My Thoughts On The Dark Knight Rises

New episode of The Geek Life is up. In this episode, I discuss my thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises.

Windows 7 Tips - The Snipping Tool

I just posted a new video to the YouTube channel, talking about a great little tool that is built into Windows 7 called the snipping tool. It's a tool I use on a daily basis and I've found that a lot of people had no idea it was even there. Hope you guys find this useful.

10 Fantastic Pieces of Free Software for Windows 7

If you're anything like me, you like free stuff. I mean who doesn't like free stuff right? It seems like everything these days is getting more and more expensive, and software is no exception. Well, in order to give your wallet a little relief, here are 10 great pieces of software that are 100%, no strings attached, free to download and use for as long as you like.

1. Burn4Free DVD Burning Software

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Burn4Free is the only burning software I have used in quite awhile. It does everything you need it to do and it does it well. Burn4Free makes it very easy to burn CD, DVD, and BluRay Discs, including support for dual layer DVD's. The interface is intuitive and easy to use.

Download the latest version of Burn4Free here.

2. Picasa -  Organize, edit, and share your photos.

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I've tried out quite a few free photo organizers and Picasa is my favorite. It's easy to use and has some great features, including a pretty good set of editing tools to help you make your photos look their best.

Download the latest version of Picasa here.

3. Audacity - For audio recording and editing. 

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Audacity is an awesome piece of software if you need to work with audio files in any way. This is a powerful, yet easy to use program. Here are just a few of the things you can do with Audacity.

• Record live audio.
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
• Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
• Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
• Change the speed or pitch of a recording.

This really just barely touches on the features of the program. For a complete list of features, click here.

Download the latest version of Audacity here. 


4. PeaZip - File archiver utility.

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PeaZip is a great little program for working with any kind of archived files. You can easily compress, convert, split, and encrypt archives. PeaZip currently supports over 150 different archive formats, such as RAR, ZIP, TAR and 7Z. It also integrates into the windows shell so you can right click on a file from anywhere and access PeaZip functions

Download the latest version of PeaZip here. 

5. Stardock Fences

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Fences is an awesome utility that I absolutely couldn't do without. I have a lot of programs installed on my computer, which means I have a lot of icons on my desktop. The Fences utility allows you to create "fences" and label them any way you want in order to keep your desktop organized. You can create as many of these fences as you want and you can drag them into pretty much any shape, size and location you want. Fences is highly customizable. There is also a nice little feature that allows you to hide all icons by simply double clicking on any empty space on the desktop. This is one application that I can't recommend enough.

Download the latest version of Fences here. 

6. HWMonitor

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HWMonitor is a great little utility program made by CPUID, used for monitoring your PC's main health sensors, such as voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. 

Download the latest version of HWMonitor here.

7. CPU-Z

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CPU-Z is another great utility program from CPUID. If you want to know what is inside of your PC, this is the program that will tell you . It can tell you the exact type or processor, RAM, motherboard, GPU and much more that you have running on your system. You don't have to worry about messing anything up on your PC when using this program. All it does is give you very detailed information about the components that your PC is running. 

Download the latest version of CPU-Z here. 

8. Auslogics Registry Cleaner

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Auslogics Registry Cleaner is a simple to use utility that will quickly remove obsolete entries in your registry as well as fix registry errors, which will help your system to run more smoothly and stably. On my system, it takes less than two minutes to scan and fix all errors. I recommend running this at least once a week, but you can run it as often as you want.

Download the latest version of Auslogics Registry Cleaner here. 

9. Auslogics Disk Defrag

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Another fantastic free utility from Auslogics. Yes, Windows does have a built in disk defrag, but the truth is it's not all that great. Auslogics Disk Defrag is significantly faster than the built in Windows utility.  If you don't know what it means to defrag your hard drive, it basically defragments and rearranges files on your hard drive so that your system can access them more efficiently. I recommend running this program at least one per month and more often if you install and uninstall a lot of programs on a frequent basis. 

