This still doesn’t hit the magic price point of $99.  This is the point at which something drops to the magic ‘obtainable’ price and hearts and minds are won.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that technology is still relatively expensive to manufacture.  There are also only so many manufacturing plants worldwide and the current demand for high-tech electronics such as Apple’s iPad and smartphones dominates many of them.

You might think then that mass-producing these devices would inevitably drive manufacturing costs down.  It’s not quite that simple though as it also emerged today that the new $79 kindle actually costs $84 to make, with Amazon set to make the extra money back through books store sales.

The mark-up on the price of the iPad also isn’t great when you factor in the distribution and retailer costs.  The raw components for technology are, in some cases, becoming harder to mine and some costs are going up, not down.

You might think then that what we really need is a push back to slightly older, some might say “tried and tested” technology that genuinely is cheap as chips to manufacture to help push it into the homes of low-income households worldwide.  But issues around supply and manufacture will always make this technology just as expensive to produce as a new invention as they are all made from the same raw components.

The problem is though that millions of children worldwide are missing out of the educational benefits that computers and the Internet bring.  Pensioners around the world are continuing to be isolated because of the lack of Internet communications and don’t have access to online shopping services that can help them.

The US government said today that last year the number of Americans with broadband at home rose to 68%.  I don’t know what you think but when compared to some scandanavian and far-eastern countries this is pretty pathetic.  It’s a number shared by too many developed countries however and in the developing world we’re often looking at single digit percentages.

What’s need is a greater effort and a greater subsidy to help low-income households around the world get a computer of some description and a broadband connection at home, and to make sure that every child has easy access to both.  In a time when the budgets of world governments are being stretched, and household budgets are being stretched further, the gap between the have’s and the have not’s is widening faster than ever before.

In a report by USA Today, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said “In this difficult economy, we need everyone to be working together on solutions, Broadband is a key to economic and educational opportunity and these kinds of commitments to close the digital divide are powerful.”

Never was a truer word said.  Now let’s see if world governments are prepared to do anything about it.

There’s no way around this either as your PC’s case has to have vents and air-holes.  If it didn’t the whole thing would overheat and, unless you had a very elaborate heat-pipe system in place, your computer would constantly crash.

The thing is though that with dust clogging up the innards of your PC it’ll crash anyway, or at the very least heat up too much and be automatically shut down by your motherboard’s BIOS to prevent the components melting.  As an example of this, just look at the processor heatsink in the photo below.  This was taken of one of my own computers just this morning.  Underneath the fan the processor heatsink it caked in thick layers of dust.  Under this circumstance the heatsink won’t be able to vent any heat properly and the fan will just be something that spins around uselessly.

You can’t escape dust from entering your PC either.  Some people say you should keep it on a desk or lifted up from the floor by a small stand.  These things, while they may delay the inevitable, can’t prevent the build up of dust.  Other people say don’t keep it on a carpet and instead try and put it on a laminate floor.  Laminate and wood floors are even worse though.  You may not get thick carpet fibres in the PC but at least a carpet can trap a lot of the dust in the room.  With a wooden floor there’s nowhere for it to go except for inside your computer.

So we reach a point, as we all do from time to time, when you need to clean the inside of your computer, as I will have to do today.  I thought I’d share with you then my tips on the best way to do this.

First of all you should make sure that the computer is switched off and unplugged from the mains electricity supply before you take the side off the case.  You should then make sure that wherever you clean the PC, which should be in a place perhaps near an open door as it’ll get messy, it should be well supported on a clean, flat surface.

The best start is with a good strong puff of breath.  You’d be surprised how much dust this will actually clear.  Some people at this point may be inclined to stick a vacuum cleaner in the case, but first I’d recommend a small, unused, paintbrush.  This is a great way to get rid of most of the dust from the components themselves.

This won’t get the dust up from the inside bottom the case though and won’t help with the processor heatsink where you can’t (or at least shouldn’t) remove the fan.  Here you’ll need that afore-mentioned vacuum cleaner.

You should always make sure, when using a vacuum cleaner inside a PC that you observe the following rules.

1. Always use the vacuum on it’s lowest suction setting
2. Have a small, soft brush attachment fitted to the end of the hose

With these two rules in place you’ll be able to gently brush over the components inside the case and remove the dust.  The processor heatsink can be more stubborn but for that I’d recommend the long thin nozzle attachment which you can point inside the fan to get at the dust directly.

