Mobile Computer Wizard, San Diego Computer Repair

Handbreak is a wonderful conversion utility, but many folks complain that it overheats the CPU then the PC shuts down.  I had a client in San Diego experiencing this computer problem too.  The repair was to use http://bitsum.com/index.php  Process Lasso can limit the CPU usage.  In my experience I tried to limit the CPU usage, but the only way I could do that was to use half of my threads.  Handbreak runs the CPU at 99% which will end badly.  I found that running about 25% of the CPU cores was the answer.  Conversion times barely increase but the CPU temps would stay in a manageable range as teh CPU usage would stay at or below 50%.

I hope others find this post about handbreak overheating CPU max usage thermal shutdown.  Search for those!

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

Spam on web hosts in San Diego such as roadrunner email can be a nightmare.  The built in junk mail is average at best.  Use gmail to filter messages then ultimately switch out of RR altogether.

1. Set up a free gmail account.
2. Check your existing POP account with Gmail under 'accounts' in the settings.
3. Tell it to go to a particular label, create one before or use the email address it automatically makes.
4. You can also send and receive your old account thru the gmail website.  You can also have your email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird check your email for you via gmail settings. Continue to send with your old account if you like.

This is a great way to switch to gmail.

See attached , the RED is the POP account it's checking,  All of these messages were delivered to the person's old regular Roadrunner account.  Gmail's Spam caught them!


Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215...

A Rancho Santa Fe client was in the process up updating their computers and we came across an iMac (the big CRT monitor style ones!) that still functioned pretty well. I booted it up and scooted around OS 9.2 looking at its inner workings. I looked to see what web browser it used, how much RAM it had, what applications were included with that OS. I then thought it would be really cool to run some retro software in its native environment. Wait... OS 9.2 doesn't support flash drives or modern web browsers! I decided that I needed to figure out what my options were. A buddy of mine, also a technician, recommended I look up what OS options I had via The Ultimate Mac Lookup.

Using the model number on the underside of the system I saw all sorts of helpful info:
-When that model was introduced.
-How much RAM it typically shipped with.-How large the Hard Drive was it typically had. -How fast the CPU...

If you attempt to drag and drop an mp3 into Live, it should automatically convert into the Live friendly wav or aiff formats.  If it throws an error converting that says "Unable to convert (file).  The file may be corrupt or unlicensed", just update QuickTime to resolve the issue.

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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer WizardSan Diego Computer Repair
619 255-1215 Office

Computer repair in the San Diego area has consisted of many virus removals recently.  Occasionally, we run across virus infections that have corrupted a profile before we arrive.  If it's the only profile on that system, getting Windows to a point where you can begin to remove the infection is the first step.  Rather than running live CD antiviruses in an attempt to fix the profile, I've found that enabling the hidden admin account and running the normal battery of scans in that profile yields better results.  The command to show the admin account is  ' Net user administrator /active:yes '.  This can be run in the Windows Startup Repair command prompt if necessary (usually is).  To hide the account when you are finished, the command is '  Net user administrator /active:no '.

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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
858 876 2278 Mobile

Computer Repair in San Diego is always a challenge and Apple is making
it interesting. Apple's requirements for iCloud are simple, it your
stuff is older that 2007, throw it away! Windows XP and any Microsoft
Office older than 2007 is not supported. Here's a few bullets:
- icloud for XP IS hackable and will work with new versions of Outlook.
- - Photostream will NOT work on XP

Outlook 2003 or older will not work, period. Please correct me if you
find different.

iTunes 10.5 is required for any iOS 5 device. Outlook 2003 or older,
sorry! If you have older Outlook, and if your iOS device is running
4.x, you can still use iTunes 10.4 and older Outlook.

Keep the money machine going Apple!

