Knight With a PC

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-26786210-6', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview');

[knightwithapc]

Disable and Remove Ask Toolbar IE

In this video I demonstrate how to remove Ask Toolbar in IE (Internet Explorer). This method is for users that don’t have the option to remove the Ask Toolbar from the Control Panel.

[knightwithapc]

Computers for the Whole Family

Choosing family computers can present a challenge to those who do not know what to look for. Before committing to a specific brand and design, know what each person in your family expects out of their machine and do some preliminary research to accommodate their needs.

Does your son like to play a lot of video games? If so, make sure he gets a computer with a high powered processor and a lot of RAM. For the best sound and picture quality, consult the Internet or someone knowledgeable for the latest in video and sound cards. Additionally, a computer with a large hard drive will be able to store the most songs, movies and other media sources. Your son will probably best be suited with a desktop to fulfill these needs.

Is your daughter a social creature that is constantly on Facebook and other networking sites? Well, consider getting her a laptop. The mobile nature will make sure she can access her desired sites anywhere she goes. As opposed to your son, fast processors, sound cards and video cards are not a priority. Instead, concentrate on purchasing a computer with long battery life and storage for all the media she wishes to share with her friends.

As parents, you probably desire much different things than what your children look for in a computer. Access to the Internet is probably the top priority. Also, watching films and sharing pictures may be of interest. Consider getting yourselves a desktop with a good sound system and high picture quality. Also, remember, the larger the hard drive, the more media you can store on the computer.

Finally, before settling on any machine, make sure to check out the many available Dell coupons for the latest deals on both desktop and laptop personal computers. You will be surprised at just how much you could potentially save.

[knightwithapc]

Download and Install Comodo Firewall

Comodo firewall is a piece of software that runs on your computer to prevent malicious internet or network traffic that may do damage.  There are times when programs on other computers need to talk with your personal computer.  A firewall helps control what has access and what should be blocked.

A firewall is the first line of defense to prevent unauthorized access to your computer.  Antivirus software is also used to detect files that may do damage to the computer that came in through an authorized path, such as when downloading a game from the Internet.

Firewall software is often bundled with antivirus software, but firewalls can also be standalone programs and run alongside antivirus programs.

Comodo Firewall is such a program.  It is a free firewall program that may be downloaded and installed to act as that first line of protection.

Benefits of Comodo Firewall include:

It is completely free

It takes up only a small amount of your computer’s resources (disk space and RAM)

You can configure the installation to only install the firewall (and not other products supplied by Comodo)

It does a good job keeping malicious software (malware) off of your computer

Some known issues with this software include:

The alert and reminder windows may become annoying

It’s not as “user friendly” as other, more mature products

On a rare occasion it may prevent valid software from installing properly

The Comodo Firewall software may be downloaded and installed for free on a Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 computer.

Comodo Firewall requires a minimum of 250 MB of disk space and 128 MB of RAM to install.  The download file is approximately 60 MB.

Download & Install Comodo Firewall:

Go to the Comodo site:  http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/

Download the Free Comodo Firewall program.

Find the file that was just downloaded and double click on it to run it.

A small window will pop up asking you to select the language – select your desired language.

A larger window will pop up with some options.

Uncheck “Change my DNS servers to COMODO SecureDNS servers”.

Uncheck “I want to enable “Cloud Based Behavior Analysis”.

At the bottom of the window click on “Customize Installer”.

You will now see a window with more options.

On the first window uncheck “Install COMODO GeekBuddy”.

Go back to the main window and click on “Accept and Install”.

Note: By disabling some of these features, we are installing the basic firewall functionality.   This will help insure that there will be no conflicts with other software that you may have running on your computer yet still give you the protection of a firewall.

A percent meter will display as the installation proceeds.

When the installation has finished, you will be asked to reboot your computer.

