WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR COMPUTER SLOWS DOWN

Do you ever face the problem where you computer starts to become sluggish or slow in its processing? Computers are supposed to be machines and should be able to do what man cannot possible do, maintaining a peak performance everyday. If not, what is the point of having one then? What we need is a machine, a computer that can help us store our data, our plans and work and can churn out whatever we need at the snap of a finger. But as the years go by, it seems as though the snap of the finger now has changed to become two snaps, and with time, more snaps are needed.

What do we do then, when we can no longer have our information that we need instantly? There are a couple of methods or ways that one can implement to improve the speed of their computers.

Upgrading your RAM

Our computer's RAM determines the amount of memory that it has and ultimately the speed it can process at. Upgrading your RAM is as good as saying you want to improve the speed of your computer. However, it is not free of charge and comes with a cost. Given that upgrading your RAM is becoming more and more affordable these days, you may feel that it is a good idea to upgrade yours right now; however remember that it would be useless if you upgraded your RAM only to find that your computer is still slow due to other reasons. Thus think twice and be sure before you purchase a new RAM.

Clear the Registry

Each computer comes with something called the registry that not many people know of. The registry is an important part of your computer as it stores crucial information that has to do with the login users and also which applications are allowed to access the computer. With time, the registry gets clogged with unnecessary garbage and loaded with numerous false entries that only serve to slow the speed of the computer. As such, it is a good practice to regularly clean out your registry. How to get one is simple! Go to the Web and search for one, each will cost about 30 dollars, cheap and effective. A good buy indeed!

De-Fragmentation

Search for de-fragmentation in your computer system through the search function and carry out de-fragmentizing. This may sound too technical for some of us, but it simply means to arrange the data in your computer in a much more organized and efficient fashion as to speed up it's processing. Think of it as messy room compared to a tidy room. It would definitely be easier to walk through the room that is neater than the other. With the same analogy, a neater computer would process better than one that has yet to be sorted out.

There are many other ways to help solve the problem of slow computers, but those mentioned above are cheap and hassle-free. Also, they only take a short amount of time to be completed. But do take note that if all else fails; it is wiser to seek council from a technician who will certainly be able to help you out even more.

SPYWARE, ADWARE AND ANTIVIRUS

Adware, spyware and computer virus share some similarities, one of which is that all three are major nuisances for computer users. Let's differentiate the three.

Spyware is software that does not intentionally harm your computer. What they do is that they create pathways wherein someone else aside from the computer owner can communicate with the computer. Normally spywares record the various types of web sites you visit which are later used by web advertisers to allow them to send you unwanted emails and pop-ups.

This is why spyware are usually frowned upon and greatly avoided. They are more intrusive than adware. Spyware have their own separate executable programs which allow them to record your keystrokes, scan files on your hard disks and look at other applications that you use including but not limited to chat programs, cookies and Web browser settings.

The spyware then will send the information that it had gathered to the spyware author. The agent will then use this information for advertising and marketing purposes. They even sell the information to advertisers and other parties.

Adware, on the other hand, are more legitimate form of freeware. Similar to spyware, adwares are advertising materials which are packaged into a software or program and are installed automatically once that particular program or software is added into the computer system.

Some forms of adware, on the other hand, download advertising contents as a particular application is being utilized. It is quite unfortunate that most of the adware programs take the form of spywares that is they track and report user information to program authors.

Some signs of spyware infections include pop-up ads that seem to be not related to the site you are viewing. More often than not, spyware pop-ups are advertisements about adult contents. Also if you notice your computer slowing down, there's a big chance that spywares and its other components have found their way in your operating system. When the Windows desktop also takes a longer time to load, its best to scan your computer for possible spyware infections.

Meanwhile, viruses are destructive form of software. They were purely designed and created for one purpose alone: to wreck havoc to your computer. They destroy whatever they come in contact to and will initiate self replication and infect as many components of the computer's operating system or network as possible.

