7 Simple Tips On Caring For Your Laptop Or Mobile Workstation Effectively

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Ever since the creation of the lap sized personal computer called laptops, the world has not been the same. The ease with which beginners, intermediate and expert users of the computer could go anywhere with their trusty and portable gadget helped increased daily productivity and boost the digital revolution to developing and third world countries cutting across borders, race, colour, ethnicity and demographic location.

It would be also be expected with the abundance of information out there available via the world wide web and Googlesearch engine, pc care would be a walk in the park but sadly this is not so with many issues that could have been prevented with the right orientation.

Therefore, here are 7 simple tips on caring for your laptop or mobile workstation from my personal use over the years and gained from other expert users as listed below:

                 1. Knowing Your Configuration/System Specifications:                                                               It really bugs me out when I randomly ask a computer user what the configuration or system configuration of his or her pc is and all I can get is a blank stare. Simply go to the computer disk area of the pc and simply right-click with the mouse button, scroll down to “Properties” which instantly brings out all information on the system.  

Basic Configuration/System Specification Screenshot

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Alternatively, you could easily search for the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (dxdiag) which gives greater insight into the System, Display, Sound and Input Properties. This ensures installation of software packages and applications are appropriate for its capacity not overloaded if observed by the user.

DirectX Diagnostic Tool Menu Screenshot

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            2. Clean Your System of Dust:

Cleaning exercises like dusting off the casing area, keyboard buttons with a soft sponge or brush prevents dust from getting into areas in between the crevices and wiping the LED display screen of the monitor is a must from time to time for aesthetic purposes also.

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3              3. Battery Care:

From the day you switch on your pc when you newly bought it at your trusted authorized reseller at Silicon Valley native to your country, the battery has started wearing out immediately. It is essential you plug your laptop to power supply for the battery to charge periodically, when it has reached 100% full. You can only leave it connected to power supply for a maximum period of one hour, from then on, you can work with it on battery mode either using “Power Saver” or “Balanced Mode” to elongate battery life. Allow the battery to discharge to about 10% empty before you start to recharge up and let it drain out completely to rejuvenate the battery cells to last longer for future use.

Task Bar Showing the Battery Bar Application

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The battery should also be detached from the pc to rest from use when idle for long. Install the awesome application from Osiris Development Battery Bar which is free and has constant updates monitors the wear, discharge rate, time remaining to charge or discharge respectively among other parameters.

4. Regular Updates for the Operating System:

Use an original Operating System from the laptop’s manufacturers not a pirated copy to ensure the system gets essential updates online from Microsoft, Macintosh, Ubuntu or Linux depending what the case maybe for optimal performance.

Computer Management Dialog Menu Screenshot

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It also ensures all the system drivers get regular updates as required. To access the “Device Manager” of Windows system as shown in the picture above, right-click on the ‘Computer’ hard disk tab then click on “Manage” with a multi-coloured shield symbol which represents administrative privileges. This takes you to the “Computer Management” dialog menu to ascertain the state of the system’s drivers and other parameters.

5. Antivirus and Spyware Protection: 

The need to install an authentic antivirus application whether free or licensed for a period of a year upwards cannot be over-emphasized. There are lots of nasty viruses, spyware and malware online waiting to do serious damage to your beloved gadget so please be aware of them like a plague.

Of all the applications out there, Avast brand of antiviruses is very effective for such protective services and highly recommended worldwide over with over 1 billion users. Feel free to visit their office website for product releases. 

Avast Premier 2015 Dialog Menu Screenshot

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USB Disk Security by ZBShareware is an extra tool that helps prevent virus attacks via removable media be it USB Disks, Memory Cards, External Hard Disks or CDs/DVDs etc.

Screenshot of USB Disk Security

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 SMADAV is another awesome tool that helps in the protection of your pc especially against the annoying shortcut virus. Available on their official website.

