Today I’m helping out at a school in AberfoylePark with various issues that have arisen after a new video conferencing system has been installed allowing teachers to conduct lessons to other schools across Australia. With any technology that pushes the boundaries, there will always be teething issues and this setup is certainly not without a few technical hurdles to overcome. Overall the system works really well and allows teachers to use their skills in a much wider capacity. The latest setup consists of small form factor thinkcentre PC’s connected to a logitech echo cancelling conferencing webcam/ microphone as well as an additional BOSE sound bar to give the audio some extra oomph. The PC is also connected to two 65″ wall mounted LED screens to allow for a remote view of the classroom as well as media sharing for the content the teacher is currently teaching from. It’s a really cool setup that does a brilliant job and is a great example of using the latest technology to further education across Australia. 

 

Mark JANSEN 

DIGITAL INSITE  

Adelaide Computers + On-site Support 

Mobile : 0404 110 526 

Office : (08) 8387 9023 

A customer contacted me asking the question whether they should simply replace a very slow and very cheap (under $500) HP desktop they had bought a few years back for basic home use. I gave them pricing on a new system but also said I could take a look and let them know if their PC would accept a high speed SSD to replace the very slow standard mechanical hard disk. I explained to them that very often the biggest contributing factor to the speed of a computer (or lack thereof) is quite commonly the hard disk – so replacing an old mechanical hard disk for an SSD is a great way to turn an old clunker into a decently fast computer. I tell my customers to expect around 5 times the speed from their computer after an SSD upgrade and in some cases it can be even more than that. He decided to go ahead with the upgrade so I cloned his slow mechanical hard disk to the high speed SSD and made the necessary changes to Windows to make it work. In the end his PC is now easily 5 times faster at booting up, program use and shutting down and every single setting and piece of data (documents, pictures, files etc) are all exactly as they were thanks to the beauty of how the cloning process works. He now has a good, fast computer for well under half the price of a new one!

 

Mark JANSEN 

DIGITAL INSITE  

Adelaide Computers + On-site Support 

Mobile : 0404 110 526 

Office : (08) 8387 9023 

A business customer of mine who now mainly works from home contacted me with a few issues on his home PC that were preventing him from getting his work done. As this type of setup (remotely working from home) is becoming more and more common, it’s very important that everything as far as your home computer is working as it should to help you get done what you need to do. He was having some issues upgrading to the latest 2018 version of MYOB which I was able to to resolve for him on both his PC and Microsoft Surface Pro as well as some odd printing and scanning issues. I tested the scanner / printer and was able to work out that the settings had been changed to look for a networked scanner / printer instead of a simple locally connected USB variety. After supplying him an inexpensive USB printer cable and then connecting the PC direct to the scanner / printer he was up and running and working 100% of the time rather than the hit and miss issues he was having previously. I was able able to easily network the PC’s printer and scanner connection to his Surface Pro which made everything work seamlessly. 

 

Mark JANSEN 

DIGITAL INSITE  

Adelaide Computers + On-site Support 

Mobile : 0404 110 526 

Office : (08) 8387 9023 

A man from Marion contacted me saying his laptop was running very slow and would occasionally crash and shutdown. He also mentioned that the laptop was very noisy and seemed to be blowing out a lot of hot air. I had a look at the laptop and started by doing a tuneup on it top disable any unwanted startupprograms. In it’s present state, the CPU usage was around 90% or above at all times as well as a the hard disk usage peaking at 100% for extended periods of time. I then ran a malware scan and found and removed around 6 different malware programs that were definitely contributing to the slow performance issues he was having. His antivirus had expired so I removed that and replaced it for a good, reliable, lightweight one and also instructed him on how to scan and remove malware in the future. After the tuneup, his laptop now running much cooler, faster and was no longer shutting down during normal use with the CPU usage at around 30% average and hard disk usage down to 20%. Sometimes all you need is a good tuneup to get it back up and running again!

 

Mark JANSEN 

DIGITAL INSITE  

Adelaide Computers + On-site Support 

Mobile : 0404 110 526 

Office : (08) 8387 9023 

A lawyer from Christies Beach contacted me saying they needed some help with a security checkup on their network and all computers in their business. As a business with a lot of sensitive and confidential information it was really important to have the security of their network all up to date and not an easy target for someone to compromise. After changing all the settings required and updating them to some more reliable software they were back in action and much safer than before. 

 

Mark JANSEN 

DIGITAL INSITE  

Adelaide Computers + On-site Support 

Mobile : 0404 110 526 

Office : (08) 8387 9023