HowToDoThings.com Hardware

How To Make Your Computer Faster

Eric430 — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:18:00 -0500

Computers are wonderful devices that allow us to do many things but things can get rough once the garbage that comes in through our internet connection begins to stop up our system. I have put together a step-by-step procedure for cleaning all of this out. Follow the steps below and you will see a noticeable improvement in your system. Enjoy!

How To Transfer VHS to DVD

Charles404 — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 03:48:00 -0500

VHS video is inconvenient in today's digital world, and there are a lot of people who want to convert their older video recordings to DVD. You can certainly find a service that will make this conversion for you, but these transfers can get expensive if you have several tapes to convert. This article will describe two ways to transfer that VHS tape of your graduation, wedding or birthday party to DVD so that you can have a more permanent digital copy to share with family and friends.

Recording with a DVD Recorder: A DVD recorder is a video device specifically designed for consumers to record to DVD, even if they don't own a computer.

How To Use Your TV as a Computer Monitor

Harry255 — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 11:57:00 -0500

Many a time I have looked over at my 32" television and thought, why can't I just hook up my computer to that thing and play my PC games on a huge screen? I figured it would beat buying a huge monitor for a ton of cash, right? Well I looked into it and it can be done but there are some limitations that, in the end, might not make it worth your while. I will explain...

How To Convert AVI to DVD

Charles404 — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:47:00 -0500

How do you take a movie that is stored on your hard drive in AVI format and burn it to disk so that you can watch it on a standard DVD player? This is an important question for most of us with digital camcorders. Even digital cameras take little movies as well as still pictures these days. You can simply burn them to CD or DVD as files to share with friends and family who have computers, but if you want to send a movie to grandma, and she doesn't have a computer, you are stuck. With the right software, making a DVD for grandma is not too difficult.

How To Clean a CD Rom Drive

Andy185 — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 10:21:00 -0500

Computer CD-ROM drives are fairly robust and need little if any attention. They can function even with a fair amount of dust on the lens, but on rare occasions, may get dirty enough to require cleaning. Symptoms of a dirty lens include long read times, problems recognizing that there is a disc in the drive, and skipping or repeating on audio CDs. These symptoms are often intermittent and a drive may function perfectly most of the time and have only occasional problems.

CD-ROM drives should never be cleaned routinely. Clean them only if you suspect a problem. The cleaning process itself carries a small chance of damaging the lens or other equipment.

If only one disc is behaving badly, it's likely to be just that disc that is the problem. Even if several discs have problems, your first step should be cleaning and inspecting the discs rather than the drive.

How To Enhance and Resize Photos for Craigslist

murry — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:57:01 -0600

Let's say you've decided to sell an assortment of obsolete wired networking hardware (you recently switched to wireless, right?). You've got a LinkSys router and two Netgear hubs of different sizes. With your new 8 megapixel Canon camera, you'll shoot pictures of each. You already know how to download these photos from camera to computer. You've placed the photos in a folder named C:\craigslist\NetworkHardware4Sale.

How To Transfer an Audio Cassette Tape

Charles404 — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 08:21:00 -0600

There are many reasons why you might want to transfer an audio recording from cassette to CD. You may have a recording from your early garage band days or an interview with your grandmother or baby's first words. One thing is certain. Cassette audio does not improve with age. It's time you transferred that audio to CD. It's not very difficult to do once you have gathered together just a few items.

First, you need a cassette player. The better the quality of the player, the better the final outcome. Borrow a good player if you do not have one, or look in your local thrift shop. It should be possible to get a good player cheaply if you cannot borrow one.

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How To Put Big Photos in Your Craigslist Ad

murry — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:33:50 -0600

In Part 1, How To Use ImageShack Photo Hosting for Craigslist Ads, I described what photo hosting was all about and why you want to avoid use of Craigslist's own tools for adding photos to your product listings. I discussed the virtues of ImageShack's free hosting service and its other uses, and explained that the procedures are easy to follow. In Part 2, How To Enhance and Resize Photos for Craigslist, I provided the rationale and then the steps to follow to host your photos at ImageShack. That's where they are, right? Now it's time to place them in your Craigslist ad. You are just several easy steps away from WOW.

Bring your browser on screen and go to Craigslist. In most cases, Craigslist will set up automatically for your region.

How To Choose a Laptop

D605 — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:30:00 -0600

Buying and using a laptop can be a liberating experience. You will have the ability to take your work wherever you go, take your computer to class, a coffee shop, on a trip - anywhere. You may end up spending a bit more for a laptop than you would for a desktop - after all, the individual components need to be smaller to fit in a laptop chassis - but the convenience is worth the extra cost.

How To Duplicate a DVD

Charles404 — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 04:45:00 -0500

I used to travel a lot, and experience taught me to never take an original CD or DVD on the road. I invariably ended up damaging or losing a disk at some point. Because of legitimate piracy concerns, DVD manufacturers put copy protection on many releases, so duplicating a DVD is not always a simple matter. This article does not attempt to teach you how to pirate DVDs, but if you have your own legitimate need for an archival copy, you can duplicate most DVDs inexpensively. This article will not duplicate information found in its companion article, How to Choose DVD Burning Software.