Hi and welcome to the Aspiring Computers Newsletter, November 2021 edition. If you do not wish to receive this occasional newsletter, please email us at [email protected] and you’ll be immediately removed.
We hope you have ‘survived’ or even thrived during this rather unusual year. We operated all year, but of course were restricted on home visits for a big chunk. We have really developed our skills on remote support now.
At Aspiring Computers, our goal is to take the stress out of your computing life. We supply, install and maintain computers (PC & Apple) and networks for businesses, small businesses and homes, mainly in Upper North Shore, although I can add London, Brisbane, Hobart, Wellington NZ and 1770 to the list of business places we have remotely supported this year. We have been constrained by supply of certain computers, printers and components, but do carry many spare parts for repairing machines allowing a rapid repair where possible.
Backups: I am reminded every week by my customers about the importance of considering your data backup regime. I am often given an external drive that should have had backups on it, to find that the ‘automatic’ backup routine stopped quite some time ago. A backup of data is very important, but it is only viable if you check and test it regularly. If you want to learn how to do this, reach out, we are more than happy to show you how to do and check your backups.
Upgrades: Most common upgrades are replacing hard drives with Solid State Drives. This is an inexpensive way of gaining a lot of speed out of an older computer. We have also been upgrading Wi-Fi to reach further in home.
Repairs: the most common repairs recently have been laptop screen replacements and batteries, and desktops and laptops that refuse to start. Did you know that laptop batteries can swell when old and that is evidenced by the track pad not working correctly?
Annual Service: You service your car every 10,000 kms, your teeth every 6 months, your computer once a year! The computer builds up dust, causing cooling issues, the hardware wears (especially fans and hard drives), and the machine fills up with junk software. An annual service checks all of these things and more. It will speed up almost every computer and it will give you the confidence that your computer is safe and free of malware and viruses. We can do this onsite (within coverage area) or it’s cheaper if you drop it to us in the workshop (always book in just before you come in case we are out somewhere)
Start-up service: Did you know that when you purchase a new computer it is very vulnerable to issues. All the preinstalled software is out of date at that point. If you want a safe computing environment, do yourself a favour and get the new computer setup professionally and the benefit of this start up service is we can help you transfer data and customise your computer preferences.
Got a strange message on your computer? Simply take a photo of the message and Text it to us. We will usually reply very quickly with support and guidance. And there is no charge for this service.
Finally, Christmas holidays are before us. We go on leave on Saturday 28th November until January 3rd. Of course that doesn’t mean we are out of contact, just not usually in the workshop. We have a few mini breaks scheduled in December, returning to base in between. So contact us as normal during this period with a Text message and we’ll make arrangements to fix your issue remotely or make an appointment for when we are next in Sydney. (If you want any work done now, please book it in this week.)
In the meantime, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
