Follow these useful tips for greater efficiency and ease of use of your digital camera and computer.

Scratched CDs 

Are your CDs scratched? What may at first appear to be an unusable CD due to scratches may be salvageable. Placing a CD under the tap and washing the data side gently with soap can remove smudges but cause a disk to become unreadable. Be sure to thoroughly rinse the soap off afterward, and dry the CD thoroughly before putting it back into a player.
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Avoid dry eyes

Studies have shown that people who work with computers do not blink their eyes as much as they otherwise would. The result are dry, scratchy eyes and vision impairment. It's important, therefore, to remember to blink your eyes frequently while you stare at the monitor. Use artificial tears to supplement your natural tears when your eyes become tired.
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Fight against spam

You can join the fight against spam by refusing to respond to spammers' messages. Don't take spammers up on their offers to help you get rich quick, lose weight, have better sex, or start a business from home. Spammers want one thing: your money. And they'll happily clog the inboxes of millions of people to get the cash of a few suckers. When it comes to spam, just delete.
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Time for a challenge

Need to kill some time before that next meeting? Head on over to Free Arcade.com (http://www.freearcade.com) to blow off some steam. There, you can take your pick from among arcade games, 3D games, puzzles, board and card games, fast and simple games, and text adventures. Just be careful: the site may be addictive to those who enjoy a challenge.
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Keep up-to-date

Where do you go to get the latest news on the web? Wherever you go, chances are good that you're not getting the quickest overview of what various outlets are reporting. For that you need a "news hub," and there are few better than Tucows' renowned NewsHub Web site (http://www.newshub.com). With headlines from leading sources around the world, you can quickly get an overview of what's happening now. A search function is also available.  

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Save your batteries 

Taking your digital camera out in the cold weather will cause the battery to drain much faster than normal. Keep the battery warm to extend its life. When you're not using the camera, pop out the battery and put it in a warm pocket. Consider other power-saving features, too. One of the best is to turn off the LCD display of photographs after you take them. Also, use the viewfinder of your camera rather than the LCD for composing shots.

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Get more out of toner 

Toner running low in your laser printer? Don't throw it out just yet. Chances are that you can still get 50 - 100 extra pages printed. Remove the cartridge from the printer, and gently rock the cartridge several times from side to side. Then rock it forward and backward. But the cartridge back into the printer, and power it up.

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Do-it-yourself? 

If you're a do-it-yourselfer, you may be tempted to build your own PC. After all, you can buy just the parts you want for your dream computer and assemble them in a couple of hours. But don't think you'll the saving any money over a pre- configured unit. PCs makers these days capitalise on economy of scale - getting parts at a greater discount than you can. Buying your PC from a major manufacturer online will probably cost you less than buying same parts and assembling them yourself.

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Search more efficiently 

You can make web searches return better results by using quotation marks around phrases that must appear in a web page. Doing so will force a search engine to display only pages that contain your exact search phrase. You can also combine a phrase in quotation marks with additional words that do not need to be presented in the exact way that you typed them. Using quotation marks is one of the easiest ways to narrow your searches quickly.

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Notebooks rated top 

Modern, low-end notebooks are worth their weight in gold, according to test results in the February edition of Chip, a Munich-based magazine. It tested eight devices priced between 500 and 570 euros (740 to 843 dollars) and found that people considering a lower-priced notebook would find themselves "well-served." Four devices from HP Compag, Acer, Lenovo and MSI were even awarded with "excellent cost-to-performance ratios." But the low cost is balanced out by less detailed graphics and batteries with shorter running times, allowing only about 90 minutes running time at full capacity.     

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Back-up battery? 

Among the many options you'll be faced with when purchasing a notebook computer will be whether to buy a second battery. Do it. If you're on the road at all, after a few hours, the main battery in your notebook will die. Having an extra will allow you to continue working, and in the evenings, you can charge both batteries.

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Security hole in spreadsheet software 

PC and Mac owners are being advised against opening Excel documents from sources they do not trust after a security hole was discovered in Microsoft's spreadsheet software that could allow hackers to make targeted attacks on computers. The German Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology (BSI) in Bonn is publicising the hole. The flaw affects the 2003 Service Pack 2, Viewer 2003, 2002, and 2000 versions for the PC and Excel 2004 for Mac. If a user registered with administrator rights opens one of the rigged Excel files, then the attack can "compromise the entire target system," the BSI notes. No patch to correct the problems has been released to date.

[Copyright dpa 2008]