Info Advantage Blog

Sometimes when your workstation feels bogged down, a relatively cheap and simple hardware update can make all the difference in performance. Adding more memory can be a game changer for your computer.

There are several factors that contribute to the speed of a PC:

CPU/Processor

The CPU handles all of calculations a computer performs. These days, consumer-class CPUs handle billions and even trillions of instructions per second. Dated processors can greatly influence the actual speed of a computer, but if your PC is fairly new (as in 1 or 2 years old, and possibly older for higher end builds) it's likely not bottlenecking your performance. Today, CPUs are equipped with two, four, or even more cores, which means the CPU can handle more calculations exponentially and consume less electricity.

RAM/Memory

Random Access Memory (RAM) is basically the short-term memory of your computer. When your computer is loading and running applications, they get stored in the RAM. The RAM is much faster than the hard drive, so your computer doesn't need to spin it's wheels looking for specific files and parts of applications. The more RAM you have, the more "stuff" that can be stored in it. The faster your RAM, the faster your computer can sift through the data that gets temporarily pushed into it. Once your RAM is full, your computer will depend on the hard drive to retrieve information, and that's where things get sluggish. Once you stop running a program, it will remove itself from the RAM to free up some space for everything else running.

Hard Drive

The hard drive is the storage device of a computer. For extremely high-end PCs, the hard drive is often the bottleneck. Hard drives, when compared to RAM, are very slow to access and write information. Once your computer needs to rely on your hard drive heavily for RAM, things are going to start getting slowed down. While it's great that your PC can rely on your hard drive in this way for those times it needs some extra memory, it is likely this is the cause of the slowdown. Unfortunately, because hard drives are mechanical and have moving parts, there's limitations to how fast science can make them perform. There are costly solid-state drives, but as a performance-improving factor on a standard workstation, typically solid state drives aren't the cost-effective answer.

There are software factors as well that can affect your PC speed. Malware and Spyware can bog down your system, and after a lot of use, temporary files can bog things down. Before upgrading hardware, you'll want to have a technician run a quick evaluation on your PC - it's possible a little cleanup can make all the difference in the world.

Otherwise, the next step is upgrading the RAM. RAM is usually relatively cheap, even to double or triple your existing RAM with faster, higher performance memory. Often the cost of the new RAM itself will be between $50 and $100, and more than likely less than that, and that's for a substantial increase, but it depends on your PC.

Is your computer running slow? Does it get bogged down by the time you have all of your day-to-day applications open? Contact us at (585) 254-8710 for a quick evaluation to see if a simple, cost-effective upgrade will help you perform your job more effectively.

When you think of a computer, you think of a machine that makes your life easier. You can look up events, check facts, record data, and so much more. However, the first computer might be something extraordinarily unexpected; a submerged treasure off the coast of Greece called the Antikythera mechanism, which was used to predict and track astronomical events, like the movement of the planets or the occurrence of eclipses.

The Antikythera mechanism is thought to have been discovered at the turn of the 20th century, by sponge divers off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera. It’s dated at having existed sometime between 60BC and 200BC, which makes it well over 2,000 years old. It was found aboard a shipwreck, submerged in 45 meters of water, along with several other treasures, including statues, coins, and pottery.

At first, it seemed to be nothing but a pile of bronze and wood, but upon closer inspection, the machine turned out to be something quite extraordinary. Consisting of bronze gears, the Antikythera mechanism attempted to predict astronomical cycles. The device was originally found in one big clump, but the device was later split into three sections for study. It’s thought that the mechanism, in its prime, consisted of up to 30 bronze gears that operated like clockwork.

Click here to view a photo gallery of the Antikythera mechanism on display.

Now, the Antikythera mechanism is in about 82 different pieces, which were used in a study to determine what the cryptic text carved into it means. The inscription on the gears is so small that not even the human eye can truly decipher it - not after thousands of years of corrosion and weathering from the elements, at least. Researchers had to use x-ray and visualization technologies to make out what some of the Greek letters could mean.

The Antikythera mechanism was first thought to be a device that was purely scientific, but more recent innovations have discovered that its use might also be grounded in astrological meaning. It’s possible that the color of eclipses meant something on a spiritual level to the Ancient Greeks, and that the Antikythera mechanism was a way to further understand how the world far above the surface of the Earth worked. The Antikythera mechanism is currently on display in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, where it continues to be studied and theorized about.

The thought of such advanced technology existing so many years ago brings up several interesting points. Today’s society is often credited as being the most technologically advanced of its kind, but back in Ancient Greece, the Antikythera mechanism was considered high-tech. The ability to make an astronomical clock was hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years ahead of its time. Knowledge of how to make a contraption like this was lost and wasn’t recovered again until much later on, sometime during the 14th century. It makes you wonder what other civilizations before ours came up with, and how much of it was lost to the harsh ebb and flow of time.

So, what does this have to do with your business? We want to say that it presents an interesting take on innovation, but honestly, as tech geeks, we just wanted to share this cool tidbit with you. For more great technology news, tips, and tricks, be sure to subscribe to our blog.

Woops! Have you ever made the mistake of accidentally copying over content on your PC’s clipboard that you were planning on using? How do you go back and retrieve the old, copied-over content? Unless you already have a third-party tool installed, you’re probably out of luck.

The Ultra-Annoying Copy/Paste Dilemma
A situation like this is more common than you may realize. For example, let’s say that you copy some important content to your clipboard and then close the app that you copied it from, with every good intention of pasting it to another app. However, the Internet being the Internet, you’re then met with a distraction like a tantalizing website. You then copy the URL so you can share the website over social media, completely forgetting about your sensitive data already on your clipboard. This move effectively erases the data previously saved on the clipboard.

Now you must go back and reopen the app that you copied the original data from, or worse, rewrite the social media post that you ever-so-diligently authored. Given the situation, it can be a frustration akin to not saving the progress of a video game and then having the electricity go out.

Unfortunately, it’s not like you can access some “secret” files in Windows and get back your copied content. If, however, you had installed a clipboard manager tool like ClipDiary, you would be all set to easily retrieve your copied-over content.

ClipDiary Saves the Day
If this copy/paste problem is one that you’ve experienced or a mistake that you can see yourself making, one solution is to install ClipDiary from their website: http://clipdiary.com/

Now, if you have ClipDiary installed and you run into this problem again, all you would have to do is hit Ctrl+D to open ClipDiary. You would then be able to view the clipboard history and copy previous items back to the clipboard that you can use to paste wherever you need it.

The problem we described is just one common copy/paste problem that you may run into that ClipDiary can take care of. To learn about additional copy/paste blunders, check out a blog from ClipDiary’s website:

http://clipdiary.com/clipboard-articles/using-clipboard-history-and-clipboard-manager.php

ClipDiary also comes with some pretty useful features:

• Insert saved data directly into any application
• Fast copy data back to the clipboard
• Paste text without formatting (as plain text)
• Find data you once copied to the clipboard
• View the list of clips in the clipboard history viewer window
• Recover data accidentally replaced in the clipboard
• Improve your productivity and save lots of time with the clipboard manager

If you’d like, check out ClipDiary and let us know what you think. It might end up being the most useful tool that you’ve never heard of.

Do you remember the days where you didn’t have the the Internet? Remember going to the library to research information, or using a phone book to find contact information for an important contact? These are only a few ways that the Internet has changed society.