CPU - Central Processing Unit

The brain of the computer. A lot of people like to call the entire computer case the CPU, but actually, the CPU is a tiny chip connected directly to the motherboard, with a big fan connected directly to it. Without the fan, the CPU would burn up very quickly.

There are two primary brands of CPU on the market right now, Intel & AMD. A better of the two is hard to state, but you can check Toms Hardware for more in depth hardware reviews.

One thing to note about CPU’s is that you can’t just slap any CPU into any Motherboard. The Motherboard must support your specific CPU, which can make upgrades very hairy, so typically, if you’re going to upgrade one, it’s a good idea to upgrade the other. See more on Motherboards on the Motherboard page.

There are also two different types of CPU’s, socket and slot. Socket snaps directly into the motherboard, with a fan directly attached, while slot has a casing which holds the CPU, with a fan connected to the casing. Again, there really is no better of the two, but Socket is becoming more common, and is generally easier to keep cool, which is a BIG factor in CPU’s at higher speeds.

CPU speeds are rated in Megahertz (Mhz), up to 1000, then they are referred to as Gigahertz (Ghz). One major misconception regarding CPU’s is that the bigger the number (the megahertz/gigahertz), the faster the CPU. While this is generally true, there are several other factors that effect the overall speed of the CPU.

Front Side Bus - Regulates the speed of communication between the Ram and the CPU

Onboard Cache - Comparable to Ram, except used strictly by the CPU to speed up calculations

So the next time you’re shopping for CPU’s, remember to not only look at the CPU speed, but check out the other factors most people don’t generally notice. When buying a CPU, it’s very important to know what you need it for. Most basic users only need internet and some word processing and basic picture editing. Using Windows XP (since it’s the most common home Operating System right now) 2.0 Ghz should be your minimum. This speed is just right for these basic functions, and should be fast enough to last a while, and most of all, it is very cheap.

One thing to note here is that the price difference between the 2.0 Ghz and the upper 2.x Ghz CPU’s (like 2.6 or 2.9) is so slight that you might be better off to get the one slightly higher to last longer over time.

I do NOT suggest buying the fastest cpu on the market, ever.. simply because what you pay six hundred dollars or more for now, will be only a few hundred dollars in a couple of months, and this will always be true as long as cpu speeds keep increasing.

This article taken from Computer Discounts Guide - CPU Guide . View the website for more helpful guides.

Donny Duncan, the author of Computer Discounts Guide has been in the computer field for over thirteen years.

Laser toner refills can be expensive. Over the life of the printer, expect to spend many times more on laser toner refill than you paid for the printer itself.

Laser printers have two chief replaceable components: laser toner cartridges and drums. The laser toner is basically the ink for the paper. The drum is the cylindrical metal roller that applies the ink to the paper. Sometimes printers are designed for cartridges and drums to be separately replaceable; other printers are designed for cartridge-and-drum units bought as one. While the laser toner will last only a few thousand pages in most home printers, drums will last tens of thousands of pages. If you have to replace the drum every time you replace the cartridge, your printing costs will increase significantly. Therefore, if you don’t yet have a printer, get one with separate slots for a laser toner cartridge and drum.

If your laser toner ever gets low, a warning light will appear on the front panel of your printer. When this happens, don’t replace the cartridge just yet. You can put off spending the necessary money by removing the cartridge, shaking it gently back and forth a few times to re-spread the toner, and replacing the cartridge. The warning light might still stay on, but the cartridge will have been manually “renewed” for a few dozen (or few hundred, in some cases) more pages worth of printing.

The other way you can save on toner is to use the “draft” function on your computer and printer settings. This will produce printouts that are suitable for your reading, but not suitable for sending out to other people.

Laser Toner Info provides detailed information about later toner cartridges and refills, as well as reviews of laser toner products. Laser Toner Info is the sister site of Brochure Printing Web.

Computer memory, also known as RAM (random access memory) is the place in the computer where the operating system stores information about applications and data in current use so that they can be quickly reached by the computers processor.

RAM is much faster to read from and write to than the other kinds of storage in a computer, the hard disk, floppy disk, and CD-ROM. However, the data in RAM only stays there only as long as your computer is running. When you turn the computer off, RAM loses its data. When you turn your computer on again, your operating system and other files are once again loaded into RAM, usually from your hard disk. There is technology in the works to fix this problem, but that will take a while to reach the rest of us.

Computer memory can be compared to a persons short-term memory, and the hard disk to the long-term memory. The short-term memory focuses on work at hand, but can only keep so many facts in view at one time. Long term memory is much more abundant, and lasts much longer.

Computers work much like this as well, RAM takes care of the current workload, and the hard drive stores long term data. The faster these two can work, the faster your computer can calculate.

