Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Maintenance Of Our Computer
The Internet guide has information regarding Internet Child Safety, Email & Email Providers and a guide to Search Engines. The email section gives examples of what the different free email providers have to offer, as well as a beginners guide to email, which explains email-related jargon and how the email system works.
The search engine section contains tips and help on how to search the Internet. There is also a page with the major search engines, so that you can search each one from one single page.
The freeware / shareware section contains free computer programs and trials for you to try, and explains what freeware and shareware are.
The Stop Spam guide includes some tips for helping to decrease the amoutn of Spam you receive as well as how to report it.
Also included is a guide to web-hosting companies, which will help you find a web-hosting package that suits you.
Computer Maintenance Guide The maintenance guide will give you a number of useful ideas in order to keep your computer healthy and to ensure that it doesn't get slowed down by files that you don't need. This section contains guides including backing up, a look at surge protection and how to clean your mouse and your keyboard.
Computer memory help and information
memory, refers to computer components, devices, and recording media that retain digital data used for computing for some interval of time. Computer data storage provides one of the core functions of the modern computer, that of information retention. It is one of the fundamental components of all modern computers, and coupled with a central processing unit (CPU, a processor), implements the basic computer model used since the 1940s.
In contemporary usage, memory usually refers to a form of semiconductor storage known as random access memory (RAM) and sometimes other forms of fast but temporary storage. Similarly, storage today more commonly refers to mass storage - optical discs, forms of magnetic storage like hard disks, and other types slower than RAM, but of a more permanent nature. Historically, memory and storage were respectively called primary storage and secondary storage.
The contemporary distinctions are helpful, because they are also fundamental to the architecture of computers in general. As well, they reflect an important and significant technical difference between memory and mass storage devices, which has been blurred by the historical usage of the term storage. Nevertheless, this article uses the traditional nomenclature.
Single In-line memory module (SIMM) - A slender circuit board dedicated to storing memory chips. Each chip is capable of holding 8 to 9 chips per board, the ninth chip usually an error checking chip (parity / non parity). The typical bus from the chip to the motherboard is 32-bits wide. When upgrading a Pentium motherboard you will be required to upgrade 2 of the same type of chips at the same time to accommodate the Pentium processor.
SPEED: You can determine the size amount of the chip by looking at the part number of each chip on the SIMM board. For 2-, 8- and 9- chip SIMMs, all the chips should have the same part numbers. Look at the number that ends with a dash and a digit such as "-7". This is the rate speed or nanoseconds of the chip. With "-7" this would indicate that the memory is 70ns.
SIZE: Look at the four digits to the left of this number; these often carry information about the number of bits in the chip. A 4256 indicates 256K bits arranged in sets of four, for a total of 1Mb. "1000" indicates 1MB of bits arranged in one set.
With some types of memory, the last one or two digits may be changed to indicate different kinds of memory; there are 1MB chips that end with 4256, 4257, and 4258. In this case, round the last digits to an even 256 or thousand. Three-chip SIMMs will typically have two larger chips that are four times the capacity of the third chip (because 4 plus 4 plus 1 makes 9, which is the number of bits needed per byte including parity).
In contemporary usage, memory usually refers to a form of semiconductor storage known as random access memory (RAM) and sometimes other forms of fast but temporary storage. Similarly, storage today more commonly refers to mass storage - optical discs, forms of magnetic storage like hard disks, and other types slower than RAM, but of a more permanent nature. Historically, memory and storage were respectively called primary storage and secondary storage.
The contemporary distinctions are helpful, because they are also fundamental to the architecture of computers in general. As well, they reflect an important and significant technical difference between memory and mass storage devices, which has been blurred by the historical usage of the term storage. Nevertheless, this article uses the traditional nomenclature.
Single In-line memory module (SIMM) - A slender circuit board dedicated to storing memory chips. Each chip is capable of holding 8 to 9 chips per board, the ninth chip usually an error checking chip (parity / non parity). The typical bus from the chip to the motherboard is 32-bits wide. When upgrading a Pentium motherboard you will be required to upgrade 2 of the same type of chips at the same time to accommodate the Pentium processor.
SPEED: You can determine the size amount of the chip by looking at the part number of each chip on the SIMM board. For 2-, 8- and 9- chip SIMMs, all the chips should have the same part numbers. Look at the number that ends with a dash and a digit such as "-7". This is the rate speed or nanoseconds of the chip. With "-7" this would indicate that the memory is 70ns.
SIZE: Look at the four digits to the left of this number; these often carry information about the number of bits in the chip. A 4256 indicates 256K bits arranged in sets of four, for a total of 1Mb. "1000" indicates 1MB of bits arranged in one set.
