Author Archives: Mark Garstecki

There are plenty of people ready to make trouble for you online. One of the easier ways is phony emails and attachments. You might get an email from your bank, or someone else you do business with, but it is really from a phisher. They may want you to follow a link to a websiteContinue reading “Protecting yourself from emails and web results.”

I had helped someone who could not get in to their computer because apparently their password was corrupted. They did have a reset USB but it did not work in this case. The point here though is it usually does work. You may think having a password reset USB for your PC or Laptop isContinue reading “Windows Password Reset Disk – not Just for You”

I see it all the time, someones’ computer crashes and they call me to rescue their personal folders of family pictures and videos, important documents, and music collections. I see the panic and the relief that comes with this scenario. How easy it is to make sure you have another copy of your collections andContinue reading “Think of your computer as a box of memories”

The simple answer is graphics. What does that mean? That the video can support what is presented to it. Every game has minimum requirements and recommended requirements. So not only graphics but cpu and memory as well. And lots of disk space. But back to graphics. You will see a couple of parameters for videoContinue reading “So what makes a PC a “Gaming PC”?”

Let’s get to the point: Microsoft indicates that any significant change to your hardware can render you OS key as ‘deactivated’. The word to note is significant, although Microsoft does not specify what significant means. I have learned though that changing the drive or memory, or reloading the OS is usually not a problem. HoweverContinue reading “Upgrading your PC and Windows Activation: What you need to know.”

Here is a situation that can be really confusing. You plug in your flash drive and open File Explorer and don’t see any drives. One solution is to go to File Explorer, View, Options, and select the dropdown in the General tab and change it from “Quick Access” to “This PC” and hit Apply. YouContinue reading “Help, I can’t find my drives in File Explorer!”

How would you like to experience seeing your PC or Laptop to startup and behave faster when clicking and opening items? If you don’t know already, SSD drives, compared to traditional disk drives, advertise to be 10x faster. Is this just marketing? I would say definitely not as I have replaced disk drives with ssdContinue reading “The best performance upgrade for older computers and laptops”

There a couple of good free alternatives to Microsoft Office out there that I like. First is Libre Office, which is supported and has feature you would expect from an Office product. The next one is Google Docs, which is online and free and part of your account when you sign up for a googleContinue reading “Should you pay for Microsoft Office?”

I created Timberwood Computers to help those who have issues with their laptop, PC, or related hardware and software. I have been fixing computers, both personal and business enterprise systems for over 20 years.