After the reboot and the Comodo Firewall software begins running on your computer, it may pop up a window saying that a program is trying to access your computer and will ask for your permission.  Comodo knows about some programs, like email, and will allow those to try to connect automatically.  Other programs that it is unsure of will cause a window to pop up.  Once you have told it what to do with those programs, it will remember and let them through automatically next time.

While there is an option to adjust the firewall’s configuration, the default settings are good for protection of a home computer or laptop.

Once the Comodo Firewall software is installed and running, it is protecting your computer from intrusion by other programs on the internet or network. There is little need to interact with it.   Occasionally a window will pop up with a request to allow another program to have access to your computer.  Unless you are expecting this to happen, or may be installing another program that generated the alert, you can tell Comodo to block the program and it will remember this in the future.

A good firewall program will protect your computer from outside “attacks” yet require very little interaction from you.  Think of it as insurance running in the background, ready when you need it most.

[knightwithapc]

How to change the Firefox home page

Want to change the Firefox home page?

Has a recent spyware attack changed the Firefox home page? Not to worry, I can help you change it back. Just follow these simple steps or watch the video tutorial below.

Open Firefox

Click Tools

Click Options

Click the General Tab

Change the text in the “Home Page” field to your desired home page. Example: http://www.google.com

Click OK and you are done. You have just learned how to change the Firefox home page.

[knightwithapc]

How to change your home page in Internet Explorer

From time to time an application you've installed changes your homepage without you knowing it. I've created a short video tutorial demonstrating how to change it back. You can also follow these simple instructions.

Click the “Start Button”

Open “Internet Explorer“

Click “Tools”

Click “Internet Options”

Click the “General” tab

Clear the home page text field and enter your preferred home page. EXAMPLE: http://www.google.com

[knightwithapc]

Antivirus subscription expired, what do I do???

Has your antivirus subscription expired?

With antivirus vendors such as Symantec, McAfee or AVG you have a paid annual subscription.  Often with a new PC the antivirus subscription is free for 90 days.  Has your antivirus subscription expired? Your PC may be unprotected!  It’s nearly the same as having no antivirus at all.

Should I pay for another antivirus subscription and be done with it?  NO!  And here is why you shouldn't …

The antivirus technology these companies use is more than 20 years old.  The antivirus companies pay manufacturers such as Dell, HP and Asus to pre-install their antivirus suite with a free 90 day subscription period knowing that you will renew it when it expires. I couldn't tell you the number of computers I fix with their antivirus subscription expired and loaded with viruses on the system.  The interesting thing about antivirus technology is that there are free alternatives. Yes, no more antivirus subscriptions and no upfront cost.

Microsoft has created a free antivirus suite called Microsoft Security Essentials. Often I’ve received a computer from a friend which is extremely slow. After a little bit of digging there doesn't appear to be an obvious cause.  I then uninstall the current antivirus suite and almost immediately see the performance increase.  I then without question I install Microsoft Security Essentials.

I may sound like a bit of a Microsoft fan boy, I assure you I’m not. I don’t believe in overpaying for an age old technology when there are better and cheaper antivirus solutions.  If you would like instructions on how to install Microsoft Security Essentials, watch this video tutorial by clicking the following link: Free Antivirus – How to install Microsoft Security Essentials

[knightwithapc]

Finishing up the Toolbar Removal Videos

It took me a little bit, but i finally finished up the last video for removing Toolbars from Internet Explorer.  It's unfortunate the toolbars in Internet Explorer and other browsers became the place for companies to bush their brand to the point that it is always in your face.  As I’ve mentioned in the other blog posts these toolbars often wind up dragging down your browser experience to the point where you simply cannot use it.  As such, I’m a big proponent for getting rid of all toolbars.  The only toolbar I would consider keeping is the Google Toolbar; however, even there it is not as useful as it once was.  To make it easy to find all of the Removal videos, I’ve listed all of the blog posts and the accompanying videos for those I’ve created.

