GeekZone- Pocket protector’s almanac vol 1
Kia ora tatou:
This post has very little to do with digital photography, that is until your computer runs slowly or falls over. However it is something all of us who work on a computer should care about. It is rather like your car. Unless it is a diesel, from time to time you need to tune it and make sure it is running smoothly. Servicing a car is a given (unless you won Lotto, then you can change the vehicle when the carpet gets dirty). Here are a list of free applications (read: programs) that you can download and install to keep things moving smoothly, along with hints. Note: these are all apps that work for me.
1. Defragging. You should defragment your hard drive every few weeks. This puts the data back in the right place (think: the books back in the correct sections in the library). If you use your PC a lot, do it more often. The defrag utility in XP and Vista are both slow and not that reliable. Try Auslogics Disk Defrag. While you are at it, install and run Auslogics Registry Defrag. This does the same thing for your registry, which is where the individual files for your apps live. I also use RegCure from time to time to clean out my registry and remove unwanted files and invalid paths (usually caused by removing software/updating, etc). Sorry, this one costs! Caution: Unless you know what you are doing, DO NOT edit the registry. This can send you off to your tech for a major computer rebuild.
2. Clean up your disk. Again, Windows’ inbuilt utility is OK, but it slow and relatively ineffective. I recommend CCleaner (the first C: is for Crap). This is “a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner”. Recommended.
3. Using Internet Explorer? Try Firefox, now in version 3. Not only is it faster, you can download and install some really useful extensions that increase its flexibility. My favourites are
- ForecastFox (gives you the weather anywhere in a bar at the bottom of the browser),
- Foxmarks (synchronises bookmarks between your laptop and desktop) and
- Sxipper (remembers and stores information you put on an online form). There are hundreds more…
4. Moving large numbers of files. Rather than drag and drop, a perilous thing to do, because files can go missing in the transfer, meaning you need to check them one-by-one, especially with Vista, pre-Service Pack 1, use Total Commander. While it is a bit geeky and has a dos-like feel, it is deadly accurate and checks data on the fly. A must if you are copying whole drives.
5. CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. If you are using Vista and need to burn files to a CD/DVD, then this way outperforms the inbuilt Win app. It is also vastly superior to Nero (which has become bloatware). Fast, effective and free. Remember to turn on verification; this checks that each files has successfully been burned.
6. By now you Mac fanboys are sniggering (ASP?). Update: I received an email this morning from Donald in Wanaka, A guy who knows pretty much everything about Macs. He has written a post for me on caring for your Mac, which I will publish later today.
Finally, someone asked me the other day the difference between a geek and a nerd. Geeks (AKA techies) are interested in what goes on under the hood and (usually) have a life. Nerds live in darkened rooms; have poor dietary habits (Coca-Cola and Moro bars); spend way too much time on Quake or Crysis, and devote their lives to hacking the NSA.
Ka kite ano
