Nowadays with viruses and spyware all over the Internet, everyone is worried about protecting their computers from software problems.  But have you ever worried about protecting your computer from hardware issues?

You can know whether your hardware is working properly or not by doing some simple monitoring.  SpeedFan is a hardware monitoring program that allows you to monitor everything from voltages to hard drive temperatures.  SpeedFan can even control your fan speeds so your computer runs quieter.

You can tell a lot about a computer by monitoring its hardware. For example, if the cpu and system temperatures are too high it is likely that your computer is being bogged down with too many processes running at the same time. If this is the case, you might want to read a previous article on how to disable unnecessary processes.  However, high temperatures could also be a fan beginning to fail or maybe your computer case doesn’t have good enough air flow.

By monitoring your system voltages you can tell if your power supply is still in good shape. For example, if your computer sometimes restarts for no reason or even locks up when multitasking it could be caused by a faulty power supply.  A good way to check is to place the computer under stress. This can be done by encoding a DVD or even a stress test that maxes out your hardware.  This is the time when your system could restart or become unresponsive. However, if your voltages are within the proper limits, chances are your power supply is still good.

But, if your computer still restarts or freezes from time to time, you might want to try keeping a log of the events to help you diagnose the problem. Here is a previous article on logging computer shutdowns.

Below is a screenshot of the main window.  As you can see, this is where you can monitor your fan speeds, hardware temperatures, and voltages.

To let SpeedFan automatically control your fan speeds, the ‘Automatic fan speed’ box must be checked. Once this box is checked, you will see the fan rpms vary depending on temperature. You can also manually control the fan speeds by changing the percentages located in the middle of the main window.

If you click the ‘Configure’ button in the upper-right corner, you will see the following screen. This is where you can adjust which temperatures are being monitored. You can also specify a desired temperature and a warning temperature.  This will help SpeedFan know which temperature to keep your hardware at when adjusting your fan speeds.

You can have SpeedFan display temperatures in the tray (near the clock) so that you don’t have to keep opening the main window to check on your temperatures. To display a temperature next to the clock, click the ‘Show in tray’ check box in the bottom-right corner. If you would like to rename the title of the hardware you are monitoring, simply click on the name and then press F2.

There are more tabs located in the configuration window. However, I am not going to go over these at this time since the settings are similar to those on this page. If you have a question about a setting, please email me or check out the SpeedFan website.

Another great feature of SpeedFan is it allows you to monitor the health of your hard drives.  While at the main window, click the ‘S.M.A.R.T.’ tab located across the top of the window.  There is a drop-down box where you can choose which hard drive you would like to test.

To test a hard drive simply select the drive you want and press the refresh button next to the drop-down box.  In a matter of seconds you will see a report on your hard drive. It also tells you some important information such as model number and firmware version.  For more information on what the values in the report mean, read the SpeedFan article on S.M.A.R.T.

Sure there are other hardware monitoring programs out there. The reason I like SpeedFan so much is it is clean, simple, and to the point. There are not a lot of extra features that clutter up the display or settings area. I also like being able to monitor my temperatures in the system tray.  Lastly, SpeedFan is updated pretty often to make sure the newest hardware is supported.

If you want to give SpeedFan a try go over to their download page and get your copy of SpeedFan. The link is located at the beginning of the second paragraph.

As always, remember that this software is freeware, so you do not have to pay to use it. However, if you want to keep it this way consider giving a donation to help out the guys over at SpeedFan.

Ever since iTunes allowed the cover flow option in iTunes I’ve wanted an easy way of getting all of my album art together. Luckily I found this program for Mac users.

Fetch Art is a little utility program that does what the name implies: fetch your album art. It essentially uses Amazons XML interface to find the album art to match the info already in your iTunes library. The program is controlled through the iTunes script menu. It allows you to preview album art it finds so that you can make sure it’s the correct picture. Here’s a little screenshot:

thanks to Macupdate.com for the picture

Click here to download

One of the hardest things for former Windows users to get used to is you can’t press Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the task manager. So what do you do when there is a program that has become unresponsive???

There is a simple solution and you actually have a couple different options.

Option 1: (my favorite, also the easiest)
The easiest way to quit a program that stopped responding is by using the force quit button.  In Ubuntu this button can be added to any panel by right clicking on the panel and choosing ‘Add to Panel.’ Then scroll down and select ‘Force Quit.’

Then, when there is a program you need to stop, just click on the force quit button (which is now on your panel) and your mouse cursor will change into a set of cross hairs. At this point, click on the program window that you would like to stop.  If you decide you don’t want to quit any programs after already clicking the force quit button, just press Esc to cancel.

Option 2:
The second way to stop an unresponsive program is to use the System Monitor. This can be found under System->Administration->System Monitor. I like to add the System Monitor to my top panel so I can keep tabs on what my computer is doing.This can be done by using the same process as above.

Once the System Monitor is running, click on the ‘Processes’ tab.

Then, similar to Windows, click on the process you want to stop and then click the ‘End Process’ button in the bottom right corner. One nice feature of the System Monitor is you can sort processes by name, status, CPU usage, and memory usage.

Option 3:
This option is for more advanced users, and those who wish to use the terminal.  If you already know the name of the process you wish to terminate, all you need to do is type the following command:

killall process-name

Here, “process-name” is the name of the process you wish to terminate.

If you don’t know the name of the process, you could type in a command such as ‘top’ to see which programs are using the most resources.

A couple of months ago, I was in a rush to shut down my laptop. When I finally got to my destination, I found that my computer had not in fact shut down as I had told it to do. Apparently a program had crashed and it was waiting on me to click the ‘End Now’ button. I was so annoyed that from then on I waited to see that my power light had gone out before I ever put my laptop in my bag.

But now, I have found a better solution: Force my computer to close unresponsive programs at shutdown without my permission. I’m shutting my computer down any way, who cares if it’s closing an unresponsive program. Here’s how to so it:

Step 1: Click the Start button, then click Run. Type in regedit into the run box that opens.

Step 2: Navigate (on the left side) to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

Step 3: Make sure to click on the Desktop folder on the left side. Next, find AutoEndTasks on the right.

Step 4: Right click on AutoEndTasks, click Modify and in the ‘Value Data’ box, type 1. Then click OK. Close the registry Editor.

Step 5: You will probably have to restart for the changes to take effect. So you may have to end some crashed programs just one last time.

Have you ever been reading an email or surfing the net and come across a word you wanted to lookup, but didn’t because it takes too much time?  Even with Dictionary widgets and websites like Dictionary.com it still takes too long to have to copy and paste the word or wait on the internet.

So, I have the solution for you Mac users out there.  This quick little tip will allow you to lookup the definition of any word in any Mac native program (Coco).  The best part is the Dictionary application does NOT need to be open or even running in the background.

All you need to do is hold down Control+Command+D with your mouse hovering over the word you wish to lookup.  You can even continue to hold down the keyboard shortcut and move the mouse from one word to another.  The dictionary description will automatically update for each word.

If you are not sure what programs this will work with, here is a small list: Safari, Mail, TextEdit, Text Wrangler, Comic Life, iWeb and some other native Mac programs.

However, this shortcut will NOT work with programs that are not written in Coco.  So even your favorite programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, Camino and Flock wont work with this shortcut.