Download the latest version of Auslogics Disk Defrag here.

10. Apache Open Office

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Thinking about buying the pricey Microsoft Office suite? Well first, download Apache Open Office for free and see if it doesn't do everything you need it to do. Chances are it will and you will never look back. Apache Open Office is an open source software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is easy to use, is compatible with most other office suites and it is 100%, no strings attached, free. Honestly, I have no idea why anyone would spend $120-$500 for Microsoft Office when this fantastic software suite is available for free. 

Download the latest version of Apache Open Office here.

So there you have it. Ten fantastic pieces of free software. I hope you found at least a few of them helpful and be free to leave me a comment or question below if you have one. 

How to Update Graphics Card Drivers -The Right Way

For my first real post, I thought I’d tackle something relatively easy.

Whether you’re a PC gamer or not, you should always keep your graphics drivers up to date. Graphics drivers not only affect games, they affect the image quality and performance of pictures and videos as well. Unfortunately, if you don’t get rid of the old drivers properly, it can cause you problems down the road. If you follow these simple instructions, you should be able to update those drivers the right way.

I’m going to be giving instructions based on a Windows 7 machine, but you should be able to apply them to WIndows XP as well. If you're running anything older than WIndows XP, changing your graphics drivers should be the least of your worries.

First of all, for those of you who know your way around a PC pretty well and just want the quick answer, here are the steps you need to take to update your drivers properly.

• Download the new drivers.
• Uninstall the old drivers using the windows uninstall page.
• Reboot the PC into safe mode.
• Run Driver Sweeper program to get rid of left over files.
• Reboot again into regular mode.
• Install new drivers.

Now, for those of you who need a little more help, here is a detailed guide on how to do all of the steps above. 

1. Download the drivers you want to update.

Almost all graphics cards these days are either based on Nvidia or AMD/ATI chips. The simplest way to get the latest drivers for your card is to go to the manufacturers web site. 

Click here to go to the Nvidia drivers download page.

Click here to go to the AMD drivers download page.

If for some reason you aren’t sure what kind of graphics card you have, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. There’s a fantastic and free little program that no one should be without called CPU-Z. This nifty little application can tell you just about anything about the hardware on your PC. Just install it, open it up and click on the tab at the top that says “graphics”. If you look under the section that says GPU and in the name field, you should see the exact make and model of the graphics card installed on your PC.

You can download CPU-Z for free here. 

Now another option, which I highly recommend if you’re a gamer, is to use tweaked drivers instead of the standard drivers from the manufacturers. You will get noticeably better quality and performance from them. I personally have been using the drivers from the guys over at tweakforce.com for years and prefer them greatly over the standard ones.

There is a download tab you can click on at the top of their page that will take you to a list of available drivers. Make sure you get the right drivers for your card and your operation system. You can also go onto their forums and get feedback about the latest tweaked drivers and how they perform before you try them. 

IMPORTANT- If you’re not 100% comfortable and confident in finding the correct drivers for your PC, then please just stick with the standard drivers from the manufacturer. Installing the wrong drivers can cause you some headaches.

2. Remove your old drivers.

Once you have the setup file for your new drivers downloaded and saved somewhere that you can easily find it, the next step is to remove the old drivers properly. For this, we need another piece of great free software called Driver Sweeper.

Click here to download the latest version of Driver Sweeper. 

Go ahead and install Driver Sweeper and have it ready. We’re not going to use it quite yet though. First you want to uninstall the drivers through Windows. In Windows 7, you do this by clicking on your start button and then clicking “computer” in the menu that pops up. Once this window is open, make sure it’s maximized and you should see a button at the top that says “Uninstall or change a program”. Click on that button.

You should now see a screen that looks something like this:

Alright, now you will need to find the drivers that are currently installed on your system on the list. Once you've found the drivers, right click on the name and then click on the "uninstall/change" tab that pops up. In order to give you an idea of what you're looking for, here's a screen capture of my current drivers on the uninstall list.

