This week we’re going to help you get ready for the arrival of Windows 10 next week by giving you a primer on navigating the new environment. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, look for future articles that delve into the finer points of navigating Windows 10.

The Start Menu
Windows 10 brings back the ever-useful Windows Start Menu. The Windows 10 Start Menu incorporates features from both Windows 7 and Windows 8 by showing installed programs on the left side as in Windows 7 (or apps, as they are called now) and the live tiles from Windows 8 on the right side. Here are some things you’ll see in the new Start Menu: Most Used (the apps you use every day). Suggested/Recently Added (newly installed apps), Places (shortcuts to File Explorer, Settings, etc), and All Apps (formerly All Programs).

Customizing the Start Menu
To change the color of the Start Menu and other elements, open Settings, click on Personalization, then Colors to select a color. You can also let Windows automatically choose a color based on your desktop background image.

You can pin apps to the right side of the start menus by dragging and dropping the icon onto the Start Menu or you can right click on the app, then left click on Pin to Start. You will also be able to do this with files, folders and websites.

To remove a tile, right click on it, then left click on Unpin from Start. To move a tile, simply drag and drop. Currently, there are no options for customizing the left side of the start menu. You can remove items from the Most Used list by right-clicking on the item, then left clicking on Don’t show in this list. If you don’t want your recently used items from being displayed, go to Settings, Personalization, Start and turn off Store and display recently opened items in Start and the taskbar.

The Settings Menu
The new Settings Menu is right in the main Start Menu of Windows 10 and gives you access to most of the basic settings for your computer. Note that the Settings Menu does not contain every adjustment available for a given subject, for those you still need to go to the Control Panel. 

The System Tab – Here you can find information about your computer, view your available storage, adjust notifications and icons, etc. Click on About to find your basic hardware specifications such as the CPU, RAM and what version of Windows you’re running. 

The Devices Tab – This section will show you what peripherals are connected to your computer such as printers, keyboards, mice, scanners, etc. Click on Connected Devices to install new devices. Click on Mouse and Touchpadto adjust cursor settings.

The Network and Internet Tab – This is where you will find basic connection settings such as Data Usage, VPN andEthernet. Clicking the Advanced Settings link will take you to the related section of the Control Panel for that topic. 

The Personalization Tab – In this section you can adjust appearance items such as your desktop background, colors, themes and screen savers.

The Accounts Tab – Use this section to switch between a local user account and a Microsoft Account, change your login password and add additional user accounts.

The Time and Language Tab – This section gives you access to your time and date settings. Set you time zone, time and date formats (12 or 24 hour), and your preferred language.

The Ease of Access Tab – This section allows you to enable or disable the on screen narrator, enable high-contrast themes and enable closed captioning.

The Privacy Tab – New for Windows is a dedicated privacy center. While this feature is available in Windows 8, Windows 10 makes it easier to find. Use the options in this section to limit what data is submitted to Microsoft and other companies as you use your computer.

The Update and Security Tab – One of the few items you will no longer find on the Control Panel is Windows Update. In Windows 10, this has been moved exclusively to the Settings Menu. The Update and Security tab also shows you the built-in backup options from Windows as well as recovery options and settings for Windows Defender.

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It seems lately that what is old is new again. Take Hollywood for instance; there really doesn’t seem to be much new content lately, but there are a lot of old TV shows, comic book characters and movies being remade. Interestingly enough, there are examples of this same situation in the technology world as well. 

Currently, a popular home upgrade is adding wireless (or wired) speakers to various rooms when building or remodeling homes. Companies like Sonos, JBL and Bose, just to name a few, all offer wireless speaker systems. Whether they operate on Bluetooth, wifi, or other technologies, the results are the same. You install these speakers in your home and stream music wirelessly from devices such as your smartphone, PC, set top box, etc. This is actually pretty cool as you can set the mood for different rooms or situations. Want to feel like you’re at that swank Italian restaurant? Just add some traditional Italian music and let the pasta fly! Need to get in the groove for your workout? Crank some classic rock in your basement gym. This is all possible because of some recent breakthrough in technology right? Actually, it’s not. In fact, streaming audio through your home has been available as early as 1930s!

