Gaming Headsets

Writen by Josh Riverside

Headsets or headphones are actually miniature speaker systems. They are stereo hearing systems that are wearable, providing mobility to the user. Traditional headsets were bulky and large with two speakers for both ears encased in padded ovular ear cups. These ear cups were attached to a headband in the shape of an arch that went over the head. Each of these ear cups had a signal wire joined down together as a single wire, which was connected to the audio player/radio through a headphone jack.

Today, normal headsets can't match the excitement generated by computer games. To feel the real action you need a headset that delivers the right acoustics and sound effects to make the game sound real. Modern gaming headsets have stereo sound effects to suit the high-definition audio that most games have. Plus, they are lightweight and comfortable, with flexible and unobtrusive wiring to wear for longer hours. There are also cordless gaming handsets.

The basic aspects to be considered while buying a headset are: is it comfortable? Does it stay securely in place for long hours? Is the microphone flexible and unobtrusive? Is the cord long enough for easy movement? Are the volume and other controls easily accessible? Is the sound quality on both the lines clear?

The leading manufacturers of gaming headsets are Plantronics, GN Netcom, Headsets.com, Sennheiser, Jabra, and Sony. Gaming headsets are also very inexpensive, depending on the kind of model. A good pair of headphones costs around $10 though a model with all the works may cost up to $150-$200 or more. The Internet is a good source for locating the ideal gaming headset. There are several web sites that provide comprehensive information about the wide range of gaming headsets available in the market today.

Headsets provides detailed information about headsets, wireless headsets, phone headsets, aviation headsets and more. Headsets is the sister site of Free Phone Conferencing.

Wireless Networking Part 2 Setup And Security

Writen by Jason Kohrs

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.

Jason Kohrs
Computer Geeks tech tips and computer help.

All About Your Computers Bios

Writen by Gary Hendricks

Are you confused by the computer BIOS? The BIOS is a fundamental component of any PC and if you really want to get into the guys of a computer, it's good through understanding what BIOS Is all about.

This article gives you a summary of what BIOS is and how you can play with the basic and advanced options in a typical BIOS configuration.

Definition

First up, let's just define what the BIOS is. The BIOS stands for the Basic Input-Output System of a PC. It is stored on a BIOS chip on the motherboard and it is the interface between your operating system and the computer's hardware. All the software actions you make, e.g. click a in Windows XP, are translated into machine instructions which pass through the BIOS and then subsequently to your monitor, graphics card and what not.

The BIOS is a crucial component of a PC If it fails, your PC isn't going to boot up. I always skip a heartbeat if I see any funny behavior with a PC's BIOS. Because it spells (almost certainly that is) doom for the computer. Make sure you're very, very careful if you intend to fiddle around with the BIOS in anyway. Children, don't do this at home without the supervision of a technie.

Basic Options

Let's run through the basic options of a BIOS setup. Right after you power up the computer, there is usually a key you can hit (usually F8) which allows you to access the PC's BIOS.

In the basic menu in the BIOS, you should see settings for configuring hard drives and boot up options. You can specify which are your primary and secondary hard risk and which will boot up first. You can also specify if the floppy disk or CD Rom boot support before or after the hard disk.

Advanced Options

If you go in to the Advanced Options menu, you can delve into the advanced options for the BIOS configuration. If you're into overclocking, you can specify a different CPU frequency than the default. But be very careful when you do this – you may end up burning your CPU chip if you don't know what you're doing.

In the advanced options menu, you can also change memory frequency and timing, as well as the AGP speed for your graphics card. Again, exercise extreme care when playing around with these settings. You can damage your PC if you don't know what you're doing.

There are many other options in a computer's BIOS you can play with. Some of them include password and security options to limit access to the system, or stuff like power saving options. You can also control things like whether the Numlock key should be on or off when you first start the system.

Conclusion

I hope the article has helped you understand a little of what goes into a com0utper's BIOS and how you can make use of it. Remember, the BIOS is such a fundamental component of any PC that you MUST exercise extreme caution when meddling with it. If you're not sure – don't change anything. It's best to understand the BIOS properly from an expert or read a good book before changing it in any way.

Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site on building computers. Visit his website at http://www.build-your-own-computers.com for tips and tricks on assembling a PC, as well as buying good computer components.

Color Inkjets

Writen by Richard Romando

Color inkjets are perfect for small companies or private parties. Color printers have enabled computer-users to engender and turn out color documents in artistic and vibrant ways. Coupled with either desktop publishing software or a graphics program, color printers can make eye-catching outputs ranging from massive billboards and photographic tarpaulins to the smallest customized stationeries like sticker-photos and business cards.

Inkjet, laser, solid ink, thermal wax, and dye sublimation are the five types of color printers available today. They emit ink droplets on the surface of the paper by using jets or nozzles. These nozzles are found in the inkjet cartridge, which comes in various set-ups. Some color inkjet printers have ink separate cartridges for each ink colors. Color inkjets are the least expensive among the other color printers but are difficult –and costly – to maintain. Branded inkjet cartridges are expensive compared to laser cartridges but a growing number of thrifty consumers resort to compatible off-brand inkjet cartridges.

High-end color inkjets that are available today for home and small-business applications can print images and graphics that look almost as good as standard prints and make visually interesting presentations and documents. However, they are susceptible to smudging and blotting.

Aside from the ordinary printers for home and office use, there are printers that are at work with professionals like graphic design artists, architects, and engineers. These color inkjet printers can produce an output up to six meters wide. They are used to print billboards, building graphics and banners, and huge photos for art exhibits and gallery displays.

Inkjets provides detailed information on Inkjets, Inkjet Cartridges, Inkjet Printers, Color Inkjets and more. Inkjets is affiliated with Inkjet Printer Cartridges.

Dc Power Supplies

Writen by Steve Valentino

The electricity that flows in two ways, AC or alternating current and DC or direct current, is actually a movement of electrons along the conductor. The difference of the two lies in the direction, wherein the former keeps the moving electrons in a switching manner, while the latter is in a steady single track. The AC system of the power supply is utilized for transmitting long distance power to various power companies. Therefore, high voltages are needed to fill the transformers of those companies. DC power supplies, on the other hand, provide current on a small-scale basis.

The direct way of supplying a current is typically found in the form of a battery or batteries, in which positive and negative terminals are moving in a single direction. DC power supplies are used in various mechanisms such as car audio equipment, DC-powered radios, mobile phones and a whole lot more. In the competitive market, there are all different kinds of DC power supplies in different wattages and voltages. The specifications of each DC power supply that you will find will vary depending on what the battery is used for.

DC power supply is already an indispensable and ubiquitous component in our everyday life. It provides power to almost all of the portable electronic gadgets that we use such as our laptops, cellular phones, handheld computers and MP3 players. Make sure that the DC power supply that you purchase meets the specification of the equipment you need it for. If you use the wrong power supply, you just may damage your equipment.

Power Supplies provides detailed information on Power Supplies, What Power Supply Do I Need?, Uninterruptible Power Supplies, DC Power Supplies and more. Power Supplies is affiliated with Welding Inverters.

Printers A Practical Buyers Guide

Writen by Iggy Quazi

Buying a printer can be a complicated business, there are more shapes, sizes and types of printers available to the home and small business user than ever before. Printers have also become specialised for their intended purpose.

It is no longer a case of "a printer is a printer". Printers are now designed to be good in a particular area rather than a "Jack-of-all trades", which will do everything.

An often overlooked issue, is the very serious consideration of cost of ownership, which is all about of how much it will cost to keep your printer running (see below). So making that decision on which printer to go for can be a seriously arduous task, especially if you are keen to buy a printer that is not only affordable to buy but also cheap to run.

So here is the information that you need to know and consider, but no one tells you! We have not expanded on which printer is the best at any given time because models constantly change and you can find that information in any current glossy PC magazine off the shelf. Instead, here you will find the good, bad and ugly bits from the different types of printers available so you can make an informed decision yourself.

Inkjet Technology

Inkjet printers form images by spraying tiny droplets of liquid ink onto paper. The size and precision of the dots of ink and the type and quality of the ink itself govern how good the print quality is. A quality inkjet printer can produce very near photo-quality images using specialist photo coated paper. In general there are two types of inkjet printers, those with the printhead built into the printer like Epson, Brother etc and those where the printhead is actually on the ink cartridge like HP and Lexmark. There are many arguments for and against both technologies, but in our experience we have found both to be very good, the major difference seems to be that the cost of running a printer using the "printhead" type ink cartridge is usually higher.

