Forgive me for an emotional outburst, but this one made me laugh and cry when I saw it in the search-stats. To tell the truth I am surprised that at this point in time people are still asking such questions as those below. – Nevertheless, the purpose of this blog is to educate and help people; which is what it’ll continue to do.

The questions were actually worded similar to “Can I use Windows XP…” or “Can I use Windows 7… 32-bit on a 64-bit computer?”: – I’ve seen both versions.

Windows XP is the only operating system that I recommend using the 32-bit version of by default.

Why?

- Because there were so few 64-bit drivers written and produced for XP that it really isn’t worth bothering with the 64-bit version of XP unless you happen to be a techno-masochist. XP is pretty much outdated anyway; I’m using the 32-bit version of XP I currently have installed on 1 of my 2 comps until the machine has a major hardware failure, or 2014: Whichever is sooner.

If you’re dual-booting XP and Windows 7, or running XP in a virtual machine inside Windows 7, then I encourage you to run the 32-bit version of XP… Which will run perfectly well on a 64-bit-capable computer.

As for Windows 7; why oh why would anyone want to run the 32-bit version of Windows 7 on a 64-bit-capable box? There is only one valid reason that I’ve heard so far; and that is that some of the internal hardware as well as a number of the external peripheral devices are so old that they won’t work in a 64-bit environment no matter what.

‘2 Important facts here: -

• 1) If a machine is capable of running a 64-bit operating system then it’s equally capable of running a 32-bit operating system.

• 2) If a machine is only built to run a 32-bit operating system; in other words if it’s 5 or more years old, (in 19 out of 20 cases.) then it cannot run a 64-bit operating system.

Resisting the impulsive urge to tell the person to stop being so mean and tight-fisted, and upgrade their old hardware and/or buy/build a new box; I see this as probably the only valid reason to install the 32-bit version of Windows 7 on an otherwise 64-bit-capable machine: i.e. One that has at least a 64-bit-capable motherboard and processor.

The 64-bit version of Windows 7 is packed in the same presentation-case as the 32-bit version; so why oh why oh why would anyone want to install the 32-bit version on a machine that is 100% capable of running the 64-bit version? – But yet I know of at least one case where this has actually happened. It baffles me; honestly it completely does my head in.

“A lot of the application software I use is only available in 32-bit.” and “A 64-bit operating system uses up more RAM”, whilst possibly true; just don’t cut it with me: –

- So I reply to that with: Wait a while until the 64-bit versions of your software appear, use the 32-bit versions until then, and fit extra RAM if you have less than 4GBs installed. It’s not exactly going to cost you a fortune; and 32-bit software runs fine in a 64-bit Windows operating environment anyway.

There is just one device that I’m having trouble with as far as Windows 7 64-bit is concerned; and that’s my Labtec webcam 6.0.1: I have XP 32-bit drivers for it on CD, which is fine for my XP system. When I try to install it on my Windows 7 64-bit box, though, the Vista 64-bit driver won’t install for some reason. Normally, in most cases, if no Windows 7-specific 64-bit driver is available, (At least, I can’t find one online.) then the Vista 64-bit driver is usually good enough. – Not in this case though: it just doesn’t want to know. – But it’s only a cheap webcam; it’s not anything massively expensive or irreplaceable. It cost me less than £7 around 2 years ago: It’s hardly the crown jewels! I’ll just buy a newer model with a Windows 7-specific driver. – ‘Simple as that.

+ One more thing I’d better make clear, as an addition to the above, since I notice that Google sends relevant traffic here, is that yes, you can run both a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version of the same OS on the same machine… BUT in order to do it legally you’ll need a separate licence for each version: One licence will not cover both 32 and 64-bit. +

+ If you’re intending to run both 32 and 64-bit operating systems then I suggest that you use a separate disk for each OS. You can partition a single disk if you must; but using separate disks will avoid complications cropping up over time; trust me on that. +

(Added 28th December 2009.)

