Use the Password to Protect an External Hard Drive

With the rise in popularity of external hard drives comes the question of their security. And you must do some type of protection to use these external hard drives with any sensitive files. The easiest way is to use a password to protect any external hard drive you use.

Instructions

1. First, you need to decide that whether you would like to pay for a software package to provide this security on the external hard drive. You can find some free software downloads and pay downloads on the Internet. The pay versions may offer more security, but if money is tight, but you also can choose the free version.

2. Now you need to connect the external hard drive to your computer.

3. Download the password protection software to your external hard drive. Install the software with onscreen instructions. See the resources section for more information.

4. The next step is to choose a password to protect the external hard drive. The password needs to be easy to remember but not so common that others will guess the password and gain access to the external hard drive.

5. Follow the user instructions of the downloaded software to password protect the external hard drive.

6. At last, let's test the external hard drive security by connecting the drive to another computer and try to access the drive. If you install the software successfully, it will ask you for the password established in Step 4.

Transfer Data from One Apple Computer to Another

You may discover that you need to transfer data from one computer to the other from time to time. Of course, you can always save the data to either a CD/DVD or an external hard drive; however, it will take extra time and not so convenient. If you have data to move from a laptop, which is portable, why not just move the data directly from the laptop to another computer?

                     

Things You Need

Apple Computer (desktop or laptop) x 2

Instructions

1. Assuming that the data you wish to transfer is on your Apple laptop. And now turn off your laptop.

2. Connect a fire wire cable (400 or 800 respectively) from the laptop to the desktop computer.

3. Turn on the laptop and press the (T) key while it starts up.

4. Once the laptop has started, there are two indications that it has successfully been mounted on the desktop:

1) Your laptop will have a “bouncing fire wire icon” on the screen

2) Your laptop will be mounted on the desktop as an external hard drive

5. Now it seems that everything is in working order and you can begin to “drag & drop” files from your laptop to the desktop just as you would any other drive on the desktop computer.

How to Find out whether your Motherboard is Broken

It is always not so easy to find out whether your motherboard is broken in computer troubleshooting, and it takes time and cannot just be done with a simple check or test. You must take several steps that follow the classic computer troubleshooting model to determine if you have a bad motherboard. In order to narrow down the problem, you need to consider each piece of hardware. You cannot make sure that you have a bad motherboard until you finish the whole elimination.

Instructions

1. Remove everything in your computer you can. Find all the cards installed on the motherboard and pull them out. If you have a video card please leave it. Then let’s test and see if the computer is powering on and working. Remove other add-on pieces and peripherals until you have nothing left but the basics that include the motherboard, memory, CPU, hard drive and video card. Take out the hard drive and even the video card if it is on a card. At some point, the motherboard should appear to work, if not go to the next step.
2. Now reseat the video card and hard drive. Take out and reset the CMOS battery is this action does not help. Usually there is a jumper marked on the motherboard that you will have to remove. Take out the CMOS battery after removing the jumper, and then restart the computer and then turn it off and reinstall the battery.
3. Find a good computer and put your CPU in it. If everything else fails, it will come down to either the problem is the CPU or the motherboard. Test your processor in a good computer or try replacing the CPU with a good one.
4. The last step is to replace a motherboard. If you have tried all the steps above, your motherboard is most likely bad and the final test is to replace the motherboard and see if this fixes your problem.

Choose a Right Processor for your Computer

The computer processor is just like the brains of the machine, has the most significant effect on performance and price. It is very important to choose a suitable computer processor for yourself if you want a computer to be able to keep up with technology over the next few years and you should invest some money in a fast processor.

Instructions
1. First you need to think about that what you will be doing with your new computer for the next 3 years. That is about the timeframe for machines these days.
2.Consider Intel Pentium Dual Core or AMD Sempron processor if you are just using your machine for casual use, such as word processing, web browsing and the occasional card game. Look into an Intel Core 2 Duo if you prefer Macintosh machines.
3. If you are a middle of the road user, who likes all of the above things but also the occasional heavier game and multimedia use (i.e. pictures and mp3s), an Intel Quad Core would be better for you. The Quad Core is also great for heavy online multimedia games and heavier multimedia use.
4. If Macintoshes are your taste and you are a heavier user, the Intel Dual Quad Core processors can take care of all your needs.
And remember, if your budget allows it, try to spend as much as you can on the fastest processor. We all know that technology evolves at a very fast pace and your machine will be able to keep up after a few years.
Tips & Warnings
Try to avoid the bargain basement processors; they are usually included with machines that won’t last thru the year, built with cheap parts.
For the average user, a mid level processor will work great. Always make sure you order as much RAM to help the processor do it’s very best job.