Maximum PC - How-Tos

How to Sideload Android Apps

Markkus Rovito — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:22:47 +0000

You've found that hot new app on the Android Market, and you can't wait to click the Install button. But you're getting the message that the app isn't compatible with your device. Being the good Maximum user that you are, you'd rather find out for yourself. Those messages are sometimes wrong, after all. Or perhaps you want to take advantage of the daily giveaways in the Amazon Appstore. Or, if you're one of the millions of Kindle Fire owners, you may want more choices than the limited Amazon Appstore provides. All of the above comprise sufficient reason to start sideloading apps to your Android device.

Step 1: Get Some Apps to Sideload

The reason you sideload apps in the first place is because you're sourcing them from a place other than the sanctioned method, which is usually the Android Market or some device-specific boutique app store. Android Apps come in the form of .apk files. You can procure such files from a prior device backup, straight from a developer's website, and of course from… the Internet (you know the deal).

Next, transfer those .apk files from your PC to your Android however you like: on a microSD card (image above), through a cloud service such as Dropbox, via a USB transfer, etc. Just remember what directory those files end up in, so you don't have to root through too many folders looking for them later.

Step 2: Tweak Applications Settings

The default setting in Android is to not allow the installation of non-Market applications. Fie on that! Go to your Android device's Settings, and under Applications, check the "Unknown sources" box (image below), allowing you, in effect, to sideload. Some unfortunate souls may have tyrannical devices that have modded the Android OS to not allow sideloading at all, in which case they'll have to look into rooting the device or installing custom Android ROMs. But that's a whole other How To.

Step 3: Install the Apps Through a File Manager

To install your .apk apps, you essentially launch the files through a file manager app. Many Android devices come with a file manager preloaded. For the rest, there are tons of file managers out there and a good handful of high-quality free ones. If you have access to the Android Market, like most Android users, we like Metago's Astro File Manager or Rhythm Software's File Manager HD for Honeycomb tablets. For folks locked into the Amazon Appstore (users of the Grid10, Kindle Fire, etc.), we prefer ES File Explorer.

Because you heeded our warning to remember what folder your .apk’s are in, you just need to launch your file manager and find them (image above). If they're on a microSD card, you'll probably need to hit the file manager's Up button a couple of times to find the "Removable" directory. Touching an .apk icon will open the Package Installer, where you can touch the Install button to finish the deed (image below). Now that app, whether it will function properly or not, is ready to launch. Enjoy the sweet freedom of the gray market!

@MaxTechMarkkus for relevant chirpings.

SOPA Protests: How To Use Google Cache To View Blacked-Out Websites

Brad Chacos — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:18:53 +0000

Websites with a beef against over-reaching legislation have drawn a line in the sand; today, many of them are following Reddit’s lead and going black to protest SOPA and PIPA. The controversial bills have been under heavy fire recently, and the heat’s bound to increase when 25 million Joe and Jill Everymen find Wikipedia cold, dark, and urging readers to contact their Congressional representatives. But you’re not Joe or Jill Everyman. You’re a Maximum PC reader, a tech-savvy webizen who already understands that SOPA flat-out sucks. What if you need to get your Wikipedia (or Destructoid, or Boing Boing, or…) on today?

Don’t worry – there’s a way around the blackout if you know exactly what you’re looking for, thanks to the magic of Google’s all-encompassing cache.

First, boot up your browser and head over to Google, where you’ll just so happen to see a link to a page outlining Google’s own SOPA/PIPA opposition. Search for whatever blacked-out page you’re looking for, but be specific: you won’t be able to browse blacked-out sites normally, so you’ll need to find deeper links to exact content, using searches like “Reddit why is morrowind so revered” or “Maximum PC Wikipedia”.

Trying to click on the link will lead you to the site’s blackout message. Instead, hover over the listing, then mouse over the three arrows that appear to its right to bring up the preview pane. Underneath the direct link in the preview pane, you’ll see a URL for the page, and to the right of that, you’ll see a link to a cached version. Bingo! Click on that.

You’ll be taken to a cached version of the page. A message at the top will tell you when Google took the snapshot. This method isn’t perfect, however; you won’t be able to click on links without being directed to the blackout page. (You can run another specific Google search for the linked-to content, though.) Additionally, the content might not be totally up-to-date, but content that’s a few day old beats no content whatsoever, right?

Here's another useful trick for skirting Wikipedia's blackout: just disable Javascript for the site and you'll be able to browse it normally. That should work for other sites using Javascript-powered blackout methods, too, such as Wordpress.org.

When you’re done circumventing blackouts, be sure to head over to AmericanCensorship.org and bug your Congressmen/women if you haven’t already. And if you don't get what all the fuss is about, check out our primer on stopping SOPA and PIPA, which includes a list of notable sites taking part in the blackout.

How To Permanently Turn Off G+ Personal Results In Google Search

Brad Chacos — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:24:13 +0000

Two days ago, Google started mixing Google+ connections with general search results. Pics, photos, shared links, posts, authored articles – if someone in your Circles shared something related to what you’re looking for, it shows up in your search results. Google calls it “Search Plus Your World;” I call it annoying. When the first page of results is dominated by “Personal Results,” that’s a problem. And to make it worse, Google doesn’t exactly make it easy to turn the “feature” off for good.

The “Hide Personal Results” button on the search page is a temporary solution but the problem rears its ugly head again the very next time your search for something. If you’re drowning in useless search results suggested by your 2000-plus Circle buddies, here’s how to swing the Personal Results banhammer permanently in less than 15 seconds.

First saunter over to Google.com, then open up your options by clicking on the gear icon in the upper-right hand corner of the screen. Select “Search Settings” from the list of options. (If you have a customized iGoogle setup, get to the classic Google homepage by selecting the gear icon, then the "Classic Home" option. You can return to iGoogle after disabling Personal Results. Thanks to Ghost6007 and Frances the Mute for pointing this out in the comments!)

Scroll down until you see the Personal Results options. By default, “Use personal results” is selected. Click the “Do not use personal results” bubble.

Now, just click “Save” at the bottom of the screen and you’ll never be bothered by those annoying and only tangentially on-topic Personal Results again! We’re interested in hearing what you think, though: do you like the inclusion of G+-related Personal Results in your everyday searches, or are you on your way to disable the feature right now?

