Jael Mudiaga

Benefits Of using DHMS Include:
1. Proactive Monitoring.
2. Remote Management
3. Predictive Maintenance
4. Asset Management
5. Security …Click title to learn more

Research shows that lightning strikes the Earth about 8 million times each day. Over the course of a year, that’s roughly 3 billion lightning strikes. While many lightning strikes occur in rural areas, others can occur in cities or other developed communities. Unfortunately, lightning strikes in populated areas often result in a power surge that’s capable of damaging or even destroying connected devices. So, what steps can you take to protect your computer from power surges? Use a Surge Protector The most effective way to protect your computer from a power surge is to use a surge protector. Not to be confused with a power strip, a surge protector is a device with one or more outlets in which you plug electronic devices to protect them from power surges. Rather than plugging your computer directly into a wall outlet, for example, you can plug it into a surge protector. You can then plug the surge protector into the wall outlet to keep your computer safe from power surges. If a power surge occurs, the surge protector will do one of two things to protect your computer from potentially catastrophic damage: Block the additional voltage Short the additional voltage Unplug Your Computer Another way to protect your computer from power surges is to unplug it during lightning storms. By definition, a power surge is a sudden increase in voltage that exceeds the universally accepted standard of 120 volts. While several things can cause power surges, including power companies switching their grids, the most common cause is lightning. If lightning strikes a power line — or an area next to a power line — massive amounts of electricity may enter the power line, at which point the excess voltage will travel to all connected homes and devices. Of course, the excess voltage will only reach the devices plugged into your home’s or business’s wall outlets. By unplugging your computer, you can rest assured knowing that a power surge won’t damage or destroy it. Get a UPS With Built-In Surge Protection Instead of a basic surge protector, consider using an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with built-in surge protection. As the name suggests, a UPS is a device that provides supplemental power during grid outages. If the grid goes down, a UPS will keep your computer running. And if a UPS has built-in surge protection, it will serve the same function as a surge protector. If you’re going to connect your computer to a UPS, make sure the UPS features built-in surge protection. Credit: Logix

A huge chunk of the corporate world is mobile, and they need computing power that can accommodate that. Over the years laptops have gone from bulky and heavy to slim and lightweight. But, even with all the upgrades in power, size, capacity and memory, laptop problems still arise pretty regularly. Here is a quick list of five of the most common problems we hear about and how you can address them on your own. 1. Problem: Loud fan or heating up followed by shut down. Laptops get moved around a lot. This can lead to limiting air intake to the fan. It also gives them plenty of opportunities to drag dust and foreign particles into their cooling system via their fan portal. Solution: Use your laptop on hard, flat surfaces; Avoid putting it on soft surfaces that may block air passage. Clean out your fan with compressed air. Limit how many programs you run at once as well because the more you have running, the harder it has to work. 2. Problem: Laptop running slowly. This happens quite often and could be related to hard drive space, malware or the first signs of equipment failure. Solution: There are lots of ways to try to tackle speed issues, but check out our blog post dedicated to just this topic for 10 tips on speeding up your machine. 3. Problem: Battery doesn’t last. One of the best features of a laptop is that it’s wireless. But, we live in constant fear of draining our battery and running out of juice, so we are constantly hard on our battery. Solution: First, check all of your charger cable connections to be sure they are snug. Next, drain your battery completely and recharge it by leaving your laptop on until it dies. One of the greatest fixes of all technology is simply to fully drain the energy from it and try again, the computer equivalent of a good night’s sleep. If it still fails far sooner than it should, you may need to replace the battery itself. 4. Problem: No internet. Laptops are notorious for losing connection to the internet, which can be a major hassle. Before assuming some sort of equipment failure, try some basic steps. Solution: On most laptops, there is an actual wireless button or switch to activate the connection, find it and make sure it’s in the ON position. Then re-boot your router, again using the drain the power tactic; unplug your router, let all the juice drain out for 10-20 seconds, then plug it back in. If you’re still having trouble, troubleshoot your network connections in your control panel. Finally, re-build your network from the beginning to make sure all your connections are set up properly. 5. Black Screen.  You open up your laptop, power it on, hear it running, but the screen is black. Solution: Unplug the power, remove the battery and then hold the power button for 30 to 60 seconds. Reattach the power cord and re-boot. Then shut down again, put in the battery and re-boot. If you try any of these do-it-yourself fixes and are still experiencing the same problem, it’s time to bring in a laptop repair professional. The engineers at Great Lakes Computer are experts in computer, printer, server, and point-of-sale repair and maintenance. We offer several levels of service as well, from hourly to contract maintenance. Contact us today to get your computer problems fixed and your laptop back on its feet. Credit: Greatleak Computer

