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| Isuue 4 - Summer Newsletter 2007 |
Welcome to the fourth Hillside Computer Services Newsletter in glorious Technicolor (well some of it is). A real mixed bag in this edition, but
hopefully something for everyone (including Apple Mac users) and a slightly risque joke.
You will see that I’ve got a new “Hillside” company logo at the top of this page. I thought it was time for a change as the “old” one didn’t reproduce too well on paper as the shading was a bit hit and miss, but it looked fine on screen though. This new logo took quite a few attempts at “getting right” and I feel is more up to date looking and it reproduces well. Hope you like it.
Stormy Weather
In view of the recent thunderstorms, I thought I’d do a piece on surge protection and how to protect your from PC being “killed” or severely damaged by mains surges or nearby lightning strikes.
The main job of a surge protector system is to protect electronic devices from "surges." So if you're wondering what a surge protector does, the first question is, "What are surges?" And then, "Why do electronics need to be protected from them?"
When the increase lasts three nanoseconds (billionths of a second) or more, it's called a surge. When it only lasts for one or two nanoseconds, it's called a spike. If the surge or spike is high enough, it can inflict some heavy damage on a machine (PC). The effect is very similar to applying too much water pressure to a hose. If there is too much water pressure, a hose will burst. Approximately the same thing happens when too much electrical pressure runs through a wire -- the wire "bursts." Actually, it heats up like the filament in a light bulb and burns, but it's the same idea. Even if increased voltage doesn't immediately break your machine, it may put extra strain on the components, wearing them down over time. In the next section, we'll look at what surge protectors do to prevent this from happening.
A power surge, or transient voltage, is an increase in voltage significantly above the designated level in a flow of electricity. In normal household and office wiring in the UK, the standard voltage is 220 - 240 volts. If the voltage rises above 240 volts, there is a problem, and a surge protector helps to prevent that problem from destroying your computer by stabilising or flattening out the surge.
Surge Sources
Power surges occur when something boosts the electrical charge at some point in the power lines. This causes an increase in the electrical potential energy, which can increase the current flowing to your wall outlet. A number of different things can cause this to happen.
The most familiar source is probably lightning, though it's actually one of the least common causes. When lightning strikes near a power line, whether it's underground, in a building or running along poles, the electrical energy can boost electrical pressure by millions of volts. This causes an extremely large power surge that will overpower almost any surge protector. In a lightning storm, you should never rely on your surge protector to save your computer. The best protection is to unplug your computer.
A more common cause of power surges is after a power cut or loss of electricity. The restoration of power creates sudden, brief demands for power, which upset the steady voltage flow in the electrical system. While these surges are nowhere near the intensity of a lightning surge, they are often severe enough to damage your PC’s components, immediately.
Other sources of power surges is the operation of high-power electrical devices, such as, air conditioners and refrigerators, which can put a strain on electrical currents. There are dozens of other possible points of failure, and many potential errors that can cause an uneven power flow. In today's system of electricity distribution, power surges are an unavoidable occurrence.
So what can I do? Essentially there are two types of devices which will help protect your PC and ancillary equipment from mains spikes and lightning damage. The first type I’ll tell to you about is a surge protector. They look like a four or six gang electrical extension lead, but crucially they have some clever electrical circuitry built in which help to suppress mains spikes (or fluctuations in the mains current). You can plug your PC, monitor, printer etc. into this type of extension lead and get a decent level of surge protection.
The second type is called a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). These devices are similar to the “normal” surge protector strip, in so much as theyprovide protection to your PC, printer etc. But they also offer a battery backup system, so that should the power to you home due to a power be cut and you’re using your computer at the time, the battery in the UPS will kick in and depending on the type of UPS being used, will give you up to nine minutes or thereabouts to save all your work and allow you to shut the computer down properly. The batteries in UPS’s are lead acid type and are trickle charged when the UPS is on.
Pretty much regardless of the type of surge protector strip or UPS, one feature to look for is the ability to connect your modem or router’s telephone cable to it. Telephones plugged directly into your BT ‘phone socket or via an ADSL filter should be OK. The real problem are modems and routers. They can suffer greatly and unfortunately very easily if there are surges during thunder storms. BT’s telephony equipment is protected at “their end”, but not yours!
What you can do, is by using the RJ11 / modem cable (supplied with most surge protectors and UPS’s) and your existing RJ11 / modem cable is to connect the modem or router so that the RJ11 / modem cables go from your BT socket > surge protector or UPS > modem or router. This will then protect your PC and modem or router from lightning strikes.
