Computer Solutions

Mar
10

Should I turn off my PC

Filed under: Hardware, Windows; Tagged as: Power
I’m often asked if I should turn off my PC when not in use. First of all, turning your PC on and off does not wear it out. Any damage done by doing this will not cause parts to wear out before the PC becomes obsolete. However, it’s important to set up your PC so that it goes to sleep (Standby) or Hibernates after some period of idleness to conserve energy. This period depends on your computing habits. I have my PC set up to go to sleep after 45 minutes of being idle.

It should be pointed out, however, that all PC’s should be cycled off and on periodically to let Windows catch its breath.

Here are some power numbers from my setup tp help you decide.

My setup consists of the following:
1. A fairly powerful Windows machine (180 watts)
2. Two printers left in the On position (6.5 watts each)
3. A cable modem and router (9 watts)
4. One USB hub (4.7 watts)
5. Two external hard drives that are normally off (9 and 14 watts when turned on)
6. A wireless keyboard and mouse
7. Two power strips
8. Speakers left in the On position (5 watts)
9. 22 inch LCD monitor
The entire setup when on – 211 watts

Everything but the PC on – 31 watts

Everything but the PC on plus the PC in Standby – 31.7 watts (Standby power for PC is negligible, less than 1 watt)

Assuming that the PC is on 6 hours a day and in Standby 18 hours, the average power is 76.5 watts.

With the cost per KWH at $.13, this costs $7.16 per month.

If everything were turned off at night, the cost would be reduced by $2.96 per month.

If just the PC would be turned off every night, the savings would be pennies per month.
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Feb
28

Neat Photo Tools (Free and almost free)

Filed under: Digital Photography;
Here’s a list of great new tools for working with pictures:
- Picasa – the latest version, Picasa 3, is free and has a lot of new features. It is availavle here and a video demonstrating the new feates is here. It allows you to print and email photos easily and can also create slide shows, collages and videos.
- Microsoft AutoCollage 2008, which costs$19.95, creates stunning collages. There is a trial download so you can see if it’s worth the money. The best way to use this program is to create a folder with more than 7 pictures in it and point the software to this folder. Below is an example that was created in 10 seconds. The program is available here.
Collage created with AutoCollage 2008
- Microsoft Live Gallery, which is free, works with Windows XP and Vista. For a free program, there are a lot of features including exposure correction, cropping, emailing, printing and slide show creation. It’s available here.
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Feb
23

HDR Photography

Filed under: Digital Photography;

One of the latest rages among Digital Camera enthusiasts is HDR, or High Dynamic Range photography. Since most cameras do not have the exposure latitude to capture the full range of brightness values that exist in the real world, you can increase the range of brightness in you images and prints with a digital camera and a program such as Photoshop. There are several ways to do this as explained in the article mentioned below.

Rather than try to explain the details here, PC Photo magazine has a great article about the subject here.

Here’s a sample HDR image from their article.

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Feb
19

Internet Security

Filed under: Windows;

The latest issue of PC World has 2 very good articles on Internet Security. The first article is located here. The second article, which is aimed at Vista is located here. The second article mentions OpenDNS for preventing your browser from going to “bad” sites. I’ve installed it successfully on 6 PC’s and it works great It’s easy to install or remove and works with both XP and Vista. This eliminates the need to install any software for filtering Web sites that kids should not visit, for example.

There’s several crucial steps. You will be sent an email containing a confirmation link which you must reply to, and you must click the Network tab on their setup page to add your network. This is quite easy since OpenDNS does most of the work. If you have a router, you can set this up following their router instructions to protect all of your PC’s but it doesn’t work for providers that assign dynamic IP addresses such as Cox. In this case, you must set it up on all PC’s individually. Once you set up one PC, go to another PC and log on to OpenDns at their site and this PC will already recognize the network. Just follow the steps for configuring the PC.

Don’t forget to visit the Setup page. From here you select your level of protection. If this is for a home network on a router, all users will have the same level. All settings are configured from the Dashboard.