Inkjet ink is specially formulated for specific printer models and their purpose, much technology is involved in the development of these inks to improve print quality, longevity, drying speeds and printing speeds etc. Most inkjet ink is produced using dye based ink which can flow easily through the tiny nozzles of the printhead, this type of ink is good for photos and colour shades but not so good for longevity or solid vibrant colour, think of it like a water colour painting. In recent years pigment ink technology has advanced considerably to enable use in inkjet printing. Previously ink pigments were too large and would block up the nozzles. This type of ink is good for solid colours and longevity, think of it like an oil painting.

Manufacturers like Epson, HP and Jet Tec are now increasingly using a fusion of dye based and pigmented inks to create superb quality photo printing with vibrant colours and longevity too.

Inkjet printers use anything between two and eight ink cartridges to do their job. Generally speaking the entry-level machines use two cartridges, good all round machines use four and specialist photo printers use six or more. The two cartridge system works fine though can be a bit wasteful on the colour ink, so go for a four-cartridge system where possible especially if you do colour printing. The six or more cartridge systems produce outstanding photos, but can be costly and a pain to keep changing cartridges (printer does not work if any one cartridge is empty).

Inkjet printers are the best solution for most people and are usually the most cost effective way to print - unless you are printing large volumes.

Portable Inkjet Printers These printers are small, lightweight and ideal for people on the move. Although the printing of high quality photographs is usually beyond this type of printer, basic colour printing is of good quality and the quality of text print is mostly outstanding considering the size of these tiny portable A4 printers. These printers are not suitable for high volume printing.

Inkjet Printers

The Inkjet Printer is the most commonly used type of printer among home and small business users. With excellent all round printing capabilities, from black & white text print and good colour prints through to very hi-resolution, high quality photographs using Inkjet Photo Printers. Inkjet printers are available from cheap entry level to high-end business use machines and can print from photo size prints to massive A2 and bigger sizes, there are models for occasional use and others for high volume print jobs too. One of the many great things about Inkjet printers is that you can use a wide variety of media to print on, including standard paper, photo paper, card, t-shirt transfers, canvas, projector film etc, achieving different looks and textures for your prints and print for different purposes. Most Inkjet printers are USB connections and not suitable for networks, although models are also available for networks and with parallel connections.

Multi-Function Inkjet Printers

Multi-Function Inkjet Printers have been built to meet the needs of home offices and small businesses. These excellent value machines provide multiple solutions in one compact and easy to use machine i.e. printing, scanning, copying and some also have built in fax machines too. Not only are these machines great for saving space on your desk, but they are also very good for printing too using the same technology as standard inkjet printers. The only thing you should be aware of is that you can only use one function at a time and if anything goes wrong with an "All-in-one" machine, you may lose the all the functions at once!

Laser Printers

Laser printers work in a similar way to photocopiers, except they use a laser instead of a bright light to scan with. They work by creating an electrostatic image of the page onto a charged photoreceptor, which in turn attracts toner in the shape of an electrostatic charge. Toner is the material used to make the image (as ink is in an inkjet printer) and is a very fine powder, so laser printers use toner cartridges instead of ink cartridges.

Laser Printers have traditionally been the best printing solution for heavy office users as they produce a very high quality black text finish and offer relatively low running costs. However, laser printers have advanced a great deal recently and their prices have steadily dropped, as a result there are now compact laser printers, multi-function and colour laser printers all at very affordable prices. Laser printers make sense if you need to do a lot of high quality black or colour prints, not photos. The great thing about a colour laser printer is that they can print a very good quality colour image on standard copier paper, so you do not need to use expensive photo paper for large jobs. Do check the prices of the consumables before you buy the printer as these can be very expensive for colour laser printers.

Laser printers are the best solution for people who are printing in large volumes, that is, in 100's of pages at a time or 1000's of pages per month. Colour lasers also take quite a while to warm up, so are not ideal for printing single pages.

Solid Ink Printers

Solid ink printers use solid wax ink sticks in a "phase-change" process, they work by liquefying wax ink sticks into reservoirs and then squirting the ink onto a transfer drum from where it is cold-fused onto the paper in a single pass. Solid ink printers are marketed almost exclusively by Tektronix / Xerox and are aimed at larger businesses and high volume colour printing.

Solid ink printers used to be cheaper to purchase than similarly specified colour lasers and fairly economical to run owing to a low component usage, today it is not necessarily any cheaper than a colour laser printer. Output quality is good but generally not as good as the best colour lasers for text and graphics or the best inkjets for photographs. Print speeds are not as fast as most colour lasers.

Dye-Sublimation Printers

Dye-Sublimation printers use heat and solid colour dyes to produce lab-quality photographic images. Dye-Sub printers contain a roll of transparent film made up of page-sized panels of colour, with cyan, magenta, yellow, and black dye embedded in the film. Print head heating elements vaporize the inks, which adhere to a specially coated paper, as the ink cools it re-solidifies on the paper. Colour intensity is controlled by precise variations in temperature.

Dye-sublimation printers lay down color in continuous tones one color at a time instead of dots of ink like an inkjet, because the colour is absorbed into the paper rather than sitting on the surface, the output is more photo-realistic, more durable and less vulnerable to fading than other ink technologies.

The downside of Dye-Sub printers is that they are generally more expensive to buy and run, usually limited to photo sized prints only and can only print onto one type of specialised paper as well as being quite slow to print.

Dye-Sublimation printers are best for those who want to link up their digital camera to a purpose built printer and print out the finest quality photos at home without fuss.

Dot Matrix Printers

Dot matrix printers are relatively old fashioned technology today with poor quality print, slow and very noisy output. This type of printer is no longer used unless you wish to create invoices using the continuous paper with holes on both sides. The good thing is that they are very cheap to run!

Cost of Ownership

Many printers today are very cheap to buy, but people are sometimes shocked to discover the cost of replacing the consumables (ink or laser cartridges, imaging drums, fuser, oils, specialist papers etc). The cost of replacing the ink can sometimes cost more than the printer itself! This is one of the most commonly overlooked factors when printers are reviewed and yet one of the most important things to consider before handing over your hard earned cash. Tests run in 2003 by Which? magazine famously compared the cost of HP's ink with vintage 1985 Dom Perignon.

A Sheffield City Council report aimed at helping schools decide on the best-value printers to buy, calculated total cost of ownership over the lifetime of a printer (not sure how long that is!). Adding up all the running costs, ink or toner, paper, maintenance and even electricity, SCC worked out that a colour inkjet costs approx 38p per page to run compared to a colour laser which costs approx 7p per page. Sheffield City Council advised its schools that if they printed more than three colour pages a day (assuming a 40-week academic year) they should buy a laser.

These figures cannot be taken hard and fast due to the many variables involved, but it is generally accepted that the cost per print of a laser printer is cheaper than that of an inkjet, which is in turn cheaper than that of a sub-dye printer. However, you would have to do a fair amount of colour printing to take advantage of the economy offered by a laser printer.

Summary

When buying a printer, firstly carefully consider its use, is it mostly general printing or for photographs, is it for occasional use or high volumes, will it be a stand alone device or connected to a network? Then using the guideline information above you will be able to decide on which type of printer is most suitable for you at the time.

Article by Iggy Quazi director of Ecommerce business Mouse2House based in Essex, England stocking a wide range of digital imaging devices. ...For more information visit http://www.mouse2house.co.uk for the latest digital media products. For a wide range of Canon ink cartridges see http://www.mouse2house.co.uk/index.php?CatURN=51

Inexpensive Pcs As Cnc Machine Controllers

Writen by Dan Staber

Part I, Utilizing an off the shelf PC as a CNC Controller

There are two main groups that can take advantage of today's low cost PCs as an effective and inexpensive CNC controller.

• Retrofits to existing CNC machines with outdated or proprietary controls in need of service.

• Shop built and home built CNC machines.

Inexpensive PCs can cost as little as $150.00 and yet provide a dependable and effective CNC machine controller. Some sources to consider for obtaining such a system are outpost.com and dell.com. Oupost.com is an outlet for Fry's electronics. They have one PC on sale ranging from $150.00 to $199.00. Several have successfully used this PC in conjunction with MACH2 CNC controller software.

