If you are using computer video or audio editing software, a common problem is that the volume levels can end up being different between files or between tracks. Today we will look at a few ways to use your computer deal with these problems to ensure your audio is sounding good. 

In each of the ways to fix this problem, we will be modifying the waveform using computer sofware. The waveform is a visual representation of the audio of the song. A higher wave represents a large sound (higher decibels) at that time. Audio tracks will usually have some loud parts with a pronounced waveform and quitter periods with a smaller waveform. The top and bottom limits of the waveform represent the possible ranges of volume. If you are using a computer program the top limit will be labelled as 0db. Note: This does not mean your audio will now be 0 decibels! The line in the middle of the waveform represents absolute silence, or no volume. If we go over our maximum volume line (0db), we will experience digital distortion. Thus, we want to avoid having our track too loud. 

So what are firewalls and how can they save me from needing computer repairs? If you use the internet, you might be familiar with the term firewall. Windows has a built in firewall and this pesky beast can often interrupt and affect your use of the internet. Firewalls filter computer traffic based on certain rules for which traffic it allows to pass or which traffic it blocks. 

Computer firewalls can be either logical or physical. Under you go out and buy a server administration grade physical firewall, you will be dealing with logical firewalls. Logical firewalls (or software firewalls) generally either work at either a protocol or application level. Protocol firewalls have rules to only allow certain types of traffic through them. Application firewalls only allow certain programs (applications) to connect to the internet. The Microsoft Windows Firewall is a mixture of a protocol firewall and and application firewall as you are set rules for the type of traffic it lets through and you can also enable/disable applications from connecting to the internet.

A quick example to illuminate the differences between a protocol-based firewall and an application based firewall. To allow your computer to download web pages, a protocol firewall creates an exception that allows all network traffic that uses the HTTP web protocol. The computer's firewall will now allow all web traffic regardless of what browser you are using. If you were to use an application based protocol, you would only allow a certain browser to send or receive data, and your other browsers would not be able to connect to the internet (unless you configure your firewall to let them).

If you are concerned about online security risks, a firewall is your first port of call when it comes to protecting your computer. Likewise if you have recently been hacked you should check your computer's firewall settings do not need repairing. You should consider using a firewall if:

1.       Your computer is using a broadband internet connect. Hackers often use port scanners to scan which ports you have open. Think of ports on your computer as analageous to an actual seaport. You have to have certain ports open to send and receive different types of information. If you are always online with a broadband internet connection, the ports pertaining to the internet and web use will be permanently open. This gives hackers a chance to access your computer through these open ports.

2.       2. Have a static Ip address. If you have a static IP address that does not change, this makes it easy for hackers to keep a track of your computer as your computer address on the internet is always changing.  If you have a dynamic IP address, your IP address will often change, making it harder for  hackersto track you. Think of it as you changing house every day so that a team of burglars can never find you.

3.        If you download programs or files from the internet. IF you are using peer to peer sharing programs over the internet or downloading files from “shady” websites, this heavily increases your chances of accidentally downloading malware. Malware can open ports on your computer that should be closed, allowing hackers in. Firewalls can stop malware connecting back to hackers by forcing these ports closed. 

So use your Windows firewall if you are using Windows. Or better yet, go and purchase a software firewall that will provide your computer with even more security against nasty hackers. 

Nerd out. 

Today we are going to be talking about devices that you plug into your computer and the drivers that are needed to run them. Thankfully, in this day and age, most devices are Plug and Play. Plug and Play (PnP) means you do not have to manually install drivers for your hardware in order for it to work. You literally plug in and it will “play”. So what are drivers?

A device driver is a software package lets your operating system t communicate with a specific hardware device. Before your operating system can use new hardware, a device driver for your hardware must be installed on your computer. The way that Plug and Play works is that your operating system has a store of drivers for a large number of devices. If the driver for your device is in the driver store then the driver get automatically installed when you plug your PnP device into your computer.  However, you might still need to install updated drivers in the future as they are released so even if you only use PnP devices it is still useful to be familiar with how to manually install drivers. If your device is not Plug and Play, you will need to install the driver for your device manually. This can take the form of a DVD/CD that came with your device or you can usually download the drivers from the manufacturers website.

Now we will talk about how Windows users can use Device manager to install and update drivers, change the hardware settings and troubleshoot problems with their devices.

You can get into Device Manager in a few ways. One way is to right click on Computer or My Computer depending which version of Windows you are using. Click Manage. Then Click Device Manager.

