What Everybody Ought to Know About New PCs (II)
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What Everybody Ought to Know About New PCs (I)
9. Place Your Programs
We can’t decide for you what software is most necessary for your needs. We can say generically that no PC is complete without at least an office suite, a photo-editing tool, a media manager, Web browser (see above) and e-mail. And there are free alternatives for almost any program you might need; see our no-cost favorites in The Best Free Software of 2011.
If you want the same setup as your previous machine, check the Program Files folder on the C: drive of your old PC. Make a list of the programs there using an online word processor like Google Docs so you can access the list from any computer. Keep in mind that you’ll also want to carry over the settings and log-in info for e-mail and IM clients. Gather those monstrosities known as registration codes for your software. Record them somewhere permanent and accessible.
Write them on the discs themselves with a thin-tipped marker, keep them in a notebook, get a tattoo; use whatever method you have for preserving data you know you will need again. Some software is limited to a certain number of machines.For example, iTunes 10.5 (also an Editors’ Choice) will only play songs you’ve bought online on up to five PCs. So check that the software is de-authorized on the old PC if you won’t be using it there ever again.
10. Tune-Up Time
On the right hardware, Windows 7 is impressively fast, but tweaks always helpperformance. You have to decide: do you want a system that works great or is good looking? Here are a few steps to tweak your new PC’s performance in favor of speed, not appearance:
• Set the desktop to a plain, one-color background. Big photographic wallpaper can slow load time.
• If you’re not into desktop widgets along the screen’s edge, or maybe prefer those from another source (like Google), turn off Windows Sidebar. It takes up space on your desktop. In Vista, go to the Windows Sidebar Properties control panel and deselect Start Sidebar when Windows starts. In Windows 7, the control panel is renamed Windows Gadgets. But you can just right click a gadget to remove it, and it won’t come back unless asked.
• Aero is the name for the fancy graphics interface that delivers things like transparency in windows. Cool as it looks, Aero can slow down your system. In Vista’s Personalization control panel, select Windows Color and Appearance. In the next window, click Open classic appearance properties.
Change the color scheme to something else, such as Windows Standard, and click Effects to turn off menu shadows and the ability to see windows as you drag them. In Windows 7, you can deactivate features like transparency individually.
• Go to the System control panel, click System Protection, and on the Advanced tab, click the button in the Performance box. If you turn off every option under Visual Effects (like animated controls, fading menus, and shadows under your mouse cursor) by selecting “Adjust for best performance,” it should speed things up.
• If you’ve got a very fast USB thumb drive, insert it and activate Windows ReadyBoost. This cache can help a bit with performance while the drive is inserted.
• Adjust the power settings, especially if you’ve got a laptop that is unplugged while in use. The “high performance” pre-sets will drain juice faster.
• Download and install Soluto, a free tool that measures your boot time and helps you either remove or delay applications that might be slowing your start time.
11. Review Hardware
Getting a new PC is the perfect opportunity to reassess the hardware peripherals attached to your old PC. Before you start plugging things from that ancient XP machine into that snazzy Windows 7 system, consider carefully how much you need them. Do you really need that ancient flatbed scanner now that the pictures you take are digital? For some, the answer will be no.
Ancient USB hubs (you probably have more ports on your new box, and you don’t want a hub that doesn’t support USB 3.0), old-school ink-jet printers, and low-capacity portable hard drives could probably all stand a refresh if not outright dumping. Old hardware moved to a new PC means you need the latest drivers. DriverMax can back up drivers for when you need them later. However, it doesn’t upgrade your old XP drivers to new Windows 7 drivers, so you still need to do the legwork. Hit the manufacturer’s Web site for your scanner, printer, camera, media player, and so on to download what you need.
That mouse and keyboard that came with your new system should be considered suspect. PC vendors aren’t known for including highly ergonomic input devices. Consider instead the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000 set, which comes with a wireless ergonomic keyboard and mouse. In fact, consider an ergonomic keyboard and mouse even if your new PC is a laptop, especially one you don’t move around much. Your wrists will thank you later.
12. Register Everything
It’s no guarantee of great technical support, but if you register your PC with the manufacturer, as well as the software and peripherals with their respective creators, you stand a better chance of being recognized when the time does come to call for help—and you know that time will come. Getting a vendor to honor a warranty might depend on knowing when you bought or received the product. Registering online is relatively painless.
One downside is that registration can also put your name on endless mailing lists, so if that bothers you, deselect that option when signing up or create a special email address that you can use to filter them. For example, Gmail users can stick a random period in the first part of their address (such as your.name@gmail.com) and it will still come to the account, but you can filter messages sent to it into special folders. Keep in mind that it’s smart to be registered in case there’s a recall—you don’t want to be the only person walking around with a laptop battery that might catch on fire, do you?
Easy, Mac
One thing you don’t have to worry about with a Macintosh computer is crapware. Companies like Dell or HP can justify lame extras by claiming they provide functions that are unavailable (or insufficient) in Windows. The MacOS andhardware is a closed system controlled by Apple, a company that prides itself on user experience. It’s not about to sully that rep with a bunch of third-party junk; it would have no one to blame but itself. Of course, Apple will gladly sell you some extras, like the iWork and iLife suites. Mac OS X Lion (version 10.7) comes with an application firewall to control any connections made by your software to the Internet.
