Cooling your PC

As mentioned in a previous article, heat is the enemy of your computer. These are things you can do to help your desktop run cooler and prevent it from premature break down due to over
heating.

There could be probably a lot of mini cooling fans in your computer, it would be best if you just take your computer to a repair man every once in a while for cleaning and maintainance. But if you are like me who likes to tinker with things, continue reading, but be warned, they are risk involved here, so think before you proceed to disect your computer. Warranties may be void, you may add more to the problem than solve it or worst, you may get zapped!

First thing to do is unplug your computer from its power source, check your documentaion on how to open the computer casing, some side access casing have fans on those covers, meaning you have to disconnect this before setting it aside.

Assuming that you get passed that, look at the fan some where in the middle part of everything , that would be the proccessor fan, it will be large with a heavy alluminum metal beneath it, called a heat sink. Check this for dust or try to turn the fan blades with your fingers, if its too dusty use a brush or if you have a compressor which is better. If the blades are rough to turn spray some contact cleaner in it like WD-40 and the like, then try to spin the blades again, if it spins freely then the problem is solved, if not, an eminent replacement maybe at hand.

Next would be the fan on the rear side or underneath the machine, depends on where the power
supply is located, if you find it, do the same test and remedy as above.

If your PC has a daughter board VGA or video card, check that too, these small fans wear out faster than the other fans inside the computer.

Misc. or casing fans - These are those that are mounted or screwed onto the casing itself, though not major fans you need not worry about it, but they help circulate the warm and cool air, so do
check those also.

Do these proceedures every six months or so depending on the environment you are around, here, its kinda warm and dusty so I clean it more often than every six months.

Tweak Windows Xp

This is something I do that will help Windows XP run a little faster for those who have old PCs without using any third party programs.

1. In the task bar, you probably have many apps running like anti virus, YM, Volume Controls, and so on, most of these run everytime you start windows, so it eats up resources, anti virus programs, I have observed eat the most. Each of them has options whether you want to start the program when windows start, try to disable them and just call them out when you need it from the start menu. In the case of anti virus programs, its up to you, I use deep freeze so I dont have any running anti virus programs installed.

2. Go to my computer and right click it and choose the advance tab, on the performance box, click settings, a new window pops up, under the visual effects tab you have four choices,
choice 1 - let windows choose whats best for my computer
choice 2 - adjust for best appearance
choice 3 - adjust for best performace
choice 4 - custom
choose either choice 3 or 4, The difference between them is in choice 3, windows automatically disables the visual effects of the GUI (Graphic User Interface) and in choice 4, its the same but you choose what to disable manually, if you dont know how to do this, just choose 3 and hit
the OK button.

3. Right click on your tool bar (the long box near the start button) and click on properties. Under the Start menu tab you have two choices, one is start menu and the other classic start menu, choose classic start menu and hit the OK button.

Now what does all these things result in? it makes windows use less resources and sort of runs faster, but it will give a feel of using windows 98. If you dont like how it looks, I guess you need to buy a better computer to run it in full GUI without slowing down. But if youre not up to it, this is a less costly way to improve performance.

4. The more icons you have on your desktop, the more it eats up resources, try to limit it or just delete it and use the shortcuts from the start menu.

5. Avoid a wallpaper (if you can), it does not really eat up a lot but, if every byte or RAM is essential to purpose, dont use one.

6. Screen savers also eat up your RAM, if you really dont need it, turn this feature off.

7. Diable additional tool bars, these are just short cuts, and you can still access them via the start menu.

These tips will not make your old PC run like a 2 Ghz computer, but it will give you less time
waiting on your grand daddy machine.

Hacking your Neighbor's WIFI

Seems to me, almost everyone has a broadband connection at home or office, but we cant be sure of those who doesnt have one, so more of these cyber thiefs come to being. These are people who steal a broadband connection from others. Hacking wifi is a common thing nowadays, its illegal to start with, and gives the victims a bad headache.

If you have a broadband connection with wifi, try to secure your system with WEP or WPA keys or both to prevent other people from stealing it, when it is unsecured, its like leaving the house with your front door open, inviting thiefs inside to steal what ever they want.

Routers have security options within them, they came built in with the price of purchase so use it. Refer to you router manual for intructions on how to use those security options, you dont want others to use your connection do you?.