Connect with Brad on Google+, just don't expect him to see your posts in Google Search results!

How to Customize the Windows 7 File Browser Menu

Alex Castle — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:47:43 +0000

In Windows 7, browsing for files from within a program can be a bit confusing. Why? Because for some reason, there are two separate menus for exactly that function, and they behave differently.

The first sort of menu looks more or less like Explorer.exe (image below). It’s got a folder view in the main part of the window, and a navigation pane on the left side that makes it quick to get where you want to go. If you frequently save to or load from a particular location, you can make sure it’s always at hand by dragging that location into your Favorites bar. This is the good window.

The second menu is a holdover from pre-Windows 7 days—it’s the plain-old Open menu, with a small browser and a wimpy selection of predefined, uncustomizable shortcut icons on the left (image below). It is, unfortunately, still more common in programs (including Adobe’s Creative Suite) than the superior, newer menu.

Fortunately, you actually can customize the second type of file browser—it just takes some work. There’s a way to do it in the system registry, but it’s complicated and not necessary. Instead we’ll use a free app called PlacesBar Editor.

Step 1: Download PlacesBar Editor

PlacesBar Editor is available for free at bit.ly/lqKxW. Simply follow the link to download the app, unzip it, and install it.

Once it’s installed, go ahead and run the program. The main interface is strangely complicated—despite an unnecessarily large assortment of buttons and icons on the top of the window, there’s actually really only one thing we care about: the fields in the Windows tab.

Step 2: Customize Your Windows Places Bar

The Windows tab lets you directly customize the lineup of five icons that appear in your places bar (image below). For each of the five places, you can click the drop‑down box on the right to select any system folder on your computer, such as My Documents, the Desktop, or My Computer. Most of these locations are already in the places bar, so you’ll more likely use the field to the right (which you can enable by clicking the Custom checkbox).

Here, you can add any non-system folder by simply entering its complete path in the text field, or clicking the folder icon and browsing for it. You can use any folder on your system, or any network location. We particularly like being able to add our Dropbox folder to our places list, as well as our working folder for screenshots.

Once you’ve made your changes, you’ll have to click the Save button at the top in order to have them take effect. At that point, you can click the Test button to open a sample file browser and make sure everything is in order.

Note that when you click Save, all places bar icons are changed to the ones specified. In other words, you can’t just use PlacesBar Editor to change a single location and keep the rest the same—you’ll have to define a full set of five (or less) that you want to use. If, for whatever reason, you don’t care for your new layout, you can click the Default button to get the old locations back.

How to Set Up a New PC the Right Way

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:44:10 +0000

Whether you just built or bought a new PC, it pays to optimize your setup from the start

Nothing holds more promise than a brand-new PC. The hardware is fresh and full of potential, the OS is clean and clutter-free, and you have nothing but pure, unadulterated storage space awaiting your precious data. It’s an exciting time, indeed. But before you start dumping old files onto your new rig willy-nilly, and downloading every shiny bauble of an app that catches your eye, take some time to consider a more measured approach to moving in. After all, you only have this opportunity once.

The way you set up your new PC now will have a lasting impact on your experience over time. Do it haphazardly, and your experience will be plagued by disorder and regret. Do it thoughtfully, though, by following the course of action we prescribe on the following pages, and you will have a machine that’s primed and ready to meet your every need from the start.

Check Your Specs

If you’ve just built your rig or unboxed a sparkling-new PC, it’s always a good idea to verify the hardware specs to make sure all parts are actually performing as they should be. We’ve seen simple BIOS misconfigurations downclock chips by hundreds of megahertz.

Inspect CPU-Z's memory tab to see if your RAM is configured correctly for double- or triple-channel, and that the frequency is set to the level you paid for.

First download CPU-Z. This excellent free utility will query your CPU and report the model number, cache size, and clock speed of the chip in real-time. To test your CPU’s speed, put a load on it using, say, Prime95 and run a stress test. CPU-Z should report the correct clock speed for your chip. While you’re here, pull up Task Manager by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del. Select the Performance tab and make sure that each of your cores, virtual or real, is represented. Believe it or not, we’ve seen Hyper-Threading turned off occasionally on some systems.

Turn off Prime95, but keep CPU-Z open. Click the Memory tab. You should see the memory frequency reported under DRAM Frequency. This is the base clock, so you should double it to get the frequency of the RAM. For example, if your DDR3/1600 is reporting as 667, your RAM is actually running at DDR3/1333 speed.

TechPowerUp's GPU-Z will tell you what speed the PCIe is running at.

CPU-Z will also report graphics speed, but we prefer GPU-Z for more detailed info. GPU-Z will generate a CPU-Z-like interface. Pay particular attention to the default clock speed and memory speeds for your GPU. If you paid for an overclocked GPU, check that it is running at the speeds you paid for. GPU-Z will also tell you if SLI or CrossFireX is enabled or not and also at what speed the PCIe slot is running. Yes, it's possible that a new machine will have the GPU running in a slower slot, which may impact performance.

Stress It Out

If a component is going to fail, you want it to fail while it’s under warranty. For CPU stress tests, we prefer the free Prime95. Just download it and run the in-place stress test. A properly configured and cooled stock-clocked system should have no problem running Prime95 for hours on end. For GPU stress testing, FurMark is still quite popular, or you can run Unigine’s Heaven benchmark in a loop for a few hours. Keep in mind that stressing the GPU will also stress your PSU and cooling, so any shortcomings may crop up there, as well.

RTFM

Did you know your motherboard has a special USB port that allows you to make BIOS updates without a CPU being installed? No? Well it’s right there in the frakking manual. One of the first things you should do with your new machine is to read the documentation, particularly the motherboard manual, that came with it.

Store Your Extra Parts

Once you’re done building a new PC, collect the extra modular power cables, drive rails, special sound-dampening drive screws, and put them in one place. You could even store the extra parts in your case, as long as there’s room to spare and it won’t block airflow. You won’t thank us now, but you will in three years.

Get Drivers in Order

If you installed the drivers from the disc that came with your motherboard, your drivers are already way out of date. Any new PC should be paired with the freshest drivers available for the platform, as updates can add performance, enhance compatibility, and fix the wonkiness that usually occurs with the first drivers to ship.

