ItsGeekToMe.co

Q:  I inherited an HP Altec Laptop with an AMD A6 Processor. We can’t get in without the password. What can do? It has windows 8.1

– Pam B.
Perry, Georgia

A:  I just happened to have dealt with a similar situation recently, when I was asked to try and “break into” a computer that belonged to someone who had recently died, in hopes of finding some financial information or a will.  It was a real struggle, and far too complicated to try and cover in my column, because of the sheer number of steps that include “if that doesn’t work, try this instead”.

Assuming you don’t want to get anything off the laptop’s hard drive, the simplest way to access it is to simply re-install Windows.  The system might have a built-in recovery partition that will help you with that, but more than likely you will need a CD or DVD from HP.  If you don’t already have one, it will be available from HP, probably for a nominal fee.  By the way, when you begin to contact HP, you’ll want to know the actual model number of the laptop, which should be printed on a sticker on the bottom.  The word “Altec” that you found is not the laptop’s model, it is the first half of “Altec-Lansing” which is the kind of speakers or sound system with which the laptop is equipped.

Just because I love all my readers and because I didn’t really give you the answer you were hoping for, here’s a little consolation prize.  This link tinyurl.com/lm9ajgd will take you to the HP Product Support website, and to a document that will give you a little advice on how to access the laptop’s Boot Manager and get into the BIOS, in case you want to try hacking on it while you wait for HP to send you a disk.  Good luck, and happy computing!

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Q: I tried to email you at itsgeektome.co but I kept getting a message that the address was illegal.   What is going on?

 – Jim S.
Miramar Beach, Florida

A:  Well, Jim, that would be because “ItsGeekToMe.co” is not an e-mail address — it is the URL for my website.  That text gets typed into the address bar of a web browser to visit the site.  E-mail addresses, on the other hand, always start with a name and the symbol ‘@’ (pronounced “at”) which is followed by text like you mentioned.  I just happen to have an e-mail address that’s connected to the website.  That would be Geek@ItsGeekToMe.co. That would work in your e-mail program, as well as the original address that I set up before I got a website, ItsGeek2Me@gmail.com.

One thing to take away from this is that it’s almost always possible to take apart an e-mail address and directly visit the associated website.  This can be useful to track down information about products or services that are marketed to you via e-mail, or more importantly, to check the legitimacy of an e-mail address, or a product.  I’ll give you an example.  I recently received an e-mail advertising quotes for home window replacement.  It came from “anthony@millenex.com”.  So, I entered “millenex.com” into my web browser, and discovered that, while that domain is registered, there is no website to speak of there. Red flag!