Setting Up a New Lenovo Computer Causes a Headache

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As many of you know, I started using Lenovo as a vendor of choice for both desktops and laptops earlier in 2012.  There are several reasons for this change.  One is because I think the design and build of Lenovo’s products is compatible or better than other computer manufacturers.  Now, most people use (and some even like) Dell, and I am a Registered Dell Partner.  Nevertheless, I have always believed in offering an option for my price-conscious clients, and Lenovo frequently beats Dell’s pricing.

Granted, Dell offers a wider array of customization options, but then you have to wait for the factory to build it for you.  Lenovo, on the other hand, has determined a decent core set of options that appeal to a wide segment of my client base.  There has been, so far, very little need to alter the basic hardware configurations.  I discovered long ago that most of you keep your computers far longer than their normal life spans.  I find it comforting to know that Lenovo computers will let me upgrade the memory one or two times to keep it performing like a newer computer.

So what is the headache?  Well, that came during installation.

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Working With Microsoft in the Cloud Using SkyDrive

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SkyDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage feature for sharing files among various Internet-connected devices.  You can upload files from your computer to the cloud and access them from your web browser, or your phone.  You can even share files with others.

Here’s how it works.  To get started, open your web browser and go to http://windows.microsoft.com/skydrive.  Click on the Get SkyDrive button.  A small file will download to your computer.  Double click it to launch it.  As part of the installation process, you will be asked for your Microsoft Account.

If you don’t have one, you can create one at that time (all it requires is an email address and a password).  You will have to verify your existing email address by waiting for an email from Microsoft.

The installation continues to run and creates a SkyDrive folder on your computer .

Click Next and then Done, and you can access your files from anywhere. Read More →

Office 2010 Starter Edition and the Inevitable Transition to the Internet

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In October 2009, Microsoft made an unusual jump into the “free” software market.  It allowed original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like Dell, HP, and Lenovo to install a replacement to the previously discontinued Microsoft Works suite.  The offering was called Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition.  This starter set of Office only included Word and Excel.  In fact, these versions were a subset of the base products, because they had reduced functionality.  In addition, they were sponsored with relatively unobtrusive Microsoft-sponsored ads.

Face it; if you only used those two Office products, and wanted to save more than $100, you used the “free” version of Office that came pre-installed on your computer.  Many of my clients did that – because the two products just worked and people  found they didn’t need the advanced functionality.  However, Microsoft believed that most consumers would eventually click on one of the ad links and purchase the fully functional version.

This experiment lasted less than three years.  In June 2012, Microsoft announced to the OEMs that they could no longer pre-install the Office 2010 Starter Edition.  With that announcement, the OEMs could offer either a 60-day trial or let you purchase the full product.  There was no “in between” version available.

So what should a consumer do?  Naturally, there are two options.  The first is based on the long-standing practice of purchasing software and installing it on your desktop.  The second is based on the new way things are heading.  In this case, you use a web browser and put your files in the cloud.  Let’s discuss each of these options.

The lowest priced version of Office 2010 costs around $120.  This is the Home and Student version.  All you need to purchase is the product key, which contains the 25-digit code to unlock the Office 2010 software that is already installed on your computer.  If you want, or need, to use Outlook for your email, you’ll have to spend about $70 more for the Home and Business version.

The second option requires a leap of faith and the desire (and ability) to learn new ways of doing things.  Here, you would to select to use the preview version of Microsoft Office Web Apps.  This is (for now) a free, online, edition of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that relies on a scaled-back subset of the desktop versions’ features.  It requires using Microsoft’s SkyDrive (something you have to sign up for separately).

SkyDrive gives you 7 GB of storage in the cloud, and is accessible from a web browser.  This means you can access your files from any computer anywhere there is an Internet connection.  The Office Web Apps can work in conjunction with the desktop versions of Office, but do not require it.

Office Web Apps is still considered to be in “preview” mode.  This is the equivalent of “beta” software, so that means you cannot depend on it 100% of the time.  It also means that your support is solely through email or community forums.  However, because it runs in a browser, Microsoft can update the functions and features on a regular basis – without performing any updates on your computer – to make sure that these programs operate properly.

