CompuClever Blog

Refresh Your PC with Device Driver Update

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As stated in my recently updated book – “5 Tips for a Fast PC”, I am often the “go-to” guy for solving computer problems amongst my families and friends. One of our primary intentions in writing the book was to inform ordinary PC users how to master the basics of computer optimization and maintenance. I have to admit that I purposely left one specific trick out of the book – updating Windows device drivers – for a reason. This is because updating device drivers can be tricky if you don’t have the proper software tool. Although, we want to emphasize here that keeping your PC’s device drivers updated will enhance your PC’s stability and performance.

Today, I am going to explain what device drivers are, why you should update your PC’s device drivers, and how to do it safely and effectively.

What device drivers are

Your Windows PC is made of the following “building blocks”: the hardware, the Operating System (also known as Windows OS), and application software. But have you ever wondered how your OS and application software interact with hardware?

The four layers of Operating System

This is where a device driver comes into play. A device driver, commonly known as a driver, is a computer program that controls or drives a particular set of hardware.  Continue reading...

How to Choose a Chromebook

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samsung chromebook
Chromebooks are gaining in popularity. Cheap, lightweight, and very portable, Chromebooks may seem like the perfect solution for your computer needs. But how much can you actually get done on a Chromebook? And how can you choose a Chromebook that’s right for you?

You may have heard of Chromebooks over the past few months. Cheap and lightweight, and basically a successor to the netbook of the late 2000’s, Chromebooks come in all shapes and sizes and rely on the Chrome operating system (aka “Chrome OS”) instead of Microsoft Windows.

We’d like to take a look at Chromebooks, and help you decide if they are the right fit for your computer needs.

Chromebooks: Embraced By Schools

First introduced in 2011, Chromebooks have been popular in the cash-strapped education system. Unlike with Windows computers, schools don’t need to purchase a software license for Chromebooks.

Instead, Chrome OS comes pre-installed, for free. This presents a big cash savings for school administrators.

In some cases Google will subsidize the cost of providing school districts with Chromebooks–another way for educators to save money. Finally, Google itself manages patches and updates, so school districts can save big on IT costs.

What is a Chromebook?

Chromebooks are lightweight laptops released by many of the big computer makers, such as Dell, Acer, Samsung and Asus. Continue reading...

How Antivirus Protects Your Computer From Hackers

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IoT Toaster Hack
A few weeks ago a massive hack shut down much of the Internet. It’s widely believed the hack was carried out through internet devices—a good reminder to us all about taking care of our own security online.

On Friday, October 21st, a lot of people were having a hard time accessing the Internet. First, Twitter went down. Then PayPal no longer worked. Later on cloud storage sites such as Dropbox went offline. For most of the day tens of millions of people could not access some of the most important and most useful websites on the Internet. Reddit, CNN and Netflix were all affected.

Was it a Russian hack? Could it be the Chinese? Nobody could say for sure. The only thing that was certain was that massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack had occurred. The target of the attack was DNS service provider Dyn.

What is a DNS provider?

As as DNS provider and as a company, Dyn’s job is to convert human-readable website names such as www.facebook.com into computer-readable numerical IP addresses (for example, 192.168.0.1)—humans prefer to use easy-to-remember-addresses such as www.facebook.com rather than the long, insanely complicated numerical strings favored by our machine servants.

Websites like Twitter and Dropbox rely on Dyn to help resolve and translate the various kinds of links each company uses as part of their product. Continue reading...

What Is Bluetooth, and Does It Cause Cancer?

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Bluetooth is a safe, useful technology, and there are many affordable options that allow audiophiles to go “cord-free.”

Bluetooth is the next big thing in consumer technology. At least, that’s what companies like Apple are betting on.

In September Apple unveiled the iPhone 7. While some are saying the new iPhone features revolutionary technology under the hood, Apple got the most press for deciding to kill the headphone jack.

Instead, if you want to listen to anything on an iPhone 7 you’ll have to use wired (and very expensive) earphones that plug into the iPhone 7’s Lightning power port. You can also purchase Apple’s sophisticated Bluetooth earphones—aka “AirPods“, and a supercomputer in their own right.

Thanks to Apple’s iPhone 7 launch, then, Bluetooth has come back into style. But what is Bluetooth? And it is any good for listening to music?

Bluetooth—Simple to Set Up

Bluetooth is a wireless technology that transmits and exchanges data over very short distances. For example, while your WiFi router reaches to pretty much every part of your home, Bluetooth transmits up to twenty feet or so.

Bluetooth’s main advantage over WiFi technology is that is extremely simple to set up—typically all it takes is the press of a button in an app. Continue reading...

Breaking News – Yahoo Admits Breach of 500 Million Accounts

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My heart dropped when I was alerted by CNN that Yahoo admitted today that 500 million user accounts have been compromised. As a seasoned IT professional who has been involved with the security industry for the past decade, this is probably THE worse security breach that’s occurred since the inception of the Internet.

Here are the key facts that you should be aware of regarding this breach:

  • In August 2016, a person codenamed “Peace” attempted to sell what he claimed to be 200 million Yahoo user information.
  • Back then, Yahoo only said they were investigating the legitimacy of the claim.
  • On Sept. 22nd 2016, Yahoo issued a statement acknowledging the legitimacy of the claim. Furthermore, Yahoo confirmed the scale of the breach is actually 500 million accounts.
  • Yahoo also confirmed that the information stolen contains name, username, lightly encrypted passwords, date of birth, and for some accounts, security questions and answers.

Nevertheless, till this moment, Yahoo hasn’t issued a notice to all of its users advising them to reset their passwords.

Here at CompuClever, we felt it is necessary to inform you about this event because there is a high possibility that either you or someone you know might be impacted by this incident. Continue reading...