What type should I go for? Personally I prefer UPS’s to surge protectors, this is due to the fact that living in quite a rural area suffer from power cuts quite regularly, so by having the battery backup facility enables me to save my work and shut my PC down gracefully.
The best makes to look out for are Belkin and APC (American Power |Conversion). There are loads of models available and loads of different prices, so if you have any queries, please contact me.
A couple of other major points to note especially as the holiday season is nearly upon us and the computer is not going to be used for some time is to:
In all instances unplug your PC, scanner, printer etc. from the mains
If you are using a dialup modem (i.e. Not on broadband) unplug the modem cable at the BT socket
If you are on broadband and use a broadband modem, unplug the modem cable at the BT socket
If you are on broadband and use a router, unplug the modem cable at the BT socket and disconnect the router from the mains electricity supply
Please note: ALWAYS FOLLOW THE ABOVE POINTS IF THERE ARE THUNDER STORMS FORECASTIf you are not sure as to whether you have a modem or a router, give me a call or drop me an email.
Windows Vista - A Personal Experience (cont.)
Well, it’s been about four months since I took the plunge and installed Microsoft Windows Vista on my office PC. After bemoaning the problems I encounteredalong the way in the Spring 2007 issue of the Newsletter, I can now say quite categorically that “I like Vista”. It runs very well on my PC, no real glitches or problems. Yes, it is a little quirky especially when running program updates. But, I do now have all my programs / applications working again and everything appears to be stable.
I think the whole exercise took over 100 hours to accomplish and cost in excess of £1200.00 in order to get my programs and hardware updated. I eventually bit the bullet and bought myself a new handheld personal organiser (PDA) for my contacts and notes for when I’m away from the office and also upgraded to Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate.
All in all a worthwhile experience, though at the time I definitely thought otherwise and was ready to hurl the PC out of the window. I learnt a huge amount and one crucial thing I did learn is to be patient, exceedingly patient.
I’ll keep you updated over the next couple of issues.
If you are in the market and looking for a new PC, pretty much all of them come with one version of Vista or another (see the previous issue for details). I think now that the operating system has been out for five months updated driver software especially for older printers / scanners etc. are now available to download off the Internet and if you’ve got a favourite piece of software (which isn’t too old), a lot of software houses are releasing free or price reduced upgrades to download. So you shouldn't have too many (if any) problems.
Supercomputer steps up the pace
The world's fastest commercial supercomputer has been launched by computer giant IBM.
Blue Gene/P is three times more potent than the current fastest machine, BlueGene/L, also built by IBM.
The latest number cruncher is capable of operating at so called "petaflop" speeds - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
Approximately 100,000 times more powerful than a PC, the first machine has been bought by the US government.
It will be installed at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois later this year.
Two further machines are planned for US laboratories and a fourth has been bought by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council for its Daresbury Laboratory Cheshire.
The ultra powerful machines will be used for complex simulations to study everything from particle physics to nanotechnology.
Apple Bytes
A couple of quick tips for Apple Mac Owners (these tips will not work on Windows PC’s
Email Attachments Made Easy
If you want to attach a file to an email message, you can drag the file directly to Mail’s icon in your Dock. This opens Mail and creates a brand-new email message window with that file already attached. Sweet! Better yet, even if you drag multiple attachments, they all attach to just one email message (rather than creating one message for each attachment, as in previous versions of Mac OS X).
Where Did That Download Come From?
If you download a file from the web, you can usually find out exactly where that downloaded file came from (including the exact web address) by
pressing Command-I when you have the file selected. Once the info dialog
appears, click on the right-facing arrow beside More Info to expand that panel and it will display a Where from header, and to the right of that it will show the exact web address from which the file was originally downloaded.
Apple Mac Sales Grow Faster Than Windows PCsIn Consumer Market
Information Week Jun 22, 2007 02:41 PM
Apple News
Apple notebooks and desktops in May continued to take market share away from Windows PCs in the consumer market, a research firm said on Friday.
Apple's share of desktop and notebook sales online and through brick-and- mortar stores rose to 13% from 11.6% in April, according to The NPD Group. Apple notebook sales rose to 14.3% of overall purchases from 12.5%, while desktop sales inched up to 10.4% from 10.2%.
