Techie Sleep Tips 5: Tweaks For Epic Sleep

When it comes to sleep, the common wisdom for industrialized societies is 8 hours of uninterrupted rest (or monophasic sleep).  However, scholars and numerous studies say monophasic sleep is a recent phenomenon of great exposure to artificial light after sunset. Before this, people engaged in polyphasic sleep of more than one session per day.  They more particularly slept in a polyphasic pattern of biphasic sleep (2 sessions a day).

1. THE BIPHASIC BOOST! - A study by the National Institute of Mental Health discovered biphasic sleep is actually more natural than monophasic sleep. The researchers placed relatively healthy monophasic sleepers in daily 14-hour dark periods for a month. Participants could sleep as much as they wanted and the first nights featured everyone repaying sleep debts with 11+ hour sessions. A significant reduction of participants' exposure to artificial light supercharged their pineal glands with greater melatonin secretion.

By the fourth week, researchers observed something quite unusual. Everyone adapted to a specific biphasic sleep pattern. Although participants still slept about 8 hours, they broke it up into two 3-5 hour sessions with a 1-2 hour wake session in between. The wake period was extremely blissful involving massive prolactin activity that doesn't occur in monophasic sleep.

To this day, biphasic sleep still occurs in pre-industrial societies lacking exposure to artificial light. Participants of biphasic sleep studies often say it provides a level of energy and mental clarity not experienced since early childhood or ever (they probably don't remember).

For those already on this cycle, your body maintains a more primitive circadian rhythm. To achieve more biphasic sleep, people need exposure to at least 10 hours of natural darkness. More natural light such as moonlight and fire (candles), in theory, should allow for a greater exposure to this natural nighttime darkness. Just be sure to put a plate under candles in case you fall asleep before blowing them out. Install thick curtains on your windows and wear an eye mask if you have to - for these all help encourage more natural darkness.

For many people, this type of biphasic sleep will require serious changes at night, but it's definitely worth a try for severe sleep issues that are ruining most days for you. It almost seems ridiculous to turn off all unnatural light after sunset, but that level of discipline may pay off with greater energy after sunrise allowing you to compensate with much greater productivity and well-being.  Probably so much that you'll give up night-owl habits most days except for parties and what not.

If you're a college student who sleeps more than once a day, you're already engaging some form of biphasic sleep, whether it's the melatonin/prolactin enhanced type above or an extra 1-3hour nap later in the day. However, if you think primitive biphasic sleep is a challenge; wait till you see the others below!

2. RENAISSANCE METHODS OF SLEEP - These next ways of sleeping involve scheduled naps that theoretically attempt to trade sleep duration for additional sleep quality to increase your total time awake. They include: Everyman, Dymaxion, and Uberman.  Many of these have been used by many famous historical figures of renaissance levels of talent. Today, numerous bloggers, youtubers, and participants of empirical studies have also tried these methods with incredible results.

 Some people can't handle them, while others have tried them for months and even years with great success and no ill health effects. Everyman is essentially the easiest while Uberman is the hardest.  Their theory goes, after you adapt to them, your body accepts and benefits from them.

2A. EVERYMAN SLEEP - First off, Everyman sleep is NOT for every man or woman. It requires you sleep a core rest of 4.5hrs with two 20min power naps.  Another involves a 3hr core sleep with three 20min power naps.  The goal is to get by with only 3-4hours of sleep.  The core rest makes this quicker to adapt to and provides a decent 4-5 hours of additional wake time.  Of these three methods, Everyman is perhaps the most realistic for most people, particularly those with the flexibility for those 2-3 naps.

Now imagine only taking short naps without a core sleep session. These next two strategies do just that!  

2B. DYMAXION - Dymaxion sleep asks for four 30min naps (every 6 hours) for a total of 2 hours of sleep.  Those who try this (along with Uberman below) often report a bizarre jet-lag feeling of living in a never-ending day.  This lasts until their internal clock fully adjusts and re-calibrates their awareness of time.

Renaissance man Buckminster Fuller designed the Dymaxion sleep schedule to help him achieve more productivity with his talents. He also named several of his own creations after the term including his Dymaxion house, car, world map, and life journal "Dymaxion Chronofile" which heavily detailed his entire life in experiment form.   Like Fuller with many things to occupy his time, the most successful attempts to use these strategies also involve a highly driven need for the strict schedules beyond desire.  You have to be very productive in many highly engaging activities of mental and physical activity - not just watching TV.

