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Windows

RAID: Something geeks often do because they can

HelpMeRick.com is not a geek website so I'm not even going to get into what RAID is other than it is something geeks do to their computers.

However, I will say that I have had a number of clients over the years who have had a friend, relative or computer salesman talk them into going with a RAID setup and it has turned out to be a giant problem.

Often RAID is installed as a "backup" system. Essentially this type of RAID setup uses two hard drives. Whatever happens on the first hard drive is automatically duplicated on the second hard drive.

IPCONFIG and NETSTAT Options

Ipconfig Switches

Switch Effect

/all

Produces a detailed configuration report for all interfaces.

/flushdns

Removes all entries from the DNS name cache.

DSL Reports

DSL Reports is a great web site for testing your Internet speed and tweaking Windows settings to take better advantage of your high speed connection.

Rethinking “old” computers

With Vista now being the only main stream choice for a new computer, I have stared to develop a new strategy to look at "old" computers. Computer users who have late model Windows 98 machines (bought in 1999-2000), they might be able to get a few more years out of their systems and get a more updated operating system by switching to a Linux based system. I plan on doing some testing over the next few months of revamping older systems with Linux and of course will post my findings here at the site.

For Windows XP users (computers bought between 2001-2006), XP should work fine for most people for many years to come. Early models of XP machines and later bargain models, however, came with only 256mb of RAM. With the early editions of XP, 256 was adequate, but with the 100+ updates that have subsequently been released and larger need for security software, 512mb is now a minimum for XP and I encourage my customers to strongly consider 1024mb (1 GB). If a computer user isn't careful about security and updates, a reformat and reinstall is necessary, but the computer will be running top notch again afterwards. 

Will the world end on March 11?

We have had several calls from people concerned about something they have read or seen on the news about how the new daylight savings time changes will cause computers to crash around the world.

If you are using Windows XP or Vista or Mac OSX, you need not worry. The changes will be made through regular updates.

If you are using Windows 2000 or 98 there may be patches on the way that will fix the problem, but even on systems where the problem goes unfixed, there shouldn't be any major problems.

Most of the problems it may cause can be resolved by changing the system and Windows clocks to the correct time on older machines. If your computer isn't trying to sync its clock with the Internet then your computer really doesn't care what time zone it's in. Windows 98 machines and most Windows 2000 machines don't sync time with the Internet without additional software.

Rick posted a link and a short article as well on this subject earlier this year. Click here to read that article.

Temporary Internet Files – Don’t let them stack up

Cleaning out temporary files on our computers (see the archives for Disk Cleanup) remains an extremely important step in keeping them running clean and error free. Programs and Windows create temporary files, when needed, to perform certain functions. The Internet uses temporary files to store cookies, and recently visited web sites and their graphics.

Temporary Internet files serve a useful function when you visit web sites on a regular basis. By storing the graphics and some of the text, our browser doesn't have to re-download the files, thus the page loads faster. On the other hand, these files are extremely small and too many of them on our computer (10's of thousands in some cases) can cause a sever performance drop in our computers.

True Vista capable machines are just now being announced

If you bought a brand new computer with Windows Vista on it, you can probably expect your next computer to also have Vista on it too.

The first generation of Vista powered computers has mostly been under powered. Even with dual core processors and a gigabyte of RAM most computers with Vista perform at an acceptable speed at best.

This week Intel and AMD each announced new processors that will run at speeds double that of systems currently on the shelves. Why do we need that much speed? Vista.

AMD and Intel each made mention that the new processors will have the power that Vista demands. In other words each company essentially said that current processors are under powered when it comes to the demands of Vista.

Is it not ok anymore to be content with what we have?

I have had Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 sitting on my desk for more than three weeks now. I spent nearly $300 buying the stupid products so that I can install them on my machine, but I haven't. It's not because I haven't had time…I just have no burning desire to go through with the change yet. My Windows XP machine is running awesome, I like the configuration of my system and just don't want to upset the apple cart yet. I still occasionally turn on my backup machine that is running a beta version of Windows Vista, but I have only used it about ten times since I installed the beta version last September. 

Today I found a print screen utility that I had forgotten about….

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away computer users used to be able to push a single button on their keyboards and get a printout of whatever was displayed on the screen. When Windows took over computers, this function was lost. Pushing the Print Screen key on keyboards did nothing…seemingly. It actually does something, but I wrote a tip about what it does many years ago (click here to read it again…maybe for the first time) .

Today, I want to share with you a discovery I made while helping a customer. I had helped her setup her new computer a few years ago and she wanted a print screen utility…that was free. After some searching and experimenting, I came across a neat little utility called PrintDesktop (click here to download) . After I installed it for her, I completely forgot about the little gem…until today.

All Rights Reserved © 2024 Rick Castellini
All Rights Reserved © 2024 Rick Castellini