Newsflash

Computer Tips: How to keep dust out of your PC

Have you ever had a PC that started making strange whining noises? Even if you've investigated the cause of the noises, which can often sound pretty serious when you hear them, you may not realise the reason for them. The chances are they're caused by a cooling fan with dust in its bearing.

Fans are one of the few components in a PC which have unsealed moving parts. By their nature, they have to be open to the air to suck heat out of the machine and push cool air in. As a result, they're extremely susceptible to all the airborne particles that make up household dust.

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Taiwan earthquake damages undersea Internet cables

Written by Julianus Yu

A major earthquake and several aftershocks in Taiwan, which injured dozens of people and caused several fires on Thursday, also sent Chunghwa Telecom workers scrambling to fix undersea fiber-optic telecommunications cables to prevent service disruptions around Asia.

Taiwan's biggest telecommunications company said the initial 6.4-magnitude earthquake, which struck near the southern Taiwan city of Pingtung, damaged four undersea cables in six different places, knocking out service for parts of the day Thursday and early Friday. Global communications and Internet service on all networks has already been restored, mainly by rerouting service on undamaged cables.

4G-status update

Written by Julianus Yu

Where does the wireless industry stand with 4G mobile networks? If you're referring casually to the next generation of packet-switched mobile data networks, there is one answer. If you're referring to formal standards-based networks, however, there's another.

The informal term "4G" as it is most often used simply indicates the mobile IP networks the carriers are currently building. These are primarily WiMAX, based on the IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard, and Long-Term Evolution (LTE), a standard created by the global Third-Generation Partnership (3GPP) alliance.

Why Your Computer Sucks

Written by Julianus Yu

Regardless of the day’s motive, it’s pretty clear that computer users are just as much packrats as they are in their homes. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, the average American adult has more than 1,800 digital files. Instead of cleaning up our systems, Americans are likely to just go out and buy a new system, rather than fix or maintain the one they have. Vendor iolo technologies, maker of the System Mechanic PC tune-up software, says the average computer’s lifespan is about 30 months.

Teenager invents low-frequency radio for underground communications

Written by Julianus Yu

You know what's really annoying? Teenagers. Even more annoying? Teenagers inventing legitimately useful things and getting awards for it. Meet Alexander Kendrick, the 16-year old inventor of a new low-frequency radio that allows for cave-texting, which isn't some fresh new euphemism,

How to Properly Benchmark Your PC

Written by Julianus Yu

To casual observers, PC builders who fixate on benchmarks are geeks unable to see the forest from the trees. “Why,” they ask, “can’t you just enjoy your new computer and let it be?” Our answer: the difference between a person who cares about benchmarking and one who doesn’t is how much that person values their free time.

Case in point, we recently did something as simple as download two large zip files at the end of the work day. Instead of strolling out at 6 p.m., we ended up waiting 15 minutes for the files to be decompressed on our work-issued PC. To care about benchmark is to care about performance. And to care about performance is to care about having more free time on your hand.