Computer Basics

Has your computer\'s video card died or do you just want to upgrade it to a newer, faster card? well, if you are lost when it comes to the inside of a computer, then here is an easy step by step installation guide just for you!1. First things first. Determine whether you are going to use an AGP or PCI card. PCI slots are the most common in the PC now, and most newer computers have one AGP slot on the motherboard, which has a locking hinge on it, while the PCI slot(s) are usually brown and all look alike. Look at the video card you have in your computer now .. Hint: it will have the monitor cord plugged into it. If there is a little lock handle at the end of the slot, it\'s an AGP card, otherwise the slot is for a PCI video card. If you have an AGP slot, buy that kind of card if possible.2. Pull \'er out! Well, before doing that, notice the screw that is holding the card onto the computers frame. Remove this, then gently rock the card out of the slot. Try to not touch anything other than the cards edges. Static electricity from your hands can damage the card\'s circuitry. IF you are removing an AGP card, be sure to pull the lock out before attempting to remove the card. Otherwise, you may pull out the card along with the motherboard and anything else attached!3. Put \'er in! Now you can put in the new card in the reverse manner that you took the old one out with. Gently tho ... you don\'t want to damage your motherboard by pushing too hard. once it is inserted completely, anchor it securely down with the screw you took out previously. **Caution** If the card does not fit into the slot,make sure it is facing in the right direction. If you are sure it is right, check that the card matches the slots cutouts. An AGP card will not fit into a PCI slot, so make sure you have the right slot for the card.4. Fire \'er up! Make sure the video cord is connected to the back of the new video card, then start up your computer. Along with your new card should be a CD with the new drivers for that card and most probably, so extra goodies. Install the drivers and any other program on the cd you want, then re-start your computer.At this point you should have a working new video card with impressive new video display. If not, Check that the video cable is securely attached to the video card. Also, check that the video card is completely seated in the computer motherboard\'s slot. One other problem you may have is that the monitor itself may be too old to support the new video card. In that case, let me know and I\'ll write an article on how to install a new monitor!

Recently, an Apple Computer commercial for the Mac featured a down and out "Windows guy" who sheepishly confessed that he was taking the unlikely step of uninstalling his recent Windows Vista upgrade and returning to the former Windows XP system. While a clever scenario for an advertisement, it seems it was not at all far from the truth. In the course of extensive tests, some independent computer researchers found that XP did much better than Vista in all of the tests they conducted. Interestingly, these surprising results that came from comparing the performance of XP against the "latest and greatest" Windows Vista were consistent regardless of which versions of the operating systems were used or the amount of RAM memory that was installed on the pc. The tests clearly showed that even when the Vista installation was upgraded to the most recent "Service Pack Beta One" package, Vista still consistently proved to be sluggish. In order to run comprehensive tests, the researchers installed both patched and unpatched versions of the two systems, namely Windows XP and Vista. They were run on a Dell laptop with a dual-core processor and they used the Microsoft Office application with each version of these operating systems. The test results showed the time it took for each of the system configurations to complete a number of given tasks in Office. These tasks included creating a complex document and creating a series of presentation slides. The times to complete these tasks under XP and under Vista were then carefully noted and compared against each other.The results were not at all what the researchers were expecting to report. Not only were all of the tested functions faster with the XP operating system installed, but the testers were surprised to find that XP proved to be approximately twice as fast as the operations performed in Vista, in almost all of the tests.This is a significant difference in speed and undoubtedly is a difference that will be noticeable to even casual pc users. For power users, such a drastic reduction in speed is not only frustrating but simply unacceptable. Because of this, many people who had "upgraded" to Vista have subsequently gone back and reinstalled XP on their machines. It is no wonder that the folks at Apple grabbed the opportunity to poke fun at the latest "upgrade" offered to Microsoft Windows users. On top of the bad news that came out of those speed comparisons of XP versus Vista, the other testing delivered some additional blows. The experiments with the two operating systems also clearly showed that Vista demonstrated a tendency to be "resource-hungry" and gobbled up virtually all of the extra RAM memory that might be added to a computer. When testers doubled the memory in the test machine from one gigabyte to two gigabytes, the result was a measly 4% improvement in performance. Even if there were not performance issues with Vista, at the moment there have not been any important new programs that have been produced to run only on Vista. But, with these two factors combined, people are not feeling compelled to spend the money and go through the hassle of leaving Windows XP to switch.

