Google Chrome’s new feature, extensions, provides you with time-saving tools that will improve your productivity and enhance your browsing experience.

Here are the best Google Chrome Extensions that save you time and liven up your everyday, unexciting tasks.

1. Adblock Plus

Do banner ads and constant popups bother you? If yes, AdBlock Plus is your savior. AdBlock Plus allows you to surf websites ad and pop up free by blocking banners ads, video ads and flash game ads. Adblock Plus allows you to customize your filters providing you with a safer and faster web experience by blocking distracting ads.

2. Stylish

Stylish allows you to restyle the web! Using Stylish, you can install themes and skins for your favorite websites including Google, Facebook, and YouTube. You can now design a theme that changes websites’ the color and content. You can also download premade themes from the Stylish extension.

3. Google Dictionary

Looking up a word in the dictionary is simple, but can get distracting and annoying. Google Dictionary saves you time and frustration with an extremely quick online dictionary. This feature allows you to define a word by highlighting it and clicking on the dictionary button. Now you can expand your vocabulary and quickly continue reading with minimal distraction using Google Dictionary.

4. Evernote

Want to save articles, links, and webpages to read later on? Evernote allows you to save links using cloud storage. Cloud storage  allows you to access saved items from your house, office, and even your smartphone!

5. Awesome Screenshot

Awesome Screenshot takes computer screenshots to the next level. Awesome Screenshot allows you to capture any portion of a page, annotate it with shapes or text, and blur your sensitive information. After customizing your screenshot, a one-click upload to awesomescreenshot.com gives you a shareable link you can send to your friends, family, and coworkers.

Additional Help

Extensions can save you hours of time performing the mundane tasks you do everyday. To save you even more time finding highly rated local businesses or service professionals use TalkLocal. Stop wasting hours searching the internet and yellow pages, reading review and then repeatedly calling companies until you find one you like. TalkLocal will save you the time and aggravation by connecting you with 3 service professional in minutes.

Often times, when people create home networks they rush through the installation process in excitement and forget many essential steps to keep their networks safe, secure and long-lasting. Here are a few wireless network security tips that should give you peace of mind.

Wireless Network Security Tips

Create a password for your wireless network. Without a password, the network is open to anyone, which means anyone with wifi can easily connect to your network. Other users on your network will slow down your network speed and make you susceptible to threats from hackers. Hackers can steal personal information (both financial and virtual), steal your identity, plant a virus on your network or create other problems that may be beyond your expertise to detect or fix.

There may be a password option that comes with the installation of your wireless network. Make sure to create your own password, as many hackers are aware of the predetermined passwords.

Make sure the password you choose is strong and hard to hack. While you don’t want your password to be easy to hack, be sure your password is something you will be able to remember! Use something complex and long that has meaning to you only. Don’t use a password that can be found in your wallet or other papers. The idea is to making it virtually impossible for people to guess. Use numbers, upper case letters, and even other symbols. This will ensure security.

Make sure your SSID is hidden. A hidden SSID will eliminate the risk that hackers will even see that you have a wireless network.

Strengthen your wireless encryption. There are actually several free tools on the web that can break through the WEP encryption. There is more than one encryption base to choose from. Currently, WPA is the strongest encryption base for wireless networks. Using WPA is preferred for its strength. Depending on how secure you want to be, there are also secondary layers of encryption you can install.

Shut down the wireless network and router when not in use. Not only will this decrease the time that your network is open for threat, but it will also help preserve the life and longevity of your wireless router.

Additional Help

While these wireless security network tips make it possible for you to install your own network without help, you may wish to call for professional assistance due to lack of time or other reasons. In that case, get in touch with TalkLocal. Within minutes you will be in touch with professionals who can assist you with your wireless network security when you need it.

The hard drive is the brain of a computer. It is where we store our data, from important documents to sentimental photo albums. The hard drive is arguably the most important aspect of your computer. With so much storage and computing power, a failed hard drive can have catastrophic results. Learn the signs that a hard drive is failing so you can back up your data before it’s too late!

Why do hard drives fail?

– Logical failures occur when the electronics or software of the hard drive have a problem. This is the easiest problem to fix, but is usually rare.

– Media failures occur when the hard drive is not handled carefully. You can accidentally scratch the magnetic platters, which may cause lost data, or run into low-level formatting problems. However, this problem is rare.

– Head failures occur when there is an incorrect distance between the read/write head and the magnetic platters, or there is faulty wiring between the logic board and the head. This problem is pretty common.

– Mechanical failures occur when any mechanical part of the hard drive gives out – the motor burns out, the drive overheats, the bearings get stuck, etc. These make up the bulk of hard drive failures, but if the platters are not affected then the hard drive can be saved.

Signs of hard drive failure

– Strange noises may mean that your hard drive is beyond repair, so act very quickly. This could mean a head crash, a failed motor, or noisy bearings.

– Disappearing data and disk errors: You may have hard drive failure if your computer won’t let you save a document or you can’t find a document you know you saved.

– Computer stops recognizing device: If your computer stops recognizing the hard drive it’s probably not a computer problem, but the device itself. Test the hard drive in a friend’s computer to see if this is the case.

– Computer crashes: If your computer regularly blue-screens or reboots, especially when assessing files, you probably have hard drive failure.

– Really slow access times: It should not take an hour to open a folder from your operating system. Slow download and access times are key indicators of a failing hard drive.

What to do?

Back up your computer data while you have time. (You should regularly be backing up data anyway). If time is limited, carefully remove the hard drive and cover it with aluminum foil or plastic wrap until you can send it to a professional. TalkLocal is the #1 place to find a reliable computer repair professional quickly and easily!

Macs are known for their high tolerance and good security against viruses.  However, every once in a while some Mac computers may develop cookies, viruses, and Trojans. Don’t panic if you do have a virus on your mac, because virus removal on Macbook is possible!

The various types of dangers

The main three types of threats to your computer’s security through using the Internet are:

1)     Cookies

2)     Viruses

3)     Trojans

You must take certain steps to diagnose, get rid of, and prevent new versions of each of these risks.

Clear the Cookies off your Mac

Using Safari

Using Internet Explorer

Using Mozilla Firefox

Using Google Chrome

Get Rid of Viruses

Getting rid of viruses is a little more complicated but still do-able. Download ClamXay for your specific Mac OS and install recent apple security updates.

With these two completely up to date, ClamXay will take you through the necessary steps if a virus is detected.

What to Avoid:

Make sure that you do not install Norton Anti-Virus because it can seriously damage your OS.  Furthermore you should be aware of malicious software that attempts to look helpful such as MACDefender.

Deleting Trojans

Trojans are becoming more serious and common in infecting Mac computers. Trojans allow your computer’s DNS records to be modified, hijacked, infected and watched.  The most serious Trojan is called a flashback and infects your computer by downloading malicious components. Flashback tricked users by disguising the installer for Adobe Flash.

What to Avoid:

– Only download Adobe Flash Player from the official site to avoid downloading a Trojan.

– Disable the “open safe files after downloading” option in preferences to avoid automatic installations of potentially dangerous programs.

Additional Help

Virus removal on mac isn’t easy! If you cannot get rid of your virus or are in need of professional , use TalkLocal to be put in contact with reliable local professionals within minutes.  Simply input your problem and availability and TalkLocal will do the rest of the work!