You can find it in the System Preferences folder to make adjustments. As for antivirus software, you can buy it— Symantec makes some—but Apple’s market share is still small enough that the Mac is seldom a target of malware. After your initial setup, the first thing you should do is setup Time Machine. Simply connect a USB or FireWire hard drive that’s larger than your internal hard drive, and Lion will ask you if you want to set it up as a Time Machine backup drive. Say yes, and the drive will be erased (make sure it’s a drive you can spare). Then Lion will periodically backup your changed files to the Time Machine backup. Time Machine backs up your entire computer, including the OS and applications.
That way you if your internal drive ever falls apart, you can simply put in a new drive and restore from the Time Machine backup. Time Machine will also help you migrate to a new Mac once your current Mac becomes too slow three to six years from now. Migrating files from an old Mac to a new is a breeze. In the Applications/Utilities folder, find the Migration Assistant. Hook the two Macs together with a Firewire cable and run the Assistant. The settings from the older Mac (with Mac OS 10.4.10 or later) will transfer to the new system with Lion. That includes data like browser bookmarks and user profiles. It doesn’t include apps that come with the Mac OS; Apple assumes the new Mac will have the latest Safari, for example. If you’ve got a modern MacBook, including the Firewire-free MacBook Air, you can migrate files over your wireless network.
If you use Apple’s iCloud service, it will do you one better: your Safari bookmarks, contacts in the address book, iCal calendars, and even your documents folder can be synced over the Internet. Just sign into and check the checkboxes for each function in the iCloud control panel. Most of that info can be synced to your iOS devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad) as well. If you’re going from Mac to Windows, or vice versa, you can always fall back on a USB drive to move files, but you’re on your own finding the data you want to transfer. And it’s slow. A faster method might be the Media Sharing Cable for PC and Mac from Kensington. This $60 cable allows you to drag and drop files between systems—very handy for really big media.
That’s a lot to pay, however. You might prefer to network the Mac and Windows, even if it is a struggle. Of course, if you plan to use both the Mac and Windows PCs regularly, real-time synchronization is definitely the way to go, and as stated, our favorite, DropBox, will do that between folders on multiple Windows and Mac OS systems.
What to Do with Your Old PC
You can probably put your old PC to some kind of good use. But sometimes, you want that old dinosaur out of your sight. Here are some options to consider:
1. Revitalize it. You may think that ancient laptop is too slow for use, but try installing a Linux-based operating system like Ubuntu 10.10 (“Maverick Meerkat”) Netbook Edition. It may turn that geezer into the perfect Web-surfing speed demon.
2. Give it away. Whether you hand it down to family or to a local charity, there’s got to be someone clamoring for your old, working PC. If you can’t find anyone, check www.freecycle.org for a mailing list of people in a city near you who love free stuff. Your junk is their gold.
3. Pick a dump spot. Find a PC Donation center in your area that will make sure PC toxins don’t end up in a landfill. Search Earth 911.com or MyGreenElectronics.org for places that will dispose of electronics responsibly. No matter what, sanitize that hard drive before you pass it on. At the very least, format the drive and reinstall the operating system before recycling the old PC.
If you’re extra paranoid, keep in mind that formatting isn’t enough to be 100 percent certain data is completely unrecoverable. Specialty softwareDarik’s Boot and Nuke or Active@ KillDisk – Hard Drive Eraser will do the job for free, but the job can take hours and hours. There’s always the Swiss cheese option: Take the drive out to the workshop and drill holes through it. Bullet holes will accomplish the same thing, but that’s overkill, even for your data.
Laptop computers naturally run hot (or at least very warm), and if they stay hot for prolonged periods of time they may overheat and cause serious damage. Whether or not you’re experiencing the warning signs and dangers of your laptop overheating, the simple and inexpensive protective measures below will help keep your laptop cooler and make it work more reliably.
It didn’t take me long enough to realize that technology isn’t my oyster. I was gifted a laptop computer on my birthday, and needless to say, I was exhilarated. Incognizant of the bits and nuances that the processing of these intricate devices holds, I soaked up all the goodness of my laptop – I downloaded every file I loved, I jam-packed every hard-drive that existed in my laptop with countless files and folders, and not to forget, invited computer virus with arms wide open. I deteriorated the quality myself, and ended up marveling how in the hell and why, is my laptop so slow in its performance? You know, I may not be a professional technician dishing out necessary advice on a laptop running slow as a sloth. But I can tell you, if you don’t stop flooding it with unnecessary files now, it wouldn’t be too late for you to witness your darling notebook going to the dogs. Too rude? Let the following words explain my plight better.
The Windows Registry is one of the most important sections in the laptop computer. It is responsible for storing all the related data of the operating system, as well as other crucial programs. Moreover, it also stores the changes made to the system. If the registry becomes overly full, it can substantially make the computer slow in operations. Cleaning the registry and sorting the data is the appropriate solution. Use a good registry cleaning software to sort out the data in order and remove the errors in the registry.