With some types of memory, the last one or two digits may be changed to indicate different kinds of memory; there are 1MB chips that end with 4256, 4257, and 4258. In this case, round the last digits to an even 256 or thousand. Three-chip SIMMs will typically have two larger chips that are four times the capacity of the third chip (because 4 plus 4 plus 1 makes 9, which is the number of bits needed per byte including parity).
Memory Of Computer
Memory, which is commonly referred to as RAM (Random Access Memory), is a temporary (Volatile) storage area utilized by the CPU. Before a program can be run, the program is loaded into the memory which allows the CPU direct access to the program. Memory is a necessity for any computer and it is recommend that you have at least 64MB of memory for your IBM or Macintosh.
There are four groups of memory; we have created a chart which illustrates and tells what each of these groups do. Click here for the memory diagram.
Memory is commonly confused with Hard Drive Space. There are two types of memory; the first type of memory is the memory explained in the above paragraph, this memory is available in computer chips; the other type of memory is actually Hard Drive Space which is stored on the computer Hard Disk Drive. The Hard drive is actually a physical drive which contains several parts and is generally larger than the amount of memory found in your computer.
The below sections help describe the most commonly found types of memory in computers.
There are four groups of memory; we have created a chart which illustrates and tells what each of these groups do. Click here for the memory diagram.
Memory is commonly confused with Hard Drive Space. There are two types of memory; the first type of memory is the memory explained in the above paragraph, this memory is available in computer chips; the other type of memory is actually Hard Drive Space which is stored on the computer Hard Disk Drive. The Hard drive is actually a physical drive which contains several parts and is generally larger than the amount of memory found in your computer.
The below sections help describe the most commonly found types of memory in computers.
Pressures and Goals
Pressures and Goals
There were two major purposes in designing the Rice machine. The first was to provide a platform on which members of the Rice community could do research that would have been impossibly time-consuming without access to a computer. This was, in fact, the major reason that the project was started: Zevi Salsburg wanted a machine as powerful as Los Alamos's MANIAC II to simulate fluid flow. He did not, however, have any desire to move to Los Alamos, and therefore needed a computer to be built at Rice.
The other goal of the machine was to do research into how computers should be built. In the years following John von Neumann's death, the Atomic Energy Commission became quite interested in funding computer research: Salsburg's request came at a time when the AEC's goals could be better met by funding the development of a new system than by offering to build a copy of MANIAC II or to buy a stock IBM computer.
Chronology
Towards the end of 1956, Zevi Salsburg, John Kilpatrick, and Larry Biedenharn, all Rice professors, decided they needed a computer "like the one at Los Alamos."[1] The Atomic Energy Commission, to whom they applied for funding, told the three that, if they could procure an engineer, grant money for a computer's development would be forthcoming. Martin Graham, who had been working at Brookhaven National Laboratory and had done the transformer coupling for Los Alamos's MANIAC II, was invited down to Houston in February of 1957, and became an associate professor in the electrical engineering department at Rice University.
Graham designed the hardware of the Rice Computer, and most of his plans were implemented by Joe Bighorse, the project's head technician. "Joe Bighorse," claimed Graham, "is the best technician I ever had work for me. Anywhere."[2] The combination of a skilled engineer and an excellent technician--as well a Rice alumnus's donation of the use of his tool and die shop for the machining of the computer--produced an extremely well-engineered machine at all levels of design. Since Rice was getting custom machining, the physical layout was designed to hardware requirements rather than having hardware made to fit off-the-shelf structural components. Construction on the machine proceeded from 1958-1961. A copy of the machine was also built at the University of Oklahoma.
Parts of the machine began functioning in 1959, and the computer finally became fully operational in 1961. While not the first computer on campus--a Litton LGP-30 shared by the Mechanical Engineering and Chemical Engineering departments was in use in 1957[3]--it quickly became Rice's primary computer and remained in that role until supplanted by an IBM 7040, followed by a Burroughs B5500, in the late 1960's[4]. Graham took a year-long sabbatical at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964; when he returned in 1965, he ran afoul of departmental politics and the Dean of the School of Engineering[5], and returned to Berkeley on a permanent basis in 1966. Sigsby Rusk assumed the leadership of the Computer Project. Most of the graduate students who had helped with the construction of the machine, such as Ted Schutz, Joel Cyprus, Phil Deck, and Dwayne Chesnut, had left by 1964, and Joe Bighorse departed shortly after Graham.
The R1 was decommissioned in 1971 when the cost of maintaining and powering it had become prohibitively expensive for the limited amount of computation it was able to provide. The R1 was initially named "The Rice Institute Computer" and then became "The Rice University Computer". It acquired the "R1" moniker when it was being used in the design of the Rice Research Computer, a tagged-architecture ECL machine modeled on John Iliffe's Basic Language Machine[6]. Presumably "R2" was a convenient designation for the Rice Research Computer, as Rice's second machine, and "R1" was thus coined as the obvious label for Rice's first computer.
