Frankenstein Computers, Computer Repair Austin, Virus Removal Austin

Virus Removal in Austin

ttudyk — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:15:59 +0000

Here at Frankenstein Computers, we do a lot of virus removals for our clients. The most common reason for obtaining viruses is insufficient anti-virus programs or anti-virus programs that have not been updated. Check your anti-virus program for updates. Also, do some research online for the best available anti-virus program in your price range. With anti-virus, it’s a textbook situation of “You get what you pay for”. Free anti-virus programs do well for the most part but, a subscription based anti-virus program, like Norton’s, can offer a more complete solution. If you live in the Austin area and you ever do get a virus, turn your computer off immediately and bring it to Frankenstein Computers. Virus removal in Austin is one of our specialties.

PC Cleaning Apps are a Scam: Here’s Why

ttudyk — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:00:31 +0000

PC cleaning apps are digital snake oil. The web is full of ads for applications that want to “clean your PC” and “make it feel like new.” Don’t pull out your credit card — these apps are terrible and you don’t need them.

If you do want to “clean your PC,” you can give Frankenstein Computers and Networking a call, or stop in and we will take care of you.

Let’s Investigate a PC Cleaning App

So what do these apps do, anyway? To investigate, we ran MyCleanPC — don’t try this at home; we installed this bad software so you don’t have to. MyCleanPC is one of the most prominent PC cleaning apps — it even advertises itself with television commercials.

First, let’s look at its Frequently Asked Questions to see what it promises:

“The full, paid version of the MyCleanPC software will attempt to remove issues found with your PC’s registry and hard drive, including removal of junk files, unneeded registry entries, Internet browsing traces, and fragmented portions of your hard drive.”

We’re already on thin ice here — Windows can remove junk files, clear Internet browsing traces, and defragment your hard drive without installing additional software.

MyCleanPC offers a “free diagnosis,” which is little more than an attempt to scare people into thinking their computers have thousands of “issues” that can be fixed for an easy $39.99 payment.

After running a scan, you’ll see an alarming count of the number of problems on your computer. It found 26267 issues on our computer. That’s an extremely alarming number — but what exactly is an issue?

Every browser cookie and history entry counts as a single issue.
Every temporary file counts as a single issue, no matter how tiny it is.
Invalid registry entries are considered issues, although they shouldn’t actually slow down your computer.
Our registry can be compacted a bit, but this shouldn’t make a noticeable different in performance
Every fragmented file counts as a single issue. MyCleanPC is measuring fragmentation based on the number of fragmented files, leading to a scary-looking 21.33% data fragmentation statistic. For comparison, the Windows Disk Defragmenter tells us we have 2% fragmentation.

Now that they’ve scared you, this is the part where you would take out your credit card and give them $39.99 to clean your PC.

Don’t Believe the Hype

Temporary files are not slowing down your computer, and neither are browser history entries or cookies. Registry entries are generally not a problem — there’s a reason Microsoft once created a registry cleaner of their own before discontinuing it and advising people not to use registry cleaners.

Yes, your computer can be slow because its file system is fragmented. We can fix this by running the Disk Defragmenter tool included with Windows — the Disk Defragmenter runs automatically on a schedule, anyway. Most people shouldn’t have to worry about defragmenting their hard drives anymore.

A test performed in 2011 by Windows Secrets found that the Disk Cleanup tool included with Windows was just as good as paid PC cleaning apps. Note that this is true even though PC cleaning apps fix “registry errors” while the Disk Cleanup app doesn’t, which shows just how unnecessary registry cleaners are.

So yes, it’s been tested — PC cleaning apps are worthless.

At worst, PC cleaning apps are digital snake oil. At best, they do a few marginally useful things. Don’t believe the hype — skip the PC cleaning apps. Bring your computer to Frankenstein Computers and Networking and let us help you out with all your computing needs!

Frankenstein Computers and Networking – We take the Fear out of computing!

The Internet is 20

ttudyk — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:57:54 +0000

The first web page on the internet will be restored and re-launched on the Internet to celebrate 20 years of the World Wide Web. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). They will also be restoring the computer that they used to build the web page. The web page was built to allow early browsers to learn about the system and to help them create their own web pages. To learn more about the project and the first website, visit http://first-website.web.cern.ch. Just imagine what the next twenty years have in store.

Congratulations to Vitalogy Skincare!

ttudyk — Thu, 02 May 2013 12:11:25 +0000

Congratulations are in order for our very best client Vitalogy Skincare on their groundbreaking event. The new full facility is located in Georgetown at 4513 Williams Drive (across from HEB and next to Wells Fargo Bank)

We wish them ALL THE BEST with their new venture and know that it will be a GREAT SUCCESS!

Virus Removal Austin

ttudyk — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:21:01 +0000

We have had an increase in virus removals for our clients at Frankenstein Computers this month. We have been able to crush all of the viruses and have been able to give our happy clients clean systems back in about 24 hours. We want to remind all of our clients that it is ALWAYS best to use Chrome or Firefox when doing everyday browsing. “Virus makers” like to get the “best bang for their buck” and write most viruses for Internet Explorer so if you use one of the other browsers you will not be affected/infected.

The Cell Phone is 40

ttudyk — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:58:24 +0000

It was 40 years ago (April 3, 1973) when Martin Cooper made his first call
from his new Motorola DynaTAC cell phone.
I wonder if he knew he was doing something that would change the world.
Cell phones have come a long way in the last four decades. They have gone
from very bulky simple devices to some of the most sophisticated electronic
devices in the world. And it fits in the palm of your hand. It’s actually quite
difficult to think of a world without them.

