Top 10 Tactics for Diagnosing and Fixing Your Sick Technology

Technology is great until it breaks and you have to spend hours trying to figure out what's wrong before you can even fix the problem. Often times the entire ordeal will take even longer because you've failed to consider the obvious, or a particular strategy that worked in the past. Here are our top 10 tactics for diagnosing and solving the many problems that occur with your computers, smartphones, web sites, and more.

10. Disable Crap You Don't Need

When something goes wrong, it's probably your fault. Computers certainly have their issues all on their own, but more often than not you're going to cause a problem yourself. For example, AdBlock—as great as it is—can cause web sites to look like they're not loading properly (or at all). It can prevent video playback if you have video ad blocking enabled, too. It should work, in general, but it's not perfect and screws up from time to time. The same goes for any drivers or extensions in your computer. Sometimes you'll install something incompatible by accident. Keep track of what you do and look at the third-party stuff you're using to test and see if it's causing the problem. Often times you can figure out which extension or driver (or whatever) is the problem by going down the list and considering if it relates to your issue.

9. Take a Break

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If you're working on a frustrating problem for more than 10 minutes, it's probably a good time to take a break. Take a walk, get a cup of coffee, or do something else that will take your mind off the issues. Focus is only good when it won't lead to an aneurism. Sometimes you just have to take a step back so you can approach the issues a bit later with a fresh perspective. It can be hard to do, but it's often necessary.

8. Talk It Out with a Troubleshooting Buddy

When you're stuck and don't know what to do next, sometimes the best way to figure it out is to talk about it with someone else. Under ideal circumstances you have a troubleshooting buddy you can bother to discuss the problem and hopefully get some suggestions as well. If not, non-techies aren't so bad either. Discuss the issue with them. Explain it to them in terms they'll understand. It doesn't matter so much if they can offer any help. The fact that they're listening and you're thinking about the problem in different terms can often lead you towards a solution—or at least the beginnings of one. If you're stuck and don't know what to do, stop searching online and talk it out. After a few minutes you should have some new ideas to try.

7. Make Sure It's Not Just You

When a web site isn't working, sometimes it's not the internet. Sometimes it's just you. How can you tell? You could ask a friend or just use something like Down for Everyone or Just Me? Go there and type in the web site in question. DFEOJM.com will let you know if it can reach the page or not. If it can't, it'll report that it's down for everyone. If it can, you might want to restart your router and, if necessary, start looking into other possible causes.

6. Check Your Logs

Logs are your friend, even if you don't know half of what they're saying. When they seem like a foreign language, even a quick glance can tell you what might be causing the problem. You might not understand the error codes or any of the details, but you should be able to see if the error pertains to a specific application or task. This will, at least, give you a lede to investigate so you can focus on discovering what the problem really is. If you're running Windows, here's a tutorial on finding your log files. If you're on Mac, just open the Console applications in Hard Drive —> Applications —> Utilities. If you do understand log files, then you're in really great shape (and probably do not need to be reading this tip.)

5. Perform Regular Maintenance Tasks

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Regular maintenance is important, whether you're on a Mac, Windows, or Linux PC. Sometimes the issue you're seeing is the result of a permissions error, a bad cache file, hard drive fragmentation, a messy registry, and so on. Obviously these issues don't apply to every operating system, but performing maintenance tasks for your specific OS (guides linked earlier in this paragraph) can often clear up the problem. And, if you make these maintenance tasks a recurring duty, you may not run into some issues at all.

4. Set Up Remote Access

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Whether you need to fix an issue on your own computer when you're away or you're helping out a friend or family member,setting up remote access makes a huge different in the troubleshooting process. When you can't be there, it's as close as you can get. There are many options, too. You can simply set up VNC or use a service to take the hassle out of the process. Many chat apps like Skype and iChat have screen sharing features as well, so you're bound to be able to get through if someone else is around. When you can't be there to troubleshoot the problem yourself, remote access is the next best thing.

