Every computer on a typical network is assigned a unique series of numbers specific to that network that identifies it separately from all other computers and devices (printers, routers, switches) on that same network. This is also true of anything connected to Internet as well. This series of numbers is referred to as the IP address. IP stands for Internet Protocol.

Every computer and server on the Internet can be reached through its IP address, whether you are trying to get to a website hosted on it, or sending email to a mailbox stored on it, or even connecting to it to work interactively with a remote desktop or application.

I can hear your first comment already: “But I’ve never typed in a number to get to a website.”, “I type in a domain name, not a number, to send email to somebody!”. Because people tend to remember names much easier than numbers, another system was setup to make using these numbers, DNS. DNS acts much like a phone book for computers, matching domain names to IP addresses the way a phone book matches people’s names to phone numbers. This system works so smoothly that for most scenarios you don’t even need to know that IP addresses exist.

However, many home networks don’t get a DNS entry setup, as their IP address changes on a regular basis. This isn’t normally a bad thing, but it does make it trickier to find out what IP address you are using to get to the Internet. In the unusual case where you need to find out what your IP address is, there are actually a few websites you can visit that will tell you what your IP address is for you.

Www.whatismyip.com gives you your IP address and also provides more information about IP addresses in general and DNS.

Www.ipaddress.com will show you your IP address and some more information about your connect as well.

It isn’t often that you need to worry about what IP address you are using to connect to the Internet, but when you need it, these websites make it simple to find out.

One of our greatest advertisements is your satisfaction. If you are happy with our service, we would love it if you would tell others about us. (If you are not happy with us, please tell US). With that in mind, let me tell you about our new promotion.

If you refer a new contact to us, and we provide them 5 hours of service, we will give you $200.00! That’s right, any new client you send our way is worth money in your pocket. But wait, there’s more! If that same referral uses InfoStream for 300 minutes, we’ll still give you $200.00! So whether it’s 5 hours OR 300 minutes, you get the $200.00. Still not enough? Well, OK, but only because we like you…if that contact gives InfoStream 18,000 seconds of ….. well, you get the picture.

Please tell your friends and colleagues about us and we will provide the same excellent service to them that we have provided for you.

Would you like an hour of free computer support? Maybe you have some minor computer issues you need cleaned up, or just want to learn some new tricks for your computer, or even a tune up and speed up of that computer. It could be a training-planning seminar or a review and maintenance of your software. Or if you have something else in mind, let us know and we’ll take care of it.

Now, how do you get this free hour?

InfoStream is looking for a little help from you. If you have a website, we’re asking for you to add in a link that points back to your excellent IT support company. It could be a link to our main page, or a direct link to our newsletter sign-up page, or even a link to our blog. The newsletter and blog both provide current articles by InfoStream staff and additional articles from across the country on a wide range of topics, some technical, and some informational. We do request that the link be on your website, and not in a blog post.

If you decide to set that link up, let us know! Send one of us an email with the link, and we’ll give you that hour of free help on anything you want.

So give your web designer a call.

And then give us a call!

Here’s a little challenge to stimulate the brain cells. The following quotes are from various movies. To give you a little help, we’ve given you the year of the movie’s release. They all have something to do with computers and technology. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify both the name of the movie, and the person who said the line.

The answers will be at the bottom of the newsletter.

1. “You’re in trouble, program. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself? Who’s your user?” (1982)
   
2. “Greetings Professer Falken, Would you like to play a game?” (1983)
   
3. “I’m Sorry Dave, I can’t do that.” (1968)
   
4. “Never send a human to do a machine’s job.” (1999)
   
5. “R2-D2, You know better than to trust a strange computer.” (1980)
   
6. “He got me invested in some kinda fruit company.” (1994)
   
7. “No, I’m from Iowa; I only work in Outer Space” (1986)
   
8. “Look, you are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re gonna go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd.” (2010)
   
9. “I asked for a car, I got a computer. How’s that for being born under a bad sign?” (1986)
   
10. “Caution: Rogue robots. Caution…” (2008)
    
11. “I don’t know how to work this!” (referring to an iPhone) (2008)
    
12. “Sir, they hacked a firewall in more than ten seconds! Even with a brute force attack, a supercomputer would have to take twenty years to do that!” (2007)
    
13. “COMPUTER DO SOMETHING!” (2005)

===============ANSWERS ARE BELOW HERE================

Speaker                                             Movie

1. Master Control Program                       Tron
2. WOPR                                                   WarGames
3. HAL 9000                                             2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Agent Smith                                         The Matrix
5. C-3PO                                                  Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
6. Forrest Gump                                       Forrest Gump
7. Captain James T. Kirk                           Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
8. Erica Albright                                       Social Network
9. Ferris Beuller                                        Ferris Beuller
10. Ship’s Computer                                  Wall-E
11. Carrie Bradshaw                                  Sex and the City
12. Maggie Magsden                                 Transformers
13. Arthur Dent                                         Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Everybody knows this story. You got your shiny new computer and loved how fast it moved. Time passes, and it’s not so exciting and new anymore, and it is super slow. Several factors can contribute to this. One of the problems is fragmentation of the hard drive. Your hard drive stores data on a round disk inside its container (picture a small CD and you’re close). It starts off with all of that data centrally located around the inside of this disk where it is quickly accessed. Over time, more files get written to the disk, and some are deleted. As files get added and removed, they are scattered all over the disk, making it harder (and therefore slower) for the computer to pull those files out when needed.

To correct this problem, you need a Defragmentation program which is used to “defrag” your computer. Microsoft included a simple defragger but it is very slow. A much faster defragger has been created by Auslogics. It does in minutes what the Microsoft version takes hours to do and it is also free. You can find it at http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download/. They have some other products on their website, but several of those do have a cost attached.

