Frequently Asked Questions

Do you feel like your Internet Service Provider says blah blah blah, and you are going to have to blah blah blah. If that is the case, we hope that the following information will help with your search for easy to fix issues. Remember to use the tools available to you(search engines like www.google.com, www.yahoo.com and others), but caution should be used when trying to address something that you have never had experience with. Sometimes a professional can resolve the issue much quicker than individual research, and network experimentation. We are here to help smooth out the peaks and valleys, give us a call and let us be the interface between you and your Information Technology. PG Technology - Providing Professional Grade Technology to the SMB market space.

Q: [When I look at my statistics for my website I see one address that always visits my site, is there a way to determine who it is?]
A: [There are some things you can do to figure out who the visitor is, but before you go too far, try checking myipaddress.com from your computer and see if the address belongs to you :). You won't be the first person to find that you are your best visitor. :)]

Q: [My office is in a bad section of town is there a way to backup my data off-site?]
A: [There are several different products that can achieve this goal, but you have to ask yourself some questions before you decide on a product. What do I want to backup? How long can I survive without my data? How long will it take to put it back into working order? Do I need the Operating system backed up? Are there any special programs that would be difficult to reload? I once ran across an application that was special and been developed by a programmer that was no longer available to make any changes (dead!). If the program was lost the business would suffer significantly. So there was only one option and that was to backup the entire system, and to be prepared to rebuild it exactly as it was before a server crash. (A bare metal restore) Back then it would have been difficult to facilitate such a restore, but with the advance of today's technology it is now possible to back up such an application every 15 minutes, have daily, weekly and monthly restore points, and also store a copy of the backups off-site. All of this plus the option to bring up a temporary Virtual Server that acts just like the original server, same IP address and all. If you need more information call us about our new managed backup solutions. ]

Q: [We have just installed a new switch between our internal network and our router. I know that it is new, but now I am getting repeated drop outs. I can not stay connected to the Internet. What should I be looking for?]
A: [Most new switches have the ability to auto negotiate the speed and the duplex settings for the network that it is attached to; however, some older equipment may not be able to work with auto negotiation. Try setting the speed and duplex so that it will be compatible with other pieces of equipment on the network. For example Full 100 Mbs on both pieces of equipment that are connected.]

Q: [When I am at work I can send and receive e-mail from my laptop, but when I go home I can receive but can't send e-mail.]
A: [Within your email client you will find a smtp setting. This is usually set to the local Internet Service Providers smtp settings. If you enter you local Internet Service Providers smtp settings, the problem should go away. There have been recent improvements in this area were some Internet Service Providers have started using authenticated smtp. Simply stated it is a service that allows you to login to the server before you send outbound messages. This type of service will allow you to send email from most of the networks that you may attach to while traveling. Some providers also provide webmail which is another alternative to specifying a smtp server, or authenticated smtp.]

Q: [What is a gateway address?]
A: [The gateway is the router address that connects you to another network. So if your internal IP address is 192.168.1.100 the router gateway address will more than likely be 192.168.1.1, and the same is true for the other side of the router. The outside IP address will be similar to your computer and the gateway address will be the address on your ISP's router. It is the gateway that lets packets in and out of the network.]

Q: [what is a subnet mask]
A: [The subnet mask is a way to communicate to your network equipment the number of devices that are connected to it. In the case of 255.255.255.0 you have a network address, and a broadcast address, and 254 host addresses. If you add more than 254 computers the extra computers will cause problems. You will randomly loose connection to computers]

Q: [What is DHCP]
A: [Every computer in the network has to have an address, much like your home has an address. In a network you can assign a static address to a computer, but you must maintain it, and keep track of it if there are changes made to the network. DHCP is a way to allow a device on your network to keep up with the addresses, and automatically issue an address to new computers that are added to the network.]

Q: [ I just got my hard disk drive the way I like it, but now I am out of space. How can I move it to another hard drive without spending hours and hours manipulating data and restoring the OS? I don't want to spend several days of tedious work to change out the drive!]
A: [You may find that there are several different solutions, but take a look at Acronis® Migrate Easy 7.0. Or, with the purchase of a Seagate or a Maxtor hard drive, there is a migration tool that comes with the hard drive. ]

Q: [I have one hard drive with two partitions and I need to change the size of the partition on my C drive. I have plenty of space on my D drive. Is there a way to just increase the C partition without having to reload my computer? ]
A: [Take a look at the Acronis Disk Director. We have customers that have had a great deal of luck with this product.]

Q: [I would like to get a screen shot of just the active window on my desktop without any of the other windows in the background. Is there a way to do this? ]
A: [Yes, make sure that you have selected the window that you want to copy. (The top bar will more than likely be blue) Then press ALT + Print Screen, at this point open your word processor and do a paste, ctrl + v, you should get a copy of the window that you wanted pasted into your word processor. We have seen at least one system that would not respond to ALT + Print Screen, but instead used ALT + Shift + Print Screen.]

Frequently Asked Questions

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