3. Use Alternative Search Engines When Looking for Help

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Google's great, but it's not the best place to go for everything. More geek-oriented search engines like DuckDuckGo tend to turn up better results when you're looking for troubleshooting assistance. When you're trying to find someone else with your problem, you want a search engine that's going to dig up plenty of forum posts with discussions and, hopefully, solutions. If your primary search engine isn't turning up what you want, try DuckDuckGo instead.

2. Hit Up Helpful Q&A Web Sites

When you're not sure what to do or who to ask for help, there are places online designed to solve your problems. As mentioned in #3, there are plenty of specific forums, but sites like StackExchange offer a focused format for asking questions and getting answers on a variety of topics. (We have a few other suggestions as well.) If none of those sites do the trick, you can always email us. We're always on the lookout for good Ask Lifehacker topics, so if your issue is broad enough it may be a good problem for us to solve for you. Alternatively, our Help Yourself and Open Threads are good places to ask each other for assistance on a more specific issue.

1. Restart

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Seriously. We often forget to do it and it regularly solves the problem. It doesn't matter if it's an old Super Nintendo, a brand new laptop, or your smart or dumb phone—restarting is, in most cases, the first thing you should try when there's a seemingly unsolvable problem. Remember to do it and save yourself a lot of trouble.

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Five Best Ways to Use a Regular Phone for Internet Calls

If you're ready to cut the cord to your traditional landline telephone and use your broadband internet connection as your phone line, you have plenty of options, especially if you're interested in continuing to use the phones you already have in your home for VoIP calling. This week we're going to look at some services that allow you to connect your regular home phones to the internet for cheap internet calls.

Earlier in the week, we asked you which services you used to transition your home telephone service from a traditional carrier to your broadband connection, and you responded with great suggestions. Now we're back to highlight the top five, based on your nominations.

 Ooma

Ooma prides itself on quick setup, and richly featured devices and services. When the company launched a few years ago, they were one of the first to offer you the ability to port your phone number (for a charge, of course) and call any number in the United States—including other land lines—completely for free. They still do, and even though there's more competition now, Ooma still makes setup easy and offers competitive international rates. If you sign up for Ooma's subscription "Ooma Premier" service ($119.99/yr or $9.99/mo,) you get a second line, three-way calling, call forwarding, Google Voice extensions, personal blacklists, enhanced voicemail features (many of which are already available with Google Voice,) and more. To get started with Ooma, you'll need to drop $199.99 on an Ooma appliance, and up to $249.99 for an appliance with a Bluetooth or wireless adapter so you can extend service into other rooms or use a Bluetooth headset with it. Ooma-ready phone handsets will set you back an additional $49.99, and the Ooma mobile apps for iOS and Android will cost you $9.99.

 Obihai

Obihai is the manufacturer behind the Obi100 and Obi110 VoIP conversion boxes. The beauty of the Obi line of products is that if you set them up correctly, all of your calls can be completely free. They integrate well with Google Voice, and while you can certainly plug on into your broadband connection at home and use your home phones over VoIP, you can also download the Obion mobile apps for your smartphone to send and recieve calls through your Obi on the go (wireless charges still apply, but long distance and tolls won't.) If you have a friend with an Obi device in their honme, you can call them over the internet, using your home phone, completely for free, and others can call you direct, or call a friend with a local Obi and get routed through to yours, avoiding long-distance charges. Getting on-board with Obihai will cost you $43.99 for the Obi100, or $49.99 for the Obi110 (which allows you to bridge calls between VoIP and a land-line.) Those of you who nominated Obihai made note that the combination of an Obi device and Google Voice gave you the closest thing to having a full-fledged phone company, complete with enhanced features, for a single one-time charge.

