There is a computer in our cars, TV’s, cell phones, our cable boxes, and other electronic devices. Without the software, these electronics would not work as they do. They may turn on, but the programs that we need to use would not work properly without the help of software.

The operating system that came with your computer is a computer software program. All computers come with an operating system, such as Windows aka XP, Vista, 2000, etc. Other operating systems are Linux and Mac. Without an operating system, your computer will not operate as it should. It may turn on, but it won’t run properly.

There are so many different programs today to do just about anything you want to on your computer. Some computer software program names are Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office, Print Shop, QuickBooks, video games, etc.

Some programs come in the form of CD or DVD, or floppy disks. This software can also be downloaded from the Internet, called electronic download. A software program is usually all set up to run on your computer. Each program will tell you what operating system and other criteria needed to use the program on your computer.
There are programs that will diagnose, troubleshoot, and fix problems that may occur with your computer, without the help of a computer tech.

Some programs online are in the form of a zip file, closed to make the file smaller. Most operating systems have a program on them that will automatically open a zip file so that you can install it onto your computer without a hassle. If you do not have a zip file software program, you can find a free program online. A great place to find free software downloads is at http://download.cnet.com/windows/.

Each program will tell you what the computer requirements are to run the program on your computer. It may specify that the program is only for Windows 2000 or XP, but most programs are available to run with Vista, Mac, and Linux now. http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx offers free trials for a lot of their software programs so that you can try it out before purchasing a copy of it.

Nearly everywhere we go or whatever we do, there is computer software running something. It is a wonderful idea to learn more about the computer world, as it will always be a big part of life. The technology continues to change and improve in most areas. A lot of the local Adult Education centers offer classes for free or at a very reasonable price to learn more about computers. Some local computer technicians also offer tutoring at reasonable prices. The World Wide Web has loads of free information on this topic as well.

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Good Timing is a computer alarm clock software for the Windows operating system that comes with additional timer functionality. The computer program will display four windows upon program start. These windows display the time till the next alarm, a configuration window to add new timers and alarms, a log detailing all the changes and the main program window listing all alarms and timers that have been created by the user.

All windows except the main window can be closed after the configuration. The main window can be minimized to the system tray. Each configured alarm or timer is made up of required and optional parameters. The required parameters for the computer alarm clock configuration obviously require the type and time while the option parameters include dates, days, sounds, notes, commands and other parameters that finetune the alarm.

Good Timing is a free download that is compatible with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

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SuperSpeed USB, which was demonstrated for the first time in 2007 will advance the serial bus standard once again. Transfer speeds have been raised to a speed of 5 Gbit / s which improves data transfer speeds tremendously. To copy a 25 Gigabyte file USB 1.0 needed 9.03h, USB 2.0 13.09 minutes and USB 3.0 1.10 minutes. USB 3.0 receptacles are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 device plugs which basically means that computer users can still connect their USB 2.0 or USB 1.0 devices into a computer system supporting USB 3.0.

Another interesting addition to USB 3.0 are power saving features which were especially designed for mobile devices. Packet traffic is no longer being broadcasted to the USB device which reduces its power usage. Additional power saving features like idle, sleep and suspend states have been added to USB 3.0 as well. A device entering sleep mode will practically be left alone by USB 3.0 Hosts until itself initiates a device mode change. The power specs have been increased on the other hand to be able to provide devices (like external hard drives) with additional power for their operation.

First devices that make use of USB 3.0 are expected in 2009 but the main push towards USB 3.0 is expected to begin in 2010.

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The matter is even getting more pressing if the supply is limited, say a limited edition of a computer game or a super duper price for a product that usually costs a lot more. That’s like putting more pressure on the consumer and it usually works.

I’m sometimes hard pressed to stop myself from buying a device after reading about it on the Internet. I came up with a system that is beating impulse buying fair and square and it will definitely save you some money.

It’s actually a pretty easy system. If I see or read about something that I want I think about it for a second. Do I really need the device right now? The answer would be yes in the case of a crashed hard drive but no for a gamin system or computer game.

Every item where I come to the conclusion that I do not need it right away lands on my 90-days list. I add the date and the name of the product on that list. I check back after 90 days and see if I still want to buy that product. If I do I buy it but more often than not I don’t care anymore. Let me give you an example where this worked perfectly.

You might remember that I wanted to buy a SSD (Solid State Drives) for my new computer. SSDs were expensive and rare at that time and most could not really live up to the promise. I put that SSD drive on my 90 days list and ordered one just a few days ago because I still wanted one. Those 90 days however saw some great product releases of reliable and fast SSD drives and I was able to grab one of the fastest for a third of the price that I would have paid back then. As I said, it works pretty well and more often than not it saves you money.

