Category Archives: Ask J.D.

Download Windows drivers for Western Digital USB 3.0 PCI Express card

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Question. From Storage Nut: Hello, I have a new desktop PC and I recently installed Windows 7 Ultimate on it. My next step was to add a snazzy new Western Digital PCIe (PCI-Express) USB 3.0 card. I can’t find the driver disk and, unfortunately, Win7 x64 can’t seem to find the driver nor can stinkin’ Windows Update?! I checked the western digital site too and struck out, I don’t think it is even listed?! So you’re my last best hope, to

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Android phone battery – How to save

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One of the biggest troubles with Android smartphones is, the battery will often run flat quickly. A lot of this has to do with the amount of things you do with your phone. The rest is not knowing what functions are eating at the battery in the first place. Where is it going? What can you do to preserve your battery life for longer than 24 hours? You might be able to ask your service provider, like Virgin Mobile or

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Tip: shock protection unnecessary if you have a SSD!

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The Lenovo X220 ThinkPad, as well as many Dell & HP laptops, ship with a form of anti-shock protection enabled by default. This is great if your laptop has a conventional hard drive that can be easily damaged by a fall or drop. The laptop is smart enough to pause disk activity and ‘park’ the head (or other similar techniques) to prevent disk damage. However, if your laptop is exclusively using a SSD (solid state drive) then that protection is

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LG Optimus V external antenna connector [BEWARE!]

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Today my buddy’s LG Optimus V failed to boot up so he asked me to take a look at it. Unfortunately, I was not able to get it to work 🙁 However, I did see something interesting: the Optimus V has an external antenna connector. This is becoming rather uncommon with today’s super-smartphones that do not even have user-replaceable batteries 🙁 So I was excited to see that LG included an antenna connector. For people that live way out or go

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Using iTunes with Android devices

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After transitioning away from iOS devices, I still have iTunes as my main music management software. So, I have been looking into some solutions for interfacing iTunes and Android. Thankfully with the right software they can play together pretty nicely 🙂 Top 5 Android Apps to Sync iTunes on Androidhttp://androidflip.com/top-5-android-apps-to-sync-itunes-on-android/DoubleTwist is a free media player app which rivals the default player of Android phones. The app not only play music files like audio/video in a clean user interface but also…

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Monitoring Apache2 bandwidth usage by individual VirtualHosts

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At Weblogs.us we have been going through bandwidth at a fast pace lately. We use Apache2 as our web server,  and while we have some rough bandwidth monitoring tools, we could really use a more granular view of bandwidth usage. The ideal solution for us would be a time configurable view (i.e. hour, day, month, year) of bandwidth usage on a per VirtualHost basis. While researching solutions these were the most useful links I found: Apache Virtual Host Bandwidth Monitoring

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Lenovo X220 ThinkPad Long Term User Review

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This is a placeholder  for additional content as the review is added to… X220 purchase date: 2011.12.17 Specs: Processor Intel Core i7-2640M Processor (2.8GHz, turbo 3.5GHz, 4MB L3, 1333MHz FSB) Operating System Pre-installed Windows 7 Professional 64 – English Keyboard/Pointing Device UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) Total Memory 8GB PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz SDRAM SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM). Hard Drive 320GB, 7200RPM Serial ATA 2.5″ Hard Drive Display USB 3.0 12.5” Premium HD WXGA (1366 X 768) LED (IPS Panel) Yes Graphics Intel? HD Graphics

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35mm vs 50mm Nikon DX lenses! (and telephoto too)

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Question from longtime friend RW: Hey JD, I’m settling in with the Nikon D5100 and have been using the 18-55mm kit lens to get a feel for using the camera, and I think I am ready to upgrade and buy 1-2 more lenses and wanted to get your opinion. First I am looking at a decent portrait lens for snapping shots of the little one when she arrives and am either going with a 35mm or 50mm. I am kind of

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