Computerzworld

When you plug your USB Flash Drive into a computer, it usually just comes up with a generic hard drive icon. Sometimes, your Flash Drive isn’t labeled, so depending on how many drives are installed on he machine, you may have to search a little bit to figure out which drive letter is your Flash Drive.

First, choose an icon that you want to use. There are a number of free websites out there with libraries of icons that you can use, so simply google away. The icon you choose to use must be renamed to “autorun” and stored in the root of your Flash Drive.

To assign this icon to be displayed for your Flash drive, open up notepad (Start > Run > and type: notepad). Paste this next into the open notepad file:

[autorun]
icon=autorun.ico

Next, just save the file onto the root of your Flash Drive. After you’re done, remove the Flash Drive and re-insert it. Your icon should now show up in place of the generic hard drive icon.

While on the topic of zip files, another handy thing you can do with them is create self extracting zip files. If you deal in tech support or with family members who are not technically savvy, they may not know what to do with a zip file. For most computer users it is a no-brainer, but when you do come across someone like this, make the zip file you send them into an exe so they can extract it with a mere double-click.

Pretty much all major zip clients, such as WinZip, support this feature, but I am going to use my favorite, 7-Zip, for the purposes of this tip. To create a self extracting zip file, do the following:

1. Select the files/folders to compress.
2. Right click on one of the select object and select 7-Zip > Add to Archive.
3. Enter the name of your new zip file.
4. Change the Archive Format to 7Z.
5. Check the Create SFX archive box. The archive name will now have .exe as the extension.
6. Optionally assign a password for security.
7. Click Ok to create.

Now when users want to extract the file, they just need to double-click. Easy enough.

Note, some email service providers and clients may block files with a .exe extension (as this is how a lot of viruses get passed around), so sometimes this may not be the solution…

A good measure to take when doing system maintenance is occasionally cleaning your hardware components. Doing so removes dust and debris which can accumulate inside your system and degrade hardware performance.

While there are probably many more things you can do, I am just going to mention the simple and most obvious and ones:

• When cleaning the inside of your computer (motherboard, etc.) make sure your computer is off and you ground yourself before opening the case.
• Use only an air duster/canned air to remove dust from your components. I would recommend doing so outside so it doesn’t end up all over your house.
• Remember to blow out the insides of any intake or exhaust fans.
• When cleaning your monitor, make sure you do so with a clean rag and only use cleaning agents designed for electronics.

AOL is now offering an online backup service called XDrive ([http://www.xdrive.com/]). This service is actually quite impressive from a feature standpoint. It offers the following:

- 5 GB of storage space
- Secure transfer
- Web access from anywhere
- Automatic backups
- Sharing and collaboration features

An important piece of information to know, especially if you overclock your hardware, is the temperature of your CPU. If your CPU gets too hot, well bad things can happen.

If your motherboard or PC manufacturer do not already have a utility available to do this, then check out Core Temp. This free lightweight program monitors the temperature on CPU’s and breaks them down by core when applicable. Core Temp supports almost all of the recent CPU’s and is a great tool to have.