I realise that I’m being long-winded with regard to this Windows 7 64-bit fixation of mine; but it’s a wide topic that I’d like to ensure that I’ve covered all aspects of to a large extent, without completely flogging it to death so much that readers protest with their mouse and back-button.

That’s all.

This was a post I wrote a while back, as a prospective guest-post on another tech-site. The owner of that site went on a trip just after I submitted it, and they delegated it to their staff to prepare it for publication. Six weeks or so later I asked the staff member concerned what had happened to the post. All I got was a dismissive “No idea” initially; but after pursuing the enquiry it became apparrent that this person hadn’t even bothered with it.

In the light of that; having retained a copy of it, I’ll post it on my own blog. Even though it may be a bit late to post any more XP advice, I’ll publish it nevertheless.

If you’re updating your computer running Windows XP with a new device, maybe a graphics card or something, and you don’t have a driver for that piece of hardware; there is a way that you can actually get the operating system to help you find a driver for the device.

If you connect a new device in Windows, the first thing that the operating system will do, after detecting the new installation, is scan all of the relevant files and folders on the disc to see if it can find a compatible driver for the new device. Sometimes it’ll find an older driver that works, from the operating system’s files; but a driver written in 2001 or thereabouts might not exactly be up to scratch for more modern equipment. If it does install a driver, it’s always best to check in Device Manager to find out how old the installed driver is.

How do I do that?

First, open Device Manager. There are a number of ways of doing this:

The easiest two ways to do it are; either to right-click the “My Computer” icon, click “Properties” and select the “Hardware” tab, then click the “Device Manager” button in the top section of the dialog box. Alternatively you can actually create a Device Manger icon on your desktop; which will open Device Manager when you click it. To find out how to do this, click this link.

When you’re in Device Manager, click the + signs in the boxes until the hardware device that you’ve just installed appears. Right-click the name of the device and click “Properties”. Click the “Driver” tab and look at the line that starts “Driver date:” If that date is more than a year ago I would suggest going to the devices’ manufacturer’s website and seeing if a newer driver version has been released.

(There are a number of drivers in Windows XP that don’t have a later version than 2001: These are mainly some of the system drivers, which appear in the System section of Device Manager. The reason for this is that they were written at the same time as XP was, and they’re XP specific. Microsoft didn’t re-release XP itself, and therefore those drivers were never updated – and they probably have no need to be either. A number of updated system drivers were added with the release of any of the three service packs; but yet others still bear the original 2001 date. Don’t worry about these. – there is nothing you can do about it; nothing legal anyway.)

What now?

If Windows can’t find a suitable driver then the next thing it does depends upon how you have the Windows Update setting set.

To discover how you have it set in Windows XP, right-click on the “My Computer” icon and select “Properties”. Click the “Hardware” tab, and click the “Windows Update” button on the right in the second section down of the dialog box.

In the smaller dialog box that appears you’ll see that there are 3 radio-buttons. If you put a . in the top one then Windows will connect straight to Windows Update to look for a driver if it can’t find one on the disc(s). If you put a . in the middle one then Windows will ask for permission before it looks in Windows Update. If you put a . in the bottom one then Windows won’t bother looking for a driver in Windows Update.

I’m not saying that it’ll find a driver that is compatible every time it looks in Windows Update; but it’ll increase the chances of doing so if you let it look. If it finds and installs a driver, then I suggest that you check in Device Manager to find out how old the installed driver is. If you don’t know how to do that then see the section “How do I do that” above. Windows Update doesn’t always offer you the latest driver for a device. In fact I’ve had one as old as three years offered for an nVidia graphics card, so it’s always best to check.

Why use the latest driver in preference to any driver that works?

As time goes by, manufacturers may update their technology’s performance by rewriting some of the routines performed by the driver to enhance performance of their product in any number of ways; perhaps even to prevent it causing a BSOD. Also there may have been security problems identified in a driver which therefore called for the writers to issue a new version with the security problems patched.

If you use an old driver the chances are that it’ll work 9 times out of 10, but maybe not quite as well as a newer version, and/or it may have a dodgy security flaw in it too.