2C. UBERMAN - Historical records indicate Leonardo DaVinci himself used this form of sleep.  Uberman sleep requires six 20-30min naps (every 4 hours) for a total of 2-3 hours of sleep per day. The nap time varies person to person based on personal and environmental circumstances. Blogger Steve Pavlina tried Uberman sleep for 5-1/2 months and you can read about his experiences here.  

YouTuber Matthew Armstrong also tried Uberman sleep for 30 days, recording 10 videos of the experience.  It took him about two weeks to adapt to Uberman sleep which ultimately provided "razor sharp" mental clarity and wakefulness along with incredibly lucid dreams.  Even though the naps were 30mins for him, he began to feel like they were the equivalent of several hours.

All the hard work eventually pays off, however most lifestyles today in industrialized societies don't allow Uberman sleep to remain sustainable.  It's not so much these kinds of sleep are impossible and dangerous (perhaps for some), but they simply aren't widely accepted among the conventional ways of many lives.  

Armstrong theorizes that Uberman may be the next step for a society to achieve greater productivity and health.  With so many things, including monophasic sleep, not being entirely proven natural but rather conventional wisdom, perhaps people naturally have a lot more flexibility to sleep in ways that work best for them.  Everyman, Dymaxion, and Uberman are so rare because they require you to be extremely aggressive about getting your naps - perhaps being down-right rude about them during the transitional period.  For this, the only people who can currently use these methods are extremely productive & disciplined people with schedules flexible enough to almost always allow the naps.

See the full collection of Techie Sleep Tips

The Ultimate Performance Guide for Hard Drives

This is a post about getting ultimate performance and longevity from your hard drives.  Even those who run cleanups, checkdisk, and defrags may be overlooking some critical procedures to gain further performance.  Read on and find out what you may have been missing! Note: if you don't understand any technical terms in this article, I will briefly define them, but you should also look them up as they are essential to maintaining a computer.


Unless you're fortunate enough to have a computer running entirely on Solid State Disks (SSDs), you're probably still using spinning Hard Disk Drives (HDDs).  Many new computers still use HDDs because they're cheaper per byte and still engineered in their performance.  With these tips, your HDDs can even be ideal for games and video editing.

Every tool I mention in the article will be free and just as good (if not better) than the pricey alternatives.  I've tested several dozen programs and these provide observable performance that speaks for itself.  Why should everyone maintain their hard disk drives? Because in time a HDD and SDD inevitably suffer performance loss if not maintained (particularly HDDs).


INITIAL CHECK FOR HARDWARE PROBLEMS

First, you need to verify that your disks are still functioning correctly.  If your HDD has been used over five years, then you need to be extra cautious of hardware issues and data loss.  I recommend replacing drives that old, however if you want to be more daring, these tips will help it last longer. To check the performance of your drive, you'll want to download the latest version of Speccy.

Speccy

Speccy is a wonderful free program that reveals the finest specifications of your entire computer.  Once installed and open, go to the hard drive section and make sure all your HDDs have temperatures under 55C and "Good" status under the S.M.A.R.T. section.   This stands for "Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology" (or built-in hardware monitoring for both HDDs and SSDs).

You won't need to know anymore beyond their status for this guide; however you can bookmark the wiki article on SMART for later reading.  Now you DO NOT need to worry about an SSD drive temperature showing up as 128C as it's NOT running that hot. SSDs often don't have thermometers in them and many programs default to reading none or 128C as their temp.  However, it's not a bad idea to browse the other sections of Speccy to verify all other temps aren't showing in the red.

If all your drives pass this initial test, then you're ready to continue.  If the SMART status is bad on one or more drives, then it's time to get a replacement drive (and your system is probably suffering great performance loss from this already). If you hear obvious signs of malfunctioning in the drives such grinding, clicking, buzzing, humming, etc. - it's most likely malfunctioning even if the SMART status is good.  Don't trust either alone, always verify both the SMART status and the sound of your drives.  I've diagnosed and repaired over a thousand HDDs and the worst ones either don't detect, freeze your entire system, or take WAY too long for your system to detect and interact with.  Don't tolerate waiting more than 5 minutes for an HDD or SSD to detect, something is wrong by then.

