System tune-up

Have you noticed that computers never seem to work as fast as they do the first day you take them out of the box?

Want to fix that?

Working from my northern office, I have gained an appreciation for the challenges faced by small businesses that are hours away from the hundreds of specialty computer stores that we take for granted in the cities. Within a few minutes from my office in the city, I can visit a number of shops that can sell every accessory or replacement part for my computers – from disk drives, to memory, monitors or media – and ‘my guy’ is always willing to take a quick look when a problem arises.

Over the weekend, Muskoka celebrated the grand opening of the first Staples store to come to Bracebridge , bringing office supplies and business services (at city price levels) to cottage country.

I also discovered an application that seems to have succeeded in finding system problems and restoring the cottage computers to faster speeds. One of our computers had just started generating Windows infamous blue screens of death thanks to a hiccup in the video driver.

System Mechanic has the machines singing again. If you’re having problems, let me suggest that you give it a try.