You do need to be very careful when cleaning the inside of your PC as the components inside, especially those on the motherboard and plug-in cards are tiny and sometimes very fragile.  Always be very gentle and take your time.

You should normally do this with a PC a couple of times a year or so depending on where you keep the machine and how dusty it gets. Doing this will help prolong the life of your computer, help keep it operating at its maximum speed, help keep it quiet and probably most importantly have the side-effect of reducing your electricity consumption.

The majority of users does not really know about this. Most think for instance that deleting files will delete them completely, which is not the case. Here is a collection of five different locations and ways to find out more about a previous computer user. You can use the information on your own computer, to see if a third party could grab those information from yours as well.

1. Display Deleted Files

Deleted files are not directly deleted by the operating system. Even if you delete them directly or make sure to delete the trashcan as well. Why? Because it is faster to simply delete information about the file, than the file itself. While you won’t see the file anymore in your OS, it may still be fully accessible on the hard drive of the computer. Someone with the right set of tools could recover the files to get access to what you have been deleting.

Tools for the job:

• Disk Digger
• Glary Undelete
• Panda Recovery
• Recuva
• Undelete Plus

How to protect yourself:

Wipe the free disk space regularly. This overwrites the free space on the hard drive which makes standard file recovery impossible.

• Blank and Secure
• CCleaner
• Eraser

2. The Web Browser History

Web browsers are configured to record the web browsing history. This is done in databases in the program directory most of the time as well a cache that contains pages, images, cookies and other elements of visited websites. It is quite easy to use the cached information to see what sites a user has been visiting in the past and what has been downloaded to the computer.

Tools for the job

• Built-in web browser tools to access the history and cache
• The standard system file browser, e.g. Windows Explorer
• Firefox Cache Viewer
• Google Chrome Cache View
• Video Cache View

How to protect yourself:

You can configure web browsers to delete the cache regularly, for instance at every exit or every five days. Here is how you would do that in Firefox. Open the Firefox web browser and click on Firefox > Options, or select Tools > Options from the menu. Switch to the Privacy tab

You can either configure Firefox to never remember the browsing history, or use custom settings for the history. This way you could disable the browsing and download history, but keep cookies for your logins.

3. Recent Items

Another area where you might get a lot of information about computer usage is the recent items list. The operating system and multiple third party tools keep tabs on programs or files that have been opened recently. If you have not done anything with the OS or application yet, you may find previously opened files and programs by the system’s last user.

Tools for the job

You can access the information right in the application or the operating system. For Windows 7, you could for instance click on the start button and select Recent Items from the Start menu, or right-click an item in the taskbar to see its jumplist entries.

How to protect yourself:

You need to disable recent items either in a control panel of the operating system or in the third party application. For Windows 7, you would simply right-click the start orb and select Properties from the context menu.

Locate Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar to disable that feature.

Closing Words

The three method above are common options to analyze a computer system. Have other suggestions? Let us know in the comments.

The computers were installed as holes in the wall, much in the way people would expect to find a cashpoint, and children quickly learned to teach themselves and then began to pass that knowledge on to others.

“I think we have stumbled across a self-organising system with learning as an emergent behaviour,” said Professor Sugata Mirta of Newcastle University in the UK, at the TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference.  He said that follow-up experiments suggest that children around the world can learn complex tasks quickly, and with little supervision.

“The children barely went to school, they didn’t know any English, they had never seen a computer before and they didn’t know what the internet was.”  The children quickly figured out how to use the computers and access the internet.  “I repeated the experiment across India and noticed that children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.”

“At the end of it we concluded that groups of children can lean to use computers on their own irrespective of who or where they are,” he said.

Professor Mirta has now formalised lessons from his experiments and has come up with the new concept of SOLE (Self Organised Learning Environments).  These consist of a computer on a bench large enough for four children to sit around it.  He said the learning doesn’t really take place when you give a child their own computer.

He has tested the spaces in the UK and Italy, with similar results, and now believes it should be tested more widely.

Not every Windows 7 user needs all the links and items in the Windows 7 navigation pane. There is however no direct option to hide them in Windows Explorer. The only known way is to hide them using the Windows Registry.

Windows users who are not using the Homegroup, Network, Favorites or Library feature might want to hide them to reduce the clutter from the navigation pane. This has the additional benefit that the remaining items are easier accessible.

Hide the Homegroup item from Windows Explorer

Open the Windows Registry editor by clicking on the start button in the taskbar, typing in regedit into the run form and selecting regedit.exe from the available results.

