Tech DC – home and office computer support for D.C., Virginia & Maryland
info@techdc.com / 202-568-9986
The APC UPB10
The APC UPB10
It does require you to push a button to activate the power. If the device you are charging is nearly out of power, the APC will continue to charge it. If the device is nearly full, the APC will only charge it for about 20 minutes before you need to press the button again. It does this to save the battery.
If you are like me and sometimes find yourself on the other side of D.C. without any cell phone power left, the APC UPB10 can help.
There are many instant messaging options for communicating with your friends and colleagues. In order for instant messengers to work together, they need to use the same protocol. To avoid interoperability issues, consider one of the messengers listed here that supports multiple systems.
Windows and Linux
Pidgin works with all the major IM systems: AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr.
It is also highly customizable with lots of plugins. Lifehacker.com lists their ten favorite plug-ins.
Mac OS X
By default, the Mac comes with iChat which is the best videoconferencing solution for Mac. Unfortunately, iChat only works with Macs. It uses a Jabber transport and connects with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), .Mac, ICQ and XMPP.
For instant messaging and more interoperability on the Mac, Adium is similar to Pidgin and works with all the major IM protocols.
IM + Video + Calling Land Lines
If you also want videoconferencing, Skype is the most popular solution
. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and even some mobile devices like Windows Mobile PDAs and the Sony PSP (pictured). It also has the paid options of Skype Out (calling a phone) or Skype In (getting a phone number that rings your Skype account). On the downside, Skype is a proprietary protocol that only works with Skype.
Living in the Washington D.C. area, I meet a lot of political junkies. A great application for them is Election ’08 for iPhone & iPod Touch by Aaron Brethorst. It costs $0.99. While the information it provides is freely available from electoral-vote.com, Election ’08 displays the information well and is easy to browse. It gives you the polls and trends by state, as well as historical data for past elections.
I’ll be watching my state of Virginia because it is a close swing state. Election ’08 shows that Washington D.C. is the most skewed state with 90 to 9 currently for Obama.
If you are interested in the election poll results as they come in and you have an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch, Election ’08 is worth the $0.99.
If your computer does not boot, there may be problems with drivers or write permissions. In order fix the computer, you can try to boot the operating system into safe mode. This overcomes many common problems that cause a computer not to boot.
Windows
In Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 98, and Windows 95, you get into safe mode by holding the F8 key at computer startup.
You then choose Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking as shown on this screen.
Mac OS X
Although it is not often used, the Mac has a safe mode too. Hold down the Shift key during computer startup.
For a recent Falls Church, Virginia customer I had to do this because the computer’s file permissions got screwed up. Once into the operating system with safe mode, I was able to use Disk Utility and repair permissions.
You should test new RAM to make sure that it works. You should also test existing RAM when your computer is acting weird. Computer RAM does go bad. When it does, you can see erratic behaviors such as computer freezes, incorrect screen drawings, and corrupted files. Most people assume that this is due to a virus.
A few years ago I saw a manager in a Reston, Virginia office reprimand an employee because the manager assumed that the employee somehow infected a computer with a virus. The important computer documents had been corrupted and could no longer be opened. We figured out later that the real culprit was just bad RAM that had incorrectly written the files to disk.
Testing RAM on a PC
Using a bootable CD such as Ubuntu or the Ultimate Boot CD as described in my Live CDs post will allow you to run utilities to test PC RAM.
Testing RAM on a Mac
Thanks to command-tab.com for creating a utility for thoroughly testing RAM on a Mac computer. Run their install package, shut down the computer, boot up while pressing the Command and S keys (to go into Single User mode), then type memtest all 2 in order to run the memory test twice.
I recently ran this test after adding more RAM to a computer for a Washington D.C. customer. The test showed that the new RAM had no problems.