When you get a new computer of any type, the default configuration is optimized for the needs of the manufacturer—not for you. You need to take control, but it can take hours of research and fine-tuning if you don’t know where to start. I’ve been tracking the changes I’ve made to improve productivity on my own Windows 10 machine. If you follow all the hints below, I figure (extremely conservatively) that you will save at least 15 seconds per working hour just on completing tasks. But that’s only the beginning: The real benefits come with a cleaner interface and fewer distractions. Here’s how to customize Windows 10 for optimal productivity. Basic Setup Options Windows taskbar basics Right click in the taskbar > Taskbar settings and turn the following settings on: Lock the taskbar Use small taskbar buttons For taskbar location, select “Bottom.” (Never use lateral or top bar, please!) For combine taskbar buttons, select “When taskbar is full.” All the rest should be unmarked, including “Show taskbar on all displays.” (For more on that, see DisplayFusion below in the section “Other productivity software”). You should never use big icons. They take up a big portion of the screen and are totally useless. Also, never use the combine taskbar buttons by default: If you have several files open in the same application, you can switch between them much more quickly if you don’t have to click on the icon and then look through the list for the one you want. As an example, this is a good taskbar: All active applications and the name of all the open files are shown so you can quickly find the one you want to open. The taskbar is small and covers less than 3% of the screen. All screenshots by the author. By comparison, here is a bad taskbar: The icons are enormous, and they don’t show the name of the open files. There is a lot of gray space totally wasted. The taskbar covers less than 10% of the screen (or even more, depending on the screen resolution). If you use the taskbar pictured above, and you have several files open in the same application (something that you likely do all the time), you need to click first on the application icon, a preview of the files will appear, and then you detect the one you want to open and finally click it. More Taskbar Refinements Hide Cortana: Right click on taskbar and uncheck “Show Cortana button.” You don’t need it to use Cortana. (This does not disable Cortana. If you have privacy concerns about Cortana, however, you can also disable it.) Hide the search icon: Right click on taskbar and select “Hidden” under Search. The Task View button can stay if you want a reminder to use this nice Windows 10 functionality, but never access it through the icon. Always use the shortcut, Windows key + Tab. Uncheck all toolbars: Right click on the taskbar and uncheck everything under “Toolbars.” Hide People: Uncheck “Show people on the taskbar.” Hide People Hide all useless icons in the taskbar: The only icons that should appear here are: Battery, Sound, Wireless, and Google Drive (for fast check of synchronization). The rest of the icons can be hidden, but they’re still accessible by clicking on the up-arrow. If you use more than one language, activate them in the taskbar: Right click on the language in the taskbar (the three letters of your default language) and add it in “Preferred languages.” In order to switch quickly between your selected languages, use the shortcut Alt + Shift. A nice and healthy taskbar hides as many icons as possible. Clean your taskbar of useless icons: You very likely only need Chrome, Windows Explorer (or another preferred file system app), and perhaps one or two more applications that you use every day. Remember that you can quickly open these applications by pressing the Windows key + the number of the location of the app in the taskbar. Other Windows 10 Configurations Change the background to dark gray: Right click on desktop > Personalize. Select Solid color in Background; the color “gray dark” is a good one. No photos or vivid colors—gray is the perfect balance between brightness and density. Remove all Desktop icons except Recycle bin. From now on, you don’t want to store files on the Desktop, ever. Desktop tends to be full of folders, files, apps, etc., and it gets messy pretty quickly. My recommendation is to always directly use Windows Explorer’s quick access features (see below: “Windows Explorer”). Activate dark theme: Right click on Desktop > Personalize > Colors > Choose your color: Dark. This is very personal, but if you want to have a focused and distraction-free environment, dark theme is recommended. Update scale and layout: This is very personal, but for laptops usually you should at least use 150% of scaling. Right click on desktop > Display settings > Scale and layout. You can access almost all Control Panel functions using the Windows key and simply typing what you are looking for. Sometimes that doesn’t completely work so I will include the manual steps for these next items. Notifications & Notifications Center Disable all notifications: Go to Settings > System > Notifications & actions > Uncheck everything. The Notifications center can be customized, but as you will rarely use it, you can keep it as is. Enable only and “Alarms only” in Focus Assist so you are not disturbed by useless notifications. Notifications center allows you to quickly modify certain features. For quick access to Notifications center, remember the shortcut: Windows + A. Activate Windows Hello: This is the Windows biometric security feature. If you didn’t do set it up already, go to Settings > Home > Sign-in options and configure Windows Hello. This only works for newer laptops, and it may not work for your corporate computer, but in all other cases it’s a great feature that saves you some precious seconds every time you log in. Activate