Personal Computer World

Writen by Marisa Pellegrino

Everyone thinks, ‘it won’t happen to me’. But what if it does? All your files, pictures and documents gone, in an instant. Sure, you can reach for the disks that came with your computer to reinstall the applications but what about the most important component, your data? Data backup is something too many computer owners ignore.

There are a number of things that can bring down your computer, some of which include a power surge, hard drive crash, careless mistakes, viruses, a fire or theft.

If your system did not come with a recovery disc, you should consider making a backup disc as soon as possible. This is important should you ever need to rebuild your system to its “as bought” condition.

How often you back up your data varies from person to person. It depends on the volume of data input, frequency of change, and the nature of your data. A general rule of thumb would be to back up anything that would be difficult and time-consuming to re-create.

How to backup data:

If you have Windows XP, it includes backup software; however, if you’re running on Home Edition, it isn’t installed by default. Once the software is installed, go to the Start menu and choose “accessories”, then “system tools”, then “backup” in order to run the backup wizard. On the final screen, you can press the “advanced” button which will allow you to automatically schedule recurring backups. The wizard also allows you to create a system recovery disc which will enable you to boot and rescue your data should Windows get damaged. At the end of this article, you will find a list of programs and software that can do the data backup for you.

You may think you’d like to back up everything you have in your computer. However, there is no need to back up software and applications since these can be reinstalled with the original discs. Most Windows programs now have a default for storing data within your user profile.

Backup programs:

There are a number of programs that perform data backup for you, some of which are described here. Ghost 9.0 creates full drive images, IBackup copies files to remote databases, and Dantz’s Retrospect Professional 6.5 is a traditional backup tool. There is also free software available for data backup. For instance, Backup4 protects your data and features an easy backup wizard that allows you to schedule backups whenever you like. Disk Tools Image Maker is an easy-to-use disk imaging tool which allows you to create exact images of your entire drive. It works directly from within Windows so there is no need to boot from a floppy. Handy Backup is another software which makes an automatic backup of critical data to any type of storage medium.

Backup Tips:

Here are a few tips to keep in mind regarding data backup:

Don’t procrastinate. Most people decide to back up their data only after they’ve experienced a loss!

Try to find a backup software that can hold twice as much as your hard disk so that you’re able to schedule backups when you’re not there.

Back up only what is necessary. However, if you’re not sure, back it up … better safe than sorry!

About The Author

Marisa Pellegrino is a freelance writer from Montreal and is the head researcher and content manager for RAID RECOVERY (www.raidrecoveryguide.com) and other sites.

Writen by Ron Mertens

OLED (Organic.Light.Emitting.Diode) is a new display technology that promises to deliver thin, power efficient and bright displays. OLEDs (already popular in MP3 players and cell phones) have amazing potential - thin TVs, flexible displays, transparent monitors, white-bulb replacement, and more.

LCD works by having a backlight (white light) source, and then filtering this source to make colors. OLEDs however work by emitting color light. This has several advantages. It allows to make simpler and thus thinner and cheaper displays. It also means that OLEDs require less power. Think that when you have a screen that is completely black (but turned on), LCD will still require the whole white backlight to be emitted. With OLEDs, no energy is consumed in this stage! It is also possible to make flexible OLED displays, and even transparent ones, but this is obviously more challenging than a simple LCD-like display.

While OLEDs are heralded as the display technology of the future, they are already produced and used today. While making large panels is still a great challenge, smaller screens (up to 2″) are already produced in commercial quantities today. There are many MP3 players and cellular phones that use OLED displays. Companies such as Sony and Samsung use OLED displays in their leading models. The OLED market reached 500$ million in sales in 2005, and is expected to grow quickly in the coming years.

There are two main types of OLED screens – Passive Matrix (PMOLED) and Active Matrix (AMOLED). PMOLED displays are cheaper and easier to manufacture, but they have a limitation in resolution, size and refresh rate. Most OLEDs that are being made today are PMOLED. However several companies (including Samsung SDI and LG.Philips) have announced plans to begin producing AMOLED panels in 2007.

