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Older battery tech, such as Ni-Cads, actually benefited from remaining on the charger as long as possible. But most laptops now use lithium-
If your laptop is going to sit for most of its life on a desk, connected to external power, and if you want the longest-possible calendar life for the battery: Let it discharge to around 30-40%, then remove the battery from the laptop, and store it in a cool, dry place.
Top tips on how to Upgrade your PC - Is it really worth it?
Although upgrading can usefully extend the life of many PCs, there comes a time when you have to admit defeat. Updating an ancient Windows 98 PC with a Pentium II processor and 64MB of memory, for example, is probably not worth attempting unless you can find parts for pennies at a car boot sale.
Parts for old PCs are often difficult to find, modern items are frequently incompatible, and compatible items such as memory modules can cost an awful lot more than their modern equivalents.
So if this sounds like your PC, we’d suggest bidding farewell and moving on.
via computeractive.co.uk
The beauty of desktop PCs is that almost every component can be upgraded, and often for surprisingly little money. So if you have at least a Pentium 4 processor or equivalent there is usually no reason to go out & buy that all singing all dancing new PC without considering an inexpensive upgrade first. fixmypc.24ex can usually bring new life into older machines & has even witnessed five year old desktops outperform modern bloatware ridden PC's that are barely out of their boxes with only just a little bit of work...
How to Build a Computer from Scratch: The Complete Guide
Here’s a complete guide, along with a printable PDF version that can be used for reference.
Note: Click the lesson title to view the lesson—it’s a link!
Lesson 1: Hardware Basics
Building a computer from scratch gives you the perfect machine for your needs, but it can be daunting the first time around. For our first lesson in building your own PC, we start with a little computer hardware basics.
Lesson 2: Choose and Buy Your Parts
In this lesson, we’ll show you how to most effectively pick out and shop for your parts.
Lesson 3: Building the Computer
Assembling your computer can seem daunting, but it’s actually pretty easy. In lesson 3, we show you step-by-step how to put everything together.
Lesson 4: Installing Your Operating System
Once you’ve put it together, you’re past the difficult portion. Lesson 4 deals with installing your operating system and get everything up and running.
via lifehacker.com
Where it can be a lot easier (& cheaper), to simply go out & buy a brand new PC, building your own can have some advantages, although it will probably work out more expensive. Either way it doesn't end until you've configured that shiny new box, got through the OOBE, & the fat lady starts to sing!
Do I Really Need to Eject USB Drives Before Removing Them?
via lifehacker.com
Pulling out USB connected items from your Computer can be more complicated than it seems if you are to be sure of not damaging or corrupting your system or data.
Whilst Mac & Linux use write caching on pretty much all drives, & will let you eject any drive through your file manager. Windows disables this write cache feature for drives it sees as "removable", because it knows people are likely to yank them out without ejecting (though you can still eject them by right-clicking on them and pressing "Eject"). As such, disabling this feature on removable drives decreases the chance of data corruption. It keeps the cache enabled on non-removable drives, though—and sometimes it recognises external USB drives as not removable, which is why your USB drive doesn't have an eject button. Paradoxically, it's also why you need to eject that drive: since Windows doesn't see it as removable, it's enabled the write cache for it, increasing the chance of data corruption.
You can edit the write cache settings for any drive from the Device Manager. Just expand the Disk Drives section, right click on the drive you want to edit, and hit Properties. Go to the Policies tab, and click the "Quick Removal" radio button to disable the cache (or click "Better Performance" to enable the write cache).
Since fixmypc.24ex has experienced instances where customers have experienced damage by being unaware that USB devices need to be 'safely removed'. It always advises that where the 'safely remove tray icon' appears, it should always be right-clicked & followed through to safely eject the connection being used, before it is yanked out. It is wise to configure 'Notification Area Icons' to 'always show' for this tray icon & of course other important icons (like your system security suite or antivirus program for example).
Another issue encountered if removing USB thumb drives often is the physical wear that can occur to the socket itself. If you are using a USB 3G dongle to connect to the internet, these can run extremely hot & also place stress on the USB socket of your laptop. It is better to divert the wear or heat away using a 'sacrificial cable' - a simple USB extension cable (obtainable from most pound stores), which can be easily replaced when it wears, rather than cause socket damage to the motherboard of your expensive computer!
Device takes a dunking & doesn't work?
Dropping your phone or tablet into a pool, or spilling a glass of water or coffee on a laptop is a sure way to render the device as dead as a dodo.
Water damage is unfortunately not covered under many basic warranties, & in many of its devices Apple places liquid sensors to determine if a device has been exposed to water or other fluids if it's being serviced. As a result, many times if you've dunked or doused your device, it may be an immediate sign that you'll be shelling out some cash for a new one, but not always.
(Credit: Apple) When liquids come in contact with the circuits, the currents can be inadvertently diverted (shorted) to other system components where there can be two possible routes: a burnout, or a grounding. When a burnout happens, a higher-current circuit (such as that from a power-handling circuit) is allowed to go through a more delicate circuit that was not designed for high currents, resulting in the circuit components overheating & melting.