Ladies, this works extremely well for non-tech related products like shoes, perfumes, clothes or books.

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The keyboard comes as a professional and ultimate edition with the only difference between the versions that the ultimate Keyboard ships with blank keys which should be fine for everyone who wants to improve his typing skills the hard way. (the first weeks will be rather painful I believe).

Well, I would not want to pay $80 – $129 for a computer keyboard and I usually prefer simple solid keyboards from manufacturers like IBM or Logitech that come without all those extra “multimedia” keys that modern keyboards seem to ship with. My keyboards are cheap usually but provide great feedback when pressing a key on it. I really don’t feel comfortable with those thin Notebook like keyboards and those ergonomic keyboards that I usually throw at the next wall whenever I have to use them.

What type of keyboards do you prefer ? Classic ? Modern ? Ergonomic ? Uber ? Multimedia ? Let me know.

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When you’ve been working on your computer for a day or two and it’s starting to slow down and is struggling to open the start menu then it’s probably time to reset. Resetting clears the RAM and gets the system running fresh again.

The Anonymous writer of Shipping Seven also had this suggestion:

Windows occasionally gets into a weird state where, well, things just stop working – the start menu doesn’t launch some apps anymore, clicking links in Internet Explorer doesn’t work, context menus stop working, etc.*

Instead of rebooting Windows to get things working again, try logging out and logging back in. When Windows (and the apps that plug into the Windows shell) get into some weird state, you don’t need to reboot; a logoff shuts down the Windows Explorer, and a logon loads it again.

This used to happen to me every now and again, but since SP1 It hasn’t happened once.

Alternatively there is a much easier way to get your computer running smoothly again and remove all the idle processed.

• Create a new shortcut on the desktop
• In the input field type:

“%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks”

• Click ‘next’ and name the shortcut.
• When this shortcut is run the system should stop for a few seconds as it reclaims RAM before speeding up again as you use it.

Hope you find this useful.

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Exercises are divided into the three categories Eyes, Hands and Body each containing several exercises that do not take up lots of space, if any, which is ideal for work environments. Each exercise is explained visually by an avatar that is performing it over and over again as well as text that is displayed below the performance.

The first exercise for the hands for example asks the user to stretch his finger joints while the first body exercise is all about stretching the body for a few times.

Each exercise is repeated several times. Basic controls allow to pause, rewind or forward exercises at any time. The exercises are easy to learn which means that the animations are no longer needed eventually which should definitely be the first goal of a new user. It does not make much sense to exercise the eyes when you have to keep them glued to the computer monitor to understand the exercises correctly.

The other criticism that I have is the advertisement popup that appeared once talking about another tool of the developer that would scan my Registry. I have no idea on the frequency of those popups, it happened once during my tests.

The time before the program reminds the user that he should take a break can be set between 10 and 180 minutes.

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Today’s monitors however are not prone to those burn-ins which makes screensavers for that purpose obsolete. If you want to save energy you should therefor turn off the monitor. I have set the Energy Saving options to turn off the monitor after fifteen minutes of inactivity.

Moving the mouse turns the monitor on again and work can resume afterwards. Screensavers these days serve mainly two purposes. The first is entertainment. A wide variety of possibilities exist including video screensavers, virtual tours or graphic demos. The second is a basic protection of the computer which can be configured to ask for the user password before work can commence.

How is your computer configured to handle inactivity ?

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Locate PC only works if the thief is stupid enough to boot your computer while being connected to an internet connection. I cannot really say how many thiefs would do that but it can happen and that’s probably reason enough to use Locate PC. A slim chance is better than no chance at all, don’t you think ?

Locate PC (via Cybernet News) will send emails periodically whenever the PC is connected to the Internet, by default one email is send per day and another one for every IP change. The application is running in the background with an obscured filename and no system tray icon making it harder to identify. I would say that you do not need to worry about that though, if the thief really boots the PC while it is connected to the Internet then you should not fear that he will discover the little tracking application.

One thing that actually might work pretty well is to create a bogus account that does not require a password. I mean, a thief that gets a password prompt will probably not be able to load the operating system which would make the whole configuration void.

The emails that are send contain several interesting information, not only the IP that it is being send from. It displays the computer’s host name and logged in user. This will be probably your information though. More interesting are the network connections that are listed. A dialup connection would reveal the phone number and the user name which can lead directly to the thief.