Funding For the Rice Computer
A three-year AEC grant of $250,000 was forthcoming for machine development, supplemented by a five-year Shell Oil grant for $150,000. At some point before 1964, the NSF took over control of funding the project from the AEC: SPIREL and the AP1 assembler were developed with NSF funds. By 1968, external funding for the R1 had essentially ceased
There were two major purposes in designing the Rice machine. The first was to provide a platform on which members of the Rice community could do research that would have been impossibly time-consuming without access to a computer. This was, in fact, the major reason that the project was started: Zevi Salsburg wanted a machine as powerful as Los Alamos's MANIAC II to simulate fluid flow. He did not, however, have any desire to move to Los Alamos, and therefore needed a computer to be built at Rice.
The other goal of the machine was to do research into how computers should be built. In the years following John von Neumann's death, the Atomic Energy Commission became quite interested in funding computer research: Salsburg's request came at a time when the AEC's goals could be better met by funding the development of a new system than by offering to build a copy of MANIAC II or to buy a stock IBM computer.
Chronology
Towards the end of 1956, Zevi Salsburg, John Kilpatrick, and Larry Biedenharn, all Rice professors, decided they needed a computer "like the one at Los Alamos."[1] The Atomic Energy Commission, to whom they applied for funding, told the three that, if they could procure an engineer, grant money for a computer's development would be forthcoming. Martin Graham, who had been working at Brookhaven National Laboratory and had done the transformer coupling for Los Alamos's MANIAC II, was invited down to Houston in February of 1957, and became an associate professor in the electrical engineering department at Rice University.
Graham designed the hardware of the Rice Computer, and most of his plans were implemented by Joe Bighorse, the project's head technician. "Joe Bighorse," claimed Graham, "is the best technician I ever had work for me. Anywhere."[2] The combination of a skilled engineer and an excellent technician--as well a Rice alumnus's donation of the use of his tool and die shop for the machining of the computer--produced an extremely well-engineered machine at all levels of design. Since Rice was getting custom machining, the physical layout was designed to hardware requirements rather than having hardware made to fit off-the-shelf structural components. Construction on the machine proceeded from 1958-1961. A copy of the machine was also built at the University of Oklahoma.
Parts of the machine began functioning in 1959, and the computer finally became fully operational in 1961. While not the first computer on campus--a Litton LGP-30 shared by the Mechanical Engineering and Chemical Engineering departments was in use in 1957[3]--it quickly became Rice's primary computer and remained in that role until supplanted by an IBM 7040, followed by a Burroughs B5500, in the late 1960's[4]. Graham took a year-long sabbatical at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964; when he returned in 1965, he ran afoul of departmental politics and the Dean of the School of Engineering[5], and returned to Berkeley on a permanent basis in 1966. Sigsby Rusk assumed the leadership of the Computer Project. Most of the graduate students who had helped with the construction of the machine, such as Ted Schutz, Joel Cyprus, Phil Deck, and Dwayne Chesnut, had left by 1964, and Joe Bighorse departed shortly after Graham.
The R1 was decommissioned in 1971 when the cost of maintaining and powering it had become prohibitively expensive for the limited amount of computation it was able to provide. The R1 was initially named "The Rice Institute Computer" and then became "The Rice University Computer". It acquired the "R1" moniker when it was being used in the design of the Rice Research Computer, a tagged-architecture ECL machine modeled on John Iliffe's Basic Language Machine[6]. Presumably "R2" was a convenient designation for the Rice Research Computer, as Rice's second machine, and "R1" was thus coined as the obvious label for Rice's first computer.
Funding For the Rice Computer
A three-year AEC grant of $250,000 was forthcoming for machine development, supplemented by a five-year Shell Oil grant for $150,000. At some point before 1964, the NSF took over control of funding the project from the AEC: SPIREL and the AP1 assembler were developed with NSF funds. By 1968, external funding for the R1 had essentially ceased
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Information about Computer Ports
The ports to look for on a computer include USB, FireWire, Ethernet, and S-video or HDMI. USB ports let you connect many add-on devices, such as digital cameras or external hard drives, as well as a memory drive for copying files to and from the hard drive. Having these ports at the front of the case makes connecting devices more convenient. An Ethernet port or wireless network card lets you link several computers in the household to share files, a printer, or a broadband Internet connection. FireWire or IEEE 1394 ports are used to capture video from digital camcorders and connect to other peripheral devices. An S-video or HDMI output jack lets you run a video cable from the computer to a television so you can use the computer's DVD drive to view a movie on a TV instead of on the computer monitor. Media-center PCs (equipped with TV tuners) can also capture video from a VCR, letting you copy tapes to DVDs. The once-ubiquitous modem port is disappearing from new PCs as dial-up Internet access marches toward oblivion. Other slots to look for on a new computer are memory-card readers for flash cards.
