Tech Solutions NC

Your one stop for home and small business computer and network support

Mike Ellis

Troubleshooting mail delivery woes

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email
Image ©Google

When E-Mail Delivery doesn’t work

Have you ever run into this problem? You are sending an email to someone, they don’t receive it, and you don’t receive any sort of bounce message? No delayed delivery notice, no unknown user bounce, nothing at all to help troubleshoot the problem? That happened to me yesterday, and there were a few things I learned from troubleshooting the problem (and working with my hosting provider’s technical support team) that resolved the issue.

My company email is handled through G-Suite. It works well for me, so I’ve been using it for several years now. I was sending an email to a client after his mail was migrated to a new provider, and it wasn’t going through. And, like I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t getting a bounce message either. But, I learned of three tools that, while I knew they existed, had never really needed them before, so I’m going to document them here for future reference.

Tool #1: Check the DNS records

There are many sites out there that you can use to check DNS records. You can do it via the command line by running an nslookup command or a dig command (some platforms may not support dig). You can also check it online by using a site like intodns.com. When you pull up the site, you’ll see a screen like this one:

Just type the domain name in the box you see and click on report, and you’ll get a very thorough analysis of what the DNS records are for that domain.

Tool #2: Using G-Suite’s Email Log Search

If you are an administrator of a G-Suite setup, like I am for my company, you can perform an Email Log Search. Start by logging into your G-Suite account at admin.google.com. Once you have logged in, you’ll be at your Admin console. Look for the icon for Reports, click on it, and then, on the left hand side, scroll until you see (under the Audit section) the link for Email Log Search. Click on it, and you’ll be taken to a screen like this one:

For my purposes, I just supplied my sender email address and the recipient email address and did a search of that. When the search is conducted, it will provide a list of any messages that match the criteria. Clicking on one of the messages will provide additional information about that message.

What I was seeing was a whole bunch of DNS errors. For example, a lookup of the domain I was emailing was returning a SERVFAIL code.

Tool #3: Flush the Google DNS Cache

The email account that was migrated to a new provider was receiving email, just not from my account. Finally, one of the tech guys at the hosting company flushed the public DNS cache on Google. Once that was done, there have been no other mail issues. Here is the site for flushing the cache: https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/cache

The tools that are listed here are probabaly not new to most of you, but there are always times when you may need to access them for some troubleshooting purpose. That’s the point of this post. I hope it helps you like it has helped me! Good luck, and have a great day!

Tackling IT Administration from a MacBook Pro

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Recently, I was given the opportunity here at Tech Solutions NC to try out a brand new MacBook Pro as part of a focus group.  This is something that really intrigued me, so I signed up for it.  Last week, I received the MacBook Pro, and am now in the process of testing it out.

First, a little background information.  The computer is a Mid 2015 MacBook Pro, with a 15″ screen, Retina display, 2.5 GHZ Intel i7 Processor, 16 GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD.

For the computer itself, it is incredibly responsive, quick, and does just about everything I could ask of it.

Well, that was a short post, wasn’t it?  Well, I’m not quite done yet.

Using a MacBook Pro in a Windows Environment

There are a few things related to the environment that I am in that do make things a bit problematic for the MacBook Pro.  Most of these are common sense things, but still, if you are considering making the switch from a Windows system to a Mac system, and you manage any sort of IT environment, these are things you’ll probably want to consider.

Remote Administration

Like you would expect, on a Mac OS X system, the options for connecting to a remote system are suited primarily for connecting to other Mac systems.  Fortunately, though, the Microsoft Remote Desktop app is available, it’s free, and it makes connecting to a Windows system pretty seamless.  Search in the App Store for Microsoft Remote Desktop or click the link.

Office 365 Apps

For many businesses, Office 365 by Microsoft is the tool of choice for productivity software.  Unfortunately, though, while Microsoft has released 2016 versions of their software through Office 365 for the Mac environment, not all the apps are created equally.

The biggest issues I’ve had with this new laptop is related to how Outlook 2016 for Windows works verses how Outlook 2016 for Mac works.  There are some significant differences that I’ve documented here.