Webmasters and developers don't need a whole lot of money to spend on tools in order to work efficiently and be productive. Here is a list of free tools that help me run my everyday webmaster chores.Notepad++Dreamweaver and such designing tools might have become very advanced in the recent years but I am still far from satisfied with them. I prefer to do the coding with a simple text editor and be in total control of the code and not end up with unnecessarily long code. Recently I discoverd Notepad++ which has the few bells and whistles that are desired by hard core programmers such as code highlighting, Regular Expression Search/Replace support, capability to extend functionality with plugins and nice depository of contributed ones. Worth your attention.FilezillaIf you are like me and don't use WYSIWYG editors to do your HTML/CSS designs then you are probably need or are already using a standalone FTP client to upload/download files to and from your server. Filezilla is a free tool that I have been using for some time and has not failed me. New version 3 has lots of new features, if you are FTPing stuff often maybe you should check it out.XamppXAMPP is an apache server distribution that integrates php, mysql, phpmyadmin and a bunch of other great open source projects into an easy installation. It can be used on production servers to host one's sites but I mostly use it locally to code and test my html/css/php projects. Its easier to develop locally because there is no need to upload files on servers everytime, and only upload when your project is complete. It can be installed on Windows/Linux and lots of other platforms and if you are serious about developing you should get it installed in your computer and start playing with it.Google AnalyticsGoogle analytics is a free website statistics package that anyone can easily integrate into their website in a few minutes. Analytics once installed on your website it gathers data and presents you with reports about which sites your visitors come from, what country they live in, how long they stayed on your site, which pages were more popular and a whole lot of reports that you will likely not need another statistics package for you site. Those statistics are vital to the progress of any site in order to understand a site's audience and find things that might need to be improved. You can create as many analytics accounts as you like (unlimited number of sites) as long as your total pageviews don't exceed the monthly allowance of 5 million.FirefoxMozilla Firefox is not only a great browser to surf with. Firefox was build with extensibility in mind and has given developers a way to extent its functionality with add-ons. Add-ons can enhance the capabilities of Firefox and enhance the browsing experience. There is a whole lot of add-ons in the Mozilla repository that can help you with task such as bookmarking, searching, social interaction, developing, news reading, downloading to name just a few categories. Some of the following favorite tools of mine are actually Mozilla Add-ons. Its definetelly worth your attention.SeoQuakeSeoquake is a Mozilla add-on that was created with the SEO professionals in mind. It will help you gather important statistics about a website or web page with the touch of a button. Such statistics include PageRank, indexed pages, google backlinks, Cached date etc. One can also extend it/configure it to gather other important statistics from online services not already included in it.FirebugFirebug is yet another Mozilla Add-on; a webmaster tool that can help you understand and debug your javascripts. It has so many bells and whistles that I am thinking of devoting a whole article on it. I will just mention the features that I use myself; Inspecting and editing HTML and CSS on the fly, debugging and running javascript on the fly, monitor network activity but there are many others. Here is a video tutorial I recently found that will help you get started with firebug debuggingGimpGimp is an open source image manipulation package that can help you with photo retouching, image composition, format conversion and animations among other things. Its not likely to replace adobe photoshop any time soon but its a free alternative that has found many followers and through its plugin architecture promises to built the only image manipulation tool you will ever need. Some of its features are presented in a way of a presentation but nothing can convince you better than to actually install it and try it on your own.DrupalDrupal is a content management system much like wordpress but a lot more extensible. Wordpress is a good CMS (content management system) for simple sites and even though it has many plugins to extend its capabilities I would not recommend building anything other than a blog with it. Drupal on the other hand was built in such a way to be extensible. A programmer digging in its code will appreciate its flexibility, code quality, and modular design and simplicity for writing a new module. Drupal is was build from the ground up a tool for building community sites, and as a result it has many features to support such sites but it is also capable for supporting standard websites. Its learning curve is quite steep but it pays off in the end. Worth more than a look from you.

