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5 Ways to Backup your Data


Tech Tip 1 - Jason Kohrs

as the MINIDISK-512-DGRY-CS USB 2.0 Flash


Drive, and transported to another computer
for safe keeping. Installation and operation is
extremely simple, and other than perhaps
having to install a software driver, the use of
a USB flash drive is a matter of having an
available USB port on your computer. Just
about every computer produced over the last
several years has USB ports included, with
more modern systems supporting the USB 2.0
standard. USB 2.0 allows for data transfer
rates of up to 480 MB/s, which is a tremendous
The data on your hard drive is the most critical improvement over the original USB speed
item inside your computer, and the only item limit of 12 MB/s, and allows a user to fill their
which can not be replaced. It may be an drives with data in a relatively short period of
unwanted hassle and expense to replace a time.
defective memory module, monitor, or
processor, but there is no replacing data once Although the storage capacity of flash drives
lost. has increased greatly over the last year or so,
users are still limited to common sizes of
In addition to the possibility of a simple hard 512MB and 1GB. Mass storage is obviously not
drive failure, the threat of internet borne an option, but even 512MB may be enough to
worms and viruses has become an increasing backup your “My Documents” folder, several
risk to data loss or corruption. Although you albums of MP3s, or other important files to be
may not be able to provide absolute protection stored elsewhere.
to your hard drive, there are various ways that
you can ensure that the data on your hard 2. CD and DVD Writers/Re-Writers
drive is protected. Five methods of backing up
your data are summarized below. The falling prices of CD and
DVD writers/re-writers have
1. USB Flash Drives made them a staple of just
about every modern
Although I am not recommending that flash computer. These devices can
drives be used for the actual data storage, typically be found installed
they are a convenient means of transferring in a computer case, but
data from one computer to another. Important external devices supporting
files can be quickly loaded onto a device such USB 2.0 or Firewire are

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available for greater flexibility and ease of budget.


installation.
The Ximeta NetDisk is an example of an
A combination drive, such as theNU Technology external hard drive that provides a user the
DBW-521, will provide the user a high speed option of connecting an additional 80GB,
CD reader/writer, as well as a DVD reader, for 120GB, or 160GB of storage to their system by
under $40. The extremely low price of the using either a USB 2.0 or Ethernet connection.
drive (and the blank media) makes for an Installation for such a device is rather simple,
inexpensive means of creating data backups, and may involve the installation of some basic
and the re-writable media increases the software, as well as making the necessary
convenience by allowing the same disc to be connections between the computer and the
erased and reused many times. The main external enclosure.
limitation of using a CD writer for data
backups is that the discs are generally limited The capacity of external hard drives makes
to a capacity of 700MB per disc. Not nearly them ideal for backing up large volumes of
enough for a full backup, but adequate for data, and many of these devices simplify the
archiving key files. process by including software (or hardware)
features to automate the backup.
The popularity of DVD writers/re-writers has
surged thanks to dropping prices, and they For example, some Seagate External drives
are pushing the stand alone CD burner feature a “one-button” backup option right
towards extinction. DVD media affords the on the case.In addition to being a convenient
user far more storage capacity than a CD, and method of backing up large volumes of files
DVD burners can generally burn CDs as wells locally, most external hard drives are compact
as DVDs. The recent availability of double enough to be portable. The inclusion of a
layer DVD burners, such as the Sony DW-D22A- common data transfer interface, such as USB,
DO-N, represents a large boost in the capacity allows an external hard drive to be connected
of writable DVDs, taking the previous limit of to just about any modern computer for data
4.7GB per disc and nearly doubling it to transfer, or for more than one computer to
8.5GB. share the external hard drive as a back up.

With proper storage, CD/DVD media can 4. Additional Hard Drives


provide long term storage that can not be
jeopardized by hardware failure. The data on By simply adding an
a CD or DVD can easily be read by just about additional hard drive to
any computer, making it a good choice for you system, you can
archiving files that aren’t excessively large. protect yourself from
data loss by copying it
3. External Hard Drives from your primary drive
to your secondary drive.
As the name might imply, external hard drives The installation of a
are generally the same type of drive you might second hard drive isn’t
find inside your system, but housed in a difficult, but does
smaller, external enclosure of its own. The require a basic
enclosure will feature at least one data understanding of the
interface (such as Firewire, USB, or Ethernet), inner working of a computer, which may scare
and the capacity is only limited by the size of off some users. We do offer a “how-to” section
hard drives presently available and the user’s on our site for many tasks such as installing a

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hard drive into a computer system. The services generally charge a monthly fee
relative to the amount of storage space
To take the installation of a second hard drive required. At Xdrive, for example, 5GB of
to another level of security and reliability, the storage costs $9.95 per month, which can
hard drives may be installed in a RAID array. quickly add up to more than one would spend
RAID stands for a Redundant Array of on any of the other options discussed.
Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks, and can
be configured in several manners. A thorough Security is supposed to be very tight on these
discussion of RAID and all of its variations services, but no matter how secure it may
would be an article all by itself, but what may seem, it is still just a password keeping prying
be of interest to this discussion is what is eyes from your potentially sensitive
known as RAID 1. A RAID 1 array requires two documents.
hard drives of equal size to be installed on a
RAID controller, which will then mirror one The speed of your internet connection will
drive to the other in real time. Many also weigh heavily on the convenience of your
motherboards now come with RAID controllers backup, and no matter what type of connection
onboard, but the addition of a PCI slot you have; it can’t compete with local data
controller card, such as the Silicon Image transfer rates.
Sil0680, is an inexpensive purchase that will Final Words
add RAID to any system. With a RAID 1 array
in place, if one hard drive should ever fail, the Although not a comprehensive list of options
system won’t miss a best by continuing to run available for backing up your data, the five
on the remaining good drive, and alert the items listed provide some simple and relatively
user that one drive may need to be replaced. affordable means to ensure that your data is
not lost. Data loss is an extremely frustrating
5. Online Storage and potentially costly situation, but one that
can be avoided.
Online services, such as Xdrive, allow users to
upload their files to a server for safe keeping.
Although it may be convenient to have the
data available wherever an internet connection
is available, there are a few limitations.

Tech Tips Community Geeks.com


Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
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5 Ways to Block Pop Ups


Tech Tip 2 - Jason Kohrs
Advertisers are constantly looking for any way user is alerted to the fact that a pop up has
to draw attention to their products. Although been blocked. For those using Windows XP,
typical banner ads are still used heavily, they upgrading to Service Pack 2 is an excellent
now seem to be almost invisible to the average idea for your system’s security as a whole, but
web surfer. Pop ups and other intrusive types specifically for the additional convenience of
of advertising are now used to thrust an ad in an integrated pop up blocker. For those with
your face that you have no choice but to at a Microsoft operating system other than XP,
least acknowledge. Regardless of the nature sorry, this is not available for you.
of the ad, pop ups are a nuisance, and there
are now many options available for keeping 2. Alternative Web Browsers
them off of your computer screen all
together. There are other choices for web browsers
available, and many have included a pop up
1. Internet Explorer on Windows XP with blocker long before Microsoft decided to
Service Pack 2 include one with Internet Explorer. The Mozilla
Firefox browser version 1.0 was officially
This summer’s released on November 9th. This browser has
release of already received a great deal of acclaim and
Service Pack 2 has become quite popular as an alternative to
for Windows Internet Explorer.
XP brought
about a few Firefox is a highly customizable web browsing
significant application that includes an effective pop up
changes to the blocker, tabbed browsing, and many other
operating features not found in Internet Explorer. Crazy
system. One Browser is another option that was released
of the most in 2002, which is not as much an alternative
noticeable browser, as it is a skin for Internet Explorer. In
was the order for Crazy Browser to run, a system must
addition of a pop up blocker to Internet have Internet Explorer 5 (or greater) installed,
Explorer. The pop up blocker is integrated as well as Windows 95 (or greater) installed as
into the browser and can be customized by the operating system. The Crazy Browser
browsing to the “Tools” tab at the top of the application then takes the base functionality
program. Like many pop up blocker of Internet Explorer and adds features similar
applications, personal preferences can be set to Firefox, such as the pop up blocker and
to allow/block pop ups from certain sites, as tabbed browsing.
well as providing customization for how the

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3. Browser Tool Bars ups for free, spending money on one is hard
to justify. Along with a dedicated pop up
A growing trend is for websites to offer a blocker, another recommended tact for
downloadable toolbar for use with Internet eliminating pop-ups is eliminating spyware
Explorer. Many of these toolbars offer unique on your computer system. Some pop-up
features intended to enhance the user’s web programs use accompanying spyware to
browsing experience in different ways, but target pop ups specifically to you and your
they generally also include a pop up blocker. web surfing habits. An excellent, free program
Although there are toolbars available from for eliminating spyware of all type is Spybot
dozens of websites, Google, MSN, and Yahoo Search & Destroy.
are some of the more reputable names with
one available. The installation of these 5. Internet Access Software from
toolbars is quick and easy, and the most Select ISPs
difficult part may be reading the fine print in
the license agreements. Although these Some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) now
toolbars may do an excellent job blocking pop incorporate a pop up blocker with the software
ups, they may also be retrieving data on your they provide to subscribers for accessing the
web surfing / search habits. If you feel a internet. Earthlink, Optimum Online, and AOL
toolbar may be the right solution for you, are just a few of the larger providers that add
stick with one from a trusted name, and just value to their packages by adding a pop up
be sure to read the fine print. blocker. Bundling this functionality with the
ISPs base software definitely makes things
4. Pop Up Blocker Software easy for the subscriber, as there may be no
need to find one elsewhere. In general, these
Stand alone pop up blockers are effective, but are not the most
blocking software is feature rich and may have limited options for
available from dozens, if customization by the end user. One draw back
not hundreds, of with ISP provided pop up blockers is that some
different sources. With only work with their service. So, if you ever
various interfaces, and switch to a new provider, you’ll need to be
prices ranging from free prepared to switch to a new pop up blocker
to $30 (and higher), as well.
choosing one can be a difficult task. Many of
the programs that are not available for free Final Words
do come with a free trial download, so you
can at least get a sense of whether the Pop ups are a fact of life on the internet, but
program is right for you before committing. that does not mean you need to put up with
Some of the options in this category include them. Among the five general solutions
STOPzilla, Secure IE, Zero Popup and Pop presented above, there are literally hundreds
Swatter, to name a few. The main drawback of options available for eliminating the clutter
to this type of pop up blocking solution is that of pop up ads, allowing you to enjoy only the
you now have another independent content you intended to see.
application running on your computer.
Although they are generally not resource
intensive, why run a program to do something
that can be handled by one that is already
running anyway? Additionally, with so many
reliable solutions available to eliminate pop

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5 Reasons to update
Windows XP to Service Pack2
Tech Tip 3 - Jason Kohrs
Microsoft released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the
Windows XP operating system back in August and no action is taken until the user manually
(2004), representing significant improvements addresses the warning. Unsafe file attachments
in many areas, especially system security. For are now also blocked in a similar manner via
those people that are still unsure whether Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, thus
they should update to it, the following five protecting not only web based content, but
reasons may help make the decision easier. also items received via e-mail.

1. Protects Against Unsafe Another way it protects from unsafe files is by


Attachments/ Downloads monitoring the system’s anti-virus software
and alerting the user if the system is at risk
due to the software being out of date.
Although Microsoft does not offer any virus
protection themselves, this feature makes
sure that whatever program the user has
decided to use stays current and as effective
as possible.

2. Windows Firewall

A software based firewall is included with


Service Pack 2, intended to protect the system
Service Pack 2 provides Windows XP with a from access by unauthorized individuals on
“Windows Security Center”, and other key the internet or local network. The firewall is
tools, to help protect the user’s system from activated automatically by Windows, but users
unsafe attachments and downloads. This type have the option to disable it, as well as to
of protection is one step to prevent viruses create exceptions to bypass the security in
and Trojans from slipping onto a user’s system certain situations.
and wreaking the type of havoc that has
become an increasing problem in recent When utilized, the protection is active from
years. startup to shutdown, providing a simple
firewall solution to any computer with SP2
One way it does this is through warnings in installed. Small pop up style windows are
Internet Explorer’s “Information Bar”, which generated to alert the user of possible
alert a user to potentially unsafe downloads. attempts to access the system from the outside,
The suspect content is blocked automatically, as well as when programs try to go out onto

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With Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer now


features an integrated pop up blocker to help
reduce, if not fully eliminate, the presence of
those nuisance ads. Configurable from
Internet Explorer’s “Tools” tab, users can
customize their preferences and even turn the
pop up blocker off. Considering most pop up
blockers require a special toolbar or other
application be installed, this one is extremely
convenient and easy to use.

4. Increased Privacy Protection

Your privacy is protected more so than ever


with Service Pack 2 in a few different ways. If
items 1, 2, and 3 above weren’t enough, there
is more… For example, Windows XP with SP2
now applies security settings to further guard
your PC and your private information from
exploit via Internet Explorer.

Another way your privacy is protected is by


the internet. These pop ups are approved/ Outlook Express blocking images within e-
denied by the user before anything is allowed mails that allow spammers to validate your
to happen, and can be done so that a pop up address. Spammers use images that are tagged
will appear again next time this event occurs, with unique bits of code, and once the URL of
or so that the pop up will never appear again the image sent to you is viewed, the spammers
for that particular event. know that they have a valid address, which
makes that address more susceptible to future
Many users with broadband internet spam.
connections have a hardware firewall in their
router, but a software firewall such as this is 5. Simplify Wireless Networking
still a good idea. It can protect where the
hardware firewall can not, and is particular
useful in preventing the system from launching
any attacks from Trojans that may have slipped
in.

3. Internet Pop Up Blocker


The popularity of wireless networking has
exploded as the hardware has becoming
increasingly simpler to operate and relatively
inexpensive. Now the way a user connects
their system to a wireless network has been
greatly simplified via enhancements found in
SP2. The “Wireless Network Setup Wizard”
will lead a user of any expertise through the
installation process, and the “Microsoft

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Broadband Network Utility” will help them all of which have to be seen as welcome
monitor and maintain the network just as improvements. With a focus on protecting the
easily. Application of security settings is end user’s computer system and data, there
obviously a main component of these are enough good reasons to persuade a user
improvements, insuring that the user’s system to take the plunge and let Windows Update
is protected from this angle of attack as well. install SP2.

Final Words

The release of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP


brought about many more changes to the
operating system than the five listed above,

Tech Tips Community Geeks.com


Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
the Computer Geeks.

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5 Reasons to update
Windows XP to Service Pack2
Tech Tip 4 - Jason Kohrs
The power coming into a computer is the most
critical component, and it may be one of the the correct power supply means
most overlooked. It is just taken for granted not only finding one that will
that it will always be there and working provide enough power for all of
properly. A top of the line processor and ultra the components connected to
powerful video card do nothing if a system the system, but also one that is
does not receive the ample, stable power it the correct size physically, has
demands. Having quality components enough connections for typical
providing and regulating the power supplied drives and fans, and if necessary,
to a computer is critical, and this brief overview that also has special connections
looks at a few areas worth consideration. for things such as Serial ATA
drives and modern video cards.
Power Supplies
Choosing a power supply with
Computer power enough power shouldn’t be
supplies take the much of a problem, as having
high (110V or more power than you need is
220V) AC voltages never a bad thing. Just because a
from an electrical power supply is rated for 400W,
outlet and convert or perhaps 600W, does not imply
it to the various that it is drawing that at any given time. It
lower DC voltages just indicates the total power available to the
required for a various lines inside the computer. For those
system to operate. interested in getting a good idea of their
The typical voltages minimum power requirements, this Power
required inside a Wattage Calculator is a convenient reference.
computer are 3.3V, In addition to checking out the total wattage
5V, and 12V, where of a power supply, looking for strong amperage
the 3.3V and 5V ratings on the 3.3V, 5V, and 12V lines is also
lines are generally recommended, as power supplies with
used to power circuitry, and the 12V line identical total power ratings may distribute
provides power to run items such as hard the power to the various lines in different
drives, optical drives, and cooling fans. quantities.

Power supplies are sold in terms of their total Power supplies come in a few different
power output, in terms of wattage. Choosing physical sizes, but the most common are

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designed to fit the standard ATX and micro Surge Protectors


ATX (mATX) form factor cases. A typical ATX
power supply, such as this Echo-Star 680W
unit, measures 3.25” x 6” x 5.5” and features
two cooling fans to not only cool the power
supply, but to also help draw hot air out of
the computer. A typical mATX power supply,
such as this A-Power 320W unit, measures 2.5” Surge protectors are intended to protect your
x 5” x 4” and due to the smaller size features electronics from a brief increase in voltage
just one cooling fan. mATX cases are generally caused by such things as lightning, rolling
much smaller than ATX cases, and therefore blackouts, and heavy drawing electrical
have smaller power supplies, with generally equipment. A surge protector reacts to divert
lower power ratings, and fewer connectors. the extra electricity to ground, and thus
protects your expensive computer equipment
The connectors on a power supply also deserve from damage. A surge is any increase lasting
consideration. Most power supplies come with three nanoseconds or longer, so a surge
what looks to be an electric octopus of wires protector needs to react quickly. Most surge
hanging off the back surface, and you need to protectors also include a fuse (or breaker),
make sure that somewhere in that tangled and if the surge is too great to be handled
bundle are all of the connectors you need. without interruption, the fuse will blow.
The power supply should at least have as many Although the fuse may be destroyed, it’s a
connections as the number of drives, cooling small loss compared to what it may have
fans, and other items found in the case. Up saved.
until recently power supplies had a fixed
number of connections, and if you needed Surge protectors come in all shapes and styles.
more, you needed to use splitters to distribute Some basic models can even be found at your
the power to all the components. Modular local dollar store, but offer no more than a
power supplies, such as the Ultra X-Connect few outlets connected to a breaker. No serious
500W unit, are now available that eliminate protection is obtained, but many people just
that “electric octopus” all together, and allow want more outlets, not protection.
the end user to connect just the cables they
need. The flexibility of a modular power More serious surge protectors will probably
supply design not only lets you customize the cost a bit more than a dollar, but will offer
connections to your needs, it also makes for a some peace of mind that your equipment is
simple and tidy installation, since there are no actually being protected. In addition to
extra wires dangling inside the case. protecting from electrical surges, some devices
include extra features such as conditioning to
The selection of a high quality power supply filter out line noise and ports to protect other
may cost more money up front, but down the lines such as cable television, telephone, and
road it could wind up saving money. Many networking.
manufacturers now offer power supplies that
consume less energy thanks to high quality The Fellowes Smart Surge Power Strip protects
internal components, advanced designs, and up to 10 devices from surges, as well as offering
active power factor correction. These units line conditioning and ports to protect your
are now able to provide the same power to phone line. A highly appealing feature of such
the components in a computer, but due to a surge protector is that 4 of the ports are
increased efficiency, draw less power from the designed to accept bulky AC adaptors. For
electrical outlet. those with surge protectors that weren’t

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designed to be this user friendly, there is still a specific voltage. A run time after a power
hope in the form of Power Strip Saver Cables. failure is also generally specified for a UPS
Basically just 7 inch long extension cords, these based on a full load being placed on the
items can come in very handy when trying to device.
connect multiple AC adaptors to a more
traditional surge protector. Selecting a UPS needs to be based on the
intended use… A smaller unit, such as the
Uninterruptible Power Supplies Fenton 600VA, would be adequate for
powering a typical desktop computer, monitor,
and smaller peripherals such as a printer and
lighting for what they rate as 15-23 minutes
at full load. If multiple systems need to be
powered, or perhaps there are plans for future
expansion that will add to the power demands,
a larger unit such as the Tripp Lite 1500VA
may be more appropriate. The first two units
are intended to be set in close proximity to
the devices to be powered, perhaps on the
floor behind a desk, but if you are seeking to
add a UPS to a server, there are also rackmount
solutions such as the Opti-UPS 1100VA.
Many people familiar with Uninterruptible
power supplies (UPS) know that they can keep No matter the application,
a computer up and running during a total sizing a UPS may seem over-
power failure, but don’t know what else they whelming. One manufactur-
do. Most UPSes will also provide protection er, APC, has created a handy UPS Selector Ap-
from voltage surges and sags (when the plication which will take some of the guess
voltage drops below normal), as well as work out of choosing the right UPS for any
protection from the possibility of a shift in the particular application.
electricity’s frequency.
Final Words
UPSes come in two varieties, standby and
continuous, although standby versions are far A computer system is only as strong as its
more common and less expensive. A standby weakest feature, and many times that
UPS allows the devices connected to it to run distinction falls on the power supply and
from the normal electrical connection until a related components. By choosing a quality
loss of power is detected, at which point it power supply, surge protector, and perhaps a
quickly (in a matter of milliseconds) switches UPS, one can make sure that they have
to the battery backup of the UPS. A continuous adequately strong and stable power to keep
UPS always has the devices connected to it their system running now, as well as down the
running off of battery power, while the road when upgrades may increase the demand
batteries are recharged by the normal on their system.
electrical connection.

UPSes are sold in terms of their capacity, in


terms of VA (voltage multiplied by amperage).
This implies that devices connected to the UPS
can draw a maximum of so much amperage at

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MONITORS: Flat vs Flat


Tech Tip 5 - Jason Kohrs

Price

The price of LCD


monitors is much lower
than a few years (or
even months) ago, but
still far exceeds the
price of a comparable
As the technology has improved and the prices CRT monitor. For example, I spent about $600
have come down, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) (US) on a Viewsonic VA-720 17” LCD monitor
monitors have rapidly been replacing CRT in early 2003, and see that the same model
(Cathode Ray Tube) monitors on desktops now sells for less than $300. A significant
around the world. ComputerWorld first price drop, but in comparison a 17” Viewsonic
reported that LCD sales would surpass CRT CRT monitor can currently be purchased for
sales for the first time in 2003, a lead that it less than $100. The ratio of prices may have
didn’t hold for good. But according to Display- narrowed from about 5:1 to 3:1, but the aging
Search, a flat panel display market research technology behind CRTs still allows it to hold
and consulting company, the sales of LCD the lead.
monitors regained the lead over CRT sales in
the third quarter of 2004, a lead that it should You can’t even compare prices of CRTs to LCDs
eventually hold for good. in CompGeeks monitor section as they are
right in step with the sales information provid-
The question is why choose LCD over CRT? ed above, and now only carry LCD monitors.
There are several pros and cons to consider, Prices vary, even among LCD monitors of the
and the few items listed below will be consid- same screen size, so there has to be something
ered in this Geek Tip. more to it than price.

• Price Size
• Size
• Image Quality One reason that LCDs have gained in popular-
• Energy Consumption ity is because of their small foot print. The
• Personal Comfort overall size and weight of CRT monitors far
• Response Time exceeds that of LCD monitors. CRTs share the
same image processing technology with tube
televisions, and therefore share the same

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bulky style of housing. For example, the Brightness is an area that LCD monitors may
manufacturer’s web page lists this ACER 19” have the edge over CRTs, but it varies widely
LCD monitor as having a depth of a mere 6.9” from unit to unit. The standard measure for
(including the base) and a weight of 12.1 brightness is referred to as “nits”, which have
pounds. As a point of reference, a 19” ACER units of cd/m2 (candelas per square meter),
CRT is significantly larger with a depth of where a higher number is better. Looking at
16.86” and a hefty weight of 46.31 pounds. the three 17” LCD monitors currently avail-
able from geeks.com as examples shows two
Desktop real estate is precious, and an LCD with brightness specifications of 400 cd/m2
will require only a small fraction of the depth and one with a brightness specification of 250
that a CRT would require. And if there isn’t cd/m2. As a comparison, the typical CRT
even enough room on your desk for a slim monitor may provide half the brightness of
LCD monitor, the low weight makes them an LCD, as confirmed at Viewsonic’s Monitor
perfectly adaptable to be hung on the wall, University.
or off of a radial arm mount, such as this one
from Office Innovations. Contrast is similar to brightness in the fact
that it varies widely from unit to unit, and is a
Image Quality specification where a higher number is
desired. The contrast is represented as a ratio,
Image quality is where higher numbers imply that bright colors
generally consid- can be displayed next to dark colors without
ered to be better them appearing washed out. Monitors with
on an LCD, as lower numbers in the ratio may also result in
each pixel is dark shades being displayed as just black, and
generated by a any detail in these areas may be lost. As a
specific set of point of reference, CRT monitors may have
transistors in the contrast ratios around 700:1, and using the
screen, which three 17” LCD monitors currently available
produces a crisp from geeks.com as examples shows two with
image. But some contrast ratios of 450:1 and one with a contrast
features that fall under the general heading ratio of 400:1. 400:1 and 450:1 are quite
of image quality might not favor an LCD, respectable values for LCD monitors, but CRTs
including viewing angle, brightness, and may still have the edge in this department.
contrast.
Energy Consumption
Early LCD monitors had a fairly narrow viewing
angle that made clearly seeing the screen LCD monitors definitely hold the edge over
from anywhere but directly in front of it diffi- CRT monitors when it comes to being energy
cult. This has improved greatly, but still efficient. The huge tube in a CRT monitor is
doesn’t quite rival the viewing angle of CRTs the source of most of its energy consumption,
which provide the same picture quality regard- and a comparably sized LCD may use just a
less of the angle. A monitor with a maximum fraction of the electricity. Taking a look at
vertical viewing angle of 120 degrees should this 19” Jetway LCD monitor shows that it
not be hard to find at this point, with many consumes 48 Watts during normal operation,
monitors now being able to provide an even which is less than your typical light bulb. In
greater angle. contrast, a 19” CRT such as this one from
Viewsonic may draw up to 160 Watts. There-

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fore the fraction of electricity used in this case ghost effects where the previous image is still
is 3/10, and could translate to noticeable slightly visible with the new image.
savings on your electric bill.
LCD monitor response times have greatly
Personal Health and improved over the past few years, and many
Comfort LCDs are now fast enough to consider for
serious 3D gaming use, but specifications still
The main benefit that vary from unit to unit. A few years ago a
LCDs have when it typical response time on an LCD monitor may
comes to comfort is have been anywhere from 30 to 50 millisec-
the reduced strain on onds, and today these numbers can get down
your eyes. The reduced into the single digits, with anything 25 milli-
glare on the screen’s seconds or less being quite common (lower is
surface, and the elimination of a typical CRT’s definitely better). Using the three 17” LCD
“refresh”, can prevent your eyes from getting monitors currently available from geeks.com
tired from extended use. A CRT monitor as examples shows two with response times
redraws the image on the entire screen as it of 25ms and one with a response time of
refreshes, whereas an LCD monitor only 16ms.
changes the necessary pixels during a refresh.
Final Words
There may also be the unquantifiable effect
of reduced electromagnetic emissions on LCD In addition to some of the positives mentioned,
monitors. The exact impact of electromag- many LCD monitors now incorporate other
netic emissions may not be fully understood, features to make them more practical and
but in general less is considered to better, as even fun. LCD monitors can now be found
addressed in this article. And, your back may with integrated USB hubs, stereo speakers,
also appreciate an LCD when it comes time to and TV tuners (such as this 15” Sharp unit),
move, as the example above shows a 19” LCD and for the right price HDTV is even an
monitor weighs about ¼ as much as its CRT option.
counterpart.
LCD monitors will continue to replace CRTs as
Response Time they become less expensive and the many
benefits are realized by consumers, but CRTs
The transistors that create the image on a TFT won’t disappear all together as many situa-
LCD can be a bottleneck to its performance, tions require the performance that LCDs
especially in fast paced 3D games where speed currently can’t provide.
is critical. Related to the different approach
taken with screen refreshes, the amount of
time it takes the pixels to change in order to
display the new image is referred to as the
response time. If the response time is too
slow, one may experience blurred images or

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How to choose a PC case


Tech Tip 6 - Jason Kohrs

a Mini ITX comes in at a tiny 6.7” x 6.7”


(170mm x 170mm). ATX and mATX are by far
the most popular motherboard sizes for
consumer motherboards, and hence, most
cases are made to support one or both of
these sizes.

A mATX motherboard can obviously fit in a


smaller enclosure than an ATX motherboard,
and therefore there are different size cases
In the past, computer cases were all very available to match. The larger cases are gener-
similar. Clones of the same boring, beige box. ally downward compatible with smaller form
With all of the choices available today, this is factor motherboards, but the opposite is not
no longer the ‘case’, and people can use their true. For example, someone with this Amptron
systems’ chassis as a means to express mATX motherboard could save a few inches
themselves and to set their system apart from and install it in this 14.25” tall mATX case, or
the rest. Although appearance may be a big pick something like this black ATX case that
one, it isn’t the only factor in the selection stands just a bit taller at 16.5”.
process and the following items should be
considered when shopping for a new computer Many branded systems (ones that you may
case. buy prebuilt and with preinstalled software)
are usually a combination of a standard form
1. Form Factor factor (such a mATX) with some type of propri-
etary design (usually in the front panel
There are different sizes of motherboards, switches and cabling) and buying a new case
which in turn require different cases to house for these types of motherboards can be tricky.
them. Case form factors share the names of Some branded systems also use lesser used
the motherboards they support, and some of form factors such as NLX and LPX (which
the common ones include ATX, Micro ATX employ riser cards for the expansion slots) and
(mATX), FlexATX and Mini ITX. ATX mother- finding replacement cases for these type of
boards are perhaps the most common, and systems can be a very difficult and pricey
the largest of the four, measuring at most 12” endeavor.
x 9.6” (305mm x 244mm). A Micro ATX board
is at most 9.6” x 9.6” (244mm x 244mm), a A smaller system may be desirable where
FlexATX is 9.0” x 7.5” (229mm x 191mm) and space is tight, but larger form factor cases

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provide more room for multiple drives and similar in appearance to this other one, but
other peripherals, and a smaller motherboard they have one difference that may prove to
may be better suited to a larger case in a be a huge factor. They both have four exposed
system such as this. 5.25” bays, but one has two exposed 3.5” bays
while the other only has one. If a user had a
2. Size floppy drive and the 9-in-1 card reader, they
would either have to choose to install only
Size may one, or use an adaptor and take up one of
go along their 5.25” bays.
with form
factor in Internal bays are generally reserved for hard
m a n y drives, and systems with multiple drives
respects, require the necessary space. So, if a user
but even while considering cases of the same decided he really wanted a yellow colored
form factor, there can be variations in size in case, but needed room for five hard drives, he
a few respects. Areas where size can vary are would be forced to choose this one (5 internal
in overall dimensions, the number of exposed drive bays) over this one (4 internal drive
5.25” and 3.5” bays, and the number of inter- bays).
nal bays.
3. Cooling
ATX cases obviously need to be large enough
to hold an ATX motherboard; some are just Cooling is a critical feature to consider when
large enough, while others seem cavernous in selecting a computer case. High end systems
comparison. If a case needs to fit under a low can generate a good deal of heat, and the
shelf, or between items of a certain width, it case needs to be adequately cooled to keep
is important to choose an appropriately sized the system running and stable.
case. Cases come in two basic configurations
when it comes to their size and shape, either
desktop or tower. Desktop cases are wider
than they are tall and are oriented so the
motherboard lays flat, while tower cases have
the motherboard standing upright, and come
in three basic heights. mini tower, mid tower, The basic configuration for case cooling
and full tower. Tower cases are more common involves having one intake fan on the lower
these days, and currently the only style in the portion of the front surface, and one exhaust
Computer Geeks case inventory. fan higher up on the rear surface. This allows
cooler air to be drawn in, passed over the
The number of exposed drive bays is generally various heat generating components, and
in direct proportion to the overall size of the exhausted out the back. There are many other
case. A higher number of exposed 5.25” bays cooling configurations available that may
may be desirable for those with more than provide improvements in terms of cooling
one DVD or CD drive, removable drive racks, performance and noise.
and fan controllers. Exposed 3.5” bays are
generally occupied by floppy drives, Zip drives, One way to decrease noise, and perhaps move
fan controllers, and things like this 9-in-1 Card more air, is for a case to use 120mm (4”) fans
Reader, and in most cases you may get one or instead of the usual 80mm (3”) fans, as larger
two of these bays, maximum. This case is very fans don’t need to spin as fast to push the

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same volume of air. This A-Top Z-Alien utilizes savers!


a 120mm exhaust fan that also features
another key feature to good cooling. The fan Although the listing on the Computer Geeks
grill is very open, meaning that there will be site does not specify it, this X-Blade ATX case
minimal resistance to air flow and reduced features both a removable drive cage and
noise as the air rushes past it. Many fan grills tool-less drive rail system, according to this
are made from perforating the case’s sheet review.
metal, and they do not provide enough open
area for good airflow. 5. Convenience Items

Another approach to better cooling is to It is not enough for a case to house a computer
throw more fans at the heat. This Matrix case system any more, it now needs to multi-task.
adds another fan to the side panel which will Having regularly used connections on the
draw cool air in right on top of the processor front or top of the case is one common conve-
and video card, two of the hotter items in a nience feature that many people look for.
system. Other cases will add an exhaust fan Cases such as this A-Top Z-Alien model let
to the top of the case, which pushes the heat users forget about the annoyance of reaching
out just like a chimney. around the back of their case to plug things
in, as USB, Firewire, headphone and micro-
No matter the approach, cooling is one area phone jacks are located on the top.
that needs close consideration when it comes
to cases intended for today’s high powered Other cases are available that take conve-
systems. nience to another level by including clocks,
digital thermometers that monitor specific
4. Installation Features components, and fan controllers to help
maintain a healthy balance between noise
and cooling performance.

6. Style
Installing a system into a case can be a time
consuming affair, which can become annoy- A few years ago cases only
ing to those who find themselves in a continu- came in one color and one
ous cycle of upgrading. Many cases now basic style. plain beige
include convenient features to make installa- boxes. If you’re nostalgic
tion much simpler, and far less time for the olden days of
consuming computer cases, Computer
Geeks still has one for sale
Some of these convenient installation features in this style, the KG-200.
include a removable motherboard tray, remov- But cases now come in styles
able drive cages, tool-less expansion card from mild to wild, and in a
mounts, tool-less side panels, and tool-less whole rainbow of colors.
drive rail systems. Being able to remove the Some have large windows
motherboard tray and drive cage makes it in the side panel to show
easier to work on those specific areas in the off the case’s insides, some
open, and having a tool-less system for mount- include special lighting effects, and some have
ing drives or cards means there is no need for appearances that might scare the kids. At this
screws or a screw driver. Definitely time point there seems to be few limits in case

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design, but there are always classically styled and other power hungry peripherals that
cases in updated color schemes for those who might be installed.
want something modern looking, but nothing
too intense. Final Words

7. Power Supply There are many factors that go into selecting


an adequate case for a computer system,
Many cases are sold with a power supply including the seven mentioned above. What
included, but this power supply might not be may wind up being the most important factor
the correct one for the system to be installed was not discussed, but can hopefully be
inside of it. An adequate power supply needs addressed by balancing the importance of
to be chosen to meet the demands of the these factors. price. Computer cases can cost
system, and this may very well mean buying anywhere from several dollars to several
an additional power supply to replace the one hundred dollars, meaning that a tight budget
included, or selecting a different case with a may decide which of the other features is
more appropriately sized power supply. really all that important.

For example, someone may decide their high


end gaming system would go well in this black
ATX case, but the included 300W power supply
may not be strong enough for a top notch
graphics card, multiple drives, water cooling,

tech tips
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geeks.com
Tech Tips Community Geeks.com
Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
the Computer Geeks.

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ABCs of DVD Drive Abbreviations


Tech Tip 7 - Jason Kohrs

files, Versatile is definitely the keyword.

Start with the Basics

A DVD-ROM drive is the only one we will


address that does not record. ROM stands for
Read Only Memory, and refers to the typical
drive that can merely read DVDs, as well as
CDs (all DVD drives can read CDs). The Lite-On
LTD-163-DO-R has attributes representative
of your typical DVD-ROM drive, and features
a maximum DVD read speed of 16x and a
The number of different formats available in maximum CD read speed of 48x.
DVD drives can be confusing to anyone in the
market for one. The list is much longer, but to Before getting into the different recordable
address a few of the common formats, we formats, let’s address the basics of what the R
have DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, and RW stand for, regardless of whether there
DVD+RW, DVD-RAM ,DVD+R DL and DVD±RW. is a + or – in the middle. R stands for Record-
Wow! This list of common formats is long able, which indicates that the disk may be
enough, no wonder it’s confusing! recorded to only once. RW stands for ReWrit-
able, which indicates that the disc may be
What’s with all the Formats?! recorded to more than once, and are gener-
ally rated for 1000 rewrites under good
The reason for various recordable DVD formats conditions.
is that no one group owns the technology and
different Groups have chosen to support one
technology over another. There is no indus-
trial standard for manufacturers to reference,
so for the time being consumers will have a
few choices.
The DVD-R/-RW format was developed by
The first thing to address is DVD itself, which Pioneer, and was the first format compatible
stands for Digital Versatile Disc. Some may with stand alone DVD players. The group that
argue that the V stands for Video, but with promotes the technology calls itself the DVD
the capability to store video, audio, and data Forum, which is “an international association

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of hardware manufacturers, software firms, The +R/+RW and –R/-RW formats are similar,
content providers, and other users” with and the main difference DVD+R technology
notable members such as Hitachi, Samsung, has is the ability to record to multiple layers
and Toshiba. The DVD-R/-RW format is based (with its new DVD+R DL format), where DVD-
on CD-RW technology and uses a similar R can only record to one layer (not all +R drives
approach to burning discs. are capable of dual layer burning, but no -R
drives are). The Plextor PX-504U is an example
of an external DVD+R/+RW drive capable of
recording single layer discs in the +R/+RW
format, but also able to read discs recorded
by a DVD-R drive.

The DVD+R/+RW format is a newer format, What is DVD±RW?


also based on CD-RW technology, and compat-
ible with a large percentage of stand alone DVD±RW is not actually a separate format,
DVD players. The +R/+RW technology is not but the designation given to drives capable of
supported by the DVD Forum, and its main both –R/–RW and +R/+RW operation. This type
backing comes from a group called the of drive is typically called a “Dual Drive” (not
DVD+RW Alliance. The Alliance “is a volun- to be confused with a “Double Layer” drive)
tary group of industry-leading personal since it can write to both the +R/+RW and –R/–
computing manufacturers, optical storage RW formats. The Samsung TS-H552 is a
and electronics manufacturers” with members DVD±RW drive capable of reading and writing
such as Dell, Hewlett Packard, Sony, and every format discussed so far, and then some.
Phillips Electronics. It takes advantage of DVD+R DL (Double
Layer) technology available with the +R
format, allowing the appropriate media to
store virtually double the 4.37 GB capacity of
a typical single layer disc.

The other main thing to consider with DVD


The DVD-RAM format is based on PD-RW burners is selecting the correct media. Media
(Phase-Differential) drives, and actually uses a for DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW
cartridge to hold the media (just like its PD- media may all look the same, but they are
RW predecessor). Some DVD-RAM cartridges slightly different in order to match the specific
are double sided, making them ideal for recording formats. The price of media for
companies to use as system backup, hence either format is generally the same, with RW
DVD-RAM is usually found only in commercial media costing a good deal more than R media
applications, and most end-users won’t ever of either format. Double Layer media is even
need to use or see this type of drive. The DVD- more expensive, and is the only way for an
RAM standard is also supported by the DVD owner of DVD+R DL drive to take advantage
Forum just like the DVD-R/RW format. of the tremendous capacity increase. As the
However, because of its use of a cartridge amount of Double Layer drives increase in the
(limiting it’s compatibility), and the scarcity market, the price of the DVD+R DL media is
and price of the media used, DVD-RAM is a expected to fall with increased production of
distant third when compared to the DVD+R/ the media. DVD Burners (as these drive are
+RW and DVD-R/–RW technology. often referred to) can be picky about the
media supported, so be sure to choose your

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media wisely. • DVD-RW: Writes to DVD-RW media (will


also typically write to DVD-R, CD-R and
DVD in a Nutshell CD-RW media)
• DVD±RW: Writes to DVD-RW and
• DVD-ROM: Reads DVD discs DVD+RW media (will also typically write
• DVD+R: Writes to DVD+R media (will also to DVD-R, DVD+R, CD-R and CD-RW
typically write to CD-R and CD-RW media) media; typically called “Dual Drives” since
• DVD+RW: Writes to DVD+RW media (will it can burn to two different DVD formats)
also typically write to DVD+R, CD-R and
CD-RW media) Final Words
• DVD+R DL: Writes to DVD+R DL (Double This article took a look at the more common
Layer) media (will also typically write to formats of DVD drives in order to shed some
DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD-R and CD-RW light on all the choices available. The differ-
media; many Double Layer drives are ences between them all may be subtle, but
ALSO dual drives – that is, able to write to the compatibility issues can be quite frustrat-
BOTH +R/RW and –R/RW media) ing. The simple answer to anyone considering
• DVD-RAM: Writes to DVD-RAM cartridges a drive is to forget about + and – by themselves,
(not in wide use on consumer market – and shoot for universal compatibility with a
mainly a business format; can also read good DVD±RW with DVD+R DL support.
PD-RW discs. Will not usually be able to
write to any other format including CD-R
or CD-RW)
• DVD-R: Writes to DVD-R media (will also
typically write to CD-R and CD-RW media)

tech tips
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geeks.com
Tech Tips Community Geeks.com
Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
the Computer Geeks.

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ATA vs SATA
The performance of computer systems has
been steadily increasing as faster processors,
Tech Tip 8 - Jason Kohrs

memory, and video cards are continuously Committee (the group responsible for the ATA
being developed. The one key component standard)) which supports data transfer rates
that is often neglected when looking at up to 133MB/sec. This is expected to be the
improving the performance of a computer last update for the parallel ATA standard.
system is the hard drive. Hard drive manufac-
turers have been constantly evolving the basic As long ago as 2000 it was seen that the paral-
hard drive used in modern computer systems lel ATA standard was maxing out its limita-
for the last 25 years, and the last few years tions as to what it could handle. With data
have seen some exciting developments from rates hitting the 133MB/sec mark on a parallel
faster spindle speeds, larger caches, better cable, you are inviting all sorts of problems
reliability, and increased data transmission because of signal timing, EMI (electromag-
speeds. netic interference) and other data integrity
issues; thus industry leaders got together and
came up with a new standard known as Serial
ATA (SATA). SATA has only been around a few
years, but is destined to become “the standard”
due to several benefits to be addressed in this
Tech Tip.

The two technologies that we will be


looking at are:

ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment)– a


16-bit parallel interface used for controlling
The drive type used most in consumer grade computer drives. Introduced in 1986, it has
computers is the hardy ATA type drive undergone many evolutions in the last 18+
(commonly called an IDE drive). The ATA years, with the latest version being called
standard dates back to 1986 and is based on a ATA-7. Wherever an item is referred to as
16-bit parallel interface which has undergone being an ATA device, it is commonly a Parallel
many evolutions since its introduction to ATA device. ATA devices are also commonly
increase the speed and size of the drives that called IDE, EIDE, Ultra-ATA, Ultra-DMA, ATAPI,
it can support. The latest standard is ATA-7 PATA, etc. (each of these acronyms actually do
(first introduced in 2001 by the T13 Technical refer to very specific items, but are commonly

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interchanged) flat ribbon, but many prefer the improved


system air flow afforded, ease of wire manage-
SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attach- ment, and cooler appearance that come with
ment)– a 1-bit serial evolution of the Parallel them.
ATA physical storage interface.
SATA drives, such as this 120GB Western Digital
Basic Features & Connections model, have a half inch wide, 7 “blade and
beam” data connection, which results in a
much thinner and easier to manage data
cable. These cables take the convenience of
the ATA rounded cables to the next level by
being even narrower, more flexible and
capable of being longer without fear of data
loss. SATA cables have a maximum length of
1 meter (39.37 inches), which is much greater
than the recommended 18 inch cable for ATA
drives. The reduced footprint of SATA data
connections frees up space on motherboards,
potentially allowing for more convenient
layouts and room for more onboard
features!
SATA drives are easy to distinguish from their
ATA cousins by the different data and power A 15-pin power connection delivers the 250mV
connections found on the back of the drives. of necessary power to SATA drives. 15-pins
A side-by-side comparison of the two inter- for a SATA device sounds like it would require
faces can be seen in this PDF from Maxtor, a much larger power cable than a 4-pin ATA
and the following covers many of the device, but in reality the two power connec-
differences… tors are just about the same height. For the
time being, many SATA drives are also coming
Standard ATA drives, such as this 200GB with a legacy 4-pin power connector for
Western Digital model, have somewhat bulky, convenience.
two inch wide ribbon cable with 40-pin data
connections and receive the 5V necessary to Many modern motherboards, such as this
power them from the familiar 4-pin connec- Chaintech motherboard, come with SATA
tion. The basic data cables for these drives drive connections onboard (many also includ-
have looked the same for years. A change was ing the ATA connectors as well for legacy drive
made with the introduction of the ATA-5 compatibility), and new power supplies, such
standard to better improve the signal quality as this Ultra X-Connect, generally feature a
by making an 80 wire cable used on the 40- few of the necessary 15-pin power connec-
pin connector (these are commonly called 40- tions, making it easy to use these drives on
pin/80-wire cables). To improve airflow within new systems. Older systems can easily be
the computer system some manufacturers upgraded to support SATA drives by use of
resorted to literally folding over the ribbon adapters, such as this PCI slot SATA controller
cable and taping it into that position. Another and this 4-pin to 15-pin SATA power adapter.
recent physical change also came with the
advent of rounded cables. The performance Optical drives are also becoming more readily
of the rounded cables is equal to that of the available with SATA connections. Drives such

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as the Plextor PX-712SA take advantage of Price


the new interface, although the performance
will not be any greater than a comparable
optical drive with an ATA connection.

Performance

In addition to being
more convenient to
install and drawing
less power, SATA
drives have perfor-
mance benefits that
really set them apart Comparing ATA drives to SATA drives can be
from ATA drives. tricky given all of the variables, but in general
it is the case that SATA drives will still cost just
The most interesting performance feature of a bit more than a comparable ATA drive. The
SATA is the maximum bandwidth possible. As gap is closing rapidly though, and as SATA
we have noted, the evolution of ATA drives drives gain in popularity and availability a
has seen the data transfer rate reach its distinct shift in prices can be expected. Consid-
maximum at 133 MB/second, where the ering the benefits of SATA over ATA, the
current SATA standard provides data transfers potential difference of a few dollars can easily
of up to 150 MB/second. The overall perfor- be justified when considering an upgrade.
mance increase of SATA over ATA can currently
be expected to be up to 5% (according to Final Words
Seagate), but improvements in SATA technol-
ogy will surely improve on that. The current SATA standard provides signifi-
cant benefits over ATA in terms of conve-
The future of SATA holds great things for nience, power consumption and, most impor-
those wanting even more speed, as drives tantly, performance. The main thing ATA has
with 300 MB/second transfer rates (SATA II) going for it right now is history, as it has been
will be readily available in 2005, and by 2008 the standard for so long that it will not likely
speeds of up to 600 MB/second can be disappear any time soon. The future of SATA
expected. Those speeds are incredible, and will be even more interesting as speed
are hard to imagine at this point. increases will help hard drive development
keep pace with other key system
Another performance benefit found on SATA components.
drives is their built-in hot-swap capabilities.
SATA drives can be brought on and offline
without shutting down the computer system,
providing a serious benefit to those who can’t
afford downtime, or who want to move drives
in and out of operation quickly. The higher
number of wires in the power connection is tech tips
partially explained by this, as six of the fifteen brought to you by
wires are dedicated to allowing the hot-swap
feature.
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5 Simple Steps
No one wants their computer to be loud, but
in order to keep components running at safe
to a Quieter PC
Tech Tip 9 - Jason Kohrs
temperatures, cooling fans can wind up
making the system sound like a blow dryer. In
a busy office environment some noise may go resides, a noise reduction can be achieved
unnoticed, but as computers find their way because the larger fan can move the same
into more rooms of the home, near silence is amount of air at a lower rotational speed. In
essential. A computer sitting in the living general, the slower a fan moves the less noise
room for use with a home theater system has it will make. The ball bearings on many fans
to be quiet so that it doesn’t interfere with are a source of vibration which in turn create
the enjoyment of music or movies, for example. noise. Selecting a fan with fluid or sleeve
Complete systems and high end components bearings will greatly reduce the noise created,
are available to combat computer noise, but which is generally a good thing, except for
this Tip will look at a few areas to quiet exist- one instance.
ing systems on a minimal budget.
Ball bearing fans
1. Cooling Fans can be counted
on to get even
The bulk of all noisier just
noise in a before failure,
computer system letting you know
is going to come when replace-
from the cooling ment is neces-
fans mounted sary. Fluid or
on the case and sleeve bearings
from any heat will just fail
generating without such a
components warning which could jeopardize other system
such as the components. One other caveat to sleeve-
processor. Cases generally employ 80mm fans bearing fans vs. ball-bearing fans is that
with ball bearings to keep cool air flowing. sleeve-bearing fans generally tend to fail
Two steps to reduce noise include increasing sooner than ball-bearing fans. A quality
the fan size and choosing a fan with fluid or processor cooler is essential to keep a high
sleeve bearings. If a 120mm fan can be powered system running cool, but it isn’t
installed where the 80mm fan presently always necessary to run the fan installed at

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full speed. Some coolers, such as the Cooler pass the air without restriction. Along the
Master Aero 4, include a simple fan speed dial same lines, but applied to other areas of the
that can be mounted either in the back or the case, the X Blade ATX Window Case has a
front of the case for convenient adjustment. fairly open design on both the front grill and
For those bold enough to run plumbing inside the side panel for 80mm fans to draw in cool
a computer, water cooling kits such as the air. Experimenting with the size, speed and
Cooler Master Aquagate can take cooling placement of case fans can lead to a setup
performance and quiet operation to a whole with adequate cooling and low noise produc-
new level. Many cooling fans will actually list tion that might not be expected. It is possible
the decibel level of the noise that they gener- for some cases to be cooled well with a single
ate. The lower the number, the better. In 120mm exhaust fan while leaving the other
practical terms, below 20 decibels (db) would various fan locations empty. The noise will
be super quiet; 20 to 30 decibels, somewhat obviously be less with fewer fans running and
quiet; 30 to 40 decibels, somewhat noisy; and if the temperatures are acceptable there is no
over 40 decibels, just plain noisy. need to use all of the fans just because they
are there.
2. Cases
3. Fan Controllers
The design of a case is
a key factor in the Fan controllers
system’s cooling are available in
performance and n u m e r o u s
noise generation. A configurations,
case with ample venti- but they all serve
lation is required to the same function… to allow a fan to run at
keep the components something other than full speed. Just reduc-
cool, and a few things ing a fan’s speed by 5-10% can have a notice-
can be done to achieve able impact on noise, but zero impact on
this without adding cooling performance. Some fan controllers
to the noise level. “Of most interest is the operate automatically, using a thermal sensor
availability of multiple fan mounting locations to vary the speed of the fan in direct propor-
in a case, as well as the open area provided tion to the temperature sensed. This type is
for the fans to move air.” (not sure why there convenient as it requires no user interaction
are quotation marks around this sentence.) but eliminates any possibility of custom
Taking a look at the back of this Gladiator control. Manual speed controllers put all of
ATX Window Case shows that the user has the the power in the user’s hands, generally with
flexibility to mount an 80mm fan, or opt for a dial that adjusts the fan’s speed by varying
the previously described benefits of a 120mm the resistance on the line powering it. The
fan. But, the perforations provided for the air Cooler Master Cool Drive 4 is primarily a hard
to pass through are somewhat restrictive, drive cooler, but it also serves the function of
which could add to the noise level as the wind a four channel manual fan speed controller.
whistles through the small openings. This is From one digital control panel, up to four
nothing that someone handy with a Dremel temperatures can be monitored, and the
couldn’t remedy, but for those who don’t corresponding fans can be monitored and
want to cut up their case, compare the Z-Alien controlled to maintain a healthy balance
ATX Window Case to the Gladiator. There is between noise and temperature.
much more open area for a 120mm fan to

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4. Power Supplies ing. Examples of some of these isolation


products can be applied to many areas of a
The typical computer system and may drastically reduce
computer the overall noise, no matter what components
power supply are installed. For the bottom of the computer
features two case, rubber feet are available to replace the
80mm fans to hard plastic ones generally found. Silicone
keep it cool, gaskets can be installed between a power
which will supply or case fan and the case to reduce the
obviously also transmission of vibrations and the amplifica-
generate some noise. Fanless power supplies tion of noise. If you want to keep the noise
are now available that generate zero noise, inside your case, there is even adhesive backed
but none have found their way to the shelves sound insulation that can be applied to the
at Geeks.com. These fanless power supplies inside walls of a computer case.
don’t follow the guidelines of typical design
and there are other ways to quiet a power Final Words
supply without removing the fans all together.
The MGE Vigor 450W Power Supply incorpo- The number of components and accessories
rates two ideas already discussed in other available to quiet a computer is overwhelm-
sections in order to reduce noise from the ing and growing daily as people become fed
power supply. It features a larger 120mm fan up with the noise from their vacuum cleaner…
to move more air with less speed and a fan I mean computer! Silencing a computer can
speed control knob to allow the user to reduce be a costly endeavor, but taking a few relatively
the speed even more, if they desire. Some inexpensive steps can have a drastic impact on
other companies, such as Clever Power (which the noise produced by the common computer
Computer Geeks sells from time to time), system. Before starting on any sound reduc-
specialize in making super quiet power tion upgrades, analyzing a system to pinpoint
supplies with a variable fan that automatically the areas in need of the most attention will
increases and decreases the spin of the fan help determine the best course of action and
depending on the system’s power draw. the best way to spend any money.

5. Noise / Vibration Isolators

Products are available to reduce the vibration


caused by system components, as well as to
insulate the case to keep the noise from escap-

Tech Tips Community Geeks.com


Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
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Bluetooth Basics Tech Tip 10 - Jason Kohrs

Capabilities

The FAQ on the Bluetooth.org website offers


a basic definition: “Bluetooth wireless technol-
Bluetooth technology is nothing new, but in ogy is a worldwide specification for a small-
many respects it still seems to be more of a form factor, low-cost radio solution that
buzz word rather than a well understood, provides links between mobile computers,
commonly accepted technology. You see mobile phones, other portable handheld
advertisements for Bluetooth enabled cell devices, and connectivity to the Internet.”
phones, PDAs, and laptops, and a search of
the Computer Geeks website shows all sorts Just like 802.11 b/g wireless networking
of different devices taking advantage of this systems and many cordless telephones,
wireless standard. But, what is it? Bluetooth devices operate on 2.4 GHz radio
signals. That band seems to be getting a bit
History crowded, and interference between devices
may be difficult to avoid.
Before getting into the technology, the word Telephones are now being
Bluetooth is intriguing all on its own, and offered on the 5.8 GHz
deserves a look. The term is far less high tech band to help remedy this,
than you might imagine, and finds its roots in and Bluetooth has taken its
European history. The King of Denmark from own steps to reduce inter-
940 to 981 was renowned for his ability to ference and improve trans-
help people communicate, his name (in mission quality. Version 1.1
English)... Harald Bluetooth. Perhaps a bit of the Bluetooth standard
obscure, but the reference is appropriate for greatly reduces interference issues, but
a wireless communications standard. requires completely different hardware from
the original 1.0C standard, thus eliminating
Another item worth investigating is the any chance of backwards compatibility.
Bluetooth logo, shown above. Based on
characters from the runic alphabet (used in The typical specifications of Bluetooth indicate
ancient Denmark), it was chosen as it appears a maximum transfer rate of 723 kbps and a
to be the combination of the English letter B range of 20-100 meters (65 to 328 feet -
and an asterisk. depending on the class of the device). This
speed is a fraction of that offered by 802.11 b

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or g wireless standards, so it is obvious that tage that Bluetooth wireless keyboard/mouse


Bluetooth doesn’t pose a threat to replace combinations have over the standard RF
your wireless network. Although it is very wireless keyboard/mouse combinations is
similar to 802.11 in many ways, Bluetooth was range. Where most standard RF keyboard/
never intended to be a networking standard, mouse combinations have a range up to 6
but does have many practical applications. feet; a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse combina-
tion will usually have a range of up to 30
Practical Applications feet.

Browsing the Computer Geeks website shows The HP JetDirect BT1300 Bluetooth printer
a variety of products that take advantage of adapter makes sharing a printer extremely
Bluetooth’s capabilities, from laptops and convenient by eliminating the need for any
PDAs, to headphones and input devices, and wires or special configurations on a typical
even wireless printer adapters. network. Printing to
any compatible HP
Laptops, such as the Toshiba printer from a PC,
Tecra 9000, include an onboard PDA or mobile phone
Bluetooth adapter to allow the can now be done
system to connect to any easily from anywhere
Bluetooth device right out of in the office.
the box. For laptop or desktop
systems that do not have an Final Words
adapter built in, there are USB
Bluetooth adapters, such as the Belkin At this point the popularity of Bluetooth
F8T001. might not be as large as some proponents
would have hoped, but many devices are
Bluetooth enabled PDAs, such as the HP iPAQ available for those interested. The cost and
hx4700 , allow for convenient wireless synchro- competition from other standards have
nization and data transfer. hindered the widespread acceptance, but
Bluetooth does offer a viable solution to many
Headphones can take advantage of Bluetooth devices that might not have wireless connec-
for two purposes… audio playback and mobile tivity without it.
phone communications. Using something like
the Logitech Mobile Headset with a Bluetooth
enabled mobile phone allows anyone to go
hands free, as well as wire free.

Logitech, and other


manufacturers, also
produce input devices
that eliminate wires
thanks to Bluetooth. You tech tips
can add a Bluetooth brought to you by
mouse to your system,
such as the Logitech MX900, or both a mouse
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Basics of RAID
A couple of the recent
Tech Tip 11 - Jason Kohrs
Tech Tips have made tions that provide different approaches to
mention of RAID, but redundancy, but some RAID configurations
the level of detail are not redundant at all. Fault tolerance refers
required in those tips to a system’s ability to continue operating
didn’t shed much light when presented with a hardware (or software)
on what RAID actually is. failure, as should be experienced when a hard
The number of e-mail drive fails in one of the redundant configura-
responses and comments tions of RAID.
in the Readers Digress
section was convincing The Hardware
enough that an intro-
duction to the basics of The basic hardware required to run RAID
RAID would be an appro- includes a set of matched hard drives and a
priate Tech Tip, so here RAID controller.
it is.
RAID can be run on any type of hard drive,
Introduction including SCSI, SATA, and ATA. The number of
hard drives required is dependent on the
The word RAID sounds like it might describe particular RAID configuration chosen, as
something Marines conduct in Fallujah, or a described later. I mention the need for
can of what all roaches fear, but it is simply an matched hard drives, and although this is not
acronym that stands for Redundant Array of absolutely neces-
Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks. Depend- sary, it is recom-
ing on who you talk to, the letter “I” can stand mended. Most
for either independent or inexpensive, but in arrays will only be
my opinion independent is more appropriate, able to use the
and far less subjective. capacity of the
smallest drive, so if
RAID generally allows data to be written to a 250GB Hitachi
multiple hard disk drives so that a failure of drive is added to a
any one drive in the array does not result in RAID configura-
the loss of any data, as well as increasing the tion with an 80GB
system’s fault tolerance. I say RAID generally Hitachi drive, that
does this, as there are several RAID configura- extra 170GB would

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probably go to waste the only time that this Another piece of hardware that is not
doesn’t apply is in a RAID configuration called required, but may prove useful in a RAID array
JBOD “Just a Bunch Of Disks”; which really is a hot swappable drive bay. It allows a failed
“isn’t a RAID configuration” but just a conve- hard drive to be removed from a live system
nient thing that a RAID controller can do – see by simply unlocking the bay and sliding the
“Basic RAID Configurations” below for more drive cage out of the case. A new drive can
information. In addition to matching capaci- then be slid in, locked into place, and the
ties, it is highly recommended that drives system won’t skip a beat. This is typically seen
match in terms of speed and transfer rate as on SCSI RAID arrays, but some IDE RAID cards
the performance of the array would be will also allow this such as this product
restricted by the weakest drive used. One manufactured by Promise Technology.
more area that should be considered while
matching is the type of hard drive. RAID The Software
controllers are generally for either SCSI, SATA,
or ATA exclusively, although some systems RAID can be run on any
allow RAID arrays to be operated across modern operating
controllers of different formats. system provided that
the appropriate drivers
The RAID control- are available from the
ler is where the RAID controller’s
data cables from manufacturer. A
the hard drives are computer with the
connected, and operating system and
conducts all of the all of the software
processing of the already installed on one
data, like the drive can be easily be cloned to another single
typical drive connections found on a mother- drive by using software like Norton Ghost. But
board. RAID controllers are available as add it is not as easy when going to RAID, as a user
on cards, such as this Silicon Image PCI ATA who wants to have their existing system with
RAID controller, or integrated into mother- a single bootable hard drive upgraded to
boards, such as the SATA RAID controller RAID must start from the beginning. This
found on the Asus K8V SE Deluxe. Mother- implies that the operating system and all
boards that software needs to be re-installed from scratch,
include RAID and all key data must be backed up to be
controllers can restored on the new RAID array.
be operated
without the use If a RAID array is desired in a system for use as
of RAID, but the storage, but not as the location for the operat-
integration is a ing system, things get much easier. The exist-
nice feature to ing hard drive can remain intact, and the
have if RAID is a necessary configuration can be made to add
consideration. the RAID array without starting from scratch.
Even for systems
without onboard RAID, the relatively low cost Basic RAID Configurations
of add on cards makes this part of the upgrade
relatively pain free. There are about a dozen different types of
RAID that I know of, and I will describe five of

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the more typical configurations, and usually the sum of individual drives. Using those same
offered on RAID controller cards. two 160GB Seagate drives from above in RAID
1 would result in a total capacity of 160GB.

is one of the configurations that does not


provide redundancy, making it arguably not a as the name may imply, is a combination of
true RAID array. Using at least two disks, RAID RAID 0 and RAID 1. You have the best of both
0 writes data to the two drives in an alternat- worlds, the performance boost of RAID 0 and
ing fashion, referred to as striping. If you had the redundancy of RAID 1. A minimum of four
8 chunks of data, for example, chunk 1, 3, 5, drives is required to implement RAID 0+1,
and 7 would be written to the first drive, and where all data is written in both a mirrored
chunk 2, 4, 6, and 8 would be written to the and striped fashion to the four drives. Using
second drive, but all in sequential order. This the 8 chunks of data from the example above,
process of splitting the data across drives the write pattern would be something like
allows for a theoretical performance boost of this… Chunks 1, 3, 5, and 7 would be written
up to double the speed of a single hard drive, to drives one and three, and chunks 2, 4, 6,
but real world results will generally not be and 8 would be written to drives two and
nearly that good. Since all data is not written four, again in a sequential manner. If one
to each disk, the failure of any one drive in drive should fail, the system and data are still
the array generally results in a complete loss intact. The capacity of a RAID 0+1 array is
of data. RAID 0 is good for people who need equal to half the total capacity of the individ-
to access large files quickly, or just demand ual drives. So, using four of the 160 GB Seagate
high performance across the board (i.e. drives results in a total capacity of 320GB
gaming systems). The capacity of a RAID 0 when configured in RAID 0+1.
array is equal to the sum of the individual
drives. So, if two 160GB Seagate drives were
in a RAID 0 array, the total capacity would be
320GB.
may be the most powerful RAID configura-
tion for the typical user, with three (or five)
disks required. Data is striped across all drives
in the array, and in addition, parity informa-
is one of the most basic arrays that provides tion is striped as well. This parity information
redundancy. Using at least two hard drives, all is basically a check on the data being written,
data is written to both drives in a method so even though all data is not being written
referred to as mirroring. Each drive’s contents to all the drives in the array, the parity infor-
are identical to each other, so if one drive fails, mation can be used to reconstruct a lost drive
the system could continue operating on the in case of failure. Perhaps a bit difficult to
remaining good drive, making it an ideal describe, so let’s go back to the example of
choice for those who value their data. There is the 8 chunks of data now being written to 3
no performance increase as in RAID 0, and in drives in a RAID 5 array. Chunks one and two
fact there may be a slight decrease compared would be written to drive one and two respec-
to a single drive system as the data is processed tively, with a corresponding parity chunk
and written to both drives. The capacity of a being written to drive three. Chunks three
RAID 1 array is equal to half the capacity of and four would then be written to drives one

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and three respectively, with the correspond- boost, just additional connections for adding
ing parity chunk being written to drive two. more drives to a system. A smart thing that
Chunks five and six would be written to drives JBOD does is that it can treat the odd sized
two and three, with the corresponding parity drives as if they are a single volume (thus a
chunk being written to drive one. Chunks 10GB drive and a 30GB would be seen as a
seven and eight take us back to the beginning single 40GB drive), so it is good to use if you
with the data being written to drives one and have a bunch of odd sized drives sitting around
two, and the parity chunk being written to – but otherwise it is better to go with a RAID
drive three. It might not sound like it, but due 0, 1 or 0+1 configuration to get the perfor-
to the parity information being written to the mance boost, redundancy or both.
drive not containing that specific bits of infor-
mation, there is full redundancy. The capacity Final Words
of a RAID 5 array is equal to the sum of the
capacities of all the drives used, minus one Implementing RAID may sound daunting to
drive. So, using three of the 160GB Seagate those unfamiliar with the concept, but with
drives, the total capacity is 320GB when some of the more basic configurations it is not
configured in RAID 5. much more involved than setting up a
computer to use a standard drive controller.
But, the benefits of RAID over a single drive
system far outweigh the extra consideration
required during installation. Losing data once
is another non-redundant configuration, due to hard drive failure may be all that is
which does not really offer a true RAID array. required to convince anyone that RAID is right
JBOD stands for Just a Bunch Of Disks (or for them, but why wait until that happens.
Drives), and that is basically all that it is. RAID
controllers that support JBOD allow users to
ignore the RAID functions available and simply
attach drives as they would to a standard drive
controller. No redundancy, no performance

Tech Tips Community Geeks.com


Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
the Computer Geeks.

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MMC and SD

Flash memory is available in so many formats that it can be difficult to know what will
work with any particular device. Devices such as MP3 players, PDAs, mobile phones,
digital cameras, and personal computers can take advantage of flash memory to bolster
their storage capacity, but selecting the right format may be easier said than done.

To try to address all of the common formats in one Tech Tip might be quite a read, so
we're doing a two part series on Flash Memory. Part I of the Flash memory series will
focus on two similar, very popular and generally interchangeable formats: MMC and SD.

The Basics

Before getting into the details, some background on each card may be appropriate. The
letters ‘MMC' stand for MultiMedia Card, which is a format that was developed jointly
by SanDisk and Siemens in 1997. The letters ‘SD' stand for Secure Digital, and this
format is an improvement on the original MMC design, and was developed jointly by
SanDisk, Matsushita Electronics (better known as Panasonic) and Toshiba.

Both formats are quite durable and the solid state (no moving parts) components are
protected by a rigid plastic shell. The devices are generally unaffected by extreme
temperatures, and should withstand a drop of 10 feet without experiencing any damage
from shock.

Physical Features

Both MMC and SD flash memory units measure approximatly 24mm x 32mm x 2.1mm,
about the size of a typical postage stamp, and weigh a mere 2 grams. This miniature
footprint may make them about the easiest way to misplace your data, but also allows the
devices that accept them to be smaller. Personal electronics are shrinking as they get
more powerful, and the necessary accessories need to keep pace. Although they share the
same basic form factor, MMC and SD cards can be distinguished by two physical
features, a sliding tab and the number of connections.

When looking at an MMC or SD card so that the label is facing you, and the electrical
connections are facing away from you, there will be a notch in the upper right corner of
the card. From this point of reference there will be a small sliding tab on the left edge of
an SD card, not found on an MMC card. Compare this 512MB MMC card with this
512MB SD card and you can see the difference if you look closely at the enlarged
images. This tab slides into two positions, locked and unlocked. It allows the user to
manually write protect the data on the card, which means with the tab in the locked
position data can be read from the card, but nothing can be written to or erased from the
card.

The other physical difference is on the backside of the card. An MMC card features
seven electrical connections (small rectangular pads for data transfer and receiving
power), whereas an SD card has nine.

• While there may be rare exceptions, for all practical purposes, SD & MMC cards
may be used interchangeably on current devices, especially if they indicate
"SD/MMC" compatibility.

Transfer Rate

SD and MMC cards are capable of similar data transfer rates, with a slight edge going to
the SD cards. SD cards are now available with write speeds rated at 60x (9 MB/s) and
read speeds rated at 66x (10 MB/s), while MMC transfer rates seem to peak at 9 MB/s in
either direction. Not much of a difference and both are quite fast, but end user results
will vary and may not reach these speeds in real world use, regardless of format chosen.

SD and MMC cards should reference a speed as part of the technical specification, and it
is an important thing to consider when shopping around. Lower speed cards are still
commercially available, and can have an impact on the performance of digital cameras or
other devices where speed may be critical. Each ‘x' in the speed rating represents 0.15
MB/s, so if 45x compared to 66x doesn't sound like a big deal to you, maybe putting it in
terms of 6.75 MB/s compared to 10 MB/s will. Instead of actual speed ratings, some
manufacturers will use words like “High Speed” or “Ultra” when referring to the faster
cards.

Note: Check the actual write speed specs of your device before purchasing "Ultra" or
"High Speed' chips. You could be putting a Hemi engine in a AMC Gremlin. Don't spend
the extra money if the camera does not support it.

Capacity

SD cards are readily available in sizes up to 1 GB, 2 GB models are starting to show up,
and the SD Card Association states that models with up to 4 GB and 8 GB of storage
capacity are also on the way. In contrast, MMC cards have a maximum capacity of
512MB, making the SD technology much more appealing.

Security

As mentioned in the physical features section above, SD cards offer the benefit of write
protection. By ‘locking' the card, a user can be assured that the data is secure until they
take the necessary step to un protect it. Fears of accidentally losing or changing data can
be eliminated by using an SD card over an MMC card, thus improving the security of the
data.

Another feature supported by SD, but not MMC, involves copyright protection. The
SanDisk web site refers to this feature as "cryptographic security for protection of
copyrighted data", and other locations reference it as DRM, or Digital Rights
Management. Basically, licensed content can be written to an SD card and it can not be
executed except from that specific card.

Applications

In general, SD and MMC cards are interchangeable and either can be used in a
compatible device. An SD card may generally cost more than an MMC card with the
same capacity, but as seen in this Tech Tip, it does offer more for the money.

Many card readers are available for personal computers that promote the ability to read
and write to a variety of common flash media formats. A 15-in-1 reader/writer, such as
this one, can be made quite compact thanks in part to the fact that two of the 15, MMC
and SD, can be read from the same slot on the device.

MP3 players generally come with a base amount of memory to store music files, but
having an expansion slot allows users to increase the capacity, and play time, by adding
flash memory of their choice. The Pogo RipFlash MP3 Player is such a device, providing
256MB onboard as well as an SD/MMC slot for easy expandability.

Mobile phones and PDAs can also take advantage of increased storage space thanks to
flash memory slots. The Handspring Treo 600 is a combination phone/PDA that offers
an SD/MMC slot for such convenience.

And of course, digital cameras use flash memory as their ‘film', where larger and faster
cards are always a welcome upgrade. The 6.1 MegaPixel Kodak DX7630 could fill up
the same SD/MMC card much faster than the 3.2 MegaPixel Umax AstraPix 640, but one
of the great things about these cards is that the user can choose the size, as well as the
quantity to have on hand, in order to suit their particular needs and budget.

One word of warning – be sure to check your device for the capacity of the card that it
can handle. If your camera can handle only up to a 512 MB card, then using a 1 GB card
in the camera will be pointless (depending on the device, some will not even be able to
read the card, whereas others will only use up to the capacity that it is rated for. Either
way, you want to make sure that you match the card properly to the device). So as
always, check your product's manual to be sure that you buy memory that it can support.

Final Words

MMC and SD are two of the more commonly used formats of flash memory, but as
mentioned, there are several others. Keep an eye out for next week's Tech Tip: Part II of
the Flash Memory Series will address Compact Flash, Smart Media, Memory Stick, and
xD formats.
Flash Memory, Part II

In the first part of the series on flash memory, an overview was provided for two fairly common
formats; MultiMedia Card and Secure Digital. In this installment, we will wrap things up with an
overview of four other common formats: CompactFlash, SmartMedia, xD, and Memory Stick (yes,
there are actually even MORE, but these six constitute the ones used most in the Flash Memory
universe).

It would be convenient for consumers if manufacturers could all agree on one format of flash memory,
but don’t hold your breath for that to happen! With flash memory being used in various devices such
as MP3 players, PDAs, mobile phones and digital cameras, one can count on having as many
choices in devices as in the memory required for them.

This Tech Tip will cover some of the basics of each format mentioned, providing information on the
history and technology of each.

CompactFlash

CompactFlash technology was developed by SanDisk in1994, making it one of the oldest flash
memory formats currently in use.

According to the CompactFlash Association (http://www.compactflash.org/), CompactFlash cards


have the potential for capacities up to 137 GB and data transfer rates of up to 66 MB/s. But, current
devices can realistically be expected to have capacities of up to 12 GB and data transfer rates of up
to 16 MB/s. Both of which are still very impressive (and currently very expensive for the large
capacity cards).

Every CompactFlash card is 43mm wide and 36mm long, but depending on the type of card, they can
have two different thicknesses. Type 1 CompactFlash cards are 3.3mm thick, Type 2 CompactFlash
cards are 5.5mm thick, and these dimensions make the cards fairly large as compared to other flash
memory. The connections for these cards are found at one end and feature two rows of 25 sockets
that supply either 3.3V or 5V to the card (they can operate on either). This 1 GB SanDisk model
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SD-CF1GB-N&cat=RAM) is an example of a typical Type II
CompactFlash card.

The larger size of the CompactFlash cards may seem like a disadvantage, but it is necessary for one
of the main advantages. It is the only format of flash memory where the controller is actually onboard,
making it more universally compatible and capable of increased performance by unloading the
processing burden from slower devices that it may interface with.

The thickness of the cards can also be considered a bonus for two other reasons. There is plenty of
space inside for large capacity high density memory modules, and the longevity of the device may be
increased since they are more rugged than many other form factors.

Microdrives are a separate type of compact storage device first developed by IBM, but they share the
same interface and general dimensions as a Type 2 CompactFlash card (Microdrives actually have
teeny-tiny spinning discs in them – they are not solid state flash memory like CompactFlash).
Computer Geeks sells a 2.2 GB Microdrive by MagicStor
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GS1022C-N)
SmartMedia

SmartMedia was first developed by Toshiba, and the technical name for it is actually Solid-State
Floppy-Disk Card (or SSFDC for short). Just as CompactFlash has a group backing it, Smart Media
is promoted by the SSFDC Forum (http://www.ssfdc.or.jp/english/).

All SmartMedia is 37 mm wide by 45 mm long by about 0.25 mm thick, with a notch found in one
corner, and exposed “golden” contacts on the back side. At less than 1mm thick, SmartMedia is
easily the thinnest of the flash memory formats. The maximum capacity one can expect to find for
SmartMedia is a mere 128 MB, making it a less than appealing solution for modern mass storage.
SmartMedia’s popularity has been on the decline for years as more powerful technologies have
emerged to replace it. Computer Geeks stocks 128 MB
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SM128) and 64MB
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SM64) SmartMedia cards as well as a couple of adapters
that let you use a SmartMedia card in a CompactFlash
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SMTOCF) or PCMCIA (notebook)
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SMTOPCMCIA) slot.

The extremely low profile is in part achieved by the lack of an onboard controller, and by the fact that
SmartMedia is basically just memory modules embedded in a plastic card. The controlling is
conducted by the device using the memory, which is how all flash memory but CompactFlash operate
anyway.

Early SmartMedia cards operated on 5V, but the current standard uses 3.3V. Older 5V cards can not
be used in 3.3V SmartMedia devices, so it is important to know the difference between them. Holding
a SmartMedia card so the exposed electrical contacts are facing you and positioned at the top of the
card, if the notch is on the left it operates on 5V, if the notch is on the right it operates on 3.3V. This
notch also prevents one type of card from being fully inserted into a device that is not designed to
accept it.

xD

The xD (eXtreme Digital) format was launched by Fujifilm and Olympus in 2002, and is promoted by
the group at the official xD-Picture Card website (http://www.xd-picture.com/). With a complete name
of xD-Picture Card, this format was intended solely for use with digital cameras, although it did find
applications elsewhere. Fujifilm and Olympus were two of the biggest supporters of SmartMedia, and
the launch of xD was a pretty good sign that the future of SmartMedia was limited.

Each xD card measures a mere 20mm by 25mm by 1.7mm, making them smaller in overall size than
even SD and MMC cards. The maximum capacity of xD cards is expected to be 8 GB, but typical
cards can be expected up to 1 GB in size. The read speeds of xD cards is up to 5 MB/s, while write
speeds can be up to 3 MB/s, making them fast, but not the fastest. xD cards also operate on 3.3V,
and are promoted not only for their minimal size, but for their low power consumption.

This 128MB Olympus model (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=O-XD-PC128-N&cat=RAM) is


an example of a typical xD card.

Memory Stick

Memory Stick flash memory was first launched back in 1998, and although it has the support of many
manufacturers, it seems to be most prominently used in Sony brand devices, including digital audio
devices, cameras and even televisions. Memory Stick is promoted by the group at the official Memory
Stick website (http://www.memorystick.com/), which has a good deal of information about the media
and applications for it.
Memory Stick flash memory looks a bit like a stick of gum, but slightly smaller, measuring about 50
mm by 21.5 mm by 2.8 mm. Current models can be expected with capacities of up to 2 GB, and
Memory Sticks with capacities of 4 GB to 8 GB may be available soon. According to the Memory
Stick website, maximum (theoretical) data transfer rates of up to 160 Mbps can be expected, although
real world results will most definitely be lower. Expect a memory Stick to actually provide read
speeds of up to 2.45 MB/s, and write speeds of up to 1.5 MB/s.

Memory Sticks come in four flavors (so to speak) the original Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and
Duo versions of each. Memory Stick PRO offers faster speeds and larger capacities over the original
Memory Stick. The Duo modules are smaller and actually use an adapter to fit into Memory Stick
slots. Note that not all devices that take Memory Sticks can use Memory Stick PRO modules – be
sure to check your manual.

This 256MB SanDisk model (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SDMSV-256-A10-


N&cat=RAM) is an example of a typical Memory Stick card.

Final Words

Say you have devices that require you to have some or all of these different types of flash memory…
Interfacing with all of them could be inconvenient if not for devices such as this 15-in-1 flash memory
card reader that Computer Geeks sells (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=USB20-18-IN-1). A
compact device (1/2” x 4” x 2-1/4”) such as this is all that is necessary to read and write to any of the
cards covered in these two Tech Tips and then some.

Flash memory can be a bit confusing for such a small, seemingly simple device. Six of the more
common formats have been covered in this series of Tech Tips, and hopefully the background
information and basics of each technology can help users make purchasing decisions with more
confidence.
Motherboard Basics

A recent Tech Tip covered the basics of selecting a computer case (http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-122304.htm)
and made mention of the various sizes that correspond to motherboards of different form factors. A few people
wrote in expressing interest in understanding more about the basics of motherboards, and that’s exactly what
this Tech Tip intends to address.

A motherboard, also known as a main board, is the primary circuit board inside of a computer, and is where the
central processing unit (CPU), memory, expansion slots, drives, and other peripheral devices are connected.
The circuitry on a motherboard facilitates the communication between all of the devices in the computer,
making them as critical to a system’s performance as items such as the CPU or memory.

The core circuitry of a motherboard is referred to as its chipset, and generally the manufacturer of the
motherboard is not the manufacturer of the chipset. Intel does produce motherboards with their own chipsets,
but buying a motherboard brand such as Gigabyte, Biostar, and ASUS means getting a board with either a
VIA, Nvidia, SIS, or Intel brand chipset.

1. Form Factor

The different basic shapes and sizes of motherboards are categorized as form factors. There are several
standard form factors available, but some of the more common ones found in desktop computers include:
(http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/atx2_2.pdf), ATX
(http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/matxspe1.2.pdf), Micro ATX (mATX)
(http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/FlexATXaddn1_0.pdf) FlexATX
(http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/mini-itx/) and Mini-ITX

The basic sizes of each are as follows:

• ATX: 12" x 9.6" (305mm x 244mm)


• Micro ATX: 9.6" x 9.6" (244mm x 244mm)
• FlexATX: 9.0" x 7.5" (229mm x 191mm)
• Mini ITX: 6.7" x 6.7" (170mm x 170mm)

ATX and mATX are by far the most popular motherboard sizes for desktop computers, and as seen in the list
above, are also some of the largest. More real estate on a motherboard allows for greater expansion
possibilities and extra features, which make the use of these boards more flexible. A Mini-ITX board may
feature just one slot for memory and one slot for an expansion card, while a typical ATX board may feature 4
memory slots and six slots for expansion cards.

Each form factor has its own niche that it fits into, from workstations and gaming systems for larger boards to
media centers and in-car computers for smaller boards. There is definitely overlap between the potential
applications of each form factor, and other features and capabilities will also influence the targeted use.

2. CPU Socket

The major processor manufacturers, AMD and Intel, are constantly waging a battle to offer the fastest, most
powerful processors available. Getting more speed and performance out of a relatively small chip generally
requires a change to the physical dimensions as each new generation of processor is released. Therefore,
motherboards need to evolve at the same pace in order to accept the new CPUs.

Back in the day, AMD and Intel processors shared a common CPU socket, but those days were short lived.
AMD and Intel have since been traveling down their own, relatively parallel, paths of performance and speed
increases, while using different designs. Selecting a motherboard for a modern AMD processor eliminates the
use of any Intel processor, and vice versa.

AMD’s current offering for desktop processors includes the Athlon 64, which is available in Socket 939
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MBB#Socket939Motherboards) and Socket 754
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MBB#Socket754Motherboards) formats. The number in the names
represents the number of pins present on the backside of the CPU that connect to the motherboard’s socket.
The Socket 939 Athlon 64 therefore has a staggering array of nine hundred and thirty nine tiny pins to match
up with the motherboard’s socket. The Chaintech VNF4 Ultra (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VNF4-
ULTRA-N&cat=MBB) is an example of a Socket 939 motherboard based on Nvidia’s NForce4 Ultra chipset
technology. In addition to these two sockets, many AMD processors, including Athlon XPs, Semprons, and
Durons, share the Socket A format (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MBB#SocketAMotherboards),
also known as Socket 462 thanks to it having 462 pins for connecting to a motherboard.

Intel’s latest offering for their Pentium 4 and Celeron processors, LGA 775
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MBB#Socket775Motherboards), doesn’t have pins at all and
basically swaps the pins to the motherboard for the socket. Perhaps this design move puts the burden of bent
pin warranty claims on someone else, but it is fairly unique. The Biostar P4M80-M7
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P4M80-M7&cat=MBB) is an example of an LGA 775 motherboard
based on the VIA P4M800 chipset. Other Intel processors still on the market utilize the Socket 478 format
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MBB#Socket478P4Motherboards) for Pentium 4 and Celeron
processors.

Although most motherboards support just one CPU socket, some applications benefit from having more than
one processor to tackle the tasks at hand. Servers and high end workstations are two examples where a dual
processor system, such as could be run on the Tyan Thunder i7500
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=S2720GN-2-XEON18&cat=MBB) motherboard, might make light
work of more advanced applications.

3. Components

‘Components’ is a fairly vague term to describe this section, but the items to be covered are fairly diverse.
Computer systems all use memory, storage devices, and power supplies, but among the many differences
motherboards have is the type and quantity of connections for these components.

Most modern systems use DDR memory (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#184-


pinDDRDIMMMemory), but DDR-2 memory (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#240-
pinDDR2DIMMMemory) is becoming more common and will eventually become the standard. Although some
boards provide slots for both types of memory, it is generally the case that either one or the other technology is
supported. Besides operating differently, the physical difference of DDR having 184 pins and DDR-2 having
240 pins prevents them from being interchangeable. Going forward, users will have to decide whether they
want to jump on the new technology bandwagon when selecting a motherboard, or to try to continue using their
existing DDR for as long as possible. Regardless of technology, most motherboards come with 2 to 4 slots for
memory, although as mentioned, Mini-ITX boards may just offer 1 slot.

Hard drive technology is changing too, as mentioned in the Tech Tip comparing SATA to ATA hard drives
(http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-010605.htm). Most motherboards over the past few years have offered two ATA
connections, which could support up to 4 drives. With SATA becoming more popular, some boards now offer a
mix of ATA and SATA connections, while others have abandoned ATA all together, and instead offer multiple
SATA connections which only support one drive each. In addition to type and quantity, motherboards can also
offer choices in hard drive capabilities by integrating RAID (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-012705.htm)
controllers onboard, as found on the ASUS K8V SE Deluxe (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=K8VSE-
DELUXE&cat=MBB).

As systems become more advanced, they many times impose special power requirements to keep them
running smoothly. Most motherboards feature the typical 20 pin ATX power connector, while some server
boards may have a 24 pin connection in its place. Motherboards for AMD Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 processors
will have a second power connection located in close proximity to the CPU socket for providing the extra power
that today’s high end processors demand. This special 4 pin connection isn’t found on every AMD Socket A
motherboard, but it will most definitely be located on an AMD Socket 939 motherboard. Power supplies have
been including this special connection for years, but for those upgrading an old system with a new
motherboard, the power supply may be just one more item that has to be upgraded as well.

4. Extra Features

Many motherboards now include features onboard that were once only available as expansion cards to be
purchased separately. A typical motherboard will now include stereo sound capabilities, a 10/100 LAN
connection, and a few USB 2.0 ports on the back panel connection. Depending on the budget and needs of
the end user, many motherboards may also include other convenient features such as integrated Firewire
ports, VGA connections, and onboard RAID controllers.

Although many of these items may be added later with expansion cards, if you know you want them upfront, a
bit of installation hassle and expense can be eliminated by finding a board with just about everything you want
included. That said, there aren’t many choices of onboard components, so it’s a case of take it or leave it. For
example, you may want stereo sound included, but find most motherboards offer 5 channel, where you would
prefer 8 channel. In that case, it may be a good thing that motherboards include expansion slots to add the
sound card of your choice.

5. Expansion Slots

A motherboard typically provides at least one slot for the installation of a graphics card
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=VCD) and a few slots for expanding the capabilities of the system in
other areas.

Graphics cards are available in PCI, AGP, and now PCI Express formats, and matching a motherboard to the
appropriate card is a key step. Most motherboards released over the past few years include an AGP slot, and
the new wave of motherboards are now starting to feature PCI Express slots for graphics card installation.

PCI slots are found on most motherboards, but are much slower than AGP and PCI Express slots, so they are
not the optimal choice for graphics. ATX motherboards may typically feature four to five PCI slots, and
although they could be used for secondary display graphics cards, more common applications include sound
cards, network cards, RAID controllers, TV tuners, modems, and USB/Firewire controllers. Considering that
many of these items are now included onboard, having multiple PCI slots isn’t quite as important as it used to
be.

6. Style

With enthusiasts adding windows and special lighting effects to just about every feature of a computer, why
should the motherboard be left out of the action? Long gone are the days of the stereotypical green PCB with
white connectors, and now most boards feature a vibrantly colored PCB and a rainbow of colors on expansion
slots, memory slots, drive connectors, and so on.

For example, if someone was undecided on a mATX board for their Socket 754 AMD Athlon 64, style might be
the deciding factor. The Chaintech MK8M800 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MK8M800&cat=MBB)
and the Biostar K8VGA-M-N (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=K8VGA-M-N&cat=MBB) are similar
boards featuring the VIA K8M800 chipset and prices under $70. The golden PCB with black and white
features of the Chaintech board may appeal to some, while the red, white, blue, and yellow of the Biostar may
sway others.

In general, a particular model is only available in one color scheme, and many manufacturers use the same
theme across their entire current line up. As an example, the Biostar board for AMD Athlon 64 processors
above features the same basic style as this Biostar board for the new Pentium LGA 775 processors
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P4M80-M7&cat=MBB). In addition to coloring, some manufacturers
will include LED lighting on chipset cooling fans, or accessorize motherboards with matching cables to
complete the unique looks of the board.

Some people may scoff at colors being included in the list of key features on motherboards, but there will be
some that shop for style first, and then performance.

Final Words

There are many factors to address in selecting a motherboard, and this Tech Tip really just scratched the
surface of the basic choices that may need to be considered. Much more technical decisions may need to be
made by the advanced user, but covering the six basic areas discussed above is a good start for users of any
level.
Expansion Cards Part 1: PCI

The expansion slots available on motherboards allow for a variety of upgrades in a computer system, but
matching the appropriate card to an available slot needs to be addressed before making any purchasing
decisions. The most common types of expansion cards for modern computer systems can be broken down
into three formats: PCI, AGP, and PCI Express. Each of these formats will be addressed separately in this
three part series of Tech Tips, starting with PCI.

The letters “PCI” stand for Peripheral Component Interconnect, and is the term used to describe a bus that
connects components directly to the system’s memory and to the system’s processor through the “frontside
bus.” When discussing communications on a motherboard, the term “bus” has nothing to do with the big
yellow thing that takes the kids to school. There may be several buses in a computer, and like the PCI bus,
they are all responsible for managing the communication “traffic” from different devices to the processor.

The frontside bus is a high speed connection that manages the processor’s communication with items such as
hard drives, memory, and PCI devices, while not burdening the processor with all of the management
responsibilities.

First developed by Intel in the early 1990s, PCI was spawned from even earlier (and slower) bus architectures
such as ISA (Industry Standard Architechture) and VL-Bus (VESA Local), which were common back in the
1980s and 1990s.

The original specifications for the PCI Bus had a speed of 33 MHz, with a 32-bit bus width, and a maximum
bandwidth of 132 MB per second. There have been a few revisions to the PCI standard which have
significantly increased these specifications, taking it to 66 MHz, 64-bit, and 512 MB per second, respectively.
The 32-bit and 64-bit versions have different physical features, and most motherboards only offer 32-bit
connections. The original power specification had PCI devices operating on 5V DC, and with the revisions
came the capability for devices to continue using 5V, as well as now being able to operate on 3.3V DC.

A simple explanation of 32-bit and 64-bit can be had by continuing the analogy of buses and traffic. Think of
each bit as a lane of traffic on the communication path. Think of a 32-bit bus as having 32 lanes of traffic, and
a 64-bit bus having 64 lanes of traffic. Just as a greater number of cars can travel simultaneously on a road
with more lanes, more data can be transferred on a bus with a larger bit count.

Motherboards can support multiple slots sharing one PCI Bus, and although not particularly common, can
include more than one PCI bus. Depending on the form factor size of the motherboard, and other features that
may be taking up space on the board, one can expect to have one to six PCI slots on a typical motherboard.
For example, the mATX format Chaintech MK8M800 VIA K8M800 Socket 754 Motherboard
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MK8M800&cat=MBB) features just two 32-bit PCI slots, while the
ATX format AOpen AX4GE Max Intel 845GE Socket 478 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AX4GE-
MAX&cat=MBB) features six 32-bit PCI slots.

A 32-bit PCI card features 124 pins for mating with a slot on a system’s motherboard, and will fit into either a
32-bit or 64-bit slot (although data transfer will be 32-bit in either type of slot).
32-Bit PCI Card

A 64-bit PCI card features 184 pins for mating with the appropriate slot on a system’s motherboard, but can
generally fit into a 32-bit slot as well, as long as features on the motherboard do not interfere. When installed
in a 32-bit slot, data transfer on a 64-bit card will be limited to 32-bit.

64-Bit PIC Card

The Intel STL2 Dual Socket 370 Server Board (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=G7ESZ-BULK-


R&cat=MBB) is a good reference for comparing 32-bit and 64-bit PCI slots. Looking at the lower left corner of
the motherboard shows four 32-bit PCI slots and two 64-bit PCI slots.

Subsequent installments in this series of Tech Tips will look at AGP and PCI Express, each of which has its
own unique physical features. Although the different format PCI cards may be interchangeable, PCI, AGP, and
PCI Express cards do not work (or fit) in any other type of slot.

Most PCI cards will be of the 32-bit variety, and the selection of items available is fairly extensive. Graphics
cards, sound cards, network cards, RAID controllers, TV tuners, modems, and USB/Firewire controllers are all
common items that may be added to a system through the use of a PCI card.

Many of the items listed in the previous paragraph can be found integrated on modern motherboards, but these
onboard devices offer no upgradeability. PCI devices provide plug and play installation, allowing a user to
install (or remove) a device with ease. For example, an inexpensive 2-channel sound card
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AU8810&cat=SND) may be good enough for someone initially, but
down the road they may decide that something like the 7.1 channel Sound Blaster Audigy 2
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SB0350-1&cat=SND) offers the sound quality they really want.
Upgrading is a matter of powering down the system, swapping the cards, rebooting, and installing the new
software/drivers (OK, perhaps a bit over simplified). The good thing about PCI cards is that, even if you do
have a board with built-in feature (such as built-in sound mentioned above), your motherboard’s BIOS will
usually lets you disable that feature if you did want to add an upgraded card (such as the Audigy sound card
mentioned in the example above), or the card can complement the feature already built-in (such as an IDE
RAID card).

The one area that drove the development of AGP is the performance of PCI based graphics cards. The
demands of fast-paced video games, and other graphically intensive applications, require a great deal of
bandwidth, which just wasn’t available on the PCI Bus. Considering that all of the devices on the PCI Bus
share the bandwidth available, an even faster, dedicated bus was required to handle just the graphics data.
PCI graphics cards (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=VCD#StandardPCI) are still available though,
and make for an easy way to add a second display to a system currently operating on an AGP or PCI Express
graphics card.

Final Words

The PCI slot has been around for a while, and seems to have a place in at least the near future of computer
architecture. AGP and PCI Express offer performance benefits that the PCI standard cannot match, but for
many applications, the performance offered by PCI is more than adequate. Be sure to check out the next Tech
Tips in this series for the basics of AGP.
Expansion Cards Part 2: AGP

The first in this series of Tech Tips on expansion cards took a look at the PCI slot, and the variety of devices
that may find their home in one. Graphics cards are one of the many items that may be used in a PCI slot, but
the demands of fast-paced video games require more speed and greater bandwidth than the PCI Bus can
provide. Thus, the AGP slot was born, providing a dedicated interface to transfer graphics data only.

The letters ‘AGP’ stand for Accelerated Graphics Port, and it is the term used to describe a dedicated, point-to-
point interface that connects a video card directly to the system’s memory and processor.

AGP was first introduced by Intel in 1996, and is based off of their previous work in developing the PCI bus.
Despite being based on PCI technology, the AGP and PCI slots on a motherboard are not interchangeable, so
an AGP card can not be installed into a PCI slot, and vice versa.

The initial release of AGP saw a sizeable performance boost over PCI, and the few revisions to the standard
helped increase this even more as years went by. Other than having a dedicated path to the system’s memory
and processor, several other design features help AGP outperform PCI when it comes to graphics
performance. Three of the other advancements: pipelining, side band addressing and graphics address
remapping table are described below.

Data transfer is improved through ‘pipelining’, a term used to describe the ability of an AGP graphics card to
receive, and act upon, multiple instructions simultaneously. PCI data transfers require each piece of
necessary information to be received separately before acting on any of it.

Something called ‘side band addressing’ also provides AGP with a performance boost. Basically, additional
lines of data are included with each packet to instruct the system as to where this data is to be used. PCI data
transfers do not have this addressing information, and the system must look at the data itself in order to
determine its destination. This is an obvious time saver, as well as a resource saver since the processor
doesn’t have to analyze all data just to determine the address.

AGP allows the operating system to store texture maps (http://webopedia.com/term/t/texture.html) in the
system’s memory which allows for more space, and perhaps faster access, rather than being limited to the use
of graphics card memory only. Graphics art address remapping table, also known as GART, is a term used to
describe a process that maps physical memory as virtual memory for the storage of texture maps. Basically,
GART takes the system memory it is allowed to use to store texture maps and re-addresses it so that the
system thinks these maps are now actually being stored in the frame buffer, or virtual memory. This might not
sound like anything special, but this re-addressing requires that the texture map be written to memory only
once and it is locked into place right where the AGP card can find it quickly.

AGP can be broken down into different groups based on revisions to the specification (AGP 1.0, AGP 2.0, and
AGP 3.0), as well as by the general speeds (1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x). There is overlap between the various
categories, with AGP 1.0 supporting 1x and 2x, AGP 2.0 supporting 1x,, 2x, and 4x, and AGP 3.0 supporting
4x and 8x. For a complete break down of all the combinations available, please visit this page
(http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_AGP.html).

Before taking a look at the specifications of AGP, let’s have a refresher as to what was available on PCI prior
to the birth of AGP. The standard PCI bus has a width of 32-bit, operates at 33 MHz, provides a maximum
bandwidth of 132 MB/s (which has to be shared by all devices connected), and operates on 3.3V (or 5V on the
original standard).
The first version released was AGP 1.0 with a speed of 1x, which offered the following specifications: 32-bit
bus width, operating at 66 MHz, providing a maximum bandwidth of 266 MB/s, and utilizing 3.3V. So, it can be
seen that right out of the gate, AGP offered double the bandwidth of PCI.

Each speed increase over 1x provided double the bandwidth as well as double the clock speed through the
use of special signaling. So, AGP 2x offers a maximum bandwidth of 533 MB/s at a speed of 133 MHz, AGP
4x offers a maximum bandwidth of 1066 MB/s at a speed of 266 MHz, and AGP 8x offers 2.1 GB/s at a speed
of 533 MHz.

Given the timeline of the evolution of these cards, AGP 8x cards dominate today’s marketplace. Finding some
cards that are backwards compatible is possible, but the tricky part may be ensuring that the slot on the
motherboard will accept them. Comparing the connector on this 128MB Apollo GeForce FX6600 GT card
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AGP6600GT-128MB&cat=VCD), to the connector on this 64MB
Hercules 3D Prophet Ultra II card (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AGP-3DPIIU-64MB-
TV&cat=VCD), and to the connector on this 256MB Chaintech GeForce FX5200 card
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SA5200-N&cat=VCD) shows that the first one is obviously different
than the second two. The Apollo card is 8x only, the Hercules card is 4x/2x compatible, and the Chaintech
card is 8x/4x, which results in different notches in the connector.

AGP 1.0 only features a 3.3V connection, the release of AGP 2.0 saw the availability of both a 3.3V and 1.5V
connector, and AGP 3.0 uses the same 1.5V, but only requires 0.8V for signaling. In order to protect cards of
different voltages/formats, special keyed connectors were designed so that only the correct card could be
installed on any motherboard. A universal connector was eventually released for AGP 1.0/2.0 which allowed
cards of either voltage to be installed. For a schematic of the various connectors, please visit this page
(http://www.motherboards.org/imageview.html?i=/images/articles/tech-planations/920_p5_1.jpg). Although
AGP 3.0 can share in the use of a universal connection, many motherboards now only support 4x/8x cards
based on the AGP 3.0 standard.

Another specification for AGP was released between 2.0 and 3.0, and was referred to as AGP Pro. AGP Pro
was intended to be the new standard to meet the demands of high powered graphics workstations, but it never
really garnered widespread acceptance. Speeds of 1x, 2x, and 4x were supported with AGP Pro, and it
utilized either a 3.3V, 5V, or a universal connector, similar to AGP 2.0. But, the AGP Pro connector was not
the same size as the ‘standard’ AGP connector (see schematic at link above), meaning there were now three
more possible connections to consider. An AGP Pro connection is longer than a standard AGP connection,
and depending on the connector type, it could accept AGP 1.0 and 2.0 cards.

Modern motherboards supporting AGP will specify what type of card is compatible with the board, so the guess
work is eliminated when trying to match one with the other. For example, this Socket 754 Chaintech
motherboard (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MK8M800&cat=MBB) specifies that it has one AGP
4x/8x slot and this Biostar LGA 775 motherboard (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P4M80-
M7&cat=MBB) specifies that it has one 8x AGP slot.

Final Words

The AGP slot provided a much-needed boost to graphics cards as compared to the PCI slot, but game
developers still managed to push the capabilities of this more powerful format to the edge. Something even
faster was needed, and the next Tech Tip will take a look at that something in “PCI Express.” PCI Express is
not only destined to be the successor to AGP 8x, but due to its flexibility, perhaps to PCI as well.
Expansion Cards Part 3: PCI Express

In the first two installments of this series of Tech Tips, we took a look at PCI and AGP, undoubtedly the most
common expansion slots in a computer today. With a few key improvements over both of these, PCI Express
is destined to replace both and offer a whole new level of computer performance.

As with AGP and PCI, the development of PCI Express can be attributed to Intel. This time, however, they
partnered with some other heavy hitters in the industry, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Dell. Although it is now
known as PCI Express, that was not their initial choice for its name. If it wasn’t for PCI-SIG
(http://www.pcisig.com/home), the committee that oversees the PCI standard, we might be referring to this new
format at 3GIO (Third Generation Input / Output).

PCI Express development finds its roots in the PCI and AGP standards, but the physical connections are not
interchangeable, and we will see that this is not the only difference. In the PCI standard, data from the various
devices travels over a shared bus to the system. In the AGP standard, a dedicated, point-to-point interface
transmits the data from the graphics card to the system. The PCI Express approach to data transfer involves a
collection of two-way, serial connections that carries data in packets, similar to the way a network connection
operates.

The data from a PCI Express device will no longer have to travel over a single bus, or a single dedicated
connection, but can use a combination of these two-way serial connections to optimize throughput. The terms
“lane” and “link” don’t sound like anything overly technical, but take on special meaning with PCI Express. A
link is the physical connection between PCI Express devices, which can consist of multiple lanes that transmit
and receive data independently. Links can be composed of 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, or 32 lanes, and the
configuration allows flexibility in assigning just as many lanes as needed to any particular device. There are
obvious benefits to this approach, and a few of the more significant include the following points…

Each lane of PCI Express communication is dedicated between two points, so there is no sharing of
bandwidth. PCI’s main bottleneck was that all the devices were sharing the equivalent of one lane, and all of
the available bandwidth also had to be shared.

Multiple lanes can be assigned to devices whose performance would benefit from the extra speed and
bandwidth. A PCI Express graphics card (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=VCD#PCIExpress(PCIe))
might be assigned 16 lanes (also referred to as x16), while a network adaptor might be assigned just 1 lane.
Each lane you make available to a device increases the potential for performance, as the data is sequenced
up/down each available lane to optimize throughput. This process of sending the next byte of data down the
next available lane is referred to as data striping, and obviously more lanes are better for instances where a
good deal of data needs to be transmitted quickly.

Speaking of graphics cards, another benefit is that multiple high performance graphics cards can be installed
on one motherboard. The flexibility of PCI Express allows for two x16 PCI Express slots to be included for dual
graphics cards, something that in the past required one AGP slot and one PCI slot. And due to the
performance limitations, the AGP and PCI combination could not really be considered high performance. In
addition to two x16 slots allowing for dual display operation, when incorporating specific graphics cards on a
motherboard supporting nVidia’s SLi technology (http://www.nvidia.com/page/nforce4_sli.html), the resources
of the two separate cards can be bridged together for even greater performance on one display. An example
of such a motherboard can be seen in DFI’s LAN Party UT nF4 SLi-D
(http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3469&CATEGORY_TYPE=
LP&SITE=US).
Just as motherboards supported both AGP and PCI as a means of allowing dual displays, some motherboards
offer both an AGP slot and a PCI Express slot. Not only does this allow the user the ability to run dual
displays, it provides the added benefit of allowing an upgrade to be completed in stages. If a new PCI Express
capable motherboard was just purchased, perhaps in addition to a new processor, the budget conscience user
may not want to spring for a new graphics card right away. By making an AGP slot available on boards such
as the ECS 915P-A (http://www.ecsusa.com/products/915p-a.html), there is no reason to retire a perfectly
good AGP card just because one bought a new motherboard supporting PCI Express.

PCI Express graphics cards are quite similar to AGP cards, except for the connector configuration. The
physical size and layout are comparable, and even the prices are not that different. The current selection of
graphics cards at Geeks.com (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=VCD) doesn’t allow you to compare
apples to apples in any one card, but one may find many of the same AGP cards available in PCI Express
format for roughly the same price (or for even less money). For the time being, the markets seem to be
running in parallel, but in time a shift will occur in favor of PCI Express dominating the market.

