Photo Credit: striatic
As files are created and modified, they become fragmented across the hard drive. This results in long waits to open or save files. A fragmented hard drive is also prone to crashing. Disk defragmentation should be performed regularly to save time and money. PerfectDisk is a high-quality program that is a wise investment for any business or corporation.
For more information on computer defrag programs, check out this article.
July 27th, 2009 by Tech Girl | Posted in Computing Tips, Cool Products, System Performance | Comments (0)
During the last two years I worked as a teacher I also served as the technology point person for my school. The way that works is that we have district level tech people and then we had teachers (me) who would troubleshoot at individual schools to save time for those official people. Well, about halfway through the school year I noticed a new trend. People were starting to bring their PDAs (personal digital assistants) to school and wanted to sync them at school as well as at home.
You have no idea what a colossal pain that is. I mean a work computer is for work and a personal computer is for personal stuff and work if you want. It doesn’t work the other way though. I mean introducing that kind of a device into a secure network is such a nightmare. I won’t even go into all of the reasons why. If you mess up your personal computer you can usually just delete everything and start all over. Sure you may have a fragmented hard drive, but a simple little defrag and you’re good to go again.
A network? That’s a whole other story. It’s not like you are just logging on to your work computer. Those things are networked to everyone else’s computers too. Huge mess. The lesson? Enjoy your PDAs because they are way cool, but don’t try to hook them up at work without getting the ok from your network administrator!
Photo Credit nswlearnscope
June 19th, 2009 by birdievogel | Posted in Cool Products | Comments (1)
As a teacher I assigned lots of projects. Yes, I was that kind of teacher. I made those kids work. I’m sure some of them still have nightmares. Good times.
Anyway, every so often one of the students would tell me he/she didn’t have a printer, and would I please accept a project on a disc. I always said no, but eventually discs turned into flash drives and my no turned into a grrr, I guess.
Now usually I would open the files with my work computer but occasionally I would end up taking my work home with me. Everyone does, right? I mean that’s why Americans are some of the most overworked people ever. I’m ranting..ok where was I? Right. So I take the little flash drive thing home, and it’s completely full. I gave up and made the kid take it to the library and print it because looking through all of that was not my idea of fun.
Apparently, the flash drive belonged to the parents and they’d been saving stuff to the flash drive instead of their computer because they were pretty much out of space. How do you even run out of space? The story was that the computer was old and, even when they tried deleting things off of it, they would almost always get an “out of memory” warning or some such error message when they tried to save new files.
I asked the student if the computer was ever defragged and he looked at me like I was an alien (ok, so I got that look a lot). Yeah, they had never ever tried to get rid of the fragmentation on their hard drive. It took days to do (slight exaggeration) but when they were done they could save again. Another victory for defragging!
Yes, extreme case. Yes, old (as in dirt) computer. Yes, still relevant. Defrag your computers regularly so your child’s teacher doesn’t end up looking at all of your saved documents.
What is your biggest flash drive oops story?
Photo Credit Ambuj Saxena
June 18th, 2009 by birdievogel | Posted in Cool Products | Comments (1)
I bought my dad a digital picture frame for his last birthday. He loves getting new pictures of his ‘boy’ (I swear you’d think he’d always wanted a son or something). Unfortunately, his computer isn’t the fastest thing on the block to begin with. Normally this isn’t really a problem because he mostly only uses it to check his email or look at the weather. Nothing fancy.
Then, of course, I get him a new gadget. Now to be fair he totally loves his digital picture frame, and he loves the regular influx of pictures I keep tossing at him. Heck he loves the whole process, but that’s because I’m doing all of the work…kind of like Oz behind the curtain. Now I admit I make it look easy, I show up with a flash drive (he probably thinks I just show up and it magically happens - I’m sure he’d give me a blank look if I said the words ‘flash drive’) and after a bit he has new pictures.
The process behind it is a bit more involved than that though. I didn’t get him one with huge storage capabilities and he isn’t the most patient person in the world (so that’s where I get it from?!). As a result, I always end up deleting some of the pictures. Yes, I ask first geesh. Anywho the only way to make sure I am able to add the new images in under an hour is to defrag his machine every single time I go over. I swear it is so old that any kind of fragmentation at all makes it next to impossible to transfer the images.
I suppose if that is the only problem I have, I’m doing pretty good. Right? 
Ah well the digital picture frame was a total hit with him and I highly recommend getting one for every family member and friend you have. I don’t think you can go wrong. Buy the cheaper ones for people who aren’t tech savvy and wouldn’t know the difference between resolutions even if you explained it — buy the tricked out frames for your gadget geek friends.
Do you have a digital picture frame and, if so, how do you like it?
Photo Credit Trent Sketch
June 17th, 2009 by birdievogel | Posted in Cool Products | Comments (1)
I love technology. I really, really, really do. I was going to say my MP3 player is my favorite piece of new technology to come out in the last ten years (it hasn’t been around longer than that, right?) but, dang, I like so many things so I’m gonna say it is in my top 10 list.
I’m a music-aholic. I absolutely love music and have a huge range of favorites. I like everything…rock, rap, pop, country, opera, blues, jazz….I also like traditional music from other countries. Really, if it is in anyway musical I probably like it and own some of it. This acquisition of music was much more difficult for me before MP3 players and digital music.
The only thing I occasionally have a problem with is my computer’s disk space. Sometimes I’ll download a song more than once. Not good. I mean, it’s not the exact same song but a version of the same song. Usually I don’t need multiple versions so I’ll delete the one I like the least. But music files can be kinda big and when I delete one (or several because I usually clean up my files all at once) I can create some fragmentation. I suppose having to defrag once in awhile is a small price to pay for all of the great music in one tiny little space, right?
Do you love you MP3 player? What are your favorite inventions of the last ten years?
Photo Credit SPazzo 1493
June 16th, 2009 by birdievogel | Posted in Cool Products | Comments (0)
I remember when I was a kid watching a television show, Designing Women I think, where one of the women buys a video conferencing phone. I always thought it was cool, and so ahead of my time. Never in a million years did I imagine that it would become so cheap and easily accessible in such little time.
Now web cams are used for everything from making tutorials to post on YouTube, to chatting with grandma who lives ten states away. It’s absolutely amazing what you can do with these bad boys. Not only that, but you can get a web cam that is ridiculously inexpensive. Sure, the ones with better video quality cost more, but you can buy one that will work for less than what it would cost to pay my monthly cable bill.
As much as I love my web cam, I have found that making, editing and uploading videos can suck up disk space. After uploading my latest project, I usually delete it and then defrag the hard drive. Doing that regularly keeps the hard drive from becoming too fragmented, making it quicker to do the next video.
Probably my favorite thing to do with my web cam isn’t making movies though. It’s ‘visiting’ with my best friend and her new baby while we are on opposite coasts. Getting to watch him grow up from thousands of miles away is cool, and so ahead of my time.
What do you like best about your web cam?
Photo Credit Scooby Girl
June 15th, 2009 by birdievogel | Posted in Cool Products | Comments (0)
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