Technically Easy

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  • Restart or Shutdown Windows from a Batch File

    Some time ago I wrote a post title Automating Computer Maintenance where I talked about creating batch files to execute some anti-virus, anti-spyware and a defrag application on a computer. The batch files can then be scheduled to run on a computer at a specific time to ensure that regular maintenance is performed without having a user remembering to do it.

    After the post, I received e-mails about having the batch files also shutdown the computer once the maintenance was completed. The good news is that getting a batch file to shutdown, or even just restart, a computer running Windows is very easy to do. Let’s look at how this is done.

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  • Blog Ad Networks: Quantity or Quality Traffic?

    In a few months Technically Easy will have been around for two years. Within those two years I have switched blogging platforms, tried many themes, and tried several advertising networks. It seems like there is a new ad network created each day, offering something a little different than the current crop of networks. Some of the statistics published by the ad networks are about traffic, and how much traffic you can drive to your blog.

    In recent months I have tried three different advertising networks: Entrecard, Adgitize and CMF Ads. I am currently using CMF Ads, which you can see in my sidebar. I have recently decided to have look at the traffic stats for each network over a month period to see how they compare. Let’s have a look.

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  • Windows Vista Freezing After Log On

    I recently had an issue with my laptop. For some reason when Vista loaded, I was able to log on, but then it would stay on the Welcome screen. While I couldn’t see anything on the screen, I did notice that there was a lot of hard drive activity, so I knew that something was executing on the system. A funny thing is that when I pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL to try and restart, Vista would instead continue to load and I was able to view my desktop.

    After doing a quick search online, I couldn’t find a solution to my problem, so I began to try various things to try and find the problem. After some testing I did manage to correct the issue and Vista no longer hangs at the Welcome screen. I’ll explain the process I used to solve this problem.

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  • How to Easily Add Adsense to Your Blogger Blog

    Google’s Adsense is one of the most popular forms of monetizing available for a Web site or blog. It is free to join and easy to display on your site. Unless your host doesn’t allow you to display ads, such as the free version of WordPress, you can easily add them to any site.

    For those that manage Blogger blogs, it is even easier than before to add Adsense ads to your blog. Blogger has added functionality for you to easily add ads as well as track your total earnings directly from your Blogger account. The only thing you need is an Adsense account, and after you have an account, you can easily add Google’s Adsense ads to your blog by using the information in this post.

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  • Technically Easy Gets a New Theme

    I talked about some thoughts I had on Web design in a previous post title My Thoughts on Web Page Designs, and also mentioned that I was working on a new theme for Technically Easy. After several weeks of development and testing, I finally switched to the new theme this past weekend.

    While it isn’t the most exciting theme, it does contain all the elements and ideas that I had thought about. I have always preferred more simple designs than complex ones, which explains the look and layout of this theme. You’ll have to bear with me while I go over some of the points about this theme.

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  • My Thoughts on Web Page Designs

    For those that have been reading Technically Easy for some time, you may have noticed that I modify my blog design every few months. Since switching over to WordPress, however, I have kept the same template, with a few modifications. In the past week, I have been creating a new blog design from scratch, and have thought about some of the design issues that I have seen online.

    In this post I will talk about my thoughts on Web page designs, and what I think are common issues with many designs in use today.

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  • About the 802.11 Wireless Network Standards

    I have written many posts regarding wireless networks on Technically Easy. Some of the most popular posts deal with resetting and securing a wireless network. Wireless technology has hit the mainstream over the last few years, especially with more people buying laptops and becoming more mobile.

    Obviously, security is a major concern for most, so they may tend to not invest in wireless technology. For those that do, you are presented with many different network equipment that you can use. The network equipment is advertised as supporting several of the standard wireless networking standards. In this post I will briefly discuss each standard that has been created so you have some knowledge of what it all means.

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  • Fix: Audiodg.exe High CPU Usage

    Fix: Audiodg.exe High CPU Usage

    I recently had a problem when playing movies through iTunes on a laptop. At various parts of the movie, the entire laptop would become extremely slow, causing the movie to sputter. This happened at infrequent intervals. The laptop has a dual core 1.6Ghz and 2GB of RAM, so I new it was more than capable of playing a movie.

    To look into the problem, I had the performance monitor running while I played a movie. Once the movie began to slow and sputter, I viewed the performance monitor to see which process was causing the problem. When I viewed the performance monitor I noticed that a process called audiodg.exe was consuming 35-40% of the CPU. I then investigated the problem and found a probable fix to the issue.

    Other related posts:

    How to Disable Audio Enhancements in Windows 7
    How to Disable Audio Enhancements in Windows 10

    What is Audiodg.exe?

    The audiodg.exe file made its appearance in Microsoft Vista, which explains why I haven’t seen this file before. When I viewed the properties of the file, the description stated Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation, which doesn’t help explain what it does.

    After doing a little research I found out that the audiodg.exe file hosts the audio engine for Vista, and from what I hear Windows 7 as well. All the DSP and audio processing is performed within this file. Vendors are able to install their own DSP and audio effects into the audio pipeline, which will then be processed by audiodg.exe.

    Unfortunately, this can also lead to some problems, as I experienced. Some audio effects can consume CPU and memory if not properly coded. How do we fix the problem? Lets take a look.

    Disabling Audio Effects

    In order to fix the high CPU usage, I disabled the audio enhancements processed by the audiodg.exe file. To disable the audio enhancements, use the following steps:

    1. Right-click the speaker icon in the lower right corner.
    2. Select Playback Devices from the menu. A list of devices should appear on the screen.
    3. Double-click the device that has a green checkmark. The properties windows for that device should open.
    4. Click the Enhancements tab at the top.
    5. From the list of enhancements, uncheck all of them, or click the Disable all enhancements checkbox.
    6. Click the OK button to save your changes and close the window.
    7. Click OK to close the Playback Devices window.

    Once I disabled the enhancements, the movie played without any issues. I also didn’t notice any difference in sound with the enhancements disabled. If I do want to use sound enhancements, I’ll stick to the the options provided in the application.

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