Upgrading a computer system

When upgrading a computer system there are many things you must always look into before overloading on the lastest software and hardware. You must pay particular attention to the specifications the computer already has and try to judge what components you want to upgrade.

• Hard drive - When you feel that you require more hard drive space, be it that you have plans for the new space or you simply cannot fit any more data on your current one you should always consider whether or not you are willing to free up some space, if not you should not always look for the cheapest one on the market. When browsing for a larger hard drive you should pay particular attention to how much memory capacity it can hold, and whether or not it is external or internal (external being that you will not have to fit it inside the computers casing.) An external hard drive is a very useful tool, it can be plugged in using USB and can come in a variety of different sizes including up to 320 Gb sata to the public, now thats a lot of memory. With the external USb connection the device can also be easily and neatly tidied away again. With drive memory being measured in Gb it can be divided into being 1000 mb to every gb and 1000 kb to every mb so as you can see its a lot of space. Also you computer should be able to hold a decent amount of RAM which is measured in Gb also, mostly though the ram stores only operating systems settings and various other boot up tasks.


• Microprocessor - When you feel that you wish to upgrade your Microprocessing chip you should always be wary of how many Ghz the new and current chips can process. Ghz is how fast the chip can process information leading to a faster speed of general computer operation. You should find and compare how fast the current chip is with a new chip that you are prepared to pay for, you wouldnt want to pay a fortune for something that processes at more or less the same speed that you currently have. Also when selecting a new processor be aware that fitting, installing the new one and removing the old one are an extremely difficult task to an untrained expert, so be prepared to pay extra. With the chip being placed underneath a heat sink or fan and heat sink the other components will have to be removed and the computer rebuilt to install the new processor.
  
• Operating systems - Sometimes an upgrade to another operating system can speed up your computer and add an entirely new feel to your pc. Upgrading from lets say Windows Xp to Windows Vista will give a whole new edge to the pc being that the Windows creators have installed various upgrades into this new operating system including firewall and anti-virus upgrades, security upgrades and general design upgrades. Also upgrading to an entirely new operating system provider, lets say Windows to Linux can also be useful depending on personal preference. Be wary when choosing a new operating system however, when trying to install the new software it will be necessary to format everything else and install the os from scratch. Once the hard drive has been formatted the computer will be empty and you will be asked for the serial number on insertion of the operating system disk, a wizard will guide you the rest of the way through installation.


• Internet explorer - Personally on my upgrade from internet explorer to firefox i noticed a considerable change in broadband speed, pages seemed to load almost instantly as opposed to waiting for an irritating amount of time. Apart from having to download a few plugins for quicktime and windows media player i had no problems with the upgrade and change over. To upgrade to the new software i simply entered the firefox website and downloaded the latest version. After downloading and installation i had to restart my computer but once restarted i was surfing the web in luxury.

installing and configuring the dvd rewrite device

As said before in one of my many other blogs for this section i used the HP recorder device. The device was relatively simple to use being that it was an external usb input which meant simply finding a usb port which are spread all over the computer, but mainly at the front or side of the computer tower or brain. The device was external meaning that it did not have to be fitted into the casing and could be removed at any time.

















Once the device was plugged in the computer then tried to locate it. Once located the computer would try to locate a driver to run the new hardware that it had found. In my case the Dvd recorder came with its own disk containing the driver and installation software, but dont fret if you dont have the disk as the software can be
easily located and downloaded from the HP website for free.

Once the software has been uploaded you may be asked to restart your pc but in most cases the software should run from first use. Now that the device is installed and configured you are free to burn any form of disk including music compact disks, data disks and dvds.

have fun
kt

More software utilities

Drive formatting - An essential utility when trying to rid your computer of any unwanted viruses or unused files, although a drive is formatted the data stored on the drive is not entirely gone, in fact if you know what you are doing it is still very much possible to retrieve the data. It has been stated but not proven that governments actually format their hard drives, grind them into dust and then bury in them in secret vaults underground, pretty important dust.....When formatting your drive be very careful that you are formatting the right one, although the data can be retrieved it is not easy and not always possible. As said previously the format utilty can help to rid your pc of viruses, worms, trojans etc pending on how far the virus has struck in your computer you may have to format the main hard drive if it has spread far enough, be careful to check it has though as when the main hardrive is formatted all of your software, programs, data, files etc are gone, that means re-installing your operating system (which is not always simple as you need your serial number to install) your drivers and all necessary software such as anti-virus, firewalls, internet explorers etc

