Should you leave the computer running on all the time or turn it off?

There are arguments for both sides. Some say you should leave it on because turning the computer on causes a small amount of thermal shock to delicate components, while others say that isn’t so.

I guess there is no winner in this argument. This used to be true, but now isn’t (quite). Computers have come a long way since the 1990s; I know, cos I’ve been using computers since the late 80s, and one definitely burned out from overuse! I’ve also left my machine on for more than 24 hours on more than a few occasions. Even then, leaving a computer on versus turning it on and off every day only meant the difference between say, nine years of life and ten. It is now safe to off your machine – and save electricity. The exception is big industrial-strength machines (and maybe if you’re an insanely overclocked gamer), whose machine gets so much hotter that subjecting them to the stress just isn’t worth it.

Do you really have to protect against static shock when handling computer parts?

You know the rules, from wearing a wrist-guard to standing on a static-proof mat to touching the case before grabbing the graphics card. Is there any basis for this?

Although you might feel these rituals are just some kind of old geek’s tale, they really do protect against static shocks, which may gradually damage internal circuits over time. One time won’t do much damage, twice or four times might be fine, but eventually, it takes its toll. However, the good news is, unless you live in the desert, chances are good you won’t have static shock problems at any rate.

Are there really no viruses for Linux, Mac, and other non-Windows systems?

I used to run Macs for a year when I was studying graphic design (because I had no choice). That was when I heard all this talk about the “superiority” of Macs. My lecturer who ran Mac and Linux would take every opportunity to brag about their security. So are there really no security issues on these systems?

Since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that for all practical purposes, there aren’t, which helped me understand why these Mac or Linux fanboys keep on raving about them. But if you want an absolutely accurate definition, there are (some) security exploits which have been found in the wild. They’re just rare, and also easily shot down – most of them have been constructed in security research laboratories. Windows is (by far) still the most commonly found system, so it just makes sense that most malware authors would target it, I guess. But due to being raised on Windows, I went back to Windows. Change is uncomfortable – but I can understand why Mac lovers stick with their Macs!

Does a white screen take up more energy than a black screen?

I believe some wonder about this seemingly petty issue, but 3 years ago, a little hubbub sprang up around Google, which has its search page mostly white. Critics said it burned more electricity to show a white screen than a dark one. Google briefly switched to a dark background, but quickly switched back after users complained that it was ugly. I suspect it was more for the publicity stunt than anything else.

The verdict is, no identifiable power is saved having a black background as opposed to a white one – the monitor is still running and using the same power regardless (which the premise owner pays, not Google).. But if you want to know the “maths,” it is supposedly a big number each day. Anyway, most monitors have switched to LCD screens in the past 3 years, including yours truly….

Are screensavers really necessary?

Screensavers were all the rage in the 80s and 90s. They had a very serious purpose before, which was to prevent monitor burn-in.

Here is what I think: These days, monitors are a lot tougher, especially LCD screens over the old CRT monitors. But screens do still burn in, even LCD monitors. The pattern is very faint (even if it does happen), but it’s still annoying. So if you leave a screen turned on all the time, you should either keep it a solid color (such as blank for hibernate mode), or a screensaver going. My machine uses a screensaver and so should you.

Do you really have to burn CDs slowly?

Ever since CD-Read-Write devices became common, there are opinions that state that the slower you burn CDs, the better they’ll turn out. So, do we still have to go slow in burning CDs?

You don’t have to burn slowly any more. CD-RWs and writable media have both come a long way, especially with the higher-end models. So, burn away at 32x speed and don’t bat an eyelid. Out of thousands of CDs and DVDs, you might have ten failures. Cheaper burners may need to stay at 4x speed. But here’s the cinch, if you don’t burn too often, what’s the hurry anyway?

Here are five common hardware problems affecting desktop computers. Now, if you can fix them yourself, not only will you save a buck or two; you might want to consider yourself as having earned some bragging rights.

• A  “senile” computer.

Every time you reboot it, it forgets the date and time, and sometimes settings like whether it should boot off a network. The problem might be the CMOS battery – a wafer of silver metal the size of a dime attached to your motherboard. Usually it’s held in place by a clip of some kind. A new CMOS battery costs like a dollar or two to replace.

