Our address is:

Ducktoes Computer Services

902 Centre St. N

Calgary, Alberta

403-219-3031

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Ducktoes has entered a new realm of computing. We are now building custom gaming machines. We have always built gaming machines but now we are doing it with intention and passion. We even have some models posted on our website.

This new realm involves a lot of heated discussion. We are striking near to the heart of gamers everywhere and especially the gamers who work as Ducktoes techs. Now we have to discuss for a long, long time, over and over, what is better, an AMD or Intel processor? And what is the best board for gaming options and reliability? Is it Asus or Gigabyte or Sapphire or what? We have very strong opinions about these boards and processors and oh, yes, video cards.

I am pulled in opposite directions. One tech convinces me about the supremacy of Gigabytes boards, until I talk to another who show me a website with awesome Asus boards.  One agrees with my fondness for the reliability of i7 processors, until another shows me the more bang for your buck of AMD.

But whatever is right or wrong, whoever is right or wrong, all these machines are fast, and built with passion and skill. I don’t think you can go wrong here. Milliseconds are milliseconds, right? No, no, no, wrong, wrong, wrong they tell me. Intel i7 beats the crap off of AMD by a long shot. Are you kidding me, no processor beats AMD 8-core FX processors Black Edition, says the other. Even I, known to argue heatedly with my techs about other things, say virus removal, for instance, am daunted.  Ok, ok, let’s let the client decide what he or she wants okay, I say, trying to be diplomatic and to remember not bring this up anymore, if possible. I have to do invoices, I say, heading for the stairs, wondering where I left my noise cancelling earphones.

But secretly I’m pleased my techs care so much…this has to be good for the quality of the computers.  So whatever your bent, AMD or Intel, Gigabyte or Asus, come join the discussion, or better yet, let us build your new high-quality gaming machine whichever way you think is faster and better and more economical.  I really think they all will serve you well.

We are Ducktoes, your Calgary gaming machine enthusiasts. Your Calgary custom computer builder of all types.

If you want some food for thought check these out:

Motherboards

Tech Radar

Tom’s Hardware

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Here it is: the Blackberry 10 Media event. http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/30/live-from-rims-bb10z10-media-event-in-nyc/
So exciting!

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Kasperky again offers a free online scanner for virus removal. If you think you have a virus, I recommend you scan it with their scanner, among other things like Malwarebytes and Superantispyware.

You can keep on top of viruses yourself if you want by reading this blog and having a decent anti-virus, free or otherwise, installed on your computer.

Or if you prefer, you can let Ducktoes help you, in our shop, onsite in your home or business, or remotely. We are virus experts and can get rid of any virus without reformatting if we catch soon enough.

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Unfortunately, the Cybercrime or Ukash virus is still with us. We just had another couple of computers at the shop come in infected with it. If you live in the Calgary area, bring your computer into our Calgary computer repair shop and we’ll fix it for you tout de suite.

If you don’t live in Calgary then try this, or get a tech to help you do it:

The best way to remove the Cybercrime or Ukash virus is to go into Safe Mode with Networking then download and run Combofix, then run Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware. After this download either AVG or Avira. They are free for home use.

If you don’t know how to do these things yourself then you might go to the Bleeping Computer website and ask them for help. They are wonderful. And they are the authors of Combofix.

If you are a tech or are tech-savvy enough you can try our removal procedures:
First run Combofix. (I did this in Safe Mode with Networking.)

To get into Safe Mode, tap F8 as the computer boots. If you tap at just the right time, a list of options in black and white is displayed on your screen. If you get the usual Windows boot up, you’ve missed Safe Mode so you’ll have to restart and tap again.
Pick Safe Mode with Networking. Then you’ll see a message asking if you’re sure you want to go into Safe Mode or if you’d rather use System Restore. Click yes you do want to go into Safe Mode. In Safe Mode you can then download and run Combofix.

Next download and run Malwarebytes, then SuperAntispyware.

Next you’ll need a good anti-virus, AVG or Avira.

All the above are free for home use.

Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions. My email is adminATducktoes.com.

Read more about the Cybercrime virus.

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Since I wrote the last post, the newest virus bulletin is now out with the newest comparatives, this time for Windows 8. And the best is again Coranti, but the second best is Avira Personal Version which, remarkably, did better than the professional. Zeobit is still up there too.

More recently, I found out Coranti closed it doors due to financial reasons. That is too bad. We were just starting to use them.

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According to the latest comparative testing of anti-virus products by Virus Bulletin, an independent anti-malware and anti-virus testing and review bulletin, two did remarkably better than the others.

Coranti from Japan outflanked others including  highly-rated antiviruses such as G-Data, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and E-set.  It did better than the three A’s from Europe too.  The three A’s are AVG, Avira, and Avast that we usually wax on about at Ducktoes, being good as well as free for home use.  The rest did well on the reactive tests, but less well on the proactive. So we’re adding it to the Ducktoes anti-virus cocktail in our lab to see how it does.  You can try it too.  There’s a 30 day free trial.   I couldn’t find prices on their website.  Here is their website, by the way: http://coranti.com.

If you have viruses and would like help please visit Ducktoes, your Calgary anti-virus experts.

Here’s the Virus Bulletin site if you’re interested.  It’s worth the subscription if you want to know the latest and greatest about anti-viruses.

Proactive means finding new viruses in the wild before the anti-virus company has developed an antidote based on the virus’s definition. Coranti seems to excel at that.