Anti-virus - Anti-virus is very important when dealing with internet related topics especially downloads. Viruses can spread rapidly and infect your entire machine crippling it or forcing to do things that go against the users wishes. A specific type of virus known as a worm can use a line of code to actually take your personal settings and passwords etc to effectively steal personal information and accounts, very dangerous stuff. Anti-virus software quarantines all harmful devices and blocks any harmful messages or alerts until the user can decide whether or not to allow the program to proceed, if the software decides that the threat is too great it will use force to destroy the danger automatically. Ultimately the anti-virus software available to the world today is strongly deemed necessary and highly recommended especially when dealing with file sharing sites such as limewire or bearshare, and even when opening emails on windows live/hotmail, even social networking sites like bebo or myspace, facebook

thanks
kt

current utility software

What type of software is available to us? What could we find useful for our own PCs at home? lets take a look.

• Spyware - spyware is used to block various pop-ups that decide to grace your screen with advertisements and junk etc, it can also be used to keep tabs on someone who is on a local connection with you, lets say in a school with an IT authority presence. Spyware (when its in the right hands) can also be used as a form of hacking device by relaying all information to the user and giving them the control over that persons computer. it can store any websites that you have visited and redirects them to an administrator, although it can sometimes take partial control over the computer by installing additional programmes, changing computer settings or opening harmful websites, the functions of spyware as you can see extend much further than simple school monitoring. In response to the emergence of spyware ANTI-spyware has sprung up to counter attack those would be hackers etc.


• Anti-spyware - Anti-spyware is the counter-attack made by a small industry devoting themselves to stopping the unauthorised intrusion of people who are using spyware to relay your information to them. In a way the software could be used as a form of virus, to a certain degree.


• Disk Defragmenting software - Disk framentation is very common today, with the build up of data on the hard drive the files can become scattered and can slow down the computer, this is where the disk defragmenter comes in. The software takes the scattered files and attempts to make a clean up, and sort all files into their same category e.g. Mp3s to mp3s, music to music software to software etc. It may take a while to complete but the effort is not in vain as the software will generally do a good job and comes in handy at least once a month to keep your computer in good shape.
  
• Task Manager - Task manager is the Organiser program usually built in the windows operating systems, the program is highly effective and can be used to clear and open other programs quickly and with ease. The software comes in handy to close software that is not responding and to give an accurate look at what is currently running on your pc at that time.

Thanx
kt

why are these activities important and what effects and benefits do they offer??

There are a number of reasons why these activities are important.

• Anti - virus protection: Anti-virus software can be especially important to protect your pc while online, you could suffer from any source of virus,worm and trojan etc your computer could be uploaded with several thousand viruses at one time which could cripple your pc altogether to the extent that you would have to format the entire hard drive just to make it start again.
Anti-virus can protect from these viruses by updating the software regularly so that you are always protected against the latest written virus etc

• schedule a full weekly system scan with the anti-virus very much in mind a full weekly scan of the computer with the anti-virus software is definitely most recommended, the software scans your computer to search for anything harmful in which case it will either destroy it or disable it leaving your computer safe to continue without any harm.

• install Service Pack 3 for Windows XP: SP3 is the most up to date update for Windows XP, it contains all previous updates to date and several upgrades to its secure firewall and security. The update comes highly recommended by Windows XP users and Microsoft team. Some users of SP3 have even reported a slight imporvement in the speed of their machine after installation.

• clean-up tools: Clean up tools such as C Cleaner are quite highly praised for their ability to do just what they say in the name, clean up. C cleaner similarly to anti-virus can find and disable or destroy anything harmful to the system with the ability to destroy anything that might be slowing the computer down internally such as unused back-up files etc.

• drive formatting: drive formatting is sometimes but not always the best way to go when you need to get rid of something on your drive, for instance if a virus affected a certain drive then formatting would be the only option which would result in you losing everything on that drive including music, video, photographs etc although when the virus affects the whole computer then the main hard drive must be formatted leaving nothing on the computer at all, not even the operating system (Windows, Linux etc) so be careful!!!

• install and run a firewall: A firewall is an essential tool when working online these days, with so many new spyware, spam viruses etc (not to mention the idea of hackers) a personal firewall is essential to protect you from any unwanted attention from people who want to do harm to your pc, all a hacker needs is your IP address to take control and that can easily be stolen from you by means of trojan or worm or any other type of virus etc. Remember that if a hacker takes control over your computer he takes control of any accounts you have online, your banking account, your online shopping accounts, chatroom or online community accounts,
WATCH OUT!!!

• create folders: Creating folders is sometimes very important depending on the person and what purpose the user wants to use it for. Creating ordinary folders can be handy to sort certain files such as work documents, music, video, mp3s etc whereas a zipped or compressed folder can compress your folder and all files in it into a smaller size so that it can be copied or moved much more easily, it also takes up less space on your hard drive.