High-end peripherals should be paired with the latest drivers to unlock all of the device's functionality.

The freshest drivers are usually available directly from the manufacturer of the component, so the best source for updated drivers for an AMD motherboard is AMD. If you’re running a fancy gaming mouse or keyboard, you’ll also want to install the matching drivers for them. These drivers unlock the full functionality of the mouse or peripheral beyond the built-in Windows 7 HID drivers.

Set Up Your Security

There’s no point in taking the time and care to set up a new PC just right if you don’t also make security one of your first priorities. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of time before some form of malware gets in your system and mucks up the works, possibly even requiring a reinstall.

Thanks to AVG's free AV app, even cheapskates can be safe from malware.

Our Holiday issue antivirus roundup found Norton Internet Security 2012 ($70, www.norton.com) to be the best AV suite for purchase, while AVG Anti-Virus Free 2012 proved to be a very capable free solution. Before you do anything else, do this.

Prepare for Disaster

With Windows 7, everything you need for data backup and system repair is right there in the OS. Combine that with a large hard drive, and you have no excuse not to establish a full-fledged data recovery plan. With a secondary drive in place (either internal or external), head over to Control Panel, then System and Security, then Backup and Restore. Choose Backup Your Computer, then Set up Backup. Select the drive that backups will be saved to, choose the files to be saved, and set a schedule. Next, choose the option to Create a System Image, an exact copy of your drive—OS, system settings, program files, etc.—to use in the event your drive fails or your system stops working. Finally, opt to Create a System Repair Disc. This disc will save your bacon should your machine not start, allowing you to boot your computer from the optical drive and then retrieve the system image and backups you’ve dutifully created.

Decrapify Your PC

When you build a new PC, you have full control over the software that gets installed. Not so when you buy a system, which is practically guaranteed to host a number of apps you have little use for, or that slow your PC’s performance, or that constantly pester you with pop-ups. Get rid of that crap with PC Decrapifier. The free tool walks you through the process of removing unnecessary programs, startup items, and icons.

Transfer Your Files, Easily

It’s time to sully that pristine PC with craploads of junk from your old PC. Power users normally go manual by popping the old PC’s drive into a spare SATA port on the new rig. This lets you pick and choose what’s really worth moving. If you’d rather just do it on autopilot, check out Microsoft’s free Easy Transfer utility. It’s meant for newbies, but it can make the move to a new machine fairly painless. Run Windows Easy Transfer on your new PC (Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools), and it will give you options for the move: USB hard drive, the network, or an optional USB cable. The utility will ask you to insert a USB key where an executable will be installed. Run this executable on your old box, and it will package up all of the files into a single file that will be stored on an HDD or moved across the network to your new PC, where everything is unloaded into its proper place.

Tips for Trickier File Transfers

Moving documents from one computer to another is usually just a matter of copying-and-pasting onto an external hard drive and then to your new PC. That’s fine for office docs and photos, but what about apps that build media libraries, like iTunes and Steam, or saved games, which go wherever the publisher feels like putting them?

iTunes
If you’re using an iDevice, you might be stuck with iTunes as a media manager. Here’s how to move your music and other media (and keep your ratings, playlists, etc.) without having to rebuild your library.

First, open iTunes and go to File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files. This will ensure that all your music is in one place. Once done, exit iTunes. Copy your iTunes folder, which should be under My Music (unless you’ve moved it) to your external drive. If you’re decommissioning your old PC, be sure to deauthorize that computer from your iTunes account. Open iTunes again and go to Store > Deauthorize This Computer. Enter your Apple ID and password.

Install iTunes on your new computer, and then copy the iTunes folder from your external drive to the Music folder of your new computer. Next time you open iTunes, hold down Shift while you double-click the launcher. You’ll be prompted to choose an iTunes library; look for iTunes Library.itl in the folder you just copied to your PC. You should now have your library, with ratings and playlists intact, on your new PC.

Steam Games
On your old PC, go to your Steam folder (C:\Program Files\Steam, by default) and copy the steamapps folder and its contents to your external drive. On your new computer, install Steam and launch it once, then exit it. Go to the Steam folder and delete everything in it except for steam.exe. Now copy the steamapps folder from your old PC into the Steam folder on your new PC, and launch steam.exe again. After a brief self-update, Steam should show your games as installed. You’ll have to do a quick file-verify as you launch each game for the first time, but that’s a lot faster than downloading them all over again.

Game Saves
Not all your games come from Steam, and not all that do have Steam Cloud to manage their saves. And it seems every publisher has a different method of storing saved games. That’s where GameSave Manager (free, www.gamesave-manager.com) comes in.

GameSave Manager hunts down all those weird game save directories and lets you back them up easily.

Run GameSave Manager on your old computer, and it will auto-detect the games you have installed, find out where the game saves are, and back them up, all via the Backup Gamesave(s) menu. Once you have a backup archive (a .gsba file), you can move it to your new computer and use GameSave Manager to automatically restore all your saves.

Configure Audio

By default, most motherboards and soundcards come configured for stereo speaker output. By default, most gamers today play with headphones. The problem is that most advanced audio cards feature algorithms tuned for the output mode. Cool features such as head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) and other filters that greatly enhance sound for headphones don’t get used unless you set the driver accordingly.

To do this, just dig into your soundcard’s control panel and set the default to Headphones for the best experience.

Calibrate Your Monitor

If you got a new display with your new PC (or if you’ve never taken the time to adjust your old monitor), it might be badly calibrated, degrading the image quality you see. For a quick-and-dirty fix, you can run the calibration software built in to Windows by clicking the Start button, then entering DCCW into the search bar. The program will run you through several simple calibration exercises, and adjust your monitor appropriately.

For a more thorough calibration, we recommend that you use high‑quality calibration test images, such as those found at www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/.

Disable Accessibility Shortcuts

Windows comes with a host of accessibility features that can be a great help for people with disabilities or other difficulties using computer hardware. There are keyboard shortcuts for some of these options, but the shortcuts are easy to perform accidentally, and can pop up unwanted dialogue boxes. These shortcuts are:

> Press shift five times: StickyKeys
> Hold right‑shift for eight seconds: FilterKeys
> Hold num lock for five seconds: ToggleKeys

You can disable each shortcut individually by performing it, then choosing to turn off the shortcut, or you can disable them all in one fell swoop in Control Panel > Ease of Access Center > Make the keyboard easier to use.

