Is Your PC Healthy? - Episode 36

If you take care of your body, your body will take care of you. The same can be said of your PC. Performing regular maintenance activities will help your PC maintain the performance level you need to do all those things you do. Neglecting our PCs health can lead to sluggish peformance and even crashes, some of which you may not recover. You can end up with lost data, lost time and a lost temper! Kristi and I shared some regular maintenance tips with the Coop Crew this week and they in turn shared the things they do (or neglected to do) with us.
I get regular newsletters from TechRepublic and not a one goes by that I don't get some really great information. During this week's show, I shared tips for optimizing your computer's performance and warnings about things users do that can really mess up their machines...sorta like a list of things to do and things NOT to do. I got all of them from TechRepublic. If you haven't visited their website, they have regular "Top 10" articles that usually end up saved on my computer. I've even gone back and read them again. You have to register for a free membership to download the articles but you can read them online without registration.

As you might remember, Kristi was the victim of a crash earlier this year...and you can bet SHE remembers! She admitted that there were some telltale signs (like slowing down among others) that made her think there might be a problem. The same goes for any computer. Most of the time, your PC isn't going to just crash without some warning. You notice your system's performance getting worse. You might be tempted to wait it out and hope it fixes itself, but that's rarely the way it works out. Regular maintenance, both hardware and software, can help ensure that those warning signs don't appear.

If you want to know what you can do to practice preventive instead of corrective maintenance, check out these two GREAT articles at TechRepublic (and listen to the podcast):

• 10 things you can do to optimize and maintain your PCs
• 10 dumb things users do that can mess up their computers

You can read our Show Notes for the website, tip and tool of the week. As always, we hope you'll join us live some Friday morning at 9am CST and share YOUR views on whatever tekkie topic we happen to be discussing!

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Got Storage? - Episode 35

...and I'm not talking about your basement or your hall closet! I'm talking about storage for all those pictures, audios, videos and miscellaneous text documents you have on your computer that are slowly but surely eating up the space on your hard drive. What's a digital packrat to do?

Kristi and I discussed several topics related to data storage, including:

• Memory vs Storage - Is there a difference?
• Types of Storage - Primary, Secondary and Network Storage
• Storage Characteristics - Volitile vs Non-Volitile, Random vs Sequential Access, Read vs Read/Write
• Storage Capacity - How much is enough?
• Storage Devices and Media:
• Hard disk (internal and external)
• USB Flash
• Floppy disk
• CD-R and DVD-R
• CD-RW and DVD-RW

We also shared a new website of the week: The Richard Show, a great video blog

Our Tip of the Week: How to Automatically Login to Windows XP

Cool Tools of the Week:

• ZYB.com - Back up your mobile phone for FREE online!
• GMail Drive Shell Extension - Use your Gmail account as additional storage!

Even if you have lots of storage available to keep all your pictures, movies, music and other stuff, don't neglect regular housecleaning! We'll be discussing how you can maintain good PC health on our next show. After all, we all know what happens to that hall closet if you don't keep the contents under control...

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Boom Shaka Wiki Wiki! - Episode 34

What a wiki-wonderful show! Since most of our Coop Crew was unfamiliar with the world of wiki, it was lots of fun introducing them. For those of you who aren't wiki aware, a wiki is a website that can be edited by anyone who accesses it. Unlike a blog where you can comment on something somebody else wrote, on a wiki you can actually revise what somebody else wrote. There are plenty of pros and cons to wikis on the web, most notably the integrity of the information. Since anybody can write an article and anybody else can edit it, who's to say what's accurate and what's not? As of now, we depend on the wiki community to police it's own. If you're a member of a wiki community, we'd love to hear from you.

You can read a copy of our Show Notes to get more information on our discussion. We also include a website of the week, tip of the week and cool tool of the week. If you have comments about this week's show or suggestions for future topics, just leave your comments on this blog. We'd especially like to hear about your favorite wiki websites!

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