• copy and delete files: Copying and deleting files can be very handy and also sometimes essential. When deleting files you can dispose of any unwanted files or documents and also if you disticntly know if you have been sent a virus in the form of lets say an email you can simply delete it with no repurcussions as it was not opened. Copying can also be very useful when dealing with any work that you need backed up etc so that you dont lose it.

• Back-up to CD using compression software: Backing up on to cd can be very useful and sometimes a very responsible thing to do, with backup files still on the hard drive in the computer, they can still be accessed and destroyed by a hacker or virus etc, by placing these files on a disk they can only be handled by a physical force leaving you much safer. If many viruses gather on your computer at one time you will be forced to format your hard drive anyway so if viruses dont get your files you will have to destroy them yourself at some point to get back to normal

thanks
kt

burning data to disk

to burn data to a disk you must realise that you should have a cd/dvd write recorder to get the job done, the recorder itself can be purchased from any good computer hardware shop for a reasonable price depending on what brand you find most appealing.

• First i added my cd to the recorder by pressing the button to open the drive and again to close it.
• for the burner to work also you will need the necessary software to add and burn tracks onto a cd, most recorders come with the installation cd which will give you the software to burn tracks, also you could try various websites (including the manufacturers) to gain the appropriate software, (also try popular software like nero etc) also popular music players such as itunes and windows media player come pre-equipped with writeable software so you can burn songs etc to disk while you listen. For this tutorial i have used an HP recorder with its original software.
• when you have the software you should begin by double clicking on its icon to load it up.
• when the software has loaded you should be greeted with a message asking what type of disk you would like to create, for this i chose data disk but you can choose to add music or video files etc.
• I searched my folders to find the data i was looking for and dragged it into the writeable cd folder so that i could continue.
• i clicked next and was asked one final time if i wanted to contine to which i clicked yes
• my cd started to write to the disk.
• when the cd finished the drive opened and i was given my cd to which i placed in my pc to make sure that the files were added successfully to disk.

hope this helps

kt

p.s. sorry there are no screenshots this time.......

installing and running a firewall

for this post i have decided that i would use the zone alarm personal firewall which is free to download from their website http://www.zonealarm.com/.

• First if you dont already have the zone alarm firewall you must download it from the website above and also select a place to save the program to, after that is the case of actually installing it.


• Find where you have saved your download and double click the icon to open it, at this point a wizard should appear on screen asking for various commands, you must select which form of windows you are using e.g. windows vista/xp etc.


• You must place a dot in the download and install option in the wizard and click next, the software will now start to download.


• Once downloaded the program will now be ready for installation by clicking next as shown in the screendump below.
  
  
• On the next screen you should enter a valid email address so that you can register you version of zonealarm for future updates, now click install


• dont worry if the window disappears it is working correctly. dont try to relaunch the software.


• you should fill out the survey when the next window appears, and click yes when it asks if you want to start the firewall now.
  
• click no if it asks to start the zonealarm security suite, although it is a free program its a pay site so only enter if you are willing to pay BE CAREFUL!!!


• On the next screen zonealarm says it will scan your computer so that it can auto-configure the necessary coniguration to run on your computer.




• with zonealarm now installed on your computer it will now need to be restarted to work properly, now you should click finish to restart.


• when the computer restarts you will be presented with a video tutuorial




• after the video tutorial you should click finish
  
• congratulations, zonealarm is now installed and protecting your computer.
  

Hope thats been helful

kt

Creating a folder

Creating new folders is quite frankly one of the easiest yet handy tasks when using your computer, it is very handy when sorting your files e.g. music or video/photo files as well as any other work related documents.

• To begin you should enter a folder itself and right click to bring up the drop down menu, select new from the menu and another menu should appear with a number of different folders, for this you should simply select folder.

• The new folder should appear in the folder titled ''new folder'' can rename the folder again by right clicking if you wish and choosing rename.
• There are various other things that you can select in this way including shortcuts and compressed files etc all from repeating these steps good luck.

kt

formatting a drive

You must be careful when formatting a drive, you must always ensure that anything that you want to keep is removed from the drive and stored elsewhere before the formatting process begins on that drive you must also make sure that you are formatting the right drive so
BE CAREFUL!!!

• First i will select the drive i wish to format this one being the floppy disk drive because im using it specially for this demonstrative purpose. i must first select the floppy disk drive in the my computer menu and right click to bring up the drop down menu, then select format.

