Broadband speed tests

From time to time you may need to check the speed you are actually getting especially when your internet experience seems to take a dive when it comes to performance.

There are plenty of choices for getting a speed check and you will find that results vary slightly. There are two that I use:

http://www.internetfrog.com/

 There is a lot on the page so to begin a test you just need to click the link (Arrowed above) "Test the speed of your connection"

The second one:

http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/

There is an easy interface here and the best bit as shown below is it keeps a history of your tests that you can download or display should you need to.

As is the norm, you wont get the full speed your area is geared up for so if you are in an area that can get up to 8meg then you will get something below that. I have found that 3 to 6 meg is the general range most connections achieve in devon on an adsl connection.

Converting documents to PDF format everyone can read

If you are using Microsoft publisher or any other program that by default saves your work in a format nobody else can read without having the same software installed in thier machine then help is at hand.

Primo PDF is a free utility that onece installed on your computer will produce a pdf version of your document or publication that you can save to your computer and confidently send off to others.

GET PRIMO PDF HERE

Once you have installed it just work on your document as usual, when you want to produce a pdf version just click on Print as usual but instead of printing from your usual printer choose "Primopdf" as in the illustration below. Although your printer will remain silent there will be a windows popping up from Primo pdf asking where you want to save the pdf file and under what name.

Next the window pops up so you can make final adjustments to your pdf document as below.

You can also set a password and add additional author information if you wish.

When you have finished Adobe reader or Foxit reader (whichever one you are using) will pop up showing your new pdf. All you need to do is locate it in your documents folder or wherever you saved it and send it on.

Music and DVD playback

If your computer won't play dvd movies then you will need to get something that does. Annoyingly Windows media player often falls over at this point as it does not come bundled with the right codecs, however there is a codec pack that you can download for windows media player and you can get that HERE.

Alternatively there is VLC media player, a free offering that plays virtually anything you gan give it. you can get it HERE

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Sending large files accross the internet

There are times when you just need to send someone a file or files that are too big to go via email, the post would be too slow and the person you want to send them too is miles away.

Although most email providers can handle attachments of 10mb and more this can fail as some file types can easily be excluded and servers and email software can have issues that get in the way. However you can send it online.

There are quite a few free offerings out there that will allow you to send a file to an email address. Basically you go to the website of the company who offer the service and type in both your own and the email address of the person that you want to send the file to, click a "Browse" button to choose the file from your computer and hey presto, the file gets uploaded. The person you are sending it to gets an email with a link they can click on to securely download the file.

However, if you have several pictures or files to send you will need to put them in a "zip" folder. In its simplest form just put the files you want to send into a folder then right-click that folder (see image below) and from the "send to" on the menu choose "compresses (zipped) folder, once done a zipped version of the fiolder will exist in the same location ready for you to send.

One of the free services I have used is http://www.sizablesend.com/

There is no software to download and you can send up to 2Gb file size.

Just add the email addresses and click on "select files".

Browse for the file / folder you want to send

When it's done it may look like it's not but by the time you get to this screen an email is already on its way to the person you sent it to with a link to download it.

AntiVirus Recommendations

Avira Antivirus

Avira Antivirus Premium This is an excellent choice and one I use myself.

Service

When you bring your computer in for service it is always given a quick check over for any obvious major faults before any work is carried out, this is to ensure no time or money is wasted. Once this is done the computer is then subjected to a basic hardware test of the main components to ensure there are no hidden problems before we start.

We all know that simply re-installing windows is an easy route to a repair but its always a last resort, basically if your system needs to be re-installed then it really is the only way to fix it. Also any important data is always backed up to ensure you lose nothing.

So what do I do:

• Hardware and software fault diagnosys
• Hardware and software upgrades
• General cleanups and health checks
• Virus and malware removal
• Macintosh repairs

Anything not listed here just ask.