Adjust Your Power Settings

Whether you’re looking to save the environment, or just your battery life, you should pay a visit to your new PC’s power options. If you open the Control Panel, then select Hardware and Sound, and then Power Options, you’ll see the available power profiles. You can select one of the available profiles, or change your screen's brightness from this menu, but if you want more control, you’ll need to select a profile and click the link that says “Change plan settings.”

A new menu will pop up, where you can change how long the computer waits before it dims the display, turns off the display, or goes to sleep. Even more options can be found by clicking the advanced power settings button.

Share Files on a Network

If your new PC will be sharing a network with other computers running a version of Windows 7, you can create a Homegroup so they can all share files and devices (such as a printer). Be aware, however, that computers running Windows 7 Starter or Windows 7 Home Basic can join an existing Homegroup, but they can’t create one.

To create a new Homegroup, click the Windows menu, choose Computer, and then click Homegroup in the left-hand column. Now click the button labeled “Create a homegroup” (you’ll find it in the main window to the right). This will open a new window in which you can choose which types of files you’d like to share within the Homegroup (photos, music, video, etc.), and whether or not you’d like to share a printer. Click Next when you’ve made your decisions. After a few moments, a new window will appear with a 10-character, case-sensitive Homegroup password. Write this password down or print it.

To add your new PC to an existing Homegroup, obtain the password from any other computer in the Homegroup, click the Start menu, choose Control Panel, then Network and Internet, and then Homegroup. Windows will inform you of the existing Homegroup on the network and ask if you would like to join it. Click Join Now, choose the types of files you wish to share, and click Next. Enter the Homegroup password and click Next. You’ll see a message indicating that you’ve joined the Homegroup, and when you click Network on either computer, you should see each of the other computers in the Homegroup and be able to move files between them.

If you’d like to share other folders within the Homegroup, right-click them, choose Share With from the pop-up menu, and then select either Homegroup (Read) or Homegroup (Read/Write).

Create a Guest Account

Say a friend wants to borrow your new computer to “check their email.” You can limit the degree of access they’ll gain (and damage they can cause) by turning on the Windows Guest account. Sign in using your administrator credentials, click the Start menu, and click the large icon at the top of menu. Click Manage Another Account, then Guest, and then click the Turn On button.

Activating your computer's Guest account is one of the easiest ways to grant someone limited access to your PC.

To switch to the Guest account, click the Start menu, then click the arrow next to the Shut Down button, and choose either Log-off or Switch User. Click the Guest button to log in as a guest. Guest users can launch programs and access the Internet, but they can’t make Control Panel changes (including uninstalling software) or other changes to the computer’s settings. They also can’t access any files or folders protected by a password, and they can’t access other computers on the network, even those within a Homegroup.

Use an Alternative DNS

Each time you type a hostname into your browser and hit Enter, your computer initiates a DNS (Domain Name System) lookup. DNS is akin to a phonebook for the Internet: It converts that user-friendly name into the appropriate IP address. If you haven’t configured your computer differently, you’re probably relying on your ISP to perform these DNS lookups.

You might be able to speed up your web-browsing experience, as well as improve your online security, by switching to an alternative DNS resolution service, such as OpenDNS or Google Public DNS. We’ll show you how to configure your Ethernet adapter to use the latter.

Sign on as an Administrator and click Control Panel, Network and Internet, Network and Sharing Center, and then choose Change Adapter Settings. Select which network connection you wish to change, right-click it, and choose Properties from the pop-out menu. On the Networking tab, choose Internet Protocol Version 4 and then click the Properties button. Choose the General tab and then Advanced. Click the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server addresses already in place here, write them down before erasing them and then click OK.

Many people find that switching to Google Public DNS delivers a faster web-browsing experience.

You should now be back on the General tab in the TCP/IPv4 Properties window. Click the radio button next to “Use the Following DNS Server Addresses” and type 8.8.8.8 in the Preferred DNS Server window and 8.8.4.4 in the Alternate DNS Server window. Click OK and close the Network Connections Properties window. Restart the network connection by right-clicking it and choosing Disable from the pop-out menu, and then right-click it a second time and choose Enable from the pop-out menu. This should restart your connection using the new DNS settings.

To ensure your new settings are working, enter a hostname into your browser: www.maximumpc.com, for instance. If it resolves correctly, bookmark it, then click the bookmark. If it doesn’t, roll back the changes you’ve just made and retest.

Tidy Up Your Insides

Your computer has a lot of cables inside, from front-panel connectors to SATA and power cables. If your case doesn’t have a window, it might be tempting to just leave a rat's nest of wiring inside, but there are substantial benefits to an uncluttered chassis—better cooling and less dust, for example.

If you bought your PC from a boutique builder, it should have come with a decent wiring job, but if you built your own or bought an off-the-shelf system, there’s likely room for improvement.

Sloppy wiring can create pockets of hot air and dust in your case.

Many modern cases have cable-routing cutouts in the motherboard tray, and room behind it to route cables. You should route as many wires as you can behind the motherboard tray—usually your motherboard power cables, at least, can go back here. Route as many power cables from your PSU behind the motherboard and bring them back out near where they need to plug in; you can dramatically reduce clutter in your case this way.

If you don’t have any cutouts in your motherboard tray, you can still use zip ties to keep your cables organized and out of the way. You can also buy stick-on organizing clips to keep your cables attached to your motherboard tray, not hanging out in the middle of your case.

Routing cables behind the motherboard tray (if possible) can lead to a much cleaner and cooler build.

If you have a modular power supply, disconnect (and keep in a safe place) any cables you’re not using. If you don’t, use zip ties to bundle unused cables together, and try to keep them out of the way of your fans’ airflow.

Optimize Your Fan Setup

Your components will last longer if they run at lower temperatures. They will run at lower temperatures if they have sufficient airflow. That’s science.