For laptops: Most laptops let you attach those devices without the docking station. At least two USB ports for easy hookup of, say, a printer, digital camera, or scanner are standard. A wired network (Ethernet) port is also standard. A FireWire port for digital-video transfer is common. An internal wireless-network (Wi-Fi) adapter is standard. Another option is an internal Bluetooth wireless adapter to link to a Bluetooth-capable cell phone, camera, or another laptop.
For laptops: Most laptops let you attach those devices without the docking station. At least two USB ports for easy hookup of, say, a printer, digital camera, or scanner are standard. A wired network (Ethernet) port is also standard. A FireWire port for digital-video transfer is common. An internal wireless-network (Wi-Fi) adapter is standard. Another option is an internal Bluetooth wireless adapter to link to a Bluetooth-capable cell phone, camera, or another laptop.
What is Optical drive?
DVD writers are standard gear on today's computers. A DVD burner provides removable storage for home-video footage or digital photos. With the HD disc format wars over, Blu-ray disc (BD) drives are the standard to look for. BD is capable of playing the growing list of Blu-ray movies and can store 50GB, almost six times the capacity of a double-layer DVD. On some systems, you might find Blu-Ray/HD DVD combo drives, which can also play whatever HD DVD movies are still out there. There are also three older competing, incompatible DVD formats-DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM. Some drives can write in more than one format, but all can create a disc that will play on stand-alone DVD players.
how to buy computer?
Features
The key components of a computer are the processor, memory, operating system, hard drive, graphics adapter (with video RAM), optical drive, and display (monitor). Laptop computers have additional features and considerations that are important. Where applicable, we've noted feature information that is important and distinctive to the type of computers.
Processor | Random access memory (RAM) | Operating system | Graphics adapter and video RAM | Hard drive | Optical drive | Monitor | Display | Case | Battery | Mouse | Touchpad | Keyboard | Sound system | Ports | Card slots | Docking station | Log-on security
Processor
This is the computer's "brains." Clock speed, measured in gigahertz (GHz), and the chip's design, termed "architecture," determine how quickly it can process information. Within a processor family, the higher the clock speed, the faster the computer. But different processor families reach different efficiencies.
For laptops: Laptops generally come with a dual-core processor. If you're on a budget, an Intel Pentium Dual-Core or AMD Turion 64 X2 is fine. For greater power or battery life, get an Intel Core 2 Duo
For desktops: The lowest-priced Windows systems probably use Pentium Dual-Core, Celeron D, Athlon 64, or Sempron processors. But most common now are dual-processor desktops. Dual-core processor families from Intel (Core 2 Duo) and AMD (Athlon 64 X2) represent newer technologies developed to increase processing power beyond what a single-chip processor can achieve. Macs have transitioned to Intel Core 2 Duo series processors. Quad-core processors are also becoming more common in higher-end desktops, and AMD also offers a triple-core processor.
The different processor families make direct speed comparisons difficult, but any recent processor family will probably deliver all the speed you need.
The key components of a computer are the processor, memory, operating system, hard drive, graphics adapter (with video RAM), optical drive, and display (monitor). Laptop computers have additional features and considerations that are important. Where applicable, we've noted feature information that is important and distinctive to the type of computers.
Processor | Random access memory (RAM) | Operating system | Graphics adapter and video RAM | Hard drive | Optical drive | Monitor | Display | Case | Battery | Mouse | Touchpad | Keyboard | Sound system | Ports | Card slots | Docking station | Log-on security
Processor
This is the computer's "brains." Clock speed, measured in gigahertz (GHz), and the chip's design, termed "architecture," determine how quickly it can process information. Within a processor family, the higher the clock speed, the faster the computer. But different processor families reach different efficiencies.
For laptops: Laptops generally come with a dual-core processor. If you're on a budget, an Intel Pentium Dual-Core or AMD Turion 64 X2 is fine. For greater power or battery life, get an Intel Core 2 Duo
For desktops: The lowest-priced Windows systems probably use Pentium Dual-Core, Celeron D, Athlon 64, or Sempron processors. But most common now are dual-processor desktops. Dual-core processor families from Intel (Core 2 Duo) and AMD (Athlon 64 X2) represent newer technologies developed to increase processing power beyond what a single-chip processor can achieve. Macs have transitioned to Intel Core 2 Duo series processors. Quad-core processors are also becoming more common in higher-end desktops, and AMD also offers a triple-core processor.
The different processor families make direct speed comparisons difficult, but any recent processor family will probably deliver all the speed you need.
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