PC Masters in Meredith closes
 

PC Masters on RT 3 in Meredith formally known as Enhanced Computers closed it's doors for good on Friday.

If I can be of service to any of PC Masters Customers please let me know.

603 707 7883

Ooh, almost like ambulance chasing? Then again, maybe not as I see your forum name matches the initials of the owner of PC Masters.

No, I am not an ambulance chaser!
 

I have never owned or been a partner in PC masters.

I worked there for 1.5 years. I run a business repairings PC'S.
I am offering my services to people who used PC Masters.

Just kidding pah. Quite a coincidence with your forum name matching the name on the sign. :confused:

Sorry to hear the news
 

I wnet there when I spilled some coffee on my keyboard and the guy working there was very helpful. Ordered me and new keyboard, called me when it came in and popped it in for me while I waited. I think he drove up here from Concord.
It was a good experience - so sorry to hear the news.

now where is the next best place to go?

Its to bad
 

I went to him and he called me 2 hours later and said he was sorry it took so long he was busy with another computer( I figured it would take a couple of days) charged me $50.00 and I havent had a problem since. A real nice guy

i
 

I have used the services of Peter before. His computer repair business is professional, quick and He has a great personality.

Hope He's Good!
 

I encountered a major system problem today and gave Peter a call. I'm going to take my PC to him tomorrow for diagnostics. I'm hopeful that he will be successful in fixing my problem and salvaging many of my photos and system backup files stored on an external hard drive. I'll let everyone know how this works out.

It Is A Battle...
 

We all need to tell our ISP's to get more involved in and protecting their paying customers from security issues out on the net these days.
We are all paying them Good money, ( in fact OutRageously So ) , and they are leaving us all to the Wooleff's, so to speak.

Besides us needing to check out all of the great security sites out on the net every day to keep up with the security issues, and keep our computers up to date with a gazillion patches that come out every Too Infrequently, and may I add, in between and faster than Automatic updates can keep up with.!

Now, If the Internet Providers expect us to do all of the heavy lifting about this issue, We should be payed $60.00 to $100.00 a month!
I do not think that I have to remind anyone that Our Buck in this country has long and since left Our pockets!

I do not know about the rest of you, Wallets are Extinct and Gone the way of the Dinosaur over here. I Do Not carry one any more because I do not have anything left to put in one...

The good news is that purses will always remain in vogue. Listen Up! :laugh:


Terry
_______________________________

Peter is Excellent!
 

I wanted to follow up my previous post and let everyone know that Peter did an excellent job fixing the serious computer problem I encountered. Somehow my computer became infected with several malicious viruses that caused major problems, even though I use ZoneAlarm Security Suite which includes a firewall and virus/spyware protection. The Windows operating system was corrupted and, in addition, I was not able to access any of my thousands of photos stored on a second internal hard drive and backed up on an external hard drive. Peter was able to cleanse my C: drive of the viruses and fix the damage they had done to Windows, and he recovered more than 95% of the files stored on the other two hard drives. He worked on my system for two days and his fee was very reasonable. I would highly recommend Peter to anyone in need of professional PC repair assistance. He's a nice guy, to boot! "Peter's PC Repairs" in Meredith - 603-707-7883.

Some More Help...
 

Great news DRH, good to have you back!

We all could use a hand trying to stay ahead of the hacks. When I baught my new computer last year, I found this Neat little utility App. out on ZDnet called " Secunia Personal Software Inspector. " It scans your software, incuding third party apps to make certain that they are up to date and patched, then gives you direct links to patch or update, as needed.

Here's a link to a download page at Zdnet, click on the links at the top of the page in the dark blue area to read more about Secunia PSI. It is a free app. and if you don't want to do the free registration out at ZDnet, you can go to Secunia's website to download it.

http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1138327


Terry
________________________________

That's wonderful news DRH! So glad Peter was able to rescue so much of what was thought to be lost. :D

One of the main reasons I chose to go with a mac this time is because of all the issues I had with my PC and laptop. I, too, used ZoneAlarm's premium offerings, AND their "super secure" wireless router - all for naught. I'm tickled pink with my macbook, but it's great to know that Peter is there if I ever go back to Windows. ;)

DRH,

Thank you for the positive post. I am glad all worked out and I was happy to be of service.