Your case should have both intake and exhaust fans. You’ll need at least one front intake fan and one rear exhaust fan. Many cases have additional intake fans on the front or left side, and additional exhaust fans at the top of the case. This helps keep hot air moving up and out of your case. You should have roughly the same number of exhaust fans as intake fans, and you should make sure they’re in places that make sense, to create obvious paths for the air. Don’t create dead zones where hot air can stay trapped. If your case has filters for its intake fans, clean them regularly. If not, dust inside your case regularly with canned air.

Provide a consistent airflow pattern for your case. Here, cool air enters at the bottom and exits through the top and rear.

Many motherboards offer fan control in their BIOS settings; you can set your fans to ramp up when your system gets hot and ramp down when it’s cool, or you can wire your fans to a fan controller and set their levels yourself. Most motherboard manufacturers also offer a desktop fan‑control utility for use with their boards. Simple fan controllers just offer speed control; others, like NZXT’s Sentry series, also include temperature sensors, which you can use to automatically control fan speeds based on the temperature of various parts of your system.

Must-Have Apps and Utilities

No PC is complete without these key programs

Google Chrome
Google Chrome remains the single-fastest web browser out there. Couple that with exclusive apps and a fully customizable web interface, and you’ve got a browser that no PC should be without.
www.google.com/chrome

Skype
Installing Skype allows you to talk face to face with anyone, anywhere, so long as they have the software and a webcam. Skype also allows you to set video conference calls, call mobile devices, and make international calls for additional fees.
www.skype.com

Secunia PSI
Installing updates for all your software can be a tedious chore, which is why Secunia Personal Software Inspector is essential. Watch as it automatically updates programs in need, with no effort on your end.
www.secunia.com

Dropbox
If you find yourself using more than one computing device daily, Dropbox makes it easy to share documents across all those devices, including smartphones.
www.dropbox.com

KeePass
Using top-of-the-line encryption algorithms AES and Twofish, KeePass acts as a password manager, allowing you to store all your passwords (e.g., email, Facebook, online banking) in a single and secure database that can only be accessed by you.
www.keepass.info

Revo Uninstaller
These days, it's simply not enough to use Windows to uninstall your programs, as harmful remnants can be left behind. Enter Revo Uninstaller, a free app that not only uninstalls software, but allows you to manually remove additional data left behind.
www.revouninstaller.com

Sumatra PDF
Sumatra PDF is a free PDF creator and viewer for Windows. It's a relatively small file, starts up extremely quickly, and is tremendously easy to use. It can also read XPS, DjVu, CBZ, and CBR files.
bit.ly/aHICnC

7-Zip
7-Zip is a fast, free file archiver that can pack and unpack a huge range of files, from ZIP to TAR files. It features an extremely easy-to-use interface that presents users with all facets of the unzipped file, automatically organized by folders.
www.7-zip.org

FileZilla
If you need to connect to an FTP server, FileZilla is the best way to go. It's easy to use and highly customizable—you can even configure your own transfer-speed limits and transfer up to 4GB of files.
www.filezilla-project.org

Digsby
With Digsby you can consolidate all of your instant messaging accounts into one centralized hub, supporting AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and Google Talk. It's also a handy notification tool for personal email.
www.digsby.com

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
Yes, you already have an AV program (right?), but it never hurts to have a second opinion or line of defense. For us, that's Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Free. It doesn't run auto scans, so it won't conflict with your other AV solution.
www.malwarebytes.org

SuperAntiSpyware
You could say that SuperAntiSpyware is the third prong in our three-prong approach to PC security. Like Malwarebytes', it provides yet another line of defense. And it's free, so why not avail your PC of this extra layer of protection?
www.superantispyware.com

How to Create a Personalized QR Code

Alex Castle — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:50:39 +0000

If you’ve been in a public space in the last year or two, you’ve probably seen a QR code—a small, square two-dimensional barcode that looks a bit like a miniature crossword puzzle. They’ve been around for more than 15 years, but they’ve recently exploded in popularity, thanks to smartphones, which are perfect QR-scanners.

Unlike traditional supermarket-style barcodes—which codify an identification number—QR codes are binary representations of numbers or letters, and can be many different sizes. A tiny QR code can represent just 30 numbers, and a giant one can represent thousands of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. With that much flexibility, everyone can find a use for QR codes. In this article, we’ll show you how to make a distinctive, personalized QR code to put on your business card, or anything else.

Step 1: Get Your vCard

We’re going to avoid the obvious joke here and let you know that vCard is a standard for digitally transmitting contact information. You might have encountered a vCard attached to an email message in the past, but they work great in QR codes, too—most QR reader apps are designed to detect vCards and automatically enter the data into the phone’s contact list.

There are plenty of sites that will create a vCard QR code for you automatically (just a Google search away), but we recommend the web app here.

There, you simply click the Select a Code Action drop-down box, and select Create a vCard. Then, enter your personal information into the boxes below (image above), and hit Generate Code. Note that QR code size is dependent on the number of characters encoded, so you might find yourself dealing with a giant, unwieldy code that will be hard to fit on a business card. To get it down to size, we recommend using only vital information, like your name, phone number, and email address.

Another way to get around having a huge QR code is to have a personal website with your contact info (perhaps in a downloadable vCard) and to embed a link to that in a QR code. You can use a link shortener to make the URL and QR code as small as possible, which you will want for the next section.

Step 2: Personalize Your Code

One downside to QR codes is that by default they look a little impersonal. If you want to give your business card some visual appeal, there are a couple of simple things you can do. For one, you can give it a more interesting color scheme. The QR code generator we recommended defaults to black-on-white, but you can tell it to use any color for the foreground or the background. Make sure the background is lighter than the foreground, and that there’s decent contrast between the two. Otherwise, reader apps may have a hard time with it.

An even neater-looking trick, and one that’s still easy to pull off is to use a subtle color gradient. To do this, just open your image editor of choice (Photoshop and the free GIMP both work great), create a color gradient, and then use your QR code as a mask for that layer (image below).

If you want to go a step further by introducing a logo into your QR code, that’s entirely possible, as well. Just make sure to use the highest error correction setting (this can be set in the web app we recommended earlier) when you generate your QR code. This will make the code larger, but will allow it to be read even if up to 30 percent of the code is erased and written over.

For best results, don’t place your graphic or logo over the tracking boxes in the corners of the code. With some trial and error, you should be able to find out what scans and what doesn’t (image above).