• Once i have selected format in the drop down menu i will be given a screen like the one below, here you should simply choose quick format for an easy format and click start

• You should be given one last warning before formatting the drive, after this the drive will remove everything on the drive and your screen should come like this with a pop-up message stating that the drive has formatted successfully.

• Congratulations you have succesfully formatted your drive.
  

Compressing a file or folder

Compressed files are useful for making large amounts of memory space available to you by making the others smaller, this can also be useful when sending or receiving a file via the internet e.g. email or online download websites, it will take less time to download but will also have to be unzipped once it is downloaded.

To compress a file you should right click on the file you wish to compress and select send to compressed (zipped) folder.This is how your compressed file should look, it will be a lot smaller in memory and have a zip extension added on to the end of it.

copying and deleting files

copying and/or deleting files could potentially the easiest thing that could be done on your computer apart from turning it on or opening files etc.

first of all what you want to do is to to find the file that you want to copy or delete be it a song, video, photo etc. right click the file and a menu will appear alongside giving you various options two of which being copy and delete. now you will want to decide wether you are trying to delete or copy the file. Deleting the file will send the file to the waste bin, (note) that the file will not be permanently deleted it will only be sent to the waste bin, this is because the system will save the file in case it has to be restored i.e. if accidentally deleted etc.

To copy the file you should follow the before procedure of right clicking the specific file and selecting copy from the menu, now you have to decide where to copy the file to, for this example i will copy the file to the same folder that it was originally in. i must now open up and right click the folder that i wish to copy to file to and select paste from the menu. for this i will copy the file ''MONEYCHIMP''

The file moneychimp is now stored twice in my folder as a result of copying and pasting.
hope thats been useful

kt

Installing windows xp service pack 3

The new windows service pack 3 for xp is not difficult to add, it downloads just like any ordinary file and updates just like the rest, the service pack can be found at the following address for download:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsxp/sp3/default.mspx

To begin you must first download the software from the website and then open it in the file that you saved it to. The system will now check your computer for anything that might conflict with the software, your anti-virus software (provided you have any) may also scan the files for anything harmful.

The installation wizard will now take over and ask you if you want to install the service pack. At this point just follow the instructions given in the wizard to start installing the package.

The system may need to reboot before the changes take effect, the service pack will fully support any previous upgrades to the windows software including firewalls, anti-virus etc

How to install C cleaner

C cleaner is a great free program for cleaning out unused back-up files and arousing any issues related to files on your computer. When installing the C cleaner software you must first insert the disk it is stored on and double click the icon in my computer to open up the programme. When the programme has loaded you will receive a screen prompting you to continue on using a wizard to help you install the software on your own, the whole process is fairly simple as long as you follow the on-screen instructions. instructions you should click install, also as said before in my last post ''how to install AVG anti-virus'' be aware of where you are saving the program to for future use, it does automatically save to desktop and give you a simple shortcut icon to get to it conveniently.
the software has installed. You may wish to try it out and run an inital analysis of your computer before you run the cleaner itself just to check for any issues that can be solved through the cleaner, you may not need to run cleaner at all if your computer finds no issues but chances are if you havent ran any kind of cleaner and you have had it for a while you can expect some issues.

how to install AVG antivirus software

Open up my computer and select the disk that AVG is installed on, be it cd or usb pen. When clicked the software should load up and ask for your permission to install the anti-virus software and what type of installation you would like, for an easy installation just click standard installation. Click the install button and the software should start to upload to the drive you have selected it to save to, you can browse various drives to select where to save it to, dont worry if you havent though as it will save automatically to desktop for quick access.
Once the software has loaded you will be given the option of suggesting a time and date regularly, every week or month/year to scan for viruses etc, choose the schedule that suits you best and click ok.

The Software should carry out an intial scan of the computer and analyse all files. This may take a few hours to a few minutes depending on how many files and programmes are already on your computer.The system may need to restart before the programme will function fully but will be fully installed when you next log on.

WARHAMMER 40000!!!!

I AM CURRENTLY PLAYING THE DARK CRUSADE UNDER THE NECRON RACE, FINDING IT QUITE DIFFICULT TO COME UP WITH ANY TIPS ON THE GAME, IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS BLOG HELPING NOT JUST ME BUT ANYONE ELSE WITH THE SAME INFO PLEASE FEEL FREE AND I WILL TRY TO RESPOND IN THANKS

THANKS

KT

travis barker injured

travis barker, drummer of (BLINK 182, +44, diamonds and transplants) got himself injured not too long ago in an exploding plane that killed everyone but him and another musician (DJ AM) anyone got any update on his condition, not much being released over in the uk about him or the other dj.

thanks