Tag: Recycle

Six tips for greening your PC

September 30, 2009 by Jason

When you consider that computers now consume about 10 percent of the electricity generated in North America and that a great many PCs still end up in landfills, leaching deadly chemicals, it makes sense to adopt more eco-friendly computing options.

John Hiddema, technical consultant for Nerds on Site, is one of the many people making a conscious effort to go green. He recycles, buys organic produce, uses cleaning products less harmful to the environment, owns energy-efficient appliances, and has configured his
PC to use less energy. He’s also going green on the job. Some of the work he does for clients’ computer systems can be done remotely from his home office, drastically reducing his need for a car.

Here are some tips for making your technology use more eco-friendly.

1. Manage power consumption

Did you know that approximately 40 percent of the energy used for home electronics is consumed while these devices are turned off or idling? Techies refer to computers and related gadgets that draw power while not in use as vampire load. Turn off and unplug everything when you’re not using it. Even simpler: shut down everything and then turn off the power bar. Read More»

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Delete files using Disk Cleanup

April 17, 2008 by Jason

If you want to reduce the number of unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster, use Disk Cleanup. It removes temporary files, empties the Recycle Bin, and removes a variety of system files and other items that you no longer need.

1. Open Disk Cleanup by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, clicking System Tools, and then clicking Disk Cleanup.

2. In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, choose whether you want to clean up your own files only or all of the files on the computer. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Read More»

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Disk Swap to pc Performance

February 01, 2007 by Jason
  • Console-based OSs like DOS have only modest memory requirements. GUI-based operating systems like Windows needs lot of memory, much larger than the RAM that is usually installed on PCs. So, they use something called virtual memory. Here, a large file on the hard disk is used in conjunction with the RAM, which greatly expands the memory available to the OS. Only the data that is required at the given moment is loaded on the RAM; the rest is cached on the swap file. Just like any other file on a disk, the swap file can also get fragmented over time and OS might seem to slow down. To prevent the swap from breaking up, you can place it on a dedicated partition (just like in Linux). Set the size of this partition at about 2.5 times the size of your installed RAM and format it. Next, you need to make sure that the OS does not reserve space on this partition for deleted files because this partition is going to have only one file – the swap file. From the Recyle Bin context menu, choose Properties » Configure drives independently. Select the partition’s tab and select the Do not move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted option. Read More»

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