Build It: The Ultimate Windows Home Server

Nathan Edwards — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:58:34 +0000

Despite Microsoft’s apparent lack of love for Windows Home Server 2011—the company stripped Drive Extender from the final version, and good luck finding a retail Windows Home Server 2011 box in the U.S.—it’s still a great server OS for a Windows-heavy home environment. Backups are effortless, streaming is hassle-free, it’s easy to administer, and there are tons of add-ins available.

Given a choice between buying an off-the-shelf product and building one myself, I’ll opt for the build any day. And since you can’t get a retail WHS box in the U.S. anyway, I figured what the heck. I pinged Michael Brown, our home network guru, for advice, and together we spec’d out a Home Server Dream Machine, with a real CPU to handle on-the-fly transcoding and all the storage you can eat. No, you can’t buy a home server this nice anywhere. But if you like what you see, you can build one, too.

Fractal Design's Array chassis is a sleek and attractive home for my Home Server.

Ingredients

CPU	Intel Core i5-2405S	$220
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3	$115
RAM	4GB Corsair CMV4GX3M2A1333C	$30
RAID controller	HighPoint RocketRaid 2720SGL	$145
RAID cables	HighPoint Int-MS-1M4S (x2)	$30
Case	Fractal Designs Array R2 Mini‑ITX	$190
Storage	Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB (x5)	$900
OS Storage	Seagate Barracuda XT 1TB	$80
OS	Windows Home Server 2011	$60
Total		$1,770

Building the Perfect Server

A home server is a different animal from a standard rig. Since they’re designed to run headless, you don’t need a monitor, keyboard, or mouse, except for the initial setup. Administration thereafter can be done remotely. You also don’t need a discrete videocard. What do you need? A decent CPU and RAM, a boatload of hard drives, and the means to run them.

Most off-the-shelf home servers ship with anemic Atom or ARM processors. I don’t play that way. Intel’s Core i5-2405S offers a quad-core 2.5GHz Sandy Bridge CPU with low power consumption and heat output. Its onboard video is nothing fancy, but good enough for the rare instances I’ll need to use it.

For my motherboard, I chose Gigabyte’s GA-H67-USB3-B3. The H67 chipset lets me use the CPU’s onboard graphics when I need to, its Mini-ITX form factor is perfect for a home server, and it’s inexpensive. It also has 6Gb/s SATA, which will be useful for the boot drive, and USB 3.0, in case I need to plug in additional external storage.

Fractal’s Array R2 chassis was an obvious choice for this WHS build. It’s beautiful, has a built-in 300W PSU with six SATA power leads, and has a drive tray that can hold up to six 3.5-inch hard drives.

The most important part of this build, of course, is the storage. Windows Home Server needs at least 160GB for its install partition, so I picked a 1TB boot drive because they’re not much more expensive than smaller-capacity drives. Because this server will hold backups of all my computers, as well as movies, music, and family photos, redundancy is important. Windows Home Server doesn’t have native data redundancy or RAID support, so I had to roll my own. HighPoint’s RocketRaid 2720SGL is a PCIe RAID card that supports up to eight SATA or SAS drives at 6Gb/s. I’m pairing it with five 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT drives.

Assembling the Hardware

Building the box was the easy part. The Fractal case is roomy and—once you remove the hard drive cage—easy to build into. I just mounted the CPU to the motherboard and installed the stock fan and RAM, then installed the motherboard and I/O shield into the case. The RAID card slots into the motherboard’s solitary PCIe connector and fits into one of the case’s two PCIe expansion slots. I secured the six hard drives into the hard drive cage with four screws each, then plugged the 1TB boot drive into one of the motherboard’s 6Gb/s SATA ports with one of the mobo’s included SATA cables, and the five 3TB drives into the HighPoint RAID card via the mini-SAS-to-SATA cable adapters.

Since the build doesn’t include an optical drive, I had to connect a USB optical drive in order to install Windows Home Server, the motherboard drivers, and the RAID software. If you don’t have an optical drive, you can snag one for around $30, or you can use ImgBurn on your PC to create a disk image of your WHS install DVD, and use Microsoft’s Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to make a bootable USB drive.

Configuring the Software

If you’ve ever installed Windows 7, you know how to install WHS. Pick your language, select the primary hard drive (remember, we’re installing onto the 1TB drive, not the 3TB drives), and go make a pizza or something. In about 20 minutes, the installer will let you know that it can’t find a network driver (image below).

Insert the motherboard’s driver disc, then open Device Manager and navigate to Other Devices. Right-click the Network Adapter and select Update Driver Software, then “Browse my computer for driver software”. Navigate to your optical drive directory, then Network, then RLT8111. Select “include subdirectories.” Your driver should install and prompt you to restart. Then the Home Server installer will continue configuring, before asking you to set the system time. Sync the time to the Internet and move on.

Installing the RAID Card

Soon you’ll be presented with a familiar-looking desktop and a prompt to install device driver software for your RAID card. If you don’t see the prompt, right-click the RAID card entry in Device Manager. Download the most recent Windows Vista/2008/7 drivers, as well as the WebGUI installer, from bit.ly/qgKOkc, extract the driver, zip to your desktop, and, following the same procedures as above, navigate to the x64 folder and let the device driver install. Reboot.

Extract the WebGUI folder, right-click Setup.exe, and select Run as Administrator (image above). Follow the prompts to install it, then click the WebGUI shortcut on the desktop. Login using the username and password you got during install (default: RAID/hpt).

Creating the RAID

Navigate to Manage > Drives, and select Initialize Drives. You should see all five 3TB drives listed (image below, top). Select them all and hit Submit. Then go to Manage > Array, and select Create Array. Select all the drives and hit Submit. Now you have to choose a RAID level (image below, bottom). Since this is home backup, redundancy is important. I opted for RAID 6. RAID 6 is similar to RAID 5, except it uses two parity volumes, so it can tolerate failure of up to two drives without losing data. RAID 5 would have given us 12TB of usable space instead of the 9TB that RAID 6 gave us (out of 15TB total), but I felt the additional redundancy was worth it. Select Foreground initialization, Write Back cache policy, and 64KB block size. Create the maximum size RAID you can.

It’s very important that you select the 4K sector size instead of the default 512B; otherwise Windows won’t be able to see the whole 9TB array. Click Create. Now go away for about seven hours while the RAID builds. When you come back, verify that the RAID creation was successful, then you can go to the Dashboard.