Tradeoffs: Price vs. Quality. With the lowest cost PCs there a tradeoff in performance, quality, and reliability. The manufacturers of these machines use low cost hardware in their manufacture and they make compromises in the design of the systems to keep their costs down. Inexpensive hardware translates directly to a higher failure rate and more difficult to obtain manufacturer support. This can be a deciding factor by itself if you rely on this machine for production.

Design compromises which are common in low cost PC have an impact on performance. The primary concerns are: insufficient memory, the use of shared memory, and on-board graphics devices. The primary hardware requirements for a PC based CNC controller are sufficient memory, and sufficient processor speed. You can see that the compromises present in these systems are in direct opposition to the requirements for CNC controller.

At the bottom end of the Inexpensive PC market there are off the self solutions that will function well as a PC based CNC controller. As with all things, you tend to get what you pay for, so the buyer is advised to be aware of the requirements and limitations that are in play.

Part II in this series of articles will examine an alternative to buying an off the shelf solution and explore building a PC to meet your specifications.

Dan Staber is president of Apex Mechanical, Inc. a single source provider of mechanical engineering and metal fabrication services. Dan is also a licensed mechanical engineer is the states of South Dakota and Washington. For more information please vist - http://www.apexmechanical.com

services@apexmechanical.com

The Importance Of Ergonomic Products

Writen by Vinodh Pushparaj

Interestingly, ergonomics though sounds to be a modern and trendy phenomenon, its principles are based on primitive life style. It is a known fact that earlier generations did not have to face a whole lot of medical complications that our generation is facing. Some of the factors that contribute to these medical complications are associated with our poor work conditions and our unhealthy life style which our forefathers and mothers instinctively avoided. We are running short of that life saving instinct. They knew how and how not an action is to be performed, when and when not something can be done easily. They were attuned to nature and to their own bodily nature. They were sensitive to the bodily cues and were able to modify their actions and hence lead a healthy life.

However there is a wide new awakening in this area in the form of Ergonomics. The word Ergonomics finds its root in Greek. "Ergon" in Greek means work and "nomoi" means law or rule. So ergonomics means law of work. Ergonomics is a branch of science that deals with the design of objects, systems and environment. Though can be mislead by the etymological meaning of the word, it is not limited to work but generally physical actions including sports and leisure activities of human beings. Ergonomics is not a stand-alone branch of science like many other branches science. Ergonomics relies on the principles of many other branches of science including, psychology of human beings, anatomy and physiology and also on results of cultural studies. Ergonomics seeks to produce a job environment that will help people to operate in their optimum levels and increase efficiency by increasing comfort in work and reducing fatigue. For example, a 6 feet tall individual cannot be comfortable in a low car where he or she has to place himself or herself in unnatural bodily postures that will result in fatigue that would even undermine the safety measures. This means that a car has to be designed to accommodate a six feet tall individual to drive comfortably without straining oneself.

Studies have proved that ergonomically designed products reduce stress at work places. This applies especially to people who work in the IT industry. Many psychological disorders have been associated with people who work in poor IT environments. This has lead to an in depth study on how to reduce the anomalies, which in turn has lead to the booming market of ergonomically designed IT products. Some of the computer accessories that are designed using ergonomic principles include, vertical mouse, ergonomic keyboard, adjustable computer furniture and the list extends.

While it is good to choose ergonomically designed products for your use, you have to be careful in choosing a genuine product. Because, there are lot of products that markup their price at an exorbitant rates in the name of ergonomic products. It may not be necessarily so – ergonomic product need not necessarily look too different from the one's that are already in use. We often wrongly associate ergonomic products with fancy looking products on which the product manufacturers thrive.

For some the best ergonomic products in the market today you can visit the dedicated e-store at http://www.ergo-items.com. Ergonomic computer products for the office including ergonomic keyboards, ergo arm-rest, ergo mouse-cursor support, ergo stickers. The website also has many Computer safety ergonomic products for the workstation.

Understanding Flash Drives What Is It

Writen by Mike Singh

The flash drive was born in 1998 at IBM, as a floppy drive replacement for the ThinkPad line of products. Almost all people know what a floppy drive and a floppy disk is - but a larger percentage isn't quite sure about the flash drive. Technically, it is a "NAND-type flash memory data storage devices integrated with a USB interface". It is fairly new to technology, yet many computer literate people enjoy its small size, lightweight, removable and the fact that it's rewritable. Another huge advantage is its memory capacity, ranging from 8 megabytes to 64 gigabytes - limited only by the densities of its current flash memory. Unfortunately, as its capacity moves up, so does the price. Almost all types of drive use the USB mass storage standard, supported by the modern operating systems, and most flash drives are active only when powdered by a USB computer connection. They require no other external power source or battery source.

There are several advantages of the USB flash drives as compared to the other portable storage devices, such as the floppy disks, Zip disks, and the CD-R/CD-RW discs - with the floppy disc as the most popular. The USB flash drive is much faster, definitely holds more data, and is more reliable due to their lack of moving parts. They ignore the scratches and dust that plagues any earlier forms of portable storage, such as compact discs or floppy disks. Their design means they often survive impacts, dropped, crushed, and washed with a load of clothing. Because of all of this, they are perfectly ideal for transporting personal data or work files from one place to another. The user also wants to use them for carrying around personal data that they can access in different places. Being available in 8MB, 16MB, 32MB, and 64MB, they were marketed as the true floppy killer.

If you are the athletic type, a runner or jogger, who likes to listen to the tunes during your workout you want to look into a flash drive player. Even if you have a hard drive player it is smart to own a flash drive player because you'll want to take it running or jogging with you because the hard drive is bulkier (hence "hard" drive) and weighs more. It will skip and even break, where a flash drive is more comparable to the old school walkman players in its durability.

Next, most flash drive players come with neat little additions like a stopwatch or voice recorder. At first this may sound worthless or pointless to you, but sometimes a stopwatch can be handy while running and who hasn't had a great idea while exercising only to have it escape during the cooling off process? A flash drive player will give you more extras while coming for a reduced price tag.

Another nice extra when buying a flash drive player is you almost always have an FM tuner included, meaning if you are tired of the music you downloaded you can listen to your favorite local station. Flash drive players give you this, along with what was mentioned above, for a reduced price tag. Most flash drive players go for as little as $59 and as much as $149 depending on the brand and the size.

Six percent of the internet usage in year 2000 U.S. will jump to 62% in 2010, due to music downloading and the use of data compression, quickly transferring music over the internet. Also, a corresponding rise of portable digital audio players, and digital cameras became very popular due to their smaller sizes and much reduced cost.

Check out http://www.mp3playertop.com/ for more articles on mp3 playes and mp3 player portable.

All About Dyesublimation Printers

Writen by John Sollars

Dedicated photo printers differ from all-purpose printers as they are designed to print photos only, as opposed to text or graphics documents in addition to photos. They are generally compact in size and lightweight, and some models even feature batteries that allow you to print without the need for an outlet. Most photo printers, including dye-sublimation (or dye-sub) printers, are built around a thermal dye engine, though there are a few that feature inkjet technology.

For many years, dye-sublimation printers were specialist devices used in demanding graphic arts and photographic applications. The advent of digital photography led to the entry of this technology into the mainstream, forming the basis of many of the standalone, portable photo printers that surfaced in the second half of the 1990s.

The term "dye" in the name refers to the solid dyes that were used in the process instead of inks or toner. "Sublimation" is the scientific term for a process where solids (in this case, dyes) are converted into their gaseous form without going through an intervening liquid phase.

The printing process employed by true dye-sublimation printers differs from that of inkjets. Instead of spraying tiny jets of ink onto a page as inkjet printers do, dye-sublimation printers apply a dye from a plastic film. A three-pass system (featuring solid dyes in tape form on either a ribbon or a roll) layers cyan, magenta, yellow, and black dyes on top of one another. The print head on a dye-sub printer uses tiny heaters to vapourise the dye, which permeates the glossy surface of the paper. A clear coat is added to protect the print against ultraviolet light. Although this method is capable of producing excellent results, it is far from economical. Even if a particular image does not need any one of the pigments, that ribbon segment is still consumed. This is the reason it is common for dye-sub printer compatible paper packs to contain a transfer film capable of producing the same number of prints. In addition, dye sublimation inks need a paper that allows the ink to remain on the surface of the paper.

