Calling all geeks: Now Including Tech-o-Wienies!

[TheCrew07]

I usually start with Newegg.com, here's a Lenovo.

 

At work we've used Dell, Compaq/HP, and IBM/Lenovo laptops. My current Lenovo T410 has survived far more than it should have including being cartwheeled through a concrete parking lot via a 40 MPH wind gust when I was doing a wireless network survey.

[LouisEly]

If you're just using it for basic stuff, look on eBay or Craigslist for a refurb. I bought the HP 6730b that I am typing this post on a year and a half ago on eBay in excellent condition with Windows 7, full Office 2010, and a 15.4" screen for $160. Spent another $20 to upgrade the RAM to 4GB and it works fantastic. There are guys who refurb computers and sell them on Craigslist too.

 

Being five years old shouldn't slow down your computer. I have a HP desktop that is 5 years old that I bought as a refurb off of Woot.com (another good place to look) and it runs just fine; this HP 6730b is prolly five years old too. You either don't have enough RAM (easily fixed - can add 2GB for ~$20), need to defragment your hard drive (Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools; should do this once every 3 months or so), are maxing out on hard drive space (take a day and delete programs you don't use and move files to a backup external hard drive), or have viruses/spyware (download and run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to clean up your PC).

 

Before buying a new computer, if you haven't already:

1) Run Disk Cleanup (Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools)

2) Run Disk Defragmenter (Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools)

3) Download & run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

4) Check your RAM (Start - Control Panel - System and Security - System/View RAM and Processor Speed); if it is 2GB or less, increase it to 4GB

[Baldkin]

If you're just using it for basic stuff, look on eBay or Craigslist for a refurb. I bought the HP 6730b that I am typing this post on a year and a half ago on eBay in excellent condition with Windows 7, full Office 2010, and a 15.4" screen for $160. Spent another $20 to upgrade the RAM to 4GB and it works fantastic. There are guys who refurb computers and sell them on Craigslist too.

 

Being five years old shouldn't slow down your computer. I have a HP desktop that is 5 years old that I bought as a refurb off of Woot.com (another good place to look) and it runs just fine. You either don't have enough RAM (easily fixed - can add 2GB for ~$20), need to defragment your hard drive (Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools), are maxing out on hard drive space (take a day and delete programs you don't use and move files to a backup external hard drive), or have viruses/spyware (download and run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to clean up your PC).

 

Before buying a new computer, if you haven't already:

1) Run Disk Cleanup (Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools)

2) Run Disk Defragmenter (Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools)

3) Download & run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

4) Check your RAM (Start - Control Panel - System and Security - System/View RAM and Processor Speed); if it is 2GB or less, increase it to 4GB

 

Just want to add, if you are running Windows 7, you don't need to defrag, it does that for you... and if you're running a 32 bit system (and not a 64 bit operating system) you won't want to upgrade above 3GB, as Windows won't use anything over 3.25 Gig of RAM. To find that, you can right click on "Computer" and select properties.... the "System type" will tell you if it's 32 or 64.

[Invader3K]

Thanks guys. I'm trying the scans right now. Also, the laptop has 4 GB of ram and is running 64 bit Windows 7.

[LouisEly]

How did the scans turn out? My laptop has the same setup (4GB RAM, Win 7 64-bit) and runs just fine. What processor do you have? I have Intel Core 2 duo, 2.40 GHz. If it is a processor you might be able to just swap out processors.

 

I'd also look at the programs that are installed. Uninstall anything that you don't use. Sometimes if you install a competing program with one that is already installed (i.e. install a different anti-virus from the one you had) and don't completely uninstall the program you are replacing they can conflict and it can slow down your computer.

[1992casey]

Yeah, anti-malware apps like to fight with each other. It's good to have a second one to catch things that your main app might miss, but it absolutely can't be running automatically.

 

The free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is an excellent choice as a secondary anti-malware app. Besides the fact that it's competent at doing its job, the differentiation between free and paid is running automatically. There's no way that the free version will start running in the background without you knowing it.

 

On the old machine, you might consider reformatting the hard drive and starting from scratch with a fresh Windows installation. After that, I'd remove any of the crapware included by the hardware vendor, check for unnecessary startup items, and shut off any unnecessary processes.

 

If you decide you're in the market for a new machine, I'd definitely recommend the latest generation of Intel processors as they offer substantially better battery life than their predecessors. When I look at the machine that TheCrew07 linked to, two things come to mind. First, I'd bet that Mrs. 3K doesn't need an internal DVD drive. That adds both bulk and weight. An external drive can live in a drawer and pulled out for occasional use. Also, she may not need a 15 inch screen. 13 inches seems to be the sweet spot between real estate and portability for a lot of people.

[Invader3K]

I haven't actually looked at her laptop in the past week. I'll take a look later today and see how things are going. I know MalwareBytes seemed to help and did find some stuff that it cleaned up.

[Patrick425]

I have a Samsung Galaxy 4 phone and I use the Gmail app. I noticed lately that the look/feel of gmail on the android phone has changed. At the same time it appears that I have stopped getting new email notification on the top of my screen. I have checked the settings and every thing seems to be set to get notifications, but I'm not getting them. I have it set to give me a visual (no sound) notification (a little mail icon that appears on top of the phone when I receive a new email).