Moving the Shares

Click Event Viewer, which should tell you that, hey, you have an unformatted hard disk available! Select “Format the hard disk” (image below) and you’ll see the 9TB (well, 8,393GB) array you just created. Format it! Now, here’s where it gets a little weird. Because WHS uses the .vhd virtual hard drive format for backing up, you can’t actually create a volume larger than 2,040GB. Therefore, your 8,393GB array is now four 2,040GB partitions plus a 223GB partition. That’s fine with me, as it provides a convenient way to categorize my shares.

Click “Server Folders and Hard Drives” in the Dashboard. You’ll see folders for backups, documents, music, pictures, and video shares. I used the “Move the folder” command to assign each to a different partition, just to be fancy (image below).

Now you have a Windows Home Server! From here, you can connect to your home server from each of your home computers to set up backup and remote administration. Feel free to disconnect your monitor, keyboard, and mouse now, and do the rest of your administration and configuration remotely. Just navigate to http://[your server’s name]/Connect from any of your home computers to download the Home Server Connect software.

Serving Up Awesome

Properly configured, a Windows Home Server is a joy to own because it hooks in so well to the rest of the Windows ecosystem. It’s easy to set up server-side backups of your home computers, designate per-user or HomeGroup read/write access, and configure media streaming options and remote web access, all from within the Dashboard on your PC (image G).

The server's six hard drives are positioned right in front of its 14cm intake fan, so they get the cool air first.

With 9TB of storage, my Windows Home Server offers plenty of space to back up my home computers and serve as the central repository for all my media. Add-ins can offer additional functionality; for tips on good add-ins I like the community site WeGotServed.com.

If this Home Server build seems like overkill to you, there are a number of ways to lower the price. If you don’t need two-disk redundancy, you can go from RAID 6 to RAID 5; this will let you go from five disks to four while still tolerating single-drive failures. Or you could save $170 by eliminating the RAID card and cables altogether, and just use the SATA ports on the motherboard. You’ll be limited to four drives, and you’ll lose the hardware RAID options, but Windows Home Server doesn’t require RAID, and given the 2TB limit on its virtual volumes, you might prefer independent disks anyway.

Windows Home Server is a lot easier to configure than was FreeNAS 7 the last time I took a look at it. I’ll be taking a look at FreeNAS 8.1 when it arrives, but this build has me convinced that the $60 for Windows Home Server 2011 is well worth the price, especially if you have a Windows-centric home.

How to Benchmark Your Android Phone for Free

Seamus Bellamy — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:00:08 +0000

Car nuts race their rides to see whose machine is the fastest. Fitness fanatics run marathons to test their physical limitations and endurance against that of their fellows. Geeks and gearheads? Our battles are fought and won on the basis of how capable our hardware is. While our desktops and laptops might be a thing of wonder to behold, carrying them around with us for the sake of collecting the accolades we deserve isn’t always convenient. Carrying around a smartphone or tablet, however, is. Benchmarking also provides the added benefit of telling you how well your phone manages the current version of your handset’s operating system and apps, as well as whether future OS upgrades will slow all that zippy mobile computing hotness to a bag of sluggish hardware fail. If you’re the owner of an Android handset, there’s a lot of options out there to see how hard your phone rocks. Here’s three of our favourite free benchmarking tools, along with the reasons why you should use them.

BenchmarkPi

BenchmarkPi gauges processor efficiency so well it’d make a grown man cry. The genius of BenchmarkPi is in its simplicity: By tasking how quickly your handset is able to calculate Pi to a particular number of decimal places, BenchmarkPi is able to ascertain how powerful your processor is. Additionally, the app is great at being able to tell whether or not your device is being overtasked by other programs running in the background, making it easyto troubleshoot problem apps. If you’re feeling competitive, you’re in luck: BenchmarkPi also maintains a constantly updated list of the top 300 Android phones out there, ranking them by their processing power.

Battery Graph

The harder your smartphone has to chug in order to crunch the numbers necessary to do important work like running a session of Minecraft Pocket Edition, the less juice your battery will have left for lower priority tasks such as calling your loved ones to assure them that you’re still alive and well despite the Creeper’s best efforts. Battery Graph is designed to run in the background on your handset while you go about your business. Start it up when you turn on your phone, and check it out at the end of the day. While you’re busy, texting, finding your way with Google Maps or having a jaw-wag with a co-worker via Skype, Battery Graph will quietly collect data on how each hoop you force your phone to jump through effects its battery. To snag a balanced benchmark of your battery’s performance, drain it all the way down and then charge it completely before starting. In order to paint a true picture of your battery’s performance, we recommend running Battery Graph over several days under normal operating conditions. Doing so will let you discover what applications and times of day take the biggest bite out of your battery’s life, as well as show you how long your battery lasts during an average day.

NenaMark 1 & 2

Available in two different flavors—one for high-end Android phones and the other for handsets wielded by mere mortals—NenaMark is one of the easiest ways to benchmark your phone’s GPU performance for free. By measuring the number of frames per second your smartphone can crank out in the face of parametric surfaces, varying light models, particles and reflections, NenaMark is able to ascertain whether your phone’s takes graphical hits like a champ or glass-jawed featherweight. Your handsets results can then be measured against those of other makes and models to see how your phone ranks.

How To Check Your (Rooted) Android Phone for Carrier IQ

Adriana Lee, TechnoBuffalo — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:07:03 +0000

Discovering that user-activity logging program Carrier IQ might be loaded on your phone is like finding out there’s a peeping tom in your neighborhood: You want to find out if your house was on the scumbag’s route or not. Well, if you have a rooted Android phone, you can do just that, thanks to a utility by Trevor Eckhart, the dev responsible for uncovering this scandal.

Eckhart posted an .APK that allows these Android users to test their devices for programs like CIQ, and it’s available as a free and paid ($1) version. (The latter allows you to not only find the offending software, but also remove it.) His post over at XDA-Developers.com says: “It can be used to verify what logging is being done on your phone and where data is going to. It will assist you in manually removing parts you do not running (see post#1), or you can go pro for automatic everything (and support me).”

