Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
(Answer requested by Mridul Mohta) It depends on what killed the drive: An electrical problem? A mechanical problem? Pick up the (unpowered/fully off) drive and gently shake it. Is there loose stuff inside the housing? If you hear pieces rattling around, you may have broken one or more of the disc platters (disc platters are…
Windows 1.0 was released 34 years ago, in November 1985. It wasn’t much: Just a standard DOS setup (on a single 5.25″, 1.2MB floppy disk) wrapped in a simple point-and-click interface and displayed in CGA 640×200px resolution or Hercules monochrome green or amber. This combination of OS and “shell” was primitive, but it could run…
The newest AskWoody Plus newsletter is now available to members. In this issue: NETWORK TROUBLESHOOTING: Resolving Windows network-connection problems BEST OF THE LOUNGE: Wi-Fi router security LANGALIST: Hybrid attack can extract data from inert RAM BEST UTILITIES: Freeware Spotlight — WPD PC BUYING: PC bargains: Buying a laptop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday Not a member? This issue (as…
(Answer requested by Terry Turner) It’s not the clicks, per se, but the positive tactile feedback that tells you that a key has been depressed enough to register the keystroke. On a well-made mechanical keyboard, all the keys will “break” their upward resistance with the same amount of pressure (i.e. they’ll generate the click and…
(Answer requested by Dennis Willis) You’ll need a cable lock and either an adhesive anchor or a cable long enough to lasso itself after passing around or through an immovable object. A PC cable lock (examples) attaches to a security point built into most laptop bodies; the attachment point is connected to the laptop’s frame,…
(Answer requested by “Weslo”) The three primary reasons for RAM limitations: There can be mathematical limitations: a 32-bit PC can only access about 4GB of RAM, because that — roughly 4 billion — is the highest you can count using 32 bits of data. A 32-bit operating system literally can’t “see” or access memory at…
(Answer requested via Quora) If you go by sales, the answer is about 10%, which is Apple’s current smartphone marketshare: (Apple fans tend not to believe stats like this, so here’s a pile of alternate sources: “smartphone market share” – (Google Search) Apple’s aggressive marketing makes most people think that Apple sales are far larger/better…
The newest AskWoody Plus newsletter is now available to members. This issue: WOODY’S WINDOWS WATCH: Peering into the Windows tea leaves LANGALIST: More on restoring drivers from local backups BEST OF THE LOUNGE: Unhappy with Firefox UI changes WINDOWS PATCHING: Take charge of Windows 10 and Office 365 updating BEST UTILITIES: Freeware Spotlight — Best…
(Answer requested by Dinju Sebastian) No. Amps are amps; volts are volts; watts are watts. Doesn’t matter where they come from. Your phone treats your PC-provided power as just another recharge source. There are no unusual effects on the phone’s battery from PC-delivered power, as compared to power delivered by a wall-adaptor (or any other…
That could be problematic — how will you control the PC if none of the keys work? A better option is a software-moderated kiosk mode, which severely restricts what users can do with the PC while not preventing the PC from acting normally, outside of kiosk mode. Operating systems and browsers usually each support their…