News and Announcements ---

CompUSA closes shop

For the best deals on gadgets and PCs this holiday season, look no further than your neighborhood CompUSA. The embattled electronics retail chain was dealt its final blow Friday when it was sold to Specialty Equity, an affiliate of private equity firm Gordon Brothers Group.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the immediate result is that Specialty Equity will close all 103 CompUSA stores in the United States, according to a press release issued late Friday. Gordon Brothers will "initiate an orderly wind-down" of each of the stores, the company says. That's great news for consumers looking for bargains. CompUSA will remain open through the holiday shopping season, presumably with "Everything Must Go!"-style signs.

It was clear all was not well at the retailer when in March it closed half of its stores due to pressure from bigger chains like Best Buy and Circuit City. Dallas-based CompUSA has struggled for nearly a decade with falling prices on personal computers, its most important product, and competition from big-box retailers such as Best Buy.

The slowing growth in computer sales has affected other companies. Dell Inc.'s U.S. consumer sales fell 26 percent in the first half of this year, which could have accelerated the PC maker's announcement this week that it will sell machines at Best Buy.

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Computers 101 ---

Q:
How can I disable the annoying User Account Control (UAC) feature on my Windows Vista computer?

A:
Windows Vista has the built-in ability to automatically reduce the potential of security breeches in the system. It does that by automatically enabling a feature called User Account Control (or UAC for short). The UAC forces users that are part of the local administrators group to run like they were regular users with no administrative privileges. Some home users might be tempted to disable UAC because of the additional mouse clicking it brings into their system, however I urge them not to immediately do so, and try to get used to it instead.

Anyway, if you annoyed by it, you can disable UAC by using this simple method:

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Under User Account and Family settings click on the "Add or remove user account".
3. Click on one of the user accounts, for example you can use the Guest account.
4. Under the user account click on the "Go to the main User Account page" link.
5. Under "Make changes to your user account" click on the "Change security settings" link.
6. In the "Turn on User Account Control (UAC) to make your computer more secure" click to unselect the "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer".
7. Click on the Ok button. You will be prompted to reboot your computer. Do so when ready.
8. In order to re-enable UAC just select the above checkbox and reboot.
   

Q:
How do I find the run command in windows vista?

A:
Windows Vista has a new search bar located on the Start Panel. You can use the new search box to find items in the various folders of your Start Menu as well as run any application from it. Just type in the name of the executable and it will search your hard drive for it and run it. This is a great feature but if you have a lot of files on your computer, then be prepared for a short delay since it may have to search for a while.

If you do not want to wait that long, there is a quick way to get the old Run command back on your Start Panel.

1. Right click on your taskbar and select Properties.
2. Click on the Start Menu Tab and then select Customize.
3. Scroll through the list and check the Run Command check box.
4. Hit OK a few times and it is back.

Q:
Why can't I find Add/Remove programs in Windows Vista?

A:
Add/remove programs in Windows Vista is still there - it's only that it has undergone a name change. If you are using the Vista for the first time or trying to uninstall and reinstall some program in your Windows Vista, you might scratch your head searching for the 'Add/Remove programs' in your control panel. Do not panic!!! It's there, it's just that the name has been changed. It is now known as 'Programs and Features' in lieu of Add/Remove programs.

Follow the following steps to get to Programs and Features.

1. Click on the Start button and go to the control panel.
2. You will find Programs there. Please click on that.
3. Now click on Program and Features.
4. You can look for the program you want to work with and then click on Uninstall/Change button.
   

Here is another method that allows you to go to the Program and Features button.

1. Click on the Start button
2. Click on Control Panel.
3. In the top right corner you will find the search box. Type add remove in the box. It will take you to "Program and Features" box.
   

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Quick Tips  ---

Why it is important to backup your data.

How much information do you think you have stored on your computer? Whatever you answered, it will be much more and often surprises people. You do not realize just how much of your life is stored on a computer hard drive. You may keep your accounts on your computer hard drive, photos, music, films, text documents such as letters, faxes, invoices etc. They are all important to you in some way and to lose them would be a disaster! But this is not going to happen to you is it. Because you keep all your important files backed up on a external hard drive. You do back up your files, don't you?

If you answered no to this question then you are taking a chance with your personal important information. What if your computer was stolen or maybe the hard drive develops a failure rendering the information unreadable. You would be in trouble with no data backup wouldn't you. Data recovery companies may be able to retrieve your data from expired hard drives but it can be a very costly process.