Nowadays, a lot of anti-virus software also provides spyware and adware scanning and removal utilities. Some programs, however, are focused on located and deleting or destroying spyware and adware programs. Whether is an anti-virus software or a anti-spyware dedicated scanner, they both search your computer and identify any spyware and virus installed on your system.

They then remove it as well as their components located in the system registry among other places in your computer. It is therefore, good to regularly update your virus or spyware scanner to ensure that your computer is protected from the thousands of spyware and viruses in the internet. Never be fooled from ads that claim that their products only contain adware.

These adware maybe spyware in disguised and are just waiting to be deployed for them to gather your information. Learn to setup firewall systems and always block pop-up blockers to minimize computer infection and ensure the security of all your computer files.

THING YOU MUST KNOW BEFORE UPGRADING YOUR COMPUTER

When a computer starts to run slow the first thing that pops into the mind of most people is "I need more memory". Upgrading your systems memory is one of the cheapest and easiest upgrades to perform, but before you upgrade you need to find out a few things about your system.

How to find your current memory/RAM information If you have no idea what kind of memory your system is currently using then go download and install CPU-ID.

CPU-ID will show you the type of memory you are using, how much of it you have, as well as more advanced information. For now we are just interested in the size, i.e. the amount of RAM in your system.

To Upgrade or not to upgrade

If you have 2GB of RAM or more you probably have enough as it stands. In that case you may want to try other alternatives to speed up your PC, such as:

1. Defrag your hard drives

Either use Windows built in defragger, or a third-party defragger. The windows one can be found in the (Help and Support -> Tools -> Disk Defragmenter) on WinXP systems.

2. Run a Virus/Spyware/Trojan scan

3. Disable background programs/services

Start -> Run -> type "msconfig" -> Start up tab -> uncheck programs you don't need on start up.

4. Use windows performance monitoring to diagnose the problem.

This can be found in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Performance. You can add counters by right-clicking on the chart. You should probably seek out a tutorial on how to use this.

5. Format your drive (The last resort, so try everything else first)

On the other hand, if you have 1GB or less you will most likely benefit from upgrading, especially if you are running Windows Vista. Vista seems to thrive at 2GB and it wouldn't hurt to have 2GB in a Windows XP or Linux system as well.

Things you should know beforehand

When upgrading your memory you should be aware of the following

1. All the RAM in your system should be identical, in other words all your RAM sticks should be of the same type, brand, and have the same timings. Using identical RAM will provide you with a more stable system than mixing RAM from different vendors.

2. In most cases the RAM currently in your system will be replaced by your new RAM.

3. Make sure your motherboard can support the RAM you are planning to buy. It's a good idea to check your motherboard manual or website regarding supported memory types e.g. DDR, DDR2, DDR3, Rambus, etc...

4. For 32-bit operating systems there is no point in having more than 4GB of RAM. In actuality only about 3GB of the 4GB is used with the remainder reserved by the OS. If you want a system that can run more than 4GB of memory you need to install a 64-bit version of the operating system.

DEFRAGMENTING YOUR COMPUTER MADE EASY

The operation of 'defragging', or 'defragmenting' an hard drive is a rather useful thing to do to increase, even significantly in some cases, the performance of your PC. But how does it all work?

Hard disks, even with the fastest in commerce (above 7200 RPMs) often constitute the main 'bottleneck' to the speed of a personal computer: the time to access a particular memory cell on a hard drive can be, depending on the particular technology, up to thousands of times slower than access the same amount of memory on a RAM. When the hard disk is empty, the file system is free to write the files on the hard disk to an optimal location, but after a few deletes and rewrites, what will happen is that data related to the same application will be saved into different chunks of hard disk, making data retrieval and update much slower.

The solution to the problem is defragmentation, which is an operation that rearranges all the files in a contiguous and optimal way, so to minimize the access time by the hard disk, thus reducing the 'bottleneck' effect. Fragmentation is a very delicate operation which, depending on the amount of data on the drive, can last up to several hours, so using a good and reliable program for this objective becomes something of vital importance.