The future for large OLED panels is not so certain. The major limitation of OLED technology today is the lifetime, especially for the blue color. Progress is being made all the time, but the technology is not ready yet. Scaling the OLED screens is not an easy thing to do, either. Making a large panel (for TV or computer screen) is far from simple. While prototypes have been showed, it will take several years before we’ll be able to buy an OLED television.

OLEDs actually make it possible to create screens that are flexible and/or transparent. The possibilities of this kind of displays are almost endless. Think about car windshield-embedded transparent displays, or rollable mobile TV. This technology is still at an early stage, but already companies are showing prototype and design sketches.

One of the areas that seem most promising for OLEDs is white lighting. Many companies are hoping that OLEDs will enable very efficient light sources. With today’s high energy costs, and the drive for efficiency, there is a lot of money in white-light research, and OLEDs are seen as one of the best future technologies. OLEDs will also enable unimaginable designs, because of their thin and flexible nature.

Writen by Michael Quarles

Through all the articles I’ve done on building computers, my mantra has been “There are only eleven major parts in a computer. If you can connect just eleven items, then you can build a PC.” If you are new to this hobby, you may be asking yourself what the parts are, and how to decide on which ones to buy. Let’s start at the beginning.

CPU: You’ll build your unit around its CPU. You can pick from Intel or AMD chips, at a wide range of speeds, and prices. This most basic decision helps determine many choices you’ll make later on. Here, you must ask yourself if you want a basic “homework and internet” computer, or something faster, and higher priced.

I prefer to get a CPU-heatsink-fan bundle. It costs about the same as getting the parts separately, but by getting them together you’ll have a factory tested combo you know will work properly.

Motherboard: Once you’ve decided on a CPU, you can pick a motherboard of the same socket type. Many features must be considered. How many PCI expansion slots will you need? Do you want video on the motherboard, or on a separate card? Likewise, do you want firewire on the board, or on a card, or not at all? Most boards come with sound, but will it be the quality you require if you’re a gamer?

Hard Drive: How much storage capacity do you need? A homework PC will find 40GBs to be oodles of space, while a video editor should be looking at 200GBs or more. If you’re doing captures of analog video, get the fastest hard drive you can find to avoid dropped frames.

CD/DVD: Yes, there are still plain CD-ROMs on the market, but since the common medium of exchange for data of all kinds is the CD and DVD, I say get a good rewritable drive. If you want to share movies you’ve made, spend a couple more bucks for a drive that will do DVDs as well as CDs.

Floppy: Many people have eliminated floppy drives. Don’t. They provide a last chance to save a computer crippled by a virus. Also, the disks cost only pennies.

Graphics Card: If you decided against getting video on the motherboard, you’ll need to get a graphics card. The more memory on the card, 128MB, 256MB, or whatever, the better for games and such. However, more memory means more heat, and potential cooling problems. You can get cards that use AGP, PCI, or PCI Express slots.

Modem: If you are still stuck with dialup, you’ll have to get a 56K modem. At least they’re dirt cheap now.

Case and Power Supply: To hold all this wonderful stuff, you’ll need a case. A simple fellow like me only asks for a box with airholes punched in it, but you might want a little something extra. A design statement can be made, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Of greater concern is the power supply. There is an annoying tendency among manufacturers to pair perfectly acceptable cases with undersized power supplies. By that, I mean those under 300 watts. This is the minimum for a basic PC. If you’re a gamer, you’ll want 450 watts or more.

Case Fans: Considering the heat generated inside a computer, I like as many fans as possible. They cost only five bucks or so each.

Writen by Olan Butler

This article series will be broken down into the following sections: Processor and Memory, Hard Drive and Multimedia Drives, Audio, Video, and Graphics, Data Fax and Modem, and Ports.

These articles are about the components of the Compaq Presario SR1617CL-B; however, the knowledge you gain from these articles will equip you to make better buying decisions regarding any home desktop computer purchase. I will also add information and tips about computer components that are not in the Compaq Presario so that you have a solid understanding and that you are equipped to do good comparisons when shopping.

Hard Drive and Multimedia Drives: First of all, the hard drive type used most in home computers is the ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) drive (better known as the IDE drive). This drive type has a 16 bit parallel interface and it supports up to 133MB/s data transfer rate. The version of ATA drive that supports this speed is ATA-7 and is the last drive of this type to be made.

