Computer Classes in Burbank

by: Ian Mauleon

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." -Albert Einstein

E-Geniuses is continuing to serve their community as well as expanding their services by offering computer tutoring classes. The classes being offered will teach those who aren’t too confident with their email, photos, social networking, and internet browsing. “It feels good to give people piece of mind by teaching” said owner Joey Mariano. This will be a way to reach out to their community of Burbank and surrounding areas by actively being involved face to face with them and going beyond computer repair. “We want to create good relationships with our neighbors, regardless if they need our services or not.”

Digg

Stumble Upon

Del.icio.us

Buzz

Computer Repair Near Glendale

My computer was infested with viruses, so I looked up computer repair in or around Glendale. That’s when I found out about E-Geniuses in Burbank. Pretty much the next city over! Close enough! Might I add, their services were a higher than some other people I called, but I realized it’s about quality of service over there. They even had a monthly maintenance plan, which of course, I had to sign up on, because it was such a helpful service when I encountered problems. It’s pretty much like having insurance when you need it. I couldn’t thank the guys over at E-Geniuses enough.

-Rick

Digg

Stumble Upon

Del.icio.us

Buzz

Computer Repair in Studio City

Finally a good computer repair near Studio City! I have been to places such as Geek Squad, etc aka “waste of time+money”. Let me tell you, I was impressed by the knowledge of the technicians here at E-Geniuses. Too much “know how” that it was somewhat scary! haha Anyway, I brought my laptop in because it just would not turn on. I had no idea what was wrong w/ it. So I googled computer repair near me in Studio City and called in for live help. Fantastic service as I was set up to come in asap since it was an emergency on my part! I have to say I was in and out of their shop w/ my laptop working in under 15 minutes. Wow! I decided to set up a Monthly Maintenance Plan, which was extremely helpful and saved me money in the long run. I am now a BIG FAN of E-Geniuses!!!

Digg

Stumble Upon

Del.icio.us

Buzz

Lastpass Password Manager

Everyone I know has had a problem remembering a password for a website. It is good to have different passwords for different websites for security purposes, but it can quickly become a hassle to try to remember which passwords to use. That’s where LastPass comes in handy. LastPass is an addon that works for the most popular browsers; Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari.

With LastPass, your passwords are stored online using secure encryption which means that it is the same level of security as your online banking. Having it stored online offers a few advantages over storing your passwords locally on your computer. First of all, LastPass will allow you to access your “Password Vault” using one password which means you only have to remember one password! (Don’t forget that one though.)

Another advantage to using LastPass is that you can setup LastPass on multiple computers so that it can automatically fill in your passwords to websites on any of your computers. When you login to a new website using a never-before-used username and password, LastPass will ask whether you want to store the password. If you say yes, LastPass will synchronize the new password across your multiple computers.

LastPass will also allow you to have multiple username and passwords for websites. This comes in handy if you have multiple Gmail accounts for example.

You can download LastPass here.

After you download and install LastPass, you will go through a setup wizard that will walk you through step-by-step. You should import your passwords currently saved on locally on your computer. Setup LastPass on all of the computers you want synchronized.

Forget the days when you had to create a list of all of your passwords. Now all you have to remember is one.

If you have any questions, make sure to give us a call at (877) 694-3648 or visit us at www.E-Geniuses.com.

Digg

Stumble Upon

Del.icio.us

Buzz

Here is a very common question we get asked by our clients. “Is it better to turn the computer off at night or is it better to keep it on?” We will answer this frequently asked question. We will also discuss power-saving modes such as standby and hibernate.

Some people seem to think that if you keep your computer on overnight, that somehow malicious “hackers” will try to infiltrate your system. The fact is that if your computer is riddled with viruses and spyware, the hackers can access your computer any time it is on, even if you’re using it! Having  good anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-malware programs is essential. If you have these scheduled to scan your computer at night, when you aren’t using it, then it is actually beneficial to keep your computer running at night.

The problem with keeping the computer on has less to do with security and more to do with power consumption and lifespan. It costs money to keep the computer and monitor on. Keeping your computer on also lowers the lifespan of your computer. Monitors lose brightness over time when kept on for extended periods of time. Hard drives and fans begin to fail eventually. Your electric bills will start to go up.

So what’s the solution? The answer is in setting your computer’s power options to suit your usage.

First you should make sure that your monitor is set to turn off when it isn’t in use for a set period of time. The steps are different depending on the version of Windows you are running, but basically you will want to go to the control panel, look for your power options, then change how long it takes before the monitor goes to sleep when the mouse or keyboard isn’t being used. Two and a half hours is safe if you plan to watch movies often and for most people 30 minutes is more than enough time to keep the screen “awake”.

Another important setting is the standby and hibernate options. These are modes where the computer seems to be turned off, but is actually on but in a low-power state. Here are some basic differences between stanby,  hibernate and a full shutdown/startup:

Standby: fastest to startup and shutdown, consumes the most power, aside from being completely on of course. (Important when running on laptop battery power)

Hibernate: takes longer to shutdown and startup than standby-mode but faster than from a full shutdown, consumes less power than standby but more power than a full shutdown.

Full Shutdown/Startup: takes longest to shutdown and startup, consumes the least amount of power when off.

I like to set my computer to standby after about 2 hours, but the optimal setting varies from user to user. It all depends on when you prefer for your computer to “sleep”.

I don’t like waiting  for my computer to boot up. I usually want to just briefly look at a website or check my emails, something that will take 1 or 2 minutes. It wouldn’t make sense for me to wait two minutes to do something that only takes two minutes. Sometimes I will restart my computer when it is acting up. Standby or hibernate won’t fix those issues. The only time I do a full shutdown is when I am transporting my desktop computer or when I am putting my laptop away for a long period of time and don’t want the battery to drain. Any other time, I am using standby mode. I don’t use hibernate because it just does not seem that much faster than doing the full restart and does not offer the benefits of the full restart (clearing the ram to make the computer run more efficiently.)

So should you keep your computer running at night? Probably not. Should you turn it completely off? Not unless you like waiting for the computer to bootup. Should you put it in a lower power state? Yes. Standby works the best in most situations.

Digg

Stumble Upon

Del.icio.us

Buzz