Ask Toolbar Removal

Bing Toolbar Removal

MyWebSearch Toolbar Removal

Yahoo Toolbar Removal

[knightwithapc]

Removing the Yahoo Toolbar from Internet Explorer

The Yahoo Toolbar while somewhat useful it does slow down internet explorer like the other toolbars.  The Yahoo Toolbar comes with a nasty side effect in that it is often installed with other Yahoo applications such as Yahoo Messenger.  Even if you go and disable the toolbar it will re-enable itself automatically.  I find this an extremely annoying tactic to keep the toolbar enabled and running in your browser.

In addition the toolbar also installs another program which runs in the background to check for updates.  In the end I highly recommend removing the toolbar and the accompanying applications.  In the video below, I will show the process of removing the toolbar from your computer.

[knightwithapc]

Removing the MyWebSearch Toolbar from Internet Explorer

Next up is the to show you how to remove the MyWebSearch Toolbar from Internet Explorer.  Now, the MyWebSearch toolbar is without a doubt junk!  Most often when I find a computer where the user’s web browser has issues it almost always means MyWebSearch is installed.  The company who produces MyWebSearch claims that their toolbar is not malware or spyware.  That may or may not be true, but the toolbar is usually installed without the users approval.  What I mean by this is that when you are intentionally installing some other application, a free game for instance, you find out that without your knowledge you now have the toolbar.

The toolbar itself does not provide any value as all it does is just repackaging Google search.  So while the toolbar may be packaged along with something else it can at times be very difficult to remove.  Even after uninstalling it, you may be left with remnants of it left around.  Under normal circumstances you can just use the Uninstaller as shown in the video below.  My recommendation is, if you find out you have the MyWebSearch toolbar installed, get rid of it.  If you can figure out what other program installed it, get rid of it too.

[knightwithapc]

Removing the Bing Toolbar from Internet Explorer

The next video in my series explaining how to remove the Toolbars from Internet Explorer is for the Bing Toolbar.  The video below provides a simple walk through on cleaning removing the Bing Toolbar from IE.  While the Bing Toolbar is not malicious, it does take up resources, but does eat up screen real estate.  For those reasons, I do recommend going ahead and removing the Bing Toolbar.  The process is fairly simple to remove it by simply Uninstalling it under Programs and Features in the Control Panel.  The following video provides a brief walk through if you are not sure how to remove it.

[knightwithapc]

Removing the Ask Toolbar from Internet Explorer

As promised in my last post, here is the first video of my series to show you how to remove the various toolbars from Internet Explorer.  To simplify the process, I thought I would go ahead and make a YouTube video to make it easier to follow along.  Basically its a fairly simple process to remove the toolbar; however, it does use a few things left around that are handy to know to remove yourself.

[knightwithapc]

Remove toolbars in Internet Explorer

Want to remove toolbars in Internet Explorer?

Several years ago browser toolbars were more of a necessity. Internet Explorer didn’t have that convenient search box in the upper right corner.  Internet Explorer toolbars were a convenient way to have your favorite search engine accessible anytime while browsing the web.  Today toolbars are a relic and don’t provide much use.  As a result many people still install them unknowingly not realizing the overhead they just added to their surfing experience.

Toolbars can be a huge performance hit on browsing the web with Internet Explorer or Firefox. You will want to remove toolbars in Internet Explorer and Firefox that are not necessary.  Unfortunately, there are a ton of toolbars out there from the legitimate Google, Bing and Yahoo to the unsafe myWebSearch bar.  The only toolbar I consider useful from a technical perspective is the Google toolbar. Without a doubt if you have a toolbar installed, you are using up screen real estate and slowing down your browsing experience.

Something you may not know is that many toolbars hide a dark side.  Many are in fact tracking your browsing patterns and sending that information back to a server on the internet.  All of which is most likely against your permission. It’s in your best interest to remove toolbars in Internet Explorer, your browsing experience will be much improved.