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Feb
16

iPod Players

Filed under: Hardware;

I was looking for something simple. Just plug in my iPod, push a button and fill the room with music. The top of the line product for this is the Bose SoundDock Music Station for $299. Then there is the Klipcsh iGroove SXT iPod Sound System for $149. These prices are at local retailers. The difference in sound quality is difficult to hear but Bose has a slight edge.

I ended up buying the Klipsch on-line for $78, no tax, no shipping, 1/4 of the Bose price.

The sound is great with deep base. There are no buttons except the usual Play, Next, Previous and On/Off – how simple is that.

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Feb
16

Windows 7 Beta

Filed under: Windows;
I installed the Windows 7 Beta recently and I’m quite pleased so far, keeping in mind that it is a Beta release.

Three things are noticeably absent per Microsoft strategy which include a built-in Email client, Windows Photo Gallery, and Windows Movie Maker. The Microsoft plan is to make the OS leaner and to allow the user to use their own programs.

By going to the Windows Live Essentials site, you can download replacements plus other goodies.

The installation went quite smoothly with Windows 7 recognizing all hardware without any driver installation required. My HP & Epson have basic printing functionality but I haven’t tried installing the full drivers yet. Consequently, there is no TWAIN functionality but I can still scan. If you open the “Printers” folder and right-click the printer and select “Start scan” you can scan. It’s basic but works for now. Update – I just installed the full HP Vista driver for my HP 6310 AIO printer and it works perfectly with Windows 7.

Windows 7 also complains mildly about my Nvidia video card but it performs just fine. Update – I just installed the Nvidia 9600 GT Vista video drivers and everything went smoothly.

Here are some initial observations – more details will be added periodically:
1. There is no default Quick Launch toolbar although it can be added. Microsoft changed the philosophy of the Quick Launch/Taskbar performance but you can revert to the Quick Launch toolbar if desired. To do this, right-click the Taskbar and select Toolbars, New Toolbar and enter the following as one line into the Folder Name box at the bottom:%userprofile%AppDataRoamingMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch
2. There is more control over the Notification Icons. Right-click the Taskbar and select Properties. Next, look for the Customize button in the Notification area.
3. You can customize the icon size on the Taskbar plus customize other features – just go to the Taskbar Properties.
4. Jump Lists have been added – for example – right-clicking on the IE icon on the Taskbar opens a list of “Last Visited” sites. This list is also available by left-dragging upwards with the mouse (great for touch screens). This feature doesn’t appear to work with Firefox.
5. You can “Pin” an item to the Taskbar as well as to the Start menu.
6. Gone are the usual “Close”, “Restore”, etc. items when you right-click an icon on the Taskbar. To see these options you have to Shift-Right-click.
7. Don’t forget to open the Control Panel, select the System icon and Activate Windows 7 Beta. According to Microsoft, you lose some functionality after 30 days if you do not activate.
8. Here’s a shocker – my bank would not let me go online with the Windows 7 Beta browser which is IE 8. A 30-second installation of the latest Firefox fixed that.
9. If you have either a DVD or CD .iso file that needs burning just double click on the file and a small burning applet will appear.
10. To create a Repair Disk, click Start and enter the following into the Search box: “Create a System Repair Disk”. Even better, for more options, open Control Panel and select Backup and Restore. Next, select Create a system image and you will have options to use a DVD or internal or external hard drive. See the figure below.
11. You can do without the Show Desktop icon now since you just have to hover your mouse on the little vertical bar at the far right of the Taskbar for a temporary view of the Desktop. Click it for a permanent view.
12. This is an Internet Explorer 8 thing but since it’s included with Windows 7, I thought I’d mention it. When you close IE 8, it remembers which pages, Tabs, etc. were open and reopens to the same exact conditions next time. Of course you can change this option to reopen with just your Home page open.
Another new feature in Windows 7 is Libraries. Since there is such a good explanation here, I thought I’d just reference it. I will mention something that’s not obvious – how to add additional folders to a Library. A shortcut to open your Library is to press the Windows key + E. You will find more information about using Libraries with HomeGroups here. If you forget your HomeGroup password, go the the Network and Sharing center and look for the “Joined” link. Select it and a new window will open. Next, select the link titled View or print the HomeGroup password.
- To add a folder to the default Library, right-click a Library item such as Documents and select Properties. Click the Include Folder button to add an additional folder.
- To add a folder to a Library that you created, right-click the Library item, click Properties and use the Include Folder button.
There are several links on my web site with more Windows 7 information.