Navigate to the Registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}\ShellFolder

You now need to change the value of the key Attributes from b084010c to b094010c. You first need permission to do that. Right-click on ShellFolder and select Permissions from the context menu.

Select the user profile of the logged in user and click the Allow Full Control box to give the user full control over the key.

Accept the changes and double-click Attributes again afterwards. Enter the new value b094010c into the form and click ok to accept the change.

Hide the Libraries item from Windows Explorer

Open the Registry editor as outlined above. Navigate to the Registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}\ShellFolder

Double-click the key Attributes and change the value from b080010d to b090010d. You need to have permissions to do that. Perform the same steps as above to get the permissions for the ShellFolder key.

Hide the Network item from Windows Explorer

Navigate to the following Registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}\ShellFolder

Change the permissions of the key to give the active user full control over the key. Double-click the Attributes value afterwards and change its value from b0040064 to b0940064.

Hide the Favorites item from Windows Explorer

Navigate to the Registry key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}\ShellFolder

Change the permissions of that key so that the current user has full control over the key. Then double-click on attributes and change the value from a0900100 to a9400100.

Hide the Computer item from Windows Explorer

Perform the same steps as outlined in the Homegroup removal guide. The Registry key that you need to navigate to is

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\ShellFolder

You now need to create a Dword by right-clicking in the right column and selecting new > Dword 32-bit from the menu. Name the new Dword Attributes and give it the value b094010c.

The changes can be reverted by deleting the Attributes key.

Final Step

The changes are not visible immediately. You can restart the computer, log off and on again or kill the explorer.exe process in the task manager to see the updated navigation pane in Windows Explorer.

Do you have another helpful Windows Explorer tip? Let us know in the comments.

The PC that I want to build for instance has to be an all purpose PC. It should be able to run the latest games but it will mostly be used for work. The PC should be as silent as possible without running to hot. The operating system will be Windows 7 64-bit. It should support USB 3.0 which has been released some time ago and will become the new standard to connect USB devices.

I have decided to divide the article into different parts to be able to concentrate on specific hardware and why I have chosen them. We begin with the selection of the CPU, motherboard and RAM, the core components of a computer.

Build Your Own PC: CPU

PC users have a wide selection of CPUs. It basically comes down to the two manufacturers AMD and Intel who both produce processors for lots of different purposes. We are looking for a desktop cpu which means that we will concentrate our search on those. Top of the line CPUs are usually to expensive for their performance gain over the rest of the CPU lineup (unless you have the cash lying around).

This basically leaves two options: An Intel Core-i7, Core-i5 or an AMD Phenom II X4. It is now time to use the Internet or computer magazines to find benchmarks and reviews of those CPUs. You can use many hardware shops like Newegg, CPU Benchmarks or Tomshardware as well as many other sites for that.

You will end up with a few CPUs that would make a good selection: Intel Core i7-860, Intel Core i7-920, Intel Core i5-750 or AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE. The final selection now is not only determined by the performance but also the price and quality of the CPU. The AMD CPU is cheaper than all Intel CPUs. It’s performance is lower than the Intel CPU performance but it should be sufficient for all computing tasks.

The Intel Core i7-860 is the fastest Intel CPU in this field but also the most expensive one, we are talking about a difference of €100 here.

• My Selection: Intel Core i7-860
• Alternative: AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE

Build Your Own PC: Motherboard

The selected CPU leads directly to the motherboard that we need. The Intel Core i7-860 needs an LGA-1156 CPU socket type  motherboard. We use our needs and wishes that we came up with earlier in this step. The motherboard needs to offer all the connectors that we need, e.g. Firewire, which makes the selection process easier for us as we need to find and evaluate only those motherboards that support all the features that we need.

What should the motherboard offer?

• Minimum number of memory slots: 4
• CPU: At least Intel Core i7-860
• Memory: At least DDR3 1600
• USB 3.0
• Onboard Lan: 1000/100/10
• Onboard Sounds: Indifferent
• Onboard Video: No
• SLI: No
• SATA 3 GB/s: At least six
• Raid: No
• Other Connectors: Not needed

This may obviously look different when you build your own PC. It is again important to make an initial selection of 2-3 motherboards that offer what you are looking for. The next step is very important. Perform a search for that motherboard on the Internet and add keywords like problem, error, or help to it. Take a look at those posts and the number of them to see how likely it is that you might run into troubles.

The Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 is one of the few motherboards that support USB 3.0 right now. It is not as expensive as many other  motherboards that offer USB 3.0 (costs $120).  The other motherboards that I have taken a look at are the  MSI P55-GD85 which retails for about $220 which has a surprisingly similar configuration to the Gigabyte motherboard and the ASUS P7H57D-V EVO for $200 which is the only one of the three with an HDMI port.

The Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 offers everything that I need plus it is roughly $100 cheaper than the rest of the motherboards. That’s enough to make it my pick in the motherboard category.

My Selection:

• GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3

Build Your Own PC: RAM

The selection of the motherboard determines the RAM – or computer memory – that we can use. We also need to determine at this point if we want more than 4 Gigabytes of RAM. We would need a 64-bit operating system if we do.

We do need DDR3 RAM (to be precise 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM)  as this is the computer memory supported by our motherboard. We also need dual-channel or quad-channel and not triple-channel RAM as we have selected the Core i7-860 cpu. This means that we either need to shop for 4 Gigabytes of RAM or a factor of that (8, 12 or 16 which is the maximum supported by the motherboard).

It does not really make sense to buy less than 4 Gigabytes as it would limit the PC”s performance. Avid gamers or those that run applications that need as fast RAM as they can get might want to take a look at overclocked RAM or RAM that can be overclocked nicely. I usually stay away from that RAM though as the performance gains usually do not justify the price increase. The motherboard supports up to DDR3-2200.

My Selection

• CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 ($270)
• G.SKILL Trident 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (if you want faster) ($290)

This was the first part of the Build your own PC February edition. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I do. Leave a comment if you have questions or suggestions.

The benefit of building a PC instead of buying one is that the builder can customize the hardware configuration. There are usually some shops in the vicinity that offer to build the computer from the components picked by the user for a small fee. That might be an interesting option for users who are not confident to build the PC themselves but still want to have the control over the hardware selection process:

The following computer is not an ulta-high-end computer. It instead offers great performance for its price which is everything that I care about. It should also be relatively quiet thanks to the selection of specific hardware that is quieter than the usual solutions found in pre-build PCs.

There have been some changes since the last build. Ati has released the DirectX 11 compatible Ati Radeon 5000 series of video cards. Another thing to consider is that USB 3.0 devices will be more common in this year and that the computer should be have USB 3.0 if such devices will be or might be bought in the future.

Main PC build:

CPU: Intel Core i7-860 [$280]
CPU Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.B CPU Cooler [$60], requires a 120mm fan to be bought separately for about [$20]
Computer Memory: CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) [$300]
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3 (comes with USB 3.0) [$135]
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon 5770 Vapor-X [$180]
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 [$90] or any other sound card for that matter depending on your sound system setup. Onboard sound might be fine to for some users.
Hard Drives: 2x SAMSUNG EcoGreen F2 HD154UI 1.5TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive [$200] ; OCZ Vertex Turbo OCZSSD2-1VTXT60G 2.5″ 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) [$269] for operating system, applications and games.
Power Supply: Seasonic X-650 [$170]
Case: SILVERSTONE Fortress Series FT02B-W Black Aluminum / Steel Computer Case – Retail [$239]
Computer Keyboard: Logitech G110 [$80]
Computer Mouse: Logitech G500 [$60]

Alternative build:

The alternative build replaces some components to reduce the price of the PC system.

CPU: Intel Core i7-860 [$280]
CPU Cooler: boxed cooler that ships with the cpu [$0]
Computer Memory: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) [$95]
Motherboard: MSI P55M-GD45 (comes without USB 3.0) [$120]
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon 5770 Vapor-X [$180]
Sound Card: none, onboard sound used instead [$0]
Hard Drives: Western Digital Caviar Black WD10000LSRTL 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Hard Drive [$105]
Power Supply: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V [$100]
Case: NZXT GAMMA Classic Series GAMA-001BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case – Retail [$30]
Computer Keyboard: Generic keyboard [$20]
Computer Mouse: Generic mouse [$20]

The alternative build is more than $1000 cheaper than the initial build. It is not as fast and quit as the original PC but it is still a great computer system.

What are your thoughts on the two builds? Would you replace hardware or add other hardware? Let us know in the comments.

There is a computer in our cars, TV’s, cell phones, our cable boxes, and other electronic devices. Without the software, these electronics would not work as they do. They may turn on, but the programs that we need to use would not work properly without the help of software.

