If you like editing photos (or videos)..

When you buy a new computer from us, one of the products we offer is Adobe Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements and ACDsee. This is an outstanding suite (and a $300 value) that’s sure to get your creative juices flowing.

Just tonight I also found a really neat site that allows you to create and edit digital images online. The site is Pixlr. If you love editing or creating digital images and you don’t have a copy of our Adobe Suite, you’ll love the advanced capabilities of the Pixlr online image editor.

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Price comparisons.. Compare apples to apples

Not too often, but on rare occasion, we hear “such and such box store has one for $xx.xx less”. Tonight I decided to look into that, as I do on a somewhat regular basis, to see what we were being compared to.

What I found was actually rather surprising. One famous electronics store sells LG monitors. Here’s the thing with LG monitors. They have three different types of panels that they use. Although they LOOK the same, both in specification and physical appearance, they’re actually quite different. The box store sells the low end LG flat panel for the same price that we sell the WTQ panel for. The WTQ panel, as any geek will tell you, is LG’s top end LCD panel, the most sought after, with the highest praises.

Another example is RAM. Comstar and Buffalo RAM is simply no name, generic RAM in a pretty package, or lower quality (known as tiers) main stream chips on them. Kingston Value RAM is the same idea. Kingston branded RAM, on the other hand (the Kingston name right on the little black chips) is a much different animal with a higher quality chip on them. The box store sells the cheap, generic product for the same price that we sell top name brands such as Kingston, Crucial, Patriot and OCZ.

Rocketfish is a very poor quality power supply in geek circles, made by a generic Chinese OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and thrown into a pretty box with an exaggerated power rating and sold for top dollar. For less money you can buy top name brands like Thermaltake, Fortron Source, Seasonic and Corsair with 80 plus efficiency ratings (less power consumption, less loss due to heat and actually delivering at rated power) and up to five year warranty.

There are many, many more examples, but it just goes to show that all is not as it seems in the land of computers, where every gimmick is used to try and get a leg up on a competitor (does advertising After Manufacturers Rebate pricing sound familiar?). Quality does matter, especially when you can get it at the same price with better warranties and service.

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Who makes the most reliable laptop?

We get asked who makes the most reliable laptop daily. As more laptops fail, as the Future Shop special crashes and burns, people look to us for answers on what to replace it with. As we repair hundreds of laptops each year, we get to see which models end up on our work bench most often.

We’ve always told our clients that the Fujitsu and Asus product lines have proven to be the most reliable laptops. There is an advantage to manufacturing your own laptops. You get to have complete control over the process from start to finish.

Well, as it turns out we’re not the only on that thinks that Asus and Fujitsu laptops are the best laptops on the planet. A new study released by Square Trade that offers after market warranties shows a break down of failure rates on the laptops that are covered by their warranty.

Fujitsu isn’t in the list at all. And the number one manufacturer of the most reliable laptop on the planet? Asus. The least reliable laptop is made by Hewlett Packard (HP).

Another not-so-surprising statistic is the failure rate of netbooks. The Square Trade study shows that netbooks are 20% more unreliable than a regular laptop and more likely to require repair.

You can view the entire study in pdf format here.

UPDATE: PC Magazine has released their own study which mirrors the results of the Square Trade study. You can view the results here.

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Why you don’t buy a cheap power supply

The power supply in your computer is the most important part of your computer. The stability and reliability of your computer depend on your power supply. We’ve often commented to our clients about the importance of a good power supply and how we’ve seen cheap power supplies catch fire, melt wire shielding, damage motherboards and hard drives.

Many “budget” computers out there also come with cheap power supplies in them. The manufacturer will buy a truck load of cases with power supplies in them already. Almost always they are cheap, generic power supplies that are destined for one thing: Premature death.

Corsair has a brilliant video on their website that visually demonstrates why you don’t put a $20 or $30 power supply in your computer. Check it out.

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Genuine vs. “OEM” batteries and adapters

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ASRock is NOT manufactured by Asus!

There has been a mounting confusion in the marketplace about ASRock products.  In this post I hope to clear up some of that confusion.

PCChips is a huge manufacturer of budget boards for computers.  They are essentially your typical flea market variety mother board.  PCChips created a subsidiary named ECS (Elitegroup Computer Systems), another budget brand of mother board.

ECS started putting a huge dent in some of the big player’s sales as many manufacturers, including OEMs like Acer and Gateway (Acer owns Gateway and Emachines) utilized ECS motherboards in their systems.  As the public’s eye turned from quality to how cheap they could buy a computer, OEMs turned to the likes of ECS and MSI (Microstar International) to provide the cheapest possible product.

In 2002, AsusTeK formed a spinoff company from one of their subsidiaries, Hua Ching, to combat this growing momentum.  It was a decision that AsusTeK would come to regret.