Minimizing the cost involved in motherboard fabrication could be another benefit. Let’s look at the example of
a network adaptor requiring just 1 lane to operate. If this was a PCI based network adaptor, traces for the
standard 32-bit bus would need to reach this device, instead of the four traces required for 1 PCI Express lane.
Motherboard design will obviously weigh heavily on this benefit ever being realized, and it is possible that
higher-end boards might actually require more traces.

Before taking a look at the ultimate benefit of PCI Express, the performance, let’s have a refresher on the
capabilities of PCI and AGP. The standard PCI bus has a width of 32-bit, operates at 33 MHz, and provides a
maximum bandwidth of 132 MB/s (which has to be shared by all devices connected). AGP 8x has a 32-bit bus
width, operates at 533 MHz, and provides a maximum (dedicated) bandwidth of 2.1 GB/s.

Each PCI Express lane is capable of 250 MB/s in each direction, and as advances in the necessary silicon
technologies are realized, that number can be expected to quadruple. Presently, a 164-pin x16 slot can be
expected to provide around 4GB/s of usable bandwidth in either direction, which is almost double the 2.1GB/s
bandwidth that AGP 8x could offer! Definitely an impressive increase, and as the technology is refined, it will
be very interesting to see the performance scale up.

In the previous paragraph, I mentioned that the x16 slot features 164 pins. Each of the different lane
configurations is accompanied by a different physical connector, and a sampling of an x16, x8, x4, and x1 can
be seen in the graphic on this page (http://www.amdboard.com/pci-express.html). For a real world example,
the Chaintech VNF4 Ultra Athlon 64 Socket 939 motherboard (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VNF4-
ULTRA-N&cat=MBB) shows an actual installation of one x16 slot and two x1 slots.

Graphics cards are obviously going to benefit the most from the power and performance available with PCI
Express, but as mentioned, other devices will also be able to take advantage of this new standard. The
example of a network adaptor is just one that not only can use PCI Express, but will also see performance
benefits. A Gigabit Ethernet adaptor will be more likely to actually achieve its rated speed thanks to the main
bottleneck being removed in the form of the slower, narrower PCI Bus. Other bandwidth intensive devices,
such as RAID controllers, can also be expected to jump off of the slower PCI Bus and find a smoother ride on
PCI Express. Although PCI devices requiring less bandwidth may not see any performance benefits from
going to PCI Express, as the standard achieves greater mainstream acceptance, the cost implications may find
these devices shifting over anyway, just as happened with the transition from ISA to PCI.

Final Words

The higher speeds and flexibility available from PCI Express have it destined to not only be the successor to
AGP 8x, but to PCI as well. The immediate performance increase over the older technologies is quite
impressive, and given time the benefits will be even greater. Only time will tell how long this transition will take,
but somewhere in the not-too-distant future we will be talking about motherboards that only support PCI
Express, and AGP and PCI will go the way of the lowly ISA slot.
Wireless Networking, Part 1: Capabilities and Hardware

These days it isn’t uncommon for a home to have multiple personal computers, and as such, it just makes sense for
them to be able to share files, as well as to share one Internet connection. Wired networking is an option, but it is one
that may require the installation and management of a great deal of wiring in order to get even a modestly sized home
set up. With wireless networking equipment becoming extremely affordable and easy to install, it may be worth
considering by those looking to build a home network, as well as by those looking to expand on an existing wired
network.

The first installment in this two-part series of Tech Tips will provide an introduction to the basic capabilities and
hardware involved in wireless networking. Once that foundation has been established, we’ll take a look at a few setup
and security related considerations that should be addressed once the physical installation is complete.

Capabilities

The basic standard that covers wireless networking is the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE)
802.11, which is close kin to the wired Ethernet standard, 802.3. Many people will recognize 802.11 more readily
when accompanied by one of three suffixes (a, b, or g), used to specify the exact protocol of wireless networking.

The 802.11a protocol first hit the scene in 2001, and despite a small surge in recent popularity, it is definitely the least
common of the three at this time. The signals are transmitted on a 5 GHz radio frequency, while “b” and “g” travel on
2.4 GHz. The higher frequency means that the signal can travel less distance in free space and has a harder time
penetrating walls, thus making the practical application of an 802.11a network a bit limited. The maximum transfer
rate, however, is roughly 54 Mbps, so it makes up for its limited range with respectable speed.

As mentioned, 802.11b and 802.11g networks operate on a 2.4 GHz radio band, which gives a much greater range as
compared to 802.11a. One downside to being on the 2.4 GHz band is that many devices share it, and interference is
bound to be an issue. Cordless phones and Bluetooth devices are two of many items that operate at this frequency.
The range of these two protocols is about 300 feet in free air, and the difference between the two comes down to
speed. 802.11b came first, released back in 1999, and offers speeds up to 11 Mbps. 802.11g first appeared in 2002
and it is a backwards compatible improvement over 802.11b and offers speeds up to 54 Mbps.

On top of these protocols, some manufacturers have improved upon the 802.11g standard and can provide speeds of
up to 108 Mbps. This doesn’t involve a separate protocol, but just a bit of tweaking in areas like better data
compression, more efficient data packet bursting, and by using two radio channels simultaneously. Typically, stock
802.11g equipment is not capable of these speeds, and those interested need to shop for matched components that
specify 108 Mbps support. I say “matched components” as this is not a standard protocol and the various
manufacturers may take different approaches to achieving these speeds. In order to ensure the best results when
trying to achieve these elevated speeds, components from the same manufacturer should be used together. For
instance, only Netgear brand network adaptors rated for 108 Mbps data transfer should be used with something like
the Netgear WG624 wireless router (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WGT624NAR).

Considering your typical broadband Internet connection is going to offer data transfer rates of 10 Mbps or less, it can
be seen that even 802.11b would be more than adequate if you just want to surf the web. Sharing files on your LAN
(Local Area Network) is where the faster protocols will really make a difference, and comparing the prices of 802.11b
and 802.11g components may show that there is little to no difference in selecting a “g” capable device over a
comparable “b” capable device.
Hardware

Access Point – Wireless Access Point (WAP) is the central device that manages the transmission of wireless signals
on a network. A base access point may be capable of handling up to 10 connections, and more robust APs may be
able to manage up to 255 connections simultaneously. The D-Link DWL-1000AP+
(http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=37) is an example of a wireless access point capable of 802.11b transmissions.

Router – In somewhat technical terms, a router is a network device that forwards data packets. It is generally the
connection between at least two networks, such as two LANs, or a LAN and ISP’s (Internet Service Provider’s)
network. For our purposes, and for the sake of simplicity, a wireless router is basically an access point with the added
feature of having a port for sharing a broadband Internet connection. The D-Link AirPlus G
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DI524-R&cat=NET) is an 802.11g capable router that provides access for
numerous wireless connections and four hard-wired connections to one WAN (Wide Area Network Internet)
connection. A typical router for home use will generally cost less than an access point, and via settings within the
firmware, can be used as just an access point anyway. Wired or wireless, all the computers using the router can
share files over the network, as well as sharing a broadband internet connection. Communication between wireless
computers (or a wireless computer and a wired computer) will max out at 54 Mbps, while communication between
wired computers will take full advantage of the 100 Mbps provided via the 802.3 protocol.

Network Adaptor – A network adaptor is required for every computer that you would like to be connected to the
wireless network. Many laptops, such as this Sony Centrino 1.5 GHz
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PCGZ1RA-R&cat=NBB) now include a wireless adaptor built in, so no extra
hardware is needed. For those with systems that don’t have wireless capabilities built in, adding them is fairly simple,
and can be done using a variety of connections. Desktop computers can go wireless by adding a PCI slot network
adaptor such as the 802.11g capable D-Link DWL-G510 (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=308). Notebook users
can easily add wireless connectivity by using a PCMCIA adaptor, such as this 802.11g capable device
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PBW006-N&cat=NET). And for truly convenient plug-n-play connectivity to
wireless networks, USB adaptors such as this 802.11g capable dongle
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=80211GWUD&cat=NET) are available.

Antenna/Extender – These items are not essential, but given the specifics of a wireless environment, they may be
helpful. Devices such as the Hawking Hi-Gain Antenna (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HAI6SIP-
N&cat=NET) or the Super Cantenna (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SCB10&cat=NET) serve the purpose
of increasing the wireless signal strength, and therefore extend the range of a given wireless network. Not only can a
large area of open space be covered, but the signal quality may be improved in structures with walls and floors that
obstruct the signal transmission.

Final Words

In this Tech Tip, we took a look at the basics of wireless networking as it relates to capabilities and hardware. In the
second part of this two-part series, we will look at some of the basic setup and security considerations that should be
addressed. The physical installation of a wireless network may be exponentially easier than a wired network, but the
more difficult part is setting up the software and security to make sure everything stays up and running without
incident.
Wireless Networking, Part 2: Setup and Security

The first installment in this two-part series of Tech Tips provided an introduction to the basic capabilities and hardware
involved in wireless networking. In the final installment of this two-part series, we will look at some of the basic setup
and security considerations that should be addressed. The physical installation of a wireless network may be easier
than a wired network, but the more difficult part is setting up the software and security to make sure everything stays
up and running without incident.

Although this Tech Tip is by no means an exhaustive resource on configuring a wireless network, it will provide
information and pointers that can be applied to most typical installations. Many of these tips are general enough that
they may provide some good advice for those utilizing wired networks as well.

For the sake of this article, we will assume that the hardware has been successfully installed physically, and that the
user is now prepared to set up and secure the system through software. Wireless devices, especially routers / access
points, generally include a web-based configuration utility that allows the user to customize the hardware to meet their
needs. The hardware will most likely work with minimal configuration, but to make it work so that the integrity of the
network is protected may take a few more steps.

In addition to the configuration interface provided with the wireless networking hardware, Microsoft has integrated a
“Wireless Network Setup Wizard” with the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 that will lead a user of any expertise
through the installation of their network. In addition, the “Microsoft Broadband Network Utility” will help them monitor
and maintain the network just as easily once it is set up.

Change Default Password

Routers, whether wired or wireless, require a password for configuring the various settings, and all of them ship with
extremely simple default passwords. The first step taken in setting up the router should be to change the default
password to something more difficult to guess. Longer passwords that use a combination of letters and numbers are
preferable as they make hacking attempts that much more difficult.

Change Router IP Address

Most routers ship with a default IP (Internet Protocol) address, something like 192.168.1.1, which is utilized by the
user for accessing the configuration utility interface, as well as by the network itself for negotiating the LAN and WAN
connections. The configuration utility of most routers will include a page that will allow for the default IP address to be
manually changed by the user. Although changing the default IP address doesn’t provide a great amount of security
since it can easily be discovered anyway, it may deter intrusion by local users that may be casually scanning the
network.

Configure Router or Access Point Use

In the first part of this series of Tech Tips, I mentioned that almost all routers intended for home use can also double
as wireless access points, and this is generally accomplished by clicking a check box within the control panel
software. If a wireless router is being added to a network with an existing router and broadband connection, the new
device needs to be set to access point mode. Otherwise, there could be a conflict as the network may not know
where to expect the internet connection, since it will now have two routers that both want to serve as the gateway. If
the wireless router is replacing an existing router, or is the only one on the network, this should not be an issue as
these devices generally ship configured to operate as a router by default.

Broadcasting the SSID

The SSID, or Service Set Identifier, is basically the name assigned to a particular wireless network. The user can
choose just about any name they want, as long as it is less than 32 characters long, and they just need to be sure that
all computers on the network are configured to use the same name. Two steps related to the SSID can be taken to
help improve the security of the network:

First, change the default SSID to a unique name that includes a combination of letters and numbers that doesn’t
reveal anything personal about you or your network. Second, disable the broadcast of the SSID once all of your
computers are successfully connected, even if your router / access point recommends broadcasting it. I have used a
few wireless routers, and all of them have a check box in the control panel for enabling/disabling the broadcast of the
SSID, and they have all recommended leaving broadcasting enabled. Broadcasting the SSID allows new computers
to easily find your network, and then all they have to do is access it given the proper credentials. Broadcasting your
SSID puts it out there for anyone within range to see, and it just allows would-be hackers to get one step closer to
compromising your security. In a home environment, there are probably few computers that need to access the
network, and if more are ever added, you can temporarily enable the broadcast to get them set up.

DHCP Server

The DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) Server is a feature of most routers that makes adding new
computers extremely simple. Whenever a new computer connects to the network, the router will assign an IP address
to it, instead of the user having to assign an IP address to each manually while sitting at that particular computer. This
makes configuring a network very easy, but it also leaves the network vulnerable, as any new computer detected will
be welcomed to the neighborhood and assigned an IP address automatically. Two different approaches can be taken
to improve security, as related to the DHCP server:

One method, and the best as far as security is concerned, is to disable the DHCP server. This will require that all
computers that are authorized to connect to the network be configured manually, but it will prevent unauthorized
computers from obtaining an IP address. The second method, which doesn’t provide bulletproof security, is better
than doing nothing. In general, a DHCP server can support up to 250 computers, and by default leaves a range of
addresses readily available for that many to connect. If disabling the DHCP server doesn’t seem convenient for a
user, they can limit the DHCP server to only provide as many IP addresses as they know they need. If you know there
will never be more than five computers connected, limit the range of available IP addresses to a total of five within the
configuration utility.

Different Levels of Encryption

All wireless components support some sort of encryption, which simply scrambles the information being sent across
the network so that it can not easily be read by anyone else connected to the network. There are different types and
levels of encryption, and a brief overview is provided for them below:

WEP, or Wireless Equivalency Protocol, was the first format of encryption available on wireless networks. WEP
allows the network administrator to assign an encryption string to be shared by all computers authorized to access the
wireless network. The encryption through WEP is either 64bit, 128bit, or 256bit, where the higher number represents
greater encryption, and the strings can be generated by the administrator as a series of letters and numbers.

WPA, or “Wi-Fi Protected Access,” is an improvement over WEP that starts off with a similar master encryption string
and then mathematically derives encryption keys to keep the security dynamic. WPA continually changes the
encryption keys used for each packet of data, and due to the extra processing required to support this protocol the
overall throughput of the connection may suffer slightly. Despite the potential for decreased speed, WPA is
considered to be far more robust than WEP, and should be implemented where possible. In some instances, WEP
encryption has actually been defeated, making WPA all that more appealing.
Although most components support both of these encryption formats, and users can select the type they wish to use
from within the control software, not all do. All devices on the network must be set to operate at the same level of
encryption, which may mean that some devices will force others to be less secure than they are capable of. For
example, a wireless network setup around this router (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DI-824VUP&cat=NET)
could support either WEP or WPA encryption. When two computers are added to this network using one of these
network adaptors (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WN-4054P&cat=NET) in one case, and one of these
network adaptors (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PBW006-N&cat=NET) in the other case, things change.
Note that the second adaptor does not support WPA; therefore the whole network must now be configured to use
WEP to accommodate it.

Router Position

As discussed in the first part of this Tech Tip, wireless devices can have a range of up to a few hundred feet in free
space. When installed inside a home, this range may decrease greatly due to walls, floors and other obstructions, but
the signal may still be strong enough to carry beyond the confines of the dwelling. A simple step that may help reduce
the strength and reach of the network signal outside the house is to position the router / access point as close to the
center of the house as possible. The potential for someone to detect the network from outside the home when
positioned like this is now much less than if the router was placed near a window, for example.

Final Words

There are definitely additional issues that could be considered when setting up a wireless network, but covering these
basics will make a wireless network much more secure than it was straight out of the box. Many people are confident
that no one would be interested in their home network and feel security is just one more headache of technical
mumbo-jumbo that they would rather not deal with. Whether a hacker wants access to personal files on the network
or to simply gain unauthorized access to the Internet, a few simple steps are worth the peace of mind to know you are
as secure as possible.
Choosing a Portable MP3 Player: Part 1

MP3 players are everywhere! It seems that the number of makes and models in this
market is growing daily, with features and capabilities intended to appeal to just about
anyone shopping for one of these devices.

MP3 players have been around much longer than the Apple iPod
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MP3#iPodMP3Players), but there is no arguing
that this one device opened the market to a much larger customer base. In addition to
Apple’s own success, the iPod paved the way for dozens of other manufacturers to offer
their own twist on this technology.

This series of Tech Tips will attempt to simplify things by taking a look at eight basic
features of a typical MP3 player that may be important to a potential buyer, including:
storage technologies, capacities, file formats, displays, batteries, extra capabilities,
computer interfaces, and size. Part 1 of this series will handle the first four topics, and
the second set of four topics will be covered in Part 2.

Storage Technologies

In general, portable MP3 players will utilize one of two formats to store the files on the
device, either flash memory or a hard drive. Flash memory similar to that used in digital
cameras is also found embedded in many lower capacity MP3 players. Due to the basic
capacity limitation of flash memory, hard drive based units are required by those who
need to store thousands of files on one device (or fewer files of higher quality).

It may be feasible to find flash memory based players with capacities that range from
128MB to 1GB (or maybe a bit higher), and the MSI MegaStick 511
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=5511-290&cat=MP3) is an example of a 1GB
flash memory based device. Hard drive-based units can provide much more space, and
your typical Apple iPod
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?Cat=MP3#iPodMP3Players) and Creative Zen
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?Cat=MP3#ZENMP3Players) will use a hard drive
in order to achieve their capacities of up to 40GB.
One of the key advantages of flash memory-based players is that they are "solid state", an
old electronics term which used to mean "contains no tubes", but now basically means
that a device contains no moving parts. No moving parts means fewer hardware
breakdowns, longer battery life (playing time), and it means that the devices can be
bounced around with no skips or damage to the device. If you're looking for a durable
MP3 player to go jogging with or take to the gym, you probably want a flash-based
player.

There are other formats that may be used for portable MP3 players, and the Classic
CM343R (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CM343R&cat=MP3) is an example
of a device that plays MP3s from recordable CD media.

Capacities

The capacity of these players was already touched on in the previous section, but there is
more to consider. Determining the capacity desired can have an impact on price and
physical size, but the main thing to consider is how many files need to be stored on it.

Several variables determine the quantity of music any given player may hold, namely file
type and compression encoding bit rate. MP3 files, for example, may be encoded at bit
rates ranging from low quality (64kbps) to high, up to 320kbps. Lower bit rates use less
disk (or memory) storage space, but offer sound quality comparable only to a telephone
call or AM radio. Higher bit rates, up to and exceeding that of CD quality sound, may be
used, but of course take more space. As with all things, there is a trade-off between
quantity and quality – think of it terms of the number of hours of TV you can record to a
VHS tape in SP, EP, and SLP modes.

For the sake of discussion, we will use a decent bit rate of 128 kbps, which will turn 5
minute long songs into files of approximately 5 MB in size. Some simple math shows
that a 128 MB device, such as this Egoman unit
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MD230F-N&cat=MP3), will only hold about
25 such songs, while a 40GB iPod can hold about 8000. A device intended to be used
only for jogging may do just fine with 128 MB of storage, while a device used in the car,
at the office, and elsewhere may benefit greatly from more storage space… unless you
like listening to the same handful of songs over and over again.

Some players offer a base of onboard memory, plus the flexibility of adding more
memory through the use of an expansion slot. These slots will accept flash memory,
usually SD (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#SecureDigitalMemoryCard)
or MMC (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#MultiMediaCardMemory), and
it can be a cost effective way to add 512 MB to a 128 MB device, such as this one from
Ultra Products
(http://www.ultraproducts.com/product_info.php?cPath=37&products_id=48).

File Formats
Calling these devices MP3 players may be a bit unfair, as most will actually read a few
different file formats. MP3 is definitely the most popular, but other common formats
include WMA (Window’s Media Audio) and WAV (Microsoft’s Waveform Audio).

Less common formats are also supported by some devices, such as AIFF (Audio
Interchange File Format) and AAC (Advanced Audio Coding). In addition to MP3,the
iPod supports these two formats and a few others that most other players do not support,
which makes sharing these files with any other device just about impossible without
conversion software.

Software is available for creating MP3 files from audio CDs, as well as for converting
digital audio files from one format to another. Titles are available for purchase from
many companies, including the likes of Nero (http://www.nero.com/) and Roxio
(http://www.roxio.com/), and other titles can be found as downloads, either free or as free
trials.

Displays

Most MP3 players include some sort of display to help the user interact with the device.
The size of the display will have an impact on the overall size of the unit, but larger
displays can obviously contain more information, and may be easier on the eyes.

Basic information regarding the status of the device and its files are generally shown on
the display, and settings for things such as the volume and equalizer can be manipulated
with ease.

The LCD display on the iPod is one of its great features, due to its large size (2”
diagonally), and its LED backlighting for comfortable viewing in any lighting condition.
The iPod is a larger device, however, and it can afford to have a larger display to convey
information on menus, song artists/titles, volume, date/time, equalizer, battery status, and
so on.

Smaller devices obviously have smaller displays, but they still need to convey some basic
information. Using small fonts and symbols, allows devices like this one from
Perception Digital (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PD099-256FM&cat=MP3)
to display a good deal of information at any one time. What is lost is the ability to view
menus and playlists, as seen on the iPod, and you may need better vision to see the
smaller characters.

Displays are a convenience item though, and some players have eliminated the display in
the name of simplicity (and hopefully savings). The iPod Shuffle
(http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/) doesn’t include a display at all, and their slogan
“enjoy uncertainty” expresses the fact that you’ll just have to go with the flow as your
interaction with the device is quite limited.

Final Words
For such small devices, there are many variables to consider when shopping for an MP3
player. The first part in this series covered four key items, and in the second part we will
cover four more, including; battery, extra capabilities, computer interface, and size.
Choosing a Portable MP3 Player: Part 2

This series of Tech Tips is geared towards simplifying MP3 players for the casual consumer by addressing eight
key topics. In the first part of this series, we looked at storage technologies, capacities, file formats, and
displays, and in this part, we will wrap things up by looking at batteries, extra capabilities, computer interfaces
and size.

Batteries

Battery type and expected life are key features when considering any type of portable electronics device, and
MP3 players are no different. Many devices now come with rechargeable batteries included, and the more
convenient arrangements allow for the batteries to charge while still in the unit, eliminating the hassle of having
to remove them to be placed in a stand-alone charger. Even more convenient are devices that recharge via
USB, so all you need to connect is one cable that serves both to transfer files, as well as to transfer power from
the computer to the device.

Many devices do not come with rechargeable batteries, but it is always an option to consider since most support
a standard format, such as AA or AAA. A charger and a set of batteries
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=V-1000) can be picked up relatively inexpensively, and over the
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course of the devices life the savings will add up when compared to the number of disposable batteries that
would be used.

Speaking of the number of disposable batteries that will be used, the life expectancy on one charge (or one set
of batteries) is of great interest, but generally harder to gauge from the manufacturer’s information. Many
devices do not publish a life expectancy, and those that do may need to be taken with a grain of salt. The
conditions may vary from the manufacturer’s test to the real world, so it is always a good idea to find an
independent review of the device to see how it fared.

Some devices with a single AAA battery may run for up to 30 hours on one charge, while a device using two AA
batteries may only make it to 10 hours.

The iPod includes a rechargeable battery that provides a good amount of run time on each charge, but unlike the
ones discussed so far, it is not readily available as an aftermarket replacement. If the battery dies, the unit
needs to be shipped back to Apple for replacement, which proved to be quite unpopular with owners of previous
generations of the device, as it seemed to be one of the device’s few flaws. That issue has been addressed, but
the battery in the new generation iPod is still proprietary, and can not be replaced by the end user.

Extra Capabilities

Many MP3 players offer greater value and convenience to users by doing much more than just playing MP3s.
Some devices, such as the MSI MegaPlayer 515 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=5515-
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040&cat=MP3), include FM radio tuners and voice recorders for greater appeal. There are numerous other
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handy features found on some devices that some people may find useful. Some will double as portable storage
for any file type, some include basic e-mail clients, while devices with expansion slots can be used as a card
reader when attached to a computer.

Some devices are more appropriately called portable media centers, as they offer far more than just digital audio
playback. Although a device such as the Creative Zen Portable Media Center
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=70PF095000000-DT&cat=MP3) does play MP3 files, it also can play
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videos and show still pictures on its 3.8” color screen. Sony’s new PSP
(http://www.us.playstation.com/psp.aspx) is an exciting new portable device that takes things even farther by
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adding video games to the list (while still offering digital audio playback).

Computer Interfaces

The means for getting the files from the computer onto the MP3 player deserves consideration in respect to the
protocol used, as well as the connection provided. Most devices utilize USB for file transfers, but Firewire is also
an option, and this 40GB Apple iPod (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PE436A-NB&cat=MP3) actually
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supports both protocols.

When selecting a device that utilizes USB, be sure to note whether it supports USB 2.0, or the much slower USB
1.1 standard, as units are still available using this older format. If you anticipate rotating your files regularly, or
have a large capacity player to fill, the speed of a USB 1.1 device may frustrate you. USB 2.0 offers transfer
rates up to 40 times faster than USB 1.1 (480 Mb/s versus 12 Mb/s), so keep that in mind when preparing to
move a few thousand files!

In addition to the protocol used, the physical connection may be worth paying attention to. Many devices, such
as this Perception Digital player (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PD099-256FM&cat=MP3), offer a
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mini connection on the body for connecting a somewhat special USB cable for data transfer. If you want to add
files to the device, you need to carry the cable with you, or take a chance that this type of cable would be
available at any computer you may wish to connect to. Other devices, such as this Z-Cyber Zling player
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=8MMC-ZLGU2-512&cat=MP3), feature a standard USB male
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connector right on the body of the device. With this design, the player can either be plugged directly into an
available USB port, or if the size/shape of the device prevents this, a more typical USB cable is all that is
needed.

Size

The size of an MP3 player will be in large part determined by the combination of other features included with the
device. Hard drive-based players are generally going to be larger than flash memory-based players due to the
physical size of the drive. The type and quantity of batteries, the size of the display, and the type of computer
interface provided may all impact the size of the device as well.

MP3 players are generally quite small, and for the most part are only as large as they are for two simple
reasons: so the users don't lose them, and due to other technologies involved. For example, some MP3 players
that utilize two AAA batteries for power are barely wider and slightly longer than the batteries themselves,
providing just a little
thickness upfront for the flash memory, circuitry, and display. If a smaller, reliable power source was available,
who knows how small these devices could be.
Someone seeking a miniature device with a modest amount of storage for use while jogging may be able to find
something about the size and weight of a pack of gum. And although an iPod can in no way be considered a
large object, in the world of MP3 players it is bigger than most, and is geared towards a different application.

Final Words

MP3 players come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and capabilities, all of which need to be addressed while
considering what may be the most important feature… Price. Given the great number of devices on the market
today, there just may be a device out there to fit everyone’s needs, and hopefully this Tech Tip will serve as a
guide to what a user’s basic needs may be.
Building Your Digital Music Collection

The previous two Tech Tips (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips.htm) took a look at eight


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basic features of portable MP3 players worth considering before laying down some
serious money on one of these devices. Once you have a nice new MP3 player
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MP3) with plenty of space for music, you need
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to fill it up! There are several ways to go about building your digital music collection, and
we’ll take a look at a few ways to do so.

The first thing to address may be the term “MP3 player.” Many of these devices play
MP3 files, in addition to a variety of other formats. Many of the files available for
download are actually in a format other than MP3, but the term has been applied to
cover this whole class of devices, whether it is 100% accurate or not.

Create Your Own

There are numerous software titles available that make creating MP3 files from CDs (or
other sources) a simple process. Most involve minimal input from the user once they
have configured their preferences, and will take the audio and convert it into the digital
format of their choice. During the “ripping” process, most applications will query an
online database, such as Gracenote (www.cddb.com), and take care of the file naming
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and ID tagging needed to make storing, sorting, and accessing the files a snap with most
players.

Some of these applications may already be on your computer. Microsoft’s Windows


Media Player (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/default.aspx) is
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one program that any Windows user already has that is more than ready for basic WMA
and MP3 file creation. Just drop in your CD and click “Rip”. Many other titles may have
come bundled with hardware included with your system. For example, many optical
drives ship with a copy of Ahead’s Nero (http://ww2.nero.com/us/index.html) or a suite of
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software from Roxio (http://www.roxio.com/en/index.jhtml). Either will handle the DVD or


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CD burning they were intended for, but also have decent MP3 creation modules, as well.

There are a multitude of free, or at least free-to-try, MP3 encoding software titles, and a
trip to your favorite search engine may provide a list longer than you care to investigate.
Some names worth checking out include EZ CD-DA (Digital Audio) Extractor
(http://www.poikosoft.com/), EZ MP3 Creator (http://www.linasoft.com/ezmp3c.html), and
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Virtuosa (http://www.virtuosa.com/index.php).
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The great thing about digital audio files acquired this way is that they are yours to use on
whatever device you choose. The same can not be said about files obtained from either
of the next two methods to be discussed. The files obtained from legitimate download
services are protected by DRM (Digital Rights Management), which restricts the use of
the downloaded files to a limited number of computers and compatible portable devices,
as well as protecting the songs from redistribution by the end user. The files are yours
to use, but not as freely as you may want, and perhaps for only as long as you maintain
your account with the download service.

Pay Per Download

There are two main types of legitimate online sources of digital music… those that
charge you for each download, and those that require you to subscribe to a service on a
monthly basis. They offer the same types of files, but take different approaches to suit
your budget and music needs.

Apple’s iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/) may be the best known source for


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individual file downloads, thanks in no small part to the incredible popularity of the iPod
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=IPD) MP3 player. What some may not know is
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that iTunes is not just for iPod owners, or Macintosh computer owners for that matter,
but any PC compatible system can access the 99 cent downloads for use on their
computer or compatible portable player.

Many other outlets offer digital music files for download, and even some mainstream
brick-and-mortar stores have found their way onto the scene. Just as they have done
with retail sales, Wal-Mart
(http://www.walmart.com/music_downloads/introToServices.do) has managed to
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undercut the competition with their 88 cent music downloads.

Subscribe to a Service

Everyone is familiar with Napster (http://www.napster.com/) as one of the pioneers of file


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sharing, but they are back with a legitimate approach to music downloads. Although
they do offer a program where you can download individual songs for 99 cents each,
they offer monthly subscriptions for $14.95. This monthly fee allows for unlimited
downloads, and could be the ticket for someone looking to keep their play list fresh on a
regular basis. One caveat to this otherwise good solution is that the number of MP3
players supported is currently very limited. Also, once your subscription lapses, so does
the ability to “access” your music. Basically, you are renting the songs.
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Other subscription-based services are available, such as the one from eMusic
(http://www.emusic.com/) that charges a monthly fee, but restricts the number of
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downloads permitted every month.

Choosing between a service that charges for every download or one that charges a flat
monthly fee will most likely be determined by the volume of downloads one intends. If
you only want a handful of songs every few months, it may be worth it to pay per song.
But, if you intend to amass the ultimate collection of music ever known to man,
subscribing to a service on a monthly basis is obviously more practical.

Go Underground

Whether through first-hand experience, or from the massive media attention, most
people are well aware of other file sharing resources available on the Internet that can
be used for acquiring MP3 files. Although the files are free, and users may feel they are
operating anonymously, it may not be a safe means of acquiring media.
There are the obvious legal implications, as the RIAA has prosecuted file sharers for
copyright violation (http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3497246), but
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there are other issues, as well. The integrity of the files being downloaded is not
guaranteed, and people may wait patiently for a song to download only to find it is of
poor quality, incomplete, or even worse… carrying a virus or trojan.

So, there are other pools of digital music, but swim at your own risk!

Final Words

Filling your new MP3 player doesn’t have to cost anything except the time it takes to
encode the songs from your favorite CDs. But, paying for a download service is a sure
way to have the songs you want as they become available and at a fairly reasonable
price. These aren’t your only options for acquiring digital music, but when taking other
routes, proceed with caution.
Seven Things to Consider When Choosing a PDA

In the early days, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) were not much more than glorified
calculators with the ability to store contact information and brief notes. Now, the line
between personal computer and personal digital assistant is blurred thanks to the
advanced capabilities of these useful little devices.

There are plenty of makes and models to choose from in the PDA market, and finding the
right model to suit an individual’s needs can be a dizzying challenge. This Tech Tip will
take a look at seven basic things to consider when choosing a PDA in an attempt to help
simplify the process.

Software

The software on a PDA is capable of running completely independent of your computer,


but being able to share files and resources between them is one of the key convenience
features. Software availability is one issue, but compatibility is another. In general, a
PDA will come with one of two operating systems: Palm OS or Microsoft Pocket PC,
each with its own very different approaches to running one of these devices.

Palm OS is the modern version of the operating system that was found on some of the
first PDAs, Palm Pilots. No longer just a dull, greyscale environment, the Palm OS is a
sharp looking operating system with many software titles available (either included, as
downloads, or for purchase separately) to do just about anything you would want to do on
a PDA.

Microsoft Pocket PC is themed after the familiar Windows operating system, and this
similarity gives the millions of Windows users a comfortable environment to work with
when transitioning to a PDA. The basic commands are the same, and of all the software
titles available for a PDA running Pocket PC, many of them are reduced “pocket”
versions of what might be found on a computer such as Microsoft’s Word and Excel.
Multimedia applications are a strong point of the Pocket PC environment, with many
titles developed to make these devices more enjoyable and versatile.

Applications are available for either operating system to do just about the same thing,
although specific titles available for one may not be available for the other.

Speed

The speed of the processors in PDAs is picking up, and some older desktop computers
are being left in the dust by these little devices. Presently, the bulk of the devices on the
market are running at clock speeds of 300 MHz or higher, sometimes much higher. The
HP Ipaq HX4700 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=FA282A_ABA-
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DT&cat=PDA) sports a 624 MHz Intel processor, which is also currently the processor
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found in the high-end Dell Axim X50v


(http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/axim_x50v?c=us&cs=19
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In general, faster processors can be found in the Pocket PC devices, but that does not
mean that Palm OS devices are slow. Many experts would argue that the Palm OS runs
more efficiently, and may be able to get by on less system memory, which helps keep the
speed comparison competitive.

The applications for PDAs have been optimized to run well with less processing power,
less system memory, and to occupy a minimal amount of disk space, so either type of
PDA should be able to handle typical tasks well. Speed may be the main concern on a
desktop PC, but the focus is a bit different on handheld devices, where other features are
definitely more important.

Connectivity

Being able to connect a PDA to a computer or other device may be essential for utilizing
all of the features to their full potential. Most now make connectivity to a PC via USB
the base form of transferring data to the device, but there are a few wireless protocols that
may be available on a PDA to make it even more convenient.

Infrared is a short range protocol that can allow for a PDA to exchange data with another
PDA, as well as with a compatible laptop or desktop computer. Many PDAs feature an
infrared port, but not all computers do. The communications on this protocol are
relatively slow, but may be useful for transferring basic data or synchronizing with a PC.

Bluetooth is a protocol that operates on the 2.4 GHz radio band that provides greater
range than infrared, but the speeds still aren’t that great. Bluetooth can be used for
transferring data from computers, but it can also allow other devices to connect to a PDA.
For example, a Bluetooth-enabled PDA linked to a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone may be
able to access the Internet using the phone as a sort of wireless modem.

WiFi, just as on your typical computer, is the high speed wireless protocol (802.11x) that
also operates on the 2.4 GHz radio band. WiFi will not only allow compatible devices to
exchange files, but the high speed will make streaming media and web surfing convenient
at home, or at the numerous wireless “hot spots” popping up in public/commercial
settings.

Extra Features & Accessories

It isn’t enough for PDAs to keep track of serious business items like appointments and
contact information any more. They need to be able to multi-task, and most are now able
to help their owners work and play. Many of these features may be considered nice
extras by some, but others may insist on their availability when choosing a PDA.

Many PDAs can now surf the Internet, stream movies, or play video games thanks to the
higher resolution color screens. Most now include a stereo sound processor for listening
to MP3s or other audio sources, as well as being able to double as a digital voice
recorder.

Other PDAs take the fun features to a whole new level. Some PDAs now double as
mobile phones. Or is it that mobile phones that are doubling as PDAs? Many mobile
phones have built-in cameras now. PDAs like the PalmOne Zire 72
(http://www.palmone.com/us/products/handhelds/zire72/index_gps.epl) include a digital
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camera for capturing stills and video clips at decent resolutions. Taking another look at
the Zire 72 shows off another feature that has become popular in PDAs… GPS (Global
Positioning System) receivers that will help plot and track routes during travel.

Many PDAs also offer a wide array of extra add-on accessories to add ease of use and
maybe a touch of flash to your PDA
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=PDA#PDAAccessories). For example, most
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manufacturers offer such things as spare batteries, extra styluses, and upgraded leather
cases. Other cool items may be a foldable keyboard that can be plugged into the PDA for
easier typing (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=967208-0403-CS&cat=PDA),
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automobile charger so that you can charge your PDA while driving
(http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Section_Id=1979
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&pcount=&Product_Id=160197) and even international power adaptors to use your PDA


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in different countries
(http://www.palmone.com/us/products/accessories/chargerscablescradles/3172WW.html)
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Like cellphones, some PDAs even come with removable covers so that you can totally
customize how your PDA looks
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P10723U&cat=PDA).
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Expandability

PDAs generally come with a base amount of memory on board for storing data and
applications, but they can be filled up quite quickly. Most of these devices now include
slots that will accept some sort of flash memory to increase their capacity (Click here for
Tech Tips on Flash Memory): Part I - (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-020305.htm)
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and Part II - (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-021005.htm). Typical formats


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supported by PDAs include: Compact Flash


(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#CompactFlashMemory), SD
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(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#SecureDigitalMemoryCard), MMC
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(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#MultiMediaCardMemory), or Memory
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Stick (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#MemoryStickFlashCards).
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Flash memory is fairly cheap these days, but selecting a PDA based on a format that one
already uses could be a good idea. An SD card, for example, could be shared between a
PC, digital camera, MP3 player, and a PDA to move various multimedia and application
files between the devices.

A PDA such as the HP iPaq rz1715 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=IPAQ-


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RZ1715-R&cat=PDA) offers an SD/MMC slot for expandability, while the Dell Axim
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X5 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AXIM-400-K1&cat=PDA) offers the


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convenience of multiple flash memory slots, providing support for Compact Flash, SD,
and MMC.

In addition to choosing the proper format of flash memory for your PDA, it may also be
necessary to consider the capacity of the card chosen. Although you may be able to
purchase a 2GB flash memory card, for example, that does not mean every PDA will be
able to access it. Check the PDA manufacturer’s specifications, especially on older
models, to confirm that there is no maximum card size that it will accept.

In addition to allowing additional storage space, expansion slots can be used for other
devices, as well. GPS receivers are popular accessories for PDAs, and can be found with
different interfaces to match the slots available on a PDA. Leadtek is one manufacturer
offering both Compact Flash (http://www.leadtek.com/gps/gps_9534_1.html) and Secure
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Digital (http://www.leadtek.com/gps/gps_9534_1.html) based GPS receivers. Another


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innovation, from companies such as SanDisk, are combination memory and WiFi cards
(http://www.sandisk.com/retail/sd.asp?nav=mobile). However, be sure to check
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compatibility with your current PDA as some PDAs have problems “using” the extra
features.

Size

The overall size may vary from model to model, but in general the length and width of a
PDA will be in the range of a 3” x 5” index card. These values may vary slightly, and a
difference of a few fractions of an inch may be important to a user with specific space
constraints. For example, comparing the measurements of a Toshiba 830w
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PD830C-00002-CA&cat=PDA) (5.31” by
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3.03” by 0.65”), to those of a Compaq Ipaq 3950


(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=269808-001&cat=PDA) (4.54” x 3.00” x
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0.61”), shows that the width and thickness are nearly identical. But, the difference of
more than ¾” in height may be a big deal when trying to fit into a briefcase pocket, or
even a shirt pocket.

The weight may be directly related to size, and is perhaps another relevant area worth
considering. The weight of a typical PDA may be just a few ounces (several hundred
grams), so you obviously aren’t going to strain yourself toting it. The difference between
one model and another may be due to the variety and quantity of extra features included,
and in general, an individual’s requirements for functionality may influence the overall
weight.
Another key aspect when referencing size as it applies to PDAs is the screen size. Large
screens, with higher resolutions, will allow the user to operate more comfortably. Using
the same two PDAs referenced in this section, we see that the Toshiba 830w sports a 4.0”
(480x640 resolution) screen while the Compaq Ipaq 3950 has a 3.8” (240x320 resolution)
screen. So, the overall size of the Toshiba is a bit larger but it makes good use of the
space by including a larger display capable of twice the resolution of the Compaq.

Battery Life

Most PDAs are now provided with an integrated rechargeable battery which recharges
while connected to a base station or power adaptor. The most common type of
rechargeable battery may be Lithium Ion (Li-Ion), and a general gauge of a battery’s
capacity is provided in terms of mAh (milliAmp hours). Although real-world
performance will vary among devices and how they are used, a battery with a higher
mAh value will be able to hold a greater charge and last longer between charges.

The general use of the device will obviously play a role in how long the batteries will
last, and is a difficult number to provide with any certainty. Manufacturers may provide
a figure on the normal life between charges, but this is most likely based on occasional
use, where it is idling for a majority of the time. This figure may indicate battery life of
up to several days on one charge, but under more intensive operation, the battery life
could be cut significantly. Watching a movie, listening to audio files, or playing games
may drop the life on one charge from a few days down to a few hours. Use of wireless
networking and display backlighting are two other things that can seriously impact
battery life on any PDA, regardless of the type or quality of batteries included.

Your best bet for information on battery life is to seek out independent reviews or owner
comments on a PDA of interest.

Final Words

With all of the options available, PDAs are far more versatile than they ever used to be.
Finding a device with the flexibility to be useful for both business and pleasure doesn’t
have to be a daunting task if a few key considerations are identified early in the process.
A good balance of performance, size, and capabilities should be easily achieved, while
still respecting a reasonable budget.
Computer Mice

Every computer user can hopefully identify their mouse and the importance it
plays in the daily operation of their computer. Mice are nothing new and for the
most part are nothing overly complex, but the average user may not be familiar
with all of the options and technologies that may go into these little devices. This
Tech Tip will take a look at some of the features of mice that people may take for
granted, or may otherwise be unaware of.

Tracking Technologies

Mechanical mice - Mechanical mice were the first ones used on computers, and
can still be found for sale (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GN-
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115&cat=MOU), despite the advances of tracking technologies. These mice


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feature a hard ball on the underside that rolls as the mouse is moved, and rollers
inside the mouse allow the physical motion to be translated to the pointer on the
screen. Some “ball mice” are a bit more advanced and replace the internal
rollers with optical sensors, but the same principle applies.

Mechanical mice require occasional maintenance to keep the ball and rollers free
of lint and other debris, and with numerous moving parts there is always a
potential for problems. The use of a mouse pad is recommended for these mice
as they not only provide a clean surface to work on, but also provide the needed
resistance for the ball to roll smoothly.

The precision of mechanical mice is not particularly good, and although they may
be fine for typical desktop work, they were never quite up to the task of detailed
graphics work or serious game playing.

Optical mice - Optical mice replace the whole ball/roller assembly of mechanical
mice with a beam of a light and an optical sensor. The beam of light shines
down on the surface below the mouse and the sensor uses the light to track the
movement. The images included with the listing for this optical mouse
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HTM-39GWT&cat=MOU) provide a
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glimpse at the bottom of the mouse, where the light and sensor can be seen.

Optical mice have several advantages over mechanical mice. There are no
moving parts to break or otherwise cause problems. The need for maintenance
is greatly reduced as the bottoms have no openings or rollers to collect lint.
Although mice generally aren’t heavy, the elimination of the ball and roller
mechanism allows an optical mouse to be much lighter than a comparable
mechanical mouse. The precision of optical mice is also much greater than
mechanical mice, and the resolution can go from the low hundreds to the high
hundreds (as measured in dpi, dots per inch).

Another advantage is that the need for a mouse pad may be eliminated with an
optical mouse, as they do best while tracking on any smooth, flat surface. A
clean desktop is generally good enough, but those looking to take the precision
of optical mice to the highest level may opt for a performance “mousing surface”.
There are several precision mousing surface manufacturers, such as XRay Pads
(http://www.xraypad.com/) and FUNC Industries (http://www.func.net/), that
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design pads to appeal to game players and others who demand the best
performance.

Laser mice - Laser technology is the latest and greatest in computer mice
tracking, and takes the advantages of optical to a new level. Most of the
attributes of a laser mouse have been described in the optical mouse section,
except for one. Instead of a fairly wide beam of light, it uses an extremely narrow
beam of laser light.

The Logitech MX1000 laser mouse


(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=931175-0403-DT&cat=MOU) may be
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the mouse for you if you are looking for extreme precision. According to
Logitech, the laser technology used in the MX1000 provides up to “20x more
sensitivity to surface detail—or tracking power—than optical.”

Hard Wired Connection Technologies

Serial – Serial mice are fairly difficult to come by these days, as are the ports
they need in order to operate. This technology is quite old and slow, and the
popularity and convenience of USB has all but eliminated the need for this
interface on your typical PC. But, there were mice that sported the 9-pin
connection needed to connect to a serial port, and many PS2 mice used to
include an adaptor for Serial ports.

PS2 - PS2 mice were the standard for a long time, as all motherboards provided
two PS2 ports for connecting a keyboard and a mouse. USB technology has
become so widely used that the slower and less convenient PS2 ports are on the
verge of extinction with the Serial port. That said, not many mice are still sold
that only support a PS2 connection, but there are still some available as with this
unit from Genica (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GN-115&cat=MOU).
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USB – Most mice can now connect via USB, and include an adaptor to be used
on a PS2 port, as well. It seems that just about any mouse now uses USB to
connect, whether it is a wired mouse, or any variety of wireless mice that we are
about to look at.
Wireless Connection Technologies

Radio Frequency – The most common type of wireless mouse uses radio
frequencies to communicate motion to a receiver that is connected to the PC.
This generic wireless mouse (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=RF-
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M308-RC-USB&cat=MOU) operates on the 27MHz frequency and the mouse


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itself is powered by AAA batteries which are not included. As you move up the
price scale of RF (Radio Frequency) wireless mice, the packages will generally
include an integrated rechargeable battery, as does the Logitech MX1000
discussed previously. Other features of higher end RF wireless mice include
extended range, greater precision, and a receiver that doubles as a battery
charger.

Bluetooth – The Tech Tip on Bluetooth (http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-


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011905.htm) discussed the basics of this wireless technology, and how it was a
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good fit for ‘lower speed’ devices, like a mouse. Logitech


(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=930970-0403-DT&cat=MOU) and
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IOGear (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GME225B-DT&cat=MOU) are


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two manufacturers offering products for Bluetooth users, in addition to more


traditional mice. The Bluetooth mice are also battery powered, and use the
2.4GHz radio frequency to communicate with an included receiver/charger or
other Bluetooth adaptor.

RFID – A truly unique approach to wireless mice has been developed by a


company called A4Tech. The A4Tech ND-30 RFID wireless mouse
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=NB30-N&cat=MOU) must be used with
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the included mouse pad in order to function, but there are no batteries in the
mouse, and no cords on the mouse to get in the way. It works by using electro
magnetic induction between the pad (which is plugged into a USB port) and the
wireless, non-powered mouse. You never have to worry about replacing /
charging batteries, and the weight of the mouse is greatly reduced since the
power features are no longer necessary.

Features

Buttons – Most mice (except for a Macintoch’s) include at least two buttons. The
use of these is fairly well understood, but other buttons may be featured on a
mouse to further simplify common tasks. The Logitech MX 510 mouse
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=931162-0403-DT&cat=MOU) features
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a total of 8 buttons which can be programmed to execute functions of the user’s


choosing.

Scroll wheels – Many mice now include a scroll wheel between the two main
buttons which serves to allow up/down scrolling of documents and web pages.
The scroll wheel may also serves as a third button on some mice, and clicking
the scroll wheel will activate commands in many applications. More advanced
scroll wheels are found on some mice that allow for left to right scrolling, which
may be useful on a wide spreadsheet or large image.

Extra features – Many mice provide more than the basic functionality we have
come to expect. Some provide a reduced foot print in order to make them more
portable for use with a notebook computer
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=931150-0403-DT&cat=MOU). Some
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are designed for multi-tasking and provide an integrated flash memory card
reader (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=KMOUSE-SDMSMMC-
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N&cat=MOU). Then, there are others that just look cool


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(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-3DOPT-N&cat=MOU) with a bit of


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a light show, or that actually keep you cool


(http://www.logisyscomputer.com/viewsku.asp?SKUID=MS802SL&DID=KEYBO
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ARD) by including a small fan in the palm rest area.


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Final Words

On the surface, computer mice are fairly simple devices that may not receive the
attention they deserve by end users. Selecting a high quality, ergonomically
designed mouse can do wonders for productivity and comfort, and the options
available should allow anyone to find the right mouse for their personal
preferences.
Digital Camera Basics… The Vocabulary

Shopping for a digital camera can be a difficult task considering the sheer number of
choices out there. The number of manufacturers, models, and price ranges that need to be
sorted out make the process difficult enough, but throw in all the buzz-words that need to
be understood, and even a short list of cameras can become difficult to analyze.

This Tech Tip will take a look at a few key words that may come up when researching a
digital camera, and will hopefully reduce the headaches associated with the process.

Pixels

Digital images are composed of thousands or millions of tiny squares called picture
elements, or pixels for short. Each square has its own color assigned to it, and the
compilation of all of these little colored squares allows for images to appear smooth when
viewed at original size. If an image is magnified several times, the appearance of the
pixels can become more obvious, and at high magnifications each colored pixel can be
distinguished individually.

Megapixels

Basically, the term megapixel means one million pixels, and it is used to describe the
maximum number of pixels found in an image produced by a digital camera. It is
generally the criteria used to classify cameras, and checking the Geeks.com selection
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=CAM) shows that their cameras are all sorted
into ranges of megapixels (MP).

Many people assume that because cameras are marketed so heavily by their megapixel
specification, that this is the single most important criteria when choosing a camera.
More megapixels do not necessarily equal better images, they mean larger images (both
in physical size and in file size).

The megapixel count is achieved by multiplying the number of pixels in one horizontal
line by the number of pixels in one vertical line. So, if a camera can produce images at a
maximum resolution of 1600 by 1200 pixels, it is a 1.92 megapixel (1,920,000 pixel)
camera.

It is not fair to assume that the images from the 5.0 MP Kodax CX7525
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CX7525-R&cat=CAM) are automatically
better than those from the 4.0 MP Kodak CX7430
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CX7430-R&cat=CAM) strictly based on their
megapixel count. All it means is that the maximum image size of the CX7525 is 2560 x
1920 and the maximum image size of the LS743 is 2408 x 1758. Many other features in
the cameras can impact the quality of the images they produce, and may be far more
important for the typical user to consider than the maximum overall size of each image.

Larger image size may do nothing for a user who only wants to view images on his
computer screen, or for use on the web, but the higher megapixel images are important
for those looking to make prints of their images. Generally, higher pixel counts in an
image translate to the ability to create larger prints.

Sensors – CMOS and CCD

Digital cameras use a small sensor to capture the image before transferring it to flash
memory for storage. Equivalent to a negative in a film camera, these sensors come in a
variety of sizes, with most being between 20 and 40 millimeters squared. There are two
types of sensors that may be found in cameras: CCD (Charged Couple Device) and
CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor). CMOS sensors are usually found
in cheaper cameras and offer lower image quality than a CCD sensor that would probably
be found in a more expensive camera.

There is an exception to the rule that CCD is better than CMOS, and that is with the
Digital SLR-type (Single Lens Reflex) cameras. They use a much larger sensor (greater
than 300 millimeters squared) and can provide excellent image quality, but the quality
does come with a much higher price tag.

Zoom – Optical and Digital

Most digital cameras offer some sort of zoom, but it is important to identify which type is
being provided. Optical zoom functions just as on a film camera, where the lens
physically moves to produce the magnification. Digital zoom uses circuitry to enlarge a
portion of the standard sized image and crops the content outside of the zoomed area.
The quality of images produced using digital zoom suffer due to the nature of the process,
and optical zoom is a far more desirable feature.

The price of a camera with optical zoom may be a good deal more than one with digital
zoom, but the quality of the images cannot be compared. The Kodak CX7330
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CX7330-R&cat=CAM) and the Kodak
CX7300 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CX7300-R&cat=CAM) are
comparable cameras in many regards, but the CX7300 features only digital zoom, while
the CX7330 features both optical and digital zoom for about $30 more.

Memory - Digital Film

Previous Tech Tips took a look at the variety of flash memory available (Part One
http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-020305.htm and Part Two
http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-021005.htm), and these items are what becomes the
film in a digital camera.

The two important things to consider when choosing flash memory for a digital camera is
that the right format is chosen, and that a quality module is chosen that can record
quickly and be ready for the next picture as soon as possible. A photographer looking to
snap a rapid series of high resolution images on their Kodak DX7440
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DX7440-R&cat=CAM) has many options in
SD (secure digital) memory to choose from but, they would be far better off with
something like the SanDisk Ultra II SD card
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SDSDH-512-901&cat=RAM) capable of a
sustained write speed of 9 MB/s, than with a generic SD card
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SDMC256&cat=RAM) capable of a burst
speed rated at only 2.5MB/s.

Aliasing

Even if you think you know the basic definition of this term, it may seem confusing in the
context of digital cameras. Aliasing refers to the appearance of jagged edges generally
seen on diagonal or curved surfaces in images. This effect is caused by the fact that all
pixels are square, and that even non-square shapes in an image need to be created with
square components.

The solution to aliasing is not surprisingly called “anti-aliasing.” Through software, the
edges generally affected by aliasing are blended and the jagged appearance can be made
much smoother. Video game enthusiasts may be familiar with anti-aliasing and the
impact the varying levels of it can have on the overall performance of game play.
Although the technology is similar, the personal importance of having the best digital
images possible makes applying anti-aliasing just about a no-brainer.

Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio describes the shape of a digital image, or any image for that matter, where
the first number represents the width of the image and the second number represents the
height. People may be familiar with the term as applied to televisions (as 16:9 wide
screen televisions are now all the rage to replace traditional 4:3 units), and the concept is
the same here.

Standard film cameras generally use an aspect ratio of 3:2, but most digital cameras have
adopted a 4:3 aspect ratio so that images better fit on a standard computer monitor.
Monitors with typical resolutions of 800x600, 1024x768, or 1280x960, for example, all
have an aspect ratio of 4:3, so it only makes sense to produce images that will fit well on
these screens. Although images can be manipulated to print on any size paper, special
photo-quality paper (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=C6944A) is available to
allow for high-quality prints to be made at the correct aspect ratio.
Connectivity

The pictures taken by a digital camera have to be extracted by some means in order to
get them onto a computer, or perhaps directly onto a printer. In general, cameras provide
a cable to connect to a computer either via serial, USB, USB 2.0, or Firewire.

Serial ports are just about extinct at this point due to their slow connection speeds and
lack of plug-and-play support, but some older or lower-end models may still offer serial
connectivity.

USB may be the most common form of connectivity, and if speed is important to you,
look specifically for USB 2.0 support, as it is up to 40 times faster.

Some specialized cameras may take advantage of the high speed Firewire protocol for
connecting to a computer. Just about all modern computers come with at least a pair of
USB ports, but not all computers include Firewire. Firewire capabilities can be added to
any computer with an available PCI slot by using an expansion card such as this one
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=UW-1394PCI-A01-N&cat=CCD).

Some cameras don’t require any cables at all, as they can transmit the images to a PC
wirelessly. The Concord EyeQ
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=EYEQ&cat=CAM) is such a camera that
utilizes Bluetooth technology in lieu of wires.

Even with all the modes of transmitting images listed so far, one other method may serve
as a universal replacement for all of them. Many people find flash memory card readers
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?Cat=CAM#CameraMemoryCardReaders) to be a
quick and convenient alternative to using the camera’s native means of connecting. You
simply remove the memory from the slot on the camera and pop it into the appropriate
slot on the reader, and then the computer system can access the card like a local disk
drive.

Final Words

Every high-tech field has its own set of specific buzz words, and digital photography is
no different. Although by no means an exhaustive resource of digital photography
terminology, this Tech Tip provides insight to a few key terms worth knowing in order to
make shopping for a digital camera just a bit easier.
Digital Camera Accessories:

Digital cameras are great devices that have made photography simple and enjoyable to countless
people. They make taking and sharing photos easier and more economical than film could ever
do, but a digital camera may not be optimized as is straight from the retail packaging. It needs to
be accessorized, and this Tech Tip will take a look at five accessories worth considering for use
with any digital camera.

Flash Memory

Most cameras are sold with either a removable flash memory card included, or an onboard
memory chip, for storing the images the camera takes. The problem is that the included memory
may not be the best for many practical uses, and will need to be upgraded by the end user
immediately. The memory provided with many cameras generally is of too low a capacity, and
the performance of the modules may not be the best either.

A camera taking images at the high resolutions possible today is going to chew up space on a
flash card quickly, and the typical 16MB or 32MB card provided by the manufacturer just isn’t
going to cut it. I recently purchased a high-quality 3.2 Megapixel (MP) camera that came with a
16MB Compact Flash (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#CompactFlashMemory)
card. I was somewhat surprised to see that I would only be able take 9 pictures at maximum
resolution before the card was full, and wondered why the manufacturer bothered to include a
memory card at all. The first step to making the camera more usable was to upgrade to a 512MB
Compact Flash card that upped the total storage to 299 images while at the highest resolution.

Taking a look around shows that this practice is common, and that even cameras at 5MP and
above may include just a 32MB card. When purchasing a camera, this is something to pay close
attention to, and if the camera seems to be a good fit otherwise, be prepared to buy a larger
memory card at the same time.

The other issue with flash memory is that they are not all able to read and write at the same
speed. While a slower memory card may be more than adequate to keep up with playing any
collection of digital audio files, when it comes to taking a steady stream of high resolution images,
you need media that can keep up. SanDisk’s Ultra II series of SD cards
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SDSDH-512-901&cat=RAM) provides much higher
read/write speeds than your typical SD cards
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#SmartMediaMemory), which are more than likely
the type you will find included with a camera. Having a high-speed memory card may be the
difference between capturing a string of high resolution action shots, and sitting in frustration as
the light blinks on your camera indicating that it is still writing the previous image.

These details and many others were covered in two previous Tech Tips dedicated to flash
memory. If you missed them, please make sure to check out both Part 1
(http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-020305.htm) and Part 2 (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-
021005.htm) of that series.

Card Readers
A card reader (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=CAM#CameraMemoryCardReaders)
may be just the accessory to consider for use with the new, high capacity flash memory card you
picked up with your digital camera. These device can either be installed internally
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=5069-6126&cat=CAM) or externally
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HE-660A&cat=CAM) to your computer, and provide a
convenient way to get the files off of all the common flash memory formats used in cameras,
digital audio players, and PDAs. Internal ones are great for use with systems that you know will
always need these features, but external readers are just as handy, and can be taken with you for
use on any desktop or notebook computer with an open USB port.

Not only do these devices provide a convenient interface for accessing the various types of flash
memory you may use in a camera, they may be able to do so quicker than using the standard
cable provided with a camera. Most card readers take advantage of the high-speed transfers
afforded by USB 2.0, and even if your camera supports USB 2.0, the camera’s User Interface
may slow you down. The card reader will treat any flash memory inserted into it as a disk drive
and allow you to browse the contents and copy what you want onto your hard drive quickly.
Some cameras use a proprietary software interface that may slow things down or otherwise be
inconvenient, but if you can use Windows Explorer (or the equivalent in other operating systems)
you can get your photos from a card reader with ease.

Rechargeable Batteries

Many cameras come with rechargeable batteries included, which can make life much easier (and
less expensive). Cameras can drain batteries quickly thanks to the larger, color LCD screens that
they now need to power, as well as the flash and the other usual functions.

If a camera does come with rechargeable batteries, it may be worth investigating whether or not it
uses a proprietary format, or one of the more common battery types (like AA or AAA). Proprietary
batteries may have their advantages, but in general a camera that accepts a commonly available
battery may be the most convenient for two reasons:

First, if the rechargeable batteries should happen to run out of charge and you have neither the
time nor facilities to recharge them, you can easily pop in common disposable batteries just to
keep the camera up and running. This may prove to be particularly helpful while traveling when
there is either no outlet for recharging, or you only have access to a foreign power source which
requires an adaptor you don’t happen to have.

Secondly, another benefit of using a standard battery type comes when the batteries eventually
die all together. Rechargeable batteries can only be charged so many times, and as they age
their performance may begin to fade before they die all together. Replacing batteries of a
standard format is easy and relatively inexpensive, while sourcing a replacement proprietary
battery may be much more difficult and much more expensive.

Rechargeable batteries
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?Cat=CON#BatteriesandBatteryChargers) are generally sold
based on their capacity, measured in units of mAh (milliAmp hours). Although real-world
performance will vary among cameras and how they are used, a battery with a higher mAh value
will generally be able to hold a greater charge and last longer between charges than a lower-
rated battery.

The previously mentioned 3.2 MP camera I own came with four rechargeable AA batteries rated
at 1600 mAh. Although they last for a respectable amount of time between charges, replacing
them with something like this four pack of 2300 mAh AA batteries
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=NIMH-2300MAH&cat=CON) may provide a noticeable
boost.
Carrying Case

Protecting your cameras should be of some importance considering their cost and somewhat
delicate nature. Although most cameras are sold with some sort of case, many aren’t much more
than a form-fitting piece of vinyl, perhaps with a bit of felt backing if you’re lucky. There are
numerous camera cases out there that can provide more substantial protection for a digital
camera, and configurations are available to allow for many of the accessories to be carried in the
same case.

A case doesn’t need to be expensive to be effective, and even a basic unit, like this one from
Lowepro (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=Z5-PUR&cat=CAM), can provide additional
padding, storage space for extra batteries and memory cards, and perhaps a strap or belt loop for
carrying it. The important thing is to find a well-constructed case that fits your particular camera
well, and offers ample padding to protect it from all the bumps and thumps it may incur while in
transit. And if nothing on the market seems to fit your needs, you may get inspiration from this
guide (http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=213&var2=0) to build your own
camera case.

Tripod

Not all tripods are huge contraptions you would expect professional photographers to carry
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VPD-TRIPOD&cat=CAM), as there are miniature
tripods (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-TR-1&cat=CAM) that may be just as useful
and easier to carry as well. The typical digital camera user may not think they have use for a
tripod, but they can come in quite handy for a couple of reasons:

First, depending on shutter speed, an image may become blurred due to even the slightest
movement. If you don’t have a steady hand, a tripod may be just the thing to ensure that your
important shots are crystal clear. Close-up shots in particular may benefit from the steady
support provided by a tripod, and anyone who operates their camera in “macro” (extremely close
up) mode on a regular basis may be pleased with the outcome once a tripod has been added to
their cache of accessories.

Second, tripods can also prove quite handy for travelers. If there is no one around to take a
picture of you posing with a historic landmark or lounging on the beach, a tripod and a camera
with a timer is all you need. The UltraPod (http://www.pedcopods.com/) is one of the miniature
varieties of tripods that folds up to make it convenient for travel, offers the typical features of a
tripod, and as the image on their homepage indicates, it has one other interesting feature: an
integrated Velcro® strap allows the tripod and camera to be strapped to any narrow diameter
object for even more self-supported photo opportunities. As a long-time owner of an UltraPod I,
there have been numerous street signs, fence posts, saplings, etc., that have helped me get a
picture I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to take without such a device.

Final Words

Digital cameras are great devices that make taking and sharing photographs faster, and, let’s
face it, cheaper than ever before. Although they may be great on their own, a few key
accessories can make them even more convenient, practical, and enjoyable to use. There are
other digital camera accessories
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=CAM#CameraAccessories) that may be right for your
specific needs, but the five discussed in this Tech Tip are universally worth considering by users
from novice to expert.
CPU Socket Basics, Part 1 – Intel:

Although there are currently only


two main players in the CPU
market, AMD and Intel, the
number of choices is still enough
to make the typical consumer’s
head spin. Each manufacturer has
a few different models to promote,
and many of these models can be
found in a few different form
factors (namely, the “sockets” to
which they connect) that exclude
interchangeability.

This two-part series of Tech Tips


will look at a few details of each of the currently-supported CPU (Central Processing Unit)
sockets and how they are all similar and different from one to another. First up, we will take a
look at the CPU sockets supporting modern Intel processors.

Socket 478

For all of these form factors, the number following “socket” refers to
the number of CPU pins or connectors. Socket 478 is a format
specifically designed for Intel’s Celeron
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=CPU#Socket478CPUs(Cel
eron)), Pentium 4
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=CPU#Socket478CPUs(Pen
tium4)), and mobile Celeron/Pentium
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MP42000478-
N&cat=CPU) processors.

This socket supports processors with frontside buses of 400 MHz


(100 MHz x 4), 533 MHz (133 MHz x 4), and 800 MHz (200 MHz x
4), and provides top speeds from below 1 GHz to higher than 3 GHz. The Intel naming system
used for the Pentium 4 processors in this class uses letters to represent the frontside bus speeds
present. An “A” means 400 MHz, “B” means 533 MHz, and “C” means 800 MHz. So, a
Pentium 4 2.4C would offer greater performance than a 2.4B or a 2.4A, despite them all having
the same 2.4 GHz clock speed.

The Pentium class of processors, like many others from AMD and Intel, also apply names to the
“cores” present on the processor. The core is the processing portion of the CPU, generally found
at the center of the silicon wafer. As the architecture within cores of the same type of processor
change, new names are given to signify the different levels of performance that users may
experience. The Northwood, Gallatin, and Prescott cores can be found on Pentium 4 processors
of the same speed, and a main difference between the three is that the first two are fabricated on a
0.13 micron (one one-millionth of a meter) process and the Prescott is fabricated on a 0.09 micron
process. A lower number implies a more tightly-packed core that generally requires less power to
perform the same operations.

Later generation Socket 478 Pentium 4


processors were the first to implement
Intel’s Hyper-Threading Technology
(http://www.intel.com/technology/hypert
hread/), which allowed for applications to
be run in parallel, thus improving the
performance of the system. Although not
nearly as strong, the concept is similar to
having a dual processor system or dual-
core processor, as systems with Hyper-Threading enabled can handle intensive applications much
easier than the same system without Hyper-Threading.

Socket 478 was Intel’s flagship format for several years, and continues to be a popular choice
among Pentium 4 motherboards. Socket 478 motherboards were first compatible with SDRAM
memory (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#168-pinDIMMMemory), then
RAMBUS memory (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#184-pinRIMMMemory),
and as it became more popular DDR memory
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#184-pinDDRDIMMMemory) became the format
of choice. But, Intel’s decision to embrace DDR2 (among other developments) has resulted in a
totally new CPU socket for Pentium 4 processors… Socket T.

Socket T (LGA 775)

Socket T actually doesn’t mount to a socket like the rest of processors on this list, as the pins
usually found on the processor have been moved to the motherboard, and the processor now
receives the 755 pins on its underside. Socket T processors
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=CPU#Socket775CPUs) are
basically the next generation of Celerons and Pentium 4s found on
the Socket 478 format, continuing many of the same attributes, such
as Hyper-Threading, on the Pentium 4 series.

The Celerons in Socket T only support a 533 MHz frontside bus


(Celeron D), and the Pentium 4s support both an 800 MHz frontside
bus and a new 1066 MHz (266 MHz x 4) frontside bus. Speeds of
the processors can range from under 3 GHz while the high end of the
speed scale has not yet been reached. Processors approaching 4 GHz
are becoming available, and it will be interesting to see how fast this
format will be able to climb.

The architecture changes allow for greater efficiency, and this format of CPUs is the first to take
advantage of the new DDR2 memory (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#240-
pinDDR2DIMMMemory) format. Although DDR2 has been slow to catch on, as manufacturers
refine its performance the benefits should make its use quite appealing.
As Intel transitioned to the LGA (Land Grid Array) 775 format, they also transitioned to a three
digit naming convention, similar to the PR (Performance Rating) grades that AMD had used for
years. Instead of simply marketing a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 Prescott core as such, they now refer to
it as the Pentium 4 530. A 2.8 GHz Prescott is now called a 520, and a 3.8 GHz Prescott is called
a 570.

Socket 603/604

These CPUs may not be as common as the others, but are worthy of inclusion on this list anyway.
Socket 603 and Socket 604 are the home to Intel’s modern Xeon processors, which are more
likely to be found in a high-end server than in a desktop computer.

The Xeon can come with frontside buses ranging from 400 MHz
(100 MHz x 4) to 800 MHz (200 MHz x 4), and provide top speeds
that now reach 3.6 GHz. Socket 603 is for older, slower Xeons
capable of a 400 MHz frontside bus, and Socket 604 adds the one
pin simply to identify the faster bus speeds. Socket 603 processors
will fit and function in a Socket 604 motherboard, but the opposite
will not work.

Xeons are powerful processors all on their own, but the architecture
of the CPU and supporting motherboards allows for serious systems
to be configured with dual processors
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=X6DVL-EG-O-DT&cat=MBB), or perhaps even four
processors (http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/GC-HE/P4QH6.cfm), to
really make light work of even the most intensive application.

Final Words

From the data presented so far, there are more than enough variables to ponder from just Intel’s
stable of processors. We are only halfway there, as the next part in this series of Tech Tips will
turn its attention to the modern processors available from AMD.
CPU Socket Basics, Part 2 – AMD:

This two-part series of Tech Tips started with a look at a few details of each of Intel’s
modern processors (See CPU Socket Basics, Part 1: http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-
19MAY05.htm), and how they are all similar and different from one to another. In the
second and final part of this series, we will take a look at the CPU sockets supporting
modern AMD processors.

Socket A

Socket A was the staple format in AMD’s line-up for years, carrying the brand through
the Athlon, Thunderbird, Duron, Athlon XP, Athlon MP, and Sempron classes of
processors. The number of pins found on the bottom of a Socket A CPU totals 462, and
this is one of the few formats that is not named for the number of pins found on the
processor.

Socket A processors came with frontside bus speeds from 200 MHz (100 MHz x 2) up to
400 MHz (200 MHz x 2). Socket A processors ranged in top speeds from under 1 GHz
to just over 2 GHz, but the identification of a Socket A processor’s true speed is difficult
due to AMD’s use of PR (Performance Rating) grades instead of true processor speed as
a sales tool.

For example, an AMD Athlon XP 3000+


(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AXDA3000DKV4D&cat=CPU) doesn’t have
a speed of 3.0 GHz, but rather 2.167 GHz. AMD contends that their architecture
provides performance equivalent to the PR grade, despite the actual speed being much
lower.

Early Socket A systems supported SDRAM memory


(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#168-pinDIMMMemory), but as the
technology advanced and DDR memory
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#184-pinDDRDIMMMemory) became
available, these processors took advantage of the increased performance. DDR memory
offered greater overall performance at the same clock speeds as SDRAM, as well as the
potential for much higher clock speeds, so it was only a matter of time before it became
the standard memory for use with these processors.

Just like Intel, AMD cores in this series also have names to distinguish different levels of
performance within the same class of processor. For example, Duron cores carry names
such as Morgan and Applebred, while Athlon XP processor cores have names such as
Palomino, Thoroughbred, and Barton (listed in order from weakest to strongest).

The long-lived success of Socket A is winding down, as the last date for orders to be
placed for production has just passed (http://theinquirer.net/?article=21377). As we say
goodbye to Socket A, AMD intends to focus more attention on similar processors for
Socket 754, as well as the higher-end Socket 939/940 formats.

Socket 754

Socket 754 picks up where Socket A left off, offering


support for CPUs including the Sempron and Athlon 64.
As the name implies, the processor features 754 tiny pins
that interface with the socket on the motherboard. As
processors develop, the number of pins manufacturers can
fit on the back becomes more and more amazing.

The Sempron class of processor is more of a budget-


conscious offering, with current PR grades available from
2600+ to 3300+, while the Athlon 64 is the more
powerful 64-bit offering with PR grades from 2800+ and
climbing past 3700+ (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ADA3700BOX-
DT&cat=CPU). All Socket 754 processors support a frontside bus of 400 MHz (200
MHz x 2), and presently all systems utilize DDR memory.

Socket 939/940

Socket 939 and 940 support the current top-of-the-line offerings from AMD and, as the
names imply, they are separated by one pin. Like their Socket 754 cousins, this format of
AMD processors utilizes DDR memory and provides a frontside bus of 400 MHz (200
MHz x 2).

Socket 939 supports Athlon 64


processors with PR grades currently up
to 4000+, as well as the Athlon 64 FX
series which takes the performance to
new levels for game play and other
intensive applications. Socket 940 is
more the business side of this pair of
sockets, offering support for both
Athlon 64 FX series CPUs and the
AMD Opteron class of server processors. The Opteron series of processors include a
feature called “dual-core,” where one processor is effectively seen as two, and given the
possibilities of multi-processor motherboards, the computing power can be incredible. A
recent release from AMD is the Athlon 64 X2, which brings high-performance dual-core
technology to a Socket 939 desktop environment, but has yet to become available to the
public for purchase.

Where many AMD processors used a 4 digit PR grade for marketing, the FX series of
Athlon 64 processors uses a two digit code (i.e., FX-51, FX-55) and the Opteron uses a
three digit code (i.e., Opteron 244, Opteron 252). All of these designations can sure
make things confusing, and given the varied nomenclature that AMD alone currently
uses, it can be tricky figuring out how fast a CPU really is.

Final Words

As CPU technology advances, the sockets that correspond to them are forced to change
as well. The new physical sizes, internal architecture, and thermal properties require that
the ‘packaging’ evolve. A negative side effect of this development is that motherboards
wind up with limited “upgrade paths” when it comes to adding a faster processor.
Although this can occasionally be remedied with socket adaptors
(http://www.powerleap.com/PowerLeapAdapters.html), as AMD and Intel continue down
their parallel paths of development, this situation can be expected to continue. With that
said, it looks like AMD’s next CPU socket isn’t that far off:
(http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20050430084624.html).
Gaming Gear Checklist:

Most Tech Tips have focused on the business side of computer hardware, but all work and no
play…

In this Tech Tip, we will look at some important considerations to make when selecting hardware
for use in a computer that may need to work hard, but will need to play even harder. Today’s
fast-paced video games demand a lot of computing power and ‘good’ systems even a few years
old just won’t cut it. Buying the video game is the easy part, but
making sure you have a system that can handle it is where things
may get more complicated.

Far Cry (http://www.farcry.ubi.com/) is a popular action game from


UbiSoft (http://www.ubi.com/) that is a perfect example of the
demands placed on computers to make them run well. Their
“System Requirements” page (http://www.farcry.ubi.com/system.php)
lists the minimum specifications needed to play the game, as well as
recommended specifications that will allow the game to run smoothly
and look half decent. From the information provided on that page, it
is clear that a computer from a few years ago may be able to play
the game, but to really enjoy the game, you may need to buy more
than just the game software.

System Components

The core system components obviously play a major role in game play. As is the case with
computer performance in general, faster and bigger are what you want in processors, memory,
and hard drives to enhance the gaming experience. According to the Far Cry specifications, a
processor with a speed greater than 2 GHz and 512MB or more of memory are recommended.
These system specifications may not be cutting edge, but
they may be greater than those of many personal
computers. Far Cry is just one example of many modern
games requiring similar resources, and the average system
just might not be up to the task.

Hardcore gamers (with the appropriate budget) might not


flinch at dropping a few hundred dollars on new
components hoping to squeeze just a bit more performance
out of their system. The technology advances so quickly
that an endless cycle of upgrades is possible if you feel the
need to keep up. For the sake of this article, we will
assume that some of the core components in your system
are there for at least the foreseeable future, and that they
are at least modern enough to consider for use with video
games.

Video
Video is no doubt the most important aspect to enjoying a video game. There may be many
components behind the scene making sure that a crisp, clear image is provided for smooth game
play, but all we care about is what is shown on the screen.

The first thing to consider here is the graphics card. Taking a look back at the recommended
specifications for Far Cry, it can be seen that you’ll want a fast
graphics processor backed by 128MB (or more) of video memory.
Systems using onboard video, or a PCI based video card, may do fine
in desktop applications, but game play may be less than enjoyable. It
used to be that 128MB of memory was a big deal, but now it is a fairly
common base offering. High-end cards with 256MB or 512MB are
readily available, even though some may argue that 128MB on a card
with a fast processor may be enough.

PCI Express video cards are the latest and greatest, and for those with motherboards that
support PCIe, the extra bandwidth coupled with a high-end graphics processor will provide the
best performance. Systems supporting SLI (http://www.slizone.com/content/slizone/index.html)
can take things to the extreme by harnessing the processing power of a pair of matching PCIe
graphics cards for use on one display.

AGP cards still dominate in terms of popularity, and


most chipsets found in the PCIe format will also be
found in AGP format. The performance of AGP
cards with the same high-end chipset as a PCIe card
can be expected to be less, but still more than
adequate for smooth game play. Taking a look at
one manufacturer’s website shows that both a PCIe
(http://www.rosewill.com/product/product.aspx?produ
ctId=154) and AGP
(http://www.rosewill.com/product/product.aspx?produ
ctId=153) version of an nVidia GeForce 6600GT are
available with 128MB of memory. The 6600GT PCIe
card, such as this one
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PCIE-
OCT-FX6600GT128&cat=VCD) at Geeks.com, is currently quite popular with game players, as it
offers excellent performance at a price that isn’t too outrageous.

Let’s not forget the monitor. All the graphics processing power in the world is worthless without
somewhere to see it. CRT monitors still dominate in terms of popularity for game players, but
LCDs are making great strides.

The main issue to consider with LCDs is response time, which is a figure that should be provided
in the list of specifications. Presented in terms of
milliseconds (“ms”), lower values are preferable as it
indicates how quickly the image is updated. In fast-paced
games, “ghosting” may occur on slower monitors due to the
action being faster than the monitor can keep up with.
Comparing this 17” TFT LCD from SVA
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VR-17B-
R&cat=MON) to this one from Princeton
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SEN-714-
R&cat=MON), shows that among other things, an extra $25
provides a response time of 16ms on the Princeton versus
25ms on the SVA. The criteria for acceptability may be
subjective and relative to the game being played, the person
playing it, and other system settings, but some may argue that LCDs with a response time of
16ms or less are best suited for game play. As the technology advances, LCD monitors with
response times in the single digits are starting to show up, such as the 19” Viewsonic VX924
(http://www.viewsonic.com/products/desktopdisplays/lcddisplays/xseries/vx924/) with a response
time of 4ms.

Audio

The audio portion of video games plays a major role in the


overall experience. Games are developed to take advantage of
surround sound stereo audio, and the system the games are
played on need to be able to share this with the user.

The first step is to make sure a sound card capable of properly


reproducing the sound is available. Many modern motherboards
include a 5.1 channel stereo sound processor onboard, but there
are PCI card upgrades available for those who need it. Budget-
conscious gamers can add something like this 7.1 channel
sound card (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=A-8768-
8C-N&cat=SND) to their system, or if they have the money for it,
they can add the extreme performance and features of the 7.1
channel Creative Audigy 2ZS Platinum
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=70SB035000003-DT&cat=SND).

Once you have the sound card, you need a decent set of
speakers to realistically duplicate the sounds of things like gun
fire, explosions, and foot steps, as well as to indicate where
the sounds are coming from. A set of surround sound
speakers are necessary for distinguishing where approaching
enemies are when out of your field of view, or to determine
where distant gun shots are coming from. Two stereo
speakers may work well enough for quietly listening to music,
but they aren’t going to cut it for game play. A 5.1 channel, six
piece set (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=SPK#6-
PieceSpeaker/SubwooferSet) providing two front speakers,
two rear speakers, a center channel, and a subwoofer are
required for a realistic gaming experience.

Some may find that their neighbors don’t care to share in


the excitement of their latest game. For them, perhaps a
set of headphones is a better investment than a set of
speakers. The performance of headphones may be just
as good as speakers, as some have been designed with
multiple speakers to reproduce 5.1 channel stereo sound
(http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx=1
10&code=023). Other headphones provide “force
feedback” that actually vibrates to enhance the effect of
things like explosions. These Meritline Vibra
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VIBRA&cat=S
PK) 2 channel headphones provide such a feature, as
well as including a microphone. Many multiplayer
games support the use of microphones to allow team
members to communicate with each other.

Input Devices
The interface between the player and the computer is obviously an important one. Items such as
keyboards, mice, and game controllers are all critical to ensure that a player can’t blame poor
performance on anything but a lack of skill.

Some may say a keyboard is a keyboard, and that it can’t possibly matter, but it does. Having a
comfortable keyboard is the top priority, and other features may make things even more
enjoyable during game play. A keyboard such as this one
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SIL-USBPS2-2160-WB&cat=MOU) may be desirable
for two reasons. One, the backlit keys allow for easy viewing in dimly lit rooms. Lowering the
lights makes the monitor appear brighter and perhaps have better contrast. Two, the multi-
function keys may allow for combination commands to be programmed into one button. For
those who want to get really serious with a keyboard for gaming, look into the Zboard
(http://www.zboard.com/us/index.html), considered to be the “ultimate gaming keyboard.”

Most computer games utilize the mouse as the main control for direction and weapon
selection/use, so a good mouse is obviously quite important. Being able to have smooth, precise
movement is critical to getting around quickly and making sure the shot hits the mark. An old
roller ball mouse jammed full of dust probably won’t help, and an optical or laser mouse is the
way to go. Logitech has mice that provide the precision needed, as well as ergonomically
designed bodies that should remain comfortable through hours of intense game play. The
MX510 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=931162-0403-DT&cat=MOU) is a wired optical
mouse and the MX1000 (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=931175-0403-DT&cat=MOU)
is a wireless laser mouse that takes performance and comfort to the extreme.

While talking about precision and smooth movement, we can’t neglect the mouse pad.
Performance “mousing surfaces” such as the X-Ray Pad (http://www.xraypad.com/) and the
Maxill G-Pad (http://www.maxtill.com/eng/index.php) provide uniform surfaces in various sizes to
suit any user’s needs.

When considering games, we have to talk about game


controllers. Many computer games don’t need anything more
than a keyboard and mouse, but many games do require
specialized controllers to enhance game play. Some
controllers have cloned the popular shape of controllers found
on popular console gaming systems. This controller
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PCJOYPAD-BLU-
N&cat=JOY&cpc=GAM) bares a striking resemblance to a
PlayStation controller, allowing those familiar with the controls
on that system to be comfortable on a PC, as well. In addition
there are controllers for driving games
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=NASCARPRO-
WO&cat=JOY&cpc=GAM) and flying games
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=TGFOX2-TR&cat=JOY&cpc=GAM), among others.
Final Words

Having a computer configured to be the ultimate gaming system with all the latest and greatest
hardware could easily cost several thousand dollars. Guess what? Within a few months, all of
those cutting edge components will be old news, and a whole new batch of products will be
available with even greater performance. But, if you are like most consumers, you have a budget
and picking components that provide decent performance is possible without mortgaging the
house.
Case Modding

The previous Tech Tip (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-02JUN05.htm) took a look at a few


items that may be high on the wish list of computer game players. Although those items may
make the functionality of games better, one thing that seems to go hand-in-hand with a gaming
rig is a system with a unique appearance. The rising popularity of LAN parties has elevated the
interest in customized computer cases, and what once was left to highly creative/skilled
individuals, is now so mainstream that it might not be considered custom.

Go back just a few short years and the


appearances of pretty much all computers
were slight variations of the same theme.
Boring beige boxes dominated the industry,
and people looking to express their
individuality with the style of their computer
had to take matters into their own hands.

The term “modding” may not even be a real word (I know MS Word’s spell checker is upset with
my use of it), but it is appropriate for loosely describing the broad field of modifying a computer
system to give it a personalized style. This tip will proceed by looking at some of the basic items,
tools, and accessories used in modding.

Tools

The old school case modders may be more likely to find their
gear at hardware, automotive, and electronics stores than they
would at a computer store. They might take a plain case like
this (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ATX-
208P&cat=CAS) and turn it into something even more unique
than this one
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CP8869-
3&cat=CAS), with just a bit of creativity and a steady hand.

For those who take pride in doing the job themselves, there
are certain tools that should be included in the typical
modder’s toolbox. The Dremel (http://www.dremel.com/) has
to be considered a must-have. This high-speed rotary tool can
be used for cutting, drilling, shaping, grinding, polishing, and more on anything from wood to
plastic to hard steel. A Dremel can help take the most mundane case and open up new vent
holes for fans, cut out a window in the side panel, or create intricate decorative cut outs
(http://www.bigbruin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=27461#27461).

A hole punch may not be as popular now that Dremels are so widely
available, but they are excellent tools for punching perfect circles into
thin sheet metal. For those who have access to one, these make
easy work out of adding a fan hole to any case with less than ideal air
flow.
A nibbler is another tool that may have lost some appeal with the
popularity of the Dremel, but it is another manual tool that can be
handy for cutting thin metal or plastic. Somewhat like a heavy duty
pair of shears, the nibbler gets its name due to the fact that it takes
small bites out of the surface in question, and allows the user to
slowly cut the desired pattern.

A soldering iron will come in handy for those who want their electrical
modifications to be a little more robust (and tidy) than wire nuts or
electrical tape alone will allow. Adding a custom lighting scheme
including LEDs, switches, and other items requires running some
wires, and most likely joining them in a neat and secure manner.

Custom cases are a lot like hot rods, except for computer geeks. Some may have the super-
charged (overclocked) engine and some serious performance hardware, but what will first grab
someone’s attention is a sharp appearance. Paint is key to a finely finished, modded computer,
just as it is to a hot rod. You can transform a case into something with classic style, into a tribute
to your favorite game, or into something whimsical
(http://images.gruntville.com/casegallery/Dracos-Mods/final1) with just a bit of paint.

The things serious case modders can create with their tools and creativity wind up looking less
like computer cases and more like art or props from a movie. Things like the
Matrix Regenerator
(http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/index.php?module=photoalbum&PHPW
S_Album_op=view&PHPWS_Album_id=3&MMN_position=55:55) or Rebirth
(http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/index.php?module=photoalbum&PHPW
S_Album_op=view&PHPWS_Album_id=4&MMN_position=49:49) projects
may be beyond the skills (and patience) of most, but they are awesome to
see.

Lighting

Lighting is a key element in case modding, and LEDs may be the


most common way to light up the inside and outside of a case.
Individual LEDs can be purchased from electronics stores and wired
together to create a unique array of color, intensity, and effects.
Typical LEDs are rated with voltages and currents less than what a
computer power supply might provide, and an LED calculator
(http://linear1.org/ckts/led.php) is a useful application for determining
what combination of LEDs and resistors might work best.

For those who want their LEDs pre-configured, at this point I think just
about every component may be available with LEDs in them. LEDs
are like magnets to computer geeks because they can’t help but be
drawn to them. Some common items that feature LEDs include cooling fans
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=D80SM-BLUE-LED&cat=FAN), fan controllers
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=4CH-FANCTRL-SIL&cat=CAS), power supplies
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=APGM480W&cat=CAS), mice
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=RED-3DOPT-
N&cat=MOU), and other random odds and ends
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=LCH-C-B-
N&cat=CAS).

CCFLs may be the next main form of case lighting. Cold


Cathode Florescent Lamp (CCFL) lighting is similar to typical
florescent lighting in that it uses electricity to excite a gas that
produces the visible light. The “cold” portion implies that minimal heat is generated while still
producing particularly bright light. CCFLs can output multitudes of colored light, including UV
light, and generally come in tubes or coiled, like on this fan
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CCF120UVVL&cpc=SCH&srm=0). The Sunbeam
Transformer case (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=IC-TR-N&cat=CAS) includes a green
CCFL tube to give the front grill its eerie glow.

Want one more type of lighting that can be used to mod a case? Good. EL, or Electro
Luminescent lighting, can be found in a variety of products, and it is distinguished by its even
glow, long life, and low power consumption. Products such as keyboards
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SIL-USBPS2-2160-WB&cat=MOU) and case badges
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=EL-B02-FLAME&cpc=SCH&srm=0) are just two
products that take advantage of the cool lighting effect provided by this high tech, thin material.

UV (Ultra Violet) is a term that people may usually associate with harmful sun rays, but to a
modded case, it is the special effect for when the lights go down. UV reactive computer
components, like those old Led Zeppelin posters in college, give off that freaky neon glow when
subjected to a black light. Fans
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CCF120UVVL&cat=CAS), various cables
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ULT31600&cat=CBL), and other items are available to
be used in conjunction with black light case lighting.

Pre-Modded Cases

What was once only available to those with


the skills and tools to make it happen is now
readily available to anyone. Granted, pre-
modded items aren’t as extreme or as
personalized as something undertaken from
scratch, but they are more interesting than
the boring beige box we all had at one time.
Clear cases
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=C
LRCAS-3LED-N&cat=CAS) or themed
cases
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=C
OBRA-822W-BLK&cat=CAS) may be a
good point to start a modding project from,
or it may be good enough for some as is. It
is all up to personal taste, and the personal
commitment to actually caring what your
computer case looks like (if you care at all).

Serious enthusiasts may look at the pre-


modded items as being posers, but they can not deny that the popularity of these items spawned
from the early days when a modded case was exactly that.

Final Words

Modding is all about individuality and having fun with what used to be a boring object. There is
no right or wrong way to do it, and the possibilities are only limited by a person’s creativity (and
perhaps creative skills).

Whether taking the approach of purchasing pre-modded items or starting from scratch with your
power tools in hand, sources of inspiration can be found online at places such as the Gruntville
Case Mod Gallery (http://www.gruntville.com/gallery_front.php), The Best Case Scenario
(http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/index.php?module=photoalbum&PHPWS_AlbumManager_
op=list), or Mini-ITX.com (http://www.mini-itx.com/projects.asp) for the small form factor
enthusiasts. If you prefer your information in print rather than online, there are such much
modding guides, like “Going Mod: 9 Cool Case Mod Projects“
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GOING-MOD&cat=CAS).
Tech Tip 31 - Gaming Graphics Glossary

A recent Tech Tip (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-02JUN05.htm) provided a look at


items that may be on the wish list of some computer game players, and a solid graphics
card is definitely at the top of such a list. Graphics cards, like so many other tech
components, seem to require their own language to describe the functions and features
they provide. This Tech Tip will take a look at a handful of terms related to graphics
cards, and some more specifically related to graphics cards as used for video games.

1. Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) – AGP is one type of interface for graphics cards
whose days may be numbered, but presently is the most common type out there due
to its years as the number one format. According to a previous Tech Tip
(http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-030305.htm), AGP is “a dedicated, point-to-point
interface that connects a video card directly to the system’s memory and processor.”
Developed by Intel in 1996, AGP graphics cards
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=VCD#AGP-256MB) were the leaders for
gaming graphics until the release of PCI Express.

2. Aliasing / Anti-Aliasing – This topic was covered in a previous Tech Tip


(http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-05MAY05.htm) related to digital cameras, and
the concept is the same as it applies to gaming graphics. Aliasing is basically
described as the tendency for a curved or diagonal line to appear jagged since they
are composed of tiny squares, or pixels. Anti-aliasing remedies this jagged
appearance through software, making images appear more smooth and natural.
Video games may provide varying levels of anti-aliasing, and generally with higher
levels of anti-aliasing, the overall performance of the game will be lower since more
processing power is being dedicated to smoothing each image. For this reason,
many graphics card reviews will show the effect on the frame rate of a game when
run with different levels of anti-aliasing applied.

3. Anisotropic Filtering – The definition of the word anisotropic from m-w.com states
“exhibiting properties with different values when measured in different directions.”
This is a common filtering technique applied to video games that helps improve the
perspective of the image shown. Like anti-aliasing, various levels are available, and
the higher the level of anisotropic filtering, the lower the overall performance of the
game. Reviews may also focus on the effect of various levels of this filtering when
presenting the frame rates achieved on a certain graphics card.

4. Application Programming Interface (API) – A set of standard instruction that allow for
video game programmers to work more efficiently by not having to recreate routine
operations that may be common across many games. Some examples of APIs
include Direct3D and OpenGL.
5. Artifact – An artifact is any unintentional and undesirable element found in the image
of a video game. Artifacts may include a flickering effect, pixels colored incorrectly,
image ghosting (where a previous image is still visible in later screens), blurring, or
gaps in the processing of images. Artifacts may be caused by overclocking the
system (especially the graphics processor), unstable or incorrect drivers, component
overheating, and other hardware or software errors.

6. Bump Mapping – Bump mapping is a means of applying textures to give the 2D


image on screen a more rough (or bumpy) 3D appearance. Lighting effects are used
to create light and dark areas to simulate the surface of items like walls, rocks, etc.

7. Direct3D – Direct3D is an API owned and developed by Microsoft for the creation of
3D games.

8. DirectX – DirectX is the term given to a collection of common APIs, including


Direct3D, which are owned and developed by Microsoft.

9. Digital Video Interface (DVI) – DVI is an interface that allows for the transfer of a
digital video signal from a computer to a display, which increases the image quality
and performance over a comparable analog system. The white connection seen on
the left-hand side of this graphics card’s
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PCX-5300TM-128MTV&cat=VCD) back
plate is a DVI connection. DVI is not only being used in computers, but as an
interface for televisions to display high quality images from HDTV, DVD, and other
digital sources. There are three levels to of DVI connectors: DVI-A (DVI Analog) -
this is an analog ONLY DVI connector (you don't get the benefits of the digital signal
- fortunately, you really don't see these anymore); DVI-D (DVI Digital) - this is a DVI
connector that ONLY puts out a digital signal; DVI-I (DVI Digital OR Analog) - this is
the most common connector. It can output a Digital signal or an Analog signal.
When using a DVI connector with an analog monitor (either a DVI-A or DVI-I
connector), you will usually need an DVI to VGA Adapter
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=DVI-M-HD15F), sometimes this is
provided by the video card manufacturer, but often times it is not. When most card
manufacturers ads refer to their cards having a "DVI connecter," they most often
mean a DVI-I connector.

10. Frame Rate – The speed at which still images are generated on the screen in order
to create the effect of full motion is referred to as the frame rate, which is measured
in terms of frames per second (fps). While humans can generally only see 30 frames
per second, many gaming benchmarks indicate that cards can provide performance
far exceeding this value, and some may consider something around 60 fps the
current minimum for acceptable performance. Adjusting many of the setting
described in this Tech Tip will have an impact on the frame rate, and finding a
balance of good performance and appearance in today’s games may take some
work on anything but the best graphics cards.

11. GDDR – GDDR is a type of DDR (double data rate) memory produced specifically for
graphics applications. Most modern graphics cards use GDDR memory to handle
the demands of graphics processing, as the specialized clock speeds, bandwidth,
and power requirements are more appropriate than the generally less expensive
‘standard’ DDR format.
12. Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) – The GPU is the processor found on a graphics
card, and is the main chip for handling the work required to create the image
produced on a display.

13. OpenGL – OpenGL is an application programming interface that competes with


Direct3D, and it is not owned by any one corporation. The “open” nature of this API
appeals to those in favor of open source development and this type of development
can lead to more frequent updates.

14. PCI Express (PCIe) – PCI Express is the latest interface for connecting a graphics
card to a computer system, and it is the successor to AGP in terms of gaming
graphics performance. A recent Tech Tip (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-
031005.htm) focused on PCIe and detailed the significant performance increases
and flexible configurations available with PCI Express graphics cards
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=VCD#PCIExpress(PCIe)).

15. Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter (RAMDAC) – RAMDACs are


chips found on graphics cards that convert the digital signal received from the
graphics processing unit (GPU) to an analog signal to be sent to the monitor. Digital
displays can receive the unconverted signal from graphics cards capable of digital
video output (via the DVI connector), and therefore do not require the additional
processing provided by the RAMDAC.

16. Resolution – The number of pixels displayed on the screen is referred to as the
resolution, and the value is represented by the number of horizontal pixels times (x)
the number of vertical pixels. Raising the resolution from 800x600 to 1600x1200, for
example, will provide enhanced image quality but generally at the expense of lower
frame rates.

17. Texture Mapping – Texture mapping uses bitmap images stored in memory to
provide the surface appearance of an object rendered in 3D. The texture is wrapped
around the frame of an object, and provides a fairly simple approach for providing a
complex shape. The simplicity may save processing power and provide a
reasonable representation of the desired texture, but it can also lead to a chunky
appearance during motion.

18. Vertical Sync (VSync) – Vertical Synchronization is an option found in many games
that allows the frame rate of the game to be matched to the refresh rate of the
monitor. Generally, allowing VSync provides the greatest stability, but turning it off
can allow for much higher frame rates. The downside of the greater speed is the
potential for artifacts to develop.

19. Video Graphics Array (VGA) – VGA was originally a graphics standard developed by
IBM that allowed for 640x480 resolution with 16 colors. This standard has obviously
been advanced to provide the greater resolutions and colors we enjoy today, but all
computers support at least VGA mode. The term VGA is now mainly used to
describe the 15-pin analog connection found on many graphics cards for connecting
a monitor. The blue connection seen on the right-hand side of this graphics card’s
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SE6200-N&cat=VCD) back plate is a VGA
connection.
20. Video In / Video Out (VIVO) – VIVO capable graphics cards can not only send a
video signal out to a monitor, but they can also receive a video signal for use by the
computer system. VIVO capable graphics cards, such as this one
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=RX60X128V&cpc=SCH&srm=0), or the
famous All-In-Wonder cards offered by ATI
(http://mirror.ati.com/products/radeonx800/aiwx800xt/index.html) include a
dedicated connection for sending/receiving a video signal, and generally include a
separate chip for processing the incoming video signal, as well as special software
for utilizing the signal. VIVO really has no bearing on game play, but many graphics
cards well-suited for game play may include this multimedia connection.

Final Words

Twenty terms related to graphics, and more specifically gaming graphics, were covered
in this Tech Tip, but it is by no means an exhaustive resource. There are too many
specialized terms and technologies related to graphics to cover in a single Tech Tip, and
the number continues to grow as the technology advances. The terms covered are
some of the more common ones that may be encountered, and should provide a good
reference for trying to understand graphics card (or video game) features and
specifications.
Five Things to Consider When Buying a Laptop Computer

Purchasing a laptop is a large


investment, and one that can be
complicated by all of the options,
manufacturers, and technical mumbo-
jumbo that needs to be sifted through.
Before you spend a lot of money on a
laptop, it is important to spend a little
time considering some basics that may
affect the decision-making process.
This Tech Tip will take a look at five of
the innumerous things worth considering
when buying a laptop computer.

Ergonomics

If you are going to be spending any significant


amount of time working on this laptop computer,
you’re going to want to be comfortable. A well-
designed interface is essential for comfort, as
well as good health. Carpal tunnel syndrome or
tendonitis may be some of the more common
conditions associated with extended computer
usage, and selecting the most comfortable laptop
may help avoid them all together.

The keyboards on laptops generally feature


compressed layouts with smaller keys, which
may place a strain on hands and wrists as users
try to adapt to these miniature arrangements.
Generally speaking, the larger the laptop, the
larger the keyboard, as they are usually designed
to span the entire width of the unit.

Most laptops use either a touchpad or tracking


pointer (knob) as a replacement for a mouse.
These may be adequate for occasional use, but
even the best designs can become frustrating
and uncomfortable when used extensively. Plus,
when used for game play or other applications
where precise motion is critical, they just don’t cut it.

Purchasing a separate mouse may be the best bet, as it allows you to place your arm in
a more familiar (and comfortable) position, as well as providing something that may fit
your hand much better. Notebook mice (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=LM-
811-O&cat=MOU&cpc=USB) are available in a wired or wireless version, and generally
feature a slightly smaller footprint than your typical mouse.

Connectivity

Being able to connect to common devices is just as important on


laptops as it is on desktops, but being able to add these
connections down the road is not as easy on a laptop. Upgrades
aren’t as easy on laptops due to the basic design, so make sure
what you need is included up front.

Wireless networking is almost a must-have feature on laptops now. The cord has been
severed to every other shackle confining you to your desk; don’t let network connectivity
hold you back. Wireless networking adapters are available as upgrades via either
PCMCIA cards (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DWL-650PLUS&cat=NBB) or
USB adapters
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=RU5AWGB2U&cat=NET&cpc=USB), but
many now offer it onboard, hidden inside the system’s housing. Integrated wireless is
the best option if available, as it requires fewer accessories to carry and to configure,
and leaves those expansion ports open for other uses.

USB 2.0 may be the most common peripheral connection, and many laptops may still
come with just one port. That’s fine if you don’t mind carrying around a USB hub
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=USB-MH20-GRY&cpc=SCH&srm=0), but the
more you have to carry, the less mobile you are. A good example of the importance of
USB is that many people decide they want to use a separate mouse for ergonomic
reasons, and generally it will connect via USB. On a laptop with just one port, you now
have to juggle the use of the mouse with connecting anything else, like a digital camera,
MP3 player, or an external hard drive.

Firewire may not be as popular as USB, and as such, it doesn’t show up at all on many
computer systems, regardless of whether they are desktops or laptops. Having this
connection may not be necessary for everyone, but for those who want it, keep in mind
that its inclusion on any particular laptop is not a given.

Bluetooth (http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-011905.htm) is another


type of connectivity you may want in a laptop, but its popularity
has yet to really catch up to its hype. More and more consumer
electronics devices are starting feature Bluetooth technology, but
for general computer applications, it may be more trouble than it is
worth.

This Toshiba Satellite


(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PSP30U-01Q001Z-
R&cat=NBB) features a solid assortment of connections with three USB 2.0 ports, a
Firewire port, integrated wireless and wired networking, and even a modem.
Power Management

If you are going to use a laptop as it was intended, away from


your desk, you’re going to want it to provide as much battery life
as possible. The first step is to shop around for a unit that offers
the best battery life possible, and then seek out independent
reviews to verify this performance. A good laptop should be able
to run for four hours or more on a full charge, and as the
technology advances, finding units that can double this time isn’t
unrealistic.

The operating system on most laptops will allow for the hardware
to be configured to utilize the battery as efficiently as possible. It
is just up to the user to navigate their way to these tabs and set
things like the display to turn off, hard drives to power down, or even the processor to
slow down when it isn’t needed to run full speed. Not all processors can provide this
speed throttling, but finding a system with a Mobile Pentium/Celeron
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=28885RU-N&cat=NBB) or Centrino
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=28885RU-N&cat=NBB) processor may be
your best bet to ensure this capability.

Another way to ensure extended life away from a power outlet is to just add a second
battery. Although you can obviously carry a charged spare in your bag, some laptops
allow for two batteries to be installed at once, with one generally replacing the optical
disk drive.

Size / Weight

All laptop computers are not created equal,


and the size and weight of the various models
reflect that. Some may weigh more than
others due to the quantity of components
included, but it may also be due to the quality
of the components. Larger displays, multiple
hard drives, and other integrated components
will all contribute to the weight of a laptop.
The largest single source of weight in a laptop
may be the battery, and systems with two
batteries as described above, should be
expected to be much heavier.

No laptop may be considered heavy in the


grand scheme of things, but just a few pounds more may be noticeable if you regularly
have to lug it through a busy airport or across a large college campus. Geeks.com may
not provided the exact weight of each laptop they carry, but they do provide a shipping
weight for each, which is a good approximation of what the laptop and various
accessories will weigh when loaded into your carrying bag.

The overall size of a laptop is generally governed by the size of the display included.
You may have seen the commercial where Yao Ming (7’5” basketball player) and Verne
Troyer (Mini-Me) compare their laptops with 12 inch and 17 inch monitors. It is an
excellent demonstration of the range of sizes available in laptop computers, and how the
various sizes may be appropriate for different users. Those seeking a replacement for
their desktop computer may insist on a 17” display, while those seeking to minimize size
and weight in the name of portability may be willing to select a laptop with a smaller
display.

Future Proof

Basically, purchase as much laptop as you can afford, so that a year or two down the
road you may be less likely to need a replacement.

Processors in a laptop are generally not


upgradeable, or at least quite difficult to
upgrade, so picking something with
marginally adequate speed for today’s needs
will no doubt be obsolete sooner than you
might expect. Desktop computers generally
offer the convenience of having their
processors (and other components)
upgraded, making it less of an issue, but it is
important to plan ahead with laptops, or to
plan on buying another one in a few years.

