Tips Of The Day For December 2000

Tip Of The Day For December 31, 2000: If you are partitioning a modern hard disk using the FDISK program, you will be asked upon execution of the program whether you want to enable "large disk support". This is Microsoft's obscure way of asking if you want to use FAT32 partitions. Be sure to answer "Yes" or you will be limited to a 2 GB partition size.

Tip Of The Day For December 24, 2000: If you just bought a new PC, check to see if it came with a proper operating system (usually Windows) CD-ROM. If it didn't, the install files for the operating system may be on the hard disk in a directory somewhere: you can sometimes find them by searching for files with the extension ".CAB". If you only have these files on your hard disk, copy them to another PC or another medium (such as a CD-R disk) as soon as possible. You will need them if you ever need to reinstall the operating system, and having them on the hard disk won't help you in the event of a crash.

Tip Of The Day For December 22, 2000: Check the time on your system clock every once in a while, especially if you do anything with your PC that requires accurate time-keeping. The internal clocks on most PCs will tend to "drift" over time. One great idea for fixing this problem is to use one of the widely available clock synchronizing programs, such as AtomTime. These applications connect over the Internet to atomic clock time servers and automatically correct the time on your system clock for you. (You can also use them manually, say once a month, if you don't want an application changing your system clock automatically.)

Tip Of The Day For December 18, 2000: Many people love to shop at online auctions, looking for deals on a myriad of different products. However, you must be careful when doing this with technology, especially PCs. I generally do not recommend buying PCs from online auctions due to the risks involved, though it can be done well if you are careful. For more on my take on this, see this page.

Tip Of The Day For December 16, 2000: Floppy disk drives are connected to the system using a cable that is easy to attach upside-down. When this is done, the floppy drive won't work properly, and its activity LED will always be lit, from the moment the PC is turned on. This is virtually never caused by anything other than the cable being upside-down, so bear that in mind. Sometimes people who have this LED lit all the time say they already checked the cable and it is correct--and then they check again and find it really was upside-down. :^) For more on floppy disk troubleshooting, see here.

Tip Of The Day For December 13, 2000: Hard disk drives of comparable size, cost and age are generally comparable in terms of quality. Don't worry too much about "which brand is best", since there is no agreement on the subject whatsoever. :^) See here for more on hard disk quality issue.

Tip Of The Day For December 10, 2000: When buying floppy disks, always buy ones that have been preformatted for the IBM PC platform. They generally don't cost any more than unformatted floppies these days, and save you considerable time and hassle.

Tip Of The Day For December 3, 2000: SCSI cables and connectors can be extremely confusing. If you are new to the world of SCSI, it can be difficult to figure out what's what with all the different hardware that's out there. Check out this section for a comprehensive look at SCSI cabling and connector issues, complete with photographs.

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