Are you interested in being a beta tester for Designs by Jabae, Inc.?
Apply today and if you’re approved, we will send certain pieces your way to get your opinions on the things we design. What do we do exactly you may ask? Well, we do a number of things. We design websites, print projects, and coming soon we will be bringing apps into the market! We are really excited to be entering the other markets.
We are looking for people who have an eye for detail and aren’t afraid to give us their honest opinion, even if their opinion is that what they are looking at is a piece of crap! We’re looking for people who know user interfaces or have an eye for design, or maybe if you just want to give an opinion.
If you’re interested in becoming a beta tester, send an email to beta@designsbyjabae.com with your name and email address. Please make the subject Beta Testing Application.
Bye bye Texas!
Austin didn’t work out, so we decided to head to California where we have family. So Designs by Jabae has relocated once again, to Fresno, where we can continue to serve our Florida clients.
We have many things going on, so we are planning on many exciting projects coming soon!
Big news for Designs by Jabae!
Designs by Jabae has moved our office from Florida to Texas. We will still be helping our Floridian clients and be actively recruiting more clients but we will not be able to repair computers. We do however have contacts in Florida who can so let us know if you need and we will get you in touch with someone who can help you.
While we will miss Palm Bay, we are excited to be in Austin. After exploring a bit, we have begun refocusing our attentions to work and are working hard to please our clients. If you need web and graphic design or your computer starts running a fever, let us know and we would be honored to help you.
Clean Your Screen
A lot of people think they can clean their monitor with glass cleaner. Actually, laptop displays and flat-panel LCD screens are relatively delicate and must be cleaned with care. If you have a conventional CRT display, even those must be cleaned carefully.
Cleaning an LCD or laptop display
- First, make sure you’re using a soft cloth of either 100% cotton or microfiber (you can buy one in an automotive parts store). Paper is a big no-no because the wood fibers in paper will scratch the delicate plastic surface of an LCD display.
- Next you must carefully choose what liquid you use. Distilled water is good, or a mixture of 91% Isopropyl alcohol (not rubbing alcohol, which contains oil) mixed with distilled water. Also, you can try mixing white vinegar with distilled water. NEVER use household cleaners such as ammonia or glass cleaner.
- While your cloth is still dry, gently dust the screen in straight lines across the screen. Your computer monitor should be off while you clean it, and if it’s a laptop screen, make sure the entire computer is off.
- Do not spray cleaner directly on the screen. If your screen has fingerprints or any marks still on the screen after the light dusting, moisten the cloth with an atomizer or spray bottle containing the cleaner of your choice. Gently clean with the moistened cloth. Ensure the screen is entirely dry before turning it back on.
Cleaning a CRT
If your use an older CRT monitor, that is, one of the bulky monitors that looks like a glorified television, you should exhibit the same care cleaning its screen. That’s right, no ammonia based glass cleaner should be used on your CRT either. See, you may think it’s glass, but many monitor manufacturers put an anti-glare or security coating on the glass. This film is made of plastic. So while you may have used an ammonia based cleaner on an older CRT with no problem, a newer one with an anti-glare coating would be permanently damaged by such a cleaner. So basically, treat your CRT with the same cleaning instructions for cleaning a plastic LCD or laptop screen.
Links
I’ve compiled a list of screen cleaning products, should you wish to purchase a product instead of making your own water-alcohol mix.
Don’t randomly click, or your computer will get sick!
In today’s world, computer security is a must. Approximately 60% of households in the United States have broadband access, and that 24-7 online access presents a tremendous risk to the average personal computer.
Most people will immediately consider virus-checking software to be adequate protection. But in the real world, there are many threats to computers, prompting the creation of the term “mal-ware” or “malicious software”.
There are many types of malware. First of course, are viruses. A virus is a piece of computer code that attaches itself to a file or program on your hard disk, then takes advantage of weaknesses in the computer to send itself to other computers. Viruses are, by nature, self-replicating. Some viruses merely consume resources in the process, others are far more dangerous. Many are difficult to get rid of.
Worms are similar to viruses, but they are self-contained programs that don’t attach to other files on your system. Many people can’t distinguish between viruses and worms, but the crucial difference is that viruses attack otherwise useful programs.
Named after the famous war machine in Virgil’s epic poem “The Aeneid”, a trojan horse is a malicious program intentionally concealed inside what seems like a useful program.
Spyware is software designed to spy on a user’s activities, such as logging passwords or other important information. Adware is a basis for funding commercial software through advertising that appears within the software. Sometimes though, the company who makes the advertising engine keeps track of usage habits of the program’s user, so many consider adware to be spyware.
Crimeware is software that is designed specifically to extract personal information from a computer, such as names, addresses, or financial data. It sends this data back to someone who can then use it for identity theft or other social engineering. It’s similar to spyware, but is specifically for the purpose of committing cybercrime.