"It's part of a pattern," Stephen Baker, VP of industry analysis for NPD, told Information Week. "They (Apple) certainly have been gaining share over the last year to year and a half."
Among the drivers in May was an upgrade of MacBook consumer notebooks to faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 1-Gbyte of memory, and larger hard drives in every model. "The consumer market in general is embracing notebooks, and Apple is strong in notebooks," Baker said.
In May, the overall notebook market grew by 40% over the same month a year ago. Apple outpaced overall market growth with a year-to-year jump of 65%, Baker said. Windows-based notebooks saw a 37% increase in sales. NPD does not release actual dollar amounts or unit sales.
Desktop sales in general were far less than notebooks, and neither Apple nor Windows PC vendors showed much progress. "Apple is struggling just like everybody else in terms of getting some growth out of that segment," Baker said. Apple desktop sales, however, were better than for Windows machines.
In brick and mortar stores alone, Apple notebook sales increased to 11.5% of the total from 10.1% in April. Desktop sales rose to 9.1% from 8.6%, according to NPD. Overall Mac sales in stores increased to 10.8% of the total from 9.6% in April.
Apple computer sales have been improving since its switch to the Intel platform, which also powers Windows computers, from IBM's PowerPC processor. Apple unveiled Intel-based notebooks and desktops at the 2006 Macworld Conference in San Francisco.
Also helping Mac sales is the success of the Apple iPod, which accounts for more than three quarters of the portable music player market. However, the impact of the popular device is difficult to quantify. "There's a halo affect there, but I don't know if anybody has a good idea exactly what that is," Baker said.
Hmm, very interesting - makes you wonder doesn’t it? - Mike
Windows Quick Tips
PC Freezes - Any version of Windows
If your PC freezes and locks up stopping you from continuing to work, press down the PC’s power button, and keep it pressed down for about 10 seconds.
The computer should shut down. Note of caution: if you do need to resort to this, any unsaved work will be lost.
Launch any program instantly - Vista Only
Want to open something even faster? Hold down the Windows (on my keyboard it has a Windows symbol and “start” written on) key and press a number from 1 to 9, and it'll open the corresponding entry in the Quick Start menu next to the Start button. Windows and 1 opens the shortcut next to the button (usually Show Desktop), Windows and 2 opens the second shortcut (usually Flip 3D) and so on. To add or rearrange shortcuts, just click and drag them.
Zoom in on your desktop - Vista Only
Open any Windows Explorer window, select an icon, hold down CTRL and scroll your mouse wheel - and your icons will expand before your eyes. It makes them easier to view, and as nearly every icon is a snapshot of the file itself, you can see what's inside them as well.
View files without opening them - Vista Only
In Windows Explorer, click Organise > Layout and select Preview Pane. You'll get an extra panel on the right of every window that shows you the contents of every file: if it's a PowerPoint presentation, you can click through the slides too.
Add a gadget to your desktop - Vista Only
That new strip on the side of your desktop is more useful than you might think: click the plus symbol at the top, then click Get more gadgets online to view the 800+ (and counting) free downloads that add instant new features to your desktop - everything from BBC radio to currency conversion. You can drag and drop them on to the desktop, too - the Weather gadget, for example, is actually more useful when used like this because it gives you a three-day forecast.
Computer Joke
An artist, a lawyer, and a computer scientist are discussing the merits of a mistress.
The artist tells of the passion, the thrill which comes with the risk of being discovered.
The lawyer warns of the difficulties. It can lead to guilt, divorce, bankruptcy. Not worth it. Too many problems.
The computer scientist says "It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. My wife thinks I'm with my mistress. My mistress thinks I'm home with my wife, and I can spend all night on the computer!"
That just about wraps it up for this issue. Hopefully the next Newsletter will be sent out in the early autumn. If there are any developments you need to know about, it’ll be sooner and I hope you enjoyed the read. If not, let me know and I’ll do something about it.
Don’t forget that back issues of the Newsletters are available to download in PDF format from the Hillside Computer Services web site:
www.hillsidecomputers.co.uk/newsletters
In the mean time have a great summer and let’s hope the weather improves.
For more information and details on any of the issues mentioned in this missive or any computing problems / queries, please contact me, and don’t forget to send me your email address if you’d like to be kept in touch with what’s happening in the computer world. Your details will not be passed on to any third party.
Happy and safe computing.
Mike Hamilton Hillside Computer Services (01284) 830830 Hillside Computer Services |
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