The operating system that came with your computer is a computer software program. All computers come with an operating system, such as Windows aka XP, Vista, 2000, etc. Other operating systems are Linux and Mac. Without an operating system, your computer will not operate as it should. It may turn on, but it won’t run properly.

There are so many different programs today to do just about anything you want to on your computer. Some computer software program names are Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office, Print Shop, QuickBooks, video games, etc.

Some programs come in the form of CD or DVD, or floppy disks. This software can also be downloaded from the Internet, called electronic download. A software program is usually all set up to run on your computer. Each program will tell you what operating system and other criteria needed to use the program on your computer.
There are programs that will diagnose, troubleshoot, and fix problems that may occur with your computer, without the help of a computer tech.

Some programs online are in the form of a zip file, closed to make the file smaller. Most operating systems have a program on them that will automatically open a zip file so that you can install it onto your computer without a hassle. If you do not have a zip file software program, you can find a free program online. A great place to find free software downloads is at http://download.cnet.com/windows/.

Each program will tell you what the computer requirements are to run the program on your computer. It may specify that the program is only for Windows 2000 or XP, but most programs are available to run with Vista, Mac, and Linux now. http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx offers free trials for a lot of their software programs so that you can try it out before purchasing a copy of it.

Nearly everywhere we go or whatever we do, there is computer software running something. It is a wonderful idea to learn more about the computer world, as it will always be a big part of life. The technology continues to change and improve in most areas. A lot of the local Adult Education centers offer classes for free or at a very reasonable price to learn more about computers. Some local computer technicians also offer tutoring at reasonable prices. The World Wide Web has loads of free information on this topic as well.

Good Timing is a computer alarm clock software for the Windows operating system that comes with additional timer functionality. The computer program will display four windows upon program start. These windows display the time till the next alarm, a configuration window to add new timers and alarms, a log detailing all the changes and the main program window listing all alarms and timers that have been created by the user.

All windows except the main window can be closed after the configuration. The main window can be minimized to the system tray. Each configured alarm or timer is made up of required and optional parameters. The required parameters for the computer alarm clock configuration obviously require the type and time while the option parameters include dates, days, sounds, notes, commands and other parameters that finetune the alarm.

Good Timing is a free download that is compatible with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

SuperSpeed USB, which was demonstrated for the first time in 2007 will advance the serial bus standard once again. Transfer speeds have been raised to a speed of 5 Gbit / s which improves data transfer speeds tremendously. To copy a 25 Gigabyte file USB 1.0 needed 9.03h, USB 2.0 13.09 minutes and USB 3.0 1.10 minutes. USB 3.0 receptacles are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 device plugs which basically means that computer users can still connect their USB 2.0 or USB 1.0 devices into a computer system supporting USB 3.0.

Another interesting addition to USB 3.0 are power saving features which were especially designed for mobile devices. Packet traffic is no longer being broadcasted to the USB device which reduces its power usage. Additional power saving features like idle, sleep and suspend states have been added to USB 3.0 as well. A device entering sleep mode will practically be left alone by USB 3.0 Hosts until itself initiates a device mode change. The power specs have been increased on the other hand to be able to provide devices (like external hard drives) with additional power for their operation.

First devices that make use of USB 3.0 are expected in 2009 but the main push towards USB 3.0 is expected to begin in 2010.

The matter is even getting more pressing if the supply is limited, say a limited edition of a computer game or a super duper price for a product that usually costs a lot more. That’s like putting more pressure on the consumer and it usually works.

I’m sometimes hard pressed to stop myself from buying a device after reading about it on the Internet. I came up with a system that is beating impulse buying fair and square and it will definitely save you some money.

It’s actually a pretty easy system. If I see or read about something that I want I think about it for a second. Do I really need the device right now? The answer would be yes in the case of a crashed hard drive but no for a gamin system or computer game.

Every item where I come to the conclusion that I do not need it right away lands on my 90-days list. I add the date and the name of the product on that list. I check back after 90 days and see if I still want to buy that product. If I do I buy it but more often than not I don’t care anymore. Let me give you an example where this worked perfectly.

You might remember that I wanted to buy a SSD (Solid State Drives) for my new computer. SSDs were expensive and rare at that time and most could not really live up to the promise. I put that SSD drive on my 90 days list and ordered one just a few days ago because I still wanted one. Those 90 days however saw some great product releases of reliable and fast SSD drives and I was able to grab one of the fastest for a third of the price that I would have paid back then. As I said, it works pretty well and more often than not it saves you money.

