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Tech Stuff
Upgraded Routers
6 years
by Gregory McKinnell
in Information
A friend of mine sent me an ad that he had seen for upgrading your home or small business router. The company was selling routers for around $150-$200 with promises of increasing internet speeds for your connection, increased wireless connection range, less crashes, less disconnects and software upgrades improving hardware. My friend wanted to know if this is just marketing hyperbole to get people to buy routers or is there some truth to it?
My response: A little bit of both. It is marketing to get people to buy more routers. But there is some truth to it.
Here’s the overview:
The standard router you get from your Internet Service Provider (often for free) will do the job for most people. You can connect as many devices as you like and they all will be able to connect to the internet. No bells or whistles, just connect to the internet. In theory, you’d be limited to about 256 devices (you run out of IP addresses and a basic router wouldn’t do vlans) but the network would start to slow down too much if you got more than about 12 simultaneous users on a regular router. Having said that I’ve had 2 of these standard routers fail on me in my time so they don’t last forever and are not as stable/reliable as they could be.
There is a higher class of consumer router. They will do everything the standard routers will do but add a lot more features. For example:
- Quality of Service or QOS. Deciding which type of internet traffic gets priority. So you can prioritise say gaming traffic over video traffic. Or video streams over torrents.
- Better Security Firewalls and rules to say what gets in and what gets out. Want to Block outlook from sending emails or block some websites?
- Better logging and alerts – e.g. Send me an email when I get to 75% of my data usage.
- VPN connections to connect to your home network from other places
However:
Some of the stuff like Dual Band 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz leaning in the direction of marketing fluff unless you specifically have some devices that only connect on those frequency ranges or you live in really packed wifi area like an apartment complex.
Cars are a pretty good analogy. A standard Toyota Corolla, for example, will get 4 people from A to B in a reasonable time. A BMW 5 series will still get 4 people from A to B but they have better controlled air conditioning, lighting and comfortable seats. They can watch a dvd on the way and let the car park itself when they arrive. They both do the same job and the first will be fine for most people but the later is worth it for anyone who wants to spend the money for those features.
Of course like the routers, these cars usually come with some options that are superfluous as well.
Conclusion:
If you want better control over your network and don’t mind spending a little bit of time to set up a router, then the upgrade is probably worth it. If you want 4 devices connected to the internet and don’t really care about things like security or traffic shaping, then stick with your standard router.
Extra for Experts:
If you’re a little more technically minded, the firmware (software) on some routers can also be upgraded with 3rd party software such as DD-WRT or Tomato Firmware. These in turn add extra features to routers beyond that which manufacturers generally include in their firmware.
Quick Tip: 2 separate windows for Excel Spreadsheets
6 years
You can open 2 separate windows with a separate Excel spreadsheet in each. This is not the default behavior of Excel and it tries to keep all your spreadsheets within one Excel window although you can swap to see which spreadsheet is on top.
The trick is that you have to open 2 instances of Excel. Here’s how:
1. Open your first Excel spreadsheet.
2. (This is the trick) Open another copy of Excel from the Start Menu shortcut or right-click on the icon in the task-bar and choose ‘Microsoft Excel 2010’ or 2013 etc depending on the version you have. Do not go file -> Open from this window or double click to open the second file you want – this will just open that document within the same first excel window.
3. Drag this window to the second screen or correct position.
4. Open the second workbook you need by going to File -> Open on the second Excel Window.
This is really handy if you have multiple monitors and need to compare 2 spreadsheets or copy and paste information from one to the other.
Transfer files from Android to Computer
6 years
Contacts:
The main instructions to get contacts from your phone to a sim card, memory card or usb device are here:
https://support.google.com/android/answer/168477?hl=en
If you want to backup the contacts database they should be in this folder on your phone or something similar to it depending on customisations made by the device manufacturer:
/data/data/android.providers.contacts/databases
You could just copy these files to your computer to backup the contacts database.
The easiest way going forward would be to add your contacts as Google contacts and these would sync between your phone and Google account automatically as long as you have your account sync turned on (settings -> Accounts and sync -> Your Google account).
Files:
For most files, the easiest way I’ve found is to sign up for Dropbox account and load the app on your phone. Photos you take can be automatically uploaded to your Dropbox and then the’re accessible on your computer like a regular folder.
If you do sign up for DropBox, do me a favour and use this link – http://db.tt/lpDpafmj I get 250mb extra storage for the referral and it costs you nothing.
You can copy files off your phone by simply plugging the phone into the computer using the usb cable for your phone and copy the files off as an Android Phone will show up in Windows as an extra drive. Mac users will need to download Android File Transfer – http://www.android.com/filetransfer/.
Or if you want to do it over wifi and not need to plug your phone in, check out Airdroid or ES File Explorer from the app store. Both of these apps make it easy to transfer files off your phone to your computer over Wifi. Although ES File Explorer is more complex and aimed more at users who would know how to set up shared folders on their computer.