Many computer stores, computer sales reps, wholesalers, etc. are pitching that ASRock is made by Asus.  This is absolutely not true.  The only tie that ASRock has with Asus is the fact that Asus started the company.

ASRock themselves are using the Asus name to sell their products.  I have a wholesale distributor rep that calls me every day, asking me to buy ASRock claiming that “quality has improved” and that it’s “made by Asus”.  I tell him that the ASRock product is not suitable for our business, yet every day I get the same phone call.

Beware of this marketting tactic.  ASRock is merely in the same class as ECS and PCChips.  They are budget motherboards, severely lacking in the manufacturing and quality control put into the Asus product.

Asus has spent a lot of time trying to distance themselves from the ASRock brand, and has even threatened to sue ASRock customers that try to associate the ASRock brand with Asus in order to sell product.

Beware of the confusion!  Don’t fall for the marketting gimmicks.  An informed consumer is a good customer.  For the ultimate in performance, reliability and service, insist on genuine Asus products.

UPDATE:  Through some research, I found out that Asus circuit boards are made by Tean Electronic Co Ltd in Taipei Hsien, Taiwan.  Asrock circuit boards are made by Yu Fo Electronics Co. Ltd in Taoyuan, Taiwan.

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Who makes Dell, HP, Toshiba, Acer, Apple laptops?

Have you ever wondered who makes that laptop you own?  Well, wonder no more, because I’m going to tell you.

Many people, and understandably so, believe that Dell, HP, Toshiba, Apple or Acer make their own laptops.  This actually is not true.  In fact, they don’t even design them in most cases.  There are three main Chinese ODM (Original Design Manufacturers) manufacturers and one smaller manufacturer that design and make them for all five.

Compal Electronics Inc, based in Taipei, Taiwan, designs and manufacturers laptops for Dell, Toshiba, HP (Hewlett-Packard) and Acer.  They currently manufacture 45% of all Acer’s shipped laptops.  50% of Dell’s outsourced notebooks come from Compal.  In June they recorded sales of $43 Billion according to their posted sales reports.

You can view some of their current laptop product lineup here.

Quanta Computer is the world’s largest designer and manufacturer of notebooks.  Quanta is headquartered in Taiwan, with factories in several continents.  25% of all Acer notebooks are made by Quanta.  If you look on their notebook product page, you may recognize the basic design.

It is also not well known that Quanta Computer is now manufacturing the Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer.

In June of this year, Quanta Computer recorded sales of a whopping $62 Billion.

Compal and Quanta are designing and manufacturing a fascinating new product for Acer that will dual boot Windows XP and Android.  You can look for that product to hit store shelves any day now.

Wilstron, also based in China, makes up the remainder of Dell’s outsourced laptops.  A fascinating little tidbit is that Wilstron, along with Flextronics International Limited and Celestica, also manufactures the XBox 360 for Microsoft.

You hear many people argue about which of those laptops is better than the other.  They’re all made in the same factory, designed by the same people.

Some other major players:

AsusTeK Computer Inc. - manufactured the original MacBook

Foxconn Electronics Inc. (Hon Hai Precision Industry) manufacturer of Apple’s MacBook and iPod nano as well as the Sony Vaio laptop.  Foxconn has also just landed some orders from Dell and HP for 2010. 

Inventec Corporation 

Micro-star International (MSI) - main manufacturer of MDG laptops

MiTAC International Corporation

Tyan Computer Corporation

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I can’t open this Microsoft Office 2007 document!

As Microsoft Office 2007 becomes more prominent and widely used, this problem is coming up more and more often.  Many people are quite happy with their older versions of Microsoft Office and don’t want to upgrade.

The reason you can’t open Word, Excel or Powerpoint 2007 documents is because by default they save in what’s called an OpenXML format (docx, xlsx, etc) when the user clicks “save”.  There are two ways to get around this.  You can ask the user to “save as” a Word 97-2003 document instead, or you can download an Office 2007 compatibility pack, freely available from Microsoft.

The Office 2007 compatibility pack offers two advantages.  First, you don’t have to rely on other people saving in the proper format.  Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, you don’t have to rush out and buy a new program that you have to completely relearn how to use.  Bonus!  Less hassle and free is good.  We like less hassle and free.

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What is the best antivirus?

One of the tasks of a good computer repair technician is to constantly evaluate the latest security products available on the market and to make fair, unbiased recommendations to their clients.  It’s not enough to say “such and such is the best because we’ve got it on THOUSANDS of machines” or “This one is best because it’s free”.  Security products should only be recommended based on empirical evidence…quantifiable data.

Once you have the data, you then look at other factors, such as performance or issues caused.  Usability problems generated by the software.

