Archive for the ‘Tech Articles’ Category

Business Power Point Projector Basics

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

For someone who is not tech minded, purchasing a presentation projector can be overwhelming with all the current choices. With it’s focus on your needs, this article was written with the beginner in mind. With all the buzz words and projector jargon out there, your knowing the basics will be a great help to you in your projector search. 

 

Tiny dots of light called pixels make up the image you see on your laptop computer screen as well as the image shown by a modern projector. Your laptop or video source determines the resolution and if you are going to upgrade soon, you may wish to pick an LCD projector with a high resolution. 

 

Amazingly, not long ago the common resolution used to be rather crude VGA (640 x 480), this was later replaced by SVGA (800 x 600) and the more modern quality XGA (1,024 x 768). You may even hear about SXGA (1,280×1, 024) that will give you even greater resolution, but tends to run on the expensive side.  Many projectors can operate at numerous resolutions but they always have a default or native resolution. 

 

Brightness is one of the most important parameters when it comes to making presentations on the go, the projector bulb that will come with your projector will be graded by something called lumens.  The brightness of a projector in lumens is a very important specification to consider when doing power point presentations on the go or even in a conference room with the lights on. Large sized venues or semi-lit screening areas require a very bright projector, something over 4000 lumens would not be unheard of in this situation.  With a much smaller screening room that can get completely dark, you could make a clear, crisp presentation with a projector that puts out only 1,000 lumens. You often see lumens expressed as Ansi lumens in projector literature, ANSI is just a uniform standard of measuring lumens, by having a standard you can be sure you are comparing “apples to apples” as the saying goes. 

 

“Throw distance” is another term of interest, it refers to the distance you can have the projector from the screen with a focused picture.  If your projector needs to be far from the screen, it will usually be equipped with a large throw lens. With a short throw presentation projector, your can make a presentation with the projector behind you, close to the screen and not have to worry about casting a shadow over your wonderful power point graphics.

 

Also important when using projectors for power point and similar presentations is interface connectivity and resolution, your computer needs to be compatible with your projector. You should obtain your computers native resolution and write this down, note if it’s SVGA or XGA, also you’ll need to know the connection standard by which you can connect computer and projector, many projectors have a computer in port and  with the common standards in place, this isn’t much of a worry. None the less, be sure that regardless what kind of projector you purchase that it has all the cords and other port attachments that you’ll need.  

 

When you look at a variety of projectors with your needs in mind, you can make an informed decision. Believe it or not, you can find some of the best deals on power point projectors on ebay through projectorselect.com, see it for yourself. Good luck in finding presentation projector that meets your needs. With just some basic knowledge, you’ll find that it’s not as difficult as you imagined.

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It's Not that Hard to Repair a PST File

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

If you have worked with Microsoft Office products such as Outlook on a regular basis, then you may have some passing familiarity with PST files. Outlook uses the PST file (Personal Stroage Table) to store all the user data like emails, callander, contacts. Not only does this include e-mail messages from Microsoft Exchange mail boxes, but also calendar items and other task items. In almost all caes the Outlook PST file can be found locally on the end users C drive but it is posible to have it stored on another drive or even over a network.

Over the course of a few years you will most likely encounter a problem with your pst file. It is possible to do a PST file repair using a variety of methods, depending on the severity of the damage. The first task is to find out where your PST files are stored. By default, they can be found in “C:Documents and SettingsUSER Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook”. Be sure to substitute your Windows login screen name for USER when typing in this directory. The default filename for your PST file that is hosting your current mail box is Outlook.pst. There is also an archive file available, known as Archive.pst. There is no way of telling if a PST file is corrupt based on visual inspection. In almost all cases you will know the pst file is corrupt becaue when Opening up Outlook it will tell you that.

If you are very computer illiterate and this sounds a little too daunting then check out this computer repair company.  These guys are well known to repair many different kinds of issues online and they are a whole lot cheaper then most.

