Bitlink Technology

Electronic Payment Options

LesKH — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:18:15 +0000

You can pay an invoice from Bitlink Technology using the following electronic payment methods.
(You can still pay by cheque and mail it or drop it off)

Interac E-Transfer (fees usually about $1)
If you do online banking in Canada, you can use this option.
This is the most popular method of electronic payment from my clients.
Look for Interac E-Transfer while banking online.
A standard Interac fee may be charged by your bank (often around $1).
You will need my email address and a security question and answer, which you can create, or you can contact me for a suggested question and answer.

Credit Card (fees vary)
If you wish to pay be credit card, I can send you a PayPal invoice via email, which will have a payment button.
Clicking on the button will take you to PayPal where you can pay me by Credit Card.
You don’t need to have a paypal account.
For most invoices, I will pay the Credit Card fee.
Invoices which include larger hardware sales will have a 3% credit card surcharge added.

RBC Bank Transfer (free, depending on your banking)
If you have a Royal Bank account, you can transfer money directly to my account from your online banking. Depending on your type of account, it’s possible that no fees are charged.
Contact me for the Branch #/Account # you’ll need to enter.

If you choose any of these methods, please follow your payment by sending me an email indicating the method, date and amount you paid.

Maximizing Battery Life

LesKH — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:09:11 +0000

Remember in the old days when we were told to completely drain and completely charge our batteries for longest life? That’s not true any more. In fact, the opposite may be.
Li-Ion batteries, like the one in your laptop or cellphone, seems to have a shorter lifespan if they are deeply discharged.
So charge early, and charge often, and don’t leave it always plugged in once it is charged.
If you want more details, here are some great links:

Prolonging battery life – a technical write-up on getting the longest life from your battery.
Maximizing laptop use on a battery charge – ideas on how to get the longest use of your laptop while it’s running on battery power.
Battery saving tips for your phone – tips and info on what is draining your phone’s or smartphone’s battery the fastest, and how to get the most from your charge.

Get your Office 2010 upgrade now – maybe free

LesKH — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 17:35:22 +0000

If you purchased, installed, and activated a qualifying Microsoft Office 2007 product between March 5, 2010, and September 30, 2010, you are eligible to download Office 2010 at no additional cost. Check out the details to see if you qualify, and if you do, get this done before the end of October.
Upgrade page
Eligibility page

Microsoft’s Fixit Center

LesKH — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:26:54 +0000

Microsoft’s Fix it Center is a do-it-yourself troubleshooting program that tweaks common Windows issues, and it comes straight from Microsoft. It’s average-user friendly, and addresses everything from network glitches to media player issues.

Fix it Center is still in beta, but is stable enough to use. The program offers a variety of categories (27, to be exact), and will give you an estimate of how long each problem will take to troubleshoot. Once you select a category, the program will take you through each situation step-by-step. The instructions are easy and clear to understand, with an easy intuitive interface.

Microsoft Fix it Center is a free beta program for Windows only. It supports Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Got an annoying Windows problem? Give it a try.

Fake Antivirus – don’t be fooled

LesKH — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:45:46 +0000

Microsoft’s Security Essentials, which you can get directly from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/ seems to be a pretty good anti-virus program. But be warned there is a fake program with a very similar name making the rounds. The fake one is called Security Essentials 2010. Avoid that one. If in doubt, don’t download from a link or an email link. Go to the microsoft site and download the original.

“How did my computer get infected?” Acrobat Reader!

LesKH — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:37:17 +0000

We used to fear floppy disks for transferring viruses and other nasties to our computers, then emails, maybe USB sticks, even web sites. According to rather thorough report at ZD Net, Malicious PDF files comprised 80 percent of all exploits for 2009, due to flaws Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Essentially that means that most infections that got into computers last year (mostly Windows computers) were because someone used Acrobat Reader that wasn’t up-to-date and opened an infected PDF file.

What can you do? There are several good options:

If you use Adobe Acrobat Reader, run the updates. Get the latest version. Now. Right away. Don’t even finish reading this.
Or you might consider using one of the many good alternative programs for viewing PDF files. A popular one is Foxit Reader.
If you manage other people’s computers, software like Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) will keep watch over each computer on which it is installed and inform you of software that outdated or at risk and offer to update it for you. You can download it from their website.
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Important Windows Updates

LesKH — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:40:37 +0000

I’m seeing an increase in clients with virus/malware problems this week, and I’m also aware that there are some significant security updates that users should apply. If you haven’t lately, I would recommend doing the Windows updates very soon (including an important Internet Explorer update) and also applying the latest Adobe Reader updates, which also cure some significant security issues (by which I mean a way of getting a virus). Do you backups. Run your updates. Save your money.

Anti-Virus software

LesKH — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:59:32 +0000

Choosing the right anti-virus software can be difficult, partly because it’s very hard to compare them, partly because it depends on what is important to you, and partly because the landscape keeps changing.

Do you want the one that is the best at detecting viruses, or the one that is best is removing viruses, or the one that is least likely to harm your machine’s performance?

There are several very good options.
My current preference for home users is Microsoft Security Essentials, which scores well on detection tests, is mostly unobtrusive, and seems to have very little effect on system performance. It also happens to be free.
My current preference for networks is F-Protect/F-Secure, which also scores well, is easy to license and manage, and remains unobtrusive.

There is lots of detailed information comparing the various AV products at AV Comparatives, which is an independent tester of AV products.

Please remember that nothing is as important as practicing safe computing – don’t stick unknown USB drives into your computer, don’t install questionable or unknown software, don’t use pirated software, don’t open email attachments that raise even a hint of doubt, without first checking with the sender, and don’t respond to popups unless you are sure they are safe. When in doubt, don’t click, call a friend.

Backup now!

LesKH — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:23:29 +0000

Like the leaves of Autumn, your hard drive will die. Your hard drive is where all you stuff is stored.

Please make sure that the things that are important to you, like your photos, email, documents, addressbook, and financial/tax data are stored in at least two places. If you have a copy on a USB stick, another computer, or an external drive, computer problems are much less stressful, because your data is safe.

Please note that moving your data to an external drive is not a backup. Until your data is in two places, I do not consider it safe.

Adjusting SaskTel’s Filters (aka whitelisting an email address)

LesKH — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:40:46 +0000

Do you wish SaskTel’s email filters were more aggressive, or more lenient?
Or maybe more importantly, do you wish they would let email from les @ bitlink through?

For reasons that SaskTel will not divulge, they tend to mark mail from Les @ bitlink.ca as JunkMail. But you can tell their filters of any address that you would like to insure always get through. This is called whitelisting an address. For instructions on how to whitelist an email address, mine for example, here is a help page walking you through the steps. This is copied from the SaskTel website.