When someone refers to a hard drive as an ATA drive, it is commonly a Parallel ATA hard drive. ATA hard drives are also often called IDE, EIDE, Ultra-ATA, Ultra-DMA, ATAPI, and PATA hard drives (each of these acronyms does imply specific details, but are commonly interchanged). Since the Compaq Presario SR1617CL-B uses a 160GB 7200RPM Ultra DMA hard drive, I will go into the specifics of Ultra DMA.

Ultra DMA can be best understood by breaking down its parts. DMA stands for Direct Memory Access. DMA allows the hard drive to send data directly to memory without visiting the processor (CPU). Since the CPU is busy doing all sorts of things, DMA increases performance by not having to wait on the CPU to get to the task. The Ultra in Ultra DMA means that the ATA transfer rate of 16.6 Mbytes/sec has been increased to 33.3 Mbytes/sec. There is an Ultra DMA hard drive that can transfer 133 Mbytes/sec and it is based on the ATA-7 standard and it can be found written as Ultra DMA-133 in desktop computer descriptions.

Therefore, if someone tells you that the computer you are buying has an Ultra DMA hard drive, make sure you ask if it is a 33,66,100 or 133 hard drive. The higher the DMA number the faster it can transfer data to the rest of the computer system. One last note Ultra ATA is the ATA hard drive standard developed by Intel, Seagate and Quantum for desktop computer systems.

In my next article of this series, we will move from the Ultra DMA drive to the workings of the SATA hard drive. Currently, the SATA drive is a little above the value priced range but as the popularity increases and the prices decrease the SATA will most certainly become the new standard.

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Writen by Josh Biggs

This article will give you an overview of the benefits that the next-gen blu-ray format will offer over conventional formats such as DVD.

The blu-ray format is going to push forward the limits of current media substantially which allow you to enjoy a host of great benefits which include:

• Improved Capacity,
• High-Definition Video,
• Enhanced Interactivity,
• Enhanced Copy Protection, and
• Being Future Proof.

The most obvious benefit is the larger capacity. With 25gb/50gb to use, movie and game studios will be able to offer much more in terms of extra features and longer gameplay. Also many new DVD titles require 2 discs for added features whereas only one will be needed for blu-ray which will lower the prices for you.

High-Definition (HD) video playback is perhaps the most useful aspect of the next-gen formats. As HD becomes more mainstream (Sky launched there HD offering recently and more households are buying HD ready TV’s) the ability for disc formats to support it is imperative. Blu-ray offers space for 2hrs/4hrs respectively of HD video (different encodings will allow more and less) with space for interactive features still available.

The enhanced interactivity features are another step forward compared to DVD. By incorporating the java platform (called BD-J), blu-ray players can have dynamically changing interactive menu’s that can be updated via an internet connection built into the player. These updates can include extra subtitles tracks and promotional features not available at purchase. This could effectively eliminate the ’special editions’ studios tend to use as users could simply download all the extra features they wanted though its not clear if this will be free.

The enhanced copy protection is one aspect you won’t notice as much but is very important. Blu-ray utilizes a variety of copy protection methods such as Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Advanced Access Content System (AACS). The DRM method used on Blu-ray is called BD+ which creates dynamically changing keys to protect the discs. This means that if a key is cracked only a select portion of the discs are compromised. The AACS can effectively disable players which are deemed ‘bad’. i.e. if copied discs are used frequently, the AACS could disable the player for the user and stop it working even if bought by someone else. The final copy protection which may affect you is the Mandatory Managed Copy System (MMCS) which limits users to a set number of copies of discs by making the user register the ‘right’ to copy the disc.

Finally the blu-ray disc has been designed to be future proof. This means that by buying all the new equipment needed, you will not need an upgrade in the near future (5 yrs) as these next-gen formats evolve. Also TDK has announced work on a 200gb blu-ray disc (6 x 33gb layers) which will future proof the format even more.

This is just an overview of the benefits that blu-ray offers. There are many smaller improvements but the benefits listed above are the ones that you are most likely going to affect you.

Josh Biggs is the founder of http://www.blu-ray-review.co.uk which aims to give the visitor a complete resource on blu-ray including news, product reviews and community discussion.