The graphics processor is another integrated


feature that should be considered before making a purchase, as there is no upgrading.
Many laptops may offer somewhat basic graphics intended for good 2D display and 3D
displays that may be hit or miss as far as the quality is concerned. In general, laptops
were never intended for 3D gaming, but things are changing and many manufacturers
now offer higher performance graphics solutions that can rival many desktop computers.
ATI is well known for their high performance graphics products, and offer the Mobility
Radeon X series (http://www.ati.com/products/mobile.html) of graphics processors
based on their popular desktop solutions.

Laptop memory (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#200-


pinDDRNotebookMemory) is less of a bottleneck, as it is readily available and can be
upgraded rather easily. That said, many notebooks offer a base configuration of
memory that may not be adequate for your particular needs. It is suggested that a
Windows XP system have a minimum of 256MB of memory
(http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/memorybuy/index.php?file=2), and you may find
that this is what is offered on many systems. 512MB is the recommended amount of
memory for smooth operation on Windows XP, and many users with more intensive
applications to run may insist on 1024MB. If you intend to run serious business
applications or want to play some modern 3D games, it may be worth having that base
256MB upgraded before the laptop ships to you.

Final Words

Picking a laptop computer will probably be more involved than reviewing five simple
steps, but you have to start somewhere! Each of these steps will hopefully guide other
decisions and make the process less frustrating, while also leading to the selection of
the best laptop possible.
5 Ways to Block Spam…

Spam is one of those things that nobody wants, but probably has
plenty of. If there happens to be anyone out there unfamiliar with
spam, we are not talking about the luncheon meat, but the unsolicited,
junk e-mail that clogs our inboxes. And in case you are curious,
according to some sources, the junk mail version of spam earned its
name from a Monty Python skit regarding the luncheon meat of the
same name. Care to sing along?

From offers for prescription drugs, to mortgage refinancing, to sexually


explicit content, spam can leave us having to sift through mounds of
trash to find the few messages we actually care to read. Although
eliminating all junk e-mail may be impossible, there are several steps
than can be taken to all but eliminate spam from your inbox.

1. Protect Your E-mail Address

One of the best strategies for avoiding spam is to protect your personal e-mail address. Your best defense is
for the spammers to not even know you exist, but this is a difficult task to accomplish.

Many spam mailing lists are created by harvesting e-mail addresses from websites where your information may
be displayed. Newsgroups, bulletin boards, and chat rooms are just a few examples of places where spammers
may run scripts to collect anything that resembles an e-mail address. Many sites, such as bulletin boards, have
safeguards to protect their members, but it does nothing if these members post their personal information in one
of their posts, their signature, or somewhere else that puts the information in plain sight. In addition, signing up
with unknown sources for online contests, mailing lists, and similar occasions where you need to provide an
address as part of the registration process may also expose your address to spammers.

Using your best judgment is your best defense. If you want to keep your mailbox clean, keep your address
private, only giving it out to trusted parties.

2. Create a Spam E-Mail Account

Protecting your e-mail address is easier said than done, and if you find that it is impossible to keep your
personal e-mail address completely private, a separate account may be the solution. Referred to by some as a
“throw-away” account, this e-mail account doesn’t have to cost you anything, as suitable e-mail accounts are
available for free from places such as Hotmail and Yahoo.

This throw-away account is the best choice when you are unsure that your privacy will be protected. Use it
when registering with newsgroups, bulletin boards, sweepstakes, or in any other situation where you’re not quite
sure your privacy will be protected. You have to use your better judgment, as signing up for something from a
trustworthy source, like the Computer Geeks mailing list, is much different than many things we’ll just leave to
our imaginations.

Since you are not expecting any important mail at this account, if it becomes over run with spam, you do just as
the name suggests and throw it away for a new one.

3. Message Rules in Outlook / Outlook Express

Most people use either Outlook or Outlook Express as their e-mail client, but
all of these people may not be familiar with creating message rules in the
“Tools” drop down menu. Rules allow you to manually filter the delivery of
e-mail, and can be created to analyze the sender’s name, subject line, and
message body before processing. For example, a rule can be created so
that any message with a particularly offensive word in the subject line is automatically moved to the Deleted
Items folder, or even better, just deleted from the server before download.

Another option provided by Outlook and Outlook Express allows the user to add senders to their “Blocked
Senders” list. No rule needs to be created, and in a few clicks, a sender of unsolicited e-mail can be added to
your personal blocked senders list. Whenever mail arrives from this sender in the future, it will skip the inbox
and go straight to the Deleted Items folder.

Windows XP with Service Pack 2 provides even greater security in a variety of areas, including Outlook and
Outlook Express. Many spam e-mails have images in the body that are coded to identify receipt of the e-mail.
If the individually coded image has been viewed, the spammer knows that you have seen the e-mail, thus
confirming your address as valid. With SP2, images are blocked to prevent your computer from being identified,
thus keeping the spammer from confirming they have a valid address to continue mailing.

4. Third Party Software

There are numerous applications available for purchase, or as


free downloads, specifically intended to filter spam as it enters
your inbox. These programs identify telltale signs of a spam
message by analyzing hidden tags in the message, use of text
and images in the message, and various other clues available
that point to a message being unwanted.

A few examples of spam filtering software is available from


these three companies; SPAMfighter, MailWasher, and
Cloudmark. Each offers its own twist on the interface and
manageability, but they all allow users to take control of the
spam in their Outlook or Outlook Express mailboxes.

The price tag on this type of software may involve a one time
fee of $30 or more, and some come with annual subscriptions
costing up to $40. If the free software doesn’t cut it for your tastes, these pay versions generally include a free
trial so that you can be sure the program is right for you before you spend any money. The logic and data
behind the spam filtering is constantly evolving, so these packages need to be kept updated, much like a virus
scanning application, and this is where subscription-based offerings come into play.

5. Server Based Solutions

Most major internet service providers (ISP) now offer a spam filter as part of the
package offered to its subscribers. AOL and Earthlink are just two of the big names
out there that include a spam filter in with other attractive features like virus
protection and pop up blockers. These ISP provide filters which effectively manage
spam at the server before delivery, but they are generally not overly customizable on the end user level, and
they obviously only protect e-mail accounts provided by the ISP.

Protection similar to what an internet service provider offers can be implemented by just about anyone with their
own domain name, and access to their server. Domain names and web hosting have become so cheap that it
is not all that uncommon for people to have their own website, or at least a domain name for e-mail. SPAM
Assassin is a no-cost, server based spam fighting solution that can be installed on a server, and has become a
common feature included on many web hosting packages.

These solutions use various rules and logic to analyze messages, much like the third party software does, but it
all happens at the server level. This keeps the message from having to be downloaded to be processed, thus
saving time and precious bandwidth.

Final Words

Spam is a nuisance that impacts people on several levels. Even if the content is not inappropriate or offensive,
it is a waste of time and money. Although some spam solutions claim to eliminate 100% of all unsolicited e-
mail, my experience tells me that this just isn’t realistic. That said, protecting your e-mail address and
implementing the appropriate spam filtering solution should nearly eliminate spam from your life.
Windows Hot Keys:
Most people think they know the ins and outs of using their favorite software (and maybe they
do), but there are hundreds of little shortcuts that can be used to make common tasks even
easier. This Tech Tip is going to follow a different format than the norm and will list a few dozen
of these hot keys that can be used to make working in Microsoft Windows even easier.

The shortcuts covered are broken up into groups based on the main key involved in activating
them. So, let’s take a look at what we can do with the ALT, CTRL, SHIFT, and Windows Keys, as
well as a few combo moves…

General Keyboard Shortcuts


• CTRL+C (Copy)
• CTRL+X (Cut)
• CTRL+V (Paste)
• CTRL+Z (Undo)
• DELETE (Delete)
• SHIFT+DELETE (Delete the selected item permanently without placing the item in the Recycle
Bin)
• CTRL while dragging an item (Copy the selected item)
• CTRL+SHIFT while dragging an item (Create a shortcut to the selected item)
• F2 key (Rename the selected item)
• CTRL+RIGHT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next word)
• CTRL+LEFT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word)
• CTRL+DOWN ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next paragraph)
• CTRL+UP ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous paragraph)
• CTRL+SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Highlight a block of text)
• SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Select more than one item in a window or on the desktop, or
select text in a document)
• CTRL+A (Select all)
• F3 key (Search for a file or a folder)
• ALT+ENTER (View the properties for the selected item)
• ALT+F4 (Close the active item, or quit the active program)
• ALT+ENTER (Display the properties of the selected object)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Open the shortcut menu for the active window)
• CTRL+F4 (Close the active document in programs that enable you to have multiple documents
open simultaneously)
• ALT+TAB (Switch between the open items)
• ALT+ESC (Cycle through items in the order that they had been opened)
• F6 key (Cycle through the screen elements in a window or on the desktop)
• F4 key (Display the Address bar list in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
• SHIFT+F10 (Display the shortcut menu for the selected item)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the System menu for the active window)
• CTRL+ESC (Display the Start menu)
• ALT+Underlined letter in a menu name (Display the corresponding menu)
• Underlined letter in a command name on an open menu (Perform the corresponding command)
• F10 key (Activate the menu bar in the active program)
• RIGHT ARROW (Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu)
• LEFT ARROW (Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu)
• F5 key (Update the active window)
• BACKSPACE (View the folder one level up in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
• ESC (Cancel the current task)
• SHIFT when you insert a CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive (Prevent the CD-ROM from
automatically playing)

Dialog Box Keyboard Shortcuts


If you press SHIFT+F8 in extended selection list boxes, you enable extended selection mode. In
this mode, you can use an arrow key to move a cursor without changing the selection. You can
press CTRL+SPACEBAR or SHIFT+SPACEBAR to adjust the selection. To cancel extended
selection mode, press SHIFT+F8 again. Extended selection mode cancels itself when you move
the focus to another control.• CTRL+TAB (Move forward through the tabs)
• CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the tabs)
• TAB (Move forward through the options)
• SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the options)
• ALT+Underlined letter (Perform the corresponding command or select the corresponding option)
• ENTER (Perform the command for the active option or button)
• SPACEBAR (Select or clear the check box if the active option is a check box)
• Arrow keys (Select a button if the active option is a group of option buttons)
• F1 key (Display Help)
• F4 key (Display the items in the active list)
• BACKSPACE (Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or Open dialog
box)

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Shortcuts


• Windows Logo (Display or hide the Start menu)
• Windows Logo+BREAK (Display the System Properties dialog box)
• Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop)
• Windows Logo+M (Minimize all of the windows)
• Windows Logo+SHIFT+M (Restore the minimized windows)
• Windows Logo+E (Open My Computer)
• Windows Logo+F (Search for a file or a folder)
• CTRL+Windows Logo+F (Search for computers)
• Windows Logo+F1 (Display Windows Help)
• Windows Logo+ L (Lock the keyboard)
• Windows Logo+R (Open the Run dialog box)
• Windows Logo+U (Open Utility Manager)

Accessibility Keyboard Shortcuts


• Right SHIFT for eight seconds (Switch FilterKeys either on or off)
• Left ALT+left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN (Switch High Contrast either on or off)
• Left ALT+left SHIFT+NUM LOCK (Switch the MouseKeys either on or off)
• SHIFT five times (Switch the StickyKeys either on or off)
• NUM LOCK for five seconds (Switch the ToggleKeys either on or off)
• Windows Logo +U (Open Utility Manager)

Windows Explorer Keyboard Shortcuts


• END (Display the bottom of the active window)
• HOME (Display the top of the active window)
• NUM LOCK+Asterisk sign (*) (Display all of the subfolders that are under the selected folder)
• NUM LOCK+Plus sign (+) (Display the contents of the selected folder)
• NUM LOCK+Minus sign (-) (Collapse the selected folder)
• LEFT ARROW (Collapse the current selection if it is expanded, or select the parent folder)
• RIGHT ARROW (Display the current selection if it is collapsed, or select the first subfolder)
Shortcut Keys for Character Map
After you double-click a character on the grid of characters, you can move through the grid by
using the keyboard shortcuts: • RIGHT ARROW (Move to the right or to the beginning of the next
line)
• LEFT ARROW (Move to the left or to the end of the previous line)
• UP ARROW (Move up one row)
• DOWN ARROW (Move down one row)
• PAGE UP (Move up one screen at a time)
• PAGE DOWN (Move down one screen at a time)
• HOME (Move to the beginning of the line)
• END (Move to the end of the line)
• CTRL+HOME (Move to the first character)
• CTRL+END (Move to the last character)
• SPACEBAR (Switch between Enlarged and Normal mode when a character is selected)

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Main Window Keyboard Shortcuts


• CTRL+O (Open a saved console)
• CTRL+N (Open a new console)
• CTRL+S (Save the open console)
• CTRL+M (Add or remove a console item)
• CTRL+W (Open a new window)
• F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the MMC window menu)
• ALT+F4 (Close the console)
• ALT+A (Display the Action menu)
• ALT+V (Display the View menu)
• ALT+F (Display the File menu)
• ALT+O (Display the Favorites menu)

MMC Console Window Keyboard Shortcuts


• CTRL+P (Print the current page or active pane)
• ALT+Minus sign (-) (Display the window menu for the active console window)
• SHIFT+F10 (Display the Action shortcut menu for the selected item)
• F1 key (Open the Help topic, if any, for the selected item)
• F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
• CTRL+F10 (Maximize the active console window)
• CTRL+F5 (Restore the active console window)
• ALT+ENTER (Display the Properties dialog box, if any, for the selected item)
• F2 key (Rename the selected item)
• CTRL+F4 (Close the active console window. When a console has only one console window, this
shortcut closes the console)

Remote Desktop Connection Navigation


• CTRL+ALT+END (Open the Microsoft Windows NT Security dialog box)
• ALT+PAGE UP (Switch between programs from left to right)
• ALT+PAGE DOWN (Switch between programs from right to left)
• ALT+INSERT (Cycle through the programs in most recently used order)
• ALT+HOME (Display the Start menu)
• CTRL+ALT+BREAK (Switch the client computer between a window and a full screen)
• ALT+DELETE (Display the Windows menu)
• CTRL+ALT+Minus sign (-) (Place a snapshot of the entire client window area on the Terminal
server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing ALT+PRINT SCREEN on a local
computer.)
• CTRL+ALT+Plus sign (+) (Place a snapshot of the active window in the client on the Terminal
server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing PRINT SCREEN on a local
computer.)
Microsoft Internet Explorer Navigation
• CTRL+B (Open the Organize Favorites dialog box)
• CTRL+E (Open the Search bar)
• CTRL+F (Start the Find utility)
• CTRL+H (Open the History bar)
• CTRL+I (Open the Favorites bar)
• CTRL+L (Open the Open dialog box)
• CTRL+N (Start another instance of the browser with the same Web address)
• CTRL+O (Open the Open dialog box, the same as CTRL+L)
• CTRL+P (Open the Print dialog box)
• CTRL+R (Update the current Web page)
• CTRL+W (Close the current window)

Final Words
Windows hot keys are all intended to provide some sort of convenient alternative to common
tasks, and whether specific combinations do so is up to the individual to decide. Some are
simple time-saving motions, while others are complex maneuvers in finger gymnastics. There are
dozens of other common Windows shortcuts (and even more related to specific software titles),
and memorizing just a few of the more basic ones may be worth the time-savings they can afford
you.
Tech Tip 35 - Laptop Accessories

The basic design of laptops makes them the obvious choice for those who need their computing
to be mobile. All of the key components (and then some) of a desktop computer can easily be
configured into a minimal housing that goes with you just about anywhere.

That said, there are some things you may want to add to your laptop computer in order to make it
more comfortable to use, more convenient, and to extend its life while enduring the strains of
daily use.

This Tech Tip will take a look at five items that any laptop owner may want to take a look at in
order to enhance their experience.

Carrying Case

Laptop computers are made to be portable, but for the most part, they are not designed as
indestructibly as they may need to be in order to survive the bumps and bruises of traveling.

Most laptops include a carrying case of some sort, but many don’t seem adequate enough to
protect the valuable contents, and many others don’t have the capacity to hold much more than
the basic essentials. Finding a carrying case that will not only protect a laptop, but that will also
hold all of the necessary accessories, and perhaps your other items (camera, digital audio device,
etc), may be worth while.

It seems that on every flight I take I see at least one person come down the plane’s aisle with a
laptop case slung over their shoulder… allowing it to bounce off every seat they pass! How long
can that last?

Cases (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=NBB#NotebookCases) in a variety of sizes,


styles, and materials are available to replace the one the laptop manufacturer was kind enough to
throw into the deal. Whether you need the strength of a hard metal case, or the refined style of
saddle leather, finding an appropriate case can be an important and worthwhile investment.

Mouse
Laptop computers all come with some sort of pointing device built in. Generally, you either get a
touch pad located just below the keyboard, or a tracking pointer (a small knob) located in the
middle of the keyboard. These may suit your needs just fine for occasional use, but for extended
use they may not be the best ergonomic solutions. Adding a mouse to a laptop is simple and can
greatly increase the comfort level, productivity and enjoyment.

You can obviously use a standard (USB or PS/2) mouse with a laptop, but space constraints may
make a smaller device more appropriate. Miniature mice are available in wired
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLU-USBMINIMOUSE&cat=MOU) and wireless
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=931171-0403-DT&cat=MOU) versions, and the
reduced size may be appreciated given the generally limited space available in a carrying bag.
The reduced size may pose a concern to those with large hands, or those who have gotten used
to a larger mouse, but there should be a mouse out there to suit anyone’s taste.

This Bluetooth-enabled miniature mouse (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GME225B-


DT&cat=MOU) could be great for use with a laptop computer, especially one with Bluetooth built
into the system. That way, no external adaptor would need to be plugged in, and only the mouse
would have to travel with you.

Card Reader

Card readers
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?Cat=CAM#CameraMemory
CardReaders) have become fairly common devices, and prove to
be extremely handy whether the computer is a desktop or a
laptop. With the rising popularity of digital cameras, digital
audio/video devices, personal digital assistants, and the handful
of other items that use flash memory, having a central location to
access these memory cards is a good idea.

Desktops afford the convenience of having the card reader built


in, but for the most part, laptop users will need to use an external
USB device. A reader capable of accessing 7, 12, or even a
higher number of flash memory formats can be had in a compact
device that won’t consume much space in your carrying case. And for even greater space
savings, perhaps you can kill two birds with one stone and go for something like this USB mouse
/ card reader combo (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=KMOUSE-SDMSMMC-
N&cat=CAM).

Cooling

Cool electronics are happy electronics, and a laptop is no different. Today’s computer chips can
run extremely hot, and given the minimal space a laptop takes up, there isn’t room for optimal
cooling solutions. The heat created by the processor, hard drive, graphics processor, and so on
are all going to radiate through the computer’s housing, as well as being blown out the exhaust
vent. Keeping these components as cool as possible can not only extend their lives, but the user
will be comfortable as well.
A notebook cooler, such as this one (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SIL-NB-
03&cat=NBB), connects via USB to power fans that cool the bottom of the laptop. This will not
only keep the internal components of the laptop cool, but can also keep the user more
comfortable by reducing the temperature felt by their hands, and perhaps lap.

Another comfort feature experience with some laptop coolers is the inclusion of a slight slope that
allows the keyboard to be angled towards the user in a more ergonomic position. Some of these
coolers may also feature additional USB plugs for connecting other devices, making them even
more convenient, and a bit like the item to be discussed in the next section.

Docking Station

If you have a laptop computer that does a bit of traveling, but still does most of its work in one
location, a docking station
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=NBB#NotebookDockingStations) may be worth a look.
What these devices do is allow for the various connections to the computer to be made to the
docking station, and then just one connection is made between the laptop and the station
whenever you want to use it in that location.

So, you could leave anything like a mouse, keyboard, second monitor, power cord, network
cable, and speaker wires connected to the docking station, and simply connect the computer
when it is time to work. For those who regularly use their laptop in a desktop setting, this makes
setup much easier than connecting all of these individual devices each time.

Final Words

Laptops are great devices that make conducting business away from the office simple and
effective. Adding a few key accessories to a laptop can help take things to the next level in terms
of convenience and comfort, as well as insuring that your precious laptop is ready for just about
anything your travels may throw its way.
Tech Tip 36 - SCSI Basics

The common computer utilizes either ATA or


SATA hard drives, as was discussed in this
previous Tech Tip
(http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-010605.htm).
There is another standard for connecting hard
drives which doesn’t find its way into too
many personal computers, but is quite
prominent in servers and high-end work
stations: SCSI.

SCSI stands for Small Computer System


Interface, and if you don’t want to pronounce
each letter individually, it’s OK to call it
“skuzzy.” SCSI, like ATA (Advanced
Technology Attachment) or SATA (Serial
Advanced Technology Attachement), can be used for connecting more than just hard drives to a
computer system, and some of the other peripherals that can support SCSI include tape drives,
optical drives, printers, and scanners.

This Tech Tip will take a look at a few basic features of SCSI, mostly as related to hard drives,
and how ATA and SATA drives may compare.

The Basics

The SCSI standard was first introduced in 1986 (the same year the ATA standard was released),
and significant advancements have been made to it over the years in areas such as speed, bus
width, bus speed, and the number of devices that can be connected.

An adaptor card, also called a “host adaptor,” is required for connecting SCSI drives to the
motherboard, but this serves more like a gateway for data transfer, rather than a processing
center. The SCSI controller allows system resources to remain freed up during heavy data
processing because it is the individual drive controllers doing the bulk of the work. In addition,
individual SCSI drives can communicate directly, requiring almost no CPU power, while ATA or
SATA drives must all rely on the system to provide the processing for such communications. This
becomes more important when considering that a single SCSI adaptor can support up to 15
drives (or other devices), which could overwhelm one controller if it had to manage the
communications for all of them.

While discussing the means by which the various drives connect to a system, let’s look at the
physical connections. “Headers” (pin connection blocks) can be found onboard modern desktop
motherboards to support the 40-pin ATA connector and/or the 7-pin SATA connector. Due to
SCSI’s more specialized nature, only high-end motherboards may have built in adaptors, and
depending on the age and type, the header may have 25, 50, 68, or 80 pins. Stand-alone SCSI
adaptors are available for PCI or PCI-X slots (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-022405.htm),
and can be selected to match the drives on hand.

The cables
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?Cat=
HDD#SCSICables) required to connect
SCSI drives are also different, not just
because of the number of pins used to
connect them, but because you can have
so many drives on one “channel.” Cables
can be chained together to add more drives
to a SCSI channel, and in order to let the
channel know where the end of the chain
is, a device called a terminator must be
installed at the end of the line. This cable
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=U
L20674&cat=HDD) features 3 connectors for Ultra160 SCSI drives and includes a removable
terminator.

In order for all of the devices on a SCSI bus to be identified by the system, there is a set of
jumpers or switches found on each drive. Each drive on the bus must have its jumpers
configured so that it has a unique value, or SCSI ID, which would translate to a number between
0 and 15 on a system capable of 16 devices.

Performance

The SCSI standard released in 1986 (SCSI-1) was


a parallel interface that allowed for data transfer at
a rate of 5 MBps on an 8 bit wide, 5 MHz bus.
One controller channel was capable of connecting
up to 8 devices. The latest standard, Ultra320
SCSI, is still a parallel interface that now supports
data transfers up to 320 MBps on a 16 bit wide, 40
MHz bus, and one channel on an adaptor is
capable of connecting up to 16 devices (generally,
1 adaptor and 15 drives). Let’s compare this to
ATA and SATA.

The latest (and last) ATA standard, ATA-133, is a


parallel interface supporting data transfers up to
133 MBps on a 16 bit wide, 33 MHz bus, with one
channel capable of connecting 2 devices.

SATA is in a transitional stage as the SATA-300


standard is just now becoming commercially
available to challenge the popularity of the SATA-
150 standard. SATA-150 is a serial interface
supporting data transfers up to 150 MBps on a 1
bit wide bus, where one channel generally
supports one device (some controllers can allow
multiple devices on one channel with degraded
performance). The SATA-300 standard maintains
the majority of the original features, but the
maximum transfer rate is now doubled to 300 MBps.

Regardless of drive type, real-world performance never equals theoretical maximum values, but
higher specifications imply higher potential real-world performance. Even with the latest SATA
standard doubling its speed, it is easy to see that the more established Ultra320 SCSI standard
has a sizeable edge in transfer rates (320 MBps > 300 MBps, ), in addition to the other factors
that make SCSI so robust. By 2008, SATA throughput rates are expected to reach 600 MBps,
but time will tell.

Another speed comparison can be made between the drives in terms of how fast the disk pletters
spin. ATA and SATA drives generally spin at a maximum of 7200 RPM (some SATA drives now
go up to 10,000 RPM), while it is standard for a SCSI drive to operate at 10,000 or 15,000 RPM.
Higher rotational speeds aid in lowering times to access data, as well as when reading and
writing.

Price

Because the actual controller is part of the drive


itself, the price of a modern SCSI drive is a great
deal more than either an ATA or SATA hard drive
of a comparable size. Using the inventory at
Geeks.com as an example, you can see that even
much higher capacity ATA/SATA drives are a
fraction of the cost of a SCSI drive. A 120GB ATA-
133 Maxtor drive
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=4R120L0
&cat=HDD) costs $64, a 120GB SATA-150 Maxtor
drive
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=6Y120M
0-N&cat=HDD) costs $100, and this 73GB Maxtor
Ultra-320 SCSI drive
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=8D073J0-DT&cat=HDD) costs a significant $287.

In addition to the base price of the drive costing a good deal more, other factors such as a
controller card, cables, and a terminator (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SCATOSCSI-
TERM&cpc=SCH&srm=0) can add even more to the setup. Most ATA or SATA-based systems
come with the controller built in, and for the most part the cables are also included or available for
next to nothing (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MBBPLUS&cpc=SCH&srm=0).

A controller built in to every drive contributes to the cost, but there is more to it than that.

Reliability

One of the key reasons for SCSI’s higher price is


reliability. SCSI drives are built to a much higher
standard than typical ATA or SATA drives, and that
doesn’t come cheap. A typical SCSI drive may be
specified with a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)
of up to 1.5 million hours, while a typical SATA drive
may have a MTBF of less than 1 million hours,
sometimes much less. Referencing the Maxtor drives
mentioned previously, the specifications on the SCSI
drive show a MTBF of 1.4 million hours, while a fairly
extensive search of Google and Maxtor’s site couldn’t
turn up a value for these ATA or SATA drives, but
typical desktop hard drives are rated at approximately 500,000 hours.

SCSI drives are expected to always be on, used in environments where 24/7 operation and
uptime are not only necessary, but critical. The typical ATA or SATA drive is intended to be on
for only about 8 hours per day. Your wallet might not agree, but the typical hard drive found in a
personal computer is pretty cheap, and it is designed to be so.

Final Words

SCSI may not be an economical solution for a desktop computer, but it doesn’t pretend to be.
The high price tag comes with equally high performance and reliability, and in critical server and
workstation applications, the added expense may easily be justified and recovered in a short
period of time.
Tech Tip 37 - Memory Basics

All computers require memory to operate, but understanding the different types and how much
you should have can be an issue. This Tech Tip will take a look at some of the common forms of
modern computer memory and the different features they bring to the table.

The Basics

Before looking at a few of the specific types of


memory, let’s cover some of the basics that pertain
to all of them.

Memory, or more specifically Random Access


Memory (RAM), is a type of computer storage that
allows the information to be accessed in any order.
This allows for quick access to data that programs
need to operate. The contrasting format would be
sequential access memory, such as a tape drive,
that forces the system to go through all preceding
data to get to the piece it wants.

As computers and software have advanced, the


memory requirements have also changed. Most
users have a version of Microsoft’s Windows as their
operating system, and each carries a unique set of
memory requirements. Microsoft’s website
recommends
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation
/sysreqs.mspx) a minimum of 128MB for the popular
Windows XP operating system, but many other
sources will argue that 256MB is the minimum and that 512MB is a better number to shoot for.
Older versions of Windows required far less memory, with Windows 98 doing well with a
minimum of 64MB and Windows 2000 getting by with 128MB. A ‘minimum’ number may be
misleading, as it may allow the system to operate, but perhaps not perform anywhere near its
optimum capability.

Those with Linux-based computers may experience successful installations with less memory
than a typical Windows operating system, but Penguin power requires a certain amount of
memory too. As little as 16MB of memory can successfully power a Linux system with a
command line interface, and 64MB may be recommended for adding one of the common
graphical interfaces. Some of the various distributions will recommend even more memory, such
as Xandros (http://www.xandros.com/) recommending 128MB, Linspire (http://www.linspire.com)
recommending 256MB (128MB minimum), and the CentOS (http://www.centos.org) forum
mentions 256MB.

SDRAM

SDRAM, or Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory, is a few generations old at this
point, but may still be found in a good number of computers. This type of memory is/was
available in approved speeds of 66 MHz, 100 MHz, and 133 MHz, and was sold based on these
speeds ratings, ie. PC66, PC100, and PC133. SDRAM for desktop computers
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#168-pinDIMMMemory) features 168 pins for
electrical/data transfer on a module measuring roughly 5 ¼” long. SDRAM for notebook
computers (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#144-pinNotebookMemory) features
144 pins for electrical/data transfer on a module measuring roughly 2 5/8” long. SDRAM could be
found in early Intel Pentium and AMD K6/Athlon systems.

SDRAM was a big improvement over previous generations of computer memory, as the memory
and processor were now ‘synchronized’ and data was available as needed. Later generations of
system memory (DDR and DDR-2) are built off of the foundation laid by SDRAM, while obviously
adding more speed and greater performance.

RIMM

RIMM (Rambus Inline Memory Module), also known as Rambus or RDRAM, was a format
launched by Rambus (http://www.rambus.com) as a successor to SDRAM. Desktop RIMM
modules (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#184-pinRIMMMemory) feature 184 pins
for electrical/data transfer on a module measuring roughly 5 1/4” long. The rating for RIMM
memory is based on the maximum theoretical bandwidth (in MHz) and included speed ratings of
800 MHz, 1066 MHz, 1200 MHz, 1333 MHz, and 1600 MHz.

Early Intel Pentium 4 processors adopted the technology, but that was about the extent of
RIMM’s desktop popularity. Some server applications and home electronics devices (such as the
PlayStation II) also utilize RIMM memory, but DDR memory was launched at about the same time
and eventually stole the show.
DDR

DDR, or Double Data Rate SDRAM, was the follow up to SDRAM which is still in use today. All
present AMD-based systems utilize DDR memory, and some Intel-based systems still use it
(despite most being transitioned to DDR-2).

The ‘Double’ part of DDR comes from its ability to transfer twice the data of an SDRAM module
operating at the same speed. This is accomplished by the fact that DDR technology can send
data on both the rise and the fall of a clock pulse, while SDRAM only sends data on the rise.

DDR is marketed much like RIMM, as it uses its maximum theoretical bandwidth (again in MHz)
to describe the various speeds available. Standard speeds of DDR include PC1600, PC2100,
PC2700, and PC3200. The bandwidth can be tied directly to a memory clock speed, with the
following correlation: PC1600 – 100 MHz, PC2100 – 133 MHz, PC2700 – 166 MHz, and PC3200
– 200 MHz. Many times, these speeds are referenced by a DDR rate instead of these straight
clock speeds, so PC3200 would actually be called 400 MHz DDR, for example.

Seen in other memory types, but perhaps most prominent in DDR, are specifications for modules
operating at speeds other than the official ones listed above. Memory standards are governed by
a group called JEDEC (http://www.jedec.org), but manufacturers can design products outside of
these specifications for computing enthusiasts. This non-standard DDR may be capable of much
higher speeds, and products carrying ratings such as PC4000 or PC4400 are readily available.

DDR memory for desktop computers (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#184-


pinDDRDIMMMemory0) features 184 pins for electrical/data transfer on a module measuring
roughly 5 1/4” long. DDR for notebook computers
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=RAM#200-pinDDRNotebookMemory) features 200 pins
for electrical/data transfer on a module measuring roughly 2 5/8” long. You may have noticed
that a module of DDR and a module of SDRAM have the same lengths. In order to prevent a
user from installing the wrong type of memory in their system, the modules are notched differently
to act as a key. SDRAM features 2 notches, while DDR features 1 notch at a different location.

DDR-2

DDR-2, or Dual Data Rate Two SDRAM, is the second generation of DDR memory and is just
now reaching a price and performance level to make it more viable for mainstream computer
systems. DDR-2 provides almost double the (theoretical) data transfer as DDR, but it still sends
data on the rise and fall of the clock pulse. The improvements are achieved through an increased
number of memory buffers, lower electrical consumption, improved physical design, and an
improved prefetch. The problem with most present DDR-2 is that these improvements are wiped
out by a higher latency within the memory, and the actual improvements over DDR at the same
speed may only be 5% or so.

DDR-2 uses a similar naming structure to DDR, in that the maximum theoretical bandwidth is the
typical method of describing a module. Instead of just a “PC” prefix, we now have a “PC2” to
describe modules such as PC2-3200, PC2-4200, and PC2-5300. PC2-3200 has a DDR-2 speed
of 400 MHz (4x100 MHz), PC2-4200 has a DDR-2 speed of 533 MHz (4x133 MHz), and PC2-
5300 has a DDR-2 speed of 667 MHz (4x166 MHz). As with DDR (and others), overclocking
memory is available in DDR-2, such as Corsair’s (http://www.corsair.com/) DDR-2 PC2-8000,
which operates at 1000 MHz!

DDR-2 for desktop computers (http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?Cat=RAM#240-


pinDDR2DIMMMemory) features 240 pins for electrical/data transfer on a module measuring
roughly 5 1/4” long. DDR-2 for notebook computers features 200 pins for electrical/data transfer
on a module measuring roughly 2 5/8” long. Like DDR, DDR-2 is keyed with one notch (located
at a different position than the one DDR notch) to prevent using the wrong type of memory.

Final Words

Memory is an essential component in any computer system, and as with most things, bigger and
faster are always a good thing. But, if your budget doesn’t allow for a few GBs of the highest
performance modules out there, having the appropriate amount of good quality memory can
make a tremendous impact on system performance, reliability, and user happiness.
Addendum:

The use of canned air products comes with a responsibility to use these products as directed and
limit their access to children and teenagers. We feel that the safety of our children and young
people is of the utmost importance in our society. Thanks to all of our Tech Tip readers who
wrote and asked us to point out the potential dangers of canned air and similar products.

Tech Tip 38 - Canned Air Computer Maintenance

Many people don’t think of their computer when doing a bit of cleaning around the home, but
perhaps they should. We’re talking about an effort far less unpleasant than doing windows or
cleaning the bathroom, and the use of a can of compressed air can take care of a bulk of the
work for you.

Cleaning your system on a somewhat regular basis can easily help extend the life of components,
increase system stability, and reduce noise. This Tech Tip will take a look at a few areas to focus
on, and all you really need to do is open your case and pull the trigger!

Case Fans

A well-designed computer case


(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=103) will
have at least two (sometimes many more) case fans
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=114) in order
to exchange air with the room in order to cool the internal
components. With the typical home computer being
installed in, well, the typical home, it is reasonable to
expect things like dust, hair, pet fur, and so on to be
drawn into these fans.

The blades of the fan, as well as the walls of the fan’s


frame can grab hold of this debris which creates a thin film
that can eventually grow in thickness. As it does, the
cooling performance of the fan will decrease and more
than likely the noise produced by the fan will increase. In
addition, as the fan motor has to work harder to overcome the extra load and resistance created
by the debris, the life of the fan can be expected to be cut short. A healthy blast of canned air will
knock a good deal of this dust and debris away, and if the fans are running while the blast is
administered, they will hopefully eject all the dust out of the case. If not, it should settle to the
bottom of the case, and a cloth can be used to wipe it clean.

In addition to gunking up the fans, dust can also cover the fan grills
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=FGM-80-BLU&cat=368), or other types of guards,
intended to protect fingers from the spinning blades. Keeping these clear will allow the maximum
airflow for efficiently cooling the components, as well as cutting down on noise created by the air
trying to flow past a restricted opening.

Some case manufacturers now include removable filters in front of their case fans in order to
make maintenance easier. These filters can then be removed and blown clean, while the fans
and case internals remain relatively dust free. For those without such a thoughtful feature
included in their case, fan filters (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=FFM-80-
BLK&cat=368) are available in standard sizes to be added to just about any fan.

Heat Sinks

Heat sinks are necessary for cooling the heat-generating


chips inside your computer, and keeping them clean will
help them keep your machine running smoothly. Whether
we’re talking about a CPU heat sink,
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AMD-
242FAN&cat=369), or something like a VGA heat sink
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CF201-
NBL&cat=371), dust and debris can not only cling to the
blades/walls of the fan, but can also become trapped
between the narrow fins of the heat sink body.

As with case fans, a dirty heat sink fan will suffer a drop in
cooling efficiency, create more noise, and perhaps have its
life shortened. The heat sink body, generally constructed
of aluminum or copper, is the means by which the heat from the chip is transferred to the air. A
layer of dust will act as a blanket and insulate the heat sink, thus preventing it from freely
exchanging heat with the air.

Keyboard

Keyboards
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=553) seem
to suffer most when it comes to accumulating the debris of
every day usage. Not only do they gather dust and hair
like most of the other components discussed, but they
seem to be magnets for crumbs of food, cigarette ashes,
and just about anything else that can slip down between
the cracks. Eventually a keyboard may look too gross to
actually want to use, and you may even find that the key
action is less responsive or even blocked by items under
the keys.

A sweeping blast of canned air will work wonders to


eliminate the debris, and for best results hold the
keyboard upside down while doing so. It might not hurt to
give the keyboard a good shake while it is upside down, but be prepared as you never know what
might fall out.

Mice

Optical mice
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=565) may be
more immune from dust than the old roller ball mice
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GN-
115&cat=561), but both styles are still prone to diminished performance caused by dust. Roller
ball mice require fairly frequent cleanings in the socket around the ball, as it can sweep just about
anything you roll over up into its mechanism. Optical (and laser) mice have a smooth bottom
surface that may not have anywhere for dust to gather, but there are still places for it to settle
elsewhere.

The buttons on either type of mice are generally not sealed, and junk can get into the small
cracks around the edges, potentially interfering with the click action of the device. In addition, the
area around scroll wheels can easily become gunked up with dust and debris, which a blast of
canned air can alleviate.

Power Supply

Power supplies
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=39) are much
like heat sinks with respect to keeping them clean. The
housing of a power supply features a fan (or two) used to
cool aluminum heats inks found inside, and the same
issues that impacted the performance of a chip’s heat
sink and fan will be found in a power supply.

Overheating power supplies can be a major cause of


system instability and failure, but it seems like they
receive the least attention when it comes to preventive
system maintenance. A good blast of air through each of
the fan openings and vents on the side can help keep
these critical components operating well.

The components of a power supply run hot due to the resistance in the process of converting the
120V AC power to the various DC voltages needed inside the computer. Power supplies with
better efficiencies are now available which reduce the heat generated, but keeping the fans and
heatsinks free of dust will help keep them doing so for a much longer time.

Laptops

Laptop computers
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=35) can benefit
equally from a cleansing blast of air. For example, the
integrated keyboard and pointing device can get the same
crud behind them as a desktop version and inverting the
laptop and giving a blast can set this debris free.

The processor in a laptop computer may not be as readily


accessible as in a desktop, but there are vents in the housing
that lead to it. One set of vents allow a cooling fan to draw air
in, and another set of vents allow the heated air from the
processor to be expelled. Giving these vents a puff of
canned air will help ensure that the pathway doesn’t become
restricted and that the processor’s heat sink doesn’t become insulated by a layer of dust.

Final Words

A can of air won’t take care of all of your computer maintenance needs, but one can really make
keeping key components functioning at their best a breeze. Available at most consumer
electronics and office supply stores, the (low) price of a can of air is well worth it to help maintain
the large investment you have in your computer.
Tech Tip 39 – DVD Writing: 6 Tips for that Perfect Burn
Article by: Miguel Fernandez

For many, DVD writing (or “burning,” as it is commonly called) can end up being
an expensive trial and error process, especially when burning video for playback
on set-top DVD players. This Tech Tip is intended to eliminate the need to
spend that hard earned money in order to achieve that “perfect burn.” Please
note, as with many things computer-related, many people hold strong opinions of
certain subjects, and this is definitely one of them. This tip simply enumerates
what we have found to work for many people. While this Tech Tip deals largely
with DVD video playback compatibility, we at Geeks.com (http://www.geeks.com)
encourage you to use your DVD burner responsibly and to observe all copyright
laws for the area in which you live.

Tip #1 – It all starts with media

The bane of the DVD burning enthusiast is


“coasters.” This is what bad DVD burns are
commonly referred to because this is about the
only use left for a DVD disc that suffered a bad
burn. With high quality media, you are apt to get
less “coasters” per pack of media. The consensus
of many is that one of the best brands of media
available are the discs made by a company called
Taiyo Yunden. Many also have success with
“major brand” media such as Memorex, Maxell,
TDK, Verbatim, etc. They might cost slightly more
than standard or “no name” media, but if you are seriously after the highest write
quality and playback performance, it pays to at least consider purchasing them.
Not only will higher quality media burn better initially, but they will better retain
their burn down the road. A note about Taiyo Yunden is that it is frequently blank
(that is, it is not branded on the non-writing side as “Taiyo Yunden”).
Most manufacturers, “major brand” and “no name” alike, usually do not actually
make their own media, but they contract out to third party manufacturers to make
their media and print their brand name on it. This may actually result in your
having two spindles of media with the same name printed on them and actually
have them made by two completely different companies. Because of this, many
prefer to buy their media based on the actual manufacturer of the media (by a
method known as “Media ID”). Two recommended ways of checking the media
ID, or “manufacturer ID,” (http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm) of
your media is to use Nero’s (http://ww2.nero.com/enu/index.html) InfoTool or the
excellent third-party tool, DVDInfoPro (http://www.dvdinfopro.com/). Something
else to consider, is that many have found that DVD burning drives are quite
finicky when it comes to media, particularly cheap, no-name media. What this
means in practical terms is that the more inexpensive media may not work in
their drive or may burn at a reduced speed. For example, you may find that a
spindle of 16x DVD discs that you bought may only write at 4x or 8x on certain
16x drives. Sticking to higher quality brands helps you to achieving the best
possible write speeds while maintaining the highest level of burn quality.

Tip #2 – Check your drive manufacturer’s website for firmware updates

Many users, especially those who may be more


technically challenged, may neglect to upgrade
their current DVD drive with newer firmware.
Firmware is special instructions written onto a built-
in chip on the drive that tells it how fast to burn,
how to work with certain media, etc. The nice thing
about firmware is that it can be upgraded to newer
versions to enhance the features of the drive.
Manufacturers commonly release new firmware for
many reasons, such as media compatibility or better/faster drive performance.
As an example, BenQ (http://www.benq.com/) has released newer firmware for
their DW1620 drive
(http://www.benq.us/ServiceAndSupport/Drivers/drivers.cfm?product=647) to
improve the compatibility with certain 16x media (among other things). For newer
firmware for your drive, check the manufacturer’s website. Firmware is generally
very easy to apply and can improve your drive’s overall performance. Note that if
you purchased a system with a DVD burner already installed, it may be an OEM
version, and firmware may be difficult to find for this type of drive. There is one
caveat on updating your firmware as well: be sure to use the firmware designed
for your drive because if you use the wrong firmware, you can kill the drive and
invalidate your warranty.
Tip #3 – If burning video, be sure the format you use is supported by your
standalone DVD player

Not all standalone players support both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW formats.
Check your player’s manual to see exactly what formats it supports before you
spend money on media. Generally, older players have more readability issues
then newer players. Videohelp.com (http://www.videohelp.com/) is an excellent
website for finding such information as your player’s model number, what media
to use, what formats your player can use. You will also find many great guides
and excellent software. One word of caution: no matter the player, for video you
want to generally avoid using a re-writable (DVD-RW/DVD+RW) media. This
type of media is best suited for data (although many standalone players do
support this kind of media, some people have still encountered video playback
issues).

Tip #4 – Nero is your friend

When it comes to DVD media, the consensus is


that Taiyo Yunden is the best media to use. Just
like media, the consensus of many is that Nero’s
(formerly Ahead Software) Nero Burning ROM is
the best burning software you can currently use for
your DVD burner. The good news is that the
standard version of Nero is packaged with many
burners and is usually fine for most burning needs.
Nero also offers a more advanced version called
Nero 6 Ultra Edition with features such as video
authoring for users who want to get the most out of
their burner
(http://ww2.nero.com/enu/Nero_6_Reloaded.html). Because of Nero’s
popularity, many third party software packages automatically tie into Nero’s
burning engine for making actual burns on the DVD drive. Other companies also
offer excellent software packages as well (such as NTI
(http://www.ntius.com/default.asp) and Roxio
(http://www.roxio.com/en/index.jhtml;jsessionid=KG3W445VVHRVHLAQAQHCM
4Q?_requestid=5373869)), but Nero has quickly taken the lead in this area in the
last couple of years.
Tip #5 – Advanced tip: Bitsetting

This advanced tip


is for those who
may be having
video playback
problems with
DVD+R/RW media
playing properly on
a DVD standalone
player. When a
DVD standalone
player plays back
a disc, it looks at a
set of “low level”
information to tell it what kind of disc it is (for example: DVD-ROM; DVD+R, etc.).
Some older standalone players will only play back discs marked in this area as
DVD-ROM. They may physically have no problems playing back a burned disc
with video, but their firmware instructions are telling them not to (because it is not
marked as a DVD-ROM in this area). There are two work-arounds for this type of
issue. The first is to actually update your standalone player’s firmware (see the
videohelp.com website we mentioned earlier for information on how to do this
and if an update is available). The second is to have the burned disc report that it
is a DVD-ROM rather than a DVD+R/RW disc. You can do this with a nifty
feature called bitsetting
http://www.dvdplusrw.org/Article.asp?mid=0&sid=2&aid=42). Many drive
manufacturers do support bitsetting or “booktype change” on +R/RW media. The
method of changing the booktype of your media depends on the manufacturer of
the drive. Some offer a utility to manually change it, while others will
automatically change the booktype to DVD-ROM prior to actually burning your
files onto the disc when using the proper burning software. While this tip may be
more advanced than what you may be looking for, it does help solve some of
those nagging compatibility issues some may still face.

Tip #6 – Advanced tip: When all else fails, burn your DVD in Nero using
UDF 1.02

This is a tip some have found to help with many playback issues. If the video
DVD you burned does not play, or you get a "Disc Error", try burning the disc
using UDF (Universal Disc Format) (http://www.videohelp.com/glossary?U) 1.02.
If you have a somewhat older standalone DVD player, there may be a chance
that it cannot properly support the newer versions of UDF (burning software,
such as Nero usually uses the newer version of UDF when burning DVD video).
This “last resort” tip has helped many with seemingly insurmountable DVD video
playability issues.
Final Words

Following these tips, and taking the initiative to do some research on the subject,
will ensure that you’ll be quite satisfied with both your DVD writer as well as
anything you create with it. While we have found that some people may be quick
to blame the DVD drive or the DVD media as the source of a problem, this may
not necessarily always be the case as we’ve seen with tips 5 and 6. It is our hope
that these Tech Tips will help you make that “perfect burn.”
Tech Tip 40 - Dual Display Desktop

The ability to run multiple monitors off of one computer is nothing new, but such
configurations are seeing a surge in popularity. The falling prices of LCD
monitors, coupled with the desire to comfortably have as much on screen as
possible, are leading this surge. It might be an even more popular upgrade if
people were aware of the ease of installation and the relatively reasonable costs
associated with it. To that end, this Tech Tip will take a look at some of the basic
requirements and features associated with setting up a dual display desktop on a
personal computer.

Software

Displaying your desktop on multiple monitors is natively supported by Windows


XP, 2000, ME, and 98, as well as in the popular distributions of Linux. Although
this Tech Tip will focus on configuring a dual display setup in Windows, it is
possible to go much higher than two monitors if your needs and budget should
allow.

With the proper hardware installed (to be


covered in the next section), enabling
dual displays is quite easy. Simply
navigate to the “Settings” tab of the
“Display Properties” screen in Windows,
and where most people are used to
seeing controls for one monitor, you will
now see two. The two monitors can then
be enabled (attached) / disabled, resized,
and reoriented to match the configuration
that they physically occupy on your desk.
By selecting to “Extend my Windows
desktop onto this monitor”, the cursor will
now be able to leave the primary monitor
and can freely navigate the second
display as if it was all one surface. You
can move programs, icons, taskbars, and wallpapers onto the secondary monitor
and start taking advantage of the increased desktop real estate. With this setup,
a computer becomes much more convenient to use.

The typical home user may appreciate the extra space in order to spread out
documents for easy reviewing without having to tab back and forth. On a more
recreational level, perhaps they will utilize one monitor for their web browser,
while the second one is used to display e-mail, instant messaging, MP3
playback, DVD video, and so on.

Another benefit of dual displays in the home can be experienced in 3D games.


Many games are now supporting multiple monitors in order to enhance the
experience. Unreal Tournament, Quake, and Microsoft’s Flight Simulator are just
a few of the series of games that support multiple monitors to allow the player to
further immerse themselves in the action.

In business settings, dual displays may be even more valuable. In addition to


being able to view multiple documents at once, some may just need more space
to see what they are working on. Designers using AutoCAD can now drag all of
their toolbars onto the second monitor and use the entire surface of the primary
monitor as an uninterrupted workspace. Another example of the benefits of dual
displays can be seen with day traders, who may need to be monitoring the
activity of numerous stocks at once. Having one window hidden behind another
may be not only be inconvenient, but costly, and multiple monitors might be an
easy upgrade to justify when money is on the line.

Hardware

The software portion of the setup is easily addressed


considering that the functionality is built into just about
every operating system available. The hardware required
for running dual displays requires a bit more consideration,
but isn’t anything that even a novice computer user can’t
figure out. One thing you obviously need to have is a pair
of monitors. The second thing you need to have is a
means for connecting these two monitors to the computer,
which can be accomplished in a variety of ways.
For those building a system from scratch, perhaps the easiest way to connect
two monitors is via a dual-head graphics adaptor, such as this nVidia GeForce
6600 PCIe card (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PCX-PC6600-
128MTV&cat=VCD). The connectors on this card allow for either one digital and
one analog, or for two analog monitors (using the included adaptor) to be
connected to the system through the use of just one PCI Express x16 slot. There
are also dual-head cards available for AGP and PCI; it is simply a matter of
selecting the correct card for the slots available on your motherboard.

In addition to selecting the correct motherboard interface,


it is important to select the correct display connections.
The card referenced in the previous paragraph provides
one DVI connection for a digital display, as well as one 15-
pin VGA connection for an analog display. Through the
use of an included DVI to VGA adaptor, owners can then
run the combinations of monitors mentioned above. Other
cards may offer two DVI connections
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=01-000080-
XXX-DT&cat=VCD) or two VGA connections. A VGA
connection can be identified by the typical 15-pin
(generally blue in color) plug that has been the staple on computers for years. A
DVI connection is generally white in color, and is slightly wider than a VGA
connection. Whether selecting a card for use with existing monitors, or buying the
card and monitors all at one time, it is obviously critical to select components that
will work together.

For those with an existing system that could benefit from dual displays, replacing
the existing graphics adaptor with a dual-head card is an option, but it is not the
only one. Another graphics adaptor can be added to the system, and the existing
card can be kept. This is nice for financial reasons, or if the performance of the
existing card doesn’t warrant replacement.

The key thing to consider with this approach is to select a secondary graphics
adaptor that uses a slot available on your motherboard, and that offers a display
connection to match your monitor. Newer systems may feature more than one
PCIe x16 slots which can make this happen, but you can also add a PCI card to
any system currently running PCIe, AGP, or PCI graphics. The cards used in a
dual display setup do not need to match, and it is acceptable to run a high end
primary card with a bargain basement secondary card, or any combination of
cards in between.

Trying to set up dual displays on systems with integrated video can result with
mixed results. Expansion slots are generally available for graphics cards on
systems with the video adaptor built into the motherboard, but using these slots
on many systems like this instantly disables the onboard video. Those desiring
dual displays on such systems need to investigate whether onboard graphics
adaptor can be part of the setup, or if two new connections need to be installed
via either method described previously. But, some integrated video solutions will
support dual displays, and may do so without additional hardware. For example,
if the manufacturer includes the necessary connections, systems that utilize the
Intel Extreme2 integrated graphics processor can run dual displays as is.

There are also specialty cards, such as the ones made by Matrox
(http://www.matrox.com/mga/corp/enterprise/products/highend.cfm) that can
allow up to four monitors per card, and multiple cards per system! Though not
made for the gamer, these cards are great for stock traders, banks and
enterprise server situations.

Notebook computer owners aren’t left out


of the loop on dual displays, either. Most
modern notebooks feature a VGA
connection that can either be used as the
primary display or as part of a dual display
arrangement with the notebook’s
integrated display. Not all notebooks allow
for this, as some will only mirror the
display onto the attached monitor, so it is
best to check the features and
specifications before making any
purchases.

Benefits

Financially, two smaller monitors should be much easier to justify than one larger
monitor. Two 17” LCD monitors
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=538), or even two 19” LCD monitors
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=540), generally cost much less than
just one 20” LCD monitor (http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=532).
Looking at the Geeks.com inventory, it can be seen that two typical 17” models
will cost about $400, while one 20” model will cost closer to $800!

The price difference between two new smaller monitors and one new larger
monitor is remarkable, but many people might already have something like a
decent quality 17” monitor on hand. The value of a dual display desktop gets
even better if you only need to buy one of the monitors. Many people retire
perfectly good monitors just because they want to upgrade to a larger screen.
Simply adding another, similar monitor to the setup can be much more
economical and provide even greater desktop real estate.

Desktop real estate is what this effort is all about. People want larger displays for
generally three reasons: (1) to make the image larger and easier on their eyes,
(2) to be able to fit more content on to the screen, and (3) just for bragging rights
as bigger is better! Dual displays may be a good way to take care of numbers
one and two, and it will help satisfy number three by scoring significant coolness
points worth bragging about.

As a point of reference in the desktop real estate department, let’s take a look at
the maximum resolution you can run with either a single 20” monitor or two 17”
monitors. A 20” Sony LCD monitor
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SDM-S204_B-DT&cat=MON) supports
a maximum resolution of 1600x1200. Any one of the 17” or 19” LCD monitors at
the links above will provide a maximum resolution of 1280x1024. Place two of
these monitors side-by-side in a dual desktop setup and you have an effective
resolution of 2560x1024. If your physical desktop makes it more convenient to
configure your Windows desktop so that one monitor is above the other, instead
of side-by-side, you could then have an effective resolution of 1280x2048. As
you can see, the total area in the dual display configuration is far greater than
that found on just one 20” monitor.

From an aesthetic stand point, people may


like to have two of the exact same monitors
on their desk. It is not necessary that the
monitors in a dual display setup match in
terms of size, brand, or technology (LCD or
CRT). Any two monitors can work in a dual
display setup as long as the connections on
the monitor and the graphic adaptor match
up. That said, there may be other reasons
why someone would want to have similar, if
not identical, monitors in their array.

The display specifications are worth considering when adding a different type of
monitor in order to create a dual desktop arrangement. Factors such as contrast,
brightness, resolution, refresh rate, and dot pitch are just some of the variables
that can make one monitor look different than others. In general, it is not a big
deal for displays to look different when they are in different locations, but when
you have them side-by-side on your desk it may be more of an issue. If the
image quality isn’t similar, shifting your eyes back and forth between the two
monitors can become a strain as your eyes try to adjust to each. Many quality
LCD displays have specifications that overlap and should be comfortable on the
eyes, but a nice crisp LCD next to a slightly worn CRT is a different story.

Final Words

Dual display configurations are not difficult to setup and offer an economical
alternative to upgrading to a larger monitor. The convenience of such a monitor
arrangement can be reaped in both business and personal applications, and
once you experience working or playing on two displays, you may wonder why
you didn’t do it sooner.
Tech Tip 41 – Voice Over Internet Protocol - VoIP 101

At this point, most people have probably heard of VoIP, and


many may have used it, but they may not fully understand the
basics of this rapidly expanding technology. This Tech Tip will
take a look at some of the basic features, modes of operation,
and other background information on one of the latest ways
technology can be used to connect people.

The acronym VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and
the basic concept of the term can be fairly well understood by just looking at the words
that make up the acronym. For a more complete definition, VoIP can be described as a
means of converting analog audio signals (your voice) into digital data that can be
transferred over the Internet.

Getting Setup

When many people think of VoIP, they instantly think


of services like Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/) or
Packet8 (http://www.packet8.net/) that are in business
to become your full feature telephony
(http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/t/telephony.html)
solution. In fact, these companies usually use terms
such as “Broadband Phone Service” to refer to their
full range of products. Although these companies do offer VoIP services, the term can be
used to describe something much simpler than a full-fledged telephony service.

Taking a look at the basic definition again, we can see that we only need to be able to
capture the audio and transmit it digitally in order to have VoIP. This can be done
without subscribing to a service and without a specialized telephone or other equipment.
Basic VoIP can be accomplished by an internet connected PC with a soundcard sporting a
microphone and speakers. Keeping that in mind, let’s look at the three basic ways people
implement VoIP.
The first way to implement VoIP is the PC to PC version of
VoIP as described in the previous paragraph. With a fairly
typical computer connected to broadband internet, and some
kind of software for managing the communications, anyone
can be up and running with a basic version of VoIP that may
be totally free. Such software is available as a free
download, and Skype (http://www.skype.com/) is one of the
more popular applications in use. Skype allows members to
make free PC to PC calls regardless of distance and, for an
extra fee, they can send/receive calls from standard
telephones. As mentioned, you only need a PC with a soundcard
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=SND), a microphone
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=785) and a decent set of speakers
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=SPK), but there are also specialized USB VoIP
telephones (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SE-P1K&cpc=SCH&srm=0) that
make it even more convenient. Using a USB VoIP phone not only makes the
communication seem a bit more traditional, but it also frees up the soundcard for typical
audio applications (MP3s, games, etc), while the phones circuitry handles all audio
processing for phone calls.

The second way is by using an ATA, or Analog Telephone Adaptor


(such as this one from Cisco
(http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/gatecont/ps514/products_d
ata_sheet09186a00800c4139.html), which may be the most common
form of VoIP in use today. With an ATA, a standard telephone can be plugged into the
adaptor just as you would plug it into a phone jack in the wall. The ATA is then
connected to your network, or directly to your broadband internet gateway, in order to
convert the analog audio into digital data for transmission over the internet. Vonage
(http://www.vonage.com/) and other similar services use ATAs to implement VoIP, as it
is a simple approach for people with existing phone equipment that they would like to
continue using. In addition, it can allow for a home pre-wired for multiple phone jacks to
continue operating as is,
with the only new piece of
hardware required being
the ATA.

The third way to implement


VoIP is via IP phones. An
IP Phone may appear to be
much like your standard
telephone, with the only physical difference being that the (RJ-11) phone jack has been
replaced by an (RJ-45) Ethernet connector. Internally, there will be some differences in
the circuitry in order to allow the conversion from analog to digital to happen right in the
phone. An IP phone is then connected directly to your network
or broadband internet gateway, with no adaptor required.
Packet8 (http://www.packet8.net/) is one service that offers IP
phones to their customers, in addition to the more typical ATA
VoIP service. The downside to IP phones is that the
implementation requires all new telephones designed solely for
use with VoIP. Any existing analog equipment can not be
used.

Data Transmissions

Your standard phone line uses the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network – also
sometimes called POTS (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/POTS.html) (for Plain
Old Telephone Service)) for connecting the parties involved in a phone call. Although
this system is reliable, it is not very efficient, and considering it has been operating under
the same basic principles since the invention of the telephone, it might be surprising to
realize we have such an antiquated system. A call made on
this system is referred to as “circuit switched”
(http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/circuit_switching.html)
, since the two parties are constantly connected throughout the
duration of the call like a circuit.

A VoIP call doesn’t use the PSTN, and it does not keep the
two parties connected throughout the conversation. A VoIP
conversation is referred to as “packet switched”
(http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/packet_switching.html),
as the data is transmitted in packets (or smaller chunks) and
the connection is made only as these chunks of data need to be
transmitted.

One benefit of this method is that packet switching lets the


data travel from caller to caller over the most efficient path on the Internet, and not over
one dedicated line. Additionally, because there isn’t a dedicated connection for the
conversation, bandwidth is conserved, and more phone calls can be placed in the space
typically required by one PSTN call. Even greater efficiency can be achieved through
VoIP’s use of data compression, which is equivalent to Zipping-up the data before
transmitting (and unzipping it at the other end).

VoIP Protocols

Just as with most other means of communicating data over the Internet, there are a few
VOIP protocols that have been developed by various groups and companies. Some of the
current protocols include SIP, IAX, H.323, MEGACO
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaco), and MGCP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGCP).
Let’s look at some details of the first three, as they may be the ones you are most likely to
encounter.
SIP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol), or Session Initiation
Protocol, is the most commonly used VoIP protocol and was developed by the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF (http://www.ietf.org/)). One issue with SIP is that it is
not particularly NAT (Network Address Translation) friendly. NAT is what allows a
local area network to manage one set of IP addresses for internal communications, and a
second set of IP addresses for external communications.

IAX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAX), or Inter-Asterisk eXchange, is another VoIP


protocol that is used with free Asterisk (http://www.asterisk.org/) software for managing
a PBX (Private Branch eXchange). IAX (or more recently IAX2) deals better with NAT
than SIP, but its implementation is limited to Asterisk servers only. A PBX is private
phone network used within an organization that can connect all internal lines to each
other, as well as using a central access point for connecting to any outside line.

H.323 (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/H_323.html) was originally developed by


the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector
(ITU-T (http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/)) for use with multimedia conferencing over local area
networks (LANs), and was later applied to VoIP applications. This is an older protocol
that isn’t commonly used.

Benefits

VoIP offers many benefits over


traditional telephone service, which has
it poised to become the phone system of
the near future. Many traditional long
distance carriers actually use VoIP
themselves, as it makes routing long
distance calls more convenient than over
traditional lines. So, even if you don’t
subscribe to a VoIP service personally,
it is likely that you have already used it,
whether you know it or not.

One of the main benefits of VoIP is the flexibility. You can take your phone, and your
same phone number, with you anywhere in the world where a broadband internet
connection is available. This can be extremely useful for business travelers who cannot
count on their mobile phone to work internationally, and appreciate the presence of a
dedicated phone number to use for staying in contact with associates/clients. This
flexibility is made easier through the use of a PC-based or IP-based telephone, but even a
typical ATA can be packed up and stored in a brief case.

Another key benefit is the price. Taking a look at the offerings from services like
Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/) or Packet8 (http://www.packet8.net/) shows that the
traditional phone company may not be able to compete. In addition to offering local and
long distance for lower rates, they also bundle in all the extra calling features that people
have grown to rely on (such as caller ID, call waiting, three-way calling, etc).

VoIP also allows some more advanced features not available with your typical land line.
Many services offer the ability to check voice mail via the web, or to even have voice
messages sent to you as an attachment in an e-mail. The service’s web interface may also
allow for a detailed calling log to be reviewed, for customized messages that can be
applied to certain callers, and for special call forwarding settings to be applied.

Final Words

VoIP is nothing new, but as the technology advances, the popularity is surging. The
efficiency, calling features, and competitive pricing have it poised to overtake the
antiquated PSTN system as the way we make phone calls. This Tech Tip covered some
of the basic ideas and features of VoIP, and hopefully offers a better understanding of the
technology and features of Voice over Internet Protocol.
Tech Tip 42 - Computer Interconnections (Intro and Electrical Safety)
Article by Roy Davis

The catchword these days is wireless. Wireless Internet access, cordless


phones, even a wireless mouse to get the clutter of the mouse cable off your
desk. My day job for the past 30 years is working as an electrical engineer
designing all these wonderful wireless gadgets. My moonlight job for 25 years
has been conducting seminars and writing for publication to help people use their
computers effectively.

If it is the wireless age, I’ll tell you what, I’ve never


seen so many wires. I’ve got it pretty much under
control on top of my computer desk with the cables
tucked away, but underneath it’s a nightmare of
wires, cables, and power cords. This series of Tech
Tips will tackle the tangle of wires around your
computer and consumer electronics gadgets as well
as help you understand how those wires work and
how to make your interconnections work better.

Talking about interconnections may not be as jazzy


as arguing about the latest high-performance
processor chips from Intel and AMD, but where do
90% of computer hardware problems come from?
The interconnects, that’s where! Getting the right
plug in the right socket is not a trivial task when
there are so many with a seemingly endless
assortment of sizes and shapes that seem to come loose at just the wrong
moment, and that’s only on the outside of the computer! Open up the case of a
well-equipped PC and you are greeted with another impenetrable jungle of
interconnect cables and wires. Let’s spend some time sorting out this mess so
you can use logic to solve your next interconnect problem instead of just plugging
into random holes with the hope that you find the one that works before the one
that burns it up.
OK, we are going to talk about how you can keep wires and cables from causing
hum and noise in your computer speakers, data loss due to intermittent
connections and lots of other topics. But, let’s take that last thought about “before
it burns up” and talk about computer electrical safety first.

Naturally, I did some research by poking around on the Web for electrical safety
as related to personal computers. I was shocked (sorry, couldn’t help it) by the
lack of practical information about handling electricity in and around your
computer, given that all computers run on electricity. Your laptop runs on
electricity and there are special considerations there too, but there are things to
be careful of even when running off the battery.

Let’s start with the simple safety issues.


How about that power cord? There’s one for
your computer, one for the monitor, one for
the printer and so on. Power cords put up
with a lot, but they do fail. You should
always pull wires and cables out by
grasping the plug, not the wire. You can severely damage the interconnect that
way.

I inherited a piece of equipment when I bought this house and it had apparently
been pinched at one time. The safety ground wire was broken off and shorted
against the hot wire inside the cord. There are safety circuits, which I’ll explain
later, that tripped, but the previous homeowner got the equipment working by
disabling the safeties. The point is, people do things to electrical equipment that
result in hazards, and I could have been killed by touching the cabinet with the
power on if I had not replaced the cord before plugging the equipment back in.

Your computer has exactly the same type of three-wire cord and a metal cabinet.
The house wiring in the room where your computer is probably doesn’t have all
those safeties so it’s ripe for an electrical shock if the cord is not in good shape.
Enough of the horror stories, let’s get down to the technical details.

The wiring in your house, and the power cord that


leads to your computer uses three wires. These
wires are required by contemporary electrical
wiring code to be colored black, white and green.
The black wire is the “hot” one that is the most
dangerous to touch. The white wire is the common, or “return,” that is connected
to the electrical ground back at the main power box in your house or apartment.
The electrical power flows back and forth in the black and white wires. Some
equipment gets by with connecting only the black and white wires and depends
on completely insulating all the electrical components inside. Most computers,
even the latest laptops, use all three wires where the green wire adds a safety
ground. This safety ground is connected to the metal parts of your computer
case.

Under normal conditions, no current should flow in the green safety ground. The
green wire is in fact connected to the white wire at the electrical ground back at
the power box. So why is the safety ground so important? If the wiring in your
house is done correctly, and you have a computer where you drop a screw that
shorts the hot side of the power line to the case, the electricity would take the
path of least resistance and travel back through the safety ground wire instead of
through your body. The safety ground can handle the current so it should kick out
the breaker and shut down the circuit, keeping the electrical short from turning
into an electrical fire.

Now you know why it’s so important to have your power cords in good shape, but
what should you look for? First, you can’t do a good job of inspecting a power
cord under your desk. Take the cord to a place with good light and look at it
closely along every inch. Especially near the plugs, bend the cord back and forth
and look for cracks in the insulation. No cracks are acceptable. If the cord
appears pinched, stretched or cracked, throw it in the trash and get a new one. A
new computer cord can be had for a very few dollars at your local computer store
or electronics supply. When I see them on sale, I pick up a few spares to have
around so I don’t hesitate to toss a defective one.

I mentioned some safeties built into your house. The first line of defense is the
circuit breaker. Every circuit in your house must have breakers as they are
required by code. Circuit breakers sense when too much current is being drawn
and shut off the power. The only purpose of circuit breakers is to keep the wiring
from going up in smoke with a short circuit. They don’t protect you from shocks.

A second set of devices is installed in certain areas of


your house like bathrooms, the kitchen, the garage and
places where damp floors are possible. This gadget goes
by the acronym of GFCI, or Ground Fault Circuit
Interrupter. This is your friend and the best protection for
shocks from faulty electronics equipment. It senses an
imbalance of currents in the black and white wires, which
means the current is flowing into the green wire – or
worse- into your body.

As I sit here at my computer desk I’m surrounded by


electronics goodies, some of which I hold onto and have
prolonged contact with for hours, such as a VoIP (Voice
over Internet Protocol) headset. These gadgets are all connected back to the
power line one way or another. The metal case to my computer is grounded
through the safety ground. So, if I should have a faulty device that I am touching,
and then lean on my computer case to pop a new DVD in, I could be
electrocuted. That’s why I prefer to have a GFCI on the circuit in my computer
room. You should have an electrician install one for you; it’s cheap protection. If
you are handy, here is a Web site with GFCI Info.

While you are at the local hardware store, pick


up an electrical circuit tester. It’s a big yellow or
orange plug with three lights. When you plug it
into a receptacle to test it, the pattern of lights
will tell you if the wires in the wall are hooked up
correctly. Every house I’ve owned has had
improperly wired receptacles and this is really
dangerous. The tester also has a button that
can trip the GFCI to test it to make sure it really
works.

Keep the above in mind while using a laptop computer if it is plugged into the
wall. If you are going to sit out on the concrete patio, by the pool or anywhere
that is damp or has concrete, abandon the power supply and run off the battery.
Sitting in a pair of shorts on an aluminum chair or even just with bare feet on the
concrete and a computer in your lap connected to the power lines is an invitation
for trouble. The battery is going to die of old age if you keep your power supply
plugged in all the time, so exercise the battery while you enjoy the sun.

Final Words

This Tech Tip covered Computer Interconnections and Electrical Safety. By


understanding how and why we use power cords with grounds, and even GFCI,
we’ll have a better chance of surviving our dealings with computers. It might be a
wireless world, but we’ve never had to deal with so many wires between the
gadgets we love. Although making these interconnections work is a challenge,
we might as well learn as much as we can about cables and connectors so that
we can confidently plug in that new computer toy and get it working on the first
try.
Tech Tip 43 - Computer Interconnections
(USB: The Answer to Our Serial Port Prayers)
Article by Roy Davis
Last week, we talked about how to get power to your computer without getting a jolt
yourself. This time, let’s go into the latest in connecting gadgets to your computer, the
Universal Serial Bus, or USB. It has made computer interconnect so simple that it’s easy
to forget what a nightmare serial ports used to be.
When I say “serial port,” oldsters among
us will flash back to the big, clunky 25-pin
connector for the cable that went to an
external telephone modem. Since early
modems could send or receive only one bit
at a time, the data had to be spoon fed to
them on a single wire, one for sending and
one for receiving. Add a common wire and
you only need three wires for the data.
Then why did they design the serial port
with 25 pins?
Back in the even earlier days, the serial
connection was used for mechanical teletypes and printers that had separate control
signals for announcing when the machine was ready to send and ready to receive the
next character and even a pin for when the telephone rang. When PCs became popular,
the serial port was pared down to nine pins by throwing away most of those unused
control signals. Apple went one better by reducing the pin count to eight and using a
much smaller circular DIN connector. (DIN is short for Deutsches Insitut für Normung
eV, the standards-setting organization for Germany. A DIN connector is a connector
that conforms to one of the many standards defined by DIN).

Over the years, the serial port grew to include many


other uses other than telephone modems. It was used
to connect early printers, scanners, and security
devices (“dongles”). The lowly serial port was even
used with a crossover cable for the first poor-man’s
network where two computers are connected to transfer files.
OK, that’s the history of the traditional serial port, but what most people miss is that
there are all sorts of other serial ports on your computer. The PS2 keyboard connection
is really a serial port, as is the PS2 mouse. Your network cable is really just a very high-
speed serial port.
There are other ports that could be serial ports, if the data rate was just fast enough.
An example is the printer port that sends eight bits at a time over eight separate wires.
That makes for fatter cables and bigger
connectors. How about your joystick or other
game controller? There is only one joystick port
on a PC and it’s a pretty crude design.
With all these different, incompatible peripheral
interfaces, no wonder it’s a nightmare of tangled
wires behind my computer. Finally, the
designers of computer interconnects have come
up with a modern solution – the Universal Serial
Bus or USB.
Inspired by the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) found on Macintosh computers, which could
support multiple and varied devices, USB started out to be better than the 115 Kilobit
per second old style serial port by upping the data rate to 1.5 Mbps, but that’s now
known officially as Low Speed. With this data rate, USB keyboards, mice and trackballs
are easily handled.
Then came Full Speed at 12 Megabits per second and USB 1.1 was
suddenly the interconnect of choice for printers, scanners and even
external computer sound systems. Recently, USB 2.0 has been
introduced and now we have a High Speed of up to 480 Mbps,
though most devices can’t keep up with that blistering speed. This
makes USB the method of choice for connecting high-speed Flash
memory devices, external hard drives, DVD/CD readers and writers,
external professional grade video and audio interfaces and your
network connections. If my computer had to exist with only two
connectors on it, my choice would be power (because you have to)
and USB. For older peripherals you can buy inexpensive adapters
that have a connector for your legacy device and a USB plug to go
into your computer.
Until USB came along, the connectors on the back of your computer were either big
clunky (but rugged) throwbacks to an earlier age, or tiny (and flimsy) round ones that
are difficult to get aligned and plugged in. USB connectors
are small, but built to take some abuse, and easy to figure
out which way to line up with the socket, even when
feeling with your fingers behind your computer.
The Type A USB connector is what you find on your
computer and on the output side of USB hubs. It’s flat with
four pins that are protected inside a metal shield. Being
flat, you can only try sticking it in the jack two ways, and
the wrong way won’t even try to go in. This is known as being “keyed.” The other
common type of USB connector is the Type B. It looks very different from the Type A
and is generally used only for the input side of hubs. This way, you can’t mix up the
uplink and downlink cables. There are miniature USB connectors, but they are generally
specific to very portable devices like digital cameras and MP3 players. The miniature
USB connectors are always a standard Type A connections.
I mentioned USB hubs. Previous computer
interconnects were one-to-one, so you needed one
port for every device you wanted to plug into your
computer. The “B” in USB means bus in the true
sense of the word: it can carry several passengers at
once. By using a hub, several devices can be
plugged into one USB port on your computer. Hubs
can be built into almost any thing. You can buy a USB keyboard that has a hub in it.
That way, you can have one cable running down to the computer and plug your mouse
or trackball (or both!) right into your keyboard. Yes, you can have multiple pointing
devices and use whichever feels right at the time.
Another innovation of USB is that it doesn’t just carry
data – it carries power, too. The PS2 mouse and
keyboard ports did supply power for those devices, but
USB has enough juice behind it to run lots of other
things. For instance, I just bought a wireless network
adapter from Geeks.com, and it connects to the computer
using USB. That means only one cable for both data and
power, which is a lot better than having a separate power
brick to find a socket for.
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PQP-
WU221L&cpc=SCH&srm=0
Peripheral devices used to have to be plugged into their special port on your computer.
They had to be plugged in before powering up your machine. Plugging or unplugging
while the power was on was a good way to crash your computer or even damage the
hardware. Of course, you had to make sure you had installed the proper driver software
for the device, and you had to match the driver with the device and the right version of
Windows. If you bought an older device, it might not even have a driver that would
work with the latest Windows. USB replaces these headaches with automatic device
installation when you plug it into the computer.
You can even plug it in after booting up. Just
don’t forget to stop the device using the applet
in the system tray before removing it with the
power on.

Normally, USB power is limited to 100 milliamps, or one tenth of an Amp when you plug
a device in. That’s enough to power most gadgets, but if you have a power-hungry unit
it can negotiate a boost up to 500 milliamps from most computer USB ports. Now, if
you are using a hub, the computer isn’t going to want to supply the boosted power to
many devices. To overcome this obstacle, you can buy hubs that have their own power
brick. The unpowered hubs are fine to tote along with your
laptop computer to hook up low-powered devices, but for
your desktop machine, you should get a hub with its own
power supply.
Cell phones and MP3 players are now coming with USB
cables for charging their batteries. They don’t need a
power brick of their own; they just steal power from your
computer. On a trip, this is great because you can charge
your portable devices from your laptop and carry only the
charger for your computer.
My main home computer has three pairs of USB ports on the back and one on the front.
I know that some are USB 2.0 and the other USB 1.1 So how do you tell if you
computer is equipped with USB 1.1 or 2.0 ports? Often you have both, so check all of
them to be sure where you can plug in your low speed devices, like a mouse, or a high-
speed device like a new flash memory stick.
First, to make sure you aren’t reading any external USB hubs you have, unplug them
from your computer and reboot. Start at the Control Panel and select the System
applet. Pick the Hardware
tab and then the Device
Manager button. Expand the
Universal Serial Bus
controllers item at or near
the bottom of the list. Scan
through the list and look for
USB 2.0 and/or Enhanced.
The term Enhanced means
that it is USB 2.0 even if it
doesn’t explicitly say 2.0.
If you do happen to have
both USB 2.0 and 1.1 ports
on your computer, and they
are not labeled, you might be in for some trial-and-error to get your high-speed devices
stuffed in the right hole. It doesn’t hurt to have a low-speed device plugged into a high-
speed port, but the other way around will only run at the lower speed. When you do
plug a USB 2.0 device into a USB 1.1 port, you should get a message balloon on the
taskbar that warns you of the mismatch (assuming you are using Windows XP).
USB ports are usually in pairs on the back of
your computer. Say you have one USB 2.0 pair
and one USB 1.1 pair. If you remove all your
USB devices and boot up your computer, then
plug in your high-speed devices until you get
them in the USB 2.0 ports, then you can plug your slow-speed USB 1.1 devices in the
other pair of ports. If you have more devices of one type than you have ports on your
computer, buy a USB hub to split out your ports. Hubs are cheap and give you lots of
expansion capability. Make sure if you have USB 2.0 devices that you get a USB 2.0
compliant hub!
If you are really a hardcore geek, you can read lots more about USB at
http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb-in-a-nutshell.pdf.

Final Words –
USB has taken the computer industry by storm. Every laptop and desktop computer
sports several USB ports and you almost can’t buy a peripheral these days that doesn’t
have a USB cable attached. It’s so popular because people have struggled for years
with many different and incompatible computer interfaces. You can start packing away
those 25 to 9-pin serial port adapters and put away those fat parallel printer port cables
that have been replaced by USB. Your joystick for games, mouse for drawing and
trackball for text editing can all plug into a single hub and from there into a single USB
port on your computer. With hot plugging convenience, you can jack in all sorts of new
toys and enjoy the benefits of USB interconnectivity.
Tech Tip 44 - Computer Interconnections (Wired for Sound)
Article by Roy Davis

Early PC sounds were limited to beeps and boops, which made for some pretty boring
games, and if you wanted to listen to music, you had a separate cassette deck to play
your tapes. Now even laptop computers can play CD music in stereo, games come in
surround sound and we do our music recording, organizing and playback on our
computers. Here are some tips on how to connect all those pieces of a computer audio
system together to get clear and satisfying sound.

1. Basic Sound Card Wiring

The basic computer sound system starts with a sound


card, either a real pluggable card or one integrated into
the motherboard. The traditional sound card has four
stereo 3.5 millimeter jacks for inputs and outputs. One
jack is a direct microphone input and one can drive a pair
of speakers or headphones. Two other jacks are for
Line In and Line Out. Well discuss these two a bit later.
You can use the microphone and speaker jacks to hook
up a headset for Internet VoIP phone calls or gaming.

If gaming is your thing, you can step up to a surround


sound card that can drive several speakers. Speaker
configurations are known b y a numbering system where
2.0 stands for simple stereo with a left and a right
channel speaker. Systems that are 2.1 add a subwoofer for better low frequency
response. True surround sound systems start with “5.1” - these have a front left and
right, rear left and right (“satellites” ) and a center channel plus the subwoofer. Thats a lot
of speaker wires coming out the back of your computer!

2. Powered Speakers

Internal sound cards have to run off the 12 Volt computer


power supply. This limits the power available to a little
over 2 Watts RMS (Root Mean Square) before the onset of
overload distortion (well get into that later). To get around
this limitation, most high quality computer speaker systems
b ypass the internal power amplifier on the sound card and
incorporate a higher-powered amplifier either in a stand-
alone box or right inside the speaker enclosure. A separate
line operated power supply gives the juice to the powered
speakers. Having at least 10 Watts RMS for each speaker makes a lot of difference in the
quality of the sound even if you are not blasting rock and roll. Beware of PMPO (Peak
Music Power Output) ratings because they are pretty meaningless, whereas RMS is a
real measure of the ability of an amplifier to drive a speaker.

Powered speakers are driven by an analog signal from one of the 3.5 mm jacks on your
sound card. You could plug it into the Speaker/Headphone jack, but the quality would
stink. This is where the Line Out jack comes into play. The line level signal bypasses
the speaker amplifier on the sound card to give you a cleaner signal. The Line In jack
b ypasses the microphone amplifier for higher quality recording, but well have to get into
that in a future Tech-Tips.

3. Subwoofer

I already mentioned subwoofers as the x.1 part of a


speaker array. A subwoofer is a special speaker that
does a better job of producing the deep bass that
makes music sound full and battlestar explosions more
real. You can have a simple stereo speaker set, but to
get the bass, the speakers on your desk would have to
be large. I dont know about you, but my desk doesnt
have room for large speakers. Instead, the speakers on
your desk can be small to produce just the high
frequencies that you want to hear directly. The
subwoofer can be larger and placed under your
computer desk and you will still hear and feel the bass
just fine. Just remember that the speakers have to be
wired up so that only low frequencies go to the
subwoofer and only high frequencies go to the small speakers. Its best to purchase a
complete speaker system with the proper crossover (frequency splitting circuit) and
interconnect cabling included.

4. External USB

An alternative to the traditional sound card is the USB


speaker system that moves all the audio circuitry
outside your computer. The only connection to the
computer is the digital USB cable. The debugging
headaches outlined below apply to sound systems
connected with analog signals. With a digital interface,
the noisy computer case is completely separated from
the sensitive audio circuits. USB connected sound
systems are especially good for laptop computers that
may have only a headphone sound output that is not
up to par for decent sound.

5. Sound System Debugging

Since computers were not originally designed to be part of a hi-fi sound system, its no
wonder that we run into many problems like distortion, noise, and hum when we go for top
quality audio. Here are some tips for cleaning up those problems so you can have a
sweet-sounding music or gaming system.

6. Distortion
Audio signals are prone to all
sorts of distortion that can be
introduced by everything from a
dirty plug to a faulty audio
C ODEC
(Compression/Decompression
algorithm). Since we are talking
about computer interconnects
here, well limit our distortion
discussion to only two causes:

One type I mentioned is dirty or loose plugs. Make sure your computer audio signals are
protected by tight, clean connections. Corroded contacts can do all sorts of nasty things
to sound. Clean your plugs with a dry rag, or maybe a tiny bit of contact cleaner that you
can buy at Radio Shack. If this doesnt result in nice shiny connectors, replace your
cables. They are too cheap to have them degrade your sound.

The second type of distortion involves overload, basically turning the sound up so loud
that the circuit cannot amplify it properly so the peaks of the signal are clipped off (hence
the name “clipping distortion” or “peaking”). This creates all sorts of harmonic distortion. If
you are recording rock guitar, harmonic distortion is part of your sound. For playing back
music on your computer, it sounds horrible. Ill go into how overload distortion interacts
with how you have your computer sound system connected up in the next section on
noise.

7. Noise

All audio systems suffer from noise at some


level. Its just natural by-product of amplifying
sound signals, but we can minimize it to the
point that we dont hear it anymore. By noise,
I mean the constant hiss you hear when you
crank the volume way up. Well cover power
line hum noise in a moment.

Im going to introduce a concept that even


many engineers dont seem to grasp, but its
really simple: gain distribution. You want to
have the least amount of gain between the
source of the sound signal and your ears as
you can have. Gain is a measure of
amplification and you can have too much of it.

Heres a concrete example that you can demonstrate yourself and maybe even improve
your computer sound. Suppose you have a set of powered speakers that are fed an
analog signal from your sound card. Play some music, say, a CD in the CD drive. Go to
the full audio mixer control panel, usually double clicking on the speaker icon at the lower
right of your screen.

Push the mixer slider for the CD Player all the way to the bottom. Push the Master control
all the way to the top and turn the volume control on your powered speakers all the way
up. You are probably listening to a lot of hiss noise with no music right now because you
have maximum gain going in your powered speaker and your sound card. Move the CD
Player slider up very carefully and you will find that you get maximum volume very
quickly, but all that hiss is still there.
Now, reverse the process and start with the powered speaker turned all the way down
and the mixer controls all the way up. Turn up the powered speaker only to a comfortable
level. Back down the mixer controls only as needed to get rid of overload distortion. You
can quickly find a setting that gives all the volume you want, low distortion and minimum
hiss. This is the ideal gain distribution between the elements of your sound system.

8. Hum

Getting rid of hum in your computer sound system can really be frustrating. Hum is
caused by our power lines that run at 60 Hertz (which we used to call 60 cycles per
second) and it can leak in from any where. Sixty Hz is a pretty low frequency that many
speaker systems dont reproduce very well, but often the harmonics (multiples) of the
power line frequency (120 Hz, 180 Hz, 240 Hz and so on) are what we hear, and they
can be really annoying.

The first step to get rid of hum is the optimum gain distribution as described above.
Hum gets louder with more amplification, so get the gain down. The next step is to get rid
of the source of the hum if you can.

One source of hum can be the use of an unshielded cable between the Line Out of the
sound card and the input of the powered speaker system. You can get cables with
3.5 mm plugs that are designed to hook up speakers and these cables generally have no
shield to protect the signal from hum induced by nearby power cords. Make sure all the
cables between your sound card and your speaker system have a shield. Your best bet
is to use the cables that came with the speaker system in the positions where the
instruction tell you to use them. Dont swap cables around. The unshielded speaker
cable will work fine between the amplifier and a speaker, but not on the input of the
speaker amplifier.

Another culprit can be the power supply in your powered speakers. Leave the volume
control where you usually listen when you like it loud and unplug the power supply. Now
unplug the sound signal cable (the 3.5 mm plug), and make sure the plug isnt touching
anything. Its not dangerous, but it will pick up hum if it is in contact with something. Plug
the power supply back in. If you still have hum, its coming from the power supply in the
powered speaker, so you might think about getting it repaired or upgraded.

Still another cause of hum is a ground loop. When you have the power cords of two
pieces of equipment plugged into separate receptacles, there could be a long path
between the two receptacles. Also, the position of the audio cables relative to the power
cords can have your sound system humming. One way to avoid ground loops between
equipment is to connect the power cords of the two pieces of equipment with a Y-Cable
that ensures they are plugged into the same branch circuit. If the Y-Cable still has your
computer humming a few bars, try repositioning the audio cables. Try to keep the audio
cables, including speaker wires, bundled together with a cable organizer kit. Keep some
separation between the audio cables and the power cords, but sometimes too much
separation contributes to a ground loop. It really ends up being a trial-and-error solution.

Final Words

Even if you live with an MP3 player on your hip, chances are you recorded that music on
your PC. Making PC sound systems sound good can involve a little wiring or a bunch.
Of course, having the right equipment in the first place is imperative. Understanding the
causes of sound system woes can go a long way toward fixing them. Change one thing
at a time and use the trouble shooting tips above to make sure you are getting the best
sound possible out of your gear.
Tech Tip 45 - Computer Interconnections IV (Picture Perfect)
Article by Roy Davis

As a major geek, I probably spend more time looking at the back of a computer
than I do the front of a television. Even so, having the “gadget freak” side of a
geek in me too, I just had to buy the family one of those new flat panel TVs.

If you think the back of your computer has a confusing assortment of connectors
on it, look at the dark side of a recent model television and be prepared to be
confused. This article will sort out this confusion, and in the process, we’ll note
that more and more of the connections on computers are showing up on TV’s
and vice versa.

This piece addresses only the actual video connections. Then there is HDTV in
so many formats it will make you blind. We’ll have to save discussion on formats
for another Tech Tip.

What Are We Up Against?

Just as our computers are hooked up to everything under the sun, televisions are
expected to interface to lots of electronic goodies – including our computers! As
we progress from the over-the-air analog TV that was designed pre-World War II,
to the latest digital video medium of HDTV, the interface for these signals (and
their connectors) have to change to keep up.

Here’s a list of the video connections you will find on a (Typical High-End TV).
• F Connector
• Composite
• S-Video
• Component
• D-Sub (VGA)
• DVI
• HDMI

If you are building a full-on home theater, you might use a (Video Projector) that
adds more controls, such as an RS-232 connector, infrared remote control and
even a jack to control curtains over your projection screen for normal or wide-
screen modes!

F Connector

Let’s start with the most basic: the F connector is the most rudimentary type of
interface used on televisions. It’s threaded, with a single contact in the middle,
and the cable that connects to it is usually very stiff. This is the signal that comes
from the antenna or the cable TV company, usually from a similar connector
mounted on the wall. The video rides on
a radio signal on one of the television
channels.

The cable is stiff because it has a


metallic shield right under the plastic
jacket. It’s a coaxial cable (commonly
called “coax,” pronounced co-ax),
meaning it has one regular wire in the
middle, then that metal shield that
surrounds it. This is a good conductor of
those very high frequency radio signals
that carry broadcast television or cable
TV. You want to be careful not to kink
your coax or even bend it too tightly.

Those F connectors are a bear to screw in when you have to reach around
behind a TV. First, you want to get that center conductor of the plug lined up and
poked into the hole in the jack. Then, you need to carefully align the plug and
push it against the jack as you turn the rotating part of the plug. Don’t twist the
cable, just the little nut on the plug. The trick to smooth threading of the plug onto
the jack is to have it lined exactly up with no sideways pressure.

Computers have been seen with F connectors on them too. Check out this (TV
Tuner Card) that can turn your PC into a television or even FM radio.

Composite

The first improvement in video


interconnection for home electronics
was the composite video interface. It
uses a single RCA jack, usually
colored yellow, and carries the video
signal from a piece of equipment, like
a (Camcorder), to the (TV). The audio
signal is carried by separate cables,
usually color-coded red and white
(sometimes black). The composite video signal is limited by that fact that all the
elements that make up the video are crammed into one wire.

If you must use a composite interface, don’t use any old audio cable with RCA
plugs on it, especially if you have to make a long run. Get a decent video cable to
keep the quality of the signal up.

S-Video

Having all the video elements on one wire causes some


interaction between those elements, especially
the color (“chrominance”) and brightness
(“luminance”) signals. S-Video (for Super
Video, after the Super VHS decks where S-
Video connectors first appeared) runs the
color and brightness signals on separate
wires in a cable terminated with a 4-pin
circular DIN plug. Low-end computer video
cards with (TV Out) use an S-Video format.

Component Video (RGB)

Your video screen is made up of tiny


dots of light called pixels (“picture
elements”), and pixels come in red,
green and blue. The color of the pixels
can be individually varied to combine
into millions of different colors. You get
the best image quality when the signals
for each of the three component colors
are kept separate. Don’t confuse
component video with composite video,
even though they sound very similar.
They have the RCA connector in
common, but component video uses
three separate connectors usually color
co ded red, green, and blue.

If you are doing a DVD to TV hookup and component, S-Video and composite
interfaces are available – use the component! It will show a noticeable
improvement. For HDTV, it’s the entry level interface.

D-Sub (VGA)
The standard VESA (Video
Electronics Standards Association)
computer video interface is really a
component analog interface like
component video, except instead of
having three separate plugs, it uses
a single D-sub connector with 15
pins just like your computer. Many
newer TVs include the D-sub input
so they can be used as a computer
display. How about hanging a (32 inch TV) over your desk that can double as a
huge computer monitor? Play DVDs on your com puter while eating lunch and
relax!

Even though the (Cheapest Computer Video Card) has a D-sub video interface
don’t think it’s low-end performance. Good computer monitors have requirements
beyond even HDTV and the D-Sub interface can deliver for computer type
displays.

DVI

Computers generate images on a


pixel-by-pixel basis. LCD (Liquid
Crystal Display) panels, plasma TVs
and DLP (Digital Light Projection)
projectors are all digital image devices.
Digital television, including HDTV,
operates on individual pixels. The
conversion to analog, even high-end
component video can degrade the
performance of these digital images.

For the best digital-to-digital


connection for your video, get a DVI
connection. DVI stands for Digital
Visual Interface. A (High-end Computer Video Card) would have a DVI
connector. It may come with an adapter to other video formats so you can jack
your PC into just about any television or computer display.

To make things interesting, there are three types of DVI interconnects: one that
does digital-only called DVI-D; one that does analog-only that is referred to as
DVI-A; and the other that can do either digital or analog video called DVI-I with
the “I” standing for “integrated.”

There are six different types of DVI pin-outs. The most common have 24 pins in 3
rows. The digital version has a blank area on one side with a flat key. The combo
type has the 24 pins plus it has four more pins arranged in a square with a flat
blade ground contact in the middle. DVI-A and DVI-D cannot be crossed over,
but either can plug into a DVI-I equipped gear.

HDMI

Suppose you just bought a new (DVD


Player) with an HDMI digital interface on
the back. If the above video interfaces
aren’t enough (especially the DVI-x
confusion) there is a new digital video
interface that’s relatively new on the
market called HDMI for High Definition
Multimedia Interface. It’s so new that most
people have to use a (DVI to HDMI cable)
to hook up any existing DVI equipment to
a unit with an HDMI connector on it.

HDMI uses a small flat connector that has


two rows of pins surrounded by a shell
that protects the pins from getting bent.
This connector and the cable that goes
with it are a lot easier to route in a tight home entertainment center, and you
probably can plug it into the back of a piece of equipment just by feel, a definite
improvement over other video connection systems. In addition to carr ying High
Definition digital video, HDMI cables also carry up to 8 channels (7.1) of digital
audio, unlike any other cable here, making them true integrated digital A/V
cables. Many video equipment manufacturers are jumping on the HDMI
bandwagon and it’s bound to become the most popular.

By the way, if you must plug in a video connector on the back of a PC or other
equipment and you can’t see the back of the device, get out a small hand mirror
and a flashlight. It’s much easier and you won’t bend as many pins when you can
see what you are doing.

Adapters

As you go about chasing the latest and greatest


geek toys, there are bound to be instances when
you have to hook up one type of video
connection to a different type. Fortunately, many
of the video interfaces can be converted with the
use of an adapter. For the latest gear, you can
use a dedicated DVI to HDMI cable as
mentioned above, or you can use an existing
cable with an (HMDI to DVI Adapter). If you want
to put your PC with a DVI jack on the back up on
your big screen TV, you might have to use a (DVI
to Component Video Adapter) if the TV doesn’t
support DVI. Some video conversions require only
these s imple and inexpensive adapters. Others
need more expensive converter boxes and
probably aren’t a good idea as the image will
suffer.

Final Words

Both computers and televisions are becoming more versatile than ever and the
distinction between the two is blurred forever. Use your computer as an
entertainment system for a bedroom or dorm room. Run video games on your
computer hooked up to the video projector in the family room. To pull these
stunts, you just need to understand these tips on video interconnects and which
are best for what and how you can mix and match your video equipment.
Tech Tip 46 - Disaster! (Geeks to the Rescue)
Article by Roy Davis

The news of late has been full of natural and manmade disasters, including the
hurricanes on the Gulf Coast and an anniversary of the 9/11 horrors. In every disaster, it
seems the highest priority is communication. To be sure, evacuation, food, water, shelter
and medical care are critical needs, but none of it can be delivered without
communication between the government and the responding agencies. You might not be
the hero that runs into a burning building to save a child, but as a knowledgeable and
prepared geek you can still have a big impact. We’ll talk about some of the issues you
might face and how you could use your geek skills to improve the situation.

1. Hurricane Katrina Lesson

When hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans the power was lost, cellular and wired
telephones went out, and government radio repeaters were silent. The mayor and the
emergency operations center had only one communications link to the outside world –
the Internet. That’s right - the officials had only one Internet connection and fortunately
there was a geek present who rounded up some routers and cables and hooked up a
makeshift local area network with a bridge to the Internet. That’s how messages got to
and from the people in charge for several days.

2. Why the Internet?

Why did the Internet survive in the face of disaster when every other major form of
communication was disabled? The answer is that the Internet is not a particular medium
of communications with a single point, like a telephone central switching office or
trunking radio controller, that can fail and bring the whole network down. The Internet
makes use of almost any communications medium available.

You can be connected to the Internet via a cable, through a dialup telephone line, DSL
or cable TV modem, wirelessly by WiFi, Cellular, satellite, EVDO, or even ham radio.
The most significant point here is that your Internet address doesn’t change, no matter
how you are hooked up. When telephone networks go down, your phone number is
useless. When a particular government radio channel is out, the workers can’t find you.
But if they send a message to your Internet e-mail account, you can pick it up a dozen
different ways.
3. Hard-Wired Internet

Since most commercial and even some home Internet connections are largely run on
modern below-ground fiber optic trunks, they are not as vulnerable to damage by wind,
water or even fire. In the hotel where the New Orleans officials set up shop, there was
one functioning direct-cabled Internet connection still working. The technical person in
the group scared up a (Network Switch) to split the single Internet connection out so the
officials could jack in their (Laptop Computer)s and start communicating via e-mail.
Having a (Cabling Kit) on hand complete with lots of CAT 5e cable, RJ-45 connectors
and the necessary wire stripping and crimping tool would allow you to quickly wire up
any command post.

4. Telephone Dialup

In some situations or locations, you might have to resort to a telephone dialup


connection. Though too slow for streaming video or high performance Web surfing, a 28
Kilobit per second (Kbps) telephone connection can handle a lot of text e-mail. If your
portable computer does not have a built-in telephone connection, you could use a (USB
Telephone Modem) to make the connection in an emergency.

5. WiFi

WiFi, or 802.11 wireless networking is very good magic in an emergency. You don’t
need to run a cable to a laptop computer if you set up an (802.11g Wireless Router).
This small box splits out an Internet connection, be it hardwired, cable or DSL modem,
or whatever, and provides a short-range radio connection to computers within a few
hundred feet. Position the router in a clear spot so the radio signals have a chance to
radiate toward the computers to be served. If the router has an external antenna or two,
keep the antennas approximately vertical.

Computers can be moved around and new machines added to the network almost
instantly. Many laptop computers come with WiFi built in, but for a computer that doesn’t
have it, you can use a (USB WiFi Network Adapter). If it is running Windows XP then just
plugging it in should install the device and you can select the wireless network from the
popup menu. This USB adapter comes with a USB cable extension so you can position
the adapter away from your computer to better receive the radio signals from the router.
Line-of-sight to the router is best, but at least get the adapter with its built-in antenna
away from objects like metal desks or file cabinets.

6. WiFi Antennas

WiFi equipment is designed for short ranges and the signals don’t penetrate walls or
floors very well. You can extend the range of your wireless network by using an
(802.11G Range Expander) strategically positioned between the router and the
computers to which you are trying to connect. Putting the range expander in a window,
doorway or stairwell can spread the WiFi signals beyond a wall or floor that would
normally stop them.

If you have a need in an emergency situation to go beyond the nominal range of WiFi,
you can add a (Range Extender Antenna) to the computer, the router or both. Keep in
mind that nothing is free and a directional extender antenna can go a longer distance,
but only cover a narrow angle. First, try putting an antenna on the computer end of the
link and point it at the router. The omnidirectional antenna on the router can then
continue to serve other computers closer to it in any direction. If you have to extend the
range by using a directional antenna on both ends of the link, then use a separate router
to serve the close-by computers.

7. Amateur Radio WinLink 2000

Licensed radio amateurs (not to be confused with unlicensed Citizen Band radio) have a
long tradition of providing communications assistance during disasters. In fact, the
(Amateur Radio Relay League) got started relaying messages copied by hand from radio
operator to radio operator. The concept was very much like the Internet where
messages could pass through the network of stations by many different paths making it
much more robust than commercial communications systems.

Radio amateurs (also known as “hams|) have recognized the value of the Internet and
have developed a method of relaying Internet packets over their radios called WinLink
2000. A radio operator outside the disaster area can act as a gateway station to connect
to the rest of the Internet. Small portable stations can be brought into the disaster area to
provide a link even if all other forms of Internet connection are gone. You can help out by
earning an amateur radio license and joining a local emergency radio organization like
the ARES (http://www.ares.org/) or RACES (http://www.races.net/). Check the (ARRL
Web site) to see how you can extend your geek skills even further.

8. Power to the People

In the emergency command post or even a shelter set up in a school gym, you will have
a cluster of folks helping out, and they need power for their laptops and all the geek
gadgets that it takes to hook them up. Don’t take power and the availability of outlets for
granted. Use a (Power Strip with Surge Protection) to split out the end of an extension
cord. You need the surge protection because there may be lightning storms and wind
that can short power lines causing spikes on the line.

In the worst case, you might be running your equipment off a portable generator. For an
evacuation shelter, you would want a (Medium Duty UPS) while a command post should
have a bigger backup with a (Heavy Duty UPS). Generators have to be shut down for
refueling and the Uninterruptable Power Supply will keep your computer and network
equipment running for several minutes while the generator is down. Also, the output of
most portable generators is very “dirty” and the surge protection built into the UPS will
protect your valuable equipment.

9. Internet Takes Over for Newspapers

It’s not only government officials and rescue agencies who are resorting to the Internet in
times of disaster. Newspapers in the path of hurricane Rita announced that they were
limiting or suspending publication of their hardcopy newspapers, but that readers could
continue to get news via their web sites. The Galveston County Daily News wanted to
protect their employees by keeping delivery personnel off the streets. The Port Arthur
News cancelled publication and abandon their offices, but updated their web site news.
Again, this is an example of the independence of the Internet from physical plant and
particular locations. If you are waiting out the storm, you might want to have a (PDA with
Bluetooth) to connect to the Internet via your cell phone to keep up on the news and
weather reports.

Final Words

A little preparation can put you in a position to help yourself, your family and your
community in the case of a disaster. Stock up on canned food, water, and flashlight
batteries, but don’t forget the capabilities of the Internet at providing communications in
time of need. As an experienced geek, you can get it together when the crunch comes.
Speaking of getting it together, having a (Transport Case) handy with a list of the
equipment and accessories you need can make packing quick when you can’t afford to
forget anything, and when there are no local stores left open for last minute pickup.
Tech Tip 47 - TV Tuners
Article by: Jason Kohrs

There are many products available that make your computer seem less like a
business tool and more like a home media center. Given this, the one
component that may lack the popularity you might expect is the TV tuner card.
There are sound cards capable of 8-channel surround sound stereo, high-
powered speaker systems, and graphics cards displaying on high definition
monitors/televisions.

TV tuners are becoming more common in computers as Windows Media Center


Edition grows in popularity, but just about any computer with any operating
system can tune in TV. This Tech Tip will look at some of the basics of computer
TV tuners, including the interfaces, the technologies, and the performance.

Watching Programs

The interface with most TV tuners should be


familiar to anyone using one, as the manufacturers
seem to do their best to make things look and act
much like a standard television. Although features
will vary from brand to brand, the on-screen display
and controls generally look much like a basic
television, but now we have t he TV inside a
window on your computer screen. You can run the
TV application in one window, while surfing the
web or actually doing some work in another. The
size of the screen can be stretched to just about
any size to fit your tastes, and most tuners offer the option to go to full-screen
mode, where the image will take over the entire screen.

In addition to on-screen controls that can be manipulated with the mouse and
keyboard, many TV tuners include a wireless remote control that could easily
pass as the remote for a standard TV. This tuner
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SBT-TVFM&cat=VCD) from
Geeks.com features such a remote control, and by enlarging the image on that
page, you can see that it includes buttons for the basic operation of the TV.
Changing channels, adjusting volume, and recording a program are just as easy
on your PC as they are with your TV and VCR.

The things you are used to doing on a modern TV can be done here: assigning
text tags to channels (i.e., making channel 36 show “ESPN” when selected),
adding or deleting channels from the lineup, and so on.

Recording Programs

The interface for recording on most TV tuners is about as intuitive as that for
watching programs. Taking the general functionality of a typical VCR or DVD
player, onscreen and remote control based controls make easy work of recording
any program.

