Cleaning scratched CDs, Yahell
One impact having 7 young children in my house has had, aside from the grocery bill, is the number of CDs and DVDs piled up around every player and PC in the house.
Kids are notorious for not putting anything away. I remember growing up my dad would tell me to take better care of my records and 45s (see how old I am?). I had to buy dozens of “DiscWashers” in my life to assure my vinyl sounded great on my turntable.
Of course, if you scratch the bottom of a DVD or CD, you’re toast unless you can buff out the offending scratch.
That’s where the SkipDR Automax system comes in. This gizmo is an excellent, all in one solution to resurface scratched CDs, CD-ROMS and DVDs. Using a three-step process, you disc is recovered in about a minute.
Assuming you can get the package open (a 5-minute exercise) and get the 6 AA batteries installed (an AC adapter is optional and a good idea) you’re set to recover. You spray the data side with the included resurfacing spray and slide it into the unit. The unit, which is pretty noisy, spins to life and a wheel resurfaces the disc. After it stops automatically, you take the included buffing cloth and dry it all off. That’s it.
I tried on a dozen of my kids’ worst catastrophes and it brought back 11 of the 12 from the dead. It will not recover discs that are gouged or have other impacts through the Lexan into the data layer.
The unit, which also is marketed under the name “GameDR Automax”, costs $39.99. It will resurface 50 discs, so the company claims, without replacing the components. A replacement kit costs $12.99.
One plus of this unit is that all of the components, the solution and the rag, fit within it so there’s nothing to lose or misplace.
You can get information about the units at www.digitalinnovations.com
---In other news, if you use Yahoo to maintain a “group,” a discussion area on various topics, my email is full of complaints about Yahoo deleting groups and email accounts at a seemingly random fashion. If you’re a moderator, you may want to export your member list and keep it handy in case your group disappears. That way you can recreate it at Google Groups, MSN Communities or some other source. If you have critical mail stored at Yahoo, you should create another account and forward all of those mails someplace else.
---Several important patches for Windows XP have been released in recent weeks, including a couple that can help prevent hackers from compromising your system. Make sure you head to the Windows Update site every few weeks to assure you have not only downloaded the patches but installed them as well. You can go to www.windowsupdate.com and run all of the critical patches.
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: The Firefox browser remains a great download for Windows users. I use it for every site that will let me. Get it at www.mozilla.org
James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail is jim@cyberdads.com
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