Writen by Sion Fletcher

Intel Corporation was founded in 1968 as Integrated Electronics Corporation and is based in Santa Clara, California, USA. In 1991 Intel achieved the number one semiconductor market share ranking, and have clung firmly to their position ever since. Semiconductor technology progresses at a relentless rate, accelerated by a throw-away society and a technologically inclined generation. In a market where innovation and invention play such vital roles, it is a remarkable achievement for Intel to have kept one step ahead, retaining the crown amongst its competitors.

But who is there to compete against the CPU giant? Last year, Intel boasted impressive profit margins of 22.3%, leaving plenty of slack to cut prices in the face of competition. With the recent integration of Intel technologies by Apple, who chose to adopt Pentium CPU’s for their workstations, it seems Intel’s foundations are set ever more firmly in the uneasy ground of the semiconductor market.

AMD, Advanced Micro Devices, is an American manufacturer of integrated circuits based in Sunnyvale, California. It is the second largest supplier of x86-compatible, or desktop workstation, mobile and small scale server processors, following Intel. AMD is 15th among the worldwide top-twenty semiconductor sales leaders, generating revenues of $3.9 billion in 2005.

AMD once operated as a licensed second source manufacturer Intel processors, but in the face of growing popularity of the PC clone market, in 1986 Intel decided to free itself of ties to it’s perceived competitors to start producing CPU’s on its own terms. This action led to a prolonged and fierce legal dispute where AMD claimed Intel had violated their contract. The Supreme Court of California agreed, and forced Intel to pay over $1 billion in compensation.

In 1991 AMD released the Am386 processor, and followed with the Am486 in 1993. Both were competitively priced, undercutting Intel’s equivalent processors. AMD quickly established a foothold in the semiconductor market, specifically in the desktop and workstation level, selling a million units of the former in less than a year.

More than a decade on and AMD continue to increase its hold of the semiconductor market share, pursuing its competitors with aggressive pricing and partnerships. Today, 24th July 2006, AMD announced the acquisition of ATI, a major supplier of desktop graphics cards, a transaction valued at approximately US$5.4 billion. As our processors play much more centric roles in our lives, it is not difficult to imagine a day where a personal computer sits along side, or even integrated into every television set. With such innovations as Sky+ opening up consumers to the idea of media centric computing in their living rooms, and subsequently their cars and their mobile phones, its clear why AMD sees potential in developing processors with integrated graphical functions and routines.

The mainstream semiconductor market is exciting to experience at either end, but as consumers we have only to gain from increasing the competition and demand, and the de-monopolization of the semiconductor market. New products from either side of such a competition increases innovation, and decreases the prices, which can only be good news!

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Writen by Dave Stewart

Are you looking for a discount pc? Stretching the budget to afford the next step in computers? If you’re buying a pc on a budget then these five tips should help you buy that discount pc.

Do I care what the case looks like?

When looking for a discount pc a great place to save money is on the case, you can pick up a case with power supply for under $35 these days. They may not be the highest quality products on the market, but they will do exactly the same job. The cases are generally made from steel, of lower build quality and don’t look great. Then again does this matter at all? Are you going to be using your case as an axel stand in the garage? Are you going to hang it on the wall in your living room? Then really who cares what the case looks like, it’s a case.

Hard Drive size

Often computer systems boast huge hard drive space, honestly for one it’s not that big and two are you ever going to use it? Identify what you are going to be using the computer for and look at how much space everything takes up on your current computer. You can pick up an 80 GB hard drive for under $45, which will be enough space for most people. However you can double you hard disk space to 160 GB for around another $25. So it really depends how tight your budget is and how much space you think you’re going to use. If in doubt, I would suggest buying the 80 GB hard drive. If you fill it up you can just buy another… simple.

Optical Drives

A large majority of computer systems have two optical drives, whether DVD burners, CD burners or combo drives. Really the second drive is unnecessary, the only time you can take advantage of the second drive is when you are ‘burning on the fly’ straight from one drive to another. For a start I would not recommend this practise anyway and secondly, how often do you burn a CD or DVD? One is enough.

Monitor

LCD monitors a great; they put less stress on your eyes, take up less desk space, produce less heat and are more portable than conventional CRT monitors. However they come at a price. For those on a tight budget an LCD monitor is a big expense in the overall computer system. There is a huge number of CRT monitors second hand, basically without a market. If you want to save money this is definitely somewhere to do it.

