I went to a clients house today and she told me that her XP computer was not receiving the monthly Microsoft updates (usually sent out by Microsoft on the second Tuesday of each month). She also told me that her Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus program would not update either.
I opened up the Services Utility (Start>Run>services.msc) and was surprised to see that the Automatic Updates service had disappeared! Without the Automatic Updates service she would never get any updates – no way , no how!!
Here is what I did to reinstall the all important Automatic Updates service:
1) Start>Run>cmd
2) With the Command Prompt open type the following commands (notice the space after 32) and press Enter after each one:
regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wups2.dll
This should do it! Just close the Command Prompt and access Windows Update again.
3) If you are on a Windows Vista machine add two more commands after the four already mentioned:
regsvr32 wuwebv.dll
regsvr32 wucltux.dll
The Automatic Updates service should now appear in the Services Utility and you will now receive all updates from Microsoft!
Professor Randy says:Don’t operate an unpatched computer! Always run Automatic Updates to keep your computer safe and secure.
The other day I was at a clients house and she told me an all too familiar story concerning her email account:
All of her contacts were receiving emails from her, but she had not sent these emails. The email message was pushing Viagra and as you can imagine, the client was very embarrassed. She asked me how this could happen and what to do about it. This is what I told her:
Somebody had gotten into her web based email account (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) and was sending messages to all of her contacts. The messages looked like they were coming from her because the scammers were of course using her email address and her name.
In all likelihood the hackers guessed her password and/or guessed the answers to the secret questions that she gave when she initially set up her email account. The password was weak and the secret question answers were easy to figure out. Here is the fix to the problem:
1) Change the email password and make it strong (lower and upper case letters, numbers, symbols, 8 characters).
2) Change the answers to your secret questions (give false, phony answers that you will remember).
3) Make sure that the second email address (for confirmation) that is on record is actually yours and not the hackers.
4) In the email settings disable “email forwarding”.
Professor Randy says:Outsmart the unscrupulous hackers by using a strong password, by not clicking on suspicious email links, and by answering the secret questions with unknown information.
Check out the Amazon Cloud Drive And Cloud Player. This is very interesting!
“Amazon launched Cloud Drive and Cloud Player on Tuesday morning, offering US-based Amazon customers 5GB of online storage to use for whatever they please. If they buy an album from Amazon MP3, however, they get 20GB of storage for the year, and all Amazon MP3 purchases are automatically synced to the user’s Cloud Drive without counting against the quota. Users could then use the Cloud Player Android or Web app to stream the music to any compatible device or browser, even if the files themselves had not been synced there”.
Professor Randy says: Manage and play your own music: Buy your Mp3 music files from Amazon, save them to the cloud and then stream them whenever you want and wherever you are. Sounds great huh?
If you have yet to make a phone call from your Google Gmail account, then you are missing something really cool!! Read on and take a look at the video, you’ll be impressed. Free calling has been extended through 2011.
“In case you haven’t tried it yet, dialing a phone number works just like a regular phone. Look for “Call phone” at the top of your Gmail chat list and dial a number or enter a contact’s name. I use this Gmail feature frequently, including on WiFi, as I live in a rural area with an iffy cell signal. I have never had any problems with Gmail voice and it is exceptionally clear through broadband cable.”
Professor Randy says:Make free calls to the U.S.and Canada right from your own Gmail account! How cool is that! This is something that you’ve just gotta check out!
It’s absolutely impossible to keep up with all of the tech news, but these fifteen links will help take you to some of the most interesting tech information of the day. Enjoy!
In part 1 of this series I discussed how I teach the major hardware components, and in part 2 I talked about teaching software. In this part 3 I would like to give you a ten step sequence when building a computer.
This post is not intended to be an exhaustive explanation of every tiny detail, but an overview of what I consider to be the proper order of steps when building a computer. I assume you have all of the parts (case, motherboard, processor, memory, power supply, optical drive, and hard drive) ready to go. Now follow these ten steps:
1) Install the CPU onto the Motherboard (do this outside of the case and make sure to match up the cpu notches to the corresponding notches which appear on the cpu motherboard socket).
2) Attach the CPU Fan to the top of the CPU (apply thermal paste if needed – also do this before inserting the mobo into the case – plug the cpu fan cable into the motherboard).
3) Snap in the Memory Modules (do this with the mobo still outside of the case – snap the modules into the appropriate slots on the motherboard).
4) Open both sides of the Case (the case will come with screws, keep track of these screws).
5) Snap in the I/O Shield (snap it into the back of the case in the same direction as the mobo i/o inputs).
6) Set Motherboard into the Case (line up the mobo holes with the case standoff holes – tighten down the motherboard with the appropriate screws).
7) Put in the Power Supply (line up the power supply holes with the case holes – secure with the appropriate screws).
8) Connect main Power Supply connectors to the Motherboard, connect Case Fan cable to mobo, connect Audio and USB front of case cables to the motherboard, connect Reset, HD LED, Power LED, and Power Switch cables to the motherboard.
9) Put in the Hard Drive, Optical Drive, Floppy Drive (connect the power and data cables to both mobo and drives).
10) Connect Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, and Power Cord to the back of the computer (plug in the power cord and turn on the computer – the computer will boot up and you will see the BIOS). You’re done! Now all you have to do is install the Operating System of your choice and you’re “home free”. Congatulations!
Professor Randy says:Building a computer is a lot easier when following an orderly sequence of steps. The suggested steps should help you to stay organized and thus avoid any mistakes when building. Enjoy your new computer!
The other day I picked up a computer from a client that had a bad hard drive. The 500GB hard drive was failing fast and I wanted to clone it to another drive as soon as possible. I noticed that the client was only using about 60GB of the 500GB capacity (and I knew that he would never use much more).
When I got back to my repair shop I saw that I had a brand new 160GB drive that had never been used. I wanted to clone the clients larger 500GB HD to the smaller 160GB HD. Was this possible? I didn’t want to use any pay products (Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image) to do this because I like to use free software whenever I can.
Cloning a larger HD to a smaller HD for free is indeed possible and today in this post I will tell you how I did it. You will need an external hard drive to temporarily store the compressed image. Enjoy, and happy cloning in the future!
1) I first had to resize (make smaller) the partition of the larger 500GB Hard Drive.
2) I downloaded the free GParted Live CD and reduced the size of the larger drive to 120GB (click on Resize/Move).
3) After resizing the original Hard Drive (before 500GB, now 120GB), I allowed the computer to reboot.
4) I downloaded the free Clonezilla Live CD and booted the computer from this CD.
5) I followed these steps when using Clonezilla (click OK after each > step).
Start_Clonezilla>Device-Image>local-dev>select your external hard drive from the list that Clonzilla shows you>top_directory_in_the_local_device>saveparts>name the image and start the clone!
6) To restore the image to the new drive, repeat the above steps but when you get to the “saveparts” selection, choose “restoreparts”, select the HD image (partition) that you want to restore and begin the restoration process!
Professor Randy says:Cloning a Hard Drive is awesome! Copy the contents of any HD to another, regardless of size, and for free, by using the method and great software described above!
