Cape Computer Help

I've sent out an email blast with MailChimp! Here's what it says...

The big news here today is that I’ll be increasing my rate in 2022 to $125 per hour. I’ve been holding steady at $100 for many years, but the time has come. Website fees will also go up. The annual hosting fee will go up from $250 to $400 per site. That includes domain registration, hosting and regular updates. Re-design or a new site is now $1000, and still includes a year of hosting.
In 2021 I found myself doing a few new things. Some major wi-fi installs were prompted by people needing better internet connections to work at hotels and other venues. I worked with Ted Woods on many of these. If you need help in this area I’ve become a bit of an expert!
Whoever was doing support for Apple Mac computers seems to have left Cape Cod, because I’m getting a lot of Mac support questions these days too.
If you know someone who might want to get this email, please forward it to them and cc me and I’ll add them to the list.
Do you use QuickBooks Desktop? Many of my clients do. You may be interested to know that Intuit, like Microsoft has moved to an annual fee instead of a one-time cost for their software. So if you choose to upgrade to QB 2022 you’ll find yourself with an annual bill to pay.

Need some help working from home?
Cape Computer Help is available to enable access to computers at work, emails, video conferences and any other technology services you may need.

Microsoft Ends Support for Windows 7
Are you getting a message on your computer? Don't worry it will still work in January. But maybe its time to think about an upgrade. Give me a call and we can discuss your options. Chris

In July 2018, a Google Chrome update will display a warning when the user accesses a website without SSL, or https. Many small business websites do not yet support SSL. Fortunately my server supports AutoSSL and I'm in the process of switching all my customers' websites to secure mode. Click on the image for more information or get in touch with me.

Google reminds website owners to move to HTTPS before October deadline To encourage website owners and service providers to move to HTTPS, Google began sending out emails to remind them that their sites will be marked as insecure if they don't comply. This is the latest step in the search giant's long-term effort of creating a safer web experience for every user.

This makes interesting reading. The hackers, whoever they are, were clearly determined to get into Podesta's email account. The important takeaway for me is to advise my customers to be very careful about phishing emails. Those are the ones that say something like click here to reset your password. It may even appear to come from your bank. As most of you are not a specific target like Hillary's people, bad emails will be removed by a good spam filter, because they'll come from a disreputable source. Nonetheless, just don't click on anything which doesn't look right. If in doubt please call and ask me for help.

Chris

Inside story: How Russians hacked the Democrats' emails An Associated Press investigation into the digital break-ins that disrupted the U.S. presidential contest has sketched out an anatomy of the hack.

I have a customer I went to see last week. He had bought a new printer a few months ago and during the installation, he signed up for HP Instant Ink. This service mails you ink cartridges before they run out. The printer connects to the internet, and it informs HP when you need cartridges. He decided he no longer wanted the service and called them and cancelled it. Shortly after that the printer stopped working! I went over and looked into it. The solution it turns out is to replace the instant ink cartridges with new ones from the store. You see, it detects the special instant ink cartridges, and the fact that you are no longer enrolled, and fails to print! What a scam!

Curb Hunger 2017 | Nauset Disposal

Cape Computer Help has just signed up with Digital Plus for the Local Search Optimization program. Local SEO targets local directories optimizes your website and maintains your internet presence. Alex Bungener, President and CEO of DigitalPlus and I have worked together for quite a few years to help my clients gain business from the web. Now its time to have him help me too, and pull in some internet leads.

Providing local SEO services for over five years. We show proof We started Digital+, LLC doing just local SEO services so we have become experts at it. We're not just all talk but we're also action and results. See the proof

My latest round of emergency calls, starting on Thursday morning was caused by a Windows Update which takes about an hour to complete. The owner would see a black screen with a circle of dots going around and around. Sometimes forcing power off, by holding down the power button and then switching back on would bring the computer back, only to repeat the sequence on the next reboot. If this happens to you, please call for advice and sympathy. The good news is that in every case I have seen so far, eventually the computer returned to normal operation. The update is called "Feature update to Windows 10, version 1607." It you typically turn off your computer overnight you will have the biggest problem because when you turn it on in the morning you'll have a long wait before you can use it. In that case I recommend manually initiating the update at the end of the day. If you leave your computer on overnight, it should happen at 3am, and you will not even know. Mine is scheduled at 3am tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.

Amazon offers low cost online storage called AWS S3. It's ideal for online computer backup, using an application such as Cloudberry.
https://aws.amazon.com/s3/
The price of storage is so low, that even with a significant number of files, the monthly cost is only a few dollars. This compares extremely favorably with Carbonite, and the effect on computer performance is insignificant, unlike Carbonite. Get in touch and I can hook you up!
Chris Dixon

Well, I haven't been posting to this page since I set it up several years ago. But now I'm going to try and do something useful with it, by posting regularly with useful information about how to look after your computer. To begin with, here is a great solution for backing up the files on your computer.
http://www.cloudberrylab.com/cloud-backup-windows-desktop.aspx
The single computer version is free, and it backs up to Amazon AWS (more on my next post) which, depending on your volume of files, is typically a few dollars per month. Check it out and get in touch with me for more information.

CloudBerry Backup - Windows Desktop Cloud Backup Windows Desktop backup software for Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and more. Free download!

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