Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
(Answer requested by Chris Fisher) Hmmm. Several come to mind. There were a series of early Soviet-era PC clones I saw in Russia and Hungary in the early 90’s, shortly before the USSR dissolved. Many of the computers were in the “close but no cigar” category, superficially emulating Western PCs (IBMs, Apples, Commodores, Ataris…), but…
Um, plug it in? If the phone (or any lithium-ion device) was put away healthy, turned off, and with a reasonable charge (manufacturers use 30–40% for storage), the battery should be fine for months. If the battery was allowed to run all the way down, and the phone was stored that way, then it depends…
(Answer requested by Alejandro Calle) For any “should I add more RAM?” questions, regardless of the amount, let Windows’ Task Manager be your guide. Open Task Manager (info), select More Details, and then open the Performance tab. Position the Task Manager window so it’s out of the way, but visible. Use your PC normally for…
(Answer requested by Jonathan Morrone) There can be myriad reasons, but here are two very important ones: Many restaurants (and airport terminals, hotels, public building, etc.) were designed and built before everyone started carrying power-hungry smartphones! It’s expensive to re-do electrical systems (especially where liquids will be handled, served, and — inevitably — spilled, as…
(Answer requested by Byron Inductivo) I currently have over 700 passwords in use, but I only have to remember one. I use a password manager on all my devices: I only have to remember the password-manager’s own master password. Once I enter that, the software takes over. When I encounter a website or app login…
It might be, depending on how you set things up. Very broadly speaking, a PC works best with at least 15–25% of empty space on the drive for page files, hibernation files, caches, and such. So, a 128GB drive might be fine if you have less than maybe 100GB of live apps and files that…
Not a good idea. The protective circuitry (in the Li-ion battery or in the device that the battery powers) is designed to prevent dangerous over- and undercharging, which can cause the battery to overheat and catch fire. (Remember all those hoverboard fires a couple years ago? That’s what you get when you abuse a Li-ion…
I recently purchased a similar Optane-equipped PC, benchmarked the hell out of it, and used it in real life — before ripping Optane out of the PC. I documented the results in these three articles: Part 1, “Taking the plunge with a new PC” (AskWoody Plus newsletter 2019-06-03), gets the ball rolling. In Part 2,…
(Answer requested by Ahmed Belkhouja) Very easily! Here’s why: Files are stored on a hard drive in very small chunks called clusters. On a conventional NTFS-formatted drive, for example, the default cluster size is 4KB; large files are stored as a series of 4KB clusters. On a new, empty, spinning-platter drive, saved files will be stored…
(Answer requested by Victor Zamagni) You can use vodka. You can use almost any liquid you want — hamster pee, chicken soup, gasoline, melted ice cream, ketchup, unicorn tears, pickle juice, whatever — as long as you accept the attendant extra risks, costs, and engineering involved. Most PC cooling systems use plain air or distilled/stabilized…