I’m a little tea pot
Short and stout
Here is my handle
Here is my spout
I told them I wanted movies and songs and
News at my fingertips all day long
I told them I serve a biofeedback user
I wanted graphics and internet – I’m a computer!
This may all sound very silly comparing teapots to computers. But! The only difference between one and the other is a software program that runs when the power is turned on to the computer. People used to use words like “boot” the computer. That came from an old saying of pulling one’s self up by their boot-straps. Basically that is what happens with a computer. It doesn’t know it is a computer until enough electricity is given it to activate a small program which tests its parts and pieces until it gets the word that this is indeed a computer and not a teapot. Until you see the Operating system icons come into view, i.e. XP or Vista or whatever you are using for an Operating System, effectively the thing is a tea pot. Or, as an old friend of mine used to say ….it’s not a computer it’s a boat anchor.
When your computer has shown the Operating System Screen it takes anywhere from a minute to all day depending on how old it is, how frequently or infrequently you use clean up and defragmentation programs which reside on your computer to “boot up” and become the computing tool which it was intended to be by the manufacturer.
Your computer is unlikely to burn up or blow up unless you get frustrated and do it to it. The only time in my years of computing that I ever smelled smoke was when I was manufacturing computers for desktop use and I bought five new cases from my parts supplier. Three of the power supplies were bad. When I turned the power on to those three units, there was smoke and noise and lights! I returned them as defective, changed parts suppliers and never had that problem again. And mind you, this happened before the parts could be called a computer at all.
I have been hearing recently that some technical help people are actually telling people they should never access the internet (except for one particular “safe” site) and that they need no Virus protection or a Firewall set up to protect their “not on the internet” computer. Hmm.
I’ve been a computer Manager and Consultant for a combined total of thirty-five years. I’ve been a biofeedback Specialist for four years. I can tell you with all authority that if your computer has the capacity to “go to” one place on the internet, you are connected to the internet completely and you do need virus protection software and someone to explain to you the difference between being “on” the internet and not being able to connect to the internet.
If your CLASP32 software (biofeedback) is loaded on a portable computer (laptop) and your laptop has the ability to detect a WiFi (wireless) network near it then it will seek that connection and attempt to use it. If the wireless connection is “open” like some coffee shops, the downtown portion of most cities and many hotel/motels, then when you turn on your internet ready (WiFi) computer you will see some indication that you have the ability to start your “browser” like IE (Microsoft’s Internet Explorer) or some other ISP (Internet Service Supplier) and go to your favorite webpage or pages, check your email or set up an email account and then check it, etc.
My intention in writing these few articles on my own website is to create a “safe place” for people to learn about their biofeedback computer, the device attached to it, the software which shows you the screens we call biofeedback and more.
You have paid a lot of money for these pieces of equipment and the software to run them. You have a right and I’d say an obligation to yourself to understand at least enough about your devices to get the most out of them you want to get.
I use the internet right along with the CLASP32. When I feel like checking a word or concept I go to my browser and search for the word or concept I want to know more about right there in the moment while I’m still working on a client. I have Microsoft Office with the Word program on my computer and I Open a Word File or “Pile” as a friend once termed it and many people now call their word processing documents a “Word Pile” and in my case I use my Word File to make notes or take information (copy) into the CLASP32 while I’m working on it. It saves time to have a file of information which you use routinely to copy and paste into the biofeedback programs instead of remembering them and typing them in every time you do a session.
Life and work just gets easier the more you learn about your computer and the software installed on it for your use.
So, you have many components to what some people call their “biofeedback system.”
1. HARDWARE:
a. You have a computer (usually a laptop)
b. You have a Biofeedback device
c. Possibly a USB backup “finger drive”
d. Possibly an external USB mouse
e. Possibly a printer or printer/fax/phone
f. Possibly a headset and external speakers
g. Possibly an external Backup device
h. Possibly a digital camera
i. Possibly a digital phone recorder which captures teleconferences for you to copy onto your computer.
2. SOFTWARE:
a. You have one of the largest “medical” software packages on the market – the CLASP32 version???? (new versions seem to be released every two or three months and have been since I bought my system in 2006).
b. BODYVIEWER, is packaged along with the CLASP32 and as of the IRB studies of 2009, you must click that you accept the running of this piece of software during your biofeedback session.
c. IRIDOLOGY, is packaged along with the CLASP32 and as of the IRB studies of 2009, you must click that you accept the running of this piece of software during your biofeedback session.
d. DISEASE DICTIONARY, is packaged along with the CLASP32 and as of the IRB studies of 2009, you must click that you accept the running of this piece of software during your biofeedback session.
e. There are many other pieces of software “bundled” within your CLASP32 Biofeedback “system” which you don’t see in each session and don’t need to know much about.
There are many things you do need to know about your “set up” to keep it running smoothly and to use it to its’ fullest capacity.
How do you find out what software applications are loaded on your computer? Click the START button then click on ALL PROGRAMS and take a look at what you have available to use. Do you see an Office-like program; Word or Open Office for example? Do you see Games?
Click on the:
• START
• ALL PROGRAMS
• ACCESSORIES
• SYSTEM TOOLS
Look down the line of programs from SYSTEM TOOLS until you see DISK CLEANUP and DISK DEFRAGMENTER. These are cleanup and maintenance tools you need to use at least monthly if not more regularly.
When you click on DISK CLEANUP it begins to interrogate your hard drive and when it is finished it gives you a checkbox of items to remove from your drive. Most of the ones you do want to clean up are already checked so you really don’t have to do much except say OK. See the small box in the picture below. Do that often and your computer will run more efficiently.
When DISK CLEANUP is finished it goes away like magic.
Go again through the steps to SYSTEM TOOLS and click on DISK DEFRAGMETER. Sounds ominous, like an action figure. Well the truth is Windows/DOS-based machines like XP is rather like going into a library and checking out a book only whoever puts the book back has a strange way of thinking.
It’s like this:
You create a WORD file (.doc or .docx) to write a shopping list. After putting ten things on the list you need to leave and come back later. You Save and Close the document and go away. When you return to add to the list you Open the document and do more work, add more things. When you are finished for awhile you Save and Close again. You might do this over and over until you have the list you want.
What the computer does is this:
The first time you save the document it is stored somewhere on the hard drive by the program. When you “check it out” again, add to the file and then close it again it might not fit where it was originally because another file has been created by someone else and the space of the original file is too small for the new copy of the file. So, the computer creates a series of “links and chains” connecting the second and every other fragment of the file until you are ready to print it and go shopping.
This happens over time with every file that is added to by any piece of software on your computer. Over time your hard drive is full of bits and pieces of files connect by links and chains. If this goes on long enough without running the DEFRAGMENTER the Operating system can forget where it put all the pieces and that file may become corrupted and you will never get it to open again.
DEFRAGMENTATION takes all the parts and pieces of every fragmented file and copies them into enough space to hook them all together again or re-concatenate the file, making it whole and in one place on the drive. Wiktionary gives this definition of concatenation: A series of links united; a series or order of things depending on each other, as if linked together; a chain, a succession. So if things are connected by links or chains making an order or series of pieces of a file then re-concatenation is how the file pieces are put back together again into an integral whole. DEGRAGMENTER is the phrase folks came up with when they got tired of using re-concatenation. It means to take fragments and make them whole again.
Long story - simple concept; if the computer is allowed to become infected with too many fragments of files it will forget that it is a computer and become a teapot once again. Defragmentation or DEFRAG for short takes awhile to accomplish now that we have hard drives counting in the hundreds of gigabytes but it is vital to the continued functioning of your DOS-based Windows computer.
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