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5 ways to recycle or revitalize your old computer

Sebastian Anthony — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST

Christmas is coming, and you're about to have a ton of time off. Some of that time will be spent energetically tearing apart beautifully-wrapped gifts, and eating food is certainly next on the list of priorities. Obviously you have to play with your new gifts (or put on your new socks), but after that... after the postprandial sofa-surfing grunts and burps and farts... well, there isn't a whole lot you can do.

The other big thing about Christmas is the amount of waste it produces. Wrapping paper, cards, ribbons, the plastic packaging of the presents themselves... there's an awful lot of trash on Christmas Day. Then, of course, you need to throw out all of the things that have been replaced by new gifts: old kitchen appliances, clothes, televisions, printers and, most importantly, computers. A new laptop or desktop is incredibly cheap nowadays, which makes them very popular gifts.

But shouldn't we do something with the old stuff, rather than just throwing it out? Of course, you could Freecycle or wade into the Craigslist cesspit, or give your clothes to charity -- but hold onto those old computers! You'd be surprised with how many cool things you can do with an old desktop or laptop computer. You could finally learn how to use Linux, or set up a media center PC so that you can watch downloaded movies on your TV. You could create a locked-down box for your kids to surf the Web on, or a network-attached storage server for your backups. There's almost no end to the list of neat things you can do with an old PC!

Continue reading 5 ways to recycle or revitalize your old computer

5 ways to recycle or revitalize your old computer originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dropbox hits 1.0, gets lighter, faster, and adds selective syncing

Matthew Rogers — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:00:00 EST

Dropbox has been around for so long and become so indispensable for so many people, that it's tough to remember that the spry little utility has been in beta all along. Not any longer -- the Dropbox team has announced that their baby has officially left the nursery, and version 1.0.10 is available for download right now. You may actually have to go to the site to get it -- Dropbox has never been known for auto-updating.

The folks at Dropbox are particularly proud of this release, which they've for some reason dubbed "Rainbow Shell." Most changes will be completely transparent to the average user, but quite a bit of work's been done to the client over the last few months. For starters, the syncing engine's been overhauled to not only sync files faster, but to use up to 50% less memory doing it.

New users should now have an easier time setting up Dropbox, as the initial setup wizard's been redesigned with ease of use in mind. Mac users should be a bit happier with their client too, because it's been rebuilt to use Cocoa only, and looks much more native in OS X.

The one thing that's sure to be noticed by users however, is the addition of selective syncing, which allows you to choose which files or folders will get synced with each computer. That option can be found in the Dropbox preferences, in the advanced section, and it only applies to the system on which the client is installed. That way you can set your netbook to only sync music files, your work computer to grab all your documents, and your home computer to sync everything the other two have to offer.

But for the most part, this release is about heaping piles of bug-fixes, and the Dropbox team is extremely enthusiastic about the amount of problems they've worked out. It's certainly been a tough job to make a file-syncing system that works seamlessly between Windows, Mac and Linux, and that's without adding mobile devices to the mix.

Dropbox hits 1.0, gets lighter, faster, and adds selective syncing originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MacBook Air display issues fixed by Apple via EFI update

Vlad Bobleanta — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST

Apple has issued a software update that targets the EFI on the new MacBook Air laptops to fix some issues that it has never publicly acknowledged, but which have been widely reported. The problem caused MacBook Air notebooks to boot or resume from sleep into a black screen or become unresponsive.

There have also been reports of horizontal lines sometimes appearing on the display or the display becoming discolored when waking. These issues have only been seen on late-2010 MacBook Air laptops, and therefore the fix is only meant for them. Both the 11-inch and the 13-inch models are affected and should be updated.

MacBook Air display issues fixed by Apple via EFI update originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Comment followup: Use sounds instead of missing keyboad LEDs with Toggle Keys

Erez Zukerman — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Education

I recently wrote about a utility called Keyboard Leds which puts a small icon in your system tray showing keyboard LED status, for systems which do not have actual keyboards LEDs (or have tiny ones).

Commenter Lonnie McClure pointed out a very handy built-in Windows accessibility feature, which does the same job, but uses sound instead of images. It's called Toggle Keys, and it makes a short "chirp" when you hit Num Lock, Scroll Lock or Caps Lock, and a different chirp when you hit any of them again to turn it off. While this doesn't let you track their current status, it does let you prevent accidental activation and easily see if your press just turned the function on or off (because the sound is different).

What I like about this solution is that it doesn't add yet another system tray icon (I have 22 of those, at present), and that it's built right into Windows so it doesn't require an additional install. There are two ways to turn it on:

Keyboard shortcut: By default, just press and hold Num Lock for five seconds. You should then hear a chirp, which means the feauture is on. When you want to turn it back off, press and hold Num Lock for five seconds again.

Via the Control Panel: (In Windows 7) Go to Control Panel > Ease of Access Center > Make the keyboard easier to use > check Turn on Toggle Keys.

Thanks, Lonnie!

Comment followup: Use sounds instead of missing keyboad LEDs with Toggle Keys originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe says Flash performance on Mac to rival Windows in Flash 10.1

Jason Clarke — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:27:00 EST

Filed under: News, Adobe, Apple, Analysis

I almost (not quite, but almost) feel bad for Adobe right now. Apple has been unceremoniously dumping on Flash in a big way since the iPad announcement, and all Adobe can do is claim they don't ship known-buggy Flash releases and announce how much better Flash will perform on Macs when Flash 10.1 is released. Flash still has critical mass adoption among traditional computing devices (desktops and laptops), and almost all mobile platforms other than Apple's have either stated they will use Flash or are working towards it.

And yet, the size of Apple's iPhone and iPod touch (and soon iPad) markets just can't be ignored, and neither can the swelling anti-Flash sentiment coming from the very influential tech elite.

Is better performance on the Mac going to fix what ails the Adobe / Apple relationship? Don't bet on it. But since Flash isn't going away for a long time, the improvement will be nice to have for Mac users.

Adobe says Flash performance on Mac to rival Windows in Flash 10.1 originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are coffee shops really cutting off laptop users?

Jay Hathaway — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: News

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on an emerging trend of coffee shops covering up outlets, banning laptops, or pushing out people who sit for too long. Although the article suggests this might be a bigger phenomenon in New York than, say, San Francisco, the conclusion seems to be based entirely on anecdotal evidence. Sources include a couple of coffee shop owners in NYC and a laptop user who wrote a negative Yelp review after being asked to leave a café.

Without statistics, it's hard to determine the size and scope of this trend. It makes sense to keep customers rotating and not occupying seating all day, especially during a recession, but how many shops are actually doing it? Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this with a poll, Download Squad readers. Let us know whether your local coffee shops have become more hostile toward laptop use, and leave any good stories on the subject in the comments.

View Poll

Are coffee shops really cutting off laptop users? originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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