Important Guidelines of the Basics of Computers

Ask Flex Tech: Do I need to eject my USB flash drive?

November 25, 2014 by admin

Angie from Neenah asks, “They say you need to eject your USB flash drive before removing it from the computer, and my computer scolds me when I don’t. Do I really have to eject first, or will it cause problems?”

If you believe in “better safe than sorry,” you’ll eject your USB drives before pulling that plug. While different devices and different operating systems will produce different results, it’s typically not that difficult to eject a disk beforehand, so why not get in that habit for safety’s sake? [Read more…]

Ask Flex Tech: Why don’t hard drives show the amount of free space advertised?

November 17, 2014 by admin

Tom from Appleton asks, “Why doesn’t my new hard drive show the full amount of space?”

There are a couple reasons why the terrabyte hard drive you bought doesn’t show a full terrabyte of free storage. [Read more…]

How to enable system restore in Windows

October 22, 2014 by admin

System Restore in Windows can really save you in the event of an accidental file deletion, or a virus infection in case you don’t have backups. Of course, for full piece of mind, you should always go with a backup disk solution. Even better, consider our DataGuard cloud backup service. DataGuard offers automatic protection of your files to our offsite servers for a low price of $34.99 per year. Contact us for more information on DataGuard or any of our other IT services.

iPhoto & Aperture Users: Read now

July 30, 2014 by admin

Apple recently announced it will cease development of Aperture and iPhoto. Users can migrate their current library into the new Photos editing app included with Mac OS X 10.10. We recommend running a backup before starting any data migration. Read this article on tips for backing up your library before the move.

Library Contents: What To Look For

Your actual library is called “iPhoto Library.photolibrary” or “Aperture Library.photolibrary.” Mac OS X handles these libraries as packages, hiding the folders within. However, CrashPlan sees iPhoto and Aperture libraries as folders. Below is an example of how your library appears the CrashPlan app’s file selection. This folder contains information that OS X hides:

Why all these files?

iPhoto and Aperture rely on metadata and non-destructive techniques to manage changes made to your photos. This is important to remember when restoring iPhoto and Aperture data: if you only restore photos, and not your photo library, then your events and edits won’t be restored.

Shoe Box Analogy

Think of having all of your photos in one big shoe box. This is your library. When you go through this shoe box, you may separate each event with rubber bands or slips of paper. When you crop a photo, instead of using scissors, you decide to cover up the parts you don’t want to see with sticky notes.

In iPhoto, your events and edits are stored in your library as metadata alongside your photos. None of your photos are actually cropped or re-colored unless you explicitly tell iPhoto to do this. iPhoto keeps notes on what you want to have your photos look like and shows those settings “on the fly” when you look at them.