Nowadays, a number of inkjet printers on the market are capable of deploying dye-sublimation techniques. The cartridges in such printers spray the ink, covering the page one strip at a time. The print head heats the inks to form a gas, controlled by a heating element that reaches temperatures of up to 500° C (higher than the average dye sublimation printer). A big difference in the results with dye-sublimation technique is that because the dyes are applied to the paper in gas form, they do not form distinct dots with a hard edge like inkjet printers. Instead, the edges are softer and blend into each other easily. Additionally, the infusion of the gaseous dye into the paper yields a more colour-fast picture.

Comparing Dye-Sublimation Printers and Inkjet Printers
Although it is difficult to point out every possible advantage and disadvantage when comparing inkjet and dye-sub printers, the following list mentions the major points that apply to most people printing photos at home.

Advantages of Inkjet Printers over Dye-Sub Printers:
· Prints are very precise with sharp edges
· Latest models offer incredible detail that exceeds most dye-sub printers
· Variety of papers/surfaces available—including matte, luster, glossy.
· Not locked in to one manufacturer's paper
· Some archival inkjets can produce prints that long-lasting
· Most inkjets can print on many different surfaces that are designed to accept ink, including CDs, CD inserts, envelopes, etc.
· Inkjets have a considerably larger colour gamut and usually produce more vivid photos than dye-subs
· Easier to obtain large format inkjets that can print 11x14, 13x20 sizes, or larger
· Inkjet printing is often cheaper than dye-sub printing
Inkjet Printer Disadvantages:
· Often much slower than dye-sub printers
· Most non-archival inkjets produce prints that fade a little (sometimes a lot) faster than dye-sub prints
· Print heads sometimes clog and require cleaning, or even replacement

Advantages of Dye-Sub Printers over Inkjet Printers:
· Very fast
· Relatively maintenance-free
· Smooth with no dot patterns visible, even under magnification
· Produce excellent shadow detail in dark areas where some inkjets may be "blotchy"
· Prints are usually more durable and more waterproof than inkjet prints
· For many viewers, dye-sub printers produce photos that look and feel more like real photographs due to the smoothness of the prints and the absence of visible dot patterns
Dye-Sub Printer Disadvantages:
· Consumer level models often smear high contrast edges (like a black square on a white background) to some degree, making charts, graphs, and line art look a little less "precise"
· Dye-sub prints typically only last as long or slightly longer than a good non-archival inkjet printer and are generally not considered "archival"
· Paper type selection is very limited and while dye-sub printers produce excellent glossy photos, most fall behind or do not even offer the option of matte prints
· Dye-sub printers use an entire page and an entire page worth of ribbon even to print one small wallet size photo
· Pages cannot be normally fed through the printer twice to fill more of the page as they can in inkjets
· Dust can sometimes get inside and cause vertical scratches on prints
· Dye sub printing and the cost of paper and toner (ribbon) is often higher than inkjet printing

Few Popular Models of Dye-Sublimation Printers

Canon Selphy CP710
Dye-sub printer for 150x100mm photographs

Samsung SPP-2040 photo printer
Dye-sub printer with 300x300dpi resolution

Samsung SPP-2020
Digital photo printer that produces 100x150mm snapshots

HiTi Photo Printer 641PS
Dye-sub printer for 152x102mm photographs

Sony PictureStation DPP-FP30
A user-friendly dye-sub photo printer

Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000
A dye-sublimation printer for compatible Kodak cameras

Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000
A dye-sublimation printer for compatible Kodak cameras

Olympus P-10 Digital Photo Printer
A dye-sublimation printer that prints straight from your Olympus digital camera

Polaroid PP46d photo printer
A dye-sub photo printer

Olympus P-440
Dye-sub printer capable of printing A4 photographs

Sony DPP-EX50
Dye-sublimation photo printer

John Sollars is the managing director of Solar Electronics, which are both ink and fax toner suppliers based in Shropshire, UK. To access a comprehensive online shop of original and re-manufactured printer ink cartridges including products by Canon please visit http://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk/acatalog/Canon_Inkjets.html

The Newest Thing In Lighting Led Lighting And What It Can Do

Writen by Paul Forte

The other day my son said to me, what else could anyone possibly invent? Sometimes it would seem that way, but I think that couldn't be further from the truth. Back in the late sixties and early seventies someone realized that light emitting diodes could be used for indicator lights. They only were available in the color red, but that didn't stop anyone, in fact we all became quite familiar with that red color in things like calculators and hand held games. That is pretty much where LED's stayed until a few years ago.

Suddenly LED's were available in different colors. A new super bright LED was developed. Controllers made color changing possible as well as mixing colors to create almost any color in the spectrum. A whole new market is emerging now. Many municipalities have started to change over the traffic lights to LED bulbs. I am sure you have seen them; they appear as many small dots of light for the Red and the Green. Car manufacturers are using them inside indicator lights.

The most exciting aspect of LED lighting for me is the entrance of LED's into residential lighting. They can be used for accent lighting in many applications such as under cabinet lighting and inside cabinets. Cove lighting is another application where they can be used. There are LED bulbs that can replace some existing bulbs like an MR 16 low voltage bulb.

As of right now in their development accent lighting is where they are best suited, the time for them to replace conventional light bulbs is not far off. As an example of where LED's can really shine is a pool light that can change into seven different colors just by turning the regular switch on and off to change modes. There are other types of color changing bulbs that can be used for decorative purposes. If you want to do some really creative lighting projects, you need to look into LED's.

If your wondering what is so great about LED's, let me explain. They have great advantages over conventional light bulbs. Here is a list of just a few things:

· Huge energy savings, possibly as high as 80% - 90%
· Very long life some claims as high as 100,000 hours
· Durable and resistant to heat, cold, shock and vibration
· Endless color possibilities
· Instant on with no flickering
· Small size allows lights in tight spaces
· Almost no heat and no UV rays

The one place they still are weak in is general lighting use. When they have that ability though the energy savings will be on a huge scale. The traffic lights I mentioned earlier use a 10 watt LED bulb to replace a 150 watt bulb used in the past. To give you an idea how much this saves at 12.5 cents a KWH, the savings for a single bulb in one year is about $75. Pretty amazing, especially when you consider some 150,000 traffic lights across the country have been retrofitted with these new LED light bulbs. That is an energy savings of over 11 million dollars. (c)Paul Forte 2005

If you would like to know more or see some of the great LED products available, follow the link below or visit http://www.forteelectric.com/LEDlighting.html

Paul Forte has been in the lighting and electrical field for over 25 years. He has helped countless homeowners across the country with their lighting needs, through his website. Learn more about LED lighting or visit Forte Electric

Ata Vs Sata

Writen by Jason Kohrs

Hard Drives: ATA versus SATA

The performance of computer systems has been steadily increasing as faster processors, memory, and video cards are continuously being developed. The one key component that is often neglected when looking at improving the performance of a computer system is the hard drive. Hard drive manufacturers have been constantly evolving the basic hard drive used in modern computer systems for the last 25 years, and the last few years have seen some exciting developments from faster spindle speeds, larger caches, better reliability, and increased data transmission speeds.

The drive type used most in consumer grade computers is the hearty ATA type drive (commonly called an IDE drive). The ATA standard dates back to 1986 and is based on a 16-bit parallel interface has undergone many evolutions since its introduction to increase the speed and size of the drives that it can support. The latest standard is ATA-7 (first introduced in 2001 by the T13 Technical Committee (the group responsible for the ATA standard)) which supports data transfer rates up to 133MB/sec. This is expected to be the last update for the parallel ATA standard.

As long ago as 2000 it was seen that the parallel ATA standard was maxing out its limitations as to what it could handle. With data rates hitting the 133MB/sec mark on a parallel cable, you are inviting all sorts of problems because of signal timing, EMI (electromagnetic 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 computer drives. Introduced in 1986, it has undergone many evolutions in the last 18+ years, with the latest version being called ATA-7. Wherever an item is referred to as being an ATA device, it is commonly a Parallel ATA device. ATA devices are also commonly called IDE, EIDE, Ultra-ATA, Ultra-DMA, ATAPI, PATA, etc. (each of these acronyms actually do refer to very specific items, but are commonly interchanged) SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) – a 1-bit serial evolution of the Parallel ATA physical storage interface.