Now if any HDD temps are over 55C, then they risk data loss and hardware damage in time.  Hot HDDs can cause numerous system problems including freezes, crashes, corruption, blue screens of death (BSODs), and surprise restarts.  You may need to install additional cooling around your drives or use a more efficient case for greater air-flow.  I particularly recommend any case with decent fan input on the front and fan output on the back. I currently use an Antec 900 fully loaded with fans that keep all my drives under about 35C at all times.

If you want to test your drive even further for bad hardware sectors, use HD-Tune which has both a Pro and Free version.  The Free version works just fine and you can download it here.  I typically only use HD-Tune to measure drive performance because I usually discover if a drive is bad well before this test.

CLEANING

CCleaner

Now that you've verified your hardware is still functioning properly, you're ready to increase its free space.  For starters, you never want any storage to be 95%-100% full.  SSDs are typically safe to fill up to the 90% area, but HDDs benefit tremendously from free space.  HDD performance expert J.C.Kessels says a 50% full HDD is guaranteed to run almost twice as fast as a 90-100% full HDD.  Even if benchmarks don't prove this exactly, sheer use and observation of a drive's performance will feel 50% smoother and responsive.  He recommends keeping back-up and rarely used data on a large external drive that is much safer to fill up to about 90% because it's not constantly connected to your system.  Even if your entire OS is installed on a speedy SSD, overloaded internal HDDs will still drag it down.  A failing drive will cause some of the most serious performance issues where the entire system will halt and wait for this one drive to get its act together.

CCleaner Enhancer

To begin the clean-up process, download CCleaner and CCleaner Enhancer.  Install CCleaner first, then run CCleaner Enhancer to expand its cleaning power tremendously.  Once you open CCleaner, you can generally check everything EXCEPT "Saved Passwords" for all browsers, "Windows Update Logs," and "Old Prefetch Data". Go ahead and look over everything else, unchecking anything you also don't feel comfortable with - such as anything associated with financial software, etc. However, I've used these on numerous systems without problems.

Some users may also want to uncheck "Cookies" for browsers if they don't want to sign-in to all their websites again. Passwords will still be saved if you unchecked those for each browser, but you may need to type the first letter of your login IDs in browsers for the saved ID/Password info to pop-up.  If you know your passwords or have them stored elsewhere, then that's even better! You should have them stored outside your browser somewhere encrypted.  I recommend clearing cookies on all browsers to not only make websites load faster, but also reduce conflicts and security issues associated with less secure outdated cookies.  The same applies to stale cookies in the cookie jar - yuck.

System Ninja

After this, download another tool called System Ninja to cleanup a bunch of leftovers these two still miss.  What I love most about System Ninja is how it also cleans corrupt Recycle Bin data that can take up gigabytes of data in what you "thought" was gone!   Yes, even in Windows 7, the Recycle Bin still faces this classic issue of corrupt leftover data in your drive's $Recycle.Bin folder (a hidden system folder on all drives accessed by the Window's Recycle Bin).  The longer you've used your drive, the more likely it is going to have corrupt Recycle bin data leeching away its free space.

Even if you reveal this folder, you often need to use advanced data commands in a Command Prompt (CMD) to truly empty it. SystemNinja will brilliantly take care of this and many other corrupt cache issues in the click of a button.  For Windows 7 that uses an entirely new system of folder thumbnails in one central location, System Ninja also cleans up all those obsolete .db thumbnail files left over from Windows XP.  If you've never used all three of these programs, you'll probably be amazed at how much free space you recover.  A typical user of the non-Enhanced CCleaner will also see a difference!

The next step is to manually scan through your drive and delete what you don't need anymore.  For starters, you can download the tiny program LargeFiles to reveal the top 100 largest files on each drive. When your drive is around 50%-65% full, you're ready to optimize the data with defragmentation.

TWEAKS

Now that your HDD health is verified with an optimal amount of free space, you're ready for some tweaks and data optimization. First, you want to make sure File Indexing and Data Compression are disabled on your constantly connected HDDs.  If you do a lot of file searches through Windows, then it's worth keeping Indexing enabled for faster searches, otherwise this is costing you additional needle movement that could be used for other things.