  • The CRM I use for my business is from Hubspot.  I came across them over the Internet, and knew them from other stuff, but had never used their CRM.  The good news with Hubspot is that they have a plugin that you can install in your Outlook 2016 for Windows program that will log the emails you send to your clients to the client account you have setup in your CRM.  The bad news, though, is that, due to limitations with Outlook 2016 for Mac, such a plugin does not exist, so you can’t seamlessly log those emails to your clients.
  • One workaround for this problem is to just BCC the address that logs the email in your CRM.  Doing so is fine, and is what I do right now, but I’d prefer a simpler way to do that rather than type it each time.  Of course, I can set a rule that automatically BCCs the correct address, and I may do just that, but I’d rather not have to do that.
  • The only other thing with Outlook 2016 that isn’t quite up to my standards is the calendaring portion.  Since my mail is driven through GSuite, my calendar is also, and the calendar for Outlook (either version, really) just doesn’t handle Google’s email very well.  This is definitely something that Microsoft and Google should work on.  The good news, though, is the the built in Calendar app for Mac OS X works all of my email and calendars really well, and I’ve not had any issues with using that.

Having just started working on this MacBook Pro, there are other things that I’m sure are not as good from an IT perspective as they are on the Windows platform, but I haven’t run across them yet.  The great news is that, by and large, operationally, there has been very little I have had to do to utilize my MacBook Pro in a Windows environment, and still be able to perform the IT tasks that I need to do day in and day out.  That, my friends, makes this testing a win in my book.

What do you all think? Are you able to perform IT administration work on a MacBook Pro or other Mac system?  Let me know your thoughts on what works well and doesn’t work well, and thanks for reading!

Upgrading your laptop to a Solid State Drive

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Solid State Drive

Have you ever been intrigued by the idea of opening up your laptop, taking the hard drive out, and replacing it with something else entirely?  In today’s post, I’m going to talk about the process I used to replace the hard drive that came with the laptop when I bought it — a 5400RPM 1 TB hard drive — with a new 1TB Solid State Drive (SSD).  Hopefully these steps will help you decide if it’s worth it to you to upgrade your hard drive to a new Solid State Drive.

What is a Solid State Drive?

In a traditional hard drive, the drive itself contains metal disks, known as platters, that spin at a certain RPM speed.  For most hard drives, they’ll spin at 5400RPM, some spin at 7200RPM, and some even spin at 10K RPM.  As they platters spin, there are parts known as drive heads that read and write data to the hard drive so it can be used or recalled later.  All of this generates heat, as well as takes time, so often the hard drive is the slowest component for why your computer runs slower.  Also, with the heat generating aspect, eventually that heat will cause degradation of the hard drive, which leads to disk crashes and loss of data.

In a Solid State Drive, or SSD, though, the hard drive is composed of memory chips instead of platters.  Since memory can be read from and written to at a much faster rate than a hard drive can be, a SSD is much faster than a hard drive, thereby improving the performance of your computer instantly for only a small investment of time and money.  The rub with SSD drives had always been that you paid more for them because of the newer technology, and that you didn’t get as much storage space with an SSD as you did with a traditional hard drive.

Replacement Steps Overview

Here is an overview of the steps I performed to replace the hard drive in my Toshiba Satellite L55D-C laptop:

  1. Research the size of the drive required and the steps to open up the laptop.
  2. Purchase the SSD drive.
  3. Clone the existing hard drive to the new SSD drive
  4. Install the new SSD drive
  5. Boot up the computer with the new drive

Most laptops have space reserved for a 2.5″ laptop hard drive.  A standard hard drive for a desktop system is bigger, usually 3.5″, but for laptops usually they are 2.5″ form factors.  A quick Google search for my laptop pointed me to all sorts of information on how to disassemble the laptop.  For the Toshiba, there are 12 Phillips screws that need to be removed and set aside. They are all the same length, but this isn’t always the case, so I suggest keeping them aligned to where the screw came out from so you can put it back in later in the same location.

The Mushkin 1TB SSD can be purchased through NewEgg or NewEgg Business.  I bought it through their Business line, for home consumers, you may need to purchase it from NewEgg.  The price on NewEgg is $259.99 for the 1TB drive.

Cloning your existing drive

There are probably a million and one ways to clone a drive, for me, the easiest way was to keep the original hard drive in the computer and connect the new SSD to the computer using an external USB -> SATA enclosure.  They make a ton of different ones, the one I have I like because you just plug the drive into it like you are putting an 8-Track tape into a player and it sits while it works.  Once you have done this and turned it on, you should be able to format the new drive so it can be read in Windows.

At this point in the operation, you’ll have your existing hard drive appearing, most often as drive C in Windows, and your new SSD showing up as a different drive letter.  At this point, download and install the program EaseUS Todo Backup Free 10.0, I’ve linked to it for you so you can grab it easily.  They have versions for Windows or Mac, I am running Windows 10 so that’s what I downloaded.