Microsoft Outlook comes with an automatic repair method and an external repair kit for fixing Outlook PST files. When Outlook is opened, the program will notify you of this problem, and then attempt to fix the PST file automatically. Outlook will in most cases try to do an automaitc repair of the PST file and you should let it try before having to use the external free Scan tool. In the event that the automatic repair fails to fix the Outlook PST file, you will have to open the Inbox Repair Tool located in “C:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemMSMAPI1033” and search for the Inbox Repair Tool, under the filename Scanpst.exe.

The Inbox Repair Tool is an external executable program that scans and repairs corrupt or damaged PST files. To start this program, double click on the Scanpst.exe executable. You will then see window that will ask you to locate the name of the PST file you wish to repair. After this task is done then it's on to starting the Inbox repair tool to scan and repair the PST file. If the PST file is too corrupted or damaged, the Inbox Repair Tool may not be able to fix the Outlook PST file, requiring other third-party solutions. If the Inbox Repair Tool cannot be found in the specified location, find and run CNFNOT32.exe, which should be in the same location that Scanpst.exe should be located. This will restore the executable back to the proper location.

This guide is sure to help out if your pst file is corrupt.If the Outlook program keeps crashing on you and if that seems to be casuing the PST file to become corrupt then consider uninstalling office.  This helps to resolve many different kinds of issues.  In case you are having trouble uninstalling office then check out this cannot uninstall site for software to help out.

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How to Convert Your AVI Files to DVD: Your Software Options

Friday, March 20th, 2009

In recent years, one type of file conversion has become more and more frequent as the use of digital video cameras has gotten more prevalent: AVI to DVD conversions. Recording the video is easy, but many people get stuck there, with no distinct idea of how to get that footage onto a computer or a DVD. Here are a few choices.

Edit Your Movie

After moving your video footage to your computer, most commonly with USB 2.0 or FireWire, you will in all probability want to edit it, and that requires a video editing package. In recent years, these packages have not only gotten more affordable, but they have also gotten easier to use. For simple home recordings, you can locate a package for between $60 and $90 in many cases. For professional editing, expect to pay upwards of $300 to $500.

Editing software will enable you to split and join clips, add transitions, titles, and effects, create DVD menus, and convert your edited movie to multiple file formats, including DVD.

Copy Your Movie to a DVD

There are a good number of basic conversion tools available that will enable you to convert that AVI file into the structure required for DVD movies. Once you have that structure, you can use a DVD burning program like ImgBurn or Nero to produce your DVD.

Play Your Movie on a Portable Device

While standard DVD players are most commonly used for watching movies, a new generation of portable players exists that is capable of playing video, provided it’s in the proper format. So you can convert that footage into something that can be played on portal media players like the iPod, Zune, and PSP. That’s another thing to keep in mind as you learn how to convert AVI to DVD format.

No single piece of software is appropriate for everyone. But as a rule of thumb, the more conversion options a piece of software has, the more cognitive overhead you can expect there to be associated with it! Simple utility converters do one thing only and usually require just a few clicks; however, multi-purpose converters, while more powerful, will also require you to get your hands dirty in choosing codecs and the like.

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Learn How to Repair Your PST File Free

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

A .The pst file is the file that contains almost all your Outlook information. This singal folder holds almost all your information including e-mails, contacts, lists, calandar and notes. This is an extremely important file, so you should know how to repair PST file in advance of a problem occurring. Imagine if you suddenly lost all of this critical data. Read this article to learn how to PST File Repair.

In Outlook all your folders, e-mails and contact information is kept in one single file .pst file. Your Outlook PST file over time will slowly get corrupt and very very large. If this happens, don’t panic. There are several ways you can repair the .pst file.

