Newsletter Archives

August, 2007

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PC Tips & Tricks
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Power Protection

Chances are that your computer (and its peripherals like printer, monitor, etc) are plugged into a power bar/strip. But not all power bars are created equal. The most important feature of a power bar is that it has a surge protector. What’s a surge protector?

A surge protector will protect the appliances plugged into it (not just your computer but your TV, DVD player, etc) from spikes in voltage delivered to your electrical outlet/plug. These spikes can be caused by a variety of reasons – the most infamous being a power line being struck by lightning. A big power surge can seriously damage the electrical components (designed for less voltage) the appliances if they’re unprotected.

But smaller spikes can be just as damaging over time. High powered appliances like refrigerators, air conditioners, vacuums and even hair dryers can affect the power supply to your home and the minimal damage they cause adds up over time.

What should you look for in a power bar/strip with a surge protector? A cheap power bar will cost around US$15 and is better than nothing but a good surge protector will have an indicator light to show that the protection is active. You could also check the “connected equipment” warranty that comes with your power bar. A company wouldn’t normally back their product with a warranty for several thousand dollars, unless they were very confident in it.

New Mail Notification
If you want to change the sound when new email arrives (or even turn it on if you currently don’t hear a sound), go to Control Panel and then open Sounds and Audio Devices and click the Sounds tab. (This is for XP. In previous versions, click the Sounds icon.)

You’ll see ‘New Mail Notification’ in the list of program events. Select it and then select your sound from the drop down list or browse to a sound file on your computer. (Any WAV file will do.)

Make sure that you check your email program’s options to ensure that it’s also configured to play sounds when new mail arrives.

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To Start or not to Start?
If you’re finding your computer is taking a long time to start up, you may have too many unnecessary programs running when you start your computer. To find out what eating up your computer’s memory and processing ability, right click on the Windows taskbar and select Task Manager. You’ll likely only see a couple programs (is any at all) in the Applications tab but check out all of those in the Processes tab!

A program will have one or more processes associated to it. The big question is, which ones can you stop from running when you start your computer without affecting your computer’s capabilities? The best place to find out which processes you can and shouldn’t be disabled is http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php.

How do you disable them from starting automatically? We’d recommend the tool that comes with Spybot Search & Destroy. You can see everything that will start up when you start your computer and it will highlight those that are known to be dangerous. Just deselect a program’s checkbox to prevent it from starting up.

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