Software

Please, please, please – backup your data!

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One of the most painful things to hear about from a customer is lost data. Whether it is hours or days of lost work for a business, irreplaceable family photos, or important financial records – data loss hurts. And it can be caused by many things: viruses / malware, file system corruption, physical drive failure, theft, fire, flood… the list goes on. Unfortunately some people don’t think about this till it is too late, so I am here with a public safety announcement: Please, please, please – backup your data!

My Privacy Preferences in Windows 10

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There has been a lot of talk about privacy concerns in Windows 10 lately, and several good articles have been published covering what settings are available to restrict the amount of information being sent back to Microsoft. I don’t presume to be able to do a better job than any of those authors, but having now had a few customers ask me about this stuff I thought it might be nice to share what settings I personally change on my Windows 10 computers.

Windows 10 Sales

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Nearly every day a customer asks me how Windows 10 is doing in terms of sales. It’s usually wise to wait a few months to gauge how a new operating system is performing. As much as Microsoft wants everyone to move to Windows 10, it can take time for the hardware makers to test their products and release updated drivers for a new operating system.

Microsoft released Windows 8 to the public just under three years ago. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we didn’t see a lot of pent up demand from our customers. We had a few customers who were curious and decided to make the jump, but the vast majority of our customer hit the snooze button on 8 and stuck with 7.

In Search of the Best Browser

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I have a love/hate relationship with browsers. And by browser I mean Google Chrome.

There’s not another program on my computer I use more than Chrome. I live in Chrome. But it also frustrates me more than any other program. A few years ago I would have launched a dozen separate programs in order to do my work. Today, every tool I need to do my job for Puget Systems, with the exception of a VOIP program, is rendered through Chrome. So when Chrome gives me problems it affects a lot more than just browsing Facebook or Reddit.

My 4-Month Test Drive of Windows 10

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We are now less than a week away from official arrival of Windows 10: the operating system that’s so extraordinary, Microsoft to give it a higher number.

I’ve been the unofficial guinea pig at Puget Systems running Windows 10 Insider Preview builds for over four months now. In the past, I’ve installed beta builds of Windows in a VM or setup a dual boot system giving me an eject button in case of disaster. But that’s not what I did with Windows 10. Instead, I went five blades. No VM, no dual-boot, no parachute.

Windows 10 – What to Consider Before Upgrading

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Windows 10 is available as a free upgrade for computers running Windows 7 and 8.1 through July of 2016. Many people are going to want to upgrade as soon as possible, but there may be some reasons to hold off from jumping on the bandwagon right away… or at least worth considering before you take the plunge.

7 Things to Do with Your New Computer

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I am sometimes asked by customers what they should make sure to do with a new computer before they start using it heavily for work or play. I put together a list of what I consider the basics that just about everyone would benefit from doing, and will share it here.

5 Time-Saving Apps

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I love apps that save time, even just a few seconds on each use. Most of my day is spent writing so any tool that allows me to keep my focus on that activity earns a spot on my computer.

Over the years, I’ve test dozens of utilities that promised to save time, and I’ve found that very few have lived up to that promise. Many are either too complex, require too much administration or just don’t work the way they should.

But a few apps have withstood the test of time. These are the apps I use multiple times a day. A few of these I use a dozen or more times a day. The attribute each has in common is they save time.