5 Simple Changes to Reduce Hard Drive Failures

ServerWatch suggests 5 Simple Changes to Reduce Hard Drive Failures.

PCitYourself: Animated Guide To PC Building

MakeUseOf has a post for PCitYourself: Animated Guide To PC Building.

GSmartControl – when’s it gonna crash?

You know that sooner or later, your hard drive will crash.  Maybe permanently.  Want to know when?

GSmartControl is detection freeware that “will give you a close-up look at your disks, and predict 64% of failures before the drive fulfills its paper-weight destiny.”

How many Intel CPUs can do XP Mode in Windows 7?

Ed Bott at ZDNet has a post on How many Intel CPUs will fail the XP Mode test in Windows 7?

He includes a list of Intel CPUs which can and cannot handle the XP Mode offered in some versions of Windows 7. Check before buying!

10 reasons Linux should be your netbook operating system

TechRepublic has 10 reasons Linux should be your netbook operating system.

Even if you started with Linux, you might want to change to another version, as explained in this post.

10 solid Linux distributions for your netbook

TechRepublic suggests 10 solid Linux distributions for your netbook.

Netbooks have a number of specialized versions of Linux that do well on that type of hardware.

10+ things to check when your presentation runs into technical problems

Oops. Everyone is waiting but you can’t get the show on the big screen….

TechRepublic has 10+ things to check when your presentation runs into technical problems.

Replacing Laptop Drives

PC PitStop has a post called ASK THE PROS 2009 Laptop Drives on replacing a laptop drive.  You might want to do this to get a larger or faster drive, or — in a laptop — switch to a SSD (Solid state drive).

Optimize Your Windows with a SSD

Maximum PC has a post on How-To: Optimize Your Windows Profile and Media Storage with a SSD.

“We’re going to show you how to set up your Windows install like a Linux setup—with the OS and primary apps on the SSD [solid state drive], and your user profile and space-hogging games on a traditional hard disk. This gives us the best of both worlds—the folders we write to most frequently are on a traditional disk, while our boot and app load times can benefit greatly from the fast read speed and low random-access time of an SSD. Best of all, you can use even a tiny 64GB SSD without having to constantly manage disk space—picking and choosing which apps and media will be stored on the small drive.”

Many laptops have multiple hard drives (a 320 GB hard drive is often really two — cheaper — 160 GB drives, for example) so by using the solid state drive, which is less vulnerable to damage and sometimes faster, combined with a larger standard hard drive for data, you can have the advantages of both: durability/speed and large storage.

Be sure to check your warranty before modifying your laptop.

Save, Restore, Fix A Broken MBR with MBRWizard

MakeUseOf has a post on how to Save, Restore, Fix A Broken MBR with MBRWizard.

“MBR, if you are unfamiliar, is the first sector of your hard disk. It is just 512 bytes in size, but boy are those 512 bytes important or what? The MBR is used for bootstrapping operating systems, holding the primary partition table of your disk and other important information. You take this information away and chances are you will not be able to boot the operating system.”

“MBRWizard allows you to save/restore MBR, repair a corrupt MBR, you can hide/unhide hard disk partitions, make a partition bootable or delete it all together, make a flash disk bootable etc.”

Pen Drive Reminder – Remove Your USB Flash Drive!

Killer Tech Tips has a post on Pen Drive Reminder Nudges You To Remove Your USB Flash Drive.

YOU MAY NEED THIS to remind you to remove your USB flash (pen, thumb, etc.) drive before you leave.

BTW (By The Way) — this site is in Spanish, but the freeware itself is in English.

You can download it where it says Descarga:Aquí

Intel CPUs and XP Mode in Windows 7

Ed Bott blogging at ZDNet asks How many Intel CPUs will fail the XP Mode test in Windows 7?

Windows 7 Professional Edition will have an XP mode for running older software. However, not all computers have a CPU that works with this mode. The list for desktops and laptops is included in this post.

Drive Fitness Test (DFT)

Drive Fitness Test (DFT) “currently provides for in-depth testing of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and legacy IBM disk drives and basic testing of Other Manufacturers drives. This new version will support standard disk drives with the ATA/IDE, Serial-ATA and SCSI interfaces. The basic tests will not overwrite customer data.”

If you think you have a hard drive problem, or just want to check out a drive, here’s a freeware utility for it used by some saavy professionals.

Yawcam – Yet Another Webcam Software

Yawcam is Yet Another Webcam Software.

Freeware for:

.: Video streaming
.: Image snapshots
.: Built-in webserver
.: Motion detection
.: Ftp-upload
.: Text and image overlays
.: Password protection
.: Online announcements for communities
.: Scheduler for online time
.: Multi languages

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

The Online Education Database presents a list of 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better.

Now you can justify carrying it with you to classes.

Computer Repair Utility Kit on a Flash Drive

ReadWriteWeb has a list for a Computer Repair Utility Kit which You Can Run From a Thumb (Flash) Drive.

“Technibble, the Australian site for aspiring computer techies, recently released the second version of its popular Computer Repair Utility Kit, a collection of 57 hand picked tools to help you diagnose and repair your Windows machine.

While all of the utilities are freely available online, this all-in-one kit saves you the trouble of searching for and downloading them individually. Most of the applications don’t require installation and the kit can be run directly from your thumb drive.”

They also do rating for Beginner, intermediate and expert use needed for each tool.

Active@ Hard Disk Monitor checks your drive

Active@ Hard Disk Monitor has SMART diagnostic & HDD health control software for Windows XP/Vista/2003 Server 2008.

“…a disk utility that checks and monitors the status of your hard drives to help prevent data loss. The system is based on the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.).

This software monitors hard disk parameters such as Temperature, Head Flying Height and Spin-Up Time and notifies a user when a critical condition occurs. Disk Monitor also displays hard disk information, current S.M.A.R.T. attributes and the overall status of the hard disk’s health.

Advanced disk scan allows you to detect bad sectors on a disk surface. The software can be launched automatically at Windows startup and monitor the system in the background. An icon in the System Tray can display the temperature for selected HDDs.”

Freeware (pay version adds network support).

Deep Dish Cylindrical Parabolic Template

Deep Dish Cylindrical Parabolic Template.

Say that three times fast….

This might seem a little far to the geek side for this site, but bear with me.  What do you do when your wireless router just can’t seem to get the signal to the far side of the house, or to another floor?  Or what if you’d like to keep the signal a little more private given all the other wireless users in your neighborhood?

Use “scissors, tape, cardboard, tin foil” and do one of these things up, or get an aluminum cookie sheet to get more elaborate.  It just helps to focus and concentrate the wireless signal.

HSSVSS – surveillance software for your webcam

HSSVSS “is the original surveillance software for your webcam”.

Want to keep an eye on things?  Do time-lapse photography of flowers opening or shadows moving?  This freeware (formerly shareware) uses a USB-connected camera.

How to Setup Broadband DSL in Windows Vista

Unlock for Us has a post on How to Setup Broadband DSL in Windows Vista.

A step by step on how to use DSL phone service for your Internet service (single PC).