Basic Features & Connections

SATA drives are easy to distinguish from their ATA cousins by the different data and power connections found on the back of the drives. A side-by-side comparison of the two interfaces can be seen in this PDF from Maxtor, and the following covers many of the differences…

Standard ATA drives, such as this 200GB Western Digital model, have somewhat bulky, two inch wide ribbon cable with 40-pin data connections and receive the 5V necessary to power them from the familiar 4-pin connection. The basic data cables for these drives have looked the same for years. A change was made with the introduction of the ATA-5 standard to better improve the signal quality by making an 80 wire cable used on the 40-pin connector (these are commonly called 40-pin/80-wire cables). To improve airflow within the computer system some manufacturers resorted to literally folding over the ribbon cable and taping it into that position. Another recent physical change also came with the advent of rounded cables. The performance of the rounded cables is equal to that of the flat ribbon, but many prefer the improved system air flow afforded, ease of wire management, and cooler appearance that come with them.

SATA drives, such as this 120GB Western Digital 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!

A 15-pin power connection delivers the 250mV of necessary power to SATA drives. 15-pins for a SATA device sounds like it would require a much larger power cable than a 4-pin ATA device, but in reality the two power connectors are just about the same height. For the time being, many SATA drives are also coming with a legacy 4-pin power connector for convenience.

Many modern motherboards, such as this Chaintech motherboard, come with SATA drive connections onboard (many also including the ATA connectors as well for legacy drive compatibility), and new power supplies, such as this Ultra X-Connect, generally feature a few of the necessary 15-pin power connections, making it easy to use these drives on new systems. Older systems can easily be upgraded to support SATA drives by use of adapters, such as this PCI slot SATA controller and this 4-pin to 15-pin SATA power adapter.

Optical drives are also becoming more readily available with SATA connections. Drives such as the Plextor PX-712SA take advantage of 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 performance benefits that really set them apart from ATA drives.

The most interesting performance feature of SATA is the maximum bandwidth possible. As we have noted, the evolution of ATA drives has seen the data transfer rate reach its maximum at 133 MB/second, where the current SATA standard provides data transfers of up to 150 MB/second. The overall performance increase of SATA over ATA can currently be expected to be up to 5% (according to Seagate), but improvements in SATA technology will surely improve on that.

The future of SATA holds great things for those wanting even more speed, as drives with 300 MB/second transfer rates (SATA II) will be readily available in 2005, and by 2008 speeds of up to 600 MB/second can be expected. Those speeds are incredible, and are hard to imagine at this point.

Another performance benefit found on SATA 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 partially explained by this, as six of the fifteen wires are dedicated to allowing the hot-swap feature.

Price

Comparing ATA drives to SATA drives can be tricky given all of the variables, but in general it is the case that SATA drives will still cost just a bit more than a comparable ATA drive. The gap is closing rapidly though, and as SATA drives gain in popularity and availability a distinct shift in prices can be expected. Considering the benefits of SATA over ATA, the potential difference of a few dollars can easily be justified when considering an upgrade. Computer Geeks currently has a limited selection of SATA drives, but several technical sites, such as The Tech Zone and The Tech Lounge, offer real time price guides to see how comparable drives stack up.

Final Words

The current SATA standard provides significant benefits over ATA in terms of convenience, power consumption and, most importantly, performance. The main thing ATA has going for it right now is history, as it has been the standard for so long that it will not likely disappear any time soon. The future of SATA will be even more interesting as speed increases will help hard drive development keep pace with other key system components.

Jason Kohrs Computer Geeks tech tips and computer advice

Understanding The Components Of A Home Network

Writen by Jeff Heaton

Home networks are becoming more common. People want to be able to share a single broadband Internet connection to several computers in the house. There are many different devices that you can use to make up your home network. If you have never heard network terminology device names like router, hub, etc may seem confusing.

The purpose of most of these devices are to control how the network passes around information. This information is sent in the form of "packets". I will refer to the term packet several times in this article. It simply means the data that the network is transporting. I will now explain the purpose of the major components of a home network.

What is a Hub

A hub is a device that has several Ethernet ports on the back of the device. One of these ports will likely be labeled "Uplink". This port allows you to connect multiple hubs together, if you run out of ports on your hub. If you do not have an uplink port on your hub, the hub can not be easily extended if you run out of ports.

A hub is a device that attaches multiple computers on an Ethernet network. If you have a number different computers that you want to connect together, you could connect each to the hub. Any packet that is sent out by any computer on the network will immediately be transmitted to the other computers. Each computer will determine if the packet was really intended for it, and filter out packets that were intended for other computers.

You really should not use a hub in a modern home network. You should always use a switch in place of a hub. Switches will be discussed in the next section.

What is a Switch

A switch is a device that has several Ethernet ports on the back of the device. One of these ports will likely be labeled "Uplink". This port allows you to connect multiple switches together, if you run out of ports on your switch. If you do not have an uplink port on your switch, the switch can not be easily extended if you run out of ports.

A switch serves the same function as a hub. It allows you to connect multiple computers together, so that they can exchange packets. However, a switch is much more efficient than a hub. A switch will only send Ethernet packets to the computer that the packet was intended for. Because of this you should always use a switch in place of a hub.

What is a Router

A router is a device that has several Ethernet ports on the back of the device. One of the connectors will be labeled WAN. You should connect the WAN port to the Ethernet connection on a broadband source, such as a cable or DSL modem. The other ports on the router can be connected other computers or switches/hubs that will share the WAN connection.

Routers allow you to share your broadband connection with multiple computers in your house. Rather than connecting your computer directly into your cable or DSL modem you connect the router to the cable or DSL modem. Now any computer that you connect to the router will have access to the Internet.

If you run out of ports on your router you can always connect an additional switch to the router. To connect a switch to a router simply connect the switch's "uplink" port to one of the routers Ethernet ports. Of course, don't connect to the router's WAN port. The WAN port should only be connected to something such as a cable or DSL router.

Some routers come with additional features installed. Most routers also include a firewall. Firewalls are discussed in the next section. Some routers will also include a wireless access point (WAP). The WAP allows you to use wireless devices, such as wireless laptops, with the Internet.

What is a Firewall

A firewall controls traffic flow between your network and the Internet. A firewall can be either hardware or software. Windows XP SP2 or higher includes a software firewall. A hardware firewall is included with most routers.

A firewall is a very good idea. It can protect you from inbound virus attempts. By inbound virus attempt I mean other computers that will connect to your computer and attempt to infect your computer. You do not want to run a computer directly connected to the Internet, without a firewall. There are just too many other computers out there that can connect and infect you without you even noticing.

What is a Network Attached Storage (NAS)

A network attached storage device is s device that allows a hard drive to be shared across the network. This hard drive is NOT attached to any of your computers. It is simply made available by the NAS. This can be a convent way to add a hard drive that can be accessed by several computers on your network. The other common way to add a network hard drive is to simply share a folder on one of your computers. However, with the NAS, you do not need to keep one of your computers on at all times.

There are two types of NAS commonly available. The first type comes with a build in hard drive. The second accepts a USB or Firewire external hard drive. The advantage to using a USB or Firewire hard drive is that you can upgrade the hard drive if it ever were to become too small.

What is a Print Server

Just like you can buy a device to allow you to share a hard drive, you can do the same with a printer. A print server connects directly to your printer. Your printer is then shared to all of your computers on the network. This is convent because you do not need to leave the printer hooked to a computer, which must be turned on to print.

Conclusions

As you can see there are many different components. Perhaps the final component that I have yet to mention is the cable. These components are connected together with CAT5 Ethernet cable.

You are now ready to pick out the components for your home network!

Jeff Heaton is author, consultant and college instructor. Jeff maintains the "Heaton Research" website that contains many Java tutorials and other computer programming information.

Easy Guide On Networking Your Home Computers

Writen by Pinky Mcbanon

Easy Guide on Networking your Home Computers

Let's say you have 3 desktop computers at your home. One in your kid's room, in your home-office and one in your family room. Your idea is to have all these 3 computers connect to the internet. One computer has an internet connection on a DSL or cable modem (this is just a terminology for that little box that you connect from the phoneline or cable port!).