Ladies, this works extremely well for non-tech related products like shoes, perfumes, clothes or books.

The keyboard comes as a professional and ultimate edition with the only difference between the versions that the ultimate Keyboard ships with blank keys which should be fine for everyone who wants to improve his typing skills the hard way. (the first weeks will be rather painful I believe).

Well, I would not want to pay $80 – $129 for a computer keyboard and I usually prefer simple solid keyboards from manufacturers like IBM or Logitech that come without all those extra “multimedia” keys that modern keyboards seem to ship with. My keyboards are cheap usually but provide great feedback when pressing a key on it. I really don’t feel comfortable with those thin Notebook like keyboards and those ergonomic keyboards that I usually throw at the next wall whenever I have to use them.

What type of keyboards do you prefer ? Classic ? Modern ? Ergonomic ? Uber ? Multimedia ? Let me know.

When you’ve been working on your computer for a day or two and it’s starting to slow down and is struggling to open the start menu then it’s probably time to reset. Resetting clears the RAM and gets the system running fresh again.

The Anonymous writer of Shipping Seven also had this suggestion:

Windows occasionally gets into a weird state where, well, things just stop working – the start menu doesn’t launch some apps anymore, clicking links in Internet Explorer doesn’t work, context menus stop working, etc.*

Instead of rebooting Windows to get things working again, try logging out and logging back in. When Windows (and the apps that plug into the Windows shell) get into some weird state, you don’t need to reboot; a logoff shuts down the Windows Explorer, and a logon loads it again.

This used to happen to me every now and again, but since SP1 It hasn’t happened once.

Alternatively there is a much easier way to get your computer running smoothly again and remove all the idle processed.

• Create a new shortcut on the desktop
• In the input field type:

“%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks”

• Click ‘next’ and name the shortcut.
• When this shortcut is run the system should stop for a few seconds as it reclaims RAM before speeding up again as you use it.

Hope you find this useful.

Exercises are divided into the three categories Eyes, Hands and Body each containing several exercises that do not take up lots of space, if any, which is ideal for work environments. Each exercise is explained visually by an avatar that is performing it over and over again as well as text that is displayed below the performance.

The first exercise for the hands for example asks the user to stretch his finger joints while the first body exercise is all about stretching the body for a few times.

Each exercise is repeated several times. Basic controls allow to pause, rewind or forward exercises at any time. The exercises are easy to learn which means that the animations are no longer needed eventually which should definitely be the first goal of a new user. It does not make much sense to exercise the eyes when you have to keep them glued to the computer monitor to understand the exercises correctly.

The other criticism that I have is the advertisement popup that appeared once talking about another tool of the developer that would scan my Registry. I have no idea on the frequency of those popups, it happened once during my tests.

The time before the program reminds the user that he should take a break can be set between 10 and 180 minutes.

Today’s monitors however are not prone to those burn-ins which makes screensavers for that purpose obsolete. If you want to save energy you should therefor turn off the monitor. I have set the Energy Saving options to turn off the monitor after fifteen minutes of inactivity.

Moving the mouse turns the monitor on again and work can resume afterwards. Screensavers these days serve mainly two purposes. The first is entertainment. A wide variety of possibilities exist including video screensavers, virtual tours or graphic demos. The second is a basic protection of the computer which can be configured to ask for the user password before work can commence.

How is your computer configured to handle inactivity ?

Locate PC only works if the thief is stupid enough to boot your computer while being connected to an internet connection. I cannot really say how many thiefs would do that but it can happen and that’s probably reason enough to use Locate PC. A slim chance is better than no chance at all, don’t you think ?

Locate PC (via Cybernet News) will send emails periodically whenever the PC is connected to the Internet, by default one email is send per day and another one for every IP change. The application is running in the background with an obscured filename and no system tray icon making it harder to identify. I would say that you do not need to worry about that though, if the thief really boots the PC while it is connected to the Internet then you should not fear that he will discover the little tracking application.

One thing that actually might work pretty well is to create a bogus account that does not require a password. I mean, a thief that gets a password prompt will probably not be able to load the operating system which would make the whole configuration void.

The emails that are send contain several interesting information, not only the IP that it is being send from. It displays the computer’s host name and logged in user. This will be probably your information though. More interesting are the network connections that are listed. A dialup connection would reveal the phone number and the user name which can lead directly to the thief.