A traceroute command is issued as well and identifying information are pulled from Windows. The important information that can lead to the thief are the IP address, the network connections and the traceroute command. Everything else will be your information unless the thief decides to chance the name and address of the owner to his own.

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I needed MozBackup to import the data from my old computer. Once I had access to my bookmarks and emails I began to install several applications that I needed for work. The screenshot application MWSnap, WinSCP and Putty to administrate my dedicated server, GIMP for editing images and XNView Lite for viewing images.

Then Extract Now to be able to work with all kinds of archives, XMPlay for playing music, SMPlayer for videos, Notepad++ for working with texts and source codes and True Crypt to work with encrypted partitions.

Some applications that I need from time to time are not installed yet. This includes the awesome Unlocker to get rid of the “currently in use” message when deleting or moving files, Eraser to delete files permanently, Recuva to be able to recover files and Revo Uninstaller to completely remove installed applications.

I do install Newsbin Pro, uTorrent and Opera as well but that’s it basically. That’s my main set of applications that I need regularly. I may have missed one or two but they will come to my mind in the moment I need them and miss the function that they provided.

Have anything to add ? Let me know please.

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The second reason is to make sure that the hardware is working properly. If your computer ram is faulty you can run into all kinds of difficulties from crashes and bluescreens to severe data loss.I use several applications to test a new computer to reduce the chance that I will run into such difficulties.

I consider the first start the first test of the computer. Why ? Because if the computer boots properly I know that all the devices that are needed to boot are working properly at that time. I usually check the BIOS first which normally does come with a PC Health menu that displays PC temperatures. This first step is essential.

If the CPU temperature for instance would look very high (consult the CPU booklet or website of the developer if you don’t know the values) then something went wrong with the cpu cooler. It could be that the cooler has not been properly placed on the cpu or that the cooler does not have the capacities to cool it effectively.

I usually only test the memory and the cpu of the computer. Especially the memory is essential. The applications that I use for testing purposes are Prime95 (Torture Mode) and Memtest86. Memtest86 is available as a bootable ISO version which means that you can run the application before installing the operating system.

I suppose there is some Live CD that is offering additional applications, anyone having a good tip about that ?

Both applications stress test the computer and should not display errors or cause reboots and shutdowns. A reboot or shutdown usually means that the computer has a cooling problem or faulty hardware. I normally run both applications for at least six hours to make sure everything is alright.

Keeping an eye on the computer temperatures is essential in the beginning. It’s not only the cpu that is important, hard drive, video card and system temperatures are important as well and should not rise to critical levels even when stress testing the computer.

The first application that I usually start after installing the operating system and the drivers is one of those system analysers. Something like Sandra Sisoft or Everest Ultimate. The trial versions are sufficient for my needs and I uninstall the applications after a while again.

Both display the temperatures of all important components and they usually come with their own system stress tests as well.These programs are also excellent for comparing the build in hardware with the hardware that you did purchase.

Gamers can also run 3D Mark 2006 to test their system and observe the temperature level of the video card and cpu afterwards.I usually run Speedfan all the time for the first week which display all temperature sensors of the computer and has the advantage that it is a tiny application that does not use a lot of system resources.

Do you use other programs to test a computer ? Let me know about them.

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The first thing that I did when the packages with the PC parts arrived was to check if everything was there and it it was the correct component. Nothing is worse than to find out that a component is missing when you’re in the middle of building the PC. I normally put everything on a table and make a quick check that I got everything that I need to build the PC.

Building a PC is much like a puzzle. You got finite parts and need to place them in the right location of the computer case and connect each and every piece properly to get a PC that is working and booting. Before I start adding pieces to the PC case I divided them into primary and secondary components.

Primary PC Components:

• Computer Case
• Motherboard
• CPU
• CPU Cooler
• Power Supply
• Thermal Grease
• Case Fans

Secondary PC Components:

• Memory
• Video Card
• Hard Drive
• Sound Card
• Other Cards
• CD and DVD Drives
• Mouse
• Keyboard
• any other external device

The reason why I’m dividing the components up is because the primary components are harder to assemble than the secondary ones. You can add the video card and remove it in a matter of seconds but you cannot do that with the CPU if the CPU cooler has already been placed on it.

I usually start with the computer case and the power unit. The computer case normally comes with a lot of screws that are needed for various parts. The problem with the power unit is its size mainly. If you have other components in the PC you might have troubles placing it in the right location. It is usually connected to the PC with four screws.

