Tech-YO-logy

Windows 10 uses memory compression to store more data in your system’s memory than it otherwise could. If you visit the Task Manager and look at your memory usage details, you’ll likely see that some of your memory is “compressed”. Here’s what that means. What Is Memory Compression? Memory compression is a new feature in Windows 10, and is not available on Windows 7 and 8. However, both Linux and Apple’s macOS also use memory compression. Traditionally, if you had 8 GB of RAM and applications had 9 GB of stuff to store in that RAM, at least 1 GB would have to be “paged out” and stored in the page file on your computer’s disk. Accessing data in the page file is very slow compared to RAM. With memory compression, some of that 9 GB of data can be compressed (just like a Zip file or other compressed data can be shrunk down) and kept in RAM. For example, you might have 6 GB of uncompressed data and 3 GB of compressed data that actually takes up 1.5 GB in RA...

RAM is one of those upgrades everyone seems to skimp on when buying a PC, only to later wish for more. Regretting your underpowered memory purchase? Here’s how to speed up your machine by installing some additional memory. Memory is often one the critical bottlenecks on a PC, so faster, larger stores of RAM can go a long way to making your PC perform better and with more stability. It’s not hard, even for beginner geeks. Crack open that PC in today’s hardware upgrade! Identifying and Buying Your New RAM (The Hard Part)    Your RAM is likely installed in these slots on your motherboard, called the DIMM slots. This motherboard has room for six sticks of memory. Note the pins and how the RAM lines up with them—important to note to install properly. The median is off center to show you clearly which direction to orient them. If you’re strong, you can probably force them in backwards, but computers don’t really respond well to that kind of bullying. ...

If you are looking to upgrade the memory in your computer, you are probably wondering how many open slots you have, what type of memory is already installed, and what you need to buy for an upgrade… without having to open your computer. Since you shouldn’t have to open up the computer just to figure out what you have installed, here’s a couple of options for detecting the type of memory already installed in your system. Using Speccy This very useful free application should be a standard in any geek’s toolkit. It comes bundled as a single file, no installation required, assuming you download the portable version. They also have a paid version with more features. You can immediately see the type of RAM you have installed. The only question is whether I can install faster memory than the memory already installed, which leads us into our next option.   Download Speccy Using the Crucial Memory Advisor Memory manufacturer Crucial has put together a...

Microsoft will start rolling out Windows 10’s Creators Update starting April 11, but it will be a few months before every PC gets it. If you don’t want to wait, you can download the Creators Update from Microsoft right now. To run Windows 10 on a Mac via Boot Camp, you’ll need to follow this procedure to install it. If you try to install it normally, you’ll see a Stop error with code 0xc000000f. Use Microsoft’s Update Assistant As part of the release of the Creators Update, Microsoft is offering a new Update Assistant tool. You can download this tool to manually opt into the Creators Update, even if Microsoft hasn’t pushed it to your device yet. It will also allow you to download the Creators Update a week early beginning on April 5, before its general release starts on April 11. Microsoft’s blog post notes that this tool is for advanced users using an officially licensed, or “genuine“, version of Windows 10. Download the Update Assistant tool...

You may not have really thought about Windows build numbers in the past unless it was part of your job to do so. But they’ve become more important with Windows 10. Here’s how to find out what build—and edition and version—of Windows 10 you’re running.Windows has always used build numbers. They represent significant updates to Windows. Traditionally, most people have referred to Windows based on the major, named version they’re using—Windows Vista, 7, 8, and so on. Within those versions, we also had service packs to refer to: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, for example. With Windows 10, things have changed a bit. For one thing, Microsoft claims there will be no more new versions of Windows—Windows 10 is here to stay. Microsoft has also done away with service packs, instead moving to releasing two big builds each year and giving them fun names—the next big one being the Creator’s Update in Spring, 2017. If you really need to refer to a specific version of Windows...

Everyone who uses Google services knows that Google has copies of your data—your search history, Gmail, YouTube history, and  so much  more. But did you know you can also download a copy of this data for yourself? Yep, and it’s stupid easy. The product, called Google Takeout, has actually been around for a few years now, but it’s surprising how many people still don’t know about it. It’s a full featured way of downloading all of your Google data across all Google services. Here’s a full list of everything included in Takeout: +1s on Google+ Android Pay Blogger Bookmarks Calendars Chrome data (Autofill, bookmarks, etc.) Contacst Drive (All files) Fit data Photos Play Books Google+ Circles Google+ Pages Google+ Stream (all posts) Groups Handsfree Hangouts Hangouts on Air Keep Location History Mail Maps (your places) Moderator My Maps Profile Searches Tasks Voice YouTube (history, playlists, subs, videos) So yeah Almost…everything. ...

WINDOWS 10 Have you ever been concerned about people accessing the data on your Windows computer? You hand over your computer to someone for a specific reason, and they end up going through your personal data. Most probably, you’ve been looking for ways to protect your data. Sure, you can always encrypt your drive for security, but the encryption process takes very long. Moreover, once you enter the password, the drive remains decrypted until the next time you log on. And you wouldn’t want to log off your computer every time you have to step away from it, would you? What if I tell you there was a better way to achieve what you’re looking for? Imagine if you could hide your disk drives from your File Explorer in such a way that their data can still be accessed by you. Yes, it is possible. In fact, there are more than a single way to do this. So, without any further ado, here are the best ways to hide drives in Windows 10: Note : I’m showing the process on my Win...