Author Archives: quill

Q. I have a small drive, can iPhoto & iTunes go on an external?

Posted on July 21, 2012 by quill

While the programs themselves should remain in the Applications folder of your internal startup drive, the Libraries for iTunes and iPhoto can be placed on an external hard drive to save space on the internal drive.  Keep in mind that … Continue reading →

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Q. Is a Quad Core processor better than a Dual Core?

Posted on July 20, 2012 by quill

While the answer might be obvious, it is not as straightforward as “more cores are better”. First of all, we need to be on the same page when comparing CPU (Central Processing Unit) technologies. There are big differences in computing … Continue reading →

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Q. What do I need to burn DVDs and CDs?

Posted on July 20, 2012 by quill

DVD-Rs are a good format for backing up data files and for distributing data and software. Because files on a DVD-R cannot be changed once burned (and therefore cannot be deleted or affected by viruses or hard drive breakdown) I … Continue reading →

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Q. Are there free alternatives to Photoshop?

Posted on July 19, 2012 by quill

Photoshop is the top professional image editing / photo retouching program, but it is expensive.  There are some cheap and free alternatives available: Adobe Photoshop Express (online image editing, requires sign up at Adobe’s site) http://www.photoshop.com/tools/overview The GIMP is open source … Continue reading →

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Add an SSD drive to a MacPro for fast booting and loading times

Posted on July 12, 2012 by quill

The MacPro Xeon tower machines are incredibly fast workstations. You can make yours even faster by adding a Solid State Drive (SSD) as a boot drive and/or as a scratch file drive.  An SSD equipped machine boots very quickly and … Continue reading →

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Western Digital sees Red, releases new line of NAS storage hard drives

Posted on July 12, 2012 by quill

Western Digital has made an addition to their drive line up, adding a Red series of 3.5″ SATA hard drives to complement their Blue (standard), Green (low power consumption) and Black (high performance) series. At the same time, they are … Continue reading →

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New Java based Trojan attacks Mac, Windows and Linux

Posted on July 11, 2012 by quill

Updated August 27 2012 Computerworld has published an article about new Java based malware which can infect Mac, Windows and Linux machines through a vulnerability in Oracle’s Java 7. OSX 10.7 and OSX 10.8 come with Java disabled by default, … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Mac questions, Security, Viruses and malware, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Q. On July 9th, my machine stopped finding websites. What’s wrong?

Posted on July 7, 2012 by quill

There was a nasty piece of malware a couple of years ago called DNSChanger, which redirected your web browser to advertising sites instead of where you wanted to go. It did this by changing the DNS Server defaults of your … Continue reading →

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Q. What does it mean when a video card is bottlenecked by a CPU?

Posted on July 7, 2012 by quill

Short answer – it doesn’t mean anything.  Read on for the longer answer: What is bottlenecking? The concept of bottlenecking is that a program will only run as fast as the slowest component that it uses in the computer. When … Continue reading →

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Q. My documents are gone on my Mac and the Dock is back to default?

Posted on July 4, 2012 by quill

Just about every time that we have customers call saying that their documents, settings and Desktop on a Mac have disappeared and gone back to the Apple default, there is one cause: The user has renamed their User folder in … Continue reading →

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Q. Can I use USB2.0 peripherals on a USB3.0 port?

Posted on June 30, 2012 by quill

Yes, USB 3.0 has been designed to be backwards compatible with, and the USB 3.0 A type connectors (computer) and B type connectors (peripheral) are plug compatible with USB2.0 A type and B type cable ends. The USB 2.0 A … Continue reading →

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Q. How do I upgrade the hard drive in a Windows laptop?

Posted on June 30, 2012 by quill

Most modern notebook machines have hard drives that can be replaced with a larger, faster 2.5″ SATA hard drive or upgraded to a 2.5″ SATA Solid State (SSD) flash drive. Older notebooks may have 2.5″ IDE (Parallel ATA) hard drives, they can still … Continue reading →

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Q. What is my router’s address?

Posted on June 29, 2012 by quill

There are two addresses associated with a router, there is the external WAN (Wide Area Network) address that it  gets from the broadband modem, which is what webservers and the outside Net sees. To find your WAN IP address, you … Continue reading →

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Q. Can I replace the drive in my 2012 or earlier MacBook / MacBook Pro?

Posted on June 27, 2012 by quill

The MacBook and MacBook Pro Mid 2012 and earlier models (excluding all MacBook Airs and the Late 2012 and later Retina MacBook Pro) have hard drives that can be replaced with a larger, faster 2.5″ SATA hard drive or upgraded … Continue reading →

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Q. I can only get one machine to work on the Internet through my DSL modem?

Posted on June 26, 2012 by quill

A broadband account, whether it is a DSL modem or a Cable modem, usually only gives you one IP address, so only one machine can go on the internet. The answer is to get a router.  A router takes the … Continue reading →

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