Computer Hardware
Switching from a Desktop to a Laptop or Netbook
by atomike on Apr.06, 2010, under Computer Hardware
What are the advantages and disadvantages of switching to a laptop or netbook. This article will compare your average computer. There are a wide variety in each category, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. But in this article I focus on what is called mainstream computers, as oposed to enthusiast computers.
Lets begin with the laptop. I begin with the laptop because many people are considering switching from their desktops to a laptop, specially when their desktop needs repair. Is this a wise decision? Well, lets consider the benefits of switching from a desktop to a laptop.
Obvious plus is portability. You can take your laptop with you and use it on battery charge for 2 to 4 hours on a single charge. Space saving is also an advantage. Laptop have the basic periferals – keyboard, mouse, speakers, and sometimes camera – in one package.
But there are drawbacks to having a laptop as your main computer. Laptops usually come with hard drives that have spinning disks (as oposed to solid state hard drives). These tend to crash more often than desktop hard drives. Moving a laptop while it is powered on is the culprit because a spinning disk wants to spin on the same plane, if you tilt the laptop, you increase the chance that the reading needle crashes with the disk. Desktops are stationary and are not tilted while powered on as often and therefore have a reduced risk of crashing the needle on the disk.
Overheating is also a problem. Laptops do not offer good airflow to dissipate the heat. Most of the vents are located on the bottom of the computer, which are sometimes blocked by objects -like pillows. Another source of overheating is dust build up. This should not be a problem if you use crompressed air to clean your laptop at least every 4 months. But people wait until its too late.
One big problem with some laptops that have a DC port directly soldered onto the motherboard, is that the DC port gets loose over time with use. The first symptom us an overheating charger or DC port, then the laptop stops charging unless the cable is held at an angle. Then it doesn’t work anymore, and the DC port has to be resoldered or replaced. Either way it is a costly repair.
And that brings me to the last disatvantage of laptops. Cost of repair. If the video card on your laptop fails, the motherboard has to be repaired or replaced. Sound card fails, same thing, the motherboard needs replacement. Camera fails… yeap. These repairs are significantly less costly on desktops, not to mention it takes less time to repair. Motherboard replacements on a laptop can take up to a month. Desktops can usually be repaired on-site.
There are other more technical advantages and disadvantages, like performance, multiscreen support, and screen resolution. But these would fall under the enthusiast category.
Now what’s with all the hype about netbooks? Well, netbooks are a kind of laptop that is used mainly to access the net, hence the name. Netbooks don’t come with optical drives, so you cannot watch DVDs on them the way you would use a laptop or desktop. But I would not expect a netbook to be used as a main computer, unless all you do is access the internet and some word processing.
To epitomize, the decision to switch from a desktop to a laptop or netbook comes down to mobility and space vs. maintenace cost. The performance difference between desktops and laptops is minimal in the mainstream category and therefore don’t play an important role. If mobility and space is of importance, a laptop is for you. On the other hand if you want to keep maintenace cost to a minimum, a desktop is the choice.
Boost the speed of your computer with $10
by atomike on Feb.18, 2009, under Computer Hardware
So there you are wanting to use your computer but get discouraged as soon as you realize how slow your computer runs. You wish you could just plug in something and make it faster. My friend, ask and thou shall receive.
Go to you local computer store. Buy a 4GB RBST USB flash drive. It only costs $9.99. Head back home and plug it in. Vista will ask if you want to use ReadyBoost to make your computer faster. Say yes (Of course) and set it to the max the drive can take. Voila!
If your computer is already fast. You wont see much of a difference. But for those wanting faster booting, faster opening of programs, and more reponsiveness. This is a good way to provide your system with a boost of speed.
No need to buy a bigger flash drive than a 4GB. ReadyBoost only supports a max of 4GB.
For more information click ReadyBoost
How big a hard drive do I need?
by atomike on Feb.18, 2009, under Computer Hardware
Lets answer that question with another question; How many programs do you use?
In general, I recommend you have an least two hard drives. Your first hard drive should have enough space to accomodate for the programs you use – operating system, office suit, video editors, image editors. The data those programs use – text files, movies, pictures – should be maintained on the second hard drive, and therefore you should consider how many files each program is going to save.
For most home users, the first hard drive is the internal hard drive included in their desktop or laptop and it is smaller than the second, which is external and it is optional. Most home users have few text documents, several pictures and media files. All these files should be kept in an external hard drive. If you are a home user, don’t worry to much about the internal hard drive your system has. if you need space, invest your money in an external hard drive.
Small business users should have a big enough hard drive for their programs and program data, specially for database driven programs such as Quickbooks and Outlook. This will ensure data can be accessed fast by their programs. If you need more space, invest your money in an internal hard drive. As your business expands, consider more advances options like RAID or Network Attached Storage.
How to backup your information
by atomike on Feb.18, 2009, under Computer Hardware, Computer Software
A backup is an important step toward preventing data loss. There are several applications and serveral accessories in the market today to help you with this task. In this post I explain the different types of backup options you will be confronted with when deciding where to save your information. This article is aimed at home users and small businesses. large scale backup systems like those required by large servers are not discussed in this post.
The first thing you have to select is the type of media you want to use for your backup. The options are hard drive, optical (i.e. cds, dvds), solid state (i.e. thumb drives), and remote backup (i.e. internet backup).
- Hard Drive – Pros: Large capacity Cons: Physical size, as big as a small dictionary
- Optical – Pros: Cheap if you have a CD/DVD/Blueray burners Cons: Physical lifetime may only be a couple of years
- Solid State – Pros: Very portable Cons: Constly when compared to the capacity and price of other media
- Remote Backup – Pros: Highest survival Cons: Very slow for people who modify large amounts of data. Security is in the hand of a third party
The second thing you have to select is the type of backup. The options are full backup, incremental, and differential.
- Full Backup – Pros: Saves all your data in one file Cons: With this process all your data is save to a file every time you want to make a backup, this makes the process very time consuming and space inefficient
- Incremental – Pros: Saves all your data created or modified since the last full backup, therefore saving space Cons: When restoring your data, the full backup and all incremental backups are required
- Differential – Pros: Saves all your data to one file, subsequent backups save data that was created or modiefied, this saves space and time needed to make a backup and restore a backup. Cons: Cannot restore data from an earlier backup than the last backup made.
Some closing advise notes:
- Learn the backup process aswell as the restore process
- An automated backup will reduce human error
- Keep the backup and the originals in separate locations as far as possible to make sure they don’t experience the same catastrophic event, such as the building burned down, flooded, etc.
- Save you backups in a standard format so that different software may be used to restore the information in case the original software used to meke the backup became obsolete
Why is my computer slow?
by atomike on Feb.18, 2009, under Computer Hardware, Computer Software
Computers may run slower than usual for many reasons. Here we will try to highlight some of the possible reasons starting with the most common and working our way down a list.
#1. If your computer is fairly new (maximum 2 years old) then the most likely the cause is Spyware, or a virus.
#2. Usually, people are told to install an anti-virus in conjunction with an anti-spyware. This may result in poor performance since every process and file in the computer will be scanned by each program, namely the anti-virus and the anti-spyware. It is recommended that you have both intalled on your computer. However, only run one at a time. This can be a relatively complicated task to achive for someone that is not avid with computers.
#3. System hardware does not meet recommended requirements of the operating system. You should avoid buying a computer with minimum requirements since these computers will usually only run well with the software it came with, adding extra software may slow it down.