There are three types of computer memory.

The Motherboard must be compatible with the type of memory you want to use. Several Motherboard companies produce Motherboards with SDRAM and DDR slots, which can NOT be used at the same time, but it is nice to have a choice of what you can use.

Each type of RAM also has various speeds at which it works, and the Motherboard must also support these speeds. DDR for example currently comes in either pc2100 , pc2700, & pc3200, while DDR2 comes in pc3200, pc4200, pc5400, pc6400, & pc8000.

RAM also works at various megahertz, limited by the megahertz that the Front Side Bus on your motherboard works (the Front Side Bus, or FSB, is the channel on the motherboard used to transfer information from the CPU to the RAM) so if you have RAM that works at 500 megahertz, and the FSB of your motherboard only runs at 333 megahertz, then 333 megahertz is the fastest your memory can run as well.

One very important note about computer memory, is you do not want to mix various speeds of memory, because the Motherboard will take the slowest speed and dummy all the rest of the fast memory to that slower speed. Here’s an example:

You have three sticks of DDR computer memory in your computer, 2 pc2700’s, and 1 pc2100. The Motherboard slows down the 2 pc2700’s to be the speed of the pc2100, so that they’re all working at the same speed.

While this scenario works ok, it is not a good idea, because you have lost the value of the higher speed RAM.

This article taken from Computer Discounts Guide - Computer Memory Guide. View the website for more helpful guides.

Donny Duncan, the author of Computer Discounts Guide has been in the computer field for over thirteen years.

Compatible Laser Toner Cartridges

Recently, there has been a huge legal and investigative battle with people selling “compatible” laser toner cartridges. Often, a distributor will sell their defective, ineffective, or even damaging laser toner cartridges to unsuspecting resellers. These cartridges will make weak prints, cause messy ink spray, and may cause serious damage to your printer. So be sure to buy cartridges from an authorized reseller that the manufacturer audits. Check the manufacturer’s website to obtain a list of authorized resellers.

Beware of laser toner cartridges that are priced way below market standard. Bad or old packaging should also send up a red flag for phony laser toner cartridges.

Finally, if your cartridge runs out of ink too quickly, gives messy prints, or damages your printer, don’t buy from the same retailer again.

This is not to say that all compatible toner cartridges are bunk. But if you’re going to spend tens of dollars on a cartridge, why risk it?

Remanufactured Laser Toner Cartridges

Most manufacturers, and some third-party distributors, will give you money or discounts in exchange for your old laser toner cartridges. They in turn replace the guts of the cartridge, refill it with toner, and resell it at a big discount. In many cases, the quality is almost exactly the same as new. For example, a black-ink cartridge for an Epson Stylus Color 880 costs $27 from Epson, but only $12 from Rhinotek.

Laser Toner Info provides detailed information about later toner cartridges and refills, as well as reviews of laser toner products. Laser Toner Info is the sister site of Brochure Printing Web.

DVD Burners are the best burnable media right now, not only for their storage size, but for their speed. DVD’s hold approximately 4.7 Gigabytes of information (that’s 4.7 billion bytes if you’re curious) which is about six times the information a CD can hold. There are also double sided DVD’s which can hold twice as much.

DVD’s also read and burn at a rate of around 1352 KBs (kilobytes per second), while CD’s burn at a default rate of 150 KBs, that’s a little over 9 times faster.

The way you get your actual speed is by multiplying the default rate by the number in front of the X. (example: with a 8x dvd burner, 8 times 1352 = 10816 Kbs, and on a 52x cd burner, 52 times 150 = 7800) DVD burners have finally surpassed CD burners in speed, and only have potential to get faster. They are currently up to 16x for some media, so you can do the math.

DVD burners right now are usually around 16×4x16x, the left number being how fast it writes to a writable (DVD+R or DVD-R etc), the center number being how fast it writes to a re-writable (DVD+RW or DVD-RW), and the number on the right being how fast it can read a DVD.

Most DVD Burners can also burn regular CD’s, making them extremely cost effective and versatile, and saving room for other devices you might need, especially if the number of slots you have available is limited.

There are so many different types of DVD media on the market, if you plan to play DVD’s in your home DVD player, you have to find out if it is compatible with burned DVD’s at all, and if so, what kind. There are several different kinds, here is a list of most of them:

DVD-R
DVD+R
DVD-RW
DVD+RW
DVD-Ram

Most DVD Burners have a specific format that they use specifically, so make sure that if your burner is only able to burn DVD-R, that you buy DVD-R’s, or else anything else will not work. Just make sure you pay attention to the details of what you’re purchasing to get exactly what you need.

