I don’t know about you but as a computer network tech, I spend a lot of time changing the IP Addresses on people’s PCs. So I decided to create a tool to help me do it and I’d like to share it with you.

• No installation required. It can run from a flash drive!
• View settings for any or all of your network cards.
• Change your IP Address from DHCP to Static and back to DHCP.
• Edit your Default gateway.
• Change your Subnet Mask.
• View your MAC Addresses.
• Set your DNS servers to static addresses.
• Change it all from being Static to DHCP.

Are you a computer tech and constantly changing IP Addresses? Are you a computer user who wonders “How do I change my IP or DNS Address?” EZ-IP can change those for you. Has anybody ever asked you “What is your MAC Address?” EZ-IP will show you.

Click on the image or the following link to download your free copy of Biden PC’s EZ-IP. It is absolutely free to use and free to redistribute.

Whenever you’re planning on getting a new computer, changing your ISP (Internet Service Provider), or just making changes to your network, don’t be afraid to ask for advice. Generally, computer consultants and repair shops are happy to give advice, especially to their current clients.

I am currently playing cleanup with a client who decided to change his ISP without telling me. Under many circumstances this would be fine but this client has his email server at his office and that makes the ISP change a big deal.

I received an email after I had closed up shop for the day so I didn’t see it until the next morning. As I often check my emails first things in the morning to know what my schedule looks like I saw his email that requested that I be on alert for problems. “No Problem” I thought. But after I had been awake for a little while I realized that this would mean that his Static IP Address would change and that would completely disrupt his email. Of course, no one wants their business email service disrupted. I then had to change my entire day around (fortunately I have great and understanding clients) to be at his office that afternoon for the change. As my client never received the IP address that everything was going to change to, I had to wait for the ISP’s installer to get that information.

The entire situation was unorganized as well as much more stressful and expensive than it had to be. Had I been informed even a few days earlier, I could have given them questions to ask and issues to watch out for. Fortunately, everything was handled in a manner that kept business downtime to a minimum.

We all have enough stress in our lives. Keep your unnecessary stress to a minimum by getting advice from professionals.

Thank you for reading,
Tim

If you found this post to be informative, consider following Biden PC on Twitter.

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company and we now offer Online Computer Support.

If you have earthlink.net for your email provider and suddenly you can receive email but not send, I think I have the solution for you.

I am assuming that you have already checked your username and password as well as your server settings to be certain that they are correct.

If after checking these settings, you still can’t send your email, check your SMTP port settings.

From the Email Account settings page,

1. Click the More Settings button.
2. Click on the Advanced tab.
3. Check the contents of the Outgoing mail (SMTP) field. If it is not 587, delete the contents and type 587.
4. Click the OK button.
5. Click the Next button.
6. Click the Finish button.

This should solve your problem.

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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As everyone is having a difficult time in this recession, Biden PC has lowered its prices on all computer networking and repair. Going from $100 per hour, our new lower prices are as follows:

Businesses: $85.00 per hour
Residences: $75.00 per hour
Remote Support: $15.00 per 1/4 hour

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

If you found this post to be informative, consider subscribing to our Biden PC’s RSS feed.

For all of you who use Microsoft Outlook and have never backed up all of your emails, here are step-by-step directions to back up your emails.

1. Open Outlook and give it a minute to download all of your new emails.
2. Click on the File menu and choose Import And Export. If you don’t see Import and Export in the menu, move your mouse-pointer over the down arrows at the bottom of the menu, and then click Import and Export.
3. 
4. Click Export To File, and click Next.
5. 
6. Choose Personal Folder File (.pst) , and then click Next.
7. 
8. Choose the account (If you see and “-” signs, click them. You only want to see “+” signs to be sure that you are backing everything up) that you want to backup and click in the check-box that says Include subfolders, then click Next.
9. 
10. Click Browse, and then select the location where you want the new .pst file to be saved. The Desktop is always a good place to save it because its easy to find and you can move it to another drive later.
11. In the File Name box, , type the name that you want to use for the new backup file, and then click OK.
12. 
13. Click Finish.
14. Strangely, this isn’t the end of the line. There is still another box that pops up. Here you have the option to password protect the file. If you choose to use a password, be certain that it is one you’ll remember. Click OK.
15. 
16. Your computer will now show a green progress bar that shows how far in backing up each folder you are. DO NOT cancel this. If you do, you will have an incomplete backup.
17. 
18. Once the backup is complete, copy the file to another drive for safe keeping.

Happy Computing,

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

If you found this post to be informative, consider subscribing to our Biden PC’s RSS feed.

“What is computer network consulting?” I get that question from time to time and I think this would be a great time to answer it.

Computer network consulting is one of those ambiguous terms that includes many different issues. In short, the best answer you can get is to ask each company what services they provide for their clients and customers.

I’m certain that if you do ask other computer network consulting companies what services they provide, their list would be a lot like ours. If you ask me that question, I would say that we do the following, and much more…

• Install and upgrade a networks, servers, and workstations
• Monitor the health of your network, servers, and workstations
• Monitor the health of your network’s routers and switches
• Prevent virus attacks, network intrusions, and network security issues
• Internet connection support
• Preventative maintenance of network and computers
• Network troubleshooting and repair
• Network hardware, software and cable sales
• PC troubleshooting and repair
• Provide desktop support

Those are among the many services that our clients love us for. The short of it is, we keep their network and computers running efficiently so they can keep their business running smoothly.