You can also unlock additional speed by disabling noise limiters on your drives.  Though HDDs used to be much louder, newer HDDs won't make much of any additional noise with these functions disabled anyways and gain a significant boost in speed.  Use the free version of HD-Tune mentioned earlier to adjust this setting on your HDDs.  For each HDD, go to the AAM (Audio Acoustic Management) tab, check Enable, and set the slider to High Performance (254).  You can even run a quick Average Access Time test to see if you're really gaining a performance boost.  My 1TB drive features 20 ms in Low Noise (128) and 14 ms in High Performance (254) with no noticeable increase in noise!  For this test, lower ms is faster.

ERROR CHECK - CHKDSK

In time, your HDDs and SSDs face a risk for slight or severe data and free space corruption.  Often, this can be resolved through a program already built-in to Windows called Check Disk (or Chkdsk).  This is especially crucial for laptops that are physically moved around a lot as well as drives that have been used for over a year without being formatted.  This will benefit both HDD and SSD drives, so run it on everything Windows can access.  Routine disk checks with chkdsk prevents data loss, crashes, and serious bottlenecks in performance.

To run Chkdsk, open your Computer (or My Computer) explorer on your desktop.  I highly recommend starting with the drive your Operating System is installed to which will always require a restart to perform.  Right click a drive and select "Properties" and then go the "Tools" tab.  Under Error-Checking, click "Check Now."  Check both check boxes in the new window and click start.  Recovering bad sectors is worth the additional time it takes as this can definitely resolve performance issues.  Only fixing the file system errors is a weaker maintenance procedure for people in a hurry to repair the data and don't have time to do a more thorough test.  Now this will take some time depending on the type of drive (SSDs will finish much faster), size of the drive, and amount of data on it.

Running Chkdsk on your OS drive will require you to restart so the program can run at the next boot-up before the OS is loaded and being accessed.  Other drives may not require a restart or they also might as well, go along with it.

FYI: if your drives continue getting an enormous amount of corrections in each time you run Chkdsk, their hardware may be bad, or you may have a virus, or you may have serious software conflict/problem that's literally corrupting your system. In some cases, a corrupt Windows OS (particularly one that's been used for years with several hundred programs installed and uninstalled) can also persist with corrupting data further and may require re-installation if you don't have back-ups of the fresh install. Often, I've seen system performance increase tremendously after Chkdsk fixed just a couple of things so it's essential to run at least once a month on all drives.  Even run it on your backup drive not always connected to the system.  Boot times also seem to benefit a lot from these checks too.

DEFRAGMENTATION & FILE OPTIMIZATION

With all the other steps completed, your now ready for some serious jet fuel - defrag and raw data sorting.  For this, you'll want to download these two fantastic programs: Defraggler and MyDefrag.  Now I've wrote about MyDefrag before and it still remains one of the top tools in my computer maintenance arsenal to this day.   I remind you, only run these programs on your HDDs and not your SSDs.  While defragging data certainly benefits HDDs, SSDs do not require defragmentation as data is located on memory chips in those drives which are accessed at equal read/write speeds regardless of fragmentation, location, etc. Defragging SSDs actually reduces their limited read/write cycles, though they have a huge amount that takes a very long time to reach.

Why do you need these two defrag programs? Well, Defraggler is better at defragging system files (good to run once a month or two) while MyDefrag is much better at organizing raw data.  Combined, they form an ultimate tune-up even paid-for programs can't provide.  Sure MyDefrag can also defrag files, but it still can't access many crucial system files or perform boot-time defrags. However, it has an extremely powerful raw location optimizer to give your system some incredible lightning-bolt response time that a defrag alone can't provide.

Notice the SSD, don't defrag it

First we are going to run Defraggler on all your HDDs to remove initial fragmentation. Then we'll run MyDefrag's Monthly System & Data Disk raw file location optimizers on your system and data disks respectively.  Install and open Defraggler, and run the "Defrag" mode (not the Quick Defrag) on all your HDDs.