This article taken from Computer Discounts Guide - DVD Burner Guide. View the website for more helpful guides.

Donny Duncan, the author of Computer Discounts Guide has been in the computer field for over thirteen years.

Laser toner is the ink for laser printers. It is an extremely fine synthetic powder (usually plastic) packed into a cartridge. You insert the cartridge into your laser printer according to the manufacturer’s instructions. When the printer goes to print a page, there are several steps to the process:

1. The printer receives an image from your computer.
2. Lasers project the image onto an electromagnetic drum.
3. The drum is charged positively and negatively, and at varying levels of charge, according to the image.
4. The drum attracts the four colors of toner in the cartridge according to the charges the colors are attracted to. The four colors mix to create any of millions of colors.
5. The drum rolls the image onto a page of paper, the page goes through a heating device to melt or burn the color onto the page, and the page is ejected.

This process uses up a lot of laser toner. Typically, a laser toner cartridge will yield a few thousand pages before needing to be replaced. The drum, too, eventually wears out from all the positive and negative charges it gives off, and needs to be replaced every 10,000 – 30,000 pages. Some printers are made with cartridge-and-drum replacement units in mind, while other printers are designed to separate the cartridge and drum. This way, when the cartridge runs out of toner, you don’t have to replace the longer lasting drum with it. This saves you money.

You can buy laser toner from your printer’s manufacturer, a computer supply store, online, or at any of a number of other types of retailers. To save money, you might want to consider buying in bulk.

Three of the most popular brands of laser toner are HP, Brother, and Samsung.

Laser Toner Info provides detailed information about later toner cartridges and refills, as well as reviews of laser toner products. Laser Toner Info is the sister site of Brochure Printing Web.

Liquid Crystal Display is what LCD stands for, and you thought crystals could only be a solid. Liquid crystals were actually first discovered in 1888 and took more then 100 years to progress into the LCD monitors that we see for computers, laptops, calculators and so one. So why the history lesson you ask, because most likely you are interested in getting an LCD monitor for your computer, but want to get the best deal and quality of monitor. So you need to know everything that you can about LCD’s, or you might purchase the wrong one for you.

The difference between a good old fashioned CRT monitor and an LCD is not just the size, far from it. LCD’s produce a clearer picture and use a digital connection between the computer and the monitor instead of an analog one like CRT monitors. As we all know, digital is much better then analog since there is less signal loss.

In addition to its picture quality as a main benefit, LCD monitors also consume less power, which actually saves you money on your electric bill. Sure it won’t be much, but after awhile the savings will add up and make up for the cost difference between a CRT and an LCD monitor. So in the end you paid just about the same amount for an LCD as you would have for a big old clunky CRT monitor.

Okay let’s say you want to buy an LCD monitor now, but you don’t know which one to get. Well let me first tell you that all LCD’s are not created equal and the quality really depends on the manufacturer and a few certain other aspects. There are so many LCD monitor manufacturers these days that deciding which one to buy simply by the company name is much too hard. What you should do to find the best LCD monitor amongst all those other pesky inferior ones, is to compare the contrast ratio. The screen with the highest contrast ratio will have better picture and color quality, which is the whole reason we use a monitor anyways, too look at it.

Another factor that determines the picture quality of your LCD monitor is the response time. This basically means how long it takes to transform the liquid crystal to the state that will display the correct color. The higher the response time, the more blurry the images will be, especially images moving on black backgrounds.

The connection between the LCD monitor and the computer also makes a major difference in picture quality. LCD monitors have an AGP port just like CRT’s do, but they also have another port called DVI, which instead of being analog it uses a digital signal. Digital connections have less picture and color loss than an analog one, but do require you to have a DVI port on your computer. If your computer doesn’t have one, then you have to buy a new video card that does and install it.

Now that you have the basic knowledge that you need to know when buying an LCD monitor, you are prepared to buy one at your local store or online. Before you go though, I just wanted to say that I have owned an LCD for the past 2 years and I could never go back to a CRT monitor, my eyes have been spoiled! The picture quality is just that good, plus not to mention how much more desk space I have and the fact that I am using less power feels good too. I guarantee that once you have an LCD monitor you won’t be able to go back to a CRT either.

Michael can help you find the best LCD monitor for you at the lowest price. Use his expertise and knowledge of this subject at: http://www.computer-customizing-guide.com/cheap-lcd-monitors.html If you want to do a complete upgrade of your computer, then he can help you at: http://www.computer-customizing-guide.com/

Personal asset preventive maintenance software exists to help people manage and maximize the value of their assets. Common types of personal asset preventive maintenance software deal with taxes and investments. Software that manages other types of personal assets, such as property, is also available.

