Brevin's Tech Advice by Brevin Rahn

How to Speed Up a Windows PC

BrevinR — 2023-11-29 01:48:31 UTC

This applies to Windows 7 and newer. Open the Run box (Windows Logo Key + R) and type "temp" (Don't type the quotation marks!) and clear that folder. Don't worry about the files that can't be deleted or need Administrator permission. Just check "Apply to All" and click Skip. For Window 7, 8.1 and 10, (This one won't work on Windows 11) follow the same steps but this time type "%temp%" no quotation marks. For all versions of Windows including XP and newer, check the power mode, High Performance will speed up your PC tremendously, but eat the battery. If it is on Power Saver, he PC will naturally be slower and a little laggy. Consider changing to High Performance or Balanced.

BrevinR — 2023-11-29 01:52:21 UTC

Question Space

BrevinR — 2023-11-29 11:54:11 UTC

Leave a comment with your tech question, and I will try to answer as soon as possible.

How to Add External RAM on a PC

BrevinR — 2023-12-02 12:40:44 UTC

Background Image

BrevinR — 2023-12-04 00:01:17 UTC

If anyone wants the background image of this Padlet, here it is.

How to Defragment and Optimize Drives on Windows

BrevinR — 2024-01-03 14:02:22 UTC

This may sound a little confusing, but by doing this you can literally save your PC from death. When a drive gets fragmented (This is usually HDDs) you will start to notice a severe drop in performance. The attached video will show you how to check if your drive is fragmented and how to fix it if it is. The video is short, but the process of doing this can take hours.

Create Games with Scratch

BrevinR — 2024-01-20 16:39:12 UTC

A lot of people think about making their own video game but many of those people have little or no coding knowledge. You can make a basic video game with Scratch. Scratch uses the same drag and drop commands idea as Code.org. There are three versions of the offline editor. You can also use the online creation tool. Here is the link to the download page.

VLC Media Player - CD Playback Issues

BrevinR — 2024-02-16 19:54:00 UTC

NOTE: This applies to version 3.0.20 and older. VLC Media Player is free, open-source, user-friendly, and is one of the best and lightest media players out there. Even the latest version can run on Windows XP SP3 and later. Many people have noticed that the media player works fine until you try to play an audio CD. You can play a DVD or BD, but playing a CD makes the player crash. This is a bug that has been in VLC for years. Fortunately, it is only in the 32-bit version of the program. The 64-bit version will happily play a CD without any issues. If you have a 32-bit PC (also known as x86), I would recommend using Windows Media Player for audio CDs. If you have a 64-bit PC, then simply uninstall VLC (be sure to uncheck the "Clear Cache and Data" box) and then reinstall the x64 version. Here is the download link to the x64 version and the x86 version (x86 and x32 are the same). You may have to change your autoplay settings back to VLC after the reinstall.

Windows 8.1 Shell32.dll

BrevinR — 2024-03-27 22:01:19 UTC

You may have heard about there being a way to make Windows 10 and 11 look a lot like older versions of Windows. If you already have the software to do this, it is easy. Here is the link to a YouTube video of how to do it. You would need the shell32.dll file for the version of Windows you are trying to copy the look of. The shell32.dll for Windows 8.1 is attached to this post.

Raspberry Pi

BrevinR — 2024-04-16 00:56:27 UTC

One truly incredible computer for its size and price it the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. The model B part simply means an Ethernet port. Model As do not have one. This board is smaller than your phone and has the power of a 2003-2008 mid-range desktop PC. It has WiFi, Bluetooth 5.1, and a GPIO header to connect hundreds of different peripherals to it. You can get it with 1, 2, 4, and 8GB of RAM. If you are on a tight budget, I would recommend the 2GB or 4GB version. If you plan to use this for video editing, intense gaming, or running heavy operating systems such as Windows, I would recommend the 8GB RAM board. Here is the link to the official Raspberry Pi website. There, you can find hundreds of help articles, the Pi computer for sale, and the OS images and the RPi imager. The Pi 5 is the latest version of the computer, but is still in development and way more expensive. You can not only use these computers for normal use, but you can make an ad blocker, several types of servers, including NAS and webpage, and much more.

Orange Pi, Banana Pi, & Mango Pi

BrevinR — 2024-08-28 01:34:08 UTC

These are also great alternatives to the Raspberry Pi. Mango Pi computers are comparable to the Raspberry Pi Zero. Banana Pi has computers similar to every type of Raspberry Pi and more for a slightly lower price. The only downfall is lack of supply and compatibility. Orange Pi is a bit more expensive but is offered with up to 32GB RAM and 8K HDMI with an amd64 CPU! Some even have built in M.2 slots. The base models compare to a Raspberry Pi in price and features.