I came across this miracle of technology while looking for wiring schematics for my 1942 Philco 42-390 console style tube radio. I was trying to identify an oddly shaped antenna that was mounted inside the cabinet. I was quite surprised to find that it was used to connect the radio to a wireless remote that allowed you to adjust volume and stations from anywhere in your home, without wires! How cool is that? In addition to the remote, the radio was also equipped with “Television Sound.” What’s Television Sound? I’m glad you asked. Back in 1939 as America was coming out of the Great Depression, radio manufacturers were looking for ways for their products to remain relevant with the advent of a new invention called television. Many people were claiming that television would spell the end of radio broadcasts and thus the need for radios. In addition to the question of which technology would reign supreme was the question of cost. Televisions were very expensive but so were radios. My Philco sold for $95 brand new in 1942. After adjusting for inflation, this comes to $1,439.17 in 2015! In order to increase the sales of new televisions, manufacturers decided to omit an audio amplifier and speaker. This also allowed them to make their radios “ready for TV sound” by including a small transmitter in the TV and allocating a pushbutton preset on their radios. The result was that you could buy a new TV and use your very nice radio to play the sound from the TV. This was a win/win for electronics companies such as Philco, because now they could sell consumers even more devices than before.

This an excerpt from a Philco advertisement, circa 1940: “The 1940 Philco you buy today is ready for Television when it arrives . . . and in a new, different and better way – the wireless way! It is built to receive Television Sound. And, when used with a Philco Television Picture Receiver, you need no wires, plug-in or connection of any kind. This wireless way is another achievement developed in the great Philco Laboratories.”

Prior to the “wireless way,” manufacturers had been adding an additional phono plug (originally used to connect phonographs to the radio) as a means of playing television audio through their radios.

So here we are over 75 years later thinking we’ve just invented something really cool, only to realize that our grandparents or even great grandparents were already enjoying this technological marvel. Solomon was right, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Feeling nostalgic? Try turning off the TV and using your imagination to set the stage as you listen to old time radio drama. You can enjoy many of the old shows online at Old Time Radio and WPR's Old Time Radio Dramas, or tune in to your local NPR station on Saturday nights from 8-11pm.

Do you have a question or topic you’d like us to blog about? Email and let us know! 

In our last post, we looked at considerations for buying a new computer and defined the most common technical terms you will encounter when purchasing a computer. But what should you do if you want more performance but you don’t want to buy a new computer? The answer lies in selecting hardware upgrades that will increase and or extend the performance of your existing computer. Let’s take a look at some easy and cost-effective upgrades you can choose to get more from your computer.

Random Access Memory (RAM) 
In years past, one of the most effective ways to increase the performance of a computer was to add more RAM. This was largely because most computers were equipped with a small amount of RAM as compared to today’s computers. We’ve discussed what RAM is in previous articles but to summarize, RAM is like a desk, the bigger the desk is, the more tasks (or larger tasks) you can work on. When computers came equipped with 512MB or even 2GB of RAM, simply doubling that amount yielded significant performance gains. Today, even the most basic systems come with 4GB of RAM. While adding more RAM can yield increased performance, if you aren’t consistently using at least 75% of your current amount of RAM then adding more won’t make a noticeable change.

Hard Disc Drive (HDD)
Upgrading the size of your hard drive will add more storage space to your computer. Prices on hard drives are very low, around $0.08 per gigabyte. You can also get some increase in computer speed if your replacement drive spins faster than your current drive. Most low to mid-range computers are equipped with hard drives that spin at 5,400RPM. Typically, the next speed increase is 7,200RPM, followed by 10,000RPM and topping out at 15,000RPM for enterprise-grade drives. While the performance gained by increasing the speed of a hard drive isn’t as radical as switching to a solid state drive, the price is usually significantly cheaper with greater amounts of storage capacity as compared to solid state drives.

Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD)
In between traditional hard drives and solid state drives are SSHDs. These are regular hard drives with tiny solid state drives on board. The advantage is that frequently accessed data can be loaded from the mechanical (hard disc) portion of the drive into the electronic (solid state) portion to give increased performance (like an SSD) while retaining the high storage capacity to low-cost ratio of traditional hard drives.

Solid State Drive (SSD)
Solid state drives are currently one of the most significant performance upgrades you can make to a computer. Perhaps the most noticeable difference is the boot time. This is the amount of time it takes a computer to go from being off to being ready for work. For a computer with a hard drive, this may take anywhere from 20 seconds to over a minute and a half. With a solid state drive, that same computer may boot in 10 seconds or less! How do solid state drives accomplish this amazing feat? There are many factors but perhaps the simplest is the fact that solid state drives have no moving parts.