Screenshot of SMADAV

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    6.  PC Optimization:

After making use of a system for a considerable period of time, it is bound to get slower because the hard disk is bogged down with unnecessary clutter and junk from a choked registry i.e. the central database of the computer where all the logs/records of all activities performed is processed and monitored such as installing or uninstalling of software packages to name a few or the hard disks needing defragmentation as well to decongest the storage blocks.         

For every file and system location that is worked upon, visited or opened, a temporary file is created every time, this also holds true for Windows updates and restore points for Back up recovery of all media in case of a hard disk crash suddenly. These pieces of information need to be removed and deleted off the system because they add heavily to the amount of data stored taking up space when they can be removed with no consequences. This is also applies to broken shortcuts and left over files and folders from a redundant application that has or has not been deleted correctly.  

CCleaner’s User Interface Screenshot

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This array of problems can be solved swiftly using Piriform’s CCleaner and AVG’s multiple award winning TuneUp Utilities application.

TuneUp Utilities’ User Interface Screenshot

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1        7. Having a Reliable Computer Engineer:

       After the mandatory 1 year warranty for a system bought at an authorized reseller/dealer, it is wise to have the services of a reliable computer engineer on standby in case of other faults either by referral or trial of the workmanship.

Article Credits/References: Google and CG Blogger’s Archives

                                           

Autodesk Incorporated

         

Autodesk Incorporated is an American multinational software corporation that makes software for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California, and features a gallery of its customers' work in its San Francisco building. The company has offices worldwide, with U.S. locations in Northern California, Oregon, and in New England in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a co-author of the first versions of AutoCAD, the company's flagship computer-aided design (CAD) software. It is AutoCAD and Revit software is primarily used by architects, engineers, and structural designers to design, draft, and model buildings and other structures. Autodesk software has been used in many fields, from the New York Freedom Tower to Tesla electric cars.

             Autodesk became best known for AutoCAD but now develops a broad range of software for design, engineering, and entertainment as well as a line of software for consumers, including Sketchbook, Homestyler, and Pixlr. The company makes educational versions of its software available free to qualified students and faculty through the Autodesk Education Community. Autodesk's digital prototyping software, including Autodesk Inventor and the Autodesk Product Design Suite, are used in the manufacturing industry to visualize, simulate, and analyze real-world performance using a digital model during the design process. The company's Revit line of software for Building Information Modeling is designed to let users explore the planning, construction, and management of a building virtually before it's built.

            Autodesk's Media and Entertainment division creates software for visual effects, color grading, and editing as well as animation, game development, and design visualization. 3dsmax, Maya and SoftImage amongst others are very popular 3D animation software packages used in film visual effects and game development worldwide.

Product Categories

Platforms

The Platform Solutions and Emerging Business (PSEB) division develops and manages the product foundation for most Autodesk offerings across multiple markets, including Autodesk's flagship product AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, AutoCAD for Mac, and AutoCAD 360. Autodesk Suites, Subscription and Web Services, which includes Autodesk Cloud, Autodesk Labs and Global Engineering, are also part of PSEB. In what was seen as an unusual step for a maker of high-end business software, Autodesk began offering AutoCAD LT 2012 for Mac through the Apple Mac App Store. Also part of PSEB is the Autodesk Consumer Product Group, which was created in November 2010 to generate interest in 3-D design and “foster a new wave of designers who hunger for sophisticated software”. The products from the group include 123D, Fluid FX, Homestyler, Pixlr, and SketchBook. Users range from children, students and artists to makers and DIYers (Do-It-Yourself Users).

