Welcome to the 3rd edition of the DIY Tech Tips, once again frequent viewers of this site will find plenty of such tech tips and stuff every now and then. If you missed the previous 2 parts, you might want to dive in and search for them in the archives. Lets get on with the Tech Tips.



Defrag regularly

Installing and un-installing of new software’s and deleting of files can cause the drive to be messed up into several chunks. This will slow down your system by a few notches. It helps to do some form of defrag every now and then. You can use alternatives like Defraggler if you do not trust the default one provided by Windows. I particularly liked the Power Defragmenter that will only defrag in a way so that it will only shift the files so that they will be together and not tidy up the whole hard disk. This will speed things up as well.



Plug a USB keyboard into your game console

Trying to chat to your friend across a game console like the Xbox 360 is a chore, you will need to use the controller to select one letter at a time and by the time you are done with one proper sentence, it is Christmas. There are special game console keyboards that can be purchased out there. But there is one ugly truth out there. Plug in any normal USB keyboard you use for your computer and it works like a charm.



Bookmark a location

Sometimes, it is not easy to remember where the last great eatery is where you went before. If you have a smartphone that has a GPS and Google maps or alternative navigation device, simply take it out and start any navigation route. Say from your current location, just set another random destination. Then stop the navigation once it has determined your starting point. View the map and insert one favorite at the point where you are now. You can name it to something else instead of the street name, like best prawn noodles. Then next time, if you want to come back here. Just use your GPS phone.



Buy a Navigation app

Now we can always drive around a foreign country without fear of getting lost. iPhone users can always buy maps for a certain country so that you can follow the directions on the phone. Don’t be mistaken that a GPS service will incur huge roaming costs. A GPS device will only need to receive information on where the satellites are, once the information is received, the entire route and direction is just computing done on the device itself. You will need to disable any additional features that will constantly download additional information like live traffic feed for example to avoid additional costs.



Extra playable video formats for PS3

Video formats are not limited to just a few; there are so many popular video conversion types out there. For those videos that are encoded differently, like the ACVHD, PS 3 will not be able to detect those file types. In the event, you are unable to find the file in the PS 3, Hit the Triangle button to show the option , Display All, now you will be able to see all the files.



Clean your computer

Cleaning your computer is not limited to just the software part of it. The internal tower builds up a lot of dust very quickly over the years. Over heating can easily occur in a very dusty chassis. As a result of that, the user will experience a sluggish system. It will not hurt to use a vacuum cleaner to run over the CPU fan every now and then. But remember to turn off the main power from the wall socket and press the ON button once to discharge any electricity before vacuuming the tower gently.



Ready Boost

Since Microsoft Windows created Vista, there is a new feature that can turn thumb drives into Rams. This feature is called “Ready Boost”. Simply insert any thumb drive into the USB port and when the autorun menu comes up, scroll down and choose ReadyBoost. Else you can right click on the drive and select properties. You should be able to find the ReadyBoost tab there.



Add an external drive to PS 3

Instead of upgrading the hard disk of the PS 3, you can also hook up an USB drive to increase the storage space. PS 3 only recognize FAT32 partitions, so before you hook up the drive, format it correctly before you insert the drive. Create four folders, “Pictures”, Music, Video and Game in the drive and copy the respective files into the correct folders so that they can be accessed.



Create a US playstation account

Users of the playstation network account usually can only buy content from their zone. Some content might be restricted to users living in the US. You can opt to buy a US PSN stored value card from ebay or your local game retailers. Then create a US PSN account. Create a new user on your console and choose USA as your country of origin. As for address you will need to find one friend living in US to fill in that portion. Top up with your PSN stored value card and you can buy content off the US market.



Set your own preferred destination point

For some buildings like universities, country clubs and maybe your work place, there are multiple entry points or exits. By default, the navigation device might direct you to the gate that is further away from where you are actually working. You can set a manual destination at that gate which is closer to where you need to go and in future, just use that favorite bookmark from now on.

That’s all the Tech Tips for part 3 and I hope they are useful to everyone who reads them and as usual, stay tuned for more Tech Tips in future.