In most versions of Windows, including Windows XP and Windows Vista, a disk defrag utility is embedded into the operating system. Just right-click on the hard disk icon and select 'Properties', then click on the last tab: you should be able to see, among other options, the 'defrag' button. Make sure you can leave your PC on for some time, and then start the procedure. It's often advisable not to make intensive use of hard-disk heavy programs while the operation like this is taking place, or you will risk losing data -- not necessarily data that is related to the program you're using.

Depending on your hard disk speed and the amount of data you have stored, the operation could take half an hour to several hours. It is important not to interrupt the process, because the operation is generally unsafe -- moreover, the whole defragmenting process is likely to start from the beginning and not resume from the last time's status.

On the Linux platform, ext2 filesystems can be defragmented with such tools as e2defrag, while ext3 filesystems can be defragmented with the 'shake' command. Interestingly enough, e2defrag also has a convenient option to virtually and temporarily, so to speak, 'downgrade' the ext3 filesystem to ext2 in order to defragment it.

MODEMS CONNECTING TO THE WORLD

Modem (from modulator-demodulator) is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data. Modems can be used over any means of transmitting analog signals, from driven diodes to radio.

The most familiar example is a voiceband modem that turns the digital 1s and 0s of a personal computer into sounds that can be transmitted over the telephone lines of Plain Old Telephone Systems (POTS), and once received on the other side, converts those 1s and 0s back into a form used by a USB, Serial, or Network connection. Modems are generally classified by the amount of data they can send in a given time, normally measured in bits per second, or "bps". They can also be classified by Baud, the number of times the modem changes its signal state per second.

Baud is NOT the modem's speed. The baud rate varies, depending on the modulation technique used. Original Bell 103 modems used a modulation technique that saw a change in state 300 times per second. They transmitted 1 bit for every baud, and so a 300 bit/s modem was also a 300-baud modem. However, casual computerists confused the two. A 300 bit/s modem is the only modem whose bit rate matches the baud rate. A 2400 bit/s modem changes state 600 times per second, but due to the fact that it transmits 4 bits for each baud, 2400 bits are transmitted by 600 baud, or changes in states.

Faster modems are used by Internet users every day, notably cable modems and ADSL modems. In telecommunications, "radio modems" transmit repeating frames of data at very high data rates over microwave radio links. Some microwave modems transmit more than a hundred million bits per second. Optical modems transmit data over optical fibers. Most intercontinental data links now use optical modems transmitting over undersea optical fibers. Optical modems routinely have data rates in excess of a billion (1x109) bits per second. One kilobit per second (kbit/s or kb/s or kbps) as used in this article means 1000 bits per second and not 1024 bits per second. For example, a 56k modem can transfer data at up to 56,000 bits per second over the phone line.

in the 1920s used multiplex equipment that met the definition, but the modem function was incidental to the multiplexing function, so they are not commonly included in the history of modems. George Stibitz connected a New Hampshire teletype to a computer in New York City by phone lines in 1940. Modems in the United States were part of the SAGE air-defense system in the 1950s, connecting terminals at various airbases, radar sites, and command-and-control centers to the SAGE director centers scattered around the U.S. and Canada. SAGE ran on dedicated communications lines, but the devices at each end were otherwise similar in concept to today's modems.

A few years later, a chance meeting between the CEO of American Airlines and a regional manager of IBM led to development of a "mini-SAGE" as an automated airline ticketing system. The terminals were at ticketing offices, tied to a central computer that managed availability and scheduling. The system, known as SABRE, is the ancestor of today's Sabre system.


e 202 Data-Phone was a half-duplex asynchronous service that was marketed extensively in late 1960. In 1962, the 201A and 201B Data-Phones were introduced. They were synchronous modems using two-bit-per-baud phase-shift keying (PSK). The 201A operated half-duplex at 2000 bit/s over normal phone lines, while the 201B provided full duplex 2400 bit/s service on four-wire leased lines, the send and receive channels running on their own set of two wires each.