So far, Windows 7 seems more responsive than Vista and has a smaller footprint both in Ram and disk space.

By the way – I’m editing all of my Blogger Posts with Windows Live Writer. This programs claims it will work with other blogging sites also. It’s much easier to edit this way. There are still some things that you must do at the Blogger site.

See the What’s New site at MIcrosoft
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Feb
16

Windows XP versus Vista

Filed under: Windows;
I just converted my Fujitsu Lifebook Notebook to Vista. After reading about how modern Vista is compared to the aging XP I thought I’d give it a try. It was really easy to do since I received a Vista disc with the notebook.

After several days of using Vista, I thought about my experience with this OS and decided that, although it looked more modern and offered more features, that it just wasn’t fun.

By the way, the method I use to switch back and forth between XP and Vista is as follows:

I started with XP installed

I created a 2nd partition, the D drive, on the hard drive using Acronis Disk Director

I used Acronis True Image, to store an image of the C drive on the D drive.

I then installed a clean copy Vista on the C drive

I then saved an image of the C drive containing Vista to the D drive

Now I can restore an image of my choice to run either operating system

Note: You can store these images on an external hard drive also.

It wasn’t only the UAC that kept annoying me, most everything seemed like a chore. Installing programs, copying or moving files to certain folders required jumping through hoops. Also, after installing Vista Service Pack 1, several features of the Fujitsu Notebook stopped working. There are no Fujitsu updates to fix this. Oh well, I’m back running XP again and enjoying it even more but I know in can go back in 10 minutes anytime I want.
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Feb
16

Hard Drive Speed

Filed under: Hardware;

I’ve run some tests recently to determine the data rate of various hard drives, card readers and memory cards. Some of the results were rather surprising.

The program I used to test the various media was HDTach available at SimpliSoftware. The free version is enough to test the read speeds.

Here’s a summary of the results (all using USB 2.0 ports unless stated otherwise)

Flash drives varied from 8 to 26 MB/sec (Mega Bytes per second).
A SanDisk Ultra II card was 16 MB/sec connected to PC front panel slot. Same card was 1 MB/sec when connected to printer slot.

Internal SATA drives were 60 to 70 MB/sec with burst speeds of 200 MB/sec.
External USB drives varied from 15 to 23 MB/sec. The drive with a speed of 15 MB/sec increased to 41 MB/sec when connected to a Firewire 400 input.

Memory cards varied from 2 to 15 MB/sec the fastest cards being SanDisk Extreme III CF and SanDisk Ultra 2 SD.

Here is a chart of memory card speeds.

Also, here is a link to a nice article in PC Photo Magazine.

Just as a point of reference, cards rated at 133X define a transfer rate of 20 MB/sec but the fastest I could get when I measured one it was 15 MB/sec. Using actual pictures in a test, the average data rate was 10 MB/sec transferring approximately 700 MB of data.

I just received a Buffalo Drive Combo4 500MB external drive with USB 2, Firewire 400, Firewire 800 and eSata connections. Here are the data transfer rates. The rates are for sustained data transfers, not burst rates.

Connection

Data Rate (MB/sec)

Notes

USB 2.0

25

Firewire 400

41

Firewire 800

65

Internal Sata Drives

75

eSata

77

Not hot pluggable

The eSata rate was measured with the drive connected directly to the motherboard Sata port.

By the way, those old floppies that we once depended on transfer data at only 30 KB/sec or two thousand times slower than our hard drives.

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Feb
16

General Items

Filed under: General;

You can see some travel photos here.

The new Picasa 3 is available with lots of new features. You can find it here.

If you discover any good freeware worth mentioning, please post it here – thanks.

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