Normally the router is accessed by using your browser to make changes in the settings, if you are not sure of what to do, try to find someone who does and have your WEP/WPA security enabled. WEP simply is like putting a username and password to your router to prevent others from using it, as compared to WPA, its a series of numbers and letters unique to each machine or computer, meaning its like an ID for computers, if the router is set to accept users with these WPA keys, the router will not allow others in the network without the correct ID. So WEP are assigned codes while WPA are built in.

When you have your security up, does it mean you are safe from hackers? hardly not, the internet now provides websites where you can download hacking programs to break in other's network using various hacking techniques. These programs can determine the WEP or WPA key allowing others access to it. These as they claim are for educational purposes only and used at the downloaders risk. But how are we to know if those who download it will really use it legally?

Is there a way? Is it ethical to use other peoples wifi even if they dont know it?

Why Partition the Drives?

Most of the computers I have seen before and some today have one drive C HDD. I used to think thats the standard way to do it, but however I found out that it was better if we partition the drive into 2 or more partitions, well depending on the need.

The question that first comes to mind is what is partitioning, simplest way to put it is to divide a hard drive into parts or partitions, so it may look like you have more than just one drive on your computer. So you would see a drive C and a drive D.

I would recommend to have 2 partitions, I see more benefits than having just one. this is why I think so: I use the extra partition to put large files sort of like a backup. my device drivers are on that drive too and all my applications. So whenever i feel the need to format my drive, all I need is already there. Games and music or movies I save on the drive, in order that I only have to put one cd or a bootable thumb drive to install the operating system, and the rest is already there, instead of keep changing the cds for every detail I need, and I dont have to erase my files, I just format drive C and leave drive D intact, assuming that theres no infection on both drives of whatever nature.

It saves me a lot of time and effort when I do that, especially those space grabbing games that I need to reinstall during format sessions, having a drive D prevents many inconviniences I encounter most of the time when serving clients so I made it an SOP for me.

If you dont know how to do this, have a technician do this for you, im sure it will be a lot better than before. Question now is how much space would be allocated in drive C and D? It really depends on the owner as far as how much space he needs for his data on that drive. Assuming that its windows XP, I allocated somewhere from 10-50 GB depending on the total size of the drive, if its vista, around 80-100 GB and the rest will go to drive D. XP with normal applications would consume around 5 GB and vista around 40-50 GB, windows 7 eats around almost the same as XP just sligthly more.

In my ancient laptop that I use, It has a 50 GB drive, I went to a 10/40 partion, my windows XP + MS office and around 20 or so other applications, my free space is still at 4-5 GB, the remaining drive D is where i keep all my stuff like files, movies, music, games etc.

So when I need to format, I just format drive C, install windows and all the device drivers and application installers I need are all in drive D, in case of the games, I use games that dont need to be installed, those kinds that run with just a simple copy and paste and play!

Hope this will help you too.

Laptop Concerns

To start off, nowadays many or a lot should i say have their own computer at home, and some of them have portables or laptops, netbooks, notebooks or whatever its called. We shall take that as our first jump into the abyss so to speak. Right now it's summer here and its quite warm, portables dont work well in heat, computers whatever type have a common enemy, and that is heat. A good cooling system and ventilation is required for computers to perform at it's optimum.

Laptops heat up faster than desktops, and we need to keep the temperature as low as possible. Try not to cover the holes where heat from the machine comes out. This is very important, when you operate a laptop the best way to use it is on a flat surface, since there is very little space between that flat surface and the bottom of the machine, air flow is kinda hindered. the higher the rubber footing the better, but most laptops nowadays are very thin. Some of them have exhaust fans underneath or at the sides and at the rear, to find it just hold out the back of your palm and try to feel the air coming out of it. when you have determined where the fan is, that is the part that needs to be free of any obstacles, do not block this port!. If you find that your machine has a fan in the bottom, try to elevate it and make space for the air to flow freely.
Another way is to get yourself a cooling pad with fans that ventilate the bottom part of your laptop, if the fan is on the side, I have not found a cooling pad that have fans for the left, right or hind part of your machine, if you find one let me know. I use an IBM T42 portable, and its fan is on the left part, so i just made a customized cooling pad for it. Portables were meant to be operated by battery, but many i have seen just use it at home as a desktop replacement so they operate it with the power supply or adapter all the time. When you use a portable that way, it heats up faster than when using a battery, the more you should be concerned now with heat problems.