I ignore System Disk since mine is an SSD

Once that is finished, install and open up MyDefrag.  Unless your OS is installed on an SSD, begin by highlighting System Disk Monthly and only checking your operating system's disk (or partition for those with multiple partitions [virtually separate disks] on the same disk).  This will take some time, but it's worth it, so let it finish overnight if you need to.

Once that is finished, close and reopen MyDefrag and select "Data Disk Monthly," then check all your data HDDs, skipping any data SSDs.  This process will most likely take much longer, so you'll definitely want to run it overnight, but it's seriously worth it with the amount of response time and reduced needle movement your system gains from it.  Once these are done, I personally recommend running a Daily Data and System Disk defrags every couple of days or at least the Weekly Data and System Disk defrag once a week.  Occasionally you can run Defraggler on your HDDs as well to defrag a few extra system files, but not too much as it'll mess with the nice turbo sorting algorithms implemented by all the modes of MyDefrag.

This may sound a bit complicated for some readers, but these two advanced file optimization algorithms are sorting all your raw data locations by alphabetical order based on the folder and file names.  All the files in a folder will not only have the same location in the MFT (the organization you see) but now also the same raw location on the disk (usually they are all spread out, even when defragmented). The system disk optimizer is only intended for the disk your operating system is on and the program's author J.C. Kessels confirms that System Disk modes don't further optimize your data-only disks, even if they contain programs as well.

ADDITIONAL TWEAKS / INFO

You can check to make sure there are no problematic or outdated motherboard controllers for your HDDs.  Right click "My Computer" and select "Properties." Then go to "Device Manager" and expand anything around the likes of "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers." Make sure there are no red disabled or yellow problematic icons on the device here.  If so, then you need to re-enable them or re-install the proper driver from your motherboard/computer manufacturer's website. Go to their Support section and look for Drivers. Speccy will reveal the exact model of your motherboard to search for.  You'll either download the latest chipset drivers or the exact "disk controller" driver. If you use a fairly new AMD/ATI based motherboard, these AMD chipset drivers may benefit you best.

You can also expand the Hard Drives area in Device Manager to make sure none are showing red or yellow icons.  In rare cases, an HDD can have a firmware update available on its manufacturer's website, however SSDs (particularly the OCZ brand) tend to have many firmware updates.  However, note that when updating an SSD's firmware, you may need to format the drive clean first, so be sure to backup the data or create an "image" backup of an operating system.

Read more HDD performance tips from J.C. Kessels here.

For those who have made it this far, I hope you've learned to gain much performance and lifespan from your Hard Disk and Solid State Drives!  Thanks for reading!

Interesting Quote on Talent

"To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius."                                                                               - Henri-Frédéric Amiel                   
This quote suggests our talents lie in what is hard work for most and merely play for us. It goes into that sense of automated flow where your mind does complex thinking with serious accuracy - and yet feels no strain in the vast curiosity to continue.

Perhaps it even explains the phenomenon behind those who practice rare and extremely difficult tasks to eventually find them easier as they adapt.

People are certainly born with talents, but what spurs the extraordinary motivation to develop talents we aren't born with? Maybe these concepts are one of the same - and it's the high curiosity towards certain things that almost coerces us to develop these talents.

Then to go beyond talent - perhaps by surprise - can definitely leave the world with a genius new piece of information. Something that breaks the conventional pattern of talent.

Often the history behind genius ideas reveals them occurring in spontaneous eureka moments when everything falls into place. A bit of mental flow beyond the conventional train of thought when you least suspect it.

Laptop Manufacturers Still Overlook Cooling - Part 2

So the holidays are here and the weather has gotten pretty cold in Texas.  Laptop users rejoice with frosty outdoor computing - as long as they don't freeze.  For those inside - good laptop cooling is needed to compensate for the burning fireplace.

Alas, I return to my first post on laptop cooling issues. If you missed it, you can still read Part 1 here. Over the past few months I've come across some intriguing new innovations for laptop cooling.  Tech that can fight the heat issues further than ever.

Dust Removal Through Reverse Fan Spin. The title explains itself.  This is a recent fan innovation created by MSI for desktop graphics cards.  Basically, it removes accumulated fan dust by occasionally spinning blades the opposite direction at high speed.  The accumulated dust issue that plagues laptops with heat can now be relieved.  Just blow it out of there.