 Vonage

Vonage was one of the first VoIP services to make it big—huge marketing campaigns and a robust VoIP solution that allowed you to use your home phone and avoid long-distance charges didn't hurt. Unlike some of the other contestants in the lineup, Vonage doesn't offer you a one-time purchase, after which you're on your own unless you want premium services. Instead, you trade in your traditional phone company for Vonage, and you still get a monthly bill, just from Vonage instead of your phone company. That bill can range from $11.99 to $49.99 domestically, and tack on between $14.99 and $54.99 internationally if you need to make global calls. At the same time though, they offer you a VoIP appliance for free, and all of the features that a traditional phone company would offer you for a much lower price. That subscription price also includes voicemail, caller ID, forwarding, Vonage "extensions," or the ability to ring multiple numbers, and more. Vonage is ideal for the user interested in switching to VoIP, but doesn't want the hassle of setting up an appliance themselves, or hooking up with Google Voice for extended features.

Skype

Skype is more than just a computer-to-computer calling service: the service has come a long way and offers a number of solutions that allow you to use your home phone with Skype to call your friends on their computers or their land lines. Skype's new FREETALK appliances allow you to connect any traditional phone in your home to your broadband internet connection and place local and long-distance calls through Skype. If you'd prefer, you can buy Skype's branded cordless phones that do it all for you. One of the nice things about Skype's home phone service is that you can use it in conjunction with your Skype account on your mobile phone or desktop computer, making Skype a complete replacement for all of your calls: mobile, VoIP, and computer-to-computer. Of course, the FREEtALK applicances will set you back between $39.99 and $59.99 depending on the types of phone calls you plan to make, and the Skype-branded phones will cost you between $69.99 and $89.99 depending on the ones you want. You'll have to sign up for an annual subscription or add credits to your Skype account to continue using them. Also, keep in mind that Skype does not offer E911 or emergency calling.

Nettalk

NetTalk is another VoIP service that combines cheap appliances that connect your home phone to your broadband internet ocnnection with subscription services that replace your traditional phone company. NetTalk is cheap: their appliance will set you back $69.99 and comes with a year of service, after which you'll pay $29.99/year. The tiny NetTalk Duo adapter gives you free calls over your broadband connection across the US and Canada using your traditional home phone, free conference calling, and affordable international calling plans (although you'll have to be up on that month's per-minute rate to the country you plan to call.) NetTalk is one of the cheapest subscription services in the roundup, but that's mostly because they don't upsell you on advanced features like call forwarding, voicemail, and other services that Google Voice offers: they're a low-cost, no-nonsense VoIP solution.

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Unlocked iPhone 4S not available until November, won’t support CDMA

We know that the new iPhone 4S is a world phone, with support for GSM and CDMA networks. So you should be able to buy an unlocked one and use it on any network in the world that carries the iPhone, right? As it turns out, that isn’t quite the case. The unlocked model of the 4S won’t support the CDMA basebands used on Sprint and Verizon. Oh, and did we mention that the unlocked iPhone 4S won’t be available until November?

With the contract version of the iPhone 4S having capabilities for both GSM and CDMA, why would CDMA get the shaft on the unlocked model? This is likely because international networks are much more likely to be GSM. If you’re a globetrotter who is toting an unlocked phone, you aren’t going to call a local CDMA carrier to have your phone temporarily activated. Instead, you’ll buy a pre-paid SIM card, and pop it in. Of course SIM cards are the turf of GSM.

As for the news that the unlocked version won’t be available for at least another month, that means that only contract-laden iPhones can be purchased during the initial launch. Sure, you can drop $650 (or more) to buy one for full retail if you aren’t eligible for an upgrade, but it will still require a new 2-year agreement.

What does this mean? If you’re a world traveler, who wants to use your iPhone 4S everywhere you go, you’re still covered. You can still use your contract-laden iPhone 4S (which is available for pre-order now) to do that, or you can wait for the unlocked one next month. Either way, you will still be able to connect to any GSM network worldwide by switching up the SIM card. The only difference is that you won’t be able to use that contract-free one on Sprint or Verizon in the US.