• Computer making lots of noise.

A computer that runs loud usually has a bad or dirty fan. Fans are necessary to cool the parts of your computer that get hot, and are usually protecting something much more expensive. We’re talking either the fan on the case itself or inside, the fan over the CPU, or the graphics card. These fans may be as cheap as ten to twenty dollars to replace, and take a few minutes with a screwdriver. Just be sure to mark where the fan plugs in before you remove the old one!

• Computer can’t read a CD or DVD.

If the removable-media disk drive suddenly can’t find the disk when you insert it, it’s usually because dust has accumulated on the CD drive’s optical sensor. This can be fixed by the simple remedy of blowing air on it!

At your office supply store, ask for “canned air” which costs all of six to seven dollars, and is actually a chemical designed to spray out at high pressure to clean computer equipment. Just be sure not to turn it upside down when you spray, because it will spray ice! Open the drive, pump a couple blasts in, and try it again.

NB: Canned air is also called a gas duster.

• Components or the whole machine not working.

The first thing every tech support desk worker asks is “Is it plugged in?” Save yourself the embarrassment and check (every time). All the way around the outside, and on the inside, find where every wire ends, and push it’s connector into its socket firmly. You’d be surprised how often just having the mouse plug a hair off, stops the mouse from working!

• Computer doesn’t start.

Alright, this is the worst case out of the five, and there is a whole bunch of possibilities. If the computer does not run – not just not boot, but it doesn’t even light up or make noise or beep when you turn it on – it could be something cheap like the power cord or something more expensive like the motherboard.

However, cheaper components like the power switch, cord, and surge protector are more likely to outlast several computers, while the most likely culprit is usually the power supply unit – the part the cord plugs into and, inside, has a spiderweb of wires plugging into your motherboard and disks. This is a little hard for the home user to replace, but you can at least tell the shop to check that first.

So why are you getting low disk space warnings? Most new computers are formatted in such a way that the large hard drive is partitioned into smaller pieces; this means that your one hard drive is behaving as if it’s 2 or more, smaller hard drives.

If you are not sure if your computer is operating in this manner you can find out by following these steps:

• Click Start or find the My Computer shortcut icon
• Right Click on My Computer
• Select Manage from the menu that appears
• Select Disk Management

You will notice the Disk labeled disk 0 is your hard drive or C: drive that you are familiar with. The Black drive is the rest of your hard drive that you are not currently using.  If your Disk Management tool looks similar to this image, you are not one of the people in need of an additional hard drive.

If however you do not see the black ‘unallocated’ space then you are using all of your hard drive and may require either one larger hard drive, or a second hard drive for storage. If your hard drive is smaller than 40 Gigs you should consider a new one anyway, because by today’s standards they are too small to store many picture or music files, even if you don’t play games. If you see black ‘unallocated space’ you are in luck.  You can use that unallocated space instead of buying a new hard drive to add to your machine.

To format your remaining hard drive space, see below:

• Right Click the unallocated drive or the black area in the image above.
• Choose a drive letter (I always accept the suggestions Windows gives)
• Continue with the Wizard

Now you can have a second hard drive visible in your My Computer window. This drive can be used for storing images, documents and all other media.

Any programs you install will still need to be on your C: drive however. It is important that you move all of your text documents, images, videos etc over to your new hard drive space. Moving your files will free up space on your C drive and stop the warnings from bothering you.

Once all of your files are moved to the new storage space you can run a disk clean up from the Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools menu.  This will clean up any extra space that you have created by moving your files, as well as any extra space that you can collect by clearing your temporary internet files and other offline folders etc. Also, run a disk defragmenter.

You should now be well on your way to more disk space.

The most important thing to remember when troubleshooting anything is to check the easiest and most obvious possibilities first. It can certainly be embarrassing when it takes several days to determine the problem was a simple cabling issue after you have replaced the NIC card several times, and maybe yelled at your ISP.

So first thing is to check to see if all the computers are having the same problem, or is it only one machine. If all machines on the network are having trouble you should begin looking at the network hardware (routers ISP cabling etc)

A common cabling issue that can cause a large amount of confusion is when you have accidentally plugged in a crossover network cable instead of a straight through network cable. The difference between the two cables is very subtle but will cause a total failure in connectivity. A straight through cable can be identified by the order of the colored cables inside the plastic fitting at each end of the cable. The colors on both ends of the cable should be in the same order.