Many tuners take advantage of an online programming resource, such as Titan


TV (http://www.titantv.com/), that make programming your computer to record a
show about as easy as operating a personal video recorder (PVR), and generally
much easier than operating an actual VCR. Titan TV provides program listings
for just about all locations which can be browsed by the user, but more
importantly they can be retrieved by the tuner in order to program a recording
with ease.

The quality of the recording can be varied with most tuners to allow users to store
the files with their preferred balance of audio/video quality, file size, and file
format. It may be a process of trial-and-error to find which settings work best
with your computer hardware and personal preferences, but the options are
generally there. Shows can be recorded in rather basic modes that won’t take up
too much disk space, in high quality modes that will require better computer
hardware and more disk space, as well as many stages in between. It is best to
seek out reviews, such as this one
(http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews/leadtektv2000/index4.php), that show what
formats and qualities can be expected with specific tuners, as there are many
variables that might need to be considered.

Capturing from Other Sources

Many tuners are also listed as capture


devices, as they do much more than just
tune in television programs. In addition
to having a coaxial con nection for
receiving the television signal, most include
other ports (S-video, composite, or component) for hooking up
items such as a video camera, VCR, DVD player, etc.
The software provided offers options for capturing from these various sources,
much like it allows for recording television. The quality of the recording can be
configured to suit your needs and computer hardware capabilities, and all your
other video sources can be saved to disk (well, maybe not all, as some copyright
protected content can’t be recorded legally).

Having the ability to capture from other sources is quite convenient as it can
allow for old home movies or VHS tapes to be backed up to your hard drive.
These files can then be watched on your computer, or with the appropriate
authoring software, they can be burned to a CD or DVD for use in any DVD drive
or standalone player. Tapes will eventually wear out, but being able to archive
such recordings to disk can help preserve them forever.

Computer Interfaces

PCI – All of the tuners presently in stock at Geeks.com


(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=863) are of the PCI variety, and this
may be the most popular configuration on the market. Most computers have at
least one available PCI slot, and the speed of this aging interface is still more
than adequate for the demands of
viewing/recording TV. The technology in many of
the PCI tuners available today is the same as it
was years ago, but then again, the sam e can be
said of your typical television, too.

External (USB/Firewire) – Some manufacturers


offer external TV tuners that connect to a computer
via a high speed connection such as USB 2.0 and
Firewire. With the high transfer speeds possible,
and the ease of installation, an external tuner is an
excellent choice for any computer system. Where
a PCI-based tuner can only be used in a desktop computer, an external tuner
lends itself to being used with either a desktop or a laptop, make them a far more
flexible option.

Some tuners are/were available as USB 1.1 devices, and the performance of this
interface can hinder the quality of recordings and even playback. When selecting
a USB-based tuner, it is important to make sure that it is specifically USB 2.0 so
that you don’t wind up with choppy audio/video. The AverMedia UtraTV 300
(http://www.aver.com/products/tvtuner_UltraTV_USB_300.shtml) is an example
of a USB 2.0 based tuner for Windows systems, and the Elgato Systems EyeTV
200 (http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv200) is an example of
a Firewire- based tuner for Macs.

AGP/PCIe – ATI (http://www.ati.com) manufacturers typical TV tuners for PCI


and USB interfaces, as well as their line of All-In-Wonder (AIW) cards available
for AGP, PCIe, and previously PCI. These AIW products combine a TV tuner
with a graphics adaptor on one board, allowing you to save an expansion slot on
your motherboard without sacrificing quality on either the graphics or TV tuning
side of things. Some of the latest high-end graphics cards from ATI are available
as standalone models, as well as AIW models, such as the Radeon X800XL
(http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx800/aiwx800xl/index.html).

TV Technologies

NTSC/PAL – The standard television signal in the United States, whether it is


cable or antenna, is NTSC (National Television System Committee). PAL is a
similar technology used in Europe, and the main difference between the two
analog standards is that NTSC offers 525 lines of resolution at 60 half frames per
second, while PAL offers 625 lines of resolution at 50 half frames per second.

If you want to view television programming from a standard cable connection or


an aerial antenna, you would want an NTSC/PAL based tuner. Presently all of
the tuners in stock at Geeks.com
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=863) would fit this bill.

HDTV – It has been mandated that all US broadcasts eventually be in high


definition (HD), and many areas already have over-the-air and cable HD
programming. The quality of high definition video (and audio) is far superior to
NTSC or PAL, as the signal is digital and resolutions can be expected to have
either 720 or 1080 lines.

Just as a special HDTV is required to take advantage of the better picture quality,
a special TV tuner would also be required to take advantage of HDTV on your
PC. There are several HDTV tuners available, and the ATI HDTV Wonder
(http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html) is a PCI-based device that
can tune in over-the-air HD broadcasts, as well as standard NTSC broadcasts
from cable or an antenna. Note that it only handles HD broadcasts through an
antenna, as most other forms of HDTV require a proprietary tuner from your
cable or satellite TV provider.

Because computer monitors are capable of resolutions much higher than even
HDTV signals, just about any monitor will work. The resolution may need to be
adjusted though, as for example, 720 lines of resolution in HDTV would require
the monitor to be capable of at least a native resolution of 1024x768. You just
need the second number of the display’s resolution (the vertical component) to
be equal to, or greater than, the HD signal you want to display.

Stand Alone Tuners for Monitors

In addition to the devices mentioned so far, there is a similar type of product that
can allow TV to be shown o n a computer monitor. These devices eliminate the
need for a computer, as well as the ability to
capture video or record programs, but allow the
user to turn any computer monitor into a
television. The NextVision N6 from ViewSonic
(http://www.viewsonic.com/products/accessories/
tvvideoprocessors/nextvisionn6/) is an example
of one of these devices that combines a cable box that outputs a signal
compatible with a computer monitor, with a few other special inputs for use with
other components like console game systems, DVD players, and VCRs.

Final Words

TV tuners add a whole new dimension to any PC, and don’t have to cost much to
do so. With the ability to watch TV full screen or in a small window, as well a
recording programs much like commercially available personal video recorders,
they can be quite a convenient accessory to have.
Tech Tip 48 - HTPC Pointers, Part I

HTPCs (Home Theater Personal Computers) are gaining in popularity as people


spend more time and money getting comfortable in the living room, and as the
availability and understanding of the technology becomes more user friendly. An
HTPC can be used for a variety of things, including video/audio playback,
streaming online media, big screen gaming, and watching/recording television, all
of which make them quite appealing devices to have.

HTPCs don’t have to be much different than your typical computer, but a few key
areas do need to be addressed. Just as with a typical desktop computer, there
are limitations to what certain configurations can achieve, but customizing the
hardware and software can enhance the experience to the point where it may
threaten the existence of some of your more traditional home electronics
components.

This two-part series of Tech Tips will cover a few pointers related to getting
started with your own HTPC. There are obvious considerations that will be
different from person to person (such as budget and existing home theater
components), but in general, there are a few things that should be addressed by
any prospective HTPC builder. In this part of the series, we will take a look at the
two biggest things to consider: video and audio.

Video

If this is a “theater,” you had better be able to see something! Most graphics
cards come configured to display on monitors using either a 15-pin VGA cable, or
using the newer DVI cable. Although many new televisions, specifically HDTVs,
have a DVI connection that may accept the signal from your computer, other
models may require an alternative connection.
Most graphics cards with “TV-out” connections are capable of sending signals
out over a variety of different interfaces, so choosing the right card can provide
greater compatibility as your system is upgraded. The typical connections
include VGA, DVI, composite, S-video, and component, and if you look around,
you can find cards that support all of these
interfaces.

On the end view of this GeForce 6600 card


(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=V6600-
512PI&cat=VCD), you can see a typical TV-out
connection. The round port to the left of the DVI
and VGA connections accepts a “video breakout
cable” which allows the signal to be transmitted
over either an S-video or composite cable. The
combination of S-video and composite is the most
common offering on graphics cards, as many
televisions (even much older models), can accept
these cables and will allow the computer’s signal to be displayed on screen. The
issue with S-video and composite is that they do not provide the best video
quality, and the home theater experience may suffer. Regardless of resolution,
text may be hard to read, the screen may flicker, the images look slightly skewed,
and overall, you will be wishing for
something better.

That something better can be found


through the use of component video
cables. Not many video cards support
them, but those that do definitely have the
HTPC user in mind. The signal over
component video can be of excellent
quality, and will support the highest
resolutions of HDTV signal (if your card
and TV are both capable). Although the
specifications don’t specifically indicate
that it supports it, the description does
mention that this GeForce FX 6600GT
card (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PCIE-OCT-
FX6600GT128&cpc=SCH&srm=0) includes a component video cable. XGI Tech
is a manufacturer of video cards that supports the use of component video, and
even budget cards like the V3XT
(http://www.xgitech.com/products/products_2.asp?P=8) (less than $50) can give
the owner the ability to send a 1080i or 720p HDTV signal out to their compatible
TV/monitor.

HDTVs are without a doubt the way televisions are headed, so people should
consider having their HTPC be prepared for this, whether they have the
necessary TV yet, or not. Sending an HDTV signal from your computer to an
HDTV ready television requires not only the right connections (generally DVI,
component, and now HDMI), but a card capable of producing HDTV resolutions.
HDTV, especially widescreen HDTV, has a different resolution than your typical
monitor, so trying to reproduce your standard desktop resolution on an HDTV
may not look so hot. For example, distortion will occur if you try to use your
standard 1024x768 or 1280x1024 (4:3) monitor resolution on a 720p HDTV
which is looking for a signal at 1280x720 (16:9). Cards that support true HDTV
output will be sure to advertise it, and are worth investigating for an HTPC to be
coupled with an HDTV.

Getting a video signal out of your HTPC is mandatory, but getting a video signal
back into the HTPC may be just as important to some. TV tuners and capture
cards (http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=863) are gaining in popularity
in all sorts of computers, and seem especially at home in an HTPC setup. An
HTPC with decent processing speed and ample hard disk space can easily store
hours of recordings from sources such as VHS, DVD, and perhaps most
importantly, television.

When people think of watching or recording television, they associate this as an


activity that occurs in the living room, since the VCR or PVR (ie. Tivo) are
traditionally located there. With an HTPC, you can use a TV tuner card and
some fairly basic software to provide the functionality of a PVR without an extra
component in the rack, and without the additional monthly service fee that a
service like Tivo requires.
The recent Tech Tip on TV tuners (LINK TO TV TUNER TIP – not up yet) covers
all of the basics of these devices, which will hold true for use with desktop
computers as well as with HTPCs. Your typical TV tuner allows you to receive
your usual programs from an antenna or cable, and with a card like the
ATI HDTV Wonder
(http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html), you can
even watch and record HDTV. The software included with TV
tuners is all somewhat similar, as it mimics the look and feel of
your TV/VCR, and provides fairly intuitive controls for watching
and recording programs. Although many offer options for
programming your recordings like a Tivo might do, there is other
software available, and for even more information, visit a resource
like Build Your Own PVR (http://www.byopvr.com).

Audio

After video, audio has to be the next most


important thing to consider in a theater
setting. If you intend to enjoy movies,
games, or streaming audio/video, you need
to be able to hear it. The main
considerations here involve choosing an
adequate sound card and choosing the
speakers it will drive.

Higher end HTPCs will most likely tie into the


traditional stereo components found in the
living room, and use the speakers that
already handle the audio responsibilities of
VHS/DVD movies and CD audio playback,
among other things. You could use even the
most basic of sound cards
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=L-
8738-4C&cat=SND) for this by adapting the
1/8” stereo jack to two RCA jacks to be
plugged into the back of the receiver. The
sound quality from this arrangement may
pass for some, but it will not be nearly as
good as it could be, and you will have
reduced any surround capabilities down to two channel stereo.

Some sound cards offer digital audio connections that allow for the signal to be
sent to the component receiver without being converted to/from analog before
playback. This eight channel sound card
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=L-8768-8C&cat=SND) provides SPDIF
(Sony/Phillips Digital InterFace) connections to handle such tasks. You will
obviously need a receiver that can accept SPDIF, and the sound quality will be
greatly improved as compared to the 1/8” jack adapter method.

Motherboards used to provide onboard audio that was


considered the last resort for those not yet ready to
spend any more money on a decent sound card. Things
have definitely changed, and many of today’s boards
offer high quality audio processors with multiple channel surround sound, and
some like this Albatron nForce4 SLI board
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=K8SLI&cat=MBB) even offer SPDIF
connections onboard.

Some sound cards, such as those in the X-Fi Series


(http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=2
08&product=14064) from Sound Blaster, take audio to an even higher level with
refined controls, multiple digital/analog connections, and other professional
quality features.

If you don’t have a component audio system to tie into, or if you just want to use
speakers intended for use with a computer
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=790), you could set up a dedicated
system using the 1/8” stereo jacks as you would at your desk. The quality of
computer speakers has improved greatly over the years, and the sound from
some of these mini-systems can rival that of many bookshelf component
systems.

Combining a surround sound capable sound card with a set of 5.1 channel
speakers, such as the Logitech X-530’s
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=970114-0403-DT&cat=SPK), is a cost
effective way to get a decent sounding system that won’t break the bank. The
choices in surround sound computer speakers have grown greatly in recent
years with a variety of styles, arrangements, and
power levels to suit just about any taste. For
example, if the 70 Watt output of the X-530’s isn’t
enough, you could ramp things up to something
like the Logitech Z-5500’s
(http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/deta
ils/US/EN,CRID=2177,CONTENTID=9486)
sporting 500 Watts in a fairly compact 5.1
channel system.

Not all HTPCs reside in the living room, and this


sort of setup might be an excellent match for a
bedroom, dorm room, or other locations where you don’t need a big sound to fill
the room with realistic audio effects.
Final Words

Video and audio are by far the most important things (in my opinion) to address
when setting up an HTPC, but there is more to consider. In the second and final
part of this series, we will look at other areas that can set an HTPC apart from
your typical desktop computer and really enhance the experience.
Tech Tip 49: HTPC Pointers, Part II
Article by: Jason Kohrs

In the first of a two-part series of Tech Tips on getting started with a Home
Theater PC or HTPC, we looked at the two most basic features to be considered:
audio and video. With those areas addressed, there are still plenty of aspects
worth considering that can help your computer become better integrated into
your home theater for a truly enjoyable experience. Some of these aspects
include component speed, cooling, noise, style, and the user interface.
Component Speed
As with any other computer, the speed of the components can be a concern for
an HTPC. It all depends on exactly what functions the user has intended for their
particular unit.
If they are only interested in audio/video playback and functions like viewing
photos and web browsing, even the most basic of computers may suffice. A
system solely for DiVX / DVD video and MP3 audio playback would work fine on
just about any system, perhaps even an old 400 MHz system from the late
nineties (if you have such a machine around at this point). The only additional
items that would be necessary are a compatible AGP/PCI graphics card with TV-
out and a sound card. Sure, the performance might be up to par for today’s
applications, but it doesn’t take much to handle the basics. Multi-tasking on such
a system might result in jittery video or lagging audio, so don’t ask an HTPC built
around past generations of technology to do too much at once.

Upgrading a system from these meager starting points only improves the
capabilities of an HTPC, and may not cost all that much either. Considering the
minimum required for handling the basics, you may even be able to retire your
old desktop PC to the living room and still be satisfied with the performance.
Cutting edge is not necessary, at least not always.
If you want to play video games, the requirements
change and you will obviously need a processor,
memory, and video card that match the minimum
requirements published by the game manufacturer.
Some of the required hardware, or suggested
minimal hardware for reasonable performance, for
games today is enough to have the casual game
player thinking twice about such an investment.

Playing video games on a big screen is an


incredible experience, and takes things to a whole new level when compared to
game play on your typical desktop monitor. Being able to see things in a game
on a larger scale, and with the detail offered by an HDTV (if available), really
makes these capabilities desirable. It’s just a matter of deciding how modern of a
system is needed, and whether it is an affordable path to take with your HDTV.
One other area of HTPC use that may be speed critical is capturing video and
TV. Not only do you need a processor capable of handling the conversion of the
video signal to digital data, but you also need a hard drive that can keep up, as
well. Asking a system with a slow hard drive (or processor) to capture any length
of video can result in a recording that has an audio/video sync issue or other
glitches in the playback.
Modern hard drives with SATA-150
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=430) or even ATA-100/133
interfaces should be fast enough, and multiple hard drives may really speed thing
up. One method of increasing the performance is to have one hard drive run the
operating system and capturing software, while a second hard drive is only used
to store the captured files. Another option would be to install your drives in RAID
0, as described in this Tech Tip (http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-012705.htm),
which effectively doubles the speed at which your drives can read/write data.
Cooling & Noise
Cooling and noise will be addressed together, as the
bulk of the noise from a computer system is generated
by its cooling solutions. Keeping an HTPC’s
components nice and cool is just as critical in a desktop
PC, and maybe more so, as you don’t want your system
to overheat and crash in the middle of your favorite
movie or game!
That said, noise that seems minimal when produced by
a typical desktop computer may seem excessive in an
HTPC environment. If you are watching a movie with a particularly quiet scene,
you do not want that silence punctuated with the hum of fans or the whir of
drives. A previous Tech Tip (http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-011305.htm) on
quieting your PC provides tips appropriate for a desktop computer, as well as an
HTPC, making it a resource worth referencing.
The bulk of the tasks handled in this environment are not overly demanding, and
since older components can handle it, newer components can do so without
breaking a sweat. But, things like game play and other multimedia applications
can be quite processor, memory, graphics, and hard disk drive intensive, so the
components may generate a decent amount of heat that needs to be dissipated.
Some low noise cooling steps are listed below.
The easiest answer is to use larger fans (120mm
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CF120BL&cat=FAN)) that can spin at
lower speeds to move the same volume of air as smaller fans (80mm
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=LP400BL&cat=FAN). In general,
slower spinning fans generate less noise, while larger fans are capable of moving
more air due to their larger area.

This, of course, requires a case that can handle larger fans, such as this one
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=KG-318-RED&cat=CAS), that has
mounts for exhaust fans at 80mm, 92mm, and 120mm in size. Choosing a case
will be discussed more in the section on style, but this is another area that can
impact cooling. Any case could pass in an HTPC environment, but choosing one
optimized for efficient cooling is a good idea. If an HTPC is to be mounted in a
component rack, it will need to dissipate its own heat while in a space filled with
other heat generating components.
Adding a fan speed controller
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CW-
BK&cpc=SCH&srm=0) is another approach to
taming the roar of any size fan. The controller
shown at the link provided controls up to 7 fans,
so you could easily connect all of your case fans,
processor cooling fan, and whatever else may be
actively cooled. By using the integrated thermal
probes and LCD thermometer, you can then monitor the temperatures of your
critical components and regulate the fan speed for a perfect balance between
safe operating temperature and low noise output.

Water cooling is another option for keeping system


components running cool and quiet. Basic water
cooling kits
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=879)
can be installed that cool the CPU, as well as
perhaps the video card, motherboard chipset,
system memory, and hard drives. Where you
might have had a cooling fan on every component
mentioned, you would now have one fan on a
radiator that cools the water that circulates over
these items. Even one fan may be too many, as
some high-end water cooling kits, such as this one from Zalman
(http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/view.asp?idx=160&code=021), are
passively cooled and don’t have fans.
Power supplies are another source of noise, as they generally employ fans to
keep their internal components cool, as well as helping to cool the system’s case
by drawing air out. Many power supplies are now designed with one larger fan
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AP550W&cat=PWR) to provide the
necessary cooling with minimal noise, while others can now be purchased with
no cooling fan at all
(http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=24350). Since power
supplies with fans may contribute to a case’s cooling, selecting a fanless power
supply may require additional efforts (more airflow) inside the case to things at a
comfortable temperature.
Although cooling fans provide the bulk of the noise, drives may contribute as
well. Many hard drive manufacturers now offer downloadable utilities, like
Hitachi’s Feature Tool (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm),
that allow the owner to change the acoustic profile of their hard drives.
Decreasing the noise output may impact drive performance, but it may be worth it
in many situations in order to silence the system.

Style
As I mentioned previously, just about any
computer case will do when it comes to
the basics of an HTPC, but style may be
an important facet of your build. Many
manufacturers now offer computer cases
that mimic the design of traditional rack
components, making your HTPC blend in
with the rest of your home theater gear.
Thermaltake
(http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/tenor/tenormenu.htm), Ahanix
(http://www.ahanix.com/), and Silverstone
(http://www.silverstonetek.com/product-case.htm) are just a few of the brands
focusing at least a part of their product lines toward HTPC enthusiasts.
In general, an HTPC style case will have a horizontal configuration so that it will
fit in your component rack. It will offer a stylized front face to mimic typical A/V
components, the stock cooling solutions will be optimized for low noise output,
and many times the chassis material will be aluminum to aid in the dissipation of
heat. All of these special features are not cheap, as a good quality HTPC-
specific case may cost several times what your typical mid-tower case would.
For those with a creative side, modifying a more
basic case may be more rewarding and a great
deal less expensive. Perhaps a bit of cutting to
optimize airflow, a coat of (silver or black) paint,
and a few accessories should do the trick. Many of
the options found in an off-the-shelf HTPC case
can be purchased separately, so you could add things like a vacuum fluorescent
display (http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/medialab/medialabmenu.htm),
stylized optical drive bezels
(http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?LT=english&Language_s=2&url_place=
product&p_serial=AFP-U01&other_title=+AFP-U01+Alloy%20Front%20Bezel),
and just about any other finishing touch required to turn your basic desktop case
into an attractive HTPC case.
User Interface
All that is really important regarding the
user interface is that you can see well
enough to access the applications you
want to run. If you have the screen size /
resolution to do so, even your typical
Windows desktop will be adequate for
interacting with your HTPC. The
Windows desktop may work fine, but it
has more than you need on it for basic
HTPC applications, and it generally looks
more like a work environment than a play
environment, so there are ways to
address that.
There are Windows and Linux based
shells to make the HTPC interface more
user friendly, and these generally involve
the use of large icons and text that
provide access to only the most common
application: MP3 player, DVD player, web browser, image browser, and so on.
These shells add functionality to your typical desktop operating system that can
make them much easier to navigate in an HTPC setting, regardless of the TV
size/quality being used. For a free and easy to use HTPC shell for use with
Windows XP, check out Media Portal
(http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/).
If you don’t want to install a shell on top of
an existing operating system, or need to
buy a new license of an OS for your
HTPC anyway, Microsoft recognized the
emergence of this segment of the market,
and has something for you (of course
they do). Microsoft’s Windows XP Media
Center Edition
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/me
diacenter/default.mspx) may be the most
familiar name when it comes to HTPC
specific interfaces, and it combines an easy to use ‘shell’ with many other back-
end features that make it custom tailored to a
multimedia existence.
There is another aspect to the user interface that is
also a bit different with an HTPC. Your typical
mouse and keyboard will obviously still function
with a computer in your living room, but do you
really want to be constrained to within three feet of it? A wireless setup is ideal,
as it allows the computer to be located with the rest of the electronics, while you
can be comfortably seated on the couch across the room and still have full
control.
There are numerous wireless mice
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=562) and keyboards
(http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=554) on the market, but for basic
interaction, perhaps a combination unit would be the best bet. There are some
wireless keyboards with a small joystick-style pointing device that lets one
convenient device handle both tasks. These may
be great for basic system navigation and
launching of applications, but considering video
games once again implies better hardware. You
can still go wireless for serious game play, but the
precision of the components is more critical in a
high-paced game, and a high-end wireless mouse
like the Logitech MX1000
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=931175
-0403-DT&cat=MOU), for example, may be worth the extra money.
Another way to interact with your HTPC takes on a feel more familiar to
components found in the living room: a remote control. The Ahanix iMon
(http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews/imon/) is one example of an infrared remote
control, much like you would use on your TV or
DVD player, but fully capable of controlling your
computer. It allows for control of mouse functions,
typical multimedia controls (play, stop, volume,
etc.), as well as programmable buttons for
launching your favorite applications. We have
previously discussed the ATI HDTV Wonder
(http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.htm
l) for its video capturing abilities, but the included
remote is also a nice feature as it handles enough
desktop features that it may minimize the need for a mouse or keyboard, as well.
Final Words

By no means an exhaustive reference for building an HTPC, this Tech Tip


hopefully touched on a few areas worth considering by those looking to bring a
PC into the living room. HTPCs don’t necessarily have to be powerful or
expensive, but the possibilities only increase as the horsepower does, and
hopefully this series of tips is a good starting point for a variety of interest levels
in the home theater experience.
Tech Tip 50 - Scanning Photos and Film
Article by Roy Davis

You would think that chemical film photography is dead with all the digital
cameras flying off the dealer’s shelves these days. I certainly haven’t taken as
many snapshots on film as I used to,
but there are certain situations where
clicking off some exposures on film
can’t be beat. Maybe it’s when you are
on vacation and it’s raining, or you are
going to the beach. You don’t want to
get your expensive camera wet, (salt
water is especially damaging to
electronics), so grab a cheap
disposable camera to catch those
precious moments.

1. Chemical Film Won’t Die

Digital photography has many advantages on


the convenience side. You don’t have to buy
film and the photos are available for viewing
immediately. You don’t have to wait for a film
processing house to send back your slides or
even the One-Hour Photo to crank out your
prints. Also, digital photography is cheap.
Once you own the camera, you just have to
feed it batteries or the occasional memory
card upgrade to expand your picture-taking
capacity.

When digital cameras first appeared on the


market, the resolution was pretty coarse.
Digital cameras have improved tremendously in that department and high-end
digital cameras rival 35mm film for image detail. The one area where digital
camera sensors are left behind is tonal range. Chemical film can have a range of
tones that covers hundreds or even thousands of times more variation from dark
to light. In an image where film can capture shadow details while maintaining
highlights, a digital camera will show
only black blotches for the shadows and
blown out bright spots.

Digital photography is great for a scene


with nice bright and flat lighting, but
when it comes to the tough situations,
film wins hands down. A subject in the
shade of a tree with bright sky in the
background will either have lots of the
shadow detail lost, or the blue sky will
turn white in the digital rendition. Film
can capture this scene if photographed
carefully. Where I still use a film camera
is for underwater photography. Catching
the eel hiding under the overhanging
coral would be lost on a digital sensor.
With film, you can pull old Mr. Eel out of the darkness.

2. Viewing Images from Film

Capturing wide tonal range on film is great,


but only if you can see the range of light to
dark. One way to do this is to project light
through the film itself. It’s almost a forgotten
ritual, viewing slides from a vacation trip, but
it’s hard to beat the visual impact of blasting
500 Watts of light through a 35mm color slide
in a darkened room. The clear film certainly
can make eye piercing bright white while the
silver (the metal in the film) image can block all but a tiny bit of light leaking
through. The tonal range from white to black is much more than our LCD screens
can manage.

Using chemical means to print an image on photographic paper also exceeds


what our printers can manage when making color prints. The specially treated
ultra white paper and the dense color (or black) chemical dyes produce brighter
whites and darker blacks than our photo printers.
3. Distributing Images

As good as slides are, there is a reason the


slide projector got sold in the last rummage
sale. No one wants to sit captive in a
darkened room while a tray of 100 slides
clunks by at a ten-second interval. The five-
pound photo album sits on the shelf
gathering dust as the prints fade away.
That’s because everyone has their face in a
computer screen. Photos are sent by e-mail
to the folks back East. People don’t build
photo albums; they produce personal Web
sites for friends and family to s ee their latest shots. No matter how a
photographic image is acquired, people want to distribute those photos
electronically, and that means turning the image from print or film into a digital
computer file.

4. Making the Conversion

If you want to shoot chemical film so you can make prints that win prizes at the
photography show, but want to post copies on your Web site, then you have to
convert those analog images to digital. Probably the hardest part of the
conversion process is deciding which way to do it. You have several choices
including commercial processing, flatbed or handheld scanner, or full-on film
scanner.

5. Taking a Picture of the Picture

It might be tempting to just whip out your digital camera and take a picture of a
photo print to get that digital image file, but you may be disappointed with the
results. It’s hard to get the focus just right, and you really need a copy stand to
hold the camera at just the right spot so the image doesn’t come out with a
keystone effect. You have to be right over the center of the print to get it square.
Of course, the color is going to be shifted by the ambient light during the copy
process, and the tonal range is going to be degraded way below what the film
can capture and the print can reproduce.

6. Commercial Processing

The chicken way out is to have the film processing house scan your film at the
same time that you have it developed. If you have well exposed images that you
only need low-resolution files for a Web page, then you can get by with this. I
tried the commercial processor route once on my underwater photos and was
very disappointed with the results, then went out and spent the money on a film
scanner. We’ll get to that one later.

7. Handheld Scanner

At one time, handheld scanners were all the rage for the
low end of the photo scanning market. You would grip the
handles of this gadget, pull it across the snapshot and
hope the picture didn’t slip. Getting the scan even by a
constant slow speed was a skill most people couldn’t
master. Flatbed scanners have dropped in price to the
point where there is no point in fooling with a handheld
scanner unless you were happy with low quality and
need a portable device to throw in your laptop computer
bag.

8. Flatbed Scanner

The entry level way to scan your photos is to use a flatbed scanner that is also
useful for scanning pages out of books, magazines, or any sort of document.
Some flatbed scanners can handle only photographic prints, while the high-end
Canon CanoScan 8400F can pull a decent image out of a slide. The trick is the
3200 dpi sensor.

For every inch of image width, the scanner has 3200 individual sensors for each
of the three colors. That’s true optical resolution of 3200 dots per inch. You will
see cheaper scanners with very high output resolution, but it is often interpolated
resolution. They take a lower
resolution sensor and calculate
the average between two
adjacent pixels to invent a new
pixel in between. This sort of
works once, but you will see
bottom-end scanners where
they have interpolated between
the interpolations to produce an
artificially high resolution
specification. It’s better to pay a
bit more for a higher priced
scanner that has true 3200 dots
per inch resolution.
A cheaper alternative is the HP Scanjet 4070 with a photo door. This unique
feature holds a stack of snapshots for quick scanning without fooling around with
trying to position the prints just right and manually setting the limits of the scan.

Photographic prints can be of excellent quality for viewing, but still lose detail and
tonal range over the original film. Of course, a badly processed print from the
corner drug store one-hour lab is going to yield a poor quality digital scan. Make
sure you use a quality processing lab for both your film and prints if you want
decent digital images.

9. Film Scanner

If you are serious about turning chemical film images into digital scan files, then
you are going to want a dedicated film scanner. These units are specialized for
extracting the maximum quality image from film, and high-end models even have
batch processing features that save you a ton of time. The other major
advantage of film scanners is going directly from a film negative to a digital
positive image.

One film scanner that would make you happy is the Prime Film PF1800AFL. It
can convert slides or strips of uncut film negatives up to 40 exposures long. With
a USB interface, this unit is a snap to hook up to most computers.

The Mediamax Workscan 3600 Pro film scanner has higher resolution (3600 dpi
optical) and the same batch scanning capability. It handles both slide and
negative film too. This unit uses a firewire interface so you probably need a IEEE
1394 firewire adapter for your desktop computer or a PCMCIA firewire adapter
for your laptop. The file size of uncompressed photo image is 102 megabytes so
you can probably use some extra storage capability like a 300 gigabyte hard
drive.
The clear advantage of film scanners is that they excel at capturing the tonal
range of normal print film and converting the images into a digital file. Slide film
has wider tonal range than digital image sensors and negative film (normal print
film) has a huge range of tonal scale. For optimal results, you need to adjust the
digital capture levels before the scan to compress the tonal range down so the
shadow details are still there without blowing out the highlights.

Final Words

Digital photography is now the mainstream way of taking pictures for most of us
geeks, though more film cameras are still sold around the world. It helps that film
cameras can be incredibly cheap (as in disposable), and still take pretty decent
photos. On occasions like trips to the beach, many of us prefer to tote a film
camera instead of the nifty digital. Since film still dominates in the high-quality
image department, being able to convert from film to digital is an important
function to master. Using a good quality dedicated slide and film scanner capable
of producing image files of super high resolution and a tonal scale that can’t be
captured any other way is the key to capturing and preserving those special
prints and negatives.
Tech Tip 51 - Computer Cooling Tips, Part I
Article by Roy Davis

Heat. We all love the heat during the summer, lounging out by the pool or basking in the
sunlight on the beach. But heat can be deadly, especially to your costly computer
components.

This week we are going to talk about the basics of cooling your computer system and its
components.

1. Why Is It So Hot In There?

Computers are built out of many digital circuits. These


circuits are constantly switching state; i.e., when doing
calculations. Heat is a byproduct of these calculations.
Computer chips, central processing units (CPUs), and
graphic processing units (GPUs) are getting more powerful
every day. With newer technology comes faster processing.
Faster processing leads to more heat being generated.
Without proper heat dissipation, your CPU
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ADA3700AEP5AR
-N&cat=CPU] can be damaged beyond repair.

2. Going Down the (Heat) Sink

The first line of defense in this war against heat is a heat sink. It’s just a big chunk of
metal that dissipates heat from your CPU and spreads it out across its surface. The idea
is to spread the heat to a larger surface area and let the air pick up the heat and whisk it
away.

The surface area of a heat sink is created by many fins. The traditional heat sink is made
of aluminum and has many parallel fins. Aluminum can be easily extruded with straight
parallel fins. The problem with this design is that air can only move through the fins in
one direction, creating a problem for air flow within a computer case.

Newer heat sink designs are becoming far more intricate. Engineers are finding creative
and aesthetically pleasing designs to help dissipate heat more efficiently.
3. The Secrets to Making Heat Sinks Work

The majority of CPU coolers use a simple aluminum heat sink because it is inexpensive
and a good conductor of heat. It is imperative that the heat sink be seated properly on
the CPU. Any resistance to thermal transfer could allow the CPU to overheat.

A copper heat spreader for that critical center


part of the heat sink is a good choice to aid in
CPU cooling. This is a flat piece of copper
sandwiched between the top of the CPU and
the bottom of the aluminum heat sink. The
copper heat spreader helps to dissipate the heat
from the CPU immediately to a larger surface
area.

Whether you decide to use a heat sink with a copper heat spreader or not, you will need
to use thermal grease. [http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=TG-ST700&cat=CPU].
Because of its thermal conductivity and low resistance, thermal grease is essential to
proper CPU cooling.

Thermal grease needs to be applied between the CPU and the heat sink, (or copper
heat spreader), in a very thin and even film. When applying the thermal grease, be
careful not to apply too much. Clamp the heat sink down to the motherboard and then
remove the heat sink. Check to see if any thermal grease has squeezed off the CPU
and wipe off any excess.

4. From the Sink to the Air

Now that we have moved the heat from the CPU to


the heat sink, we face the problem of moving the
heat from the surface of the heat sink to the air
inside your computer case. If we just let it sit there,
the air around the heat sink gets hot and won’t let
any more heat escape. The answer to that problem
is simple – a fan to blow the hot air away from the
heat sink to let cooler air in.

Almost all model CPUs require a CPU cooler


[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CF460S1
3-N&cat=FAN] with a fan to operate safely. The fan
mounted on top of the heat sink blows cool air onto
the fins of the heat sink. Be certain to get a CPU
cooler to match the type of CPU in your computer because the mounting configurations
are different between brands and models.

5. Deadly Dust Bunnies

We all know they are there, collecting quietly in the most inconspicuous
places. Those dust bunnies just seem to collect everywhere!
Unfortunately, they will collect on your fan blades and heat sink. If left
unattended, they can build up and clog the fan motor resulting in poor motor
operation and increased heat on your CPU.

Regrettably, we cannot spray a cleaning agent and wipe away the dust. We all know that
liquids and electronics don’t mix! But how do we clean the dust out and maintain an
efficient cooling system? Get a hold of a mini vacuum cleaner
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=KBC-1B&cpc=SCH&srm=0] and simply suck
those deadly dust bunnies away!

I recommend you clean your system out regularly. While cleaning your CPU and heat
sink, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to clean the fan blades on your power supply too.

6. What About the GPU?

The GPU on your video card is another hotspot. With


the high demands on the GPU from 3-dimensional
games, art programs and other software, your video
card is susceptible to heat damage. Most newer
video cards will have a heat sink and fan already
installed, so be diligent and keep this clean as well.

Another option to keep your video card running


efficiently is to add heat sinks
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CK5000&cpc=SCH&srm=0] to the RAM
modules. These will work in the same manner as the heat sink on your CPU and GPU.

7. Cool Casing

Now that we have the heat removed from our CPU


and our video card, how can we get rid of the hot
air inside our computer case? One item you may
want to consider is a thermal vent
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=THERM
ALHOOD-II&cpc=SCH&srm=0]. This works just
like the venting on your dryer. You should also
think about adding some case fans
[http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=372]
to purge that hot air out of your case.

Proper cooling is essential to a long computer life.


But how do you know that your fans are doing their
jobs? Adding a case fan controller
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CW-SV&cpc=SCH&srm=0] is a great start.
Now you will be able to keep track of specific temperatures as well as control the fan
speeds on your primary components.

8. Heat is Hard on Hard Drives


One often overlooked hotspot in a computer is the front of the case where your hard
drive is installed. A great way to keep your hard drives running cooler is to install a hard
drive cooler. [http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SIL-
DUALHDDFAN&cpc=SCH&srm=0]. This twin fan cooler mounts to your hard drive and is
easily powered by connecting to your power supply.

Most cases will have a fan mount option for a 3-inch fan at the bottom of the front panel
of the case. This is a great place to add proper air circulation within your case and will
help to cool your hard drives also.

Final Words

Our computers have cost us our hard-earned dollars. We save up to buy the very best
and we expect reliable performance. But, just like a car, a computer requires proper
maintenance. Keep them cool and clean and they’ll last you a lifetime. Ignore them and
you they will start costing you more in the long run. Be cool and keep it cool!
Tech Tip 52 – Computer Cooling Tips, Part 2
Article by Roy Davis

Last week we went over the basics of cooling your computer and covered the
essentials of keeping your system running cool. This week, we will go over some
key features to look for to keep your components running cool.

1. The Geek Explanation of Where the Heat Comes From

Almost all digital computer circuits are built out of MOS


transistors. MOS transistors are tiny electronic switches
that pull the logic gate output up for a logical one and
down for a logical zero. All the operations of your
computer are done with ones and zeros – lots of them.
These MOS transistors are very efficient when they are
holding a logic state, one or zero. When the circuit
changes state from zero to one or from one to zero, it
draws a spike of electrical current that is then dissipated as heat.

So think about all the circuits in a modern microprocessor or CPU. Standard 32


Bit microprocessors [http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P42800B478-
N&cat=CPU] might have 42 million transistors. 64 Bit CPUs
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ADA2800AEP4AX-NB&cat=CPU] can
have over a hundred million transistors, while Dual Core microprocessors
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ADA3000DAA4BP-NB&cat=CPU] have
twice that.

The first PC hit the market with a clock speed of about 1 Megahertz. That means
that the signal that controls the electronic switches allowed them to change state
at up to 1 million times per second. Now, we are seeing microprocessors with
clock rates at 2,000, 3,000 and even 4,000 times faster. A chip with a 3.2 GHz
rating runs at 3.2 billion cycles per second. That generates a lot of heat!

2. Copper Isn’t Just for Pennies


One of the keys to high performance heat sinking is the use of copper in the
critical areas to ensure the maximum transfer of heat. The measure of heat
transfer is W/M-K or Watts per meter-degree. Most heat sinks are made of
aluminum with a transfer characteristic of 237 W/M-K. Copper, the base metal in
pennies, is considerably better at 401 W/M-K. Only silver is better than copper at
429 W/M-K, but the improvement does not warrant the extra cost of pure silver.

The best traditional style CPU coolers


[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CF481B8&cat=FAN] use a copper core
heat spreader to move the heat from the lid of the CPU to the base of the
aluminum heat sink.

3. Sleeve Bearing Verses Ball Bearing Fans

Many computer fans spin on sleeve bearings. Sleeve bearing fans are the
cheapest to manufacture because it is just a steel shaft turning against a block of
brass or other soft metal lubricated with oil. Sleeve bearings can work well in
many applications, but the slightest wear can allow the fan blades to wobble,
making them inefficient for your precious CPU.

High-quality fans turn on ball bearings. Hardened steel balls allow the shaft to
turn freely without wobble and without excessive wear. The free turning gives the
fan the ability to move more air from the same electrical input. Because they
don’t wobble, CPU coolers or case fans equipped with ball bearings tend to be
quieter too.

4. Peltier Junction Coolers

What’s some French guy with a funny name got to do with cooling off your CPU?
A lot of people thought the thermoelectric cooler invented by a watch maker in
1834 would be the most hi-tech way to pull the heat out of a hot microprocessor
chip. Over a hundred years ago, they were freezing drops of water with Peltier
Junctions merely by passing a current through the device. Sounds like the ideal
cooling gadget, right?

Lots of high priced CPU coolers were sold on this premise. The problem is that
the Peltier Junction cooler just removes heat from one side of the device to the
other. That means you can have a cold face to put on your CPU package (good),
but the other face has the heat from the CPU as well as the heat generated by
the current to run the Peltier device (very bad). You would need a massive heat
sink to cool the cooler!

5. Satellite Technology Under Your Desk?


When satellite designers were faced with the problem of
removing heat from the side of the spacecraft facing the
sun and moving it to the shadow side where it can be
radiated off into space, they were kind of stuck. They
couldn’t use a massive aluminum or copper heat
conductor because the weight of the satellite had to be
minimized. The solution they came up with was the heat
pipe.

A heat pipe is literally a piece of pipe with the ends sealed off. Inside there is a
fluid that evaporates when heated. The evaporation quickly cools the end of the
heat pipe where the heat is applied. The vapor then condenses on the cooler end
of the heat pipe causing that end to warm up. A wick moves the condensed liquid
back to the hot end where it starts the cycle all over. CPU coolers
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CF450B0&cat=FAN] based on heat
pipes can move more heat to a wider area than any solid metal CPU cooler. The
heat sink can be shaped to better take advantage of the cooling air from the fan.

Overall, a CPU cooler outfitted with heat pipes can be smaller, lighter and more
efficient than standard types.

6. A Cooling Tower for Your Computer?

Those round towers outside atomic power plants are a symbol of the nuclear
age. They seem sinister with their strange narrow waist and the white plume
billowing out the top. But what most people don’t realize is that those huge
cooling towers are just a way to convert hot water into cool water to remove heat
from the reactors. The white cloud over it is really
just water vapor from the cooling process.

If liquid cooling is powerful enough for atomic


reactors that have to dissipate the waste heat from
generating billions of watts of electricity, why not
use liquid cooling on your CPU.
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=EC-WC-201] The small heat
exchanger sits on top of the CPU and pulls the heat into the liquid. The hot liquid
flows through a hose to the external heat exchanger where cool air is blown by a
fan over the coils containing the hot liquid. The cooled liquid is then pumped back
through another hose to start the cycle again, not unlike a car radiator. Liquid
cooling provides a super-efficient way to remove dangerous heat out of a tight
spot in your computer where blowing adequate cooling air is a problem.

7. Hot-Rodding Your Case Fan

The best scenario for proper system cooling is


having a well-designed computer case.
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=XK-TA1&cat=CAS] Newer computer
cases are designed with ventilation in mind. Most cases will have at least four
spots inside the case to mount fans (if they don’t come with fans already). The
fans [http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=372] included with most cases
should be upgraded for better cooling. Some case fans have LED lights that will
give your computer case a makeover.

If noise is a concern, even after using the ball


bearing fans, an insulation kit
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=NOISEB
USTER&cat=CAS] is an ideal way to eliminate the
pesky rattle heard from fans.

Final Words

Our PCs have come a long way from a simple plastic microprocessor plugged
into a socket to a sophisticated ceramic or metal clad CPU hiding under of pile of
exotic cooling gadgets. The processor on your video card probably has more
computing capability and more memory than your last computer. It will need its
share of cooling capacity, so don’t buy the cheapest CPU cooler on the shelf and
hope for the best. A good CPU cooler and an extra case fan can be the ticket to
a long and uneventful life for your computer. If you are pushing the limits of
computing performance, then you will need the highest performance coolers.
Tech Tip 53-Tips to Stop Phishing for Spyware and Spam
By Stewart S. Miller

Spyware is the means


through which hackers
gain access to your
computer and your
private information.
Spyware is defined as
any software that
covertly gathers user
information through
your Internet
connection without your knowledge, usually for advertising purposes.
It watches everything you do on the Internet and sends that
information, including private e-mail, passwords, and credit card
numbers to the hacker invisibly, without your knowledge.

No matter how careful you are, regardless of what virus protection


you buy, you will always be at risk without the proper anti-spyware
tools to protect you. How do you know if
you have been infected? If the Start page
in your Web browser keeps changing by
itself, if your computer starts crashing
more often than usual, or if you have tried
to uninstall unfamiliar programs only to
find they are still there after you restart
your computer, then you are infected.
Spyware can be pretty malicious.
Keyloggers watch your every keystroke and mouse click, then
records your passwords, log-ons, and account numbers. You might
think you don’t need to read this column because you’ve taken steps
to protect yourself. Well, if you have all the most current antivirus
software, have installed Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, and have a
very powerful firewall to protect you, then you would be WRONG! The
fact is that all of these items do absolutely nothing to protect your
computer from spyware at all, leaving you completely vulnerable to
attack. Also, you know all those updates that Microsoft Windows XP
installs? None of them protect you from spyware writers, who exploit
ways to transparently install spyware through your Internet Explorer
browser. These programs can even prevent Service Pack 2 from
installing correctly. Once these programs infect you, your computer
becomes very slow, because all your computer processing power is
eaten up by the spyware itself. Don’t allow yourself to be lulled into a
false sense of security from any one anti-spyware program that
claims to provide total protection - it doesn’t exist.

Spam is the most virulent form of abuse that any Internet user must
endure. The problem is so common that most people find they are
forced to change their e-mail
address just to avoid getting junk e-
mail. Unfortunately, changing your
e-mail is worse than changing your
phone number because nobody
knows how to contact you.

Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Eudora 6 are two of the major programs
that have the ability to filter incoming e-mail as messages are
received. If a message is believed to be spam, the message is filtered
to the spam folder for later review.

Many mail servers running on UNIX machines run a program called


Spam Assassin (www.spamassassin.org) which separates messages
that contain potentially unsafe attachments, match keywords
representing spam or rejects messages from
known spamming addresses.
Internet phishing (pronounced “fishing”) is when a hacker sends you
an e-mail falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise.
The idea is to try to scam you into surrendering private information
that will be used to steal your identity. This e-mail asks
you to visit a Web site where you are asked
to update your personal information, such
as passwords, credit card numbers, Social
Security number, and bank account numbers
information that the legitimate organization already has. The scam is
that this Web site is bogus and is set up only to steal your confidential
information.

You must be careful whenever you receive an email from what


appears to be a trusted company. Hackers are very good at writing
convincing letters that appear to be genuine. You must never ever
click on a link in one of these e-mails, because even though it might
look authentic, it almost always is not. It is very simple matter for a
hyperlink to show one Web site and send you somewhere completely
different when you click on it. These links are designed to take you to
the hacker’s site. Don’t even cut and paste these links into your
browser, because the hidden information
in the URL takes you directly to the hacker
instead of where you intended to go.
When you need to go to a Web site, open
a new browser window and type in the
address by hand. That’s the only way you
can be sure. So, if you somehow find
yourself on a Web site and you just aren’t
certain if it is from the hacker or not, what can you do? Well, here is a
good tip. If the site asks you for personal information, just type in any
random set of information. If the site says you have entered invalid
information, then at least you have a good clue that it is most likely
authentic. However, if the Web site lets you type in any random
information and comes back to tell your information has been
updated, then the site is almost certainly from a hacker designed to
capture anyone’s information (no matter what they type).

Another telltale sign of phishing is when e-mails are not addressed to


you specifically by name but instead say, “Dear Customer.” If an e-
mail doesn’t take the time to address you by name, something is
wrong! When you receive
an e-mail, ask yourself,
“Why am I receiving this
note?” If you are unsure,
call the company directly
and ask. Never assume an
e-mail is authentic just
because it looks like it
came from a trusted
company. Hackers easily
spoof the “from” field of an
e-mail to make it appear it
is a legitimate
correspondence. Never
click on an attachment
contained in an e-mail,
because you never know what virus or spyware is lurking beneath the
surface waiting to steal your private information and send it to the
hacker world. It is important when you go onto a Web site to make
certain the page begins with https:// That “S” means “secure,” and, if
it is not there, anything you input can be intercepted by a hacker. One
of the nasty tricks hackers use when trying to redirect you to a
fraudulent site is to mimic the URL of the trusted site. For example,
you might want to go to mycard.citibank.com, but the hacker site
might say something like mycard.citibank. com@216.45.54.303
where that @ symbol means you are connected to a hacker’s Web
site pretending to be your credit card.

Hackers are very good at what they do. Sometimes


you can take every precaution and still find yourself in
trouble, not knowing if you are giving your information
to a hacker. The best protection is your own
vigilance. Don’t click, don’t open unless you feel confident about the
sender.
Tech Tip 54 - Microprocessor History (Part 1, The Basics)
Article by Roy Davis

The microprocessor,
or CPU, as some
people call it, is the
brains of our personal
computer. I’m getting
into this history lesson
not because I’m a
history buff (though
computers do have a
wonderfully interesting
past), but to go
through the development step-by-step to explain how they work.

Well, not everything about how they work, but enough to understand the
importance of the latest features and what they do for you. It’s going to take more
than one article to dig into the inner secrets of microprocessors. I hope it’s an
interesting read for you and helps you recognize computer buzzwords when
you’re making your next computer purchase.

1. Where Did CPUs Come From?

When the 1970s dawned, computers were still monster machines


hidden in air-conditioned rooms and attended to by technicians in
white lab coats. One component of a mainframe computer, as they
were known, was the CPU, or Central Processing Unit. This was a
steel cabinet bigger than a refrigerator full of circuit boards
crowded with transistors.

Computers had only recently been converted from vacuum tubes to


transistors and only the very latest machines used primitive
integrated circuits where a few transistors were gathered in one
package. That means the CPU was a big pile of equipment. The thought that the
CPU could be reduced to a chip of silicon the size of your fingernail was the stuff
of science fiction.

2. How Does a CPU Work?

In the ‘40s, mathematicians John Von Neumann, J. Presper Eckert and John
Mauchly came up with the concept of the stored instruction digital computer.
Before then, computers were programmed by rewiring their circuits to perform a
certain calculation over and over. By having a memory and storing a set of
instructions that can be performed over and over, as well as logic to vary the path
of instruction, execution programmable computers were possible.

The component of the computer that fetches the instructions and data from the
memory and carries out the instructions in the form of data manipulation and
numerical calculations is called the CPU. It’s central because all the memory and
the input/output devices must connect to the CPU, so it’s only natural to keep the
cables short to put the CPU in the middle. It does all the instruction execution
and number calculations so it’s called the Processing Unit.

The CPU has a program counter that points to the next instruction to be
executed. It goes through a cycle where it retrieves, from memory, the
instructions in the program counter. It then retrieves the required data from
memory, performs the calculation indicated by the instruction and stores the
result. The program counter is incremented to point to the next instruction and
the cycle starts all over.
3. The First Microprocessor

In 1971 when the heavy iron mainframe computers


still ruled, a small Silicon Valley company was
contracted to design an integrated circuit for a
business calculator for Busicom. Instead of
hardwired calculations like other calculator chips of
the day, this one was designed as a tiny CPU that
could be programmed to perform almost any
calculation.

The expensive and time-consuming work of designing a custom wired chip was
replaced by the flexible 4004 microprocessor and the instructions stored in a
separate ROM (Read Only Memory) chip. A new calculator with entirely new
features can be created simply by programming a new
ROM chip. The company that started this revolution
was Intel Corporation. The concept of a general
purpose CPU chip grew up to be the microprocessor
that is the heart of your powerful PC.

4. 4 Bits Isn’t Enough

The original 4004 microprocessor chip handled


data in four bit chunks. Four bits gives you sixteen
possible numbers, enough to handle standard
decimal arithmetic for a calculator. If it were only
the size of the numbers we calculate with, we
might still be using four bit microprocessors.

The problem is that there is another form of


calculation a stored instruction computer needs to
do. That is it has to figure out where in memory
instructions are. In other words, it has to calculate
memory locations to process program branch
instructions or to index into tables of data.

Like I said, four bits only gets you sixteen


possibilities and even the 4004 needed to address 640 bytes of memory to
handle calculator functions. Modern microprocessor chips like the Intel Pentium 4
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P42800C478&cat=CPU] can address
18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes of memory, though the motherboard is limited
to less than this total. This led to the push for more bits in our microprocessors.
We are now on the fence between 32 bit microprocessors and 64 bit monsters
like the AMD Athlon 64
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ADA3500DIK4BI-N&cat=CPU].
5. The First Step Up, 8 Bits

With a total memory address space of 640 bytes,


the Intel 4004 chip was not the first microprocessor
to be the starting point for a personal computer. In
1972, Intel delivered the 8008, a scaled up 4004.
The 8008 was the first of many 8- bit
microprocessors to fuel the home computer
revolution. It was limited to only 16 Kilobytes of
address space, but in those days no one could afford that much RAM.

Two years later, Intel introduced the 8080 microprocessor with


64 Kilobytes of memory space and increased the rate of
execution by a factor of ten over the 8008. About this time,
Motorola brought out the 6800 with similar performance. The
8080 became the core of serious microcomputers that led to the
Intel 8088 used in the IBM PC, while the 6800 family headed in
the direction of the Apple II personal computer.

6. 16 Bits Enables the IBM PC

By the late ‘70s, the personal computer was bursting at the


seams of the 8 bit microprocessor performance. In 1979, Intel
delivered the 8088 and IBM engineers used it for the first PC.
The combination of the new 16 bit microprocessor and the name IBM shifted the
personal computer from a techie toy in the garage to a mainstream business tool.

The major advantage of the 8086 was up to 1 Megabyte of


memory addressing. Now, large spreadsheets or large
documents could be read in from the disk and held in RAM
memory for fast access and manipulation. These days, it’s not
uncommon to have a thousand times more than that in a single 1 Gigabyte RAM
Module [http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=1024DDR3200-N&cat=RAM],
but back in that time it put the IBM PC in the same league with minicomputers
the size of a refrigerator.

7. Cache RAM, Catching Up With the CPU

We’ll have to continue the march through


the lineup of microprocessors in the next
installment to make way for the first of the
enhancements that you should understand.
With memory space expanding and the
speed of microprocessor cores going ever
faster, there was a problem of the memory
keeping up.
Large low-powered memories cannot go as fast as smaller higher power RAM
chips. To keep the fastest CPUs running full speed, microprocessor engineers
started inserting a few of the fast and small memories between the main large
RAM and the microprocessor. The purpose of this smaller memory is to hold
instructions that get repeatedly executed or data that is accessed often.

This smaller memory is called cache RAM and


allows the microprocessor to execute at full
speed. Naturally, the larger the cache RAM the
higher percentage of cache hits and the
microprocessor can continue running full speed.
When the program execution leads to
instructions not in the cache, then the
instructions need to be fetched from the main
memory and the microprocessor has to stop
and wait.

8. Cache Grows Up

The idea of cache RAM has grown along with the size and complexity of
microprocessor chips. A high-end Pentium 4
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BX8054
7PG3000F-DT&cat=CPU] has 2 Megabytes of
cache RAM built into the chip. That’s more than
twice the entire memory address space of the
original 8088 chip used in the first PC and clones.
Putting the cache right on the microprocessor itself
removes the slowdown of the wires between
chips. You know you are going fast when the
speed of light for a few inches makes a difference!

9. Cache Splits Up

As I mentioned above, smaller memories can be


addressed faster. Even the physical size of a large
memory can slow it down. Microprocessor engineers
decided to give the cache memory a cache. Now we
have what is known as L1 and L2 cache for level one
and level two. The larger and slower cache is L2 and is
the usual size quoted in specifications for cache
capacity. A few really high-end chips like the Intel
Itanium II had three levels of cache RAM.

Beware that the sheer size of cache RAM or the number of layers are not good
indications of cache performance. Different microprocessor architectures
between Intel and AMD make it especially hard to compare their cache
specifications. Just like Intel’s super high clock rates don’t translate into
proportionately more performance, doubling of cache size certainly doesn’t
double the performance of a microprocessor. Benchmark tests are not perfect,
but are a better indicator of microprocessor speed than clock rate or cache size
specifications.

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this first installment of the history of microprocessors. It’s nice
to know the humble beginnings and compare them to how far we have come in
the computing capability of a CPU. Understanding the basics of how a
microprocessor works gives you a leg-up on grooking the more advanced
features of today’s Mega-microprocessors.

In future installments, we are going to dig into such microprocessor


enhancements as super-scalar, hyper-threading and dual core. The concepts
aren’t that hard and in the end you can boast about the latest features of your
new computer with confidence.
Tech Tip 55 - Microprocessor History (Part 2, More Than a Toy)
Article by Roy Davis

In the last installment we talked about the very early days of microprocessor
history and how it grew out of a programmable calculator into the first personal
computers. The history is just the foundation for understanding the features that
make our current day microprocessors so powerful and helps to illustrate what is
really important in your next computer purchase.

There have been many players in the microprocessor story, but the two
companies that have had the most impact are also the two that dominate the
market; Intel and AMD. Along the way, other big companies like IBM and
Motorola made major contributions but have fallen by the wayside in the
marketplace for personal computers.

1. Expanding Address Space

We started with the Intel 4004 and how that first


device could handle only 4-bit numbers and up to
640 bytes of memory address space. Nowadays,
it’s common to plug in hundreds of megabytes in a
single Memory Stick
[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=1024DD
R3200-N&cat=RAM].

Running the latest operating system like Microsoft


Windows XP requires quite a bit of memory.
Working on digital photographs or running the
newest computer games requires even more. It’s not uncommon to have a
Gigabyte (1,000 Megabytes) of RAM in your computer.

2. Finding the Way

How does the microprocessor keep track of all that memory? To answer that, we
need to talk about some of the components of a microprocessor. Last week, I
mentioned the program counter. The program counter is a register. Your
microprocessor is full of these registers; little chucks of hardware that are like a
sticky note you would use to remind you of something. Registers are like this for
the microprocessor, easily and quickly referenced by many of the instructions the
computer executes.

A microprocessor will have several of these registers dedicated to pointing to


memory addresses. The program counter indicates the next instruction, while the
index register is used to automatically step through tables of data. A stack
register keeps track of memory addresses to return from program subroutines.

The memory addressing registers of an 8-bit microprocessor are almost always


twice as big at 16-bits. When personal computers shifted to 16-bit
microprocessors, the registers grew to 32-bits. That meant there were a lot of
specialized instructions and multiple steps to manipulate the memory addresses.
This slowed down the execution of programs. It became obvious that a
microprocessor that can handle a full memory address in one chunk would run
faster. That’s why we are using 32-bit microprocessors even in our low-end
systems [http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PX743AAR&cat=SYS], and
the big boys [http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PS578AAR&cat=SYS] are
sporting 64-bits at a time.

3. Segmented Verses Unsegmented

Early on, the struggle with handling large memory address space while
maintaining microprocessor speed took two paths. Motorola took the simple
approach by making the memory space “flat” so that it is addressed as one big
continuous memory string. The instruction set was “symmetric”, meaning for
every read operation there was a corresponding write.

Intel took a more convoluted route. They broke the memory up into “segments”.
Simple and fast addressing modes were used within the segment. The program
instructions and data usually lived in different segments. When a program had to
jump to another segment or retrieve data from a different segment, the segment
registers had to be modified, which could take several steps. The idea was that
the slow crossing of segment boundaries was more than made up for by the
simple and fast operation within a segment.

In the first IBM PC, the segments were 64 Kilobytes, which was pretty limiting
then. Intel was quick to respond to this when they released the 286
microprocessor in 1982 by expanding the segments to 1 megabyte. The Intel 386
microprocessor took the segment size to 4 Gigabytes in 1985 and segment size
hasn’t been an issue since. This Intel segmented design became more popular
than the un-segmented Motorola flat memory.
4. Memory Protection

The one feature Intel offered that made it the microprocessor of choice was
memory protection. When we had a simple operating system and ran one
program at a time, memory protection wasn’t an issue. Now that we are running
multi-threaded OSs and have a dozen applications in memory simultaneously,
there was a need for a more sophisticated memory addressing method than the
simple flat model.

In the flat model, when a program runs away it can mess up the code or data
from other programs. This was difficult to debug because there was no indication
of which application caused the problem. With the Intel segmented architecture,
a program cannot delve into the memory space allotted to another application. If
it tries, a memory fault message is generated and only that program crashes.
You usually can recover from this situation without having to reboot and you
know exactly which program was the culprit.

5. Multitasking

The Intel 386 was a break-through microprocessor


in another very important way. It had hardware and
special instructions that supported true
multitasking. Nowadays, we take it for granted that
several applications can run simultaneously. In
actuality, only one program is executed at any
particular time. Your computer runs so fast that it
can let each program run for just a short bit of time,
then switch to the next program.

Prior to the 386, in order for two pieces of software


to be in memory and multitasking back and forth, the software had to be specially
written to run for that short time. This scheme depended on the software to
cooperate, a burden that rarely worked out in the real world.

The 386 could stop a program in its tracks and suspend it while other programs
ran. Then the OS would switch back to the first program as if nothing had ever
stopped it. This is called preemptive multitasking and is an important concept to
remember for later. Finally there was a window of opportunity for the Microsoft
Windows operating system!

6. Multi Data

The microprocessor was just now catching up to the features of the mainframe
and minicomputers that came before it. In 1997, Intel introduced their MMX
feature with the Pentium II microprocessor This is a trade name for Single
Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) capability.
Playing video games on a personal computer was all the rage and even
engineers wanted faster graphics performance for rendering 3D models. The
Pentium class microprocessors could handle data in 64-bit chunks, which was
great for heavy-duty scientific calculations, but graphics number crunching only
needs 8-bit numbers and it needs it fast!

A peculiarity of video processing is that the microprocessor has to do the same


calculation over and over for all the pixels on the screen. The Intel engineers
devised a way to reuse the 64-bit calculation hardware by splitting it up into
smaller pieces; either two 32-bit, four 16-bit or eight 8-bit registers. The
calculations were restricted to integers making it ideal for the simple graphics
processing of the day.

7. Faster and Faster

AMD countered the Intel Pentium II


MMX with their 3Dnow! SIMD design.
This expanded the SIMD concept
with floating point calculations that
extended the range of numbers that
can be crunched. Only a year later,
the Intel Pentium III [http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PIII500S1-
2&cat=CPU] came out with SSE, or Streaming SIMD Extensions that further
improved on the MMX design with more flexibility with registers expanding to
128-bits.

Note that SIMD is not multi-threaded or even multitasking.


SIMD only works when special instructions are used by the
programmer. The data has to be organized in a very strict
format to fit into the SIMD registers. Even with all the
restrictions, SIMD freed the PC as a graphics processing
powerhouse that unseated the specialized graphics silicon
from companies like Silicon Graphics.

8. Contrary to KISS

In most cases, KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) works. Simple is better than
complicated, except in the case of microprocessors. One group of companies
tried to keep to the KISS principle and designed Reduced Instruction Set
Computer (RISC) microprocessors. They believed that by keeping the
instructions very simple they could make the microprocessor perform faster that it
would make up for having to use more of the simple instructions.

Intel went the CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) route where they have
many many instructions and lots of those could do some pretty complicated
things. What the RISC guys didn’t count on was that Intel and AMD could
fabricate their own microprocessors with the complexity of more than 100-million
transistors and get that complex machine running at gigahertz rates.

Scientists and engineers had favored the expensive RISC workstations for their
believed superior speed performance over the PC. When it became obvious that
RISC was a dead end, scientific and engineering software migrated to the PC
with those inexpensive yet powerful CISC microprocessors.

9. Supercomputers On the Cheap

The supercomputer is the ultimate number crunching machine for physicists to


work out the mysteries of the universe, meteorologists to predict the weather or
for doctors to dissect human genes. They have to process lots of numbers over
and over. Hey, wait a minute, that’s just like the video processing for our video
games. Well, guess what. Those supercomputers are built out of the same
microprocessors that are the brains of our PCs! They just connect lots of them
together to break the problem up into smaller chunks and process the data in
parallel.

Final Words

That was some pretty dense technical stuff! I hope you caught the gist of it
because we’ll be using a lot of these terms in the next installment. All this talk
about processing data in parallel is leading up to something. We’ll get around to
talking about hyper-threading and how even within a single microprocessor there
are a lot of things going on in parallel.

It will lead to other features like superscalar processing where more than one
instruction can be executed during a single clock cycle. All this to make your
programs run faster!
Tech Tip 56 - Keeping Windows Clean
By Stewart S. Miller

Windows is a living entity. Protecting


Windows and keeping it clean from
malware (malicious programs) is a full
time job any more. Windows users are
often frustrated by Microsoft’s
continued efforts to make its operating
system secure against hackers
because patching Windows seems like
a full-time job. The real question here is
what do all these patches mean to
you? Microsoft releases “critical” alerts
on a regular basis designed to protect
Windows from hacker attacks. The
most severe vulnerabilities deal with
security bugs that allow hackers to gain
complete control over your computer.
Some of these flaws exist in the way
Windows Media Player and MSN
Messenger process certain files.
Microsoft has also identified bugs in
how Exchange (its Internet Mail Server Software) and Office allow hackers to
execute hostile code on vulnerable systems. These patches are supposed to
prevent a hacker from gaining unauthorized access to certain sections of a Web
site. Another bug in the Windows Shell Component may permit a hacker to cause
an affected system to stop responding. These vulnerabilities make it possible for
hackers to spy on your PC. With the advent of Service Pack 2, it seems like
updates are a seamless process that simply execute in the background. The
problem with this “easy” method of installation is that you, as the user, need to
know what is being changed on your computer. This is why I recommend you
always view the list of updates before allowing Windows to update your system.
Security Updates
One Microsoft security patch update includes a change to the functionality of a
clear-text authentication feature of Internet Explorer. This update removes the
ability to handle user names and passwords in HTTP URLs, HTTP with Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL), URLs, and HTTPS URLs. An example of the type of URL
that is no longer supported would look like: http(s)://
username:password@server.com If you think your version of Windows is too old
to be affected by these security concerns, think again. Windows 98, Windows 98
SE, and Windows Millennium Edition are all critically affected by these security
vulnerabilities too. If you are running Windows NT 4.0 Workstation SP6a or
Windows 2000 Service Pack 2, update support ceased at the end of last year.
Microsoft encourages those users to migrate to a “supported” version of
Windows to prevent potential exposure to these security vulnerabilities.

Protection Settings
You can take steps to protect yourself
from future attacks. Set your Internet
and local intranet security zone
settings to “high” so your computer will
prompt you before running ActiveX
controls and active scripting in these
zones. Setting your browser security to “high” applies the highest level of
protection from unsafe content that comes across your network. If this setting
causes some of your sites not to load properly, you can add those sites
individually to your list of trusted sites. However, you should only do so if you are
sure that the site is safe to use and is hosted from a company or entity you trust.
As a final note, there is a free program that I highly recommend you download
called the “Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer” (MBSA) tool
(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/tools/mbsahome.mspx) that verifies
when a security update has been applied to your system. It lets you scan your
system for missing security updates as well as common security
misconfigurations.

Firewalls
Once upon a time, a firewall was your best answer to protecting your computer
from hackers looking to exploit vulnerabilities in Windows. Unfortunately, this isn’t
always the case now. Nowadays, most users are attacked by just browsing the
Web. Hackers host Web sites that contain code to exploit vulnerabilities in your
operating system such as infect you with a virus, spyware, or even take complete
control of your computer. Hackers can alternatively compromise a Web site for
the purpose of misdirecting you to click on malicious content. Hackers can’t
“force” you to visit a specific site, but they can trick you into clicking on a link that
invites malicious content into your machine.
Windows XP SP2 has an integrated firewall, previously known as the Internet
Connection Firewall (ICF) that defends you against hackers who are trying to
access your computer from the Internet without your permission. When a hacker
attempts to connect to your computer via an “unsolicited request,” the Windows
firewall blocks that request. Windows will actually ask your permission if you wish
to “unblock” and allow connects to programs you actually want to run such as
instant messaging and multiplayer network games. When you unblock those
connections, the Windows firewall creates an exception so that the firewall won’t
ask any more when your program needs to receive information to function. You
don’t have to use the Windows firewall. You can install and run any firewall you
wish.

Zone Alarm is an excellent firewall that is very popular. Zone Alarm offers both
paid and free versions (http://www.zonealarm.com/) that can protect your
computer as much or as little as you desire. An even more comprehensive
program is Norton Internet Security 2005
(http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/nis_pe/) that touts its ability to hide your PC
on the Internet so hackers can’t find it. The Mac also has an integrated firewall,
just like Windows. However, Norton also makes a comprehensive security
solution for this platform as well in the form of Norton Internet Security 3.0
(http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/nis_mac/). The best part of Norton Internet
Security 2005 for the PC is its integrated “Intrusion Detection System” that
automatically blocks suspicious traffic. Not only does this product block
suspicious incoming connections, but it lets you configure your “outbound”
Internet connections too. This is advantageous, because if you do get infected
with spyware, Norton will alert you that a program on your system is attempting
to connect to the Internet and asks you if you really want this program to connect.
By giving you the opportunity to block these connections, you can effectively
thwart malicious spyware from doing its evil.

Intrusion Detection
Apple’s Macintosh has its own version of this type of Intrusion Detection with a
program called, “Little Snitch” (http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/) that
effectively asks your permission any time a program wants to connect to the
Internet. Although the Mac seldom becomes infected with spyware, it is a handy
utility to have so that you know exactly what your computer is doing on the
Internet.

Frozen Images
Now that your computer has been through its trial by fire(wall), the best answer is
to simply put your computer on ICE! If you have resigned yourself to the fact that,
no matter what you do, your computer is going to get infected, then use a
program called “Deep Freeze” (http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp).
This software for both Mac and PC lets you configure your computer with all the
programs you need and then “freeze” your configuration. If a hacker infects your
computer with a virus or spyware, Deep Freeze makes the damage simply
disappear. All of your settings, files and programs are completely restored to their
original configurations every time you restart your computer. This makes it
possible for you to avoid problems caused by software conflicts, registry and
operating system corruption, lost network and Internet connections, as well as a
host of problems caused by simply connecting to virus-ridden network sites. The
only catch is that you have to store your personal documents on a separate drive
that does not “revert” each time you restart your machine. You have to imagine
this program literally resets your computer to a frozen state that you specify.
However, if you create a word document, it would be lost if it were on that drive.
So, remember to keep a separate drive with your personal files and you’ll have a
computer that won’t ever become infected or go down. Now, all you have to
worry about are mechanical failures.

Conclusion
Finding ways to prevent hackers from accessing Windows is difficult because
your operating system is always in a constant state of flux. Every time you turn
on your computer, browse the web, or get a Microsoft update, your operating
system changes. If you want to prevent all changes from taking place on your
computer, freeze the computer—but then you can’t make any changes to your
operating system at all.

There are good and bad points to both approaches—but in a world where having
a functional computer is a necessity—this Tech Tip will keep your system
running.
Tech Tip 57 - Protecting Your Identity
By: Stewart S. Miller

Identity Theft
No matter what you do online, there is always a risk that someone could glean
enough private information about you to usurp your identity. Your financial credit
affects nearly every facet of your life, so in order to maintain control over your
information, the following tech tips are in order. There are several types of
information that are appealing to thieves:

1) Credit card numbers


2) CW2 security numbers
(those 3- or 4- digit codes on the back of your credit cards)
3) Credit reports
4) Social security numbers
5) Driver’s license numbers
6) ATM cards
7) Telephone calling cards
8) Mortgage information
9) Dates of birth
10) Online passwords
11) PIN numbers
12) Home/business addresses
13) E-mail addresses
14) Phone numbers

Compromised Accounts
When any of account is compromised, close it
immediately. E-mails can “phish” for information
about you. If an e-mail sounds like it is from Pay-
Pal or your bank telling you there is a security
concern, and you should click the embedded link to
go the site to correct it, DON’T! These links are
often tailored to take you to look-alike Web sites
designed to trick you into entering your personal
information directly into the malicious hacker’s computer. What you should do
instead is open your Web browser and manually type in the link to the Web site
you wish to visit to check on your account (don’t ever cut and paste a link). This
is the only way you can be reasonably certain you won’t be misdirected to
someone waiting to prey on your information. Sometimes it isn’t even your fault.
The security at some companies that have your personal information is lax and
vulnerable to a malicious hacker attack.

Low Tech Backups


In any case where you suspect that your information has been stolen, you need
to be prepared and to have organized your paper bank records for at least one
year. You will need to prove your account balance to the financial institution’s
fraud department as soon as possible. Detailed steps to take if your ID is stolen
can be found at the following links:

The plan to follow if your ID is stolen: http://www.privacyrights.org/identity.htm


“When bad things happen to your good name” (FTC document):
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/idtheft.htm
U.S. Department of Justice ID theft kit:
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/idtheft.html
Identity Theft Resource Center: http://www.idtheftcenter.org/

Online Passwords
The biggest Achilles’ heels are online
passwords. To protect yourself, always use
combinations of upper and lowercase
characters (including symbols and numbers)
so that hackers who concentrate on
commonly used words in the dictionary
won’t guess it easily. Use longer words with more characters and combine two
words together with a symbol. You may even want to use words from two
different languages so that automated password guessing tools won’t work.

Computers aren’t the only way thieves can get your personal information.
Telemarketers are often hardworking people, but there are those who are
persistent for the wrong purposes. If someone calls you and hassles you to give
them your personal information, don’t! Even if they sound legit, you never know
to whom you are talking to over the phone.

Voice over IP Privacy


The Bush Administration is asking the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) to order Net telephony providers to comply with a law that would permit
police to wiretap conversations carried over the Internet. Unlike regular voice
calls, where wiretaps would have to physically connect to the line, VoIP could be
tapped anywhere at anytime. The
problem that forces us to sacrifice our
privacy and rights stems from the FBI’s
belief that Internet telephone calls are a
national security threat that must be
countered with new police wiretapping
rules. The way this would work is that
the FBI would require broadband
Internet providers to provide more
efficient, standardized surveillance
facilities, effectively changing the way
Internet providers do business.

The reasons for these changes are


because a terrorist could potentially
use VoIP to circumvent legitimate
wiretaps from calls being placed over
the Internet. If terrorists can evade
lawful electronic surveillance though
technology, it puts everyone at risk.
The real trick is to find a new way in which to effectively trace Internet phone
conversations. The federal government is funding the development of
surveillance tools through scientific projects that would allow police to identify
whether suspects have been using VoIP to communicate secretly.

VoIP communications are hard to track. Think about the great expanse of the
Internet where traffic can go literally anywhere. Vonage and ATT phone adapter
boxes are portable and can be installed virtually anywhere in the world. You can
take your box, plug it into the Internet halfway across the world and still receive
calls on your local phone number.

Anonymity
If that’s not enough, there are a number of
services on the net that make your Internet
traffic go through a special service that
removes all tracing information, making you
invisible or anonymous to the world. When
such services are used, it becomes almost
impossible to wiretap a call. The only way
around this problem is to work with the VoIP
providers directly by placing tracing
information embedded within the VoIP call
itself. In this way, if traffic is routed through an
anonymous server, there is still a way to find
out who the call is coming from/going to and
trace the people on each end of the call. Privacy advocates, however, are
infuriated by the federal government’s initiatives to have the ability to tap our
VoIP calls at will. They see this as a direct attack on our privacy. VoIP providers
are nonetheless working with the FBI and FCC to facilitate the approval of
wiretapping requirements so that the Internet does not become a haven for
secret communications between terrorists and spies.

Conclusion
Everything you do online can be tracked whether it is making a purchase through
a website or calling someone using your internet phone adapter—you must be
very careful not to give out personal information that could potentially be used
against you.

We live in a wired world, and finding anonymity amongst the digital media is
difficult if not impossible. Keep records, burn information on CDs that are not
readily accessible over your home network or local computer. If you are detail-
oriented about your personal information, you can save yourself many
headaches later on.
Tech Tip 58 - The Evolution of the Laptop
“Take One Tablet PC and IM me in the morning…”
By Stewart S. Miller

If you are interested in expanding your


ability to write with your PC, then a Tablet
PC is for you. The freedom of leaving your
keyboard and touchpad behind was an
appealing one for me—as I liked the idea
of being able to fold my screen upright and
use an electronic pen to capture my notes
directly on my screen. Besides, I wanted
to get away from having Carpal Tunnel
Syndrome—so using a pen instead of a
mouse was easier for my wrist.

Bridging the gap between the pen and the


computer is achieved by allowing you to
write notes directly onto your computer.
However, these machines require a slightly
modified version of Windows XP Pro called
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 just
to make things work.

Features and Functionality


The nicest functionality this device offers is that you can use it at home, the
office, or even for school. Computers are difficult when it comes to design and
creativity. If you don’t see the value of using a Tablet PC, consider:

• Write on the Windows Desktop


• Literally handcraft your own greeting cards on the computer
• Annotate and make notes on Web site pages
• Instant message people in your own handwriting
• Enter notes into Microsoft OneNote (a note taking application most often
associated with features available on a Tablet PC)
• Convert handwriting to text
• Create personalized PowerPoint presentations
• Hand-sign documents or e-mails

Some users will find it difficult to write on


the screen of your monitor or laptop
because it is somewhat awkward to use a
virtual pen in place of a real one. It does
take some practice, but if you are looking
for precision there is an included pen pad
(mouse pad) that you can use as a writing
surface that allows for clear and accurate
writing.

Imitation is not the highest form of flattery


You have to be careful of Tablet PC imitators. Some computers offer a touch
screen that works with a stylus (just like a PocketPC)—but you don’t want that!
The reason is that your palm hangs down over the screen causing too many
contact points making the mouse completely inaccurate. You have to hold the
stylus in a perfectly upright position—which makes dragging across the screen
far more difficult. A TabletPC, on the other hand, uses a special pen that
communicates with the computer directly. Your hand does not cause any contact
that would move the mouse across the screen—only the included pen can move
items on the screen.

One Note
Microsoft OneNote is a great application—
especially for college and business users.
This application interfaces directly with the
pen capabilities of your TabletPC and allows
you to take notes on the screen in your own
handwriting. The program even has the
capability to translate your handwriting into
print—but like any optical recognition
program—certain words are difficult to
interpret.

Dexterity
There are simple dexterity issues that only a pen can offer when dealing with
graphic applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. While a mouse
allows you to control the screen, it offers limited precision. A mouse is like trying
to thread a needle with a sledgehammer. A pen, however, allows you to control
the movement (right on the screen) to introduce key movements and illustrations
that are essential to your projects.

Screen Rotation
One of the most advantageous features of the TabletPC is to have “instant
screen rotation.” You can literally rotate the screen so that you can input in
portrait mode vs. the standard landscape mode. This means the computer
evolves from being on your lap to becoming a tool you can hold in a business
environment. You can use portrait mode for taking notes, just like you would
when writing on a pad of paper. Landscape mode is best when viewing
presentations, graphics, or charts.

Is it worth it?
So, the real question—is the few hundred dollars extra for the Tablet
PC really worth it? After dealing with computers for several years, I
have to say yes! There isn’t really any other alternative device that
allows you to write directly on your computer screen. While graphic
tablets and high precision mice offer better control—they will never
equal the control you would get with a pen writing right where you need it.
Tech Tip 59 - Building Your Own External Hard Drive
By Stewart S. Miller

If you are like me, there is never enough storage to keep your all of your data
intact. Many manufacturers offer external hard drives, but you pay a premium to
buy them. If you want to save some money and get more storage space—
consider building your own device. By doing this, you can custom make your
own device and it’s easier than you might think.

Getting the Parts


To build your own hard drive, you really
just need to by an external enclosure kit.
Companies such as A-Power make them
very inexpensively. When choosing a box,
you just need to consider how you want to
connect it to your computer. The three
options you have include:

1) USB
2) Firewire
3) SCSI

The USB devices come in two flavors. USB 1.0 and 2.0 devices. The latter
support greater transfer speeds of data between the device and your computer—
but don’t waste your money unless your computer can support a USB 2.0 device.
Only the newer computers over the past three years have been built with the
capabilities of supporting higher speed USB devices. Another caveat you have
to consider is that most USB hubs DON’T support USB 2.0 speeds even if they
are connected to a computer than can support it. What you need to do is check
the computer and the hub to make certain that the vendors have listed that they
both support USB 2.0 devices. There is a noticeable increase in speed, so it is
most definitely worth your time.
SCSI devices are somewhat obsolete in most systems. I used to run my
Macintosh and PC using a SCSI adapter card because that was a reliable
method. Today, you don’t see Macintosh computers with SCSI as a standard
feature any more. Adaptec and SIIG are two common manufacturers who build
PCI adapter cards for the PC and PCMCIA adapters for your laptop to permit
SCSI communications. While this technology has its merits, it is not as common
today as either the USB or Firewire equivalents.

Like SCSI, several manufacturers build PCI and PCMCIA adapters that enable
high speed data transfer through Firewire. Many hard drive enclosures support
both USB and Firewire—giving you the option to connect any standard hard drive
to your computer.

The most common type of hard drive that fits into


these enclosures is a standard 3.5” IDE unit. The
enclosure is easily opened and includes two
connections:

1) IDE Cable
2) Power Adapter

It is really as simple as popping the drive right into the enclosure, plugging in the
power cables, and connecting it to your PC.

Considerations
Remember that your new drive is still
unformatted. Formatting your drive so that it's
usable, however, is easy enough. When you first
connect your new drive to your PC or Macintosh,
the computer will recognize the device as new
hard drive and ask you to format it. Assuming
you are going to be connecting this drive to one
or more PCs running the Windows XP Operating
System, "NTFS" is the clear choice for the file
system you should select for formatting. If you
plan to move your new drive between PC and
Macintosh systems, "FAT32" might make a better
choice for a cross-platform device.

Automated Backups
There are a number of automated software backup tools that you can install to
backup all of your data to these devices. If you are very worried about your
drive, (especially if it is nearing its end of life), you can boot to a special program
CD that will allow you to backup your entire C Drive to this unit. If something
ever happens that causes your primary drive to fail, all you have to do is take the
hard drive out of your external enclosure and install it in your PC.

Transporting Large Files


Best of all, nothing beats the
price, speed, and capacity of an
external hard drive for
transporting very large files. If
you are someone who deals with
very large Photoshop, digital
video, music, or PowerPoint files,
an external drive lets you quickly
store your images and transport
them to any other computer.
This is not only faster than burning a CD, but provides greater capacity and can
be much cheaper in the long run than other storage alternatives.

Glossary
Universal Serial Bus (USB), an external bus standard that supports data
transfer rates of 12 Mbps. A single USB port can be used to connect up to 127
peripheral devices, such as mice, modems, and keyboards. USB also supports
Plug-and-Play installation and hot plugging.

Firewire, a very fast external bus standard that supports data transfer rates of up
to 400Mbps (in 1394a) and 800Mbps (in 1394b). Products supporting the 1394
standard go under different names, depending on the company. Apple, which
originally developed the technology, uses the trademarked name FireWire. Other
companies use other names, such as i.link and Lynx, to describe their 1394
products. A single 1394 port can be used to connect up 63 external devices. In
addition to its high speed, 1394 also supports isochronous data -- delivering data
at a guaranteed rate. This makes it ideal for devices that need to transfer high
levels of data in real-time, such as video devices. Similarly to USB, 1394
supports both Plug-and-Play and hot plugging, and also provides power to
peripheral devices.

Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), a parallel interface standard used by


Apple Macintosh computers, PCs, and many UNIX systems for attaching
peripheral devices to computers. Nearly all Apple Macintosh computers,
excluding only the earliest Macs and the recent iMac, come with a SCSI port for
attaching devices such as disk drives and printers. SCSI interfaces provide for
faster data transmission rates (up to 80 megabytes per second) than standard
serial and parallel ports. In addition, you can attach many devices to a single
SCSI port, so that SCSI is really an I/O bus rather than simply an interface.
Tech Tip 60 - Microprocessor History (Part 3, Surfing the Pipeline)
Article by Roy Davis

Maybe I’m showing my long history in California, but when I hear the word
pipeline I think of a long wave breaking over its front forming a long pipe. The
ultimate hotdogging trick is to surf inside the pipeline. Well, microprocessors
grew up in California too. Both Intel and AMD are located in Silicon Valley, and in
their products “doin’ the pipeline” is gnarly too.

We are working our way through the history of microprocessors so we can


understand what the latest new features are, what gives a performance boost,
and what is just marketing hype. The pipeline is a fundamental feature of
microprocessors and is the enabler for several other very important speed-up
schemes. Let’s see how pipelines work.

1. The CPU to Memory Interface

The first thing to dig into is how your computer gets instructions and data out of
the memory and puts data back. First, the CPU fetches an instruction. That
instruction might require a chunk of data, or even two. That means a single
instruction might take two or three read cycles to get the instruction and data into
the microprocessor.

As mentioned, the microprocessor outputs the address on the address bus, and
then reads the instruction. If the instruction calls for data, one or more read
cycles take place. All the while, the microprocessor is sitting there waiting for the
instruction and data to show up.

After the microprocessor gets all the pieces of the instruction and data, it goes to
work. Some instructions may take a few steps, so the memory ends up waiting
while the CPU works-lots of stop and go and “hurry up and wait.” Seems like a
good way to slow things down, right?

2. Complicated Wiring
The main memory in your computer is made up of RAM (Random Access
Memory) chips. The microprocessor outputs the address of the data on an
address bus. This is a series of wires on the circuit board with one wire for each
of the bits in the address. Even low-end microprocessors have 32 or more
address lines, so you can see that buses are complex affairs. Then, there is the
data bus with about the same number of wires. That’s 64 copper traces on the
circuit board (the wires) between the CPU and the memory. Add to that a handful
of control signals to be complete. A 64 bit microprocessor would have twice this
number, about a hundred bus lines. It takes time to get all these bus lines
moving. This is the biggest bottleneck to speeding up a computer. Everything has
to work around the relatively slow speed of the instruction and data buses.

3. Systemic Process

Though early microprocessors operated


just like I outlined above, it was in the
early days of mainframes that someone
figured out a way to put everybody to
work 100 percent of the time. Back in
1944, the Colossus Mark II was used by
the British to break German codes. It
introduced an innovation known as a
systemic process; just like the systemic
process between your mouth and the
other end that is still busy processing your breakfast when you are eating dinner.
The data went in one end of the Colossus, and before it came out, more data
was put in. The only time the CPU had to wait was for the first instruction and
data, and the only time the memory bus was idle was after sending off the last
instruction of the program.

4. Indigestion

The systemic process works very well for early mainframe computers because
they had very simple instructions that were, well, regular. The instructions were
the same size and so was the data so each stage in the systemic process took
the same about of time and the whole thing worked like a well-oiled assembly
line.

Microprocessors started out as very simple devices without all this systemic
process stuff, but then their instructions grew up very haphazardly. Some
instructions were much longer than others and the long instruction could take
multiple memory read cycles to fetch. Then, the size and number of the data
varied. That made the evenly-paced systemic process break down.

5. Prefetch to Get Ahead of the Game


In many ways, the Intel 286 microprocessor was a break from the origins of a
minimal CPU on a chip and led the way toward modern mainframe architectures.
In 1982, the 286 introduced instruction prefetching to the PC. There is now a little
buffer memory between the memory bus and the CPU. The memory bus would
deliver instructions to the prefetch queue and if the CPU got bogged down with a
complex instruction, the next instructions would just stack up in the prefetch
queue. When the CPU ran into a string of simple instructions, it would draw down
the prefetch queue. Either way both the memory bus and the CPU would run at
full speed and not be held up by the other.

6. Pipelining Breaks the Logjam

It wasn’t until 1989 when Intel brought out the 486 that PCs had a better way to
deal with the memory bus bottleneck. The 486 had a pipeline. Can’t you just hear
the surf guitars? Sorry-back to the microprocessors.

The concept was simple: take the systemic process and break it up into very
small pieces so each step has to do only very simple tasks. By making more
steps in the pipeline, the tasks are extremely simple and even complex
instructions can be broken down and executed as quickly as simple ones.

7. Branch Prediction

As long as the program runs along in a linear fashion, incrementing the


instruction address, the pipeline is hunky-dory. What happens when it runs into a
branch instruction? The next instruction address will depend on the outcome of
the execution of the instruction. How will the pipeline know which instruction to
fetch next?

Most program branches are part of a loop, a section of code that repeats itself
until a condition is met and then the program continues outside the loop. If a
programmer takes the time to put in a loop, chances are it’s going to continue in
the loop for several iterations. So, if the pipeline predicts that the program flow
will continue in the loop, it can fetch the next instruction in the loop.

If the branch prediction turns out to be wrong, the pipeline has to be flushed and
part of the production line held up until the right instruction works its way down
the pipeline. Unlike the real world, these predictions are right the majority of the
time, and thus a performance increase is realized.

8. Super Scalar

If you have a pipeline with ten steps, then you can have ten instructions in the
pipeline at once. If each step takes one clock cycle to complete, then you have a
scalar CPU. If you double the clock speed, you get twice as many instructions
executed.

Some microprocessors have an amazing number of steps in their pipeline. Some


Pentium 4s [http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BX80547PG3000F-
DT&cat=CPU] have 31 steps. By breaking each instruction down into such small
steps, it becomes possible to operate on some pieces of the instruction in
parallel. In fact, they have gotten so good at it that some of the pieces can
actually be processed out of order. As the parallelism goes up, so does the
speed.

This CPU usually has more than 31 instructions in the pipeline because some of
them are taking parallel paths. That means more than one instruction per clock
cycle is executed. That’s superscalar. Doubling the clock speed gets you more
than twice the number of instructions executed. (This is not to be confused with
actual “parallel processing,” which is the combining of two or more CPOS to
execute a program).

9. Multithreading

Remember previously in Tech Tip 55 [http://www.geeks.com/pix/techtips-DEC01-


05.htm] when we talked about multitasking where the computer appears to
running more than one program at a time? What was really happening is that the
operating system was time slicing, letting each program run for a short period
and switching back and forth quickly so that it appears both are running
simultaneously. That’s how the different applications share the CPU.

Taking the concept of multitasking and turning it inside out, what if we work on
different parts of the same program at the same time? It’s sort of like making a
baby with nine women in one month. Well, on a computer it can be done!
What if we put in another pipeline? Doing things in parallel speeds things up,
right? What’s really happening is the instructions are getting interleaved in the
pipeline. The advantage is that while one pipeline is waiting for a memory fetch
or something that holds up execution, the other pipeline can take advantage of
the time.

The problem is sorting out the bits of the program that can be run in parallel. It
can be done, and as microprocessors get more complex, they can keep track of
various threads of the program and put the results back together at a merge
point. While complicated, it can and is done all the time in Pentium-class
microprocessors.

10. Hyperthreading

Finally, we are getting to the ultimate


in CPU speedup, superthreading, or
as Intel calls it, HyperThreading, or
HT. Of course, AMD had to match
the acronym, so they call it
HyperTransport technology. It’s all
over their promotional literature. So,
how does it work?

If you have a single thread running,


much of the CPU execution
hardware is sitting idle because it’s
prepared for all sorts of parallel
processing of those big instructions.
While executing a simple instruction,
all the spare stuff is wasted. Running
traditional multithreading doesn’t
help this situation because the two
threads are interleaved. At any step
in the pipeline, only one thread is really executing.

By allowing two threads to intermix at each step, they can take advantage of
slack hardware and get more done by using the facilities of the CPU more
efficiently. The trick is to keep track of which thread is which through the pipeline
even though the two are mixed.

Final Words

So, there you have it. Your program is sliced and diced and even stirred up as it
makes its way through your microprocessor. Techniques like breaking the code
up into threads that can be run separately then put back together works well to
speed things up. The challenge is for the logic of the microprocessor to keep
track of which is which at all times and even to sort out instructions that get out of
order as they wind through your CPU.

The latest microprocessors from Intel and AMD


[http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ADA3200DAA4BP-NB&cat=CPU] have
amazingly complex systems to work on your program code and process it faster
than ever before. No matter if it’s the latest digital photo or video editing, or the
newest 3-D realistic gaming you are doing, a new microprocessor can boost the
performance beyond what you are used to. You can be the Big Kahuna on your
beach with a single- chip microcomputer on your desk.
Tech Tip 61 - Blogging Basics I (How to Read Up on the Latest)
Article by Roy Davis

Web Log. That’s a pretty self-explanatory phrase. A log is contemporary


(meaning written down as it is happening or shortly thereafter) account of
something, be it an epic voyage, a college education or maybe just the daily life
of someone who can’t help writing down their thoughts and feelings. Put it on the
Web and you have a Web Log or “blog.” But, blogs don’t stop there: news,
special events and even the latest deal on a computer can be had via a blog
feed.

1. History Lesson

As with most overused phrases, Web Log


was contracted to Weblog. It wasn’t long
before someone had fun with the term
and broke it down into a sentence, “We
blog.” From then on “to blog” was a verb
and “a blog” was a popular thing to have.
Now that we have a name for it, what is it,
and where did blogging come from?

The urge to post your personal history far


predates the Internet-based blog.
Paintings on cave walls were the first and
included every form of graphic depiction
and writing to this day. Probably the first
network published personal account with
a large following was John Carmack’s
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmac
k) journal. Carmack is the programmer
who wrote the video game Doom and he embedded his log in his Finger file. A
“Finger” file was sort of an electronic business card back in the days of
mainframe computers. John took the Finger file to the extreme as he related his
story with continuing updates. He has since converted to a blog, as has much of
the world.

1. Blogs Today

Blogs have evolved way beyond personal journals. There are many uses for
continually-updated Web pages. News and current events are obvious examples.
But, it doesn’t stop there. Political advocates from left to right have taken to blogs
big-time. In fact, politically-motivated blogs have become a major source of news
as every word of a politician from any extreme is analyzed and turned back
against them.

Another form of blog is the continually-updated commercial presence on the


Web. Instead of a static Web page advertising the company’s wares, a blog can
bring the latest events, sales, and product updates to the attention of interested
customers on a daily basis. Our e-mail inboxes are full of spam, and it’s difficult
to tune e-mail spam filters to let in the information we want while still keeping out
the dreck. Blogs that we select can give us access to our favorite sources and
give us back control of our computers.

2. Exploring Blogs

One way to enjoy reading blogs is to surf


the Web looking for the ones that interest
you. To get started, you’ll want to use a
Blog Directory
(http://www.blogcatalog.com/) or Blog
Search (http://www.technorati.com/).
Even Google has a special blog search function
[http//www.blogsearch.google.com]. The directory is a listing of blog sites by
category or geographic location. You can zero in on the sites that interest you or
just surf around the categories to see what pops up. The blog search allows you
to type in words or phrases and generates a custom list of blog sites to explore.

3. Keeping up Automatically

The fascination with blogs stems from the frequent updates


that operate somewhat like the serial short (cliffhanger)
that preceded the main feature at the movie house of old.
Often, the theater patrons came back the next week to see
the serial no matter what feature was playing.

There is something new almost every time you check a


blog out; the problem is you have to go check them out to
see if there is an update. Well, computer geeks being what
they are, willing to work very hard to develop a time-saving
gimmick or gadget, they came up with the News Aggregator or Blog Reader. I
have my reader set to go get updates every 30 minutes.

4. Scan the Headlines

So, every half hour the reader gets all the updates. The reader does not
download all the blog entries when it updates, it only picks up the title and a
sentence or two of description of the new article. I can quickly scan the titles for
something of interest, and if the title stops my eyes, I can read the description
before clicking on the item. The reader then opens a Web browser window with
the blog entry in it. When I close the browser window, I’m back at the list of titles
and descriptions, ready to find the next exciting nugget of information.

Often, the blog entry is really a teaser to draw readers in. Once the readers are
viewing the blog entry, they are presented with links to other areas of the Web
site. This is a good way to build traffic on your Web site with frequent updates to
events as they unfold.

5. A Blog Reader for Beginners

If you are just getting started at


blogging, try BlogExpress
(http://www.usablelabs.com/produ
ctBlogExpress.html). It’s really
simple to install and the
presentation of the headlines and
descriptions is clean and easy to read. You can download BlogExpress from their
Web site for free. They live off donations, so if you find that it works out for you,
please help them out.
BlogExpress requires that you upgrade to the 1.1 version of the .Net Windows
component before installing. There is a link right on the BlogExpress Web page,
but it goes to a typical Microsoft Web page where I went around in circles trying
to figure out how to download the 1.1 upgrade. Microsoft advised using the
automatic Windows Update feature so I tried that. I finally figured out that I had to
select the 1.1 .Net component from one of the menus on the sidebar to the left of
the screen.

6. Give it a Test Drive

After installation, you are presented with some default news feeds. Chances are
you will want to weed out that list and add some blogs and news feeds of your
own choosing. This is called “subscribing,” and BlogExpress couldn’t make it
easier. Go to the Web page of the blog you want to subscribe to and find the
button or link for RSS or XML . Click and drag the button
to the BlogExpress file tree in the position where you want it to show up. Click the
“Check” button and you have subscribed. Click the “Synchronize All” icon and all
the RSS feeds will be checked for new content.

To review the feeds, click on the branch of the tree on the left window that
attracts your attention. The right window will fill with the headlines and
descriptions. If there is nothing in the right window, it means there have been no
updates to that blog, so pick another one. Comb through the headlines until you
find one you’ve just got to read and double click the headline.

Clicking the headline will open up a browser window to the blog. This browser is
part of BlogExpress, but it acts like a separate program. It’s not Internet Explorer,
though it looks very similar. Browse the page and possibly any links if that tickles
your fancy. One fault I found is that the Go Back arrow (the one on the left) stays
green even if you are on the originating page. In other words, you are already
backed up as far as you can go. To get back to the main BlogExpress window,
close the browser window or otherwise get it out of the way.

7. Don’t Look Behind the Curtain


Though it seems like the smoke and mirrors in the Wizard in Oz, the technology
behind blog readers and news aggregators is pretty simple. It uses much the
same infrastructure as the rest of the Web that you are familiar with. The most
popular protocol is RSS , which can stand for Rich Site Summary,
Really Simple Syndication or several other interpretations, depending on whom
you ask. RSS (a version of XML) comes in several revisions, 2.0 being current.
There is a second popular protocol called Atom . Many blog
readers cover all the variants of RSS and Atom, so it really doesn’t matter much
to the reader.

The RSS file is pretty straightforward, with some meta tags to clue the blog
reader in to the title, the description and the link for the full article. It’s only text so
it’s much simpler than the HTML codes you see in a regular Web page.

Final Words

So, there you have the lowdown on blogs and news feeds. Now, there is no
excuse to be missing an important event or sale any more. Install your blog
reader and let it run in the background while it gathers the headlines and article
descriptions so you can peruse them any time you want. No need for you to have
to go to all your favorite Web sites to keep informed.

Next week, we’ll talk about how you can set up a blog of your own and entertain
the world with your thoughts. It’s easier than you think.

New this week! 12.Jan.06 http://www.techtipsblog.com/


Tech Tip 62 - Starting Your Own Blog (You Can Do It!)
Article by Roy Davis

Last time we talked about how to read a Web log, better known as a “blog.” It’s basically
a Web site that gets updated frequently, usually at least weekly, if not daily or more
often. You can even be notified of the updates automatically so you don’t have to visit
the site to see if there is anything new. There are personal blogs, news blogs, opinion
blogs and even the latest deal blogs. If you haven’t heard, Geeks.com is putting up a
blog so you’ll never miss a limited time bargain again.

1. Who Would Want to Blog?

As I mentioned last time, people who


would have kept a journal of a trip,
an education or even just daily life
have replaced the fancy bound book
of blank pages with a Web log.
Maybe I’m a full-blown exhibitionist
because I’ve got a Web site full of
my photos and little stories about my
life with my family. A real Web site
takes a lot of commitment, including big bucks for Web authoring software and a monthly
fee for the Web hosting.

A blog can satisfy your desire to get your word out without spending hours building a
Web site and with no software except your Web browser on your computer. In fact, you
can run a blog with no computer at all, but I’ll get into that in a future installment.

2. Where to Host Your Blog

Finding a place to host your blog is


easier than you think. Many Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) include blog
hosting as part of their service. It’s
become popular only recently, so check
with your ISP to see if they have added
this feature. If they don’t support blogs,
you might pester them about how
everyone else is doing it. They just might upgrade their service.

Of course, some Web hosting services offer blog hosting for a fee. That seems to be a
bit of overkill, since blogs are mostly text-based and don’t put that much traffic load on
host systems.

If your ISP doesn’t offer blog hosting , you can use one of the free blog hosts. There are
several free services, so shop around for one that suits your needs. While there are a
number to choose from, I decided to use Blogger.com for my blog. They are one of the
big ones and they are free. They have lots of blogs on their site so before you jump in
yourself, you might want to look around to see what others have done with their blogs.
LiveJournal is also extremely popular.

3. How to Get Started

OK, let’s use Blogger.com as an example. Enter the URL www.blogger.com into the
address bar of your browser. You could jump right into starting your own blog, but take a
look at other blogs to get a sense of what a blog looks like in their system.

I also recommend taking their tour by clicking the “Take a Quick Tour” button. That takes
you through a few pages where they explain some of the features they offer, kind of like
reading the outside of a box before buying. It’s a lot easier to use the features if you
know what they are!

4. Fill in the Blanks

Now you are ready to get serious. Click


on the “Create Your Blog Now” button
and get ready to fill in the blanks. Most
of it is pretty simple with questions like
your user name and password that you
can make up. The user name cannot have spaces or punctuation in it.

I used my real name for my Display


Name, but you can also use an alias if
you’d prefer to remain more anonymous.
Don’t forget to check the box to agree with
the Terms of service. You can’t go on
without completing that step. I actually read most of the terms, just to be sure.

5. Make Up Your Title

The next requirement is to create a catchy title for


your blog. Remember, folks will be scanning long
lists of blogs and if your blog title stands out, you
are going to get more traffic. I’m not the greatest
at this advertising stuff so my blog is simply Roy’s
Geek Place.

On that same page, you get to make up your very


own URL. I just pushed the words of my blog title
together and the full URL came out http://roysgeekplace.blogspot.com. If you are an
advanced user, you can set up your blog to be hosted on your own server, but that’s way
too much trouble to deal with. I took advantage of their free hosting.

For security purposes, you have to read a word with squiggly letters and type the letters
into a box. This keeps automated bots from creating blogs and using up the resources
these people have kindly made available.

6. Use a Template for Some Color

Blogging started out as a simple, text-only thing, usually with a typewriter-like font on a
white background. No frills at all. Since most of us are used to staring at a colorful
screen with fancy fonts and graphic renderings for borders, why not let your blog do the
same? Many blog hosts offer templates to help give your blog some eye appeal.

A template is sort of a blank form for you to fill out, but in this case it includes colors and
positioning of the text on the screen. The easy way is to select one of the templates
offered up as part of the blog creation. You can preview the templates that you see in
thumbnail format. Just click on one you like to expand it.

You can change the template later if you wish. If there is a template that you like except
for one or two features, go for it and go back and change those features later. That will
take some HTML coding, but it isn’t that hard. I’ll have to wait for a future installment to
get into that.

7. Spice Your Blog Up with Photos

Did you ever notice that almost all novels have a


photo of the author somewhere on the front or
back cover or maybe over the author’s
biography? People seem to be more comfortable
when they know what the author looks like. Blogs
are no different. Many bloggers post a photo of
themselves on their blog.

It’s easy to get a headshot of yourself with a


digital camera. It’s best to get someone to take
the photo for you, but you can do it with a tripod
and the self-timer, or even just balance the
camera where it points at your face. Don’t try to take a picture of yourself in a mirror-all
you’ll get is a photo of the flash going off.

Don’t worry about trying to crop the photo close around your face. Do that with your
photo editing software. While you are at it, knock down the resolution to something like
200 by 300. That’s plenty for a headshot on a blog page. In fact, make sure the photo fits
in the blog host’s size restriction. I have to stay below 50 Kilobytes at my blog host site.

Each blog host is different, but usually you can upload the photo from your computer or
point the blog host to a copy of it on the Web and the blog host will steal it for your blog.
Of course, there are those who don’t want their own face and will snatch someone else’s
from their Web site; whatever floats your boat.

