HowToDoThings.com Peripherals

How To Speed Up Windows XP Installed on Your Personal Computer

pmzlabis — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:15:58 -0600

Before we begin, you must understand that adjusting your Windows settings is a risk on your part. Your PC's hardware maybe be damaged due to incorrect software settings! So knowing that a risk exists, this article lets you know only those settings that are safe for your Windows XP operating system. Follow the instruction below to modify your current settings:

How To Get Computer Help

genepooldesign — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:27:09 -0500

At one point or another, most all of us need help fixing a problem with our computer. It could be anything from the network not networking to the thing just refusing to turn on. When you turn to your computer-savvy friend for help, be mindful of these Ten Commandments, and everything should go smoothly - for the both of you.

How To Find Data Tape Storage Solutions

Andy185 — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 07:32:00 -0600

When looking for a backup solution for your computer system, tape systems are still a strong contender when compared with newer technologies. Tape has the lowest cost per megabyte. Since they are removable media, the backup can be stored offsite in case of disaster. Tapes allow easy expandability, since backups can be spanned across multiple cartridges.

Once you decide on tape as your backup medium of choice, there are still several other decisions to be made.

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.

read more

How To Recover Floppy Disk Data

Andy185 — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 09:46:00 -0500

In this day of writable CDs, thumb drives, and cheap wireless networking, floppy disks are just about obsolete. However there are still many cases where floppies are a convenient or even the only method of data transfer to another computer. So what do you do when critical data stored on a floppy suddenly can't be accessed?

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 Choose DVD Formats

Charles404 — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 17:42:00 -0500

What are the differences among all the DVD formats available for purchase? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Let's look at the options:

DVD-ROM. Nobody calls pre-recorded DVDs this anymore, but that is the actual original full name of the DVDs you buy with movies or software already recorded on them. It stands for DVD-Read Only Memory. DVD stands for Digital Video Disk, although marketing people are now calling them Digital Versatile Disks.

read more

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.

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 Choose DVD Burning Software

Charles404 — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 17:34:00 -0500

This article, "Choosing DVD burning software," is a logical extension of its companion article, Choosing CD Burning Software. The fundamental steps are the same: do a web search and find your options, select the most appropriate candidate, evaluate trial copies, and choose what works best for you. The following steps assume you have read the companion article, so if you haven't, please do so now. Let's briefly review the steps that are the same and quickly get to the specific things to look for in DVD burning software.