Have you ever had to call on Windows Update for a driver using this method  herein? Did you get the driver you needed? Did you get an older driver from Windows Update and have to go to the manufacturer’s website?

You’ve had your machine switched on a while, and you’re in the middle of a project. –‘Time for a break; so you go out to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. When you’ve made coffee and grabbed a biscuit you return to your desk to find your computer’s displaying a Welcome screen and waiting for you to log in.

- For some reason it shut down and restarted without being told to do so. Maybe this has happened before, at random times; and you’re furious about it. Why could it be happening?

It could be a number of things: -

1) RAM issues

2) Overheating due to too much load

3) Dodgy or corrupt programs

4) Dodgy, old, or corrupt device drivers

5) Bad Windows XP setting choice

Or maybe something else.

Let’s take a look at the 5 we’ve listed so far: -

1. RAM issues

If a fault has developed in one of the RAM chips on one of the sticks, such as even a single transistor failure, which causes it to not work as it should, then Windows or whatever operating system you’re running could well become confused when it attempts to access that piece of physical memory, and go into a tizzy, resulting in a BSOD.

How would you discover if this is the cause of the fault? Simple answer = change your RAM sticks. If it works normally with new RAM then target neutralised.

On that point; I do realise that RAM isn’t as cheap as it used to be: At the time of writing, DDR2 is going up in price, when not long ago it was dirt-cheap: Less than £10GBP for a 1MB stick. DDR3, on the other hand, is coming down in price; but it’s still not as inexpensive as DDR2. – On that basis, you might not want to shell out and change all your RAM, especially if you have around 8GBs on 4 2GB sticks, for instance. (That much DDR2 cost me about £80GBP when it was dirt-cheap.)

- If that is the case then the answer is to buy a single stick, the same size and designation as the others, and try swapping just a single stick at a time with the new stick in all cases of RAM sticks on your motherboard. If the restarts stop totally at some point, leave things as they are and bin the faulty RAM stick, which is already uninstalled from your computer.

2. Overheating due to too much [processor] load.

Some programs use a lot of processor resources. The more processor resources used, the more wattage is burned up and the hotter the processor gets. This is true with all processors; single and multi-core, (I’ve had my AMD Athlon 64 x 2 shut down on me for this very reason before now.) although generally, multi-core processors can bear more load than a single-cored processor. The capability, age, and fabrication technique used in manufacture can all have a bearing upon how hot a processor gets under certain working environments. To use an extreme example of this; if you were to attempt to do video-transposition, editing, etc, on a Pentium 1 processor, (Which can barely run XP, incidentally.) along with various other programs, you’d probably get a system shutdown with a BSOD due to overheating. (- And possibly fry the processor in the process too.)

Keep your fans and cooler clear of dust and dirt: This, also, will help avoid overheating issues. A utility called Speedfan will tell you the current temperature of your CPU and hard drives at any time.

3. Dodgy or corrupt programs

As a computer user, especially in the case of those who use Windows, you need to be careful what programs you download and run on your machine: Some programs are just badly-written – free ones and paid ones, and can screw up your operating system eventually. Other programs may have a hidden payload of adware, spyware, or even malware, in the code, which executes when you run it, and causes all kinds of trouble.

Hint: If the program looks like it does too much for the price, or it is claimed to solve all issues perfectly, then it’s probably full of crap and should be avoided.

Run an offline scan using your usual antivirus/antimalware program, and also run an online scan using an online scanner. – You might be surprised at what’s uncovered.

4. Dodgy, old, or corrupt device drivers

Since device drivers are magnetic data just like programs, they can become corrupted over time just like programs. If you suspect a driver is causing a shutdown issue, look in Device Manager and check that all devices are functioning correctly. If a driver isn’t right, note the details written about the device, remove it, and download and install a replacement driver.

Every now and again a new device-driver version is written for any particular hardware device: This is done because there may be issues in the previous driver version that need addressing, or because an emerging technology requires an extra set of functions to be added to a particular driver for whatever reason. If you’ve not downloaded new drivers recently then your shutdown issues could be due to old drivers on your disk.