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
San Diego Computer Repair

It seems that Windows 8 is poised for release in fall of this year or early 2013.  Some of it's key features include: 
1.  A cold boot/hibernation hybrid that results in extremely fast boot times.  The boot screen has been removed.  Video 2.  An install process with 82% fewer clicks than Windows 7.3.  The ability to 'clean install' without the need to back up data first.4.  Simplified Task Manager (I'm skeptical).  Screenshots 5.  Native USB 3.0 support.
I'm not sure if the new 'clean install' will have the option to keep specified programs intact, but there have been rumors of it.  Either way, it will certainly increase the number of computer repairs that can be done in the field.
-- Brett Kline
Mobile Computer WizardSan Diego
619 225 1215 Office

Apple's iCloud is designed for Vista/7 only.  However, a nice lady in San Diego needed it installed on her computer so she could use it to sync her contacts and calendar with her iphone.  Doing the XP hack for icloud is very easy and takes about 15 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR6JYM2wae8

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
San Diego Computer Repair

I recently did a data backup on a laptop that required a reinstall of Windows.  The first transfer to my tech machine threw about 80 errors in Directory Sync, but none of them were pointed at user/application data/local/microsoft/windows live mail.  After transfering the data back to his laptop (0 Directory Sync errors on this transfer), I attempted to import his Live Mail and noticed that while all the folders were there, they were empty.  I immediately checked the data backup on my tech machine and all the mail was there.  In short, Directory Sync might not tell you when it fails to copy something.  Double check your backups!

Mail PassView will pull the e-mail and password from your current install of Outlook (all versions), Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Incredimail, Eudora, and Thunderbird.  However, only Eudora, Incredimail, and Thunderbird data can be pulled externally (with the hard drive connected to a tech machine).  Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail data can only be pulled internally so if the machine won't boot into Windows, you're out of luck.
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
San Diego Computer Repair
858 876 2278 Mobile

Yesterday, I had a virus removal in the San Diego area and came across an infection that I had never seen.  Combofix, Malwarebyte's, Hitman, and TDSS Killer failed to detect this virus, but Microsoft SecEss would pick it up with quick scans or idle time scans.  Unfortunately, MSE fails to remove this infection, so I checked the file path (C:/Windows/assembly/temp/kwrd.dll) and navigated to it.  Not there.  Show hidden folders and files.  Not there.  After consulting the almighty google, I found this fix.
Open a command prompt and enter these commands:1.  cd c:/windows/assembly2.  attrib -r -h -s desktop.ini3.  ren desktop.ini desktop.bak
Voila!  You can now see kwrd.dll and delete it.  Reboot system and quick scan with MSE to confirm removal if necessary. --
Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
858 876 2278 Mobile

People in San Diego call us all the time with computer problems resolvable via the internet and our remote support software.  I just got off the phone with a guy in Encinitas (North San Diego) who had an Outlook email problem.  Outlook wouldn't launch!  Turns out it was related to an antivirus issue and the quick fix was to reset his Outlook.xml file.  I simple renamed it and Outlook launched.  This type of fix hold true for many database driven programs, like Quickbooks also.  Go into the App Data folders and rename some of these small auxiliary files by changing their file name.  Additionally helpful was that the client knew it happened at 7:30 this morning and I was able to match that time to the Outlook.xml file.  If you are wrong, just change it back!

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
Best Computer Repair San Diego

iOS5 for iPhone and iPad work pretty well, but it's new and there's a few quirks.  People in the San Diego area have been asking for help more and more for help in getting their PC, MAC, Android and iPhone's synced up.  A few fun things to note are that yes, PC's support iCloud, but you must have at least Vista or Windows 7.  A few google search's reveal that XP can be hacked to run the iCloud control panel.  I will say too that iCloud syncs a lot, but maybe not as much as the commercial says, and maybe not as free!

http://xlii.be/2011/10/how-to-get-icloud-windows-xp-and-outlook-to-work-together/

Another quirk is how the iPad and iPhone deal with IMAP folders.  Specifically, the sent and deleted items, Trash vs. Deleted Messages and Sent Items vs Sent Messages.  It's a bit frustrating, but if you pay attention to the details, you can get them all synced up and happy. ...

I recently helped a colleague of mine, who also does computer repair in the San Diego area, diagnose a data transfer issue.  When he would attempt to copy a client's user profile from his internal HD (which had been pulled) to an external HD.  Near the beginning of the transfer, Windows would throw an error saying that a file was protected with permissions and cancel the rest of the transfer.  I determined that the HD had some bad blocks, which Windows was interpreting as a permissions issue when it would fail to grab that file.  Luckily, the data located on the failing block was unimportant, we just had wasted some time and gas.  To avoid that problem in the future I recommended that he do data transfers with Directory Sync.  It...syncs directories, but when it encounters a file that it can't copy, it will skip it and add it to a log file so at the end of the transfer, you can see what failed to copy.  It's a great way to avoid a copy+paste process of elimination when something fails to...

