Quick Tech Tip #1: Defragmenting your hard drive.

Hello all. Today i'm going to talk about defragmenting your hard drive. If your using Windows it's a smart plan to defragment your hard drive. Basically a fragmented hard drive is where a file is in multiple places on the hard drive. This can happen to many files. defragmenting your hard drive is a process that puts all of one file together on the hard drive thus making it easier and quicker for Windows to find said file.

There are many programs out there that can defrag your hard drive. There is also a built in defragger in Windows. to use the one build into Windows just do this:

1: Right click on My Computer.

2: Click on Manage.

3: Then in the left hand side pane of the window that just popped up click on Disk Defragmenter.

4: Then either click on the Analyze button to analyze your hard drive to see if it needs defragmenting or click on the Defragment button to defragment your hard drive.

I use Auslogics Disk defrag at the moment and it seem very good however there are other ones out there too.

you should defragment your hard drive every month at least. I'd recommend every two weeks just to make sure it doesn't get that bad. Some programs offer a quick defrag option that takes a lot less time that you can do every week or two.

Remember: never pay for this sort of software as most of the time it really isn't any better than the free ones.

And thats the end of this Quick Tech Tip. I hope this post helped you and i'll see you next time. Till then.

Introducing Quick Tech Tips.

Hello all. Today i'm posting about a new series of posts called Quick Tech Tips. Every so often i will post a short "tech tip" that i've learnt through my years of trying to fix computers. These will be anything related to computers really.

also a quick bit of news i've just released V0.1.5 of my Simple Text Editor. (STE) You can download it from the SourceForge page here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpletxteditor/

RMQG V0.5.3 and CMDQuest released, apesstuff updated.

Hello all. I haven't posted in a while (3 months in fact) but i've finally found the time to do another post. This one is mainly news. I've released RMQG V0.5.3 (Released it a while ago actually) so you can download that at the SourceForge page here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/rmqg/

I've also released a game called CMDQuest. It's a command line RPG. Yes thats right i finally got round to making a game. It's only the second version so it's not really playable as a actual game yet but if i can get stuck in with it hopefully it should get developed fairly quicky. Thats the theory anyway. You can find out about it and download it at the SourceForge page here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cmdquest/

Finally I've update apesstuff again. I've added some pictures that i've taken in GT5 using the photo mode. You can find them here:

http://sites.google.com/site/apesstuff/gaming-zone/gt5-pictures

And that all the news for now. As always if you need any PC help please visit PCHelpForum.com. A great forum for computer help. Till next time.

STE V0.1.4 released, RMQG V0.5.2 released.

Hello all. Just a quick post to say that i've released V0.1.4 of STE and V0.5.2 of RMQG. You can download RMQG here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rmqg/ and you can download STE here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpletxteditor/.

Also great news! STE is now listed on Softpedia and has the 100% free award.

How To: Get the disc out of a YLOD'ed PS3

Hello all. Well my PS3 YLOD'ed again for the second time today so i thought it would be fitting to post this today. As some of you may know when a PS3 does get the YLOD (Yellow Light Of Death) if you have a game disc in at the time it won't eject because the PS3 isn't on long enough for you to get it out. I found out how to get the disc out when i phoned Sony. So i thought i'd post this up here for people who didn't know how.

To get the disc out make sure the PS3 is off at the back. Then hold the eject button down and flick the power switch on the back on. The fan should come on very fast and the disc should pop out. Be sure to grab it quickly or it will go back in.

And thats it. now you know. If you have any questions please fell free to either comment on this post or email me.

STE V0.1.3 released. apestuff updated.

Hello all. I've finally released STE V0.1.3. STE or Simple Text Editor is a text editor that can open, edit and create text files. You can download it at the SourceForge project here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpletxteditor/

I've also update my website with a STE page under the My programming projects section. And thats it. till next time.

RMQG V0.5.1 released, Programming projects section on my website updated.

Hello all. It's been a while since the last news post but this is a big one. I have finally released the Random Maths Question Generator or RMQG. You can find the download link at the SourceForge project here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rmqg/. I've also updated the programming section on my website now that i've released RMQG. You can find that page here: https://sites.google.com/site/apesstuff/my-programming-projects And thats it. Till next time.

Inside a Hi-Grade 8615.

Hello all. Today i will show you the inside of a Hi-Grade 8615 and explain what each component is. For higher resolution pictures click the links under the pictures. So first up is a overall view of it with the back access panel removed.

From Hi-grade

Here we have the hard drive in the upper right corner, The fan in the upper left corner, On the far right bottom corner is where the wireless network card would go if i had one, which i don't. Next to that just to the left is where the RAM goes. I do have some of that. Finally at the far left bottom corner is where the CPU is located. You can just see it under the heat sink.(Which is the orange piece of metal that goes from the top of the CPU to the the very top of the picture just infront of the fan.) Lastly right next to the CPU to the right is the graphics chip or more precisely the heat sink on top of the graphics chip. (The silver rectangle.)

Next up is a close up of the left section.

From Hi-grade

Here you can see this section in more detail. Next is a close up of the right section.

From Hi-grade

Here you can see the right section in more detail.Finally is a close up of the CPU.

From Hi-grade

Here is a close up of the CPU. and that's it. Hope you found this interesting. The next computer we'll be inside of will be a IBM R40e. Till next time.

Short bit of new.

Hello all. For starters i've added this blog to mylot. My profile page here: myLot User Profile. Next i've updated a few things on my website apesstuff. Thats it actually. Till next time.

A few useful websites for starting out using Linux.

Hello all. I thought i would put together a few useful links to help people start out with Linux.. The first place you should go if you are new to linux is the Wikipedia page here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

It has loads of information on Linux. The next website is DistroWatch.com which is a very handy website for finding linux distributions. Its also a great place for keeping up with updates for different distro's. Here's the link:

http://distrowatch.com/

Next is www.kernel.org which is the place to go to get the latest version of the Linux kernel. You can also download a few Linux distro's from there. The link:

http://www.kernel.org/

another useful website is The Linux Documentation Project. It has loads of HOWTOs that can be a lot of help. The link:

http://www.tldp.org/docs.html#howto

Next up is the forums. Forums are one of the biggest places to find and ask for help. here's a few that i use and find very useful:

http://www.linuxforums.org/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/

http://ubuntuforums.org/index.php

And that all i can think of for now. hopefully you will find these websites useful and that you will choose to try Linux as it is a very good operating system and absolutely free. till next time.