8. Group Blogs

Like many people, my family is


now spread out from the East
coast to the West. We call
each other on the telephone
occasionally, but the majority
of communication is via e-mail.
That gets complicated because
sometimes family members
don’t copy the original
message, but only make
comments so it’s hard to follow
the ongoing exchange. Also,
one member might rattle on about several subjects and the comments might come back
as a separate message. It’s hard to put the thoughts back together.

I think we are going to jump on the blog bandwagon and set up an extended family blog.
That way we can each interject comments and questions almost like a discussion
around the dinner table. The idea of a group blog works for almost any group, including
teams of people working on a common project separated by distance or even different
shifts at work.

Final Words

Go ahead and start a blog! It’s only going to take you a few minutes to get it going. You
can add to it bit by bit as you have the time. Make sure you send the URL to your family
and friends so they can take a peek. When you have something especially interesting to
say or announce, you can send out an e-mail with the URL again so they can keep up
with your exciting life.

Blogging can be a lot of fun and a valuable communications resource. Simple text
blogging is easy to do, but there’s a lot more available if you want. In future installments,
I’ll get into blogging from your cell phone so you don’t even need a computer to update
your blog! After that, we can delve into tweaking HTML code to really make your blog
special with links to your favorite Web sites and a flashy graphics layout.
Tech Tip 63 - Spice Up Your Blog With Simple Formatting
Article by Roy Davis

Last week, we launched into the world of


blogging with a lesson in starting a blog, or
Web log, from scratch. We even touched on
inserting photos into your blog so the readers
could see who the blogger really is. This time,
we are going to go over some simple
formatting tricks that anyone can and should
use to make their blog site easier to read and
more pleasant to look at.

Then, for instant gratification we’ll look at how


to post to your blog without wading through the screens of your Web browser. You can
simply e-mail a post to your blog. For the ultimate trick, you can send a blog post via
text message from your cell phone. Check out my blog at:
http://www.roysgeekplace.blogspot.com

1. Don’t Look Like a Dummy

One of the best ways to make a bad impression is


to have misspellings in your blog. If you are
handwriting a personal letter, you can cover up bad
spelling with sloppy penmanship. With a Web log,
your spelling is right out there in 12 point type, and
when your fifth grade teacher sees your blog, she
will know she wasted her year with you. She
deserves better than that.

Besides, there is no excuse for spelling errors as most editors, including the ones used
to post to blogs, have a spell check feature. If you just take the time to use it, you can
catch the mistyped word that you know perfectly well how to spell, as well as the words
that you missed in the fifth grade spelling bee.

2. Go Back and Check

After you are finished typing a post, go back and proofread it. I do a lot of writing and I’m
pretty good at it, but I’m still amazed at the errors I find when I reread what I’ve typed,
such as missing or duplicated words, grammatical and spelling errors. At least the
spelling errors are can be addressed right away.

If you have finished a post using the Compose window, just click on the icon with the
check mark. It checks your spelling and allows you to correct it. It works much like the
spelling checker in Word or any similar word processing software you may use.

If you have already posted a piece and want to go back and clean it up, most blog sites
will allow you to edit your old posts. Just click on the Edit button and you are back at the
Compose window where you can run the spell checker. While you are at it, you can add
any of the text improvements we are going to talk about next.

3. Fancy Fonts

Fonts can really change the character of your


blog text. Most people just use the default font
and don’t even think about it, but an easy switch
of fonts can make your text stand out.

At the top of the Compose window, there is a


drop-down box with a selection of fonts, again
just like Word. If you don’t know which font will
suit you, just try them until you are satisfied.
Select some or all of the text and make the font
change. Beware of using too many fonts together as this begins to look like a ransom
note.

One difference between using fonts in


your blog and in a Word document is
that you are limited to the fonts used on
most computers that will view your blog.
In a Word document, the fonts are
carried along in the file so it shows up
the same everywhere. When viewing a
blog, the Web browser must draw on the
locally available fonts and will have to
substitute a font if it doesn’t have the
one called out by the blog page. The
solution to this is to stick with the Web safe fonts offered in the Compose window
because almost everyone has those fonts.

Pick a sans serif font like Arial for a clean and modern look. Sans serif means the letters
don’t have those little bars at the ends of the lines. For a traditional style use a font such
as Times New Roman font. That looks more like text in a book. To give the effect of
dashing off a note on a typewriter, use a font with a fixed-width like Courier font.

4. Punch Up Your Text

Even though the number of fonts in a blog limits you, there are other effects that can
stress a point or attract attention. Select a word or phrase that you want to stand out and
click on the icon with the big “B” for Bold. That will fatten up the lines in the letters and
make the text stand out on the page. For extra impact, you can even increase the font
size for just that word, though that trick changes the line spacing and can look a bit
sloppy.

When quoting foreign words or titles of books or just because you like it, use italics. The
letters will lean over and look special. Use the “I” icon for this type of effect.

Then, there is underlining to attract attention of a phrase. The “U” icon makes a line
under the words, just like when the teacher was grading your papers.

If you get totally carried away, you can apply bold, underline and italics all at the same
time. Your readers might think you are crazed if you do that, but hey-it’s your blog!

5. Make it Colorful

The text effects we just talked about are pretty traditional


and have been used in books for centuries. An effect
that is more popular on computer screens and
supermarket gossip rags is the use of colored text to
punch up a phrase.

Select the text just as you do for the traditional text


effects and click the color icon. Then, you have to select
from a palate of colors. Keep in mind the background of
your blog page when you select colors. Blue text on a
green background is hard to read. Green on blue is even
worse.

Also, keep in mind that colored text needs a little help. I like to use the bold effect to
fatten up the letters that I color to make sure the color punches through the background.
You are trying to emphasize that phrase anyway, so bold and color work well together.

6. E-Mail Posting

There are different methods for getting your words on your blog page. It's not hard to
post to your blog via e-mail. Suppose I'm at my Mom's house where only a dial-up
Internet connection is available and it's really slow going through all the Web pages to
make a post via the Web interface. Mom has her e-mail client going so it's a snap to zip
out an e-mail message that ends up on my blog.
In order to post to my blog via the Web, I had to first set up e-mail posting via the Web
access. My blog site has a Dash Board that controls all the settings. One of the settings
is the e-mail access. I filled in the blanks, which created a special e-mail address for my
blog posts. I have to keep that special address secret so others can't mess with my blog.

Now, I'm at the fringe of the Internet hanging by an e-mail-only thread. I just type in the
special address. The Subject line becomes the title for the post. Then, I just type in the
post itself.

You can use plain text for your post if you want to keep it simple. Or, you can turn on the
HTML feature of your e-mail client, if it has one, and add formatting like bold, fancy fonts
and colored text. Make sure you have the settings of your blog Dash Board set to accept
HTML messages.

7. Going Wireless

If you have a cellular phone that can send text messages to


regular e-mail addresses, then you have a blog-posting device in
your hand. I just posted to my blog with my standard cell phone.
There are drawbacks, but I was using the most basic device.

First, the length of the blog post is severely limited when using
SMS, or Short Message Service (also known as “texting”). I can
usually squeeze three or four short sentences in a single
message. Of course, you can send multiple messages all in a row
and then go back on the Web interface and edit those posts
together into one big entry.

So, when you are standing at the end of the pier watching the
sunset and just have to write something for people to read, you can whip out your cell
phone, tap out a brief message, and post it on your blog. You can instantly update your
blog to follow your every move or mood.

Final Words
We’ve covered some basic instructions for all these blog features. Available features
vary from blog site to blog site, though there are more similarities than differences. By
giving you some general ideas about how to spice up your blog, you can try to do it
yourself and learn by trial and error. But, if you are like me and want to get it right the
first time, read the Tutorial, the Help section and the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
available on your blog site. That’s how I found out about many of the features I didn’t
know blogs had.

For the final installment in this series on blogs, I want to delve into HTML coding. That
way you can modify the template that formats your blog page. You can make your page
unlike any other in the visual appeal department – for better or worse. That will be a bit
more technical, but after all, we are Geeks!
Tech Tip 64 - Customize Your Blog With Some Easy HTML
Article by Roy Davis

We have been exploring how to read a


blog, how to start your own blog, and
how to make your blog more attractive
with some simple formatting tricks. I’m
already getting comments on my blog
about readers who are motivated to
start their own blog. Blogs, or Web
logs, are designed to be super-simple.
Anyone can master a blog.

But, that doesn’t stop us from getting


our hands dirty with customization.
Now, it’s time to bring out the Geek in
us and dig down to the guts of the
thing – the HTML code. Sure, we could drive a stock sedan straight off the showroom
floor, but why do that if you can add some fancy wheels or a hood scoop to make your
vehicle really stand out from the crowd? In this case, your vehicle is your blog and
attracting attention with a snappy screen presence is the name of the game.

Check out my personal blog that I just started for examples from this series:

http://www.roysgeekplace.blogspot.com

1. Under Construction

You have probably noticed that the color


scheme on my blog is kinda funky and things
are shifting around a bit. It used to be all
green and now a lot of blue (my favorite
color) is showing up. That's because I'm
experimenting with tweaking the HTML
template that defines things like the
background color and the default font.

The vast majority of bloggers never fool


around with HTML code and their blogs look
just fine. You have a lot of control over the content and format of your posts, but the
template is the only place you can control the background and the overall arrangement
of content on your blog page.

Since the purpose of this exercise in blogging is to learn all the nuts and bolts, I'm going
to mess with all the details of the template and see what comes of it.

The first thing I did was dump the olive green background in favor of medium slate blue.
I used to have a bedroom with the walls painted that color and I find it very relaxing. Let's
see what else I can customize.

2. Where Did HTML Come From?

First, let’s get our


bearings. HTML, or
Hyper Text Markup
Language, is the code
that makes Web pages
something different.
HTML codes set the font,
color of the background,
and control dozens of
other attributes that
differentiate one Web
page from another. That
same code is used by
blogs, but templates are usually used to gloss over the whole HTML coding thing.

To be fair, I usually whitewash right over the HTML coding on my Web page too. I get
away with that by using a Web page authoring program like Microsoft FrontPage. You
can edit the page using Word-like tools to set the text attributes. FrontPage then
generates the HTML code to make your Web page look the same as what you designed.
The drawbacks are that FrontPage is not free and you are tied to a single computer for
adding to your Web site unless you pop for more copies of FrontPage.

3. Borrowing Color From Web Pages

As I said, your blog page uses


exactly the same coding
language as a Web page, so we
can steal some of the tools used
for Web pages. The first thing to
address is color. We need to set
the color for the background, the
fill, the text color, and even
outlines for photos.

The colors on your screen are


made up of red dots, green dots
and blue dots. If you turn on all the dots to full brightness, it looks white to the eye. If you
turn them all off, then naturally you get black. By varying the brightness of the three
colored dots, you can generate what looks like millions of different colors.

These colors are described by the individual brightness of the three primary colors. The
value can vary from 0 (off) to 255 (full on). The simplest way to describe white is 255,
255, and 255 for full red, green and blue.

It’s more common to see the brightness numbers expressed as hexadecimal numbers.
Hex is base 16 so the counting goes:

0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F

0 in hex is also 0 in our normal decimal numbering system. 255 in decimal translates to
FF in hex. So, white in hex is FFFFFF. This is called Hex 6 notation. Often, you don’t
need such precise control over color so shorthand called Hex 3 is used. The lower order
digit of each color brightness number is thrown away. White then becomes FFF, which is
really slightly off-white, but it’s close enough.

If all this is too complicated to visualize, check out this Web page that has many
examples of colors and various ways to express them:

http://www.webreference.com/html/reference/color/propcolor.html

I like to keep this Web page open while I’m fiddling with my template so I can instantly
visualize the color palate I’m poking in.

4. Hacking the Code

Finally, we get around to actually


changing some HTML code. On
Blogger.com, it’s easy to find
your template. There is a tab on
the page where you compose
posts, so instead of writing things
that people will read, click the
Template tab and write things the
computer will read – the
instructions for the format of your
blog.

It’s pretty scary looking stuff when you first see it, but the beauty of working with an
existing template is that you don’t have to know very much at all to make some
impressive changes in the way your blog looks.

I wanted to change the text color from black to a dark blue. The original line of code was:

color: #000;
That’s expressed in the Hex 3 format. Actually a single zero would do also, but it’s easier
to visualize when each color is represented. I changed the text color to a rich dark blue
by putting in some blue while leaving the red and green at zero.

color: #008;

5. One Step At a Time

You want to make only one change at a time,


save the code and preview your blog to see
what you changed. Then, you can decide if
you want to keep the change or go back to the
way it was. If you restrain yourself and carefully evaluate each change, you can learn
HTML code without ever cracking a book!

6. A Trick for Experimenters

When you are just learning, it’s nice to be able to experiment with new HTML
commands. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell what happened and you want to remove the new
code you just wrote. Or, you may just want to remove an existing command to see what
it doesn’t do.

Instead of deleting the unwanted code, you can just comment it out. HTML, as well as
most programming languages, allows you to surround sections of text with special
characters and what is inside the special marks is ignored. The purpose is to allow
comments to be inserted in the code so you can remember why it is the way it is.

You can use this comment capability to turn things off. In HTML, the open comment
characters are the forward slash and star. To close a comment, use the star and then
the forward slash. Here’ an example:

/* This text is ignored and will not affect your page */

Another trick I use all the time is to make a copy of an existing line of code and comment
it out. I then fiddle with the copy of the line like this:

/* text-align: left; */
text-align: center;

The original code called for the text to be aligned at the left margin. I wanted to try
putting it in the center of the column so I made a copy and commented out the original. I
guessed that the code word would be center, and I was right. If I am sure I want to
keep the change, I can just delete the original line. If I want to revert to the old format, I
can delete the new line, remove the comment characters, save, and I’m right back where
I started.

7. Call For Help

In this short piece, I certainly don’t have room to talk about


all the ins and outs of HTML coding, but I wanted to get you
started. You don’t have to go to the bookstore and buy a
thick tome on HTML coding. The help you need is right under your mouse button finger.
If you go to Blogger.com and click on the Help section, you will find more details on
modifying your template than you can digest in a week. I’m sure your blog site has
similar help available.

Pick a feature you want to change and look through their long list of template
modifications that they have detailed out for you. Start with simple things like changing
the color of the background. You’ll be amazed how one line of code can make such a big
difference in the appearance of your blog page.

Go after the obvious things like the font and color of the title. Insert a custom graphic to
truly make the page your own. Don’t get too wild and remember that dark text on a light
background is easier to read – newspapers are still black text on white for a reason.

Final Words

I hope this piques your interest in learning more about how Web and blog pages are put
together and that you put that learning to work making your blog different from the next
guy’s. I don’t live in a house that looks like the neighbor’s, so why should my blog?

Be colorful. I am totally turned off by blogs that have tiny white text on an all black
background. I run across way too many of them and usually just go right on to the next
one. Black is just boring unless you have some other color graphic that just has to be set
off with a dark background.

Take it one step at a time and make copies of the original code so you can always back
up to remove an “oops.” Also, remember that if you totally screw it up, you can apply a
new stock template and be all the way back to where you began: no harm, no foul.
Tech Tip 65 - Geek Gadgets for Your Sweetie
Article by Roy Davis

Let’s put aside hard-core blogging with HTML and talk of the intricacies
of Pentiums and Athlons to talk about something more fun. Gadgets!
All geeks like gadgets. Even Bill Gates has a multimillion-dollar house
full of gadgets that he and his wife love to show off when they
entertain.

With Valentine’s Day coming soon, we don’t have to spend that kind of
money to show someone we care. And we don’t have to stick to
gadgets only a geek would love. There are plenty of goodies that a
geek could give to someone who doesn’t even like computers. It
doesn’t matter if it’s Valentine’s Day or the anniversary of your first
kiss, a personal gift is something special.

1. Photos Close to the Heart

The old fashioned way to get your loved one


to carry your picture was to give him or her a
locket to wear on a chain around their neck.
The photo would be tiny. About all you could
fit in would be a close-up of your face.

A modern girl might not go for the chain


around the neck thing, but always carries
another kind of chain – a key chain. How about combining a key chain
with a digital photo viewer?

Well, Geeks.com is right there with the latest gadget, the My Photo
Digital Photo Frame Key Chain
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DIGITAL-
PHOTOFRAME&cat=CON> and it’s not going to break the bank. This
gadget has a full one inch screen, like going from an old TV to a wide-
screen when compared to a locket. Also, the locket carried one or
maybe two tiny photos. The Digital Photo Frame shows up to 26 digital
photographs.

Sit down at your computer with your photo


editor and comb through your collection of
digital pictures for those special ones that
bring you closer together. Do some tight
cropping to maximize the detail. Hook up
the USB cable to your computer and
download the photo files to the digital
viewer. Now, you have a personalized gift
that goes far beyond a box of chocolates.

2. Signpost to Your Heart

If your loved one is young or young at heart,


you can deliver your love note on something
they could wear. Sure, you could buy a
custom printed tee shirt with a message
professing your love, but you only get one
shot at it. Plus, your loved one wouldn’t
want to wear it more than about once a
week.

For geeks, there is a better solution, one


that can be worn every day and still look
hip. It’s a Programmable Scrolling LED Chrome Belt Buckle
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=LED-
BELTBADGE&cat=GDT> that would look great with jeans or even a
belted skirt. The bright blue LEDs make the message readable in any
light.

With six different messages


available, you will have lots more
to say. Each message can be up
to 256 characters so you would
have plenty of room for, “Roses
are red, Violets are blue, I got
this buckle at Geeks, To show I love you.” Use your geek skills to
program in the messages with the on-board buttons.
3. Dreaming of You

If you want to be more subtle than


a bright, gleaming, scrolling sign,
but show your love that you are
dreaming of them and care about
their health, how about a Mist of
Dreams Table Lamp
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp
?invtid=SG-40B1W&cat=GDT> with
relaxing blue LED illumination?

The lamp sits on a desk or near a workspace and generates a mist of


moisture that replaces the humidity robbed by indoor winter heating.
The anions produced in the process promote health – and it looks cool,
too. Your sweetie will be left with their chin in their palm watching the
mist boil out of the dream lamp and thinking of how special you are to
think of such a gadget.

4. Your Burning Desire

What is more romantic than an


evening surrounded by the glow
of candles? Maybe you cook a
special meal, put some soft tunes
to play on the computer sound
system and turn out all the lights.
Then, light up some candles and
enjoy the warm atmosphere.

Real candles can be a problem.


Dorm rules may preclude them.
Having lots of drapes and burning candles would not be a good idea.
Geeks has a totally safe alternative, the LED Candle
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=LED-CANDLE&cat=GDT>
that includes its own plastic cup to spread the light.

Since an LED generates the glow, there is no flame and almost no


heat, so even if one of these gets knocked over, you don’t have to
worry about starting a fire, except maybe in your lover’s heart. And to
be a true geek, analyze the operating cost and you will find that the
batteries to run the LED Candle are cheaper than burning real candles!
5. Give Something to Remember You By

What if your loved


one is past the
wearing jeans with
flashing messages
stage, (say like a
grandmother), but
you still want to
send a
personalized
message? How about making a video of you and your family to send
off to grandma? She might not even have a computer to play it on, but
no matter because you can get her a DVD player to plug into her
television.

I’m sure grandmother has a library of old soap operas on video


cassette, so you don’t want to cut them off. How about a combination
DVD player and VHS player in one unit? The Progressive Scan
DVD+VCR Combo <http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=XBV-
443-R&cat=CON> is just the thing. This deck will even play music CDs
including MP3 and WMA. If you are not up to directing a video
production, put your still photos on a CD-R and grandma can watch
them on her television using this gadget.

6. That’s Not All That’s Burning

Then, to make the DVD itself, you need a DVD


burner to install in your computer. The LG Double
Layer 16X DVD+/-RW Drive with LightScribe
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-
GWA-4166B-DO-N&cat=DVD> is the perfect
addition to your computer to make personalized
gifts. First, it can make single or dual layer DVDs
so you can use inexpensive media for short
subjects or capture full definition feature length
movies if you want.

The really cool feature of this gadget is that with


LightScribe DVD Media,
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=95116-
DT&cat=DVD, you can produce professional looking
DVD labels that are burned right into the top
surface of the disc. After recording the video portion
of the DVD, you flip the disc over and put it back in the LightScribe-
enabled drive. With free software that you can download from the
Web, you can wrap custom text around the hub of the DVD using any
font on your computer. There are stock background images available,
but for a truly personalized gift, use one of your own photos cropped
to fit on the disk surface. The preview will help you adjust the image
to fit just the way you want.

7. Take a Romantic Trip

I’m taking my wife to La Paz


for Carnival this year. It’s like
Mardi Gras only more
intimate and up-close in Baja
California. We’ll have a
seaside hotel right in the
middle of the action for the
price of a Motel 8 State-side.
Of course, Geeks.com has all
sorts of geeky gadgets that
make travel more enjoyable.
They didn’t pass up on the
basics: an Overland Travel
Duffle Wheeler <http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=6314-
29&cat=CAR&cpc=CLR> so you can lug your stuff while still holding
hands with your “significant other.”

The Duffle Wheeler has lots of room in several zippered compartments


for clothes, swimsuits or whatever you take on a romantic mini-
vacation. The handle telescopes so you can walk comfortably upright
and the Duffle Wheeler moves smoothly due to the in-line skate
wheels. It has a mesh pocket on the outside so you can keep your MP3
player handy for the trip. The feature I like over a standard suitcase is
that the duffle collapses so you can slip it under a bed for storage
instead of taking up valuable closet space.

8. Share the Love Songs

I mentioned taking an MP3 player along on your romantic trip. It


wouldn’t be very romantic with you sitting there blasting some rock
tunes while your honey listens to the lout sitting in the next seat.
Share your tunes with a Logitech Playgear Share Audio Splitter
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=980378-0403-
DT&cat=CBL> that is compatible with most digital music players with a
1/8 inch (3.5 mm) jack.

Of course, to do that you need a pair of


headphones, so why not get a matching set
of Altec Lansing AHP 512 Headphones
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=
AHP512I-DT&cat=SPK> to share for about
the same price as a dozen roses at the
supermarket. The larger ear cups with soft
padding will help keep out the noise of the
airliner – and that person trying to hit on
your travel partner while you listen to tunes
to get you in the mood for when you arrive.
The drivers use a powerful Neodymium
magnet for more efficiency so your MP3
player can power two headsets loud enough to overcome airplane
noise.

Final Words

Think about what the people you love enjoy and how the gift of a
geeky gadget can fit into their lifestyle. Many geeky gadgets can be
customized to make them truly personal, and some Geek gifts can
even be shared so you too can enjoy the benefits of your high-tech
shopping.
Tech Tip 66 - Take the PCI Express for Great Video
Article by Roy Davis

One of the hot new technologies is something called PCI


Express, a new I/O (Input/Output) bus architecture that
is the first big step in this direction in at least a decade.
The most evident performance measure of our
computers is the speed that detailed graphics are
updated. PCI Express, also known as PCIe, gives this performance a boost way past
anything that was available before.

1. What’s an I/O Bus?

Most of the hardware that makes your computer a computer is actually on a single
Motherboard <http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BOXD955XBKLKR-
DT&cat=MBB>. It has the CPU (Central Processing Unit) in the form of a single chip
microprocessor such as an Athlon 64
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ADA3500DAA4BW-N&cat=CPU>, and the
main memory that we usually call RAM
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=KVR333D4R25_1G-DT&cat=RAM> for
Random Access Memory. These two items handle most of the actual computing
functions and have a very high-speed bus between them.

But, raw computing isn’t much fun, especially when it comes to video games and
simulations. You need some eye-dazzling color graphics to show off what your computer
can do. The circuits that generate those graphics are usually on a plug-in gadget called
a graphics adapter or Video Card <http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=VX700-
512P&cat=VCD&cpc=DSP>. The video card connects to the motherboard through a
connector with lots of pins. It takes all those pins to carry the I/O bus with many data bits
and address lines.

Generally, the CPU puts an address on the address part of the I/O bus to point at a
particular I/O address location. These addresses are a lot like memory addresses except
that instead of a RAM device, it’s an input or output device that is being fingered. Then,
the CPU either sends data down the data bus part of the I/O bus or requests that the I/O
device drive data back from that direction. Data goes out and data comes in – that’s why
it’s called an Input/Output bus.

2. A Little History of the PC I/O Bus

At the dawn of the PC era, we had the ISA (Industry


Standard Architecture) bus that moved 16 bits of data at
a time and was clocked at 8.33 Megahertz. The CPUs
back then were 16 bit affairs, so the ISA bus was just
perfect. The connector had fewer connections. Life was
simple back then, but our computers were slow.

In the early nineties, CPUs expanded to 32 bits, so the


I/O bus had to grow up, too. The PCI (Peripheral
Component Interconnect) bus has twice as many
address and data pins, which made the connector a lot
more complex with the pins squeezed closer together. The clock frequency took a leap
to 33 Megahertz, so circuit routing was trickier and early PCI boards worked only with
particular motherboards.

3. The AGP Video Bus Makes 3-D Possible

At the end of the nineties, the AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port, also called Advanced
Graphics Port) special purpose video bus came about. It’s a 32 bit bus like its
predecessor. The PCI bus was still used as the basic control interface to the video card,
but the AGP handled most of the data transfers for 3-D video processing.

Since the AGP was dedicated to video processing, they took liberties to change it often
and it was difficult keeping up with which video card worked with which motherboard.
The first version of AGP is known as AGP 1X. It doubled the PCI clock rate and moved
266 Megabytes per second with 3.3 Volt digital signals.

AGP proceeded through AGP 2X, 4X, and even 8X. The data rate stepped up to 533
MB/sec, then 1066 MB/sec and finally 2133 Megabytes per second. As the speed went
up, the digital signals when from 3.3 Volts, to 1.5 Volts to 0.8 Volts. There was even a 64
bit version called AGP 64.

4. PCI Express Combines and Simplifies

As I mentioned, when AGP came along, it did not do away with the PCI connection to
the video card. AGP was used for high-bandwidth data movement while the PCI bus
pulled the strings to control the video card. The need for speed was not the only reason
for PCI Express, though it did immediately double what AGP 8X could do performance-
wise. Computer users want full-screen, full-motion video with 3-D rendering, and PCI
Express has the bandwidth to pull it off.

One of the drawbacks to AGP is that it is a unidirectional bus. Data can flow in both
directions. Unfortunately, it can only attain the 8X speed in one direction. In the other
direction, it’s more like 1X. PCI Express simplifies things by using two separate buses,
one for upstream and one for downstream data transfers. Not only does this eliminate
the time wasted while switching direction, data can be flowing in both directions at the
same time. That means data can be moving at 16X or about 4 Gigabytes per second in
both directions. That’s a whole heap of data bouncing around!

5. Lines Turn Into Lanes

All of the PC data busses before PCI Express used a standard parallel data bit design.
The ISA bus had 16 bits of data and 16 bits of address. That meant there were 16 wires
carrying data and 16 more wires handling the address bits. When the I/O bus grew to 32
bits, the number of wires and the associated pins on the connectors doubled.

One of the problems with all these wires carrying high-speed data is something called
skew. When the address is put on the address bus, you have to wait for all 32 bits to be
at the right logic state before going on to the next step. When the data is put on the data
bus, you have the same problem. Even minor variations in the length of the copper
traces (the wires) on the circuit board can introduce skew and the clock rate has to be
reduced to get the device to operate reliably.
PCI Express replaced the parallel bus with a series of serial buses. Instead of 32 data
bits all clocked at the rate of the slowest bit, it has up to 32 lanes clocked at the highest
rate each line can handle. Think of it like a relay race of four competing teams and four
legs in the race. In the parallel AGP model at the end of each leg, all of the runners
would have to wait for the slowest one to arrive before taking off on the second leg. At
each hand-off of the baton, all teams have to wait for the slowest runner to make it there.
With PCI Express, the signals are sent each at their own clock rate. When a runner
hands off the baton, the next runner on his team can immediately go. The individual
runners are not any faster, but by removing the coordination time at each handoff point,
the overall process is sped up.

6. Say Goodbye to the North and South Bridges

Up until now, most PC motherboards had


two major chips on them other than the
microprocessor. These are the Northbridge
and the Southbridge chip sets. The
Northbridge manages data transactions
between the CPU, the RAM, and the video
card. The Southbridge funnels data to and
from all the rest of the devices connected to
the I/O bus. Northbridge does high-speed
data movement while the Southbridge deals
with the slower moving I/O.

PCI Express deals with the high


bandwidth/low bandwidth problem in a
much more elegant way. Notice above I
said up to 32 lanes. The number of lanes for
an I/O device can vary from 1 all the way up to 32, doubling every time. That means
there are I/O configurations for 1X, 2X, 4X, 8X, 16X and 32X. Slower devices can use
1X or 2X. For ripping performance, like a video card, 16X or 32X does a better job. Even
the size of the connector varies from very short for the 1X interface up to a much longer
32X connector. What is really mind blowing is that different speed cards can, within
limits, be plugged into different size PCI Express slots!

7. Make the Hardware Simple!

To abandon the legacy of PCI and AGP must require some huge advantages, and PCI
Express has them. It’s too bad that they named it PCI Express because that sounds like
an evolutionary change, but PCI Express throws out the whole concept of the I/O bus
and replaces it with something very revolutionary. As I mentioned, the switch from a
parallel bus to lanes, which are really a bundle of serial buses, made the timing and
routing of signals much easier for the hardware designer. Another advantage is that the
I/O bus is scalable from one lane (1X) for simple and slower devices like a USB
controller all the way to 32X for the power-hungry speed demons, such as a high
performance video card. The simple devices only need a few wires run to them, saving
circuit board space and many pins on the IC packages.

8. Keep the Software


Even though PCI Express is a revolutionary improvement in PC hardware, it is
transparent to the software that runs on it. Yes, you need to replace both the
Motherboard <http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P5WD2-DT&cat=MBB> and all
the plug-in Adapter Cards <http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=100714400-
DT&cat=VCD> to convert to PCI Express, but the same operating system (Windows XP,
Linux, etc.) can run on the new configuration.

9. Save the Juice

Our laptops are a marvel of energy-saving ingenuity, since they


have to run on a battery and battery life is one thing we value in
a small, portable computer. Even our desktop machines have to
pay attention to power savings, so we don’t need too many fans
to keep them cool. For the simple I/O devices in your computer,
they only need one bus driver for PCI Express 1X instead of 32
for the old PCI bus. That saves a lot of power. Even the faster
devices can turn off lanes when they are not busy and conserve
energy that way.

Final Words

If you are thinking about a new gaming machine or an upgrade to your old faithful box,
check out the offerings of PCI Express motherboards and video cards before spending
money on older AGP models. You have to choose between sticking with the older
technology, or making the leap to the new way of doing things.

Yes, many of the new PCI Express motherboards have PCI slots to accommodate older
adapter cards, but not for video. You pretty much have to match both the motherboard
and video card to have PCI Express performance. That means there are bargains in
high-end AGP motherboards and video cards as existing stocks are flushed out in favor
of PCI Express. On the other hand, the PCI Express-based machine will carry you
farther into the future.
Tech Tip 67 - High Resolution Audio
Article by Roy Davis

When it comes to your computer monitor, the term high-resolution is easy to understand.
1,600 by 1,200 pixels on the screen have a lot finer detail than the old 640 by 480. 24-bit
color has millions of shades, where primitive color PC displays had only a total of 16
colors.

Audio, be it for music, music videos or movies, can benefit from high-resolution also.
Digital audio has higher or lower resolution too, though the difference is a little harder to
explain. We’ll go though it here and soon you’ll be the expert on high-resolution audio in
your crowd.

1. Audio Before Digital

The old analog audio recording industry was full of different formats with all different
sizes of discs and recording speeds of 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM. We had tons of gadgets
to clean our records and rid our sound of the clicks and pops that dust causes. Getting
an LP out of the cover, on to the turntable, and the tone arm lowered onto the disc
without scratching it was a high art.

Audiotape came in reel-to-reel, 8-track and audiocassette, again with different recording
speeds and an alphabet soup of noise reduction schemes like Dolby-A, B, C, S and HX
Pro. Dust that flaked off the tape would gum up the transport mechanism and the tape
would jam, usually destroying the sound quality for that piece of tape.

Unfortunately, music signals in an analog form are subject to all sorts of degradation.
Electrical circuits introduce noise and hum. The recording medium itself will roll off the
high frequencies or introduce variation in the pitch. Magnetic tape is especially bad at
distorting the signal and adding noise, which is why Mr. Dolby got very rich with his noise
reduction tricks. Digital audio avoids all this, but of course there are other issues to deal
with.

2. Compact Disc, the Audio Standard

Researchers at Philips had been working


with optical discs for recording movies for
some time when they shifted their
attention to an audio-only disc. At first,
they tried analog recording methods like
their video discs, but finally decided to
use PCM, a digital audio format
previously used for long distance
telephone links. PCM stands for Pulse
Code Modulation, a very simple digital
system where the audio is sampled at a
constant rate and the samples
represented by digital numbers. There is
no compression, just the raw samples.

Phillps brought Sony on board and they put together the digital audio standard that is still
the most-used audio format for commercial music sales. They called it the Compact
Disc, which we all shorten to CD. Since straight PCM is used, they picked the format to
squeeze as much music as possible on the disc while maintaining adequate fidelity.

3. Sampling Theory

In order to understand digital audio specifications, we’ll have to define digital sampling
theory. The most basic thing we need to get under our belt is the concept of converting
analog music signals into digital. That’s called sampling. The electrical signal that
represents music is a nice smooth wave that follows the sound pressure waves that
come from a singer, or an instrument, or the combination of both.

4. Breaking Up Is So Hard to Do

If we use an analog meter to follow the


music signal, the needle would swing
smoothly back and forth with the rise and
fall of the waves. What if we use a digital
meter and quickly write down the numbers,
in essence, taking many numerical samples
of the waveform? It turns out that if we take
samples at a high rate, the mass of
numbers will accurately represent the audio
waveform.

How fast is that rate? A researcher named Nyquist figured out that if the sampling rate
were at least twice as high as the highest frequency signal to be digitized, then the
sampled digital signal would accurately represent the analog signal. Since the highest
frequency most human ears can hear is 20 Kilohertz,
the designers of the Compact Disc decided to use a
sampling rate of 44.1 Kilohertz.

Though theoretically they could have used 40


Kilohertz, there are some practical problems that
require filtering, and they need a little room for the
filter roll-off, so they selected 44.1 Kilohertz. We’ll get
back to this issue of the filters and picking a sample
rate that is just barely enough.

5. All the little pieces

Compact Discs have just barely enough sampling rate to capture the entire audio
spectrum. The other issue is the number of bits of resolution to represent the amplitude
of the signal. If you only listen to AM radio where the music is loud all the time, you
would happy with very few bits in your audio
samples. But, if you want to listen to exciting
music that is loud sometimes and very soft
when it needs to be, then you want more
detailed samples, which means more bits.

At the time the CD was being designed, the


audiocassette was one of the most popular
recorded music formats. The ratio of the
loudest music to the softest was about 45
decibels, or dB. That’s more than a factor of
20,000 from the lowest to the highest
amplitude, which seems like a lot, but the
human ear has an amazing ability to discern
a huge range of loudness. Even in a noisy car, the dynamic range heard on cassettes, or
ratio of softest to loudest, bothers me. There was just too much hiss. The best noise
reduction (Dolby and others) managed to stretch the dynamic range was up to 60 or 65
dB, up a factor of 100 and a great improvement, but when stopped at a traffic light, the
hiss was still evident.

The PCM audio encoding that the Compact Disc designers copied could achieve a 35
dB dynamic range with only eight bits of resolution. But, they played tricks with the bit
values to stretch the dynamic range at the expense of fidelity. Since 35 dB was
obviously not enough, and digital circuits like to come in multiples of 8, the designers
picked the next increment up, that being 16 bits. With 16 bits of equal step size, they had
96 dB of dynamic range, which at the time was much better than any other recording
medium, including the professional analog tape decks in recording studios.

6. The Bad Old Days

In 1982 when the CD was introduced, we were used to the hiss of magnetic tape and the
clicks and pops of LP gramophone records. The CD was such a huge improvement that
we assumed that it was perfect. Many young people today have never even heard an LP
played, so CD digital music is their frame of reference. It’s far better than what we used
to have, but it is still not even close to perfect.
7. Higher Expectations

Why would we want a higher sampling frequency than 44.1 Kilohertz and more than 16
bits of dynamic range? Because we are crazy about absolutely perfect sound! More and
more we listen through earphones or 100 Watt car stereo systems where the noise floor
of 16 bit audio is bothersome and the harshness of the sharp cutoff filters for the 44.1
Kilohertz sampling irks us.

The dynamic range is pretty easy to understand, with the background noise level very
low and the loud peaks very high. But, the sampling rate/cutoff filter thing takes a little
more explanation. We are trying to record the audio spectrum from 20 Hertz to 20
Kilohertz with a sampling rate of only 44.1 Kilohertz. That means during recording,
signals above 20 Kilohertz have to be sharply attenuated or they end up causing digital
artifacts down in the audible portion of the frequency band. In fact, many commercial
CDs roll off most sounds above 15 Kilohertz to avoid the distortions of the cutoff filters.

On playback, you have a similar situation with filtering at the band edge. There are filters
that can do the sharp cutoff, but a side effect of the sharp filters is phase shifts where
different audible frequencies are delayed more than others. The effect is harshness to
the sound that is hard to pinpoint, or even to measure with simple instruments, though
sophisticated lab equipment can show the presence of phase shifts.

8. Six is More than Two

In addition to our increased demand as


consumers for higher quality audio, with many of
us having at least some kind of basic home
theater setup, we’ve also become accustomed to
the immersive audio experience of “surround
sound”, or sound presented over more than just
two (stereo) “discrete” (individual, independent)
channels. Recording engineers and record
producers experimented with quadraphonic, or
four-channel, sound in the 60’s and 70’s, but it
required expensive, specialized equipment on
both the recording (studio) and especially
playback (consumer) ends, and never really
caught on.

While Compact Discs offered audio quality better than anything previously available,
because of technological limitations, there was only so much data (music) you could fit
on a single disc, limiting developers to two-channel, stereo audio.

With the advent and rapid consumer adoption of DVD, all of that changed. Because of
the huge increase in the amount of data that can be squeezed onto a single disc (up to
8.5 Gigabytes now on one Double Layer DVD, compared to ~700 Megabytes on a CD),
there’s room for not only lots of high-resolution video and high-fidelity audio, there’s
room for several more discrete audio channels, as well – as many as six or more.
A typical “5.1” home theater surround sound configuration includes two stereo channels
(front sides), a center channel, two rear side channels, and a dedicated LFE (Low
Frequency Encoding, or subwoofer) channel (the “.1”).

Because of this, some artists are beginning to consider mere CD quality, stereo
recordings as “giveaway-quality” audio, and are releasing new music on DVDs encoded
with audiophile-preferred “dts” (Digital Theater System) digital 5.1 surround sound.

9. More and Faster

The solution to problems with phase shifts and distortion is simple: more bits of
resolution to produce more dynamic range and a higher sampling rate to avoid the sharp
filters required by a low sampling rate. The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS
PCI Sound Card is a perfect example of high-end, high-resolution audio equipment for
your computer. It has state-of-the-art 24-bit data paths for a dynamic range of 109 dB,
13 dB better than the 96 dB of CD audio. Since dB is a logarithmic scale, 13 dB
translates into a noise floor 20 times lower.

The sampling rate has been cranked to 192 Kilohertz, which allows for a very simple and
non-distorting cutoff filter. For those with younger ears that can hear past 20 Kilohertz,
this higher sampling rate expands the frequency response. Even for older people with
more limited high frequency hearing, the improvement is evident in a smooth phase
response down to lower frequencies and fewer digital artifacts (think of an artifact as the
digital version of a speck of dust on a record).

10. Budget Sonic Excellence

You don’t have to break the bank to have a big step up in audio quality. Even an
inexpensive internal sound card like the Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit PCI Sound
Card has specs way beyond Compact Disc capability. You get the 24-bit data path for
the lower noise floor and more headroom for recording. The sampling rate goes up to 96
Kilohertz, which is still a step up from the CD class.

The 96 dB dynamic range of 16-bit CD quality is fine if the program material has been
carefully recorded and processed to fit. If you are doing your own recording, the
additional dynamic range of 24 bits really comes in handy by allowing more headroom.
You don’t want to have music peaks clip, so backing down a bit on the volume allows
more space at the top. With the lower noise floor, the low volume is not a problem. Even
this bargain basement sound card has the guts to give you this level of performance.

Final Words

Compact Disc digital audio broke through the barrier to high quality sound. Now that the
restrictions of analog recording media are behind us, we expect more sonic depth to our
music and sound tracks.

We can have the loud peaks and the quiet passages without intruding noise or hiss with
24 bit dynamic range. Boosting the sampling rate for both recording and playback opens
up the distortion-free frequency range to the full spectrum of hearing. It doesn’t matter if
you are building a killer PC-based sound system for the home theater, or just outfitting
your home office machine to record your old LPs on the side, there is a sound card with
advanced performance for you.
Tech Tip 68 - Step Up to Double layer DVD
Article by Roy Davis

In Tech-Tip Number 7, Mr. J. Kohrs explained the alphabet soup of DVD formats.
Double layer DVD writers and the blank discs for them were just hitting the market then
so he didn’t have much to say about the latest and largest-capacity optical disc system.
Since then, DL drives and media have popped up all over at decent prices so it’s time to
dig a little deeper.

That last sentence is a bit of a pun on the whole double layer thing because it works by
burying your data a little deeper into the disc. We’ll discuss why double layer is so
exciting, and when you can economize by using the less expensive single layer discs.

1. Refresh on How DVDs Store Data

Most explanations of how optical discs work


start with an allusion to LP records with a track
that spirals across the face of the disk and a
pickup the follows the track to extract the data
stored there. Unfortunately, the flat disc and the
spiral are about the only things in common.

Optical discs like CD-ROM and DVDs are made


up of a clear plastic disc with a layer of very thin
metal buried just under the surface of the
plastic. The track is actually molded into the
plastic, a thin metal layer is laid over the plastic,
and the whole thing is sealed up with a clear lacquer finish.

2. Not Grooves: A Trail of Bumps

LP records are easy to visualize because they use a V-shaped


groove that forms the track. The sharp point of the pickup fits
down in the groove and the groove wall pushes the pickup to keep
it tracking the spiral. Optical discs are completely different, with a
laser light focused into the spiral track of bumps. An optical sensor
picks up the reflections of the bumps and electronic tracking
circuits command tiny motors to move the pickup to keep it
aligned with the track.
Notice I said track and not tracks? There is a single track that starts at the inside near
the center hole and spirals out, just the opposite of the LP record. It’s not concentric
tracks like a hard drive or floppy disk. The disk could be any size up to the maximum of
120 millimeters, about 5 inches. There are smaller optical discs available, all the way
down to business card-sized with only a few dozen Megabytes of storage.

Speaking of tracks and dimensions, they pack almost 8 miles of data in that single track.
The double layer DVD disc has about 15 miles of storage track. That means the track
has to be wound pretty tight with a pitch of only 0.74 micrometers (millionths of a meter)
between them. That takes some pretty precise tracking!

3. Ones and Zeros Become Lands and Bumps

Along the track, there are


flat reflective areas called
lands. This is really just
the non-bumped part of
the disc surface. Then,
there are the non-
reflective bumps. A flat
reflective area represents
a binary 1, while a non-
reflective bump is a binary
0. The DVD drive shines
a laser at the surface of
the DVD and can detect
the reflective areas and
the bumps by the amount
of laser light they reflect. The optical pickup converts the reflections into 1’s and 0’s to
extract digital data from the disc.

This describes how commercially-pressed audio CDs, CD-ROMs and DVD movies work.
They are read-only devices with the simplest construction and are the easiest to explain.
A recordable disc, however, also needs to allow the drive to write data onto the disc.

In order for a recordable DVD-R or DVD+R disc to work, there must be a way for a laser
to create a non-reflective area on the disc. These discs have an extra layer that is a dye
that can be changed by shining a strong laser beam on it. On a blank recordable disc,
the entire surface of the disc is reflective. The laser can shine through the dye and
reflect off the metal layer. When the drive writes data to the disc, the laser heats up the
dye layer and changes its transparency, which is the equivalent of a non-reflective
bump.

4. The Trick of Double layer

Now we know how a single layer DVD works, both the prerecorded type and the ones
you can burn at home. Just how the heck do they put two layers of data on one side of
the disc? It would be real easy to say magic at this point, but the real explanation is
pretty simple.
Think about how when you walk up to a window with a screen and look out that you see
the scene outside and don’t even see the screen. It’s close to your face so it’s out of
focus and you don’t even notice it is there. If you back up a little and force your eyes to
focus on the screen, it pops right out and you can see it and the scene outside is all a
blur.

Double layer DVDs pull a similar trick. There is only one reflective layer, but there are
two layers of dye where the actual data is stored. The lens in the pickup focuses the
beam on the top layer to read the first bunch of data, and then the lens focuses the
beam on the bottom layer and sees right through the top layer. Because the top layer is
out of focus, the data stored there just disappears and the bottom layer is read instead.

All that the build up and detailed explanation to find out it’s a simple trick of optics that
even your own eyeballs can do!

5. So What’s the Benefit?

When recordable DVD media first hit the market, it hadn’t grown up yet and capacity
wasn’t too much bigger than CD-R. As DVD-R and DVD+R came of age, the capacity of
a single-sided disc settled on 4.7 Gigabytes. That was enough room for a two-hour
medium resolution compressed movie. It’s also a
handy size for normal backups of your hard drive
or all the digital photos from your vacation even if
you shot them all at the high quality mode.

But, what if you want to record a truly high


definition movie? It won’t fit in 4.7 Gigabytes.
Even a medium definition movie won’t fit if it
extends past two hours. How many movies come
with a separate disc for the extra features? It’s a
pain to have to get out of the easy chair to
change discs. The double layer DVD solves this
by having 8.5 Gigabytes of storage without
having to flip the disc.

6. What Do I Need?

Naturally, older DVD drives don’t have the mechanism to switch focus between the two
levels of a double layer disc. The pickup has to be physically moved to change the focus
point from top to bottom, so you need a drive with this built in. The LG 16x Double Layer
DVD±RW/DVD-RAM IDE Drive is typical and attractively priced. Computer drives that
can read double layer usually also write double layer and that’s the case here. Be aware
that double layer DVDs have to be written at the 4X speed as opposed to the 16X for
single layer discs.

7. Blank DVDs Are a Bargain

CD-R media are really inexpensive these days, with recordable DVDs being a little more
expensive. But, are they? A single layer DVD-R or DVD+R can hold as much as seven
CD-Rs. That means that if a DVD is less than seven times more expensive, it is actually
cheaper than a CD-R for those large data storage tasks. They are also a lot more
convenient than shuffling a stack of CD-Rs in and out of your drive.

If you just want to test the waters without springing for a tall spindle of blank double layer
DVDs, try the Verbatim Double Layer Solution Kit (DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD+RW,
which gives you a sampling of three different blank optical disc types. If your storage
needs are less than about 4 Gigabytes, then stick with the single layer discs.

8. HD DVD verses Blu-Ray

While double layer DVD seems like a huge amount of storage, the requirements of super
high definition video and huge hard drive backup push the optical drive manufacturers to
even larger capacity discs. HD DVD is a refined version of the DVD we use now. It uses
the same trick of double layers to almost double the capacity up to 30 Gigabytes per
side; backing up a full image of a 160 Gigabyte hard drive takes a half dozen discs.

Blu-Ray answers this with the promise of up to 200 Gigabyte discs eventually becoming
available. They pack the data in even tighter than HD DVD and can stack up several
layers to increase storage.

Unfortunately, HD DVD and Blu-Ray


will probably be only available as
commercially produced DVDs for
viewing movies for the near-term.
Somewhere down the road, we’ll start
seeing recordable versions to mount in
our computer’s drive bays.

Final Words

While recording movies on single layer


DVDs might be fine with the old
standard TV, now that you have a widescreen flat panel television that is capable of
HDTV, why suffer degradation of image quality by over-compressing the video? Get a
double layer DVD drive for your computer and stock up on double layer DVD blank discs
to capture all the detail.

The same goes for your computer backups. Put your whole photo collection on one 8.5
Gigabyte double layer disc. Don’t worry about running out of space on a single disc.
Though the double layer discs may be more expensive, they hold twice as much and
take up less storage space than a pair of single layer discs or a dozen or more CD-Rs.
Tech Tip 69 - Ergonomics of Computer Pointing Devices
Article by Roy Davis

Being the dedicated geek that I am, I spend a lot of time with my face in the computer
screen. Much of that time, I am driving a cursor around the screen using a pointing
device of some kind. In this installment, I want to talk about the long-term physical
effects of computer pointing, in other words, the ergonomics of riding a mouse.

We will look closely at how to use a computer-pointing device for maximum comfort and
minimum wear-and-tear on your arm and shoulder. This is not something to ignore
unless you want to be too crippled in your geek old age. Don’t laugh, it really happens,
as I will personally relate.

1. Keyboard Injury

While our topic here is pointing


devices, it helps to quickly review
how keyboards can hurt us. Most
people have heard of a type of
injury caused by the long-term
effects of typing on a keyboard
called RSI, or Repetitive Stress
Injury. The damage is usually done
to the carpal tunnel in your wrist
where the nerve passes through
the wrist joint. The wrist, when
bent back to align with the
keyboard, can squeeze the nerve
that runs through the wrist joint. The nerve sheath becomes inflamed and swells, which
further crushes the nerve. Once started, it is very difficult to stop this cycle and repair the
damage completely. Often, you have to totally give up typing for several weeks, and then
wear a wrist brace to hold your wrist straight for many months until the injury is healed.
The protection from keyboard injury is pretty
straightforward. Use an Ergonomic Keyboard where the
keys are angled so your wrists stay straight as you lay
your fingers on the home row of keys. I gave up using
straight keyboards many years ago and now only use
straight keys on my laptop when I am away from a desk
and have no other choice.

My desk is arranged so that my arms are straight and


wrists are not bent back while typing. The proper
relationship between keyboard height and seat height
can help here. One solution is a keyboard tray that fits
under the desk and lowers the keyboard. Another
alternative I like is to put your keyboard in your lap so
your arms are completely relaxed. A Wireless Keyboard gets rid of the tangle of wires.

2. Ouch! My Elbow Hurts

So, I’m sitting here at my custom computer


desk. I have the ergonomic keyboard and my
desk was just right so my arms were
completely relaxed. I should have no problem
wailing away on my computer day and night,
right?

Then, why does my right elbow have shooting


pains and my shoulder killing me? Why can’t I
straighten out my arm? I thought I did all the
right ergonomic things, so why is working on
my computer so painful? This is the real story
of my experience, not some made-up
example to illustrate a point. I had to learn this
the hard way!

3. Mousing Around

At the time, I was doing a lot of engineering work and that involved a lot of drawings
done on my computer. Drawings tend to need a lot of mouse work to get the lines in just
the right spot. It doesn’t make a difference if you are designing a computer chip,
updating the company organization chart, or laying out the plays for your Pop Warner
football team, drawing on the computer comes into everyone’s life.

When the drawing on my computer was zoomed, it filled the screen and I could see the
whole drawing where the lines had to be placed with extreme care to get them to line up.
With a complex drawing, it was almost impossible to get exact alignment in the full-page
view mode.

It helped to zoom in to expand the parts where I was working. The line placement was
easier not only because I could see it better blown up like that, but also because the
mouse movement was not as critical to get the line where it belonged. Of course, I
ended up going back and forth between the full-page view and the expanded view to
figure out where I was and where to place the lines. That made for a lot of extra mousing
around.

4. Snap-to-Grid

One trick I learned was that I could use


the Snap-to-Grid feature of my CAD
program. Instead of tensing up while
trying to hold the mouse just right to get
the lines exactly where they belonged, I
could relax a little and just get the end of
the line close. The end of the line would
then snap to the grid position.

When the Snap-to-Grid feature is turned on, a series of tiny dots in rows and columns
are overlaid on the screen. This is the grid. When you place the end of a line, it will snap
from the place you put it to the closest grid point. This makes laying out your drawing
much easier, faster and neater. Use the widest grid spacing that allows placement of the
lines where you need them. Wide grid spacing means you can be pretty sloppy with the
placement and still get nice even alignment. You can accomplish your work so you don’t
have to tighten up your grip on the mouse. You can relax and use more fluid movements
that take the stress off your arm.

Many computer graphics applications have a Snap-to-Grid feature or something close to


it (no pun intended). Sometimes, a program will have a Snap-to-Object feature, which
achieves a similar result. You might be placing boxes that represent people in an
organization. The connection lines will automatically snap to the center of a side, top, or
bottom of the box making it real easy to get the lines neatly spaced.

5. Say Goodbye to the Mouse

Even after using all my tricks, my elbow kept getting more and more painful. I couldn’t
sleep at night and I ended up working left-handed on the computer. That wasn’t a
solution because I could see that soon I would have two elbows that were crippled.

I noticed that after using the mouse extensively, my elbow hurt more than ever. I took a
week off of the computer and my arm didn’t hurt as much. When I went back to work, the
pain came right back the first day.

Finally, I realized that as I held the mouse, I twisted my arm to an unnatural position. To
make accurate mouse movements, I had to tense up my arm and shoulder muscles.
This combination was the source of the pain. Unfortunately, to use a mouse I had to
make these movements that are so painful. It became clear to me that I had to find an
alternative to the mouse.

6. Let’s Try Something Different.

Being the gadget freak that I am, I had accumulated an assortment of


computer pointing devices. One of these gadgets was a cheap trackball.
I had discovered that the mouse is a more natural feeling pointing
device so the trackball was relegated to my junk drawer. I bought a new
Logitech Trackball Marble Mouse that has a different design than the traditional
trackball. Instead of having the ball imbedded in the device with only a small part of the
ball exposed, the Marble Mouse has the majority of the ball sticking out where you can
touch it.

7. The Marble Mouse

This exposed ball concept is great. You can manipulate the ball with just the tips of your
fingers while keeping your forearm in a natural position. You do not have to twist your
arm as you have to do for a mouse or even an old style trackball. I use my forefinger to
steer the cursor with the ball with occasional help from my middle finger if I’m scooting
across the screen quickly. My thumb presses the left mouse button while my middle or
ring finger can operate the right button. You can switch around if you feel comfortable in
other configurations. It takes a little getting used to, but I find the Marble Mouse much
more responsive than a standard mouse.

The Marble Mouse is only one example of the modern


trackball. There are many others by Logitech and other
manufacturers. Of course, the trackball has not been left out
of the wireless revolution. There is a Cordless Optical
TracMan Trackball Wireless Mouse. The base station plugs
into your USB or PS/2 port. The wireless trackball runs on a
battery and has no wires at all. You can put it anywhere on
your desk (or your lap) that is comfortable without getting
tangled up in cords.

8. Works for Southpaws Too

If you are lucky enough to be left-handed, you probably despise all these computer
pointing devices that are shaped for right hands. The Logitech Trackball Marble Mouse
is exactly symmetrical so it is neither right nor left handed. The ball is exposed on both
sides and the buttons are exactly the same.

If you go into the Control Panel and to the mouse applet, you can switch the left and
right mouse buttons. By doing so, left-handed people can have exactly the same
comfortable pointing experience as right-handed people.

9. Pen Tablets

An input device that many people find more comfortable


to use than standard or trackball mice is the pen tablet
like those made by Wacom. Working with a pen tablet is
a smooth and natural motion because every point on the
tablet has a matching point on the screen. When you
move your pen over the tablet, the cursor moves exactly
the same way on the screen. Where you touch your pen
tip to the tablet is where you click. This motion can help
alleviate wrist and hand pain and avoid or minimize the
effects of repetitive stress.
Final Words

This issue of computer pointing device ergonomics cannot be taken lightly. A senior
member of the staff at work abused himself so badly that even with a brace on his hand,
he could not use the mouse or the keyboard. We had to hire a typist for him while he
suffered a long recovery.

I consulted with the typist who has a strong IT background and discovered that he came
to the same conclusion that I have. Get rid of the mouse and invest in a modern
trackball. Following his advice, I just ordered three more Marble Mice, one for my mom,
and one each for my wife at work and at home. They are a lot cheaper than wrist braces,
physical therapy and stand-in typists.
Tech Tip 70 - Print Your Snaps With PictBridge
Article by Roy Davis

We all like taking lots of photos of our family and


friends everywhere we go. Some of us still have
to wait for the fat envelope full of prints to arrive
from the photo-processing house to see how our
snapshots came out. But, most of us Geeks have
long since switched to digital still cameras and
can instantly see the results on the tiny LCD
screen on the camera. What is missing is a
photograph on a piece of paper. It’s somehow
more satisfying to shuffle through a stack of
prints.

Now, you can take advantage of a new interface for digital cameras that allows you to
take photo files directly from your camera to your color printer. It’s called PictBridge and
this new specification breaks down the barrier between cameras and printers of different
brands. Eventually at some future time, PictBridge technology will be available in
electronics other than digital cameras that store, view, or capture digital still pictures,
including camera phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), and digital video cameras.
You will be able to print from any of these PictBridge-enabled electronics to any
PictBridge-enabled printer of any make or brand. For now, we’ll just discuss this
technology as it relates to digital cameras.

1. USB Photo File Transfer

Digital cameras used to use serial ports or custom docking stations to transfer the files of
data that contain your photos to a computer. The software drivers were proprietary and
very fussy. I remember spending hours trying to make my camera talk to an IBM laptop,
and even then only getting it to work by turning off the IrDA infrared port.

Universal Serial Bus, or USB, came to the rescue and


simplified the basic interface between cameras and
computers. You no longer had to load a special software
driver on the computer for an ordinary file transfer. Then,
printers started using USB instead of the specialized and
very clunky parallel printer port. Ah ha! The stage is set
for direct camera to printer photo transfer, at least at the physical electrical level. Both
the camera and the printer have to talk USB.

2. The Hard Way

The traditional way to get your digital photos from the camera to the paper is to fiddle
with the cable to upload the photo files to your computer. You need to have photo-editing
software loaded on your computer and then spend time learning how to run the software.
I don’t know why, but photo-editing applications are about the most difficult software to
learn. Even the icons are baffling to look at.

After struggling to upload and edit the photos, you then have to send the photos to your
printer. Most photo editors can only print one picture at a time. Getting multiple images
on one sheet of paper is a chore, especially if you want them evenly spaced with nice
white borders around them.

How many people do you know who fill up the huge data storage card for their digital
camera, and then park the camera until they can get around to dealing with the photos?
It’s just like all those rolls of undeveloped film in the drawer - it takes too long.

3. Proprietary Camera-Printer Links

Camera and photo printer manufacturers saw the


problem. People want instant paper prints in their
hand. The Polaroid InstaMatic® cameras solved the
problem with some chemical magic, but the film was
expensive, the process was slow, and the quality of
the photos was horrible. In this digital age, there has
to be a better way.

For those companies that had both a camera and


printer division, they brought out models of both
devices that could directly interface. You could take
the USB cable, connect the camera to the printer,
and go straight from the camera memory to a paper
print. The trouble was that you needed the special model of both the camera and the
printer that had the proprietary link. What if you already had a perfectly nice printer and
saw a camera from another manufacturer that attracted your eye? You were out of luck
for direct camera to printer transfers.

4. PictBridge Breaks Down the Barrier

The digital photography industry saw the big-


picture problem and set up a committee to
resolve it. The result is known as PictBridge, a
way to bridge your pictures from your camera
to your printer. It was also a way to shift the
holdouts from disposable cameras and
drugstore prints into the do-it-yourself digital
camp.
PictBridge is an industry standard that allows a camera from
one manufacturer to talk to a printer from some other
company. It also means you are not tied to your custom setup.
If you are visiting relatives and snap some shots of the family
you want to share, you can connect to the PictBridge printer
they happen to have and pop out a few prints to pass around.

5. Print One, Print Them All

The simplest way to take advantage of PictBridge is to use the view screen on your
camera to select an image. A PictBridge-equipped camera, when connected to a
PictBridge-enabled printer, will display an option to print that photo. You can work your
way through the photos in your memory (the one in the camera, not in your head) to
select each picture you want printed.

If you are an especially talented


photographer and every shot is a
winner, or you don’t care about
wasting a lot of expensive photo
paper and ink, you can select to
print all the photos in memory.
Watch out for this one. Since
taking digital photos is basically
free, and high capacity memory
cards can hold hundreds of
images, you can burn through a
hundred bucks worth of paper
and ink in a single sitting. It’s
better to be a bit more selective!

One way to do this is to make an index print, what chemical photographers would call a
contact sheet. It’s just like a thumbnail preview of all your photos only it’s printed on a
single sheet instead of your computer screen. Since we cut the computer out of the deal
here, the index print becomes the point of reference. Review the shots, pick the ones
you really want, and print away.

6. Order It Your Way with DPOF

All that selecting and printing from the camera view screen is fine up to a point. It’s
boring to sit around with your camera while your printer grinds out each print. The photo
industry stepped up to the task again with a new specification called DPOF, or Digital
Print Order Format. The concept of using the camera view screen and selecting the
images to print, the number of prints desired, and the size to be printed is pretty much
the same. What’s new is that you can do all this previewing, sorting, adjusting and sizing
with just the camera in your lap in the back seat of the car on the way home. The printing
instructions will be stored until you hook up to the printer. The printer can then do its
thing while you go take a shower, and you’ll have a stack of finished prints waiting when
you get back.
DPOF isn’t even limited to digital camera enthusiasts who own a
PictBridge color printer. You can take the memory card from your
camera to a photo service. There are even do-it-yourself machines
coming on the market where you can stick in your memory card with the
photos and DPOF instructions, insert a credit card to pay for it, and walk
away a few minutes later with your prized snapshots on paper.

7. Real Cameras on the Market

This PictBridge thing is not just puff-words from some


photo industry organization. There is really equipment
on the market that supports PictBridge and DPOF. An
example is the Kodak EasyShare V550 5 Megapixel
digital camera. PictBridge and DPOF are right there in
the long list of specifications. It’s a pretty typical point-
and-shoot type of camera that anyone would find easy
to use. The minimum number of controls keeps your
eye on the scene instead of fiddling with buttons.

Five (5) Megapixels means the resolution of your photos can run all the way up to 2,576
x 1,932 pixels. That’s plenty of image detail to fill the largest paper size your printer can
handle. No worries about fuzzy prints unless you shake the camera in dim light.

8. Camera Features for PictBridge

There are a number of special features that make a camera outfitted with PictBridge
even better. The V550 includes all of these to automate the picture-taking process even
more than you realize. They save a lot of steps that normally you would have to use a
computer-based photo editor to achieve.

9. Camera Orientation Does Matter

Camera Orientation Detection sounds unimportant or minor, but if you’ve ever had to
review a few dozen photos you took that were oriented in various positions other than
upright, you know it can take time and effort to reorient the photos for comfortable
viewing. Many times, I’ve had to go back and manually rotate the images so people
didn’t look like they were lying down. This is especially important when printing more one
than image on a single sheet of paper. Cameras like the V550 that come with Camera
Orientation Detection can even rotate images in the camera if you want so all your
photos are right-side up before going to the printer.

10. Photo Touch-Up without the Computer

Another camera feature


that the V550 sports is
red-eye reduction. Even
with a computer-based
photo editor, it takes
some skill to do this
touch up. It’s a common
photography problem
most of us have had to deal with at one time or another. Red-eye shows up when the
light from the flash on the camera illuminates the inside of the eyeball. It makes the
subject look like some sort of demon and is very disconcerting in a photo.

The trick is to paint over the redness with a dark color that matches what the pupil
normally looks like. If not done correctly, red-eye removal can make the eyes look very
strange, an effect most people don’t want in their shots. The V550 can automatically
detect and correct red-eye for you. That’s pretty tricky business, but it can save images
and get them ready for printing without a trip through your computer.

11. Cropping Isn’t Just for Farmers

In the heat of the picture-taking moment, it’s


hard to get the edges of the image right
where you want them. Often, extraneous and
distracting elements are included near the
edge of the photo. Most often, you didn’t even
know the bad stuff was there until you see the
image on the view screen, and by then it’s too
late – or is it?

The Kodak V550 has the ability to crop


images. That means it can trim off the
unwanted parts of the photo right there on the
view screen. Then, the files will be all ready to go to the printer without further work.
Slice off that hand sticking into the edge of the frame. Even pick one headshot out of a
group picture if you want.

Final Words

Digital photography is no longer the domain of only those who are serious enough to
spend hours “photo shopping” their images and waiting patiently by their printer to see
how it comes out. Even if you just want a stack of 4 x 5’s to pass around at the dinner
table with minimum of fuss, you can circumvent the pocket full of film rolls and the 1-hour
lab and make your prints right at home.

For now, look for a digital camera and photo printer with PictBridge capability, with the
view towards watching for this new technology in many other electronics that take, hold,
or store digital photos. DPOF is the icing on the cake for taking total control over your
digital photo printing. Even if you use a commercial photo printer, PictBridge and DPOF
will let you use odd moments to do your photo selecting and get your prints done quickly
instead of languishing in your camera.
Tech Tip 71 - FRS Radios for Geeks
Article by Roy Davis

With Instant Messaging (IM), Voice over IP


(VoIP), Short Message Service (SMS), and
dozens of other computer-based
communications acronyms stuffed in your
Geek memory, how about this one – FRS?
I’ll give you a hint - it doesn’t run on your
computer, but it’s a way to stay hooked up
with your buddies that you shouldn’t pass
up.

Sometimes, you need to stay in touch with


your family or a bunch of friends instantly,
but don’t have your computer screen in front
of you to IM. Cell phones are fine to talk to
one person, but how do you hail a group of people right now? You might have
overlooked FRS, or just don’t know really what it’s about. Let’s take a look.

1. CB It’s Not!

Your idea of two-way radios might be CB, or Citizens


Band, right out of Smokey and the Bandit. Sure, the
guys driving 18-wheelers still use CB radios, but we
are geeks and we’re not interested in the latest
location of radar speed traps on the Interstate.

Truckers use radios that are technically Class D


Citizens Band. They operate at 27 Megahertz (MHz),
which is down in the shortwave radio band that is full
of skip. You might occasionally be able to talk to
someone hundreds or even thousands of miles away,
but mostly you have just too many people trying to
talk to each other. Class D CB uses Amplitude
Modulation (AM) which was popular and cheap fifty
years ago when Class D was designed.
Unfortunately, AM is very susceptible to interference
with all sorts of squeals and howls.
2. FRS Has Roots in Class A

Actually, there was another form of Citizens Band radio that predates the “10-4, good
buddy” type. It operated in the UHF (Ultra High Frequency) band near where commercial
two-way radios for police cars and delivery trucks are now. This was Class A Citizens
Band, but almost no one had heard of it because the equipment was too expensive, the
rules too restrictive, and it required a complicated license from the Federal
Communications Commission, or FCC.

In the eighties, this part of the radio spectrum was converted to the General Mobile
Radio Service, or GMRS. The FCC license was easier to obtain, the rules relaxed, and
the equipment less expensive and easier to operate. The GMRS radios used Frequency
Modulation (FM) that rejects interference better than AM CB radios. Even if another
station is on the same channel, but with a weak signal, you can usually talk right over
them to your close-by buddies and the other party probably won’t even know it.

3. FRS Brought to You by Tandy

GMRS was mildly successful, which we’ll get back into later, but electronics retailers
wanted to sell more radios. The biggest retailer of all pushed a new concept called
Family Radio Service, or FRS. That retailer is Tandy Corp., but we all know those folks
as Radio Shack. In the mid-nineties, Tandy went to the FCC and convinced them that
this new FRS could share the radio channels with GMRS. Instead of the 5 Watt mobile
radios common in GMRS, the FRS radios were usually handheld units limited to 500
milliWatts, which sounds better than “half a Watt.”

4. Putting FRS to Work

What can you do with an FRS radio? Suppose your gaggle of


friends descend on the local swap meet looking for an 8-inch
floppy drive to finish off that early microcomputer for your
computer museum. You split up to cover all the aisles as
quickly as possible. How are you going to rally the troops when
you spot the object of your desire? If everyone has an FRS
radio plugged into an earphone, the moment you press the
“Talk” button, they will all hear you. No dialing numbers or
setting up chat groups. Just press and talk.

5. Privacy Codes

I mentioned the interference and lots of people talking on CB


radio. It’s something you certainly don’t want to listen to for very
long. Even on FRS, there are others sharing the channels you are
using. Many FRS radios now have privacy codes available. When
you set a privacy code on each radio in your group, all other
transmissions are ignored. Only when a signal with your privacy
code is present will you hear the call.
Privacy codes are not new to two-way radio. Most privacy codes are implemented with
CTCSS, or Continuous Tone Coded Sub-audible Squelch. That’s a mouthful, but the
idea is pretty simple: by adding a low frequency tone to the signal on the transmitter
side, your signal is now unique. The receiver will filter out all other signals and keep the
speaker quiet. When the receiver hears your tone, the speaker is activated and the
recipient hears only your call.

6. Look Ma – No Hands!

FRS has some real practical uses too. Suppose you have your head in the wiring closet
trying to troubleshoot a network problem and you need to talk to your helper who is
running tests on the equipment in the other room. You can try yelling down the hall, but
that bothers the other workers and it’s hard to yell when you have a punch-down tool in
your mouth because your hands are full of wires.

Some FRS radios come with VOX, or Voice Operated Switch. When the radio
microphone picks up your voice, it automatically switches on the transmitter. Thus, you
and your helper can talk back and forth almost like you are in the same room. VOX is
real handy this way, but it isn’t perfect. There is a tiny delay when the VOX circuit picks
up, so it will cut off the first part of your first word. If you get in the habit of says
something like, “Ah, George did that fix it?” you will not have trouble with a first syllable
“clipping” problem.

I know my FRS radios are indispensable while adjusting


the UHF antennas up in the attic for the best reception
of HDTV signals. My wife watches the signal quality bar
on the wide-screen LCD TV downstairs while I twist the
antenna back and forth while hanging from the rafters.
We live in neighborhood with lots of ghost signals on
analog channels so the clean digital signals make a
huge difference.

7. Economical, Too

FRS radios are small, portable and can be really inexpensive, too.
They’re cheap enough to keep a pair in the toolbox or in the
glovebox of the SUV. Take a look at the Xact X-Link Digital Watch
& 22 Channel FRS/GMRS 2-Way Radio right here at Geeks.com.
For less than a round of greaseburgers at your favorite fast food
joint, you can sport one of these gadgets. You can clip it on your
belt or use the strap to hang it around your neck. Having it closer
to your mouth and ears makes the VOX operation better.

8. Ranging Out

The specification most FRS manufacturers quote is a 2 mile range. FRS radios use UHF
radio frequencies that depend on line-of-sight for maximum range. The signals will
penetrate buildings and trees when you are close by, but especially after a rainstorm
when everything is still wet, you are talking a few hundred yards. If you want range, sit
on a hilltop and your distance will pick up significantly. If both parties get up on hills or
even mountains, you are going to “range out” to dozens of miles. That’s the nature of
UHF radio. FRS is intended for close-in communications, so being within a block or two
will usually work pretty well.

9. GMRS if You Get Serious

I mentioned that to use the GMRS channels, you need an FCC license. The license is
expensive, at about eighty bucks for five years (a little over a buck a month), but one
license is good for all of your immediate family members. The GMRS channels are
generally less busy than the FR-only channels, so you will get less interference and
better range.

For more details on a GMRS license, you can go


right to the FCC Web site and get the straight
scoop. The FCC tries to do all their licensing via the
Internet through their Universal Licensing System.
It’s a little confusing, but read all the instructions and
soon you can separate yourself from FRS-only users.

10. Repeaters for Really Getting Out

I explained that if you get up to a high spot, your range would extend considerably. If you
upgrade to GMRS, you can avail yourself of a feature called a repeater. Years ago, radio
amateurs started putting radios on tall towers and mountain peaks and set them up so
they could listen to one channel and repeat the signal to another channel. GMRS copied
this scheme. That’s why GMRS channels come in pairs split between 462 and 467
Megahertz. With your simple low-powered radio, you can send signals that are repeated
from the mountaintop to a huge coverage area.

There are commercial GMRS services that will sell you


repeater service, but you don’t have to go that way. There are
public service organizations that maintain repeaters that you
can use for minimal club dues. One such group is REACT, or
Radio Emergency Associated Communications Teams. They
are known for quick reporting of traffic accidents and
supporting other emergency services, such as the Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org in large-scale disasters.

Final Words

Pick up a pair of FRS/GMRS radios while the price is right. They might just be a handy
gadget to save some steps while shopping, visiting a theme park, or fixing something
around the house or the workplace. Or, they might lead you to a whole new hobby with
involvement in local emergency organizations.

I hope understanding the features and uses of FRS and GMRS services will help you
choose what is best for you without getting confused by the legal gibberish of the FCC or
the claims of the equipment manufacturers. It really is a lot of fun for the whole family to
be able to communicate even in a crowded shopping mall. It gives everyone more
freedom and peace of mind – and who couldn’t use more of that?
Tech Tip 72 - The Facts About MySpace
What You Need to Know Before Your Kids Sign On
By Kimmy Powell

Even if your children don’t have an


account, they’ve certainly heard enough
about it through word of mouth. The latest
hangout for tweens and teens isn’t the mall
in downtown or any particular club, but rather the chaotic world of cyberspace, at a
website called MySpace.com. As the hottest social networking site on the web, MySpace
has accumulated an estimated 54 million users in just three years of existence, with many
users falling within the teen and
twenty-something crowds and
approximately 19% under the age of
17. MySpace is a wonderful place to
meet others of like mind and interest,
but with this sharing of interests
come other dangers that are
heightened by the unregulated nature
of the Internet and the ready
availability of personal information
online.

Why MySpace?

Teens are constantly looking for places to hang out, away from parents and school.
MySpace gives them just that – a place to socialize with others of similar interests and
tastes. The biggest attraction in using MySpace is its ease of use and the number of
friends one can meet online.

Setting up an account in MySpace is free and easy. The only requirements are that users
must be at least 14 years of age. The information needed to start an account includes:

• Valid e-mail address


• First and last name
• Password for the account
• Country
• Zip code
• Date of birth
• Whether or not to make the date of birth public
• Agree to Terms of Service and Privacy Policies

Once users agree and provide the requested


information, they are invited to create
personalized profiles. Profiles can include
pictures, videos, or music. Members can link
their profiles with other “friends” on
MySpace. They can create shareable blogs
(journals). Friends or strangers can post
comments to these profiles, with users doing
likewise on other profiles. Members can form
buddy lists with groupings of friends and
interesting people.

Kids who otherwise have trouble socializing


with their peers on a school campus will like
the appeal of MySpace, where there is no
face-to-face interaction required, no
popularity contests, no need to hide behind a mask. You are who you are, or who you
think you are.

The Dangers of MySpace

While MySpace is great for making new friends and promoting oneself, there are several
drawbacks in allowing your children to roam freely online within the MySpace
framework.

First and foremost, MySpace profiles are public. Anything posted on a public profile can
be read by other members, and anybody in the outside world can get to a MySpace
profile. Children often disclose too much personal information (i.e. – name and
addresses, school names, classmates, teachers, birthdates, favorite hobbies) on profiles,
which attract child predators lurking on the site. These predators seize upon details left in
blogs, comments, and personal profiles to take advantage of these kids when parents
aren’t home, or when kids are at school.

Secondly, teens love to gossip. The same problems that


torment kids at school are magnified tenfold on
MySpace. Gossip, malicious rumors, bullying and
racial slurs are posted on a public forum to an audience
of millions. This can seriously lead to problems in the
future where there is a possibility that a college denies
admission or an employer looks elsewhere in recruitment. Saying anything now can hurt
later on.

Thirdly, people aren’t who they say they are. A valid


e-mail is the only requirement for membership on
MySpace and any other identifying information can
be faked. There are no controls in place within the
MySpace system to actively check the validity of
current members. The only time somebody is caught
is when MySpace explicitly catches someone
violating its policies. Thus, child predators can
masquerade as teens, gain their trust, and use it to
their advantage. Likewise, teens lie about their ages
and get access to materials otherwise denied to them.

The lack of parental controls and the relatively easy access to inappropriate materials
have prompted some parents and schools to entirely remove access to the site from home
and school computers.

Parental Involvement

Increasing surveillance or outright banning your


kids from using MySpace may seem like a safe
bet, but it can breed rebellion and worse. Kids
with existing accounts can hide profiles so that
parents can’t access them. If your child wants
to access MySpace, your child will find a way.
So, how do you prevent your kids from
becoming unwitting victims to the murky waters
of MySpace? CyberTipline, an organization
that works to prevent the exploitation of
children, recommends establishing lines of
communication and trust with your teen and
educating yourself about the world of MySpace.
In fact, awareness is the key to prevention.

Communication

• Make sure kids are aware of issues of online safety. Discuss with them what they
can and cannot do online.
• Provide an open environment where your children can share and report what they
encounter online. If you react negatively and take away their Internet privileges
at the slightest infraction, you’re not creating a place of trust. Kids will be afraid
to come to you with legitimate concerns if they feel they cannot trust you.
• Be reasonable and try to understand the issues your children are facing.
Remember, parents were once children too.
• Tell your children to avoid putting personal information onto profiles or online
blogs. Let them know that leaving too much personal information can come back
to haunt them.

Education

• Find out everything you can about MySpace. Educate yourself on the features
and potential hazards of having an account.
• Monitor what your kids do online. Search on Google by email address, name,
nicknames or school names and see what you find.
• Turn the online experience into a family adventure. Ask your children about the
latest happenings online. Have them show you the hotspots on the net and what
topics they’re currently interested in.
• Don’t believe the person behind the profile. Make sure your child understands
that anybody can create an account on MySpace and lie about who they really are.

Communication with your children is the best way to make your child aware of online
dangers. Most kids avoid doing things online that draws unwanted attention. Instead of
banning children from the site when they do something wrong, sit down and talk about
common sense. By keeping open channels of communication open on both sides, you’ll
be happier for it.

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Tech Tip 73 - Installing a DVD/CDRW Drive
By Shane McGlaun

Installing a CDRW or DVD drive in your PC is a relatively painless procedure. However,


if you have never opened your computer before, it can be a little intimidating. The first
time you see all the wires and cabling inside your computer, you may think you are in
over your head. DON’T WORRY-YOU CAN DO IT! Installing a CDRW or DVD drive
inside your computer does not have to be a scary proposition, nor do you have to pay the
high fees most electronics stores want to install the drive for you.

With this easy to follow guide, a few minutes of your time and the required components,
you can install your own CDRW or DVD drive and be burning your own movies and
music before you know it.

Step 1
Before we get started, you need to round up a few items you will need for the installation:

• Non-magnetic screwdriver (if you have screw driver with a reversible


Phillips/Flat head bit, all the better. If not, you may need two screwdrivers,
depending on your computer case);
• CDRW or DVD drive itself;
• Vacant 5.25 inch drive bay. You can also exchange the current CDRW or DVD
drive in your machine for the new one if no additional drive bay is available.

Step 2
Power off your computer and unplug it from the wall! You should never work inside your
computer with the power turned on or the power cable connected to any socket because
you could seriously damage your computer or yourself!

Step 3
If you are installing a DVD or CDRW drive into
an empty 5.25 inch drive bay, you will need to
remove the front cover (often called a “bezel”)
from the drive bay to gain access. The method
used to remove the drive bay cover will vary
depending on the brand of your case. Some are removed by pressing tabs on the front of
the computer case, and some have screws that need to be removed to get the cover off the
case. Refer to your case User’s Manual for detailed instructions for this step. You will
also want to remove both side panels from your computer at this time.

Step 4
The next step in the installation of your new drive
is to prepare the drive itself by setting the drive
jumper (A jumper is a small, elastic-encased
metal bridge that closes an electrical circuit). On
the rear of your drive near where the IDE cable
connects, you will see a plastic cap placed over
two pins that controls how your computer “sees”
your new drive. If you already have another
CDRW or DVD drive in your system, the new
drive should be “jumpered,” or set, as the “slave.”
The existing drive is likely set to be the “master”
drive already. If the existing drive is not set to master, it will be set to Cable Select and
setting the new drive as slave will still be the best option. Typically, there is a key to the
jumper settings embossed on the back of the drive. Improperly setting the jumpers could
cause problems with your computer recognizing your drive properly. IMPORTANT: You
can only have one master drive on each IDE channel.

Step 5
Once your jumper is set, you are ready to
install the CDRW or DVD drive into your
computer case. This is a simple task! Slide
the new drive into the vacant 5.25” bay and
get ready to secure it in the next step.

Step 6
Now that you have placed the drive into your
case, you are ready to secure it with screws or
some type of retention mechanisms. Most drives
are secured to the case by using 4 screws which
hold the drive in place. If your drive did not
include screws for securing it, you should be
able to get some appropriate screws at a local
computer or hardware store. Be sure not to over-
tighten the screws. They should be tight enough
to hold the drive in place, but not so tight as to
strip the screws/sockets.
Some computer cases are tool-less, meaning screws are not used to secure the drive to the
case. Cases that are “tool-less” utilize different methods of securing drives such as
retention brackets and snap fittings. If your case is a tool-less design, you will want to
look at the User’s Manual for instructions on securing a drive.

Step 7
Now that the drive is installed and secured to the
case, you need to identify and locate the required
cables to connect the drive to your motherboard
and power it. All internal CDRW and DVD drives
need the same two cables to connect them to your
system: an IDE Cable and a 4-pin Molex Power
Cable. If you don’t have an available Molex or
IDE connector inside your computer, you will
likely want to look for a more experienced geek to
assist you. In this case, you will need to install
additional components to accommodate your new
CDRW or DVD drive. When possible, it is always
best to connect your CDRW or DVD drive to an IDE cable that is not connected to your
hard drive. Most all motherboards have two IDE connectors and you may need an
additional IDE cable. Connecting the CDRW or DVD drive to the same cable as your
hard drive will work, but it is not the ideal configuration.

Step 8
Assuming you had the Molex and IDE
connectors available, you are now ready to
connect them to your new drive. Connecting
the two cables is easy since both the cables are
keyed. To put it another way: keyed
connectors can only be installed one way. You
cannot connect them improperly.

Step 9
After you have connected both the Molex and
IDE cables to your new drive, you are ready to
reinstall the side panels onto your computer. Once
your side panels are reinstalled, you can power up
your computer.
Step 10
The last step in installing your DVD or CDRW drive is to install the software needed for
you to burn music or movies, assuming the drive you have installed is a CDRW or DVD
burner. Typically, no drivers are required for the drive to be recognized by your
computer.

You are now finished installing your CDRW or DVD drive into your computer – happy
listening, viewing, and/or burning!
Tech Tip 74 - Installing a Power Supply
By Shane McGlaun

Installing a power supply is not a hard job. However, a new geek can be intimidated the
first time they open a case and see the mass of wires and ominous-looking components. If
you follow these simple steps, you can replace your power supply unit (PSU) in no time
and with little effort. It is also important to note before we get started that a computer
PSU stores power even when unplugged and you should never open the case of the PSU
itself.

Step 1

You will need to gather the tools you need for this
task. Namely, you need a Phillips screw driver to
remove the screws holding your side panels, and
old PSU (assuming you are upgrading an existing
PSU). You may also need a set of wire cutters, a
knife, or scissors to remove wire ties that may be
securing the cabling from your PSU to the chassis
or case of your computer.

Step 2

After you get your tools together, you will start


by turning your computer off and unplugging
the power cable from both the wall and the back
of the power supply. Then, remove the side
panels from your computer.
Step 3

Once your computer is powered down and the


side panels are removed, you will want to
carefully start removing the power connectors
from the motherboard, hard drives, and the
optical drives. Sometimes, Molex connectors
can be stubborn to remove, so take your time
and you will limit the risk of damaging your
system. Depending on how old your system is,
you may have either a 24-pin or 20-pin main
power connector to the motherboard, as well as a
4-pin P4 power connector to the motherboard.
Some boards also require Molex connectors to be connected to the motherboard for use.
In this step, simply disconnect every power dongle coming from your PSU to a
component of your system.

Step 4

Once you have all the power connectors


disconnected, you are ready to use your
screwdriver and remove the four screws that are
securing your PSU to the case itself. Beware in
this step. Depending on the design of your case,
once you remove the screws holding the PSU to
the case, they could fall into your computer case
and cause damage to you or worse, damage your
beloved computer. Be sure to keep a hand on the
PSU as you remove the screws.

Step 5

Once the screws are removed, you are ready to


remove the PSU from your case. Take care as
you do this step in case you overlooked a cable
that still may be plugged in. The cables from the
PSU also tend to get tangled up on things inside
the computer. You don’t want to cause any
damage to your other components by hastily
removing the old PSU from your PC case. If you
find that any of the cables are secured to the PC
case with wire ties, use your wire cutters or knife to remove them.
Step 6

Once you have the old PSU out of your case,


you are ready to bolt your new PSU into your
PC case. You can reuse the same screws that
held your old PSU in place, though most new
PSUs include new screws as well. Be sure that
you align the new PSU in the case so you can
fasten all four screws snugly.

Step 7
Once you have your new PSU secured to the
case of your PC, you are ready to reconnect the
power dongles to your hard drives, optical
drives, and to your motherboard. Many newer
PSUs have a 24-pin main board power
connector. If you are replacing the PSU on a
system that uses a 20-pin motherboard
connector, it can get a bit confusing at this point.
Every quality PSU I have seen allows four of the
pins on the 24-pin main power connector to be
removed to be compatible with an older 20-pin
motherboard. If your PSU does not have the ability to have four of the pins from the 24-
pin main power connector removed, and your board requires 20-pin main power, you will
either need to get a different PSU or a different motherboard to continue. Many newer
PSUs also use an 8-pin power connector in addition to the 24-pin main power connector
to supply the motherboard. Every PSU I have used offers an adapter to change the 8-pin
main board power dongle to a 4-pin P4 power dongle. Be sure to use this if your board
requires a 4-pin P4 connector and your PSU has the newer 8-pin connector built on. If
you don’t plug in the additional 8-pin or 4-pin power connectors, your system will likely
not boot up.

Step 8

Once you have all of your drives reconnected,


as well as the power to your motherboard
reconnected, you are ready to plug your
computer back in and power it up. If it powers
up and boots to Windows, and all of your
optical drives work, you have successfully
replaced your PSU. If it won’t power up, first check that you have the power rocker
switch, commonly found on the back of your PSU on the rear of the case, turned to the
ON position. If that switch is ON, but you still can’t power your system up, check that
you’ve connected all required power connectors to your motherboard. If your system
powers up, but you get an error message that no operating system is found (or similar
message), check that you remembered to connect the power to your hard disk drives. If
you check all of these things and your system still won’t boot up, it is time to call in a
superior geek to get you up and running.

Step 9

If everything powers up, your PC boots to


Windows and your optical drives work, you are
ready to put the side panels back on your system
and you are done. Congratulations!
Tech Tip 75 – Parent’s Primer to Children and the Internet
By Kimmy Powell

Let’s face it. Technical literacy is a fact of life, and


our children know more about what’s happening on
the Web than most adults do. As their world
expands, and they become familiar with the
resources the Net has to offer, we are faced with a
dilemma: in an environment where anything goes,
how do we monitor what our children see and do
when they are more proficient than we are with
Cyberspace’s offerings? Tried and true parenting
methods should work with 21st century Cyberspace
as they would in matters of the “real world.” By
becoming active participants in a child’s learning,
parents can actually help prevent unsolicited
behaviors and risks their child may encounter online,
and help kids reap the greatest benefit from their
experience in this medium.

Benefits and Risks of Web Surfing

We’ve all heard the tales of child predators lurking


about the Internet from the news: stories of meetings
between under-aged kids and much older adults. We’re
also aware of the existence of indecent materials
littering the Internet. While these occurrences are rare,
they are nevertheless a part of Cyberspace, part of the
world of e-mails, chat rooms, instant messaging, and
forums. Kids may run a gauntlet of unpleasant
experiences such as hostile language, online bullying,
and gossip. They can expose your computer to
malicious software and viruses, be targeted by hackers
when they download “safe” attachments and files, create potential financial and legal
problems when they disclose a parent’s credit card number, or release too much personal
information. The Internet remains unregulated and open to all. While these risks may
deter you from allowing your child the luxury of Internet access, the benefits could
potentially be much greater.

Cyberspace is a valuable resource if kids can learn to filter content appropriately. Not
only can a kid get ideas for science projects and learn about history from a variety of
sources, but kids can learn about any subject, usually in much greater detail with much
more live data than books can offer. The Internet can help children learn problem-
solving skills, improve writing skills, teach programming, and they can learn to analyze
the pros and cons of the things they find in their research. These are important tools your
kids can use in the future in an economy turning increasingly towards information
services.

On the social scene, Cyberspace provides a great


environment for kids to meet others of like mind and interest.
Unlike school yards and classrooms, where kids are pigeon-
holed into being of a certain class and stature, there is no
face-to-face on the Internet. A child can pretty much be who
he or she is without feeling the same level of alienation as
they may in the classroom.

The key to making Cyberspace educational rather than


criminal is active parent participation and involvement. Set
the ground rules for online time. It’s the same as with any other “real world” parenting
problem.

Establishing Rules of the Road

To prevent the risks of web surfing


from becoming a reality, take
responsibility for monitoring your
child’s use of the Internet. Understand
and be knowledgeable about the
medium itself and decide what is
appropriate for your child.

 Make the Internet a family


activity. Create guidelines of
acceptable activities.
 Create a comfort zone between
yourself and your child where communication is possible. If your kids find
something inappropriate while surfing, they should feel comfortable coming to
you with their concerns without the fear of reprisal. Report suspicious activity or
pornographic materials to CyberTipline or the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children.
 Explain the need to exercise caution. Not everything on the Internet is what it
appears to be.
o Prevent unnecessary risk or harm by avoiding the disclosure of personal
information. Tell your kids what could happen when a stranger obtains
your personal information.
o Tell your kids NEVER to arrange any personal meetings. If such a
meeting is required, make sure your child understands that you must
accompany him or her to the venue and that the event must be in a public
location.
 Limit online time. Software programs such as ComputerTime allow you to set
time limits. These programs also offer password protection and block access to
certain programs that you find inappropriate.
 Use Internet filters and blocking programs to block access to sites, words, or
images that contain sexual content, graphic violence, criminal activity, alcohol
and tobacco references, and bigotry or so-called “hate” websites.
 Use kid-friendly browsers for younger children. Examples include:
o SurfOnTheSafeSide.com
o MyWeb (www.myweb.com)
o Garfield Island (www.garfieldisland.com)
 ISPs such as AOL may have software programs that offer limited filtering.

Remember, you can control what your child accesses


to a certain point. Filtering and blocking programs
are not foolproof, and if your child wants to see
something, he or she can usually gain access through
another venue. Set reasonable expectations between
yourself and your child. Establish a trusting
relationship.

A Contract Between You and Me

Before your kids hit the Net running, establish an


understanding between your child and yourself. One
way to establish this relationship is to create a contract that is accessible to both parent
and child. Your contract should include the following provisions:

1. I will leave personal information like my name, address,


school, and family out.
2. I will talk to Mom and Dad about things I am
uncomfortable with.
3. I won’t set up meetings with a stranger when I’m
online.
4. I will ask Mom and Dad for permission to upload any
pictures.
5. If I don’t like what somebody says or if it’s mean,
I won’t respond to that person.
6. I will visit only the sites that Mom and Dad approve.
7. I won’t give my password to anybody online. Only my parents will know my
password.
8. I won’t download files unless Mom and Dad say it’s OK.
9. I won’t be mean to others online.
10. I’ll teach Mom and Dad about the things I’m visiting.

Sample contracts are available at www.safekids.com.

Anything goes on the Internet, but we shouldn’t be afraid to let our children explore the
possibilities. Be vigilant, be wise, and most of all, don’t discourage your child getting
online. Participate in your child’s adventures and help your child understand and conquer
this new world that is such an intrinsic part of life today.
Tech Tip 76 - A Guide to Internet Blockers and Filters
By Kimmy Powell

Young online surfers are bound to run into content they should not see, especially since
the Internet is an environment where anything goes. An innocent misspelling of a word
can lead to a graphic display of pornography. Parents should take the necessary
precautions to monitor the activity of children online. An effective method to monitor a
child’s use of the Internet is to use Internet blocking and filtering software, known as
parental control software, to filter out objectionable content before it reaches young eyes
and ears.

Features to Consider

Internet filtering software packages come in


all shapes and sizes. Some packages over-
block or under-block content, and what’s good
for one family may not be suitable for another.

Parents should consider an Internet filter that:

 Manages access to Internet content.


 Blocks the display of personal
information.
 Blocks the ability to download
unauthorized material.
 Manages a child’s access to instant
messaging (IM), group chats or chat rooms, newsgroups, and other forms of
online communication.
 Controls a child’s online time.
 Offers password protection to prevent children from altering or messing with the
controls.
 Logs or provides a record of websites visited.
 Automatically downloads updates to keep blocked content lists current.
 Offers anti-spyware capabilities, pop-up blocking, and IP address cloaking.
 Offers customized filtering unique to each family member.
 Closes ports to outside intrusion.
 Offers peer-to-peer blocking.
 Offers flexibility on multiple computer or single computer platforms.

Parents should choose user-friendly programs that are easy to install and easy to use.
Purchasing a complicated package that has all the latest bells and whistles defeats the
purpose when parents can’t manipulate or understand all the great features.

Types of Internet Filters

Internet filtering software uses algorithms, or


patterns, that check website addresses and pages for
images or words that depict graphic violence, have
sexual content, contain racial slurs or epithets (or
other related hate content), and other content
deemed inappropriate by parents (political web
sites, gambling and alcohol-related sites). There are
three distinct types of Internet filters.

Black List Filters

Black list filters are the most popular types of


Internet blocking software. A website is added to a black list (“bad” list) that keeps track
of content with objectionable words and images. When a user tries to access the website
address on their browser, the software compares the address to the addresses on the list.
If there is a match, the users are denied access to the requested website.

White List Filters

White list filters allow access only to “good” sites on the list while denying access to
websites not on the list. White list filters are the most restrictive blockers.

Keyword or Content Filters

Keyword or content lists scan websites for the presence of specific words, phrases, or
images that appear on the restricted list. Access to a website is denied if the keyword or
content matches any words on the list. Because of the specificity of the filter, these
programs often deny access to websites that have acceptable content.

Content Rating Systems

Webmasters provide a classification of a website based on its content. Website


classifications are voluntary and are based on the web developer’s description of their
online content.
Which Package Do I Want?

Before purchasing any Internet filtering packages, find out what levels of protection your
Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides, and decide what your family needs. Things to
take into consideration are the ages of the users, defining what is and what is not
acceptable, and deciding on the level of blocking needed.

Some ISPs build filtering into their software programs


so that you won’t need to spend an extra dime. ISPs
such as Time Warner’s Roadrunner, AOL., Earthlink,
and MSN offer free software packages to subscribers
with basic firewall capabilities. All you need to do is
set up the software and determine the appropriate
levels of access for each family member. For example,
Roadrunner offers the Computer Associates’ eTrust®
Internet Security Suite ($69.95) which comes with
antivirus, anti-spam, pop-up blocking and firewall
capabilities. The program also regularly downloads and
installs automatic updates. The package is free to Time
Warner Internet subscribers, and can be downloaded
from http://content.rr.com/rdrun/feat_security.htm.
AOL also provides parental control software which requires its young members to get
parent-approved screen names.

If your ISP does not offer effective filtering programs, consider checking out the products
that have been tested and evaluated by the Consumers Union, publisher of the Consumer
Reports Guides. Their website (www.consumerreports.org) provides a great list of
effective software filters. Among their picks are:

 Safe Eyes (www.SafeBrowse.com, $49.95 per year for up


to three computers) is one of the top-rated Internet
filtering programs, received the Editor’s Choice rating by
PC Magazine, and was top-rated by Consumer Reports.
This package provides flexible content controls, web and
IM logging, limits online time, tracks usage by family
members, and controls access to online communications
programs and peer-to-peer programs. Access violations
are communicated to parents by text messages, emails, or
by phone. Safe Eyes uses keyword filtering.

 Microsoft’s Parental Control 9.1 (www.microsoft.com,


$29.99 per year) received the second highest ratings by
Consumer Reports. This web-based program allows parents to assign privileges
by user and filter content according to the user, as well as provide Internet activity
reports. Parents control access to contacts in online communications and blogs.
This software works with Windows XP and will come standard with the next
release of the Windows operating system.

 ContentProtect (www.contentwatch.com, $34.99 per year) is one of the more


feature-rich packages and contains remote management and reporting capabilities
so that parents can monitor their child’s activity while away from home. Filtering
is dynamic; content that is blocked due to the presence of keywords during one
moment may be unblocked later in the day. The product has a user-friendly
interface and provides effective filtering on national and international sites.

 CyberPatrol (www.surfcontrol.com, $39.95 per year) offers good filtering control


based on keywords and content. The program logs online time and reports
Internet activities, blocks IMs, and is customizable for individual users.
However, the program is not as user friendly as some of the other programs
described.

It’s important to remember that while Internet filters are effective in limiting what
children see and do online, these tools are not foolproof, and hackers are always on the
prowl to break the tool. Parents should take an active role in monitoring online activity
to let children know which behaviors are or are not appropriate while web surfing.
Communication coupled with these external programs is the best defense parents can
have towards protecting their children online.
Tech Tip 77 - Installing a Graphics Card
By Shane McGlaun

Graphics cards are typically the first item a gamer or general computer user decides to
upgrade when they are seeking better graphics performance from their system. There are
a number of different graphics cards and you want to be sure that you choose the correct
card for your needs and for your system. There are currently three different types of
graphics card interfaces to choose from.

The first type of card interface is not very common and is limited to specialty use cards
most commonly used for multiple monitor systems. These cards use the standard PCI
(peripheral component interconnect) slot. The second type of graphics card interface that
is still common in many “older” systems is the AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) slot.
AGP slots are typically seen in the 4x and 8x varieties. The last type of card interface is
the PCI Express slot. PCI-E (or PCIe) is the newest graphics card interface and offers the
highest performance.

I mention the different graphics card slots so that you will understand that not all graphics
cards will work with all types of mainboards. Be sure that you buy the card that has the
appropriate interface for your system. If you are in doubt as to which type of card your
system will support, check with the computer or mainboard manufacturer for your system
before you buy.

Once you get the correct type of graphics card for your PC, follow these simple steps
below to install your new graphics card. Installing the graphics card is one of the easiest
upgrades you can perform on your system and also one of the upgrades you will see the
most benefit from when it comes to gaming.

1. The first step is to gather the tools you will need to install your new graphics card.
Many newer computer cases are tool-less. You may not need any tools to install your
graphics card. However, it is still very common to have cases that use screws to hold the
side panels on the case, as well as to hold the expansion slot covers on the case. So, have
a medium Phillips-head screwdriver ready just in case.
2. After you get your tools together, you are ready to disconnect your computer from the
power outlet and remove the cables connecting your peripherals to the computer. After
the cables are removed, you are ready to remove the side panel.

3. After you remove the side panel, locate the appropriate expansion slot covers on your
case and remove them to allow for the install of your new graphics card. Some cheaper
cases have expansion slot covers that snap off and can’t be replaced. Be sure that you
choose the correct slot cover or covers to be removed. Often, the easiest way to be sure
that you are removing the correct slot covers is to hold your graphics card over the
appropriate slot on the motherboard and see which covers need to be removed. It is
important to note that the graphics card I am using in this article is a two slot ATI
X1900XT card. Many cards only require a single cover to be removed.

4. Once you have removed the correct expansion slot covers from your case, you are
ready to actually install the card. It is important to point out here that you must be very
careful at this step of the installation. The capacitors and components that are on the
surface of the graphics card are very fragile. Mishandling the card can cause irreparable
damage that will likely not be covered by the warranty.
Hold the graphics card by the edges of the board, not by the heat sink or fan and not by
any of the components of the graphics card. Once you have the card aligned correctly for
the slot you have chosen to use, gently but firmly press the card into place. Every
mainboard manufacturer uses a retainer system of some sort to lock the card into place on
the mainboard. After you get the graphics card secured in place on the mainboard, be sure
that you secure it to the case where you removed the expansion slot covers with the same
hardware that held the expansion covers in place.

5. This step only applies to those installing some higher end PCI Express graphics cards.
Many PCI-E graphics cards require a special six-pin power adapter from the computer’s
power supply to operate. The PCI-E power connector will typically be black and located
near the rear edge of the graphics card. If your graphics card has this six-pin power plug,
be sure that you connect it or your card may not function correctly.

6. You have now completed the hardware portion of the graphics card install. When
completed, your system should resemble the image below. You are now ready to replace
your side panel, reconnect your peripherals, and power your computer back up.
7. The final step after powering your computer back up is to install the drivers for your
new graphics card. While most graphics cards will come with a disk containing the
drivers and possibly other applications, it is recommended that you download the newest
drivers for your graphics card from the manufacturer’s website. Follow the instructions
from the manufacturer to install the graphics card drivers and you are finished!
Congratulations - you have installed your new graphics card!
Tech Tip 78 - Voice Over IP Basics
By Shane McGlaun

VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a method of allowing you to


talk to someone over a network such as the Internet or a corporate
network on a device similar to a normal telephone. There are services
available that allow you to make VOIP calls for free such as Skype.
Services like Skype require both the person placing the call and the
person receiving the call to be on the service, while other fee-based
VOIP services like Vonage allow you to call any phone number just
as you would with standard telephone service. For more information
on VOIP, you can check out the FCC site FAQ on VOIP.

Currently, one of the biggest drawbacks to VOIP service as the sole phone service for a
home or business is 911 service. On a normal phone line, 911 operators have access to
caller ID information that allows them to route emergency services to the address you are
calling from. However, VOIP calls
often do not provide accurate
location information due to their
portable nature. Adding to this
problem is the fact that many VOIP
providers allow you to choose the
area code for your phone number
from any available across the
country. That means you could live
in Texas and have a California area
code with many VOIP providers. For
more points to consider regarding
VOIP and 911 services, check out
this page from the FCC web site.
We often take our phone
service for granted because in
most areas the service is rarely
interrupted. We can’t always
say the same thing about our
Internet service. VOIP calls
won’t work if your Internet
connection is down, and a
broadband connection is
required for VOIP to function with most providers. Dial-up access does not provide
enough bandwidth and popular VOIP services like Vonage require a connection that
provides 90Kbps upstream speed. The more things that use your web connection
bandwidth, the less call quality you will get when making a VOIP call. If, for instance,
you are downloading music when you are making a VOIP call, you may experience poor
connection similar to using a cell phone in an area with bad reception. A web connection
with higher bandwidth and speed will reduce the chance of your calls dropping and the
chances of poor quality calls.

Many users are making the change to VOIP due to


the cheaper costs associated with this type of
calling over standard phone services. VOIP is
much more portable than standard phone lines and
can be taken with you wherever you go so long as
a fast web connection is available. Perhaps the
biggest reason for choosing VOIP is the cost
savings typically associated with VOIP providers
as compared to standard telephone service
providers. Portability is another big selling point.
VOIP users that travel frequently can take their
phone and phone number with them wherever
they go allowing them to have the same number
no matter what part of the country or world they
are in at the time.

There are a few things you need to be able to make


VOIP calls. Many services like Skype or MSN
require a computer to operate. All services will need
some hardware and software that will vary depending
on the provider you choose. A web connection is a
given with a decent upload speed for quality calls.
Some services require a hardware device to turn the VOIP protocols into information
your standard phone can use. There are also a number of VOIP phones available that are
portable and have great features, such as the AU-100 VOIP phone, that are designed
especially to function with VOIP services.

Ultimately, whether or not VOIP is a viable option for you comes down to your
preferences and the quality of your web connection. If your web connection frequently
goes down or is particularly slow, you may want to think twice about VOIP. If members
of your family have medical needs that might make you more prone to need to call 911,
you may also want to seriously weigh the pros and cons of the 911 functionality with
VOIP services.