The first thing you should do is to make a backup of the .pst file. Don't wait another day, backup your PST file right this second so you won't have to worry about lost data. Depending on how often your data changes and how important it is will determine how often you will want to back it up, but back it up. Using Windows Explorer, simply drag a copy from your Outlook folder to a safe place, preferably offline somewhere, such as a flash drive.   Better yet check out this Backup Vista Online article.Backing up your data online is a great choice.  Your .pst file is located in drive:Documents and SettingsuserLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook. If your .pst file becomes corrupt then you can just remove it and replace it with your backup or attempt the repair method we have covered in this article .pst file with the backup, or simply drag the backup file back into place. Outlook will need to be closed to drag the file into place or back it up.

But if you need to know how to PST File Repair, the first thing to try is the Inbox Repair Tool. The name of the free built in repair tool is called scanpst.exe and can be found by doing a search or using Windows Explorer and going to a location similar to drive:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemMapiLocaleID and titled scanpst.exe.exe. Take not that the LocaleID is specific to your computer and depending on what Outlook version you have it may or may not even have this last folder. Browse there from your Start, Run menu and click OK. Even if you have a backup, choose the option to make a backup before repairing.

If the repair works, you will see a message saying that the repair is complete. If not, then it is time to pull the backup or use a more advanced PST repair tool like the one this article links to. Many of these are very good, and a lot of them are try before you buy, so you can make sure that they work before you purchase them. The most important part of this article is to make and keep a backup copy of your PST file, so if you need to know how to repair PST file, the answer will be easy.

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How To Prevent My Xbox 360 From Freezing Up?

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

“Why is it that my Xbox 360 keeps freezing up?!” Is this the biggest frustrations you ever had since you started playing console games? I can bet more than 50% of Xbox 360 users are experiencing this Xbox 360 freezing up problem, so if your Xbox 360 keeps freezing up, you actually have a few options to stop xbox 360 from freezing up that you can do all by yourself.

During the whole troubleshooting process, there is one main reason my xbox 360 keeps freezing up - Overheating!

We all know that Xbox 360 is a simplified version of a high end gaming PC. Whenever you play games with very high requirements it will get busy on the components inside and guess what - your Xbox 360 over heats and freezes!

One of the things that I’ve done to prevent my Xbox 360 from freezing up as often as it did is to let it “breathe” more. Well, you can certainly achieve this by not keeping your Xbox 360 in a closed cabinet while you’re playing, and put it some where that allows ventilation to cool the system better.

Besides that, the another reason I’ve suspected on why my Xbox 360 keeps freezing up is the internal hardware that is malfunctioning. You’ll know when it happens because your Xbox 360 will freeze up and shows you the 3 rings of death.

For this, you are left with 2 options, either you send your Xbox 360 back to Microsoft for a $140 fees plus 6 months of no gaming, or you can fix the Xbox 360 freezing up problem yourself. However, the electronics of Xbox 360 are not as simple as you might thought it is, a small error could damage the whole system.

Xbox 360 keeps freezing up no matter what you’ve done?

Learning from a step-by-step Xbox 360 videorepair guide is by far the best way you can do to save your time and cost to fix your Xbox 360 from freezing up. There are many guides out there that shows you how to open up your Xbox 360 and repairing it, but most of them don’t include clear videos on the actual process.

A high-definition Xbox 360 video repair guide is exactly what you’ll need to start working on it, all by yourself without any fancy tools, all you need are simple household tool kits.

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Computer Slowing Down? Get A Registry Cleaner

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

There is nothing more infuriating and frustrating than working on a very slow computer unit especially when you’re working in front of your unit 24 hours a day. Being a careful computer user that you are, you installed all the necessary software to protect yourself and to make your tasks fast and efficient. So, you installed an anti-virus program or a security suite and you have your firewall up and running and you have some spyware programs. But why is it that your computer system still seems so sluggish? Maybe you need a trusted registry cleaner. registry cleaner reviews all over have agreed that the best way to make your computer run as good as new is to have a registry repair software.

What is registry and what does it look like? Take a look at Windows, your ever-faithful and ever-efficient OS. Windows stores its configuration information in a database named the registry. The registry contains profiles for each user of the computer and information about system hardware, installed programs, and property settings. Your Windows system references this data during its operation. Now, your registry will get all too crowded when you add some entries to it like after installing other software, or uninstalling it or browsing the Internet. This could really bug down your computer. According to one registry cleaner review, you can never expect your unit to run again as good as new unless you clean your registry.