 

Anyone else having this issue or any help advise anyone can provide?

 

edit: Nevermind...seems I am getting notifications now.

[RobDeer 45]

Thing blue vertical line on my computer monitor

 

I have a dell flat screen monitor that I've had for awhile. We moved across country and when I hooked everything up in our new place, I now have a thin blue vertical line that never goes away. I was not happy how the screen was packed and thrown in a box. Would this have something to do with it or is it just something that happens? I have to figure out if I'm adding this to the claim form for the moving company or not. I just have no clue if this is due to damage or something else.

[TheCrew07]

You can try degaussing it but chances are the poor packing was the issue, my mother did that to her laptop when she took it on a cross country trip and let it get beat up.

 

I work in the shipping industry and that's one of the reasons electronics are supposed to be packed in their original packing or we won't accept them into the system.

[RobDeer 45]

Yeah, I mean they just threw it in a box with all my other office stuff and didn't really even wrap it up. It seemed pretty careless. Overall they did a good job but got lazy on a few items. Nothing that can't be replaced.

[GAME05]

So I got an automatic email from the bank that my account access had been attempted three times and then it locked, but it wasn't me. The email suggested I change my username. Is there anything else I should be doing? Make a crazy-long password?

[Baldkin]

So I got an automatic email from the bank that my account access had been attempted three times and then it locked, but it wasn't me. The email suggested I change my username. Is there anything else I should be doing? Make a crazy-long password?

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/tips-for-creating-a-strong-password

 

What makes a password strong (or weak)?

 

A strong password:

 

Is at least eight characters long.

 

Does not contain your user name, real name, or company name.

 

Does not contain a complete word.

 

Is significantly different from previous passwords.

 

Contains characters from each of the following four categories:

 

Uppercase letters

Lowercase letters

Numbers

Symbols found on the keyboard (all keyboard characters not defined as letters or numerals) and spaces

[1992casey]

1Password won't consider a password to be strong unless it's well over 20 characters.

[logan82]

I need an external hard drive for school. Is there anything specific I should be looking for? The minimum requirements are 100GB, USB 2, and powered by the USB port. I don't want to break the bank but want something reliable.

[1992casey]

I don't think you're going to break the bank with anything you buy, and I think you'll be fine going with your gut. I'd definitely go with USB3, but I think that's on just about all drives these days anyway. And I think you'll find that exceeding 100GB will be easily affordable.

[TooLiveBrew]

I need an external hard drive for school. Is there anything specific I should be looking for? The minimum requirements are 100GB, USB 2, and powered by the USB port. I don't want to break the bank but want something reliable.

I know you aren't at like a zero knowledge level, but check out these links --

 

NewEgg's External Hard Drive Buying Guide

 

NewEgg: External Hard Drives, sorted by highest user rating

[logan82]

Yeah, I wasn't going to go with the minimum 100GB. 500GB at least and probably 1TB since the cost difference is negligible. I just wanted to know if there was anything I should avoid. I think I will go with the WD My Passport Ultra.

[TooLiveBrew]

Yeah, I wasn't going to go with the minimum 100GB. 500GB at least and probably 1TB since the cost difference is negligible. I just wanted to know if there was anything I should avoid. I think I will go with the WD My Passport Ultra.

Man, it's still crazy to me that you can just go buy a 2TB hard drive for like $100... 1TB at like $75. We definitely live in 'the future'

[logan82]

I remember when my mom had a computer with 4GB memory and we thought that was huge. 4GB hard drive not ram. I think that was like 15 years ago.

[1992casey]

I can recall using 40MB hard drives on computers with 1MB of RAM. Then, a couple of years after that, I ran into a geek who was running DOS on a 10MB hard drive. He had it so packed that he had to unzip almost everything he wanted to access and re-zip it when he was done.

[logan82]

I ended up with the WD My Passport Ultra 1TB. We'll see how it works out.

 

The next thing I am looking at is faxing without a fax machine. The document scanning part I can handle with my phone. It looks like there are several online companies that will fax documents for you for a price.

 

Edit: and I need to work on my typing.

[LouisEly]

How much faxing do you need to do? If it's not much, might be cheaper to just go to FedEx/Kinko's.

 

There are email-to-fax services out there. Used to have one for work several years ago, but the service was dropped because of how seldom we used it. I have a hard time believing that anything that you're in school for will require a lot of faxing as hardly anyone uses fax machines anymore. Is there a student center at school that has a fax machine?

[logan82]

I have to fax weekly attendance sheets. 2 a week right now but will be 6 pages a week once my online classes start. $1 a sheet at the local library isn't bad, but if you add it up that's $24 a month later on. I will look into the library at school. I can probably get away with E-mailing half the sheets with the scanning app on my phone. The only way to submit most of the sheets is by fax.

[Baldkin]

I have to fax weekly attendance sheets. 2 a week right now but will be 6 pages a week once my online classes start. $1 a sheet at the local library isn't bad, but if you add it up that's $24 a month later on. I will look into the library at school. I can probably get away with E-mailing half the sheets with the scanning app on my phone. The only way to submit most of the sheets is by fax.

 

Not sure if this will work, but...

 

http://www.myfax.com/free/

 

Also, it's 2015, you shouldn't have to fax anything, ever.