How to protect your computers from power surges!

This past week we have a had a few severe storm systems in the Connecticut area. It's very important that you protect your expensive electronic equipment from power surges which typically come from lightening strikes. We had several customers lose their computers because they were (and would only) use a cheap power strip/surge protector rather than a quality one or a UPS. In this article we will talk about some preventive measures to minimize the risk of your equipment being destroyed by a power surge.

Some Topics:

1. Joules - what they are, what they mean, and how it effects the surge process.

2. What is a GFCI?

3. The differences between a power strip, surge protector, whole house or business surge protector and a UPS.

4. How to best protect your equipment from lightning strikes. 

How to best protect your equipment from power surges that result lightning strikes!

What are Joules?

Joules represent a unit of energy specifically the amount of work required to move an electric charge. That being said more Joules = more juice. A lightning strike can have millions if not billions of Joules of energy. Just for reference, a 100-watt light bulb being powered for 1 second uses about one hundred Joules of energy.

What is a GFCI?



What's the difference between all of the equipment?

In order to protect your computer from a power surge you must first know that power surge can occur while the power is on if there is a spike in the line voltage/amps, a brown out or a power out.

A power strip is a simply a series of electrical outlets built into one device for convenience.  It has no protection against any kind of power surge.

A surge protector is typically a power strip with a fuse or breaker device built into it that will break or trip if there is a fluctuation of power outside of normal range. This fuse or breaker will trip and cut off power to your equipment in order to prevent it from being damaged. The remaining electricity is then sent to earth ground and dissipated. You can also get a surge protector with a built-in GFCI this is important in-case your ground ever fails on your outlet or surge protector device. If a ground fails or has a short in it the GFCI will trip cutting off power. Why is this important? For one if it didn't trip and there were a power surge and the ground wire is not functioning properly all the electricity is going to go to your equipment and fry it. Secondly, it is an excellent fire precaution you certainly don't want one of your devices to malfunction and the outlet to catch fire!

How about Joules? - Well surge protectors will typically come with 600-10000+ joules of protection. I recommend at least 3000 Joules but it's important to understand that a surge protector will help to protect your computer from power surges from everything except a lightning strike! Why is this? Well remember earlier when I said there were billions of joules in a lightning strike? That's why.

What's the difference between a surge protector and a whole house surge protector? A whole house surge protector is a much higher quality product that the power strip surge protector you buy for your home or business. The whole house surge protectors are installed at your breaker box and protect all circuits so the coverage is much greater. Otherwise, a whole house vs a power strip surge protector are similar.

What is a UPS? A UPS is an Uninterrupted Power Supply these devices typically have the same features built into them as a surge protector with the added benefit of a battery backup so that when the power is out your equipment is still online long enough for you to save your work and shutdown.
UPS's are a must for servers and networking equipment but are also great for laptops and desktops.

How to best protect your equipment from power surges that result lightning strikes!


The best way to protect against a lightening strike is actually lightening rods or even better shutdown everything and unplug it. All of the equipment that is sold at any store or online won't protect your from a lightening strike that is indirect or direct to your home or business. The purpose of this article was to dispel the idea that a surge protector will protect your equipment from a lightning surge but it will protect your from the other types of surges mentioned above.


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THe Microsoft Surface Tablet is Coming This Fall

The Microsoft Surface Tablet is coming this Fall just after Windows 8 is slated for release this Fall. This is the first piece of hardware belonging to the PC market that will be made by Microsoft in-house with the exception of some XBox products. Microsoft is taking a different approach similar to that of Apple in trying to develop a vertical hardware/software market with the MS Surface Tablet and Windows 8.

Review from afar:

The Microsoft Surface Tablet will come in two flavors the RT for basic users which will be available just after the Windows 8 launch Fall of 2012 and the Windows 8 Professional version which will not be available until the holidays if not a couple of months into 2013. Exact dates haven't been hammered out yet but that is what Microsoft has given us.

Processing Power

The Surface RT will come with an ARM processor similar to the ones in many tablets and phones which will give the average multimedia user enough power to fulfill their needs. The real excitement is for the Pro version which will come with an Intel Core I-5 Processor which excites us! The I-5 processor coupled with Windows 8 professional desktop mode essentially gives you a laptop that is extremely portable and versatile.

The Intel Core I-5 processor on the Windows 8 Pro version tablet will blow any other tablet out of the water especially since it will be a fully functional PC not just a tablet with limited capabilities.