Paid Apps:
There are plenty of other apps in the Android Play store that will back up your data for you. 2 paid apps that I highly recommend are Lookup Pro which adds antivirus and security features as well as photo and contacts backup and Titanium backup for a more comprehensive backup of your entire phone although it requires your android phone to have root access.
RAM – What is it and how much do I need.
7 years
I’ve recently had to service and/or repair a few computers whose largest issue was that they had far too little RAM. One in particular was running Windows 7 Pro and had only 512mb of RAM – this half the required memory for this operating system. So either the person who installed Windows 7 on this computer wasn’t aware how much RAM it had or wasn’t aware that that it would take a severe performance hit for not having enough of it.
What is RAM?
Example of RAM memory chips
RAM stands for Random Access Memory. Don’t worry too much about the name. It refers to the way in which RAM stores information and isn’t technically accurate for modern types of RAM anyway but the name has stuck.
What you DO need to know is that RAM is temporary memory where your computer can store information that it’s thinking about or working on while it is turned on. It is volatile memory – meaning that it will not be retained when the power source is disconnected. RAM is also pretty fast memory for the computer to read and write to. Information stored in RAM can be worked on and accessed very quickly.
Computers generally use RAM for storing the current applications you have open for quick access and the documents or files you have open. What sits in the RAM is controlled by the operating system.
You can think of RAM like having a large open desk with lots of clear space when you begin work. If your desk is large enough, you can layout all the resources and equipment you need to perform your work. If your desk is too small you end up shuffling things around, moving them on and off you desk and stacking things up.
In much the same way, if a computer has plenty of ram it has space to work. Space to hold all the resources it needs at the given moment and quick access to the information it is working on. It doesn’t need to shuffle things off onto your hard drive or constantly re-arrange things in ram to have access to the information it needs.
What’s with all these numbers and acronyms like DDR and GB?
(You can skip this part if you want to avoid technical explanations but I’ll try to make it as painless as possible).
This is where it can get confusing…
Firstly, your ram will come in a certain size or amount of Ram – eg. 2Gb, 4Gb, 16Gb etc. Gb is short for Gigabyte and is a measure of now much information your RAM can store.
SDRAM, DDR1, DDR2, and DDR3 are different types of ram. Think of this like models of cars. Actually it’s more like the engine model in your car. Not all engines will work in all cars. In a similar way your computer will only be able to take certain types and speeds of ram and if you’re not sure – it’s best to check with a computer technician before buying new ram.
Along with the type, ram runs at a certain speed and with certain timings (hold onto your brains for this part). Ram that is labelled “DRR3-400” means it is type DDR3 and runs at a maximum frequency of 400Mhz. This is sort of a ‘how many things a second’ can you manage rating.
Sometimes there is also information given about data transfer rates of the ram and timings. Most often these are given as a series of numbers E.G. CL7-7-7-18. These numbers indicate the number of clock cycles the ram will take to perform certain tasks. Generally speaking the lower the numbers, the tighter the timings are and the more expensive the ram will be.
Data transfer rates are usually noted with a ‘PC’ suffix. PC3200 ram for example runs at 3200 megabytes per second.
Why do I need ram?
Computers use ram to store information on a temporary basis. Usually for calculations or holding documents that you are working on and programs that you have open so you can work on them and switch between them quickly.
If your computer runs out of ram it uses a portion of your hard drive space as ram – this is called a SWAP file or partition. Hard drives are slower than ram so you can see a performance drop if you run out of Ram and the computer starts using hard drive memory – especially if it has to do this on a consistent basis.
As I mentioned in the introduction, if you have plenty of sufficiently fast ram, your computer has the space it needs to work and can access the information it needs more quickly. Overall, the appearance it gives is that of an overall faster computer.
How much RAM do I need?
There are 2 equally true and equally cliche answers to that question.
1. It depends
2. The more the better (to a point)
Let me start with a baseline. Your operating system requires a certain amount of RAM and Microsoft publish recommendations on the amount of RAM you should have for each of their operating systems. Although Microsoft calls this the recommended amount, I would suggest thinking of it more as a minimum for acceptable performance.
| Operating System | Recommended Amount |
| Windows XP Home Edition and Proffessional | 128MB |
| Windows Vista Home Basic | 512MB |
| Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate | 1GB |
| Windows 7 32bit | 1GB |
| Windows 7 64bit | 2GB |
Once you get past the requirements for your operating system, you need to have some for your programs. The more memory hungry your programs are (3d games, video processing etc) the more you will need. Also the more you have open at any one time, the more you will need.
Note: Unless you are running 64bit operating system, you will not see any benefit for anything above 3Gb of ram as your system cannot recognise more than 3Gb.
At the time of writing this, computers currently come with 2-4GB ram. If you don’t have this much in your computer currently, you should consider upgrading. Especially if it seems slow or takes a long time to respond.