The equipment needed to make VOIP calls is not very costly and the prices are coming
down all the time. Perhaps users who should most consider VOIP are those that make lots
of long distance calls. Personally, I used VOIP for awhile and, on my connection, I had
some issues with call quality that make me not want to use VOIP alone for my phone
service. However, if you are in an area with quality high-speed web connections, you
may well be very happy with your VOIP service. The cost savings typically seen when
VOIP is used is undeniable. My suggestion is to try VOIP before you totally drop your
standard phone service. Use the VOIP as your everyday calling plan while you use your
web connection as you normally would. The only really way to tell if VOIP is for you is
to try it out. You can always go back to your plain phone service. Just don’t sign a
commitment contract with a VOIP carrier until you are sure VOIP works for you!
Tech Tip 79 - Converting Your Old Media to New
How to Convert LP Records, Cassette Tapes and VHS Tapes into New Media
By Bryan Lambert

We get many requests from our


customers for information on how to
convert their old media types to new
media types. This is such a common
request that we decided to give our
readers what they’ve been asking
for. This Tech Tip will deal with
how to convert your older media
types (LPs, Tapes and VHS) to
newer media types (DVD and CDs).

Geeks.com respects the rights of all – and asks that its customers do the same. Current
copyright laws vary from country to country, and while many countries allow private
copying for personal use, some may not. However, no country allows you to make copies
of copyrighted material for sale or distribution (even free distribution to friends). Please
respect all laws and regulations of the country that you live in.

You’ve spent years building your LP collection


only to watch as CDs overtook and surpassed
vinyl as the recording medium of choice. Maybe
you have a stack of cassette tapes from the car
you just traded in and, unfortunately, your new
car only has a CD player. You’d like to bring
your music with you, but how?

Believe it or not, your


home computer has
almost all the hardware already needed to convert your favorite
LPs or cassette tapes! All you need is your sound card and a
good program. If you plan to burn the LP or cassette to CD, then
you will need an optical burner drive as well (CDRW, DVDRW,
etc.). Your sound card will typically have a single 1/8” (3.5mm) stereo "line-in" port.
Typically, a phonograph or tape player will have stereo “RCA connectors” left and right
channels out. All you need to connect the two is a cable. The Belkin “Y” Audio Cable
sold by Geeks makes an ideal patch cable to easily marry the two together. Patch cables
can also be found at any
Radio Shack (or similar) store.

Next, a good program is needed. Ideally, when recording from


LPs or cassette tapes, you’ll need a program to help adapt the
sound coming in from the LP or cassette into something the
computer can use, such as WAV or MP3 files, and should also
compensate for cracks, pops and hiss. A quick search for “LP”
on Downloads.com comes up with a load of programs that can
do this of file conversion. Three software products we’ve
recommended for a long time are: “LP Recorder” and “LP Ripper” from CFB Software,
“Audio Tools” from Unrelated Inventions and “Spin It Again” from Acoustica. All three
have trial versions available so that you can see which may work best for you.

You simply plug in the LP or cassette player to the computer, launch the program, and
then let the recording begin!

Some inventive companies have also come up with


shortcuts as well. Geeks.com sells the Plusdeck2c, a
clever device that installs into your computer as a
cassette drive – and allows you to play audio cassettes
and convert them to MP3 format right on your
computer – no need for a separate player.

ADS Tech also sells an external USB sound


card called Instant Music that comes with
RCA jacks built in as well as programs from
Nero that allow you to convert your LPs and
audio cassettes – quickly, easily, and with
only one device. They make a version for
MACs as well.

Like LPs and audio cassettes, converting VHS, or other video tapes, to DVD or AVI can
be done via two routes. One uses what you may already have on your computer, and the
other uses an all-in-one package.

If you have a video capture card or a TV tuner


card, (such as these sold by Geeks.com), or the
All-in-Wonder combination video card/TV cards
made by ATI), all you may need is a cable to patch
the video capture or TV tuner card and the VHS
player together. Most VHS players have RCA
connecters out for audio and video. Video RCA
connectors are also called “composite” connectors.
Many capture cards will have an RCA video input on them and use a sound card “line-in”
for sound. RCA video cables usually need to be a “heavier grade” of cable than audio
cables, so a cable made specifically for video, such as this one sold by Geeks.com, works
best. Video cables may also be component or S-Video types as well (for improved video
signal resolution), and many capture cards will also support these kinds of inputs. The
Belkin cable mentioned above would be great for the audio connection here.

Many capture cards already come with software that will allow you to record a video
signal in different formats and at different resolutions on your PC. However, many will
not have the ability to convert them to the DVD format, also called the MPEG2 format,
though they may offer it as a separate add-on. From this point, you can make your own
DVD or VCD (Video CD).

You simply plug in the VHS player to the computer, launch the program, and then let the
copying begin!

If you lack the software that will allow capture and conversion, you can find many
programs on sites such as http://www.downloads.com (with a search for “VHS”) that will
do this.

Programs and capture cards vary in quality and features, so many


people opt for an all-in-one solution. ADS Tech makes a number
of products that will include all the hardware and software you
need in one convenient package, such as the ADS Tech USB 2.0
DVD Xpress sold by Geeks.com.

Whether you decide to use the equipment you already have, or buy an all-in-one solution,
converting your old media can be a fun and rewarding process. Don’t be afraid to
convert your LPs, audio cassettes or VHS tapes – you’ll find the process very much
worth the effort.

As some readers pointed out, there were two different types of LP turntables that were
made. One was an "all in one" unit that typically just had straight RCA audio jacks out
while the other was usually a "component" of a larger system (these were typically higher
end turntables). While the "all in one" type of turntable will produce an adequate output
to record directly on a PCs sound card, the component type will not. The turntables that
were component type usually could not work without the use of a pre-amplifier
(commonly called a pre-amp). If your turntable is a component type, you will need a pre-
amp as many sound cards cannot compensate for the low-level sound produced by these
turntables when used without a pre-amp. You simply hook the turntable to the pre-amp
inputs for "phono" and the PCs sound card to the pre-amps outputs.
Tech Tip 80 - What You Can Do with Your PDA
By Kimmy Powell

The traditional personal digital assistant, better known as the PDA,


is all about organization – organizing your address books,
organizing your emails, or organizing your tasks. However,
today’s models transcend organization, turning the PDA into an
office on the run. You can surf the web on your PDA, chat online
with your pals, masquerade as an amateur photographer, entertain
yourself with electronic games, or play your favorite tunes and
videos. Technology improvements and fierce competition have
driven down the prices of PDAs. If you decide to invest in one of
these nifty devices, don’t set it aside and let it collect dust. Put it to
good use.

You’ve acquired your new PDA to simplify


business on-the-run. One of the most common
tasks of a PDA is keeping track of
appointments, tasks, contacts, and email while
you’re away from your desk. Therefore, you’ll
need your PDA to keep track of all these things
from one computer to the next. That’s where
the desktop software comes in.

Whether you’ve purchased a Palm Pilot,


Blackberry, or Pocket PC, before you begin the
business of tying everything together, you’ll
need to install the desktop software for the
device. Remove the CD labeled with your desktop software, slip it onto the CD-ROM
drive of your computer, and follow the on-screen instructions for the installation,
selecting the default settings. Once you’ve installed the desktop software, it’s time to set-
up the sync.

The sync, or synchronization


process, refers to the process of
reconciling and resolving conflicts
in the data between different devices – in our case, between the PDA and the
desktop/laptop computer. Each PDA uses its company’s synchronization software
package: Palm Desktop (Palm Pilots), ActiveSync (Pocket PCs), or other service
(Blackberry Internet or simply using Microsoft Outlook). Syncing between your PDA
and your computer ensures that your appointments and contact information remain up-to-
date. When you set up synchronization, you’ll need to decide on how the
synchronization should occur. Do you synchronize wirelessly or through a cradle or USB
connection to the computer? Which device takes precedence if a conflict occurs while
syncing?

If your computer and PDA support wireless syncing, go wireless. By using wireless, you
avoid the hassles of connecting one device to another and fooling around with wires.
However, keep in mind that wireless synchronization may be slower than synchronization
through a direct connection. Also, if your device is not secured while you do a wireless
sync, you’re opening yourself up to potential attacks by hackers. On the other hand, if
you have to sync to more than one computer, you can mix the different modes of
synchronization. Set your PDA’s settings accordingly before you perform each
synchronization if you sync using more than one mode.

You’ll also need to decide whether the information from your computer or PDA takes
precedence should a conflict occur during the sync process. The choices offered include:

• Desktop computer wins – if any information differs between your computer’s


contact organizer and your PDA, the computer’s data will overwrite the data
stored on the PDA. Use this option if you use your computer as the central
information collection point and use the PDA as your computer’s temporary store.

• Handheld wins – if there are any differences between the computer’s contact
organizer and your PDA, the data stored on the PDA will overwrite the data stored
on the computer. Use this option if you primarily collect new information using
your PDA and must replicate it to other systems.

• The PDA or desktop computer notifies you if there is a conflict and you decide
whether to accept the information on the PDA or the desktop computer.

Once you’ve set up the software and synchronization settings on your desktop, you’re
ready to work. Your software will normally require an initial sync to occur. Once this
has taken place, the PDA now becomes the central collection point for all your
information.

The number one reason for getting


a PDA is organizing information
on-the-go, and this means arranging
your information so you can locate
it when needed. One way of
making this easier is to create
categories of contacts, tasks, and
appointments. Your desktop and
PDA software should come with
default categories that include
contacts, calendars, notes, and tasks, with some even separating business files from
personal ones. Start with the default categories and add more as you go. As you take
notes, set-up appointments, and create new contacts, file them away in your newly
created categories and replicate this structure back to your computer when you sync. By
creating categories, you increase your productivity and make information handling easier.

Have wireless? If you’re in a location that has access to


Internet connectivity, you can surf the web, check your
email, or chat with your pals online using the device’s
messaging tool. Built into the Windows CE operating
system of Pocket PCs is the MSN Messenger. If you own a
Blackberry, you can access email using the Blackberry
Internet Service. If your device comes pre-built with
Bluetooth capabilities, you can download files and exchange
business cards with other Bluetooth-friendly devices, connect
to the Internet, or navigate by satellite using GPS. The iPAQ
PDAs feature some of the most powerful Bluetooth
capabilities built into a handheld.

Today’s PDAs are more than functional extensions of the office; they’re miniature
entertainment centers, capable of playing MP3s or videos if you have the software to do
so. Pocket Tunes is a software program that turns a Palm or Treo into an MP3 player.
Napster features music downloads for certain handheld models. The Palm Zire series
features built-in MP3, digital camera and video capabilities. Owners of the Pocket PC
may purchase videos from Pocket Movies (www.pocketmovies.net) on their handhelds
running PocketTV. There is no fee for the personal use of PocketTV on Pocket PCs and
the Casio Pocket Manager. Other things you can do with your PDA (with special
software) include reading e-books and listening to audio books. Life is never dull with a
PDA at your side.

Your PDA is, after all, a handheld computer, and computers are not immune from
disaster. That’s why it’s important to perform
regular back-ups of your PDA’s data. Back-up
your data to a CompactFlash (CF) card or a
Secure Digital (SD) and MultiMediaCard
(MMC). These cards store anywhere from 64
MB to 1GB of data You can use the basic
utilities that come with the Pocket PC, or
purchase a third-party software package, such as
Pocket Backup Plus (www.spritesoftware.com)
or Backup Manager. Remember, your back-up will be the one true source from which to
replicate your data should the PDA fail.

Make your investment work for you – get acquainted with your PDA and make life on-
the-go more than functional. Make it an unforgettable experience!
Tech Tip 82 - Shopping for the Perfect Printer - A Printer Primer
By Kimmy Powell

These days, technology is


getting cheaper, but the cost
required to maintain
technology can end up
costing more than you had
budgeted. Take for example
a brand new car. Maybe
you’ve experienced
this…getting a great deal on
the car of your dreams, only
to find that the cost to change
the oil and perform
maintenance checks is many
times more than you are used
to paying for your old car. Now imagine the car is the printer you just purchased from
your local electronics retailer, rebate included so that the cost of the printer justifies the
gas necessary get you to the store. You are a happy camper and humming along nicely
until the ink runs out after just a hundred pages, and you find yourself running down to
your local electronics retailer for another cartridge. To boot you haven’t even received
the rebate you sent in six weeks ago! If you print in color, one cartridge turns into two,
which equates to two times the cost. Sound familiar?

Arming yourself with a few basics can save you more than you’ll know. Prevent the
post-sticker-shock blues by keeping the following tips in mind when you shop for your
next printer.

Do Your Research

First, figure out what your printing needs are and how much you’re willing to spend. A
good quality inkjet printer can be found for under $100 while a laser printer can run
several hundred, and high-volume or color laser systems thousands.
Make notes on one-time costs and then calculate the costs of ongoing essentials – ink and
toner cartridges and paper (especially if you opt for a photo printer). Another thing to
look into is whether the printer will require swapping out a single ink cartridge or the
entire unit when an individual color runs dry. A printer that requires all cartridges to be
changed at the same time will be costlier in the long run than swapping out individual
cartridges. Single ink jet cartridges cost around $10 (Canon) to over $40 (Hewlett
Packard (HP)). Laser toner cartridges average between $50 and $100, but have the added
benefit of producing higher page counts (in the thousands) than inkjet printers which will
produce in the hundreds.

Select Technology That Serves Your Purpose

After you’ve figured out how you’re planning to use your printer, you’ll need to select
the appropriate type that meets your individual needs. There are four major types of
printers.

Inkjet Printers

The most commonly used printer is the inkjet


printer. Inkjet printers work by spraying drops of
ink through tiny holes on the print head directly
onto the page. Inkjets produce quality output at
fairly cheap prices ($30 for selected Lexmark
models; over $600 for higher-end models) and are
perfect for everyday home use, students, and those
not concerned with professional quality printing.
The drawback to the inkjet, however, is the cost
associated with replacing cartridges. While that inexpensive inkjet printer may seem like
a bargain, the economics won’t extend to the actual costs of the cartridge itself or the
printing mileage you’ll get out of that single cartridge. The moderately-priced inkjet that
uses less expensive cartridges and has higher page outputs may be a better bet than the
cheaper model. Before you buy, check out the reviews and ratings from trusted sources
such as PC World or CNET.

Photo Printers

Photo printers are glorified inkjet printers


specializing in printing images from digital cameras.
Photo printers operate much like inkjets; however,
photo printers use a piezo-electric nozzle which
bends and twists in response to electric currents to
control the precision of ink droplets onto the page
for crisper images. Cheap photo printers can cost
around $50. Dedicated photo printers ($150-$400)
have broader color spectrums and use thermal ink
dyes to generate the added photographic “feel.” Professional quality photo printers will
cost around $1500.

Laser Printers

If you create high volume, copier-quality black and


white text, you might consider purchasing a laser
printer. Laser printers are suitable for office (or
home-office) environments that endure high
workloads and require professional output. Like its
cousin the copier, these printers use laser beams to
sketch out a text and/or graphics image onto a
rolling drum. The drum then attracts toner and uses
it places the image on paper. A good-quality
monochrome laser printer will cost between $300
and $500 with color lasers digging a deeper hole in
your wallet. Among the best on the market are the
trusted LaserJet series by Hewlett Packard. Samsung and Dell also have decently-priced
systems that appeal to many users.

All-In-One Printers

All-in-one printers are multifunctional printers


that serve as scanner, fax machine, copier and
printer. Using inkjet technologies, all-in-one
printers make sense if storage is an issue.
However, with a multifunction printer, you’ll
sacrifice some print quality for the ability to
access other features.

Features That Make or Break the Printer

The features that come with a particular printer should rank just as high as price on any
scale. Some of the features you should consider when selecting your next printer
purchase are:

• Speed – how many pages per minute does it print? Don’t go by the
manufacturer’s claims; test the printer at your local electronics retailer once
you’ve narrowed down your selections.
• DPI, or dots per inch of paper – the higher the dpi, the better and crisper the text
quality. You’ll want to aim for printers with a resolution of at least 600 dpi,
although many quality printers today will create outputs of at least 1200 dpi.
• Connection type – most printers come pre-built with universal serial bus (USB)
ports, although some models still come with parallel ports. USB connections are
easy to set up and use. When selecting a USB printer, check the speed of the
USB connection; if your computer uses USB 1.1, you won’t get any added speed
from a faster USB 2.0 printer. Also, most printers require the purchase of an
accompanying cable, no matter what the connection, so be sure to take that into
consideration as well.
• Duplex capabilities – looking for double-sided printing? Check for printers that
offer duplex capabilities.
• Capacity of paper trays or availability of additional paper trays – how much
paper does the tray hold? Some low-cost printers will require you to constantly
add paper. If you plan on printing volumes, look for a printer that has capacity for
at least half a ream, if not a ream of paper.
• Networking ports – if you need to share your printer with other workstations in
the home or office, look for printers that come with built-in wireless or wired
networking ports.
• Cost of cartridges/toners and paper for the particular printer – Prices will vary a
little from store to store, but you can use one store for comparison purposes.
• Warranty – how long is the printer guaranteed to work, and what form of support
can you expect?

Remember, your printer doesn’t have to cost you a fortune to maintain. Take the
effort to do your research and pick a printer that serves your purposes rather than
what’s hot on the market. Not only will you be prepared on what to expect, but you’ll
have a little pocket change for that next great gadget.
Tech Tip 83 - Setting Up Remote Desktop in Windows XP
By Shane McGlaun

Why would you want to connect remotely to another desktop on your network, you ask?
Say you are at home comfortably working in bed and your laptop doesn’t have the word
processing application you need, but the computer in the living room does. If a wireless
or wired network connects your computers, you can access the application you need from
the computer in your living room without leaving your bedroom. The same goes for the
office: why walk all the way back to shipping to print out a label with postage to send out
a package when you can connect remotely and save yourself the walk.

There are several other applications besides Windows XP Remote Desktop that will allow
you to remotely connect to another computer on your local network or via the Internet.
However, the best thing about Windows XP Remote Desktop is that it is included with the
Windows XP software package, and may be already be loaded on your computer. Other
applications typically involve buying and downloading the software, then configuring
the built-in Windows Firewall. Guess what? Remote Desktop inside Windows XP can even
configure the Windows Firewall for you, making it probably the easiest to use remote
connection application you will find.

Remote Desktop also has some options to help speed up the use of the remote computer
in slower networks or for dial-up users. You can opt to display a smaller screen resolution,
remove the desktop background from being displayed on the remote computer, and even
reduce the color depth to improve performance. Other performance enhancing features
include the ability to turn off animations and themes, but seeing the desktop is not all you
can do when remotely connected via Remote Desktop.

You can also print your documents using the remote computer’s printer, and bring any
sounds from the remote computer to your own speakers. In addition, you will always be
using a specific application each time you connect remotely. You can set Remote Desktop
to launch the application you need automatically every time you connect, saving you
valuable time.

For users with several Windows XP computers on the network in a home or office requiring
programs and applications to be shared between computers, Remote Desktop will do the
trick. Remote Desktop is already built into your Windows XP operating system and is easy
to set up. The steps below will walk you through the process of setting up Remote Desktop
on your computer. A word of caution to those who have modified some of the Windows
files – these instructions may not follow exactly and you may need to contact Windows
Support to complete the set-up process.

1. The first step is to right-click on the “My Computer” icon on your desktop, then click on
Properties at the bottom of the window that opens up.

2. After you click on Properties, you will get another window that opens up.
That looks like this:

You will want to click the tab that says “Remote”.


3. In the “Remote” window, look for the check
window that will “Allow users to connect
remotely to this computer,” and select it. You
may or may not want to choose the users
you allow to access your system at this point.
You only need to select remote users here if
you will be connecting to this computer with
accounts other than the default account for
the local machine. After you are done, click
apply and then “ok” to close the window.

4. The next step is to click on the Start button in the lower left corner of your computer
screen.
5. Go to Programs, Accessories and
Communications. Inside the communications
folder, you will see the shortcut for Remote
Desktop. Select the Remote Desktop icon.

6. After clicking the Remote Desktop icon, you will see the actual Remote Desktop
Connection icon pop up.

7. In the Remote Desktop window, select


Options and you will see all the available
options for opening your Remote Desktop
Connection. This is also the area where you
enter the name of the computer on your
network you wish to access remotely, or
browse your network for computers you can
remotely connect to. You can also enter the
user name and password if you wish to skip
the authentication on the local computer you
are connecting remotely to. After you set the
options you desire, click the Connect button.
8. Once you click the Connect button, you should see the desktop of the remote computer
open up in a window. You may have also chosen to have the desktop of the remote
computer open in full screen mode.

Once you are finished accessing the remote computer, either click the “X” on the beige
colored tab at the top of a full screen remote desktop session, or the red “X” in a
windowed remote desktop session.

Setting up Remote Desktop in Windows XP can be accomplished by even the most


inexperienced computer user. In today’s homes and offices, there is a growing demand for
easy accessibility to networked computer and peripheral equipment increasing flexibility,
maximizing productivity, and saving time, money, and energy. Taking advantage of this
Windows XP feature will help you accomplish your computer networking goals.
How to build
a computer
Part 1: Choosing Computer Components
Tech Tip 84 - By Shane McGlaun

Note: This is the first installment in an ongoing • Chassis/case


series that will detail how to build a computer • Power supply
starting with selecting the components and • CD drives
covering everything in between up to installing • DVD drives
the operating system (OS) and tweaking the • Floppy Drive*
BIOS settings. • Hard Drive(s)
• RAM (random access memory)
• Motherboard
• CPU (central processing unit)
• CPU heat sink/fan
• Thermal paste
• Hard drive cable
• Floppy drive cable*
• CD/DVD drive cable
• Video card (graphics card)*
(optional if your motherboard has
onboard graphics)
Building your own personal computer (PC) can • Sound card* (optional if your
seem overwhelming at first. There are so many motherboard has onboard sound)
components that go into building a PC that • Monitor (display)
just learning what you need to buy can be very • Input – Keyboard/Mouse
confusing. As a result, many first-time builders • Speakers*
sometimes overlook buying some parts. • Operating system software

This Tech Tip will cover how to select your


components, and how to ensure that your Choosing Your Computer Case or Chassis
components are compatible and will work
together. We will start by making a list of the Choosing your computer case
basic components you need for an average seems pretty straight forward,
gaming or general use PC; you can then refer and it is. There are a few different
back to this basic list throughout the series. form factors (the physical size
and shape of a device) around
With this Tech Tip, we will be covering the basics that you need to be aware of
of choosing the items in bold below. Optional when case shopping. The first
components are marked with an asterisk *: is the newer BTX (Balanced
Technology Extended) format cases. While they to buy a $500.00 Pc Power & Cooling unit, a
are not as common, it is important to point out few extra dollars are wisely invested in a unit
that almost all motherboards are ATX and they such as the ASYS 650-Watt Dual Fan ATX Power
will not fit inside a BTX case. Supply. Geeks.com has a great selection of
power supplies that are kind to your budget.
The same goes for the small form factor cases
that are designed to sit on a desktop. A simple If you are a hardcore gamer looking to get into
rule of thumb is if the case is smaller that your SLI (NVidia Scalable Link Interface) or Crossfire
motherboard, don’t buy it! The vast majority (ATI Technology) setups, you will want to buy a
of cases you will find are ATX compatible. ATX PSU that has two PCI-E power connectors and is
has a few different variants basically having to SLI-ready if you’re going the SLI route. Ensure
do with the size of the motherboard. that it has enough Wattage to power two of
your cards as well as the other components
Most all computer case retail boxes will list inside your system. For more information on
the type of motherboards it is compatible power requirements of SLI, check out Nvidia’s
with right on the computer case packaging. SLI Zone. For more information on ATI Crossfire
If you are shopping and buying online, the gaming, check out the ATI site.
website will certainly list the motherboard
compatibility. Be sure the case matches up with
your chosen motherboard form factor and you Choosing Compact Disk/
will be fine. Digital Video Drives

Choosing a CD/
Choosing Your Power Supply DVD drive is a
bit easier than
Power supply units choosing some
(PSU) are one of the of the other main
main components components of
of your computer your computer
that many people system. Short of the speed at which the drives
put little thought can burn disks, most drives are similar. There
into. It would be a are some DVD/CD drives out that use SATA
wise move to not ports like a newer hard drive rather than
simply buy the cheapest PSU you can find. A the IDE channels from your motherboard.
bad PSU with unstable and fluctuating power You can choose either style, so long as your
output can cause all sorts of problems with your motherboard supports SATA. You can even go
computer, such as damaged components due with an external drive if you so desire.
to a power surge, to crashes and reboots due
to power levels falling too low that can wreak Most drives you find will be the standard IDE
havoc on your patience. Because computer type. DVD burners are quickly becoming the
components put increasing demands on the drive of choice for computers. The newer dual-
case power supply, manufacturers are working layer DVD drives will allow you to store more
to bring more powerful and efficient power data per disk for your back-ups. The new Blu-Ray
supplies to the consumer that feature the new drives are also available, but at an exorbitant
ATX12V 2.2/ EPS12V power supply standard, price typically over $1,000.00. Your typical DVD
which you can find in power supplies such burner will run you well under $100. Keep an
as the Antec NeoHE 500-Watt 24-pin Power eye out for media compatibility, availability,
Supply. and burn speed. Go with the fastest drive that
fits in your budget and you will be happy.
PSUs that are included with computer cases are
notorious for being cheaply made. The PSU is A DVD drive is recommended over a simple CD
one component where you certainly get what drive as more games and software are shipping
you pay for. While you don’t necessarily have on DVD media.
Floppy Drive a floppy drive, just pick one up to be safe.
Floppy drives are readily available for under
The floppy drive $20.00, and Geeks.com still carries a fairly good
is the first of selection of floppy drives.
the optional
components of
your computer Conclusion of Part One
system. As DVD
drives take over, There are just too many components and
many newer too much information to cover the basics of
computers from the big manufacturers such as what you need to know when building your
Dell and HP no longer ship with floppy drives. own PC and shopping for components in one
With files getting ever bigger, the floppy drive installment. In Part 2 of this series on how to
just doesn’t have enough capacity any more. build a computer system, we will pick up at
choosing the right hard drive for your computer.
However, if you go without a floppy drive, keep If you still find you can’t decide on what
in mind that you may find yourself at some components to choose for your system, call the
point needing one to load a driver if you plan Geeks.com sales team for assistance. Trust me -
to use an older operating system like Windows it’s far better to ask than it is to buy the wrong
98 or 98 SE. Depending on your motherboard, component; it’s quite common for components
you might need a floppy drive to easily install to be non-returnable once opened.
drivers for your SATA RAID or drives during
the Windows install at the F6 prompt. We will
cover this in more detail in a later installment
of this series. If you are not sure you will need E-mail: Techtips@geeks.com
geeks.com | techtipsblog.com e-mail

How to build
a computer
Part 2: Choosing Computer Components
Tech Tip 85 - By Shane McGlaun

Note: This is the second installment in an


ongoing series that will detail how to build
a computer starting with selecting the
components and covering everything in
between up to installing the OS and tweaking
the BIOS.

We began our series on how to build a


computer last week when we covered choosing
the case, power supply, CD/DVD drives, and
floppy drive. This week, we will continue by
looking at how to select a motherboard, hard
drive, and memory (RAM) for your computer
system. The information provided here is of
a basic nature for those new to computer
building and selecting components. • CPU (central processing unit)
• CPU heat sink/fan
The hardware on the component list below in • Thermal paste
italics was covered in a previous installment • Hard drive cable
of this series. Today, we will be covering the • Floppy drive cable*
hardware in bold. Asterisks denote optional • CD/DVD drive cable
components. • Video card (graphics card)*
(optional if your motherboard has
• Chassis/case onboard graphics)
• Power supply • Sound card* (optional if your
• CD drives motherboard has onboard sound)
• DVD drives • Monitor (display)
• Floppy Drive* • Input – Keyboard/Mouse
• Hard Drive(s) • Speakers*
• RAM (random access memory) • Operating system software
• Motherboard

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Hard Drive choices available for RAM, depending on


the manufacturer and speed of the product.
You need to be sure that you are buying
the appropriate RAM for your system. Some
motherboards will accept DDR2 and some
will only accept original DDR. All AMD
motherboards accept only DDR memory,
except the newest socket AM2 systems. Most
all Intel systems that are currently on the
market use DDR2, as do the new AMD AM2
platforms.

RAM [check out this Tech Tip on memory] is


typically specified by both a gigahertz (GHz)
speed as well as latency, such as OCZ PC5300
333MHz. If you are searching for gaming
There are a number of different hard drive RAM, you will want to keep an eye on the
manufacturers and hard drive types in a wide latency of the RAM. Generic modules of RAM
price range, but basically internal hard drives will likely not list the latencies, while high
are available in two internal styles: IDE and performance and gaming RAM will certainly
SATA. SATA drives are newer, offer improved list them. The lower the latency numbers, the
performance over IDE drives with regards to better the performance you can expect from
bandwidth and data transfer speeds, and use your modules.
thinner serial cables versus the bulkier ribbon
cables used by IDE drives. However, IDE drives Some systems, such as the AMD socket AM2
are still available and every motherboard still systems, benefit more from lower latencies
has the required IDE headers (connectors) on than they do from higher clock speeds. You
them. The same can’t be said for SATA drives; will want to do some research to determine
some of the older motherboards around what is better for your system: high memory
don’t have SATA ports on them. SATA drives speeds or lower latencies. Obviously, the best
also come in two speeds: SATA 3.0 GB/s and of both worlds would be RAM with both high
the standard (150 mb/second) SATA ports. You clock speeds and low latencies.
will want to check compatibility with your
motherboard before you purchase your hard
drive.

The capacity of the hard drive you buy is really


a matter of personal choice. Currently, the
largest capacity you can get on an internal
single hard drive is 750GB. Obviously, the
larger the capacity, the more the drive costs.
I recommend you get the largest drive your
budget can absorb.

RAM (Random Access Memory)

Much like hard drives, there are many

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The amount of RAM depends on both your The same goes for Intel processors - just get
budget, as well as what you intend the system a motherboard that has the correct socket.
to be used for when it’s completed. If you are There are several socket types currently in use
going to build a gaming computer system, I by both AMD and Intel, so be sure to check
strongly recommend a minimum of 2GB of compatibility with the motherboard before
RAM. The way games are trending, 2GB of you buy either the motherboard or the CPU or
RAM is swiftly becoming the norm for high- you can buy a motherboard/processor combo
end titles to perform at their best. Currently, such as this one.
I see no need for more than 2GB of RAM in
standard gaming systems. RAM can be one of You want to be sure that you choose the
the most expensive components of your system. correct features for your desired system based
For a basic Windows XP system intended for on anticipated use. For instance, if you are
simple web browsing, word processing, and building a moderate to low performance
maybe some simple games (ie., Solitaire), 1GB system for general computer work, look for
of RAM should be adequate. a motherboard with on-board graphics. This
will save you some money and time over
Motherboard buying and installing a separate graphics
card. If you are building a high-end gaming
system, stay away from any motherboard
that has on-board graphics. Instead, look
for a motherboard that has one or two PCI
Express slots for high-end graphics cards. You
can also still occasionally find motherboards
that use AGP over PCI-E. There are very few
high-performance AGP graphics cards left
on the market; gamers should go for PCI-E
motherboards.

Gamers should also consider whether to run


dual graphics cards with either nVidia SLI or ATi
Crossfire setups. To be able to run either dual
card method, you will need an appropriate
motherboard with the correct chipset. If a
One of the most difficult hardware choices motherboard is SLI or Crossfire capable, it
for someone building their first system will be listed. If you think at some future date
is the motherboard [check out this Tech you might want to use dual graphics cards,
Tip on motherboard basics]. Because the buy the motherboard now that supports your
motherboard is the heart of the computer, preferred vendor. That way, you can run either
it is critical that the motherboard and the SLI and Crossfire graphic boards in a single
CPU (Central Processing Unit) you purchase card configuration and have an upgrade path
are compatible. To determine compatibility, for the future without having to buy a new
look for the processor socket type - all CPUs motherboard.
will list their socket type in the description.
As an example, the processor in my system is If you intend to run multiple hard drives in a
an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ socket AM2. To RAID array, you will also want to be sure that
buy a motherboard for this CPU, you simply the motherboard you choose supports that
look for one that has the socket AM2 built-in. function. However, if you find the perfect

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motherboard that lacks RAID functionality, performance of your PC going forward. Next
you can buy good, inexpensive add-in RAID week, we will pick up where we left off today,
cards. That said, most current motherboards starting with CPUs, the most important part
offer RAID functionality of some sort. of the entire computer system. Knowing
For more information on RAID, [check out this what you will be using your computer for will
Tech Tip on RAID]. help you decide what direction to go when
building it.
In summary, your choice of motherboard is
going to be the basis for determining the Post a Comment
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How to build
a computer
Part 3: Choosing Computer Components
Tech Tip 86 - By Shane McGlaun

Note: This is the third installment in an ongoing


series that will detail how to build a computer
starting with selecting the components
and covering everything in between up to
installing the OS and tweaking the BIOS. Here
are the previous installment links for Tech Tip
84 and Tech Tip 85.

This week, we will pick up our series on how


to build a computer where we left off and
talk about the CPU (Central Processing Unit).
So far in this series, we have covered choosing
your case, power supply, CD drive, and floppy
drive in Part One. Last week in Part Two, we
went over choosing the hard drive, RAM, and
motherboard. • Motherboard
• CPU (central processing unit)
This article on the CPU and CPU heat sink • CPU heat sink/fan
covers some of the most important parts of • Thermal paste
your computer. As always, the items covered • Hard drive cable
in this article will be denoted in bold print • Floppy drive cable*
in our list below. Components covered in • CD/DVD drive cable
previous articles will be denoted in italics and • Video card (graphics card)*
asterisks denote optional components. (optional if your motherboard has
• Chassis/case onboard graphics)
• Power supply • Sound card* (optional if your
• CD drives motherboard has onboard sound)
• DVD drives • Monitor (display)
• Floppy Drive* • Input – Keyboard/Mouse
• Hard Drive(s) • Speakers*
• RAM (random access memory) • Operating system software

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CPU manufacturers have equivalent products. I


suggest that you buy your preferred brand
Like motherboards, there are a number of or compare specifications from independent
different CPUs on the market. Choosing which reviews online, such as this one. The CPU is
CPU you buy depends on what you want to one of the parts you will want to spend extra
do with your computer and the size of your cash on because it will help your system run
budget. High-end CPUs like the new AMD faster and more efficiently, extending the
FX-62 can run you about $1,000.00. On the time between upgrades. Until we get to
other end of the AMD spectrum, you can get graphics cards, assuming you have adequate
an AMD Sempron CPU, such as this one from RAM, the CPU is where you will see the
Geeks.com for under $90.00. most performance gains from your finished
system.
What’s the difference? Mostly, the difference
is in the speed of the processor and the When choosing either brand of CPU, you
number of cores the CPU chip has. A dual core absolutely must keep in mind the socket type
processor, like the AMD FX-62 has two physical and match the CPU socket to the motherboard
processors, or cores, inside the one chip. Two socket. The sockets do not interchange
cores allows the processor to do more work between manufacturers, and just because the
and run more tasks simultaneously without pin pattern on the bottom of your CPU looks
making your computer run sluggishly. On the similar to the socket on your motherboard
other hand, a single core processor has only DOES NOT mean they are compatible. The
one core and can’t do as much work at once. CPU manufacturer will have the required
socket clearly labeled, just as the motherboard
Do you need dual cores? It depends on what manufacturer will have the socket on the
you will do. Gamers should go with dual cores motherboard labeled. Simply match them up
if possible. A substantial number of developers for compatibility. Often, the easiest thing to
are working on bringing multi-threaded do is to purchase a motherboard/CPU combo
applications and games to market. Soon, to rule out errors at this point.
dual core processors will have a much greater
advantage over single-core or traditional CPU Heatsink/Fan
processors than they do today. For example,
one of the patches for the game Quake 4 This is an absolutely essential component
enables support for multi-core processors and of the computer. You CANNOT start your
you get much better performance. computer up without having a CPU heatsink

Dual core processors benefit more users than


just gamers. If you are into digital video
editing or music creation on your PC, a dual
core processor can help you work faster and
more efficiently. On the other hand, if you
only use your computer for browsing the Web,
email, and the occasional word processing
document, a dual core CPU may be overkill.

Intel also makes some fantastic dual core


and single core processors. Both brands of
processor will do the same job and both

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and fan combo installed correctly. Running beyond the scope of this series, but if there are
your computer for even a few seconds without enough requests for it, we may do a Tech Tip
the heatsink and fan installed can ruin your on the subject of exotic or out-of-the ordinary
CPU due to overheating. We will go over the cooling systems available.
correct installation procedure for the CPU
heatsink/fan combo in a later issue of this That’s All for This Week
series.
That’s all we will cover for this installment. The
Just like the two components we covered today are two
CPU and the of the most important parts of your computer
motherboard, system. If you missed the first two installments
the CPU of the series, here are the previous installment
heatsink/ links for Tech Tip 84 and Tech Tip 85.
fan combo
is specific Next week, we will pick up at choosing thermal
to a socket paste. Thermal paste works in conjunction with
type due to your heatsink/fan combo. Without thermal
the required paste, your heatsink will not be able to draw
retention system. Each socket tends to have the heat away from your CPU. It’s imperative
a completely different retention system, to have a properly installed heatsink/fan
therefore requires a different heatsink. Some combo, but placing the proper amount of
do interchange, but not all. Be sure to check thermal paste in the right location between
compatibility before you buy and install your the heatsink and the CPU is also crucial. Tune
heatsink. in week for more details!

Many boxed retail CPU sets include the Thermal Paste


compatible heatsink and fan. However, if you
buy a bulk OEM CPU, you will need to purchase Thermal paste is also known as thermal
the appropriate heatsink for the CPU. There (transfer) compound or thermal grease. There
are many manufacturers of heatsinks, and are many different brands of thermal paste on
every one makes them a bit differently. The the market. If you buy a boxed CPU retail or
one thing they have in common will be the a new heatsink/fan combo, chances are that
correct retention mechanism for the specified it will come with a pad of thermal paste of
socket type. some sort already applied.

How the heatsink/fan combo looks is irrelevant. Most likely, the paste pre-applied to the
What is important is that it fits in the case you heatsinks will be fine for your needs. However,
bought. Typically, the larger the heatsink and many PC enthusiasts go for a higher quality
fan, the cooler your CPU will run. Often, the thermal paste such as Artic Silver. The main
cooler your CPU runs, the longer it will last point here is that thermal paste of some sort
and the more performance you can get out of is not optional. You absolutely must apply
your system. It is important to note here that thermal paste to your CPU or risk destroying
advanced users and overclockers may decide it the first time you try to boot up your new
to choose liquid cooling or the more exotic computer. Check with the manufacturer for
phase-change cooling rather than a simpler, instructions for applying the thermal paste.
but less effective heatsink and fan combo.
Liquid cooling and phase change cooling are Post a Comment
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5 Ways to Watch TV
on THE computer
Tech Tip 87 - By Jason Kohrs
Note: We’re taking a break
from our Tech Tips series on
“How to Build a Computer” to PC TV Tuners
bring you the following article
instead. We will be back next The most common way to get TV or other video
week with the next installment on your PC may be to use a tuner specifically
of the series as we continue designed to interface with your PC. These de-
to look at selecting computer vices are available with a variety of interfaces
components. and feature sets offering great compatibility
with just about any personal computer (PC).
Over the last several years,
computers have worked The basic principal of a PC TV tuner is that
their way out of the office you connect the device to your computer, and
and into just about every then you connect your cable or antenna tele-
aspect of our daily lives. vision source to the device, just like you would
Home computers are no connect to any typical TV.
longer boring beige boxes
destined for a boring ex- There is an interface to turn just about any
istence revolving around available connection on your PC into a TV
e-mails and personal fi- source, including: PCI, USB, Cardbus, PCI
nances. They can also be Express, and FireWire. So, it doesn’t mat-
the key to our personal ter whether you have a desktop or laptop,
entertainment that allows or if you are running Windows, Linux, or a
us to immerse ourselves in Mac. You can find standard (NTSC/PAL) cable
games, music, movies, and or HDTV tuners configured in single or dual
television (TV). tuner arrangements.

This Tech Tip will focus on All of the tuning is done with a combination
the television portion of of hardware and software, so quality will vary
the list above, and will take from one tuner to another based on the qual-
a look at five ways in which ity of the tuner components and the design of
just about anyone can en- the application and drivers. Watching televi-
joy watching television on sion is the easy part, but the great thing about
their computer monitor. these tuners is the ability to record.

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Higher-end cards will provide better video the vast majority of HD tuners will require
quality during live television playback, and an antenna and also that you be physically
in general will offer more options and capa- located in the vicinity of an over-the-air HD
bilities when it comes to recording and saving broadcast.
programs to your hard drive. Having a dual-
tuner card allows you to watch one show Computer Monitor TV Tuners
while recording another, or even record two
shows at the same time. Even if you don’t Although the title of this section may not be
have a dual-tuner card, you can create a simi- the most technical term available to describe
lar setup by installing multiple TV tuners into the product in question, it is a fair description.
one computer. This type of TV tuner connects to your com-
puter monitor directly, and does not require
All of this, especially the recording and en- that your computer be powered up in order
coding, requires some reasonable computing to enjoy television (or any of the other video
power. Many times just meeting the minimum input sources they may support). The device
specifications published by the manufacturer connects between your computer and moni-
will leave you less than impressed. In addi- tor, and with a press of a button or click of a
tion to a fast processor, you’ll need enough remote control you can switch between your
memory and a hard drive that is not only fast computer display and your favorite TV show.
enough to keep up, but large enough to hold
all of your recordings. The Startech.com TV Jockey and ViewSonic
NextVision N5 are two examples of this sort
One big upside to this method of getting tele- of “PC-less” TV tuner that allow just about
vision onto your computer is the wide array of any computer monitor to be converted into a
choices, interfaces, and price ranges. You can display for TV, DVD, and other video sources
be up and running on a basic tuner for around (security video on your PC monitor, anyone?)
$25, and since they are also available with USB
and FireWire connections, your installation One key advantage of this type of tuner is
might take just a minute or so and doesn’t that you are not relying on the computer at
have to involve opening your computer case. all - you simply need a monitor. This way, you
Other strong points of this method are the re- do not have to worry about any PC noise (the
cording capabilities, potential for high quality whirring of fans and droning of drives) hin-
audio and video, portability when used with a dering your enjoyment, there is no software
laptop, and the ability to install multiple tun- to install, and you do not have to worry about
ers in one system. your computer hardware meeting minimum
specifications for proper operation.
A possible downside to this method is that
you need a computer with the horsepower The downside to this type of tuner is that
to keep up with the demands of your tuner you cannot use your computer to record, and
or tuners. Just watching cable TV might not since the tuner is not built into your computer,
stress a system that is even several years old, it will probably be a stationary device.
but trying to watch an HD broadcast while
recording from another tuner might best be Watch TV Online
done on a more modern computer. Another
potential downside is also related to HD, and With high speed Internet reaching new
that is that most HDTV tuners are for over-the- heights in popularity and available speed,
air high definition broadcasts only. There are many outlets (such as YouTube) are taking
tuners that can access HD digital cable, but advantage of it to share their video content.

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This includes pre-recorded content, but now more bandwidth than ever on their personal
there are a variety of programs available to broadband connections, having shows stream
watch TV online. in broadcast quality (or dare we wish for HD
quality?) is generally cost and hardware re-
Some of the major broadcast networks now strictive.
have programs available online, such as CBS
and their CBS Innertube originals. Established Network Attached TV Tuners
online media portals now also offer television and The SlingBox

The SlingBox is the prime example of this


type of device, which I feel will eventually
become more refined and extremely popu-
lar. Computer Geeks often has the SlingBox
in stock.

The basic principal of the SlingBox is that you


connect the device to your television cable
(and perhaps other video sources), as well as
your wired local area network (RJ-45 connec-
tion). The SlingBox is then able to share cable
TV over your network, and when properly con-
figured, over the Internet. You can share the
programming, like Shoutcast TV. Shoutcast audio/video to your desktop PC wired to your
has been streaming audio through Winamp local area network, your WiFi-enabled laptop,
for years, but now you can also watch televi- or even to your work computer whether it
sion programs from around the world through is 10 miles away or on the other side of the
the familiar Winamp interface. world.

There are also some websites out there that The device is controlled from any computer
have sprung up to serve as portals to direct with the software installed and proper login
TV feeds from around the world. World Wide credentials. You can then not only watch TV,
Internet TV and Beeline TV are just two ex- but you can also control it; change channels,
amples that will let you watch things like the video sources, and more. Special IR adapt-
local news from sunny California or a soccer ers included with the SlingBox allow you to
match from Eastern Europe. control other items, such as DVD players and
personal video recorders just like the cable TV
The main advantage of this type of television function.
is that it is readily available anywhere broad-
band Internet is available. Today, you can The biggest upside to a device such as the
watch shows from around the world that you SlingBox is that you can share your home au-
could not get on standard cable TV, and there
is no additional charge over your Internet ser-
vice fees.

The negative aspects of broadband TV are


that the selection of shows is presently quite
limited, and in most cases, the image qual-
ity is rather poor. Although people have

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dio/video and television with any computer to play back or burn to DVD, sent straight
on your local area network or anywhere in from the cable box to your PC.
the world with a broadband connection.
In addition to the various data connections,
One downside is that video quality isn’t the the video connections could be connected to
greatest due to the restrictions of bandwidth, either your computer or directly to your mon-
and it only gets worse when you go from lo- itor. Connections such as component outputs
cal to Internet viewing. Another issue is that on the cable box could be used to send video
the present design only allows one computer to a capture card or graphics card with VIVO
to broadcast the SlingBox content at a time. (Video In / Video Out) support in the PC for
You cannot set up the device to share a pro- watching and/or recording. The DVI connec-
gram and allow all of your friends to watch, so tion could be used to go straight to your mon-
just forget about starting your own pay-per- itor.
view company with one of these devices!One
downside is that video quality isn’t the great- The main upside of this method of getting
est due to the restrictions of bandwidth, and television on to your computer is that the sig-
it only gets worse when you go from local to nal may be of the highest quality and look su-
Internet viewing. Another issue is that the perb on screen and in recordings.
present design only allows one person to view
the SlingBox content at a time. You can not The main downsides are that it may not be
set up the device to share a program and al- particularly convenient and compatibility
low all of your friends to watch, so just forget features will vary from one cable box to an-
about starting your own pay-per-view com- other. Also, while some equipment provides
pany with one of these devices! these connections for “future use,” in many
cases their use is not currently documented or
Digital Cable Box supported by providers.

This may seem like an unlikely source for TV Final Words


on your computer, but have you taken a look
at the back of some of the digital cable boxes Computers definitely aren’t all business any
on the market today? more, and have been key contributors to per-
sonal entertainment for years. The ability to
There are plenty of connections that make use a computer to watch and record television
it look like a computer all on its own: Serial, in a variety of ways has helped reduce the di-
USB, FireWire, S/PDIF, Ethernet, DVI, and more vide between work and play greatly. There are
may all be found on the back side of the de- a variety of ways to get television (and other
vice you use with your traditional television. video sources) onto your computer monitor
Scientific Atlanta is just one manufacturer and the five categories discussed cover your
with products designed to do far more than best bets for merging the two technologies.
the typical cable box.

Although some of these familiar “PC” connec-


tions may not do anything for your computer,
you could easily get TV on your PC in one
way or another. Some cable boxes allow the
streaming of raw data from the box to your
computer’s hard drive via FireWire. You could Post a Comment
then have an HD (High Definition) recording click here

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How to build
a computer
Part 4: Choosing Computer Components
Tech Tip 88 - By Shane McGlaun

Note: This is part four of a multipart series


on choosing the components for and
building a computer.

This week, we are continuing our series on


How to Build a Computer with choosing the
best components for your custom computer
system. So far in the series, we have covered
the components shown in italics below.
Today, we will cover the cables and cards
shown in bold.

Here are links to the first three installments


of the series in case you missed them: • Hard Drive(s)
• RAM (random access memory)
Tech Tip 84 - How to Build a Computer • Motherboard
Part 1: Choosing the Basic Computer • CPU (central processing unit)
Components • CPU heat sink/fan
• Thermal paste
Tech Tip 85 - How to Build a Computer • Hard drive cable
Part 2: Choosing the Hard Drive, RAM • Floppy drive cable*
& Motherboard • CD/DVD drive cable
• Video card (graphics card)*
Tech Tip 86 - How to Build a Computer (optional if your motherboard has
Part 3: Choosing the CPU & Heat Sink Fan onboard graphics)
• Sound card* (optional if your
• Chassis/case motherboard has onboard sound)
• Power supply • Monitor (display)
• CD drives • Input – Keyboard/Mouse
• DVD drives • Speakers*
• Floppy Drive* • Operating system software

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Cable cables, floppy disk drive (FDD) cables are not
keyed. This means that you can easily install
If you bought a the cable incorrectly if you don’t put it in the
new motherboard right way.
for your project,
it likely came Much like the HDD cables, floppy cables are
with a hard drive available in both ribbon style and rounded
cable. The cables cables. Again, the rounded cables tend to
for the HDD and be better from a cooling standpoint as they
the compact disk (CD) or digital video disk help promote better airflow. However, both
(DVD) drive look very similar. However, the rounded and ribbon-style cables will perform
cable for the HDD has more wires in it than the same in practical use.
optical drive cables. One glance at the two
and you will see the difference. If you are CD/DVD Drive Cable
using SATA (serial ATA: advanced technology
attachment) drives, the cable will be a little This cable is required for your system if you
different as well. Most retail-boxed hard intend to actually use your computer. Again,
drives will ship with a SATA cable. If your you can get both rounded and ribbon-style
motherboard has SATA ports, it probably CD/DVD drive cables. A few manufacturers
came with cables you can use rather than also offer SATA optical drives now. The type
having to purchase new ones. of cable you choose will depend on the
type of drives you purchase and your cable
When using Integrated Drive Electronics preference. Most cables will support two
(IDE) hard drives, you can use rounded optical drives.
cables over the older ribbon-style cables.
The rounded cables look much better, which Video Cards
is important in windowed cases, and helps
cool by not restricting air flow as much. You This is the
can typically get both rounded and ribbon component most
cables that will connect two or three drives gamers spend
per cable. I also want to mention that it the most on
is important to keep your hard drive on a along side their
separate IDE channel than your optical drive, CPU. Your video,
and make your faster hard drive the master or graphics, card
drive. This will help to ensure you get the will have a huge
fastest speed from your drives. effect on how well your computer performs
in games. The video card is optional on
Floppy Drive Cable some boards. However, it is only optional on
motherboards that have on-board graphics.
If you choose
not to use a The vast majority of high performance
floppy drive in motherboards will not have on-board
your system, you graphics and you will still on occasion come
obviously will across older motherboards that may need
not need a floppy drive cable. However, if an accelerated graphics port (AGP) card.
you are using a floppy drive, you want to However, if you are buying a new CPU and
be sure that you use the correct cable and motherboard, you will likely be looking to
install it correctly. Unlike IDE drives and SATA buy a peripheral component interconnect

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(PCI) Express video card. Be sure that you buy Next Week on How to Build a Computer
the correct graphics card interface to match
the interface on your motherboard and you Next week, we will wrap up the “Choosing
will be fine. Components” portions of our series, starting
with how to select the display and finishing
There is a huge variance in the price of off the remainder of the components you
video cards on the market. For instance if need to build your system. If you missed
you opt for a maxed out quad scalable link any of the earlier installments of this series,
interface (SLI) system with dual Nvidia 7950 please go to the Geeks.com website Tech Tips
GX2 graphics cards, you will easily spend archive for the back issues of the Tech Tips
over $1,000.00 on video cards alone. If you newsletter.
go with something along the lines of an ATI
X1300 Pro, you are looking at under $100.00. See you next week as we continue learning
If you are a gamer, the video card is where how to build a computer!
you will want to spend your extra cash.
Geek Humor
Sound Cards
Reaching the end of a job interview, the
Sound cards Human Resources Person asked the young
are optional Programmer fresh out of MIT, “And what
in this day starting salary were you looking for?” The
when the vast Programmer said, “In the neighborhood of
majority of $75,000 a year, depending on the benefit’s
motherboards package.” The HR Person said, “Well, what
come with on- would you say to a package of 5-weeks
board sound vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical
however there is a lot to be said for some of and dental, company matching retirement
the aftermarket sound cards. For example, fund to 50% of salary, and a company car
if you want to run 5.1 or 7.1 Dolby sound, leased every 2 years - say, a red Corvette?”.
odds are you will need an aftermarket card. The Programmer sat up straight and said,
Hardcore gamers will likely want to look at “Wow!!! Are you kidding?” And the HR
something like the Creative X-Fi series, as the Person said, “Certainly, ...but you started it.”
difference in sound quality in game with the
X-Fi series is impressive. However, if you are
on a budget, you can save your cash if your
board has built-in sound. click here

Tech Tips Community Geeks.com


Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
the Computer Geeks.

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How to build
a computer
Part 5: Choosing Computer Peripherals
Tech Tip 89 - By Shane McGlaun

This is the fifth and final portion of the series • RAM (random access memory)
covering choosing the components for your • Motherboard
computer. So far in the series, we have cov- • CPU (central processing unit)
ered every item in the list below that is itali- • CPU heat sink/fan
cized. As always, the items with an asterisk • Thermal paste
beside them are optional, depending on your • Hard drive cable
computer set up. • Floppy drive cable*
• CD/DVD drive cable
Here are links to the first four installments of • Video card (graphics card)*
the series in case you missed them: (optional if your motherboard has
onboard graphics)
Tech Tip 84 - How to Build a Computer • Sound card* (optional if your
Part 1: Choosing the Basic Computer motherboard has onboard sound)
Components • Display/Monitor
• Keyboard
Tech Tip 85 - How to Build a Computer • Mouse
Part 2: Choosing the Hard Drive, RAM • Speakers*
& Motherboard
Computer Monitor
Tech Tip 86 - How to Build a Computer
Part 3: Choosing the CPU & Heat Sink Fan Choosing the monitor for your new comput-
er is one of the more personal choices when
Tech Tip 88 - How to Build a Computer it comes to selecting components for your
Part 4: Choosing Cables & Sound/Video Cards computer system. Depending on how you
will be using your computer, you will want to
• Chassis/case choose a monitor that tailors to those uses.
• Power supply If you are a graphic designer and absolutely
• CD drives need to have colors on the screen that look
• DVD drives exactly like what you get on paper when
• Floppy Drive* it is printed, you should shop for a high-
• Hard Drive(s) end graphic design display, such as the Eizo

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gamers, there are number of gaming specific


keyboards on the market, such as the Wolf
King Warrior USB Ultimate FPS Gaming Pad
which is very well laid out for first person
games. The Logitech G15 has a traditional
keyboard layout that would work as well.

If your tastes don’t lean towards gaming, you


can still get a keyboard that will help in-
crease your productivity and comfort. There
are a large number of keyboards designed
to both reduce the strain on your arms and
wrists, and help
you control differ-
ent types of media
on your computer
CE240W or an Apple Cinema Display. such as MP3s and
video.
If the main use for your system is going to be
PC gaming, you may want a display with the Users going for
lowest possible response time to help en- the cleanest desk-
sure your images will not be blurred during top they can get
game play, and that you will not experience will want to go
a phenomenon known as ghosting. Ghosting wireless. However, I don’t recommend wire-
is when images on LCDs change too quickly less mice and keyboards for gaming due to
for the LCD to completely redraw the next possible response latency. At the end of the
image. The resulting image that is similar to day, the choice really comes down to your
what you would see on a TV that is using an preference and your computing style.
antenna and picking up more than one sta-
tion on the same frequency. Again, what you Mouse
are looking for is the fastest pixel response
time your budget will allow. Much like keyboards, the mouse is another
component where gamers can improve their
For some uses, you may want a CRT display game play. There are many special-purpose
rather than LCD. For instance, for video edit- gaming mice on the market such as the Razer
ing and other tasks that require extreme line of mice, as well as a variety of mice
high resolutions, CRTs are often the better from Logitech, such as the G5 and G7. When
choice. Just be sure when you are choosing choosing a mouse, gamers should keep an
your display that you consider what you’ll be eye on the optical resolution of the mouse
doing with your system, and buy the highest and the type of mouse (i.e. laser or optical).
quality display you can fit into your budget. There are still some ball mice on the mar-
ket, even though that technology is quickly
Keyboard becoming archaic. The vast majority of newer
mice will be
The keyboard is another computer peripheral either optical or
that at first glance seems quite uncompli- laser. Laser mice
cated. However, the keyboard is one of the tend to be more
most overlooked places that you can gain sensitive, more
productivity and increase gaming fun. For cutting-edge

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and more expensive, while optical mice tend components. In our next issue, we will begin
to be cheaper and less sensitive. the assembly portion of our series starting
with preparing your computer case or chas-
Even if you’re not a gamer, you will still want sis. If you missed any of the past installments
to pay attention to the mouse you choose. of the series on choosing computer compo-
You’d be surprised at the productivity you nents, visit the Tech Tips Hardware section of
can lose if you choose a poorly designed the Geeks.com website.
mouse. I have found over the years that a
mouse with extra programmable buttons Geek Humor
that control Web browsing forward and
backwards is a big timesaver, not to mention You know computers have taken over
a scroll button for quickly scrolling up and your life when...
down a page.
• You hum the Windows opening theme
Speakers when ever you wake up
• You think the numbers on tombstones
PC speakers are an optional component of are high scores
your computer system. If you’re not inter- • You use Google to search for your
ested in hearing sounds and music from your car keys
computer, you can simply skip this compo- • You actually hand in work from
nent all-together. However, for the gamers, EssayGenerator.com
• You keep getting fired as you beat up
your boss thinking that you’ll get to the
next level
• You keep a trash can and a selection of
neatly arranged folders on your desk top
• You excuse yourself to go to the toilet by
anouncing that you have to download
• You try to shut windows by tapping
them on the top right corner
• You refer to meals as power ups
• You call Christmas a bonus round

music fans and video buffs out there, the


speakers you choose are one of the compo-
nents that can make or break the immersion
you get while doing what you do. Ideally,
you will want a set of 5.1 surround sound
speakers. However, if your budget is limited,
then any set of speakers will allow you to Geeks.com
hear the sound output from your favorite 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
game or program. Just remember that with 1.760.726.7700
speakers especially, you really get what you Read more about Computer Geeks
pay for. at our website: www.geeks.com

That’s All for This Week Buy your desktop computers, notebook
computers, refurbished computers,
computer parts, and computer cases at the
With this issue, we conclude the portion of Computer Geeks.
the series covering choosing your computer

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An Insanely Great
Thirty Years of
Innovation
A Brief History of Apple Computers
Tech Tip 90 - By Kimmy Powell

One fine day in 1976, 21 year old Steve Jobs lights) and sold for $666.66 at the local
quit his day job at Atari and convinced electronics store. By the time the Apple II and
computer engineer Steve “Woz” Wozniak to the Mac rolled around, Jobs and Woz had
quit his job at Hewlett-Packard. Together, in popularized the personal computing
the garage of Jobs’ Cupertino, CA home, they revolution, and the rest, as they say, is
founded a new company which they christened history..
“Apple”. Their goal - create an inexpensive
and simple to use computer. On April Fool’s Revolutionizing Personal Computing:
An Apple II for the Everyday User

After the release of the Apple I, Woz set to


work on improving the functionality and
design of their novel product. First off, the
Apple I was a play toy for computer hobbyists;
Woz would have to add features to make the
computer more attractive to non-computer
users. Woz added higher resolution graphics
to allow for the display of pictures and words
rather than words alone, designed the floppy
disk controller for the unit to facilitate simple
data storage, and wrote a simple operating
system with pal
Randy Wigginton.

A compact and
Day in 1976, they introduced their first system, self-contained
an encased circuit board known as the Apple Apple II was
I (previous computers consisted of circuit released on June
boards and switches which produced flashing 5, 1977. Priced at

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$1,298.00 for 4KB of RAM (expandable to


48KB), or $2,698.00 for 48KB (remember, RAM
was very expensive in those days), the Apple II
featured sound capabilities, the BASIC
programming language, 16-bit processing
using the MOS Technology 6502 1 MHz
microprocessor and loading and unloading of
programs using an audio cassette-like device.
The only glitch was an external TV or monitor
had to be attached to the unit. The result was
pure genius: a personal computer that was
both attractive and easy to operate for the
everyday user. The idea would soon make a
pair of twenty-somethings working out of a
garage into millionaires.

Subsequent models were released that


improved on the speed and original design of
the Apple II. In 1978, Woz designed the first
ever external 5.25” floppy disk controller and
drive that attached to the Apple II using an Throughout the 80s and 90s, Apple II
expansion slot. Jobs and Woz expanded the computers became the de-facto computing
Apple II line with the release of the Apple II standard for elementary schools. By the time
Plus in 1979. The Apple II Plus expanded the Apple II line became defunct, over 2
memory capabilities to 48KB (expandable to million Apple IIs had been sold, and personal
64KB using a memory card) and introduced a computers were gaining momentum in
read-only memory (ROM)-based Microsoft- households and classrooms nationwide.
based BASIC language program called
AppleSoft. Insanely Great - Evolution of the Mac

At the same time, Apple released its first What was next for the boys of Apple? Building
thermal printer, the SilenType. The SilenType a machine that was at once sexy, bold, and
generated output of 80 columns in width and insanely great was what Jobs had in mind
required the use of special thermal paper. The when a team was assembled to begin
printer attached to the computer by way of development of the legendary Macintosh.
an interface card. Absent from the process was Woz, the brains
and engineering talent behind Jobs’ vision,
The Apple IIe, the most popular and best- who left Apple in 1981 after he crashed his
selling of all Apple II models, followed in 1983. airplane taking off from Santa Cruz Sky Park.
Enhancements included faster chipsets, dual As a result, he had temporary short-term
disk drives, improved graphics and memory memory loss. On board now was Jeff Raskin
capacities of 128KB (expandable with external for the lower-priced Macintosh model and Bill
cards to a whopping 1MB). Other models Atkinson for the higher-priced, more business-
which came afterwards included the Apple IIc oriented Lisa.
(1984), IIgs (1986) and IIc Plus (1988), and each
featured improved chipsets, memory, and Development of the Lisa started in 1978, with
greater processing speed than its the Macintosh following one year later. While
predecessors. Jobs focused his attention on the Lisa project,

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Bowl Half-Time marketing blitz which


premiered the famous Ridley Scott-directed
commercial with a
woman throwing a
sledgehammer into
an Orwellian “Big
Brother” video
screen representing
then enemy IBM.
The final product
featured 128KB RAM (2 64KB chips soldered
onto the motherboard) and expandable to
512KB, the Motorola 68000 processor
operating at 8Mhz, an internal, 3.5” floppy
disk drive, and 384x256 pixel bitmap display.
Included were the Xerox-inspired GUI and
two user-friendly programs – MacWrite, a
word processor, and MacPaint, a simple
Raskin continued the tradition of the Apple II graphics program. The Mac retailed at a price
which was to create an easy-to-use and of $2,495.00, much less than the similarly
economical system for everyday users. Both designed and financially disastrous Lisa model
systems had switched to Motorola processors. (at $9,995.00 and including an internal hard
Raskin’s first prototype of the Mac included drive) released a year earlier.
the Motorola 6809E processor, 64KB of RAM
and monochrome graphics fitting a 256x256 While revolutionary in the way it defined
pixel display. One Lisa designer expressed personal computing, the Mac became an
interest in running Lisa’s programs on the object of ridicule by hard-core computer users.
Mac, which would require modifications of
the Mac architecture. This was achieved by
incorporating the Motorola 68000 processor
(same as the Lisa) onto the system board,
using fewer chips and increasing the speed of
the processor from 5 MHz to 8. Lured by the
growing excitement of the Macintosh team,
Jobs left the Lisa project and hopped aboard
the Macintosh bandwagon. By 1981, Jobs was
fully immersed in all aspects of the Macintosh,
and personality clashes with Raskin hastened
the latter’s exit from the company. A
subsequent visit to the labs of Xerox PARC
(Palo Alto Research Center) and a demo of the
Xerox Alto’s GUI (Graphical User Interface)
system convinced Jobs that adding the GUI to
both the Lisa and Macintosh would heighten
its marketability.

The Macintosh computer was released to the


public on January 22, 1984, following a Super

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At heart was the lack of viable software The Mac IIx, Mac IIxi, Mac IIcx, Mac IIci, Mac II
programs for the new platform, the scant SE, and Mac IIfx followed into the 90s, each
memory included, and the absence of a real upgrade forced by the growing popularities
hard disk drive. By 1984, new classes of x86 of the lower-priced PC clones and the
PC clones were providing low cost alternatives enhancements available in Microsoft’s
to the higher-priced and less feature-rich Windows cheaper operating systems. Apple
Macs. Apple knew it had to improve on the even produced a line of popular portables
design of the original Mac to stay competitive. during the late 80s and 90s, known as the
Internal struggles with then CEO John Scully PowerBook. Because of the Mac’s proprietary
and Jobs would prove to be Jobs’ undoing architecture, software programs would always
and Jobs was finally forced out of Apple in remain expensive and hard-to-come by.
1985.
The Father Returns and Apple
Apple released several minor versions of their Re-invents Itself
Mac system after Jobs’ departure, with the
exception of By 1992, sales of Macintosh computers suffered
one event: in due to the mass availability of inexpensive PC
1985, Apple clones, and for the first time in its history,
once again Apple resorted to marketing clones. However,
became an Apple’s fortunes would soon change with the
innovator return of its founding leader Steve Jobs in
when it 1997. Jobs steered the company away from
introduced the clones and reversed direction with a back-
d e s k t o p to-basics approach.
publishing.
Macintosh- The aesthetic vision and leadership that led to
s p e c i f i c the creation of the Apple II and Macintosh
packages such computers came back with a roar in 1998 with
as MacPublisher and Aldus PageMaker, along the elegant all-in-one iMac, priced at $999.00
with the addition of the first LaserWriter (a and designed much like the original Macintosh
laser printer) cemented Apple’s reputation as case in clear plastic and trimmed in translucent
the desktop publishing giant. One year later, shades of blue or red. The sleek unit was
Apple released the Macintosh Plus to address accompanied by a smaller mouse and
the limitations of original Mac. The Macintosh keyboard. The new design utilized SCSI and
Plus featured 1MB of RAM (expandable to Apple desktop bus (ADB) ports. An iMac
4MB), a SCSI hard drive controller that allowed
for the possibility of adding 6 additional
devices, and increased its floppy disk capacity
to 800KB.

Apple switched to the faster Motorola 68020


for the Macintosh II in 1987 and introduced
color graphics and open architecture to the
Mac. To compete with plummeting PC clone
prices, the Mac SE, a lower-cost version of the
Macintosh II, was also released in the same
year.

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portable would follow in 1999, using the same clear white


and translucent design adopted by the iMacs.

Upgrades to the platform would continue the iMac trend


with the G3, G4, G5, and eMac systems. The Mac Mini was
released in 2005 and would become the least expensive
of all Apple computers. In 2006, Apple switched to Intel’s
Core Duo processor which would provide twice the power
and speed of the old Motorola processors and which now
made operating Intel-processor based applications and
software possible.

Apple continues to be as relevant today as it was back at


its creative height with the Apple II and Macintosh
computers. Today, Jobs continues to lead Apple and
create bold, visionary products that earn the envy of
technophiles worldwide as Apple re-imagines itself as a
“Digital Lifestyle” company.

tech tips
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geeks.com
Tech Tips Community Geeks.com
Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
the Computer Geeks.

Get FREE Geeks.com Tech Tips Newsletter,


discounts, and more! Every week, we mail out the
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Installing the Motherboard,


CPU, Heat Sink, Fan and RAM
Tech Tip 91 - By Shane McGlaun

are several different methods used to secure a


motherboard to the chassis. Often, you will
have brass or plastic standoffs (small round,
square or hex, objects usually threaded, that
keep two components or boards from touching
each other) that you screw to the motherboard
tray of the computer case.

Check your computer case owner’s manual for


more information on this step of the process.
Every case should have some method of
Now that we have chosen the components for showing you which position to place the
building our computer, we will now go standoffs to ensure compatibility with an ATX
through the steps for putting it all together. or other form factor motherboard. It is very
Some steps have been covered in previous important that you use only the correct
Tech Tips; such as installing the graphics card,
power supply unit, CD/DVD drive and sound
card, so we will not go into those again.

A Housekeeping Tip

First and foremost, you really need to be


aware of static electricity when building your
PC. We strongly recommend that you get an
antistatic wrist strap and an antistatic mat to
use when doing any work with the components.
A slight shock can ruin a good CPU and you
might not even feel it!

Installing the Motherboard

The first step is to get your computer case


ready for the motherboard installation. There

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standoffs to secure your motherboard to the


chassis. If you place a standoff in the wrong
position, the motherboard may still fit the
case, but you could cause a short by allowing
two of the power tracings on the motherboard
to contact each other via the standoff, and fry
your new custom computer. Once you have
the standoffs placed correctly, simply use the
screws supplied with the case to attach the
motherboard. Installing the CPU.

Installing the CPU is the most delicate part of


the entire build process. Depending on the
CPU you chose, your socket may be slightly
different. However, the vast majority of
commonly available CPUs currently being
produced use the ZIF (zero insertion force)
socket.

With a ZIF socket, if the CPU is aligned correctly There are many manufacturers of thermal
with the motherboard CPU socket, it should paste on the market currently and each
not require any force to install the CPU. Be package should have instructions on how to
sure that you have the arm on the ZIF socket use it. If no instructions are included with the
up to open the retention mechanism for the paste, check the manufacturerís website for
socket. The CPU will have a mark of some sort, more information.
most commonly a small triangle in one corner,
and the CPU socket on the motherboard will If no information is available, these are some
have a similar marking on one of its corners as basic guide lines. Cover the entire surface of
well. the top of your CPU with a thin coat of thermal
paste after it is installed on your motherboard.
Align these two marks and gently insert the After that, using a clean lint-free cloth gently
CPU into the socket. If you experience any wipe the thermal paste from the surface of
resistance during the insertion, stop the CPU. You will not be able to get all the
immediately and be sure that you have the thermal paste off the top of the CPU because
CPU aligned correctly. If you are not sure how it will fill the little scratches and valleys on the
to do this consult with the motherboard CPU surface. Once you have done this, reapply
manufacturer. Inserting the CPU incorrectly the thermal paste in the same manner, but
can damage one of the CPU pins and destroy this time DO NOT wipe the thermal paste off.
your new CPU. You are now ready to install the heat sink/fan
combo.
Applying Thermal Paste
Installing the Heat Sink/Fan Combo
I need to make something very clear here,
thermal paste is not optional. You absolutely Heat sink and fan combos come from many
must use thermal paste to attach the heat sink different manufacturers. They will use the
to the CPU. If you run your computer without same retention system designed to be used
thermal paste, you can ruin your CPU in just a with your CPU socket type. Some heat sinks
few seconds. come with several brackets that will work

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may be several on your board, open the little


plastic clips and correctly align your RAM by
comparing the socket shape to the shape of
the RAM and snap it into place. Some RAM
will require changes to the BIOS to work at
the advertised speeds; consult the RAM
manufacturer for more information on how
to change the BIOS to support your desired
speed.

with multiple socket types. However, many


heat sinks are designed to fit one socket type
only. Make sure you have a compatible heat
sink.

Just like the CPU, do not start your computer


up without the heat sink being installed
correctly. Read the instructions that came with
your motherboard and your heat sink for
more details on performing this step.

Once installed on the CPU socket, you will Conclusion


need to plug the heat sink fan into the correct
fan header on your motherboard. There may You are now on your way to building a custom
be several fan headers on your board, but one computer. If at any step along the way you
should be specifically labeled for the CPU fan. run into difficulty, consult with a more
Be sure you use the correct one; it is typically experienced computer geek to alleviate the
the fan header closest to the CPU socket. risk of damaging your newly purchased
components. Building your computer is not
Installing the RAM difficult if you follow the steps, take your time
and use proper electrostatic preventative
You will most likely be using DDR or DDR2 procedures. Good luck and have fun! Join us
RAM. Note that DDR and DDR2 are not next time for tips on installing the peripheral
compatible and while they look very similar, components of your computer, monitor,
they will not interchange. Your motherboard mouse, printer and such.
manual should explain what RAM types and
RAM speeds it is compatible with.

Installing the RAM is very easy. You simply


locate the RAM dimm sockets, of which there

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Geeks Humor get from our readers, however your questions


and comments are appreciated and other
Two atoms were walking out of a bar. readers may be benefit from them. Feel free
One atom said to the other, to post your question or comment in our Blog!
“Wait, I left an electron inside!” Oh, and no need to register unless you want
The other atom asked “Are you sure?” to be notified when others comment.
The first atom replied “Yes, I’m POSITIVE.”
Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something,
At this time, we do not have the technical make a mistake, or don’t cover everything on
support staff to provide general support for the topic but we are trying hard to give you
products not purchased from Geeks.com or to the most unbiased and well-written
answer the hundreds of tech help requests we information that we can.

tech tips
brought to you by

geeks.com
Tech Tips Community Geeks.com
Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
the Computer Geeks.

Get FREE Geeks.com Tech Tips Newsletter,


discounts, and more! Every week, we mail out the
latest Tip to our loyal Geekmail subscribers. If you would
like to get the weekly Tech Tips Newsletter delivered to you
by email for FREE, just join the geeks.com email list.

CLICK HERE FOR TECH TIP ARCHIVES


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Installing Computer Peripherals


Tech Tip 92 - By Shane McGlaun

purple to match the connection on your


computer although not all connectors are
color coordinated. If your keyboard has a USB
connector, it will be flat and rectangular in
shape.
In previous Tech Tips, we have covered how to
choose and install your computer components Every motherboard on the market that I have
and how to install the internal system seen or heard of still has PS/2 ports; however
components for your computer from the the vast majority of newer keyboards you find
motherboard to the CPU and heatsink/fan these days will have USB connections. Either
combo . In this tip we cover the installation of style will work, but if you don’t want to use
peripherals including monitor, keyboard, up a USB port for the keyboard, adapters are
mouse and so on. Installing peripherals is just available that
about the easiest task you will tackle when will convert
building a computer. Check the list below for USB keyboard
the peripherals we will be covering in this connections
Tech Tip. to PS/2.

• Keyboard • Mouse • Monitor Once you match your connection type to the
• Speakers • Webcam • Printer port on your computer, you are ready to go
• Scanner and installing the keyboard is as easy as
plugging it into the chosen port. A word of
Note: If your computer doesn’t have an caution however, do not install your keyboard
operating system installed yet, you will want while your computer is powered on and do
to stop after you install your mouse and not unplug your keyboard while your
keyboard, install your operating system, and computer is running. If you do either of these
then resume the installation of your things, you run the risk of locking up your
peripherals. computer with possible data loss. Always be
sure to read and follow the manufacturer’s
Installing the Keyboard instructions before installing the keyboard on
your system.
Installing a (non-wireless) keyboard is very
straight forward and easy to do, but first you Installing the Mouse
need to determine if the keyboard uses a PS/2
or USB connector. The PS/2 connector for Installing a mouse is very similar to installing
keyboards is round and typically colored a keyboard. You will still find mice with either

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USB or PS/2 connectivity, change a DVI connection to VGA for older


although most of the displays. Once you have the display plugged
newer mice will use a in, simply connect it to the appropriate
USB connection, connector on your video card and you are
especially if you are ready to go. Drivers are not typically required
buying a mouse for for displays, but once again consult the
gaming. Just like the manufacturer’s instructions for details.
keyboard, you can also
use an adapter to change a USB connection to Installing the Speakers
PS/2. If you are going to have a lot of USB
peripherals, you may want to consider using Installing the
adapters for your mouse and keyboard or speakers can vary
perhaps using a USB hub for some of your greatly depending
peripherals. To complete the installation, on what type of
simply plug the mouse into the proper port. speakers you are
using. If you have
It is important to mention the need to follow a simple set of 2.0
the manufacturer’s instructions. Some or 2.1 speakers all
computer mice require that you install the you need do is
software before you plug the mouse in. The connect the audio
instructions or owner’s manual included with cable to the “line-out” jack of your computer’s
the mouse will tell you how to install it. sound card, and connect the other end(s) to
the speaker unless they are already “hard-
Installing the Monitor wired” and plug in the power cord. If you are
using a full 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound system,
Installing a the connections get a bit more complicated.
monitor (also Read the instructions that came with the
known as a speakers and sound card for full details on
“display”) this step. You can also find USB-powered
requires that speakers that have their own sound card built
you find both a in and need only be connected to power.
power outlet
for A/C power Installing a Webcam
as well as
identifying the Most webcams are USB-
connection type powered and simply
you will use to require that you plug
connect the monitor to your graphics card. them in and install their
Both DVI and VGA connections are still very drivers. However, some
common in today’s market and many monitors cams require that the
and graphics cards include both types of drivers be installed first, so be sure to read the
connections. instructions that came with your webcam to
avoid any problems. If you bought a FireWire
For the best picture quality possible, use the (a form of connection that is often faster than
digital DVI port on your graphics card and USB connections) webcam, ensure that your
display if they are available. Most all graphics computer has a FireWire port because they
cards now support multiple monitors and they are not yet all that common.
typically include the adapters required to

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Installing the Printer Geeks Humor

Most printers on Q. How do you keep a programmer in the


the market today shower all day?
will also use a USB
connection; A. Give him a bottle of shampoo that says “
however, parallel Lather, rinse, repeat.”
port printers are
still fairly common.
You can also set up a printer over the network On a more serious note:
if you have another computer on a local area
network (LAN) with a printer attached and If you go to the website LetsSayThanks.com
shared. This method is beyond the scope of you can pick out a thank you card that Xerox
this article. will print and send to a soldier that is currently
serving in Iraq. You can’t choose who gets it,
Typically, you will either be connecting your but it will go to a member of the U.S. armed
printer via USB or parallel line printer (LPT) services.
ports. Again, you will want to read the
installation instructions to be sure that you How AMAZING it would be if we could get
are following the correct installation method. everyone we know to send one!!!!
Printer installation typically requires that you
install the drivers first then plug the printer in
via USB or parallel port. The OS (operating
system) will finish up the install for you after At this time, we do not have the technical
that. support staff to provide general support for
products not purchased from Geeks.com or to
Installing a Scanner answer the hundreds of tech help requests we
get from our readers, however your questions
Installing a scanner and comments are appreciated and other
is almost identical readers may be benefit from them or be able
to installing your to help. Feel free to post your question or
printer, though I comment in our Blog (no link) and no need to
have only seen register unless you want to be notified when
USB scanners in others comment.
the last few years.
Again, you will simply need to install the Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something,
drivers and then plug the USB cable in. Read make a mistake, or don’t cover everything on
the manufacturer’s instructions for more the topic but we are trying hard to give you
details on this installation process. the most unbiased and well-written
information that we can.
Conclusion
Did you find this article helpful?
That covers the installation of the most Do you have a question or comment?
common types of computer peripherals. Once
you have these installed, you are ready to turn
on your computer. We will address installing
Windows in a future installment of Tech Tips.
See you then!

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Installing
Windows
XP Tech Tip 93 - By Shane McGlaun

In this Tech Tip, we will give you some


information about installing Microsoft
Windows XP on your computer. Most Windows
XP products including Windows XP
Professional and Windows XP Home Edition run as well as full, “clean” installations. For
install the same way. If you are using an older this Tech Tip, we will assume that you are
version of Windows, or even one of the other installing Windows XP on a new computer
versions of Windows XP, the steps will probably that has never had Windows on it.
be a bit different.
First, you need to be sure that your hardware
If you are currently using an older version of is correctly installed. Once you are sure your
Windows, such as Windows 98, we highly hardware is installed correctly, place your
recommend that you back up all your files to Windows CD into the CD or DVD drive on your
another drive and do a clean install by computer and reboot your system. If you don’t
reformatting your hard drive and installing have your BIOS set to boot from CD before
Windows XP as a full install rather than as an your hard drive, you will likely encounter
upgrade. Often, upgrade installations don’t problems. However you can go into the BIOS
by pressing the appropriate key when
prompted during the POST (Power On Self
Test). Typically, you will press the “delete” key,
but this can vary from one motherboard and
BIOS to another.

Once you are in the BIOS settings, look for the


boot sequence tabs. Each motherboard vendor
usually has a different BIOS set up. Check your
motherboard owner’s manual for more
information if you can’t find the boot settings
menu. Once you have modified the BIOS

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settings, save them, exit the BIOS and reboot. to begin the formatting and installation. If
If the boot sequence is correct, you should see you had any data on the hard drive you are
the screen reading “Windows is preparing for using, it will be lost at this point. However, if
installation”. you took our advice earlier and backed up
your files, you should be okay.
After the software has copied the required
files to your computer, you will be asked if If you are using a SATA (Serial ATA) hard drive,
you want to install Windows -- click “enter” you will get an error message and will need to
to begin the actual install process. The next start the install process over. Keep an eye out
screen you see will be the End-User License for the message at the bottom of the screen
Agreement (EULA). You can’t begin the that prompts you to “press F6 to install a third-
installation without accepting the EULA. party driver”. At that time, go ahead and
Follow the prompts to either accept or press F6 and follow the prompts to install the
decline. SATA (or RAID) driver. This is the point where
that “optional” floppy drive comes in handy
As you will see, the EULA is quite long and since the only way to install drivers in this
most likely hasn’t been read since the Microsoft screen is via floppy disk. Place the floppy with
attorneys drafted it. In a nutshell, it says you the correct drivers for your SATA or RAID array
won’t pirate the operating system (OS). If you into your floppy drive to install the drivers.
decline, you will not be able to continue with After the drivers are installed, you are ready
the installation. to move on.

Once the format is successful, the Windows


installation process automatically installs the
required files and reboots when needed. After
a couple of reboots you will be asked to
activate Windows by choosing a user name
and a password. Windows activation is the
process of enabling unrestricted use of
Windows via your Internet connection with
the Microsoft servers. If you don’t complete
activation during the initial loading, Windows
will shut down after 30 days and you won’t be
able to use it. But don’t worry -- you do have
30 days to activate it after the first time it
runs.
After you accept the EULA, you will be taken
to a screen that asks you to choose your file There are very few motherboards utilizing a
system. Your options are NTFS (New Technology network (RJ45) jack for broadband connection
File System) or FAT32 (File Allocation Table that do not require drivers to operate. If the
32). FAT32 is the older file system used with network jack on your motherboard requires
Windows 98. NTFS is the preferred choice for drivers and you use a broadband connection
a Windows XP installation and our to access the internet, you won’t be able to
recommendation. The NTFS file system has use the internet to activate Windows until
improved functionality for security and data you install the drivers on your hard drive. If
integrity and was first introduced in the you are connecting via dial-up, you will need
Windows NT operating system. Choose the to make sure the drivers for your modem are
file system for your installation and press “F” installed before activating. If you don’t have

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an internet connection just yet, your Windows


software paperwork should have come with a
number you can call to activate. Once the
drivers are installed, you will be able to select
“Activate Windows” in the Start menu to
complete with Windows activation process.w

After a fresh install, the icons for some of the


familiar Windows components like “My
Computer”, “My Documents” and others will
not be on your desktop. If you want to add
them, simply right click your mouse in a vacant
space on the Windows desktop. Select
“properties”, then “desktop”, then choose
“customize desktop” at the bottom of that
window. You will see check boxes for the At this time, we do not have the technical
common desktop icons there as well as the support staff to provide general support for
checkbox for the clean desktop wizard. Once products not purchased from Geeks.com or to
you choose the icons you want on the desktop, answer the hundreds of tech help requests we
select “apply” and close the window. Your get from our readers, however your questions
icons should now be on your desktop. and comments are appreciated and other
readers may be benefit from them or be able
After you have activated Windows you will be to help. Feel free to post your question or
ready to begin installing programs. Installing comment in our Blog (no link) and no need to
Windows XP isn’t as daunting as it seems to register unless you want to be notified when
be at first glance. Simply follow these others comment.
instructions and the onscreen prompts and
you will be fine. If at any point you get stuck Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something,
on the install process, you can refer back to make a mistake, or don’t cover everything on
this tip, or the myriad of other online resources the topic but we are trying hard to give you
for installing Windows XP. Happy computing! the most unbiased and well-written
information that we can.

Did you find this article helpful?


Do you have a question or comment?
Geeks Humor
The company secretary was
having some problems with
Windows XP, and she IM’d the IT
staff for help. Being the
efficient IT staff that they Get FREE Geeks.com Tech Tips Newsletter,
were, they replied right away discounts, and more! Every week, we mail out the
latest Tip to our loyal Geekmail subscribers. If you would
that they would be there as soon as they like to get the weekly Tech Tips Newsletter delivered to you
finished installing a new computer in the by email for FREE, just join the geeks.com email list.
CEO’s office but would she please back up her
hard drive in the meantime. She replied, “Back
up my hard drive? How do I put it in reverse?!”
That one kept them chuckling for days.

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(Free) Antivirus Software,


Protection for Your PC
Tech Tip 94 - By Jack M. Germain

In previous Tech Tips we covered the steps for


building a computer, installing peripherals,
and installing the Windows XP operating
system. In this Tech Tip we will discuss the
need for an antivirus software program, and
how to find a good one without going
broke.

Installing computer security software is the


most important task you can do after getting
the operating system up and running. If you
bought a computer rather than built it, the
same urgency exists. It is absolutely critical Let’s start with the definition of a computer
that you protect your computer from viruses virus. A computer virus is a harmful program
and other harmful attacks before you install written by hackers to sneak commands into
any other programs or connect your computer your computer. Trojan horses and worms,
to the Internet. though technically different, are for all
practical purposes the same as a virus. In other
words, they install and spread without your
knowledge, and do bad things to your PC
without your knowledge or permission. These
rogue commands perform functions that
range from mildly annoying displays on your
computer screen to more serious activities. A
virus can interfere with how applications on
your computer perform. Even worse, viruses
can destroy data on your hard drive and even
make it easier for hackers to steal your
personal information. Some viruses can even
turn your computer into a “zombie”,
controlled remotely by hackers, usually for
the purpose of sending spam email. Worried
yet? You should be!

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connection to close the gateway and prevent


others from attempting to access your
computer.

Windows XP includes a firewall program to


protect your computer. You can turn it on by
A virus can enter an unprotected computer going to the Security Center of the Control
and spread by copying its code to other files. Panel. The Microsoft built-in firewall is not as
They also can attach to executable files, e- rigorous as third-party firewall products
mail, graphics and video files. Viruses can however, so you should consider one of the
enter your computer while you are connected free or commercial firewalls for enhanced
to websites. No computer is immune from a protection from intrusion.
potential virus attack, but you can protect
yourself. A good antivirus software package A firewall by itself will not block or remove
will not only block viruses from entering your viruses. Likewise, antivirus programs by
computer, it will also find and remove viruses themselves will not prevent unauthorized
already present. access to your computer. Having a combination
of firewall and antivirus protection is a
AntiVirus Plus Firewall Protection necessity. Some software security products,
known as an Internet security suites, contain
If you are using a version of Windows earlier both types of protection in a bundled
than Windows XP, you also must include a package.
firewall program. A firewall is a program that
blocks unauthorized access to your computer Getting Antivirus Protection
and prevents hackers from taking control of
your computer. This is a very real risk if you One of the easiest ways to get antivirus
use high-speed cable or DSL to connect to the protection is from your Internet service
Internet. Dial-up access does not keep the provider. Dial-up provider America Online
computer connected to the Internet all the distributes an installation disk with free virus
time so chances of an unauthorized intrusion protection software provided by McAfee.
are very low. Once you are done accessing the Cable television and phone companies that
Internet, you should always end your dial-up provide Internet connection service also
provide free security programs to subscribers.
For instance, Comcast allows its subscribers to
download free versions of McAfee antivirus
programs and other security products directly
from the McAfee website.

You can download free trial versions of


antivirus software from vendor websites, or
purchase a fully functional program online.
You can also find reputable antivirus software
in the electronic departments of some stores.

When you install an antivirus product, check


if the software vendor provides automatic
signature updates. Many antivirus programs
let you set a time and frequency for

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automatically checking for new virus signature


updates. Be sure you activate this setting. If
the product you use does not automatically
check for updates, be sure that you do this
task yourself every few days.

Hackers create hundreds of new viruses daily


and antivirus product vendors constantly
research identifiable elements in newly
discovered viruses so they can add this Even with trial software that starts out as a
information to their detection databases. If free product, subscription renewals are
an antivirus program does not have the latest eventually required to keep the software
detection database, known as a signature file, updates current. Do not make the serious
the program will not be able to protect your mistake of continuing to use an antivirus
computer against the newest virus threats. product that no longer provides signature
updates because you did not pay the annual
You can visit vendor websites to learn more subscription fee.
about antivirus software and download their
products. Here are links to leading antivirus Another strategy besides free trial software is
software vendors. Most of these vendors offer to switch to a completely free virus protection
both stand-alone virus protection and security product. Many of these free products provide
suites. stiff competition to their commercial
counterparts and come highly recommended.
Symantec’s Norton Antivirus Here are some links to free antivirus software
vendors:
McAfee
Bit Defender
Panda Software
Avast!
Sophos Software
AVG by Grisoft Software
F-Secure
Avira AntiVirus
Microsoft
Kaspersky Lab
EZ AntiVirus by CA Software

Pre-Installed Software on
Free Antivirus Software New Computers

Why pay for antivirus protection when it is New computers often come with more than
available for free? Free virus protection one antivirus software program pre-installed.
software did not used to measure up to its Never run more than one antivirus software
commercial counterparts. This is no longer product on your computer at a time. Running
true. Many very reputable software more than one software solution can create
manufacturers use free trials or free products serious performance conflicts, slowing down
as marketing strategies to attract new the computer and even causing it to lock up.
customers to other security products.

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If your new computer has a pre-installed viruses and how to remove them if need be,
antivirus software product, make sure you visit the Symantec and McAfee websites. Stay
activate it. Some installations require you to tuned for more on how to stay protected
click on the program icon to uncompress the against other types of malicious software
program and fully install it. Also remember to coming soon!
configure the settings for automatic signature
updates. When the free trial period expires,
be sure to pay for a renewal or uninstall the Geeks Humor
program and replace it with another security There was once a young man
product. who, in his youth, professed his
desire to become a great writer. -
Installation Tip for Infected Systems When asked to define “great”
he said, “I want to write stuff
If you are that the whole world will
installing an read, stuff that people will
antivirus react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that
product on will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and
other than a anger!” - He now works for Microsoft, writing
new computer, error messages.
check the
installation
directions for
use with a At this time, we do not have the technical
possibly- support staff to provide general support for
infected computer. Putting an antivirus products not purchased from Geeks.com or to
product on a computer that already has one answer the hundreds of tech help requests we
or more viruses can disrupt the program and get from our readers, however your questions
render it useless. and comments are appreciated and other
readers may be benefit from them or be able
Special directions will take you step-by-step to help. Feel free to post your question or
through a process of rebooting your computer comment in our Blog (no link) and no need to
from the installation disk. This will allow the register unless you want to be notified when
computer to load in a special way that will others comment.
avoid running the usual programs that start
at boot up. Doing this interferes with the virus Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something,
and allows the antivirus product to scan the make a mistake, or don’t cover everything on
computer for signs of virus infection. the topic but we are trying hard to give you
the most unbiased and well-written
If the virus scan detects an existing infection, information that we can.
the security software can often remove or
quarantine the virus and continue with the
rest of the installation. If it cannot remove the
virus, the installation directions will tell you Did you find this article helpful?
how to continue manually. Do you have a question or comment?

This concludes our tip on protecting your


computer from hackers and the viruses they
create. For more information on specific

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How to Get Rid of Adware and


Spyware from Your Computer
Tech Tip 94 - By Jack M. Germain
Malware is a term computer security experts
use to refer to all forms of malicious software.
Just like viruses, you do not intentionally
download spyware and adware programs to
your computer and you do not deliberately
open them. They install when you visit
websites or when you download and install
other software products. Malware programs
can also be introduced to your computer when
you install shareware [software that you try
for free before buying] and freeware [software
that is free].
Previously, we discussed viruses and how to
protect your computer from the damage they One of the newest forms of malware is a “root
can do. A virus is just one type of intrusion kit”. This is a special program that can install
that computer users must guard against today. on your computer’s hard drive and remain
“Malware” also takes the form of “spyware” hidden from detection because it runs secretly
and “adware”. underneath the computer’s operating system.
Antivirus programs, anti-spyware, and anti-
Does your computer run much slower than adware detection programs cannot find root
when it was new? Does your computer’s kits.
monitor fill up with pop-up windows
containing advertisements for diet pills, sex Computer security firms are beginning to
aids and lots of other junk? How about develop root-kit detection software, but these
changes to your browser settings so your new detection systems are not yet very
home page changes and will not change back? reliable, so even Microsoft’s own security
If you are experiencing one or more of these engineers recently warned corporate security
symptoms, then your computer has probably specialists that the only sure cure for a root-
been infected with malware. If your computer kit infection in the foreseeable future is to
has a super-fast processor, then you might not totally erase the hard drive and start over
notice the slow down. However, if you have again.
been using your computer without protection,
rest assured it has very likely been compromised What About Removing Malware?
with spyware and adware. Spyware and adware programs are less

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difficult to with these other types of malware.


remove. Unlike
legitimate Check your current antivirus software to see if
programs, these it includes features for finding and removing
m a l w a r e spyware and adware. If it does not, you can
programs do not apply other solutions besides buying a
appear in the list replacement product from that vendor or
of installed buying stand-alone commercial products.
programs in the Instead, download and install one of the safe
Windows Add/ products mentioned below. You can use more
Remove Programs section of the Control than one. Unlike antivirus software, running
Panel. You need special help in removing more than one anti-spyware or anti-adware
these malware infections and will find out solution is not likely to cause conflicts on your
more about how to remove spyware and computer.
adware infections in the paragraphs to
follow. Be extra careful with software (especially
banner ads) that tell you your system is
Spyware is software that performs certain infected and you need to install “XYZ” to fix
tasks on your computer without your consent. the problem - while “diagnose for free, cure
For example, a spyware program can watch for a fee” is the model used by some perfectly
what you do on your computer and save the legitimate (and well-reviewed) anti-spyware
keystrokes you type to enter your bank software publishers, it can also be a ploy to
account, credit card numbers and passwords. get you to install spyware on your system.
This is known as keylogging. Another “secret”
task performed by spyware is tracking the As always, use extreme caution when
types of websites you visit and sending this downloading any software you are not
information to an advertisement agency. familiar with or that does not come
recommended by a trusted source (Computer
Adware is any software that automatically Geeks, for example.)
displays advertising material stored on your
hard drive or uses your Internet connection to Free Safe Solutions
download advertising materials to your
computer. Adware is different from
advertising-supported software, which
displays ads within its own program’s windows
while the program is being used. Advertising-
supported software is not malicious, and you
can choose to use it or uninstall it. The main
difference here is that advertising-supported One excellent source of spyware detection
software is up-front about what it’s doing, and removal is a toolbar provided by your
while adware operates in the background, Internet Service Provider (ISP) or an Internet
without your knowledge or consent. Web portal such as Yahoo.com. These providers
offer toolbars, a special web browser add-on
How to Protect Against Spyware and Adware that adds more search options and other
Finding and removing adware and spyware features. Some of these toolbars now include
infections requires special programs. Only a web-based detection and removal
recently have traditional antivirus vendors program.
begun to offer their own products to deal

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You must be connected to the Internet to use


this malware detection solution.
Depending on whether you are using
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser or the
popular alternative Mozilla browser, Firefox,
the tool bar will include a link to McAfee or
Norton where you can run a scan of your
computer.

Searching the Internet for “toolbars” will


locate other web-based solutions from
reputable vendors. Be sure to research them
to make sure they offer the solution you are also can be set to immunize areas of the hard
looking for. drive that are prone to infection from
malware.
Two excellent spyware and adware detection
programs are available for free from the For best results, run both of these programs
Internet. Both of these programs are updated on alternating days. Run the web-based scans
regularly so they can find and remove the from the browser’s tool bar during computing
latest threats to your computer. sessions.

In Conclusion
Acquiring malware protection is not the only
thing you can do to remain safe from having
your identity stolen on the Internet. Criminals
abound on the Internet, just as they do in the
physical world. However, they can reach many
more potential victims through computers.
No single anti-spyware and anti-adware
program will find every instance of a malware
infection. The combined effect of running
multiple solutions, however, will result in
trouble-free computing. Remember, the single
Ad-Aware SE Personal is well-known for best defense remains to compute safely and
performing comprehension checks for smartly by not installing every “cool, free
malware components and is very successful in application” you come across.
removing them. It has several options for
configuring how you use it.

Spybot-S&D performs very comprehensive


search and destroy scans of your computer. It
is very user friendly. You can select the types
of files that you want to leave on your Geek Humor
computer, such as cookies, which are often
identified as “spyware components”, even Q. What do you get when you cross a
though they are how your personalization mountain-climber with a house-fly?
settings are remembered for your favorite A. Nothing. You can’t cross a scaler and a
websites, among other things. Spybot S&D vector!

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Taking the Mystery Out of


PCI-Express
Tech Tip 96 - By Jack M. Germain

For the last few years, computer designers


have been quietly transitioning computer consumers buy replacement audio or graphics
users into a major technology upgrade. This cards or other devices they discover that the
new technology changes the way circuit board does not fit the newer I/O (Input/
motherboards [define] handle data from Output) slot on the motherboard. When this
other components plugged into the I/O data happens, more likely than not, the culprit is
bus [Input-Output]. A bus is a connection the new PCI-Express [PCE-E] slot.
point between the CPU [Central Processing
Unit] and computing devices consumers want Often, there is nothing that can be done to
to add to their equipment. make mismatched equipment work together.
There is simply a physical difference in the
The changeover was supposed to be seamless connecting plug of the device and the interface
for consumers, and in most cases, it has been. socket that is supposed to accept it. Also, the
But when consumers buy new computers and device may fit the new PCI-Express slot but
try to plug in some of their older “legacy” still will still not work properly. However,
devices such as scanners, graphics cards or understanding the new PCI-Express technology
specialized audio boards, sometimes the older may help you to find a work-around solution.
gear does not work properly. Likewise, when
Out with the Old PCI

The staple for the I/O bus design has long


been the Peripheral Component Interconnect
or PCI slot. Motherboard manufacturers
designed their products with enough PCI slots
for basic components such as sound cards and
video cards [printed circuit boards that control
the audio and graphics functions] and usually
included one or more extra PCI slots for future
consumer expansion. Engineering advances
brought modifications to the PCI bus through
new bus structures known as PCI-X and the
Accelerated Graphics Port or AGP.

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Each of these advancements brought better You are probably familiar with a router
performance through faster signal delivery [define] as the box that sits between your
between the connected device and the cable or DSL modem and two or more
computer’s memory and processor chip computers. Instead of having to pay for several
circuitry. But computer processors and memory separate Internet connections, the router lets
systems eventually became so fast that the you share your one paid connection with
throughput capacity of the PCI bus reached its multiple computers. The router allows each
design limitations. A big reason for computer to access the Internet as if it were
performance slowdowns in even newer, faster the only computer connected.
computers was the bottleneck of data flow
between these peripheral devices and the The PCI-E slots can speed up the flow of digital
motherboard. information between your peripheral devices
and the CPU because each one has dedicated
This slowdown in performance was especially bandwidth [the amount of signal allowed] to
a problem for users of games, music and video the computer’s memory. The older PCI slots
programs that required massive quantities of had to share bandwidth, but the new PCI-
graphics data. According to Gordon Burke, Express slots can link together to provide a
vice president of marketing for NextIO, the more direct and faster connection. The PCI-
PCI bus was limited to parallel architecture. Express standard can also work with existing
This means that the bus was designed to move software designed for the older PCI bus.
signals along parallel lines of wires that However, since it uses a physical bus capable
handled a maximum of 8-bits of data. of handling a high-speed (2.5 Gb/s) data
Engineers could tweak the data flow speed by signal, the connecting slots themselves are
providing more wired paths, but this method not compatible.
could not overcome the physical limitations
of the 8-bit bus. To solve this potential legacy problem,
computer designers provided for a transition
Computer engineers devised the PCI-E or from traditional PCI to the new PCI-Express
Express bus to speed up the data flow. Instead standard by designing motherboards with a
of using parallel architecture, Burke said the combination of PCI and PCI Express connectors.
Express bus uses serial technology which links Consumers can plug smaller connectors from
data lines in series. This enables data to travel PCI devices into the larger PCI-E host connectors
along different pathways depending on on the motherboard. However, the newer PCI-
whether it is a signal coming in from the E devices do not fit into the smaller sized PCI
peripheral device to the CPU or returning connectors.
from the CPU to the peripheral device.
Size Matters!
“This serial bus architecture lets data go much
faster on single lines than it could on parallel Motherboard design
lines that had to share directional flow,” said today includes these
Burke. “This PCI-Express solution has become standard PCI-Express
so ubiquitous in the computer industry that it slot sizes. The x1 slot
is used all the way down to hand-held is a general-purpose
devices.” slot that can host new
PCI-E single-channel
PCI-Express: A New Architecture devices. The x4, x8,
and x16 slots provide 4-channel, 8-channel
Think of the PCI-Express bus as a data router. and 16-channel extensions for use with devices

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that plug into desktop and server computers. problem with a newer device driver you can
download and install. Another solution could
To better understand the physical differences be specific directions from the device’s
between the older PCI slot and the newer PCI- manufacturer about changing driver settings
Express, look at the graphic below. You can or changing switches on the motherboard.
see the three traditional long PCI slots on the
left side of the motherboard. The PCI-E x4 slot In Conclusion
is colored black and sits in the upper center
portion of the motherboard. To its right are The PCI-Express standard is here to stay and it
two smaller, white-colored PCI-E x1 slots. To is gradually replacing earlier bus interfaces.
the far right of the motherboard is the long, For the foreseeable future, motherboard
blue-colored PCI-E x16 slot. Notice that the makers will provide a variety of PCI-E slots
x16 slot is slightly larger than the traditional along with the legacy PCI slots. For now it will
PCI slot. usually not matter what upgrade component
you buy because your computer’s motherboard
will probably have a matching slot for it. Read
our Tech Tips 15, 16 & 17 for more information
on expansion card formats.

At this time, we do not have the technical


support staff to provide general support for
products not purchased from Geeks.com or to
answer the hundreds of tech help requests we
get from our readers, however your questions
and comments are appreciated and other
readers may be benefit from them or be able
to help. Feel free to post your question or
Prevent or Fix Compatibility Issues comment in our Blog (no link) and no need to
register unless you want to be notified when
Sometimes, because of the physical and signal others comment.
bandwidth incompatibility between PCI and
PCi-E, the only fix is to simply buy a newer Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something,
component that is designed to work with the make a mistake, or don’t cover everything on
available PCI-E slots when no PCI slots exist. the topic but we are trying hard to give you
When you buy an add-on product – such as a the most unbiased and well-written
better graphics card to enhance your game information that we can.
playing pleasure – make sure that it matches
the slots on your motherboard.
Did you find this article helpful?
One last possible cure to consider for PCI-E Do you have a question or comment?
compatibility issues is to check the device
manufacturer’s website. Chances are pretty
good that other consumers have already
reported the kind of problems you are having.
The manufacturer might have solved the

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Choosing a Home Network


Configuration
Tech Tip 97 - By Chris Capelle
Not that many years ago, the idea of having
more than one computer in the home seemed are integral parts of computer use today.
absurd. But now, with much of our daily life Networking them together just makes more
dependant on them, it’s commonplace for sense. The difference between the three is
households to have multiple computers. One that a router will take communications from a
day you wake up, and there’s a computer for computer or multiple computers, and route
each member of the family, the one in the the data through a gateway to or from the
basement stores old graphics and MP3 files, internet via a broadband connection. A hub
and then Dad brings home his laptop from or switch only handles local network traffic
work… Suddenly there are seven computers like two computers on a LAN (Local Area
in the house, but only one printer and one Network) communicating with each other.
Internet connection - how do you keep
everybody happy and productive? Gone are the days when
users swap data on floppy
Answer: Set up a network! discs. In fact, many of
today’s computers no
longer include a floppy
disc drive! But even if
files don’t need to be
shared, a home network
will pay for itself quickly by sharing one
Internet connection, and buying one common
printer instead of one for every computer user
(or carting the printer around the house,
depending on who needs it).

