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| 10 Things Rebooting Your Computer Fixes (With Windows) Posted: 12 Apr 2011 03:00 AM PDT I am a Windows user, therefore I have to reboot periodically. These days I reboot with much less frequency compared to years ago because Windows 7 handles things a lot better, but even so you’re still not out of RebootsVille completely. Even today there are people who for whatever reason sincerely believe rebooting your PC doesn’t fix common issues. Well, it does, and here are 10 common things instantly fixed by rebooting. 1. "Internet doesn’t work" What this means is that the network connection is figuratively "stuck". Most of the time this is caused by a program that didn’t exit properly. It may not be on your screen anymore, but it’s still running in the background where you can’t see it. Rebooting clears that program out, Windows reestablishes its network connection and you’re good to go. 2. Sound card volume decreases or everything starts to sound "poppy" This is an instance where newer isn’t better. Newer sound cards whether on-board or independent are largely software-controlled. If the control software decides to bug out on you, you can’t restart it in-session because it’s a Windows service. The fix? You guessed it – reboot. Tip: If you encounter this, it could be the media player that doesn’t ‘agree’ with your sound card’s control software. If for example you use Windows Media Player, try VLC instead. 3. "Stuck window" You close a program, but the window stays there and the program is not listed in your Task Manager, so this is a screen draw/redraw issue. You may be able to get out of this one by using "log out" instead of shutdown, but chances are you’ll have to reboot to get rid of that stuck window. More often than not the cure to this ill is to have the latest version of your video card’s control software (such as ATI Catalyst, nVidia GeForce drivers and so on). 4. Wi-Fi card can’t establish a connection I’ve never known a Wi-Fi card’s control software that I’ve actually liked, and they do tend to bug out frequently – particularly on Windows XP. In this instance, it’s usually a good idea to reboot both the computer and the wireless router if no matter what you do the card won’t get a signal. If you still can’t get a signal after that, consider changing the router’s channel (ex: if 3, change to 6, 9, 11 or whatever works). 5. Web browser keeps crashing This is applicable to any web browser and not just IE. If your browser keeps crashing on startup after encountering a web page where it was forced to shut down, it may not be the browser itself that’s the problem. Flash or some other utility (like a protection suite) may be "stuck" in a process that didn’t release. A reboot fixes this because it clears the stuck program. To note: This is why you keep more than just one browser installed in Windows. Additional note: Things like toolbars and wonky plugins/add-ons/extensions can crash browsers easily. 6. DVD tray won’t eject This problem is very rare in occurrence and usually only happens if you have a disc which is slightly scratched that causes the drive to ‘ignore’ the eject button during its perpetual attempts to read the data. Rebooting will allow you to get the disc out on restart. 7. Program that accesses USB device won’t connect This is yet again a control software issue. You plug in the whatever-it-is via USB, launch the software to access it, and it crashes. You unplug the device, plug it back in and try again, but no luck. The software reports the device doesn’t exist or hangs and crashes again. You’ll need to reboot here most likely due to a stuck process. And no, using another USB port won’t fix it. Reboot. 8. USB device that was connected now isn’t You have a USB device plugged in, leave your computer for a few hours, come back and now the device doesn’t work, prompting a situation like #7 above. Reboot. Note: If your computer hibernates or suspends if left alone after a period of time, this can cause problems with some USB devices that ‘expect’ a consistent connection. 9. LAN-connected network shares stop sharing Most of the time you can "wake up" a network share simply by PINGing the box you’re trying to connect to either by network name or IP, but sometimes that doesn’t work. If no matter what you do your network shares simply aren’t sharing, reboot. Note: Network shares usually don’t bug out unless it’s been a fairly long amount of time since your last reboot. If you encounter frequent network share drops, consider rebooting the box acting as the server as well. 10. Cloud service shares stop sharing Usually the only time where a cloud service stops working and won’t reconnect is if you encounter a brownout where your router ‘blips’ off for a moment, and the service software can’t reestablish a connection. Rebooting fixes this. Fix for this problem: Buy a cheap UPS to prevent your router from blipping off due to a temporary brownout/blackout. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.       |
| Get Modern: Use A ‘Profile’ Email Signature Posted: 11 Apr 2011 07:00 AM PDT By and large, people still use signatures in emails, as in the little blurb of text at the tail of every message sent. When it comes to signatures, it’s all too easy to have them grow too large. Originally it was just your name and email address, which was 1 or 2 lines depending on how you had it set up. Over time it can grow to 5 lines or greater from all the stuff you put in there. Instead of throwing in a bunch of stuff in your sig, you can significantly shorten it just by linking to a profile site instead. This is my current signature: -- Rich Menga | (email address here) | www.about.me/menga That’s it. The link goes to a profile site about.me where I have my blog and Facebook community page listed. My profile page is purposely simple, but has the option of adding in a ‘bio’ in a text box, and the ability to add in as many links as I want. When someone wants more info on me from emails I send, the about.me page fits the bill here. About.me is just one of several places where you can have a profile. Here are some others: Yahoo! Every Y! profile has the profile address http://pulse.yahoo.com/YAHOO-ID-HERE. It is either public or hidden depending on how you have it configured. If you want to use it in an email signature, unhide the profile (if hidden), fill out the info you want people to know and go from there. The Goog has a separate web site dedicated solely to creating public profiles at profiles.google.com. Windows Live You may want to use one of these if you have a Hotmail address and can learn more about it here. Be warned however that the web addresses assigned to Windows Live profiles are usually ridiculously long, and may not be the best option for an email signature profile link. Facebook profile or community page Every Facebook profile is link-able. Simply login to Facebook and copy the link for ‘Profile’ at top of the site. If you’d rather not do that but still want people to connect to you via Facebook, the next best option is to create a public community page which will have a separate address and profile. Go to this address and hit the "Create a Page" link. You can create as many as you wish. Remember that if you like, you can disable things like wall posting and so on to make it truly profile-like and nothing more. Which is the easiest? About.me is the easiest of the lot, no question. It also gives you added goodies like built-in hit tracking so you can see how many people have visited your profile in a given week/month/etc. About.me was definitely done right the first time. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
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