So you want all these 3 computers connect to the internet, share files? print from any of this computer?

Here are your step-by-step guide:

(1) Your DSL or cable internet service already comes with a modem. This is a connection from your phoneline to the modem. And then, you will notice your computer#1's network cable directly connect to this modem called the Ethernet port (or on the USB port).

(2) For the other 2 computers to share internet connection, you must have a router with 4 ports (at least!) --- looks like a telephone ports. There are a lot of router brands, one is Linksys and is my favorite. But as I have said there are a lot of different brands out there!

You must buy a network cable if you don't have one. You can buy it from most electronic store.

(4) Here we go! (considering ofcourse we are networking a Window-based computers-- Windows XP (home & professional) and Windows 2000 and higher)

(5) Connect a network cable on your router (port name: "internet" or "ethernet" - this is usually a separated port from the other 4 ports). The other end of the network cable will directly be connected to the DSL or Cable modem's (port name: "ethernet").

(6) Connect a network cable on each computer that you want to get connected to the internet-- (connect this cable at the back of the computer (port name: ethernet).

(7) The other side of each of this network cable will then be connected on each of the port on the router

(8) Now you are ready to be connected! -- turn on your dsl/cable modem. Make sure all lights are on and solid. Turn on your router.

(9) Then turn on your computer(s) -- make sure the light at the back of the computer is blinking! (this is a good sign that you are connected on the network!)

(10) Then set up your router which is normally you choose the proctocol PPoE and just enter your username and password supplied to you by your internet service provider. Oh! by the way, depending on the router, the admin window of the router is on the manual. It's so easy to find it. Trust me.

(11) If your username and password provided to you by your internet service provider is valid... then you should be connected to the internet!.Go and start browsing the internet!

*** most of the routers available in the market now are interlligent routers! There is really nothing complicated on how to set it up. Its entirely DHCP (automatic IP assignment). I don't want to be technical but .. there you go! Enjoy and be safe on the internet!

Ms. Mcbanon is an experienced Medical Biller and Coder based in New York. A graduate of Bachelor Science in Computer Engineering. A Medical Practice Billing Consultant. She shares her expertise and knowledge with www.medclaimsplus.com. She has extensive knowledge and skill in the area of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Anesthesiology, Surgery, Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy, Mental & Behavioral Health, Pediatrics & Internal Medicine. Read more about the author as she shares her knowledge and expertise in her field by visiting her personal website at www.justmypassion.com

Home Wireless Network Security Issues

Writen by Greg Lietz

Running a business from home has its advantages, including no commute, a more accommodating work schedule, fresh coffee and home-cooked meals at any time you want.

But running a business from home using a home wireless local area network (WLAN) with your computer may lead to thievery of confidential information and hacker or virus penetration unless proper actions are taken. As WLANs send information back and forth over radio waves, someone with the right type of receiver in your immediate area could be picking up the transmission, thus acquiring access to your computer.

Here is a list of things that you should consider as a result of implementing a home wireless network setup used your business:

Viruses could be loaded onto your laptop which could be transferred to the company's network when you go back to work.

Up to 75 per cent of home wireless network WLAN users do not have standard security features installed, and 20 per cent are left completely open as default configurations and are not secured, but are made for the users to have their network up and running ASAP.

It is recommended that home wireless network router/access point system setups be always done though a wired client.

Always change the default administrative password on your home wireless network router/access points to a secured password.

Enable at least 128-bit WEP encryption on both card and access point. Change your WEP keys periodically. If equipment does not support at least 128-bit WEP encryption, consider replacing it. Although there are security issues with WEP, it represents minimum level of security, and it should be enabled.

Change the default SSID on your router/access point to a hard to guess name. Setup your computer device to connect to this SSID by default.

Setup router/access points so as to not broadcast the SSID. The same SSID needs to be setup on the client side manually. This feature may not be available on all equipment.

Setup your home wireless network router to block anonymous internet requests or pings.

On each computer having a wireless network card, network connection properties should be configured to allow connection to Access Point Networks Only. Computer to computer (peer to peer) connections should not be allowed.

Enable MAC filtering. Deny connection to wireless network for unspecified MAC addresses. MAC or physical addresses are accessible through your computer device wireless network connection setup and they are physically written on network cards. When adding new wireless cards / computer to the network, their MAC addresses should be registered with the router /access point.

Your home wireless network router should have firewall features enabled and demilitarized zone (DMZ) feature disabled. Periodically test your hardware and personal firewalls using Shields Up test available at http://www.grc.com. All computers should have a properly configured personal firewall in addition to a hardware firewall.

Update router/access point firmware when new versions become available.

Locate router/access points away from strangers so they cannot reset the router/access point to default settings. Also, locate router/access points in the middle of the building rather than near windows to limit signal coverage outside the building.

You should know that nothing is 100%. While none of the actions suggested above will provide full 100% protection, countermeasures do exist that will help. The good collection of suggested preventative actions contained herein can help you deter an intruder trying to access your home wireless network. This deterrant then makes other insecure networks easier targets for the intruder to persue.

Greg Lietz is an internet business man, freelance writer and computer enthusiast. His websites provide information on wireless internet networking and personal computer hardware that may be of interest to you.

Dvr Reviews

Writen by Max Bellamy

DVR's are now being used in areas like surveillance and entertainment. DVRs have managed to get a good response from the market and the future will see DVRs being employed in new areas like weather forecasting and ship to shore communication.

DVRs have carved a niche in the field of satellite television. HDDVRs with all their features have managed to attract the attention of many a couch potatoes. The futuristic feel of the product and the control that it has given to the viewer has added a new dimension to TV viewing and some are already comparing it with the transformation brought on after the onset of color television in the last century. However, it may take a while before this technology becomes the norm and broadcasters start airing programs that are tailor made or customized to HDDVR sets. With DVR technology, the reception of signals at the viewer end is digital and now the onus has shifted to the broadcaster to provide signals of matching quality to further enhance viewing pleasure.

As far as surveillance does, DVRs are fast replacing the conventional VCRs. Extensive research and development work is going on in many corporations and labs to develop better DVR devices to suit varied market requirements. The remote location monitoring option by which offices could be monitored from anywhere in the world, has caught the attention of the market. There is also extensive demand for the embedded DVRs because of their independence and ease of operation. Many banks, security firms, commercial organizations have already switched over to this technology and are enjoying the benefits.

In the transport sector, the technology is now fast catching up as many cargo firms are now depending on DVRs to obtain real time information on the movement and safety of their goods. Along with the GPS system, this technology has given companies another avenue to monitor cargo movement. The demand for DVR in this sector is expected to increase in the years to come.

With the use of DVRs in multiple sectors, the stage is now set for development of customized DVRs. These will take a different path of evolution from their predecessors and may even be developed into a completely different technology.

DVR provides detailed information about DVR, DVR reviews, DVR cards, DVR software and more. DVR is the sister site of CD Copier Software.

How To Properly Install A New Sound Card

Writen by Otis Cooper

Sound Card installation is indeed simple and rather straight forward,that is,when you know how to do it. Opening the system unit can be a scary task for some of us,especially if we have not performed this task before.

The key is to be calm,take your time,and make it fun. Look forward to looking inside the computer and see just how many components you can readily identify.

Remember to touch a doorknob or any grounded metal object to remove static electricity from your body.To install your new sound card,let's perform the following.

OPEN THE SYSTEM UNIT

Remove the system unit cover and locate an empty expansion bay.Note that the rear cover of the slot may have to be removed on most computers.Before touching anything,ground yourself to remove any buildup of elecrtical static charge from yourself. Touching the computer case or a boorknob will do the job.

With the cover removed from the system unit,lay the computer on its side.You may have to remove other connections or devices to have clear access to the empty card bay.

Take notes of any devices or connections that you make so that you can refer to them during installation of the new card.

New sound cards must be installed in the PCI slot. After removing the small rear cover,remove the new card from its protective wrap.This wrap is intended to keep the card away from electrical static charge.

INSTALLING THE SOUND CARD

Grasp the card and align it with the PCI slot. Slowly but firmly press the new card completely in the PCI slot.Check to be sure no part of the yellow contacts can be seen when the card is pushed in.

Secure the sound card to the system unit by using the screw that you removed when removing the rear cover.Use this screw to secure the card to the case.