When a grounding short happens, the current from a circuit is merely diverted through the liquid to an alternate location that is able to handle the load, such as the computer chassis or one of many grounding circuits on the motherboard & computer components. Shorts that directly ground a circuit have less potential for harming the circuit since the grounding components are built to handle higher current loads.
Liquids have a chance of doing either of these types of shorts, but often when they penetrate a device the components are just grounded instead of burned out. As a result, if you are able to dry your system thoroughly, then you have a chance of clearing the shorts & possibly restoring functionality, especially if the liquid is relatively free of salts that even if dried can form conductive crusts that may continue to short the circuits.
Unfortunately liquids can very quickly be pulled into the tight crevices & small components of circuit boards, aided by a process called "capillary action." Therefore, even if a device appears to be completely dry, there may still be a small amount of liquid left over, & if it shorts just one circuit, then the device may not operate properly.
Water evaporates through its contact with dry air, so to dry liquid fast it is best to have as much of it exposed to air as possible. Try submerging a comb into a bucket of water & then waiting for it to dry. You will see that the teeth will still hold water long after the rest of the comb is dry. In a similar manner, the comblike plugs & connections, & flat surfaces of components that are in close contact with each other will prevent the water's surface area from contacting air, & will thereby retain water between them long after the rest of the device is dry.
One way to clear this liquid out of a device is to open it up & separate all components, & then dry them off with air or absorptive materials; however, this is likely not a feasible option for many devices given the complexity involved in their complete disassembly & subsequent reassembly. Therefore, the other option for clearing out these liquids is to accelerate evaporation, which can be done by both drying out the air around the device as much as possible & by applying heat, and then waiting.
Desiccant options like iFixIt's new "Thirsty Bag" can very effectively clear liquids from electronics.
(Credit: iFixIt) Unfortunately many times people use methods for doing this that either are ineffective or that may damage the device. For instance, technically dried grains such as rice will absorb liquids, so people have used this as an available desiccant to dry out a device. However, rice is relatively ineffective at absorbing liquid from the air & may not be as much help as people think. Additionally, since heat helps water evaporate people have at times baked their devices in ovens or with hair dryers, resulting in melted components & burned circuits (memory circuits such as ROM & RAM are fairly susceptible to damage from overheating).
fixmypc.24ex deals with calls on liquid damaged laptops commonly by advising an immediate swich off, fast action with abdorbent paper towels & a complete total dry out of the dissasembled unit, internal inspection & clean before even considering any power up attempt after the rebuild of the unit as necessary.
Learn more.. http://bit.ly/uk2L2y
Google+ page, icloud competition too..
Google begun offering businesses, organisations, & groups ‘pages’ on google+, (this follows the opening of the site to anyone as an individual since originally the site began previously as an ‘invitation only’ service). One feature of google+ even rivals ‘icloud’ because mobile phone photographs can be automatically uploaded to the service even as they are ‘taken on the fly’. This is featured just as apples widely seen TV advertisement ‘boasts’ its’ iphones capability to ‘auto upload’ images to it’s cloud. The ‘fresh’ interface seems far less intimidating than facebook whilst having almost full privacy ‘control’ features. Whilst not all businesses have the ‘page set up’ feature yet available, (which will be free & advertless), fixmypc.24ex advises even ‘hardcore’ facebook users to evaluate now what the service has to offer since it integrates extremely well with googles ‘back end’ on the web. After early days things have certainly certainly moved ‘very fast’… Read more.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15625577
The most popular Antivirus product
Microsoft Security Essentials is the most popular anti-virus application worldwide. MSE, which is free to all genuine Windows users, has taken the top spot.
MSE has convenient installation through Windows Update and smooth integration with the popular IE browser. It is also noted that MSE is free.
Microsoft Security Essentials is currently at version 2.0, and has been available as a basic/entry-level anti-virus software since its launch in 2009. Since the launch, Microsoft stated that it had passed the 30 million download mark late last year.
fixmypc.24ex recommends MSE as the most convenient product that has a licence for personal or small business use. It can be downloaded directly from the Useful Tips page.
Read More… http://bit.ly/kptlLZ
Java explained. Do you need it? Do you want it?
Java is actually installed on billions of gadgets all over the world & is almost certainly installed on your PC. It could also be on your phone & might even be in your TV or car.
The only evidence of it’s existence is usually when an annoying box pops up on the internet to say that a Java update is available & to ‘ask’ if you’d like to download it.
It is a programming language & computing platform which runs on many different devices. This advantage allows programmers to write a game or program to run on one particular device & then easily move it to another one to make it work.
Although there are a few proper desktop applications that use Java, most PC users will first encounter it on the web where it is usually used to give a site interactive features. When you come across a website that needs Java, if it’s not already on your PC, you would need to download & install it before you could view the site’s content.
fixmypc.24ex always ensures the current version of Java is installed to naturally allow viewing of interactive content. It is extremely important to ensure that it is up to date by independent method as it is a third party application not related to updates that would be offered by Microsoft for example.
fixmypc.24ex recommends updating or installing all of your essential apps or programs the easy way using ninite (www.ninite.com) periodically, & also monitoring for secure installed versions by using secunias online software inspector (their OSI at http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online/).
Read more.. http://computeractive.co.uk/ca/pc-help/2082956/java