47 GB of Memory!

Memory can be crucial for some processes and applications, such as Photoshop and gaming. However in day to day computer use 512mb of memory (RAM) is more than enough. For about $40 you can buy another 512mb of memory if you’re finding that the initial 512mb wasn’t quite enough. Again just go with the basic when you buy it, there will always be the ability to upgrade later. If you’re into gaming, photo editing or another memory intensive process then you’ll probably want some serious memory, not really in the area of discount pc’s.

Hopefully these five tips have helped you in buying a better, discount pc. For a great way to save money when buying a computer, please have a look at http://www.discountdesktopreviews.com/articles/buying-a-refurbished-computer.html.

About The Author
Dave Stewart

Writen by Dicky Satrio Sudiro

Power surge are one of the most feared incident on electronic devices. Same as computer, they are really susceptible to power surges. Even though surges usually last only milliseconds (and are somewhat filtered by the transformer in the power supply), that high voltage can exceed the withstand voltage of the insulating layers inside the integrated circuit chips and burned everything inside your computer.

The power delivered to your electronics devices and computer is stable and constant, in theory of course. In real life, it doesn’t work that way. Often power surge occurs when the normal flow of electricity is interrupted, and then started again, or there was an occurrence that something sends excess electrical energy into the system. Any number of events, from lightning strikes to power failures, can cause power surges. Even your own electrical devices and computer can cause them. Refrigerators and air conditioners, for example, have motors that turn on and off, diverting electricity to and from other appliances and producing low-level power surges. On computer, internal peripheral can cause small surges that can reduced your computer lifespan or even destroy it completely.

On computer a switching power supply is designed to convert AC into various DC voltages. The internal transformers on power supply that do this, the capacitors to bridge over dips in the line power, all these are rated to handle a certain amount of energy at any given time. If you go outside of range of that certain amount, you overload the parts. Maybe marginal parts fail and die. Maybe they let through more energy than they should. In some cases, maybe things catch on fire. Like things you saw on fried chips due to extreme overclock. Cheaper Power Supply Units will be using cheaper components - the upshot of this is the components have weaker tolerances, and don’t handle going outside their tolerances as gracefully.

To prevent it you need a good UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to protect your computer and another electronic appliance. However no UPS can withstand power of nature. Even a good UPS cannot tolerate extreme power of lighting. During storm or rain situation you might want to consider turn off you computer and unplug it. Also unplug phone lines and another line like coaxial cables that are being used for cable TV and broadband connection, since they are susceptible to lighting strike. Power surges caused by lighting are seldom to happen though there are possibilities.

On computer you will face another problem. Internal surges that can’t be prevent from external UPS. This caused simply by turn it on and off your computer. So every time you turn on and off your computer, you actually decreased life span of your computer and adding possibility to destroy the component completely. And there is no way to avoid this matter for now. Since there is no data how it will affect your computer. I suggest that you scheduled your computer to be use as efficient as possible.–FA

Dicky Satrio Sudiro is an author of blog Digital Binary. Based on years of experience with computer and studies he actively review and collecting interesting news on his blog Digital Binary.

Writen by Dave Stewart

When buying a computer it helps to know some basic information about components and processes. Hopefully these explanations will give you a better understanding of how a computer functions, and enable you to ask the salesman some productive questions.

CPU

The CPU or central processing unit, basicly the CPU interprets instructions and processes data generated by computer programs. The CPU is often seen as the ‘brain’ of the computer. The central processing unit controls other components.

Motherboard

The motherboard is often refered to as the mainboard, system board or mobo. The motherboard is the primary circuit board, Most components (CPU, Memory, Graphics cards, Sound cards, Hard drives, Optical devices, Network cards etc..) are attached to the motherboard. Either by cables or by plugging directly into the motherboard slots. Mainboards come in a range of sizes, or factor forms, however the most common is ATX.

RAM

RAM or Random Access Memory describes storage formats and equipment that allow data to be accessed in any order (random), not just sequence. RAM can be thought of as the ‘working space’ of your computer. Typically memory is cleared when the computer is shut down or reset.

