Computer services for home and small business in and around Sheffield

PC Happy Blog

New Website

So the new PC Happy website is finally ready. Hopefully everybody will like it, it took quite a long time to get it looking how I wanted it. I can recommend a couple of free programs that I used to make the site. The first is HTML-Kit which is a free text editor that is great for writing html and css. The second program is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) this is like a free version of Photoshop. It doesn’t have all the features of Photoshop but is brilliant for a free open source program.

I tried to get the website looking modern and fresh, while trying to stay as simple and easy to navigate as possible. Feel free to comment on the new site it would be great to get some feedback. The new website also sees the unveiling of this blog. I hope to use this to keep people up to date on what is happening in the world of IT and gadgets, as well as posting PC Happy special offers, news and other site updates.

Posted in Website News by Marc on July 14, 2010

Finding a web hosting company – 6 Top Tips

I made a brief post a few days ago about looking for a new web host, so far I am very happy with my new host. I thought I would add a few more tips I have found when looking for a new web hosting company. If you use your website for business or to make money in anyway, finding the right host for your website is vitally important. Here are my tips -

  • Before you sign up make sure you ask them a few questions by email, if they can’t respond quickly to a possible sale they are likely not going to be great responding to support requests either. This doesn’t prove you will get good support, but in a lot of cases if you don’t get a decent, relatively quick response to your email you can expect a worse response if you ever need support.
  • Ask a few technical questions, the pre-sales people might not know the answers but you should get a decent answer from the support department forwarded to you. If the answer doesn’t makes sense or leaves you unsure you might want to rule that host out
  • Write a list of all your requirements and make sure they are fully met. If there are any points you can’t see on their website ask in an email to check. If there are any scripts your website uses make sure these will work with the new host, and make sure they are allowed.
  • Ask for the address of the server you will be hosted on if using shared hosting. You can then test what the Pings are like and see how quickly you can download from them. Every host should have a test file you can download.
  • Check for any uptime guarantees and make sure if they fail to meet them they actually do something, and not just apologise. Their terms of service should cover what they will do if they fail to meet the uptime guarantee.
  • Obviously you should check other things such as the bandwidth and storage limitation, if these don’t meet your needs you can rule them out straight away.

These are just a few basic tips, there are lots more useful checks you make do to try find the right host. If you have any of your own tips, feel free to leave a comment below.

Posted in Internet by Marc on July 26, 2010

Autoplay, Autorun – Is it annoying you?

If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 and are fed-up of the autoplay function that is enabled by standard there is an easy way to change the behaviour. If you go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Autoplay you can disable it by un-checking the box at the top of the screen. If you just want to change what happens you can select a default function for different types of media.

If you are having this trouble while using Windows Media Player 11 and you can’t stop it from stopping the current film when you insert a disk, you could be out of luck. This seems to be a feature that can’t be disabled in media player. There is quite a lot of discussion about it online, if it does annoy you it may be a small comfort to know you aren’t alone!

Posted in Software by Marc on July 25, 2010

21 Tips to Speed Up Your Computer

There are some fairly basic things you can do to speed up your computer and make it generally faster. Everybody should be doing these things routinely, not just when their computer or laptop is running slowly. They will help keep it in great condition. A few of the tips are a bit more advanced or might not be for you. If you aren’t sure how to perform any of the actions listed a quick Google will help, or ask me!

  1. Keep it clean – don’t let that dust build up, particularly on the fans.
  2. Remove start-up programs – If you don’t need it at startup, disable it
  3. Defrag regularly – A fragmented hard drive will slow you down.
  4. Disable services – if you don’t need a service, disable it.
  5. Don’t let you hard drive get too full – remove unused programs.
  6. Make sure your virtual memory is the right size.
  7. Check device manager for any errors.
  8. Boot order – don’t check the floppy drive first.
  9. Keep you O/S up-to-date – for security reasons as well as speed.
  10. Disable indexing service – slower searches, faster everything else.
  11. Disk Clean-up – this will clear down lots of stuff you don’t need.
  12. Remove your desktop picture – fairly minor but every little helps.
  13. Patience – wait for your computer to finish booting to load programs.
  14. Remove desktop shortcuts if they aren’t needed.
  15. Disable loading at start-up when you install new programs.
  16. Empty your recycle bin – a disk clean-up will do this too.
  17. ReadyBoost – using Vista or Windows 7? Learn about ReadyBoost
  18. Disable Aero if using Vista or later – this uses CPU and memory.
  19. Remove the sidebar if using Vista or Windows 7 – it eats memory.
  20. Quick start – put your computer to sleep rather than shutdown.
  21. Disable browser plugins - they really slow you down.

There may be some tips you don’t want to use as you like something the way it is. The main thing is that your computer does what you want it to do. If you like fast searching or love you background picture don’t use those tips!  If you have any questions or want to leave your own tips, leave a comment below.

Posted in Computers by Marc on July 23, 2010

Web Hosting

I’ve just been looking for a new host for a few sites and hopefully found a good one. I always worry when moving hosts as no matter how good the reviews you never know if they will be good for you. I would never sign a customer up to a host until I had used them myself for at least a year.

The whole area of hosting is very difficult to follow, there must be thousands that come and go every month. People see it as an easy business to get into as you can buy a reseller package and be up and running within a few minutes. That doesn’t make you a good web host though.

The best tip anyone every gave me many years ago was to avoid anyone offering unlimited space or bandwidth. Nothing is unlimited and if they are selling their service as such they are usually overselling and often putting far too many accounts on their servers.

Posted in Internet by Marc on July 22, 2010

Apple iPhone 4

I’m sure everyone has heard about the reception problems with the new iPhone 4. Apple are usually good at avoiding this type of problem, but it just proves that even big companies considered to be ahead of the game sometimes get it wrong. They have recently announced that they will be giving away free bumper cases to everyone who has an iPhone 4. These case resolve the poor signal issue. This may go some way to repair any damage they have done to their reputation. Some people feel they should have recalled phones for a proper hardware fix, this may still come if problems persist.

Posted in Technology by Marc on July 15, 2010

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Computer Problem?

If you are thinking "how can I fix my computer", or "how can I fix my laptop" you are in the right place. Give me call and I can repair your computer problem. There are lots of possible causes when you have computer problems, some of them can be fairly complicated to fix. Lots of problems are caused by viruses, adware, trojans, spyware or malware and once you get infected it can be really difficult to get rid of the problem and fix your computer. Now you have found PC Happy you can get your problem fixed cheaply and efficiently. This is because that is what PC Happy does best, reliable services for a cheap price. It doesn't matter if you have a laptop or desktop computer the problems are usually pretty much the same. Now you have found PC Happy the solution isn't too far away. Maybe your problem is with your broadband connection or you wireless network. These are often fairly straightforward to fix. Your PC can be fixed either onsite or it can be collected and returned for no extra charge. No matter which service you choose you can be safe in the knowledge that there is a no fix no fee policy with PC Happy.

Sometimes you don't have a problem with your computer and you just need help with the set-up, maybe you can't set-up your email or you can't set-up a network. These are problems I can help you with. Another area that can cause lots of problems is security, Internet security is very important and if your Internet security isn't working correctly you should get it fixed as soon as possible. If you are getting lots of popups while you are on the Internet this can be an indication of a problem. Popups aren't just annoying they are often a sign of a virus, malware, adware of similar. Don't just leave it, if you have a popup problem you should get it fixed as soon as possible.