Welcome to the September 2009 Newsletter from PC Resolver.

• Windows 7 - How to upgrade in Europe
• Slow Internet - How to test and improve your Internet Speed
• Free Websites - Pros and Cons
• OnSpeed - Improve the speed of your Internet
• NewsMap - Colour-coded news on one page

Windows 7 - Upgrade Not Available in Europe? Yes and No!

You may have heard that you can't upgrade from Vista/XP to Windows 7 in Europe. Well, this is true AND false. The EU has forced Microsoft to supply Windows 7 without Internet Explorer which makes the upgrade from an existing XP/Vista installation impossible for technical reasons (IE is fundamental to the way Windows works). So you can't upgrade - right? Wrong! You can upgrade but it will require a clean installation (format your existing disk or install to a new disk) and the licence key from your original XP/Vista installation. You will need to backup your data because this will be wiped (a backup is a good idea anyway) and reinstall your programs.

This may seem like a lot of work but I would always recommend a clean install when changing Operating System anyway. What you gain by using an upgrade version of Windows 7 is a reduction in the price of around $80.

Now for the good news: Because of the need to do a clean installation, Microsoft is selling the FULL 'E' version for the upgrade price ($120 for premium; $200 for professional; $220 for ultimate). I recommend the Premium version for most users which works out at around 90 Euros at today's prices.

Now for more good news: I will install Windows 7 on your computer for 50 Euros including IVA (saving 20 Euros) plus the cost of Windows 7 if you quote this Newsletter and you order during 2009. This will include a 'dual boot' option if required: this allows you to choose your old XP/Vista installation (including your installed programs) when the computer starts. Your data (files, photos, music etc. ) will be retained at no extra charge. This is subject to your computer meeting the requirements for Windows 7 and is based on the work being carried out in our office (Sax, Alicante).

Website Steve's Q&A

Introduction

PC Resolver, in partnership with The Inland Magazine, is publishing a Questions and Answers section in the published magazine. The purpose of this is to answer the most common questions that are currently affecting my clients and readers of the magazine. You are encouraged to contact me with any questions you may have.

The questions and answers themselves are in the Website Steve's Q&A section of Support. This section will grow and will include non-published questions.

A key part of Website Steve's Q&A is questions about websites. Having your own website has never been easier, cheaper or more necessary than it is today. A fully functioning professionally designed and built website costs 300 Euros to build to your requirements and less than 10 Euros a month to host (including your domain name).

Why Is My Internet So Slow? Pat From Sax.

This is a very common problem, particularly here in Spain where the service providers (ISPs) can be unreliable. Here a few steps to go through to check your connection:

1. The first thing to do is to establish how fast your connection is and compare this to what you’re paying for. I use the Speedtest website amongst others. For links to SpeedTest and similar sites see my article "How to Boost the Speed of Your Internet".
2. Remove all other devices connected to the phone line (phones, faxes etc).
3. Check that all cables are in good order and make sure there is no Microfilter connected to the router/modem.
4. Have your phone line checked by your phone company. Complain about poor phone quality tends to get a better response than complaining about a slow Internet!
5. Ask your ISP to check the speed.
6. Switch your equipment on in the right order pausing for a minute between devices: Modem, Router then computer.
7. Check your router and network card settings. See the PC Resolver website for how to do this.
8. Use a free tool such as Advanced System Care that includes an Internet boost option.

If you’re still not happy then I recommend OnSpeed. This is a program that compresses web pages before sending them thus increasing speed. It costs £25 a year and is worth it for speeds up to and including 1mb.

I used a free website building service to create my website and I can no longer make changes. Can you help?  Diane from Alicante.

Diane had built her own website using this service because she was interested in web design, had time on her hands and wanted to save money. The site started out as a family blog but now it is promoting her business.

The free services work well for people in Diane’s initial position but she came across one of a number of restrictions:

1. Limited storage space (fewer pages, images, text ...)
2. Restricted bandwidth (fewer visitors!! Downtime)
3. Fewer features (your site can’t do what you want)
4. Adverts appear on every page and in the web address
5. Not able to choose your website name
6. Not able to grow with your business
7. The web service ceases trading - now what?!!!

I advised Diane to keep the free website for her family and have her business site designed and hosted professionally.

Website Steve's Q&A FREE Stuff

Onspeed - Now 25% Cheaper!

I go to many customers who have a dialup connection and are unable to get ADSL or broadband. Trying to find anything on line or book flights etc is slow and frustrating. I have installed or recommended onSpeed. It isn't free: it costs 30 Euros a year (it used to be 40 Euros) but I include in the FREE STUFF because it saves you money on your phone bill so its better than free!

You may well have heard of ONSPEED before – it has been around for a while. It has a 14 day money back guarantee so there is nothing to lose really. I used it for my first year here until I had my high speed connection installed.

Here is a link to the website where you can download “ONSPEED” to improve the speed of your surfing by up to 10x which makes dialup as fast as most broadband connections and increases broadband connection performance as well. It really does make a difference. Click the picture below to go to their website.

It is easy to install. These are the instructions from the website:

Three simple steps to speed up any existing Internet connection – including Dial-up, Broadband and Mobile connections:

1. Pay securely online - just €30 for a 12-month subscription of ONSPEED.
2. Download the ONSPEED software from the link given once your purchase has been confirmed.
3. Set up ONSPEED by following the easy steps in the auto-installation wizard. ONSPEED takes less than 2 minutes to set up from start to finish.

ONSPEED offers a 14-day money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied.
Your payment details are sent over a secure connection.

It works by reducing the amount of information downloaded by compressing it first and then decompresses it on your PC. Believe it or not, it is faster to compress, send and decompress than it is to just send. It also displays pages intelligently – for instance, the quality of pictures improves as the page loads so that you see all the text and a low resolution pictures immediately which means you can probably see all you need to see and be on another page in less time than it previously took just to download the page.

If you give it a try and you don’t see a significant improvement you can always cancel within the 14 days.

NewsMap

News headlines on one page colour-coded by topic (news, sport, etc.) and shaded by age. Customisable: your news, your way!

NewsMap is a website that automatically groups news stories with similar content and places them into clusters. In NewsMap, the size of each cell is determined by the amount of related articles that exist inside each news cluster. In that way users can quickly identify which news stories have been given the most coverage, viewing the map by region, topic or time.

Also, the shade of each cell indicates how recently the story has been updated. NewsMap.

Final Word

As always, I encourage anyone with a comment, suggestion, question, idea or inspiration to contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or click 'Add Comment' below to add a comment to this web page.

Please also see The Inland Magazine Computer Problems Forum if you have a specific IT problem.

Steve
PC Resolver
966 967 439
650 354 629

Please email Steve if any of the links in this article don't work.

Your email address is only used by PC Resolver for this purpose and is not passed on to anyone else.

Newsletters