The famous 103A was also introduced in 1962. It provided full-duplex service at up to 300 baud over normal phone lines. Frequency-shift keying (FSK) was used with the call originator transmitting at 1070 or 1270 Hz and the answering modem transmitting at 2025 or 2225 Hz. The readily available 103A2 gave an important boost to the use of remote low-speed terminals such as the KSR33, the ASR33, and the IBM 2741. AT&T reduced modem costs by introducing the originate-only 113D and the answer-only 113B/C modems.

TOP INTERNET SCAM

The Internet has a world of its own. There are good guys and there are also criminals in the Internet world. Cyber criminals are using different tactics just to be able to victimize potential online user. These are just some of the few. Be cautious when you encounter these kind of scams.

Tax and Rebate Scams

The Scam: Consumers get a call or e-mail claiming to be from a government agency, such as the IRS or Social Security Administration, that asks for personal information to process a rebate check. These crooks ask consumers to provide personal information like their social security number, bank account number, or other details they can use to commit identity theft. If they resist giving out information, they're told they cannot receive the rebate unless the information is provided.

The Don'ts: Never give sensitive information to anyone over the phone or email. If you get a suspicious email, delete it immediately. Don't click on any links either, for they might take you to a phishing site or install spyware on your computer. Keep in mind that most government agencies don't collect information by phone or email. The FTC recommends you contact the IRS or SSA directly if you have any questions or concerns. To learn more about other tax scams check out the IRS Top 2008 "Dirty Dozen" Tax Scams.

Cheap Electronics Scam

The Scam: Shopping website that appears legit sells electronic products at extremely low prices. The site is so sophisticated, even the most savvy consumer will have a hard time telling it's a fake. One recent article on PCMag, mentions these scamming sites may be part of a bigger network, since they all have a $500 minimum purchase requirement, and may ask for payment in the form of a Western Union money order to be mailed to a foreign address.

The Signs: Things a like a foreign address, a $500 minimum purchase, or the lack of a secure payment transaction form should raise red flags. A site may appear legitimate, but if you have a hard time recognizing the validity of the website, watch out for things like a new domain registration, questionable contact information, grammatical and spelling errors, a no return policy, and untraceable payment methods. Do do some research online because chances are others may already be expressing their concerns on forums or blogs.

Chatroom Scams

The Scam: Russian cyber-crooks have developed a software robot that poses as a human in chatrooms. These bots can chat with up to 10 people simultaneously, and easily persuade them to hand over phone numbers, photographs, birthday, address, and other personal information. The site claims "Not a single girl has yet realized that she was communicating with a program!" Information harvested by these bots can be used by fraudsters to carry out various forms of fraud. Unsuspecting victims may also be tricked into visiting a 'personal site' that could load malware onto their computers. Sergei Shevchenko, Senior Malware Analyst at PC Tools said CyberLover, "employs highly intelligent and customized dialogue to target users of social networking systems. It can monitor Internet browser activity, automatically recognize and fill in the fields in the web pages, generate keystrokes and mouse clicks, and post messages, URLs, files and photos."

The Dont's: Common sense says never, ever give out personal information to anyone you just met online.

Local Charity Scams

The Scam: Fraudsters claiming to be from the local police department or DARE program are calling or approaching private citizens and businesses soliciting donations purporting to benefit police officers. What's convincing some people into handing over personal and financial information to these imposters is the spoofed number that pops up in the caller ID. Police say many victims have reported a phone number that appears to be from the local police department, so don't be fooled.

The Do's: If you want to support the local police or fire department, find out when they hold their annual fund drives. Most departments don't solicit donations via telephone, so it's best to check out their site to find out when and how they seek donations.

Cancer Cure Scam

The Scam: As more people turn to the web for medical advice, they're encountering websites that advertise natural products they claim will prevent or cure everything from cancer to diabetes. Scammers know people are searching for natural remedies online, so they exaggerate the language on their site, and even add a few medical terms to sound legitimate. Oftentimes, they'll claim their supplies are not sold anywhere else, and sell them at a high price. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a miracle cure for cancer, but these scammers will have you believe there is, and will even discourage you from taking real medicine. The reality is many of these products are not proven, effective, or safe, and the sites are full of false testimonials.