Device Manager is used to view device status and details, to view power and bandwidth settings and to view information about the device driver. To view information about your device, first open the sub-heading your device belongs to. For example, if your device is a keyboard, double click on the keyboards heading. You will then be able to see your keyboard. Right click the device you want to inspect and click Properties. In the General tab you will see whether the device is working properly. If your device is working properly, this means your device has a driver installed and Windows can talk to the device.  

If you need to manually install a driver, right click on your computer name at the top of your list in device manager. Then click Add Legacy Hardware or Add Hardware depending on which version of Windows you are using. This will start the Add Hardware wizard. Make sure your hardware is plugged in and turned on before running the Add Hardware wizard. The wizard gives you two options: It will either scan for uninstalled hardware or ask you to select what hardware you wish to install from a list of devices that comes with the operating system. If you have the driver in a folder, on a disc, or on a removable drive, select the Have Disk option. You then specify the location of the driver, which is normally a .inf file. When a driver has been chosen, the wizard will hopefully install your driver and you are good to go.

It is a good thing to keep in mind that you will occasionally get driver conflicts between devices and you will need to roll back to a previous driver. To do this, follow the earlier steps to get into the Driver details of your device and click Roll Back Driver. This should fix the issue. Sometimes Windows Update will automatically install new drivers that may cause conflicts. You can change the operating system settings so that this does not happen…..but more on Windows Update coming up soon. Nerd Out. 

Why is my computer running slow? Do you know why? This is a question that gets asked very frequently. There could be a lot of reasons.

1.       It could be that you have a lot of stuff that in not just installed but running at the same time. If you have dozens of programs running this will slow down your computer. So the first step is to make sure you don’t have too many programs running at once. On Windows 7 computers press Ctrl-Shift-Esc to open Task Manager. Look at the Applications tab and close down any Applications you are not using.

2.       There can be numerous background processes that you are not using, or do not need, that can be slowing down your computer. open Task Manager and look at the processes tab. A bit of operating system knowledge and critical thinking will let you know what processes are safe to end. A general rule of thumb is do not stop processes that are labelled as a Windows process as these are crucial to the functioning on the operating system.

3.       Turn off unwanted services and startup items in MSConfig. Search for “msconfig” in your start bar search and press Enter. You might find services you don’t need are running in the background. A useful tip is to look for services from companies that you don’t want running. For example, you might not want some services from your computer manufacturer that you don’t need. In MSConfig you can also see which programs automatically star tup when your computer boots into windows. Generally you will want as few start up programs as possible to increase the Windows load speed.

4.       You can use programs such as CCleaner to clean up your computer. CCleaner combines numerous Windows functions and a few more of its own to give your computer a good clean.

5.       Upgrade your computer with new hardware and software. If you are running a 10 year old PC, it might be time to upgrade.

6.       Format the hard drive. Formatting gets rid of all your data so make sure you have backed up any files you need to a hard-disk or a network backup. If you haven’t formatted in a few years, it’s probably time.  

Recently we talked about how to remove malware without any anti-virus software. Today we are going to talk about how to remove viruses with only using freeware software that you do not have to pay for.  There are three programs that we will talk about that we recommend.

1.       Malware Bytes: Go to malwarebytes.org and download Malware bytes. Once its done downloading double click on the file and install the program. Once the program is running click Quick Scan for now. The time a scan takes is dependent on how infected your computer is. After the scan is complete the program will give you a list of infected files it found. Remove those files.

2.       Combofix: Search “combofix” into Google and go to bleeping mirrors webpage. Download the program.  Once you have the file saved, double click on it. It should open a blue window and start scanning your computer. It has to go through 50 stages and often requires a reboot when it’s finished scanning.

3.       Hitman Pro 3.5: Download the trial version. Download the file and open it. Hitman lets you delete infected files that you otherwise would not have been able to delete. Viruses often prevent you from deleting them so Hitman is a useful tool if you can isolate the files that need to be deleted.

Nerd out. 

Windows 8 has been officially slated by Microsoft for release in the first week of August this year. Never the less, we at Newton’s Nerds have installed the Windows 8 preview and been messing around with Windows 8 since late September last year. Given many of our customers will be installing Windows 8 soon it seems appropriate to use our blog to introduce you to some of the major changes.

Perhaps the most immediate change that people will notice is the introduction of the Metro interface. I have included below a screen shot from Wikipedia. The Metro interface completely changes the way users interact with their computer. It appears Microsoft has stylised their design on the elements that were highly successful for Apple in the iPhone and later with their iPads. This is not Microsoft’s first attempt at the Metro interface so it is likely they have got it right. The Metro interface was first seen on the Windows Phone operating system. 

