The Unexpected Advantages of a Laptop
October 28, 2009 by Matthew Kerridge · View Comments
A while back, it occurred to me that there was a much bigger world out there and I was getting restless. I had lived my entire life in the same country and I wanted to experience more. I would move to a new country. At the same time, I decided that I would take along only those belongings that would fit in four suitcases; everything else would have to go. This decision would change my life. Along the way, it also converted me from a desktop PC user to a notebook user.
One of the items I considered absolutely necessary to take with me for a successful move was my PC. It contained all the important e-mails I had sent and received in my life, as well as my financial records and other critical information. In addition, the PC was how I intended to earn a living in my new home. But the desktop, monitor, keyboard, and mouse were incredibly bulky and heavy and I despaired of being able to transport them safely inside my luggage. The solution was obvious — I needed to replace my PC with a notebook.
After much research, I selected a notebook model that had a good reputation for reliability and durability, found a good deal online, and purchased it. Then I began the project of converting the bits and bytes from my desktop PC to my shiny new notebook.
It was not as difficult as I’d feared. I found a software package that stepped me through the process, and it wasn’t long before I had turned my new notebook into the functional equivalent of my old desktop. My goal was accomplished — I no longer had to worry about transporting the desktop tower, display, mouse, and keyboard, because all of those things were built into the notebook, in an incredibly compact space. But along the way, I realized that there was even more the notebook could do for me.
There were other things I owned that had never been part of my desktop, which I realized I could add to my notebook — photographs, music, and documentation. I proceeded to load my notebook with the music from all my CDs, plus my old vinyl records and cassette tapes. With a bit more effort, I also scanned in hundreds of photos and papers that I wanted to take along.
To me, it was a miracle. My notebook was just the same size as it was when I had first purchased it, but now in that compact space it held the contents of hundreds of bulky items that I no longer needed to worry about trying to bring with me. I never needed to decide which pieces of music I couldn’t live without; I would be able to bring it all.
In the end, the move was a complete success, and it would not have been possible without the notebook.
Matthew Kerridge is an fan of consumer electronics. If you would like further information about types of notebooks or are looking for a trusted netbook online retailer please visit http://www.ebuyer.com
Finding the Right Gaming Laptop
October 27, 2009 by Matthew Kerridge · View Comments
Let’s say you’re an avid gaming fan and you just can’t bear to be apart from your desktop gaming rig. But let’s say you’re often on the move a lot and you want to be able to carry your rig everywhere you go. But carrying around a desktop tower, keyboard, monitor and mouse just isn’t in the cards. So how can you have all the gaming power you want at your fingertips without having to carry around the beast you use at home?
The solution is to invest in a gaming laptop. Just think of it as a portable gaming solution – you get to have the most powerful processors and video graphics in a package that’s easier to carry around than your gaming tower. With a gaming laptop, you can do nearly all of the things that you would be able to do with your desktop gaming rig without having to lug a colossal tower around.
The first thing to consider when buying a gaming laptop is how big you want it to be. Gaming laptops range from 15″ models that are convenient for carrying around to 18″ models that offer the largest screens and the best video graphics cards available. Laptops are generally referred to by the size of their screens, so keep this in mind when choosing one. Also keep in mind how often you plan on carrying around your gaming laptop before choosing a size. Most 17″ and above laptops are considered “desktop replacements” and thanks to their size and weight, these models aren’t recommended for constant carrying around.
Processing power is a big concern when it comes to gaming laptops. In order to play the latest games at the fastest settings available, there has to be enough processing power to handle such strong demands. Processors such as Intel’s Core 2 Extreme and Mobile Core i7 are designed to address the needs of gamers and other power users, with multiple processing cores and the ability to overclock for added processing power.
Gaming laptops come with powerful graphics solutions from companies such as ATI and nVidia that help bring out the best in video game graphics. Unlike the graphics chipsets found in most mundane laptops, gaming laptops have “dedicated” graphics cards that are connected to the laptop’s motherboard via a slot. These cards are not merely chips soldered onto the motherboard, like the “integrated” graphics cards. Since dedicated graphics cards come with their own faster memory chips, they don’tt have to rely solely on the computer’s installed memory, making them perform faster and better than integrated graphics solutions.
When it comes to system memory, gaming laptops are able to accommodate gobs of it. Most laptops are now able to hold and use up to 8GB of system memory, although some laptops can only use 6.8GB thanks to chipset limitations. Most companies will supply their gaming laptops with 2GB of RAM at the minimum, with options to upgrade during the order process.
These systems can put a hurt on your wallet. $1500 is the minimum price you should expect when buying a gaming laptop. When it comes to custom made laptops, the sky – and your bank account – is the limit, with systems coming in at $2500 and beyond. So whether you want an affordable system that can handle all of your current games, or if you want a system that can make others weep, you should be able to find exactly what you want.
Matthew Kerridge is a fan of consumer electronics. If you would like further information about gaming laptops or are searching for a reputable gaming laptop retailer please visit http://www.ebuyer.com
Choosing MCSA Courses the Right Way
October 26, 2009 by Jason Kendall · View Comments
If you’re looking for a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) training course, you should know that there are many different types of training; some are much better than others while others, not so much. You’ll come across a range of courses, whether you’re new to the industry, or an experienced technician ready to formalize your skills with certification.
