I can understand the value of this as now you don’t have to go tracking down all those discs, unless you’ve organized them and know exactly where they are kept. Everything you need is on the hard drive that’s always with the machine.

The question I now have though is what happens if you fry your hard drive or have some other type of complete hard drive failure? My personal opinion is to either move those recovery files off the hard drive and put them on a disc yourself, or purchase the separate discs for your use.

Before you do anything else when setting up a computer, be sure to create all the necessary recovery and emergency boot discs you’ll need for your particular model. You might even go so far as to visit the manufacturer’s website and download all the available drivers and program files that are available for your machine and burn them to a disc as well.

You hope you’ll never need any of this stuff. But the first time you need it and done have it, just go grab some aspirin instead because your headaches are only the beginning of the price you’ll pay for not taking these precautionary steps.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: EveryJoe

Why Recovery Partitions on Hard Drives Aren’t Good Enough

The question came to my mind today is how do I know if the USB port is having an actual hardware failure issue, or if it’s just a software driver issue? How can I match one of the USB ports displayed in my Device Manager, with one of the physical USB ports on my computer?

I’ve got two USB ports in the back and two on the side of my laptop. Is there a way to match them some how? Do I need some sort of schematic from Toshiba letting me know what’s connected to what somehow?

Post from: EveryJoe

How Do You Track Down USB Ports

I’ve also been known to ask my clients to make use of this very item as a great way to keep their machine running as needed and utilities available when needed for their machine as well.

Image: Product image from Ziploc website

Yep, that’s it! Ziploc bags!

Now I realize it’s not glamorous or some new whizz-bang device or software app you’ve just got to have, but here’s how it works and works perfectly.

When you get a new system, put all the software, licenses, CD-ROMs and perhaps even instruction books related to that machine in a single Ziploc bag and label it with the name of the computer or model or something. Just something to clearly help you see which bag belongs to which computer.

Now, anytime you install a new piece of software on the computer, put a copy of the installation disc in this bag. In the event of a crash or a needed reinstall of an application you’ve got everything you need to get back up and running as quickly as possible. No searching for the discs you need with the drivers you can’t find because the discs are somewhere else.

Something else I do is also use the Belarc Advisor website to get a computer inventory of the machine and keep an updated copy of that printed off and folded in the Ziploc bag too.

Post from: EveryJoe

Perhaps Greatest PC Maintenance Tool Ever

Post from: EveryJoe

How to Hit a Driver 300+ Yards

NASCAR had its year end awards shindig in New York this past weekend, and it made folks wonder if perhaps New York could handle a race there every year. Personally I don’t see why not, although Jimmie Johnson did come up with a good point:

“If you had a race on Staten Island, you would be able to hear it in Central Park. I don’t think that would go over too well.” ~source

Very true. The event had all the NASCAR stars you’d expect, and a few you wouldn’t. There’s Jeff Gordon and his gal Ingrid Vandebosch pictured above. But here’s the one I couldn’t understand:

Kevin Costner posing with Richard Petty? What the heck is Kevin Costner doing there? Richard Petty looks exactly the same, though, doesn’t he? He could be a million years old behind those glasses, and we’d never know.

Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart said CHEESE for the camera:

So did Delana and Kevin Harvick:

and my favorite Rob Thomas (who was there to perform):

Images: Newscom.

Here’s some video from the event as well:

and some more:

Post from: EveryJoe

NASCAR Drivers Party Hard in the Big Apple