Architecture, Engineering and Construction

The Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry group is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, in a LEED Platinum building designed and built using Autodesk software. Autodesk's architecture, engineering, and construction solutions include AutoCAD-based design and documentation software such as AutoCAD Architecture (formerly Architectural Desktop), AutoCAD MEP (formerly Autodesk Building Systems), and AutoCAD Civil 3D. Their flagship product for relational Building information modeling is Revit. Revit is available as Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, Revit MEP or an all-in-one product. The AEC division also develops and manages software for the Construction industry, including Buzzsaw, Constructware, and the NavisWorks (acquired 2007) product tools; the Infrastructure industry, including AutoCAD Civil 3D, AutoCAD Map3D, and AutoCAD MapGuide Enterprise; and the Plant industry, including AutoCAD P&ID and AutoCAD Plant 3D. Projects that have used software from the Autodesk AEC division include the NASA Ames building, the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Shanghai Tower, and New York’s Freedom Tower. 

Screenshot of a 3d model in AutoCAD 2010

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Screenshot of a Revit Model for Rendering in 3dsmax Design 2010

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Screenshot of a 3d model for a Proposed Residential Design in Revit Architecture 2010

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Manufacturing

Autodesk's manufacturing industry group is head quartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The company's manufacturing software is used in various manufacturing segments, including industrial machinery, electro-mechanical, tool and die, industrial equipment, automotive components, and consumer products. Products include the Autodesk Product Design Suite, Autodesk Factory Design Suite, Autodesk Inventor Suite, and Autodesk Inventor Professional Suite with AutoCAD Mechanical, Autodesk Vault, Alias Products and Moldflow.

Media and Entertainment

Autodesk Media and Entertainment products are designed for digital media creation, management, and delivery, from film and television visual effects, colour grading, and editing to animation, game development, and design visualization. Autodesk’s Media and Entertainment Division is based in Montreal, Quebec. It was established in 1999 after Autodesk, Inc. acquired Discreet Logic, Inc. and merged its operations with Kinetix. In January 2006, Autodesk acquired Alias, a developer of 3D graphics technology. In October 2008, Autodesk acquired the Softimage brand from Avid. The principal product offerings from the Media and Entertainment Division are the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites, which include Maya, Softimage, 3ds Max, Mudbox, Smoke, Flame, and Lustre. Films created with Autodesk products have won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for 16 consecutive years.

Much of Avatar's visual effects were created with Autodesk media and entertainment software. Autodesk software enabled Avatar director James Cameron to aim a camera at actors wearing motion-capture suits in a studio and see them as characters in the fictional world of Pandora in the film. Autodesk software also played a role in the visual effects of Alice in Wonderland, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Inception, Iron Man 2, King Kong, Gladiator, Titanic, and other films. In 2011, Autodesk acquired a cloud-based set of image tools and utilities called Pixlr.

Screenshot of a Marker Pen Model in Maya 2011

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User Interface of Sketchbook Pro 6.2.3. Screenshot

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Product Categories

Autodesk’s first notable product was AutoCAD, a computer-aided design application designed to run on the systems known as "microcomputers" at the time, including those running the 8-bit CP/M operating system and two of the new 16-bit systems, the Victor 9000 and the IBM Personal Computer (PC). This tool allowed users to create detailed technical drawings, and was affordable to many smaller design, engineering, and architecture companies.

Release 2.1 of AutoCAD, released in 1986, included AutoLISP, a built-in Lisp programming language interpreter initially based on XLISP. This opened the door for third party developers to extend AutoCAD's functionality, to address a wide range of vertical markets, strengthening AutoCAD's market penetration.

Subsequent to AutoCAD Release 13, the company stopped supporting the UNIX environment and the Apple Macintosh platform. After AutoCAD Release 14 (R13 was last DOS & UNIX release), first shipped in 1997, Autodesk discontinued development under MS-DOS, and focused exclusively on Microsoft Windows.

AutoCAD has grown to become the most widely used CAD program for 2D non-specialized applications. The native file formats written by AutoCAD, DXF and DWG, are also widely used for CAD data interoperability.