First admit you have a toolbar problem and decide to do something about it. Obviously, we need to remove these toolbars from your browser. Unfortunately, each toolbar is different and may or may not be easy for you to remove.  My plan is to take the following list of toolbars and explain how to remove them.

Ask

BING

Google

myWebSearch

Yahoo

These are probably the most common toolbars.  If you have a toolbar you would like included in the series and thus the instructions on how to remove, please list it in the comment section below.  Stay tuned, I’ll start posting instructions for each toolbar in the next couple days …

[knightwithapc]

Automatic Defragmentation

In my last post I talked about the need to defragment or defrag your hard drive on a regular basis.  After receiving a comment from clasby about setting up automatic defrag, I started looking around for a free automatic defrag application.  Let me go back a little bit, I’ve used automatic defrag program before such as DisKeeper which is a commercial application designed for workstations and servers.  It works quite well when used on servers, but had a tendency to slow down workstations a bit too much for my taste.  Not to knock DisKeeper as it could have improve in the past few years.

My point is that I discounted automatic defragmentation as a possibility for general users due the cost and the performance hit of using them. Nonetheless I did a little bit of search and came across a program which works quite well.  I’ve been using it now for a week or so with very good results.  The program I started using is called Smart Defrag from IOBit.

Smart Defrag is a simple application which provides the normal manual defrag capabilities as well as ability to schedule operations.  However, Smart Defrag also supports the ability to automatically defrag in the background.  This feature is usually reserved for paid commercial applications.  As I said, I’ve been using Smart Defrag for about a week now on two different computers (laptop and desktop).  And I have to say that I’m impressed.  The automatic defrag function works as advertised and paused as soon as I went back to using the PC.  To start using Smart Defrag, click the download link at the top of Smart Defrag page and follow the instructions to install it. After installing Smart Defrag you should be able to launch it, if it doesn’t automatically start from the installer.  Which you will then be presented with the main screen as shown below.

From there you can start a manual defrag on a chosen disk.  At this point you can also click on Auto Defrag as sown below to make  sure it is enabled and the options are set as desired.

The Auto Defrag screen shows a couple graphs at the top of the screen which represent the CPU usage and the Disk usage.  By default, Auto Defrag is enabled and will not start until the computer has been idle for at least 5 minutes and CPU/Hard drive usage is under 20%.  You can adjust these options as desired, but the default should be sufficient.  If this was installed on a desktop computer and you leave it on most if not all of the time then I would also recommend going on to the Schedule screen.

At this screen you can choose a drive and schedule a defrag at a given interval.  I would recommend the Deep Optimize option under the Action options if you plan to schedule a drive interval once a month or twice a month.  If you don’t plan to schedule it, I would recommend you run the Deep Optimize defrag manually under the Defrag Now screen once a month or so.  One note about the Auto Defrag feature is that Smart Defrag needs to be running.  On the Options screen there is an option to automatically start with windows which is a good idea to enable so Smart Defrag will run all of the time.

All in all, I’m very impressed with Smart Defrag and recommend it for general users to start using today instead of other defrag applications.

[knightwithapc]

The need to defragment your hard drive

The data on the hard drive in your computer is stored in a complex organization known as a file system.   Without going into too much detail, there are two types of file systems used within Windows NTFS (New Technology File System) or FAT32 (File Application Table).  It isn’t important to know which file system is being used, but there are aspects of a file system that are important.

When data is stored in the file system, it would be ideal to store the data for a single file all in one location.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t always occur as the space needed for a given file may not exist at time the file is created or updated.  Thus file system will automatically spit up a file as needed into multiple fragments.

So why do we care that the system fragments a file as the file contents changes?  The answer is simple, the more times a file is fragmented the longer it takes to access the file.  Over time, files within the system will become fragmented.  Even though Windows has improved drastically over the years, there is still a need for periodic maintenance to maximize performance.  Defragmenting files is an important process to run on a regular basis.  There are several different tools available to defragment the files on your hard drive.  Windows itself includes a tool which can be easily accessed under Windows Explorer.  Within Explorer you can right click on a Drive Letter and choose Properties.  Under the Tools Tab (shown below) you can click on the Defragment Now button.