Now that you’ve downloaded and installed it, it is very simple to run. Just open it up and the click defrag button on the first screen. There is a chart on the middle right that explains what each colored square means. The graph in the middle is set so that the inner portion of the disk is toward the top and the outer portion is at the bottom. As it runs, you’ll see it moving squares up to represent the files moving to the center of the drive.

There are a few options in the Settings menu that can help you tweak the performance, and also schedule the defrag to run automatically periodically.

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a straight forward program to help speed up your computer, but it is not the only answer. Stay tuned to InfoStream’s Blog for more ideas and tips on keeping your computer in top shape.

Here’s the scenario. You’re working on a document with a co-worker. Or your computer support engineer is showing you something on your computer. They’re at the keyboard typing in an important sentence and then, POP, the phrase he was typing is suddenly switched to a bold, italicized font. A few seconds later, they rolled through a few menus, and inserted a clip art. And they didn’t touch their mouse once!

On your computer, there are at least 3 different ways to get everything done. Some people love their mouse, but others do a lot of typing, and having to switch to their mouse occasionally slows them down. Windows has added keyboard commands to duplicate the function of most things you can do with a mouse. The biggest trick is learning them, and then memorizing them.

Here’s some good news. Clues to many of them can be found right in the menus of the software you are using. In software most shortcuts are a combination of the CTRL key and a letter. In Office 2010 products, hovering with your mouse over a menu item will show you the shortcut. With older versions, the menu items will have an underlined letter. Pushing the CTRL key and that underlined letter will be the shortcut for that menu. For example, pushing CTRL-C would be the same as Clicking on the Edit menu and then selecting Copy. A few of the more common shortcuts included in almost all software are listed below:

CTRL – S    Save

CTRL – X    Cut

CTRL – C    Copy

CTRL – V    Paste

CTRL – B    Bold

CTRL – I    Italics

CTRL – U    Underline

For a more comprehensive list of Keyboard shortcuts for most Microsoft products surf over here. On that page, just click the link for your software and view the options!

Ever receive a “bounce” message, send an E-mail that did not arrive at its destination without warning, or just not receive an E-mail you were expecting? We all have, and MX Toolbox is an excellent resource that does not take too much tech knowledge to use. While it won’t help you fix the problem, it helps get you pointed in the right direction, as the problem may not be on your end at all!

MX Toolbox, located at http://www.mxtoolbox.com, can be used in several ways.

If users are not receiving your E-mail, you can run some simple diagnostics to see what is going on. Upon landing at the homepage, type in the part of your E-mail behind the @ symbol. For example, if your company E-mail address is user123@mycompany.com, you would type in mycompany.com next to the lookup button. Click “lookup” and the results will show up. This will be your mail server’s name, followed by its numerical IP Address. Here’s the good stuff, click on Blacklist Check and see if your mail server shows up any lists, if it does, there’s a good chance this is the reason users are not receiving your E-mails. There are usually instructions on how to get removed, but usually the first step is to resolve why you are on a blacklist. This could range from problems with your mail server, to a virus infected machine on your network. At this point, you may wish to contact the experts at Infostream for help with the tech side of things.

Another way to use MX Toolbox is if you are not receiving E-mails from a particular user. Follow the same instructions above except this time, type in the domain name (the part after the @ symbol) of the user’s E-mail address and see if they are on a blacklist. If they find they are on a blacklist, they will have to contact their network administrator to resolve the problem, as others will also not be receiving their E-mails.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to give us a shout!

Verteks is proud to announce the newest addition to our website, an entire section devoted to cloud computing solutions with Microsoft Office 365. These cloud computing services from InfoStream and Microsoft bring your business the power of cloud technology that’s backed by a world leader in IT, along with the personal customer service you expect from our team of experts. To learn more about how Office 365 cloud solutions can bring your business greater efficiency and profitability, visit the newest section of our website at Microsoft Office 365.

Alan Crowetz, President and CEO of InfoStream, Inc., has recently received the Outstanding MBA Graduate Award from Palm Beach Atlantic University. This annual award is given to alumni that have made a significant impact on the local West Palm Beach community. Alan graduated from PBA in 1992 and soon went on to found InfoStream in 1994. Under Alan’s direction, InfoStream has grown to become one of the leading managed service providers in South Florida. Alan humbly accepts this award and going forward, will use it as a source of inspiration to continue providing the unparalleled service you have come to expect from InfoStream.

Dell has announced that they will no longer be taking orders for any computers with Windows XP after October 1! Further, any orders that can’t be shipped out by October 22 will be canceled.

If you will be needing any computers, at any time in the next year, with Windows XP on them, please contact me ASAP. I can assist on a first come first serve basis.

Some things to consider:

- Your testing of all of your firms programs on Windows 7 – 64bit should just about be complete now. If you haven’t made sure everything works on Windows 7, I would strongly recommend making it a priority at this point.

- Be sure to always keep at least 1 “hot spare” computer around to be ready should any computer in your office fail. It is far better to order an inexpensive and ideal computer then it is to panic and have to rush to get something more expensive and that is a bad fit in a broken computer scenario.

- We generally recommend 1 spare computer per every 20 computers in your office.

- Be sure you won’t need any XP computers because if you suddenly need one in a couple of months, it won’t be an option.

- It is also becoming much more problematic (not just expensive) to downgrade a Windows 7 computer to XP as the new computer hardware doesn’t always have XP drivers and thus won’t work even if you have an extra copy of XP.

Hopefully you have already prepared for Windows 7 – 64bit and this isn’t an issue for you.

As always, should you have any questions for us, please don’t hesitate to call!

Alan