If you have on sound installed on the motherboard and you want to install another card,most systems will disable the motherboard integrated sound.If not, consult your computer manual to find the correct jumpers to disable the motherboard sound.

Now the cdrom audio cable must be connected. Insert one end of the audio cable for the cdrom or dvd drive into the CD-IN socket of the sound card. The other end is inserted into the audio-out socket of the cdrom or dvd drive.

Check and double check all connections before you replace the system unit cover.If all connections are good,replace the cover and reboot the system after all peripherals are reconnected.

REPLACE THE SYSTEM UNIT COVER

The computer should automatically detect the new card and attempt to install the device drivers needed to communicate with the card.Windows should prompt you to install the software needed to allow the card to communicate to the computer.

The new card should have come with a cdrom with device drivers and other software for the card.Simply inserted the cdrom in the cdrom drive and select the cdrom installation when prompted.

Test the new sound card by re-booting the computer. You should hear the Windows startup sound if the card is operational.In some cases,the new card will be operational without rebooting your computer.

Installing or upgrading your sound card is that easy. You will need a quality speaker system to take full advantage of your new sound card.Get a speaker system with a super woofer for maximum sound quality.

Those new games and your new music cdroms will be much more exciting with that new sound bursting from the new sound card.If you're blessed enough to have two computers,install the card in the other system,at your convience.This will give you the added training of installing computer components.

Copyright 2006 Otis Cooper

Otis F. Cooper is solely dedicated to boosting the knowledge and confidence of every computer user. Sign up to receive his informative articles every month and learn PC Repair absolutely free.Sign up now at http://www.ultimatepcrepair.com

Upgrading The Sound On Your Home Computer

Writen by Sezer Bozkurt

Computers these days are becoming more than just an avenue to surf the web and do word processing. They are becoming multimedia stations that allow us to watch movies and listen to the latest music. Especially with new solutions such as renting DVD's online and pay per download music downloading programs. This is why having good sound on your computer is important for the best possible multimedia experience.

There are two ways you can increase the quality of sound coming from your computer. I will discuss both.

The first would be to upgrade, or get a new, sound card for your computer. The quality of the sound signal being sent from your computer is determined by the sound card. Also the amount of channels that are being sent, and the number of connectivity options you have. This is why having a good quality sound card is important. There are several cards on the market that can deliver a great listening experience.

The second way to enhance your sound quality would be to get a quality set of speakers. There are an infinite number of options you have in this regards. You can get a standard 2 speaker system, a 2.1 speaker system (2 speakers and a subwoofer), a 4.1 system and the ultimated 5.1 system. The most enhancing system would be the 5.1 system.

The 5.1 system consists of 5 speakers and a subwoofer. The subwoofer will deliver the bass and the low frequency sounds. The other speakers would be positioned strategically around the room to give the best array of sounds.

Computers today are not the simple machines they were years ago. They have the capabilities to be a lot more. With this in mind utilizing these capabilities will be very cost effective. Now you do not need to buy a stereo system and a television. A computer can fulfill both these duties.

For more great technology related articles and reviews please visit the links below http://www.technologyslice.com/Articles.htm http://www.technologyslice.com/Reviews.htm http://www.technologyslice.com

7 Ways To Save On Your Inkjet Printing Costs

Writen by Mark Idzik

Inkjet printers are not only getting better, they're also getting less expensive. Why is that?

The inkjet printer manufacturers have built their business around the supplies rather than the printer itself. They make the printers as inexpensive as possible, sometimes selling them at cost, or less and making long term profits from the inkjet cartridges.

Manufacturers regularly warn about using generic cartridges, and highly recommend their own. Truth be told, there is very little difference between the two and you can regularly save over half of your current manufacturer branded cartridge purchases.

To help keep your inkjet supply costs low, here are seven tips that will keep you under budget:

1. When printing inter-office, internal, personal or draft documents, use the "draft" and "grayscale" options in your printer settings. This will save on both black ink was well as color ink. Save color and standard black for your final document print.

2. Select inkjet printers that use separate black and color inkjet cartridges like the Canon "i" series. Many of these printers have 2 black and 4 color cartridges that allow you to replace only the colors that are running low, not just the one 'color' cartridge as many printers often do. This saves on long term cartridge costs and lengthens the time between cartridge replacements.

3. Purchase "generic" cartridges made for your printer. These are of similar quality to the manufacturer's brand, and often at less than half the price.

4. Purchase "remanufactured" cartridges compatible with your printer. These are cartridges collected from the original owner, cleaned and re-filled with the same ink.

5. Purchase a cartridge "refill kit". You'll receive a kit that will allow you to refill the ink in your cartridge rather than a new cartridge. This is a great way to recycle and the quality is high and costs low.

6. Purchase your cartridges in bulk to save on shipping costs and discounts are sometimes available on larger single purchases.

7. Order your cartridges online to save time and money. Many local stores don't carry the generic versions and costs are normally substantially lower online.

Using any combination of the tips above will save you both time and money and help you manage your inkjet printing supply needs easily.

Mark Idzik is a technology specialist and assists small businesses to use the web effectively. He runs http://www.ReviewInkjets.com where he reviews online inkjet supply companies. Find out more at: http://www.reviewinkjets.com

Cheap Printer Ink Cartridges

Writen by Elizabeth Morgan

Printers have become a daily utility instrument and are commonly seen in homes, offices, hotels, restaurants, and many other places. The two basic requirements for any printer to function are electricity and an ink cartridge. A printer cannot function without either one of them. The ink in the cartridge is in limited supply and is consumed quickly. If the printer is not used for a period of time, the ink may dry up and cause the printer to malfunction.

The ink used in a particular printer is not appropriate for use in all printers. Different varieties of ink are broadly classified into dry and wet ink. Ink used in laser printers is toner, which is a dry power-type substance. The ink used in other printers, such as the desk jet series, is liquid ink.

The ink, whether dry or wet, is stored in a cartridge that is placed in the printer. The cartridges are made in such a manner that refilling them is an easy task. However, this needs to be done professionally or the cartridge will cease to function. The printer ink cartridge industry has seen a great demand in refilling of cartridges as this works out as a cheaper alternative compared to buying a new cartridge. They are an efficient and economical alternative to purchasing new ink cartridges. Cheap printer ink cartridges are usually remanufactured printer cartridges that consistently provide high standards of prints with greater efficiency while delivering clear and crisp images.

The quality of ink provided in a ?cheap? ink cartridge is as good as that of a new, regular ink cartridge. Companies selling these ink cartridges guarantee reliable performance with every print and suggest that the use of these ink cartridges will not hamper the printer's warranty.

Printer Cartridges provides detailed information on Printer Cartridges, Discount Printer Cartridges, Inkjet Printer Cartridges, Buy Printer Ink Cartridges and more. Printer Cartridges is affiliated with Printer Ink Refills.

Power Supply Tips

Writen by Peter Stewart

The power supply keeps things in your computer running smoothly. When they run well, you won't even think about them, but when things go wrong, it can become very annoying.

The power supply doesn't just run the power to the different parts of the computer. It needs to run different voltages to different parts, and besides that, it has to deliver them within a very tight range set out in the ATX standard.

Power supplies went through a phase of being extremely unreliable. This is because the actual parts are very cheap and standard and the profit margin in the power supply business is higher than almost any other computer part. The flooding of the market with poor quality power supplies led to lots of failures and complaints.

More recently, the problems in that sector have decreased, the general quality and build of power supplies has increased to a level where nearly any power supply will deliver what it claims it will and within specs. Most, but not all.

As with computer monitors, power supplies are one part that does not need to be upgraded very often. The only additions have come from SATA specific power plugs and the additional P4 plug in recent years and even those are not always necessary.

So what do you actually need from a power supply?

The most basic requirement is that its power output can match the power needed by the components inside your computer. Each part has its own requirement and its own maximums and minimums on what it needs. The claimed maximum power for each voltage are added together to give the power rating for the power supply.

The main power user in the computer is the CPU. Some Pentium 4 processors are known to gobble lots of power. Hard drives use some power too, but no more than 10W each, optical drives even less. The motherboard itself uses some too. The other major user of power are graphics cards.

