A web server is a system that helps you deliver pages from your computer to other computers via a web browser. Inspect My Gadget is delivered to you through one. If you want to host your own material from your own computer (perhaps photos or music to share with friends and family), you will need to setup a web server on your computer which will do this task. Setting one up doesn’t need to be too daunting or expensive.

There are a number of free web server packages available, but I have not found any which are as easy to use as SimpleServer:WWW. Once you download the tiny 187k installation file, you can launch the installer. You can have a fully working web server up and running in less than 2 minutes. I wouldn’t suggest to my grandmother to try and install Apache, but I reckon she could handle this one.

There really isn’t much to this program – looking at it from a users point of view. SimpleServer sits in the tasktray. There is a start/stop button to enable or disable the server. The only other control it has is a browse button so you can select which folder the server will host. SimpleServer can be launched with Windows by placing it in your startup folder.

SimpleServer is a great web server. The only thing it lacks is security. The website will be open to anyone in world who knows the address. This shouldn’t be a huge issue, but if it is running and you are serving up a lot of music or movies, be aware that they might end up in the wrong hands. Unlikely, but worth mentioning.

If you have a home network, you will probably need to set up port forwarding in your router. For more information on this, check out this article. If you want to access this site from a computer out of your home network, I suggest you sign up with DynDNS so that you don’t need to remember your IP address everywhere you go.

Get your copy of SimpleServer:WWW for free from AnalogX

AnalogX has made a number of useful utilities which are all available for free. I have used a number of these utilities over the years and they have all worked flawlessly for me. It is a shame that the site doesn’t appear to be updated anymore.

There once was a time that we had to use a PC speaker to hear sound effects in games. Some games even offered small digitised voice effects, which we were impressed with at the time. The next stage was adlib soundcards which could handle midi sounds. They were still fairly weak, but they were a huge improvement on what we were once used to.

Since that time, soundcards have evolved into a very important feature in any computer. The sound quality which comes out of even the cheapest cards is good enough to listen to music or to watch a movie. Why not take full advantage of this technology and hook it up to your sound system to get your MP3’s pumping.

Current PC speakers on the market sound quite good, but they will never be able to recreate the awesome sound you can get out of your main sound system. It shouldn’t cost you more than a few dollars to setup. Even if you don’t want to set this up for permanent use, it is worth keeping in mind for parties as it will be appreciated by your guests. I haven’t bothered with PC speakers for years as it is easier for me to connect my computer to my sound system.

This article will show you how to connect your computers soundcard to your sound system. I have already written an article explaining “How-to: Connect your PC to your television and stereo”, but I placed a large emphasis on the video side of things and many of the comments are related to audio. This article will only cover audio. I hope you will be amazed how easy it is.

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Have you ever noticed that when you get started on a particular task on your computer, you always open up the same bundle of programs to do it? Why not make it easier for yourself and get all of these programs loading up when you want them, with a single click. The answer is batch files.

Batch files have been around longer than Windows has, but sadly they have been forgotten over the years. Generally, DOS is not a nice environment to work in compared to the graphical operating systems we have these days. I feel batch files still have their place. They are very simple to create and they can be edited easily.

You may have already set up your computer to automatically launch particular programs as part of your computers start up sequence. While this will work, it is not really the ideal situation, because you may not be ready to use the programs straight away. This can slightly slow you down or clutter your workspace, for no good reason. Instead, if you use batch files, your specified programs will launch simultaneously with one click, only when you’re ready to use them.

In this article we will look at how to create some basic batch files which you can alter to suit your own needs. For this How-to article, I am going to use batch files to launch environments, e.g. turning your computer into a multimedia heaven. 

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Microsoft Exchange servers offer a lot of a features that regular POP3 and IMAP email servers do not. It was even a consideration when I was deciding which company I wanted to work for.

Exchange servers have a number of features such as Outlook Web Access and Push Email, that help us have greater access to our email. Push Email helps us get email to our devices as soon as it hits the server.

If you have access to both an Exchange server and a recent Windows Mobile device (post WM5), you can get email to and from your device better than what is possible with any other method.

This article will show you how to connect your Windows Mobile 5 device to an Exchange server. It is not very hard to get up and running, but there are a few terms which are a little confusing.

This article is written for Windows Mobile 5, but I hope it will assist people with Windows Mobile 6 devices also.

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Often the first piece of hardware to cause us grief on a computer is the internal case fan. These fans can give off a really nasty grinding sound after a couple of years, normally due to dust buildup in the inner workings of the fan. Rather then replacing the fan, we can initially try to dislodge the dust.

Dust is less likely to effect the CPU and video card fans because these fans are usually of higher quality and they don’t have the same access to external dust. I would not try this method for these fans as it is likely to do more harm than good.

As a precaution, it is sensible to either remove the fan from the case or to remove the hard drives from the computer. We don’t want any vibrations resulting in this method to cause your hard drive grief. I say this as a disclaimer, but I have never had any problems bypassing this step.

Find yourself a screwdriver, pull the cover off your case and turn on your computer. Hold your PC case steady and strike the sticker on the fan with the butt of the screwdriver. Start with very gentle strikes and work your way up. You should not need to strike very hard to clear out the dust.

I have used this method on numerous occasions and had great success. The worst case is that you break the fan, that you were likely going to replace in any case. If you can be bothered, now would be a good time to vacuum the inside of the machine whilst the cover is off.

It’s primitive, but it works a dream.