Kyle's Computer Repair Temecula / Murrieta

Home
United States
Murrieta, CA
Kyle's Computer Repair Temecula / Murrieta

Most Computer Repair, Malware Removal or Basic Data Recovery is $69. Free Diagnosis. Local to Temecula and Murrieta areas. We hope it will be helpful to you.

Thank you for visiting Kyle's Computer Repair serving the Temecula Valley. For more detailed information about us please visit our website at KylesComputerRepair.com. We will try to post valuable information about computers, their security, and their maintenance.

01/10/2019

This is just a quick warning. DO NOT manually check for Windows 10 updates. Windows 10 will automatically provide updates when necessary.

According to a How-To Geek article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/398226/now-windows-10-has-c-b-and-d-updates.-what-is-microsoft-smoking/

if you manually check for updates Microsoft considers you a “Seeker” that wants to test updates before most Windows 10 users will get them. We DO NOT want to be in that category. Click the link above for more detailed information.

07/11/2017

Is it time for a new computer?

If you are still using a computer with Windows XP or Vista it is probably time to replace it. Since they no longer receive security updates, they are prone to exploits, and can be dangerous to use. Additionally, the three major web browsers no longer support XP or Vista which can make your web browsing unsafe and difficult.

With just a little bit of information it is easy to buy an inexpensive good computer.

1. Shop via the Web. You can purchase in the showroom but know the price before you go. The price may be lower on their website. Don’t assume Amazon is cheaper than Best Buy. On any given week Best Buy or Walmart may be less expensive. As an example, this week Best Buy has a Dell i3 laptop for $280 and an i3 desktop for $350. Both are good buys. See photos.

2. Know what processor (CPU) you want and how to compare them for speed. You can compare processor speeds by using http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php. If you do not want to compare speeds, I would recommend shopping for computers with Intel “i3” or “i5” processor (CPU). I would NOT recommend Celeron, Pentium or AMD e series processors, since they are low end and can be slow. As a side note, i3 desktop processors are faster than i3 laptop processors due to battery saving features in i3’s for laptops.

3. For normal use, the computer should have 4 gigs to 8 gigs of memory and a 1tb (terabyte) hard drive. Even low end computers usually meet these requirements. However be careful of computers that have small solid state drives smaller than 250 gb. You will run out of space.

4. I wouldn’t worry about brand. However you may want to look at the key placement, some laptops have small “right shift” keys that drive me crazy. Also be aware that a Chromebook is not a Windows computer and has many limitations when it comes to installing software.

These suggestions apply to basic computer use. If you are a gamer or Video editor you will need better hardware. If you need more information or help shopping give me a call. Contact information is on my website at KylesComputerRepair.com.

If you do buy a new computer and need your data moved from an old computer to a new one, I can do it for $69. I can also give you some pointers on Windows 10 if you are nervous about the change.

Also check out the screenshot comparing the processors from 3 different laptops at Best Buy. Notice that the cheapest laptop had the fastest processor. The Best Buy prices are in blue.

06/21/2016

Many of you may already be using ad blocking to speed up your web browsing and block intrusive ads. However, if you are not using it, you may want to look at the example screenshots from YouTube below.

The first screenshot below shows a long aquarium video with an ad that has popped up at the bottom of the screen. Also, notice the yellow blocks that appear in the timeline of the video (15 of them if you’re counting). Each of those yellow blocks represent an ad that is going to pop at that time.

Now look at the second screenshot of the same video at the same point in time. There is no ad showing and all of the yellow blocks representing 15 additional ads are also gone. This ad blocking was accomplished using Adblock Plus. If you look at small red stop sign in the top right corner of the screenshot, you will see that the Chrome add-on has blocked 66 ads on the YouTube page.

Ads are necessary to pay for much of the web content we use, but over the years they have become an increasing burden on browsing speed and amazingly irritating. Ad blocking is giving us a say in this matter, and is forcing the ad industry to rethink the intrusiveness and size of their ads. If you want to turn off the ad blocking for a particular website, just click on the stop sign and uncheck the enable selection.

Without going into details, I recommend using it in conjunction with the Google Chrome web browser, but it is available for other browsers as well. You can install it from here: https://adblockplus.org/

06/03/2016

I received this from Yelp today. I have awesome customers!

05/16/2016

I apologize in advance because this post is going to be longer than normal. However, I feel it contains very important information for all web users, and especially for users of Yahoo search. It also explains why I am not a fan of Yahoo’s search engine.

One issue is Yahoo’s apparent disregard for the users of their search engine. For example, if you do a search for “HP Drivers” using Yahoo’s search engine you will get about 10 ads wanting to supply you with HP drivers before you ever see the link for HP’s website. These sites should be used with caution, since they are paying Yahoo to lure you to their website. HP computer or printer drivers should only be downloaded from HP’s website. Additionally, it is very difficult to determine what are ads in Yahoo’s search results, since they are not clearly labeled as such.

As a comparison, if you do a Google search for “HP Drivers” you will most likely see NO 3rd party ads, and the first 3 or 4 results will be for HP’s website. If you do see an ad, it will be clearly labeled with a yellow “Ad” icon. This means that Google is trying to protect you from clicking on a 3rd party website when you are looking for something that should be downloaded only from HP. They have decided to forgo the ad revenue to protect their users in this case.

Now an explanation of the pictures below. The first screenshot shows the Yahoo search results I received a couple of days ago when I typed in the word “google”. Notice that the first search result appears to be for “Google.com”. However, when I clicked on the link I was taken to the website shown in the second screenshot below. If you look at it carefully you will notice that the website has been designed to look like a Windows 7 explorer pane, but it is just a web page displayed in my Chrome web browser. The page shows me a pop-up that says I have a non-detectable virus and an audio voice tells me the same thing. No matter what I clicked on I could not close the web page or my Chrome browser. To close the page, I had to open Windows “Task Manager” and force close Chrome.

