How to Buy an Assembled PC?

Writen by Paul Cris

Today PC is considered as the one of the most essential components of our daily life. We can’t imagine a single minute without the presence of a PC. From office to our home, everywhere it has a strong presence.

But buying the right PC is not so easy as it sounds. One of the easier processes is buying a Branded PC. There are big names in this field. And they come with lucrative offers to stay ahead in the competitive market. But the buyer always has a dilemma. Which one is the best and cost effective? If one branded PC has one advantage, the other has one more advantage, so the best possible way is to build your own PC with all the advantages that you require. Knowledgeable persons, however, prefer buying an assembled PC, as it is cheaper in price and can be custom built.

Here are few tips for buying an assembled PC:

Network Attached Storage – An Alternative To Tape Back-up

Writen by Mark Allen

Businesses have been using tape to back up their data since the early days of computing. Tape has its limitations, but it was much cheaper than the alternatives, so its use continued.

Today, the situation is changing. The price of disk storage has come down dramatically and the performance, longevity and use characteristics of disk are far superior to tape. As a result, many businesses are looking to move away from tape for their backup and disaster recovery needs.

The key requirements of an ideal backup scheme are:

It must be economical. Large amounts of data need to be accommodated (due to the need to keep multiple versions of the data), but in many cases the data will never be accessed. Its contribution to the company’s bottom line only comes if the data is needed, otherwise, it is an unnecessary expense.

It must be reliable over the long term. Some data must be stored for long periods of time, perhaps decades in some situations, to meet regulatory and business needs. If that data is ever needed it must be readable and accessible. When tape sits unused for a long period, it gets brittle and is prone to breaking and data loss.

It must be quick and easy to set up and operate. Back-up windows are getting tighter as the hours of operation increase and the amount of data continues to grow. As a result, the speed of the backup is critically important. If the backup process can be automated, human errors and costs are reduced.

Restoring data, either individual files or a whole system, must be quick, easy and reliable. Today, it can take a long time to retrieve tapes from their offsite storage. Data on tape is stored sequentially so access to specific records can be cumbersome. Reading the tapes can be problematic if the tape is old, brittle or distorted. All this uses precious IT resources that would be better spent elsewhere. Disk storage has none of these issues.

The NAS Approach

With prices in the $2 per GB range, Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems are rapidly becoming the ideal, cost-effective back-up solution.

Disk-to-Disk data transfer speeds far exceed those of writing to tape, so more data can be backed up in less time.

Disk storage has greater longevity than tape, so the data is going to be there and accessible when you need it.

Random access to data on disk saves time when trying to restore specific files.

NAS devices are independent, complete systems that connect directly to your network so they don’t impact your other systems.

Tape rotation schemes are possible with disk-based systems and sophisticated ones can eliminate duplicate files for more compact storage.

For smaller amounts of data, removable disk drives mounted in hot-swap enclosures can provide a competitive alternative for offsite data storage.

Locating a NAS system in another office and backing it up over the network provides a fast, automated remote backup. In the event of a disaster, the backup system is immediately ready to step in for rapid recovery and business continuity.

Many businesses are implementing a staged approach, where an onsite NAS provides fast backups and restores for servers and workstations. Then, to prepare for a disaster that destroys or prevents access to the primary place of business, the data is automatically replicated to a second NAS at another location. For rapidly changing and highly important data, the on-site and off-site systems can be set up to mirror each other, so that little or no data is lost if disaster should strike.

There are other reasons for deploying a NAS system. By accomplishing multiple goals, the NAS can be even easier to justify. Examples include:

Additional end user storage. Centralized storage is easier to back up than data stored on many end user systems.

Ideal for central repositories for workgroup or departmental data that must be shared.

Regulation compliance, such as email retention requirements for HIPAA or Sarbannes-Oxley.

Even if you decide not to abandon tape backup entirely, you can use a NAS as a rapid staging server to gather the data from other systems quickly during your backup window. Then let the NAS feed the data to the tape unit without worrying about time constraints. This is referred to as disk-to-disk-to-tape backup.

Network Attached Storage systems are quickly becoming the preferred data sharing, management and backup solution for enterprise applications and database environments.

Mark Allen is the head of Sales & Marketing for http://www.primearray.com

PrimeArray Systems

The USB Toll

Writen by O G Popa

In 1962, a group of brilliant engineers have postulated the RS232 serial communications protocol, and until 1998 everybody worked with this communications channel very well. It was present on all PCs, until recently. Today, if you will check the newest models of computers on sale, you are going to discover more than half of the tower/desktop PCs do not have the serial RS232 connector (DB 9), and for certain no laptops have it. This is due to a group of only seven companies: they have figured out they can easily milk more money from users and developers, if they force the implementation of a “better” alternative to the old RS232.