This is an example of what both ends of a straight through cable should look like. This is the type of cable you SHOULD be using in your home network when you are using a router.

Straight through cable pin assignment

This is an example of what both ends of a crossover cable should look like. This is the type of cable you SHOULD NOT be using to connect a computer to your router.

Crossover cable pin assignment

Assuming only one machine is having difficulty you should continue looking at:

• Changing the network cable between the problem machine and the network device (router). When changing the cabling as a test you might consider taking the cable from one of the other network machines that you know IS working; this way you know you are testing with a functional cable.

If changing the cable still does not fix the problem you might want to look in the network connection properties. Go to Start>Control Panel>Network Connections.

In the example above, the computer is currently connected to the internet successfully using a wireless connection. The wired connection is not functioning possibly because the cable is not plugged in to a router, or it may not be connected to the computer, or the network cable is not functioning.

Once I have checked the cabling and if the wired connection is still not functioning I will need to study its properties.

• Right clicking on the wired connection opens a menu.  Choose Properties from the menu.

• On the wired connection properties page you will notice the name of the network card is listed as well as any notification preferences you have selected.  In this case I have chosen to be notified when there is limited or no connectivity from the device. I have also chosen to be notified when the device is successfully connected.

The network notifications are shown on your task bar near the system clock as a small icon.

• Now’s the time to check the network card and ensure that it is capable of obtaining an IP address.  You can do this by looking in the ‘this connection uses the following items:’ box for the TCP/IP option.  In the example below, you can see that TCP/IP is marked with a check mark.

• Click on the TCP/IP item and then once it is highlighted click on the properties button below.

• Now you will see the current TCP/IP settings for this network card.

The image above depicts the typical settings for a network card that is set to obtain its IP address from the networks router. At this point you should compare this setting to the same setting on one of the computers that is working.

If you find the functional computer has its TCP/IP settings set to a static IP you will need to use a different IP address (for the non functional computer) from the one on the computer that is working.

For example if the working computer is using 192.168.10.190 you will want to use an IP address like 192.168.10.191. Before choosing your IP address you should ensure that you do not use the same IP address that you have assigned to your network device (router). If all of your network devices including computers and routers are set to use static IP addresses you will need to ensure they are all close in numbers but none of them can be identical.  It is best to use IP addresses that are one or two numbers off from each other like the above example.

• Now is a good time to restart your computer and access the Internet again once it is rebooted.

This should get your system up and running.

Here is a FREE easy guide to Computer Networks. Check it out.

The main problem in telecommuting is communication, in which communicating with your co-workers/managers can be a challenge. But fortunately, there is a remote PC access solution built in to all Microsoft operating systems since Windows XP.

Remote access forms the basis of cloud computing. Accessing your workplaces network remotely will allow you the same access that you would have if you were right in the office. You can send files to the office printer, and even retrieve files that are located on other shared hard drives in your network. The only noticeable difference between remote access and actually using the computer in the office is the speed of the computer. If your work computer is generally very fast, you will notice the speed is reduced when using remote access. The remote computer will only work as fast as the network connection will allow.

Virtual Private Networking (VPN) uses the internet to connect two computers that are otherwise not on the same network.  To connect a Virtual Private Network you will need a key piece of information, which is the host name or IP address of the computer you are connecting to; your office IT team should be able to get this information for you.  Once you have that information you are ready to setup your VPN connection.

Here is the procedure to set up a VPN connection in Windows:

1)  On your home computer navigate to Start>Control Panel>Network Connections.

2)  In the quick list on the left click on the Create a New Connection link/wizard.

3)  Click next

4)  On the Network Connection Type page click Connect to the network at my workplace.

5)  Click Next

6)  On the Network Connection page choose Virtual Private Network Connection.

7)  Click Next

8)  On the Connection Name page choose a name for your connection. This will be the name under the connection icon. You might choose to call it something like ‘work connection’ or ‘office computer’ so you will easily recognize it.