If there are multiple drivers installed, make sure you ONLY uninstall the graphics drivers. Uninstalling other drivers can cause some serious problems if you're not careful. Once the uninstall process is complete, it should ask you to reboot. Go ahead and click yes to reboot your PC. If for some reason the uninstall program doesn't give you a prompt to reboot, simply restart your PC as you normally would. We're going to be booting into safe mode, so make sure you know how to do that before rebooting the system.

3. Reboot the PC Into safe mode and run Driver Sweeper.

Alright, now we need to make sure we boot into safe mode. If you don't know how to do that, here are instructions for WIndows 7 and Windows XP. Once you are booted up completely in safe mode, start the Driver Sweeper program. You should see this on your screen:

Find the correct drivers for your PC on the list and check the box beside it. 

IMPORTANT: Make sure you only check the box next to the one that says display. Cleaning any other drivers can remove crucial drivers for basic functions of your PC.


Once you have the box checked next to the correct drivers for your PC, then go ahead and click on the "Clean" button on the bottom right. It should only take a few second for the program to clear all the left over files from your old drivers from your PC. Once it is finished, the program will ask you to reboot. Go ahead and agree and reboot into your regular desktop this time. 


4. Install the new drivers.


From here on, I'm going to be using the Nvidia drivers setup as the example. I'm doing this simply because those are the drivers that I use for my graphics card. If you have any other type that you are installing, the process should be very similar.

Now that you're back on your desktop, locate the setup file for the new drivers you downloaded in step one and click on it to begin installing the new drivers. If you are installing Nvidia drivers, you will eventually come to a screen that looks like this:

Go ahead and select the "Custom" option and click on the "next" button at the bottom. This should take you to the next screen.

You should now see a list of drivers you can choose to install. You'll notice in the above picture that you have the option to install 3D Vision drivers. If you have no intention of using 3D glasses for anything on your PC, I highly recommend removing the check from those two boxes. There is no need to install drivers for something you're never going to use. If the HD audio driver that is to be installed is newer than the one on your PC, then go ahead and leave that checked. Also, depending on where you get your drivers, you may see an option for installing PhysX drivers in the above list. As with the audio drivers, if the one's to be installed are newer, then go ahead and install those as well. I also recommend always checking the box next to "Perform a clean installation"

Once you have everything checked that you want to install, go ahead and click on the "Next" button. The installation process typically takes a minute or two. Once it is done, the install program should ask you to reboot your machine, say yes and let it reboot. If for some reason it doesn't ask, then reboot manually.

Once you are back onto your desktop, you're all finished. Congrats! You just updated your graphics card drivers the right way. In some cases, you may need to change your desktop resolution back to what it was before, but in most cases, everything should automatically go back to the settings you had them at before.

I hope you found this guide helpful. Feel free to leave me a comment if you have any questions. I'll do my best to answer you quickly.

First Episode of The Geek Life

Hey everyone. I just wanted to make a quick post to let you all know that the very first episode of The Geek Life is up and running on YouTube. It's more or less just an introduction video, but please give it a look if you want to get some idea of what the channel is going to be about, or if you just want to see my lovely face. Also, feel free to like, comment, and subscribe. Have a great day everyone.

Welcome to the Geek Life

Hi everyone. My name is Dave. Welcome to The Geek Life. 

I’m starting this blog in order to talk about all the geeky little things in life that make me happy. I plan on doing some “how to” articles as well as some reviews and recommendations. I’m sure I’ll be writing plenty of opinion pieces as well on whatever topic that comes to mind. I’ve also started a new channel on YouTube that I will be tying in with this site. You can find that here.

Well, I guess that’s about it for now. I just wanted to make a quick first post and say hello. I hope to have some fun, entertain, educate and hopefully make some friends along the way.