Blue Jay Computers

Blue Jay will be CLOSED Friday, July 3 through Monday, July 6 for the Fourth of July extended weekend.

We will reopen on Tuesday, July 7 at 10:00 am.

While we normally have run on reduced hours during the month of July,  we’ve been persuaded by our customers NOT to do this this year. 

So we will be OPEN FOR BUSINESS as usual in July! 

Our days and hours will be:

 Monday-Friday 10 am to 6 pm 

Saturdays  10 am to 4 pm

In the last ten days we’ve been sadly reminded of how important Back Ups are.

If the following anecdotes make your stomach a little queasy, then I know I’m talking to someone who doesn’t have, doesn’t make, regular Back Ups of their hard drive contents or documents.

The following content is sure to make you a little ill, so read on at your own risk! These are true stories……

A firm in BN knew it needed some kind of back up system for their business files. So they send an employee out to buy one for the company.  The employee, not knowing any better, went to Big Box where a Saleschild pushed an external ”back up” drive on them for their business use.  Only it was a drive meant for backing up XBox media (not business docs!) and it didn’t really work the way it was supposed to work. Or the way they thought it was going to work. When the  mechanism failed,  they brought it to us to “recover” the hard drive contents.  Only we couldn’t open the strangely designed sealed box, and there was no other way to access the drive since it was designed with a one way USB connector—info could go into the box, but it couldn’t come back out unless it was working correctly! Which it wasn’t. So– the business found out it had NO back ups and worse, because they used this XBox doo-hinky for ‘commercial purposes’ –on the advice of a know-nothing Big Box sales kid–there was no warranty coverage on the loss.

Ouch.

Another business in town had a hard drive blow up on them.  No sweat: “We have everything backed up on flash drives!” the owner told us. We were glad! Yay!….. Only…turns out they didn’t have back ups after all.  The office worker thought that when you plug a USB flash drive into the proper port and clicked on “back up my files,” the software program automatically saved everything to the Flash Drive.  Not so.  One has to direct or “map” the program to back up to the F:\ drive. If you don’t do this mapping step, everything just gets saved to the C:\ drive, the main drive. Otherwise known as the NOW DEAD drive.  So nothing was saved. Nothing.  As a last ditch effort we sent the hard drive to one of those Data Recovery labs and had a quote for a recovery effort within 24 hours:  it would only cost our client $2000 to “attempt” to recover the important files.  Forget that.

Double Ouch.

Friends, if you have anything of value on your computer(s) that you CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT then you had better come talk to us today and let us design and implement a sensible Back Up System for you!

TODAY, we say. Because the bomb inside your computer is ticking.

Even if you THINK you have a back up system in place, PLEASE come see us and let us help you verify that your system is actually working or going to provide you with the results you hope to have should the Worst occur.

We have several proven methods that will work for you, all reasonably priced, and designed to deal with the realities of your lifestyle and computer expertise.

Call us to make an appointment for a Back Up Consult at 268-0927 and let us help you secure your precious, precious computer files against this kind of agonizing loss!

Don’t know if you’re a fan of CATS (we are despite our “birdness”) but if you are, here is a website that you MUST take a look at.

It’s called http://icanhascheezburger.com  and these are without a doubt THE FUNNIEST photographs of cats (and other animals) you’ll find anywhere on the Web.  Maria and I get regular ‘feedings’ of the choicest pics from icanhas–or LOLcats as it’s also known–from our sister Claire out in Ohio  (”OH-IO”!).  The pic above of a “jay.peg” made us laugh, as do most of the icanhascheezburger gallery items. 

Go to this site http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/13/and scroll down three places to a MASTERPIECE called ”I Hate Everything” and howl with laughter as we did! I know Important People in this town who use this image as their desktop wallpaper!  

You can get hooked on this website easily and soon you’re even learning “LOLspeak.”  Okay, so here’s the one we have stuck up on our wall in the Shop:

(Btw, the publishers of icanhascheezburger.com were slammed with people protesting the exploitation of what they claimed was an abused kitten. The publishers assured folks this was a perfectly healthy kitten that had just been the victim of a tender bath and a blow dry.  What better place to get warm than a 500 gig hard drive that’s been recently released from the confines of an old Compaq Presario Micro-ATX case!  Can you say “Ooohmm, i is toasty!?”
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

If you’ve been a long time believer in the infallibility of Consumer Reports, guess what: they are capable of getting it wrong. Totally wrong.

In the latest issue (June 2009) CR rates Security Software and said the #1 and #2 products out there today are….  Drum roll please…

McAfee and Norton!

Any computer technician worth his or her salt KNOWS that not only are these two products not “the best,” they are in fact, the worst thing a computer owner could do to themselves.  Here at Blue Jay, when we see an owner has been depending on McAfee and Norton, we KNOW their computer IS infected.

That’s just how bad these products are.  Over the past four years we have witnessed countless “failures” of McAfee and Norton, failures that ultimately cost Owners thousands of dollars in subsequent repairs.  All McAfee and Norton have going for them is outstanding Marketing Spin.  When it comes to actual PROTECTION—zilch.

Here at Blue Jay Computers we have tested all the products out there and found three to be exceptionally good at actually stopping computers from becoming infected, or cleaning up infections quickly.  And they are free.

None of these exceptionally good, free products “bog down” computers either.  The same can’t be said for  ”McFatty” and “Nuthin’.”  Both are so huge, so invasive that they can make a machine running 1 gig of Ram feel more like 256 mb!  Time and again we remove McAfee and Norton and —-whee, the machines fly once again!

If you’re reading this and you’ve listened to Consumer Reports–and your machine is loaded with either McAfee or Norton, PLEASE call us.

Your computer is infected—or we’ll eat our feathered caps.  We want to help you get out from under those two expensive and useless programs and actually get Protection!

Our number is 309-268-0927  or email us at jay@bluejaycomputers and we’ll be happy to tell you the real “Best Products” for viral protection.