The Do's: Canada has already started to crack down on such sites, demanding they remove any false claims quickly. Andrea Rosen, Acting Deputy Commissioner of Canada's Competition Bureau, says consumers should be skeptical of health-related products or services that look too good to be true. People should talk to their doctor before trying any new treatment. Check out the Anatomy of an Online Health Scam before you buy medicine online.

internetscamscyber criminalsmoney

LAPTOPS

A laptop computer, or simply laptop (also notebook computer, notebook and notepad) is a small mobile computer, which usually weighs 2-18 pound (around 1 to 8 kilograms[citation needed]), depending on size, materials, and other factors.

Laptops usually run on a single main battery or from an external AC/DC adapter that charges the battery while also supplying power to the computer itself. Many computers also have a 3 volt cell to run the clock and other processes in the event of a power failure.

Laptops contain components that are similar to their desktop counterparts and perform the same functions, but are miniaturized and optimized for mobile use and efficient power consumption, although typically less powerful for the same price. Laptops usually have liquid crystal displays and most of them use different memory modules for their random access memory (RAM), for instance, SO-DIMM in lieu of the larger DIMMs. In addition to a built-in keyboard, they may utilize a touchpad (also known as a trackpad) or a pointing stick for input, though an external keyboard or mouse can usually be attached.

Laptops have grown (or have grown less in size) and become more sophisticated over the years. Computers were once very large, and the improvements in sophistication of the computers in recent decades allowed for smaller personal computers such as laptops.Bold text

A desktop replacement computer (dtr) is a personal computer that provides the full capabilities of a desktop computer while remaining portable. They are often a larger, bulkier laptop. Because of their increased size, this class of computer usually includes more powerful components and a larger display than generally used in smaller portable computers and can have a relatively limited battery capacity (or none at all). Some use a limited range of desktop components to provide better performance per dollar at the expense of battery life. These are sometimes called desknotes, a portmanteau of the words "desktop" and "notebook," though the term is also applied to desktop replacement computers in general.

Powerful laptops meant to be mainly used in a fixed location and infrequently carried out due to their weight and size; the latter provides more space for powerful components and a big screen, usually measuring 17–20 inches (43–51 cm). Desktop replacements tend to have limited battery life, rarely exceeding three hours, because the hardware is not optimized for efficient power usage. Sometimes called a luggable laptop. An example of a desktop replacement computers are gaming notebooks, which are designed to handle 3D graphic-intensive processing for gamers.

Laptops weighing typically between 4.6 and 6 lb (1.8–2.7 kg) and a screen of 12 to 14 inches (30–35 cm) diagonally. A subnotebook is a small and lightweight portable computer, with most of the features of a standard laptop computer but smaller. The term is often applied to systems that run full versions of desktop operating systems such as Windows or Linux, rather than specialized software such as Windows CE, Palm OS or Internet Tablet OS.

Subnotebooks are smaller than laptops but larger than handheld computers and ultraportables. They often have screens that are 26,5cm = 10.4″ (diagonal) or less, and weigh less than 1 kg; as opposed to full-size laptops with 30,5cm =12″ or 38cm = 15″ screens and weighing 2 kg or more. The savings in size and weight are usually achieved partly by omitting ports or having removable media/optical drives; subnotebooks are often paired with docking stations to compensate.

Subnotebooks have been something of a niche computing product and have rarely sold in large numbers until the 2007 introduction of the Asus Eee PC and the OLPC XO-1.