So, give Microsoft more than $100 for software so you can work on your desktop, or give Microsoft your files so that you can work on them in the cloud.  The decision is up to you, and in most cases will be based on what you want.  To get a glimpse of what the future holds, take a look at “Working with Microsoft in the Cloud Using SkyDrive.”

If you have any questions about Microsoft Office, please let me know.

Product Updates With an Add-on You Didn’t See Coming

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So you finally acquiesce to the nagging prompt that the Java runtime needs to be updated.  You click OK and the download starts.  You wait a few minutes and the installation begins.  You click the Next button repeatedly, because you just want to be done with this update.

Unfortunately, you just installed the Ask toolbar in your browser and changed your homepage and search provider to Ask.  And you never meant to.

But, if you paid careful enough attention during the installation, there was the tiny – pre-checked – mark that “asked” if you wanted to install the Ask toolbar and all of its attendant changes.

Over the years, I have seen Internet Explorer browser windows with more than five toolbars:  Yahoo, Google, Ask, and others.  Why would you need all of those?  Most people don’t have any explanation.  Still others figure it is all part of what they are supposed to have when they use IE (as if Microsoft had decided to update something for them).  Even fewer know how to remove them.

One major problem with all these toolbars is that they slow down your web browser.  In addition, they add clutter to your screen.  Some increase the risk of virus and spyware infections.  Of course some toolbars are the result of spyware, so it is not always your fault.

With the Java update, Oracle gets paid by Ask for each user that gets this toolbar and uses it.  You, as the “victim,” need to jump through hoops to get your settings back to the way they were before the installation.  Unfortunately, even the Windows Restore feature may not work well enough to make things right.

So, what can you do?

For one, you simply have to pay attention during the installation.  Different vendors insert this “permission” step at different points.  Simply clicking the Next button is a lazy approach.  Take your time.  Make sure you read each window carefully.  Uncheck the box that was filled in for you about any toolbar you don’t need.

By the way, my SPF+ and SHADE subscribers do not encounter this problem – the installation is handled automatically, and no toolbar is installed!

Have a lot of toolbars in your web browser?  Send me a screen shot and I’ll post the best entries.

 

Symantec Offers Overly Aggressive Protection

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The newly updated Symantec Protection Suite Small Business Edition 4.0 contains Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.  As part of that offering, there is a module called “Tamper Protection,” which is designed to prevent any form of malware from adversely affecting the operation of the Symantec Software.

As a managed service provider, I am using a third-party software product to monitor and maintain the health of my clients’ servers and workstations.  The software takes an inventory of a variety of things and reports back to the data center on a regular basis.  I get to view the results on my web-based portal.

Somehow, and quite unfortunately, Symantec Endpoint Protection thinks each of these activities is a threat to its existence, and the default setting for Tamper Protection is to block any offending program.  When it does, it places an entry in the Windows Event log.

Windows EventID 45

Windows EventID 45

Of course, my MSP software is designed to keep trying to get its information back to the data center – so the Event log just fills up with EventID 45 records as it struggles against Symantec Endpoint Protection.

There has to be some way of preventing this.
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Preparing for Hurricane Irene

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It appears likely that Hurricane Irene may make a direct hit on the New York metropolitan area over the upcoming weekend.  The latest reports suggest that it will arrive very late on Saturday and continue all day Sunday.  I want you to know that Heliotropic Systems is actively monitoring the forecasts and taking several steps to assist our clients in the event of any impact.

Please review the following list of 8 recommendations and share it with the appropriate members of your company.  Obviously, I hope that no one will suffer any impact, personally or professionally, from this storm.  One of my favorite sayings is “Better to have a plan and not need it, than need a plan and not have it.”  I hope that the simple step of reading this blog posting and taking these recommendations seriously, will help you weather the storm (yes, the pun is intended) without issue.
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Sometimes Remote Technical Support Is Not Enough

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I just came back from a very, very, short client visit – and I feel bad about it.  Not because I couldn’t solve the problem that he called about (I did).  I feel bad because I could not arrange to get to see him for more than a day and a half, and the problem identification and resolution took less than one minute.  To make matters worse, he had spent most of the day waiting for a Time Warner Cable technician to come to fix the problem with his modem, after having spent almost one hour on the phone with their technical support the day before.  The issue he was experiencing:  no Internet connectivity.