In the computer repair business, we frequently encounter situations where a Microsoft product needs to be reinstalled on a client's computer but they cannot locate their product key or the product key has been worn down to unreadable.  Produkey will pull the product keys for Office (XP, 2003, 2007), Windows (all versions), Exchange Server and SQL Server from you current OS.  However, if the system is still running the factory OS install, then chances are that the key that it pulls is a volume license from the manufacturer and will not work for activation.
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer WizardSan Diego
619 255-1215 Office

We recently had a high end gaming PC in our shop and naturally Windows found no drivers after a clean install. Most of the hardware labels were obscured by other hardware so our only chance to identify the hardware was from Device Manager in Windows. Sounds like a technician's worst nightmare, but thanks to pcidatabase.com , we were able to look up the PCI ID number to find the make, model, and manufacturer of the hardware.   The first step is to know where to find...

Unfortunately, XP does not offer the "delete driver files" check box option when uninstalling a driver like Vista and 7 do.  Occasionally, when the wrong sound driver is installed, it has to be manually removed in order to get the correct driver to install.  This is how you do it.
First, make sure explorer is displaying hidden folders and files by opening any folder and then Tools -> Folder Options... -> View tab -> check "Show hidden files and folders" -> Apply -> Ok
Second, navigate to C:\WINDOWS\inf, then View -> Details and sort by name.  Scroll down to where you see oem0.inf followed by oem0.pnf then oem1.inf, oem1.pnf and so on.  You will want to open each individual inf to locate which ones are for the sound drivers.  Each inf will have some text commented out at the top.  The top of the sound driver inf will usually look something like this:
//// INF file for installing Realtek High Definition Audio Driver//
When you find what...

For years this has been a nuisance for gmail users who rely on POP to get their messages on multiple devices.  Google finally repaired this with this fix.  I had a few clients in San Diego that loved this repair to their computer problem.  I had to apply this fix for a mobile user with an iPhone.  Side note: Have fun trying to type a colon on an iPhone.  You can't from within the email configuration.  You must type a colon in a blank email, and then copy and paste the colon into the email configuration.  Thanks Apple!

Using POP on multiple clients or mobile devices What is 'recent mode?' If you're accessing Gmail on multiple clients through POP, Gmail's 'recent mode' makes sure that all messages are made available to each client, rather than only to the first client to access new mail. Recent mode fetches the last 30 days of mail, regardless of whether it's been sent to another POP1 client already. Setting up 'recent mode' In your POP client settings, replace ' ...

Here's a strange one... a La Jolla client of mine called because he was having trouble with his Google Calendar Sync and Outlook. He uses Google Calendar Sync to sync his Outlook Calendar to a Google Web Calendar which he then syncs to his Blackberry. He wasn't sure when it started happening, but at some point Outlook started asking him to "Choose Profile", meaning it wanted to know which Outlook Profile to open to sync. Problem is, he only has ONE Outlook profile and hadn't ever even set up a 2nd one. And that "Choose Profile" prompt pops up every time Google Calendar Sync tries to sync (which could be an awful lot, depending on how you set it up).
After lots of troubleshooting and research (and trust me... I threw the book at this thing), I did find a fix. And so have many others. In the strangest place. It doesn't quite make sense to me but it absolutely DOES work. All you have to do is... wait for it... wait for it... INSTALL MOBILE ME! From Apple. Don't need to sign up for an...

This program will display all of your stored user names and passwords for Internet Explorer (Versions 4.0 - 9.0), Firefox (all versions), Chrome, Opera, and Safari.  It shows the login URL, the web browser that is storing the credentials, user name, and password.  It's a helpful tool to have in the San Diego computer repair business.
Download
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

As far as free antiviruses are concerned, Microsoft Security Essentials is considered one of the better products among IT professionals.  This app functions as a normal screensaver and will initialize during idle time, starting a virus scan while the system has the spare resources.  It supports all operating systems, including Windows 7 x64, although it is still technically in beta.  Mobile Computer Wizard has been recommending Microsoft Security Essentials in the San Diego area to protect against future virus infections.
Download
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Brett Kline
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

Lately, more and more computer users in the San Diego area have been asking me to either backup, transfer or restore their Chrome bookmarks.  They are buried in this location.

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

Also, something to mention is that when you configure many backup programs such as Mozy, this location is overlooked during backup.  Another one item missing is the Firefox bookmarks.  They are located in a folder location similar to this.

