Cactus TurboNet Newsletter 3/1/07               

 Notebook Tip

 Use canned air to blow out fans about once per month.  We see laptops frequently
which can only run from 5 minutes to ½ hour before the machine shuts down on its own.  When we take them apart, there is dirt, lint, hair or carpet fibers packed into the fans and heatsinks.  A clean computer runs longer and better.  Heat buildup resulting from blocked fans can damage CPU’s and result in a computer which doesn’t work right, if at all.  Never, ever use a vacuum on your notebook!

 Vista Tip

 If you're having problems installing or running your older software in Vista, try running it in win XP (SP2) Compatibility mode. To do this, right click the *.exe, and click properties, move to the "Compatibility" tab and from there turn on "Run in compatibility mode for" and select Windows XP (Service Pack 2) from the drop down box.  After that, check the "Run as administrator" checkbox, and try the program again.  This may not solve 100% of all issues, but it sure helps with OS compatibility and OS detection issues. 

25^th Anniversary

 Happy 2007!  In 1982, Tony and Monica started Cactus Computer as a mail-order business selling only 3M floppy diskettes.  Cactus’ storeroom was a single shelving unit and its shipping/receiving department was our living room.   

We grew, moving into a small store downtown, then a larger one, then still larger.  We branched out into Internet service, then high-speed Internet, and now even fiber-optic gigabit Internet.  After twenty-five years, we are still a family business, but instead of kids in the living room, it’s now grandkids in the showroom.  Thank you all, so very much, for making it possible.

Backing up your data

Backing up is something people put off until it’s too late.  It seems to be a law of human nature.  When someone brings our service department a computer with a bad hard drive, it’s very rare that they say, “Don’t worry about the information, I’ve recently backed it up.”  It’s much more common to hear, “If you can’t recover my data I’m in trouble!”

Several general ways exist to back up your data.  The easiest is simply to have two hard drives which contain the same information.  They call them “mirrored” drives.  Most full-size computers can take a second hard drive, and most of those can be mirrored.  This protects against a physical hard drive failure, but does not protect against data corruption caused by a virus. 

An on-site backup periodically copies your information to a CD drive, flash drive, or to the hard drive of another computer if you have a network.  For most people, this is the only kind of backup that’s really necessary.  The trick is actually to do it.  Make a schedule and stick to it.

An off-site backup periodically copies your information to a drive or CD in another building.  This is the safest if you have information which absolutely must be preserved, even if there’s a fire.  Business accounting data, irreplaceable digital family photos, your thesis – anything you simply can’t afford to lose should have an off-site backup.