Some time ago I was having the worst time getting my Contacts and Calendar to sync with iTunes. iTunes would recognize my iPhone and back it up as it usually does first thing. Then it would always get stuck on “Syncing Chace’s Contacts”. If I uncheck the contacts to skip that step it would hang on “Syncing Chace’s Calendar”.

I tried multiple fixes, including exporting all contacts, calendars from Outlook and closing, then re-importing them. I restored my phone both by clearing it completely and using a backup to restore and just by restoring without clearing.

Finally I tried the suggestions from the following post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7671182

Along with the suggestions in that post and uninstalling iTunes, Safari, Quicktime and any other software from Apple, then installing a fresh copy of iTunes 8 I was finally able to sync my phone again. I am not sure what happened exactly but hopefully this information will come in handy for someone else!

Within the last year or so there has been a large increase in the number of home wireless networks. Some of you might laugh at me saying “I have had wireless for 3 years already!”, but some of us less technically inclined folks are just getting up to speed with this technology. Several of my family and friends have requested that I help them setup their wireless networks and a majority of the time I go help, however the technology used now-a-days to do this is pretty straight forward and nine times out of ten they probably could do it themselves, and earn a sense of accomplishment in the process.

So here I am to help simplify the process of setting up your home wireless network. While this is not a step by step instruction guide since there are so many router types and models out there, it will help those of you willing to do this on your own, find references and tips to making it easier.

Instructions – The first thing that will be the most helpful is the instructions that came with the router. If you just purchased the router then almost positively there is a manual or CD with the manual on it. A majority of routers already come with an installation CD that you install and walk through on your computer to setup the router for you. Using the CD will most likely lead you through the setup without problems, but probably won’t show you any administrative type menus or options that you would get if you logged into your router and configured it that way. The manual is the best resource for getting this done correctly since it will have all the information pertinent to your router manufacturer and model. If this is a router that you didn’t just purchase and you have misplaced the directions or CD that came with it, you can look up the manual or needed setup instructions from the manufacturer’s website or sometimes a third party website. Your best bet in this case is to locate the Manufacturer and model on your router. The manufacturer for those that don’t know is the brand, i.e. Linksys, DLink, etc. The model will be a series of letters and numbers usually found on the front or bottom of your router. Put both of these into Google and search for “manual” or “instructions”. 99% of the time this will get you what you need to continue. Read the entire post…

We all have seen the advertisement for FinallyFast.com and their software that cleans up several temp items on your computer making it run faster, or at least reduce the clutter. I recently downloaded this and once I ran the scan it wanted me to pay for it to fix the issues which is their ‘gotcha’. Well I am here to tell you NOT to buy that but instead download CCleaner which is essentially the same thing but it’s free! I use it on my rig at home, my laptop, and even computers I fix for family and friends.

Once you download the cleaner I recommend you run it once through the Cleanup scan and fix, and then twice for the Registry scan and fix. Sometimes once the first pass of the Registry completes it will find new errors the second time.

Another thing you can do once you have ran through the cleaner is navigate to your control panel and use Windows Update to search, download and install any updates that you might be missing. One thing I find with a lot of PC I am asked to fix is that people don’t keep their OS and Programs up-to-date which could be a big reason your computer is slower than it was before, especially if they are updates associated with Windows.

One last thing that will help keep your machine running fast is an anti-virus software program and securing your home wireless network if you have one.

To be honest I have been using a free anti-virus program for almost 4 years now and I have had no issues causing failure on both of my laptops, or my desktop. I use Avast Home Edition and it works great and is absolutely free! Some of the features it has is a monitoring system that will alert you immediately if it finds an issue so you can address it right away. Avast automatically updates it’s virus database to keep up with new versions of harmful virus’. There is also a boot time scan that works very well as far as getting rid of a virus if you manage to get one. Aside from having to register for this product it is well worth it, especially there is hardly any if any spam at all from Avast.

To secure your wireless connection at home you can do one of two things. You can use the instructions that should have came with your wireless router to setup some type of security on your wireless. If you are like most people instructions are for the brainless and they were likely discarded with the packaging. If this is the case you can find most router models manuals online, just Google your router brand and model number.

Hopefully this is helpful and let me know if you have other questions.