This was obviously a scam perpetrated by an ad allowed by Yahoo. If I had called the number, they would have asked me to give them remote access to my computer. Once they had access they would have asked for several hundred dollars to fix a non-existent problem. I know this, because I receive calls from people who have responded to these pop-ups on a weekly basis.

If you get this pop-up, restart your computer immediately and you should be OK. However, the last screenshot below shows what happens when you reopen Chrome after restarting your computer. Since Chrome was force closed during the restart, it will offer to “Restore pages”. Do NOT select the “Restore” button. If you do, it will take you back to the bad web site and you will have to restart again.

Although this problem occurred by clicking on a Yahoo ad link, I could have picked it up from any website that allows ads. When you see it, don’t panic (the audio voice can be scary), just restart your computer.

05/03/2016

The most common question I receive from customers is, “What anti-virus software should I use?”, and I never answer the question directly. As a repair technician I cannot win if I recommend AV software, and the customer then gets malware. Instead, I recommend a couple of websites that the customer can use to make the decision for themselves.

The picture below comes from AV-Comparatives.org and is a screenshot of their Real-World Protection Test. The other website I recommend is AV-Test.org. Before you buy any anti-virus software you should view the most recent tests on these sites. If the brand you are thinking of using is not tested on either site, I would recommend you think twice about using it.

Some of the AV companies also have free versions, if you don’t mind the occasional pop-up offering you special deals for their paid version. Microsoft offers Microsoft Security Essentials for free, which is called Windows Defender in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10. Microsoft’s free versions do not test as well as most paid versions, but they don't have nag screens.

As a side note, if you decide you might want to buy Avira, I sell it for $20. See links below.

AV-Comparative Real World Test: http://www.av-comparatives.org/dynamic-tests/

AV-Test.org most recent tests : https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/

04/20/2016

I cannot stress this enough; you MUST have copies (backups) of your critical computer data. I personally have experienced the failure of my external hard drives, internal hard drives, solid state drives, and flash drives. Without copies a hefty price will be paid in pain, cash or both. As a side note, an external hard drive is no safer than the drive in your computer, so do not use it to make room on your computer. It should only be used for copies of your data.

If you have internet connectivity, you can have all of your data backed up by companies like Carbonite.com for $60 per year. If you are paying for anti-virus software it would be much better to use that money to pay for online backup, and install free anti-virus software.

If you can’t afford to pay, you can at least backup your photos and videos for free. Google photos will store an unlimited amount of photos and videos for you, and will allow you to access them from your phone, tablet or computer. There are some size limitations, but nothing that should affect most of us.

Do not put this off any longer!

https://www.google.com/photos/about/
https://www.carbonite.com/en/cloud-backup/personal-solutions/personal-plans/

03/30/2016

Whether you have kids in school, kids in college, or you have grand-kids, you probably need to be able to create or open Word documents, Excel documents or PowerPoint presentations. Unfortunately the Microsoft Office software needed to do this can be expensive. A single computer version of Home and Student is $116 on Amazon, and if you have multiple computers a 5 computer license is $99 per year. However, there are FREE alternatives and my favorite is LibreOffice.

LibreOffice includes its own word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software, plus it can open, edit and save documents, spreadsheets and presentations created in Microsoft Office. It can also export documents to the very common PDF format. If you decide to try this software there are user guides at www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation/.

In order to keep this post short, I can only give you one tip. Save your documents created in LibreOffice in the Microsoft Office formats (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx). This is what teachers, colleagues and friends will expect, and they'll never know you are not using Microsoft Office.

You can download the software at www.libreoffice.org or you can go to www.ninite.com, which I mentioned a few posts ago.

03/24/2016

Many of the most dangerous viruses are propagated by email attachments. Today I received the email below, and although I would not have opened the "Resume.doc" file that was attached, I was going to reply and tell Vernice that I did not need any help at this time. It is common for me to get this type of request and I wanted to be polite by replying.

While creating the reply I noticed that her email address was from Russia ( .ru). This made me very suspicious, so for a test I submitted the "Resume.doc" file to www.virustotal.com. This website will scan files or URLs (web addresses) with over 40 different anti-virus tools. Based on the findings a couple things become apparent.

First, this document was almost certainly a virus.

Second, not all anti-virus software is created equal. More than half of the 56 AV tools did not catch it. This means you can still get a virus even if you have AV software installed.

Be sure to visit www.kylescomputerrepair.com/links/links.htm for more information about anti-virus programs.

As a side note, before I submitted the document to VirusTotal, I scanned it with Windows Defender (it is part of Windows 8 and 10), and it did NOT detect the virus.

03/05/2016

If you currently use a verizon.net email account in California you must move your mail to AOL before March 15th, or you may lose your Verizon email. You should have already received a warning email from Verizon, but may not have understood what to do.

To keep your account active, you must first access your Verizon account through their web interface at webmail.verizon.com, and enter your email address into the User ID field. On the next screen you will need to enter your current Verizon email password. You should then see the screen below where you can click the "Get Started" button. Follow the instructions to create your AOL account to access your Verizon email. From now on you will use AOL to check your Verizon email at www.mail.aol.com.

If you use Outlook to check your Verizon email, and you created a new password when signing up with AOL, you will need to enter the new password into Outlook. Additional information can be found at www.verizon.com/support/consumer/email. If you need additional help you can contact me at www.KylesComputerRepair.com. Hope this helps.

Address

24520 Camino Meridiana
Murrieta, CA
92562

Website

http://www.kylescomputerrepair.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Kyle's Computer Repair Temecula / Murrieta posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Kyle's Computer Repair Temecula / Murrieta: