my thoughts on various types and brands of anti-virus.

  1. Do I really need an anti-virus program? Yes, every computer, whether it is Windows or Apple, should have an antivirus installed on it. Even people that are very cautious about using their computers can still accidentally click the wrong thing or accidentally allow something harmful onto their computers. I know Apple used to claim their computers don’t get viruses, but I have removed many viruses from MACs, so this is not true. Windows computers all come with Windows Defender preinstalled. If you don’t have another anti-virus installed this will give you a little bit of protection.
  2. Are the free versions enough?  No, there is only one reason that a company gives you something for free. They give it free so they can then sell it to you in the future. All of the “free” products are really just marketing companies that constantly try to upsell you more products based on fear. I always feel like these companies have become the thing they should be stopping. They just keep popping up with new scary things and offer more products to protect you from those scary things. Most of those scary things are not real or needed. I have also installed a paid anti-virus on many computers that have a free version and during the initial scan the paid product finds things the free one never found. If your antivirus keeps telling you about new scary threats and offering to fix it for a price, give me a call and I will tell you if the threat is real or not.
  3. What anti-virus is the best?  That is not a completely straight forward question. It really depends on whether you are using a personal computer or a work environment computer. Sometimes it makes sense to use a product with an add on if you were going to purchase that add on from someone else. For personal computers I like two different A/Vs. My go to products are ESET and Webroot. They both do a good job, and they don’t constantly try to sell you more stuff. For business machines I recommend endpoint protection. The difference between endpoint and traditional A/V is that the endpoint versions can be managed by a console where all company machines can be monitored and remotely fixed if there is a threat present. Another great feature is that an employee, or a bad actor, can’t even uninstall the endpoint. It can only be done from the console. If you have a couple of computers in your company, I can help you get this important coverage, and I will handle the monitoring for you.
  4. My computer came with a free trial from McAfee, should I just keep that one? I call McAfee the virus of the antivirus world. Their biggest marketing move was offering this free trial to all computer makers. They get a kickback from McAfee for adding this to their computers and whenever someone purchases from this trial. In a few instances I have pulled a computer out of the box and while setting it up I could not access the internet. After trying to fix it in the McAfee settings I ended up removing McAfee and then I could access the internet. They are probably the worst at pop-ups, trying to scare you and sell you more unnecessary stuff. They also give Adobe and a few other companies a kickback for allowing their product to download with the real software that you wanted. When downloading anything watch out for check boxes to avoid getting things you don’t want. This extra product can slow down your system. It is always best to only have one antivirus on your computer. If you have more than one, they can cause issues for each other. More is not better.

I hope this has been helpful. Antivirus should not be expensive, and it should run in the background and not bother you too often. You should know what antivirus you are using so that if you happen to see another one on your computer you can quickly get rid of the extra one. I am always happy to help with questions about this topic.

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Driver Updater Applications

There are applications out there that claim they will keep all of your drivers updated on your computer to help keep your computer running smoothly. I see these on computers all the time and if they are the free versions I always uninstall them. If the customer has actually paid for the application, I have a discussion with them about these applications.

First of all, what are drivers? A driver is a software component that lets the operating system, and a device (printer, monitor, mouse, etc.) communicate. The most common drivers and the ones most people have heard of are for printers.

Now that you know what drivers are and what they are used for, let’s discuss these applications that supposedly keep your drivers updated.

If you are on the internet and you do a search for printer drivers and you don’t specify the brand, you might end up downloading and installing a program called a driver updater. I did a Google search and found dozens of these programs. Some of them are stand alone programs and others are part of program suites bundled with anti-virus and other similar applications.

One common theme is that they all install for free and then when you run them, they will tell you about the many drivers you have that need updating. They will be happy to update them for you, all you have to do is purchased their upgrade. This is always their endgame.

Drivers are not like the other types of software on your computer. They don’t get regular updates and generally are not security risks. Occasionally a manufacturer will find a defect in a driver and will issue a fix, but this doesn’t happen very often. Usually new versions of an operating system can cause the need for a new driver, but you will know if this is needed because your device will not function properly. Incases like this, many times you will get a driver update from that operating system to fix the issue with the driver.

If for some reason the operating system doesn’t help you, you can go to the manufacturer’s website and get the necessary driver. I have never seen one of these driver updater programs help in this situation.

In my experience, the only thing these driver updaters do is slow down your system and try to scare you into sending them money to fix a problem that really doesn’t exist. I know many anti-viruses have this as an addon, including Avast, Norton, AVG. McAfee and others. I don’t recommend any of these anti-viruses. They all act like marketing companies always trying to sell you more stuff by scaring you.

Save your money and don’t fall for the driver updaters. If you end up with one of these on your computer and are not sure how it got there, you are not alone. I see this all the time. I can help you get rid of these if you don’t know how. I can also help you if you have other software on your computer that you are not sure what it is and where it came from.

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Why are Updates so Important?

Just say the phrase computer updates, and you will get negative responses from most people. We have all heard and some of us have even experienced the horror of a bad update that kills your computer. This is a real fear, and it does happen from time to time, but today I want to give you some of my success stories involving computer updates.

I had a customer a while back that could not get her Office 365 applications to run. She had tried everything she could think of and then called me. I tried all of my normal troubleshooting steps and then took to googling for more possible fixes. Nothing that was suggested fixed her issue with these applications, in fact after trying to uninstall and reinstall we could not even get it to install on her computer.

As a last effort I suggested that we update from Windows 10 to Windows 11 since it seemed her operating system might be corrupt. Sure enough, after updating to Windows 11 we were able to install her applications, and they were once again running correctly.
Many times, I have had customers with issues in their browser (Google Chrome, Edge, Firefox) and the first thing I do is check for updates. That usually solves their issue. When a customer gets the “Blue Screen of Death” over and over again the first place to look is if there are any updates that might solve this.

Aside from these good stories about updates, there is a good reason to complete them. The majority of updates are done to fix known bugs or known vulnerabilities. Based on this, it is important to run updates even if you don’t see any problems on your machine. Software “bugs” don’t always show up immediately. They might not show until a certain feature is used. If you can keep the issue from affecting your system, it is even better.

If you are concerned about updates breaking your system, see this video where I show you how to ensure recovery points are being created before any updates.

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YES, Another Update About Windows 10 End of Life.

So, a few months ago I wrote about Microsoft ending support for Windows 10 as of January 2025. Well, a couple days after I sent that newsletter out, I discovered that Microsoft changed their date to October 2025. This means you have an extra nine months before they stop supporting Windows 10.

Just because Microsoft decided to wait an additional nine months doesn’t mean you should just forget about upgrading. If your computer is able to upgrade to Windows 11 you will gain more than you will lose by doing this upgrade. If you don’t know how to upgrade or if you are not sure if you can upgrade, I can help you check the possibility and even help with getting it done. I can also help you find a suitable replacement if you can’t upgrade.

While this extra time is helpful since you can save longer for a new computer or check for sales for a longer time, putting off the inevitable isn’t always a good thing. As I have mentioned, there are a few features that make Windows 11 great for more productivity and ease of working with your computer.

The Windows Phone Link is something I use daily to quickly get links and pictures transferred between my desktop and my phone. It saves me so much time. I also use the enhanced snap assist to get certain windows exactly where I want them on my two screens.

If you find out that your computer can’t be upgraded to Windows 11 that means that the processor is not fast/strong enough to handle the new speeds and other demands of Windows 11. Once you make the move and get a new computer you will be presently surprised at the responsiveness and how you can easily do more than one thing at a time.

The slight learning curve is well worth it. If you need help finding the right computer or help setting it up, I can help with both.

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Passwords, the continuing saga.

Here is another article about passwords. I could probably have a newsletter that is dedicated to passwords every month and I would still have information that I can’t send out because there is so much information about passwords. 

I recently read an article that claims it is possible to recreate a password by hearing the slight differences in the keys punched while entering your password. They state that using a smart phone microphone in the same room or the microphone in a zoom meeting it could be possible using AI to get a password.

While this is mostly just hypothetical, at this point the potential is there. The point I am trying to make is that it is becoming harder and harder to keep your passwords secure. This is why I think using a password manager is the safest way to go.

When you use a password manager all of your passwords are hidden behind a secure wall that only you can access. Bonus if you can access this wall by using something other than a password like your fingerprint, or two factor authentication through an app on your phone. The password manager that I suggest allows you to use Windows Hello, which can be your fingerprint, your face, a pin number or your other device to log into their application. This way you are not inputting a password which apparently can now be heard by your keystrokes.

I know this all sounds very scary, but keep in mind that sophisticated methods like listening for your keystrokes and similar things will first be used on much bigger fish than people like us since they require a lot of hi-tech gadgets and programs. Eventually this might become more mainstream but by then there will probably be more ways to counteract this threat and good password managers will be ahead of the game.

Another good reason to have a password manager is the “set it and forget it” factor. I often help people set up new computers and the thing that takes the most time is finding all of their passwords to get their email and other important accounts set up on their new machine. What typically happens is they pull out their password cheat sheet and we start attempting to login to their accounts. Sometimes they will have a few different passwords for the same account, and we go through each with trial and error until we find the correct one or we get to the point where we have to reset it. This costs these folks a lot of time and money since I charge by the time I spend. It would be so much easier to just add their password manager to the new computer and then all of their passwords would be correct in this app, and it would only take a few minutes to sign into all of their accounts.

Here is the password manager that I use:

KEEPER

If you need help setting up a password manager, give me a call and I can help.