Check for new versions of drivers regularly; particularly in the case of graphics cards. Microsoft Update have a driver update service; which I’ve found to be unreliable, behind the times, and often gives you the wrong driver for your hardware. – The individual hardware item manufacturer’s website is always the best place to go for a driver update.

5. Bad Windows XP setting choice

There’s a setting in Windows XP that instructs  your computer to restart if a system error occurs. If you turn off that option, you may solve your automatic reboot problem – But then you’ll not see the resultant BSOD screen, if one occurs, which might well assist you to diagnose the issue.  – So in short I don’t suggest that you switch on the “Automatically restart” setting. To check whether or not it’s already on, do the following: -

Click Start, then open Control Panel

Switch to classic view if not already selected.

Click System.

Click on the Advanced Tab.

Click Settings in the Startup and Recovery section.

Uncheck Automatically Restart in the System failure section if it’s checked.

These are just a few of the many reasons why your system is restarting.

It might be something to do with something you’ve recently added: If you’ve installed new hardware, software, or peripheral devices, remove – and see if the restart persists.

It could be that your power-supply unit (PSU) is wearing out, or it may be due to bad capacitors on your motherboard. (See this article)

There is no one answer, nor is there one single set of answers: Having said that, I hope the above information helps.

 The Friday Moan

It’s great to see that you lot are so rich. I thought there was meant to be a recession on; but obviously that was just negative-media-hype. I’m still looking for the destitute impoverished homeless masses sleeping in the park, but all I’ve seen is a couple of winos. – Should I add that I smelled them first:  Aroma d’vagrant et l’alcohol. I also fail to see the long queues for mostly–empty shelves at the local supermarket. – So much for recession. This one is meant to be as bad as the one in the 1930’s; yet all the evidence seems to point to it being fairly superficial. Both the British and American economies have started to show signs of growth incidentally.

The reason I started off in this way is because, a few weeks back, I launched a small competition that had a small cash-prize associated with it. In the first week 2 people submitted 4 entries between them, and I published one from each person. The first one went straight to Number 10 in the kkomp Top 10 and then sank. The second went straight to Number 9 and floated around between Number 8 and 16 for a week before also sinking.

The object of the exercise was to write a post that would get to Number 1 and stay there over the Xmas Holiday Season. – Impossible? – No; I’ve already written a post that stayed at No 1 for over 6 months. I imagined that my 150+ original visitors per day might like to write something, get published, grab a free piece of internet real-estate, partake in a bit of link-love, and maybe win a small cash prize too.

I was wrong, so you lot miss out: However, since the Season of Goodwill to all Gluttonous Temporary-Alcoholics looms in the not-too-distant future, I’m going to offer a prize to anyone who can get their post to the Number 1 spot in the kkomp Top 10 on Christmas Day and stay there all day, or longer than any other post can on that day.

I don’t quite know why I’m offering to do this, as it appears obvious that you lot are all wealthy and happily well-off thank you very much. However, since I’ve scrapped the original competition due to lack of support, there’s the part of the prize-fund that I haven’t spent on eBay, namely £10UKP still up for grabs. -  If you want it then get submitting your guest posts now to drafts at kustomkomputa dot co dot uk. Whoever is at Number 1 with their post in the kkomp.com Top 10 on Xmas day and stays there the longest wins the tenner. – And yes, if it’s me with any of my posts at Number 1 on that day, I will donate the £10UKP to the Overworked Female Blogger’s Benevolent Fund, of which I am the proprietor and sole benefactor. – So if you want it, rather than allow me to have it, then get writing.

Furthermore…

Furthermore, on a totally different topic, Windows 7 is fantastic: If you don’t have a copy yet then get one: Home Premium is good enough for most people, including myself. If you don’t have a computer capable of running it then get one or build one and run it. I encourage everyone to use the 64-bit version, which requires around 2GBs of RAM minimum. Pretty much all computers built in the last 3 years are capable of running the 64-bit version; except for netbooks, which might find it rather heavy-going, don’t have 2 GB RAM as a rule, and would be better off with the 32-bit version.