Today we are going to be talking about how to remove a virus without any anti virus software. There are many ways to remove viruses and malware from your computer. Most ways to remove viruses require often expensive software such as Kaspersky, Norton, AVG etc. You can also find Linux based virus scanners you can run through a boot disk if you cannot open the operating system at all. However, you can use the Windows DOS command prompt to do some basic commands to search for viruses. In the process we are going to talk about below, we will find hidden virus autorun files and executables. We can rename or delete these files to stop the virus automatically running on the infected drive.

Step 1: Start your command prompt. Type Cmd into your search bar (if you are using Windows Vista or 7) then press enter. This will bring up a DOS prompt in which you can type commands.

Step 2: We need to select the drive which has been affected by the virus. The default drive for your computer is C but you will need to check this. Type (without the speech marks) “C:” and then press enter. To see the content of the drive type “dir” then enter.

Step 3: Here is when it starts to get a bit more difficult. Type “attrib –s –h *.* /s /d then press enter. Type “dir” to check whether it contains unusual .exe files. 

Note: The -s means we are looking at system files. The -h means we are looking at hidden files. the *.* indicates we are looking for all files.

Step 4: Delete any files that have “autorun.inf” next to them as they are likely virus files. You can also rename the “autorun.inf” files to whatever you like to deactivate them. Now you can access the drive without affecting the virus.

Hopefully this was of some help to you. Nerd out. 

Programming is a term that is often thrown around a lot when people talk about IT. But what exactly is programming? The average person perceives programming as something mysterious, almost mystical in its difficulty. However, there are many different types of programming and levels of difficulty. 

The thing to understand is that there are many different programming languages which are utilised to do different tasks. These languages are generally built from other languages. In each language, the programming types in text to tell the program that she is creating what to do. Different languages require different syntax to perform tasks. 

The OSI model is an incredibly useful tool for understanding how different networks communicate to each other. The OSI Model breaks down communication into 7 logical layers that let you think about a network problem and how to fix that problem. It simplifies the troubleshooting process by allowing a technician to focus on which layer the problem appears to be in.

1.       The Application Layer- The Application layer is that layer that the user interacts with the data. For instance, you are reading this web document on a web browser. If you are using email, you might be viewing Outlook.

2.       Underneath the Application layer is the presentation layer. This is the layer that the operating system is on.

3.       The Session layer is the layer that deals with the communication creating a session between the two computers. If you go to a website, your computer has to create a session with the web server you are trying to get information from.

4.       The Transport layer is what decides how much information should be sent at one time. When you are communicating with a website, this layer is responsible for controlling how much data is sent back and forth. The transport level is where the process of windowing happens.

5.       The Network layer is the level that routers operate on. Your IP address is at the Network layer. This layer is related to connections between networks. The TCP/IP protocol suite resides on this layer.

6.       The Datalink layer is the level that switches work on.  This layer is related to connections within networks. Media Access Controll addresses reside on this layer. Every single device in the world has a MAC address.

7.       The Physical layer refers the physical components of a network. This includes wiring and cables. If your Ethernet cable has become disconnected, this is a Physical layer problem!

If you are new to networking, it is important to realise that the OSI model does not refer to actually layers hidden in your cables or the Internet! The OSI model refers to logically distinct aspects of a network and enables you to diagnose where your network issues lie. For example, if you notice you are not receiving an IP address from your router, this would be a Network layer problem.  If you can “ping” a domain but cannot connect to the domain in a web browser, this is likely an Application layer problem. 

Another benefit of the OSI model is that it is an exhaustive list of networking issues. If all layers are the OSI model are working, your networking with be working. Any problem that you encounter will be associated with a layer of the OSI model. Thus, once you identify where the problem is, you can take steps to fix it.

Nerd out. 

What is involved? We take care  of your computer's health so you don't have to. With our tune up service you don't need to worry about the hassle of downloading patches and then installing them. 

There is no need to remember when it is time to maintain your computer. We can take care of scheduled maintenance with our combination of systems to prompt our technicians when you need a service as well as automated maintenance software. We take care of system updates, tune-ups, hard disk drive checks and more. We also take care of patches, software updates, and other routine maintenance tasks.

Here is an example of a computer maintenance routine:

Every day

• Backup files that have changed
  

Monday

• Check for System updates
  
• Check system drive fragmentation - this involves checks disks for fragmentation and then performing a defragmentation service 
  

Tuesday

• Scan hard disk drive for errors
  

Wednesday

• Clean temporary files and clear cache - this includes: User temp files, IE temp files, Java cache
  

Friday

• Technician to check event log
  

Weekly

• Clean cookies, history, and Log Files
  

Quarterly

• Physically check hardware for dust

• Tag and test electrical safety of computers with Portable Appliance Tester.