The last category of malware are rootkits. The term comes from the word root, referring to the superuser account on Unix or Linux. A rootkit estabilishes itself at the highest level of the operating system, sometimes obscuring its malicious actions. Rootkits have been around for years, but in 2005 Sony BMG placed rootkit installer on some of their music cds. This was an attempt on their part to implement Digital Rights Management, but the public outrage that occurred when this was detected caused Sony to lose a class-action lawsuit.
There are many products designed to protect computers from malware. These are in essentially three forms: Prevention, removal, and rogue security software.
Prevention can come in many forms. Some simple software is merely designed to block your computer from accessing known malicious sites. Software called a firewall blocks known weaknesses in the operating system to prevent attack. Firewalls can be very easy to use or have many complex settings.
If your computer has already been infected by a malicious program, there are numerous removal tools such as Norton Antivirus, AVG, PC Tools and McAfee.
Rogue security software is a niche product where a program claims to be a security product but reports false positives of non-existent infections. Often, a real trojan is installed, causing many problems until the user purchases their security software. Since it’s easy for developers to rename their products and re-release the same trojan under a new name, there are many more rogue security products than there are actual removal tools.
Researchers have found that if an unprotected computer is placed on the internet, it is infected within minutes with no action by any user. With action consistent for any user surfing the web or posting online, an unprotected computer is unusable within 2 hours.
Malware quickly spreads from computer to computer. If an infected machine is on a network, it can infect other computers on the same network. Information from that computer appears to be “trusted”, so it’s easier for the malware to spread.
An infected computer may be slow, crash frequently or compromise your private information. Some malware can physically cause hardware issues, such as corrupting a machine’s BIOS, repeatedly writing to the hard disk, or changing fan speeds (which can cause temperature issues).
Because malware takes advantage of weaknesses in the operating system, it is crucial to make sure the latest operating system patches are installed. Since Microsoft Windows is usually the OS that is compromised, most people think that they are safe if they use a different type, such as Mac OS or Linux. However, recent advances allow people with these other operating systems to run Windows applications, and this can open them up to the same risks Windows users encounter.
Good security software and following best practices are crucial to preventing malware infections. First, you should never use your computer online without protection. When obtaining a new computer or reinstalling an operating system, installing security software should be the next thing you install. It’s handy to have these installers on removable media such as a USB thumb drive or a CD-ROM, so you aren’t risking the computer by trying to download them.
You should configure your web browser so that anything downloaded is immediately scanned by your virus checker. Make sure your scanning software is configured to scan your entire machine at least once a week, and use its feature for checking for updates daily. Also, if you’re using a commercial product such as Norton or McAfee, make sure you renew the subscription, so it doesn’t run out. If money is an issue, there are several good free (and almost free) products such as AVG, Lavasoft’s Adaware, Spybot Search & Destroy, PC Tools and Anti-Malware.
Assuring your computer’s security is an essential task in today’s world. It’s cheap, easy to do and keep up. Keeping your data safe is too important to ignore this important task.
Links:
- Virgil’s Aeneid, the story of the Trojan Horse
- AVG Free
- AVG’s commercial security product
- Symantec’s Norton security products
- McAfee’s virus scanners
- Lavasoft’s Ad-aware Plus malware removal
- Lavasoft’s Ad-aware Free malware removal
- Spybot Search and Destroy clean up and prevent many types of malware
Divine Restoration Ministries International
We at Designs by Jabae, Inc. have been working hard on a project for our favorite Non-profit organization. Divine Restoration has been collecting money, clothes and food for Haiti since before the earthquake. They take two trips over to preach to the people there every year. Feel free to browse their website and contact them if you have any questions! They gladly take any donation you have to give and frequently do fund raising events to raise money for their mission trips! You can also find them on Facebook at their fan page.
How to get out of replacing your television when your speakers die
Everyone’s been there, you’re watching television and suddenly the speakers keep dropping in and out. My husband and I were frustrated because we thought we had to replace our tv. We were pleasantly surprised when we thought of the idea of using our computer speakers with our cable box. If you have an extra set of speakers you can do this same thing. We went to Radio Shack and purchased two things. We got a one eighth to one eighth coupler and a RCA to one eighth Audio Y-Cable. Connect the Y-cable to your TV or cable box (we used our cable box) and the coupler to that. on the other side we connected our speakers and voila our speaker issue was fixed!
Updating our look
Donations for Haiti
We are sponsoring a local church group and are developing a site for this group for Haiti. Even before the recent disaster Haiti has faced, we were working on this. Haiti needs so much more than just earthquake help. They need schools for their children, proper orphanages, and stuff like that. These people are in dire need of our help. As soon as the website is finished, we will post it here.
Designs by Jabae Store up and open for business!
We’ve been working hard to get our store up and ready and now it is! come one and all and see what we have for sale. We have several unique designs as well as new designs coming soon! http://www.printfection.com/jabae