It’s clear that desktop users have a solid advantage over laptop users in the category of customization and personal repairs. It’s much, much harder to do a repair on or even build a laptop than it is to do so on a desktop. If something goes wrong, such as constant overheating in this case, laptop users don’t have much choice than working around the problem, whereas those with stationary PC’s can simply add a fan.

My Pavilion has been overheating a lot recently, leading to lots of frustration on my part.  I mean, you’d be frustrated too if you had a few tabs open, maybe iTunes and OpenOffice - and your computer just shut off.

Anyway, here’s a quick list of tips/things to use so your computer doesn’t overheat.

• Download SystemExplorer and use it.  It’s much more comprehensive than the default Windows task explorer.  Use it to guage how much memory certain processes are using.  For me, the big killer is Firefox the majority of the time.
• If you know you won’t be using them for a while, quite background programs like LogMeIn, media managers, etc.  Even consider stopping Google Desktop indexing if you’re computer is particularly bad - this program can eat up memory like a piece of fried chicken at a Baptist convention.
• Clean your computer with compressed air.  This sounds weird, but I’ve heard that cleaning out all that dust can actually lower the temperature.
• Allow ample room for ventilation.  Since most laptop fans are on the bottom, this can be difficult.  The best way is by purchasing a cooling pad.  There are basically two types of cooling pads - electric ones and just plain pads.  The pads usually work to prop up the computer and allow the fan to blow out hot air, while the electric pads plug into the USB port and add extra cooling.  You can usually pick up a good Belkin pad for around $20.

Recently, while waiting for my Grub 1.5 to start up, I was met by a blinking underscore. I sat for a few minutes, hoping that it would go away and that I wouldn’t be faced with anything like my previous problem.

However, it didn’t - and I got worried. Problems booting a secondary OS like Ubuntu is one thing, but not having access to anything can make your heart skip!

Thankfully, though, the fix was easy enough. Basically, before turning on your computer, you just need to make sure you have ejected all external media (flash drives, SD cards, external hard drives, etc). For some reason, Grub is confused, thinking that there may be a bootable OS plugged in.

Simply eject your media (while the computer is off) and try again. Voila!

net2ftp is a free site that allows you quick and easy access to your server for transferring files. This might come in handy if you’re, say, at a limited permissions computer and can’t use a portable FTP like FileZilla.

net2ftp is very easy to use and uses java, flash, or simple “browse” to upload files. It’s quick, free, and easy to log in, so if you’re in a situation where you can’t get to your usual FTP software, try it out!

net2ftp

technorati tags: net2ftp, server, transferring, FTP, FileZilla, java, flash, upload