AB1 Computers are based in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Aberdeen Computer Help We specialise in offering a mobile repair service, resolving your Computer or Laptop problems in your own home or premises. We offer a friendly personal service and guarantee to have you sorted in no time. We cover Aberdeen, Ellon, Inverurie & Stonehaven area.
Tel: 07809571893
Another day another job. This time it was quite interesting! A fellow who has a holiday home in Aberdeen (yes I know, a holiday home in Aberdeen!) called me up. He lives in Asia and misses all the great things UK TV has to offer. I don't blame him, I've been to Spain on holiday a few times and the T.V. choice is poor, I won't even mention what the US channels are like!
Well he purchased a slingbox. It's a device that you hook up to your sky TV /DVD/Freeview. The other end of the slingbox goes to your broadband router. What the box does is pull the TV source (sky in his case) convert it into a digital form that can be sent around a home network or the Internet.
I've heard about these devices before but this was the first time I have seen one. At first I thought, what's the point? Then it clicked, you can access TV from anywhere, as long as you have an Internet connection.
Anyway the customer is happy, I managed to configure the slingbox so that it can broadcast outside the home network. This allows him to fire up the sling player on his laptop in Asia and watch AND control his sky box in Aberdeen.
He almost had it set up by himself the only thing he got stuck on was port forwarding on the router, this ain't simple and took me a good couple of months to fully understand. I use port forwarding all the time for remote access into computers but the slingbox also requires it.
So I'm fully qualified in setting up slingbox's. If you've got one (they are currently only £60 from expansys.com) and are having "issues" let me know.
I'm thinking of buying one for myself now and giving my brother and father access to it as they live in the states. Best of all it has an inbuilt freeview tuner so I cvould just hook up to my router and leave them to use it. Nice Christmas present for them :)
I've been round at a few of houses doing a couple of computer repairs in Aberdeen. Most broadband users don't notice that much difference in speed however the 2 houses I've visited have had really slow connections to the Internet.
I tested thier computers to make sure that there were no large downloads at the time. All clear. Next I tested thier connection speed which can be easily done here
Most users should get at least 2000kbps download with it downloads in Aberdeen topping out at 7000kbps, if you can reach above 5000kbps then you should be happy as that is a 5mb connection to the internet which can handle even the biggest type of downloads.
However if you have an upto 8mb service and are getting below 1000kbps then things are not right. Either on your system or with your ISP, and you should not be paying for an 8mb service (which most people are on) if you are getting under 1000kbps.
I have a list of things that can speed up any connection. If you require a speed upgrade service on your broadband then get in touch. I'm currently offering a MOT for your broadband for £40.
I've been getting a lot of calls from folk in Aberdeen and the shire. "Help" I have a virus. Anti virus 2009 pop ups and the like. It's a nasty marketing software product that takes control of your computer and tries to sell you anti virus software. It also slows down your machine and at a guess installs a key logger so knows everything your typing. Not good if you do online banking.
How to remove anti virus 2009 ?
Well there is no easy way. Do a search on google and there are plenty of tutorials and other software makers that will try and make you part with cash if you buy their anti virus software! The tutorials may work but are a lengthy process 3-4 hours worth of scanning and the nasty still might be on there.
My best advice is to give me a call if your in Aberdeen. The removal takes around 2 hours. If you are not in Aberdeen get a quote from someone that can:
A) back up your data (pictures, music, documents, videos, itunes) B) re install windows with the correct license applied C) re install all drivers on your system D) restore the data backup
essentially your PC will get taken back to the factory default settings with a clean copy of Windows. The only disadvantage to this process is that you must have the original software CDs for programs you use (games, programs, office, word, excel) If you don't then you'll have to download them again or source alternatives which I can also help with ;)
It is still thought to be a black art, build your own website. However it is really easy. I've got a friend in Aberdeen he is a video production editor and is always looking for extra work. When he films his own stuff for production he always goes under the name of Day of the Dog Productions. I suggested to him that he should have his own website to promote his interests and business. A great tool for networking. He just looked at me and asked how much it would cost. "Around a fiver", I told him. Like the true Aberdonain that he is this sounded about the correct amount to invest on a website.