Things are this way. A communications channel should be just what it is: a simple hardware communications channel. Each software routine or hardware module should be capable of accessing the communications channel easily, just by configuring it, and this is exactly the case of the RS232 protocol. Since 1962 millions of applications have been written based on RS232 serial communications, and some of them are technical, unique and very expensive. According to the most basic rule in the digital world, which says “backwards compatibility”, it was logic and natural that RS232 was going to be upgraded to higher speeds, and smaller interface connectors. Unfortunately, logic does not sell very well these days.

The reverse of the good, decent logic says: “Why not make the serial communications channel very difficult to implement? Let’s make that communications channel driver so difficult to implement that people would be glad to pay money to have it already done. In addition, we could make this new serial communications channel strictly dependant, so that it will work only on one particular version of Operating System; for different OS versions, they will have to pay more money! Even more, if somebody is smart enough to develop this new serial communications channel driver, then that person or company will have to pay an annual subscription fee of, say, 10000 up to 20000 USD, in order to sell his or their products.”

“Wait a minute; we can also sell a unique code number with each new driver, named ‘Vendor’s Code’ so that only the big companies are going to afford getting one. The medium and small developers, and the public eventually, will have to pay for it!”

“Could we make it worse?”

“Yes, we can take out all ‘free of charge’ RS232 connectors, from all PCs, so that everybody will have to implement the ‘better’ communications channels. Ha, ha!”

“Can we make it even worse?”

“Yes, we do have many possibilities to make it worse, but we will implement them gradually, one at a time, so that our new source of wealth will never dry out!”

“Now, to add insult to the injury, I suggest naming the new communications protocol “universal”: the Universal Serial Bus!”

“Ha, ha, ha!”

A communications channel it is just like a necessary tool: you grab it and work with it, then you put it back where you took it from. You do not need to work for 3 or 4 months to develop a “driver” for that channel–nobody did it with RS232. Today, implementing USB communications in a small project it is more demanding that the project itself, for most applications, and it is so expensive that small and medium developers cannot afford doing it: they have to buy USB drivers from “qualified-vendors”!

Sure, the qualified-vendors are also selling RS232-to-USB adaptors, but this is still lots of extra costs added to the totally free RS232 interface we had. However, what is really alarming is, the trend is to eliminate any trace of free communications channels, from all PCs! With little efforts today, the international community of developers and IEEE could get together and reinstate the old RS232 serial communications channel, based on an upgraded and (easily) backwards compatible new RS232 protocol. This is not very difficult and I offer my help.

Please note; besides from being intentionally very difficult to implement and costly, the USB protocol it is a proprietary one. That group of seven companies I mentioned has a license on it! This is not right, because PC architecture it is public domain, and same is the old, reliable, RS232 serial communications channel. They belong to all of us, and it is our right and duty to protect public domain from being stolen. If we do not defend our rights, now, rest assured we are going to see more parts of our PCs becoming the property of few groups of companies, one by one.

O G POPA is Professional Engineer in BC, Canada. His home site is Corollary Theorems at http://www.corollarytheorems.com

A Guide To Ultrasonic

Writen by Kent Pinkerton

Ultrasonic generally refers to acoustic frequencies above twenty thousand hertz, which is the upper limit of human hearing range. These frequencies are however audible to certain animals such as mice, bats, dolphins, and dogs that have a higher hearing range as compared to humans. The human inability to hear ultrasonic sound waves is caused by the middle ear that acts as a low-pass filter.

Humans would have been able to perceive ultrasonic sound waves if these waves could somehow be directed into the skull bone to reach the cochlea without passing through the middle ear. Deep-sea divers who are exposed to high frequency sonar signals above fifty thousand hertz sometimes experience this effect known as ultrasound hearing.

Ultrasonic sound waves form a part of many devices used in industrial and medical sectors. The most commonly used device is an ultrasound machine that is used in the treatment of benign and malignant tumors via a process known as ultrasound surgery (FUS) or high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). Medical research conducted to study the effects of ultrasonic waves on the human body suggests that the waves have the ability to stimulate bone-growth and has the potential to disrupt the blood-brain barrier for drug delivery.

Industrial devices also use ultrasonic sound waves to locate microscopic flaws in materials such as metal parts and plastics. Ultrasonic frequencies used in these devices usually range from two to ten mega hertz. Ultrasonic sound waves used in cleaning devices are usually in the range of twenty to forty kilohertz. These are generally used for cleaning jewelry, optical parts, watches, dental instruments, and surgical instruments.

