by David Hakala
If your hard drive is filling up, you can recover quite a bit of space by compressing files that you do not use often, or by compressing all the files in selected folders or an entire hard disk. Windows XP Pro and Home Editions support file compression natively. There are a few things to consider before compressing files, however.
You must have your drive volume (i. e., C:) formatted with the NTFS file system. Compression is not supported on FAT16 or FAT32 volumes.
(more…)
by Tina Gasperson
If it’s been a while since you purchased your computer, you may have lost track of what’s in it – how much RAM? How big was that hard drive? What kind of motherboard was that again? And so on. It’s helpful to know what you have in order to diagnose any problems or to upgrade. You’ll need to know what kind of RAM your computer takes, for instance, when you want to replace it or add more. The owner’s manual doesn’t always help, especially when you’ve already upgraded or replaced some parts.
(more…)
by David Hakala
The article is a supplement to the Tiplet on how to Install and Use the Recovery Console in Windows XP. This one covers the case in which you receive an error message while installing Recovery Console similar to this one:
Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer is newer than the version on the CD.
(more…)
by David Hakala
When something goes horribly wrong and you cannot get Windows to load at all, the Recovery Console can be your salvation. The unthinkable alternative is to re-install Windows, formatting the drive and wiping out all your data and added programs. Every Windows PC should have the Recovery Console installed.
But the Recovery Console is not installed by default. Here is how to add it and use it to recover from catastrophe:
(more…)
by Tina Gasperson
If you’re running out of hard drive space, one option is to install a new internal hard drive. You don’t have to take your computer to a professional to have this done. It’s much more economical to do it yourself. If you’re intimidated by that thought, don’t be. Opening up your computer and putting in a hard drive is actually pretty easy. These instructions are for installing a second IDE hard drive on a computer with an existing IDE hard drive.
(more…)
by David Hakala
To make a data or Audio CD, a laser beam literally burns tiny dimples into the surface of a disc. That is why making a CD is calling “burning.” Windows Media Player supports burning of CDs in both data (ISO) format and CD-Audio (CDA) format.
CDA is the format in which commercial audio CDs are burned at the factory. A CDA disc can hold 70 to 80 minutes’ worth of music, regardless of the size of the original music files. CDA is a lossless format, so CDA files are faithful to the quality of the original file. CDA is needed if one plans to play the CD on an older CD player that does not support other file formats.
(more…)
by Tina Gasperson
If you’re in need of extra storage space for your digital photo or music collection, or you’d just like to back up those files in case the inevitable hard drive failure happens, one of the easiest ways to add more space to your PC is by adding an external hard drive that connects via USB. An external hard drive is inexpensive, portable, and very easy to use.
(more…)
by David Hakala
Bittorrent P2P (peer-to-peer) networks are delightful when downloads are fast. They are especially irritating when they are slower than direct-connection downloading. These tips can help you squeeze the most speed out of your Bittorrent sessions.
Optimize your maximum number of half-open TCP connections. Those are the connections you make to different peers on a P2P network. In Windows XP SP2 and SP3, the maximum number of connections is set at 10 by default. This arbitrary ceiling limits your exposure to potential virus sources, but it slows down your downloading. Better to have 50 peers each dishing parts of a file at 10 Kbps than just 10.
(more…)
by Ross M. Greenberg
If you put two computer users in a room you get three opinions about Vista. But there’s one thing they all have in common: Everybody hates User Account Control – that annoying box that pops up every time you try to do something useful. It can be turned off easily, but I don’t recommend it. There really are “bad guys” out there getting their jollies by zapping your hard disk. You are fully backed up, right?
Leave UAC turned on.
(more…)
by Tina Gasperson
If you get into trouble with some spyware, or you install a program or a piece of hardware that just doesn’t play nice with your computer, what can you do? You may have heard that using System Restore is a good way to “reset” your PC back to an earlier time, before the problems started happening. But what is System Restore, and how do you use it?
(more…)
Powered by WordPress