Most modern laptops feature 12 inch (30 cm) or larger active matrix displays with resolutions of 1024×768 pixels and above, and have a PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) or ExpressCard expansion bay for expansion cards. Internal hard disks are physically smaller—2.5 inch (60 mm)—compared to the standard desktop 3.5 inch (90 mm) drive, and usually have lower performance and power consumption. Video and sound chips are usually integrated. This tends to limit the use of laptops for gaming and entertainment, two fields which have constantly escalating hardware demands.[1] However, higher end laptops can come with dedicated graphics processors, such as the Dell Inspiron E1505 and E1705, which can be bought with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 or similar or the MacBook Pro which comes standard with an nVidia 8600M GT. These mobile graphics processors tend to have less performance than their desktop counterparts, but this is because they have been optimized for lower power usage.

There is a wide range of laptop specific processors available from Intel (Pentium M, Celeron, Intel Core and Intel Core 2) and from AMD (Athlon, Turion 64, and Sempron) and also from VIA (C3 and C7-M). Motorola and IBM developed and manufactured the chips for the former PowerPC-based Apple laptops (iBook and PowerBook). Generally, laptop processors are less powerful than their desktop counterparts, due to the need to save energy and reduce heat dissipation. However, the PowerPC G3 and G4 processor generations were able to offer almost the same performance as their desktop versions, limited mostly by other factors, such as the system bus bandwidth; recently, though, with the introduction of the G5s, they have been far outstripped. At one point, the Pismo G3, at up to 500 MHz, was faster than the fastest desktop G3 (then the B&W G3), which ran at 450 MHz.

Some parts for a modern laptop have no corresponding part in a desktop computer. For example, current models use lithium ion and more recently lithium polymer batteries, which have largely replaced the older nickel metal-hydride technology. Typical battery life for most laptops is two to five hours with light-duty use, but may drop to as little as one hour with intensive use. Batteries gradually deteriorate over time and eventually need to be replaced in one to five years, depending on the charging and discharging pattern.

Docking stations became another common laptop accessories in the early 1990s. They typically were quite large and offered 3.5" and 5.25" storage bays, one to three expansion slots (typically AT style), and a host of connectors. The mating between the laptop and docking station was typically through a large, high-speed, proprietary connector. The most common use was in a corporate computing environment where the company had standardized on a common network card and this same card was placed into the docking station. These stations were very large and quite expensive. As the need to additional storage and expansion slots became less critical because of the high integration inside the laptop itself, the emergence of the Port Replicator as a major accessory commenced. The Port Replicator was often a passive device that simply mated to the connectors on the back of the notebook and allowed the user to quickly connect their laptop so VGA, PS/2, RS-232, etc. devices were instantly attached. As higher speed ports like USB and Firewire became commonplace, the Port Replication was accomplished by a small cable connected to one of the USB 2.0 or FireWire ports on the notebooks. Wireless Port Replicators followed.

Current compatibility problems in the laptop trade are reflective of the early era of personal computer hardware, when there were many different manufacturers, each and every one of them having their own connectivity and mounting systems and incompatibility was the norm. While there are accepted world standards of form factors for all the peripherals and add-in PC cards used in the desktop computers, there are still no firm worldwide standards relating to today's laptops' internal form factors, such as supply of electric voltage, motherboard layouts, internal adapters used in connecting the optical drive, LCD cable, keyboard and floppy drive to the main board. Most affected by this are users uneducated in the relevant fields, especially if they attempt to connect their laptops with incompatible hardware or power adapters.

Some parts, such as hard drives and memory are commodity items and are interchangeable. However, other parts such as motherboards, keyboards, and batteries are proprietary in design and are only interchangeable within a manufactures brand and/or model line.

A significant point to note is that the vast majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of Original Design Manufacturers (ODM). The ODM matters more than the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). Major relationships include:

* Quanta sells to (among others) HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, Gateway and IBM - note that Quanta is currently (as of August, 2007) the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world
* Compal sells to Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer, and Dell
* Wistron sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, and Acer
* Arima sells to HP/Compaq, NEC, and Dell
* Uniwill/ECS sells to IBM, Fujitsu, and Dell
* Asus sells to Apple (iBook), Sony, and Samsung
* Inventec sells to HP/Compaq, Toshiba, and BenQ