Personal tax software can help users avoid overpaying taxes while also streamlining the tax-paying process. Some advantages include information about available tax deductions and the option to electronically file the required forms. To help maximize the user’s deductions, the programs require comprehensive information about the user’s assets. This information is then processed and the user is alerted to all available deductions. Some software has advice for investors on how to best take advantage of tax laws. While filing electronically usually costs around $15, some tax software includes the option to file electronically for free. Filing electronically allows the taxpayer to receive his or her refund more quickly.

Several money management software programs like Quicken and Microsoft Money can be used as personal asset preventive maintenance software. These programs have features like automatic bill pay, budgeting features, and savings and investment advice and information. Automatic bill pay saves the user from having to remember when a bill is due. This prevents the user from having to pay late fees if the bill is not paid on time. Most personal asset preventive maintenance software programs include budgeting features that allow users to plan for the future and forecast how much money they will have available. The investment information and advice helps the user to maintain savings and retirement funds by keeping investors aware of current market trends and future predictions.

Personal asset preventive maintenance software helps people avoid financial emergencies by providing money management assistance. Such software makes personal finance less stressful and time-consuming.

Preventive Maintenance Software Info features detailed information on preventive maintenance software for health care and correctional institutions, computer hardware, and personal assets, as well as reviews of preventive maintenance software companies. Preventive Maintenance Software Info is the sister site of Fleet Maintenance Software Web.

As the name suggests, touch screens are touch sensitive units that are controlled by touching the screen. That means you can manipulate the display with a finger or with a stylus. Touch screen is basically a method of inputting and displaying data from a computer on the same screen.

Touch screen has gained acceptance as the popular choice for enterprises ranging from restaurants to medical centers. The highlights of touch screen technology include outstanding clarity coupled with high durability.

The four common touch screen technologies include the resistive, capacitive, infrared and acoustic wave. Resistive touch screen is the most versatile of these technologies, and it finds wide applications in communication devices, food services and industrial process control and instrumentation, to name a few. For the Capacitive touch screen, the salient feature is its resistance to scratching. Capacitive touch screens are extremely durable and contaminant resistant. They are a popular choice for industrial applications, such as ATM, industrial equipment and gaming machines. You can operate them with a finger or a stylus and they are ideal for outdoor locations because they are impervious to moisture, dirt and grease. Acoustic Wave technology finds high acceptability in medical applications because of its high optical clarity and accuracy.

Before deciding which technology meets your requirements, do a thorough analysis of your business application needs. You’ll need the help of professionals who can guide you about the advantages and disadvantages of each technology.

One thing to consider before your purchase is the possibility of contamination since the finger usually operates the monitors. For this reason, manufacturers also provide a stylus along with the monitors. You may prefer to operate the monitors using gloves or a stylus.

Industrial Monitors provides detailed information about industrial monitors, flat panel industrial monitors, industrial LCD monitors, industrial monitor manufacturers and more. Industrial Monitors is the sister site of Cheap LCD TVs.

There is a great need for preventive maintenance in correctional institutions. The public would be at risk if penal facilities waited to solve problems until after they manifested themselves. Correctional institution preventive maintenance software is necessary to ensure that life in the facility runs smoothly and none of the prisoners escape. As the governments and other organizations allot revenues for correctional facilities, there may be debate about the costs of such maintenance. Although the software is expensive, it is both effective and necessary.

The best way to implement preventive maintenance software in correctional institutions is to integrate it in facilities statewide. This provides a uniform plan for all of the penal institutions and makes it easier for such facilities to work together if need be. This also assures that all of the institutions will be equally maintained and none will be in worse condition than the others. As with many other large institutions, standardization of correctional facilities is of paramount importance.

There are many goals of correctional institution preventive maintenance software, including maintaining of the prison, reducing or eliminating emergency repairs, and systematically updating the information database. The need to maintain the physical facility is obvious – the safety of the public and the living conditions of the inmates depend on the prison being well-maintained. The need to avoid emergency repairs is parallel to the maintenance of the facility. The integrity of the facility would be disturbed if the building suddenly needed to be repaired, creating a breach in the orderly pattern of operations. Finally, the creation of a comprehensive database makes it easier to keep accurate records and to share information between facilities.

Correctional institution preventative maintenance software streamlines the operations of the facilities and minimizes unpredictable events. In the long run, it saves the taxpayers’ money by making the institutions more efficient.

Preventive Maintenance Software Info features detailed information on preventive maintenance software for health care and correctional institutions, computer hardware, and personal assets, as well as reviews of preventive maintenance software companies. Preventive Maintenance Software Info is the sister site of Fleet Maintenance Software Web.