As graphics cards have become more powerful, and with the advent of Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), which are like CPUs which are dedicated to graphics work, and situated on the graphics card, they can now use more power than a CPU. If you are running a very fast PCIe graphics card or a pair of them, you will need more power.

At the most basic a 300W power supply will be more than enough for most day to day use desktop computers, even if they have a small AGP graphics card. Only get more than 300W if you know you need it, or expect you will need it in the future after upgrades. 500W will more than suffice for even the most demanding system with 2 graphics cards, but it needs to be a reputable brand.

Enermax, Antec, Fortron and Seasonic are good names in the power supply business, you will not go wrong with their products. Even though there is a small price premium, the security in knowing that nothing will go wrong is worth it. Another power supply I like is the X-connect from Ultra. Each of the cables that come from the power supply are removable, so only the ones you are using need to be in the box. Very convenient and neat, as long as I don't lose the cables.

Pre-assembled computers are known for having the cheapest power supplies in them. As no-one really checks the power supply when buying they just put the minimum inside. These are usually fine, but will often buckle under the load of extra upgrades you may make. Bear in mind that you might have to upgrade the power supply when installing those new, really cool graphics cards.

So, keep these things in mind...

• Stick to major brands
• 300W only unless particularly needed
• Functionality before looks

Peter Stewart is a computer enthusiast, his interest in computers and focus on practical down to earth advice inspired his two websites. http://www.computer-buying-guide.com - Practical buying tips http://www.computer-reviews.net - Fair and honest reviews and opinions

Troubleshooting Hard Drive Problems Part 1

Writen by Sarah Lake

It is extremely important not to make or write any changes to data on the hard drive without first verifying the hard drive configuration. Therefore, the first priority when unable to access information on a hard drive is to verify all of the configuration information dealing with the suspect hard drive.

Partition Parameter
Value or Equation

Partition Status
Bootable

Starting Head
1

Starting Sector
1

Starting Cylinder
0

Partition Type
Bigdos (drives greater than 30 MB), otherwise DOS 12

Ending Head
Total Number of Heads -1

Ending Sector
Sectors per Track displayed in Volume Boot Sector

Ending Cylinder
Number of Cylinders set in CMOS - 2

Total # of Sectors
Number of Sectors displayed in Volume Boot Sector

Start Absolute Sector
Number of Sectors per Track in Volume Boot Sector

Boot Signature
55AA

Step One: Make sure that Micro-Scope detects the hard drive

In Micro-Scope, System Configuration, Compare Settings - check to make sure that there is not an asterisk beside the number of hard drives detected value. If there is an asterisk, either the CMOS is set incorrectly, or there is an electronic problem (controller, cable, drive).

Step Two: Compare the BIOS parameters against the drive partition information.

In Micro-Scope, System Configuration, System Information - note the information displayed for the hard drive, specifically the parameters for the drive in question. Compare these parameters to the parameters in the MBR display under Micro-Scope, System Configuration, Partition Display using the following formula:

System Information
Master Boot Record

Cylinders
Ending Cylinder + 2

Heads
Ending Head + 1

Sectors
Sectors Per Track

If the information does not match, either the partition information is corrupt, or the CMOS setup or controller BIOS setup (if one exists) is incorrect, or there is a problem communicating with the drive.

Step Three: Check the drive functionality

In Micro-Scope, Diagnostics, Fixed Disk Tests - check the information in the Fixed Disk Selected window. Make sure that the proper drive type, model, and native parameters are showing in this window. If any of the information is incorrect, there is an electronic problem. Check the cable, controller and drive, re-seating all connections, and repeat the above procedure. After correcting the electronic problem, perform a read test on the first 10 cylinders of the drive. If any errors occur, then this is the most likely cause of the drive failure. Perform a read of the entire drive to determine if the errors are electronic in nature, or physical in nature. Electronic problems will result in the errors displayed not always being the same type or in the same location on the drive. If the problem is electronic, replace the cable, controller, and finally drive electronics and repeat the read test until no errors occur. If the error is physical, use an INT 13 type editor (such as Norton Advanced Editor), to block the entire drive and write the information to a daisy chained drive set to the same parameters as the faulty drive.

The next step, after the drive passes the read test on the first 10 cylinders, is to check the original partition setup of the drive.

Step Four: Check for the physical location of the master boot sector and the volume boot sector.

In Micro-Scope, Utilities, Fixed Disk Editor - use the FIND feature to search the last two bytes of each cylinder for a boot signature (55 AA). The first location where a boot signature should be found would be at cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1 (the master boot sector). The second location where a boot signature should be found is at cylinder 0, head 1, sector 1 (the volume boot sector). It is also possible to use the FIND feature to locate the volume boot sector by searching for MSDOS (in DOS based systems) or MSWIN (in Windows95 systems).

If there is a duplicate copy of the master boot sector found before the location of the volume boot sector, then it is possible that a boot virus has infected the hard drive in the system. The Rebuild Master Boot feature of Micro-Scope will eliminate any boot sector virus. Be sure to boot the system to the Micro-Scope diskette and immediately do a cold reboot of the system after using the Rebuild Master Boot feature.

If the volume boot sector is found in a location other than cylinder 0, head 1, sector 1, count the actual number of sectors before the volume boot sector, and compare that value to the value for the sectors per track displayed in the partition table described in step 2. If the values match, the most likely cause of the system failure is an incorrect CMOS setup. In this case the CMOS needs to be reset to the values indicated by the partition table described in step 2, remembering to use the formula described in step 2 when doing so. If the values do not match, set the CMOS Sectors Per track to the number of sectors counted before the volume boot sector and continue to the next step.

Step Five: Check the partition tables to make sure they are correct

Reboot the system to Micro-Scope and go to System Configuration, Partition Tables. Check the information displayed in the master boot record to see if there is any obvious corruption (that is, excessively large numbers, all partitions non-bootable, etc.) If there is no obvious corruption in the master boot record, then perform step 2 again. If the information matches at this point, go to step 6. If the information does not match, then set the sectors per track in the Master Boot Record to the number of sectors per track currently set in CMOS, set the starting head to 1, starting sector to 1, and starting cylinder to 0, and write the information to the drive.

Step Six: Verify the Master Boot Sector information

Display the Volume Boot Sector and use the values for heads and sectors per track (on the right half of the screen) to perform step 2 again.

If the values match, then the volume boot sector is probably okay. If any values in the Master Boot Record do not match the table to the right, reset the values to match the values in the table, and write to the drive.

If the values still do not match, both the Master Boot Record and the Volume Boot Record are probably corrupt. At this point, e-mail Technical Support for help in this situation. Future articles will provide more insight into the repair procedure.

Step Seven: Check the FATs

Check to see if the first FAT starts on the sector just beyond the volume boot sector. Use the find feature in the Fixed Disk Editor to search for F8 FF FF in the first three bytes of each sector. The first occurrence should be on sector two of head one. Continue to search until the second FAT is found, indicated by the second occurrence of F8 FF FF. Note the location of the cylinder, head and sector of the second FAT.

Based on the start of the second FAT, and the start of the first FAT, calculate how many sectors are in the first FAT. If necessary, read each sector starting at the first sector of the first FAT, keeping a count of the sectors that have been read until F8 FF FF is seen in the upper left of the HEX display, which would indicate the start of the second FAT. After calculating the sectors per FAT, compare this value to the value in the volume boot sector. If the values match, the drive should be accessible through DOS at this point.

Step Eight: Attempt to access the drive

Boot to a DOS-bootable floppy diskette and attempt to access the drive. If the root directory and sub-directories on the hard drive are readable at this point, then attempt to boot to the drive. If the drive boots at this point, the problem has been corrected. If the drive is still not bootable, e-mail the Micro 2000 Technical Support department for help.

Disclaimer - The Micro 2000 Tech Tip is a free service providing information only. While we use reasonable care to see that this information is correct, we do not guarantee it for accuracy, completeness or fitness for a particular purpose. Micro 2000, Inc. shall not be liable for damages of any kind in connection with the use or misuse of this information.

Micro 2000 Inc has been helping to solve the day-to-day challenges that IT departments face in order to keep their businesses operational as well as profitable for over 14 years. The company's primary goal is to put the customer first - through feature-rich, simple-to-use IT tools that can help IT administrators manage their jobs more effectively.

For more advice and free articles be sure to visit: http://www.micro2000.co.uk