I would give some impartial feedback on PC hardware. I have been exposed to Hardware from 8085 z80 times. XT and AT culture. 286-386 and the rest that followed. I have taken apart and repaired, failed many times too. I have even fixed board level problems in gateway modems and trident svga cards. Many times it was the bad boxes, which lead to card jumping and track stretching or cutting on motherboards. Taiwan has spelt some quality and sensibility after japan and usa products. The SMPS and VGA monitors were generally short lived. This was due to the HV stresses. The HDD was another with limited life and needed extra care. I have felt Sony and Asus pretty good and Acer fine. Samsung is ok. US brands expensive but more reliable. MSI, Intel, Logitech, Gateway, Netgear, Linksys, AMD, Viewsonic, d-link, nvidia, ......are other nice brands to reckon with. Seagate, iomega, epson, canon, toshiba .... are extremely conscious of quality and usability. Cannot leave out new brands like BenQ, Kingston ... pretty good. Can we ever forget Dell, Lenovo (ibm) and of course HP-Compaq. Some Ideas of mine-Please read more about ergonomic furniture to avoid health related problems. The dockable tablet PC with touch-screen may in the future remove some of this work related stress. This is because the tablet wont lock you down on the desk. A frequemtly changing position will stress limbs and eyes less. As long as you sit long hours on the classic, legacy ...... desktop pc. Keep Eye level a little below 25% top of LCD Screen. The Keyboard and Mouse on a support surface at elbow level. Hand resting while operating mouse etc.. Study more and develop your own setup and furniture, or modify what you have. Neck pain, spinal column, slipped disc, slipping disc, back pain. eye strain, headache, twitching ear, furiously batting eyelids may be symptoms to indicate ......and shout... I Need Ergonomic Furniture at my Workplace. I also found Mosaic Tiles that are glassy smooth, larger then or equal to 1 square feet, Having a fine textured pattern like many grains...... are Excellent as a Optical Mouse Pad. For people who still use mouse on rollers ... please upgrade to optics. Keyboards with cut/paste clipboard functions in a block and media player in another block; may improve usability for some people. Also all wireless devices come with rechargeable batteries and charging docks, till ferrite rf charging or RF Power works for near-contact charging without electrical connection. Display MonitorKeep Monitor Brightness and Contrast as low as possible. Diffused Moderate Lighting around. No Light should shine on Monitor directly or on your Eyes. Ideal way is put your Light Arrays behind a Translucent Acrylic, Matted Polycarbonate or Diffused/Frosted Glass. If Monitor (old CRT Type) show wrong color, funny color; move woofer, speaker, ac adapter away from monitor. Ask expert to degauss, or wait-n-pray. Just Points to note -- Dissimilar RAM in size or speed No, Non, Nicht, Nein
- Clean SATA cable connectors both ends in IPA - Iso Propyl Alcohol.
- Open Connectors, Long time, Not Accessible. Ink Filler or Syringe, a drop of IPA.
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posted Oct 22, 2011 6:34 PM by Anantha Narayan
Care of Video Monitor, TV. Also any gadget like your Phone, Printer
or Oscilloscope
- Keep Gadget Away from An Open, Airy or Bright Window.
- Bright Light of any kind not to fall on Gadget, only Reflected or
diffused.
- Keep Electrical-Magnetic Objects Like speakers, inverters far from
Gadget.
- If Monitor Loses Color at few places, clear all objects around
Monitor.
- No water, sunlight, moisture or strong air draft to hit back of
Gadget.
- Keep Gadget or Monitor in a Cool-Dry Place with Diffused Light.
- Prevent unpredictable events like a fragile Glass screen hits hard
Object.
- Do not Take your Coffee near Monitor, Do not drop Pins in back of
Monitor.
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posted Oct 22, 2011 6:31 PM by Anantha Narayan
- win98 and xp start-run- msconfig
to tweak the system only for expert. network winipcfg
- ipconfig for xp-nt, to edit registry regedit , improper
use of these is bad for system.
- Make nice drawings for your documents use this Painting Drawing
program PhotoFiltre.
- Organize, store and manage any amount of text, URLs, emails in tree
form Treepad.
- Desktop calender works like a reminder and also it has a things
to do manager Rainlendar.
- Cheez this is organize
search graphics, comments, Search is good.
- KeyNote this is a good
document and information organizer, PIM. tabs and tree.
- NetMeter to
monitor LAN or DUN traffic, uploads and downloads stats and limit.
- Dexpot is a multiple desktop
freeware, each desktop wallpaper and icons.
- Computer with the internet is the most important empowerment tool
for everybody
- Important file formats you need to handle-learn are .html
.txt .pdf .jpg and . png .
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posted Oct 22, 2011 6:30 PM by Anantha Narayan
Freeware Productivity software and open source too
- Open Office
this is a productivity tool for many document design activities. You
think of a problem one of the tools in this software can solve it.
Instant PDF too. Flowcharts are easy.
- Basic protection for your SOHO computer. For virus try free AVG Anti Virus and a
firewall to protect from data theft try free ZoneAlarm.