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\llb7tn62.default\bookmarkbackups.

I have had the best luck with the JSON file in Firefox for moving bookmarks to and from a laptop computer.

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office
Best computer repair in San Diego

Thailand exports nearly 40% of the world's market of hard drives, providing hard drive parts to the largest manufacturers in the game. In the last week, we have seen a 45% increase in price to consumer level hard drives and the prices are still rising. Some fabrication plants are under water and 1,000 facilities have been forced to stop production all together. As we enter the holiday purchasing season, computer and laptop prices will surely increase for PC and Apple consumers. 

According to most production facilities, we should not see market recovery until March 2012.
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-Greg
Mobile Computer Wizard Office: 619-255-1215

We just brought on Brett Kline to the team.  His skills and knowledge especially in computer hardware will be a great asset to our San Diego mobile computer repair team!

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

An odd quirk with a client in north San Diego in that his PC would hang when trying to access the Microsoft 2007 ribbon in excel.  Not sure why exactly other than it is directly related to the Windows 7 preview pane.

Excel freezes - solved, related to preview pane, turned off preview pane and told all windows to remember not to use the preview pane and solved the problem! Computer repair done!

Kurt Rein
www.MobileComputerWizard.com
619 255-1215 Office

Pretty nasty virus going around... once removed, your icons, folders are hidden. DON'T USE COMBOFIX OR CCLEANER UNTIL YOU COMPLETE THE STEPS BELOW. They clean temp files, and that's what you don't want. Use Hitman Pro and Malwarebytes.   Start in Safe Mode and try to log in as the built-in Administrator for best results.   AFTER you remove the virus w/ Hitman and MBAM, do the following: Use Grinler's Unhide.exe to fix the hidden folders. http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/grinler/unhide.exe   After that, your start menu is still virtually worthless. All the shortcuts are gone. The malware does not delete the shortcuts, instead it moves the icons into a temp folder under the user that got the virus. The location is:
Windows XP – “C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temp\SMTMP”
Windows Vista/7 – “C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp\SMTMP”...

That's silly, virus's aren't fun!  Bad joke.  Today's hot tip to make them go away is to use Malwarebytes Anti-malware.  Grab a copy at www.malwarebytes.com and give it a whirl.  Even if you don't think you have a virus, run it anyway for piece of mind.

Kurt Rein
San Diego Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

I San Diego client recently asked about how to sync his computer to
his android phone using Outlook. Google and Android are not really
helping and would rather have you use the cloud.

However, just so you know, HTC makes some third party software to get
it done, just so you know it's possible. Read these two links for the
crash course.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382337,00.asp

http://www.htc.com/us/support/evo-sprint/downloads/

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
San Diego Computer and Laptop Repair
619 255-1215 Office

Certainly a few folks in the San Diego Computer Repair arena won't
take kindly to the disappearing scroll bars in Mac OS Lion. Either
use 2 fingers to scroll, or make the permanent adjustment here.

Getting them back is simple, just go to System Preferences, General,
and under "Show scroll bars:" you can turn back time and return to the
scroll bar presence you know and love by selecting "Always."

http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/how-to/lionvanishing-scroll-bars-amp-how-to-get-them-back-151901

I did a mobile computer repair call in north San Diego and my client
was frustrated by this computer nuisance!

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

A customer in Mira Mesa was having a problem starting Outlook. Each time, a message would come up stating Outlook didn't start correctly last time, and would you like to start in Safe Mode? A repair install did NOT do the trick, and it turns out the crash was related to an item Outlook was loading on startup. In Safe Mode, I disabled all the add ins... still no luck.
There is a file in the Outlook directory that stores all the toolbar info and various other settings, called outcmd.dat. I renamed outcmd.dat to outcmd.old and restarted Outlook, resetting all the toolbars and various addins in Outlook (also creating a NEW outcmd.dat with NO baggage). The default location for this file is: C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
Happy Outlooking!
Best Regards,

Kyle B. Hanson
Mobile Computer Wizard

619-796-4629 Mobile
858-345-0382 Office
This e-mail address is being protected from...

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343

Computer repair made easy! A great list of shortcuts to navigate a Mac
if you are in San Diego.

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

Out in La Jolla I had a MacBook Pro that wouldn't boot. In windows I
would run check disk, so let's play what's the mac way. The start up
in single user mode is control + s. When you get to a prompt type fsck
-y . Before you know it you are repaired and if the hard disk is just
corrupt, you are back in business!

