CompuClever Blog

How Blue Light Affects Your Health and What to Do About It

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We’ve had some recent news on a study involving the effects of blue light and cancer.  We felt it was just what we needed to update an article we wrote previously.  Our focus at the time was primarily on monitor screens – this recent study expands on this to include outdoor LED exposure.  We’ll kick start it with an overview of the study and then segue into information about reduction of blue light in our home and work environments.

The Study

The conclusion of a recent study from the University of Exeter was that exposure to blue light from outdoor LEDs, as is emitted with smartphones and tablets, can increase your risk to cancer.  The study focused primarily on outdoor blue light exposure and while previous studies have used satellite imagery to calculate intensity of artificial light in large cities, this was the first to look specifically at blue light.

The researchers found that those exposed to high levels of outdoor blue light at night had around a 1.5-fold higher risk of developing breast cancer and a twofold higher risk of developing prostate cancer, compared with those who were less exposed.  Men exposed to high levels of indoor artificial light also had 2.8-fold higher risk of developing prostate cancer, according to the study. Continue reading...

How to Protect Your Privacy & Identity on Facebook – Part 2

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In our Part 1 article we covered news related to the Facebook privacy scandal. In Part 2, we will emphasize what you can do.  We’ll provided three best-practice recommendation for protecting your identity and privacy.

Our Private Data

As Facebook users we accept the privacy policies when we sign on.  For the most part we don’t even read over the extensive policy pages.  Instead we set up our account and enter data related to our personal lives.  We understand in the process this information gets recorded and stored.

Take Action:

We recommend that you get a clear idea of how much and what kind of data Facebook collects on you.  Check out the “Data In” section of our previous article for directions on accessing the data Facebook has collected from you.

Facebook is a free service and we can expect that they make revenue by providing our data to advertisers.  What many of us are not aware of is that they pass on our data to third party developers and organizations.

This is why we can sign on to a new app or online service using our Facebook login.  Right away they can access our data so that it is easier for us to create a new account with the third party app rather than having to enter all the personal information they require once again. Continue reading...

Going Incognito – Browse Web in Privacy Mode

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Incognito, according to Wikipedia, from the Latin incognitus, refers to a person who wants to remain anonymous to the world and others, in hiding or shut off from humanity.

Web surfers have the option to enable privacy mode or “Incognito” mode on their browser.  Each of the main browser type offers some level of private browsing.  It is known as Private Browsing, InPrivate Browsing, and Incognito depending on the type of browser used.

Basically – this is a privacy feature that quite simply provides some privacy on your local computing device but, DOES NOT provide hidden detection or stealth beyond that.  Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and other agencies connected on the Internet can detect your activities via your unique IP address on the web servers.

Disabling functions such as the web cache and browsing history make this a relatively private way of browsing the web.  Cookies, the data holders sent by web sites to recognize or track your online activity, are also disabled.

Items Deleted or Not Saved:

The list  of items that are deleted or not saved when you browse during Incognito or Privacy  mode are:

  • Website history.
  • The cache of files stored during your browse session.
Continue reading...

A Quick Start Guide for Digital Care ReadyBoost USB Disc

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Thanks for choosing Digital Care ReadyBoost Disc, featuring Microsoft ReadyBoost technology. Before you start, please save all your documents and exit all running applications. Follow the steps below to install your Digital Care ReadyBoost Disc and optimize your PC.

Step 1. Insert the Digital Care ReadyBoost Disc to a USB slot of your choice.

Step 2. If AutoPlay/AutoRun is enabled, you can click the Speed up my system using Windows ReadyBoost option.

Alternatively, you can open Windows | File Explorer (or use keyboard shortcut: Windows Key + E), right-click the newly discovered removable drive and select Properties from the menu. Select the ReadyBoost tab from the Properties dialog box that appears.

If Windows states that “This device cannot be used for ReadyBoost – The device does not have the required performance characteristics for use in speeding up your system“, follow the instructions of Reformatting Your Digital Care ReadyBoost Disc below. And then come back to this step.

If Windows states that “ReadyBoost is not enabled because this computer is fast enough that ReadyBoost is unlikely to provide additional benefit“, this probably means that Windows is installed on an SSD and no performance gain is possible. Continue reading...

FAQ – Digital Care ReadyBoost USB Disc

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Q: What is ReadyBoost and how does it help my PC speed?

A: ReadyBoost is a Microsoft Windows technology that allows you to use ReadyBoost compatible USB flash drive, such as Digital Care ReadyBoost USB Disc, as an additional memory. Doing so, ReadyBoost improves your system’s performance by providing quicker access to data compared to accessing the information from the hard drive. To learn more about the ReadyBoost technology, please read this blog post.

 

Q: What’s the System Requirement for Digital Care ReadyBoost USB Disc?

A: Digital Care ReadyBoost USB Disc supports Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows 10

 

Q: Do all USB flash drives support the ReadyBoost technology?

A: No. A USB flash drive must meet the minimum random ready and write speeds requirements to support the ReadyBoost feature.  In order for ReadyBoost to work, it requires a USB storage device to have at least: 64MB, USB 2.0, read at 3.5 MB/s, and write at 2.5 MB/s. Our Digital Care ReadyBoost USB Disc well exceeds this requirements.

 

Q: Aren’t Hard Disks faster than flash? My HDD has 80MB/sec throughput.
A: Hard drives are great for large sequential I/O. For those situations, ReadyBoost gets out of the way. Continue reading...