- gif is a closed graphics format, it is better to use Png, use
irfanview to convert from gif to png.
- Make a image with any image editor and print to "HP Color LaserJet
8550-PS" to a file my_page.ps, set proper page size A4, A3, portrait or
landscape with color. Open post script or *.ps file with Ghostgum Software, ghost view,
with ghost script installed. then file-convert-pdfwrite-defaults will
give pdf file.
- CDROMS have shelf life of 50 years, flash memory devices could be
read and erased around 10,000 times when they were developed (SEEQ), now
things may be better.
- CDROMS made before year 2000 should not be used on 48X drives as it
will crack and break, use 24X drives and make backups. These days things
are ok.
- When you use google to
search do not search for words you want, imagine what words the composer
of the page you want would have used.
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posted Oct 22, 2011 6:28 PM by Anantha Narayan
Here are some Tips and Tricks, Years Old Notes, Worth reading. Now
New tools and Methods have also come - SAN
- Holding the 'del' delete while starting a x86 computer will take you
to the BIOS settings, be careful here.
- CDROMS can be best burned at 16X, and Multisession burning helps
make incremental backup.
- If you are going for a new computer a CDROM drive is a must or a DVD
drive and CD Writer is better.
- Get most of your big software from magazine CDs that is cost
effective for you and the internet.
- Stress the best software it will malfunction, do not multitask too
much, do not reset comp frequently.
- If you hear a rattling sound in your PC, then cables are resting on
the pentium fan, move them a bit.
- You can use 2xExplorer to run DOS
commands on any selected folder, type 'help' and press enter in DOS mode
to get a list of commands and their use, in 2xExplorer you can view
files in text and hex mode, get 2xEditor too for hex.
- To write assembly, c++, php, sql language codes you have a free
tabbed color syntax editor in ConTEXT.
- To learn how the internet is connected and works try playing with
this tool online you will understand - Neotrace.
- To learn sql use this free tool winsql
lite, create a mdb file.with access and set it up in ODBC in control
panel.
- Learn how to make pdf files for free, pdf files from any
format, for color pdf use printer driver HP Color LJ 8550-PS.
- CPick
from Sam Francke will grab any color from a wallpaper or desktop
object for your webpage or VB program
Here are some Acronyms and Meaning, Just glance, it will Perk you up
for learning more.
| SMPS |
switch mode power supply |
DC is chopped at high frequency, small transformers,
high efficiency, low cost. |
| PCB |
printed circuit board |
components are soldered on to this, it contains copper
tracks for connection. |
| 3D |
three dimensional |
x, y and z axis, length, breadth and depth, life like,
holography. |
| PS |
post script |
file format which is ready for printing, size accurate,
convert to pdf. |
| CGI |
common gateway interface |
php, perl, jsp, asp. script that runs on server on a
parsing engine like VM. |
| PHP |
personal home pages |
hypertext preprocessor, cgi language and multi platform
parsing engine. |
| APACHE |
a patchy webserver |
the best web server on earth, can take many hits and
rare to come down. |
| LAMP |
Linux Apache Mysql Php |
enables you to deploy low cost web applications over
intranet and internet. |
| WAMP |
Windows Apache Mysql Php, |
used for testing on local desktop as LAMP is OS
independent, on server too. |
| XAMP |
macosX Apache Mysql Php |
macosX like Win-NT is inspired from UNIX, both server
and desktop. |
| UDF |
universal disk format |
developed by OSTA, data can be written into CDROM like a
HDD or Floppy. |
| DOS |
disk operating system |
IBM personal computers, the OS was in the floppy disk
or hard disk. |
| PDF |
portable document format |
compressed, use acrobat of adobe to read, can be read
by users of all OS. |
| BLOG |
web logs |
web publishing in the form of a FIFO news page with
archiving and announcements. |
| DVD |
digital video disk |
digital versatile disk, 4.7GB (8.5GB) per side, data,
audio, video. R and RW. |
| DHTML |
Dynamic HTML |
javascript, css, layers, iframe, favicon and IE things
like color scroll bars. |
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posted Oct 22, 2011 6:27 PM by Anantha Narayan
- If time/clock on computer is not working, change a small lithium
battery inside.
- Failures in computer - harddisk +9, monitor +7, smps +4, cdrom drive
+2, motherboard +1.
- Use a ball less optical mouse, with scroll wheel, ps2 or USB.
- When you buy a PC, ensure it has a harddisk light, power on light,
reset, sleep, start buttons.
- PC monitor supports 1024*768, pc - 4 USB ports, 1 serial, 1
parallel, 2 ps2, PCI slots.
- Hard disk should be partitioned into drives, improves performance
and is manageable.
- Refresh your browser is some sites or else you will see what is
stored cache.
- Csv is a text file, storing data, comma separated, like
name,job,age,city,country.
- Symbol ' is for feet " is for inches,
- Another data format is pipe separated name|job|age|city|country.
- Backup data and configuration of every software you use to another
folder every day.
