5 Common Computer Problems & How to Fix Them

You’re working away at your computer when suddenly, up comes an error message   or worse, your computer comes to a screeching halt. Deciphering what computer problems you have and how to fix them can be difficult, especially if you don’t know as much as you’d like about your PC.

Blue Screen of Death (BSoD)
Many people think of blue as a calming color; however, when it comes up on your computer screen with a bunch of white text, it probably has the opposite effect. The blue screen of death (BSoD or STOP Error) may appear to be one of the scariest computer problems you’ll come across. However, all your computer may need is for you to reboot it.

As you likely have no ability to power down the way you would normally; hold down the power button on your computer for about 10 seconds until the computer turns off.  There will be no mistaking this; the screen will go off and you will hear a little sound.  Wait a little while and power back up.  If you’re someone who likes to cross every “t” and dot every “i” unplug your computer and connected devices (like printers) once the computer is off.  Wait about 5 minutes and power back up.

If you get the Blue Screen of Death again, repeat but wait longer before powering back up.  If it happens a third time, it may be time to visit www.unionbuiltpc.com.

Applications That Won’t Install
If you’re having trouble with an application not installing, it may be because your computer doesn’t have enough hard drive space. If this is the case, you need to free up some space. This is one of the computer problems that’s, well, least problematic. You can free up some hard drive space by getting rid of files and folders you don’t need. These may be temporary files, duplicate files or data for software you’ve uninstalled.

You can also purchase an external hard drive and move the majority of your files and folders there.

Another option is to make a small investment in a secure cloud storage solution for storage of files and folders.

RELATED: Learn More About the Benefits of Secure Cloud Storage

Applications Run Slowly
There are several reasons software might be running at turtle speed. You may have computer problems that involve your operating system or an application, your operating system might be missing updates or your computer doesn’t have enough hard drive space. If you don’t have enough hard drive space, you can scan, clean and optimize your hard drive.

FREE DOWNLOAD: How to Optimize Your Slow Windows Computer

Abnormal Applications Behavior
Computer problems that involve applications acting strangely oftentimes leave you wondering what has happened. Your application has been working just fine, but now, seemingly without reason, it is doing something strange.

For instance, your Word document will no longer show the top margin of your document. It still says it’s there, and when you print it, there’s not a problem. You just can’t see it on your monitor. If this is happening, you may want to restart your computer. Conducting an internet search for the type of problem you’re experiencing or consulting Union Built PC may help you as well.

FOR THE ADVANCED USER: Missing DLL File
Dynamic-Link Library (DLL) files house information for your operating system on how to perform certain functions. Occasionally, your computer loses DLL files or something damages them. When your PC can’t read the particular DLL file, it doesn’t know how to respond in certain situations. You may have a missing or corrupt DLL file if you receive an error message every time you perform a certain function, such as saving. If your computer problems are stemming from missing and damaged DLL files, you can restore them by downloading them back onto your PC.

We hope these tips will help you solve some of your computing nightmares.  Remember, Union Built PC is always here to help.  Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter and subscribe to the Union Built PC monthly eNewsletter for Union News and articles like this delivered straight to your inbox.

Stealing the Economy in 6 Easy Steps

So… How Does So Much Wealth End Up in the Pockets of CEOs and Wall Street Firms?

1. Companies buy other companies using borrowed money.
Since the 1980s, corporate raiders, corporations and hedge funds have looked to take over any company they could. But here’s their secret.

2. Raiders use the assets of the targeted company to pay for the costs of the acquisition.
The target company is weakened because it has to pay back millions of dollars. Worse, the corporate raiders pay themselves from the assets of the acquired company, too, in fees and special dividends. The CEOs and bankers get their cut as well. Not much left to share with the workers from a once-successful company.

3. CEOs get paid with stock incentives.
That means when a company’s stock goes up, CEOs get even more money.
Unfortunately, in the U.S., most CEOs are focused on very short-term goals, like improving their own compensation. They most likely aren’t looking at long terms goals like increasing productivity or reinvesting in research and development. They aren’t interested in increasing workers’ real wages and benefits. So what does the CEO do?

4. CEOs use company earnings not to invest in better equipment or operations, not to pass along gains to workers, but to buy more stock.
That raises the stock prices and raises the CEO’s salary.

5. CEOS IMPLEMENT “THE SQUEEZE.”
The company downsizes, and workers get laid off. Jobs are shipped offshore. Pension funds are frozen. Wages and benefits are cut.

6. Results
The earnings of the corporation are redistributed to executives and Wall Street bankers.

What’s left for workers?

NOT MUCH.

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CWA Union Preparing for A Strike; Will AT&T Learn from Verizon’s Mistake?

Amid inconclusive discussions between CWA and AT&T’s internet division, the union gave hint of a strike call in the near future

Recently, The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has announced that its members have given a go ahead to call for a strike, if fair contract is not reached with the internet division of AT&T Inc. The negotiations are underway for 2,000 internet services members’ renewed contracts that work in supporting customers department, call centers, and as technicians.

The previous contract of these workers got expired on July 23, 2016. Since then, the two parties are on the bargaining desk. In its recent statement, the union claimed that this bargaining is getting tougher, as the management is not cooperating on workers’ key issues, which includes wage and benefits increase.

This news has brought anxiety among AT&T investors, because the same kind of strike was called upon by CWA and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) together against Verizon Communications Inc. earlier this year, which stretched up to 45 days. That strike not only brought above 40,000 workers and their relatives on roads nationwide, but also slammed heavy losses on Verizon’s financial books. The extent of strike pushed Obama-led government to intervene and resolve the outstanding issue. Such a step provided further strength to the union, and it is now ready to strike at its will anywhere any time.