Solid State Drive

The process is fairly simple, here’s what you do:

  1. Run the program if it isn’t already running.  If prompted by User Account Control, click yes to allow the program to run.
  2. Click on the icon labeled “Clone”.
  3. The Source disk is the existing hard drive, click on that checkbox and then click next.
  4. The Target disk is the new SSD, click on the checkbox that relates to that disk and click next.
  5. You’ll see a summary of what you are doing, click Proceed.
  6. Lastly, click OK to the warning message “The data on the destination disk will be lost.  Do you want to continue?” to start the process.  Click cancel if you change your mind.

The time required will vary depending on how much data there is and the size of the disks, but it appears to work well.

After the cloning is completed, power down the laptop, open it up to get to the hard drive, and replace it with the new drive.  After that is complete, close it all back up and put the screws back in place, and lastly, boot up the system with the new solid state drive.

I have seen an incredible performance boost on my laptop by doing this, and I think it will help anyone looking to get more life and usability out of their system.  I did this specifically for my laptop, but this process also works for desktop systems with just a few variations.

If you want to discuss with me getting this done with your system, reach out to me, I’m here to help!  Call me at 919-606-6725, email me at mike@techsolutionsnc.com, leave me a comment on this post, send us a Tweet, or message us on our Facebook page, whatever is easiest for you!  Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Saving a Contact Group in Outlook 2016

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Outlook 2016
Image ©Office.com

Have you ever received an Outlook 2016 contact group from someone and weren’t sure how to handle saving it into your contacts so that you could use it?  I know that I have, and others I’ve worked with have as well.  You would think it would be as simple as opening the group (which usually arrives as an attachment in an email) and saving it.  In fact, as this screenshot shows, “Save & Close” is one of the options available to you.

Outlook 2016

But the key here is at the top, with the red arrow pointing at it.  It’s the dreaded “Read-Only” message, hiding in plain site like malware hidden in a steganography file. What that tells us is that, no matter how many times we click the “Save & Close” button — over and over and over again, we’ll never save that contact group into our contacts.

So, how do we get around this?  Well, there may be multiple ways around this, but for me, the simplest way for me is this.

  1. Open the message up in it’s own window.  So, when you do this, you’ll have one window with your main Outlook program running, and another window with the mail message that contains the contact group.
  2. In the main Outlook 2016 window, click on your contacts.
  3. Switch back to the mail message with the contact group, and click and drag the attachment to your contacts in the main Outlook window.  The contact group will be created in your contacts, and all of the names and their email addresses will be there.

So there you have it, a simple way to add a contact group from someone else into your Outlook 2016 contacts.

NOTE: Another option for doing the same thing is to drag the contact group directly to the contact icon.

Save

Who is our Typical Client?

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typical client

At Tech Solutions NC, we’ve been using our years of experience to help you out of your computer difficulties for a year now, and we are grateful for the opportunities you give us to serve you and get the most out of our technology.  But who is a Tech Solutions NC typical client?

Typical Client #1: Residential Customers

We first started looking at helping out our friends in the residential community.  To our mind, most of the computer support companies are looking for small to medium sized businesses that need computer support help.  From our perspective, we feel like many computer users in residential settings are unsure who they should call when their computer is acting up, so for me, I wanted to do everything I can to help out those users.

We have served you in our local market of Raleigh, NC; we have served our neighbors in Virginia; and we have even served our customers remotely in California, Massachusetts, and even helped out our neighbors to the north in Canada!

Remember our core values — Integrity, Experience, Flexibility, & Value — will help you, and it’s what sets us apart from other computer support companies.

Typical Client #2: Small Businesses

Another subset of our customers come from the small business community.  We have been fortunate to be able to strike up some good relationships in many different company settings, and have helped them get the most out of their technology investments.  It’s important to remember that computers are often one of the biggest drivers of business in the small business community, and those businesses need their computers to work, and if they don’t, they need them fixed fast.  Fortunately, at Tech Solutions, we are often able to respond quickly, and to make sure that your computing environment is working promptly.

Typical Client #3: Website owners

A small subset of clients has evolved for us over time — website owners who want to enhance their site, blog, business, etc, but aren’t certain how to go about that.  Fortunately, I’ve been interested in website design for a while now, and have been able to help out some of these owners.  If you have a website and are interested in getting a professional opinion of it, let me know.  I’d be happy to check it out and communicate back to you on what I would do to it.  You can email me, call me at 1-919-606-6725, or even just leave me a comment on this post.  Thanks!

