Tips & Advice

There are many things you can do when you run into the occasional computer "glitch".
The first of which, is always to restart. Restarting your computer resets all of its
settings and can usually repair most computer problems.

The main problem that occurs when ChofNJ goes out to customer location is that they haven't done any basic maintenance. There are a few simple programs in
Windows XP and Vista that you should run monthly (more often if you install and delete
programs frequently or if you download programs frequently). The first and most
important thing to do is to run your disk defragmenter. You can find this by clicking
"start", "all programs", "accessories", "system tools", and then disk defragmenter.
With a slower computer, this can take some time so you may want to run it over night
or while you are out. This usually makes a noticeable difference to the speed at which
you can navigate windows.

The other item is in the same place, but on the last part, click on disk cleanup. This
will wash out Internet and other unused files. It will run much faster than the disk
defragmenter. These also increase the life of your computers' hard drive.

One of the fastest growing threats we see in the computer repair field today is viruses,
spyware, adware and malware, which is downloaded unknowingly on the Internet. E-mail and instant messengers are another window hackers will use to get into your computer. Its our firm opinion that no one should even get online without an anti-virus program, a
firewall, and hard drive space permitting, at least a few good spyware programs, to
avoid costly computer repair issues.

The good news is that you can get basic programs that cover all of the above
mentioned areas free online! Either from here on our CHofNJ Online DVD page or you can also order this DVD from us.  We give this protection "Free: to all our customers and even for walk-ins that request it. 

Another common mistake we see when doing repair work on computers is that all of the programs are out of date. Just about every program, even windows, has updates. Anti-virus and spyware programs can update daily! The most important updates are your windows updates. Usually they are critical security issues and should be downloaded immediately. Especially since these updates usually aren't proactive, meaning, they are responding to a threat that is already out there. Windows updates can also be for new media players or updates for certain hardware. For most, we would suggest just turning auto updates on and select the express option that downloads all the updates for you.

Anti-virus and spyware programs should also be set to update automatically, or you should
check for updates daily, or at least whenever you use the computer.

When choosing a spyware program, you need to be a little more picky. One good thing is
that there are a wide variety of freeware spyware programs out there that do a good job.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad ones out there too. Some of them can be too sensitive
in the scans and remove cookies or files needed for certain websites or programs to work.
Some scanners will even recognize other scanners as spyware. A good scanner may even
tell you that you have a "rogue" spyware scanner. These scanners will either find bogus
items to scare you, or even put spyware into your computer! But there is good news....
There are some great reputable scanners out there. We recommend Ad-Aware, Malware Bytes and SpySweeper as out Top Three. Windows Defender is a nice program by
Microsoft. It is standard on the new Windows Vista Machines.
 A good place to find these and hordes of other programs is on C-Net's Download.com at www.download.com. There you can read user and editor reviews to see if the program is any good. This is actually a great place for downloading freeware, trialware or paid programs for just about anything.

You should also be careful about which registry cleaner you use as well. Some of them may
remove registry items that you need for windows or your programs to work. Make sure that
with whatever program you use that it can restore the registry items it deletes. This way you
can restore the entries that you deleted if you come across any problems and avoid any
computer repair issues.