Some advantages of switching to a SSD are increased speed, shock (impact) resistance and greater longevity. Disadvantages are cost (still nearly $1 per gigabyte), potential data loss during unexpected power loss and performance degradation over the life of the drive.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)
An additional upgrade that can be performed is upgrading to a newer, faster processor (CPU). Upgrading from a dual-core CPU to a quad-core can make a significant difference in your computing experience. Like RAM however, upgrading the CPU will be more noticeable if you’re currently taxing your existing CPU.

As with many things in life, although anyone can upgrade their computer themselves but that doesn’t mean everyone should. Selecting the appropriate parts is essential as these upgrades are dependent on what your current hardware consists of. In addition, all of these options require opening your computer and changing out key pieces. In some cases (like the HDD or SSD) you may need to transfer data or even reinstall the operating system. As always, we’re happy to help you with any computer needs so please contact us with any questions!

So you’re in the market for a new computer and you start to ask yourself a few questions; what kind of computer should I get? Does the brand matter? How many gigs do I need? What’s a good price?

These and many others are questions I get all the time from people looking to replace their current computer. Today, we’ll go over some of the basics of buying a new computer and what all those megabytes, gigabytes, RAMs, TBs, etc. all mean to you.

Gigabytes (GB) – A gigabyte is a unit of measure for computer memory. This unit applies to both the RAM (short-term memory) and the hard drive (long-term or storage memory). Essentially, the more gigabytes a computer has, the more information it can “remember.”

Gigahertz (GHz) – This is the speed measurement of your computer’s processor or CPU. The higher the number, the faster the CPU can process data, the faster your computer will be.

Terabytes (TB) – A terabyte is another unit of measure, currently used primarily for hard drives. A terabyte is equal to 1,024 gigabytes.

Dual-core, Quad-core, etc. – This refers to the number of processing cores a CPU has. Basically, to increase computing power, CPU manufacturers stack processors on top of each other to generate greater computing power. Most consumer computers will have dual or quad-core processors although high-performance computers may have hex or octo-core (6 or 8 core) CPUs.

Solid State Drive (SSD) – A solid state drive is a storage device that uses flash memory instead of magnetic platters (as in traditional hard drives) to store data. Because there are no moving parts, SSDs allow significantly faster access to your information, thereby increasing the speed of your computer.

What You Need
Before buying a new computer you should start by evaluating your current and future needs. Do you use your computer for work or play? What kind of work or play? Like buying a car, you need to look at how you plan to use it. If you’re a farmer then a pickup truck would probably be a better choice than a Ferrari, unless of course you race on the weekends.

General Computer Use – Light multi-tasking, simple programs
For most home users, a fairly simple computer will meet your daily needs. The things you typically do with your computer might include surfing the Web, writing emails, typing documents, playing online games (such as Pogo, Gamehouse and Facebook) and saving home photos and videos. A good system to meet these needs will have either a dual-core or quad-core CPU (1.5GHz or better), four gigabytes of RAM and a five hundred gigabyte or one terabyte hard drive. Expect a desktop computer like this to cost around $400 or more (without monitor, printer, etc.), and a laptop/convertible to cost $500 or more.

Office Use – Heavy multi-tasking, demanding programs
For light office work such as email, document writing, etc. a system like that stated above will be sufficient for your needs. If, however, you are working with programs like Photoshop, AutoCAD, Sony Vegas Pro, etc. then a stronger/faster computer will serve you better. Generally you will want a quad-core CPU (2GHz or better) six to eight gigabytes of RAM, a five hundred gigabyte solid state drive or a 1 terabyte hard drive and a professional series (as opposed to gaming) graphics card with one gigabyte or more video RAM. A system like this will generally be a desktop but could also be a laptop. Expect the desktop version to start at $800, and a laptop/convertible to cost $1,000 or more.

Gaming – Hard-core PC gaming
Computers like this are geared towards people who either enjoy playing the latest blockbuster titles like Batman: Arkham Knight, Call of Duty, etc. with the best possible performance or just want bragging rights for the biggest computer on the block. Look for at least a quad, hex or octo-core CPU (3.5GHz or higher), eight to sixteen gigabytes of RAM, two or more solid state drives of five hundred gigabytes or more, a 750 watt power supply or more and one or more gaming graphics cards. Pricing for dedicated gaming computers ranges from $1,000-10,000, depending on configuration.

So now you have a brief introduction to choosing a new computer. Still feeling overwhelmed? Contact us today to discuss your situation and let us configure the best system to meet your needs!

Do you find yourself wishing your current computer was faster? In our next blog post we'll be discussing performance upgrades you can do today to get your system running better than ever! 

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Do you have a question or topic you’d like us to address? Email and let us know!