Conclusion

Regardless of who you are, chances are Tech Solutions NC can help you in your computing needs.  Don’t take our word for it, though, check out our testimonial page on this website or check out our Facebook reviews.  If we have served you in the past, and you liked the service you received, then let others know about it!  You can leave us a review on Facebook, or on our Next Door page, or even on our Google Business page.  Thanks!

If you want to follow along what Tech Solutions is writing, subscribe to our email newsletter.  You’ll receive a special subscriber offer for doing so, just complete the information below! Thanks, have a great day!

Family Security – Life360

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Life360
Image ©Life360

When it comes on your family’s security, there are many things that you can look at to keep them safe.  Today, I’m going to take a look at an app that my family uses that has been very helpful in keeping us connected with one another.  Today, we’re going to look at the Life360 app in greater detail.

Life360 Overview

The Life360 App has many components to it, which we will explore in greater detail throughout.  Here are the features I like best:

  1. It’s a security app, letting your family know where you are.
  2. It’s a communication tool, you can use it to communicate in group or individual messages.
  3. It’s a driving aid, you can use the app to alert your circle when you are having a car issue.

The Life360 app goes beyond just those three components, there are a lot of other great features, but at it’s heart, it helps to keep you and your family in close contact with one another.

Life360 has both a free component, which is all that my family uses, as well as a paid component that unlocks additional features.  For the purposes of this post, we’re going to focus on what you get with the free portion of the app.

Life360: Is it secure?

At it’s core, the Life360 app functions by way of a secure group of users known as a circle.  The key here is that when you first install the app, go through and create a circle.  At that time, you will be the only one in that circle.  As you invite others into your circle, though, they will be given a code to join the circle with.  That code is only active for 7 days, and you can either tell the code to them out loud or you can send it in a message, email, or in some other communications mechanism.

For my circle, the only ones in it are my wife Cindy, my daughter Sophie, and my sister Robin.  Of them, only myself and Cindy are admins, so we are the only ones that can invite others to our circle.  There is no limit to the number of admins you can have.  Since the invite codes are only active for 7 days, I’d say that the app is secure because only people you invite will know where you are.

Life360: Automatic Check-ins

One feature I like with the Life360 app is the ability to create two place alerts.  If you pay for Life360 Plus, you will be able to create unlimited place alerts.  A place alert is just that — an alert that triggers when a condition is met.  In this case, we have a place alert at the house for when we arrive there, and we also have a place alert for when Sophie arrives or leaves school.  What happens is when the app location triggers the alert, the other people in the circle will receive the alert.  For example, “Sophie has arrived home.”

Life360: Map Options

Another feature of the Life360 app that I like is the ability to turn on or off local services.  In the app currently, I can turn on hospitals, fire departments, and police stations. In addition to that, you can also turn on or off sex offenders and crime notifications.  Although, one thing to be aware of is when you turn on the crime notification, you’ll see a dot appear on your map, but you won’t be able to get any real detail about the crime unless you subscribe to Life360 Plus.  You can customize the time frame for crime to various time windows or leave it set to “Auto”.

Conclusion

From my perspective, the Life360 app is a good choice to help you and your family stay secure.  It’s not about big brother watching, or about a parent not trusting their child.  To me, it’s about taking advantage of this digital age we live in to ensure that all of us are as safe in this world as possible.  No one solution will take care of all security concerns, but with the Life360 app, it is a good tool to add to your aresenal.  Have you used the app before?  If so, what do you think of it?  Please let me know in the comments, and thanks for stopping by!

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Computer Components: What’s important to have?

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computer components

When you start talking about computer components, just about everyone has an idea of what that means.  As computers age, and new purchases are considered, the thought inevitably turns towards what sort of system you should have.  In this post, I’ll help you weed through the clutter, the keywords, and the confusion. Together, we’ll help you determine the best computer components to look at for your next computer.

Question #1: Desktop or Laptop?

The first question you need to ask yourself is whether you looking to purchase a new desktop or laptop.  For the purposes of this article, in my opinion a system that is an “all-in-one” with everything contained in the monitor is a desktop unit.