A traceroute command is issued as well and identifying information are pulled from Windows. The important information that can lead to the thief are the IP address, the network connections and the traceroute command. Everything else will be your information unless the thief decides to chance the name and address of the owner to his own.

I needed MozBackup to import the data from my old computer. Once I had access to my bookmarks and emails I began to install several applications that I needed for work. The screenshot application MWSnap, WinSCP and Putty to administrate my dedicated server, GIMP for editing images and XNView Lite for viewing images.

Then Extract Now to be able to work with all kinds of archives, XMPlay for playing music, SMPlayer for videos, Notepad++ for working with texts and source codes and True Crypt to work with encrypted partitions.

Some applications that I need from time to time are not installed yet. This includes the awesome Unlocker to get rid of the “currently in use” message when deleting or moving files, Eraser to delete files permanently, Recuva to be able to recover files and Revo Uninstaller to completely remove installed applications.

I do install Newsbin Pro, uTorrent and Opera as well but that’s it basically. That’s my main set of applications that I need regularly. I may have missed one or two but they will come to my mind in the moment I need them and miss the function that they provided.

Have anything to add ? Let me know please.

The second reason is to make sure that the hardware is working properly. If your computer ram is faulty you can run into all kinds of difficulties from crashes and bluescreens to severe data loss.I use several applications to test a new computer to reduce the chance that I will run into such difficulties.

I consider the first start the first test of the computer. Why ? Because if the computer boots properly I know that all the devices that are needed to boot are working properly at that time. I usually check the BIOS first which normally does come with a PC Health menu that displays PC temperatures. This first step is essential.

If the CPU temperature for instance would look very high (consult the CPU booklet or website of the developer if you don’t know the values) then something went wrong with the cpu cooler. It could be that the cooler has not been properly placed on the cpu or that the cooler does not have the capacities to cool it effectively.

I usually only test the memory and the cpu of the computer. Especially the memory is essential. The applications that I use for testing purposes are Prime95 (Torture Mode) and Memtest86. Memtest86 is available as a bootable ISO version which means that you can run the application before installing the operating system.

I suppose there is some Live CD that is offering additional applications, anyone having a good tip about that ?

Both applications stress test the computer and should not display errors or cause reboots and shutdowns. A reboot or shutdown usually means that the computer has a cooling problem or faulty hardware. I normally run both applications for at least six hours to make sure everything is alright.

Keeping an eye on the computer temperatures is essential in the beginning. It’s not only the cpu that is important, hard drive, video card and system temperatures are important as well and should not rise to critical levels even when stress testing the computer.

The first application that I usually start after installing the operating system and the drivers is one of those system analysers. Something like Sandra Sisoft or Everest Ultimate. The trial versions are sufficient for my needs and I uninstall the applications after a while again.

Both display the temperatures of all important components and they usually come with their own system stress tests as well.These programs are also excellent for comparing the build in hardware with the hardware that you did purchase.

Gamers can also run 3D Mark 2006 to test their system and observe the temperature level of the video card and cpu afterwards.I usually run Speedfan all the time for the first week which display all temperature sensors of the computer and has the advantage that it is a tiny application that does not use a lot of system resources.

Do you use other programs to test a computer ? Let me know about them.

The first thing that I did when the packages with the PC parts arrived was to check if everything was there and it it was the correct component. Nothing is worse than to find out that a component is missing when you’re in the middle of building the PC. I normally put everything on a table and make a quick check that I got everything that I need to build the PC.

Building a PC is much like a puzzle. You got finite parts and need to place them in the right location of the computer case and connect each and every piece properly to get a PC that is working and booting. Before I start adding pieces to the PC case I divided them into primary and secondary components.

Primary PC Components:

• Computer Case
• Motherboard
• CPU
• CPU Cooler
• Power Supply
• Thermal Grease
• Case Fans

Secondary PC Components:

• Memory
• Video Card
• Hard Drive
• Sound Card
• Other Cards
• CD and DVD Drives
• Mouse
• Keyboard
• any other external device

The reason why I’m dividing the components up is because the primary components are harder to assemble than the secondary ones. You can add the video card and remove it in a matter of seconds but you cannot do that with the CPU if the CPU cooler has already been placed on it.

I usually start with the computer case and the power unit. The computer case normally comes with a lot of screws that are needed for various parts. The problem with the power unit is its size mainly. If you have other components in the PC you might have troubles placing it in the right location. It is usually connected to the PC with four screws.

