by Tina Gasperson
Q: How can I make XP start up (boot) faster? — P. Taylor
There are many things you can do to nudge your Windows XP system into wakefulness a bit faster. Most of them only shave off a fraction of a second or so, but combine them and you can really make a difference. There are too many tweaks to list in one Tiplet, so let’s concentrate on just a few ways to kick it up a notch when it comes to getting your system up and running quicker.
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by David Hakala
While every computer comes with sound capabilities built into its motherboard, they’re usually of mediocre quality. Discriminating users want more so they buy add-on sound cards. The features you need in a sound card depend on the type of listening that you do most.
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by Gabe Goldberg
Buying a new PC needn’t involve replacing all your older PC devices, no matter what the friendly store salesperson suggests. Though newer PCs often have only USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports, an amazing assortment of adapters are available to connect older sorts of plugs to USB ports.
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by Tina Gasperson
A partition is a special separate place on your hard drive that has its own drive letter – if you only have one partition on your hard drive, then it is probably called C:, or the C drive. It’s handy sometimes to make a new partition on your hard drive – especially if you want to install a separate operating system such as Linux, or an older version of Windows. Another reason to partition your hard drive is to keep your data separate from your applications. That way if you need to reinstall your apps or your operating system, you won’t need to do anything with your data, since a partition is seen by the computer as a separate hard drive.
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by Tina Gasperson
Even though the Windows operating system ships with some very nice screensavers, you don’t have to settle for the defaults. You can create your own screensavers from your digital photos, or even from an online live feed.
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by Tina Gasperson
Q: I’d like to upgrade my older laptop’s hard drive from 30GB to 160GB or 250GB. Several companies claim 100 percent compatibility but the specs don’t seem to be compatible. How can I make sure I’m buying the right hard drive? — Mary
The safest route to finding a compatible hard drive to upgrade your laptop is to go to the manufacturer. Turn your laptop upside down and look for the manufacturer name and the model number and write them down. Now, go directly to the official Web site and search for replacement parts for your laptop model. By purchasing your new hard drive from the manufacturer, you can be sure that your upgrade will go as smoothly as possible.
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by David Hakala
DAEMON Tools is a Windows software suite that makes files that are exact images of CD and DVD discs. You can store these disc images on your hard drive and use them exactly as if they were physical discs in your CD/DVD drive. You can also burn disc images to CD or DVD discs as backups, or even transfer disc images over the Internet.
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by Cameron Laird
A family friend first asked this one: her camera uploaded photographs as:
001.JPG
002.JPG
003.JPG
… and so on.
but her “content-management” software would only incorporate .jpg files to her Web site. What to do?
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by Tina Gasperson
When its time to reboot your computer, it can be frustratingly slow sometimes to wait out the reboot, especially if you need to use your system. There are a few things you can do to help speed up the process, though.
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by Gabe Goldberg
In order to renew my car’s registration, I recently needed to have its pollution emissions tested. Since this was the first time my 2007 Honda had this check, I found it interesting that instead of using a tailpipe probe as was done with my previous (1989) auto, the mechanic simply connected his equipment to the car’s diagnostic port and read out a few numbers.
Considering how complex it is to maintain Windows computers – needing to worry about operating system patches, application updates, security settings, and many more issues — it would be nice to have a simple and automatic process for checking security, patches, reliability, performance, and everything else that matters.
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