How To Tell If A CD or DVD Is Blank

Are you like me where you have piles of burned CD's mixed with un-written disks and then the only way to tell is to put them into your computer one-by-one to see if they have been written to. Well there is a really simple and easy way to check if the disks have been written or have not been written already.

You will need to take one of your disks and then look at the bottom (The shiny side). What you will need to look for is if the disk has a dark ring coming from the center of the disk. If the disk does then that one has been burned already. If the disk does not have a dark ring it is either full of data or is empty. To tell if the disk is either full or empty you can compare it with another blank disk and if the surface is darker it is full, if not, then it is empty.

Blank Disk


Already burned disk

See Your Games Frame Rates Using Fraps

Have you ever wondered what your frame rate (FPS) is while you are playing games? Well just like most other things there is a small free program that can do this for you and it is called: Fraps. You can download your free copy of Fraps from here: http://www.fraps.com/. If you are wondering what all of this talk about frame rate (Fps) is you can visit this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate#Frame_rates_in_video_games. That page can explain it in a lot more detail than I would be able to.

Now all that you will need to do is install the program after you have downloaded it. You will then need to run it and the main window should look like something similar to the image below.

Fraps Main Screen

Once you have Fraps open you will have a couple options on the main screen like to start the program minimized to the system tray, or keep the Fraps window on top of all other windows, and also a option to start Fraps when Windows starts.

Fraps Icon In The System Tray

If you then goto the FPS tab you can change some settings in there too if you would like to but most of those options are fine the way they are unless you prefer them to be different. The one option that you may want to change is where the frame rate will be shown in your gaming window. You can do this by clicking on the little circles in the Overlay Corner portion or the Fraps window.

Overlay Corner

In the Movies tab there really isn't much that you will really need to change either. You may want to change where your output video will be saved though. This can be done by just clicking on the Change button toward the top of the window on the right side. You will then need to browse to where you want your movies to be saved.

Changing Directory Of Saved Movies

Now in the Screenshots tab you may want to change a couple of different things. You can change the output directory just like you can with the movies, but you can also now change what file format you want the pictures to be in (you can only do this is you get the full version). You can change them to: BMP, JPG, PNG, or TGA. You can change the output format by selection the button next to the option you want. You can also put a check in the box that says Include Frate Rate Overlay On Screenshots so that the frate rate will show up in your screenshots.

Screenshot File Output Options

That is an overview of just the main options that you have while using this program. Now to see your frame rate in your games you will just need to keep Fraps running and then just start up the game that you would like to play. You should then be able to see your frame rate in one of the corners that you selected.

In Game Screenshot

Screenshot from the game Combat Arms which is a free First-Person Shooter and can be downloaded from here: http://combatarms.nexon.net/Intro.aspx

Top 5 Free iPod Touch/iPhone Games

Seeing as the iPhone and the iPod Touch are some of the hottest gadgets out right now I thought that I would make a list of my favorite free games that are available in the App Store. I am hoping that from me making a list of my favorite games I can save you some time in searching through the thousands of apps in the App Store.

All of the apps listed below can be found either searching in the App Store on the device or searching the iTunes Store in iTunes.

5. Dactyl: This is a game where you have to touch bombs to defuse them so that they don't blow up but you also can't touch the other bombs that aren't lit or the others will blow up and you then lose. The point of the game it to see how many you can defuse before you make a mistake.

4. MarbleMash: In this game what you have to do is guide a ball through a maze of walls and holes that you can fall through. The point is to get through the maze to this little bear. It can be a very time consuming game with tons of levels so you will never get bored.

3. iShoot Lite: This is mainly a game of strategy and angles. What happens is you are a small tank that is trying to blow up the opposing tanks by lobbing different sorts of missiles. To win you have to get the best score out of 5 rounds.

2. FallingBalls: I have to admit that when I first seen this game I really didn't think that it would be that fun, but I was obviously very wrong indeed. In this game you are a little stick person that has to run away from these balls that fall from the sky. You get points when the balls bounce off of the screen. The main goal is to just see how many you can dodge before you get squashed.

1. Topple: This is a very fun and interesting game. What you do is you have to stack these blocks and try to get them to a certain height without them falling over before the timer runs out. The higher that you can stack the blocks in the time given will give you a better end score.

Well that is just my Top 5 List of games that I have found to be the most fun so far. I am in no way saying that this is an official list but more of a helpful guide. If you have any apps that you would like to suggest for me to try out or suggest to others I would love to hear about them in the comments or you can send me an E-mail at thegeekylife@gmail.com.

Make Windows 7 Trial Last 120 Days

If you didn't know already you can install Windows 7 without having to put in a key. By doing this though you will be only using the trial version that lasts only 30 days before it will expire. There is a hack that can extend your trial time from 30 days to 120 days total. This hack works best when you use it at the end of your 30 day trial. That is the only way that you will be able to get the full 120 days out of Windows 7 at least for the trial version. If you get a Beta Key from Microsoft your key will last until Aug. 1st. So now onto showing you how to preform this hack.

One of the first things that you will want to check is how many days you have left on your trial. To do this you will need to Right Click on Computer and then choose Properties. If you then scroll down the window you can see how many days you have left on your trial.

Trial Version Days Left

Now for the next step you will need to Click on the Start Menu and then Search for Command Prompt. You will then want to Right Click on Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator.

Run As Administrator

Now you will just have to input this simple command: slmgr -rearm
After you run this command you will get a little window that pops up. From here you will want to Restart your system.

Command Completed

After you Restart you will want to make sure that the hack actually worked by just Right Clicking on Computer and selecting Properties. This should now show that you have 30 Days Left. So now you may be thinking why can you only use this for 120 Days and not just be able to keep doing this over and over again. Well the thing is that Microsoft limits the use of that code to only be used 3 times so if you do the math that is a total of 120 days. Usually you would want to wait until around the last day to use this hack so that you can get the most days possible out of it.

The Original post can be found here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/extend-the-windows-7-trial-from-30-to-120-days/

Monitor System Temps With SpeedFan

Ever wondered what the temperature of your computer actually is when it's running? Well there is a free program called SpeedFan that can monitor your system temperatures. You can Download it from here: http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php. Once you have it downloaded just install it and run it. Now you should be able to see the different temperatures of certain areas in your computer.

SpeedFan Main Window


SpeedFan Notification tray Icon

If you go through the different tabs you can see some of the other things that SpeedFan has to offer. If you go into Configure there are a bunch of options in there like changing the icon color or setting up the temperature ranges for areas. This can be a very handy program especially if you are building a computer and want to know if you have adquate cooling in your machine. This program can be used as either an advanced tool or it can be used as just a normal users tool too. If you have any questions/feedback or would like to have a more indepth view of this program just leave a comment below.