The next part is in my opinion the part were many things can go wrong. I’m talking about the motherboard. Some builders prefer to add components to the motherboard when it is outside of the computer case because they have additional free space to add the components that way. It cannot rest on the tower directly and you have to place standoffs between the motherboard and the case. The standoffs have to be in the location that corresponds to the holes in the motherboard because you will use screws to firmly place the motherboard on those standoffs.

This part is really important, especially for those builders who place the motherboard in the computer case and add other components afterwards. Some computer parts need a little bit of pressure to be properly put in place. If you do not use enough standoffs you can break your motherboard quite easily if you apply to much pressure. The more standoffs the less the chance that it breaks.

Most motherboards come with their own back panel that needs to be switched with the default one from your computer case before connecting the motherboard to the computer. The back panel contains all those USB and sound device connectors from the motherboard.

When the motherboard is in place I connect the wires from the computer case to the motherboard. The wires are used to power certain buttons and lights on the computer case, for example the Power button. You need to consult the motherboard manual to find the proper place for them.

After that I add the cpu first. Again, that is a easy task. Just consult the motherboard manual and it will tell you exactly how it is done. It comes down to raising the socket laever, lifting the metal load plate and placing the cpu in the correct position. The cpu displays a tiny triangle on one edge and that triangle is aligned with the pin one corner of the cpu socket.

I then apply the thermal grease to the cpu and place the cpu cooler on top of it. This can be quite tough depending on the type of CPU cooler that you bought. Just read the instructions properly and you should be fine. The cpu cooler is usually connected to four holes that are next to the cpu.

And that was the hardest part of assembling the computer. It really comes down to these few components that can make or break the computer. Everything else is just a matter of placing the cards in the correct slots of connecting drives to the computer.

I can understand that most users do not want to build a computer because of fear that they break something. Another fear is connected to the different parts one has to buy in order to build the computer.

The whole process is not that difficulty if you read the manuals properly and use the above build order. Last but not least, here are the components that I finally purchased for my computer. It is not the fastest computer but it can do everything that you need to do, play games, watch videos, work with it.

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU
• Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
• Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Motherboard
• MDT DIMM Kit 4096 MB PC2-6400 CL5 DDR2-800 RAM
• Seasonic S12II-500 ATX PSU
• Samsung Spinpoint F1 1000 GB SATA II Hard Drive
• Lian Li PC-A09B Computer Case
• Leadtek PX8800GTS TDH 512MB Video Card
• Creative SB X-FI XtremeMusic Sound Card

It took me roughly 2 hours to build the compute and it started immediately after connecting the power unit. Now I had experiences in the past where that was not the case and it usually comes down to checking all connectors making sure everything is connected properly.

A friend of mine prefers the minimal approach. He only connects the primary components first, that is computer case, power unit, cpu, cpu cooler, motherboard, video card and ram and tries to boot the PC. If the PC boots he knows that everything up to this point is working nicely. He then adds one component at a time until every component has been added to the computer.

You do not need a degree in computer science to build a PC. It all comes down to reading the manual properly and the correct build order.

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Some new items have recently been introduced, for instance the Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drive that will most likely be the fastest SATA drive on the market when it comes out in Mai 2008. The question that I have to ask myself is if I really need to buy that 300 Gigabyte drive that is definitely faster than any other SATA drive that I could buy for roughly $300 or invest in more space and less speed.

Since I’m not that much of a gamer anymore I decided to not buy that hard drive. The same holds true for my choice of video card and cpu. I do not need the fastest, I need reliable hardware that runs Linux and Windows plus the applications that I need. I need Windows to test software for Ghacks and for the occasional game that might come out that sounds interesting, Starcraft 2 anyone ?

Some other thoughts: I always choose a low noise level over performance. That means I tried my best to find pc components that produce the least amount of noise possible. I’m not talking about passive cooling here although that would probably be an option as well but about components that have been developed to be less noisy than the usual pc components.

.

All components for that pc cost $844.92 which is more affordable than I thought it would be. That leaves enough money for a better LCD monitor and a sound card. I know that some components are not the fastest like the video card. Nvidia and ATI are pumping out new video cards every three to six months it seems that are faster and more powerful than those that have been released just a few months ago.

I don’t need to play games on highest settings and the card that I have chosen is perfectly capable of delivering a good gaming experience on my Samsung Syncmaster 19″ lcd monitor. Did I miss something, would you change something in the setup ? Let me know, this might be the last chance to change components.

