If your CPU temperature gets too high, you could damage your computer or cause it to shut down automatically. Often times, the CPU temperature rises from running too many processes at the same time. Keeping an eye on your CPU temperature will give you clues about what causes the temperature to rise and which programs you should and should not run at the same time. While you can’t check your CPU temperature directly from the Internet, you can find some great software downloads to check it from your desktop, some of which are free....

Computer monitors are no longer the heavy, block-shaped boxes with glass screens you used to see. They have essentially been replaced by LCD screens, like Samsung’s line of LCD computer monitors, which are lighter, slicker and capable of high-definition playback. The downside to using these new monitors, however, is their tendency to collect dust and dirt. Because they are made of film, instead of glass, dust and grime can accumulate on the surface and often require cleaning....

Inexpensive digital cameras and movie-editing software have made it simpler than ever to create home movies. However, a home movie isn’t usually long enough to fill an entire blank DVD, and once you burn and finalize the DVD to enable it to play in a standard DVD player, you can no longer add content to it, which can leave you with a large number of partially used discs. DVD Shrink enables you to combine two finished DVDs on a single disc, so that you can reduce wasted recording space as well as the number of discs you have to store....

Microsoft Word might not be your first choice for creating and maintaining a digital scrapbook, but the application does allow you to cut, copy and paste among its pages like you were clipping and gluing in real life. With Word, you do have to be careful if you want to combine files without changing the original format. An inadvertent click could result in the current document taking on the look of the one you’re pasting into instead of the one you’re pasting from....

People might need to choose between two different computers, but they are unsure on which machine to use or to buy. For example, a student might want to use the faster of two PCs in the computer lab. A shopper might want to purchase the best performing PC. In these situations, you might need to compare two PCs quickly and with certainty. Instead of guessing under pressure, you can use a utility in Windows to arrive at a numerical scoring comparison between two different computers....

The Saitek ST290 Pro is an adjustable USB flight stick that allows you to configure its buttons as needed for each game you play. The flight stick’s five fire buttons and a eight-way POV hat switch gives you precise control over your gaming, but only if you use Saitek’s SST programming software. Once you’ve programmed a game profile, you can save the profile for later use. Multiple profiles are allowed, each loadable before gaming to allow you to use your customized configuration profile as needed....

There are few reasons that you would need to connect your Blackberry to a computer, such as transferring files, songs, ringtones and other downloads. If your Blackberry is connected, you can also perform fast downloads and upgrade the Blackberry software. Connecting a Blackberry to a PC is not difficult, and can be done in just a few easy steps. Tips Warnings Writer Bio

Connecting a DVD player, VCR and surround sound to a TV can have varying degrees of difficulty depending upon the type of surround sound receiver that you purchased. Surround sound receivers always have multiple inputs for all home theater peripherals, but they will vary in digital audio inputs and may have different numbers of HDMI or component inputs that provide either a better quality picture or true high-definition video. This particular article will explain a standard definition hookup and will include hooking the DVD player up via digital audio for a true surround sound experience....

Updated August 29, 2017 Set your home phone next to the cable router so that the connection cable is within reach of the cable router. If your modem is not already plugged in, connect a coaxial cable from the cable jack to the “Cable In” port on the back of the modem. Plug the power cord into the modem’s “Power” input and into a standard wall outlet. If the “Online” light on the modem is blinking instead of solid, the modem may need to be activated....

The “ping” command is a small utility that makes a temporary connection from your computer to a remote computer that you are pinging. This connection sends a packet from your computer to the remote computer, and the remote computer – if it is online – sends a packet back. Your computer measures the time it took to receive a message back from the remote computer and displays that information, along with whether or not it actually got a response or not....

In the past, satellite dishes were more than several feet wide and often had to be mounted on concrete footings to stay secure. Today, most homeowners can mount satellite dishes on the roof themselves. It is also relatively simple to view satellite content on a computer. Some satellite receivers are designed to be plugged directly into a computer through the USB cable. For those that are not, a small piece of hardware is necessary....

AOL doesn’t want its users to have to deal with harassing emails. The company encourages you to report any emails to prevent any future problems. Whether you are an AOL user or you’re receiving harassing emails from an AOL email address, you can report any problems to AOL. The company provides two quick ways to handle problems with users violating AOL’s terms of service, including flagging messages as spam and messaging AOL....

Garmin GPS devices can only read POI files formatted as GPX. Other devices such as the TomTom GPS are only compatible with files formatted as OV2. Whether you’re converting a POI file so it’s compatible with a Garmin GPS, or converting a Garmin POI file so it’s compatible with another type of GPS device, there are various online tools and software programs that can help. Writer Bio

The Evernote note-taking app is a virtual sticky pad that syncs your important reminders across all of your computers and mobile devices. With its speech-to-text feature – available only on the Android and Windows Phone versions – you can record audio notes that are instantly converted to text as you are speaking. For an additional solution available on either Android or iOS platforms, Google Now or Siri offer an effective workaround....

MP4 (MPEG-4) files were developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) as a type of compressed file which allows for the seamless online sharing of video and audio files. Unfortunately MP4 audio files are not yet used as universally as MP3 (MPEG-3) files. Therefore you may want to convert your MP4 files on your computer to MP3 files. You can do this easily in iTunes. Tips Writer Bio

Creating files to work on an embroidery machine, such as a Janome, helps you generate distinctive looks when working on projects. Janome is a Japanese company that manufacturers sewing machines worldwide. The embroidery software offered by the Janome Company will take a design you make or an image from the Internet, such as a bitmap, and convert it to work on specialized machinery. The system is not complicated. The software does the conversion automatically....

A music editing tool associated with Apple’s iTunes, Logic Studio is used for recording, editing and storing live music. You can save these files to your computer and play them on your iTunes. From your iTunes program, you can convert the Logic Audio files to the more accessible MP3, AAC or WAV file format. These extensions can be easily used with CD burners and a variety of programs. Converting the files takes just seconds and can be done with as many files as you would like....

MDI files are Microsoft Document Imaging files. This file type is most common for scanned files or for saving files within Microsoft Office that need to be printed at a time when a printer is not accessible. Similar to a PDF, an MDI file preserves document formatting better than a DOC file, although a PDF is more universally accessible. Microsoft Office is needed to open an MDI file, while a PDF can be opened with a number of free programs....

DWF is a secure file format developed by Autodesk. The file format was created to improve the efficiency, distribution and communication of rich design data for users of print design files. DWF files are highly compressed, smaller and faster to transmit than design files. PDF files are more commonly used and there is a need for many to convert PDF files to the DWF format. Writer Bio

VGZ audio files are Gzip compressed VGM (Video Game Music) files. This audio format can be found in many old video consoles manufactured by Sega and ProSonic. By using the free software Winamp, users can convert VGZ audio files into MP3s. Writer Bio