Msi.com - Say Goodbye to Graphics Card Overheating

So how do we implement this? Well, with two openings above and below fans in a laptop, this technology could run its dust removal maintenance.  At the moment, you still have to remove a laptop's fan to clean it properly.  Otherwise blowing it with compressed air only pushes the dust deeper into the device which becomes a fire hazard.

Sealed Liquid Coolers.  If you've heard about liquid cooling, then this is simply a more compact version of the technology.  They use a mini radiator to circulate sealed coolant across a copper heatsink.  For small laptops, this could definitely lower CPU & GPU temperatures much more efficiently than fans alone.

It's simply the advantages of chemistry enhancing the cooling power of fans.  I'm certain there's a way to make one small enough to fit.  It's well worth the engineering efforts for such a boost in cooling efficiency & heat resistance.  Problems like frame rate stuttering in powerful gaming laptops could potentially be resolved for good.

For more ideas on better laptop cooling, check out these 2 inspirational guides on desktop cooling from Toms Hardware:

How To: Properly Plan And Pick Parts For An Air-Cooled PC, Part 1
How To: Properly Plan And Pick Parts For An Air-Cooled PC, Part 2 

Also be sure to see my Part 1 of this article if you haven't already:
Laptop Manufacturers Still Overlook Cooling - Part 1

Interesting Quote on Goals

"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."
                        - Henry David Thoreau
                
This quote sounds simple, but is too easily forgotten.  There are certainly gains of materials in life, but we have to remember the long-term achievement is in the self.  Who we become in the months and years that pass.

Does this relate to exercise as well? It sure does and it also says a balance between mental and physical gains are needed to truly feel accomplished in our life.

BitLocker - Password Protect USB Drives

Do you often leave your USB drive lying around?  Worried about unauthorized access to the device?  The latest versions of Windows offer something called BitLocker to defend against this threat.

Not only does it password protect your USB drive, but it encrypts the data just in case someone hacks into it.  By password protection, you'll need to enter your password to unlock the drive each time you want to connect it to a computer. 

In Windows 7 or Vista, simply right click your drive and select BitLocker.  Then follow the steps to set up a password and be prepared to wait a bit for the installation to finish.  Take a break and let the process finish.

The only downsides however are the limitations.  BitLocker only allows recent Windows operating systems to access your drive - such as Windows 7 and Vista.  Macs, PS3s, Linux, and other systems won't recognize the drive.

Another flaw is the fact that people often leave USB drives connected to systems they walk away from.  It doesn't automatically disconnect your device after a certain idle time, leaving it 100% vulnerable to unauthorized access if left unlocked. 

Still, it's a step ahead when it comes to data security and you can be reassured if your BitLocker defended drive falls into the wrong hands.  It's safe to say a good 98% of the people who get ahold of your unplugged USB drive will not be able to break through BitLocker.

MusicBrainz Picard - Verify (or Identify) Audio File Info

 Do you have a lot of music files with disorganized names and info?   Perhaps unknown MP3s ripped from a CD?  If either of these sound familiar, you may benefit from MusicBrainz Picard.

It's a program that scans the audio-footprint of your music and matches it with a massive database of verified song information to apply.  For many, this program can save them so much time it's hilariously useful.  For more rare songs, it investigates for the closest footprint match and suggests highly probable song info.

It's also useful for filling in additional information for your audio files.  They will look nicer with more accurate information when imported or opened with your favorite music player.  A life-saver for those looking to go back and sort through a huge collection of messy files from the 90s and 2000s.

With that being said, music buffs can download MusicBrainz Picard here.  How much does it cost? A simple little price of ... well, free.

Clean & Organize Any Room Quickly

Ah, the science of cleaning. Everyone gets a little messy with a place every now and then; some more, some less. In the end, though, we all need to pick up the clutter and organize it away.  No? Then you'll eventually have to climb like you’re in the Rocky Mountains to find your way around the maze of mess.  I will show you a quick method to organize any room's heavy mix of junk, treasures, trash, and other items that have all piled up over the months.

To begin, all you have to do is to form 5 different piles in the room.
These five piles will be called: Donate, Keep, Trash, Move, and Sell

Also be sure to process the piles before they look like this

Donate Pile: These are things too valuable to toss, but too difficult to sell. You can't relocate them either.  Donate them! Be sure they are legal to donate.