For the SOHO (Small Office / Home Office)


crowd, there are two different types of
A network is a group of computer components networks; each serves a purpose, and each has
connected together with a hub, switch, or its pros and cons.
router, giving the users the ability to share
resources and data. These resources (most • Hard-wired (also called Ethernet)
importantly Internet connectivity and printing) • Wireless (also called WiFi)

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Ethernet is the industry standard for, wired kinder, gentler solution is needed when
networks. Virtually every computer of the computers are spread throughout the house.
past decade has an integrated Ethernet port That alternative would be a wireless network
(or the ability to accept a third-party card). (aka WiFi).

Ethernet Pros: Wireless Networking, the


• Inexpensive Kinder Gentler Solution
• Easy to configure
• Fast

Ethernet Cons:
• Requires each computer to be physically
connected to the router
• Hiding the wires is difficult, if not
impossible
• Limited computer portability

Ethernet networks are generally plug-and-


play, hard-wiring each computer and printer
to a hub. Ethernet networks are best used in a
one- or two-room situation, where wires can
easily be hidden behind furniture, or the WiFi is short for Wireless Fidelity and applies
underside of worktables. to devices that comply with the 802.11 family
of standards - it is commonly interchangeable
But wired networks have some limitations. with the term “wireless network”.
For starters, most houses aren’t equipped to
easily conceal wires. Aesthetics come into play WiFi works on the same principle as wired
here, and the difficulty of keeping the home networks, only without the wires (hence the
neat and free of clutter is the biggest drawback clever name!). Wireless networks have some
of a wired network. For example, if the kids pretty cool perks including the ability to sit on
have a computer upstairs, one in the basement, the deck on nice days with a laptop, or keeping
and the cable modem is in the kitchen, it an eye on the kids while working downstairs.
means physically running a wire between They also establish an environment free of
these devices, which isn’t practical. clutter and unsightly wires. Like Ethernet,
One solution is to hire a cabling pro to run the virtually every computer today has built-in
wiring through the walls and install wall jacks, wireless, or the ability to accept a wireless
but that generally isn’t cheap. Since most card.
people are reluctant to drill through walls, a
Wireless Pros:
• Neat and clean
• Flexibility around the house
• Scalable

Wireless Cons:
• Slower than Ethernet
• Not always intuitive to configure
• More expensive

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Privacy Tip at home, how to maximize signal strength


and range, and the importance of password-
To ensure privacy, no matter which brand of protecting a network.
router that is used, it is a good policy to enable
the wireless security feature. About 50% of
wireless residential networks are set up Geeks Humor
without a password. Don’t believe it? Venture
to a densely populated residential area with a The Eight Networking Truths
laptop, and see how many networks can be • It always has to work.
accessed that have not been secured. • It is always possible to add another level
of indirection.
• It is always something.
• Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you
can’t have all three).
• It is always more complicated than you
think.
Wireless Network Disadvantages • For all resources, whatever it is, you
always need more.
Wireless networks do have a few drawbacks. • Every networking problem always takes
They are less intuitive to configure, slower longer to solve than it seems like it
than their hard-wired counterparts, and large should.
houses often have problems with physical • One size never fits all
items diminishing the signal. Plaster walls,
large appliances and chimneys tend to be the
main culprits, but there are work-arounds for
these obstacles. Wireless networks also have At this time, we do not have the technical support
security issues, which will be covered in greater staff to provide general support for products not
detail in the second part of this series on purchased from Geeks.com or to answer the hundreds
wireless networks. of tech help requests we get from our readers,
however your questions and comments are
Be aware that there are additional home appreciated and other readers may be benefit from
networking options available, including them. Feel free to post your question or comment in
routers that can network through a home’s our Blog! Oh, and no need to register unless you
existing electrical wiring. These are up-and- want to be notified when others comment.
coming products, and though early reviews
have been favorable, they haven’t hit the Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something, make a
mainstream yet and remain cutting-edge mistake, or don’t cover everything on the topic but
solutions for now. we are trying hard to give you the most unbiased
and well-written information that we can.
In Conclusion

Wireless networks have come a long way.


When set up properly, they can enhance one’s
computing experience. The next tip will cover
the specifics of setting up a wireless network

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Tips for setting up a home


WIRELESS NETWORK Tech Tip 98
- By Chris Capelle

After the decision has been made to invest in


a wireless (WiFi) network, it’s time to run
through a few vital issues specific to
maximizing productivity. Before madly buying
and trying to configure, here are some tips –
some obvious, some not.

The three products needed are a WAP (Wireless


Access Point), a router, and a wireless-enabled
computer. WAPs (define) are typically
combined into one unit with routers, usually
referred to as “wireless routers” because they
have wireless capability. Virtually every new
laptop has built-in wireless capability, and 11 miles (unobstructed), and is subject to at
legacy laptops can accept wireless PCMCIA least a dozen variables. Certain things can
cards. PCI cards or USB wireless adapters can weaken the signal – large appliances (SubZero
be installed on most desktop computers. refrigerators are notorious culprits), chimneys,
older homes with plaster walls, and of course
It is important long distances between the router and the
to note that computer. Solutions to weak signal blues are
because the discussed further on in this article.
network is
connected to Once a location has been chosen for the
the Internet, router, it’s time to configure it. Though most
the router has of the default settings don’t need to be
to be hard- changed, there are some that definitely should
wired to the Internet connection via either be. Within the controls of the router (usually
the DSL modem or cable modem. If Internet accessed using any browser software), there
service activation in your area includes the are options that should be taken advantage
installation of a dedicated wall jack for the of:
modem, have the jack placed in a centralized
location to maximize coverage area. • First off, change the default password for
access to the router so others cannot gain
Take note that the operating range of WiFi access to your router.
networks can vary, from 300 feet to as far as • Give the network a name and don’t make

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it too personal. Remember, other people connect wirelessly.


are going to see it even if they can’t access • Password protecting the network is
it. mentioned again because it is not an
• Enable the option that makes the router a option. There are people who hack into
DHCP server and then be sure to configure networks and access personal data on
each device’s network settings to “use computers, or use the internet connection
DHCP.” for criminal means (such as sending spam
• Last but not least, enable wireless security, e-mail.)
preferably WPA (Wireless Protected
Access), if your router supports it, and Weak Signal Blues
create a password that is not too obvious.
WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) can be OK, so now the network
used if WPA is not available however WEP works, but it is in a REALLY
can be easily hacked therefore WPA is the big house, and the wireless
preferred security method for the home signal just isn’t robust
wireless network. enough to get to the back
room on the third floor. It
A Few More Important Tips cuts in and out, and inhibits
productivity. The 2.4 GHz
• Most printers aren’t wireless, and those radio band is extremely
that are can be tough to configure. Best to crowded these days with
skip the wireless printer and hard-wire one cordless phones, RF remotes,
to the router or to one of the networked microwaves and other
computers, then enable its ability to share appliances that can cause interference with a
the printer. WiFi signal. Now what?
• If a laptop hasn’t been shut down since
being connected to a different WiFi One solution is to buy a range-extending
network, Internet-mandatory processes antenna for the computer’s WiFi card or
(browsing, email) may not work. Reboot, router, or a wireless range extender. A few of
and confirm that the proper network is these strategically located in a large house
being accessed. Power outages and other can dramatically extend range and increase
random problems occasionally disable signal strength to remote corners of the
wireless networks. A quick and dirty fix is house. Be forewarned though - the more
to power down the computer, router, and complex a network is, the more it costs to
broadband modem. Then, power them up install, and the tougher it is to troubleshoot
in this order: modem, router, computer problems.
(waiting 45 seconds apart between each
step.) Frequenty Asked Questions
• Make sure the right network is being
accessed, and not a neighbor’s. A neighbor’s • What is 802.11 and what do the “a”, “b”,
connection may allow access to the Internet “g” and “n” mean?
for e-mail and surfing, but other activity
such as printing and file sharing will not Wireless modulation technology and standards
be allowed. have evolved over time. Beginning with
• Even if every computer on the network is 802.11(legacy) to 802.11n (still not ratified at
wireless, keep an Ethernet cable handy in the time of this writing), they operate in the
the event that the router needs to be 2.4 and 5 GHz frequencies. The only difference
reconfigured and you are unable to that the home user really needs to know is

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that “n” is (or will be) the fastest, “g” is next In Conclusion
fastest, then “a” (typically not used by
consumers), then “b”. Not sure which protocol Even though signal and security issues need
applies? Buy a router that allows a “mixed” to be addressed, setting up a WiFi network at
network commonly 802.11b/g or 802.11a/b/g. home can solve a multitude of problems. But,
what can be done when traveling? Part three
• Does it matter what brand of router is of this series will take a closer look at accessing
used? the Internet away from home.

All wireless routers work on the same


principles, no matter what brand they are.
Some probably work better in certain Geeks Humor
situations than others do, but none of this
information is brand-specific, with the Two antennas met in a closet, fell in love and
exception of Apple’s Airport routers. Apple’s got married.
routers are not configurable using a web
browser because they use proprietary setup The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception
software that will only run on Apple machines. was excellent!
If you are going to use an Apple router, you
will need to configure it with the Airport
Apple software on an Apple computer and
then add any non-Apple devices to it after. At this time, we do not have the technical
Some popular router companies include D- support staff to provide general support for
Link, Netgear and Linksys. These companies products not purchased from Geeks.com or
(as well as others) also offer faster and better to answer the hundreds of tech help requests
connections within the 802.11g band, however we get from our readers, however your
you usually need to buy a matched set of questions and comments are appreciated
products. For example, a D-Link Wireless and other readers may be benefit from
Router with Enhanced Wireless G and a D-Link them. Feel free to post your question or
Enhanced Wireless G card on the PC or comment in our Blog! Oh, and no need to
notebook would be required to get the register unless you want to be notified when
enhanced benefits of speed and/or range. others comment.
Mixing and matching is generally ok with no
problems to still get the best default setting Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something,
between computer and router. make a mistake, or don’t cover everything
on the topic but we are trying hard to give
• Can a computer or printer be hard-wired you the most unbiased and well-written
to the network? information that we can.

Yes, computers and printers can be wired to a


WiFi network. Don’t be shy about connecting
computers, printers, or even storage directly
to the wireless router (most typically have
four hardwired ports.) Sometimes, it’s easier
and makes more sense.

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Accessing the INTERNET


Away From Home Tech Tip 99
- By Chris Capelle

Whether traveling for business or pleasure,


having Internet connectivity and email while
on the road is becoming a vital way of life for
many people. Hotels, airports, libraries, train
stations and of course, the ubiquitous coffee
houses all offer wireless service. Some are free
and some charge a fee. But how do you
connect and minimize broadband frustration
when out of the house?

Actually, there are two different “connecting


from the road” options: One is to use the
network that somebody else provides (for
example, a library or a neighbor) called WiFi laptops to access wireless Internet signals,
hotspots (define). The second is to subscribe similar to the way a cell phone grabs wireless
to a service (typically a cell phone provider) phone signals. As long as a laptop is within
that allows access to the Internet from pretty the carrier’s cell phone range, it will usually
much anywhere, and doesn’t depend on WiFi be able to access the Internet.
hotspots, which have limited range and may
or may not be secure. Pros:

Surf From Anywhere • Internet access is available in most places


• Avoids the uncertainty of getting
To use the “surf broadband on the road
from anywhere-
type” service, a Cons:
specialized
PCMCIA wireless • Not fully mainstream yet
card is usually • Requires a subscription service
required and this
card is different Because there’s a monthly fee, and often a
than a normal WiFi card. This card allows contract is required, this isn’t ideal for the

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casual user. Unless connectivity is required an upset stomach, configure the computer’s
24/7 as it is for “road warriors”, this type of TCP/IP settings to “obtain an IP address
plan is generally not worth the money it automatically.” Nearly every public hotspot is
costs. configured this way. Makes sense actually,
because it requires very little time and effort,
Connect Using a WiFi Hotspot both by the provider and by the end user.

How to Find Hotspots

Unlike Europe, hotspots in America are not


necessarily advertised and some homework
may need to be done ahead of time. Before
venturing out, do a search by entering
“wireless hotspots” and the area of interest,
and see what comes up. The Wi-Fi-FreeSpot™
Directory lists all types of Free WiFi locations
from cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, to
libraries, downtown business districts, malls,
stores, laundry mats, and even auto repair
shops. There are also small devices that sniff
out WiFi signals, but
when traveling, msot
The most common and economical solution people do not really
for the non-power user is to connect using a want another gadget
WiFi hotspot. to carry around.
Advice, just boot up
This scenario has two different flavors: Free, and let the laptop do
and pay-to-surf. Free hotspots are offered as a the work of finding
convenience or perk (some hotels and airports), the network.
or proof that tax dollars are hard at work
(public libraries). The pay-to-surf plans are Hot Tip #2: It’s good policy to use caution
common at certain hotels, bookstore chains when working with confidential or sensitive
and coffee shops. In both instances, no data.
additional hardware is required, and all it
takes to access the Internet is a few tweaks to
your wireless network settings.

Connecting wirelessly in hotels, libraries and


airports is pretty simple: power on, find the
network, connect, and you’re got it made. For
the most part, they’re seamless, usually don’t
require passwords, and allow users to log on
without difficulty. But, the downside is that
these networks are probably not secure. (More
on that later.)

Hot Tip #1: To surf wirelessly without getting

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Exactly how secure is that public wireless Boingo Wireless also offers several service
network? The answer is none of the above. plans based on where and how often you
With public WiFi, encryption might be there. access WiFi hot spots.
(It might not be, either.) Networks are only as
secure as their owners want them to be, so if Summary
you have classified data, then using public
hotspots isn’t the way to go. Avoid entering WiFi networks are here to stay and will
passwords or transmitting personal data (such continue to improve and make our lives easier
as credit card numbers) when using a public and more mobile. From libraries to coffee
WiFi. Batten down the hatches by enabling shops, the Internet is our friend keeping us
your computer’s firewall, and by making sure connected and allowing us to communicate
your anti-virus software is up to date. with family and friends or do business as if we
were at home.
Some locations (Grand Central Station in
Manhattan, certain bookstore and coffee
chains) offer a “pay to surf” plan. These plans
are usually provided by a brand name cell GEEK HUMOR
service (although this is still WiFi, and should
not be confused with the proprietary access Top 10 Signs Your Cat Has Learned Your
methods mentioned earlier), and are only Internet Password
recommended if plans include spending a lot
of time using these hotspots, or a generous 10. E-Mail flames from some guy named
expense account is available. “Fluffy.”
9. Traces of kitty litter in your keyboard.
When using this type of service, don’t be 8. You find you’ve been subscribed to strange
alarmed to find that the homepage has been newsgroups like alt.recreational.catnip.
hijacked and a screen appears asking for a 7. Your web browser has a new home page.
user name and password (for existing 6. Your mouse has teeth marks in it ... and a
subscribers), or to sign up for an account (new strange aroma of tuna.
subscribers). The good news is that these big- 5. Hate-mail messages to Apple Computer
name providers offer a secure network, so Corp. about their release of “CyberDog.”
there is less worry about having data 4. Your new ergonomic keyboard has a
compromised. strange territorial scent to it.
3. You keep finding new software around
Plans such as these usually involve a monthly your house like CatinTax & WarCat II.
fee with a contract (least expensive), a month- 2. On IRC you’re known as the IronMouser.
to-month plan with no contract (more 1. Little kitty carpal-tunnel braces near the
expensive), or an à la carte plan (most scratching post.
expensive). The best idea is to not sign the
contract until deciding how much time is
really needed to get work done in their
network.

T-Mobile Hotspot is a very popular services


offering a variety of plans to choose from.

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What is Global
Positioning
System (GPS) ?
Tech Tip 100 - By Michael Welsh
The Global Positioning System, commonly rather than quartz or gears to keep time, an
known as GPS, is a network of satellites that atomic clock is more accurate than a normal
determines a ground based user’s specific clock. The satellites transmit radio signals to a
latitude, longitude, and altitude. GPS devices receiver on the ground and the receiver
have become more integrated in our daily calculates its position in relation to the
lives through navigation computers in cars to satellites. A minimum of three satellites are
emergency locators in cellular phones. GPS needed to provide latitude and longitude
can even keep the time accurate on watches information using a process known as
and VCRs. Portable GPS receivers are becoming triangulation. If a fourth satellite is in range,
increasingly popular for young and old alike. then the user’s altitude can also be determined.
The more satellites that are available, the
For the GPS to work there are twenty-four more accurate the receiver’s calculation will
satellites in Earth’s orbit. Each satellite is be. GPS receivers come in a variety of
spaced so that at least four can be used by any technologies, from handheld devices to
given receiver on the ground. The satellites geological monitoring stations.
each contain a computer, radio, and an atomic
clock. Because it uses the frequency of atoms The History of GPS

Global positioning grew from the use of radar


tracking at the end of World War II when
radar stations were placed along the coastlines
and inshore for ships and planes to orient
themselves. But data and distance were
limited and subject to
weather and atmosphere
interference. With the
launch of the Sputnik
man-made satellite
program by the Soviet
Union in the late 1950s,

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American scientists learned they could deliberately “de-tuned” (define) and less
precisely locate the satellite by the frequency accurate than that used by the military, it is
of its signal. The Doppler effect (define) of still extremely beneficial. The modified signals
the signal grew stronger as the satellite allow non-military GPS users to obtain
approached and grew weaker as it flew away. navigational readings that are accurate to
They also realized that the opposite would be approximately 100 meters. Today many new
true and several satellites would be able to cars come standard with GPS locators that can
precisely locate items on the ground. be activated if the vehicle is stolen or involved
in an accident. These locators can also be
Through the 1960s, the first navigation systems integrated with navigation computers that
went into orbit but were limited in function help drivers navigate to their destinations.
and accuracy. Many systems show locations on a map and
audibly announce when to turn. Some can
In 1978, the first of several NAVSTAR GPS even help drivers avoid heavy traffic and many
(NAVigation Signal Timing And Ranging units will also provide guidance to nearby
Global Positioning System) satellites was restaurants, movie theatres and other places
launched with military use as the primary of interest and business.
purpose. NAVSTAR proved to be more accurate
and resilient than radar and unlike radar,
NAVSTAR did not rely on ground stations
being nearby. It was not hampered by weather
and was also harder for enemy units to jam
the signals. The full constellation of satellites
as we know them today was achieved in
1994.

Although originally designated for military


use only, GPS was later opened for civilian use
with restrictions on usage and accuracy.

Portable GPS Uses


GPS has revolutionized the airliner industry
The primary user by allowing pilots and air traffic controllers to
of the Global more accurately know the locations and
Positioning System altitudes of their planes. Airliners can better
is still the United avoid restricted airspace and find other nearby
States military and aircraft from their GPS transponders (define).
its allies. GPS Since GPS is not hampered by weather like
technology allows radar, it is much safer. If an aircraft does crash,
for precise locating of troops, ships, aircraft the GPS transponder can lead rescuers to the
and their targets. GPS satellites help smart crash site faster.
missiles precisely hit enemy positions while at
the same time avoiding civilians. Land surveying and agriculture have also
benefited from GPS technology. Many gas,
Civilian use of global positioning has grown water, and electrical lines can be found more
over the last decade as the cost of GPS receivers accurately if their location is measured and
declined. Though civilian GPS gear is logged at the time of burial. This helps future

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diggers avoid the buried lines or tap into them to parents to track
for new houses and buildings. Distances can their teenage
be more accurate for landscape planning and drivers. This allows
road building. Farmers are turning to GPS to parents to know if
help locate cattle herds, find property lines, they really went to
and locate where to dig wells for water. see a movie or if
they went to a party
Games involving GPS have also emerged, with at a friend’s house.
geo-caching (define) being one of the most And since a GPS can
popular. Geo-caching is a game where people determine speed,
leave clues about treasures they have hidden. parents can also know if the teens are engaged
The treasure is usually small, and when a in any dangerous driving. GPS can also come
treasure is found, it is to be replaced with a in handy in emergency situations such as car-
new treasure or new treasure added to it. A jacking. This technology is becoming available
geo-cache website will identify where local as a transponder for cars, an add-on for
treasure hunters have hidden their loot by phones, or as carry-along units.
their geo coordinates. By using a portable GPS
receiver, goodies that are hidden, generally in Many cell phones are now coming with limited
a park, library, or other public area, can be GPS receivers to help with Enhanced 911.
found. Enhanced 911 sends the caller’s address to
emergency operators, but to date it has only
Since all of the worked with traditional land line phones.
global positioning Since a cell phone can be used to make a call
satellites have from anywhere, global positioning is being
highly accurate added to quickly locate distressed cell phone
atomic clocks within callers.
them, electronic
products are being In Conclusion
designed to tap into
their frequencies to Global positioning has grown from a military
update time. Several feature to a must-have electronic gadget.
lines of new watches and clocks now Although the possibilities for use are still
automatically update themselves from the growing. today GPS and navigation is still an
GPS network. This synchronization helps users add-on feature but within a few years it could
by giving them a more uniformed time become standard equipment. The tech savvy
structure. Changes for daylight savings can generation growing up today will probably
happen automatically for all clocks that use look at the compass and think it ancient the
this technology. In case of a power failure, same way previous generations looked at the
clocks and VCRs will automatically reset to the sextant.
proper time as soon as power is restored.
Our next Tech Tips will be reviews of some of
The Future of GPS the portable GPS receivers currently in stock
at www.Geeks.com.
While the use of Global Positioning has
expanded within the last decade, there are
many new uses being still being developed.
Some new GPS products are being marketed

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Reviews of the Portable GPS Receiver UT-41


and Portable GPS Receiver MS-GM-03
16-Channel USB NMEA-0183 Tech Tip 101 - By Michael Welsh
Please note that using a GPS receiver with a
laptop in a vehicle can be very distracting.
Please do not attempt to make changes or
look at the laptop while driving. Act
responsibly when operating and observe all
traffic regulations. Read or make selections
only when stopped. Read the owner’s manual
and learn how to operate it prior to actually
using it. Become thoroughly familiar with it
and do not allow others to use it until they
With portable GPS receivers increasing in have read and understand the instructions.
popularity for everyday use, we thought it
would be useful to give you a couple of UT-41 Portable GPS General Features
reviews of products we have in stock here at • USB interface
Computer Geeks. Designed for use with laptop • 12 channel GPS receiver
computers, the UT-41 and MS-GM-03 are both • Standard NMEA-0183 V3.01 GPS protocol
good selections for geeks who want to know • Onboard patch antenna
where they are at all times. A USB connection, • 4100 simultaneous time-frequency search
the small size of bins
the unit and more • SBAS (WAAS, EGNOS) support
than 6 feet of USB • -140dBm acquisition sensitivity
cable make setup • -150dBm tracking sensitivity
and take down of • <10 second hot start
the UT-41 very easy. • <50 second cold start
The Universal Serial • 5m CEP accuracy
Bus (USB) interface • Low power consumption: 90mA
on the MS-GM-03 allows this receiver to work • 6-foot + USB cable
with almost any
computer and the Portable GPS Receiver
unit is rugged UT-41 Product Requirements
enough for • Available USB port
everyday use and • CD-ROM drive
accurate enough • Software that is able to use a GPS receiver
for most users’ (NMEA-0183 GPS compliant software)
needs. • NMEA-0183 GPS compliant software:

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Portable GPS Receiver UT-41 Setup seat offers an easy-to-read screen compared
with many of the handheld units which have
Setting up the UT-41 can take less than two to be held or dash mounted. Remember, do
minutes even without the printed instructions. not attempt to make changes or look at the
For this test, the UT-41 portable GPS was laptop while driving. Turn on voice activation
plugged into an IBM ThinkPad. Like any other when available. Also, the low power
USB device, just plug it in and load the driver consumption of the UT-41 does not noticeably
which was provided on the included CD-ROM. affect the runtime of a laptop. The device
Getting the unit to work with Google Earth does well finding latitude, longitude, and
along with Earth Bridge takes a little longer altitude and, while driving, it also keeps track
but the combination of two free applications of speed very accurately. Working with Google
makes it worth Earth in conjunction with Earth Bridge makes
while. Google Earth navigation a snap as Earth Bridge constantly
is a free application updates Google Earth’s map. The UT-41
for Windows, performs well outdoors and in a car, but has
Macintosh, and several issues when used indoors. Indoors, the
Linux computers information is inaccurate mostly with altitude,
that offers satellite if it even worked at all. Because the unit comes
views of the Earth. with a six-foot cable, it can be placed next to
Earth Bridge works a window which often helps with most
as a conduit for Google Earth to interface problems it has indoors. This is because a
with a GPS. Earth Bridge will update Goggle building window will allow the satellite’s
Earth with current location data from the GPS signal to pass through to the receiver much
allowing real-time navigation. like it does in a vehicle.

It is important to MS-GM-03 Portable GPS Receiver


mention that some General Features
users report the • USB interface
UT-41 may tend to • 16 channel GPS receiver
give inaccurate • Standard NMEA-0183 V3.01 GPS protocol
locations such as • Onboard patch antenna
along the coast of • 4800 simultaneous time-frequency search
Africa or in the bins
middle of Asia if not used with a USB 2.0 port. • SBAS (WAAS, EGNOS) support
Original testing was performed using a USB • Low power consumption
1.1 port, and the unit often failed to properly • 6-foot USB cable
orient itself on Google Earth. However, once MS-GM-03 Portable GPS Receiver
connected to a USB 2.0 port, the UT-41 Product Requirements
correctly adjusted to the right coordinates. • Available USB port
• CD-ROM drive
Portable GPS Receiver UT-41 Usage • Software that is able to use a GPS receiver
MS-GM-03 Portable GPS Receiver
While hauling around a laptop for global Package Includes:
positioning may not be as practical as a • MS-GM-03 16-Channel USB NMEA-0183
standalone GPS unit or a PDA, the amount of GPS Receiver
free (or cheap) and handy software can make • Drivers CD
a laptop more useful than a handheld device. • Users manual
Traveling with a laptop in a car’s passenger

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MS-GM-03 Portable GPS Receiver Setup The unit is very efficient on power, so it creates
Caution! This is not mentioned on the box. little to no impact on the life of the laptop’s
The MS-GM-03 has a fairly powerful internal battery. When first started, the receiver can
magnet that can cause damage to sensitive have trouble finding enough satellites, even
electronic equipment. To prevent damage or in wide open spaces. But once they are found,
data loss, be careful not to place the unit on traveling under bridges, in high-rise downtown
tapes, hard drives, or flash media. areas, or even indoors, the MS-GM-03 was
very good at keeping its location. Also, the
Test runs for the MS-GM-03 used an IBM MS-GM-03 does a terrific job accurately
ThinkPad loaded with Google Earth along measuring speed, altitude, and direction.
with Earth Bridge navigation software.
Wrap Up
Installation of the MS-GM-03 is quick and as
easy as any other USB device. Simply unpack The MS-GM-03 is a great GPS receiver for
the unit, run the setup utility found on the almost any user on the go. Its speedy set up
included CD-ROM, and plug the unit in when and take down make it a useful gadget. With
requested. Make sure to open the device its durable construction, it can go almost
manager after running the installation to find anywhere and keep up with the most
out what communications port the USB bus demanding of users. While the receiver was
has assigned the receiver. You will need this tested with Google Earth and Earth Bridge,
information before configuring any navigation almost any GPS-compatible navigation
software. To open the device manager in software should work. Though both units
Windows XP, right click on your “My performed well, the MS-GM-03 worked better
Computer” icon and choose Properties from indoors than the UT-41.
the menu. Click on the “Hardware” tab, then
click the “Device Manager” button. Make Overall, both products performed well in most
note of the port. Once assigned, the MS-GM- locations and both worked best with laptops
03 was very good about releasing this port that were USB 2.0 enabled. When compared
after being removed, or if the computer was to standalone GPS units, these portable GPS
shut down. One downfall is that the CD-ROM receivers are very affordable and the larger
does not include drivers for Macintosh or screen of the laptop made following along
Linux and a quick search on the Internet did very easy.
not reveal any.
Either unit could be a great asset for a major
MS-GM-03 Portable GPS Receiver Usage laptop user. With the multitude of GPS
software products available for personal
The internal magnet of the MS-GM-03 is computers, low price, and ease of use, this
strong enough to hold the receiver to most item is a necessity, especially for the
metal car roofs, and the rubber padding helps directionally challenged! At under $40.00,
prevent scratches to the car’s finish, but having either unit is also a great buy for anyone
the receiver on the dash of a car was more interested in experimenting with GPS
than adequate for it to function properly. The technology.
receiver has a rugged, three meter cable that
can allow it to rest in just about any optimal
spot and the cable can even withstand minor
pinches from car windows when it is mounted
on the roof.

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Review of the Holux GR-271 CompactFlash


Portable GPS Navigation Receiver for PDA
or Laptop Tech Tip 102 - By Michael Welsh
The Holux GR- • 20 parallel satellite-tracking channels for
271 portable GPS fast acquisition and re-acquisition
receiver, in the • High speed signal acquisition using 1920
form of a time/frequency search channels
Compact Flash • WAAS enabled
(“CF”) card, is • Supports NMEA0183 v2.2 data protocol
suitable for use • Enhanced algorithms -SnapLock and
with a PDA or SnapStart provide superior navigation
laptop. It works performance in urban, canyon and
well with Google foliage environments
Earth and other • Supports CF card Type I connector suitable
available GPS navigation software. The small PDA, Hand Held PC or PC device
size makes it easy to use in a PDA while
traveling or to carry in a pocket when not in Setup of the Holux GR-271 GPS Receiver
use. The CD-ROM has the PDA and Windows
drivers and GPS software, but not the Setup of this receiver is a breeze due to well-
navigation applications. While it would be written printed instructions and an easy-install
nice to have navigation included, there is driver from the included CD-ROM. The
plenty of cheap or free navigation software included GPS software quickly finds the GPS’s
on the Web that will suffice. This test used Compact Flash card, and once activated, is
GPS 2 Google Earth for the navigation software able to display a location in less than fifteen
because of its seven-day free seconds. Even though the card was inside a
trial and compatibility and a building, it was still able to pick up three
Dell Axim x51 PDA using the satellites and gave accurate coordinates!
Windows Mobile operating
system. Though the GPS is Holux GR-271 GPS Receiver Usage
laptop ready, a built-in or
external compact flash reader This GPS receiver performed well with the
or adapter for the laptop is included GPS software and GPS 2 Google
required. Earth. While indoors or in a car, the unit was
able to keep up with updating the position. In
General Features: order to keep the PDA on while driving, be
sure to disable the PDA’s battery saving
• Third-generation SiRF III chipset for best feature. While this did reduce the amount of
performance and accuracy runtime from the PDA, the card was not a

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heavy strain on battery life and depending on youth, professed his desire to become a great
the PDA, it could last several hours. writer. When asked to define “great” he said,
“I want to write stuff that the whole world
Using a PDA in a heavily-wooded area or in a will read, stuff that people will react to on a
downtown environment was nice; it is light- truly emotional level, stuff that will make
weight and easy to store in a pocket. Also, them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!”
having the PDA and GPS as one unit means
less equipment to haul around. For a dedicated He now works for Microsoft, writing error
PDA user, the UT-41 is a handy tool since the messages...
user only has to handle one device while
checking a schedule, listening to music, or On a more serious note:
looking for a hotel.
If you go to the website LetsSayThanks.com
When held in the hand the extra two inches you can pick out a thank you card that Xerox
that the card extends from the top of the PDA will print and send to a soldier that is currently
was not a problem but added some serving in Iraq. You can’t choose who gets it,
awkwardness when trying to store the PDA in but it will go to a member of the U.S. armed
its original pouch. However, the advantage of services. How AMAZING it would be if we
having it all as one unit was a benefit and the could get everyone we know to send one!!!
extra height was not a problem when carrying
the PDA around. Depending on how the PDA Computer Geeks
is stored, it might be best to shut down and Your #1 Source for
remove the card. Computer Information!

One problem encountered with the card was At this time, we do not have the technical
that it would occasionally freeze the support staff to provide general support for
application until the entire PDA was hard products not purchased from Geeks.com or to
reset. Another issue was the GPS’s ability answer the hundreds of tech help requests we
monitor the unit’s speed while traveling. The get from our readers, however your questions
accuracy of this feature worked intermittently and comments are appreciated and other
if at all. The last problem is the lack of readers may be benefit from them. Feel free
explanation of the software controls for a to post your question or comment in our Blog!
novice user. Unless you know what all of the Oh, and no need to register unless you want
buttons and numbers mean, you are left to be notified when others comment.
searching the Web for an explanation.

In Conclusion Disclaimer:
Occasionally we miss something, make a
Overall the Holux GR-271 is a solid, well built mistake, or don’t cover everything on the
unit. For a dedicated PDA user who is also a topic but we are trying hard to give you the
traveler or directionally challenged, this is a most unbiased and well-written information
nice addition to a hand-held unit. For a limited that we can.
time, this unit can be found at Geeks.com.

Geeks Humor

There was once a young man who, in his

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Converting Audio Files to MP3


Tech Tip 103 - Scott Nesbitt

Why Convert?

Take what recently happened


with me as an example. My
friend Jeff passed me an audio
file of the classic surf rock
instrumental “Pipeline.” I’d
been looking for that particular
song in digital format for a
while, and was more than happy
about Jeff’s little gift. The only
problem was that the file was in
WAV format (an older, and once
very popular, audio format for
Windows). The file was big –
over 30 MB. I’ve never been a
big fan of WAV files, preferring
smaller MP3s. So, before
If there’s one thing that the computer world transferring the file to my portable music
isn’t short of, it’s audio file formats. There are player, I decided to convert that WAV file to
literally dozens of them. You’ve probably MP3.
heard of a few, like WAV, WMA, RAM, ACC,
FLAC , OGG, and others. It can be a confusing The process isn’t difficult. All you need is the
maze of acronyms and formats that leaves right software and a little time.
your head spinning.
Doing a Conversion
It’s safe to say that MP3 is the most popular
audio format around. It’s supported by every There are a number of programs floating
digital audio player on the market and in around on the Web that enable you to convert
every media player – regardless of whether audio files from one format to another. You
you’re using Windows, Mac OS, or Linux. Not can find quite a large list of those applications
every audio file that you encounter will be an here. For my conversion, I chose an application
MP3, though. As such, you might not be able called dBPowerAmp Music Converter. It’s
to play it on your MP3 player or media player. shareware, and well worth the $14 registration
To get the file to play on your hardware or fee. While there are plenty of free converters
software, your best bet is to transform it to out there, I chose dBPowerAmp Music
MP3. Converter because it’s not only easy to use,

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but has all the options and features that I


need. On top of that, it produces great quality
MP3s files.

Note: While the process of setting up the


conversion will vary from application to
application, the concepts that are discussed
below will apply to all conversions.

I started up the software, and was asked to


choose the file I wanted to convert:

bitrate and selected 192 kbps using the slider


in the dBPowerAmp Music Converter window.
Remember, the higher you set the bitrate, the
better the sound quality will be. The trade off
is that you’ll also wind up with a bigger file.
The MP3 file format specification allows for a
maximum bitrate of 320 kbps.
With that out of the way, I chose MP3 for my
conversion option. dBPowerAmp Music I wanted to tweak the quality of the MP3 a bit
Converter uses an MP3 encoder called LAME. more. To do that, I clicked the Advanced
Contrary to its name, LAME is anything but. Options button.
It’s a powerful Open Source encoder that
creates MP3s that are comparable to those
produced by expensive commercial encoders
and applications.

Since I wanted the MP3 that I was creating to


be of CD quality, I left the frequency set to
44100 Hz.

The frequency is also called the sampling rate,


and it helps determine the overall quality of
the sound. I could have chosen a lower rate
and probably wouldn’t have noticed much of
a difference. But, why take the chance?

Like the sampling rate, the bitrate (the number


of bits of data converted each second) helps
determine the sound quality. Everyone I’ve
talked to says that a good bitrate for music is
128 kbps. I decided to go with a slightly higher

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I chose Very High from the Quality dropdown


list. While this eventually fattened my file
somewhat, I figured it was worth it. As for the
bitrate setting, I kept the default of Constant
Bitrate (CBR). All of this means is that regardless
of what the audio is, the bitrate will always
remain the same. To capture some of the
nuances of the song, I could have chosen
Variable Bitrate (VBR), which changes the
bitrate depending on the audio content.
However, I’m not that much of an audiophile
and probably wouldn’t have noticed the
difference anyway. Generally speaking, using
VBR will yield smaller MP3 files. and then choose a conversion format. Then,
you enter the email address to which you
Once I was done, I clicked the Convert button. want the converted file sent.
The conversion took about a minute to
complete. The converted MP3 file weighed in Then, just click the Convert button. Depending
at 4 MB, which was 26 MB smaller than the on the size of the original file and the speed
original WAV file sounded crystal clear. It now of your Internet connection, the conversion
resides happily on my MP3 player. could take a couple to several minutes. Once
it’s done, you check your email for a link to
Quick and Dirty Conversions download the converted file.

What happens when you aren’t at your own Media-Convert.com works in much the same
computer, don’t want to install any more way. But instead of emailing you the file, your
software on your system, or just want to browser automatically downloads it once the
impress your friends and family with your conversion is finished. How well does it work?
geek skills? You turn to the Web, of course. Recently, my wife used Media-Convert.com to
There are two great Web sites that enable you transform some MIDI files of Scandinavian
to do quick and dirty audio conversions. folk music to MP3, and there was no loss in
quality. Her only complaints were that the site
The sites are Media-Convert.com and Zamzar. is difficult to navigate and the conversion was
Media-Convert.com offers conversions for a slow.
large number of audio formats. Zamzar, on
the other hand, is more modest in its offerings A Couple of Gotchas
– the number of formats it supports is limited.
However, the Zamzar site is very clean and Converting from other audio file formats to
polished; Media-Convert.com is cluttered with MP3 is easy. However, there are a few things
ads. that you must watch out for. MP3s are smaller
than many other audio files because they’re
Why do I call the sites quick and dirty? It’s compressed. MP3 uses lossy compression,
because they don’t offer you any options to which means that some unneeded or
set the bit rate or sampling rate, or to tweak redundant information is tossed away when
the files in any way. The results are good the MP3 is created. If you’re converting other
enough for most people, though. types of audio files that use lossy compression
– like Apple’s ACC, Ogg Vorbis, or Windows
With Zamzar, for example, you upload a file WMA – to MP3 then you should make sure

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that the encoding quality is as high as possible. converting other audio formats to MP3 can
If it isn’t, then you’ll notice a real difference in be quick and easy.
the quality of resulting file.
On a more serious note:
Something else to consider is DRM. DRM is
short for Digital Rights Management. It’s a If you go to the website LetsSayThanks.com
method of protecting files from being copied you can pick out a thank you card that Xerox
and pirated. Two of the most widely DRM- will print and send to a soldier that is currently
protected file formats are ACC (used with serving in Iraq. You can’t choose who gets it,
many tracks available from the Apple iTunes but it will go to a member of the U.S. armed
Store) and Windows WMA. While Geeks.com services. How AMAZING it would be if we
doesn’t advocate digital piracy in any shape could get everyone we know to send one!!!
or form, there may be a time when you have
a legitimate need to convert protected files to Computer Geeks - Your #1 Source for
MP3. A friend of mine recently had his iPod Computer Information!
die on him, and he bought another brand of
audio player. But, he had a large number of At this time, we do not have the technical
ACC files that he couldn’t play on his new support staff to provide general support for
device. products not purchased from Geeks.com or to
answer the hundreds of tech help requests we
So, how do you get around a situation this? get from our readers, however your questions
The easiest option is to burn the protected and comments are appreciated and other
files to an audio CD. They’ll be converted to readers may be benefit from them. Feel free
actual CD tracks. Then, rip the CD to MP3 files to post your question or comment in our Blog!
using a program like Cdex. It’s a time Oh, and no need to register unless you want
consuming process and requires you to to be notified when others comment.
sacrifice a CD. On the other hand, it beats
having a bunch of audio files that you can’t Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something,
listen to, especially if you’ve already paid for make a mistake, or don’t cover everything on
them. the topic but we are trying hard to give you
the most unbiased and well-written
Conclusion information that we can.

While MP3 is arguably the most popular audio


format around, not every bit of audio is
available as an MP3. With the right tools,

Tech Tips Community Geeks.com


Computer Geeks is more than just a great source 1890 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
for computer gear and consumer electronics, we’re
1.760.726.7700
also a community of tech-enthusiasts excited about Read more about Computer Geeks
teaching and helping others learn. We’ve developed at our website: www.geeks.com
Tech Tips because we believe that by providing our
guests with tutorials, instructions, directions, and Buy your desktop computers, notebook
other learning tools they need to become educated computers, refurbished computers,
consumers, they’ll keep coming back. computer parts, and computer cases at
the Computer Geeks.

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The Future of Computer Technology


Tech Tip 104 - Chris Herzog

technology, logic gates will be composed of


just a few atoms and electrical conductors
(called nanowires) will be merely an atom
thick and a data bit will be represented by the
presence or absence of an electron.

A component of nanotechnology,
nanocomputing will give rise to four types of
nanocomputers:

• Electronic nanocomputers
• Chemical and Biochemical nanocomputers
• Mechanical nanocomputers
• Quantum nanocomputers

Electronic nanocomputers

In the past twenty years, there has been a Eletronic nanocomputers are created through
dramatic increase in the processing speed of microscopic circuits using nanolithography.
computers, network capacity and the speed [Nanocomputers]
of the internet. These advances have paved
the way for the revolution of fields such as Chemical and Biochemical
quantum physics, artificial intelligence and nanocomputers
nanotechnology. These advances will have a
profound effect on the way we live and work, The interaction between different chemicals
the virtual reality we see in movies like the and their structures is used to store and process
Matrix, may actually come true in the next information in chemical nanocomputers. In
decade or so. order to create a chemical nanocomputer,
engineers need to be able to control individual
NANOCOMPUTERS atoms and molecules so that these atoms and
molecules can be made to perform controllable
Scientists are trying to use nanotechnology to calculations and data storage tasks.
make very tiny chips, electrical conductors and
logic gates. Using nanotechnology, chips can Mechanical nanocomputers
be built up one atom at a time and hence
there would be no wastage of space, enabling A mechanical nanocomputer uses tiny mobile
much smaller devices to be built. Using this components called nanogears to encode

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information. Some scientists predict that such patients who are living at home.
mechanical nanocomputers will be used to
control nanorobots. QUANTUM COMPUTERS

Quantum nanocomputers A quantum computer uses quantum


mechanical phenomena, such as entanglement
A quantum nanocomputer store data in the and superposition to process data. Quantum
form of atomic quantum states or spin. Single- computation aims to use the quantum
electron memory (SEM) and quantum dots are properties of particles to represent and
examples of this type of technology. structure data. Quantum mechanics is used to
understand how to perform operations with
Humanizing Nanocomputers this data. The quantum mechanical properties
of atoms or nuclei allow these particles to
Apart from this, work together as quantum bits, or qubits.
scientists aim to These qubits work together to form the
use nanotechnol- computer’s processor and memory. Qubits can
ogy to create interact with each other while being isolated
nanorobots that from the external environment and this
will serve as anti- enables them to perform certain calculations
bodies that can much faster than conventional computers.
be programmed.
This will help to By computing many different numbers
protect humans simultaneously and then interfering the
against patho- results to get a single answer, a quantum
genic bacteria and computer can perform a large number of
viruses that keep operations in parallel and ends up being much
mutating rendering many remedies ineffec- more powerful than a digital computer of the
tive against new strains. Nanorobots would same size.
overcome this problem by reprogramming se-
lectively to destroy the new pathogens. Nano- “In the tiny spaces inside atoms, the ordinary
robots are predicted to be part of the future rules of reality ... no longer hold. Defying all
of human medicine. common sense, a single particle can be in two
places at the same time. And so, while a switch
• SPRAY-ON NANO COMPUTERS in a conventional computer can be either on
or off, representing 1 or 0, a quantum switch
Consider that research is being done at the can paradoxically be in both states at the same
Ediburgh University to create “spray-on time, saying 1 and 0.... Therein lies the source
computers the size of a grain of sand” that of the power.” Whereas three ordinary
will transform information technology. The switches could store any one of eight patterns,
research team aims to achieve this goal within three quantum switches can hold all eight at
four years. once, taking “a shortcut through time.”
[Scientific America.com]
When these nanocomputers are sprayed on
to the chests of coronary patients, the tiny Quantum computers could prove to be useful
cells record a patient’s health and transmit for running simulations of quantum mechanics.
information back to a hospital computer. This This would benefit the fields of physics,
would enable doctors to monitor heart chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology,

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biology and medicine because currently, networks).


advancement in these fields is limited by the
slow speed of quantum mechanical Natural-language processing would allow
simulations. ordinary people who don’t have any
knowledge of programming languages to
Quantum computing is ideal for tasks such as interact with computers.
cryptography, modeling and indexing very
large databases. Many government and So what does the future of computer
military funding agencies are supporting technology look like after these
quantum computing research to develop developments?
quantum computers for civilian and national
security purposes, such as cryptanalysis. Through nanotechnology, computing devices
are becoming progressively smaller and more
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE powerful. Everyday devices with embedded
technology and connectivity are becoming a
reality. Nanotechnology has led to the creation
of increasingly smaller and faster computers
that can be embedded into small devices.

This has led to the idea of pervasive computing


which aims to integrate software and
hardware into all man made and some natural
products. It is predicted that almost any items
such as clothing, tools, appliances, cars, homes,
coffee mugs and the human body will be
imbedded with chips that will connect the
device to an infinite network of other devices.
[Pervasive Computing]
The term “Artificial Intelligence” was coined
in 1956 by John McCarthy at the Massachusetts Hence, in the future network technologies
Institute of Technology. It is a branch of will be combined with wireless computing,
computer science that aims to make computers voice recognition, Internet capability and
behave like humans. [Artificial Intelligence] artificial intelligence with an aim to create an
Artificial Intelligence includes programming environment where the connectivity of devices
computers to make decisions in real life is embedded in such a way that the connectivity
situations (e.g. some of these “expert systems” is not inconvenient or outwardly visible and is
help physicians in the diagnosis of diseases always available. In this way, computer
based on symptoms), programming computers technology will saturate almost every facet of
to understand human languages (natural our life. What seems like virtual reality at the
language), programming computers to play moment will become the human reality in the
games such as chess and checkers (games future of computer technology.
playing), programming computers to hear,
see and react to other sensory stimuli(robotics)
and designing systems that mimic human
intelligence by attempting to reproduce the
types of physical connections between
neurones in the human brain (neural

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Cleaning Up Audio Files with Audacity


Tech Tip 105 - Scott Nesbitt
colored by some annoying noise and the
occasional sound drop outs. I managed to help
him fix his recordings using a tool called
Audacity.

Enter Audacity
Audacity is an Open Source sound recorder
and editor. It has a number of features that
enable you to record, modify, and export
audio files. Best of all, Audacity is free and
there are versions that run on Windows, Mac
OS, and Linux.

While Audacity is a powerful and fairly easy


to use piece of software, it’s not a professional-
level tool. There’s a lot Audacity can do, but
there’s just as much that it can’t do. After
When you’re dealing with audio files, there using Audacity to work on your audio files you
will be times when you run into a few shouldn’t expect the quality of audio you get
problems. This is especially true with voice from a store-bought CD. The results will,
recordings and audio that was converted to a however, be more than adequate for your
digital format from a cassette tape or a vinyl purposes.
record.
This article looks at the techniques I used to
One of the biggest problems is noise. This clean up my friend’s podcast. Note that I used
could be hissing or background noise like the the Linux version of the software. However,
sound of the wind or even someone the Windows and Mac versions work in the
inadvertently breathing into a microphone. same way.
No matter what the source is, that noise is
distracting. While it’s difficult to eliminate all Getting Going
of the noise from a digital audio recording, it If you don’t have a copy of Audacity installed,
is possible to clean the file up so that the download it from the software’s Web site.
noise isn’t all that noticeable Since MP3 is the dominant digital audio
format, chances are you’ll be working with
I found this out recently when I was helping a MP3 files almost exclusively. Audacity doesn’t
friend set up a podcast. He’d recorded the have built-in support for MP3s. You can add
first couple of episodes using his iRiver MP3 that support by downloading and installing
player. Unfortunately, the recording was LAME. LAME is an Open Source audio encoder

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that creates MP3s. When used in conjunction After a bit of trial and error, I found that the
with software like Audacity, LAME enables the best results come by using the following two-
software to import and export MP3 files that stage process:
are comparable in quality to those produced
by expensive commercial encoders and • Remove the noise
applications. • Even out the loud and soft portions of
the audio
Get going by starting Audacity. Then, select
Project>Import Audio. Find the audio file Remove the noise
that you want to clean up and then click OK. Even out the loud and soft portions of the
Here’s what my friend’s raw audio looked like audio Removing Noise Audacity has a great
in Audacity: built-in noise reduction tool. To get it to do
its job properly, you need to get your hands a
bit dirty. So, first you need to get a noise
profile. A noise profile lets Audacity recognize
what noise actually is. The profile also gives
Audacity a baseline from which to work.

To get a good noise profile, you need to find a


section of the audio file in which there’s no
talking. You can recognize this because it
appears as a flat line in Audacity. Several
seconds worth of dead air is best. If you don’t
have that much, use what you can.

Notice that the audio is represented by a set


of densely packed vertical lines called a
waveform. The longer portions of the
waveform are louder than the shorter portions.
This will become important later.

Audacity can import files in several formats.


Out of the box, it supports WAV and Ogg Vorbis
files, as well as a couple of older and
infrequently used formats. With LAME installed
on your computer, you can import MP3 files as
well.
By clicking and dragging with your mouse,
It’s useful to listen to some or all of the audio highlight the noise as shown below:
beforehand. This will give you an idea of the
quality of the recording, and help you plan Then, select Effect > Noise Removal. Click
how to edit the file. It will also help you the Get Noise Profile button. Depending on
identify where noise is in the file, which (as the size of the noise sample that you selected,
you’ll soon learn) is a necessary part of this can take anywhere from one to a few
cleaning up the file. seconds.

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When you’re satisfied that you’ve chosen the


optimal settings, click the Remove Noise
button. Once again, depending on the length
of the audio file the noise removal process
can take anywhere from a couple of seconds
to 10 or 20 seconds.

Test the noise level by playing the entire file.


Do this by clicking the Play button on the
Audacity toolbar. Remember that what you
do isn’t permanent. If the result isn’t what
you expected, undo it by pressing CTRL+Z on
your keyboard. Then, repeat the noise removal
process with different settings.

At the end of the noise removal phase, you’ll


Then, highlight the entire audio file by find that much (if not all) of the noise is gone.
pressing CTRL+A on your keyboard. Select Whatever’s left isn’t that annoying or
Effect > Noise Removal again. Move the slider distracting. But you can clean the file even
near the bottom of the dialog box to the left more using an Audacity utility called the
(for less) or the right (for more), depending Compressor.
on how much noise you want to remove. Click
Evening Out the Sound
Most audio files don’t have a uniform volume.
There are sections that are louder than others.
Audacity can even out the loud and soft
sections with its Compressor utility. The
Compressor looks at the louder and softer
portions of your audio file and then lowers
the volume of the louder bits while not
touching the softer portions.
To use the Compressor, first highlight the
section of the file containing the sound that
you want to even out. Then, select Effect >
Compressor.

The Compressor dialog box looks intimidating,


the Preview button to test your selection but once you get going it’s fairly easy to use.
out. Focus on the Threshold setting. The threshold
I’ve found that if you move the slider too far is the maximum amount of volume that the
to the right, you get a noticeable echo. While Compressor will tolerate. The threshold is
the echo replaces the noise that you’re trying measured in decibels (db). Any bit of audio
to eliminate, it too is annoying. With many that is louder than the threshold has its
audio files -- especially ones that are just volume reduced.
voice recordings – that moving the slider
slightly left of center works best. You should set a threshold somewhere between

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have those settings, click OK. The compression


process takes several seconds, depending on
the size of the file.

As with the noise removal process, test the


compression by playing the appropriate
section of the file. Do this by highlighting that
section and then clicking the Play button on
the Audacity toolbar. Remember you can undo
your edits by pressing CTRL+Z on your
keyboard. Then, repeat the compression
process with different settings.

Going Back to MP3


Once you’re satisfied that enough of the noise
has been removed, save the audio as an MP3.
Just select File > Export as MP3 and select the
folder on your computer in which you want to
put the file. Then, post it to the Web or move
it over to your MP3 player.
the loudest and softest parts of your audio.
So, if the loudest part is -7db and the softest Conclusion
is -13db, then you should set a threshold of You’ll need to experiment with Audacity and
-10db. Set the threshold by clicking and its tools in order to get the results that you
dragging the Threshold slider. want. It takes a bit of work, but you’ll quickly
come up with a set of settings and remedies
Next, look at the Ratio setting. This sets the that work for you. But remember that no two
level of compression. Usually, the default of audio files are alike. With each new file that
2:1 is good enough for most recordings. you’re cleaning up, you’ll need to tweak your
There will be times when a higher ratio, like optimal settings somewhat.
3:1, might be better. I’ve never had any
reason to set the ratio higher than 4:1. While Audacity isn’t a professional tool, it is a
very good choice for most audio cleanup
Leave the Attack Time setting as it is. This tasks. With a little practice, you will become
just tells Audacity how quickly to apply the quite adept at using it to make your audio
compression ratio that you set. The default files sound better.
setting of 0.2 is just fast enough for voice
recordings.

Also, leave the Apply Gain after compressing


option checked. This will increase the overall
volume of your recording slightly and, in
many cases, help alleviate any sound drop
outs.

Click the Preview button to test whether or


not you chose the right settings. Once you

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Windows Hot Keys Revisited


Tech Tip 106 - Jason Kohrs and Geeks.com Staff

tasks even easier. This Tech Tip is going to


follow a different format than the norm and
will list a few dozen of these hot keys that can
be used to make working in Microsoft Windows
even easier.

The shortcuts covered are broken up into


groups based on the main key involved in
activating them. So, let’s take a look at what
we can do with the ALT, CTRL, SHIFT, and
Windows Keys, as well as a few combo moves…

General Keyboard Shortcuts:


• CTRL+C (Copy)
• CTRL+X (Cut)
• CTRL+V (Paste)
• CTRL+Z (Undo)
By popular demand, we’re re-sending our Tech • DELETE (Delete)
Tip on Windows Keyboard Shortcuts, updated • SHIFT+DELETE (Delete the selected item
with all NEW shortcuts for Internet Explorer permanently without placing the item in the
v7.0. Recycle Bin)
• CTRL while dragging an item (Copy the
Borrowing from Firefox and other browsers, selected item)
IE7 now features tabbed-browsing. With • CTRL+SHIFT while dragging an item (Create a
tabbed-browsing you can, among other things: shortcut to the selected item)
• F2 key (Rename the selected item)
• Use one Internet Explorer window to view all • CTRL+RIGHT ARROW (Move the insertion
your web pages. point to the beginning of the next word)
• Open links in a background tab while viewing • CTRL+LEFT ARROW (Move the insertion point
the page you’re on. to the beginning of the previous word)
• Save and open multiple web pages at once by • CTRL+DOWN ARROW (Move the insertion
using favorites and home page tabs. point to the beginning of the next paragraph)
• CTRL+UP ARROW (Move the insertion point to
Most people think they know the ins and outs the beginning of the previous paragraph)
of using their favorite software (and maybe • CTRL+SHIFT with any of the arrow keys
they do), but there are hundreds of little (Highlight a block of text)
shortcuts that can be used to make common • SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Select

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more than one item in a window or on the Keyboard Shortcuts:


desktop, or select text in a document) • CTRL+click (Open links in a new tab in the
• CTRL+A (Select all) F3 key (Search for a file background)
or a folder) • CTRL+SHIFT+click (Open links in a new tab in
• ALT+ENTER (View the properties for the the foreground)
selected item) • CTRL+T (Open a new tab in the foreground)
• ALT+F4 (Close the active item, or quit the • ALT+ENTER (Open a new tab from the
active program) Address bar)
• ALT+ENTER (Display the properties of the • ALT+ENTER (Open a new tab from the search
selected object) box)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Open the shortcut menu for • CTRL+Q (Open Quick Tabs - thumbnail view)
the active window) • CTRL+TAB/CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (Switch between
• CTRL+F4 (Close the active document in tabs)
programs that enable you to have multiple • CTRL+n (n can be 1-8) (Switch to a specific
documents open simultaneously) tab number)
• ALT+TAB (Switch between the open items) • CTRL+9 (Switch to the last tab)
• ALT+ESC (Cycle through items in the order • CTRL+W (Close current tab)
that they had been opened) • ALT+F4 (Close all tabs)
• F6 key (Cycle through the screen elements in • CTRL+ALT+F4 (Close other tabs)
a window or on the desktop) • For more information, visit: http://www.
• F4 key (Display the Address bar list in My microsoft.com
Computer or Windows Explorer)
• SHIFT+F10 (Display the shortcut menu for the
selected item) Dialog Box Keyboard Shortcuts:
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the System menu for If you press SHIFT+F8 in extended selection list
the active window) boxes, you enable extended selection mode. In
• CTRL+ESC (Display the Start menu) this mode, you can use an arrow key to move a
• ALT+Underlined letter in a menu name cursor without changing the selection. You can
(Display the corresponding menu) press CTRL+SPACEBAR or SHIFT+SPACEBAR to
• Underlined letter in a command name on an adjust the selection. To cancel extended
open menu (Perform the corresponding selection mode, press SHIFT+F8 again.
command) Extended selection mode cancels itself when
• F10 key (Activate the menu bar in the active you move the focus to another control.
program)
• RIGHT ARROW (Open the next menu to the • CTRL+TAB (Move forward through the tabs)
right, or open a submenu) • CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through
• LEFT ARROW (Open the next menu to the the tabs)
left, or close a submenu) • TAB (Move forward through the options)
• F5 key (Update the active window) • SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the
• BACKSPACE (View the folder one level up in options)
My Computer or Windows Explorer) • ALT+Underlined letter (Perform the
• ESC (Cancel the current task) corresponding command or select the
• SHIFT when you insert a CD-ROM into the CD- corresponding option)
ROM drive (Prevent the CD-ROM from • ENTER (Perform the command for the active
automatically playing) option or button)
• SPACEBAR (Select or clear the check box if
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 the active option is a check box)

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• Arrow keys (Select a button if the active FilterKeys either on or off)


option is a group of option buttons) • Left ALT+left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN (Switch
• F1 key (Display Help) High Contrast either on or off)
• F4 key (Display the items in the active list) • Left ALT+left SHIFT+NUM LOCK (Switch the
• BACKSPACE (Open a folder one level up if a MouseKeys either on or off)
folder is selected in the Save As or Open • SHIFT five times (Switch the StickyKeys either
dialog box) on or off)
• NUM LOCK for five seconds (Switch the
ToggleKeys either on or off)
Windows Explorer Keyboard Shortcuts: • Windows Logo +U (Open Utility Manager)
• END (Display the bottom of the active
window)
• HOME (Display the top of the active window) Remote Desktop Connection Navigation:
• NUM LOCK+Asterisk sign (*) (Display all of the • CTRL+ALT+END (Open the Microsoft Windows
subfolders that are under the selected NT Security dialog box)
folder) • ALT+PAGE UP (Switch between programs from
• NUM LOCK+Plus sign (+) (Display the contents left to right)
of the selected folder) • ALT+PAGE DOWN (Switch between programs
• NUM LOCK+Minus sign (-) (Collapse the from right to left)
selected folder) • ALT+INSERT (Cycle through the programs in
• LEFT ARROW (Collapse the current selection most recently used order)
if it is expanded, or select the parent folder) • ALT+HOME (Display the Start menu)
• RIGHT ARROW (Display the current selection • CTRL+ALT+BREAK (Switch the client
if it is collapsed, or select the first subfolder) computer between a window and a full
screen)
• ALT+DELETE (Display the Windows menu)
Microsoft Natural Keyboard Shortcuts: • CTRL+ALT+Minus sign (-) (Place a snapshot of
• Windows Logo (Display or hide the Start the entire client window area on the
menu) Terminal server clipboard and provide the
• Windows Logo+BREAK (Display the System same functionality as pressing ALT+PRINT
Properties dialog box) SCREEN on a local computer.)
• Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop) • CTRL+ALT+Plus sign (+) (Place a snapshot of
• Windows Logo+M (Minimize all of the the active window in the client on the
windows) Terminal server clipboard and provide the
• Windows Logo+SHIFT+M (Restore the same functionality as pressing PRINT SCREEN
minimized windows) on a local computer.)
• Windows Logo+E (Open My Computer)
• Windows Logo+F (Search for a file or a folder) Other Information:
• CTRL+Windows Logo+F (Search for Some keyboard shortcuts may not work if
computers) StickyKeys is turned on in Accessibility
• Windows Logo+F1 (Display Windows Help) Options.
• Windows Logo+ L (Lock the keyboard)
• Windows Logo+R (Open the Run dialog box) Some of the Terminal Services client shortcuts
• Windows Logo+U (Open Utility Manager) that are similar to the shortcuts in Remote
Desktop Sharing are not available when you
Accessibility Keyboard Shortcuts: use Remote Assistance in Windows XP Home
• Right SHIFT for eight seconds (Switch Edition.

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Some of the other Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that have similar information as this
article are:

Windows 2000 | Windows 98 | Windows 95

Final Words:
Windows hot keys are all intended to provide some sort of convenient alternative to common
tasks, and whether specific combinations do so is up to the individual to decide. Some are
simple time-saving motions, while others are complex maneuvers in finger gymnastics. There
are dozens of other common Windows shortcuts (and even more related to specific software
titles), and memorizing just a few of the more basic ones may be worth the time-savings they
can afford you.

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Getting Started with Your Podcast


Tech Tip 107 - Scott Nesbitt
software is free, and some you have to pay
for. The choice is yours.

Under Windows, there’s a good selection of


software for recording podcasts. Two popular
tools are WebPod Studio and Propaganda. A
lot of MacOS podcasters swear by Garage
Band, although CastEasy is also highly
regarded. Audacity is another extremely
popular application for podcasters, mainly
because it’s free and runs on Windows, MacOS,
and Linux. Linux users will also want to check
out Sweep.

You don’t have to install any software on


computer to record your podcast. Several
online services, like Odeo Studio and
You’ve come up with a great topic for a daily AudioBlog, enable you to record your audio at
or weekly podcast. The problem is that you their sites. The only drawback is that you
don’t know where to begin. Believe it or not, can’t edit your recordings as you can with the
you don’t need a lot of high-priced equipment software mentioned earlier.
or the expertise of an audio engineer to start
podcasting. You can do it with a minimal Microphones
amount of cash and a bit of work. Back in the days of tape, a good microphone
was essential for recording audio. The same
So, what do you need? You need the right goes for recording your podcasts. A cheap
software, a good microphone, and a place to microphone will make your audio sound
host your podcast. This TechTip will give you tinny.
a few suggestions, and look at some of the
other factors you should consider when While my microphone of choice is an old Sony
starting a podcast. F-VX300 (which I used when doing freelance
radio work in the 1990s), there are a lot of
Software microphones specifically for use with
While your choice of software won’t make or computers. Geeks.com has a good selection
break your podcast, the right program can of these. You might be tempted to use a
make recording and editing it easier. You have headset – like the kind for making Voice Over
quite a few choices, regardless of the IP calls – and that’s fine. Try to avoid some of
operating system that you use. Some of the the lower-end headsets; if you’re serious

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about podcasting then you following month unless you’re willing to pay
really should be ready to for more data transfer.
spend a few dollars.
If you don’t want to, or don’t have the skills
No matter what type of to maintain a podcast in your own space on
microphone you choose, the Web, you can turn to one of the many
try to find one that cancels podcast hosting services out there. Many of
background noise. A good these services offer free and/or low-cost
microphone won’t eliminate hosting accounts. On top of that, the hosting
all of the background noise, services also set up a Web page or blog from
but it will help to keep it to a minimum. which your listeners can access your
Speaking of noise, if you plan to record your podcast.
podcasts (or even portions of them) with an
MP3 player like an iRiver, expect the quality Some of the hosting services that have been
of the sound to be so-so and require some recommended to me include Libsyn, Podbean.
cleanup. com, CastPost, PodBlaze, and IcanCast.com.
I’ve also heard good things about Podcast
Hosting Pickle, BlipMedia, and Odeo. But don’t take
You’ve got your software and microphone my word for it. Do a Google search and ask
picked out. You might even have your first around. That way you can find the host that
podcast recorded. All you need is a place to best suits your needs.
host it. There are many ways you can do
this. Other Considerations
You have your software and microphone, and
If you have a Web site, or if your Internet a place to put your podcast segments. You’re
Service Provider (ISP) gives you some space, ready to record. But before you do that, there
you can host your podcast there. You can link are a few factors you have to consider.
to your podcast from a dedicated Web page While the idea of just speaking off the cuff
or a blog (if you maintain one). Keep in mind, and letting witticisms roll off your tongue is
though, that a five minute podcast can weigh fun, it’s difficult to speak both spontaneously
in at anywhere from four to seven megabytes. and fluently. It takes a lot of practice. Until
Obviously, the longer the podcast, the bigger you’re able to do that, you’re going to get a
it will be. lot of “umms” and “uhhs” in your recordings.
Depending on Instead, you should consider using a script or
how much space an outline. You don’t have to stick to it word
you get from for word, but a script or outline is a good
your ISP or Web guide for what you’re going to say. Try not to
host, you might sound like you’re reading from a script,
run out of space though. Use the speed and tone that you
very quickly. On would when talking normally. When recording
top of that, most podcasts, I use the old presenters trick of
Internet and pretending that I’m talking to my wife or a
Web hosting friend.
providers have limits to the amount of data
that can be transfered from a site each month. The position of your microphone is also
Once you hit that limit, no one will be able to important. Try not to have it too far away
access your podcast until the beginning of the from you, and not right in front of your mouth.

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With a hand-held microphone, it’s best to place it a couple of inches below your chin. A headset
microphone should be positioned slightly below your lips. Try not to breathe into the microphone
- breathing gets picked up when recording and it’s difficult to edit out.

Record your podcast in a room with minimal noise. Microphones, no matter how poor their
quality, always pick up some background noise -- like an air conditioner or a fan, kids rolling
toys across the floor, or whatever. Sure, you can edit out much of the background noise using
your software, but why make extra work for yourself?

If you can, make a transcript of the podcast available on the Web – link to it from your blog or
Web site. If you’re using a script, then doing this is easy. You just have to save your document
as an HTML file and post it somewhere. You can also use an online application like Google Docs
& Spreadsheets or Writeboard to write your script. Once the script is written, you can publish
it on the Web. Here’s a sample of a podcast script that was created using Google Docs &
Spreadsheets.

Conclusion
Starting a podcast isn’t a huge effort. Sure, you’ll need to take some time to investigate
software, microphones, and hosting options, and you’ll have to do a little planning. But once
that’s out of the way, you can start recording and sharing your voice and ideas with the wider
Web.

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Recording a Podcast with Audacity


Tech Tip 108 - Scott Nesbitt
are versions that run on Windows, Mac OS,
and Linux. There’s even a portable version of
Audacity that you can carry on a USB key drive
enabling you to record and edit your podcasts
no matter where you are.

Like Web pages and blogs before them,


podcasts have seen a surge in popularity. In While Audacity isn’t quite a professional-level
many ways, a podcast is like having a personal tool, it has enough features and functions to
radio show, except that your audience is handle most of your podcasting needs.
the World Wide Web. Believe it or not, Getting Started
recording a podcast is easy. All you need is a
microphone and the right software. A popular If you don’t have Audacity, download and
application for recording podcasts is Audacity. install it. Installation in Windows is easy. Just
run the installer and follow the prompts. For
Note: This TechTip only covers how to set up and installation instructions for MacOS and Linux,
use Audacity to do a voice recording. A future check the Audacity Web site.
TechTip will discuss how to meld in a backing
audio track and to fade in and fade out audio. Most podcasts are distributed as an MP3 file.
Unfortunately, Audacity doesn’t support
What’s Audacity, and Why Use It? MP3s out of the box. But using the free LAME
Audacity is an Open Source sound recorder MP3 encoder, you can add this support to
and editor. It has a number of features that Audacity.
enable you to record, modify, and export
audio files. It’s easy to use, free, and there If you’re using Windows, download the ZIP

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file containing LAME. Then, extract the file


lame_enc.dll (which does the heavy lifting
when creating an MP3) to any folder on your
computer. You can put the file into the folder
either where Audacity is installed, or in C:\
Windows. The first time you try to import or
export an MP3 file, Audacity will ask you to
point it to where lame_enc.dll is located.
Once you do that, you’re ready to go.

Configuring Audacity
While you can use Audacity’s default settings
to record your podcast, you can improve
the quality of your recordings by tweaking
Audacity’s preferences. To do this, select
Edit>Preferences. On the Audio I/O tab, you
can force Audacity to use an audio driver
other than the one that comes with Windows. the best quality audio for your podcasts. But
On my computer, this is the Sound MAX Digital it isn’t strange at all.
Audio driver which I’ve found produces better
output than the default Windows driver. Why? Some media players, especially those
that are embedded in Web pages and used
by podcast hosting services, don’t support
higher sample rates. When the audio is played
back, a phenomenon called chipmunking
occurs. Remember the annoying voices of
the characters in the cartoon Alvin and the
Chipmunks? That’s chipmunking. The lower
sample rate, while slightly decreasing the
audio quality, also gets rid of the chipmunking
problem.

If you want to change the sample rate of an


Audacity project, you can do so by clicking
the Project Rate button in the bottom-left of
the interface and selecting a new rate.

Recording with Audacity


Create a new Audacity project by selecting
Next, click the Quality tab. Notice the Default
Sample Rate dropdown list. The sample rate
determines the overall quality of the sound -
the higher the rate, the better the sound. The
preset value is 48000 Hz.
Project>New Audio Track. Then, save the
Change that value to 44100 HZ. This may seem project by selecting File>Save Project As.
strange, especially considering that you want Make sure that your microphone is plugged

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in. Click the Record button on the Audacity To delete a portion of the recording, just
toolbar and start speaking. Make sure that highlight it by pointing and clicking with your
you speak steadily and clearly, and try not mouse. Then, press the Delete key on your
to breathe into the microphone. If you get keyboard.
tongue-tied or flub a few words, don’t stop
recording. Just take a moment to regain your Just as you’d move blocks of text around in a
composure, and then keep going - you can word processor, you can move chunks of audio
edit out any mistakes later. around in an Audacity project. Highlight the
portion of the recording that you want to
Also, try to include a few seconds of silence move, then press CTRL-X on your keyboard.
here and there throughout the recording. This In your recording, click wherever you want to
will be useful later when you need to remove put the cut audio and press CTRL-V to insert
noise. it.

When you’re finished, click the Stop button You can do the same thing for audio copied
on the Audacity toolbar. from another Audacity project or an audio file
that you’ve imported into Audacity. In both
cases, though, make sure that the playback
of the audio is stopped and not paused. If
it’s paused, none of the editing features are
available.

If you’ve noticed noise in the recording, you


can use Audacity’s tools to remove it. This
TechTip explains how.

Saving the Podcast as an MP3


Remember earlier when you installed the
LAME MP3 encoder? Now it’s time to use it.
Select File>Export as MP3. Audacity will ask
Before you record for real, however, you you where on your computer you want to save
should do a couple of test recordings to check the file. After you specify a folder, Audacity
whether or not the microphone volume is set displays a dialog box where you can edit the
correctly. If you find that the volume is too information about the MP3 file:
high or too low, you can adjust it using the
volume control in Audacity. This step is optional. Once you click OK on
the dialog box, Audacity saves the file as an
Editing the Podcast MP3. Depending the length of your recording,
the export could take anywhere from a few
seconds to a minute or more.

Once you’ve recorded your podcast, listen You can also save portions of your podcast
to it. Doing this will give you an idea of the as an MP3. You might do this to create a few
quality of the sound and help you locate any seconds of audio that acts as a preview. Or,
portions of the recording that you need to cut if this is your first podcast, you can do this
- either because of a flub or you just don’t to save an introduction or ending that will be
want it in there. used with future editions of your podcast.

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To save a portion of the podcast, highlight it by


clicking and dragging with your mouse. Then, select
File>Export Selection as MP3. Once again, you’ll be
asked where you want to save the MP3 file. After
it’s been exported, you can open the MP3 file in
Audacity (select Project>Import Audio), then copy
and paste the audio into another project.

Audacity provides you with all of the tools that you


need to record and edit your podcasts. Once you
get going, Audacity is surprisingly simple to use.
With a little practice, you’ll be podcasting with
the best of them.

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Improving Skype Audio in Windows Tech Tip 109 - Scott Nesbitt

being dropped. There are a number of


simple changes that you can make to both
your system settings and the settings of
your Skype client software to improve the
audio quality of your Skype calls.

Setting Up Audio in Windows


One of the first steps that you can take is
to configure the audio settings in Windows.
To do this, click Start > Control Panel and
then double click Audio Devices. Make
sure that on the Volume tab, the Mute
option isn’t selected.

Click the Audio


tab. If the Sound
Playback and
Sound Recording
options are set to
Skype is arguably the most popular Web the Windows
telephony service out there. Using Skype, default device,
you can easily make calls from one PC to select a new
another, or from a PC to telephone -- option from the
anywhere in the world. Default Device
dropdown lists.
One common Next, click the
complaint about Advanced button
Skype is that the below the Sound
quality of the calls Playback option.
varies widely. If On the Speakers tab, select the kind of
you’ve used Skype device that you’re using to listen to Skype
for any length of calls from the dropdown list. Since I use a
time, you know headset when making Skype calls, I chose
what I’m talking Stereo Headphones from the list.
about: echoes,
sound delays, the Also, make sure that your volume settings
sound dropping aren’t too high or too low. On the Volume
out, and even calls tab, click the Speaker Volume button.

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This opens the Volume Control panel. set to Windows Default Device, select
another option from the dropdown lists.
On my PC, for example, I selected
SoundMax Digital Audio. Also, make sure
that the Let Skype adjust my sound settings
option isn’t selected. While Skype tries to
make your sound the best it can be, it
doesn’t do a great job. You’re better off
manually tweaking your settings.

Internet and Wireless


Skype requires a high-speed Internet
connection. However, not all high-speed
connections are created equally. Some
Internet Service Providers offer so-called
“lite” and “extreme” high speed services.
The lite services are somewhat slower and
while sufficient for Skype, they’re not
always the best. If you can, upgrade to a
faster high-speed service.

I’ve also noticed that Skype often works


better with a cable Internet connection
than with a standard DSL or ADSL
Adjusting the Line In and Volume Control connection, which uses your phone line.
settings to around the mid-point or slightly Phone lines can be quite flaky, and if
higher is usually good enough. But you there’s a short in your internal wiring (like
may need to fiddle with the volume the one that forced me to switch to cable),
settings to get them where they’re just then your Internet connection and Skype
right for you. calls will be unreliable.

If you’re using Skype with a wireless


Internet connection, ensure that the signal
from the wireless router is strong and
reliable. I came to understand the
importance of this while my wife was
studying in China last summer. She called
me using Skype via a wireless node in a
Starbucks in Beijing. The wireless signal
was poor, which caused sound drop outs
Setting Up Audio in Skype and echoes. After a few minutes, the call
In Skype, there are a few settings that you was dropped entirely. With other wireless
can change to improve the quality of the connections, including the one in my
audio. Click Tools > Options > Sound home, this has not been a problem as long
Devices. as the computers were within 10 meters
(about 33 feet) of the wireless router.
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On top of that, you should make sure that (USD).


your router has the latest drivers and
firmware (the software installed on the You might also want to consider using a
router that controls it). You’ll need to visit USB headset or even a USB phone. There
the Web site of your router’s manufacturer are a number of them available that are
to download the drivers. And check the designed to work with Skype. A USB
documentation for information about how headset or phone can give you better
to upgrade the firmware. quality. How? Using a conventional
headset, sound is converted to digital
Firewalls within your PC. A PC can be quite a noisy
A firewall running on your PC or wireless place, electrically speaking, and this
network can prevent or hinder Skype from bleeds into your audio. With a USB device,
connecting to the Internet. To enable the conversion is done before the sound
Skype and your firewall to play nicely with hits your PC.
each other, you’ll need to open all of your
computer’s ports to allow outgoing TCP Sometimes, other software can steal
connections. An open port is simply a small bandwidth from Skype. When you notice
opening in your firewall that allows data this, try not to make Skype calls while
to pass to and from your PC. When opening uploading or downloading large files, or
an outgoing TCP port, you’re only allowing visiting Web sites with heavy graphical
data to leave your PC. It will not leave and multimedia content.
your computer or network more vulnerable
to attack. Try to find a quiet place to make your
Skype calls. Microphones, regardless of
If that doesn’t work, many people suggest their quality, can pick up a lot of
opening only port 80 and/or port 443. background noise – like your computer’s
These ports are commonly used to connect fan, air conditioning, or the washing
to the Internet using the HTTP protocol machine.
(which enables you to browse the Web).
When making PC-to-PC calls using Skype,
Other Things That You Can Do try to get the people to whom you’re
Fiddling with your system and Skype client talking to optimize the settings of their
settings isn’t the only way to improve the Skype clients and system sound. Point
quality of the audio in your Skype calls. Windows users to this TechTip, or get them
There are a number of other things you to visit the Skype online forums.
can try, the first of which is to use a proper
Web telephony headset. Testing Your Audio
There are a couple of ways to test your
Some people try to use a microphone and connection and audio hardware. One is to
their PC speakers, or the microphone and make a call using Skype. If you don’t have
speakers built into their laptops, when anyone to call, or just want to do a quick
making calls with Skype. That’s not the test, then use Skype’s automated Echo123
best thing to so. The sound from the service. Echo123 enables you to determine
speakers can generate feedback in the whether or not your audio and hardware -
form of a painful high-pitched squeal. At - like headset, speakers and microphone -
the very least, you’ll get some echo. You - are working properly.
can get a decent headset for under $20

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To call the service, type echo123 in the


address bar at the bottom of your Skype
client.

The Echo123 service answers your call.


You’ll be asked to record a short message,
which will be played back to you. You
should be able to hear what you said. If
not, you’ll need to keep tweaking.

Conclusion
The audio quality of your Skype calls
depends on a number of factors. With a
bit of simple tweaking, you can noticeably
improve the way your calls sound. The
quality of the sound may never be perfect;
this is especially true for PC-to-phone calls
using Skype. But you can eliminate much
of the echo and background noise, and
that goes a long way to making your Skype
experience a whole lot better.

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PDFs on the Cheap in Windows


Tech Tip 110 - Scott Nesbitt

of money to create and manipulate PDFs.


You can do it cheaply, and even for free.
Curious? Then keep reading.

Creating PDFs
There’s quite a bit of free and low-cost
software for creating PDFs in Windows.
Some of it is good. Much of it isn’t. Here
are a few free PDF generators that won’t
let you down.

First up is PrimoPDF, which gets installed on


your computer as a printer driver. That
means you can use it with any application.
I tried PrimoPDF with several programs
and it worked perfectly. All you need to do
is select File > Print in your application,
The Portable Document Format (PDF), created and then choose PrimoPDF from the
by Adobe Systems has become a popular way dropdown list. Then you’re ready to go.
to exchange and print documents. You see
PDFs just about everywhere -- on the Web,
included with the software you buy, and
even the documents sent to commercial
printers. It’s easy to understand the
popularity of PDF because they maintain
the formatting -- the layout, images,
fonts, and more—of the original
document.

Conventional wisdom says that you need


Adobe Acrobat to be able to create PDF files
in Windows. With a $299 price tag, Acrobat
is a little pricey for the average user. It
also packs more features than most of us
will ever use. With PrimoPDF, you can set up your PDF so
that it can can be viewed on-screen or in
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conventional printer or a press. On top of


that, you can add a password to the PDF
and prevent users from printing, copying,
or modifying the file. You can also change
the document’s information -- like title,
author, subject, and keywords.

about the file: title, author, the date on


which it was created, and keywords. This
dialog box also contains two other buttons:
one to override any options that you have
set, and another for emailing the PDF.
PrimoPDF can be a bit slow, but it produces Click Save. Unless you’re working with a
a crystal clear PDF while also maintaining large document, you should have a PDF
any internal and external links in the file within a few seconds.
original file. My only gripe is the
advertisement that appears on the
application’s dialog box when you print.
It’s a minor annoyance, though I can’t
begrudge software developers from trying
to make a living with their other
products.

Like PrimoPDF, PDFCreator is installed as a


printer driver. While PDFCreator works
right out of the box, you can configure it
to output nicer PDFs. You can, for example,
make sure that your PDFs can be viewed
in all PDF readers, set the resolution, and
ensure that the PDF opens as quickly as
possible when its posted on the Web. You
can also configure PDFCreator to compress If you have a home or small office network,
the file, and to include all or just some of you can install PDFCreator on a server.
the fonts on your computer in the Anyone using the network can get access
document. to PDFCreator and create PDFs without
installing the software. I’ve used
When you “print” to a PDF file, a dialog PDFCreator in this way over a few small
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problem. You do, however, need to have Save. Then, the PDF Options dialog box
the PDFCreator program running on the appears.
server for this work.
The options you can set include how you
Many Windows users do work in Microsoft want the PDF compressed so it’s smaller,
Office. But its free rival, OpenOffice.org, can the security settings, the page layout
do just about anything Office can. And it when the file is viewed in a PDF reader,
sports an excellent, integrated PDF writer. and more. Once you’ve selected the
The PDF writer works with all of the options, click Export. A document created
applications that make up the OpenOffice. this way doesn’t look too bad.
org suite -- word processor, spreadsheet,
presentation program, and drawing
package.

There are two ways to create a PDF in


OpenOffice.org: quick and dirty, and with
more options. To get the quick and dirty
PDF, just click the Export Directly as PDF icon
on the toolbar. You’ll be asked where you
want the PDF saved. Choose the directory
and click Save. After a few seconds you
get a PDF. It’s nothing special, though—
links are lost and the file is rather large.
The second option gives you more control Manipulating Your PDFs
over the PDF. Choose File > Export as PDF. Acrobat doesn’t just create PDFs. What
Again, you’ll be asked where you want the makes Acrobat useful is its ability to
PDF saved. Choose the directory and click manipulate PDFs. How? By adding or
deleting pages, inserting text, rotating
pages, and more. Depending on your
needs, you can find tools that do the same
job at a fraction of the cost or for
nothing.

Say you’ve created a document in your


favorite word processor, and a nice cover
for it in a drawing tool. How do you pull
them together? Using PDF Split and Merge. As
its name states, this software can combine
and break apart PDF files. It’s easy to use
-- you just tell PDF Split and Merge what
files you want to work with, give the
combined file a name, and click the Run
button. Unlike some software (free or not)
for combining PDF files, PDF Split and
Merge retains internal and external links,
as well as any bookmarks in the files.

PDFTK (pdftk) is a powerful tool for fiddling

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access to a small subset of pdftk’s


functions, but those are the ones you’re
most likely to use anyway.

To edit a PDF in any other way -- like


adding text or graphics, or changing colors
-- you need to pay for the tool. There are
a few such tools. Two of them are pdfedit995
and Foxit PDF Editor. Pdfedit995 is free, but
includes an ad that appears when it’s run.
Getting rid of the ad costs $9.95. Foxit
PDF Editor, on the other hand, will set you
back $99. As with any other software, your
needs and your budget will dictate what
you’ll get.

In the end, though, you don’t need to


spend a lot of money (or any at all) to
with PDF files. It can combine and split create and work with PDFs. There’s a lot
PDFs, add security to a file, attach other of free and Open Source software available
files (like a spreadsheet) to a PDF, repair a on the Web that can handle whatever PDF
broken PDF, and more. Pdftk is a command needs you have.
line tool, which means opening a command
prompt and typing a long string of
confusing, hard to remember commands
to get it to work. It looks something like
this: pdftk manual.pdf attach_files command_
ref.html to_page 24 output user_manual.pdf

That’s a lot of typing! Luckily, there’s a


graphical face for pdftk called GUI for pdftk.
No typing, just point and click. The GUI
for pdftk isn’t pretty and it only gives you

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A Quick Look at Audio Formats


Tech Tip 111 - Scott Nesbit
developing digital audio and video encoding
standards.

MP3 has become the most popular, and


dominant, audio format. It’s used everywhere
-- from songs ripped from CDs to audio
podcasts. Few, if any, portable audio players
or software media players don’t play MP3
files.

An MP3 file can be quite


small. That’s because the
software used to create
an MP3 file, called an
encoder, uses what is
called lossy compression.
The encoder shrinks the
Outside of the government and the military, file by tossing out bits of
the computer world uses the most acronyms. audio that, in theory, most people can’t hear.
This is especially true for the names of audio When the MP3 file is created with a reasonable
formats. There are dozens of formats, each bit rate (the number of bits of data converted
with its own reason for being and with each second, which helps determine the
its own strengths and weaknesses. sound quality), you get near CD-quality sound.
However, the more you compress the file, the
But what do all of those names mean? And worse the audio quality becomes. And when
how do you deal with an audio file that you’re you convert an MP3 file to another format,
not familiar with? This TechTip looks at some the audio quality noticeably degrades.
popular audio formats and some of their
characteristics. One major issue with the MP3 format is that a
company named Thomson Consumer
Electronics holds the patents for the MP3
Mp3 format, and charges royalties for its use.
I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t heard of Because of this, a number of Open Source
MP3. Even my parents, who are definitely not
the most tech savvy people around, are software developers decided to create...
familiar with it. MP3 is short for MPEG-1
(Moving Picture Experts Group), Audio Layer
3, after the working group tasked with

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Ogg Vorbis larger than other compressed audio files. A


Ogg Vorbis, which has the extension .ogg, standard audio CD will be compressed to
was developed as a patent-free alternative to about 300 MB using FLAC. That’s really only
MP3. In doing so, the developers managed to slightly more than a 50% compression rate.
“out-MP3” the MP3 format. It’s good, but not great. The trade off is audio
quality.
Like MP3, Ogg Vorbis uses lossy compression.
However, the compression scheme that Ogg A number of desktop media players and
Vorbis uses is superior to portable audio players support FLAC. A
that used by MP3. You get growing number of artists are making their
an equal or greater music available as FLAC files.
reduction in file size, but
with sound quality better Lossy compression was important in the days
than MP3 when a file is of slow, dial-up Internet access and limited
created with the same bandwidth.  As broadband access becomes
bit rate. ubiquitous, however, lossless encoding is
becoming more popular.
Ogg Vorbis is widely supported in desktop
audio players, including WinAmp, XMMS,
RhythmBox, and Quintessential. You can WMA
also get a plug-in for the Windows Media As you might imagine,
Player that gives it solid support for Ogg Microsoft has its own
Vorbis. However, few portable audio players audio format. That
can play back Ogg Vorbis files. Some older format is Windows Media
players from iRiver, Samsung, and Neuros did Audio, or WMA for short.
support the format, but that support seems It’s designed especially
for use with the Windows
to have vanished from newer models. Media Player that’s built
into the Windows operating system. You can
FLAC play WMA files in other media players, even
FLAC is short for Free ones on other operating systems. Of course,
Lossless Audio Coding. most portable audio players support WMA.
Unlike MP3 and Ogg One exception, and this shouldn’t be a
Vorbis, FLAC uses surprise, is the Apple iPod.
lossless compression
to reduce the size of As far as quality goes, at lower bit rates WMA
files. This means that files are virtually indistinguishable from MP3
no audio is removed or Ogg Vorbis files. At higher bit rates, though,
when the file is created, resulting in better WMA suffers in comparison -- the difference
quality sound. In fact, the sound from a FLAC in quality is noticeable.
file is indistinguishable from that of a
professionally produced CD. Not only that, Recently, Microsoft added Digital Rights
but you can convert a FLAC file to any other Management (also called DRM) to the WMA
audio format without the quality of the sound format. DRM restricts how and where you can
degrading. use an audio file that was, say, downloaded
from an online music service. For example,
While FLAC files are compressed, they’re one use of DRM in audio files is to allow you to

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only play that file on a single computer or Conclusion


portable player. DRM has turned a number of While the formats discussed in this TechTip
users away from WMA and into the arms of are the most popular ones out there right
MP3. now, they aren’t the only games in town. A
future TechTip will look at some of the other
AAC well-known, but less frequently used, audio
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is the default formats.
file format on the iPod and the iTunes software,
and for downloads from the Apple iTunes
store. And with good reason -- the compression
scheme it uses is better than that of MP3, and
AAC can better render the higher frequencies
produced by certain musical instruments and
by the human voice. With AAC, you get richer
audio in a small package. Audio encoded with
AAC is noticeably superior to MP3 and WMA,
At comparable bit rates, an AAC file generally
sounds better than Ogg Vorbis.

AAC is definitely growing in popularity. In


addition to support in the
iPod and the new Apple
iPhone, mobile phone
and audio players from
other manufacturers are
gradually gaining AAC
capabilities. But like
WMA, AAC also includes
Digital Rights Management. This is most
notable with tracks bought from the iTunes
store. This has prompted an Open Source
project called Free Advanced Audio Coding
(FAAC) to start developing a DRM-free version
of the format.

Dealing with Audio Files


How do you deal with an audio file that you’re
not familiar with? If none of your media
players can play the file, you can try to convert
it to a known format like MP3. You can do this
with software (see this TechTip for more
information) or by using an online service like
Media-Convert.com and Zamzar. Keep in
mind that, depending on the format of the
original file, a conversion could result in the
loss of some audio quality.

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Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery


Tech Tip 111 - Chris Herzog
preserve and improve battery functionality. We
can start by discussing what a battery is, how
it works, and the different types of batteries
in use today.

What is a Battery, Anyway?


In simple terms, a battery is chemical energy
stored in a container. The chemical energy is
then converted to electrical form. A battery
has two terminals, negative and positive, that
must be connected for the current to flow. This
connection is usually provided by a liquid or
solid electrolyte that is a conductor; it has the
ability to transfer current. Cathode and anode
are two electrodes, an
electrical conductor
that makes contact
The year 2006 marked a fundamental shift in with the metallic part
PC hardware sales as laptop computers (also of a circuit, present
called “notebooks”) outsold desktop PCs for in a battery. Current
the very first time. As society becomes more flows from the cathode
mobile, laptops become ever-more powerful, to anode inside the
portable, and affordable, and as wireless cell or device.
networks become ubiquitous, this trend will
continue. Different Types of Batteries
In contemporary portable electronic devices,
Obviously, the primary advantage of laptops especially given environmental concerns,
is mobility. Naturally, however, laptops need batteries must not only store energy in a
power to run on. Even though electrical compact form, they must be rechargeable.
outlets are plentiful and can be found nearly
everywhere, there are times when we have to Batteries are usually named based on the metal
resort to using the laptop’s battery – airplane used to make either the electrodes or the
trips, meetings, etc. I have also seen sudden electrolyte. A lithium-ion battery (“LiOn”) has
power failures when I could have lost all a lithium anode, a zinc-carbon battery has a
my work had the laptop not had a charged zinc anode, and a nickel-metal hydride battery
battery. Despite the ongoing evolution of (NiMH) or a nickel-cadmium battery (NiCD) has
battery technology, there are limits to their a hydrogen-absorbing alloy for the anode.
usage, and that leads to a discussion of ways to

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Early rechargeable batteries were composed your work. Now that is not a situation you want
of Nickel-Cadmium (or “NiCad”). NiCads were to find yourself in. The fact of the matter is it
great because they were rechargeable, but is unavoidable after a certain period of time as
early NiCads held comparatively small charges the battery goes through gradual degradation.
as well as suffering from “Memory Effect” – There are, however, ways to extend your
if the battery was only partially drained and battery life.
then recharged, it lost its ability to be fully
recharged. If your device always (or usually) runs on
external power, you may be inadvertently
Most portable devices these days use Lithium- decreasing your battery life. At least once a
Ion batteries. month, let the device use up all the battery
Lithium is the lightest metal and the one with power. In other words, let the battery drain
the highest stored (“potential”) electrochemical until the computer goes to sleep (“hibernate
energy. These qualities, along with the fact mode”) and then let it re-charge. This can
they do not contain poisonous metals (such as help avoid capacity degradation.
cadmium) make lithium-based batteries the
most widely used to power portable devices Some notebooks, using a combination of
such as laptops. specialized hardware, intelligent batteries, and
special “services” (small programs running in
Now that we understand the basic functionality the background) offer a “recondition” feature
of a battery, let’s discuss ways to preserve that will automatically prompt you to condition
and prolong battery life, specifically laptop your battery and then attempt to do so in the
computer batteries. background. If you are prompted by your
system to condition your battery, you should
Life Preserver probably allow it to do this.
Just as proper use
and maintenance of Operating temperature is another important
your car will result in factor when we talk about battery life. Extreme
longer life and better high temperatures can cause degradation
performance, taking rapidly, just as extreme low temperatures can
certain steps with your damage batteries— don’t leave your notebook
portable electronics’ in your car for extended periods on hot days or
batteries will result overnight on cold nights.
in longer use per charge, and a longer overall
battery life. With replacement laptop batteries
ranging from anywhere between $100.00 and It is recommended that you do not use your
$300.00, getting all the use you can out of laptop without a battery in the bay. Doing
your battery will save you lots of aggravation so may cause the electrical terminals in the
and keep more money in your pocket longer. battery bay to become dirty or get corroded.
It should be avoided for these reasons and the
As soon as your portable device leaves the fact that you may lose your work since there is
manufacturer’s premises, its battery starts no backup power supply.
losing capacity to store a charge. In some cases,
it may show more charge stored than there Micro-Manage Your PC Power
actually is. You may end up exhausting what’s Let’s talk about power management settings on
available without knowing it and the computer your laptop. “Power management is a feature
may end up shutting down causing you to lose of some electrical appliances that turns off the

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and even toggling the CPU into a lower power


power or switches the consumption “idle speed”.
system to a low-power
state after a period You are Getting Sleepy…
of inactivity” (“Power Hibernate and Standby are two main energy
Management”). On conserving features provided by Windows XP.
a laptop, power The standby state turns off devices such as
management is your monitor and the hard drive and the entire
accomplished by computer switches to a low-power state. It
a specialized chip is easy to return where you had left off as
working together with standby leaves applications and files open on
the Operating System. your laptop. You should only use it for short
Many modern battery term purposes such as a short term break you
packs are “intelligent may need. Keep in mind that nothing is written
batteries” – they contain microprocessors that to the hard drive and everything is still only
continually monitor capacity and communicate being stored in memory. This means that data
this information to the Operating System. has not been stored permanently and can be
This information is used by the system in lost. Hibernate mode is another feature that
conjunction with power management settings, can be used if you want to leave the computer
specifically for determining when to issue low overnight or even over the weekend and come
capacity warnings and switching to hibernate back to where you left off. It writes an image
mode. In order to use these settings, your of your entire laptop’s current “state” to a
computer must be Advanced Configuration and special file on your hard drive. It takes a little
Power Interface (ACPI) compliant, which most longer to hibernate than it does to stand by
recent computers are. as data are written to the hard drive before
the system shuts off, but you can leave your
In Windows XP, you can control the power computer in hibernate mode for days without
management features of your display, hard any adverse effects.
drive, shut down, stand by and hibernate, and
low battery warnings. Low battery warnings
are provided when
Even though modern monitors do not consume the charge drops to
a lot of electricity, monitors, hard drives, a certain level and
and the CPU are the three biggest electricity the battery needs
consumers on your laptop. Big, bright LCD to be recharged.
monitors with backlights require comparatively You can adjust
large amounts of electrical current, as do the these settings using
spinning motors and actuators inside hard power management
drives. It is a good idea to shut your monitor features according to
off when you are not using it. your needs. You should set it to allow ample
time to switch to external power and save your
Power management allows you to set a fixed work. 10-15% charge remaining is considered a
time, and if the computer sits idle for that safe setting to trigger such a warning so you
long, the monitor is turned off. The same can can not only switch to external power but also
be accomplished using power management save your work. Windows XP also allows for
when it comes to “spinning down” (temporarily your laptop to automatically enter hibernation
turning off) the motor of your hard drive, mode when your battery level reaches this pre-

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set threshold, thereby saving all of your open


work (and maybe your job or your sanity in
the process.)

Power v. Performance
To access the power management features on
your laptop, simply double-click the battery
icon in the lower-right corner of your screen
(on the Task Bar), or go to Start > Control
Panel > Power Options. Proper power
management of these devices is an extremely
useful feature, and will help you to strike the
ideal performance v. battery life balance.

Even though battery performance declines


over time, it is possible to prolong per-charge
and overall battery life by taking simple
steps.

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Improving Your Google Searches


Tech Tip 113 - Scott Nesbitt
While Google is a great search engine, you’ve Every time you do a search, Google assumes
probably noticed that when you do a search, that you want to find all of the words or terms
Google usually returns more results that you in your query. For example, typing tips Linux
can comfortably chew. But how can you limit “Windows Vista” is the same as typing the
Google’s search results? Boolean tips AND Linux AND “Windows Vista”.
Google will search for Web sites that contain
Many people know the trick of enclosing a any combination of the words tips, Linux, and
search query in quotes, and some may know Windows Vista.
about putting a plus sign (+) in front of a search
term. But, there’s more that you can do. There But what if you only want to find sites contain-
are a number of really simple techniques for ing tips for Linux or tips for Windows Vista? Just
improving your Google searches so that the type tips OR Linux OR “Windows Vista”. You can
results better focus on the information that you further focus the search by surrounding some of
the options in parentheses. So, typing tips (Linux
OR “Windows Vista”) is the same as typing tips
AND Linux or tips AND “Windows Vista”.

Searching Files
The language of the Web is HTML. A Web page
is just a text file that contains formatting which
tells a Web browser how to display the elements
on a page.

But people don’t just post HTML pages to the


Web. They also post Word documents, spread-
sheets, slides, and PDFs. Often, these files are
want. packed with information that you won’t find
anywhere else on the Web. You can get Google
Using Booleans to zoom in on those files using the filetype:
Booleans are simply expression that Google command. Google can actually search within
(or a text processor) expects to be either true the contents of the following file types:
or false. When performing a Google search, • doc (Word documents)
booleans can be your friend. • xls (Excel spreadsheets)
• ppt (PowerPoint presentations)

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• pdf (PDF files)


• odt (OpenDocument files)
• ps (Postscript files)
• rtf (Rich Text File documents)
• sfw (Flash multimedia files)
• txt (plain text files)

You can also use Google to search such older


or seldom-used formats as Lotus 1-2-3 spread-
sheets, Microsoft Words files, and MacWrite
documents.

So, if you want to search for information on


building a PC from scratch that may reside in
a PDF file somewhere on the Web, type “build
a PC” filetype:pdf in the Google search box.
You can either download the documents that On the Advanced Search page, you can do the
the search returns, or click the View as HTML following:
link beside a result to view the document in
your browser. • Select the language for your search
• Specify the type of file to search
• Tell Google that you want to look for all of the
words in your query, a specific phrase, at least
one word in a query, or to exclude words from
a search

There are a number of other options, too.


Advanced Search is quick and easy to use, and
it beats having to remember a bunch of Google
commands.

Other Useful Search Techniques


You can further narrow your searches and
eliminate a number of irrelevant search results
by using the intitle: and intext: commands.
Using Advanced Search intitle: only looks for text that’s in the title of
Advanced Search gives you a number of options a Web page. In this case, title doesn’t mean
that allow you to quickly and easily filter your the title on a page. It’s the text between the
searches by simply pointing and clicking. You <title></title> tags in the HTML code of a Web
get to the Advanced Search page by clicking page. This is the text that appears in the title
the link beside the search box on the Google bar of your browser.
home page.

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Google search techniques at the Google Web


So, to find information about hacking your iPod, site, or the Google Guide Web site (a fantastic
you can type intitle:”iPod hack” in the Google collection of Google tips). Another great source
search box. of information is the book Google Pocket
Guide. This 140 page book is light enough to
On the other hand, intext: searches the body carry anywhere, but is packed with a number
of the Web page for the text that you want to of useful tips and tricks.
find. When you specify intext:, Google ignores
the text in any links or email addresses on the Once you get the hang of the advanced tech-
page, as well as the text in the page’s title. niques available to you, Google will definitely
Going back to the iPod hacks search, you’d type open a whole new world of Web searching to
intext:”iPod hack” in the Google search box. you.

What if you only want to find out what a word


or term means? Just use the define: command
followed by the word or term. Say, during
your reading on the Web, you run into a page
that uses the word Boolean. Just type define:
Boolean in the Google search box. If all goes
well, you’ll get one or more definitions from
around the Web. Keep in mind that this doesn’t
always work, though – Google sometimes can’t
find a definition.

For More Information


The techniques discussed in this TechTip only
scratch the surface of Google’s capabilities.
You can find more information about advanced

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Recording Skype Calls in Windows


Tech Tip 114 - Scott Nesbitt

While Skype is a useful tool for communicating Getting Started


with friends and family and colleagues around The first step, obviously, is to download and
the globe, one feature that it’s lacking is the install PowerGramo. Once that’s out of the
ability to record calls. This became apparent way -- and it’s out of the way pretty quickly -
when a friend of mine recently approached - you can start recording calls. To do that, first
me for help. A few months ago, he started a start PowerGramo and then start your Skype
podcast. For a while, he was content to record client.
solo commentaries. Then, he decided that
he needed to do the occasional interview to
spice things up a bit. The problem was how to
record those interviews, especially since many
of his subjects lived hundreds if not thousands
of miles away.

To contact his interviewees, my friend decided


to use Skype -- he’s used it for quite a while,
is familiar with it, and frequently uses Skype One of the first things that you’ll notice
Unlimited (which enables him to call mobile is that PowerGramo integrates with your
phones and landlines from his PC). After doing Skype client. You’ll notice that there’s a
some research, I recommended that he use new menu in the menu bar, and there are
a Windows application called PowerGramo. two new buttons in the bottom portion of
It’s easy to use and the free version has all of the client. The button on the left shows and
the features that hides the PowerGramo window. The one on
my friend needed the right pauses and re-starts a recording.
-- including the
ability to record
PC-to-PC and PC-
to-phone calls. Recording a Call
This TechTip looks Beyond having PowerGramo running, there’s
at how to use Pow- nothing special that you have to do to record
erGramo to record a Skype call. Recording starts automatically
a Skype call. when the other party answers picks up. A

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dialog box will appear, asking if you want to However, the recordings are in PowerGramo’s
cancel recording. Click No. proprietary format. If, like my friend, you’re
making recordings for a podcast, you can
Optionally, you can export recordings in the Ogg Vorbis format.
attach a memo to Ogg Vorbis (Ogg for short) is a patent-free
your recording in the alternative to MP3. For more information on
memo window that Ogg, see this TechTip.
appears. The memo
enables you to add
details to a recording, like the date and While the sound quality of a recording is
time at which the recording was made, usually good, that quality will depend on a
who you talked to, and what the conversa- number of factors related to Skype. You can
tion was about. Adding a memo is useful learn more about optimizing Skype audio
if you have a number of recordings. You in this TechTip. If you need to clean up the
can pop open a memo about a recording audio, you can pull the Ogg file into a sound
that’s listed in the PowerGramo window. editor like Audacity. Ogg is a good format,
but it’s not as widely supported as MP3. So,
When a call ends, a dialog box pops up if you need to distribute an MP3 you can
asking if you want to add a password to convert the Ogg file using Audacity or an
your recording. It’s not necessary, but if you online service like Media Convert or Zamzar.
feel the need to add a password, then go
right ahead. Otherwise, click the Don’t use Other Ways to Record a Skype Call
password button. As you’ve seen, recording Skype calls in
Windows is easy as long as you have the right
Believe it or not, the entire process software. PowerGramo is a quick, easy, and
is that easy. PowerGramo literally painless way to record your calls, but it’s not
works in the background and requires the only game in town. You can use Audacity
little interaction with you. to do the job. This article discusses how, and
this blog entry offers another take on the
Saving Your Call subject.
PowerGramo automatically saves recordings.
Other software that can do the job includes
i-Sound MP3 WMA Recorder. A popular tool is
Pamela for Skype. In addition to being able
to record Skype calls, Pamela can do straight
voice recording, record Skype video chats, and
even act as an answering machine. Keep in
mind, though, that both i-Sound and Pamela
require you to pay a registration fee if you
continue to use them.

