ICT News and Updates

Automating shop floor processes is a no brainer. Computers can save money by reducing waste, increasing efficiency and speeding up production. Computers are now a valuable tool in the industrial environment and most production, manufacturing, distribution and industrial companies now use them, not just for controlling processes but they are also used in areas such as packing or the goods-in yard.

Using computers in industrial environments can come with downsides too. Computers are generally designed to work in offices or homes and are not equipped to deal with the many hazards an industrial area contains. A standard computer enclosure is designed to simply prevent damage to the components by a minor knock however, in industrial areas all sorts of elements can have dramatic effects to a computer.

Dust, dirt, water, oil, heavy impacts, excessive heat and vibration are just some of the problems a computer tasked to work in an industrial area will face. Of course a specialist industrial computer can be used. These can be designed dustproof or indeed waterproof, they are also robust and can withstand even the hardest of knocks.

However, these machines are not very flexible. A dustproof industrial computer may not be suitable to be moved in to a processing area that contains water where a waterproof computer is needed in the dusty environment. Also if the machine needs to be upgraded, repaired or replaced then a service engineer will have to be called out and how much could that cost in production downtime?

A more flexible and increasingly more common alternative is to use an industrial computer enclosure. These specialist steel cabinets for standard computer systems, monitors and printers can protect from all the aforementioned hazards but offer increased flexibility in that not only can an industrial computer enclosure can be placed literally anywhere they can also contain any PC which can take minutes to replace rather than the hours, days and weeks it might take to get a replacement bespoke machine.

Unlike a human body, every time you work out your computer, its gets bloated. Sluggish. Slower. It’s easy to blame your PC; it must be the hardware. You start thinking you could have spent more money on a bigger and better brand. But just like a car — whether it’s a new Porsche or a used Ford station wagon, if you, the driver, don’t keep it oiled, it’s bound to drive you nuts with mechanical problems.

Computers aren’t so different from any product you use — despite the technology, you’re the brains behind keeping your equipment in tiptop shape. Without exercising a few maintenance tips, you’ll find your PC grinding to a near-halt. The steps to a smooth-running, faster computer are simple — and free. Here’s a starter checklist to “re-charging” your machine:

1. Whether your PC is a dinosaur or the newest piece of wizardry on the market, if you go on the Internet (and obviously you do if you’re reading this), your computer will get slower with time for one reason: Spyware. It’s impossible to figure out how many companies out there are tracking you, but it is easy to shut them down (and keep your PC running faster) by installing a anti-spyware program. PC Magazine’s #1 Editor’s Choice for bumping off the thugs who track you is Spyware Doctor (pctools.com/spyware-doctor.com). It’s free, as is Spybot (safer-networking.org/index2.html), another highly rated program. And don’t forget to install or update your anti-virus programs, which are more malicious to your computer. AVG Free (free.avg.com) is an easy-to-use program to keep things running.

2. So maybe your spyware programs are in place, but it’s easy to forget those simple, but essential housekeeping tasks every PC requires. It’s time to dump those temp programs that tend to get forgotten during everyday computer work. Go to C:Documents and SettingsUsernamelocal settings, and DELETE. A few hundred megabytes of temporary bits of information can make things chug more than you think. Leave the file folder, but toss the junk inside it. Voila! You’ve gotten rid of excess stuff slowing your hardware at no charge.

3. Focus on this much-discussed, but often-ignored tip: Defrag, defrag, defrag. Files come and go, but they leave thousands of fragments of things that sit and slow your computer. Open the Control Panel, click on Administrative Tools, then click Computer Management. You’ll notice Disk Defragmenter under “Storage” on the left. Run the defragmenter on any drives you have. (That goes for any flash drives you might be using, as well.) It’s amazing how many open spaces can be filled with this tool, to keep the machine running meaner and leaner.

4. Another no-charge way to hurry up your processor is to get rid of Windows eye candy (boxes under icons, important things like that) — the visual settings that don’t do much except slow your work down. The best way to accelerate your PC is to let Windows know you’d like the best performance possible please. You do this by accessing the Control Panel, clicking on System, click on the “Advanced” tab, then click the “Performance” option. Under “Visual Effects,” select “Adjust For Best Performance.” Click the OKs necessary, and you should see a speedier (and maybe cleaner-looking) computer the next time you boot up.

5. To truly optimize your computer, the Internet is chock-full of free clean-up utilities — to do all the tasks you might not know about or be able to find without a 500-page reference book at your side. One of the best all-around utilities for speeding up your hardware is Glary Utilities, a program that finds all the junk files, invalid registry entries and pieces of information that do nothing but slow your PC down. It’s free, and after a first run-through, your computer will be (almost) clean as a whistle.