- Windows F1 function key is for help, or use help menu or see
readme.txt in folder.
Acronyms in Technology
| SQL |
structured query language |
database language, foundation, used in informix mysql
and ADO. |
| ODBC |
open data base connectivity |
this enables programs to connect and use a database. |
| LAN |
local area network |
computer can transfer files, intranet, communication,
web applications. |
| FSK |
frequency shift keying |
used in modems to modulate the binary data to feed over
phone lines. |
| MODEM |
modulator-fsk, demodulator-pll vco. |
modem transmits and recives modulated binary data over
phone/cable. |
| USB |
universal serial bus |
many peripherals of computers use this, 500mA power,
hot plug. |
| HTML |
hyper text markup language |
text used to make webpages, browser reads this to
compose the webpage. |
| HTTP |
hyper text transfer protocol |
an internet standard to transfer files from server to
client computer. |
| FTP |
file transfer protocol |
used to upload and download files from ftp servers
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/ |
| POP |
post office protocol |
pop3 used to get mail from a server smtp used for
sending, imap too. |
| WWW |
world wide web |
a subset of internet wowen thru hyperlinks and uses the
http:// protocol. |
| XML |
extensible markup language |
database format like csv or sql more powerful, flexible
and internet capable. |
| URL |
uniform resource locator |
like http://www.apple.com/mac/index.html, as it is
easier than numbers. |
| OCR |
optical character recognition |
used in scanners, extracts text from images, needs
uniform back and font. |
| MOV |
metal oxide varistor |
in SMPS, and power supplies, protects against micro
second voltage surges. |
| CASE |
computer aided software engineering |
automation of software design and development using
some applications. |
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posted Oct 22, 2011 6:19 AM by Anantha Narayan
- Do not delete files-folders, when program is using it.
- Do not keep more than 100 files in a folder.
- Do not have folders nested more than three deep.
- Do not have very long file-folder names keep max 31 characters.
- In file-folder names, avoid spaces or + use a underscore _.
- Use in file name use only a to z and 1 to 9.
- Do not bump pc around harddisk will crash.
- Do not pour or splash coffee-tea in monitor or keyboard.
- Do not push cd tray with hand. Or keep objects on it.
- Keep computer away from window save from rain-sunlight.
- No light should be opposite monitor-mouse including sunlight.
- Keep eyes 20 inches away from monitor or eyes go.
- Sit on a firm chair or else back pain spinal problems.
- Keep back erect yet Relaxed, do not slouch.
- Do not work before computer more that 2 hrs at a time.
- Save every document as you work, or power fail, data loss.
- Do not touch cd surface hold by edges,
- Store cd's in a cd album an put in a steel safe.
- Use a servo stabilizer or cvt to protect from overvoltage,
- Overvoltage-lightning can zap smps, hence motherboard will go.
- Uninterrupted Power Supply - UPS good for computer.
- The power given to pc should have a good earthing, good life.
- Do not hit monitor glass (crt) with hard object, implodes.
- Do not put small pins or staple pins into monitor back.
- Soft start pc with 10 secs delay in boot, give 3 mts for warm up.
- Go online as you surf-chat-mail go offline as you leave desk.
- Avoid any software to note passwords or credit card numbers.
- Fan paper bunch many times before putting in inkjet printer.
- Partition Harddisk into drives and keep one for data files.
- Backup data folder this on floppy-tape-cdrom.
- Harddisk is spinning very fast hence take care.
- Network share one folder, read access, to share files.
- Be careful when you open mail attachments or visit sites.
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posted Oct 22, 2011 6:18 AM by Anantha Narayan
If you are buying a new PC computer ensure the below essential specs.
1. Serial Port-RS232 port, 1No., for modem, mouse or peripheral.
2. Parallel-Centronics port, 1No. ,for printer, external drive, peripheral.
3. PS2 ports- 2 Nos., one for keyboard and one for mouse.
4. LAN Card 10-100 Mbps, with windows, linux and unix drivers in floppy.
5. Mouse with web scroll wheel and optical ball-less sensor for PS2.
6. CDROM-RW drive 48X or less with ability to burn normal CDROM and RW.
7. CDROM-48x drive with DVD reading capability if you need.
8. Speakers with woofer and a small microphone.
9. Motherboard should have integrated video and sound.
10. PS2 keyboard with buttons for cut-paste, windows control.
11. Monitor that supports 1024*768, flat, black, anti-glare.
12. Sturdy Cabinet with reset and power buttons in front and good SMPS.
13. USB ports 2 in back and 2 in front of PC or use a USB Hub.
14. Floppy drive for start up, testing and troubleshooting.
15. Modem internal or external 56 kbps with drivers for linux and windows.
16. Motherboard with 256MB ram with 4 PCI slots and drivers for linux and windows.
17. UPS with built in mains voltage regulator, surge suppressor, and high voltage cut off.
Others : printer cable, serial cable, USB hub, printer, scanner, midi port.
Revised January 2004 - this list may be partially outdated
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