RC Running Out of Time

On that note I will remind all of you skinflints and freeloaders who are determined to stick with the Release Candidate of Windows 7 because it costs zilch, nothing; that your free Windows operating system will shut down every 2 hours starting on March 1st 2010. – There really is no point staying in the Freeloader’s Legs all winter in a pokey little room with a packet of extra-strong mints for warmth and an ancient laptop with Windows 7 RC on it ‘til shutdown do you part. – Splash out: The RTM version is more stable than the RC anyway.

Seasoned

Suddenly it’s Autumn / Fall; well it is in the UK anyway: No sooner do the clocks go back than the balmy Indian summer turns into a facsimile of a monsoon, temperatures drop, deciduous trees shed their leaves… Actually it’s not all that bad so far: Despite the early darkness I’ve seen a bumblebee hard at work on my still-blooming lavender on October 25th, and the following day I saw a black ladybird with red spots on a bush…No the red spots were on the ladybird, not the bush, silly.

Enjoy this mild weather in the UK; because I predict that it’ll stay mild with a few exceptions right into early December, and then it’ll unexpectedly turn bitterly cold – I mean arctic cold – for a couple or a few weeks. I predict that there is a 50/50 chance of a traditional Victorian Christmas Day being entirely possible this year due to the natural weather.

What makes me predict this? – The way that nature’s behaving, that’s what. I’m a Witch: I could well be right: Then again, the last time I made a massive and well-publicised weather prediction, that time a prediction of a blazing June and a tropical July, we had one of the worst and wettest summers on record. (1997 if I remember rightly.)

Blog Matters

I’ve recently done some work on improving the design of this blog. – As you will appreciate, although I’m not a designer by trade, I am learning more about aspects of blog design and the science behind it.

You’ll notice that a few months ago I’ve changed the colour-scheme to blue and black with a smattering of red, from pink and red with a smattering of everything else.

This blog actually started off fairly aimlessly and directionless back in June 2008 with a not-very-good pink theme. – I never changed the theme since; I just hacked and customised the heck out of it. What you see today is still using the original basic theme framework called “Serenity Pink”. The logo started life as a pink line that was part of the original theme, would you believe.

On the subject of the logo; you’ll notice that at long last it’s relatively decent: It’s actually a brand, rather than a brand confusion. There is a reason why it’s been so crappy for so long until now: That reason is because I was trying to minimise the work involved by enhancement and recycling of the older crappy logos – aka laziness at its most sneaky. They say that lazy people always end up doing the most work; and in this case that was true. At the end of the day I had to scrap the multiply-re-enhanced design; if one can actually call it a design, and start again from scratch: Something which I should have done in the case of the logo some time ago, like a year ago.

Please understand that when I started this blog I was totally inexperienced with regard to blogging. – Yes really 100% inexperienced and completely without a clue: I’d heard of a blog before, although I wasn’t sure what a blog was; even though I’d read quite a few blogs and didn’t even realise that they were blogs. – That was my total knowledge of blogging at the time. I knew how to use html, was clueless about php, knew a bit about javascript, and was a corporate addict who avoided open-source software as I perceived it as dodgy stuff.

An online acquaintance, namely David Risley, who is now a top problogger, and was rising to that status at the time, suggested that I started a blog and recommended that I do so using WordPress. After further talking with him and mulling the issue over in my mind I decided to give it a go.

Installing WordPress was something that actually made me freak. – Honestly; I unzipped the files, downloaded them to the server, looked again, and screamed!

- I’m a trained and qualified electronics technician. I was never trained in blogging. I’d self-trained in software-maintenance plus basic-peripheral devices-setup-and-maintenance, and made a living from it for a short-time. I learned about hardware initially from sitting in on lectures at college for the computer course, and realised how actually simplistic it was to me on the basis of my electronics background. (I’d actually been studying and practicing practical electronics (Mainly analogue electronics.) as a hobby since age 7. – I only actually qualified in it later in life when I took the initiative to enhance my hobby at an academic level.)