Keep Pile: These are essential items for the room that have to stay.  Make sure you actually use or appreciate these every month or two. Else they might be taking up space.   If they've been idle and unappreciated for over a year, they might be better suited for storage elsewhere.



Trash Pile:  This is the obvious trash that doesn't fit in the trashcan.

Move Pile: These are items you certainly need to keep but relocate elsewhere. Reassess and make sure you really do need them. 

Job well done depending on your feng shui tastes

Sell Pile: These are things you don't need, that you can certainly sell.  Check around on eBay or Craigslist for general pricing options.  Don't let them sit around too long either unless their quite valuable.  For instance, a huge $10 item might not be worth waiting on for half a year to sell. 

Your goal is to free up as much space as possible.  If the mess is huge, pace the process in daily segments of time to work.



I hope this guide helps simplify the mess that takes away time from more important things!

Interesting Quote on Planning

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.”
                                                                                                      -John Lennon

 
Life really does occur consistently, plans or not.  This quote suggests our personal narratives in life - our history - is not driven through planning or achievement alone.  But the unpredictable spontaneity defines even more of who we truly are outside of the plans.

So between our desired plans and empirical outcomes of the planning - it's the experience that matters most.  Perhaps the sheer planning and execution of the plans is the most lively experience of all.  Especially in the last moments of achieving or surpassing a plan's goal.

Track Lost/Stolen Devices with Prey

image source: blogs.cio.com

We don't often worry about the potential theft of our devices but many of us do lose them.   Regardless of the case,  did you know you can track them down through the internet?

This special software Prey let's you do just that without the fuss.  You shouldn't have to lose things and why not take advantage of open WiFi and onboard GPS to get them back!

It features all kinds of ways to hone in on your device's locations through the internet. For mobile computers, it runs on Windows, Mac,or Linux.  For the smart phones, it supports both the Apple iOS and Android.

So how does it work?  First it tells your device's GPS & Wifi functions to privately broadcast the system's location to your Prey account online.  Second, it gives you backdoor access to lock it down before prying eyes get a hold of your personal info.  You can even turn the webcam into a security camera to take photos of thieves and unauthorized users.

So where do get this fine piece of software?  Download it at http://preyproject.com/. Again - Did I mention it's free? ha!

College Finals & Bruce Lee Quotes

bruceleedivinewind.com

Having 7 finals this semester (the hardest one yet) is no easy task - but I'm making progress and keeping calm.  Especially with the luck I've been having - getting 2 of them complete ahead of schedule.

Relaxing into solutions is often a key strategy to use your time wisely and constantly keep an eye on the study strategies.

Some of my favorite sources of inspiration are Bruce Lee quotes.  Here are some to share for everyone else facing tense deadlines before the holidays. 

      "It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential."                          

                                                                                                                          

        “Don't fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”                                                                                                                                                  - Bruce Lee 

                                                                                                                                                               

MyDefrag - Unlock Additional Speed in Hard Disks

If you don't already know what defrag means, then I suggest you learn before your system slows to a halt.  Unless you only use solid state drives (you'd know, because they're so expensive), then you need to learn the simple practice of defragging your tradition hard disks that use needles to access spinning magnetic platters.

So basically defragging is a simple practice that is a fully automated puzzle solver.  Think of your newly created data as jigsaw puzzles with the pieces just thrown into a box.  Defragging essentially consolidates these pieces (raw locations of data) into complete puzzles (solid chunks) to reduce the needle movement.  So if your still using hard disks with moving parts, then there are performance benefits to gain from defragging.

Does this move files in your operating system? No, those locations and file descriptions are all part of a constantly changing map (file table) to the raw data.  This map can get extremely complex when the raw data is fragmented.  Fragmented raw data creates extra unnecessary work for the map to access it (more needle movement).

It's not much to look at, but it sure speeds things up!

I've personally tested over a dozen of the top programs to take care of this task and none compare to MyDefrag.  In addition to consolidating raw data, it also pushes it to the beginning of the disk reducing needle movement even further.