There are various computer data backup software packages available to help you backup your important files. Most will allow you to create backups on CD or DVD. You can also backup to a external hard drive or even a USB thumb/ flash drive. This allows portability of your data backups because you can take it with you.

Norton Ghost is a backup program you could use or True Image by Acronis. The latter is the one we use at our offices and highly recommend. Both are reasonably priced, very reliable, and straight forward to use. Both work by creating a backup image of your entire partition on the hard drive. The entire partition can then be restored or individual files can be restored if needed.

Please make sure you give backing up your important files strong consideration. It does not take long to set up a backup program and believe me it will save you a lot of heartache if your hard drive gives out on you.

Adjust CD-ROM AutoPlay

Windows XP finally has some excellent options to set the Autoplay preferences on CD-ROM drives. Right-click the CD-ROM drive in Windows Explorer (or My Computer), and select Properties. Select the AutoPlay tab. Now you can select your AutoPlay preferences according to the type of content.

Choose a Power Scheme

Windows XP offers a number of power management features that can help you save on your electricity bill. You can choose the length of (idle) time after which Windows will turn off your monitor or hard drive. Windows XP has the following power schemes:

• Home/Office Desk
• Portable/Laptop
• Presentation
• Always On
• Minimal Power Management
• Max Battery

You can make changes to the default settings, and save them either to the scheme currently selected, or save them under a new name. You can access the power management features from the Windows XP Control Panel under Performance & Maintenance > Power Options.

If you enable power management features, remember that these settings are only for when your computer is idle. When you return to use your computer, simply press a key, or move the mouse, and your monitor and hard drives will come back to life.

There's another issue that's not very clear: If you are using a portable computer your CPU speed is affected by changing the power management features (at least some of the more recent CPU's which use Intel SpeedStep technology). Below is a table explaining how a portable CPU would behave. AC means when connected to an external power source, and Battery means when running on the portable's battery.

Power Scheme	AC	Battery
Home/Office Desk	High	Adapt
Portable/Laptop	Adapt	Adapt
Presentation	Low	Degrade
Always On	High	High
Minimal Power Management	Adapt	Adapt
Max Battery	Adapt	Adapt

High: CPU always runs at maximum speed
Low: CPU always runs at low speed
Adapt: CPU speed varies with load (high when busy, low when idle)
Degrade: CPU starts at low speed and performs additional performance reduction as battery discharges

For example, a Pentium III-M processor that typically operates at 800MHz on electric current might throttle back to 500MHz when running on battery power, to save battery life. You might experiment with these settings to see how they affect your battery life, but from reports I've seen there isn't much extra battery time to be gained here.

Hibernate

The hibernate feature saves everything in memory on your hard disk, turns off your monitor and hard disk, and then turns off your computer. When you restart your computer, your desktop is restored exactly as you left it. Typically, you put your computer in hibernation when you will be away from the computer for an extended time or overnight. When you restart the computer, your desktop is restored exactly as you left it.

To put your system in hibernate, press Turn Off Computer on the Start menu, and on the next window, put your cursor over the Stand By button. Now press the Shift key on your keyboard. Stand By will change to Hibernate.

To use Windows Power Options, you must have a computer that is set up by the manufacturer to support these features. For more information, see the documentation that came with your computer.

What you need to know is that if hibernate is enabled on your computer, a hidden file hiberfill.sys is created in the root of your system drive (usually C:\), which is around the same size as your system's memory (RAM). You can't move this file to another drive, it has to be in the root of your system drive. If you don't use hibernate, you can remove this file by going to the Power Options in Control Panel, and on the Hibernate tab un-check Enable hibernation

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Beware  ---

Spyware How They Attack

Spyware can be downloaded from Web sites, email messages, instant messages, and from direct file-sharing connections. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive spyware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program. How Do You Know? Spyware frequently attempts to remain unnoticed, either by actively hiding or by simply not making its presence on a system known to the user.

What To Do?

• Use a good anti-spyware program to proactively protect from spyware and other security risks.
• Configure the firewall to block unsolicited requests for outbound communication.
• Do not accept or open suspicious error dialogs from within the browser.
• Spyware may come as part of a "free deal" offer - do not accept free deals.
• Always read carefully the End User License agreement at Install time and cancel if other “programs” are being installed as part of the desired program.
• Keep software and security patches up to date

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**********************************************************************All of us at Computer Medic On Call would like to wish you and your family a happy holliday and prosperous New Year!

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