Hard Drive

Hard drives allow the storage of data on the computer. They are generally found in two formats IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) or SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment). Hard Drives utilise magnetism to read and write data. A hard disk uses rotating ‘platters’ or disks which are made up of millions of ‘bits’. These ‘bits’ can be aligned in two directions, one direction is assigned ‘0′ the other ‘1′. Data is stored in binary code by exerting a magnetic force on each bit, causing it to align in the desired value.

Graphics Card

The Graphics card or Video card provides, as the name suggests, the video output from your computer. Some cheaper motherboards, refered to as “All-in-One” Motherboards have onboard graphics. However these are very low end graphics solutions, and will only be useful for those not wishing to do anything but basic word proccessing, internet browsing and work. For those that use their computer to play games a seperate video card is a must.

Sound Card

Sound cards provide the audio output for your computer. Nearly all motherboards come with an onboard sound module these days, which for most people will be more than sufficient. However seperate sound cards can be purchased for those seeking higher quality, more feature rich audio.

Optical Drives

Optical drives (DVD/CD readers and writers) are similar to standard CD or DVD players. They utilise the same technology to perform the same tasks as the conventional devices, only made to function in computers.

Hopefully this has given you an insight into the modern desktop computer, and will help you when making a purchase. For more information regarding saving money when purchasing a desktop computer visit http://www.discountdesktopreviews.com/articles/want-a-discount-pc.html.

About The Author
Dave Stewart

Writen by Philip Liu

This article focuses on frequently asked questions by buyers of plasma and LCD televisions.

Q: Does the “plasma” in plasma televisions need to be recharged or replaced over time?

A: No. The plasma gases are sealed in individual cells when they are manufactured. There is no way to recharge or replace the gases. However, plasma TVs, when used normally, will last you many, many years (up to 20 years) so you don’t have to worry about the screen burning out for a long time.

Q: Are plasma and LCD TVs difficult to install?

A: While you may want to hire a professional electrician to help you with wiring if you are installing your plasma or LCD television on a wall, you can also easily place the television on a stand yourself and place it anywhere you like.

Q: Do plasma and LCD TVs give off radiation?

A: All electronic devices, including televisions, must comply with FDA guidelines (in the United States) and CSA guidelines (in Canada) on radiation emission before being permitted to be sold to the public. While there is radiation emission in the form of ultraviolet light, the amount is negligible and you are unlikely to be affected by it watching the television from normal distances.

Q: What are anamorphic widescreen DVD movies?

A: There are two common ways of recording wide format movies on a DVD: letterbox and anamorphic. Letterbox refers to a video played with horizontal black bars on the top and bottom of the picture. Anamorphic recordings are also commonly labeled “Enhanced for 16:9 TVs”. Anamorphic recordings have over 30% more vertical resolution than letterbox format and elimates or significantly reduces the black bars found in letterbox pictures in order to fit to the screen size of 16:9 televisions.

Q: Do LCD’s have a burn-in problem?

A: No. Unlike CRT and plasma TVs, liquid crystal displays do not use phosphor and thus have no problems with a still image becoming permanently stored on the screen. Instead, LCD TVs use a backlight on a colored, transluscent liquid crystal screen.

Q: Can I use a game console such as Sony Playstation 2, Nintendo Game Cube or Microsoft XBOX with my LCD TV?

A: Yes. If you intend to use a game console and/or watch standard TV broadcasts over cable, satellite or antenna, an LCD TV is a superior choice over plasma televisions. The repetitive image from games and unused black-filled borders will damage a plasma TV by burning a permanent image into the phosphor.

Q: Will leaving my LCD TV on cause the image to degrade?

A: No. Unlike plasma TV’s, this LCD TV does not exhibit aging over time. The brightness of the image remains the same because LCD televisions use a florescent backlight.

Q: Can I mount my LCD TV straight into drywall or plaster?

A: No, drywall or plaster alone will not offer enough support. A structural beam or stud must be used as the anchor for the wall mount.

(c) 2005 Philip Liu - All Worldwide Rights Reserved

Philip Liu is a freelance author and publisher currently based in New York City. Philip publishes regularly on his websites dealing with cell phone reviews and news and plasma, LCD TV reviews and news.