The beginning part of the hard disk is proven to be the fastest. In addition to this double consolidation is an organization of raw data based on what it's used for.  For instance, the operating system's foundation is moved to the very beginning of the disc while massive video files are moved to the end.  Big files are slower to access regardless of where you put them, but small files definitely gain a boost from being at the beginning. 

This program features several modes for "System Disks" and "Data Disks."  Even a mode for "Flash Memory" - however I don't recommend ever defragging solid-state or flash since they access everything equally without movement.  This is also only for Windows users.  If your current Windows OS is installed on a hard disk (makes loading noises), then run the "System Disk Monthly" on it overnight and see how it performs in the morning.  If the disk showed up in MyDefrag as almost solid yellow (extremely fragmented), then your certain to see an improvement. Again, if you have a solid state drive - then you need not worry about ever defragging it for your ahead of the game. 

Download the latest version of MyDefrag here.  Did I mention it's free?

Cold War Ghost Signal Spooks the Airwaves

International conspiracy theorists and radio spotters gasp in awe to the eerie nature of this post-Soviet broadcast. With all the info traveling in radio waves, you'd except to have unknown signals, right?  Well this tops them all - baffling listeners across the world for over three decades.

It's called UVB-76 with an investigation community labeling it "The Buzzer." Spotters tune it at 4625kHz AM listening for rare interruptions that have recently grown more prevalent since 2010.  Originally broadcast as tones, it later switched to buzzes after the USSR demise.  The new sound features variable pauses of 1–1.3 seconds repeating 21–34 times per minute (a possible encryption?).

Beginning possibly around the early 80s, people know it's been relocated several times throughout Russia.  Currently, it's estimated to reside about 25 miles Northwest of Moscow. 

It's interruptions include robotic Russian voices speaking code words along with ongoing background noise.  To this day, no one knows what the signal is for or why it's been piercing radio waves since the early 80s. Without any confirmed info, this classified signal increasingly intrigues a growing number of listeners with its recently increased activity.

Listen to the live broadcast here: http://uvb-76.net/

Portal 2

Using quantum portals to blast your way through a world overthrown by AI digital chaos; Portal 2 takes puzzle solving beyond this world. Set in the same universe as Half Life (similar to Orwell's 1984), you play the mysterious Chell - a lone human survivor of the Aperture Science AI incident.  

Compared to the first Portal, the sequel surpasses it in almost every way.  The creators took everything fans loved about the first and quadrupled the graphics, mechanics, and difficulty.  Where Portal had almost no story, Portal 2 begins a true plot with real back-story.

I recently picked it up for $10 - a ridiculous steal for it's 95/100 MetaCritique rating and Apr 19, 2011 release date.  For such graphical complexity, I can tell the programmers took great care to smooth out code performance beyond most titles.  While Half Life 2 initially had performance issues (patched up now) , Portal 2 runs flawlessly.  With much less violence than your typical first-person shooter, this leans more towards a family title with its E10+ rating.  For inquisitive types who normally don't play games, it's also safe to say this logic game is for you as well.

Tech Quote: Software holds back Hardware

"It's hardware that makes a machine fast. 
It's software that makes a fast machine slow. "
- Craig Bruce

Whether your watching YouTube videos or browsing Facebook, your computer's performance is constantly held back by the amount of data it constantly has to manage. Performance is especially important these days with a media-centered internet.

In most cases, your favorite websites load most smoothly on the most simple and maintained machines. Always think carefully about whether you really need something stored on your immediate computer or on an external drive. Install only what is essential and only keep everything else as long as you need it.

Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson

Besides using virus protection and defragging cluttered hard drives, the mere practice of keeping most of your data on drives separate from the Operating System can seriously improve performance. Better yet, having the data on external drives that are only used when you actually need the data can improve things further.

It seems like no matter how powerful your system is, the more data and drives you have - the less performance you'll get. Operating systems are especially notorious for getting slow with both the age and quantity of software on them.

Even with speedy Solid-State drives, the data itself can accumulate new burdens on the system overtime.
 Then there's data corruption that can cause the most unpredictable bizarre behavior, unlike faulty hardware that usually just shuts off entirely.

The speed of storage is progressing slower than all the other parts because it is the most complex to deal with. There's all kinds of tweaks and tools to cash in on this issue, but the most simple and powerful matter is - and still remains - having as little data connected to your system as possible.