Tips for Maintaining Your Laptop!

Now a days, many people are using laptops for their school work, business or leisure. However, laptops can lose their efficiency if not well-maintained. The following are some tips which will help enhance your laptop usage.

1. Watch out for dust

To ensure your laptop remains effective for a long time, you need to protect it from dust. An accumulation of dust in your laptop could block the ventilation areas and result in overheating. It is therefore very important to keep your laptop from being exposed to dust.

2. Keep it cool

Besides dust, it is also very important to protect your laptop from excessive heat. A laptop used in a cool, dry area will work more effectively and faster than if it was exposed to heat. To protect your laptop from overheating, avoid using it on your lap, bed or cushion since this will block the vents underneath which help in cooling. The best solution for this is to use a lap tray as a base for your laptop. Alternatively, you can invest in any of the laptop coolers which are sold in most computer stores.

3. Install a firewall and antivirus software

If you don’t use any antivirus, your laptop remains vulnerable to being infected by a virus. Make sure you use proper antivirus software to protect your laptop and keep it effective for longer. You should also install a firewall so as to restrict access to your laptop. A firewall will alert you anytime an external entity tries to access your laptop. You will then have the option of either blocking or allowing access. In addition, you need to be cautious about using external hard disks and flash disks with your laptop.

4. Eliminate unused programs

At times, you might have some programs in your laptop that you don’t really need. It is advisable to uninstall them so as to create more space in your hard drive. This will enable you to install other important applications and programs. Eliminating unused programs will also improve your laptop’s performance and make it easier to locate important files.

5. Defragment hard drives

When you have many programs in your laptop, it will take time to locate your important files. It is therefore very vital to defragment your drives frequently. Defragmenting will arrange your files in a way which makes them much easier to access.

6. Clean your registry

Once in a while, registry files might get corrupted thus resulting in a drastic and sudden change in your laptop’s performance. Make sure you run your registry cleaners frequently to find out if there are any corrupt files or errors.

7. Minimize programs to run during startup

Whenever you start your laptop, it will load all the system files, as well as the programs which have been selected to run during startup. The more programs you run, the longer it takes to startup. You should therefore minimize the number of programs that will run during the booting process.

8. Delete temporary internet files

Slow browsing speeds are often as a result of poor internet connection. However, in some cases, it might be due to too many temporary internet files saved in your laptop. You should therefore take time to delete such files from your laptop.

9. Empty the recycle bin

When files are deleted from your laptop, they end up in the recycle bin. This means that they are not actually deleted from the laptop; they have just been transferred to a different location. Thus, they still take up space in your hard drive. It is therefore important to empty your recycle bin as often as possible.

10. Power surge protection

Power surge protection is as important for laptops as it is for desktop computers. Replacing a laptop power supply is very costly compared to investing in a power surge protection device. Make sure you get one so as to protect the laptop itself, as well as your laptop power supply.

7 ways to increase Torrent Speed!

The use of Bit Torrent is an efficient way to transfer files of just about any size quickly and efficiently. How this works is by breaking the huge files into smaller pieces and is from one or many of the different sources. This is one of the best ways to transfer bulky files quickly even when you are using a low bandwidth connection. There are many more things that you can do with Bit Torrent, but here we are going to discuss how to make this work much faster.



Here are some essential tips for the same,

    1,Start with your ISP:

All ISP has a preset maximum upload and download speed, and you cannot make your torrent work beyond this speed. All you can do is to use the best use of this upload and download speed even when the signal is weak. You can check the maximum speed that you can achieve by conducting a broadband speed test and compare with the DSLReports that comes with your uTorrent.

    2,Opt-In for healthy seeds and peers:

A peer is any computer participating           in downloading and uploading of torrent files along with that of yours. A seeder is one who has a complete copy of the file that is being shared across a torrent network. A leecher is the person who has joined the network recently and do not have most of the file that you or the peer has. This leecher becomes the seeder when they download the entire file and is able to share it across the network.  For getting high torrent speed, you need to increase the number of seeders to increase the chance of healthier and reception of higher speeds.

    3,Get through the firewall:

Many times, you will find the administrator or the firewall in your web browser is set to block and receive torrent files. The first thing that you need to do is to get appropriate permissions for downloading torrent files, and add this to your firewall, which will enhance the speed at which you can download torrent files. If the internet is through a router, then you have to set the torrent file to cross the barrier of the security of the router also.

    4,Go to a different port:

The default port for BitTorrent protocol is always between the numbers 6881-6999. This is because BitTorrent sharing will involve high bandwidth usage. However, this is possible that you can configure a different port for your torrent client and this has been best advised to set this number to somewhere around 10000.

    5,Limit your upload rate:

A peer to peer network is sharing alike on the same or similar platform and therefore you should be able to set your client’s upload speed rate to a maximum amount, which will usually be about 80 percent of your maximum upload speed that is being offered by your ISP. Keep this speed, as high as possible, but you have to play your cards well as the upload speed affects your download speed as well.

    6,Use your common sense:

If you understand the concept of how Bit Torrent works, then your common sense will automatically tell you that this is possible to view the individual files being downloaded and disable the ones that you are not in need off, which will  help you to speed up the process of downloading the files using Bit Torrent.

    7,Bandwidth and connections:

This is possible to set the maximum number of connections, maximum number of peers connected per torrent and number of slots per torrent so that you can decide on which numbers gives the maximum efficiency from your Bit Torrent files.
Now is that you have some tips on how to increase the speed of downloading while using Bit Torrent, why not try these tips out next time! Comments are appreciated!!

