One of the questions I received recently was a surprise… Gary Karasick, who subscribes to my newsletter, wrote to ask me about a problem he was having…with his iMac:

I am having difficulties maintaining connectivity with y new iMac. I have many external USB devices and instead of reaching around the back of my iMac, I have used a powered USB 7 Port hub. Sometimes I get a machine from my machine saying there isn’t enough power to support all of the devices. How can this be if I am using a hub with an external power source? What can I do so that I can continue getting the benefit of the easily accessible hub?

I wrote back to Gary to say that I don’t use iMac or any Apple Mac products, so I really could not answer questions specific to the Mac.

However, this problem wasn’t directly an iMac issue…it was a problem with an external USB hub.

Continue reading When a Powered USB Hub Is Not Enough

Subscriber JNC wrote to me to say that he’d been using Acronis True Image for a while and wanted to know about keeping old backups:

I have just completed a total backup via Acronis on my external hard drive. Is there any reason to save previous total backups?
My external (500) hard drive is over 2/3 full.
jnc

I wrote back to JNC to say that I wouldn’t get rid of all of them. I suggested that he keep some recent ones and one or two full backups from the past — including the oldest one he had.

I find that, most of the time, I’m reaching for a backup file or backup image file because my brain messed up, not because of a hardware failure. It’s too easy to change a file and not realize that we haven’t done the change correctly. We find it out later when we try to use the file, or that part of the file. It might be days, weeks or even months later.

Continue reading Keeping Old Hard Drive Backup Files

After years of using a rolling laptop cart, I managed to break it about a year ago and ended up shopping for a new one. Unfortunately, Office Depot had stopped carrying this type of product. Their only desks for laptops were ugly, bulky things.

First, I ordered a similar item via a merchant on the Internet. Let’s just say that someone had seen a real laptop cart and designed one from memory. The most important flaw was that, despite having independent table surfaces to the right- and left-hand sides of the support, they were welded into a constant height between the two, even though they tilted independently.

A properly designed laptop cart has the two table shelves working independently — independently adjustable height and tilt.

Fortunately, I was able to find almost exactly what I was looking for at Amazon. This cart image looks very similar to the bad one I purchased, although that one was dark in color and manufactured by another company.
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Continue reading about My New Laptop Table

Larry Braud, longtime subscriber, reader and friend, told be about the protective film he applied to his new laptop. The material was a light-weight, clear, colorless material which came with an anti-glare finish. It adheres to the screen using a built-in silicone resin adhesive.

It seems to be easy to apply and easy to peel off. More importantly, it protects the delicate screen from accidental touches (fingerprint marks are very hard to remove from most LCD monitors). Most importantly, if he hadn’t told me that he had the film on the monitor, I never would have realized it. The picture was bright, sharp without the shine of a high gloss LCD.

I’m not sure why so many manufacturers seem to be shifting to high-glare notebook screens. Perhaps the glossy finish is less susceptible to finger oils or easier to clean — but they’re awfully hard to read.

I haven’t tried these, but Larry has. I’ve seen his and it looked good, too. If you’ve got a glossy screen laptop — or if you’ve got an LCD monitor and have children around (or adults) who can’t be trusted to keep their fingers off the screen, this can be a lifesaver.

Another friend noted that he had managed to touch his monitor while he had a felt-tip pen in his hand – and now has a mark on it. A film screen protector would have saved him a lot of grief.

Continue reading LCD Monitor and Notebook Protection

Once upon a time, there was a simple, text-based operating system called DOS. Most people don’t realize, but DOS was the term was for the Apple 2 series of computers.

Then, along came the IBM PC and the “Microsoft DOS” (MS-DOS) disk operating sytem that many of us came to know and love.

One of the really neat features of MS-DOS was really part of its keyboard facilities — IBM had put a “Prnt Scrn” key on the keyboard, and MS-DOS knew what to do with that.

Just press Prnt Scrn, and you got a dump of the monitor screen’s contents to the printer. Oh, by the way, printers in those days were also text handlers. To print an “E,” the program sent the 8-bit value that meant E to the printer, and the built-in smarts on the printer knew how to print the E.

Continue reading Screen-Printing From Your Computer Screen

I’m often asked whether a reader or a friend (or someone who is both!) should buy a new computer with Windows Vista — or buy a new computer and get Windows XP on it. At first, I would have thought this a strange question since Vista is the new system.

But, then I remembered the basic “rule” of Microsoft products — never buy version 1.0.

I’ve been thinking about a new notebook computer to replace my Dell Inspiron 8600, which has a Pentium M 1.7GHz processor and 2GB memory. It could probably do Windows Vista, but not the Aero interface (and I haven’t found anything in Vista that I particularly want in Vista other than the eye candy — and I like fast more than I like cute).

My first thought was to get a small notebook with Windows XP that I could easily carry. That thought has its own problems though. There’s a long-standing rule about notebook computers:…

Read the rest of the story.

One of the questions I answered recently was about computer overheating. In this case, the individual wanted to know the “right” temperature for his processor — but he didn’t mention which processor he was using or its speed.

His underlying problem was that his computer would spontaneously turn off occasionally. This is usually an indication that the motherboard has shut down automatically to prevent overheating and damage to the CPU.

Many computers allow you to monitor the temperature of the processor, the power supply and perhaps other points, too. You may have to run a special program for your motherboard or computer to be able to see these.

The average temperature for the CPU depends on which processor you’re using. Each manufacturer has difference specifications. For that matter, each of their processor models and speeds has different specs.

Check the manufacturer’s site for specifications on your specific processor — it will tell you the acceptable operating temperatures. I would want to be in the low half of the range.

If you suspect temperature, get a can of compressed air. Open your case and blow the dust out the heat sink and the power supply.

Continue reading Is Your Computer Overheating?

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