Why you should regularly backup your computer data

I still find it surprising how many customers I get that don't backup their data regularly. Quite often the first thing that fails in a laptop/pc is the hard drive. Being a mechanical part the chances of it failing at some point is likely. Another reason you should backup regularly is the new ransom malware that is spreading fast. This type of malware will encrypt all your data that you would hate to lose, ie Docs, photos, MP3's, Spreadsheets, Cad drawings, PDF's etc. For a company this could be a disaster. The first time I seen this type of malware (Cryptolocker) was on a local company desktop PC. It had never been backed up and the company lost databases of customer details etc. The criminals will ask for payment to decrypt the data but once paid the chances of them sending the decryption key and the data being decrypted is low. This type of malware can also spread onto any networked map drive. Ideally backup regularly onto external hard drives or optical disks. I fear there will be more and more of this type of malware in the future so make sure you backup regularly and have a good anti-virus package. If you are in the Aberdeen area in Scotland and need advice/help, please contact us. www.laptop-repairs-aberdeen.com

PS3 SLIM YELLOW LIGHT OF DEATH (YLOD) FAULT

Over the last few years I have repaired 100's of PS3's with the dreaded "yellow light of death fault". I presumed when Sony released the PS3 Slim they would have fixed the problem. But recently I have seen a few PS3 Slims with the same problem, they have been repaired by the same reflowing methods as I use with the old style PS3 model. The PS3 slim uses less power and generates less heat yet the problem still seems to exist. I doubt the Slim will have the same high failure rates as the old model, but only time will tell... The biggest cause of this type of fault is the lead free solder they now have to use in modern electronic devices. Since CPU's and GPU's generate a lot of heat, the expanding and contracting of the chips and mainboard cause the solder which goes brittle with age to break connections to either the CPU or GPU or both, hence the YLOD. Also a lot of laptops with Nvidia GPU's suffer the same type of problem. This similiar problem is known as BSOD (black screen of death). This can normally be repaired but can be quite expensive (£70+) as the laptop needs totally disassembled and the GPU reflowed.

CHOOSING ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

There's a lot of choice nowadays when you want to choose an anti-virus package. In my opinion the ones to avoid are any Norton or McAfee products. I've had numerous computers with these anti-virus packages installed and they were riddled with viruses/malware. No anti-virus is 100% effective but these 2 just aren't worth spending any money on. They will also renew your subscription automatically unless you manually cancel it. Probably the best anti-virus software around is Kaspersky. You'll need at least 1GB of memory to run this software otherwise your computer will run slowly. If you don't like to pay for anti-virus software there are many free options available. The free options I would recommend are Avira, Avast and Microsoft Security Essentials. Also Malwarebytes is by far the best spyware/malware protection around. Its free to run manual scans but if you want real time protection you have to pay (£20).

WEBSITE PLAGIARISM

I recently came across a local computer repair website that had blatantly plagiarised (used without consent) content from my website. They had copied and pasted some text and used some of my images and layout. I obviously wasn't very happy with this so contacted the website owner. He had no idea what I was referring to as he had paid a so called web design company in Glasgow (I won't mention their name) to create their new website. This company does cheap websites, not surprising they're so cheap if they're going to search for local websites and steal content. There is a reason most websites have a © copyright notice at the bottom of the page. Like eveything else in life you get what you pay for. Rant over.