The other that did well is part of a optimizing and cleaning product, Zeobit. I don’t much about Zeobit but I’m really interested. Here is their website, http://pckeeper.zeobit.com/

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Helen, a friendly, new-to-computers, 85-year-old woman, stands at the Ducktoes’s Computer Shop counter. She smiles awkwardly, more of a grimace than a smile. I know Helen, she bought a used computer from me about a year ago. At first she learned how to click the mouse, then she started playing solitaire, then I showed her how to do email, now she Skypes her children in Toronto and Newfoundland, and lately has started talking to her bridge group on Facebook. She’s told me she feels much less alone now that she can connect to her friends and family on the computer.

“Hey, Helen,” I say, “Nice to see you.”

Her grimace-smile fades, moisture come to her eyes. “The police say I’ve done something wrong on my computer,” she says, her right cheek involuntarily twitching. “I told you I didn’t know what I’m doing. Now they think I’m a terrorist.”

I hand her the tissue box. “I doubt that, Helen.”

She takes out a tissue and dabs at the corners of her eyes. “I have to buy a gift card at Canadian Tire and send it to the RCMP.”

I feel sorry for her and anger rises in my throat. I cough. “Since when does the RCMP let terrorists off the hook with a Canadian Tire gift card?”

She looks up, surprised. “Now that you mention it,” she says, “I did wonder about that.”

“How absurd,” I say. “Everyone knows they prefer Tim Horton’s gift cards.”

Now she laughs.

It’s a virus,” I say, “the Cybercrime UKash virus.”

“Thank goodness, it’s only that” she says. “I was worried I couldn’t Skype anymore.” She grins.  ”And really don’t you think the police like Starbucks better now?”

We both laugh and make plans for George my delivery driver to pick up her computer the next morning and so we can remove the virus.

This is what it looks like.

So if you see this warning on your computer, don’t go buy a gift card for the police. It isn’t from the police, it’s from criminals. Criminals that won’t be able to go to Canadian Tire to get out of their crimes either once they are caught.

Ducktoes can remove this virus for you and you won’t have to wait a week or two. We can do it today at our shop or access it from anywhere to fix viruses or other problems remotely. We’re Calgary Virus Removal experts.  Call 403-219-3031 or drop it by the shop at 902 Centre St. N.

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Or some react like the proud parents of a newborn, they’re so excited about their new baby, and to see what she is like, but then after the computer boots, they discover to their horror, their beautiful new darling is missing her right hand. ‘Where’s the start button, they ask, an anxious look on their faces. After a grieving period they try to buck up, well, she’s a bit handicapped but she’s still beautiful to us.

Here’s a video on youtube of what Windows 8 looks like. The video is silent but can give you an idea of what it’s like to navigate a Windows 8 machine, the look and feel of it.

Tom’s Hardware Guide has a definitive guide and review to Windows 8 which seems very thorough.

And here is the Verge’s primer on Windows 8.

At Ducktoes we remember Vista and the chaos that ensued for our business clients. Those who adopted it too soon found there were no drivers for their printers or sometimes for their video cards and other peripherals, so we’re adopting a wait-and-see attitude.

But we’re excited to try it out. I’m putting it on a new machine so people can go for a test drive.

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According to Majestic Seo, which counts links to different websites, there are indications Romney’s website started receiving many more links than Obama’s, every since right before the first debate.  Yet, if you read on, on closer analysis, the Majestic Seo blog post goes on to point out, a lot of links came and went in one day.

Majestic Seo says if you could see where most of the links come from, the data would take a different twist.  But you have to have a subscription to see.

http://blog.majesticseo.com/commentary/predicting-elections-2/

I do have a subscription for Ducktoes SEO work I do and I did take a look.  Thousands upon thousands of links came from conservative forums, all at once.  So it would seem it was all a well-orchestrated SEO campaign.  But to what end?  The Romney PR and marketing consultants must have thought ranking higher would be good for his campaign.  Clearly they must have thought so, to spend so much time, energy, and money on the project.

I’m not sure ranking higher on search results will help Mitt Romney, but it certainly can help your business get more traffic.  Ducktoes Calgary SEO services can help.

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A Sample Rogue Anti-virus

• Slow internet connection or slow computer especially if recently either was much faster
• No internet connection even though the system says you are connected
• Dire warnings that you have a virus  or many viruses
• Exaggerated notice of computer problems such as a bad hard drive or loss of data
• Warnings that you will be in trouble with the police or some other official organization if you don’t pay a fee , this includes alleged penalties for downloading free music or programs or false claims you have child pornography on your computer and will face legal action including incarceration if you don’t pay with a credit card
• Web browser redirections, for instance you are trying to go Google or other website and your browser takes you somewhere entirely else such as a strange search engine or shopping site
• Pop-ups
• Normal system programs or functions unavailable such as Task Manager, Control Panel, Msconfig
• Unexplained errors
• Program failure
• Disappearance of icons, programs, or files from desktop, start menu, or user folders
• An RPC error,  sometimes with a window with a restart or countdown to a restart

Unless you have a lot of computer expertise, you’ll need a computer professional to remove viruses, if your computer has the symptoms listed above.

Ducktoes Computer Services can remove viruses without reformatting.  We also do remote virus removal if you don’t live in Calgary.

Some of the symptoms may happen with hardware failure such as hard drive corruption but most are virus-related.

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