Peter

It is not your ISP's job to protect you from yourself, especially if you choose to go online with a security deficient machine.

Even when I used PC's, my "Internet security" was a $100 router and common sense. I never had a need for virus and ad-ware scanners and all sorts of other funky software to "clean" my computer.

Here are the three best bits of advice for you:

1) Forget about software firewall junk from Norton or McAfee, get a router/firewall device from Linksys, Dlink, Netgear, etc.

2) Don't use Internet Explorer. Ever. Chrome, Opera, Safari and Firefox all offer better security and generally better performance.

3) Change your Windows theme or color-scheme to something other than the default (this makes those bogus "your computer is infected" trojan pop-up windows easier to spot)

[QUOTE=brk-lnt;121651]It is not your ISP's job to protect you from yourself, especially if you choose to go online with a security deficient machine.

Even when I used PC's, my "Internet security" was a $100 router and common sense. I never had a need for virus and ad-ware scanners and all sorts of other funky software to "clean" my computer. [Quote];


If you're set-up works for you, that is great, brk-lnt!

I read an article a while back by an Internet security expert, and he said " that until ISP's get involved in monitoring and filtering out the hacks, that they would be getting much worse in the coming year.
I looked for the above article, couldn't find it, will keep looking and post it out here when I do.

However, I did find this related article, and Comcast is getting involved. So they must be aware of the above as well.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10...ag=mncol;title


Regards



Terry
________________________________

Availability
 

If Peter is not available. Call me. I do a pretty good job of getting microsoft OS back to original and even faster. Been doing this since viruses and malacious software became a problem. Worked for one of the Fortune 100 company for over 30 years. If you are stuck give me a buzz at 603.490.3336.

He's talking about something different (if he really is an "expert"). There are things an ISP can do with their own routers to block or drop certain incoming connections from networks that are known to host a lot of spamming or rouge activity. These tend to be large blocks of IP addresses in parts of Russia, China, Pakistan and so on. This has nothing to do with your PC directly, other than if they block the incoming connections then of course the data does not ever get to your PC.

Comcast and several other consumer ISP's offer McAfee (or other mediocre) virus scanning tools for free. This is certainly OK, but you can already start to see the slippery slope it creates. When people start to think that someone else can or should protect them and handle their security, it tends to make them even less responsible and sufficient in terms of participating on the Internet. As we see new things happening online, like streaming video services (Hulu and so on) we also see some ISP's start to feel threatened by these services. Rather than adjust their price or content to compete, they "compete" by impeding YOUR access to competitive content.

If you allow a precedent to be set that the ISP should take full responsibility for your online security and access it WILL lead to nothing but higher prices and lower quality service over time.

Bottom line is to know what you're doing with your pc. Clicking randomly on things and opening attachments blindly are the most common methods of getting infected.
As brk-int states, get a dlink/netgear/linksys/etc router in between you and the rest of the world and that will do more than any of those security programs will ever do. Also, know what attachments you are opening and where they came from, if there's any questions then check with the person who sent it before opening it, I have done that many times.
Those firewall/security programs are a waste of money IMHO, never used them, don't need them, never had a problem. I even use Internet Explorer all the time and just pay attention to what I am doing.
I love those so called experts, creating all that fear I think they are supported by the companies that develop the software they are always raving about.
Always use virus software, just not the full package they scare you into buying.

Security Essentials
 

from Microsoft, Malacious Software tool from Microsoft, turn on automatic update and you should do fine. All from microsoft.com. Don't have to buy anything more. Once a week I will run the disk cleaner then do a full scan from Security Essentials.

Once a month, I would do a scan disk for disk failure. Than do a disk defragmentation. Go to Windows update website and check for hardware device updates. The automatic updates don't update devices.

I only run Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot only as needed.

Had several PCs humming for years without problems. :D