Unlocked models will ring up at the same prices as the full retail contract-laden iPhone 4S. That would be $649 for 16GB, $749 for 32GB, and a whopping $849 for 64GB.

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AT&T wants to bring 4G icon to iPhone 4S

You thought the 4G agnosticism that Apple expressed during their iPhone 4S unveiling was going to be the end of the story? Think again. AT&T has confirmed to us that they are working with Apple to add a 4G icon to the status bar of the iPhone 4S.

After initial reports that AT&T was pushing for the icon, an AT&T representative confirmed to Geek.com that they are “working together [with Apple] on this.”

4G has been a muddy term in wireless marketing. All four US carriers claim to have 4G, though speeds can vary wildly. LTE (currently available on Verizon, is in the early stages on AT&T, and is being planned by Sprint) is now generally accepted as “true 4G,” though even it is a compromise over the original standards set forth for 4G.

As presented by Apple, AT&T’s version of the iPhone 4S will have download speeds of “up to 14.4 Mbps.” As we previously reported, though, your real-world speeds won’t likely get anywhere close to that. Owners of AT&T’s Android HSPA+ phones can tell you that their download speeds can often be indistinguishable from 3G speeds.

AT&T’s website curiously makes no mention of the term 4G in advertising, so perhaps Apple insisted that it not be used (at least at launch). But since the AT&T 4S should have the same speeds as the Atrix 4G, Inspire 4G, or LG Thrill 4G (the three devices Apple compared it to in the keynote), it isn’t surprising that AT&T would also describe their iPhone as 4G.

While those of us that frequent Geek likely know about the vastly different technologies that are all called “4G,” your typical customer may be less likely to. Even statistics like Mbps aren’t likely to mean a lot to some. That’s when the use of the term in marketing can get confusing. If Joe Phone Shopper walks into Best Buy, is he going to know the difference between the “4G” that the AT&T iPhone 4S has and the much faster 4G that Verizon’s Droid Bionic supports (using LTE)?

We have reached out for further clarification from AT&T, and will keep you posted when more details are available.

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Apple Announces iPhone 4S, Available October 14

iPhone 4S

Apple finally delivers its next generation iPhone; 64GB model to cost $399 on contract

Fourteen months -- that's how long it's been since Apple released the iPhone 4. That phone touted a 3.5” (640x960) "Retina" display, speedy A4 processor, a problem-prone external antenna, a 5MP camera, and has been a huge success for the company. Sales of the iPhone 4 account for over half of all iPhone models sold since 2007.

Since the iPhone 4's introduction, however, the Android competition has grown even more fierce and now command 56 percent of the U.S. smartphone market. Apple needs another hit to keep its smartphone momentum (and cash) flowing, so the company today announced the iPhone 4S.

Siri in action

I. The "new" iPhone 4S 
Judging from its exterior appearance, not much seems changed from the iPhone 4 we’ve all come to know since June 2010 (April 2010 if you count the Gizmodo leak). In fact, the design looks nearly identical to the CDMA iPhone 4 with its improved antenna design that debuted on Verizon’s network earlier this year.

On the inside, however, things have changed for the better. Instead of the single-core A4 processor, the iPhone 4S is now packing a scaled down version of the dual-core A5 processor that initially debuted on the iPad 2. Apple claims that the processor is twice as fast and the updated graphics core in the new iPhone 4S allows it to be up to 7 times faster than the iPhone 4.

When it comes to battery life, Apple claims up to 8 hours of 3G talk times, 14 hours of 2G talk time, 6 hours of 3G browsing, and 9 hours of Wi-Fi browsing with the iPhone 4S.
 
The iPhone 4S now also a fully functional dual-mode “world” phone that can operate on CDMA and GSM networks (the iPhone 4S supports the “4G-esque” HSDPA standard; 14.4Mbps down). IFixit initially pointed out in early February that the Verizon iPhone 4 contained a dual-mode CDMA/GSM chip that supports HSDPA, but that functionality was disabled.  