Some effects of heat are slower performace than when its cool, operating system hangs or malfunctions, faster wear and tear on parts, but what really drives me crazy is the plastic enclosure or casing becomes soft in time, thereby making the laptop flex when moved around, causing the hardware or parts inside of the machine to fail.

Here in the Philippines, laptop servicing is not easy and quite costly and parts are not that easily available, hence we need to take care of our portables because it cost a lot, i dont have the needed mega-buck to buy a new one, so to maintain that existing machine is the best option.

Moving along, Try to purchase an external keyboard and mouse when using your machine at home to prolong the life of the built in keyboard and touch pad or stick. We dont want these to fail due to use or abuse, otherwise you will have an unexpected schedule with the laptop doctor or the laptop clinic, much worse the city laptop hospital.

Make your LCD monitor backlight just right for you to see whats on the screen adequately, try not to overdo it, if you like your screen to be at maximum brightness all the time you backlight will not last long, its a bulb, and just like any other bulb it will expire in time, the dimmer it is the longer it will last. Try to experiment by adjusting yours, it's pressing the Fn button and a plus or minus button, check your manual if youre not sure. Try not to leave finger prints on your LCD to lessen the need to clean it. I really dont get it why people who point at something on the screen and need to touch the LCD leaving his/her mark on it, maybe an inch or two between the finger and screen is okay, but to literaly touch it?.

Battery life is a little difficult, your battery will not last forever and cost a lot to replace it. Optimize your usage, drain it completely before recharging it, the more you charge it, the faster it will expire. When you use it at home with it's power supply or adapter, try to remove the battery if power outages are not a problem in your area, unless you are charging it at the same time. A cheap way to revitalize the battery from death is to have it "repacked", some people service them by changing the cells inside that pack with new ones, have no idea how much it cost, but its cheaper than a new one.

Try to disable some parts during baterry use, if not using wifi or LAN, CD rom etc., you can go to your system tray (the lower right part of the screen if using windows) and right click on the device to disable it, or you can use the device manager. The battery will now spend charges more efficiently thereby making it's life and the parts disabled longer.

Anti-Virus vs Deep Freeze

Tired of those viruses, malware, spyware and other malicious programs you get from the internet and removable devices?

Try a program called Deep Freeze from faronics.com, I have tried this a long time ago and its works as it claims, but it really depends on the kind of user. This is what it does, it takes a snap shot of all the settings in your operating system (assuming its windows) and reverts to that setting each time you restart your computer. I was in doubt at first but eventually it worked for me and my clients. It has some disadvantages too but it can be easily be worked around.

This is what I did, I formatted my computer to make sure everything will allow a clean installation, first I paritioned my hard drive into two, the primary at 10GB and the second at 40GB (I have a small hard drive), installed windows XP pro service pack three into it and also all my favorite applications, when done, I installed deep freeze and only got drive C frozen, drive D was not. I bombarded that drive with known unsafe sites on the web, got to install many viruses, so I now get a lot of pop ups, many malfunctions on the operating system, faronics claim to remove this by restarting, so I did, and viola, when I got to my desktop, everything was back to normal, and I go "darn it really works" (eyes rolling). Its a really different approach compared to anti-virus programs or anti-spyware stuff, I said to myself this is what I need, but it dont mean I don't use anti virus anymore, on the contrary I still do.

It seems to me the greatest advantage of deep freeze is also its greatest disadvantage, you can't change anything, unless you disable it. You cant change any setting or even change your wall paper, coz when you restart its reverted to its original state, great idea but the question now is, how to save something? It'll just get lost if you save anything in it. Thats why i have two partitions, drive C is frozen but not drive D, I save stuff in this drive so it wont be lost. Thats the first work around, the second is, if drive D is not protected by deep freeze, it may be vulnerable to malware or viruses, thats correct but as I have stated earlier I still use anti virus. To me whats improtant is my operating system is always safe, my file storage can be maintained and clean if my windows is always in running condition through anti virus programs if ever infected. The objective here is to have a system that needs no formatting or reinstallation of windows due to viruses. Mine has never been formatted since that year i installed it three or four years ago, I just disabled deep freeze when I need to update my applications then I enabled it again right after.

This is great for people who need less maintainance, less headaches, less downtime and so on. I love this product and recommend it to others. Two thumbs up for this one.