San Diego computer repair users should know that Google announced today it is instituting a malware warning system on its search results page to alert users to the possibility that their computer is infected. Mobile Computer Wizard staff is aware of this issue with PC's.
The Internet giant said it took the action after discovering unusual patterns of activity on the Web that it identified as a strain of malware that causes infected computers to send traffic to Google through proxy servers. "Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers," Damian Menscher, a Google security engineer, said in a Google blog post. "After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious...

A customer in Del Mar was having trouble getting his CD/DVD to do anything when popping in a CD on his Windows XP Computer. He could get to it from My Computer and play the CD just fine, but he missed the Autoplay "select which action to perform" dialog that used to pop up with various choices.
There are many tutorials on the web on how to change the autoplay handlers in the registry, how right-clicking the CD/DVD Drive, going to Properties and selecting "which action to perform" will fix the problem, but not in this case. I even checked the Group Policy and made sure autoplay was enabled... no luck.
Apparently, Microsoft has also had issues with this dilemma, so they made a fix. 
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/3/2/2326455e-a840-4c61-bc28-3afa1820b240/AutoFix.exe
Why it was so hard to find, I'm not sure. Apply this fix, log off and back on and...

Forgot Passwords to K9 and Email Address Symptom You (1) forgot your K9 password and (2) also forgot the password to the email address we have on file for your K9 license Solution To ensure your security, we can only make account changes if we can verify that the requester is the proper owner of the license. To begin the verification process, please have your K9 license number ready. This can be found under the title "user license" when you click the following link (or enter the address manually in a web browser on the computer that you are trying to recover the K9 password):  http://127.0.0.1:2372/aboutThis 'about' page  will help you figure out the username and which email it's tied to. K9 provides a great level of protection for San Diego computers to prevent a repair that a virus can cause!

Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

The TSDD MBR Rootkit virus is a nasty one!  Best thing for the job and quickest way to remove it is by using Kaspersky's TDSS removal tool.  I had a lady in San Diego with it and it got too infected to allow her PC to boot.  Cleaning TDSS is easy if the PC boots, but if not, it makes it nearly impossible!

Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office

After some sleuthing, turns out that this happens after an upgrade to Internet Explorer 9.

Here's the hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310049

Best Regards,

Kyle B. Hanson
Mobile Computer Wizard

619-796-4629 Mobile
858-345-0382 Office
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www.mobilecomputerwizard.com
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Recently I was working in University City on a fake rouge antivirus on a MAC! And no this was not just a advertisement or popup, it was a downloaded and installed application and I expect more on the way. Here is a step to take yourself out of harms way, the best offense is a good defense. By preventing safari from automatically opening "safe" files the user is less likely to get tricked into this scam. Here are the simple steps.
We need to change a setting in Safari so that these types of programs are not automatically run on your computer in the future. By default Safari opens and launches programs that it considers safe to run. These programs include movies, pictures, sounds, PDFs, text documents, archives, and disk images. Due to this, these types of infections are able to be downloaded and automatically run on your Mac. To fix this, start the Safari program and then click on the Safari menu option. From the Safari drop down menu, select Preferences. This will open the Preferences...

The code I've received on two separate occasions is this (or similar)

mbam.exe
The instruction at 0x10003d70 referenced memory at 0x0000000 and cannot be "read".

I ran across this again with a client in the La Jolla / UTC area...

If any of you are running Scansoft's OmniPage OCR software then you need to try updating it to the latest version. It's apparently the file ophook32.dll, which is a part of that program, that's causing the problem.

Happy MBAMing!

Best Regards,

Kyle B. Hanson
Mobile Computer Wizard

619-796-4629 Mobile
858-345-0382 Office
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www.mobilecomputerwizard.com
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Recently we were asked what would be a good backup software to backup from a server back to a PC, otherwise the traditional opposite of what you'd normally want to do.  A San Diego computer has source files on a network drive and those files can be either reverse backed up to a PC or they can be synced fairly easily with SecondCopy.  The free trial works well and if need be, the program is $29.95, very reasonable for a stable, long standing and schedule-able backup program.  It can sync too, great program!

http://www.secondcopy.com/order.html


Kurt Rein
Mobile Computer Wizard
619 255-1215 Office