If you ever watch old mystery movies, there is usually a scene where a guy is walking down a side street on a rainy night when he hears a “Psst. Hey fella. I have a secret to tell ya” coming from a dark alleyway. Well I am giving you the same “Psst. I have a secret to tell you.” It is an easy way to tell if your computer is running well and your Internet is slow and some simple things you can do to fix this.

Q: About a year ago, I heard you guys mention having a couple of browsers on a computer, so I installed Firefox. My Web browsing has gotten HORRIBLY slow these days. BTW, I installed Chrome and everything loads fine. Should I assume I picked up a virus that affects Firefox? — David

Q: About a year ago, I heard you guys mention having a couple of browsers on a computer, so I installed Firefox. My Web browsing has gotten HORRIBLY slow these days. BTW, I installed Chrome and everything loads fine. Should I assume I picked up a virus that affects Firefox? — David

“Hi Mike. You were here a while ago and got our computer running like new, but now it is slow again. I would like for you to come by and figure out what happened.”

Q: Can you tell me what causes Google chrome or Firefox to have numerous crashes while online? - Nathaniel

The No. 1 computer complaint we get from people calling or emailing us is that their Internet is running slow. Recently, we saw an email from a child who says her computer is running so slow that she cannot even catch up with all the tweets from the stars. We simply cannot have that! So what causes this and how do we speed up our Internet connection?

CARRBORO, N.C. - When Brian Russell heard that some folks in Raleigh were considering opening a business similar to the one he operates in Carrboro, N.C., he had some advice for them.

Ken Colburn, Data Doctors

Q: I’m going to be traveling extensively this summer and would like to avoid dragging my laptop around if possible.  I’m open to buying a tablet, but I’m not sure I can do everything that I’d want with it.  Thoughts? — Thomas