If you’re on a budget, there’s another way

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to record your Skype calls for free: use the


Sound Mixer tool built into Windows to do the
job. It’s a simple solution, and this blog entry
explains how to use it.

No matter what method you use, you’ll find


that it can be quite easy to record your
Skype calls in Windows. Just remember
that you should let the other party know
that you’re recording the call. If not, you
could wind up with some legal headaches.

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Securing Your Wireless Network


Tech Tip 115 - Scott Nesbitt
for configuring a router are for a Linksys
WRT54GS router. You’ll probably have to
modify the specific instructions if you’re
using a router from another vendor,
but the concepts are the same.

Passwords on Your Router


You configure most routers using a Web
browser. When connect to the router, you
need to log in. Every router has a default
password, like admin. As this article points
out, most people don’t bother to change that
password. Doing that is simple, though.

A home wireless network is an easy and con-


venient way to share an Internet connection
and other resources among the computers in
your home. While a couple of people that I
know leave their wireless networks available
to anyone and everyone, most of us want to
keep our home wireless networks private. If
you’re looking at wireless home networking for
the first time, you may want to review these Log into your router. Then, click Administra-
previous Tech Tips on wireless networking. tion > Management. Enter a password in the
The core of your wireless network is the Router Password and Re-enter to confirm
router. By carrying out some easy-to-do fields. You should rotate this password
configuration on your router, you can ensure regularly. I generally do it every two weeks
that only the people who you want to have to a month. If you need to create a strong
access to your network will be able to. and secure password, then check out the
Strong Password Generator Web site.
Note: The procedures in this Tech Tip

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Locking Down MAC Addresses


All ethernet adapters, which enable users to
access a network, each have a unique 12-
digit identifier called a MAC address. MAC
is short for Media Access Control, and it’s a
way for the network to ensure that a com-
puter is allowed to access a network. Most
routers allow you to specify which MAC
addresses are allowed to connect to your
network. About this Mac from the Apple menu. On
the dialog box that appears, click More Info.
How do you find a MAC address? If you’re Then, select Network from the menu on the
using a computer with a wireless card, you side of the dialog box. Look for the Wireless
can find the MAC address by flipping the Address setting.
card over and looking for a block of charac-
ters like this: 00:A0:C9:14:C8:29. Now that you
have the MAC
address, you
can enter
it into your
router. Select
Wireless >
MAC Ad-
dress > Wireless Mac Filter. Then, click
Enable. Click the Permit only PCs listed to
access the wireless network option, and
then click the Edit MAC Filter List button.
Type the MAC addresses, one to a field, in
this dialog box. Then, click Save Settings.
If, on the other hand, your computer has a The beauty of using this method is that you
built-in wireless card, and the MAC address can give friends or guests access to your
isn’t on the sticker on the bottom, you can network and then easily remove their access
use the tools on the system to find the MAC privileges later on.
address. In Windows, click Start > Run. In
the Run dialog box, type cmd and then click
OK. This opens a command prompt. At the
command prompt, type ipconfig /all. Look
for the section Ethernet Adapter Wireless
Network Connection. Your MAC address is
the third entry, beside the heading Physical
Address.

On a Mac run ning OS X, do this: select

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Encryption dropdown list. Then, enter your passphrase


If you want to keep your data safe, encryp- in the WPA Shared Key field and click Save
tion is a must. Encryption not only enables Settings.
authorized users to securely access your As with the router password, it’s a
network, but it also ensures that their good idea to rotate your password fre-
data is kept safe from prying eyes. Most quently. Once again, the Strong Password
routers give you a choice of two encryption Generator Web site comes in handy.
schemes: Wireless Protected Access (WPA) Enabling the Firewall
and Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). Of A firewall on your computer can help keep
the two, WPA is the more secure option. unwanted visitors out. The same applies to
the firewall on a wireless router. And a router
firewall is easy to set up. To do so, click
Security >Firewall. Then, click the Firewall
Protection: Enable option. Also, click the
Block Anonymous Internet Requests option.
This will ensure that any unsolicited attempts
to access your router will be denied.
[insert router_firewall.png]
Keep in mind, though, that some cable
Internet providers (like mine) don’t play
nicely with router firewalls. You might
find that your connection gets intermit-
tently dropped or you lose it all together.

Other Things You Can Do


All routers are identified by a Service Set
Identifier (SSID). This is just the name of your
WPA uses a password to encrypt data and network. Every router comes with a default
to restrict access to your network. When SSID (mine was “linksys”). People use the SSID
someone tries to access your network for the to identify your network. And malicious users
first time, they’ll have to enter the password. can use the SSID to break into your wireless
network. So, you should change your router’s
Add or change the password by selecting SSID. Do this by selecting Wireless > Basic
Wireless > Wireless Security. Select Wireless Settings. Enter a unique name in the
Pre-Shared Key from the Security Mode Wireless Network Name (SSID) field.

To make it easy for others to jump aboard your


wireless network, routers by default broadcast
their SSIDs to the world. Once again, malicious
users can take advantage of this information
to jump on or take control of your wireless
network. You can do this by clicking the

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Wireless SSID Broadcast: Disable option on However, the fact that you’ve put some
the Basic Wireless Settings screen. security in place will put off most people
trying to illegally use or hijack your wireless
network, and that alone is worth the effort.

As I mentioned earlier, you log into your router


using a Web browser. You can do this either
from the computer directly connected to the
router, or from anywhere on the Web. Being
able to remotely administer your router can be
useful, but it also opens the door to someone
else logging on and gaining control of your
router. You can disable remote administration
by selecting Administration > Management
and then selecting the Remote Administra-
tion: Disable option.

If, on the other hand, you really want to


enable secure remote administration of your
router click Administration > Management.
Then, select the Remote Administration:
Enable and Use https options. Selecting
the Use https option creates a secure con-
nection to your router from a browser.

Conclusion
Adding a bit of security to your wireless
network is easy and doesn’t take a lot of time.
That said, one of the people who I talked to
while researching this TechTip commented that
no matter how well you secure your wireless
network, there will always be someone
who can break in. But, that’s true for any
other kinds of security, too. If someone is
determined enough, a deadbolt on your door
won’t stop them from entering your home.

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Demystifying Social Networks


Tech Tip 116 - Kimmy Powell
from wide-ranging locales connect and
share information with those who share
the same interests, facilitating a mass
“spreading the word” phenomena through
community forums and message boards.
Meeting others with like interests has
never been easier than behind the safe
confines of keyboard, mouse and monitor.
Social networks
come in two
flavors. The one
most familiar to us
It wasn’t so long ago that bulletin board is the “friend-of-
systems (“BBSes”) were all the rage. Offered a-friend” network
free of charge by hobbyists or as part of sub- (FOAF), exemplified
scription services by dial-up Internet service by MySpace and
providers such as CompuServe, BBSes were Friendster, the
the true precursors to MySpace. Members “connect and share” networks. The other
met people in their communities, participated type is a spin-off of the FOAF and known
in message board discussions, published as social bookmarking. Social bookmark-
articles, downloaded software (shareware, ing websites are Internet services sites that
freeware, promote the sharing of Internet bookmarks,
and pirated) links and feeds with other online users.
and played
games. By Features of FOAFs
the late 1990s, however, BBSes were all FOAF social networks make getting connected
but defunct, replaced by the newer, hipper relatively pain free. The only thing you need
and easier-to-use social networks. to start an account is a valid email address.
Once you log in, you create a profile and
Times have changed, and it’s all about global
customize a personal page using ready-to-use
Internet meet-ups instead of traditional face-
templates (HTML coders be able create their
to-face meetings
own templates). What you put on the page
and hanging
depends on how you want to be perceived
out at the
– most people create glamorized personas
mall. People

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of themselves. Once the page is in place, person behind the profile may not be who
you can invite friends to join your group of he or she claims to be. Be on the safe side
friends and thus expand your network. You --exercise caution and think before you click.
can also participate in discussion boards.

Popular Networking Sites


The first social networking site to burst on the
scene was 1995’s Classmates.com (www.class-
mates.com). Registration was free of charge
and joining up gave members the ability
to create personalized profiles with photo
uploads, search for and connect with long lost
acquaintances from school (elementary, high
Most social networking sites now include school college, work, and the military), read
features such as the ability to upload and post messages to forums, send emails to
personal pictures, post blogs (personal web other members and get updates on upcoming
logs resembling diary entries), searches reunions. The site later charged for some of
through classifieds or other public message these functionalities (the ability to commu-
forums, and music and video uploads (a nicate between members and create private
premium feature on some sites, but with groups). At its height, more than 40 million
the evolution and popularity of video people were
networking sensation YouTube, this capabil- active on
ity should become standard fairly soon). the site.
Recent safety and privacy concerns making
the news (in part, stemming from child
predators on MySpace) have pushed most The next phenom was 2003’s Friendster (www.
of these sites to offer privacy controls friendster.com), currently boasting 30 million
that screen those potential friends, users. Registered members share photos,
requiring your permission prior to access. post blogs and messages to forums, search
the classifieds and join groups and discus-
The majority of FOAF networks are free
sions. Friendster had been popular with the
and open to the public. One primary
twenty-somethings in Europe, Asia and North
drawback is that each network is propri-
America, supplanted by the arrival of MySpace
etary and they are not interconnected,
with its video and music-sharing capabilities.
just like the old BBS days. You’ll need to
MySpace (www.myspace.com) is the most
sign-up and create separate profiles for
popular of the social networks, and with
each network. Another drawback or benefit
good reason. Its treasure trove of features
is the free and open environment. This
include user blogs, message spaces, the
means anything goes; essentially, you can
ability to post pictures, music and videos,
say, do and be anything your heart desires.
create and join groups, announce reunions
The bad part of this “can do” attitude is
and upcoming events, post reviews, and
that what you say and do online stays on
maintain favorites listings. MySpace is open
public record, which could come back to
to anyone and is heavily used as a marketing
haunt you. And because anything goes, the

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tool for musicians. By February 2006, the LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), members may
more than 70 million users had made MySpace locate professional references, classmates,
the 10th most visited site on the Internet. and coworkers,
while employers
have the ability to
scour membership
directories for new
hires and consultants. Access to resources is
controlled; only those who have pre-existing
relationships with other members may join,
although guests may read selected postings.
A host of other sites arrived on the scene in Another network with the same concept and
2004. The notables among this group are professional bent is Ryze (www.ryze.com).
Facebook (www.facebook.com) and Flickr However, unlike LinkedIn, Ryze charges a fee
(www.flickr.com). The brainchild of a Harvard for membership.
University student, Facebook caters to the Search engines
college crowd, but jumped into
has expanded to the act, setting
be more inclusive. up their own
Facebook mem- networks on top of existing services with
bership entitles varying degrees of success. Google’s Orkut
you to create a customized profile, participate (www.orkut.com), originally an invitation-only
in forums, upload photos, and create and join network but now open to all, never quite
groups. The Facebook community was origi- found a following in the United States, suc-
nally centered on company, region or school. ceeding instead with Brazilians. Yahoo 360
Currently, 2.3 million photos are uploaded (http://360.yahoo.
daily and Facebook enjoys its status as the com), similar to
7th most visited site in the United States. MySpace, was
The other 2004 newcomer, Flickr, took social built to integrate
networking to a new level by focusing its into Yahoo’s existing functionalities like
networks Messenger and Flickr while offering features
on photo such as LAUNCHcast, an application that
sharing. facilitates the sharing of music and station
Members links. Even MSN and AOL chimed in with
join, Windows Live Spaces and AIM Pages
upload and
share their photos, with keyword tagging A newcomer gaining
added to enhance the photo’s online fast popularity is
searchability. Flickr is primarily used Xanga (www.xanga.
by bloggers as a photo repository and com) and the infor-
was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. mation-intensive FAQQLY (www.faqqly.com).
Businesses and professionals even started Xanga possesses much of the functional-
to take advantage of social networks. At ity found in MySpace, but it has gained a

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strong foothold among teenagers who refer real life. Second Life has become so popular
to themselves as “Xangans” and call their recently that US Internet searches for the
pages “Xanga term “Second Life” nearly tripled in October
Sites.” FAQQLY of 2006. Major international brands including
takes social IBM, GM,
networking in Dell, Nissan,
a new direction by emphasizing connected- Reuters, and
ness based on FAQs, or frequently answered Adidas are
questions. Users log in and create keyword taking it so
lists in subjects that they are curious about seriously
and receiving answers from other FAQQLY that they’re
members. FAQQLY members are recognized building
for their expertise. This promises great col- virtual factories, producing virtual cars and
laborative potential in the future. other products for sale and use by residents
of the environment, and even holding press
MMORPGs conferences and filing news reports from this
Inspired by the cyberpunk generation and “alternate universe”.
spinning off the theme of being somebody Other online virtual worlds require the
you’re not are the 3D online virtual worlds purchase of store-bought or downloaded
(known today as MMORPGs, or “Massively Mul- software packages and a valid credit card
tiplayer Online Role Playing Games”). Trendy to join. Sony Entertainment’s EverQuest
among teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings, (www.everquest.com) and Blizzard’s World
online virtual worlds come complete with of Warcraft (www.worldofwarcraft.com)
their own laws and rules of engagement. are examples of these types of networks.
An example of one of these online virtual
worlds is San Francisco’s Second Life (www. Social networks are great places to meet new
secondlife.com), which currently boasts 3.8 friends who share common interests, but as
million members after busting onto the inter- with anything involving strangers, be wary.
national scene in 2006. Second Life’s “Sim Its popularity with teens and the twenty-
City”-like community is created and main- something crowd means that parents should
tained exclusively monitor and instill the necessity of keeping
by “residents” contact information private and out of sight
(members). of strangers. Remember, meeting people is
Residents hang fun and easy, but do think before you click!
out with other 1 Source:
residents via chat rooms and game rooms, Revenue - the Performance Marketing Standard.
and conduct businesses transactions with one Volume 4, January/February 2007, p. 116.
another using Second Life’s own currency
standard - the Linden dollar. Basic member-
ship is free at Second Life, requiring just
a valid email to join. However, access to
functionalities such as the right to own land
requires premium-level membership – just like

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Social Networking II
Tech Tip 117 - Kimmy Powell

Social bookmarking has hovered around the


periphery of cyberspace for the last ten
years. These community networks began
with itList.com back in 1996, but never really
found a niche in the failing dot com market
at the beginning of the 21st century. Low
profit margins did not help either. Social
bookmarking services went underground
until its recent resurgence with the popu-
larity of Furl, del.icio.us and Digg.com.

Imagine finding that neat do-it-yourself The Ins and Outs of Social Bookmarking
web page you’ve been aching to share with There are no mysterious tricks to master,
all your buddies. You first bookmark the no special shortcuts to remember; social
page within your browser; then you copy bookmarking web services work pretty much
and paste the reference into an email and like the bookmarking you do on your personal
send it to friends. Every time you find computer. You save the location of a web
something while web surfing, you’re back page on your computer’s hard drive when
to the repetition of saving, copying and you bookmark it using Firefox’s “Bookmark
pasting the URL in an email it to friends. This Page” or Internet Explorer’s “Add to
Favorites”. With online social bookmarks,
rather than storing the page on your hard
Today, there’s a better way to collect, store, drive, you store them on a publicly- acces-
find, and share web bookmarks without sible Internet site. You classify, organize
the email repetition. The concept is called and manage your bookmarks on the public
social bookmarking, and it’s the hottest site just as you would in the browser and
wave of networking to hit the Net. Social assign descriptive names, or keyword tags,
bookmarking services work in much the to reference the saved pages that describe
same way as MySpace or Friendster, but the contents of the page to the community.
you instead create and catalog bookmarks
to share with friends and other users. Getting started is fairly easy and straightfor-
ward. Registration is mostly free; all that

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is needed is to register your name, date bookmarks (not offered on all sites), or the
of birth (some sites) and to provide a valid option to create new bookmarks. To find
email address (to confirm and activate bookmarks available from others, initiate a
your account). Once you’ve completed search by subject or by using keywords. A
registration, take a tour of the site’s features list of qualifying sites (ranked by the services
before digging in with lists. Many services using the keywords other community users
offer “bookmarklet” downloads to facilitate have assigned these links or the link’s popular-
bookmarking. Bookmarklets are JavaScript ity) will be returned, of which subscribing is
software programs that add buttons to simply a click away with the bookmarklet.
the browser’s toolbar and facilitate the For each site listed, you can click and find
posting of web pages to bookmarking other users who have bookmarked the link
sites. Some services (like del.icio.us) offer and who may share similar interests.
tools to import existing bookmarks stored
on your hard drive onto their systems. If Social bookmarking creates a community
you decide to go this route, remember to of users whose pooled Internet resources
clean out dead links or junk before the has led to the creation of a “folk-
import; otherwise, you face the trouble- sonomy.” A folksonomy is the vocabulary
some battle of deleting unwanted links one and structure that subscribers use to
by one. Other features may include video define these Internet resources.
and podcasting (Digg.com and YouTube),
ranking capabilities, ratings and commentar- Popular Social Bookmarking Services
ies, RSS feeds, the ability to annotate links Now that you’ve seen how these services
and automatically update links. Exploring work, it’s time to examine what’s hot in the
the web site will reveal much about bookmarking community. We discuss specific
the inner workings of these services. implementations of these services below.

Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/)
Once you’ve explored the available By the time Del.icio.us was acquired by
features, you are ready to set up a profile Yahoo in the fall of 2006, it had registered
and import or create your personal web over one million users (and over 50 million
links. You can use your profile to manage posts). This is by far the most popular
users (others who have registered on the of the social bookmarking services, due
service), decide whether to save bookmarks in part to its of usability and wealth of
publicly or privately, create, change or features (including RSS feeds, podcasting,
delete keyword tags and set privacy friends list, browser plug-ins, import/export
filters for bookmarking and blogging. bookmarks, popular, and recent lists).

There are no conventions or set rules


to creating keywords – you decide how
bookmarks should be classified, stored and
shared. You have the option of preserving
the suggested keywords as you import your

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Digg.com (http://digg.com/) StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com)


Finding a niche with geeks and technophiles, StumbleUpon lacks some of the niftier
Digg.com has become equally alluring to features del.icio.us and Furl has to offer, but
mainstream users because of the colorful it makes up for it in raves from PC World and
commentaries subscribers leave about the Wall Street Journal. Features include
bookmarked sites. Subscribers submit news ratings and friends, popular and recent lists
stories and web pages for consideration by and browser plug-ins. Once you stumble
other subscribers. The most popular sites upon this user-ranked
are promoted on the Digg’s service though, it’s a
front page. Among some keeper.
of its features are news,
videos and podcasts. YouTube (www.youtube.com)
This wildly popular video-sharing site uses
Furl (www.furl.net) Adobe Flash technology to display blogs,
Furl is distinguished from the other bookmark- TV clips and music videos. You can rank,
ing services by its ability to save search- watch and share videos,
able copies of any web page into personal and interact with
archives. Furl provides import and export other members of the
functionalities to Internet Explorer, Firefox community.
and del.icio.us and supports a number of
citation formats. However, Furl lacks the
ability to use suggestive keyword tags. The Final Word on Social Bookmarking
Services
Simpy (www.simpy.com)
The key advantage in using social bookmark-
One of the oldest and last remaining privately-
ing services such as del.icio.us and Furl lies
operated bookmarking services also provides
in its abilities to point users in the direction
powerful search capabilities. Subscribers can
of valuable Internet resources rather than
save, tag and search bookmarks and notes
wading through a list of useful and not so
or browse other subscriber’s links and tags.
useful infor mation generated by Googling.
By placing an emphasis on the user, it has
created a human-centric classification system
that better defines how others perceive a
given resource. The advantage of a human-
Reddit (www.reddit.com) centric focus is also its downside – there
Reddit users can post and tag links to content are no standards when concepts have
that network users rate. Links are grouped different meanings for different people,
by popularity on lists or relegated to virtual leaving links open to wide interpretation.
non-existence. This particular service seems This same flaw also provides numerous
geared for geeky and opportunities for spammers to flood the
scientific types (after free and easy services with ads to enhance
all, it’s programmed visibility of their websites. As the bookmark-
in Python and Lisp). ing services continue to evolve, advances

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in security and privacy will attempt to discourage such activity.


Social bookmarking sites are a wonderful way to store and share bookmarks on the web
without having to resort to an individual effort of saving and re-saving changing web
pages. With “anytime/everywhere” accessibility, getting to know somebody and seeing
what he or she likes…it’s the new way to meet friends and influence millions of people.

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Test Driving Linux Using a Live CD


Tech Tip 118 - Scott Nesbitt
So you’ve heard about Linux, and you’re
itching to try it out. Why? Maybe you want
to breathe some life into an older computer Debian. You can find a list of Live CD
that can’t run Windows XP or Vista. Maybe you distributions here and here. You can either
want to stretch your technical skills a bit. order a Live CD from the developer --
Or, maybe you’re just tired of Windows for which, in many cases, you may
and need a change. have to pay a nominal fee for shipping.
The folks behind Ubuntu, for example,
Normally, you install will send you several CDs for free.
Linux in a couple of
ways. One way is to Or, you can burn
use it to take over an your own Live CD.
entire hard drive. Or, All you have to do is
you can partition your download an ISO
hard drive and have image from the Web
Windows on one site of whatever
portion of it and Linux distribution you plan
on another. But, if you to use. An ISO
find that a particular image is sometimes
version of Linux (called a distribution) isn’t called a “CD image” and is literally a
quite right for you, getting rid of it or snapshot of the contents of a disk in a
changing it can be a pain. single file. The snapshot comes complete
with the core operating system, the software
Another alternative is to use a Live CD. A that’s bundled with it, as well as the
Live CD, sometimes called a Live Distro, is necessary boot and disk information. An
an operating system that starts from a CD ISO image has the extension .iso, for
-- there is no need to install the operating example, ubuntu-6.10-desktop-i386.iso.
system on a hard drive. A Live CD is a great
way to test out Linux without worrying about Then, you just burn the ISO image to a CD.
what it may do to your computer. While burning the image is relatively easy,
the process differs slightly from burning
your ordinary files to a CD. The instructions
Getting Hold of a Live CD vary depending on which CD burning
software you use. You should check the
Most major, and many minor, Linux documentation for your CD burning
distributions have Live CD versions. These software for details on how to burn an ISO
include Ubuntu, Knoppix, Linspire, MEPIS, and image. Note that the CD creation features

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built into Windows XP can’t properly write Linux distribution and your hardware. I
ISO images. used an Ubuntu Live CD with a ThinkPad
T40 notebook and the only hardware that it
Or, you can go one better and use the ISO didn’t seem to detect was the modem.
Recorder Power Toy for Windows XP and Vista. Don’t worry about having to work at the
This nifty little application makes the job command line - just about every Linux
easy by allowing you to just drag and drop distribution starts up with a graphical
the image onto a CD. interface, like KDE or GNOME.

From there, you


Using a Live CD can fiddle around
with Linux to your
Once you have the heart’s content.
ISO image on a CD, You can use the
what do you do? bundled software,
Just insert the CD in work at the
your computer’s CD- command line (if
ROM drive and restart so desired), and
your computer. change the look
When your computer and feel of the
reboots, it should user interface. But, remember that the Live
start from the CD CD version of a Linux distribution will run
rather than from the hard drive. If yours is slower than one installed on a hard drive.
an older computer or you’ve changed some That’s because the software is loaded into
of the settings, you’ll need to configure your memory and anything else is read off the
PC to boot from a CD. To do this, you’ll CD which takes time. You can get a good
have to change the boot settings in the idea of what Linux is like and
BIOS (Basic Input/Output System, which what it can do.
tells your computer what it can do without
the computer accessing any software on The best thing about using a Live CD is
the hard disk). Restart your computer, then that you can test as many different Linux
quickly press the Delete or ESC key on distributions as you like. This gives you a
your keyboard (systems vary). You might chance to find one that fits your bill. It’s
either have to press the key multiple times easy, and all you need to do is be willing to
or hold it down for a few seconds. The sacrifice a little connection time and
BIOS setting screen should then appear. a few blank CDs.
Find the boot settings options (the location
of which will vary depending on the type of
BIOS your computer uses), and set it up so Other Uses of Live CDs
that the computer boots from a CD-ROM
drive first. Then, press the F10 key on your A Live CD isn’t just a great way to test
keyboard to save and exit. out Linux and determine if a
particular distribution works with your
If all goes well, and it should, Linux will start hardware. There are a number of Live CDs
and your computer’s hardware - video card, that have special purposes like scientific
sound, network, and even wireless applications, router and server use, firewall
networking should all work. How well or and system administration, and more.
badly a Live CD does this depends on the

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For example, GhostWriter is aimed at people


writing screenplays, short stories,
and novels. EZWebPC lets you set up a kiosk
that gives people quick access to the
Web and email. Others, like Protech and
Gibraltar Firewall, are tools for protecting
a network. There are also Live CD
distributions that turn your computer into a
multimedia workstation or a Voice Over IP server.

On top of that, a number of tech-savvy


Windows users have Live CDs handy as
rescue disks. If Windows gets damaged or
corrupted, you can use a rescue disk to
access and repair your system.

Conclusion
A Live CD is a quick, easy, and painless
way to take Linux for a test drive. Not only
that, but you can do even more with one.
Either way, you’re packing a lot of power
into a small space.

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Transferring Video to DVD Part 1


Tech Tip 119 - Chris Capelle

Introduction
Now that you’ve put your VCR in mothballs, on watching it on your television or
you realize computer. (Similarly, if you want to post
that the the video to the Web, you’ll have to save
closet full of it as a format that can be viewed on the
VHS tapes (or Internet.)
Betamax, if
you bet on To successfully accomplish this, you will
the wrong need abundant amounts of the following:
horse) contains valuable memories you
would like to see again. Perhaps you want • Time
to relive your wedding, or post the video • Hard Drive Space
of you and your friends lip-synching “Girls • RAM
Just Want To Have Fun” • Processor Speed
from the 7th grade talent • Patience
show on YouTube. But you
can’t be bothered Time:
integrating antiquated
technology into your Working with video is extremely time-
home theater setup, not consuming. Converting analog video to
to mention handling and digital and importing it into the computer
storing those bulky is accomplished in real time. This means
VHS tapes. that a two-hour tape will take two hours
to import. If you plan on editing the video,
So what do you do now? that takes more time. When it comes to
burning it onto DVD – see where this is
The solution is to going?
transfer the
analog video from Hard Drive Space:
the tapes into DV
(digital video) Of course, all this takes gigs and gigs
format that can (and gigs) of hard drive space. The good
be edited, and news is that hard drives are inexpensive,
eventually burned onto DVD, if you plan and many computers have the capability
to add a second internal hard drive.

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Also, any computer that is robust software, which we’ll cover in our next
enough to handle video has can accept an installment of this series.
external drive (or two) via the
USB or FireWire ports. What else do you need?
RAM: OK, we’ve established that you need
a pretty rockin’ computer for this journey.
Working with video is memory intensive,
so if you’re serious about this, you’ll need But what else?
to crank up your RAM to the max. Upgrading
your RAM is also relatively inexpensive and
is usually a simple process. DVD Burner:

Processor Speed: If you have a


h i g h - e n d
Similar to RAM, the larger the number on c o m p u t e r,
the processor, the less painful this will be. chances are it
You need a computer powerful enough to has a built-in
handle all this hard work without DVD burner. If
bonking. not, there are
external (USB or
Patience: FireWire) models available. Compatible
blank DVD media is also required.
Along with RAM, health, good luck, and
certain other things in life, you can never Video Capture Hardware:
have enough patience. Make sure you have
a comfortable chair and plenty of Also known as an
caffeinated drinks on hand, especially if analog to DV
you plan on editing, adding music or other converter or a
effects, making DVD “chapters,” or “hardware bridge”,
incorporating artwork into the finished this is the device
product. It will take a lot longer than you that converts the
ever imagined it would. Trust me. analog video signal
to a digital format. These are available in
How much effort you put into this will a few different configurations; some are
determine the end result; you can do a internal cards that require installation in
straight transfer, but in that case your DVD the computer, some are stand-alone
will have the same ‘warts and all’ quality devices, and even certain camcorders are
as the original source tape, with all capable of tackling the task.
background noise, static at the beginning
and end, sloppy edits, along with Video Editing Software:
interminable dead air time. One option is
to edit out the mistakes as well as the Some hardware
embarrassing or boring parts. In addition, solutions include
you can add graphics, animations, music, software for video
fade-ins, fade-outs, cross edits, and editing perfect for
chapters for the DVD. This part of the the home user, while
process is accomplished with video editing other stand-alone

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software packages deliver broadcast


quality results, as well as having have
more bells and whistles, along with a
higher price tag.

A quick overview of the process:

A VCR is connected to an analog to


DV converter

The DV converter is connected to


your computer

The video data you import resides on


your hard drive

After editing the video data, it is burned


onto a DVD

Now that you know in more detail what’s


involved, Part II of this Tech Tip will discuss
the specifics of actually working with
video on your computer.

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Transferring Video to DVD Part 2


Tech Tip 120 - Chris Capelle

Introduction Some DVD jargon:


In part one of this series, we detailed Chapters: The best analogy to DVD
exactly what is required to convert your chapters is tracks on a CD. An album might
VHS tapes to DVD. In this part, we’ll go have ten tracks (each track is a song) – and
over what you need to learn to be able to navigating to them is as easy as a button
watch your creations on television. push (or pushes). Chapters on DVD allow
viewers to quickly access any part of the
To review: To convert VHS to DVD, you DVD easily – another reason why DVDs are
need a VCR (or VHS camcorder) to play the an improvement over video tapes! You
tapes, a hardware device that converts the can make small image video clips from the
analog signal into digital, appropriate chapters into buttons as
and a computer that stores the data, and teaser previews.
software that has the ability to edit the
material, and burn in onto a DVD. While Menu Screen: Look behind the chapters –
all of these components are available in there is the menu screen. Usually it’s
multiple flavors, the basic process of customized, perhaps a still from the
getting the data onto the computer movie, or another picture or pictures.
remains the same. Sometimes it’s even a loop or preview of
the movie.
Before you start, the best thing to do is
pop a commercial DVD into your player, Music: Sometimes there is a loop of music
and see what options it has. This will give (or dialog) that plays when you insert a
you an idea of how much time and energy DVD, but before you press the play button.
you want to put into the finished product. That can be a nice preview of some of the
For example, if you’re putting material content of the DVD, or you can add some
from multiple tapes onto one DVD, you music for when the DVD ends, but you
might want to put each segment into its haven’t gotten around to turning
own chapter. off your TV.

Hot tip: A single sided, single layer 4.7GB


DVD disc can hold up to 90 minutes of high
quality video. Rather than push the limits,
it’s better to split longer tapes into two
(or more) DVDs.

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Graphics and animations: You can spice up Create any additions (graphics, original
your DVD with graphics – maybe giving music, animations) “outside” the movie
information on the content you’re editing software, and import in. (For
watching, or perhaps humorous clips. This example, perfect your graphics using
is advanced stuff, but if you have the time PhotoShop, and then import them.)
and interest to handle this, go for it.
A few funny touches (e.g., a Batman-
Auto-Play: You can make your DVD an esque “POW!”) go a long way.
“autoplay” DVD – you insert it in the player,
and it starts playing. The tradeoff, Take a break! All of this takes time, and
however, is that there can be no you don’t want to burn out.
chapters.
Now that you’re 100% happy with the
Remember – the more complex the end finished product, it’s time to burn it to
result, the more time it will take. DVD!

Here comes the confusing part: at some


Now that you have sketched out exactly point during the process, you’ll be asked
what you have in mind, its time to go to about the Aspect Ratio of your DVD. To
work! keep it simple, this comes down to two
choices: Standard 4:3 (which is the
Although there are many options for video traditional TV screen size/shape) and
editing software (Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Widescreen 16:9. Think about where
Pro, Roxio Easy Media Creator and Apple’s you’re going to play the DVD: If you choose
iMovie/iDVD are some popular names, but widescreen, and play it on a standard TV
there are many others), the operation is set, you’ll get the “letterbox” effect
basically the same: Import the video, edit (black bars at the top and bottom of the
it, prepare it for DVD, burn the DVD. While screen, which also results in a smaller
each software package has its own picture size), and if you choose standard
functions (and limitations), they all and play it on a widescreen, you’ll get
compress your movie into MPEG-2, which black bars, but on the left and right of the
is the universal DVD format. picture. So plan accordingly.

Editing your movies is frightfully Now, for the coup de grace: design a nice
easy label and cover for the DVD. Nothing says
cheesy like a naked DVD scribbled on with
Virtually every software package makes a black Sharpie. You’ve gone this far, so
this the simplest (and often most fun) part tie a pretty bow on the DVD by giving it a
of the project. Once the import is done, nice presentation.
you can add or delete scenes, overdub
music, insert fade in/fade out, input Now it’s time to bust out the popcorn and
graphics, voiceovers, and anything else enjoy your creation!
you want. You can import photographs,
logos, and sound effects. While each
software package has its own methods, a
couple of universal rules apply:

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Clearing the Clutter!


Introduction Tech Tip 121 - Staff Writer

Looking at the title of this week’s Tech Enter USB


Tip, you may think that we’ve flipped our
lid. After all, choosing a USB Hub should Then along came
take about a many brain cells as, say, USB! The
choosing which white T-shirt to wear. Universal Serial
However, choosing the right USB hub these Bus allowed for
days can be more complicated than you better operability
may think. There are so many to choose and allowing
from that it’s hard to know which one is many devices to
best. While the function of the USB is be accessed with
generally the same, factors such as the additional USB
number of ports, portability, additional ports via a USB
port features, how close the ports are to hub. The current
each other as well as the cosmetic look standard as of
can play a role in finding the this writing is
perfect USB hub. USB 2.0 with a
transfer speed of
USB Overview up to 480 megabits per second (often
abbreviated 480 Mb/sec). This is an
Universal Serial Bus, commonly known as increase from the original 12 megabits per
USB, has been around since 1996 as a second seen
standardized method for adding peripherals with USB version 1.1. In addition to
to Windows, Macs, and UNIX computers. running standard USB 2.0 devices,
Before USB, users had to find the right the USB 2.0 standard is backwards
cable for their particular flavor of computer compatible to the older USB 1.1 and
(a few of us old-school Geeks remember 1.0standard (though you won’t get the
the horrors of 9-pin RS232 serial, 25-pin faster transfer speeds.)
SCSI, 25-pin parallel, 50-pin SCSI, Centronics,
Apple’s ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) and a While there has been much talk about
host of other proprietary cables that didn’t Wireless USB , it still is not a wide-spread
like to play together.) In addition to this phenomenon and many people still opt for
cable confusion, most computers had a the wired solution using USB hubs. For
limit on the number of peripherals that those wishing some kind of wireless
could be attached via serial ports connectivity with their USB ports, USB RF
and card slots. items such as wireless keyboards and mice,

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wireless network USB dongles and, of these types of hubs can come in USB 1.1
course, Bluetooth using USB Bluetooth as well as USB 2.0 varieties.
dongles has expanded and grown in
popularity making wireless connectivity Powered hubs are generally more desirable
easy and convenient with your USB port. to have than non-powered because of the
limited power that the original USB port is
If you have a computer with USB 1.x ports, capable of providing. Many common USB
you may want to consider adding a USB devices (such as keyboards and mice) will
add-on card to achieve the much faster draw sufficient power from the USB port
USB 2.0 speeds; because while a USB 1.x so extra power is not necessary; however,
port may be able to use a USB 2.0 device if too may devices are attached, power
(such as a USB flash drive), it will do so at levels may drop and additional power may
the slower speeds. Even some users with be needed. Consider how many items will
USB 2.0 ports already built into the PC be attached to any given hub. The more
sometimes opt for adding additional USB peripherals or devices you add, the more
ports via an add-on card rather than using power you will need.
hubs.
A really cool feature of the USB interface
Considerations before Purchasing is the ability to daisy-chain multiple hubs
together as well – this means, in practical
USB hubs come in all shapes, sizes and terms, that for greater expansion, USB
configurations. There are internal USB hubs can be networked together. This is
hubs; internal multi-port case panels; great advantage with USB, but watch out
powered external USB hubs with a modest for problems. Having too many USB devices
amount of USB ports; external powered USB linked together may cause power issues
hubs with a lots of USB ports; non-powered and can be a troubleshooting headache if
USB hubs; external USB hubs with extra types a device does not work.
of ports (such as PS/2, RS232 serial, and
parallel – sometimes called Port Before purchasing a USB hub, stop and
Replicators) (); USB and Firewire combination consider how it is going to be used. Will it
hubs. be used for a desktop or a laptop? How
many devices will be plugged into it? How
There are internal and external USB hubs many ports does the computer currently
with memory card readershttp://www.geeks. have? Thinking ahead before buying can
com/details.asp?invtid=DUB-CR200- help save money down the road. Make
DT&cat=NET, as well as many computer sure you have a hub with enough ports for
cases, monitors, and keyboards having growth. Another consideration is how
integrated USB hubs. close the ports are to each other on the
hub. If you’re going to be plugging USB
USB switches are almost the reverse of a cables into the hub, this really won’t be
USB Hub in that they allow users to share an issue, but if you plan on plugging
a USB device between two computers. multiple items into the hub such as USB
Though technically not a USB hub, they flash drives or USB network dongles, then be
will often be listed along side USB hubs. sure to get a hub with sufficient spacing
Again, you can always add more USB ports between the ports for these more “bulky”
directly to your computer via adapter USB devices.
cards – and look at the ad carefully as all
If the hub will be used in a laptop, then

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obviously portability will be a key factor.


USB hubs that fit in the palm of a hand
with a retractable cord can easily be
found. Small USB hubs can be also helpful
in tight situations such as airports or
cramped working spaces.

If the main function is for use with a


desktop computer then definitely think
about where it is going to sit and what will
be plugged into it. If it will be out of sight
for non-portable items like printers and
scanners, then utility will override
attractiveness. Look for a USB hub that
can sit where it can reach all of your
devices without the cables pulling hard or
there is risk of them coming loose. Some
models are well designed for sitting on a
desk with easy access which is great for
plugging in mobile devices such as MP3
players and USB flash drives. Do not overlook
your cables when buying a USB hub.
Consider the lengths and measure before
purchasing a hub so you do not have to go
back for cables.

Conclusions
While there are many choices with USB
hubs, be sure to take the time to find the
right one for you. Color and size are
important but remember to think of the
uses and positioning of current and future
devices. Making the right choice up front
can simplify life, save money, and make
for a more enjoyable computing
experience.

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LCD, DLP, Plasma – Oh My!


Tech Tip 122 - Chris Capelle

LCD v. Plasma

Introduction Under the Hood:


Now that the “big” 32” CRT television in DLP (Digital Light
your living room is fading fast, it’s time Processing) HDTV
to deep six it and upgrade in style. But if (High Definition
you’ve been out of the television Television) is a
technology loop for the last few years, proprietary
there are a number of unfamiliar terms product of Texas
and concepts (not to mention acronyms!) Instruments. DLP
to contend with. is descendant of
digital film
So where do you start, and what exactly is p r o j e c t o r
the best choice for you? You want picture technology which uses DMD (Digital Multi-
quality, you want a long lifespan, you want mirror Device) chips, each containing
a TV that is ready for the upcoming FCC- millions of tiny mirrors. A projection
mandated DTV (Digital Television) transition light is passed through a rotating color
in 2009 (or until they change the date wheel before striking the chip – producing
again) and, most importantly, you want up to 16 million different color shades.
bang for your buck! But before you crack
open your wallet, you should do some LCD televisions consist of two polarizing
homework. First you’ll see a bunch of transparent panels with a liquid crystal
unfamiliar terms, like plasma, LCD, solution in between. This technology
projection, DLP, and then you’ll have to uses florescent light, which is scattered
decipher them. by a white diffusion panel. In an LCD
Television, each color pixel (picture
Fear not - Geeks.com is here to help! element) is created by three sub-pixels
with red, green, and blue color filters.
Before we go on, let’s take a quick look at LCD technology allows each pixel on the
the three leading display technologies; a screen to be activated individually.
little knowledge will go a long way when
it’s time to go shopping. Without delving Plasma screens are made up of hundreds
too deeply into the weird science of of thousands RGB (red, green, and blue)
television innards, here’s a quick summary pixels, which depend on argon, neon,
of the three technologies: and xenon gases (sealed between glass

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panels) to be electrically charged, which very large, inexpensive screen, especially


generates light and ultimately the for latest-generation video game play in
picture. Plasma screens are more 1080i/p, DLP may be your best bet.
closely related to traditional
television screens. LCD:
Just the Facts, Ma’am – pros and cons Generally long
of various display technologies: l i f e s p a n
(manufacturers
(Naturally, the specifications/issues listed currently claim
here are generalizations, some subjective, >50,000 hours)
and will vary from brand to brand and
model to model) Many new LCD televisions offer full 1080p
(1920 x 1080) native pixel resolution

DLP: Generally physically lighter and sleeker


than DLP or plasma televisions
Uber-long life expectancy – the main
light source is projection bulb, which is Low power consumption
replaceable (not cheap, but certainly
less expensive than buying a new Generally poor relative black levels
television!)
Biggest pros of LCD: Small size and
The ultra-fast DLP chip has a 16 placement options give it the most
microsecond response time flexibility when it comes to positioning
the television.
High resolution (1920 x 1080) – but others
are catching up Biggest cons of LCD: Pixel response time is
lower than DLP and plasma, which can
Contrast ratios of up to 12,000:1 mean ghosting during fast-action
sequences. Color saturation and black-
Usually comes with an integrated stand levels lacking.

Biggest pros of DLP: Provides the best bang Bottom line: Tight on space? Watching TV
for your buck as far as large screens go – or viewing digital family photos? You’re
probably the price/performance all set for LCD – just mount your LCD TV on
“sweet spot”. the wall and go!

Biggest cons of DLP: Overall size and


limited flexibility on set positioning (In Plasma:
other words, DLP screens are large, but so
is the rest of the set.) Best picture is P l a s m a
obtained by positioning the set at eye televisions
level. Lowest “sexy factor” of the three offer good
technologies. pricing for
large screens
Bottom line: If the space/size restrictions
aren’t an issue for you and you want a

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Contrast ratios exceeding 15,000:1 in the third as possible.


some models

Allows the most flexibility as far as


positioning the viewer in front
of the set

Many models top out at 1366x768


native resolution, which equates to 720p –
still High Definition, but not 1080x.

Biggest pros of Plasma: Superior color


saturation, excellent black levels, wide
viewing angles.

Biggest cons of Plasma: The image


retention (screen burn) issue has been all
but eliminated but pixel failure is still a
potential problem area. Potentially the
shortest lifespan of the three (“the light
that burns twice as bright burns half as
long.”) Can be big electricity hogs.

Bottom line: Movie and/or sports nut? Go


plasma. Widescreen helps with movies,
while the wide viewing angle is perfect
for when the whole gang is watching the
game together.

Unlike the VHS/Beta wars of yesteryear,


it’s possible for these different technologies
to peacefully co-exist in the marketplace;
breakthroughs in one platform forces the
others to not only keep pace, but to up
the ante, which (hopefully) gives the
consumer higher quality products at lower
prices.

In Conclusion
Modern large-screen televisions are no
different than many products or
technologies that follow the price/
performance triangle – in this case, you
can have it large, good, or cheap – pick
any two. The trick is to pick your two and
then find a product that has as much of

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Introducting Windows Vista Part I


Tech Tip 123 - Kimmy Powell

The Bells and Whistles of Microsoft’s


Latest Operating System We present a rundown of Vista’s features
below.
Are you ready for a brand new day? You
may have heard it, seen it fleetingly in A New Attitude – Vista’s Improved
neighborhood electronic shops, and it Look and Feel
didn’t make big headlines like the debut
of the Macintosh during Super Bowl Sunday Vista takes a
or become the “End of the World as We drastic detour
Know It.” The “it” here is Microsoft’s from its
successor to its hugely popular Windows XP predecessors
operating system, Windows Vista. by taking
advantage of
Vista was finally r e c e n t
released to the improvements
public on January in graphical
30, 2007, five and technology and rendering crisp, smooth
a half years in the graphics – the Aero glass interface. Aero,
making. The available in all Vista releases except for
positives: Vista Home Basic, is an acronym for Authentic,
drastically Energetic, Reflective and Open. The
improves upon security (sometimes to the “glass” in glass windows (after all, isn’t
point of annoyance) and sports a more glass what windows are made of?) intends
intuitive look and feel. The negatives: As to be simple, reflective, and transparent.
in any release of the Windows OS, you Thumbnails provide visual details about a
need to have relatively new hardware to minimized application on the Task Bar and
run it, and running it on the “minimum” when switching between Windows
specification won’t get you anywhere applications using Alt + Tab and Windows +
but frustrated. Tab (renamed Flip and Flip 3D). Essentially,
you can now preview each application’s
Of course, as was common in their XP contents before switching tasks.
software, there are multiple versions of
Vista and not all versions come with the Other desktop improvements include
same features. All in all, it’s a worthy a smaller Start button and the
successor to its siblings, moving Windows removal of most desktop icons so
closer to “Mac-like” proportions. you can maximize screen real estate.

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The Start menu Adding to this is


adapts to your the concept of
needs depending “ breadcrumbs ”
on what you’ve so you can trace
opened recently. your way back
Commonly used through the
programs appear operating
on the Start Menu’s s y s t e m ’s
left column and any programs that don’t organizational
appear in the recent list are accessible by hierarchy in the
clicking on the address bar
“All Programs” option above (eliminating
the search box. the need to click on the Back button) and
the addition of live icons that allow you to
Integrated Search Capabilities preview the contents before opening the
application (much like previewing emails
Users now in Outlook). Plus, you can navigate to
have the websites using the address bar.
ability to
conduct Other changes include improved filtering,
complete sorting, grouping and stacking of items
searches and tweaks to menu items we’ve become
of all accustomed to. Common types of programs
applications, are now clustered in program “Centers”,
documents, and the traditional File, Edit, and View
links, and menus have been reduced to Organize,
emails for matching terms from the Start Views, Save Search and Search Tools, and
menu and incremental searches from the list of folders on the left side of
within specific applications like Media Explorer has become the Favorite Links
Player, Windows Explorer, Windows Mail, (Documents, Pictures, Music, Recently
Control Panel, and the Network Center. Changed, and more folders). To restore
You can further tag and add meta-data the old views, simply go to the Organize
(like author and file descriptors) to search menu button, select on the Layout option,
results, and save these results in Virtual and make sure the Menu Bar
Folders that are accessible in Windows option is checked.
Explorer. You also have the ability to
launch programs by typing the name of Anchoring Sidebar
the program in the Search box, eliminating
the need to go to Start and then Run. New to Vista is a pane
Remote searches are now possible across that docks on the right
shared computers and networks. side of the screen and
displays gadgets, or
Interactive Windows Explorer miniature applications
that are supposed to
Unless you’re a Windows geek dead set on make life easier. The
running programs from the command line, gadgets include a
anything that simplifies opening and Calculator, Clock,
viewing files has to be infinitely better. Calendar, Notepad,

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Slideshow, and the ability to display RSS ability to handle a variety of backup
headlines (Vista is now natively “RSS devices and media.
aware”). You can also drag and drop these
applets directly onto your desktop if you
choose forego the Sidebar.

Improved Security
With Vista,
Microsoft has
a d d e d
improvements
that close some
s e c u r i t y Better Hardware Support and
loopholes (like Improved System Performance
blocking access
to the kernel
and running
applications in “protected mode”).
Windows Firewall now provides outbound
as well as inbound protection, and Internet
Explorer 7 runs in a protected mode to guard
against potential attacks during browsing.
Also included are an improved User
Account Control (even administrators
must confirm changes to the OS with a Among the highlighted improvements in
password!) and Vista are power management and self-tuning
native parental control software diagnostics, like the automatic scheduling
(restricting children’s access to certain to de-fragment your hard drive (this,
applications, web sites, games and files, however, is not available in Home Basic).
hours of activity, and activity logs). Changes in the OS kernel now improve
Windows Defender scans for spyware in low-level functions like scheduling and
the background so it doesn’t processor synchronization. Finally, Vista
interfere with existing processes. also introduced a new product called
Additionally, Vista Ultimate and Enterprise SideShow, which supports auxiliary devices
versions include a new program called like secondary screens on mobile PCs).
BitLocker Drive Encryption.
Exclusive to Vista is DirectX 10. Utilizing
Improved Backup and Restore advances in graphics architecture, DX10
Functionality runs more efficiently and much faster.
DX10 is a major plus for all you PC gaming
Complete PC Backup, the new program that fans out there.
comes bundled with Vista Enterprise and
Ultimate versions, resembles Norton Ghost New tools in Vista now manage your PC’s
by using disk imaging during the memory to boost speed and performance.
backup process. Also included are version SuperFetch tracks and preloads frequently
control indexing of files so you can roll used programs on a user-by-user basis. If
back to previous versions and the you’ve got a USB drive or hybrid hard disk,

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you could dedicate available space towards Meeting Space replaces the old NetMeeting
the swap file using ReadyBoost. Finally, and is a peer-to-peer, collaborative
ReadyDrive provides added support for application permitting you to share
hybrid drives by allowing you to use the applications with users across networks.
hybrid’s built-in flash memory towards re- It’s much like another Microsoft product,
booting or resuming your PC session. Groove, albeit limited in scope.

New Applications Windows Mail replaces Outlook Express


and now includes anti-phishing and anti-
Microsoft wouldn’t be Microsoft without spam solutions.
making Third Party Vendors’ lives miserable
by including new applications that take Internet Explorer 7, with tabbed browsing,
advantage of capabilities in the new enhanced security and incremental page
operating system. However, this can be a searches. A version for Windows XP is
boon for consumers on a tight budget, available, though it does not run in
especially given Vista’s price tag. Among protected mode under that OS.
the new applications and technology
support entering the Vista family are: Microsoft Fax and Scan – now available in
only the Enterprise and Ultimate
Media Player11 in Vista Home Premium editions.
and Ultimate versions support HD-DVD,
MMC-5 (Fifth-Generation SCSI Multi- Finally, don’t let the minimum specs of
Media Command Set) and UDF (Universal Vista fool you. Meeting the minimum
Disk Format) formats. hardware specifications lets Vista run at a
crawl, if it runs at all. Remember this as
you think about upgrading your existing
Media Center (Home Premium and machine. If you have a Vista-approved
Ultimate) supports dual tuner cards, machine, installing the software is easy.
DVDs, MPEG2, and high definition Vista now uses image-based setups instead
content. of the time-draining chore of first copying
temporary files down to your hard drive
DVD Maker – now, you can create and and then running the setup.
burn your own DVDs without resorting to
third party software. Windows Vista is a major reworking of
previous Windows releases. It promises to
Photo Gallery provides management and make life easier by simplifying computing.
basic editing of digital photo archives. Whether this is true or not remains to be
seen. One thing is sure, however; Microsoft
New games, like Chess Titans, that feed does pay attention to consumer demands,
off improvements on graphics and that has to count for something.
capabilities.
Next Up: Should You Upgrade?
Revamped Applications
And the existing applications? Here are
the changes – some good, some bad:

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Introducting Windows Vista Part II


Tech Tip 124 - Kimmy Powell

Windows Vista Part II - To and patch-as-you-go operating systems.


Upgrade or Not to Upgrade – Contrary to what Microsoft would have
Analyzing the Pros and Cons you believe, old habits die hard.
of Switching to Windows Vista
Message from our Editors: Just a quick That’s not to say Vista
note to remind our loyal Tech Tips doesn’t have its
readers that while it is always our intent positives. Vista is an
to provide as much factual, technical exciting system to play
information as possible, at the end of the with and is pretty to
day, these articles reflect the personal look at. However,
opinions of their authors and not the forget about running
“official company policy” of Geeks.com. Vista on any old
machine. You need
relatively fresh hardware to get the
After five and half maximum return on investment out of new
years of non-stop products in the Microsoft universe – running
hacking and the new OS on “minimum” spec systems
patching, Microsoft just won’t do. With our brief introduction
finally got its act over, let’s consider why you would or
together and wouldn’t upgrade to Vista.
released the more
security conscious What’s In Your Machine?
Windows Vista in If you’re running
January 2007. a system or OS
According to Redmond Magazine, Vista is off more than a
to a running start, logging in 20 million couple of years
licenses in its first month of availability old, you’re a
and outselling Windows XP in its first two prime candidate
months of existence by 3 million licenses. for an upgrade.
That should propel any Microsoft fan to You’re working
run out and snatch up his or her own copy on, in Vista terms, a prehistoric beast and
of the vaunted program – or should it? it’s time to go shopping. The good news is
Those numbers include new systems that that computers are even more affordable
would have come with one OS or another now than they were just a couple of years
anyway, and, after all, we are talking ago, and you can get a very decent system
about Microsoft, king of the vulnerabilities pre-packaged with Vista for under $500.

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In fact, the very best way to get started


with Vista is probably to buy it pre-installed How Much Will It Cost Me?
on new hardware – because manufacturers Microsoft’s ubiquitous operating systems
have huge volume licensing deals with make them the default consumer OS, but
Microsoft, this makes the OS virtually free Microsoft complicated things beginning
compared to buying a “shrink-wrapped” with Windows XP. XP was available as a
version of the OS, which can run upwards Home Edition, Professional Edition (tighter
of $400 all by itself. Vista may present a on security and supports Windows Server
bit of a learning curve, but don’t domains and dual processors), and Media
let that discourage you. Overall, Vista is Center Edition (the multimedia lovers’
a very intuitive and user-friendly dream). These products varied in price
operating system. from $199 (a verifiable upgrade is $99) for
the Home Edition to $299 for XP
Meanwhile, those running Windows XP Professional, and both editions consisted
with Service Pack 2 have a choice. The of essentially the same features. If you’re
fact that Microsoft plans to support the XP a power user, you probably opted for XP
series for years to come means you Pro. If you were satisfied with basic word
technically don’t have to touch anything. processing and surfing the net, you kept
If you purchased a new system that the XP Home Edition pre-installed
promised the Vista upgrade, you could on your computer.
take advantage of that and save yourself a
couple of hundred dollars. If on the other
hand, as a geek, you feel compelled to
venture into new territory, at least run
the Upgrade Advisor on Microsoft’s website
to determine whether or not your hardware
and software meet the compatibility
requirements of Vista. Finally, you can
adopt the attitude of most businesses –
wait until Vista’s Service Pack 1 is released Fast forward to today and you’ll find that
later this year (to address post-release Vista now ships in no fewer than six
bugs) and then jump. editions. The barebones packages are
Vista Starter and Home Basic, which lack
The bottom line: if many of the features that make Vista the
your applications run OS you’d really want to experience. Most
decently and perform notable is the absence of the Aero interface.
s a t i s f a c t o r i l y, You’d have to purchase the Vista Home
consider waiting. If Premium Edition at $235.95 ($159 as an
your hardware upgrade) to get the maximum bang for
rattles and hums your buck. To get each and every feature
incessantly and your applications slow to lauded by Microsoft, you’ll need to
an unbearable crawl, it may be time to purchase the Ultimate edition, which will
consider an upgrade that might set you back just over $400. Factor in the
include Vista. potential costs of hardware upgrades
recommended by the Vista Upgrade
Advisor and a new computer with Vista
pre-installed becomes the more obvious
money-saving solution!

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Features = Upgrade? Compatibility


By now you’ve read about the many new Features, security, and super-slick new
features offered by the Vista operating interface aside, compatibility with your
system: the animated and more existing hardware and applications should
photorealistic graphical interface, 3D be a key factor in your decision to upgrade
task-switching with live content preview, or continue to stick with the tried and
the integrated search capabilities, built- true XP for a while longer. Reports from
in parental controls and RSS support, the computer stores and service depots of
ability to burn your own movies, and people reverting from their Vista upgrades
enhancements in overall security and (or new installations) back to solid,
performance. Microsoft has even gone working XP installations are commonplace,
the extra mile to make installation as if not rampant, due to compatibility issues
seamless as possible (adopting an image with some previously-working application
based installation versus the traditional or peripheral.
copying of temporary files to the hard disk
drive). Porting over to Vista should be a The Verdict
no-brainer, but there are always issues While Vista does improve upon previous
that counteract the positive. versions of the Windows operating system,
most notably in terms of User Interface
The flip side to (“UI”) enhancements, unless you have a
getting better compelling reason to upgrade to Windows
tools that will Vista, you’re probably better off sticking
make you more with Windows XP, at least until Microsoft
productive is the releases Vista Service Pack 1 later this
time and energy year. If you’re a technophile or avid gamer,
you must invest Vista can be a digital dream come true,
in learning to use but you may want to think twice before
them, and “fixing something that ain’t broke.”
dealing with the
potential hassles of hardware and/or
software compatibility issues. Reaping
performance gains require that you invest
in the technology (e.g., purchase new
hardware or software that Vista supports).
And all the security promises? That
definitely has improved, but much to the
point of annoyance. Vista requests your
permission and approval to access
underlying hardware resources and to
make system changes. It’s possible to turn
these notifications off, but first impressions
are important, and requiring user
intervention as a way to address security
does not a happy user make.

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Setting Up a Home or Office Wireless Sound System


Tech Tip 125 - Scott Nesbitt
If you’ve used any sort of wireless device
-- telephone, laptop, PDA, or even a simple With wireless, you can place your speakers
remote control -- you know how convenient just about anywhere in your home without
it can be. You’re not tethered to ... well, being limited to the length of wire that
to anything. And you’re free to move connects back to your audio system.
around while doing your work.
If you’re like many people these
One area that’s days, you’ve probably got more music in
ripe for wireless a digital format like MP3 than you have
is a home or on CD. Maybe you’ve ripped your
office sound CDs and/or downloaded music from the
system. Once a iTunes Store or other popular online music
dream, it’s now vendors. It’s easier to play these files
relatively cheap directly from your computer
and easy to set instead of burning them on to a CD and
up such a having to fumble with those disks.
system. Imagine
being able to And let’s face it: no matter how good
listen to your digital music without wires your PC speakers are, they’re no match
– you’ve probably got most of the for a decent set of stereo speakers. Piping
components already. For a couple of your music to speakers, even those in
hundred dollars or less, you can have a another room, will only enhance your
great wireless sound system. listening pleasure.

Why Go Wireless? How It Works


O b v i o u s l y, A wireless
the main sound system
advantage to works sort of
going wireless like radio. A
is to cut down transmitter is
on all of those connected to
pesky cables a device -- usually a computer -- that
that have stores and plays your music. A receiver,
been the bane of audiophiles for decades. plugged into a stereo or a set of speakers,
picks up the signal from the transmitter.

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There are two ways in which signals can a small base station to your stereo or a set
be sent from the transmitter -- analog of powered speakers and you can use the
and digital. iPod’s controls you can shuffle through
songs or play your favorite play lists.
Analog is similar to FM (Frequency
Modulation) radio. The signal is strong You can also get FM transmitters for certain
and constant, but the frequency of the makes of MP3 player. The transmitter --
signal changes slightly based on like iriver AFT-100
the information being sent. If you still or the Belkin
listen to terrestrial (as opposed to TuneCast II --
satellite) radio, you’re probably familiar plugs into your
with FM. MP3 player and
literally sends
The quality of the signal is good and the music on the
signal strength is decent, though it device to an FM
can be affected by barriers (like receiver. That
walls) in the way of the signal. receiver could be
a stereo or even
Digital, on the other hand, converts sounds a car radio.
to packets of electronic data. In the case Essentially the transmitter turns your MP3
of a wireless audio system, this data is player into a short-range radio station.
sent over the air from a transmitter and The range of these devices is limited –
the data is converted back to audio when about ten to 30 feet. But over those
it reaches the receiver. It’s really the same distances, the signal is clear and has little
principle as a wireless Internet connection. o r
no interference.
Wireless devices, like the ones described
in this Tech Tip, operate over a specific Or, you can use a
range of frequencies -- usually between d e s k t o p
900 MHz to 2.4 GHz. This range of computer (which
frequencies is used by most consumer is often called a
wireless devices. That means a consistent media server) to
level of signal quality, but it can also lead store and
to interference from other devices. broadcast your
Luckily, the hardware used in setting up a audio. You don’t
wireless sound system enables you to need an up-to-date, lightning fast system
select different frequencies to avoid or at with the latest version of your operating
least minimize interference. system (although that does help), either.
An older computer running Windows XP
and with a decent amount of memory and
Ways to Go Wireless a fair sized hard drive is usually more than
enough. I know at least two people
There are a couple of ways you can go who turned old eMachines desktops with
wireless. If you’re an iPod user, you can 512 MB of memory and 80 GB hard
turn your gadget into a music transmitter disks into serviceable media servers. Using
using the Wireless Music System for iPod a software media player -- like
by Logitech. This device clips to your iPod, Windows Media Player, iTunes, RealPlayer,
turning it into a transmitter. You connect or WinAmp -- you can create play lists

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or play all of your you can start playing your tunes


audio in bulk. immediately. However, at $99, the AirPort
base station isn’t cheap, especially if you
A popular way to want to have your audio piped to multiple
turn a PC into a locations in your home.
sound system is the
Logitech Wireless
Music System. This Speakers
device consists of
two parts. The first Getting good
is a small transmitter that you plug into a sound from a
USB port on your computer. The second wireless system
is a receiver that you connect to your – or any audio
stereo or a set of wireless speakers. system for that
Then, just fire up the media player on matter – is
your computer and you’re ready to go. partly a matter
of having a good
The Linksys Wireless Media Center Extender audio source to
not only does audio, but also video and work with and
Internet radio. The Extender looks like a mainly a matter
DVD player with a small antenna at the of having a decent set of speakers.
back. You connect the Extender directly
to your TV or stereo, and then install The great thing about a wireless sound
the software that interacts with the system is that you don’t necessarily need
Extender on your PC. To use the to buy a new set of speakers. If you have
Media Center Extender, your PC a stereo, then you can use the speakers
needs to be running Windows XP Media that you already have. If course, if you
Center Edition and you’ll need to have a can afford it, a new set of speakers can’t
wireless network up and running. hurt. The only problem with using stereo
speakers is that you’re still restricted by
Apple has always the speaker cables. Your sound source can
had an edge over be anywhere, but the position of the
PCs in multimedia. speakers is limited to the length of cable
If you have a connecting them to your stereo.
recent Mac and a
high-speed Wireless speakers, on the other hand, can
I n t e r n e t free you of that limitation. You can (within
connection, you reason) position the speakers anywhere
can turn that Mac you want in your house or even outside.
into a media Most are light enough that you can position
server using an them anywhere. With most wireless
AirPort wireless speakers, however, will need to be
base station. Just positioned near an electrical socket -- this
plug the AirPort base station into your will limit where you can position your
stereo or your speakers, and let your Mac speakers. There are battery-powered
and the iTunes software do the rest. wireless speakers, but most of them only
According to Apple, iTunes will hold a charge for about four hours. As the
automatically detect the base station and batteries run down, so will the quality of

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the audio that’s coming out of them. moment, depending on how far the from
You can expect to pay several hundred your media center the speakers are set.
dollars for a decent set of wireless In most cases, you might not notice
speakers. Models from Panasonic, for any problems with the sound. Sometimes,
example, can cost anywhere from $200 to though, you will definitely notice a
$1,700 dollars. Ones from Acoustic Research small lag. If that happens, then you’ll have
or JBL will cost quite a bit more. But, as to experiment with the placement
with anything else, you get what you pay of your speakers.
for. The quality of the sound will be better
with a slightly higher-end set of speakers. As mentioned earlier, most wireless
That said, you should really only buy what devices operate in a similar range of
you can afford and if you can afford it. frequencies. Some wireless speakers work
You can usually find some pretty good in the range of 900 MHz. That’s the
bargains on eBay or at online retailers – frequency range used by many common
Geeks.com, for example. household wireless devices like cordless
telephones or baby monitors. You might
Of course, how you position your speakers encounter some interference from such
in a room is almost as important as choosing devices in your home or even those used
the right speakers. How you position your by a neighbor (depending on how close
speakers will depend on the size of the your nearest neighbor lives to you).
room and its layout. You can find some
good advice on this topic here and here.
Conclusion
A Few Caveats For less than a couple of hundred dollars
(more, if you want to splurge), you can
Remember that a wireless sound system put together a decent wireless sound
has a limited range -- from around system in your home or office. Installing
30 feet to 100 feet, maybe a and configuring the hardware and software
bit more. This isn’t a problem in the doesn’t take long and once that task is out
average home, but if you want to play of the way, you can enjoy your music
music outside then you might experience anywhere in your home or office without
a drop in the quality of the sound. worrying about stringing (and tripping
over) a knot of unsightly cables.
Speaking of putting your speakers outside,
while it may seem like a good idea to have
your favorite bit of music playing during a
BBQ or garden party, remember that many
speakers aren’t meant for use outdoors.
They could get damaged by the
weather or careless guests. If
you’re using battery-powered speakers,
remember that the life of the batteries
is limited -- probably (hopefully!)
shorter than the duration of your party.

On top of that, the sound that is sent to


speakers might not arrive at the same

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Resurrecting an Old PC with Linux


Tech Tip 126 - Scott Nesbitt
Introduction
Not only is Linux a viable replacement for
Windows on suited for this task: Puppy Linux, Damn
desktop and laptop Small Linux, DeLi Linux, and Xubuntu.
computers, it’s
widely touted as Puppy Linux
being able to
breath some life One of the first
back into old lightweight
computers. Why L i n u x
even bother? Aside distributions
from the potential environmental impact of that I tried was
disposing of an old PC, simply because Puppy Linux.
hardware is out of date doesn’t mean it’s While it doesn’t
useless. You can use older computers as require much
file or media servers, stripped-down in the way of
workstations, or even as low-cost computers system resources -- 50 to 90 MB of hard
in cash-strapped schools. The Linux Caffe, drive space and less than 256 MB of memory
an Internet cafe in Toronto, even uses old -- Puppy Linux gives you a simple but solid
ThinkPads running Linux as terminals. graphical environment and a number of
useful applications and utilities.
Not all Linux distributions are suitable for
an older PC, however – many current ones For example, Puppy comes with the
eat up a considerable amount of memory, AbiWord word processor and the Gnumeric
processor power, and hard drive space. spreadsheet, and the Mozilla-based
Luckily, there are a number of small and Seamonkey Web browser. There is also
light, but fully-featured Linux distributions software for editing Web pages, playing
that can be used to resurrect an old PC. audio and video files, working with
graphics, and more. And Puppy Linux is
fast. In fact, it’s easily one of the fastest
The Top Contenders Linux distributions that I’ve worked with.

While there are a number of Linux Damn Small Linux


distributions (“distros”) that are great for
use with older hardware, I’ve found that As this distribution’s name implies, it’s
three particular distros are really well small and fast. Damn Small Linux (DSL for

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short) only Office and AbiWord. The preferred Web


takes up 50 browser is Dillo, although Firefox is
MB of hard available if you have a faster machine or
drive space more memory. All in all, there’s little fat
and needs a in this distribution.
mere 128 MB
of memory. Xubuntu
You can even
run it off of a Ubuntu is widely considered to be one of
USB key. the most user-friendly desktop Linux
DSL packs a lot into a small space, though. distributions around. It’s easy to use and
It has a simple but complete graphical very flexible. But, it also requires a
environment (either the Fluxbox or JWM considerable amount of horsepower in
window managers) with dozens of order to run. Most of that is involved in
applications, including a word processor running Ubuntu’s window managers --
and text editors, Web and Internet GNOME and KDE. However, Xubuntu brings
software, and applications for playing the ease of use, flexibility, and power of
multimedia files. You can even use DSL as Ubuntu to older computers.
a Web server. That’s a lot of flexibility in
such a small package. While the GUI and Like Puppy Linux, Xubuntu comes with a
applications aren’t the prettiest or the number of smaller and lighter applications
most powerful, they do get the job done. like AbiWord and Gnumeric instead of
OpenOffice.org. There are also tools for
DeLi Linux using the Web, various utilities, and more.
Using the built-in package manager, you
Have an even can quickly install a number of other
older computer, applications. All that you need to run it is
say a 486 or an under 200 MB of memory and just over 1.5
early Pentium? GB of hard drive space. One aspect of
Then you might Xubuntu that makes it suitable for older
want to check PCs is its window manager, Xfce. Xfce is a
out DeLi Linux. simple, attractive, but fully featured
Short for Desktop Light Linux, DeLi Linux window manager. On top of that, Xubuntu
is a distribution that is truly light. A full (like its other Ubuntu siblings) lets you
installation takes up less than 250 MB of take advantage of Synaptic, the Ubuntu
hard drive space, and can run on as little package manager. Synaptic makes
as 16 MB of memory. installing software a breeze.
I can’t think of any other lightweight
Linux distro that can do that! A Real World Test

But you’re not stuck at the command line, Recently, I decided to test whether or not
unless you want to be. DeLi Linux runs a a lighter Linux distribution could actually
complete graphical environment. It’s not bring an older computer to life. And I had
the prettiest, but it doesn’t look too bad. just the PC. Last year, my mother gave me
On top of that, it uses a number of smaller, an old Pentium 333 with 265 MB of memory
less resource intensive applications. Like and a four megabyte cheap hard drive. That
what? Instead of the OpenOffice.org computer was running Windows 98, but it
productivity suite, DeLi Linux runs Siag had been pummeled by adware and

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spyware. The computer took several If you’re wondering, the computer sits on
minutes to boot up, and applications my home network. It’s in constant use as
loaded slowly. All in all, this was the both a publishing server -- compiling
perfect computer for my test. documents
typeset using
I chose Xubuntu for the test, for a couple LaTeX and
of reasons. First, I’d standardized my two DocBook -- and
cheap laptops on Ubuntu -- it was familiar, as a file and
and I’m really impressed with Ubuntu’s PDF print
package management tools. Second, the s e r v e r .
specifications of my old PC fit well with Sometimes, my
the requirements for Xubuntu. I downloaded daughter uses
the ISO image for Xubuntu and burned it to that computer to practice her typing and
a CD (see this TechTip for more information mouse skills (she’s autistic and this helps
on burning ISO images). her fine motor skills) or to play the
educational games that I installed on the
Then, I popped the CD into my old PC and system.
booted up the computer. After a minute
or two, the installation process started. In the end, resurrecting that old computer
It’s fully graphical, so I was able to do only cost me a little bandwidth for the
everything point and click. The installation download, a blank CD, and the time
encountered only one glitch. I ran off to needed to burn Xubuntu to the CD
answer the phone, and when I came back and install it. Regardless of the Linux
there was a message on the screen that distribution that you choose, you can
said Xubuntu couldn’t create a file system. probably get the same results.
When I saw this message, I got a bit worried Instead of spending several hundred
thinking that the hard drive was damaged. dollars on a new computer, you can turn
What had happened was that I had told an older PC into a powerful
the installer to create a new FAT 16 file workstation for practically no cost.
system (the one used by Windows 98).
Obviously, Xubuntu didn’t like that. So, I
backed up a couple of screens in the
installation and told the installer to use
the more Linux-friendly ext2 file system.
After that, the installation went
smoothly.

Since I was installing on an older, slower


computer, the process took about 25
minutes. Slow, but not glacially slow.
Relative to a fresh Windows install, 25
minutes is actually pretty speedy. Once
the installation was completed, I had a
working desktop that actually performs
quite well even on the older hardware.
[insert Xubuntu_desktop_postinstall.png]

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Five Must-Have Firefox Extensions


Tech Tip 127 - Scott Nesbitt

Unless you’ve been living PDF Download


atop a tree over the Like them or hate them, PDF files are all
past few years, you’ve over the Web. Product brochures, catalogs,
undoubtedly heard of manuals, resumes, and more. By default, most
the Firefox Web browser. Web browsers (Firefox included) will either
Love it or hate it (and download the PDF to your hard drive or open
there are people in it in a PDF viewer like Adobe Acrobat Reader.
both camps), you have Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a little more
to admit that Firefox is control over how Firefox deals with PDFs?
a very strong and very flexible application. A
lot of its flexibility comes from its extensions. That’s where the PDF Download extension
comes in. When it’s installed, the extension
asks you what you want to do with the PDF file.
Extensions are tiny bits of software that you
install “on top of” Firefox which greatly expand
its features and capabilities. There are literally
hundreds of extensions which enable Firefox
to work more effectively with any number of
online services, manage downloads, analyze You can download the PDF, open it, view it as
and edit Web sites, improve the security of the an HTML file or choose not download and view
browser, and more. it at all. The PDF to HTML conversion retains
some of the formatting of the original file, and
Admittedly, you can configure the PDF Download extension
you may “The great thing about to display any images in the file.
find only
a handful Firefox’s extensions is of Speaking of which, you can edit the settings of
extensions that they can make an this extension (just choose Tools > Add-ons,
extremely already powerful and click PDF
useful. The flexible browser do Download
problem even more so that YOU in the list of
is where to extensions,
start? The can do even more.” and then
folks behind click Prefer-
Firefox ences). You
maintain a list of their favorite extensions. This can select
list contains some very useful extensions, but the default
maybe not ones that you’ll find to your liking. action
This TechTip looks at five extensions that most, for the
if not all, Firefox users will find essential. extension,
the PDF

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viewer with which to open a file, and whether comment or quotation.


to open the PDF in a new window or tab.

IE Tab
If you’re a Windows user of Firefox, there
will be times when having access to Internet
Explorer might come in handy. Even in these
days of Web standards, some sites still only
render properly in Internet Explorer. If you
design web sites – even your personal site –
it’s often useful to see how the site renders
in both Firefox
and Internet
Explorer.
Instead of
opening two But, not every signature is appropriate for
separate all purposes. You might have one that you
browsers and use with messages to friends and family, and
flipping back another for business or professional emails.
and forth Unfortunately, most Web based email tools
between only allow you to have one signature. The
them, you can aptly-named Signature extension gets around
use the IE Tab extension to give you the full that limitation. Signature enables you to define
Internet Explorer experience in Firefox. If multiple signatures. When you want to add
you haven’t guessed it already, the IE in the one to an email message, just right-click and
extension’s name stands for Internet Explorer. choose Insert Signature. Then, select the ap-
The extension is extremely simple to use: just propriate signature from the list that appears.
right click on a Web page or a Firefox tab and This extension isn’t just good for email: if you
choose the Switch Rendering Engine option. post on message boards or leave comments
After a second or two, you get a view of the in blogs, you can quickly add the appropriate
page as you’d see it in Internet Explorer. signature to your posts.

While a nice little extension, especially for GSpace


the Web developer, the drawback is that IE Gmail isn’t just a great Web-based email
Tab works exclusively in Windows. There’s service. Each account gets close to 3 GB
no Linux version, obviously, and I’ve never of storage space, too. This can be a great
seen it successfully used on MacOS. way to temporarily store or to transfer
files from one PC to another. It’s pretty
much like a fair-sized online hard drive.
Signature
Chances are that you use one Web-based
email service or another, like Gmail, HotMail, Getting your files to your Gmail space is the
or Yahoo! Mail. Or, if you have your own Web problem, one that the Gspace extension
domain, you might use a Web-based mail solves. This extension sits on the Status
interface to send and read your messages. Bar at the bottom of your browser window.
Good email etiquette states that you should When you’re ready to move a file, just click
include a signature block in your message. the Gspace icon and log in to your Gmail
Often used to mark the end of a message or account. Then, you just drag and drop the
forum post, the signature block can contain file that you want to transfer from your file
just your name and email address, your full manager to the Gspace pop-up window.
contact information, or a pithy or funny

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Depending on the size of your file, the transfer window. From there, you choose a blog from
can take a few seconds to a minute. From the list on the left side and start typing. You
there, you can access the file from wherever can add formatting to your text, insert images
you can access your Gmail account. or links, or create lists. ScribeFire doesn’t seem
to have a way to automatically insert tables,
but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done; if you
Be warned, though, that some users of this know how to code HTML, then you can add
extension have run into trouble when uploading a table by hand by switching to the Source
too many files at once. The folks at Google have

Editing view. But you don’t have to look at


the HTML code unless you want to. All the
functions of ScribeFire are literally a click away.

been known to lock or disable Gmail accounts Conclusion


if too much data is being uploaded at one time. If you use Firefox, or are now considering giving
But if you use the extension sparingly, you it a try, there’s at least one extension that can
should be fine. improve your browsing experience and make
you more productive. The great thing about
ScribeFire Firefox’s extensions is that they can make
No matter what the pundits may say, blogging an already powerful and flexible browser do
is still popular and won’t be dying out any time even more so that YOU can do even more.
soon. With most blogging services and tools
on the Web, you need to log into a service or
tool in order to post an entry. This can be a bit
tedious. With ScribeFire, you can post to your
blog wherever you are on the Web and without
having to log into your blogging service or tool.

ScribeFire works with most popular blogging


applications -- including Blogger, WordPress,
TypePad, LiveJournal, and Windows Live
Spaces. If your blogging application isn’t on
the list, chances are that you can manually
configure ScribeFire to work with it. This might
take a little bit of fiddling with the extension,
and some knowledge of how your blog software
works.

The extension itself is like a small blogging


word processor that you can use right from
within Firefox. Just click the ScribeFire icon on
the Status Bar at the bottom of your browser

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Computing on the Go with PortableApps


Tech Tip 128 - Scott Nesbitt
spectively -- and whatever additional software
that you want.

All you need to do to use PortableApps


is plug your USB drive into a PC running
Windows. From there, it should start up
automatically. If not, just run the program
StartPortableApps.exe on the USB drive
and a menu will appear on the Windows
system tray. Just click the application that
Taking your computing wherever you go you want to run, and you’re ready to go.
usually means carrying a notebook computer,
a PDA, or a smart phone like the BlackBerry
Pearl. But, you really don’t need anything
that big to compute on the go. All you need is
a USB flash drive (also called a USB key or a
USB thumb drive) and a free set of programs
called PortableApps. Then, you can do your
work, communicate with friends and family,
and more simply by plugging into a computer
running Windows.

Getting to Know PortableApps


PortableApps is a suite of Open Source
software that has been specially rewritten to
run quickly and smoothly off of a USB drive.
Some people even use PortableApps with a The applications run right off of the USB
portable hard drive drive. PortableApps doesn’t touch the hard
or an MP3 player “PortableApps drive of the computer that you’re plugged
like an iPod. You enables you to into. It only uses a USB port, some memory,
download one of the compute on the and the computer’s Internet connection.
three PortableApps go in a package
packages -- which that literally fits What You Get
weigh in at 1 MB, 30 in your pocket.” The PortableApps packages provide the
MB, and 90 MB re- framework -- file system, folders, and menus

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-- to run a variety of popular Open Source numbers of Mac and Linux users. Unfortu-
applications. Like what? How about the nately, PortableApps won’t run on those
OpenOffice.org office suite, the Firefox operating systems, so if you’re a user of
Web browser, the Thunderbird email client, one of these, then you’re out of luck.
a number of graphics and Web tools, VLC
(a player for audio and video files), and On top of all of that, a PortableApps is
even an antivirus tool. You can get a full slow to install. The three times that I
list of the available applications here. The installed it, the base package took over 10
software available for PortableApps will minutes. Applications also install slowly.
cover most of your needs quite nicely. With many, the install process seems to
freeze about half way though. In many
You can install and remove applications as cases, you have enough time to go grab a
you see fit. Just run an executable to install snack while a program is being installed.
the application. To remove it, just delete
the application’s folder on your USB drive.
Once installed, the applications that make How & Why?
up the suite run quite quickly and smoothly. So, why would you want to use Portable-
Depending on the speed of the computer Apps? If, for example, you’re traveling and
that you’re plugged into and how much don’t want to risk taking your computer,
memory it has, you’ll notice very little differ-
ence between the performance of Portable-
Apps and software installed on a hard drive.

Drawbacks
PortableApps is a fine piece of software, but
it has drawbacks for some people. You might
not be a fan of Open Source applications,
or may be wary of them because there’s no
real company behind them. You might prefer
commercial applications, and not want to
worry about having to learn something new.
then PortableApps is a perfect way to
For some, the lack of games -- Portable- take your computing with you. It’s small,
Apps only comes with a simple version of light, and will work with most modern
sudoku -- might be a tick in the negative computers -- say, at an Internet cafe, a
column. In fact, I’ve heard people complain library, a hotel business center, or even a
about the overall lack of software that is PC belonging to a friend or family member.
available for PortableApps. While there
are only 27 pieces of software that come How you use PortableApps is up to your imagi-
with the suite, they’re not the only ones nation. I know of at least two writers who
around. You can find more software by use PortableApps for a variety of writing and
checking the PortableApps forums. blogging tasks whenever they’re away from
home, either out of town or just across town.
I used PortableApps to write this TechTip as
Even though Windows is the dominant well as a number of other articles.
operating system, there are large

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At a recent professional conference, my then a 256 MB USB drive will be fine. If you’re
business partner and I were asked to using the large packages, I’d suggest getting
conduct a number of interviews. While I a 512 MB or 1 GB drive. Remember that you’ll
had sound recording and editing software need space not only for your applications, but
called Audacity on my ThinkPad, he didn’t for your files as well.
have it on his computer. Luckily, I had a
USB flash drive with PortableApps and Conclusion
the portable version of Audacity. He was PortableApps enables you to compute on
able to do his interviews without a hitch, the go in a package that literally fits in your
and without having to contend with the pocket. While PortableApps won’t replace
hotel’s sometimes spotty Internet con- your desktop or notebook computer, it’s
nection in order to download Audacity. a quick, easy to use, and convenient way
to get work done while you’re away from
home. You don’t have to worry about
Choosing the Right USB flash drive
losing or damaging an expensive piece of
I tested PortableApps using three USB flash hardware or leaving your “footprint” on a
drives that I had lying around. Two were computer that’s accessible to the public.
generic and one was of decent quality. -- one
was a giveaway and the other I bought at the
HongQiao market in Beijing last summer. The
third was a SanDisk USB flash drive. The two
generic drives performed reasonably well,
but I noticed that the access and write times
were slow. The USB flash drive that I bought
in Beijing suddenly failed. The SanDisk drive,
though, is still performing very well. The
lesson here: buy the best USB flash drive that
you can afford.

USB flash drives are fairly cheap. You can get


a good one or two Gigabyte USB drive for
under $25 if you look around. You should stick
to well-known brands. As I mentioned earlier,
a SanDisk USB drive is working well for me.
Other people I know who use PortableApps
have had no complaints using their Toshiba,
Kingston, or Imation drives. On the cheaper
end, I know someone who swears by her
Transcend USB flash drive.

As far as the capacity of the drive goes, that


will depend on which PortableApps package
you’re using. If you’re using the smaller one,

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Going Phishing and Other Adventures in Internet Piracy:


A Guide to Avoiding Identity Theft and Financial Ruin
Tech Tip 129 - Kimmy Powell

legitimate websites, or they can spoof these


same legitimate websites, employing official
logos (hijacked directly from official websites)
and other company paraphernalia as integral
parts of their scams. They deploy Trojan
keystroke loggers and viruses to your PC in
order snatch what you type away from your
fingertips. They may call by phone, using the
same threats and tactics to collect tidbits
about your life using “social engineering”. In
fact, hackers may even take advantage of
backdoor security lapses in broadband routers
Surely you’ve encountered the “Dear Valued to change DNS settings that re-route traffic
Customer”, “Verify Your Account” or “If you to their own websites, executing malicious
don’t respond within 48 hours, your account JavaScript code to mimic legitimate websites
will be closed” emails flying across the and hijack your router. Hackers then have
screen, threatening corrective action unless access to any username or password com-
you take the time to respond. Worse yet, binations you enter as you surf the web.
what about those pesky pop-up windows that
sporadically appear when you visit your bank’s
Armed with your “It is important to
website, urging you to verify account details?
private informa- stay vigilant and
Welcome to the world of Internet piracy and tion, phishers can
malware, where phishing for dollars nets more avoid becoming a
wreak havoc on
prize money for fraudsters than Bob Barker victim of identity
your financial well-
could ever give away in a single Showcase theft and the
being – applying
Showdown. Acting as legitimate business financial ruin that
for credit cards
entities, phishers flood your inboxes with can ensue.”
and loans, enjoying
emails demanding personal information (i.e., shopping sprees
your username, password, social security or at Internet merchants, and draining bank
driver’s license numbers, banking or credit accounts at the speed of light faster than
card numbers) in order to mollify some you can say “identity theft.” Just because
threat of dire financial consequence. They something looks and sounds legitimate
are responsible for the pop-up messages at doesn’t mean that it is, and you’re not alone;

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even the most Internet-savvy users face the encourages you to forward them to spam@
dangers of identity theft if they’re not careful. uce.gov, reportphishing@antiphishing.org
and to the company being impersonated.
Before entering usernames and passwords,
verify that websites are secure by looking
for the https:// in the URL and the logo of a
closed yellow lock in the lower right corner
of the browser window (or just to the right
of to the URL field in IE7.) One caveat does
hold, however: Hackers hover like hawks
over new technologies, and they will resort
to forgery of these same digital security
measures in the pursuit of wealth. Online
job seekers make themselves especially
vulnerable to attack by leaving contact in-
formation and personal histories on bulletin
According to a joint report issued by the boards. Always verify the validity of a source
US Department of Homeland Security and before uploading personal information.
the Anti-Phishing Working Group, online
thievery is a billion dollar industry and
growing in sophistication as technology
advances. Between March and April 2007
alone, Antiphishing.org reported a substantial
increase (55,643 in April compared to 20,871
in March) of unique phishing expeditions
targeting email, social networking sites
and voice-over-IP (VOIP) applications.

Protecting Yourself
The best protection against Internet piracy
is not disclosing any information. If you
don’t know the person, don’t say anything, Thwarting unauthorized access to your
and don’t click on any links within an email desktop or notebook computer should be
message without first verifying the request a top priority as well as creating a barrier
with the legitimate entity the messenger between you and the pirates. Use antivirus,
purports to represent. A quick search for the firewall, and anti-spyware software on your
company in Google or Yahoo will give you the system, and update these programs regularly.
relevant information. If the alleged entity is Internet Explorer and Firefox provide excellent
your bank or credit card institution, use the tools to monitor fraudulent sites. The
contact number listed on your statements. phishing filter bundled in Internet Explorer 7
As a general rule, reputable companies will (located under the Tools menu) warns users
not collect personal information over the of potentially threatening phishing sites by
Internet because of lax security. If the comparing the website against a confirmed
emails are indeed spam, the government list of suspect sites. Firefox’s anti-phishing

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feature functions in much the same way as 04. Contact the Social Security Admin-
the IE7 filter (access this feature by going to istration to report fraudulent activity.
Tools  Options  Security). For an extra 05. Report thefts to the local police.
layer of protection, download Earthlink’s free
Scamblocker tool-bar add-on application, 06. File a complaint with the Federal Trade
which also warns users of the security risks Commission (www.ftc.org) and the FTC’s Fraud
and ID Theft Division (www.consumer.gov/
associated with a website. Finally, change idtheft).
the default password of your broadband
router and/or Wireless Access Point (WAP), 07. If your bills do not arrive on time,
remove access to unnecessary services like receive denials of credit for any unknown
FTP and Telnet on servers, and block unused reason or find purchases you did not make,
ports to prevent tampering or scanning by call your financial institution immediately.
hackers. If your wireless network hardware
supports it, enable WPA or WPA2 protec- Final Words
tion, even if you are currently using WEP Internet piracy is very much alive and rearing
which has been inadequate since 2003. its ugly head. It is important to stay vigilant
and avoid becoming a victim of identity
Careful and frequent review of your financial
theft and the financial ruin that can ensue.
statements will alert you to any unauthor-
Closing backdoor security lapses, avoiding
ized charges against your accounts. Contact
unfamiliar emails altogether, and maintain-
your bank or credit card company and
ing your security and antivirus software will
alert them immediately to any suspicious
aid in the fight against malicious hackers.
activity. You are not liable for credit card
charges you do not authorize. Remember
– unless you initiate the contact, reject
all requests for personal information.

Damage Control
If you suspect yourself to be a victim
of identity theft, you can take the
following measures to minimize damage
to your financial reputation:
01. Change your passwords. Select passwords
that do not disclose identifying details and cannot
be associated with you (e.g., your birthday.)

02. Contact your financial institution imme-


diately, and close any accounts that have been
tampered with.

03. If you’ve disclosed any personal identify-


ing information, contact one of the three credit
bureaus to determine whether a fraud alert
should be placed.

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Blogging Software: Which Blogging Software is Right For You?


Tech Tip 130 - Scott Nesbitt

There are those who say was bought by Google four


that blogging has reached “It doesn’t matter if years later. For someone
who wants to quickly get
its tipping point, and that you’re a Web guru or
fewer and fewer people are not – there’s a blogging blogging, Blogger is a good
place to start.
starting and maintaining tool waiting for you.”
weblogs. Others will argue
that the old style, word The interface is very simple
and images blog is dead and that audio and to use and understand. You create blog entries
video podcasts are the way to go. That said,
many people are still interested in blogging,
and many of them have a lot to say.

The problem is choosing the right platform


with which to publish their blogs. There are a
lot of blogging applications and services out
there. This TechTip looks at three of them, and
offers some advice on choosing the blogging
software that’s right for you.

Blogger
Blogger is one of the oldest blogging ap-
plications around. In existence since 1999, it
in an interface that resembles a simple word
processor. With a mouse click or two, you can
add paragraph formatting, tables, images, and
lists. If you’re so inclined, you can also edit
the HTML code directly.

You can choose any of 31 templates for your


blog. These templates aren’t all that visually
spectacular; some are kind of gaudy. Of
course, you can find more templates on the
Web. If you want to change the look of a par-
ticular template, you can edit the HTML code
for it. Of course, you’ll need some knowledge

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of HTML and of Cascading Style Sheets (which out a few years ago by another company (in
enables you to apply formatting to HTML this case Six Apart). And, like Blogger, LiveJour-
documents). Recently, though, the folks at nal is a quick and easy way to start blogging.
Google introduced a feature that allows you to
customize your template without getting your
hands dirty.

You have two options for publishing your blog.


Many Blogger users choose the first option:
to host their weblogs on Blogger’s servers.
You can tell which ones do that because the
URL of the blog contains blogspot.com -- for
example, myblog.blogspot.com.  You can also
post your blog to your own Web server. When
you create a blog entry, Blogger uploads your
blog and its archives, via FTP or SFTP, using the
login information that you provided when you
set up the blog. But don’t think that LiveJournal is just a
knock-off of Blogger. It isn’t. There are a
The Blogger developers are constantly number of differences. LiveJournal has both
tinkering with the service. In addition to the free and paid accounts (costing up to $19.95 a
template customization tool, they’ve been year) -- users with paid accounts can do more,
adding support for more languages, the ability like upload images and post entries using a
to include polls in your blog, and a feature mobile phone or by email. LiveJournal also
called Enclosure Links that allow you to has a strong social networking aspect to it,
include audio and video podcasts in your blog. and that feature attracts a lot of users. Like
You can learn more about the new features MySpace and Facebook, LiveJournal allows you to
being added here. have friends who are allowed to access secret
or protected content on your blog and get
LiveJournal more information about you. You can also join
LiveJournal is like Blogger in many ways. The groups of LiveJournal users in a community.
service was started in 1999, and was bought
The interface for creating blog entries is
bland, but it gets the job done. Much like
Blogger’s interface, LiveJournal gives you
point and click access to all formatting
options.

LiveJournal also comes with a number


of templates. The templates range
from bland to a touch gaudy, but some
are quite usable. However, LiveJournal
doesn’t seem to have all the template
customization options of other services.

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WordPress
WordPress is a very powerful and flexible
blogging application. It can be easy to
install, and you can customize it to your
heart’s content. And once a WordPress blog
is up and running, it’s easy to maintain.
There are three ways to get a WordPress
blog. The first is to download the WordPress
software from WordPress.org. Or, you can sign
up for an account that’s hosted at WordPress.
com. If your Web hosting company supports
it, the other way is to automatically install You can extend the functions of a WordPress
WordPress using a Web application like Fan- blog using plug-ins. Plug-ins are like little
tastico or cPanel, which many hosts provide. programs that you can attach to your blog,
or to the built-in editor. They enable you
One of the unique features of WordPress is its to add any number of features to your
ability to import content from other blogging blog, like convert entries to a PDF document,
applications like Blogger, GrayMatter, LiveJour- add custom tables to a post, block spam
nal, and TypePad. The process is quite simple, comments, post entries using a mobile
and WordPress guides you through it. I’ve phone, or integrate a media player into a
migrated two blogs from Blogger to WordPress post. You can find a very large and com-
and the process was fairly smooth and rela- prehensive collection of plug-ins here.
tively painless.

Other Options
The blogging applications discussed in this
TechTip aren’t the only games in town; there
are many other blogging tools out there. If
you’re of a more technical bent, you might
want to check out Drupal, Movable Type, or
Bloxsom (pronounced blossom). They’re not
all that easy to use and set up -- requiring a
Web server and a database. Some Web hosting
companies, though, enable you to install them
in your Web space using Fantastico or cPanel.
If you have a little money to burn, then a
good hosted option is TypePad. TypePad is
Like the other blogging services described based on Movable Type, and is meant for busi-
in this TechTip, WordPress has a simple word nesses and professionals.
processor-like interface and comes with a
handful of templates (called themes). These You can also blog from your desktop using
themes are quite boring, but you can find a Thingamablog or Bash Blogger. Thingamablog
more -- either at the WordPress Web site or by is a multi-operating system graphical
doing a Google search. tool that makes blogging very easy. All
of your information is stored in text files,

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which Thingamablog uploads to your Web Conclusion


site. Bash Blogger is a command line tool There’s a wide range of blogging software
that runs on Linux or on Windows using and services out there. It doesn’t matter
software called Cygwin. It’s fast, simple, if you’re a Web guru or not -- there’s
and outputs surprisingly attractive blogs. a blogging tool waiting for you.

Which to Choose?
That can be a difficult question to answer.
It all depends on your needs, your technical
skills, and your level of commitment to
blogging. If you just want a simple blog, and
don’t want to worry about doing too much
maintenance on your own, then Blogger
and LiveJournal are probably your best bet.
With them, blogs are easy to maintain and
just about everything (aside from writing
blog entries) is taken care of for you.
On the other hand, the hosted version of
WordPress is a good option if you want a
little more flexibility and a number of useful
features. For the control freak, then, a copy
of WordPress installed on a Web site is the
way to go. It’s fairly easy to install, configure,
and to expand upon. But you’ll need some
knowledge of database technologies (like
MySQL ) and Web servers to deal with any
problems that may arise with your blog.

I’m quite partial to WordPress. I maintain


two blogs using it (and another on Blogger).
Using WordPress, I was quickly able to set
up, customize, and publish those blogs.
Of course, your mileage may vary.

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Software for the Serious Blogger – Part 1


Tech Tip 131 - Scott Nesbitt

If you’re a BlogJet
blogger, then “A good blogging For Windows, there’s BlogJet. In a tight little
chances are client can make interface, you can write and edit your blog
you write and writing, editing, posts with the same ease as using a word
post most and posting blog processor. It works with many of the major
(if not all) blogging applications out there – including
entries a breeze.”
of your blog WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type, and TypePad –
entries using and has a number of interesting, but at the
the interface same time useful, features.
that is provided by your blogging software
or service. But, it doesn’t have to be that
way. A good blogging client can make writing,
editing, and posting blog entries a breeze.

Why use a blogging client? Maybe you don’t


like the interface that your blogging software
provides for writing entries. Maybe you
want to write when you’re not connected
to the Internet, and then publish your
blog posts later. Or, maybe you prefer to
blog from the comfort of your computer’s
desktop without firing up a Web browser.

No matter what your reasons are for using


For example, the ability to insert images,
one, and no matter what operating system
either ones on your hard drive or on your digital
you use, there’s a blogging client for you.
camera. With BlogJet, you can also attach files
to your posts without having to worry about
What’s Out There for Windows and MacOS first uploading them to a server. On top of
As you might expect, Windows and MacOS that, BlogJet can smoothly interact with pho-
have an almost embarrassingly large number to-sharing site Flickr and with YouTube, enabling
of blogging clients. With so many options, you to insert any images or video that you
it’s hard to choose. Here are three clients have on your site into your blog posts.
that make blogging from your desktop easy.

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One feature of BlogJet that is quite useful


is multiple posting: if you maintain several While you have the option of paying
blogs, even using different applications, for Journler, pricing is pretty reason-
BlogJet can post the same entry to all able. You can find details here.
of those blogs quickly and smoothly. On
the down side, though, BlogJet costs Qumana Blog Editor
$39.95 (USD). That could be a negative for Qumana Blog Editor is a simple and free client
someone who is on a budget or who prefers that runs on both Windows and MacOS.
to use free or Open Source software. It’s a lot like the the other blogging clients
discussed in this TechTip in its range of
features and ease of use. Qumana has the
Journler ubiquitous WYSIWYG  interface which makes
On the Mac side of the fence, there’s Journler. authoring blog entries simple. Where you
In a lot of ways, Journler is the Mac analogue write your blog entries is more like a mail
to BlogJet. But in other ways, it outstrips composition window in Outlook or Thunderbird
its Windows counterpart. In addition to its than a word processor, though. Qumana Blog
WYSIWYG interface, Journler enables you to
Editor works with over 16 blogging services,
and can post a single entry to multiple blogs
running on multiple blogging services.
If you want to monetize your blog, you
can join Qumana’s Q-Ads program and insert
targeted advertising into your blog posts right
from the editor. That may not be an important
feature to many bloggers, but there’s nothing
wrong with trying to make a little money from
your efforts!

import documents and images and turn them


into blog posts. Journler can import Rich Text
Format, Microsoft Word, plain text, and HTML
files. You can also import images in various
formats into your posts.

But what really sets Journler apart from most


other blogging clients is its ability to record
audio and video. All you need is a computer
microphone and a cheap digital camera and you
have instant audio and video podcasts. And
since Journler integrates with Apple’s iLife Going Linux
software suite, you can edit and enhance your Linux doesn’t have the range of blogging
audio and video. clients available for Windows and MacOS, but

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it still does pretty well in that area. Two appli- the application – Drivel supports multiple
cations that stand out are BloGTK and Drivel. accounts. From there, you supply a password
(unless you want Drivel to remember it) and
BloGTK once connected to your blog you just start
BloGTK is a small and simple blogging writing— it’s that simple. While Drivel doesn’t
client. There’s nothing incredibly fancy or offer much in the way of formatting options,
groundbreaking about it, but it’s easy to it does have one feature lacking in many
use and it gets the job done. The interface blogging clients: the ability to add a polls to
is quite simple -- just a few buttons for a LiveJournal blog. So, if you want to see what
formatting your blog entries and an area the favorite movie of your visitors is, you can
in which to type, and that’s about it. quickly construct a poll and insert it into your

On top of that,
you can post
to multiple
blogging ap-
plications from
BloGTK. Blogger
seems to be
the main focus,
while Movable
Type and blogs
that support
the MetaWeblog
framework (like LiveJournal. My only wish is that Drivel could
WordPress and Windows Live Spaces) are also add polls to other blogging applications, too.
supported. Your formatting options, though,
are limited to ordinary paragraphs, lists, While the applications discussed in this
tables, aligning text, and some character for- TechTip are solid, they tie you down to a
matting. Then again, unless you’re doing some single operating system. If you’re interested in
serious design in your posts, that’s pretty having a little more freedom while blogging,
much all you need. check out part two of this TechTip. It intro-
duces a pair of blogging tools that can be used
Drivel Journal Editor on any operating system, and three that you
Drivel resembles BloGTK in many ways. The can use from your favorite Web browser.
interface is quite spartan; even more so than
BloGTK – there are no buttons, just menus.
You can use it to post to multiple accounts
and blogging applications, though Drivel offers
only limited formatting options. That said, I
find Drivel to be easier to use.

To start writing a post, you simply choose the


name of the blog from a list when you start

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Software for the Serious Blogger – Part 2


Tech Tip 132 - Scott Nesbitt

Taking It Cross Platform Linux blogging


If, like me, you use multiple operating
“No matter clients discussed
systems (Linux and Windows in my case) what blogging earlier, Flock
and want to keep your blogging experience software or offers only a small
consistent across those platforms, there are operating number of for-
a couple of really good applications for doing system you matting options.
that: Flock and the Sun Weblog Publisher. use, there If you want to
is a blogging get around that
Flock limitation, you
Flock is a Web browser that’s based on the
client out there
for you.” can edit the
popular Firefox browser, but it differs from HTML source of
Firefox in an important way: it’s billed as your blog entries
a “social Web browser.” According to its directly.
developer, Flock enables you to “share photos,
automatically stay up-to-date with new One useful feature of the Flock blogging
content from your favorite sites, and search client, though, is called Web Snippets.
the Web.” It also packs a nice little blogging You simply drag and drop text or graphics
client. that you frequently use – say, some pithy
quotes or a favorite smiley – onto the
client and you can insert them whenever
you need to. It’s like having canned
content right on the tip of your mouse.

Sun Weblog Publisher


For many people, a word processor is a very
familiar environment for writing. If you use
OpenOffice.org or its commercial cousin StarOf-
fice, then you might want to check out the Sun
Weblog Publisher (SWP).

SWP turns the word processor component


Using Flock’s blogging client, you can post to of those office suites into a nice little blog
just about any blogging application on the editor. It enables you to write your entries
Web. Flock’s preferred services seem to be in a familiar interface, which means that you
Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad. As with the can easily add formatting, tables, lists, and

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just about any blogging client out there. You


can paste text from Microsoft Word and not
lose the formatting, insert images and links,
edit HTML code, add tables and character
formatting, and more. And you can access all
of these functions with the click of a mouse.

Like Journler, WriteToMyBlog lets you insert


photos from Flickr and videos from YouTube
into your blog posts. On top of that, if you
have multiple blogs through a single service
(like Blogger) WriteToMyBlog lets you choose
images. There’s no need to fiddle with HTML the blogs to which the entry will be posted.
code, and you have a little more control over
the formatting of your blog entries. The biggest question mark around this ap-
plication is security. You’re essentially opening
On top of that, you can open your old blog your blog account to strangers. According
entries and save them in OpenDocument to its developer, though, WriteToMyBlog
Format or as PDFs. SWP supports Blogger, doesn’t save your blog account information
WordPress, Roller, and a handful of other on its servers. If you choose to save your
blogging services. You also have to pay for account details, they’re stored (according to
SWP -- $9.95 (USD). It’s not a lot of money, WriteToMyBlog) “using strong encryption in
and you might find SWP to be worth the price. your browser’s preferences.” So, it’s pretty
safe. Just use WriteToMyBlog with care.
Blogging on the Web
Of course, the Web itself offers a few options
for the blogger who wants to escape the
confines of their blogging software’s interface.
You can use these tools anywhere, and you
don’t have to install additional software on
your computer. Best of all, many of these
applications (like the ones described below)
are free and they’re definitely easy to use.

WriteToMyBlog
WriteToMyBlog is an online word processor that
you can use to create posts for your blog.
Well, as long as you use Blogger, TypePad, Google Docs & Spreadsheets
WordPress, or Movable Type, that is. While its Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a powerful and
range of supported blogging applications is popular online productivity tool. While it can’t
limited, WriteToMyBlog makes up for that with match the features and power of Microsoft
its range for formatting options. Office or OpenOffice.org, Google Docs &
Spreadsheets can help you tackle a good
WriteToMyBlog’s toolbar gives you access to a number of your productivity chores. The Docs
far greater number of formatting options than component isn’t just a word processor -- it’s

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also a good blogging client. Conclusion


No matter what blogging software or
Not only does Docs give you a variety of for- operating system you use, there is a blogging
matting options as well as the ability to insert client out there for you. Some have more
tables and images, you can instantly post what features than others, but in the end the
you’re writing to a blog. All you need to do blogging clients out there give you a lot of
is click the Publish tab in the Docs interface. flexibility when it comes to maintaining your
From there, click the You can change your online presence. If you’re looking for a list
blog site settings at any time link and enter of more blogging clients, visit this page.
the information required to access your blog
(you only need to do this once, unless you
move your blog). Then, click the Post to blog
button.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets seems to work


best with Blogger. That’s to be expected,
since Google owns both services. But, I’ve
successfully used Docs to publish entries
to a couple of WordPress blogs as well.
The only aspect of using Docs that I don’t
like is that you can only post to one blog
at a time. You have to keep switching
your blog site settings if you want to post
the same entry to multiple blogs, or post
new entries to a different blog service.

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