The Computer Doctor of Richmond

Are you trying to figure out a way to keep certain files in sync on two or more computers?  For instance, do you have a folder that you save school/work documents in at home?  But then have to also save them to a flash drive, or even email them to yourself so you can continue to work on them at work or on your laptop?  If so, then keep reading!!!

Microsoft has a product that may solve all your needs for keeping your digital life in sync.  Live Mesh is a program that you install onto your computers that you’re trying to keep in sync.  You simply create a free “live” account, install the program Live Mesh and then tell it which folder(s) you want to sync.  Then you do the same on the rest of your computers that you want to sync (you only have to create one free account).  Now, Live Mesh will sync the contents of this folder.
So you’re saying “how does it work?”  Well, magic of course!  It will send your data up to the clouds that is your “Live Mesh desktop” that gives you 5GB of online storage, then syncs your data back down to the rest of you computers that you have setup.

Snazzy aint it?

However, in big government fashion they have a redundant service called “Live Sync” that does something very similar.  It installs like the Live Mesh and does syncs like Live Mesh.  However, with Live Sync you do not get the handy dandy cloud storage of 5GB’s.  And you’re probably saying, “well what’s the point of Live Sync then?  Why don’t I just go with Live Mesh and get the handy dandy cloud storage thingy?”  Well, if you’d keep your questions till the end of our presentation we’d tell you, and next time raise your hand!

Live Sync gives you virtually unlimited amounts of data it can sync, but just not a single file larger than 4GB’s.  So you can have 200gb’s of data it syncs, as long as none of those files are singularly larger than 4GB’s.

I use this one since I need to sync more than 5gb.

So, which one is the right one for you?  Well, Live Sync is great for simple, quick sync across multiple computers.  Live Mesh does that too, but limits you to only 5GB’s of constant file syncs.  Live Mesh also is more resource hungry and thus requires more horsepower from your computer.

The really cool thing is both of them sync between Windows based PC’s and Macs!!

Live Mesh

Live Sync

Folks, please don’t let your computer get like this.  Below are just a few examples of what we see on a regular basis here at The Computer Doctor of Richmond.  This much dust and dirt will definitely cause overheating which at a bare minimum will rob you of performance.  More than likely though, left untreated this will cause premature hardware failure.

The best defense is to simply get a can of compressed air sold at all Wal-Mart’s and office supply stores and blast out all vents.  If it is a laptop, it is best to do it when it is turned on, and make sure you get all of the vents on the sides and underneath.  With desktops, don’t hesitate to open the tower up and blast it out.  And if it needs it, you can use a vacuum carefully to suck up that junk.  With towers, it is better to do it when they are turned off.

All of these customers below had hardware failure that may have been prevented if the computer could just breathe.

Dell tower Before:

This is the front of a Dell tower with the front cover removed

Dell tower After:

Now we have cleared out the sinuses of this computer

Its a dirty job….

This is the vacuum after cleaning out the tower above

Laptop with a dead fan

Now you know why the fan was dead

We’ve even seen roaches living inside a computer tower

We are currently renovating our site a bit.  For most Firefox users, you should be able to see the site fairly well.  However, our Internet Explorer customers may have trouble seeing some things.  We are working on this and should have it all fixed up in no time.

Our site is going through some renovations

Thanks

The Comptuer Doctor of Richmond

In a recent article by Richard Adhikari on Datamation we find that hackers and spammers are tricking the advertised links on the right in some of Googles search results. When you type in whatever it is you’re looking for, in the search results you’ll see your normal crop of organic site listings. For instance, if we type “computer doctor repair Richmond” into Google, we get the usual suspects in our search results. However, in the sponsored links on the right there are several other links (see pic below). What this article is saying is that spammers have figured out how to manipulate these sponsored results on the right and they could lead you to dangerous and malicious sites.

So, as always, proceed with caution when Google-ing. And of course, we are here to help when you need us.

Ps. Do you ever get tired of people asking you to “Google” something for them? If so, LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com is exactly what you need. You go to their site, Google something, and it will create a very short video clip that you can send to someone. Give it a try, it is great fun.

Here’s one we made LMGTFY

The Computer Doctor of Richmond

A few hand fulls of users of certain versions of the popular free Antivirus AVG recently learned this lesson the hard way.  A few of the European versions of AVG recently thought the user32.dll file of windows xp was a virus and deleted it.  And that would have been ok if it were actually a virus and not a critical file for XP.  In fact after AVG found and killed the file, the users computer failed to boot.

So just remember, sometimes you get what you pay for!

more info here