I saw this on Facebook a while back:

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Why Are My Personal Documents on My Employee’s Computer?

As scary as this sounds, I have had this question from many small business owners. Usually, it happens for one of two reasons. They either used their personal Microsoft account to set up an employee’s computer or they used their personal Microsoft Office 365 subscription for their employee’s office applications. Either way you can end up with all of your stuff, no matter how confidential it is, on other computers.

I know Microsoft doesn’t make it easy to set up computers for your employees since they mostly require a Microsoft account to complete set up and you may not have a Microsoft account for the employee yet. I also know it can be a major expense to add Microsoft office onto their computers. But, most small business owners don’t realize they are sharing all of their information when they use their accounts.

When you sign into a new computer with your Microsoft account it will copy everything from your current computer that is in Microsoft Edge and Microsoft OneDrive. So, if you use Edge and save your passwords there you will inadvertently copy them all to your employee’s new computer. This can also include saved credit card numbers and bank logins. If you use OneDrive everything from your Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders will also sync to this new computer. Even if you can get past the required Microsoft account on setup you can still end up with all of your info on this new computer if you share one of your 5 copies of MS Office Family.

So how can you safely set up a computer without sharing your entire personal life with your crew? For enterprise sized businesses there is the option to use MS Azure and the employee’s email account as the business Microsoft account. But very small businesses usually don’t have this as an option since it can get very expensive. Rather than using your personal copy of Office365, you can share a copy with their Microsoft account. If they don’t have one, you can easily create one.

If you are not sure how to do this, it is probably best to call someone like me to assist with this. I can help you find the most economical way to set up the computer for your employees to use and keep all of your personal information from ending up on their machine.

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Windows 10 End of Support

In January of 2025 Microsoft will end their general support for Windows 10. This means that after next January, any computers still running Windows 10 will not receive security updates any longer. Due to this, those computers will be more vulnerable to internet attacks since new security issues found will not be addressed in those computers by getting updates. Over time, you will not be able to access certain sites and eventually your browsers will quit working.


None of this will happen immediately and I know there are still people using Windows 7 which has not been supported for years. But if your Windows 10 computer is used for any financial or secure connections, upgrading is a great idea. So, if you are still using Windows 10, it is time to start planning to switch to Windows 11 if your computer will allow it. If that isn’t possible you should start considering getting a new computer.


If you are not sure what version of Windows you have it is easy to tell between Windows 10 and Windows 11. In Windows 10 the start button is four white squares and in Windows 11, the start button is four blue squares.


If you are on Windows 10, click on the start button and then click on the settings menu. Once that opens, click on Updates and it should list if your computer can upgrade to Windows 11. If not, give me a call, sometimes you just need to change a couple settings to be able to upgrade to Windows 11. I can tell you in a few minutes if that is the case or if you need to get a new computer.


If you discover that you do need a new computer, I can help you find one that is powerful enough to handle all of your needs while staying affordable for your budget. I can also help you set up the new machine and migrate all of your data from the old one.


One big question I always get asked is why does this happen? As the “war” between Microsoft software engineers and the bad guys continues, Microsoft has to keep making patches for every version of their operating system that is out there. When you consider that they create new sub versions, usually three times per year, there can be quite a few versions they need to make patches for. For this reason, they make a cutoff date so they can keep the number of versions down to a manageable size. These versions are necessary since there is a steady stream of new and faster hardware being made all the time and Microsoft needs to have software that can take full advantage of those improvements.


I have only mentioned Microsoft because they still have the majority of the market, but Apple does the same thing, it just isn’t reported as loudly. I run into people all the time that have MacBooks that no longer get updates and begin to lose functionality. This is all part of the computer world. The same goes for all cell phones and tablets too.


One extra benefit to upgrading, I recently had a customer that was having trouble with her Microsoft Office, and we ended up uninstalling it to fix the problem. Once it was uninstalled there was an error that kept us from reinstalling it. I upgraded her computer from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and then I was able to install Office again. A new operating system can solve old issues sometimes.

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Windows Phone Link Phone Application

One feature that many people really like and always mention when talking about Apple devices is the fact that they connect together and allow you to share files with ease and even answer your phone or text messages on your computer. As an avid PC user, I can see how this would be handy.


For Windows 11 Microsoft has added a new feature. It is called PhoneLink. If you turn this feature on you can connect your Android phone or iPhone to your Windows 11 computer. You can share files, answer text messages and phone calls from your computer and even use your phone’s apps while on your computer. You can also see all of your notifications in the window of PhoneLink and access all of your phone’s pictures.


I recently enabled this feature on my desktop computer in my office. Being able to respond to texts from my computer is much easier. I can even copy links from my browser right into my text messages or take links from a text message and pop it into my browser. I wish I had not fought this. I was aware of this months before I actually added it. I usually don’t jump into new applications; I wait for the bugs to be worked out first.