1) Buy a domain name
Goto 123reg and search for the domain name you'd like. Most .co.uk domains are about £5 for two years.
Once you've chosen the domain add it to your shopping cart, make sure to remove any unwanted domains that they have suggested. Then click buy and create an account.
2) Use Bebo/Myspace/Facebook/Blogger/Youtube to create your homepage.
My friend was promoting video production in Aberdeen so it made sense to use his profile homepage on Youtube as his Website front page. It is not finished yet but there are lots of options on all the Web 2.0 services (youtube/bebo etc) to customise your homepage to a certain look and feel. All that is left then is to add content to the page on the item/product/service your promoting.
3) Redirect your new domain name to your page.
Log into the control panel on the 123reg website with your new username/password. Scroll down to "manage domains".
Choose your new domain and click modify domain. Then click web forwarding. You want to choose framed web forwarding (2nd option). Scroll down to the bottom of the page and edit the following fields.
Meta tag Author: put your name or company name here.
Meta tag Keywords (separate with commas): put keywords that people would type into google to find you. For example Aberdeen Computer Repair, Computer Man in Aberdeen this is what I use for this website amongst others.
Meta tag description: put in a relevant description for your site here.
Then click the update web forwarding button.
That's it!!!
The possibilities are endless. I am planning on doing something similar with photography using facebook. What is great about this type of website is if you have satisfied customers they can add you as friends on their bebo/facebook pages which will give you a positive feedback loop.
Of course this is not going to look 100% professional but how many websites do look professional? Quite a lot but they've spent £100's if not £1000's and if they've spent £10,000's you'll probably not be hanging around thier too long as it is so corporate. Start small with something I've suggested above then get a professional website created by a professional.
Error code 41 usb not working. The drivers were loaded but the device was not found.
Read on if you want to know the fix :)
I just got a system in with this error. None of the USB ports were working. I had a look in the event viewer and saw bad blocks on the hard drive, so cloned the drive onto another drive that was fine. I thought the bad blocks might be corrupting the relevant USB drivers. However that did not fix!
Then I checked the BIOS to make sure that USB was enabled, it was. Still no idea! I then went and purchased a USB PCI card and put it in the system. That did not work either!
Last ditch attempt, I did a repair install of Windows, guess what, that did not work either!
Google saves the day. Turns out that antivirus Kaspersky was installed on this system and then removed. There is some sort of bug when it is removed and messes with the registery. Managed to find a link to a reg file that seems to do the trick here is the link to the relevant thread on the Kaspersky forums.
If you are trying to store a lot of cables neatly go down to your local b&q and get garden wire. it's the same stuff as the black wire you get that is tied around new cables but is green. Works a treat !
Managed to set up 10 laptops for BP in Aberdeen. And network them in a record time of 20 mins! Thst was the easy part. Now have to support the 10 high paid oil executives that will be using them. Where is that on button? :)
If you are like me then you want the fastest connection to the internet possible. I recently moved from a cottage south of Udny back into Aberdeen. With this brought a speed boost on my broadband. Out at the cottage if it rained my broadband would slow down. If it snowed the broadband would switch off! My maximum speed was 512k when I was on broadband max (upto 8megs) my speed was 256k, I had to get BT to put me on a fixed line. Quite a good tip if you live very far out from you local BT exchange.
Anyway back in Aberdeen now and about half a mile from the nearest BT exchange, which is the Denburn exchange. I'm getting 6mb connection now. This is set to increase to 12mb in November. You can check when your broadband is set to increase by using the ADSL2 checker.
Half of Aberdeen is set for this speed increase between 19/11/2008 and 18/02/2009. However as with anything computer related and that's new. An upgrade may be required in the form of an ADSL2+ modem router.
If you've had broadband for a few years now more than likely your router will only work with the ADSL 1 standard. I won't get into the technical details on the standard but you'll need a ADSL2+ modem to make full use of the new features BT will be implementing at the exchange.