For someone just entering the industry, it’s crucial to have some coaching ahead of attempting to go for the first of the four Microsoft Certified Professional exams (MCP’s) that are necessary to pass the MCSA. Find a company that can tailor your studying to suit your needs – with industry experts who can be relied on to guarantee that your choices are good ones.
In first place for the top potential problem across all IT training is a requirement to attend multiple workshop days. Many training schools harp on about the plus points of attending, however, they quickly become a major problem because of:
* Frequent center visits – often hundreds of miles at a time.
* Getting time out of work – typical companies will only provide class availability from Monday to Friday and often group days together in a clump. This can be hard for a lot of working people, especially if you include the travel time on top.
* With the holidays, using half of that on educational events means we’ll be hard-pushed to get a holiday with our families.
* Training workshops usually reach their maximum intake very quickly, leaving us with a less-than-ideal slot.
* There is often tension in many classes where students want to progress at their own pace.
* The growing costs associated with travel – arranging transport to the training center together with accommodation for the duration can start to get expensive every time you have to go. Assuming just a basic 5-10 center-days costing $100 for a single over-night room, plus $40 for gas and $20 for food, that equates to a large add-on cost.
* Maintaining the privacy of our training is often very important to most attendees. You don’t want to sacrifice any lift up the ladder, wage increases or accomplishment at work just because you’re retraining. If your employer knows you’re putting yourself through training in a different industry, what are they going to think?
* Who amongst us hasn’t avoided asking a question, because we wanted to look smarter?
* If you occasionally work elsewhere in the country for several days at a time, imagine the increased difficulty in getting to the needed events, as time becomes even more scarce.
The most impressive solution is watching a pre-made workshop – enabling you to learn any time of the day that suits you.
You could study at home on your desktop computer or why not in the garden on a laptop? Any questions that pop up, just utilize the 24×7 support (that should be packaged with any technical type of training.)
Repeat lessons and modules as often as you want – doing something over will help you remember it and you can forget taking notes – everything is already laid out for you.
Put simply: You save money, avoid hassle, don’t waste time and completely avoid polluting the skies.
Beginning from the viewpoint that it’s good to locate the job we want to do first and foremost, before we can even consider what career development program ticks the right boxes, how are we supposed to find the correct route?
What chances do most of us have in understanding what is involved in a particular job when we haven’t done that before? We normally have never met anyone who works in that sector anyway.
Deliberation over several areas is most definitely required if you need to reveal the right solution that will work for you:
* Your personality can play a major role – what gives you a ‘kick’, and what are the activities that get you down.
* Do you hope to reach an important aim – for instance, working from home as quickly as possible?
* How important is salary to you – is it the most important thing, or is day-to-day enjoyment further up on your priority-list?
* Some students don’t fully understand the energy involved to gain all the necessary accreditation.
* What effort, commitment and time you’re prepared to commit your training.
For the majority of us, sifting through all these ideas tends to require the help of an experienced pro who has direct industry experience. Not only the qualifications – you also need to understand the commercial requirements of industry too.
(C) 2009. Try LearningLolly.com for in-depth advice on MCSA Certification and MCSA Training Courses.
An End To Net Anonymity
October 25, 2009 by Aleksandro Imles · View Comments
The CEO of Russia’s No. 1 anti-virus package has said that the Internet’s biggest security vulnerability is anonymity, calling for mandatory Internet passports that would work much like driver licenses do in the offline world.
The comments by Eugene Kaspersky, who is also the founder of Kaspersky Lab, came during an interview this week with Vivian Yeo of ZDNet Asia. In it, he proposed the formation of an Internet police body that would require users everywhere to be uniquely identified.
“Everyone should and must have an identification, or Internet passport,” he was quoted as saying. “The internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public and it was wrong to introduce it in the same way.”
Kaspersky, whose comments are raising the eyebrows of some civil liberties advocates, went on to say such a system shouldn’t be voluntary.
“I’d like to change the design of the internet by introducing regulation – Internet passports, Internet police and international agreement – about following Internet standards,” he continued. “And if some countries don’t agree with or don’t pay attention to the agreement, just cut them off.”
He rejected the notion that Internet protocol numbers were sufficient for tracking a user, arguing they are too easy to come by.
“You’re not sure who exactly has the connection,” he explained. “Even if the IP address is traced to an Internet cafe, they will not know who the customer or person is behind the attacks. Think about cars – you have plates on cars, but you also have driver licenses.”
Kaspersky was traveling on Friday and was not available to be interviewed for this article. A company spokeswoman declined to comment.
Kaspersky admitted such a system would be hard to put in place because of the cost and difficulty of reaching international agreements. But remarkably, his interview transcript spends no time contemplating the inevitable downsides that would come in a world where Internet anonymity is a thing of the past.