My client called me on Tuesday, right after the July 4th holiday weekend, and said that he could not connect to the Internet.  He’s a businessperson who works out of his home office, and I know that getting his email and the attached documents is extremely important to him.  He told me that he thought the problem started sometime on Sunday evening, but that he waited until after the holiday to call me.

He said that the lights on the modem were not all lit, and asked if that could be the problem.  I told him that it sounded like a bad modem.  I also explained that I was booked with appointments for the entire day, but that if he had the patience, he should call Time Warner Cable to see if the problem was on their end.  He was willing to do that.

During a brief follow-up phone call later in the day, he told me that he spent almost an hour on the phone with a support representative, who after exhausting her script, told him that she would dispatch a technician the following day.  Good for him, right?  No, not really – the appointment could not be narrowed down to anything other than between 9 am and 7 pm.  My client was going to be a captive in his office with nothing to do but wait.

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Preventative maintenance is the key to a healthy computer system

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In the March/April 2011 issue of the AAA North Jersey Traveler magazine, author Jim Grey wrote an article entitled, “Preventative maintenance helps the life of your vehicle.”  While I won’t reprint the article in its entirety, I do want to highlight a few of the statements he uses to describe how to take care of your car, and apply them to the care of your computer network.

“Consumers may think it’s the luck of the draw when a car reaches 200,000 miles and another bites the dust at 100,000, [while] it really comes down to preventative maintenance.

Scheduling regular trips to your mechanic can mean the difference in tens of thousands of miles in your car’s life.”

Well, most small business owners know that their computer networks can last anywhere from two years to ten.  But very few of them contact a technician to take care of them until something breaks.  Most people don’t know (and even fewer even care) about the common maintenance techniques necessary to keep their computer networks running properly.
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Can’t print a PDF file? Join the club!

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I received a frantic call from a client just the other day.  He had just returned from a trip and had not used his computer in three weeks.  He told me he was able to print out the contents of an email, but when he tried to print the attached PDF file, nothing happened.

I went to see this for myself, because I could not understand what was wrong.  Sure enough, nothing happened when I tried to print the PDF file; not a flicker, not an hourglass, and nothing in the print queue.

I approached diagnosing the problem in a logical manner.  I restarted the printers (there were two – and neither one worked), rebooted the computer, and tried to print the PDF file.  Still nothing.
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Larry on Laptops

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One of my favorite “guilty pleasures” is to turn on the HGTV network on a Sunday evening, and watch Mike Holmes renovate a house.  For those who don’t know who he is, let me explain.  Mike is a professional contractor, based in Canada, who demands that others in the building trade live up to their word.  He often appears at a lovely house where the homeowners describe some kind of problem that they have experienced with their builder, contractor, or building inspector.  Mike investigates the problem, turns up more horrors than the owners had imagined, and then – with a large, very skilled, crew – proceeds to demolish things and fix them up better than new.

I revel in this kind of reality television because it resonates with me.  In my job, people often call upon me to fix some kind of computer mess.  For me, there are two kinds:  home computer users and small businesses.

When I work with home computer users, it is often a matter of asking a few questions, and then working through a series of decision boxes.  Does the computer have this or that software, problem, or malware?  Does the computer respond when this setting is used or not?  Has this selection been checked in the program properties or not?  It gets to be repetitive sometimes, but there is a basic flow and I can resolve most problems in about an hour.  It takes me longer to clean up malware because I use three different system scans.

On the other hand, small businesses present a greater challenge for me because more of them resemble “Holmes on Homes” situations.  At this point, the reality show becomes “Larry on Laptops.”

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