Both The Verge and RedmondPie tested this on Samsung Galaxy SII devices, and in their cases, the tests came up negative. The Verge notes, however, that users in the related forums did experience a few issues, so you’ll want to exercise caution if you give this a shot. For more info, or to download the free version, click here to go to the post at XDA-Developers.com. (Bear in mind, to get the pro version, users will have to install the free version first and then pay a buck over at the Android Market to get a pro key.)

Again, this is for rooted Androids only. Oh, and before you install, you’ll also want to enable “Unknown sources” in Settings > Applications.

Are you going to give it a shot? If you do, be sure to report on your findings below.

TechnoBuffalo.com is a technology site created by a team of professional writers that are self-proclaimed tech-enthusiasts. Their articles cover a breadth of technology-related issues and topics from the everyday uses to the business side of the industry.

How to Install & Configure the Windows 8 Developer Preview

Tim Ferrill — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:08:47 +0000

With Windows 8, Microsoft is reimagining the most basic premises of personal computers. CEO Steve Ballmer recognizes the drastic changes coming in Windows 8, even calling the platform one of the biggest risks taken by the industry giant. The UI changes and fundamental paradigm shifts that Windows 8 brings to the table are making a lot of power users eager to give the platform a trial run, even in its current state as a Developer Preview.

If you want to take the plunge and give Windows 8 a try, there are some things you should know ahead of time. First, the current build of Windows 8 is intended as a Developer Preview. This is pre-beta software, meaning there will be bugs and even major missing features. We don’t recommend installing Windows 8 as your primary system, but we do encourage you to take it for a spin and spend some time tinkering under the hood. And we recommend that you use good backup practices for any data you put on your Windows 8 system, as stability may be an issue.

Step 1 - Prepare to Install

Whenever you are looking to install new software, especially a new operating system, your first step should be to review the system requirements.

Fortunately, the system requirements for Windows 8 are identical to those for Windows 7. In fact, a baseline Windows 8 installation will consume fewer system resources than a baseline Windows 7 SP1 build. So if you’re already running Windows 7, you’re in good shape. Note, however, that there are special requirements for touch input.

Microsoft has provided both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows 8 Developer Preview installation media, both freely available from MSDN. For best results, you should verify that your media downloaded correctly using the hash provided by Microsoft. The .iso files provided can be easily burned to a DVD using native tools in Windows 7 or your preferred DVD software.

Step 2 - Install

There are a couple of different decisions that must be made before you begin any OS install. The first is whether you want the OS to coexist with another in a dual-boot scenario or if you are simply going to overwrite any existing OS installs. Dual-booting provides you with some flexibility to fall back to an existing platform, but also adds complexity in terms of drive partitioning. The other decision is the method of installation. The typical method for installing an operating system is using a bootable disc, which gives you the ability to install the Windows 8 OS to a second hard drive or partition. The Windows 8 Developer Preview will also allow you to install from within a previous Windows version, providing you the option to retain accounts, files, and settings (if installing from Vista or Windows 7). We’ll walk you through both options.

The most common method for installing a new operating system on your computer is to boot from a setup disc, in this case a DVD. After inserting the disc and choosing to boot from your optical drive, the Windows 8 setup wizard will look very similar to the Windows 7 install. The first screen prompts you to enter your location information in order to configure your keyboard and other locale-specific settings (image above), and the second contains the button to actually begin the installation.

As with most Windows installations, Windows 8 displays Upgrade or Custom (advanced) options. One of the key differences in using the boot-disc installation is that the Upgrade choice is actually a dead-end. To upgrade from a previous install of Windows, you’ll need to use the Windows-based setup utility.The next step in this exercise is choosing the drive or partition for your Windows 8 install (image above). As with Windows 7, you have the option to use empty drive space, reformat an existing partition, or install over an existing Windows instance. If you choose the latter option, system and user files will be placed in the Windows.old directory to be accessed later. Choose your option and hit next—the installer will take over from there.

Alternative - Setup From Windows

Using the Setup option from within a previous version of Windows is a relatively simple prospect. After inserting the setup disc, the installer will ask if you’d like to get updates to the installer itself, which is a nice benefit (image below).

You’ll be asked a couple of simple questions—click the Install button at the end and setup will proceed. Once installation is complete, you will be prompted to configure Windows 8 for the first time.

Step 3 - Initial Configuration

Once you’ve successfully completed the install of the Windows 8 Developer Preview, there are still some configuration steps to take before you can start playing around with the system (image below). If you’re the impatient type, the “Use express settings” button is your shortcut to the end result. We recommend choosing the Customize option, which allows you to step through each setting and verify that your machine is configured perfectly.

Assuming you chose the Customize button, the next screen you see asks for your sharing settings—basically, whether you want to share files or devices with other computers on your network. The next screen allows you to configure settings for automatic updates and system protection tools like SmartScreen Filter in Internet Explorer. The rest of the configuration process is fairly self-explanatory.

Now that the system is configured, it’s time to get your account set up. There are a couple of options at this point that require some attention. Windows 8 will allow you to use local computer accounts, just like prior versions of Windows, or you can log in with your Windows Live account (image above). Using the Windows Live option will give you some additional features, like the ability to synchronize files and settings between multiple Windows 8 computers. If you used the Windows-based setup and selected the option to retain your user account information, you will be required to enter your old password in order to complete that process. Associating your existing account with Windows Live is completely optional, but if you forgo this choice you will miss out on some of the key new functionality in Windows 8.

Step 4 - Try it Out

Now that you’ve successfully navigated the installation process, it’s time to play with the shiny new Metro UI. Resist the urge to jump straight to the Windows Desktop—Metro is the future of Windows (image below). Though the UI is designed to be extremely touch friendly, Microsoft has made an effort to make it usable for users with a mouse and keyboard, as well. You can activate Metro apps with a mouse click, rearrange tiles by clicking and dragging, and search by simply typing a word or phrase.

There are a few common gestures you should become familiar with. Placing your mouse in the bottom‑left corner of the screen will access the “Charm” menu (image below), which gives you quick access to Search, Settings, and Sharing. Placing your mouse on the far left edge of the screen will bring up a thumbnail of the last app you used. Clicking this thumbnail will return you to the app.

OK, the training wheels are off and you’re on your own. Enjoy the ride!