Light and Thin with a Bright Netbook Sized Display

The Surface is light weighing in at 1.5lbs for the RT version and just under 2lbs for the Professional version. It looks very stylish especially with it's much sought after magnetic case doubling as a keyboard. The keyboard comes in a wide variety of bright vibrant colors just like the images it's 10.6" ClearType HD Screen will display. The Surface is thin measuring at 9.3mm for the RT and 13.5mm for the Pro.

The Surface compared to the IPAD3 has similar weight and thickness. However, the Surface has a larger screen at 10.3" vs the IPAD3 at 9.6" the Surface is also about 40 pixels less than the IPad3.

Connectivity

The Surface comes connected on both versions with 2x2 MIMO Antenna's to provide excellent wireless signal and range while leaving out built 3G/4G service. In the past we have seen that with other tablets that have built-in WIFI don't sell as well as tablets with only wireless capabilities. There will be full USB ports on the Surface with a USB 2.0 port on the RT and USB 3.0 port on the Pro version. The RT will also have a microSD port and Micro HD Video port. While the Pro version will have a micro SDXC port, and a Mini Display port.

We believe the wireless signal will be excellent with the MIMO antenna's and that users will hopefully be able to connect a 4G USB dongle to the tablet but that has yet to be revealed. We love the idea of a full sized USB port that also supports USB 3.0 this will be a necessity for many businesses and IT professional who will use the device such as our staff. The microSD slots are an added benefit for storage or multimedia such as pictures, audio, video, etc. The Mini Display port will most likely be under utilized as only mid range to high end devices (TV's) coming out in the past couple have Display Ports.


Storage

The Surface will have plenty of built-in storage with the RT having a 32GB and a 64GB option and the Pro having a 64GB or 128GB option. Additionally, you have a microSD slot or a USB port in case extra storage is needed.

The Surface sounds very productive while having a touch cover and a touch screen it will also bring the stylus back from the dead for those who prefer to use one. At Turbo Tech's we have been thinking for utilizing the stylus for clients to electronic sign work orders and other documents while our technicians and sales staff are on site.

Camera's

The Surface also comes with a front and rear facing camera although no specs on the cameras have been released as of yet.

Keyboard and Stand

Possibly two of the best features of the surface are the case that doubles as a colorful keyboard and the built-in stand.

There are many questions left unanswered though such as price, processing power details, RAM and battery life.

This will be Microsoft's first step into the tablet market and it's looking like a very smart move with an excellent product. We can't wait until this device is out!!!

Check out more here: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/default.aspx

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How to keep your computer defragmented and fast like the day you got!!

Over at Turbo Tech's we are huge fans of yet another Piriform program called Defraggler.

Defraggler is an excellent defragmentation tool that like the CCleaner is also FREE!! Defraggler is also very light-weight, easy-to-use and we can setup a scheduler for the defragmentation to run automatically from here on out, automation at its best!

Download Defraggler here: www.piriform.com/defraggler/

After you install the Defraggler start it and it will look like this:






If you want to see what your current fragmentation status is just click Analyze.

The maximum recommended fragmentation percentage for Windows running an NTFS File System (which any modern Windows operating system does (XP, Vista, 7)) is %15. If your computer is anything above %10 you can be sure there is a performance impact but don't worry defraggler will defrag your hard drive and your computer will be running fast again.  Either way the less fragmentation the better ideally you want the fragmentation to be %0 however in some cases this simply isn't possible because of large files such as ISO's, Audio files and Video files. 

After you click the Analyze button the screen will then look something like this:




 Now the Analyze button just gives you current information about the status of the fragmentation on your hard drive. To actually fix that fragmentation we have to click the Defrag button. Once the defrag is started it can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours to finish. The time frame for the defrag depends on the Health of your hard drive, Size and % fragmented. 

If you have multiple hard disks which need to be defragmented you can select, analyze and defrag each hard disk at the top of the Defraggler window where it says Local Disk (C:), Local Disk (D:), etc. 

 Now the best part about defraggler is how easy it is to automate it so that you can set and forget about your hard drive ever becoming fragmented again. However, we do recommend checking the fragmentation manually from time-to-time in-case the scheduler fails for some reason.

At the top of the Defraggler screen click Settings --> Schedule. 



 At the top of the scheduler window you will see Drive: Here you can select which drive you would like to schedule the defragmentation to occur on and at what time and with what frequency.

Typically we setup a client with a period of Daily and a time of 12:01:00 AM starting the following day from setup. The reason that we do this is because not everyone will have their computer on at a scheduler time. So, we usually tell people leave your PC on overnight once or more a week and the defragmentation will run regardless of the day. So, even if you forget to leave it on overnight for a month straight it will still run the next time you do leave the computer on overnight.

That's it for Defraggler it's THAT SIMPLE :)

Please if you have any questions please ask

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