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Is There A New Computer In Your Future? Here’s A Tip To Help You Transfer Your Important Information!

It eventually has to happen, we need a new computer. You can buy one from the “BIG BOX” stores, or order online or worse yet buy one from “Freddie” on the corner, but the time will come that you need a new computer.

The technology advances so fast it is hard to grasp what you need, what the kids need, and what should you buy that will give you the most bang for your buck.

A bigger concern is: “What will you lose?” When you upgrade your computer, it’s important to preserve the “my documents” and “my photos” folders.

How can you transfer them to your new computer and not lose them?

If you are running Microsoft Windows XP, you are in luck. Not only does Windows provide you with a file transfer wizard, they have a feature called profiles.

Each person who has logged in to a Windows computer had created a profile that has all of  their favorites, documents, music, and photos stored in an easy to transfer directory structure.

The secret is in knowing how to move them to the new computer.  It is very easy. I mentioned thumb drives and external storage in my last article.  Using your external storage, it’s relatively simple to transfer things over. Since each person who uses the computer has their own profile, all of their information is stored separately – all you need to do is find your profile, which is under your user name and then copy the folder which is named after your login name.

For example, if I created a user called “BigBob” then a profile folder called BigBob would also be created. This folder will contain all of my documents, Internet favorites and music if I have saved them to the default location.

Once you find the user’s profile folder, you’d just copy the folder to your external storage or thumb drive. Then, on your new computer, you’d copy the folder back to the same place. I know this gets confusing, but it isn’t that difficult.

Microsoft has developed a way to keep all of your information stored in one central location, and keep each user’s information separate from each other.

This makes it so easy to do the transfer to a new computer.  But to play it safe! If you have very important information, or you haven’t made a recent backup, you may want to use Tech Experts to transfer your data, photos and music to you new system.

We do it every day, and we realize the importance of your data. Give us a call at (734) 457-5000, or e-mail support@mytechexperts.com.

Expert Advice On Choosing A New Computer

Picking out a new computer can be challenging. Questions you might want to ask yourself include: What is my budget, what do I need to use it for, and where do I plan to use it?

After you answer those questions, you need to think of more specific questions like should I get a laptop or desktop, how fast does it need to be, and how much memory or drive space do I need? All these will help get you an idea of what you are going to look for.

When looking for a computer the form factor is one of the biggest decisions. What I mean by that is the size of the computer, whether you want it to be a portable computer or a desktop computer.

The two most common sizes are a regular tower case (the kind that usually sits on the floor) or a laptop. Deciding on one of those will help eliminate half of the choices right away.

Next, ask yourself if your needs will pretty much stay the same, or is there a chance of needing upgrades as your needs and computer use change?

You’ll probably not be able to predict when you’ll need to upgrade your computer, but it’s something to keep in mind. Laptops are generally more expensive than tower computers, and can’t be upgraded as easily.
Most laptops can only have ram and hard drive upgrades. Tower computers have pretty much inlimited upgrade potential. From a new motherboard to just a simple RAM upgrade.

Be careful, though: Some major computer manufacturers like Dell make it so that you can only upgrade your computer with manufacturer parts – limiting choices and making upgrades much more expensive than on standard computers.

When reviewing the specs for your new computer, consider the kind of work you do and how fast you need to get it done. Two of the biggest factors to consider are hard drive space and the physical RAM.

Think of hard drive space like a file cabinet – this is where the computer stores all of your programs, files, pictures, music and so on. You can think of RAM memory as the computer’s working memory – where it does all of the different calculations you ask it to do.

If you do a lot of tasks that have very large files like video editing or pictures you would want to make sure you have a bigger hard drive so that don’t run out of space right away. Hard drive space is very inexpensive – less than $1/gigabyte – so it makes sense to buy as large a hard drive as is practical.

For the speed on the computer you need to look at the CPU type and speed, and the RAM.

CPU type will typically be single or dual core – without getting too technical, you’ll probably want to go with dual core, which makes the computer (in general) able to process twice as much information at the same time. The faster the speed, usually measured in gigahertz, the faster the computer can process information.

RAM is also a determining factor in the processing speed of the computer – the more RAM, the more the computer can process without accessing the hard drive. I recommend at least 2gb, and preferrably 4gb.

These are just a few things to keep in mind when buying a new computer. We’re very proud to offer IBM and Lenovo laptop and dektop computers at Tech Experts, so if you’re in the market for a new machine, give me a call!