iPads are all the rage, but I’ve found that the screens are too small to comfortably fit a full page on to read it. Even just viewing a standard website in portrait mode requires the use of a magnifiying glass.

OK, so there are ways around that, but what I want to see is a full A4 page or as close to it as possible without having to zoom in or change to landscape to make it wider.

There are alternatives if you’re not married to having an Apple. One company I found in Sydney Australia does a Windows based tabled PC that they call an ePad. It’s basically the same, but with the familiar Windows interface that we know. They have a range of sizes and options and if you want you could easily use one of these as a low end laptop. Having picked up an iPad and being underwhelmed with the size, I know what I’m going to get.

For more information contact us www.factorcomputers.com.au FACTOR Computers helps people at home and in their office with all sort of computer repairs and it support and advice. We’re based in Brookvale, Sydney, Australia.

If you’ve ever had a hard drive fail, then you know that it really hurts. When your hard drive fails you could lose everything if you haven’t been backing up religiously. That means family photos, emails, music, everything. One thing you can do is to have whats called RAID setup on your PC or server.

RAID is an accronym for Redundant Array of Innexpensive Disks. What it means is that instead of having a single point of failure you can reduce your risk by having one of more extra hard drives, so that if one dies, you can keep on running without losing anything. You simply replace the hard drive and rebuild the “RAID Array”, which might even be automatic.

The simplest RAID setup is RAID 1 or mirroring. It’s just as it sounds. You have two hard drives, one being a mirror copy of the other. They just maintain themselves while you’re working without you having to do anything.

If you have a business server, then you’d better be sure that it’s got RAID. If you just use one PC and you’ve got a lot of valuable stuff on it, then you really should consider implementing RAID too. Some laptops even let you do this now.

If you’re in Sydney Australia, FACTOR Computers is based in Brookvale and can help you with a RAID setup for your computer. Call us www.factorcomputers.com.au

How do you choose a printer to suit your needs?

Firstly it depends on your situation. Lets look at the personal home buyer, the home office buyer and the small office buyer.

If the printer is for personal use at home then it’s usually very straightforward. Choose one of the many varied inkjet printers which are readily available in the shops. Go for one the main brands like Canon, HP or Epson. If you want a printer that does colour, make sure it has at least four different ink cartridges (black, cyan, magenta, yellow), this way you’re only going to be replacing the ink that you use and not wasting ink by throwing out multicolour cartridges just because one colour has run out. When pricing these printers, beware that these printers aren’t built to last, so choose one which is at a price point that you can accept for a printer that’s going to last a few years.

The home office person is different. This is more complicated because your’re likely to be using your printer more. This is where you need to think about it more. You might be best off buying a laser printer. The three main problems with inkjet printers is that they are expensive to feed ink into and that most of them have relatively poor printing quality when compared to a laser and lastly that they’re slow. So if you think that you’re going to be printing more than one or two pages here or there, or if you think that you’re going to be printing reports for clients or other people that you need to impress, you should probably bite the bullet and go for a laser printer. These can get expensive to buy as you add on features like duplexing and multiple printer trays, but they’re more of an investment than an expense, so make sure to get an extended warranty from the manufacturer. I personally favour HP printers, but there are other brands out there that might suit you better, just be aware of the extra wearing parts like toner drums in some of the other brands that will cost money as they’re needed.

Lastly there’s the small business with a small network of computers and staff. You’ve passed the point of using the inkjet printers. So don’t buy one of those unless you really need an A3 colour printer which might be out of your price range in a laser. Otherwise inkjet printers are too slow and you’ll be forever feeding them ink. Choose one that’s going to last some years and has a duty cycle (pages printed per month) that you can live with. Also see if the printer you want has a high yield black toner cartridge option as they’re usually more economical, though this might not be available with the small models. If you’re in Sydney Australia and you need help with choosing a printer or setting it up, call us www.factorcomputers.com.au

I often hear that Mac won’t get a virus. Having a Mac does not automatically mean that you are then completely safe on the web. Opera, one of the more popular Mac web browsers, has just released a security alert about a critical vulnerability in Opera for Windows and… wait for it… for Mac! Opera did not disclose a lot of details but given the “Extremely Severe” classification, if you use Opera, you’d better update it immediately, even if you have a Mac. If you need help with your PC or Mac, call us www.factorcomputers.com.au

Backing up your data is an often overlooked task. But it’s gotta be done. There’s lots of different reasons for backing up and it’s only when you consider them all that you can really select the best option for backing up your family photos, accounts file, emails etc.

The bottom line is this. What if a power surge, hard drive failure, fire, a burglar or a natural disater destroyed your data?

The toughest part of choosing a backup method is the cost. It can be very expensive and usually the trade off with price is either convenience or quality of the overall solution.

One very common solution is to use a one or two external hard drives and alternate between them. This might be a viable solution and we’ve implemented it several times. However, when it comes down to it, are you really going to do it every day or even every month?

So what’s the solution? One option to consider is an internet based backup service. Depending on the service it can be setup to backup just changed files automatically every day. It can however be very expensive for people with a lot of data, so it might be that this is implemented for the most important data and other data is backed up in another way. Many people only have a small amount of data and this can be very cheap to backup in this way. But be careful, you still need to maintain a history of your data and you should also be imaging your PC or server, not just backing up over the top of your backup every day.

If you’re in Sydney Australia we can help you choose and implement the best solution for your data. Call us www.factorcomputers.com.au/contact.html

Sydneys Northern Beaches now have an IT service with a special discount for seniors. From Manly, through Brookvale and Dee Why to Palm Beach, the Seniors Card discount is 10% off labour for computer support and repairs for those Seniors on Sydneys Northern Beaches (and for the North Shore). Just mention this blog to get your seniors discount. Call us www.factorcomputers.com.au/contact.html

Absolutely. It’s the way of the future. Besides, if you want to fill your PC with RAM, then you’ll need to get a 64bit version of Windows so that it can use the RAM. There have been 64bit versions of Windows going back nearly ten years. I wouldn’t have wanted a 64bit version of Windows XP and my 64bit version of Windows Vista caused some minor issues, but our whole business is using the 64bit version of Windows 7 since before it was released and we have no problems. We’ve supplied several PCs with 64bit Windows 7 and no one has had a problem. Are you in Sydney Australia and need advice on your PC? Call us www.factorcomputers.com.au/contact.html

If you’re like me you spend a lot of time at your desk and occasionally when you need a break you might like to catch up on something like the news. Wouldn’t it be great if you could carry on working with the TV right next to you, without having to put a TV on your desk? If you’ve got more than one monitor on your desk (I’m a big fan of that too), then you could carry on working while displaying TV in a window on your other monitor. Want to know how? If you’re in Sydney Australia call us www.factorcomputers.com.au/contact.html

I don’t know about you, but the thought of hiring a computer person who refers to themselves as a geek or a nerd just doesn’t sit well with me. What do you think? If you’re in Sydney Australia and need computer support, call us www.factorcomputers.com.au/contact.html