Tiplet expert tips & tech support

March 3, 2009

Why and How to Turn Unneeded Services Off in Windows

Filed under: computer performance,Windows — Tags: , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

Services in Windows are executable programs that run in the background without user interaction. Usually, these services facilitate user actions or help other programs run. They can be loaded automatically, disabled, or set to run only when instructed to do so by the computer user. Since each service uses a share of the available system resources, it makes sense to check your services from time to time and shut off the ones you don’t need. Additionally, if you have a lot of services auto-starting at boot time, setting these services not to automatically start can reduce the amount of time it takes to boot up.
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March 1, 2009

How to Use a Regular Computer Monitor or Large Display with Your Laptop Computer Instead of the Built-in Screen

Filed under: computer hardware,Windows — Tags: , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

Have you ever wished your laptop had a bigger screen? Maybe you’d like to watch a movie or photo slide show in comfort, or share it with several people in your home. You may not have known that you can plug a standalone monitor or display into the back of your laptop. Take a look at your laptop. In the back, where the power adaptor plugs in, there is at least one other connection. The vast majority of laptops have a female VGA connector, which has 15 little holes in three rows. Some laptops also have an S video connector, which is round and has four tiny holes.
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Using the NAME Function in Excel 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007

Filed under: applications,computer hardware,privacy & security,Windows — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by David Hakala

Excel formulas may require a lot of arguments. It can be hard to remember that “12*4” means 12 monthly payments for four years. It might be easier to read your formula if that argument read, “12Months*Years”. Well, you can give arguments and cells easily remembered names in Excel.
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February 28, 2009

How and Why to Move the My Documents Folder to Another Drive

Filed under: computer performance,Windows — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by David Hakala

Most Windows users store their personal data in the My Documents folder. By default, this folder is located on the same drive as the Windows operating system, usually the C: drive. This poses certain problems.

First, your data collection – documents, pictures, music, videos, etc. – will keep growing while Windows overall does not. Performance degrades as the drive fills up. Eventually, you will run out of hard disk space. Then you will have to delete some files, a hard choice and a tedious exercise.
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February 27, 2009

How to Compress and Uncompress Archive Files

Filed under: computer performance,Windows — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

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.
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February 26, 2009

How Do I Find Out What Hardware I Have in My Computer?

Filed under: computer hardware,Windows — Tags: , — admin @ 2:00 pm

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.
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How to Install Recovery Console After Installing Service Pack

Filed under: computer performance,data storage and recovery,Windows — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:05 am

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.
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Install and Use the Recovery Console in Windows XP

Filed under: computer performance,data storage and recovery,Windows — Tags: , , — admin @ 9:00 am

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:
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February 25, 2009

How to Burn MP3 Music Files to CD Using Windows Media Player

Filed under: applications,computer hardware,digital media,Windows — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

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.
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February 24, 2009

Maximize Bittorrent P2P Download Speed

Filed under: applications,computer performance,digital media,file transfer,photos and video,Windows — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

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.
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February 23, 2009

How to Restore Your Computer to an Earlier Configuration Using System Restore

Filed under: computer hardware,computer performance,data storage and recovery,Windows — Tags: , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

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?
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