If you are in the Aberdeen area and require an upgrade check my website out. You can contact me for advise and upgrade options for ADSL2 in Aberdeen.
There is a great tool called backtrack. It is a LiveCD, which basically means it's an operating system that can be booted from a CD.
Anyway the CD lets you boot into a distribution of Linux that has many tools for "hacking" or "cracking" computer systems.
I use the tool mainly at work to penetration test my systems. I currently support around 600 users here in Aberdeen and across the north-east of Scotland. The system we use runs at our head office and all computers connect to it to run applications and access files. With such a reliance on having all the systems in one place things have to be secure.
I mainly use backtrack to gain access to my companies wireless networks. There have been cases of some Polish guys sitting outside our offices in Elgin and tapping into our wireless network for free broadband. If they really wanted to mess with us though and knew what they were doing they'd highjack client connections. Meaning that all data our staff are accessing goes through their laptop first. This is also known as a man in the middle attack.
Apart from this type of wireless network thing I also warn customers of the security risk they have. I was in a customer’s house a few weeks back fixing her wireless connection. A big granite 3 story house in the Cornhill area. The wifi signal did not have a chance. I recommended the network homeplugs. However I also secured her wireless. You see the BT Home hubs which many people have are secured using a standard called WEP encryption. Which takes around 3 minutes to break into using a backtrack CD and the correct hardware.
I plan to help my neighbours out as well as there are a few BT Home hubs in the area. Lucky I'm an honest kind of guy and don't go around stealing people’s broadband or worse man in the middle attacks. Booking a holiday online? They might take your credit card details.
Over the next few weeks I'll be blogging about backtrack with some in-depth tutorials for cracking wireless networks. Then it's off to starbucks to crack to bluetooth headsets.
I sell quite a few Dell laptops to people in and around Aberdeen. When you go to PC w0rld or any other local computer shop and buy a new system you'll find it comes pre-loaded with the new Windows Vista OS (operating system).
However this really kills the performance on a brand new laptop or desktop machine. My advice to all my customers is to "Upgrade to XP". I offer this service as part of my sale when a new system is purchased at AB1 Computers.
There are many reasons that Vista is good but there are also many reasons why XP is still king. Vista is an embarrassment for Microsoft and it's not the first time the software giant has offered a poor OS. Back in 1999 I believe Microsoft released Windows ME which was also a poor excuse for a new operating system. Built around Windows 98 core it had few improvements, just a some what glossy image. Sound familiar?
My own choice was Windows 98 and Windows 2000 at the time. However Windows 2000 was brand new and few software vendors supported desktop user applications. I had to learn the hard way!
Now there is a similar situation with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. I've opted to try Windows Server 2008 as my new "power user" workstation OS. However I'm already learning from my mistakes.
I installed it on my system last night with somewhat ease. The new 8gigs of RAM in my system are now being seen and the quad core CPU I picked up from the U.S. on the cheap is doing the trick. However I have no Internet access. It turns out that very few wireless (wifi) cards are supported in the new Server 2008. This is mainly due to it being built around the Vista x64 core and all drivers have to be signed from Microsoft. This means that any hardware makers have to approach MS for driver signing prior to the hardware being compatible with Server 2008.
Anyways it looks like I'll be under my house at some point hard wiring a connection to my modem ! As I've said before, it's not a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.
I'm currently sat in SHMU (station house media unit) radio here in Aberdeen. It's 11.35 and I'm tierd but I told my buddies that I'd come on thier show with my brother.
My friends Richard and John have a show called film frenzie. It's on at Thursday at 3pm and Also Monday night at 12.
Have a listen if your bored :) The website is SHMU
Never buy from pc world this one blue screens the fault lies with a cheap motherboard.
I preformed a debug on a mini memory dump. This throws up lots of info. The main bit being there is an error in the HD Audio Bus driver. As it's mass produced it can't be the driver so it must be the hardware. A new motherboard is needed.