“You could make the same argument about the offline world,” said Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “You know, every purchase you make should be tracked, we should ban the use of cash, we should put cameras up everywhere because in that massive data collection something might be collected to help someone. But we think privacy is an important enough countervailing value that we should prevent that.”
In Kaspersky’s world, services such as Psiphon and The Onion Router (Tor) – which are legitimately used by Chinese dissidents and Google users alike to shield personally identifiable information – would no longer be legal. Or at least they’d have to be redesigned from the ground up to give police the ability to keep an eye on them. That’s not the kind of world many law-abiding citizens would feel comfortable inhabiting.
And aside from the disturbing big-brother scenario, there are the problematic logistics of requiring every Internet user anywhere in the world to connect using an internationally approved device that authenticates his unique identity. There’s no telling how many innovations might be squashed under a system like that.
No doubt, the cybercriminals that Kaspersky has valiantly fought for more than a decade are only getting better at finding ways to exploit weaknesses in Internet technologies increasingly at the heart of the way we shop, socialize and work. But to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those who sacrifice net liberty for incremental increases in security no doubt will get neither.
Do you think it’s a good idea to implement a so-called Internet passport? What’s your take?
Arhur Monderos is working in a company as an antivirus software specialist and he runs his cool blog where he helps you to choose the best antivirus software for you computer.
Thousands Of Sites Loaded With Malware
October 23, 2009 by Aleksandro Imles · View Comments
Cyber-criminals have laced about 2,000 legitimate websites with a potent malware cocktail that surreptitiously attacks people who browse to them, a security researcher warned Friday.
Unlike past outbreaks of the mass web attack known as Gumblar, this round actually plants exploit code on the website servers themselves. Curiously, the directory and file name of the malicious payload is in most cases unique and identical to a legitimate file that existed on the website.
The trick makes it extremely difficult for webmasters and anti-malware programs to detect the threats.
“This is an ugly can of worms,” said Mary Landesman, the ScanSafe security researcher who warned of the mass attack. “Any time you see a new technique evolve like this the concern is we’ll be seeing much more of this in the future, and certainly it complicates the remediation of the compromised website.”
Previously, Gumblar planted links in thousands of compromised websites that silently redirected users to a handful of servers that hosted the exploits. That method allowed white hats to foil the attack by shutting down one or two domains. With the malware embedded directly in the compromised websites, the take-down process is significantly more time consuming.
Also making matters hard for Landesman to get the sites cleaned up: Most of the websites belong to small businesses that cater to non-English speakers. Few of them have dedicated security employees, and even when representatives can be located, the person contacting them must speak multiple languages.
While the websites are relatively small, Gumblar architects have planted links in online discussion forums across the web that often cause RSS readers to automatically send users to the booby-trapped pages. Landesman suspects black-hat search engine optimization may also be causing the infected sites to be featured prominently in results returned by Google and others.
People who are unfortunate enough to visit the sites won’t see anything unusual, but behind the scenes, a PHP script checks their version of Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash, and if their out of date, hijacks their PCs using known vulnerabilities. If both of those programs are up to date, the script tests to see if the system is vulnerable to several bugs Microsoft has patched in the last few months.
Hijacked machines will be installed with a backdoor that gives the hijackers complete control. They are also equipped with malware that manipulates search results returned by Google.
It’s unclear exactly how the sites are getting compromised. Landesman suspects FTP passwords for the sites have been lifted from administrators’ computers using key-logging malware.
Arthur Monderos is working in a company as an antivirus software specialist and he runs his cool blog where he helps you choose the best antivirus software for you computer.
How Cleaning Your Windows Registry Can Make Your Computer Run Faster
October 20, 2009 by Mike Mullins · View Comments
There are few things in life that can trigger such exasperation and frustration as having computer troubles. Frequently rebooting, screens freezing and random errors are just some of the issues that computer users face. Many times, people just buy a new computer out of desperation.
Often, the following issues are caused by a Windows registry problem. Fortunately, this problem can be repaired in most cases if you know what to do and what not to do.
Your computer will let you know that something is not right by providing clues. These can include a slow computer speed, your anti-virus or anti-spyware software cannot resolve the issue and your programs open at a snail’s pace.
One more clue would be that your computer often crashes or freezes. This can be exceedingly annoying because you might lose your work and have to start all over again.
If your computer’s internet connection seems sluggish, yet your internet provider says everything looks all right on their end, you may need to clean your registry.
If you find yourself rebooting your computer a lot, that can be a big warning that you are having trouble with your Windows registry. You might even be getting particular error messages that refer back to a registry issue.
The Windows Registry is the mind of the computer that consists of a database which houses settings and other significant information for software, hardware, and user preferences on the computer. If there is just one corrupt file on your computer, it can lead to registry errors and can jam up your computer. These errors and corruptions will reproduce if not repaired.
Fortunately, you can spend a minuscule amount of money using an online software program and patch up the issue in about 10 minutes.
If you’ve been searching for a Windows registry cleaner, you have to be extremely careful about who you trust. You could make the issues worse if you purchase from some unethical company who really infects your computer with a virus. Go here for up to date info: Windows registry cleaner Info.
