happy monday to you all. i thought i would share a few tips that are sure fire and come straight from the mouth of the guy you call when things go wrong with your pc (this does apply to all family friends or relatives that you call when things go wrong):

• before you even call me: turn the pc off and turn it back on again, this will more than likely fix what is wrong. yep, thank billy gates and steve ballmer for that.
• your computer is slow: face it, if it’s older than 2 years and you haven’t done a thing to maintain it, tough, you’re toast. it’s like a car, it needs oil changes and whatnot. try maxing out your ram (memory) to improve performance.
• your system tray: all those icons in the bottom right hand corner are running programs. you allowed those to be installed when you installed some software. shame on you. start by shutting them down and possibly uninstall the software all together.
• you bought new hardware: that’s great, don’t use the disc that came with it. go straight to the website and get new drivers or download the latest software. then you won’t have to call me in the first place.
• error messages: these are helpful. don’t call me and only say ‘it won’t work’. tell me what’s up and, seriously, if you get an error message write down the details. if i don’t pickup, type the error into google and you’ll probably find your answer.
• send the horse to the glue factory: if it’s not working right, or is going costing you over $300 to fix; get rid of your computer and buy a new one. don’t pay someone $300 to repair a 4 year old pc when you can pay that much money to buy a new pc without a keyboard, monitor and mouse since you already have those.
• don’t open forwarded emails: it’s an electronic chain letter people. be smart, no harm will come to you if you decide to not forward an email and potentially infect hundreds of your friends with a virus. no bad luck will haunt you or baby pandas will be killed. actually that’s good karma.
• unclutter your desktop: i know you like all those icons there for ‘easy access’ but it’s like carrying all the makeup you own, all the cds in their cases, all the dvds in their cases and a stackful of books with you all the time. it’s just gonna unnecessarily weigh you down. delete them. oh and by deleting them you won’t actually remove the programs.
• the internet is a scary place: the only things you need to surf the web are: internet explorer or mozilla firefox, adobe flash, and java from sun. other than that you don’t need anything else. any prompt telling you that you need something is crap. just don’t do it.
• wireless networking: thanks for all the money. i mean it, this is the number one money maker for me. it’s complicated; it’s not always easy, but seriously buy a decent piece of hardware from linksys or netgear for under $100 and manage it yourself. they have fairly simple user interfaces and for godsakes: password protect your network.
• uninstall useless programs: if you don’t use it; uninstall it. if you don’t know what it is and want to uninstall it: google it and you should know what is up and whether or not you can. other than that, just slim your system down. it’s like nutrisystem for your pc.
• the most important one of all: google your problem. because that’s what i do. i’m not that smart but i pretend to be to impress drunken women at nightclubs. do what i do: just search for your problem and your answer is not far away.

i feel better now that we talked. glad i was able to get some things off my chest. and if your question doesn’t fall into one of the above categories then call me. if you own a mac, then you seemingly won’t ever need to call me, so when we do talk we can discuss the weather and general topics.