HTML is the programming language that has been instrumental in bringing about this revolution called 'Internet'. 'HTML' fascinates a lot of people. There are people who want to learn HTML in order to try their hands at developing a website on their own. For the website designers and developers, HTML is their bread and butter. They use HTML to bring websites to life. This community of programmers and developers is also in constant search of new HTML techniques that will enhance their skills further. The use of HTML can be judged by the fact that thousands of websites are launched everyday on the internet (and all websites use HTML in some way). Another gauge of the popularity of HTML is the fact that there are several books on HTML available in the market and there are several websites that discuss and teach HTML. For example, www.html-code-pulse.be is a website that brings together all the resources and information on HTML. In fact, this website really justifies its name "HTML code pulse". In computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages with hypertext and other information to be displayed in a web browser. HTML is used to structure information - denoting certain text as headings, paragraphs, lists and so on - and can be used to describe, to some degree, the appearance and semantics of a document. HTML's grammar structure is the HTML DTD that was created using SGML syntax.Originally defined by Tim Berners-Lee and further developed by the IETF, HTML is now an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000). Later HTML specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).Early versions of HTML were defined with looser syntactic rules which helped its adoption by those unfamiliar with web publishing. Web browsers commonly made assumptions about intent and proceeded with rendering of the page. Over time, the trend in the official standards has been to create an increasingly strict language syntax; however, browsers still continue to render pages that are far from valid HTML.XHTML, which applies the stricter rules of XML to HTML to make it easier to process and maintain, is the W3C's successor to HTML. As such, many consider XHTML to be the "current version" of HTML, but it is a separate, parallel standard; the W3C continues to recommend the use of either XHTML 1.1, XHTML 1.0, or HTML 4.01 for web publishing.

Most computer users today are spoiled by the richness of the graphical user interfaces or GUI. In Linux, we have dozens of desktop environments that compete against each other for dominance. Right now, GNOME seems to be winning. However, accessing servers remotely using the same desktop environment puts a heavy demand on the network connection. This is one of the reasons why mastering the command-line interface (CLI) is an added ammo in a system administrator's arsenal. Frankly, it is a must-have in my book.Anyway, using the CLI does not necessarily have to be too tedious specially when dealing with file management, e.g. moving files from one subdirectory to another, etc. The task is made simpler by a file manager named Midnight Commander (after the popular DOS utility, Norton Commander).Installation is as simple as invoking "sudo apt-get install mc". It should not take that long to download and install. PolishLinux.org has a short walk-through of what you can do with Midnight Commander.Also, it is useful especially for new Linux users or those who are simply not comfortable using the command-line interface (CLI). Since I am a CLI-user, I find that Midnight Commander, a Norton Commander look-alike, useful especially when deleting selected files or transferring selected files from one subdirectory to another.The choice of File Manager is really a personal issue. The selection of a file manager is a highly personal decision. For most users, Midnight Commander is probably the command-line choice that is quickest to learn. Few users will want to use one of the generic file managers unless they are already familiar with it from another Unix-like operating system. Of the modern file managers, Konqueror the most satisfactory, so much so that otherwise dedicated GNOME users have been known to install KDE mainly so that they can use it.However, for those who have always relied on file managers, the first choice has to be Krusader. Combining the centralized functionality of earlier generations with the look and feel of modern applications, Krusader is by far the most complete of the file managers I've mentioned.Depending on your priorities, you might settle on another choice, but it's worth taking the time to explore your options. For many users, the choice of a file manager remains nearly as important as the choice of an editor is to a developer. A file manager can't force you to organize your files, but the right one can help you keep them that way.