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The article is divided into four parts, the first talks about the parts that you need and some things that you should take care of. What I really like is that he gives tips without hardware recommendation. The advice is general and users who have never build a PC in their life will love his advice will professionals will probably only skimp over it and come to the conclusion that they hardly learned anything new from the article.

The other three parts are Assembly, Testing, Loading the Operating System and as a bonus optional tweaks. The assembly part is without doubt the most important part if you want to build a PC. Believe it or not I did not put any thermal paste on the CPU of my first PC that I build myself. I was lucky that it ran without problems until a friend reminded me that I had to apply it immediately.

You will find those tips there, tips that you learn the hard way sometimes but are guaranteed to never miss again. I will write an article with images detailing the process of building the PC from the parts that I will buy. The only thing that I do not like that much is that you actually have to click on the different parts to read the whole article. That’s not very user friendly.

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It was an old computer, an AMD Duron 800 Mhz with a 40 Gigabyte hard drive, 256 Megabytes of RAM running Windows XP. The first thing I did was to lookup the Stop error message that was showing when the bluescreen appeared only to find out that it was most likely a hardware related problem.

My guess was that it was either the motherboard, the RAM or the hard drive that were leading to the bluescreen so I had to test them to find the cause for it. Oh, before I started I made sure that every piece of hardware that was not needed to run the computer was disconnected, like sound and network adapters but also secondary drives and onboard components.

The only way to do this was to burn a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD which contains tools to analyze the hardware and boot it. The disc contains all kinds of utilities to scan, analyze and repair hardware connected to a computer and it is especially effective when it comes to RAM and hard drives.

I decided to run Memtest to test the RAM of the computer which turned out to be fine. The next tool was the Drive Fitness Test designed for IBM and Hitachi hard drives. It turned out that the hard drive had damaged sectors which the tool was able to repair.

With the errors corrected I tried to boot into Windows again and it happened to load just fine. If that would not have helped I would have tried some additional tools to test the CPU for instance. I would have used the cloning tool to clone the hard drive and format it completely to start the installation a new.

The Ultimate Boot CD is an excellent utility if you want to test major PC components without having to install software on the computer.

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I decided to go for a slightly larger PSU to accommodate all the needs of the components. I also decided to purchase the new Intel Wolfdale CPU running on 45nm instead of the 65nm of the older CPUs. My last decision was to forgo the purchase of a Solid State Disk. The technology is incredible, the only problem is that the new faster disks are not available yet or so expensive that some would cost more than all other components combined in the PC.

Other components have been changed as well. I switched to the Gigabyte motherboard which saves me $10 and received great ratings across the board. The RAM was changed slightly from DDR2 800 to DDR2 1066 which increased the price by $50.

I might get a nice audio card as well, maybe the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer. All other components are still in my old PC and will be used in the new one as well. This includes Samsung DVD writer, Logitech Mouse and Keyboard. I’m thinking of purchasing a new 24″ monitor to replace my old 19″ Samsung monitor.

Any thoughts on this setup ? The PSU should be sufficient to handle everything smoothly. The overall costs are $1,031.91 at the moment.

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Depending on your computer setup and usage you might want to run the schedule less often, maybe once a month or every other week instead. The applications that I’m using are: Autoruns, Process Explorer, CurrPorts, MyUninstaller, Eraser, Disk Cleaner and Defraggler.

If you want to add more security to the schedule you could add an anti-virus application and one against spyware to the mix and run them as well. I usually do not do this however. The schedule is selected for the greatest efficiency. I begin by analyzing the current situation, remove programs and files that I no longer need in the second step, defragment the hard drives and finally erase the free space on the drives so that these deleted files can’t be recovered anymore.

The Schedule:

• Autoruns
• CurrPorts
• Process Explorer
• MyUninstaller
• Disk Cleaner
• Defraggler
• Eraser

Autoruns:

I’m using Autoruns to check the startup items of my operating systems. It happens more than once that applications automatically add themselves to the autostart without me noticing it immediately. The check usually does not take longer than a few seconds. I disable any new entry and lookup entries that I do not know about.

CurrPorts:

CurrPorts is a small application that displays the currently open ports on your system. If I spot something suspicious here I look it up at a search engine. You can basically see which programs have currently an Internet connection.

Process Explorer:

I check the currently running processes and services with Process Explorer. If I spot anything that is currently running that should not I investigate it. It if should not be running I try to configure the application that way or remove the application if I do not need it at all.

MyUninstaller:

I tend to install many programs throughout the week to test them before I write an article about them. Instead of uninstalling those applications right away I do that during my weekly schedule instead.