I Have No Internet

ttudyk — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:10:40 +0000

If I get one question from customers over the phone more than any other its ‘my Internet is not working, what do I do.’ And the first step in solving this problem is always finding the culprit. As a residential user our Internet goes through a lot of different devices before it finally makes it to the browser screen in front of us, so there are a lot of possible places things can go wrong. The easiest way to identify the problem is always through a basic process of elimination. Most computer users will get their Internet from their provider via a modem, whether it be DSL or Cable, you have a box given to you by your provider that is the first incoming step in the Internet from them to you. The next step will be one of two options either your modem plugs straight into your computer (making it the last step) or you may have a router, which lets you give the Internet to multiple computers, or broadcast Wi-Fi. Now the easiest option, if it is available to you, is to try it on a second computer. If that second computer can get Internet then you know it’s a problem with the computer, as the data is certainly being received by one computer. If not the next step is to eliminate the router if you have one. Try plugging the computer directly into the provider’s modem (sometimes this will require you to reset the modem by unplugging its power for a few moments). If your computer cannot receive Internet when the router is plugged in, but the Internet works when you are directly connected to the modem, your router may have problems or may need to be replaced. If your computer still receives no Internet when plugged straight into the modem the issue may be with your provider not getting their data to your provided modem. If so a quick call to your Internet provider will be your next step, as they can easily tell if their systems can ‘talk’ to your provided modem. If you are directly plugged into the modem and still have no Internet and your provider says they see no issue the issue is most likely with your computer, and your next step is us! Numerous different problems can occur on your computer to cause it to not interpret the Internet properly in order for you to access it, including Windows errors, viruses, and other malicious infections. (Infections being the most common issue as they will often try to block your Internet access to prevent their removals.) But have no worries as Frankenstein Computers is one of the quickest and most cost efficient places to have a virus removed here in Austin, and as always, never hesitate to give us a call if you have a question or issue we can help with!

Google Fiber Austin

ttudyk — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 23:45:15 +0000

Google Fiber Austin

Google and the city of Austin are having a large press conference sometime on Tuesday to announce a new large project. The rumor is Austin will be the 3^rd city to receive Google’s new Fiber Internet. Austin had originally attempted in 2010 to be one of the 1^st city’s for the search engine’s but had lost out to Kansas City.

Google Fiber offers three different packages:

Free Internet: A one-time install fee of $300 and will get you Internet speeds comparable to what you are paying now without any monthly fees. A onetime payment and you now have permanent Internet Access.

Gigabit Internet: No installation fee and for $70 a month you will get Gigabit Internet speeds, comparable to 100 times faster than standard high speed internet. (Speed tests in Kansas City shows an actual general download speed of about 700 mb, your average high speed Internet is around 10)

Gigabit +TV: No installation fee and for $120 a month you will get Gigabit Internet, full channel TV lineup, a Nexus 7 tablet, 1 TV Box, and a 1TB Google Drive.

If the rumors are true signups should start soon after the announcement and the way it was rolled out in Kansas City was the areas with the highest number of signups get their area installed first. Cross your fingers Austin!

Am I Infected?

ttudyk — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:27:14 +0000

While in previous years the type infections that could get on your computer were out to damage it, today’s infections are out to track you and trick you into giving up your financial information. However, in order for these infections to work, they need to either go hidden in the background or convince you of their authenticity. One of the more prominent infections is the rootkit. These infections will typically be noticed by changes to how you browse the web. Has your homepage mysteriously changed to a site you don’t recognize or pop-ups on websites that typically do not have pop-ups? When you search for something on the internet do your search results redirect you to a website you don’t think you clicked on? These are all signs of a rootkit infection. One sneakier type of infection is the tracker. While harder to detect, these programs simply run in the background and track information on the sites you visit. While rarely ‘showing themselves’ these trackers are typically found and packs, and, much like running multiple programs at the same, cause your computer speed to dramatically slow down. If your computer feels like it was speedy one day and a drag the next, there might be some malicious programs taking up system resources in the background! Another common type of infection today is the ‘ransom-ware’ infection. Typically you will know when your hit with these infection types because you cannot get them to go away. Ransomware infections typically disguise themselves as legitimate anti-virus or repair programs however after they tell you of your ‘problem’ you cannot access your PC or make the program go away without ‘providing payment’. Please note that providing payment will in no way make the infection go away, they simply now have your payment information. The problem with all these types of these infections are they open the back door for other infections to come in so removal should be of immediate concern. If infections remain on a computer too long, that is when corruption starts and the further along the corruption gets to go the harder it is to pull the system back from the brink. We recommend to all our customers if there is even a suspicion of infection on a computer to bring it in right away. Frankenstein can typically tell you if your computer is infected within hours of dropping it off, and if the system is infected, return your computer to you within 24 hours. When it comes to your system its always better to be safe than sorry.

Backups…Keep your Data Safe

ttudyk — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 23:40:27 +0000

We, at Frankenstein Computers, recommend that you keep your backup files in different locations. We recommend using (2) identical external hard drives to back up to. You should swap out the external drives weekly so you have an onsite and office copy of your data. This also allows you to go back (2) weeks to find any data that might have been deleted by accident. We also like Carbonite. It costs about $60 per year and is a good option for another offsite backup. ALL hard drives will eventually FAIL. Make sure you data is safe and it will not be an issue.