Although there are many things that can affect the performance of your computer, there are a few simply things you can do each month to help keep your computer running at maximum performance. This article will focus on two problems that impact the performance of your computer and will then explain what you can do about it. Problem #1: Computer Hard Disk Files Your computer is always writing information to your hard disk, no matter what you do. Your computer attempts to keep all file information in the same location on your hard drive. As you add and delete files, blank spaces are left between your files. As you add new programs or files, your computer tries to use these blank spaces. Over time, this reading and writing of files can affect the way your computer performs. The files eventually become scattered in multiple locations on your hard disk rather than in the same location. Your computer will still find the information. However, the more scattered the information becomes on your hard drive, the more accesses your computer has to make to find (and gather) the information. This requires your hard disk to work harder and do more reading/writing than is necessary. It will slow down your computer by as much as 200% and causes increased wear and tear on your hard drive. Problem #2: Spyware If you use the Internet, at some point you will download a file or software program onto your computer. Sometimes you will know something is being downloaded to your computer. Other times you will have no idea. (Although this article will not talk about small files called “cookiesâ€‌, you may want to look up information on this subject. Cookies are written onto your computer from the Internet.) Free computer programs (often referred to as Freeware) are a big hit on the Internet. Every day thousands of users download these “free programsâ€‌. Although there are some great freeware programs, these programs often have advertisements or tracking code associated with their use. The term “Spywareâ€‌ refers to programs that gather information about your computer and (Internet) surfing habits without your knowledge. This information is then sold to a third party company as a means of generating revenue. The problem with Spyware is that it also impacts the performance of your computer. It can make your computer very sluggish and unresponsive. Three Steps to Improved Computer Performance Now that we’ve discussed two problems that affect the performance of your computer, let’s discuss three things you can do to get your computer performance back to normal. You should do these three steps in the order presented. Ideally, you should repeat them about once a month or whenever you notice a change in your computer’s performance. Step #1: Delete Spyware The first thing you should do is to delete spyware files or programs from your computer. To do this, you can use a free software program such as Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition from LavaSoft. To get the program, go to www.download.com and search for “Ad-Aware SEâ€‌ (without the quotes). Select “Download Nowâ€‌ and follow the installation instructions. Once the program is installed, you can scan your computer for spyware files. Then, you can select and delete them from your computer. Note #1: Always be sure to use the “Check for updates nowâ€‌ option to keep your program current. Note #2: You need to be aware that when you delete spyware files, some of those “freeâ€‌ programs you downloaded may not continue to work correctly. If you have a program you’ve downloaded and want to continue to use, check very carefully what you select to delete from the “Scanning resultsâ€‌ once the scan has been completed. Step #2: Clean up your Hard Disk Once the spyware is removed, you need to clean up temporary and unwanted files from your hard disk. To do this on your windows PC, select the start option in the lower left hand corner of your computer screen. Then, select the program option. Under the program option, select “Accessoriesâ€‌. Under the “Accessoriesâ€‌ option, select “System Toolsâ€‌. From the System Tools option, select “Disk Cleanupâ€‌. Select the drive you want to clean from the pull-down menu and select OK. Usually, this is Drive C. If you have more than one hard drive, select one at a time. This program will then scan your computer for files that could be erased from your computer. You can safely erase all temporary and Recycle Bin files. You can also check the box of any other files you want the program to erase. Step #3: Defrag your Hard Disk Once all the spyware and temporary files are removed, you need to defrag your hard disk. This process simply rewrites your computer files so they are no longer scattered all over your hard disk, but are written in the same location for quick sequential access. To defrag your hard disk on your windows PC, select the start option in the lower left hand corner of your computer screen. Then, select the program option. Under the program option, select “Accessoriesâ€‌. Under the “Accessoriesâ€‌ option, select “System Toolsâ€‌. From the System Tools option, select “Disk Defragmenterâ€‌. First, select the hard drive from your computer. Usually, this is Drive C. However, many computers have multiple hard drives. Select one at a time. You can select “Analyzeâ€‌ to have the program check out the hard drive and see if it needs to be defragged. The program will prompt you at the completion of its analysis. Use the defragment option as prompted. Note: If you’ve never used this option before, I would recommend that you select the defragment option. Once, you’ve completed these three steps, your computer and hard disk should be able to operate at maximum performance. Don’t forget to repeat these steps at least once a month or whenever you notice a change in your computer’s performance. Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips and hints, points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques, and insights pertaining to computers