There really isn’t a lot to consider in determining whether to go with a desktop or a laptop.  The obvious answer is whether or not you want to take the system with you on the road.  If you do, then you will want a laptop.  If you don’t, then perhaps look at a desktop.  Keep in mind that the computer components in a laptop verses in a desktop are more tightly configured. As a result, it can be more difficult to increase those things. Additionally, space constraints at your house could also lead you towards the purchase of a laptop.  One other thing to consider in the case of a laptop is the size and weight of the laptop.  For example, if you get a laptop with a big 17″ screen, then that may have some hefty weight to carry around as well. The end result of that is that your big laptop may function more as a desktop.

Question #2: CPU Considerations

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on the latest Intel based processors.  Currently, the ones you can find in most systems are the Intel i3, i5, i6, and i7 processors, each with it’s own various speeds of operation.  What really matters, though, is what you intend to use the computer for.  Are you getting this computer to be a gaming computer, or are you intending it to be strictly for typing letters and creating spreadsheets?  The answers you supply to these questions will guide your decision on how much processor you need.  Also, as you probably know, the newer the processor, the more expensive it will be.  For most people, something in the i5 range will be all you will need.

Question #3: How much RAM?

The more RAM (also known as memory) you have, the better off you will be.  The good thing about RAM (Random-Access Memory) is that it is incredibly inexepensive, and is one component that you can easily add more later — although keep in mind that each motherboard has limitations on how much RAM you can add to it.  For most systems, though, the minimum you will want to have is 8GB of RAM. RAM is important is because the more RAM you have, the more programs can be loaded into that space. That increases the speed of the computer because RAM is faster to read from than traditional hard drives.

Question #4: Traditional Hard Drive or SSD?

Recently, the growing trend has been towards replacing your traditional hard drive with a SSD drive. The biggest differences are that traditional hard drives use disk platters and heads to write the data magnetically, and the platters spin at various RPMs (usually 5400 or 7200 RPM).  With a traditional hard drive, you get more storage capacity, but you really are looking at a piece of equipment that will fail over time because of heat buildup.  With SSD technology, the platters and disk heads are replaced with memory chips, so you have the immediate speed increase from that.  For many people, adding RAM and replacing their existing traditional hard drive with an SSD drive will make it feel like their system is brand new.  SSD prices have been coming down, but generally speaking, you will be looking at a smaller capacity drive when compared to a traditional hard drive.  However, if you can, go with the SSD.  You won’t be disappointed.

Final Tally: The Computer Components to strive for

So, with all of that said and done, here are the computer components you should look for in your next system:

  1. For portability and space considerations, go with a laptop.  For ease of access, though, go with a desktop.
  2. Regarding the CPU, stick with i5 or greater.  Don’t go with an i3 processor because those types of systems have been around a while.
  3. For RAM, start with at least 8GB, but try and determine what your system can accommodate.  Most product sheets will tell you the maximum amount of RAM you can have in your system.
  4. For storage, go with a larger size SSD, perhaps a 500GB SSD or greater.  The greater the space for the SSD though the more it will cost, so keep that in mind.  It also depends on how much you data you have to store as well.  If you have to go with a traditional hard drive, start at 1TB and try to get one that is at least 7200 RPM.

Of course, I’m here to help as well.  If you need me to help price out a system for you, just reach out to me.  I’m at 919-606-6725, or you can email me at mike@techsolutionsnc.com.  Also, sign up for our newsletter and you will receive a special coupon to use on your next service.  Just fill in the information below!

$75 Tech Solutions NC Gift Card Giveaway!

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giveaway

  • Do you have someone on your Christmas or other holiday shopping list that is really into technology, but isn’t sure how to get the most out of their computer, phone, or tablet?
  • Do you have someone in your life that is always asking you for help with their technology?
  • Do you have any employees that need some additional computer training?

Well, if your answer to any of these questions is yes, then you’ve got to read on!  We’re giving away a $75 Tech Solutions NC gift card to one lucky winner!

Giveaway details:

  • One winner
  • Giveaway runs from 12:00AM Monday, November 7, 2016 – 11:59PM Sunday, November 20, 2016
  • Entries can be made using the Rafflecopter widget in this post or on our Facebook Page
  • All entry opportunities are optional.
  • Winner will be notified via email and social media after verification of winning entry on Monday, November 21, 2016.
  • Winner must acknowledge and reply with mailing address within 24 hours or a new winner will be selected.
  • Gift card does not expire and can be used at any time for any service we provide.

Take advantage of this opportunity to see all that Tech Solutions NC can provide for your home or small business, and we believe that you won’t be disappointed!  As always, we stand behind our work with a 30 day satisfaction guarantee pledge — if you aren’t satisfied with the service we perform, we’ll make it right or refund your money.  Good luck!

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