It’s hard enough keeping up with our fast-paced world of information. But with just a bit of time and a few maintenance checkups, you can at least manage your computer-oriented life in more of a hurry.

It is difficult to predict how long a laptop battery charge will last because each computer user has different habits and needs. The rate at which you use laptop battery power will determine how long you can use the battery of your laptop. You can re-calibrate your laptop battery if the battery’s life has gotten shorter over time. Your laptop battery might need a good calibration if it doesn’t seem to be getting the mileage that it should. How to re-calibrate laptop battery? The following paragraphs will give you the answer.

First put the laptop computer to sleep by turning off the screensaver and other power management settings of the computer. Then fully charge the computer and allow it to run all the way down until the computer shuts off automatically. Once the laptop battery has fully drained, charge it back up again and restore the screensaver and power management settings.
Re-calibrate your battery every month or so by fully charging, fully discharging, and then fully charging again. Basically to have a chance to re-calibrate your laptop battery is to turn off all power-saving features completely and then fully recharge them. If it doesn’t work for the first time then try two more full discharges and recharges.

The above way of re-calibrating the laptop batteries works well with laptops using Ni-MH cells. But not with laptops using Li-Ion batteries because deep discharges will actually decrease the charge capacity and lifespan of Li-Ion cells. Moreover Li-ion batteries irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year from the time of manufacture at a typical 100% charge level at 25deg.C, even when unused. Li-ion batteries irreversibly lose approximately 2%, 4%, 15% at 0deg.C, 25deg.C and 40deg.C respectively, when stored at 40% charge level. That is every deep discharge cycle decreases the capacity of the Li-ion batteries. As the Li-Ion batteries are chemical in nature, charging and recharging is not going to fix the problem once the chemical reactions stop happening. Therefore the best advice for re-calibrating the Li-Ion batteries is to store the battery at 40% charge if it kept unused for any unlimited period of time. Also don’t leave the battery in the laptop if you don’t use the battery or if you plug the laptop into outlet power.

You can also re-calibrate your laptop battery using IBM Thinkpad Battery Maximizer in order to maximize your laptop battery’s life. If your laptop has IBM ThinkPad Battery MaxiMiser and Power Management features installed, you can verify the condition of the laptop battery. You can check the status of your battery using the Battery MaxiMiser Gauge in the taskbar tray. The ThinkPad’s Lithium Ion battery pack that seems to be an intelligent battery uses a microprocessor to monitor its capacity. Then the microprocessor of the battery pack passes the information about the remaining battery capacity to the laptop. The laptop indicates the capacity with high accuracy.

Using the HP Laptop Battery Learning Utility, a modified version of a Win98 boot floppy, can also help you. Just place it in the floppy drive, and then turn on the computer. The re-calibration process is automated and takes about six hours to finish. This utility is available in different versions for different models. You can run the utility every two months.

If the laptop battery is still bad then it must have developed a memory that cannot be erased easily. If calibration doesn’t help, then it is the right time to purchase another battery.

There is no doubt that technology affects most people who live anywhere other than third-world countries. It is difficult to go through a day without the need to put some type of technology to work. The most common and powerful piece of technology for most people is the personal computer that they use at home and at work. Because people and businesses are now so dependent on their computers, it is essential that they make sure to have effective antispyware software installed and running on their systems.

Like just every type of advancement made throughout time, there are associated positives and negatives. When it comes to the technological advancements that surround us today and which are so much a part of our lives, there is no difference.

In many ways, technology is a two edged sword, bringing about conveniences and expanding capabilities in ways many people had never dreamed of, yet at the same time bringing with it some alarming and numerous internet threats to every person who uses a computer to access the internet.

One thing that is quite effective at combating those insidious internet threat security trends that are so prevalent today is to use a robust and reliable antispyware software application. Of course, it is not enough just to install this kind of internet security software on your computer; it is also imperative that it is always updated and constantly scanning your system.

Any internet threat that is instigated by cyber criminals of the world is constantly changing in an effort to stay one step ahead of even the best antivirus and antispyware programs on the market. Because of this, it is imperative that you update your antispyware and other computer internet security software frequently.

These days, many of the top-of-the-line internet security suite software packages are designed to automatically check for updates and download them without any intervention from the computer user. This can all happen seamlessly in the background so that other work and important tasks are not interrupted, yet the internet safety software is always functioning at the best possible level.

The only requirement for these automated software updates to happen is for the computer to be running with the application running in the background or on a system level, and making sure that the computer is connected to the internet.

Most antispyware software packages will check for updates at least once a day. If an update is found, then the patch will be downloaded and the program will restart to make the new changes effective. Yet there is a program that offers the highest level of updates available today. The Kaspersky internet security program will update itself on an hourly basis, making it the program that is best able to respond to new threats more quickly, over any other safety application.