After clicking “Defragment Now” you are presented with the actual Disk Defragmenter tool.  While the tools does do the job it is not the best tool available.  There are several applications you can pay for; however, I usually start users with the Defraggler tool available from Piriform.

The first time you defragment your hard drive it will take quite some time to complete and in extreme situations it may need to run most day to optimize the data on the hard drive.  You should notice an improvement in performance of your computer.  How much of an improvement will depend upon how fragmented the data was on your hard drive.  To maintain the improvement in performance I would recommend running a defragment tool at least once a month.

[knightwithapc]

For those of you who are not comfortable installing Microsoft Security Essentials on your own, I created this simple video to walk you through the process.  I hope it illustrates just how easy it is to install the application your self and keep your computer protected.

[knightwithapc]

I just bought a new PC, what should I do next?

As soon as you purchase a new computer there are several things you should do right away.  First things first, get rid of the CRAP.  Yes, CRAPware.  PC manufacturers are paid by these software vendors to install trial versions of these apps on new computers in the hope that you will go ahead and purchase the full version.  So basically your new off-the-shelf computer comes preloaded with ads.  If you purchase your computer from a retail store, you may even be offered a service to remove the CRAPware for a fee.

You can actually remove the software yourself using a program called PC Decrapifier which allows you to identify the crapware and easily remove it.  You will most likely want to remove the trial versions of the McAfee and/or Symantec AntiVirus software.  You can instead install the free AntiVirus solution from Microsoft called Microsoft Security Essentials which performs the same task as the commercial packages for free.

The next task you should perform on your new PC is to create the recovery discs.  Your new computer should come with a utility which allows you to create a series of recovery discs which contain the operating system with the drivers necessary for your computer.  Most new computers do not come with CD/DVDs necessary to reinstall all of the software your computer.  You will need one or more record-able DVDs as specified by the utility included with your PC.  Once you create the backup Discs you should store them in a safe place in case you need them at a later date to reinstall your computer’s software from scratch.

Check for future posts for performance optimizing tips to keep your computer running in tip top shape.

[knightwithapc]

Internet Explorer is slow!

When I hear someone say “Internet Explorer takes a long time to start” or “browsing the web is extremely slow”, I almost always know what is causing it.  Internet Explorer supports the ability to install add-ons including toolbars and other extensions.  So why does this matter?  To start with, those browser toolbars and other add-ons slow down the startup of Internet Explorer.  Many of them also perform activities as each page loads meaning it will take longer for pages to show on the screen.

Most toolbars provide little to no real value, nonetheless they eat up screen real estate and slow down your experience. The simplest approach is to disable all of them you do not absolutely need.  If it were me, the only one I would think of leaving turned on would be the Google Toolbar.  Today even that one doesn’t provide as much value as it once did.  So to disable those toolbars you can right click in the background of the toolbars area and you should receive a list of toolbars being displayed.  Uncheck any and all of them as needed.  Once complete you can close and reopen Internet Explorer and you should see a difference in performance.  It may also be necessary to uninstall any toolbars under the Control Panel.

One other thing you may find out is that your start page in Internet Explorer is not what it should be or what you use to use.  This is because one of the toolbars hijacked the default.  This is not uncommon, but you can easily fix it by going to the Tools menu, then Internet Options.  From there you can change the Default home page to www.google.com or any of a number of other common start pages.

If you are adventurous you could also look in the Tools menu under Manage Add-ons.  In the Manage Add-ons screen you can enable and disable not only toolbars but other components as well.  There are some components you would want to leave enabled including Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight.  You may find that some websites do not function correctly without these extensions enabled.   You can also search on the various extension names and determine what the extension does to help you in the decision to remove or leave them enabled.