Tech Table Radio Show

Tech Table
Tuesday, October 1, 2013

October 1, 2013

 

Justin: Welcome to MPA’s TechTable. I’m Justin.

Diana: And I’m Diana.

Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.

Diana: We promise: it’ll be easy to digest.

Justin: Happy Tuesday.

Diana: Happy Tuesday, Justin.

Justin: How are you?

Diana: I’m all right. I’m all right. Little bit slow today.

Justin: Yeah, well, it’s Tuesday. It’s Tuesday Tech day, restart day. We’re going to talk about the proper maintenance and care of your computer.

Diana: Well, the computer’s a very important part of my life.

Justin: We have several around us and we always have computers, computers are everywhere. It’s important to keep your computer running well. And it’s like maintaining your car or maintaining yourself, even.

Diana: Sure.

Justin: So what are some things, Diana, that people should be aware of?

Diana: Well, one thing to keep in mind is our computers, our laptops, our desktop computers, we run them almost constantly. I don’t know about you but I don’t always turn mine off every day.

Justin: Yeah. It used to be you’re supposed to turn it off and now you would just leave it on. People leave theirs on. Is that recommended?

Diana: I think it’s recommended actually to go ahead and turn it off when you’re not using it. And even unplug things because having something, anything plugged in will draw phantom power so you’re going to save electricity too. But anyway, it’s running constantly. You need to make sure that your fans are smoothly inside the actual device.

Justin: Right. Because every computer has a fan inside of it that cools it as it runs. And that’s really important.

Diana: Right. So with the fan running all the time if you don’t turn the device off it actually sucks dust inside and it starts to coat everything and pack inside the computer.

Justin: That’s true.

Diana: That’s not cool. Obviously we don’t recommend you getting into your own computer, taking it apart, cleaning it.

Justin: Unless you’re really brave. No. I wouldn’t recommend that.

Diana: Some people just like to tinker that way.

Justin: There’s a product that we carry at our office called Blow Off. It’s less than $4 and it’s basically a can of air, it’s compressed air. You can use it if you want to clean off the dust that collects inside your computer.

Diana: You can use it for all sorts of other things too, not just electronic devices.

Justin: What else would you use it for?

Diana: Just anything that has little crevices and cracks inside.

Justin: Interesting. I never thought about that.

Diana: I mean, I’m looking at a picture frame on the wall right now that I could probably use a can of Blow Off on.

Justin: Uh-oh. I don’t know who does the cleaning at the studio.

Diana: Not what I mean.

Justin: We’re in trouble now. We’re going to get kicked off the air. Uh-oh. Sorry.

Diana: When it gets dusty, when it does.

Justin: Very good. There you go. So that’s one thing. Is there anything else Diana, about proper care and maintenance of your computer?

Diana: Yeah. If you have a laptop you can actually get a cooling pad to keep it on.

Justin: What is that?

Diana: It sits on this surface that keeps it cool.

Justin: These are things I don’t really know about. I’m good at keeping the cars maintained and that sort of thing but I’m one of those people that just kind of expects the computer to keep running.

Diana: I think a lot of us are.

Justin: Right. That’s probably not a good thing. One thing I want to mention too is you’re going to need more preventative measures, more maintenance if you happen to have a smoker at home. That’s something that we see come into the office a lot. It’s unfortunate but true. That might be another reason to cut out the smoking. Just a little helpful hint there.

Diana: Good to know.

Justin: Anyway. I think that’s it for Tuesday. Until next time.

Diana: Take care.

Justin: TechTable is brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at at askMPA.com.

Diana: If you have questions or comments please send them to questions@AskMPA.com. That’s questions@AskMPA.com.

Justin: Thanks for listening.