Time to toss your old computer – What about the data?

Are you thinking about recycling or reselling your old computer? If so, your first step should be to delete the data on it. Having data stolen, lost, or misplaced contributes to the ever growing number of people who are affected by identity theft. It can also cause corporations to lose more than data and money.  

So how do you get rid of that data? Simply deleting your files and emptying your recycle bin only deletes the record of your file, but not the data that it points to. It’s like removing the labels from the folders in your filing cabinet. The folders and information still exist, but retrieving the data now takes more time and effort.

The same is also true if you reformat your hard drive. It is also possible for someone with the right tools to retrieve the data.   

If you are planning on selling or recycling your computer, it is recommend that you use a utility tool that overwrites every sector of the hard drive. Alternatively, we can we look after wiping off all of the data from your hard drive or we can physically destroy your hard drive.

Lastly, don’t forget about your other storage devices such as USB flash drives, iPods and mobile devices that can also contain private information. These should be erased using the manufacturer’s recommendations before selling or recycling.

So where can you bring your computer to be recycled? The following locations will all accept electronics for recycling.

Kelowna	Boucherie Self Storage & Bottle 2711 Kyle Road	250-769-7122
Kelowna	Columbia Bottle Depot (Central) 1988 Kirschner Road	250-763-2500
Kelowna	Columbia Bottle Depot (Rutland) 680 Dease Road	250-765-9115
Kelowna	Columbia Bottle Depot - St. Paul 1314 St. Paul Street	250-763-2554
Kelowna	The Battery Doctors 1972 Windsor Road	250-860-2866
Lake Country	Winfield Return-It-Centre #4, 11852 Highway 97 N At Lakewood Mall	250-766-2973
Westbank	Planet Earth Recycling 2035B Louie Drive	250-768-0878

- Janet F, Marketing Coordinator

Northern Computer - Your Trusted Partner
#1 - 495 Banks Road Kelowna, BC V1X 6A2
Phone: 250.762.7753 Fax: 250.861.1861 Toll-Free: 1.877.257.2896
Email: sales@northerncomputer.ca or service@northerncomputer.ca
Web: http://www.northerncomputer.ca

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To BackUp or Not to BackUp... That is the question.

Lately, alot of clients are relying on redundancy as a means to preserve their data. Using multiple drives in a server or workstation and configuring these drive in what is known as a RAID configuration, is by no means is a backup. Servers commonly use a RAID 1 (mirrored drives) or a RAID 5 (striping) configuration. Any corruption to the data has the chance of being permanently lost. Multiple drive failures, could be fatal to any organization in this situation.

Backups are used to restore critical data that is lost or corrupted. Backups are also necessary if the hard drives that the data is on fails, gets damaged, or even stolen! Data off a failed drive can be recovered 85% of the time by a professional data recovery firm, and 40% of the time by IT service providers.

A backup is a critical component to disaster recovery plan. Most businesses do not have a disaster recovery plan, so after a fire, flood or other disasters. All plans are dependant on the company or organization. Some questions to ask when working on a plan are:
Can I work without my data for more than 96 hours? What will it cost if I need to have an employee or hire someone to re enter lost data? What other disruptions to my work flow will this cause?

Offsite backup is a great way to make sure all your critical data is accessable in a timely manner. This can be as simple as taking a tape home every night, and if something happens, restored on new equipment as quickly as possible.

Not all disasters or scenerios can be planned for, but the knowledable staff at Northern Computer can help you develope a plan to deal with the unexpected.

Northern Computer - Your Trusted Partner
#1 - 495 Banks Road Kelowna, BC V1X 6A2
Phone: 250.762.7753 Fax: 250.861.1861 Toll-Free: 1.877.257.2896
Email: sales@northerncomputer.ca or service@northerncomputer.ca
Web: http://www.northerncomputer.ca/

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Frustrated Business Owner Seeks New Way to Advertise and Save Money - Are You One of Them?

Reach the RIGHT People

At the RIGHT Time

With the RIGHT Message

Northern Computer digital solutions is a powereful marketing tool that delivers low cost, high visibility digital signage solutions. Our digital signage networks have the unique abilitity to reach the right people, at the right time with the right message.

We provide local businesses geographically targeted advertising programs at a cost well below most other traditional forms of media.

Click here to see how a
digital screen looks.

A moving sign is proven to be 95%
more effective than a static sign.

Why Advertise on the NC Digital Network?

• High impact views. Screens are strategically placed at local hot spots such as grocers, coffee shops and many other locations where people congregage. They display engaging content that viewers, advertisers and location host
  alike enjoy including weather and news feeds.
• They are big! 75% of households are exposed to venues with digital video venues such as gas stations, grocery stores and big box retail stores. Tim Horton’s, Walmart…
• Ad changes are easily updated

How Can I Participate?

 

Where is Digital Signage?
Click here to find out.

You can participate in two ways, as an Advertiser on our network and/or as a location host on our network.

An Advertiser will have their message ran strategically on the Location Host network to generate the maximum return on investment.