My Uninstaller has the advantage that it can remove multiple applications at once. It is much faster than the Microsoft build in uninstaller as well.

Disk Cleaner:

Disk Cleaner is like CCleaner. It removes temporary files, caches, urls and histories from your system. Those files are only temporarily needed and have to go once a week. Most of my applications are configured to keep those information only for the session. (Like Firefox for instance)

Defraggler:

Now that all the temporary and no longer needed files are removed I can start the defragmentation process. This usually takes a bit longer because of my two hard drives. An alternative to Defraggler is the excellent Disk Defrag from Auslogics.

Defragmenting the disks speeds up my system and prepares the hard drives for the next program that I’m going to use: Eraser.

Eraser:

Now that all files are in place I can use Eraser to overwrite the free space of my hard drives so that recovery programs like Recuva can no longer recover files that I have deleted before.

Do you run a similar schedule ? Am I missing a program or application that I should add to the schedule, let me know !

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The computer will have everything that is needed to run it except for external components such as a monitor, computer mouse or keyboard because I decided to use those components from my old PC.

The Newegg online shop was my choice to be able to compare prices. It most likely would result in a cheaper price if I would research prices on several online shops. The Geforce 8800GT card is sold out in most locations and you have to be really lucky to buy one before christmas.

The major change in this month is the replacement of the Quad Core CPU with a Dual Core CPU from Intel and the replacement of the two 250 Gigabyte Seagate hard drives with two 500 Gigabyte Seagate hard drives.

G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory	$94.99 USD
MSI P35 Neo2-FR ATX Intel Motherboard	$119.99 USD
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor	$279.99 USD
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler	$21.99 USD
COOLER MASTER CAVALIER 3 CAV-T03-UK Black Computer Case	$59.99 USD
AeroCool ZERODBA ZERODBA-S500 500W Power Supply	$84.99 USD
Seagate 500GB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive	$239.98 USD
SUPER TALENT FSD32GB25M 2.5″ Internal Solid state disk (SSD)	$499.99 USD
ASUS GeForce 8800GT EN8800GT/G/HTDP/512M Video Card	$299.99 USD

The total price for all components rose from $1,581.90 to $1,701.90 USD which can be largely attributed to the exchange of the two 250 GB hard drives with 500 GB models. The price for the Solid State Disk went up by $70 because I replaced the placeholder from last month with a available one.

Prices will most likely fall in January. Analysts say that SSD, Solid State Disks, will become more affordable in the first quarter of 2008. Lets hope that they are right.

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Some had hard drives with lesser storage, some slower RAM and another one only onboard graphics although it was advertised otherwise. While some components of a computer are easily analyzed some require a little more knowledge. Thankfully applications exist that help us determine exactly what is installed in a computer.

I start by starting a software called System Info which displays heaps of information about every installed hardware in the computer. This allows me to check the amount of RAM, the memory type and speed of it.

It reveals detailed information about the motherboard, the storage devices, CPU and graphics card. If everything seems to be alright up to this point I begin to check the hard drives and memory for errors. Checking the hard drives can be done with Scan Disk which I use.

Testing the RAM however requires a more versatile software. I do use Memtest86+ for it which takes some time to complete but tells me exactly if the RAM installed is faulty by any means.

You could go on and check if the CPU or Graphics Card have been overclocked. Check System Info again and compare the Original
Clock, Original System Clock and Original Multiplier with the System Clock and Multiplier setting. They should be identical.

You could use a software like Rivatuner to check if the Graphics Card has been overclocked. Some manufacturers like MSI also display these information in the Display Properties.

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We live in an imperfect world full of bugs (and other insects of course) and the cyber-world is no exception to that rule. Fortunately, there are several ways to resolve problems, as long as you have any idea of what caused them to happen. Not all error messages or bug reports are as useless (and funny) as the one I mentioned above. Most of them provide you with at least a brief description of the error and mostly an error number or category as well. But what if you don’t understand the error message? How about asking some other users who could have experienced it or know how to fix it ?

Bug.gd (Beta) is a rather simple service that allows you to search the library of bugs with their solutions and shows a list of reports you might be interested in. You can search for the error number, description or whatever else provided.

Besides that, you can also help other people to resolve some bugs by posting a solution to an unsolved problem. The only thing that is required of you is to provide your e-mail address. Try this service out by typing in a well-known error number like 404 and watch the amount of explanations you get for your problem. It’s not limited to any specific type of bugs / errors.

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