Why compact discs get damaged. Compact discs are all plastic. Compact discs are not even sensitive to magnetic fields as in the case of floppy disks, which never used to retain data even when a slight magnetic field crossed them. Therefore what is the reason CDs get corrupted?

CDs work on the principle of reflection of light. CD drives have a built in laser that is used to read data. When laser is focused on to the CD the beam gets reflected to a point when there is some data. There are two types of point created, i.e. 0 or 1 these points symbolize the bit value.

CD's stop working when something on the CD breaks the path of the laser light, something like a dust particle or something else like a FINGER PRINT!!!. Finger prints are nothing but natural oil from skin that sticks to the surface in contact with the skin in the pattern of the skins cells. This oil or say fingerprint helps in refraction of light and loss of data to the reading source i.e. laser.

When CDs don't run the reason is because something is interrupting the laser to read the shinny side of the CD. But I have important data what should I do now?

Most of the times it is because of dust or fingerprints, you need to clean the CD. You can clean your CDs with plain water or a bit soapy water. And it is better to clean the CDs after some time. But this doesn't mean you should start putting your CDs in dishwasher or washing machine every week.

All you need to do is to wipe the shinny side of the CD with a clean moist cloth and try running it again (make sure the CD is dry before you run it).

People say about using all different sorts of things to clean CDs like toothpastes, wax polish etc. but I would recommend you to buy a CD cleaning kit.

And one thing I must add is that DVD's work on the same principle and are bit more sensitive to dust and fingerprints. Therefore you can also use the above mentioned procedure for DVDs.

Much has been written about temporary internet files. To my amazement, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about how these files are put on your computer and the effect they have on your computing experience. Some articles claim these files slow your computer to a crawl, others indicate they are memory hogs. While some indicate that these files only affect the MS Internet Explorer browser.

One thing that most authors get right is the purpose of temporary internet files. Allow me to give another explanation just to be clear.

Temporary internet files are a collection of web page, copies stored on your computers' hard disk or in its random-access memory. Pages you view are normally stored in a special cache folder for quicker viewing the next time you visit the same page. The browser compares the cached copy to the original. If there have been no changes, the browser uses the cached copy rather than re-fetching the original, saving processing and download time.

Slowing your computer down?
The size of your file cache will cause your computer to slow down ONLY if the cache size is very, very large and fragmented. By their nature cached files are relatively small and are only used when loading internet pages and do not remain in memory indefinitely. By adjusting your browser cache size to 5Mb or less you can avoid any slow down caused by the browser searching the hard drive for cached files. My personal browser cache is much larger, 50Mb (ed. most modern computers running on broadband can use the highest recommended cached store size (normally 250MB)without any speed problems), and I have no problems even on a dial-up internet connection. Internet slow down is almost always caused by network traffic.

Slow Hard Drive:
If your computer is running slow, there is a good chance it is not due to your temporary internet files. Slow hard drive access is usually due to fragmented files on your hard drive or the hard drive is getting close to being full. Windows needs at least 15% free hard disk space to operate correctly. That is 15% free space total, including your Windows Swap File.

Websites, security and temporary internet files:
Websites do not put temporary internet files on your computer. The internet browser does file caching automatically. Do not confuse temporary internet files with 'cookies'. Website cookies are also cached, but they are cached separately from temporary files. Also any personal information such as saved passwords and form auto fill information is kept in still another more secure place.

Internet Browsers:
Is Internet Explorer just being a bad boy? Well...no. If IE is a bad boy, it is only because IE is a poor example of an Internet Browser. All internet browsers cache temporary internet files. Presently I have FireFox 1.5.0.4, Netscape 7.2., Netscape 8.0 and IE 6.0xxx installed and all of these browsers manage temporary internet file caching the same way.

It is a good idea to adjust the cached file size and clear the cache occasionally to get rid of unused and possibly corrupt files. Caching of all file types by your browser can be managed from the browsers' options menu. I hope you now have a better understanding of temporary internet files. Temporary internet files, passwords and auto fill data can be deleted manually, but that is another article. Surf on.