O•S•C•A•R© - Old Ottawa South

Page 38 The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR July 2010
COMPUTER TRICKS AND TIPS
By Malcolm and John
Harding, of Compu-Home
As we mentioned in our last
column, slowdown is the
most common problem
we encounter. In that column we
dealt primarily with software issues.
This month, we’ll focus mostly
on hardware. Your computer has
a set amount of resources that are
determined when you first buy it.
There lots of bits and pieces that make
up the hardware of your computer, but
there a key few that specifically affect
its speed.
The Processor is the main “brain”
of the computer. It has a set speed that
is measured in GigaHertz (GHz). The
number roughly specifies the number
of calculations it can do per second.
The higher the number is, the faster
the computer is. That initial speed
will not change over time, and it is
not usually feasible to replace your
processor with a faster one down the
road.
The RAM could be described
as temporary storage... the shortterm
memory. Your computer has a
certain amount of RAM, measured
in Megabytes or Gigabytes. Every
time you double-click an icon to start
a program, that program is loaded
Carleton University has become
the first post-secondary
institution in Canada to
establish a graduate program in
political management. The university
announced the creation of the new
program in early June. The initiative
was made possible by a $15-million
financial commitment – the largest
in Carleton’s history – from Alberta
businessman Clayton Riddell. To
honour Mr. Riddell’s generosity
and dedication to public policy, the
program will be named the Clayton H.
Riddell Graduate Program in Political
Management. As with all new
graduate degree programs, its design
will be appraised for approval by the
Ontario Council on Graduate Studies.
It’s expected that students will start to
be accepted into the new program in
September 2011.
Another new initiative on campus in
Even After Last Month’s Amazing Column
My Computer is Still Too Slow!!
into RAM. When you close that
program and start a new one, the
new program is loaded into RAM
and takes the place of the previously
running program. As we mentioned
last month it is often possible to add
more RAM quickly and cheaply,
and the resulting increase in speed is
significant.
The Hard Drive is the storage
locker on your computer. Hard Drives
are measured in Gigabytes. The
number of Gigabytes determines how
much storage space you have. That
space is occupied by your Operating
System, your programs (MS Office,
Internet Explorer, Skype, etc.) and,
most importantly, your personal data,
which usually consists of documents,
pictures, music, and records. Hard
Drives can be upgraded or replaced
if need be, but that will not likely
affect your speed very much. They
are generally only replaced due
to hardware failure or inadequate
capacity for your personal data. One
key misconception about hard drives
is that if you have a lot of data then
your computer will be slower. This is
not in fact true anymore. Computers
used to have very small hard drives
and were constantly filling up, and
the only time the hard drive will slow
down your computer is when it is
CARLETON CORNER
June was the official launch of the
online version of Carleton Now, the
university’s monthly newspaper. It’s
the first publication at the university
to go completely paperless. The move
marks a new direction for several
Carleton publications. To view and
subscribe to Carleton Now, please go
to: http://carletonnow.carleton.ca.
There was also some change in
the Carleton hockey team’s coaching
staff. The departure of Fred Parker
initiated a search for his replacement.
On June 7, Athletics Director Jennifer
Brenning announced that Ravens
assistant hockey coach Marty Johnston
will take over coaching duties.
Several faculty and students
received accolades in June, including
Prof. Linda Duxbury, who received
the 2010 President’s Award from the
International Personnel Management
Association – Canada. This award
filled very close to its capacity.
Let’s also look at some speedrelated
mythology – red herrings and
the grains of truth behind them:
Red Herring 1: Having a large
number of pictures, music, documents,
icons on the Desktop, etc. will slow
your computer. As stated above, your
computer’s speed is not affected by
stored data until it is very nearly full.
Grain of Truth: Data saved within
a program can affect the speed of that
program... but only that program. A
prime example of this is your e-mail
program, such as Outlook Express.
If you have a lot of messages,
attachments, folders, calendar items,
to-do lists, etc. that program can
be slow to load and sluggish to use,
because the data is saved right within
the program, unlike the majority of
programs, which save files separately.
Red Herring 2: Paying for high/
higher speed internet will make your
computer faster. We hear many
clients say that they have changed to a
faster/more expensive internet service
but that their computer is no faster.
Grain of Truth: Faster internet
service will make web content get to
your computer faster. The rub there is
that if your computer itself is slow to
begin with, then having internet traffic
flooding in faster will not result in a
has not been presented since 2006.
It is IPMA-Canada’s highest award
and is presented to an individual who
has made an outstanding contribution
to the practice of human resources
management in Canada.
The university was also proud to
announce that second-year journalism
student, Daniel Fish, received the
2010 Kenneth R. Wilson Award. Fish
and his co-authors, Annette Bourdeau
and Jim McElgunn, received a silver
award in the category of Best How-
To Article or Series of How-To
Articles for their article How to be
a Superpreneur which appeared in
Profit Magazine. The awards are coproduced
by the Canadian Business
Press and Magazines Canada.
Carleton and the University of
Ottawa are hosting top university
students from India who are in Ontario
from May to July. The group of 47
better browsing experience. (Internet
experience is an especially confusing
subject as related to speed issues,
because there are so many variables
interacting – computer, Internet
connection, and the website itself.)
Red Herring 3: I’ve got to get rid
of all of those cookies, because there
are so many of them that they are
slowing things down.
Grain of Truth: Cookies are not
actually considered by most experts
to be spyware. They are in a mostly
benign category and can actually
make your browsing experience more
efficient, by remembering your login
information for sites and getting you
back to your favourites more quickly.
While they may compromise your
privacy in some circumstances, they
are not actually a slowdown issue.
Have a great summer. See you in
the fall.
Malcolm and John Harding are
owners of Compu-Home. They assist
home and business computer users.
Be sure to visit our new web site
for an archive of our Tips & Tricks.
www.compu-home.com
Write to harding@compu-home.
com or phone 613-731-5954 to
discuss computer issues, or to suggest
future columns.
students are here to apply their skills
to complex research projects and
interact with industry. At Carleton, a
student from the elite Indian Institutes
of Technology (IIT) in Kharagpur
is working on a project to better
understand the energy consumption
and connectivity of directional
antennas, which emit a signal in only
one direction. Only 4,000 out of some
one million applications to attend the
IIT schools are accepted annually.
Carleton Corner is written by
Carleton University’s Department of
University Communications. As your
community university, Carleton hosts
many exciting events of interest to
Ottawa South. For more information
about upcoming events, please go to
carleton.ca/events.