News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
The best way to speed up older computers is by adding more memory. But in lieu of that, replacing the hard drive with a solid-state drive (SSD) gives a significant speed benefit. The linked article does note, however, that it’s almost more cost-effective to purchase a new computer.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we’ll give up Windows XP when they pry it from our cold, dead fingers. But for those power users who’ve taken the plunge to Windows 7, we introduce “GodMode” to make your life easier. And for those who really want to explore the intricacies of Windows system administration, there’s even more.
Link: http://news.cnet.com/…
(via Slashdot)
The linked article explains the differences between the various USB standards and naming conventions, and also gives some general tips about USB. After reading it, you can amaze your friends with your new knowledge!
Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we use Avast! as our anti-virus program, because it’s free and is more or less mandated by our corporate masters for VPN access. The folks at Avast rolled out an update yesterday, at about 5:15pm Mountain Time, and it had severe problems. The update caused many false positives and crippled the programs that it incorrectly flagged as having the “Win32:Delf-MZG” virus. At 10:50pm Mountain Time, they released an update that fixed the problem.
If you are experiencing this issue, first update Avast! If you saved the corrupted files to “the chest,” you can safely restore them, and that will be that. Here at Chad’s News, however, we were caught by surprise and spent about 8-9 hours “fixing” the problem before finding out that it was all a mistake. Sigh… The linked article contains the official explanation and solution.
Amazon has a free promotional code for MP3 downloads, worth $3.00 (essentially three songs). There are no limitations on which songs you can choose, but the code is only valid through November 30th—so use it or lose it.
Link: http://www.amazon.com/…
(via Lifehacker)
Aside from confusion between “their,” “they’re,” and “there,” the apostrophe is one of the most misused grammar/spelling items on the internet (and elsewhere). We even have problems with it here at Chad’s News, despite all those English courses taken in high school and college. The linked article explains the correct usage in a simple and straightforward way.
Link: http://apostrophe.me/
(via Neatorama)
For the United States, tonight is when we “fall back” one hour and end daylight saving time.
The linked article has the best days and times to buy 14 different products.
Firefox 3 made some improvements by moving the browser history, bookmarks, etc. to an SQLite database. It also changed the default settings to keep history information for a longer period of time. Regular use causes the the places.sqlite file to get fragmented and bloated, and slows down Firefox’s performance.
This problem is easily solved by periodically “vacuuming” the places.sqlite database. You can do this manually via the directions in this Lifehacker article. Alternatively, the Firefox extension in the linked article provides a status bar icon to do the job, and also allows you to set up automatic defragmentation. Note that the extension only works for Firefox 3.5 or later.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/…
(via Lifehacker)
There are many ways to start a fire when you’re lost in the wilderness, but this one is pretty innovative. Use a chocolate bar to polish the bottom of a soda can, then use the can to focus sunlight on your tinder. This generates sufficient heat to light the tinder and start the fire. I’m thinking toothpaste might also work in place of the chocolate, should you happen to have some.
The Amazon Kindle is picky about which e-book formats it accepts. So what do you do with an e-book in an unsupported format? The linked article tells how to convert it. The article also lists a couple non-Amazon sources of Kindle-compatible e-books, and explains how to prevent Amazon from deleting books retroactively.
Link: http://consumerist.com/…
If you have a Google login and forget your password, you can have the reset code sent to your cell phone as a text message. Of course, you have to configure it with your cell phone number beforehand.
Link: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/…
(via Lifehacker)