An important note -- this iPhone does not have HSPA+.  HSPA+ (aka. "evolved HSPA") requires a fast downlink and a fast uplink.  The new iPhone has a high-speed downlink, but a traditional 3G speed uplink.

The iPhone 4S has an 8MP (3264x2448) camera with backside illumination to allow for 73 percent more light. It also includes what Apple calls a Hybrid IR filter and a five-element lens. In addition, the iPhone 4S is capable of recording video in 1080p and includes video image stabilization.

iPod touch, now available in white

Also new with the iPhone 4S is an "assistant" called Siri. Siri allows you to speak to your iPhone using normal speech patterns and receive a response. For example, "What is the weather like today" will give you a readout of the forecast for your current location. You could also say "Set alarm for 8am" and Siri will automatically fulfill your request. Or saying "Find me an Italian restaurant in New York City" will provide you with a listing of restaurants in that area, and so forth.

Siri will you to do anything from setting calendar event to respond to text messages. It can even read back message text for you (or compose it if you wish, like in an email for example).

Siri functionality is featured in most of Apple's built-in apps for iOS.

Of course, with each new iPhone release comes a new version of iOS, and this year is no exception. The iPhone 4S comes pre-loaded with iOS 5 (which we have discussed in detail here). IOS 5 brings a host of improvements to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad/iPad 2 including a revamped notification system, wireless updates, system-wide Twitter integration, updates to Mail and Safari, iMessage, and iCloud.

IOS 5 and iCloud will be available to download on October 12. The iPhone 4 will be available on October 14 for $199 (16GB), $299, (32GB), and $399 (64GB) with a two-year contract. Pre-orders start October 7.

Also, as has been widely reported, Sprint is now jumping on the iPhone bandwagon. The third-place U.S. wireless carrier will get its own version of the iPhone 4S that operates on a 3G network instead of WiMAX. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has made it clear that its loss of subscribers (and hence revenue) can be partially attributed to not having the iPhone on its network. That excuse won’t fly anymore, however, so we’ll be eager to see how many new customers Sprint picks up when it reports its earnings for the quarter.

II. New iPods are also on the way 
The iPod nano has been updated to include swipe functionality to navigate between apps and 16 new clock faces (for those that are “hip” to turning your iPod nano into a watch). The new nano is priced at $129 for the 8GB model and $149 for the 16GB model.

Apple hasn't updated the hardware for the iPod touch, but it did announce that it would now be available in white with price points of $199, $299, and $399 for 8GB, 32GB, and 64GB of storage respectively.

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HTC Announces Sensation XL with Beats Audio, Record Earnings

HTC's Sensation XL ships with urBeats headphones

When HTC announced a deal with Beats Electronics, we knew it wouldn't be long before branded smartphones would start hitting the market. First up was the Sensation XE with its 1.5GHz processor.

 

Now we have the Sensation XL which was just announced today. The Sensation XL obviously has Beats Audio integration along with a massive 4.7" display (Engadget says that the screen resolution is still 800x480). The smartphone is 9.9mm thick, features an aluminum body, 16GB of internal storage, 8MP rear camera (f/2.2, 28mm, dual-LED flash) 1600 mAh battery, and packs in a 1.5GHz single-core processor (Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon). The Sensation XL is running Android 2.3 with HTC Sense 3.5 tacked on.

 

The Sensation XL will also ship with a pair of urBeats headphones.

“With Beats Audio, the HTC Sensation XL continues HTC’s commitment of delivering the best audio possible on your phone whether you’re listening to music, watching a movie or playing a game,” said HTC CEO Peter Chou. “This is an amazing example of why our partnership with Beats makes so much sense for customers today and into the future.”

 

In other HTC news, the company announced that third quarter revenue jumped 79 percent to $4.4 billion USD while net income rose 68 percent to $612 million USD.

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