9)  Click Next

10)  On the Public Network page, choose Do not dial the initial connection (if you don’t want this connection to happen automatically every time you turn on the computer) or choose automatically dial this initial connection and choose the new connection you created from the drop down list. (if you want this connection to turn on automatically each time you turn on the computer)

11)  Click Next

12)  On the VPN server selection page fill in your office’ host name or IP address as provided by your office IT department.

13)  Click Next

14)  If you are prompted with a Connection Availability page choose whether or not this connection will be available for everyone who logs into the computer, or just select users (this screen only appears if your machine is setup with multiple users).

15)  Click Finish

16)  If prompted to reestablish your connection choose yes.

17)  On the Connect dialogue box you will be asked for the Login Credentials that you would use on your office computer. Enter them here.

This should complete the setup of a basic VPN connection in Windows. Once connected, you should see the remote computer added under My Network Places. In the foreseeable future, remote access is going to gain more and more importance, so it’s definitely something to get familiar with, especially if you are keen to explore telecommuting jobs.

Now, I don’t claim to be an expert, but after toying around with PCs for more than a decade, and often surrounded with my real life technician friends, I think it’s perfectly alright to write on tech topics here, more than once in a while. So today, I decided to do a write up on the Windows registry, and what is the best registry cleaner for the purpose of cleaning the registry.

The Windows registry

The Windows registry is basically a large database in all Microsoft Windows systems which stores all the settings and options, preferences, and hardware options of the user. and it keeps growing each time you use Windows. When your computer starts up, Windows always checks the registry to let all installed software know the settings, documents, program paths, and much more stuff. The registry gradually accumulates clutter this way, and this slowly leads to a deterioration in your computer’s performance. When you install and then uninstall a program, traces of it will be left in the registry entries as well.

This is what sucks – Once you have made a change to the registry, you can’t undo it without specialized software (or manual editing). Manually editing the registry would be a nightmare. Think of it this way – The best registry is still a virgin registry.

Since the days of Windows 95, most if not all programs will deliberately leave behind entries in the registry to preserve licensing information, which are not removed during uninstalling them. Also, computer crashes will corrupt the registry.

The criteria of a good registry cleaner

Registry cleaners are supposed to scan the registry, identify, and delete the unnecessary entries in there. But that’s the ideal scenario. The truth is, there isn’t a perfect registry cleaner. All registry cleaners have algorithms which help them “identify” which is an important key and which is junk. There is no way of knowing if removing a registry key will impact system performance in subtle ways. So, any good registry cleaner needs to allow you to backup your registry before you start cleaning the registry.

Here is the manual way of backing up your registry nice and easy:

• Click (from Windows menu) Start – Run
• Type in the words – regedit (which opens up the registry editor window)
• From the box, hit File – Export
• Save it as something you can remember, preferably including the date

If you observe, there are actually 4 kinds of registry cleaners:

• Deep scanning registry cleaners
• Surface/light scanning registry cleaners
• Balanced scanning registry cleaners
• Fake registry cleaners

A deep cleaner is actually dangerous to your system because it may delete some important registry keys by being overzealous. A light scanning one, isn’t much use either; it merely skims the surface. A fake registry cleaner is dangerous, because it is malware/spyware disguised as a registry cleaner. Beware of downloading anything simply because it’s free!

The “best” registry cleaner is one that:

• Defragments your registry
• Allows backup of the registry
• Ask you if you want to delete a certain entry, and offer solutions
• Perform other spin-off tasks BESIDES registry work

There are many free registry cleaners and commercial ones on the Web, but there is only one which I’d recommend, and that’s CCleaner. I’ve been using CCleaner for a long time, and it really removes a ton of extraneous files each time.

There is another free registry cleaner called RegCure, which seems to be pretty good as well, although I find the site which is offering a free product, and the look which is a tad too professional – it just doesn’t go together. To be honest, I don’t need this when CCleaner works fine for me. Nonetheless, if CCleaner gives you issues (although I don’t see how), then this may be a viable alternative.

There are some sources that claim cleaning the Windows registry hardly does anything for your computer, performance wise. There might be some truth there, since I hardly notice any difference after cleaning the registry. But for defragmenting, I definitely notice the difference – mainly in faster start up and pick up.