I am just beginning to see all of the uses for this, and it is really saving me time. For someone who works in an office this would be fantastic. It was also very easy to set up. You turn on the app on your phone and enable the setting on your computer and follow the prompts and give it a few permissions. It took me less than a minute to get it going. The biggest requirement is to have your phone and computer on the same network.


This PhoneLink is set to automatically start each time I start my computer, so it is always available to me. If you have Windows 11 and would like to set up this feature, I can help you with this but it is pretty easy so you can probably figure it out on your own. While setting up a new computer Windows will ask if you want it set up.


I know a lot of people don’t like to upgrade Windows but if you are on Windows 10 this feature alone would make it worthwhile to upgrade to Windows 11. I can also help you with this if needed.

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Whole House Wifi

This is a term that I hear occasionally but what does it really mean? It usually refers to a system that covers your entire house with wifi. The trouble with most routers is that they are only in one location in your house and sometimes that location is in the corner in your basement. Most routers are not in the middle of the house where they could give you the most coverage and even if they are in the right place they probably don’t have the range to reach everywhere in the house.


So how do you cover your entire house with wifi? By using a Mesh Wifi System. This is a system of pods that are strategically placed around your house to cover all areas. The brand I use most even says you can “paint your home in WIFI.” People used to use wifi extenders to do this, but an extender usually creates a new network instead of expanding your current network, so you have to connect to a different network in certain areas of your house. Extenders also don’t come with a phone app, so it is difficult to tell if they are really working or not. Mesh systems only broadcast one signal, but you seamlessly connect to the nearest pod.


The great thing about these mesh systems is that you don’t need to rewire your house to connect all of these pods. They only need to be plugged into an electric outlet and they also need to be in the range of another pod. By using a few pods, you can cover all areas and all floors in even very large homes. Many mesh systems can even reach outside onto outdoor living spaces with special pods that are made for outdoor use and are weather resistant. You don’t even have to know how large the range of each pod is because there is an app that you put on a cell phone that helps set them up.


After fighting with some dead zones in my house for years I recently added a mesh system. I had been putting it off because I was concerned that I might need to reprogram all of my smart devices after changing my network. I was very careful to name the new network the same as my old network and make the password exactly the same. When I turned on the new network all of my devices connected to it automatically except for one printer so it didn’t take long to get everything working.


This not only improved the coverage of wifi in my house it also gave me much higher speed. I was previously using the wifi from my Comcast modem and those don’t have a lot of wifi coverage or speed once you get a few feet away.


There are many brands of mesh wifi systems. I have installed expensive systems and inexpensive systems. I know what works and what is junk. Just because a system is expensive doesn’t mean it works well. If you are considering a mesh wifi system I can help you find the right one for your home. Here is a video where I talk about these systems:

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To Protect Your Account, We Need to Authenticate Your Identity.

This can be a devastating message if you don’t have another email address, or a cell phone number attached to your email account. I deal with this often when someone has trouble signing into their email account. Sometimes they might even know what their password is, but the email provider wants them to use two factor authentication to prove who they are.


This recently happened to a customer, and we went through their recovery process, but were not successful in retrieving his account. He did have a phone number connected to his email account, but it was his landline. Since he can’t get a text message on his landline, he is effectively locked out of his email account. Some providers allow calls and texts, but his did not.


I did some research online and we ended up contacting a landline texting company that deals mainly with other companies that want to text their customers reminders, but they don’t want to use a cell phone to do this. The company we found also allows the customer to text back. This is the part that we needed. Before paying for this service, which was about $25.00 for a month, we reached out to their sales department to make sure this would work. The sales rep told us that he gets people doing this all the time. But they never call back to say if it worked or not.


We were not successful in getting the code. Another way to recover your account is to provide more information. Microsoft wanted a lot of other information like have you used this account with Skype or Xbox, who you have you recently emailed back and forth with, what is the subject of an email, and other similar questions. We were not able to answer enough questions to satisfy them.


Needless to say, this has been a hassle from the very first message that his account was locked. All of this could have been avoided by making sure the number attached to his email was his cell phone and not his landline. I know many don’t have a landline anymore, but are you sure the correct phone number is attached to your email? If you have switched phone numbers, which sometimes happens, you could be locked out also. Do you have another email account connected to your primary email account?


The time to check these things is when you absolutely know what your password is, and you have access to it on a trusted browser. This issue crops up when people switch computers, switch phones, and sometimes due to computer updates when your browser is not recognized any longer. This is what happened to my customer.


If you are not sure if you have the proper backup accounts connected to your email, I can help you with this. Please call me to help you recover your email before you lose it. It will save both of us a lot of pain. I can also help you set up another email account to keep you ahead of things. As I mentioned last month, using a password manager can help keep you connected also.

Here is the one I use.

Get more info about Keeper