A Location Host will have the opportunity to use our digital platform to advertise, entertain and inform their own customers about their own products while shopping in their own store …For Free! Additionally, Location Hosts can become advertisers as well by placing their messages on other Location Hosts.

What Does it Cost?

from $35.00 a week

Contact John Gibson or Janet Fitchett at digital@northerncomputer.ca or at 250-762-7753.



Northern Computer - Your Trusted Partner
#1 - 495 Banks Road Kelowna, BC V1X 6A2
Phone: 250.762.7753 Fax: 250.861.1861 Toll-Free: 1.877.257.2896
Email: sales@northerncomputer.ca or service@northerncomputer.ca
Web: http://www.northerncomputer.ca

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What the Hecks in Your Computer - Part 4: RAM

Memory, also called RAM (random access memory) is another component that deserves some focus since it has evolved in the personal computer over the years. There is fast cache RAM on processors and hard drives but the best known memory is the type configured in sticks and added to slots in the motherboard.  This is the main system RAM. The best analogy I know of for what function RAM provides is as follows: it is like the surface or workspace on the top of your desk – the larger the surface is (the more RAM you have) the more documents you can lay out and access quickly – with too little desk space (or RAM) you begin to need to pile up documents and access to them slows down as you search for them through piles– you work slower and far less efficiently. With extra RAM your computer runs smooth and fast. With too little RAM your computer slows  and reacts in a choppy fashion as you have used up physical RAm and now windows is using your hard drive as virtual RAM. Remember your hard drive is exponentially slower than real RAM. 

In days gone by upgrades to computers were very popular, everything from CPUs to video to hard drives.  Many of those upgrades have fallen out of favor and no longer make sense financially. Currently the best value in upgrades is more RAM. Adding RAM improves many aspects of computer function for relatively not much money.

The increased amounts of RAM in new systems is driving the adoption of 64bit operating systems. To take advantage of more than 4 gigabytes of ram requires a 64bit version of Windows XP or Windows 7. 32 bit versions of windows will simply not use more than 4 gigabytes because it was not designed to. Windows 7 Professional 64 bit will support up to 192 gigabytes of RAM.  Seems like a lot today but in the future will seem common place.

Do you have enough RAM? It really depends how you use your system and if it appears slow in certain programs a ram upgrade is certainly something to consider.  Power users who write software or edit photos and videos or play graphic intensive games will almost always benefit from more RAM. For the rest of us the sweet spot can usually be judged by how much you see your hard drive light flashing.  If it’s on constantly instead of intermittently then more RAM should be of benefit.  If you are RAM shopping it is best to have it professionally installed as there is a very real risk from static discharge that can destroy your new upgrade. Also remember the RAM needs to be matched with the existing RAM in your system for speed and type, all things a  Northern Computer technician can determine for you.

Click here for Part 1: The Motherboard
Click here for Part 2: The CPU
Click here for Part 3: The Hard Drive

-Paul C, Service Bench Supervisor

Northern Computer - Your Trusted Partner
#1 - 495 Banks Road Kelowna, BC V1X 6A2
Phone: 250.762.7753 Fax: 250.861.1861 Toll-Free: 1.877.257.2896
Email: sales@northerncomputer.ca or service@northerncomputer.ca
Web: http://www.northerncomputer.ca

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Mmm Cookies...

A cookie is a small file created by a web browser at the request of a web site, which is then stored on your computer. Cookies typically store user-specific information or preferences, such as selections in a form, shopping cart contents, or authentication data. Web browsers will normally clear cookies that reach a certain age, but clearing them manually may solve problems with web sites, your browser itself, or even other programs. It is good practice to clear your cookies on a regular basis (and other Temporary Internet files as well). Depending on what web browser you prefer to use, the process to clear those cookies may differ.

For Internet Explorer 9:

1. Tap the Alt key to display the menu bar and select “Tools”, or click on the Tools sprocket/gear icon in the upper right hand corner.
2. Select “Internet Options”
3. Under the General tab you will see a heading for “Browsing history”. Click the “Delete” button.
4. The options available will likely already be selected for Temporary Internet files, Cookies, and History. Clicking the “Delete” button at the bottom of this page will clear all of the cookies stored from Internet Explorer.

Alternatively, you can tell Internet Explorer 9 to automatically delete your browsing history every time you close the web browser by also selecting the “Delete browsing history on exit” option in step 3 above.

- Janet F, Marketing Coordinator

Northern Computer - Your Trusted Partner
#1 - 495 Banks Road Kelowna, BC V1X 6A2
Phone: 250.762.7753 Fax: 250.861.1861 Toll-Free: 1.877.257.2896
Email: sales@northerncomputer.ca or  service@northerncomputer.ca
Web: http://www.northerncomputer.ca

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Windows 7, The empire strikes back…..

As of April 7^th, 2009, Microsoft has ended support of Windows XP, the longest running operating system in history.  The latest version, Windows 7 is now widely available, and has become the primary operating system available from all leading vendors.  Windows 7 is available in 3 distinct versions, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.  Windows 7 has provided some major enhancements.  The look and feel is just different enough to throw off your average user, but many of these changes reflect on Microsoft’s commitment to improving the user’s experience.  It really depends on your level of experience as well as ability to adapt as to how successful you make this transition. 