3 Simple Ways to Disable USB Ports!

Flash Drives are nowadays are the most common way to transfer data from one system to another
quickly. USB ports are like open doors to allow anyone to enter your system if it is turned on. But you can disable USB ports on your PC to stop intruders to infect your system with malicious data or to prevent someone to steal anything from your system. There are some common ways discussed below to completely disable USB ports on your Windows PC.

1. Disabling through BIOS

This one is the easiest to follow. At system boot up, BIOS contains all the hardware information and configuration options through which you can easily enable disable any hardware installed inside your system.

1. At system startup press DEL or F2 key to open BIOS settings.
2. In BIOS, find “Advanced Settings” or “Onboard Devices” menu (this may vary due to different BIOS manufacturers)

3. Find “USB Configuration” and disable USB Controllers to disable all USB ports.

2. Disabling through Device Manager

This method would be more comfortable for those who are not familiar with BIOS configuration.

1. Click Start > RUN
2. Type “devmgmt.msc”  (this will open Device Manager of Windows)

 3. Under Universal Serial Bus Controller, right click and click “Disable” on all the USB drives you can see under the submenu.

3. Disabling through Registry Editor

This is the most secure wasy, as the settings cannot be altered by anyone except system administrator who know how to use Registry Editor.

1. Click Start > RUN
2. Type “regedit”  (this will open Registry Editor of Windows)

3. Locate, and then click the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesUSBSTOR

4. In the right pane, double-click Start.

5. In the Value data box, type 4, click Hexadecimal (if it is not already selected), and then click OK.

6. Quit Registry Editor.

 By default the Hexadecimal value is set to 3, which means enabled. To re-enable USB ports change this value back to 3.

How to Speed Up µTorrent Downloading !

 Many people often ask me why their downloads are slow. If there are plenty of seeds and peers, it shouldn't be. I'm no expert but I always get decent speeds so I've copied my settings.
If you don't already use µTorrent, download it.
http://www.utorrent.com/
Once installed, you will get the option to do a speed test, do the test and save the settings.

Once you have saved them, open up 'Options' then 'Preferences'.

On the left of the screen you will see the list of pages you can access. I have included screen prints of each of the pages you need to change.  1 - General
Just copy the settings you see

2 - UI Settings
Just copy the settings you see

3 - Directories
Decide where you want to store your downloads. You may want to make some new folders. Once you have done that just set those folders in the boxes you see.

4 - Connection
Just copy the settings you see

 5 - Bandwith
Important - leave the upload rate in the top box, do not change it. This has been determined with the speed test. Leave the first box alone. You will see it says 300 Kb/s, that's my own settings set by my utorrent, yours will probably be different.
The rest of the boxes you can change. You'll probably see I've set more connections than the speed test recommends, change it anyway, you can always change it back. More connections = more people to download from = faster downloads.

6 - Bit Torrent
Just copy the settings you see. The main one will be Protocol Encryption. Change this to 'Enabled'.

7 - Queueing
Just copy the settings you see.

8 - µTorrent Download Page
As you can see, about half way down the page you will see some tabs. If you click on 'files' you can prioritise the files so they get downloaded in the order you want. If you select "Do Not Download" it won't download it at all. Handy if you want to start watching the tv shows whilst it downloads and if you don't want to download everything in the torrent.

That should be everything but if you have any more questions click on this. http://www.utorrent.com/help

Enjoy,

Tips For Speeding Up an Old PC!

It’s so easy to feel frustrated with your 2-year old computer. With the latest whizz-bang gadgets coming out every month, your trusty desktop can seem like it is an old classic. The sleeker models with all the upgrades can make your computer unit feel like it is truck beside a sports car.  But, don’t throw it out just yet. There are so many things that you can do to make it perform like it is new.

Here are a few things that can help you do that:

Get Space

Everyone needs space, even your computer. We end up with more than a few bytes of photos, music, movies and programs in this digital world. All this data takes time to read and process. These precious milliseconds add up and can make simply booting up your computer and surfing on the net feel like an eternity.

There are 3 things you can do to solve the space issue. First, clean-up your hard disk. Delete temporary internet files, empty your recycle bin and uninstall programs that you rarely use. If you still have a lack of space, transfer your files to an external drive. This way your computer does not always have to process it when you boot up. If all fails, consider replacing your current hard disk with a solid-state HD. Without any moving parts, the speed of processing and writing files takes less time. It’ll make downloading and processing files faster.

Add RAM


You do not need to replace your computer to get a faster unit. Look into buying and installing a higher RAM card. The difference can be quite exponential between a 2 gig and a 4 gig RAM card.  You’ll be able to play better games and run memory heavy programs smoother. If you are into watching high definition movies or playing games that are heavy on graphics, consider buying a better video card. This way you can get the extra memory to keep your computer from lagging.

Reinstall Your OS

If none of the above is working for you, consider “renewing” your computer by reinstalling your operating system. It can be quite tedious to do, but will be worth the effort. Reinstalling your OS will help you remove malware and other programs that slow down your computer. You can also start fresh by choosing the right programs and file management protocols to keep your computer zipping along smoothly.

The Bottom Line:

Don’t just be consumers; instead, think of yourself as a “tuner”. Consider modifying and upgrading components of your computer before you head out and buy cheap desktops. It’ll save you a lot of money, and, most of all, can be quite fun to do.