In the past, we’ve heavily advocated against Symantec (Norton Antivirus).  The reasons were long and distinguished:

• The lowest detection rate of known, and unknown, malware
• Computers protected with Norton were coming in riddled with viruses and malware
• Once Norton was installed, the computer suffered severe performance issues
• Norton is known to corrupt email boxes
• It blocks Windows updates from registering, preventing access to the internet.
• Norton is known to block or interfere significantly with file and printer sharing
• Norton can damage network connections, preventing the computer from connecting to the internet
• It’s expensive considering all the trouble it causes.
• It doesn’t uninstall clean, leaving traces of itself riddled throughout the computer.
• Norton 2009 can cause issues with networks, creating errors such as “server storage memory is not sufficient to process the command” and preventing access to network resources
• Upgrades/renewals to your Norton product have been known to completely damage a Windows install, preventing you from loading into Windows
• Having Norton installed can prevent you from opening attachments in emails, either in Outlook or in web based providers such as Yahoo.
• Errors, such as “Attempted Intrusion “HTTP Macromedia Long Filename BO” from your machine” and no technical support.

In short, it was absolutely terrible.  Yet vendors continued to push it, even bashing those that spoke against it, without real reason for doing so.  Independent antivirus review sites, such as AV-Comparatives.org, were hammering it, yet people, including technical support help desks and even Rogers, were pushing it on the unsuspecting public.  Just a few days ago we had a laptop come in with Norton Antivirus 2008 on it that the company help desk insisted they use.  It was so riddled with infection that the laptop wouldn’t even load Windows.

It’s quite obvious that doesn’t make for a good antivirus program.  Which leads back to the topic of this blog.  What is the best antivirus?

It’s getting to be a tougher choice.  This year, many vendors have picked up their game.  Norton and McAfee, for instance, have been busy reworking their products, perhaps finally realizing that a name alone isn’t going to save them.  Free contenders, such as AVG, Avira and Avast have been upping the ante.

Well, AV-Comparatives.org has released their 2009 results, and they may surprise you.  Norton and McAfee are both making very strong showings, coming up in the top with detection rates and low false positives.  While they are still known to create serious problems with Windows, they’re doing a much better job at detecting problems.

AVG, our big favorite last year, has fallen behind.  While it’s easy on your computer, doesn’t cause issues and is quite worry-free, it’s lagging behind in detection rates, offering up more false positives and slower scan speeds.

Avira, on the other hand, has now overtaken AVG, also being light on computer resources, hassle free and a free download.  It also offers antispam, antivirus, firewall, etc.  It’s a complete package, with the very attractive price of FREE!

Click here to download Avira Antivirus for free.

Eset (NOD32) is still our favorite paid antivirus.  While not rated as high with known infections, it is vastly superior in the detection and removal of unknown infections (using what is called “heuristics”).  It is also much easier on the computer, doesn’t cause any significant problems with the functionality of the computer and is actually cheaper to buy than Norton.

Norton and McAfee are now much safer bets for security than they used to be.  If you can deal with the problems they create, if they create any for you personally that is, and you have at least 1GB of RAM in XP or 3GB of RAM in Vista, then they are fine.  Letting some infections slide is typical of any antivirus software, including AVG, so a few here and there is no cause for major alarm.

If you’re looking for a free alternative with decent protection, Avira is this years recommendation from me.

If you’re looking for a healthy balance of functionality, ease of use, performance and protection, Eset NOD32 still reigns supreme as the best paid antivirus protection for your computer.

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Is a Pentium 4 faster than the new Dual Cores?

Not long ago, we had a client come in looking for a new computer.  He mentioned that he’d been told that a Pentium 4 was faster than a Core2Duo, and asked if that’s correct.  The short answer is no.

The myth of “clock speed”.

There are those that would have you believe that a faster clock speed means a faster computer.  A great example of this is a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 compared to a 2.66 GHz Core2Duo.  The reality is that the Core2Duo can do far more work in the same amount of time than a Pentium 4 can, and Windows is written to take full advantage of the newer designs.

A Gigahertz is a measure of (clock) cycles per second.  During each one of those cycles, a unit of work is done.  In the old days, the more cycles the processor, or main brain, could complete in one second, the more work it could do.

Today, processor design has changed so much that far more work can be completed in fewer cycles.  This promotes energy efficiency and ultimately a processor that runs much cooler.  In other words, you no longer need to have your computer do double duty as a space heater or toaster oven.  You no longer have to pay a week’s wages to the hydro company.

This page is an excellent comparison page to demonstrate the point.  It uses a synthetic test to compare different processors.  The processors at the top of the charts are the fastest, the ones at the bottom are the slowest.  You don’t need to know exactly what the numbers mean to see that at the top of the charts are the Intel dual cores, I7s and Core2Duos.  At the bottom of the charts are the old Pentium 4s and other single core processors.

New computers, complete with software preloads (without any demos or trial software in our case) are constantly dropping in price.  Computers are the only commodity out there that gets cheaper as they get better.  Warranty terms are minimum one year on a new computer, in our case many of the parts come with far longer warranties.  With prices dropping and quality going up, it doesn’t make any sense to buy used or “off-lease” computers anymore.

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