The next part is in my opinion the part were many things can go wrong. I’m talking about the motherboard. Some builders prefer to add components to the motherboard when it is outside of the computer case because they have additional free space to add the components that way. It cannot rest on the tower directly and you have to place standoffs between the motherboard and the case. The standoffs have to be in the location that corresponds to the holes in the motherboard because you will use screws to firmly place the motherboard on those standoffs.

This part is really important, especially for those builders who place the motherboard in the computer case and add other components afterwards. Some computer parts need a little bit of pressure to be properly put in place. If you do not use enough standoffs you can break your motherboard quite easily if you apply to much pressure. The more standoffs the less the chance that it breaks.

Most motherboards come with their own back panel that needs to be switched with the default one from your computer case before connecting the motherboard to the computer. The back panel contains all those USB and sound device connectors from the motherboard.

When the motherboard is in place I connect the wires from the computer case to the motherboard. The wires are used to power certain buttons and lights on the computer case, for example the Power button. You need to consult the motherboard manual to find the proper place for them.

After that I add the cpu first. Again, that is a easy task. Just consult the motherboard manual and it will tell you exactly how it is done. It comes down to raising the socket laever, lifting the metal load plate and placing the cpu in the correct position. The cpu displays a tiny triangle on one edge and that triangle is aligned with the pin one corner of the cpu socket.

I then apply the thermal grease to the cpu and place the cpu cooler on top of it. This can be quite tough depending on the type of CPU cooler that you bought. Just read the instructions properly and you should be fine. The cpu cooler is usually connected to four holes that are next to the cpu.

And that was the hardest part of assembling the computer. It really comes down to these few components that can make or break the computer. Everything else is just a matter of placing the cards in the correct slots of connecting drives to the computer.

I can understand that most users do not want to build a computer because of fear that they break something. Another fear is connected to the different parts one has to buy in order to build the computer.

The whole process is not that difficulty if you read the manuals properly and use the above build order. Last but not least, here are the components that I finally purchased for my computer. It is not the fastest computer but it can do everything that you need to do, play games, watch videos, work with it.

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU
• Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
• Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Motherboard
• MDT DIMM Kit 4096 MB PC2-6400 CL5 DDR2-800 RAM
• Seasonic S12II-500 ATX PSU
• Samsung Spinpoint F1 1000 GB SATA II Hard Drive
• Lian Li PC-A09B Computer Case
• Leadtek PX8800GTS TDH 512MB Video Card
• Creative SB X-FI XtremeMusic Sound Card

It took me roughly 2 hours to build the compute and it started immediately after connecting the power unit. Now I had experiences in the past where that was not the case and it usually comes down to checking all connectors making sure everything is connected properly.

A friend of mine prefers the minimal approach. He only connects the primary components first, that is computer case, power unit, cpu, cpu cooler, motherboard, video card and ram and tries to boot the PC. If the PC boots he knows that everything up to this point is working nicely. He then adds one component at a time until every component has been added to the computer.

You do not need a degree in computer science to build a PC. It all comes down to reading the manual properly and the correct build order.

Some new items have recently been introduced, for instance the Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drive that will most likely be the fastest SATA drive on the market when it comes out in Mai 2008. The question that I have to ask myself is if I really need to buy that 300 Gigabyte drive that is definitely faster than any other SATA drive that I could buy for roughly $300 or invest in more space and less speed.

Since I’m not that much of a gamer anymore I decided to not buy that hard drive. The same holds true for my choice of video card and cpu. I do not need the fastest, I need reliable hardware that runs Linux and Windows plus the applications that I need. I need Windows to test software for Ghacks and for the occasional game that might come out that sounds interesting, Starcraft 2 anyone ?

Some other thoughts: I always choose a low noise level over performance. That means I tried my best to find pc components that produce the least amount of noise possible. I’m not talking about passive cooling here although that would probably be an option as well but about components that have been developed to be less noisy than the usual pc components.

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All components for that pc cost $844.92 which is more affordable than I thought it would be. That leaves enough money for a better LCD monitor and a sound card. I know that some components are not the fastest like the video card. Nvidia and ATI are pumping out new video cards every three to six months it seems that are faster and more powerful than those that have been released just a few months ago.

I don’t need to play games on highest settings and the card that I have chosen is perfectly capable of delivering a good gaming experience on my Samsung Syncmaster 19″ lcd monitor. Did I miss something, would you change something in the setup ? Let me know, this might be the last chance to change components.