Tip #35: Burn disc images without third-party apps in Windows 7

NO - again, disc images are not photos of CDs.

(Photo credit Alison Ng)

Have you seen files ending with .iso, .img or .nrg before? Those are called disc images (no, not photos or pictures of CDs). A disc image is a snapshot of the contents of a CD or DVD, be it a data CD, audio CD or video DVD. You can think of disc images as zip files, which contain files copied from a CD or DVD. Disc images are convenient because they let you store whole CDs and DVDs on your hard drive for easy retrieval. You can also burn an image file onto a CD or DVD, in other words, make copies of a disc. Often, disc images are used to distribute operating systems such as Linux and the release candidate version of Windows 7 (during the testing period before launch).

If you've used disc images before, then you may know that in prior versions of Windows, you need to use a third party burning application like Nero or Roxio to burn the image onto a disc. New to Windows 7 is native support for .iso and .img images. In other words, you can now burn image files of these formats, without having Nero or Roxio installed.

Tip #34: Make your Windows PC "brand new" by reformatting it

Time and again I have heard people say that they want to reformat their Windows PC, but they don't know how to do it. And there are actually people who dare not reformat their PC because they fear that they might lose all their data. Mind you, the word "reformat" already makes it clear that you are going to wipe clean everything from your hard drive/partition with Windows on it and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows with nothing except the bare essentials like Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer (no Microsoft Office nor Works included, you will have to install that yourself). To put an end to this, I have decided it's about time I pen down this common computing practice in writing.

If your PC was purchased from an OEM like Dell, HP or Acer, you might have a recovery partition hidden in your hard disk which you can access by pressing a special key combination before Windows starts up when you turn on your PC. This method restores your PC to its original state as when it left the factory. Steps for this vary between OEMs, hence I will not go into detail on that here. Frankly speaking, I don't see why you would want to restore your PC to its factory default state with all the probably-useless applications your OEM has preloaded for you (things like HP MediaSmart, Acer GameZone, Dell Backup etc). If you do want them back, most of them can be downloaded from the OEM's website after you have reinstalled Windows.

To reformat your computer (without using OEM recovery methods), you will need:

How to stop falling asleep while driving

(Why is this tip totally random and unrelated to computer stuff?)

Late night assignments got you sleepy on the next day and you still have to drive to college? If you're worried that you might accidentally nod off while driving...

1. Put some chewing gum in your car. Whenever your eyelids begin to feel heavy, pop one into your mouth and chew away. If it helps, it's either because of the sugar, or the chewing action that keeps you awake.
2. Adjust your seat. If you normally drive with your seatback slightly reclined, make yourself less comfortable by straightening your seatback, so that you are forced to sit in an upright position.
3. Sing along to the radio. If the radio is churning out ads, switch to another channel that's playing any song. Sing along to it, even if you don't know the lyrics.
4. Skip that song. If your radio is playing some hypnotic club hit or electronic track with repetitive tunes, skip to something else like pop or rock.

Lastly, if you still have trouble staying awake, consider taking public transport (if it's available) or get someone else to drive.

Credits go to Zong Yuan for tips 2 and 3.