If there are any specific computer services that you or your business are in need of, contact us.

Happy Computing,

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

If you found this post to be informative, consider subscribing to our Biden PC’s RSS feed.

In phone tech support we often have to tell people to go to their desktop and sometimes they don’t know what that is.Please allow me to help you. This will tell you what the computer desktop is so when you’re on the phone with your tech support agent, they can speak and you will know what they mean.

On your computer, the desktop is where you see your background picture or as some people mistakenly call it, the “screensaver picture.” There are usually many icons here including “My Computer”, “My Documents” and the “Recycle Bin”. If the tech support rep is telling you to go to your desktop, minimize or close all of the programs that you have open. When you see your normal picture, tell him or her, “I’m there.”

This will make life and the phone call easier for everyone.

Happy Computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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Recently I was asked how to make a DOS application print from Windows Vista or XP if there is no Parallel Port. This is actually quite easy and takes only a few simple steps.

1. Install the printer on another printer and make sure it prints.
2. Share the printer and note the computer-name and printer’s share-name.
3. On the printer that has the DOS program, create a batch file that looks like this:

net use lpt1 /delete
net use lpt1 \\pc-name\printer-name
c:\folder\dos-application

Now in Windows XP, all you have to do is run the batch file and it works.

With Windows Vista, there is a slight catch. when you run it, you may not get anything or you may get an error that asks you for a password. If either of these happen to you:

1. close it out and go back to where the batch file is located.
2. Right-click on the batch file and choose “Run As Administrator”.
3. You can now run the program and print to LPT1.

If you need to print to LPT2 instead of LPT1, simply change the commands in the batch file to sat LPT2.

Happy computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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As a professional computer technician, I always have people describing different problems to me. Due to a lack of details, I often have no idea what they are trying to tell me and that just makes things more difficult for everyone. In light of this, I want to help you describe your issues to a technician.

Here are a few things to consider when thinking about how to describe a technical problem.

1. How often does it happen? Timing can be a big help when trying to figure out what is causing a problem.
2. How long has the problem existed? This could signal a change to your system that can be removed or fixed. Maybe a new program was installed or a new PC was added to the network.
3. Can you reproduce the problem at will or is it random? If it seems random, it is harder to find. If it can be reproduced by following a series of actions, that narrows down the issue quite quickly.
4. Is there an Error Message? If there is, please note exactly what it says, not just the color. The color tells us very little except for the fact that there was an error. The message will usually tell us at least something about the error.
5. What caused the error to occur? If you had just opened or closed a program and the error appeared, odds are the problem is with that program.
6. Are there any common factors that make it happen? For example, does it only happen when you’re connected to the Internet or when you change your speaker volume?
7. Has someone else or another company worked on your computer? Believe it or not, computer technicians often have their own ways of doing things and if we know the other technician, we may know what programs they use and how they do their work.

These are just a few ideas to help you communicate with your computer technician. The more details you can give him or her, the less time it will take them and the less you spend. Being more exact can save you money.

Happy Computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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So you’re probably wondering why I called this post Anti-Virus instead of Virus… Well, the wrong antivirus software can slow your computer down immensely.

As you may or may not know, you have many different options for antivirus software. You of course have the big 2, Symantec (Norton) and MaAfee. Then you also have antivirus programs from

• Microsoft
• Panda
• TrustPort
• Sophos
• AVG Grisoft
• Trend Micro
• Dr Web
• ClamAV
• ZoneAlarm
• AVK (G Data)
• Avast
• Avira Antivir
• Kaspersky Labs

There are tons of antivirus programs and they all catch different viruses and different percentages of them. Yes, some are better than others.

Symantec (Norton) and MaAfee (and probably many others) have a bunch of background process happening at one time, therefore reducing the speed of your computer. They do this to provide as many services to you as is possible. They provide a firewall, active virus scanning, active spyware scanning, online child protection, online personal data protection, and others. Expect to see them protecting you from traffic accidents and the flu in future releases. (Just kidding about the traffic accident and flu protection.)

There are other AntiVirus programs that find and remove more viruses than they do and they do it faster without the large strain to your system resources. Check the most recent test results from av-test.org at Virus Bulletin.

So there is a lot of data at the above sites. You’re probably wondering which ones I use or recommend. In the past I have recommended Grisoft’s AVG but I’ve recently switched to Avira Antivir and I’ve been quite happy with it. It performs active scanning on every file that is written and read from any drive but doesn’t slow the computer nearly as much as the big 2.

If you think you would like to try another product, I encourage you to examine the test results from av-test.org at Virus Bulletin and make your own informed decision from them. But if your subscription has not yet run out, I would recommend you keep your current anti-virus software so you can save your money until the subscription runs out.

Also Norton and Symantec can be difficult to remove and if you do so, you do it at your own risk. Click here to remove Norton and here to remove McAfee.

I hope this has been informative for you. If you have any questions or feel that this may be best left to a computer service professional, please email Biden PC here.

Happy Computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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