If you have a 64bit operating system and you run memory intensive applications or have a lot of applications open you may see a benefit of increasing your ram up to 8Gb or more.
References and further reading:
Windows XP System Requirements – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865
Windows Vista System Requirements – http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/products/system-requirements
Windows 7 Systems Requirements – http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/system-requirements
eHow – How to read memory chips – http://www.ehow.com/how_7289009_read-memory-chips.html
Toms Hardware – PC Memory http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pc-memory,1698.html
Hibernation, Sleep or Shutdown – Power mode options
7 years
Image: freedigitalphotos.net
When you’ve finished with your computer there are actually several options for the state that you can leave it in. The various options have pros and cons in terms of startup time, power consumption and memory usage.
Leave it on
You may be running a specific service or application on your computer that requires it to be left on all the time. Some business IT departments require work computers to be left on at night for doing backups and desktop maintenance. Under these circumstances, you may have no choice but to leave your computer on.
I’ve heard some people tell me that leaving computers on actually saves power because the computer hardware is more stressed than when starting up and shutting down than it does if it’s left on. The fact of the matter is that it does use more power to leave a computer on than any other alternative. And the stress on the components during startup is no more than the stress incurred on a computer when doing resource intensive tasks it will be asked to do during the time it is on anyway.
Shutdown?
Shutting down is the complete and full way to turn off your computer. All the services and applications are closed (usually gracefully) and the computer is completely turned off. Your session and the documents or programs you were working on are not retained – but this can be good if looking to reset your session. And no memory is tied up in the process. Once shutdown, the computer no longer needs external power but the startup will take longer because it has to start windows from scratch.
Pros:
- System is completely shut down.
- Only very minimal power is used while shut down for some optional services such as wake-on-lan.
- No additional hard drive space is required.
Cons:
- Session state is not retained.
- Startup times are longer.
Recommendations:
Use Shutdown if you are going to be away from your computer for a long period of time.
Sleep
Sleep is a temporary mode where the current state of your session – all the windows, pages, applications etc you have open – are saved to ram (temporary memory) and the rest of the computer is turned off. This saves on power as extra components such as your fans, hard drives, monitor etc aren’t using any power. But the computer requires a small amount of power to keep the ram alive and keep your details in the ram.
Sleep mode is very fast to resume from because ram is very fast. Typically a session can be restored in a few seconds. The main downside is that the computer must have a permanent source of power and will drain some power over time. If a laptop is running on a battery only in sleep mode, it will drain the battery and eventually, when the power gets low enough it will go into hibernation mode (see below).
Windows can perform maintenance tasks while in sleep mode and network adminstrators can still wake and access sleeping computers to perform backups or do system administration tasks. Some workplaces may require employees to leave computers in sleep mode overnight for this reason.
Pros:
- Fast resume time
- Session state retained
- Computer can still perform maintenance and be accessed remotely if set up.
Cons:
- Requires a small amount of permanent power – will not work for desktops if the power is unreliable or not available for the entire sleep period.
- Can drain a battery to zero if left for long periods of time – time varies depending on the size, age and quality of the battery and the power drain of the laptop.
- Doesn’t reset the computer so any resources are not released as they would be during a shutdown or reset.
Recommendations:
Use sleep if you are going to be away from your computer for a short period of time or if you have a network or computer administrator that requires it.
Do not use if you are on a desktop and can’t guarantee a consistent power supply or on a laptop if it is going to be on battery power for an extended period of time.
Hibernation
Hibernation is a tradeoff between shutting down and sleep mode. In this mode, your session is saved to your hard drive and then the computer is powered down. In this state the computer does not require any external power because the state is saved to the hard drive. The computer will resume from this state faster than when it is shut down completely but not as fast as sleep mode. This mode requires you to have some free space on your hard drive for saving the session state.
Pros:
- Does not require any power while in this mode.
- Session state is restored
- Startup is faster than a fully shut down computer
Cons:
- Cannot be accesses or perform maintenance tasks
- Startup is slower than sleep
- Requires some hard drive space set aside for saving session state to hard drive.
- Hibernation file can become fragmented and occasionally corrupt over time but restarting can usually resolve this.
Aero Shake
8 years
Source: Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganfeast/3850165121/in/photostream/
I discovered, quite accidentally, an interesting feature in Windows 7. Aero Shake.
Basically you can grab any window in windows 7 by the title bar – the bar along the top of the window – with your mouse and shake it backwards and forwards, and it will minimise all the other windows you have open. If you shake the window again, the minimised windows will pop back up. For any keyboard junkies – you can achieve the same effect with Windows Key + Home.
This can be really useful if you want to clear out the clutter of all of your windows and focus on one thing for a while.
This feature is included in the Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Windows 7. Click this link if you want to find out more and see a video of Aero Shake in action.