In the 1990s, with the purchase of Softdesk in 1997, Autodesk started to develop specialty versions of AutoCAD, targeted to broad industry segments, including architecture, civil engineering, and manufacturing. Since the late 1990s, the company has added a number of significant non-AutoCAD-based products, including Revit, a parametric building modeling application (acquired in 2002, from Massachusetts-based Revit Technologies for $133 million), and Inventor, an internally developed parametric mechanical design CAD application.

In Vernor vs. Autodesk, Inc., Autodesk was sued in 2007 by Timothy Vernor, who alleged that he was entitled to sell on eBay "used" copies of AutoCAD software he had obtained at an office liquidation sale from an Autodesk licensee. A federal district judge in Washington State denied Autodesk's initial motion to dismiss in early 2008. In February and March 2009, both sides filed motions for summary judgment addressing the issue whether the First Sale Doctrine applies to previously licensed software. 

The Court ruled in Vernor's favour, holding that when the transfer of software to the purchaser materially resembled a sale (non-recurring price, right to perpetual possession of copy) it was, in fact, a "sale with restrictions on use" giving rise to a right to resell the copy under the first-sale doctrine. As such, Autodesk could not pursue an action for copyright infringement against Vernor, who sought to resell used versions of its software on eBay. The decision was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which reversed the lower court ruling, denying Vernor the right to resale Autodesk software on eBay due to Autodesk's non-transferable licensing restrictions. In October 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. Autodesk introduced its current logo at the TED conference in Long Beach, California on February 26, 2013.

Sustainability

            Autodesk solutions for Digital Prototyping allow designers, manufacturers and engineers to design more sustainably by reducing the amount of physical prototypes required for a project, or eliminating the need for them entirely.

The Building Information Modeling (BIM) capabilities of Autodesk software help the architecture; engineering and construction (AEC) industry create more sustainable buildings and optimize building performance. Autodesk took Graphisoft's ArchiCAD's earlier Virtual Building concept from 1987 and has continued to develop it as Building Information Modellingsince around 2003. Widespread BIM adoption is a more recent phenomenon.

Autodesk's Simulation CFD includes a range of CFD modeling and thermal modeling tools for architectural and MEP applications. Common applications for environmental sustainable design include mechanical ventilation, external flow (wind loading), natural ventilation, and occupant comfort. Other energy applications include analysis for building energy, solar load, advanced energy and heating and cooling. The Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program provides design and engineering software to early-stage clean technology companies in North America and Europe, helping to accelerate development of solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. Each year, Autodesk gives hundreds of clean tech companies’ $150,000 worth of software to cut start-up costs. For example, Pi Mobility is a clean tech partner of Autodesk’s. Using digital prototyping software to build the company’s production bicycle, Autodesk software realized one of the frame components could be cut by a half-inch, saving Pi Mobility more than $300,000 in production costs.

Through the use of telepresence, Autodesk has reduced its travel by 16 percent in three years as part of its overall carbon emissions reduction strategy. In 2006 Autodesk sponsored a PBS program named e² Design, which focused on going green in building designs around the world. Narrated by Brad Pitt, viewers learn about the leaders and technologies driving sustainable design.

            For more information on Autodesk and its various products visit their official website, social media links such as Facebook, Twitter, Googleplus, LinkedIn and YouTube. For free software downloads with serial numbers and product keys visit the Autodesk Education Community.

Article Credits/References: Google and CG Blogger’s Archives

Welcome Note

Hi, greetings there and welcome to the Dm3DRev Studeos Blog this started out of curiosity to understand how the web works and the beauty of blogs to serve as an online journal of mine for most sorts of literary material and video content both local to Africa and International influences on computer graphics (CG) and related issues on it.

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The blog is all about sharing knowledge, tricks and tips, reviews, interviews and special events happening in Africa through the artists and creative firms and beyond in the creative industry. This promises to be an interesting journey that has been in the pipeline for some years. So sit back relax as I, your CG Blog Host with the Most take you on a visual roller-coaster ride like no other.