Try to think of it this way. Your living room is full of things scattered by your 3 little kids who are playing. It would be difficult for you to pass or walk around the living room with all that mess. So, you sweep the floor and re-arrange everything. Now, you can walk straight and pass by without any disturbance. Your registry cleaner is your “broom” and it sweeps your registry to make everything move as smoothly as possible.

So, if ever you experience slowdown in your system, it could be you have a dirty registry so you need to choose the best for you but what? Today, there are lots of registry cleaners out there and to help you out with your selection, just read this registry repair review and see all kinds of registry cleaners and then, you have the opportunity to choose one in a single spot.

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Trying To Stay Connected: PDA WiFi

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

There are many electronic gadgets on today’s market that are available to the consumer.  Some of these electronic gadgets are designed for entertainment purposes and some of these electronic devices are designed to streamline one’s busy schedule.

One such electrical device that is designed with the busy person in mind is the PDA.A PDA stands for personal digital assistant.Specifically, a PDA is a hand held organizer that is a standardized with certain functions already installed on the device. 

Also, there are other peripheral applications that may be incorporated on a PDA.  One of those productive applications is WiFi or wireless fidelity.  This is an application that is either built into the PDA or has the capability of hosting a WiFi card.  This WiFi capability allows the user to utilize the internet through their PDA or some organizers have PDA GPS Wifi capabilities which are extremely helpful for business travelers.

Therefore, if considering the purchase of a fully functional PDA it is important to consider the WiFi application.  Subsequently, when considering this application, it is import to know how a PDA WiFi works and whether one wants a built in PDA WiFi or not.

How A PDA WiFi Works

First of all, when in the market for a personal digital assistant, it is important to know whether or not the unit is equipped with WiFi.  This can be easily accomplished by conducting research on a number of units and looking to see what the particular specifications of the PDAs are.  Generally, the specifications list whether or not it has the capability of WiFi.

Once the potential buyer has established that the unit is WiFi capable and is purchased, then the unit is simply powered and the owner goes to the WiFi setup icon on the application display.  Often, the screen is sensitive to touch and is activated through the use of a stylus.  Simply tap the WiFi setup icon with the stylus and follow the instructions that are displayed on the screen. 

Eventually the screen will display networks that are available to the user so that they can access that network and go online.It is also very important to note that many of the networks that are displayed on the WiFi setup screen will have a lock icon displayed next to the systems that have been identified.  Therefore, unless the individual has permission to access these networks, they will be locked out from gaining access.

Following this step, the individual, using the stylus, taps the network of choice.  Following this step the screen will display whether or not the WiFi setup is complete and whether an internet connection has been establish.   Once the setup is finished the PDA Wifi can be used to go online by tapping the internet browser icon on the unit.

Maybe With or Without

One other important aspect of utilizing a PDA WiFi is whether the consumer wishes the WiFi card to be installed internally on the PDA. The main advantage of having the card internally installed on the PDA is that the unit is ready to go in any given moment without having to insert the WiFi card.However, it is important to note that these units are much more expensive because of this added internal application.

On the other hand, the purchase of an external WiFi card is an additional cost and therefore, it is important for the consumer to note that once the card has been purchased they may eventually reach the same total buying cost as if they were to buy the WiFi card separately.

For more information please visit my WiFi Security Camera Website.

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Large Increase in Spyware Online in January

Friday, February 20th, 2009

During the last two weeks of December and through out January is the biggest time of year for people to get infected online.  This trend has been the same for the last several years and the amount of systems getting infected only increase each year as more and more people surf the web.