User Authentication Control has dramatically improved the security, if you choose to leave the feature enabled.  UAC was first introduced in Vista, the previous Windows version.  It was not well received and suffered from many problems, which eventually forced many users to disable it entirely. Many early users of Windows 7 have chosen to disable this feature and so have the technicians who work with it.

Windows 7 fully supports modern computers running 64bit architecture.  “Oh good” says the average user, as he scratches his head wondering what that means.  Basically, today’s hardware has a lot of additional power that a traditional 32bit operating system like Windows XP can’t utilize.  Windows 7 will run much faster than Windows XP if you were to install it on similar hardware.  Generally a newer version will run slower when installed on the same hardware.

“Great! I want to upgrade today” is your first thought. “I want a faster computer, without buying new hardware.”  If only that were true…. As you have probably experienced in the past, it isn’t always that easy.  While upgrading may improve performance on your computer, there are a whole bunch of reasons that will make you regret this decision.  Windows 7 has great support for older devices (printers, scanners, motherboards), but it’s not going to fully support all devices.  There are a lot complications that will quickly drive the labour costs thru the roof on even the most basic upgrade.  Users need to be fully prepared to replace almost any equipment that is connected or internal to the computer once they decide to upgrade. 

“Yeah, I’ve been there before…fine – I’ll stick with trusty old Windows XP.”  This can also cause you problems.  New software and devices are being designed for Windows 7.  With the wide acceptance, some vendors are not supporting Windows XP.  In some cases, it’s impossible to support XP because, at it’s core, Microsoft is not supporting XP anymore.  Who do you call when you’re a manufacturer of printers and a new design won’t work in Windows XP?

Ok, couple deep breaths…you’ll be fine!  If what you have is working well, then stick with it. As soon as you experience problems, have Northern Computer evaluate your existing setup and work towards a solution. There are many costs to consider beyond the purchase price any time you decide to own a computer for work or for home.

Northern Computer staff have been installing Windows 7 computers since it was released and are familiar with many of the common problems.  Be prepared, as you would with any new installation.  Recently, I completed an install for a customer.  Everything had gone very well, until 30 minutes after I left when they plugged in their digital camera to upload photos…Not supported.  The only option was to go back to the old computer, downgrade the new computer to Windows XP or purchase a new camera.  Downgrading is a terrible option to choose, so the customer purchased a new digital camera. I’m sure they were not happy with this choice, but given the old system was failed they were out of choices.

-Mark S, Network Support Technician

Northern Computer - Your Trusted Partner
#1 - 495 Banks Road Kelowna, BC V1X 6A2
Phone: 250.762.7753 Fax: 250.861.1861 Toll-Free: 1.877.257.2896
Email: sales@northerncomputer.ca or service@northerncomputer.ca
Web: http://www.northerncomputer.ca

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Printers. To service or not to service.

I am often asked whether printers should be serviced or not. Customers are concerned, of course, about the cost of regular maintenance but often forget about the cost of a breakdown.

If a machine is regularly maintained the cost to service the machine is minimal, often around a half hour per machine (under $50.00). When the machine goes down the lost time and priority service cost to the company is typically far more than the cost of maintenance. This does not suggest that maintenance will prevent all breakdowns, however properly performed maintenance by a qualified technician will prevent many failures.

The frequency of maintenance is dependent on machine type, volume and environment. If the printer is in a high volume application or a dirty or dusty environment more frequent service is needed to keep it running at its best. Your printer technician can help you to determine the best schedule for your equipment.

Regular printer maintenance is not often thought of but it will give you increased reliability, consistent quality and it could even save you money.

Our cleaning and service includes the following applicable items:

• Replace any worn belts and rollers
• Replace ribbon reflector if damaged
• Check that the card feeder motor assembly is secured
• Thoroughly clean the card transport path (tracks and platen rollers)
• Clean and test the magnetic head and rollers (if encoder fitted)
• Check and adjust all sensors
• Test all motors
• Check all belts for correct tension and either adjust or replace as necessary
• Check the pressure roller for correct tension and adjust if necessary
• Check and adjust the input gate
• Realign the print head, peel-bar, angle and bias where necessary
• Upgrade firmware to the latest version
• Replace small items (screws, washers etc) where necessary
• Effect any minor adjustments and repairs
• Tighten any loose items
• Replace cleaner roller (210/310/420/520/720)
• Clean case and effect minor repairs if necessary
• Full test with plain white cards .30mil (unless instructed otherwise)
• Full test with magnetic stripe cards (if encoder fitted)
• Self test and test from PC application

- Brian S, Senior Printer Tecnician

Northern Computer - Your Trusted Partner
#1 - 495 Banks Road Kelowna, BC V1X 6A2
Phone: 250.762.7753 Fax: 250.861.1861 Toll-Free: 1.877.257.2896
Email: sales@northerncomputer.ca or service@northerncomputer.ca
Web: http://www.northerncomputer.ca

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