CWA Agreement with AT&T Mobility Division

Even though the company’s Internet division has not reached any definite conclusion for 2,000 members, last week its mobility division entered into a tentative agreement with CWA for 42,000 nationwide workers. The proposed tentative agreement covered healthcare and other benefits.

This contract has been forwarded to union members for ratification and currently awaits result. It is pertinent to note that last month, the members had voted down the agreed contract between the management and the union, for which the two parties again sat on table talk to come up with this revised contract.

Stay Abreast of the News

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The Strike At Trump’s Atlantic City Casino Is a Flashpoint for the Entire Labor Movement

What those striking are now bravely confronting in Atlantic City should resonate deeply with American workers, their unions, and beyond

In Atlantic City workers at the Trump Taj Mahal casino hotel, members of UNITE HERE Local 54 wagered a struggle that should make it one of those crystallizing flashpoints that garner national attention and mobilize support from the entire labor movement, progressives, and working people at large.

Such flashpoints arise only occasionally in workers’ struggles for justice. In living memory, for example, Eastern Airlines, PATCO, Pittston, the Decatur wars, UPS, and most recently Verizon are among those that have attained that status.

Those flashpoints of national concern and mobilization occur when what particular groups of workers are fighting for and against connects with broader tendencies and concerns in workplaces and the society in general. Downsizing, speedup, outsourcing, privatization, capital flight, unsafe working conditions, profitable employers’ demands for concessions that imperil workers’ standard of living are all among conditions that have triggered those moments.

The striking Trump Taj Mahal workers are involved in precisely such a fundamental struggle now, one that should resonate far and wide among American workers and their unions.

How It Started

Nearly 1,000 cooks, bartenders, housekeepers, cocktail servers and other workers there went on strike on July 1—the culmination of a twenty-month struggle to restore pay and benefit cuts that Donald Trump’s crony and notorious billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn imposed on workers after obtaining permission to do so from a bankruptcy judge. Last year, it should be noted, Trump indicated that if elected he “would love to bring my friend Carl Icahn” to his administration as Treasury Secretary.

The Trump Taj Mahal Bankruptcy Ruling’s Devastation

Following the bankruptcy ruling, Trump Taj Mahal workers lost health insurance, pensions, even severance pay. Workers have seen their average total compensation cut by more than a third. One striker with a chronic medical condition recently died alone at home without access to medical care, and there is no reason to believe that his case is unique. There are many other horror stories, including workers faced with losing their homes and apartments in addition to suffering other material and emotional hardships.

Why This Fight is Everybody’s Fight

The Trump Taj Mahal strike is an important moment for us all because these workers are on the frontline against forces that threaten us all and that lay bare what a Donald Trump presidency would have in store for millions of American workers.

Both Trump, who built the Taj Mahal, and Icahn, who is the current owner, have taken millions from the property, driven it into bankruptcy, and left the workers holding the bag. Icahn, as Trump Taj Mahal’s sole debtholder between 2010 and 2014, took $350 million out of the business. Icahn has a long history—going back nearly thirty years to his takeover of TWA airlines—of bleeding companies of assets, gutting pensions and benefits, and then tossing aside the firms’ hollowed out carcasses. Manipulation of employer-friendly bankruptcy laws has also been a Trump specialty, one that he has used on several occasions to stiff contractors, going back to when he was the original “too big to fail” scamster at the beginning of the 1990s. Combined, Trump and Icahn have used the bankruptcy tool at the Taj Mahal multiple times.

Another reason we need to see the Trump Taj Mahal strike as all our fight—in addition to the outrageous injustice and hardship Icahn has perpetrated on these workers—is that this struggle in Atlantic City sheds light on some important mystifications that need to be clarified if we hope to turn the tide against the intensifying predatory assaults on American workers’ standard of living.

The Taj Mahal fight is a frontline battle in the systematic attacks on working people’s living standards in this country perpetrated by the likes of Donald Trump and Carl Icahn and their ideological affiliates Mike Pence, Scott Walker, Bruce Rauner, Pat McCrory, Paul Ryan and the Congressional Republicans, the education “reform” billionaires, the Koch brothers and ALEC, the many tentacles of the carceral state, all of whom are intent on destroying public goods and services, and good public jobs, if not the very idea of a public.  To keep the focus on Icahn and Trump, however, what better poster boys could there be for the predatory “billionaire class”?

If the Trump Taj Mahal was permitted to operate on the terms Icahn imposed, workers, the union, and the broader community understand that the result would be a local race to the bottom, as other casino operators would argue that they have to compete with Icahn’s sweatshop model to remain viable. As by far the dominant industry in the city, the hospitality and gaming sector is directly linked to the economic health and well-being not only of casino workers but of the community at large. It is decent hospitality sector jobs that enable workers to buy houses and provide the backbone for the entire local economy.

And Atlantic City is not alone. Icahn’s attack on Taj Mahal workers is of a piece with broader right-wing attempts to drive down workers’ living standards everywhere. This is what is behind the systematic attacks on teachers’ unions and other public sector unions and efforts to destroy the national postal service. Partly it stems from a desire to eliminate any organized expressions of workers’ power, to clear the way to realizing the other objective: creation of a world in which we would have no alternative other than to accept work on whatever terms employers choose to offer it.

That, of course, would be employers’ utopia and workers’ hell.

Key Takeaway

The issues at the core of the Trump Taj Mahal strike reflect the concerns shared broadly by workers in this country. The struggle presents a clear window onto the danger within the false promises Trump seems to offer some, and the strikers and their union provide a clear, practical model of the sort of movement we will need to change this country’s political direction to center on the needs of working people.

Making this fight a national issue on the order of those earlier key labor flashpoints certainly seems like a no-brainer.