Types of Viruses beign released

The most common threats people tend to run into and get infected with are Virtumonde and Vundo.  Check out this virtumonde and vundo to learn more about this threat and what they both do.  Both are from the same family of spyware and can be very hard to remove.  Once infected with these types of  viruses you will get constant pop-ups and re-directs.  Most people also have fake security software installed on their computer as well as a possible desktop highjacker.If you ever do get infected you do have a great option.  This Computer Repair
site for instance offers online computer repair and it’s done right then and there.  It’s really a great service.

Ways to Stay Safe Online

The best way to stay safe online is to have a good antivirus and antispyware program installed to stop threats from getting through.No free client has enough protection.  All these clients are free for a reason.  They either do not offer front end protection or they are a lighter version of a paid product.  Yes it’s better then nothing but chances are it will do little to protect you online.

Another great way to stay safe online is to simply avoid sites you do not know and trust.  For instance if you are on Youtube and see a funny clip.  In the comments you may find someone saying something like “If you thought this was funny you need to check out this video,  It’s off the wall”.  People get curious and click the link in the comment and it takes them to a site asking them to install a video codec to watch this so called funny video.  Do not install the software as it’s most likely a virus.  Avoiding such sites is by far the best way to protect yourself.

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Are Disk Imaging Tools Reliable?

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

For most users of Disk imaging tools I’m sure they’d rather never know if their disk image is working correctly or not since it would mean that their PC had crashed or they needed to recover their data. It is something worth looking into though since it’s to late when you find out your disk image was bad after a crash occurs.

Knowing which disk imaging tool is best, and knowing how to check if it’s working properly are the simple steps to ensuring your backup is going to work A1 when you need it.

Choosing the Right Tool for the Image

There are a lot of software products that do disk imaging.The most popular is probably Norton Ghost, been out for quite a few years. It’s a product that’s been on the market for a long time, how ever in research I’ve done I’ve found many users stating the the images didn’t work well when they needed them.

There are more promising programs on the market such as Acronis True Image which have been providing customers with better success.

To learn more about this program specifically check out these Acronis True Image reviews.

Make Sure your Hard Drive Image Works

Using a program like Acronis creates a restore image, rather then just a regular image on disk.Instead of just being a image of everything on your system, Acronis creates a bootable disk that allows you to restore your computer back to the settings and setup it was at the time your image was made.What does this mean for you? well you don’t just get a backup of your files. You also get your system settings, registry, email, startup folder etc. all backed up in one easy to re-install place.

Testing your Disk Image

You might be 99.9% sure your image is good, but I’d suggest testing it even still to ensure everything works after you’ve created it. Why?Like I said earlier in the article if you don’t test what your backup software creates and just try it when things crash it’s not a good time to realize that some files or the media could be corrupt and unrecoverable.

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Here’s a Quick way to Backup your Computer Online

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

Backing up files is something we all know we should do, but it’s one of those things that is so easy to procrastinate on. That is until the worst happens and you lose everything.

From my experience besides yesterday the next best time to start backing up your data online is right now.

Let’s Get Started

Backing up your computer online is the least painful way of ensuring your important files are saved some where else besides your hard drive. There’s no need for blank DVD’s, CD’s, external hard drives, USB drives etc. Everything is uploaded to a secure location and for a small fee is kept safe until you could need it.

The first step is visit Mozy, their an online home backup service that offers a simple free trial you can use to get started.After signing up you’ll need to download the small application used to select your files for backup and upload them to the secure backup server location online.

Which Files and Folders Should I Backup?

Most backup programs online, including Mozy Home Backup, select your My Documents folder as the default backup files and folders.Most documents will be in your My Documents folder, you should also add in any system settings files, and your email folders and address book.

If you’ve ever bought any software and had to download it and haven’t made a copy also add in those files.

Are we all done?

Once files are selected for backup all that’s left is to start the initial backup process in the Mozy application and you’re done.That’s it! The first backup will take some time since you are uploading a lot of data over your Internet connection.

Of course the good news is that once the initial backup is complete that’s it. Those files won’t need to be uploaded again unless their updated or modified in some way. The only items that will be uploaded will be as new files are added to the directories you’ve chosen to backup, and also if old files are changed in some way.

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