Advanced research work is currently underway to develop a system for producing a phenomenon called sonoluminescence that has the potential to enable nuclear fusion reaction. This will provide a safe and cheap means of producing electricity and will help in solving energy problems faced by countries worldwide.

Store Displays

Writen by Jimmy Sturo

Market research by advertising agencies has demonstrated that the vast majority of consumers pay very little attention to newspaper or television advertisements. Many people do not read newspaper or watch promotional ads, and this type of advertising in print or visual medias has little impact on their buying decisions. As a result, they are seldom exposed to the various products available on the market. This creates an urgent need for marketers of various products to reach customers in more effective ways. Store displays play a major role in this process. Since most people do is shop regularly, store displays have become a very effective advertising tool.

Store displays serve the dual task of adding a promotional element and providing a space to display products. Store displays are fixtures where commodities can be displayed. They work equally well in a large retail apparel chain stores, small gift shops, jewelry stores, boutiques, golf pro shops and bookstores.

Store displays have evolved from banners stating the name of a product and it’s brand, to a complete style and image statement. The success of retailing depends to a large extent on systematic store displays. It is considered a vital investment, as it has long and short- term pay-offs for the retailer. Therefore, when new retail stores are set up, a lot of money and thought is spent in ensuring that the displays are attractive, sequential and capable of highlighting products. Many retailers have learned the hard way that displaying a shabby or poor quality displays does not pay off. In fact, what appears to be a cost savings upfront can turn into unexpected hassles when parts or expansion options aren’t available or the original display manufacturer can’t be located. Retail experts recommend purchasing displays that are easy to install, durable and easy to dismount.

How To Find Printers That Will Do All Your Printing Jobs In One Machine

Writen by Gregg Hall

How many times have you been at home and wished you had a copier? Chances are you can think of an instance when having a copier at home would have been nice. If you had had a copier you wouldn’t have had to leave the house and waste time, or even money making your needed copies.

Space

If you run a small business from home you may have the need not only for a copier and printer, but also a fax machine and scanner. If you have priced each of these items you know how expensive they can get. Buying each of these machines also takes up lots of room that you may not have.

Availability

The good news is that you can now purchase all in one printers that save both space and money. You can buy a machine that combines two, three or even all four functions into one. These machines are surprisingly small and are easy to install. You can purchase one of these machines at your local store without spending a lot of money. You may also want to check online before you make your purchase. The Internet tends to offer you a large selection at competitive prices.

Quality

When pricing these machines make sure you pay attention to any shipping and handling costs that may be charged. You also need to keep in mind the quality of the machine you are purchasing. You may need to spend a few extra dollars to get a good quality machine, but it will be worth it in the end. Whether you use your machine for running a business or even for personal use, you need a machine that is going to do its job well.

Three in One

When purchasing your all in one machine look at all your options. You can choose if you want three function or four all in one machine. Assess your needs to see which is more reasonable for you. A printer, scanner, copier tends to run around $100. The price may vary depending on the brand of machine you decide to purchase.

Four in One

If you can afford to spend a little more you can purchase a machine that includes a fax machine. If you are not sure if you will need a fax machine we suggest getting it anyway. You never know when you may need a fax machine, and it does not cost much more than the three in one machine.

Having a fax machine for a business would be helpful. Think of how much you spend to overnight documents to someone. Now think how much easier it would be to just fax them the information. Faxing the information would cost less money, and they would get it faster. Having the all in one machine would also save you time because you could do everything from home.

Choosing the Right Case for you

Writen by Sezer Bozkurt

One of the most important components of your PC is the PC case. Choosing a good PC case is an important step in building your computer, since it determines several things. It determines the number of PC components you can have, as well as how what temperature your PC operates at. And it also determines how good your PC looks.

There are different factors to consider when choosing a PC case. The first is how much space your PC case is going to take up. If you don’t have space to spare on your already busy desk, it would be best to look at a case that is relatively small.

The second factor is internal space. This is very important as it determines which/how many components you can put in your PC. There’s no use buying a smaller case then not being able to put your shiny new video card with 3 fans in it. You may want to add several DVD or CD burners also but to do this extra space will be required. One thing to watch out for is overheating. If you put several components that generate heat, into a crowded case you will run into problems with overheating.

The third would be motherboard support. It may sound like something simple, but make sure your motherboard will physically fit into the case. I know of many people that have found this out the hard way. The fourth thing to take into consideration is cooling. If you are planning on over-clocking your computer, or jam-packing it with components, you will need ample cooling to avoid damage to your components. Ample cooling means more fans in more places. If you are planning to do any of the above, you will need to choose a case that will support the installation of multiple fans.

As you now know choosing a case is not as simple as it seems. There are several factors that can greatly impact the performance of your system.

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