- So I’ve learned and gained experience of computing at both a software and a hardware level, having an electronics background. I’m still learning and gaining experience of blogging right now. I’ve done Yaro Starak’s BecomeaBlogger course, which competently teaches the basics of blogging, and I’m currently undergoing David Risley’s BlogMasters course, which teaches how to blog professionally and properly, as well as how to generate an income from one’s blog as a problogger.

Time is a great hurdle to me currently, as I don’t have oodles of time to spend blogging: However, having said that, when I decide to fully throw my oar into the problogger pond I’ll be devoting most if not all of my time to this blog on a full-time professional basis, and hopefully generating a living from it too.

Does that mean I’m a problogger? Give me a chance; I haven’t even finished the course yet. Could I currently live on the earnings I’m making from this blog? Only if I were a nun with a vow of poverty and all my living expenses paid for by the church and/or state.

Do I intend to become a problogger? Eventually, yes: Hopefully in the not-too-distant future. Do I intend to make a living from this blog? Eventually yes; though maybe not just from this blog. Can I start making a living from and/or monetising this blog now? Well, in a way I am starting to monetise it in line with the BlogMasters training; although there’s a long way to go yet.

I’m not knowledgeable enough or in a position to tell you a lot about problogging at this time: However, when I’ve finished the BlogMasters course I’ll be trained in a lot of the aspects of problogging and will have more to say on the matter, as well as more to practice and implement too.

If you’re interested in problogging as a means of generating a living, then I’ll be advertising the BlogMasters course at some point in early 2010, when I’ve finished it and the doors open again to allow in more students. What I can tell you now is that it’s a six-month course spread out over 19 modules; each with multiple training videos downloadable online, along with transcripts and to-do lists. During the course you’ll get direct access to David Risley himself, to ask questions, make suggestions for enhancing the course material, say what you’d like to learn about, and generally gain the benefit of his expertise in the realm of problogging.

David Risley been blogging, initially as a hobby. since before blogging was called blogging, and he’s gained a wealth of experience over the years by buying lots and lots of training materials from a variety of other bloggers and interacting with them. Also he’s what you might describe as a born-problogger, so he’s used a lot of common-sense and integrated his natural abilities into his rise to success.

On another thread; I currently have a survey running on this blog, and I’d appreciate it if all my readers would complete it for me. It’s a fairly short survey which is conducted via Survey Monkey on behalf of kkomp.com. I forget when it closes; either today or in a week I think. Nobody who takes the survey will be personally identified in any way. The answers that you give to the survey will assist me to enhance this blog further and in a way that you readers would like to see happening. To take part in the survey please click here.

Back to technology

I do like to have a decent working pair of computers at all times: Why a pair? Well, if one should fail then I can always use the other while I’m repairing the failed one. Also I can try out new software on one of them and use the other for more mundane office work.

It is with this in mind that I once again encourage everyone to upgrade to Windows 7: With possibly a few exceptions for the time being. Read the article Windows 7 is Out There: Should You Upgrade? for more on this matter.

Other posts on the subject of Windows 7 recently include: -

How to Create a Task Manager Desktop Icon in Windows 7

Windows 7 has made using your computer much easier –except for one aspect: Calling up the task manager.

In this article we learn how to very simply create a Task Manager icon on your Windows 7 Desktop to simplify the process of calling up the Task Manager.

Can I Run Windows 7 64-bit on the XP Machine I Ran 32-bit on?

In which we look at running Windows 7 64-bit on your existing box.

There is a particular post which I feel will be very valuable to anybody running an online business. In fact it will be beneficial also to anyone who runs a physical corporate business also: -

Expert Help to Boost Your Business – For Free!

Seriously–this "Group Think Tank" process has the capability to increase your profits by up to 1,000%–or more–before the year is over.

A number of top-business experts have got together to share their valuable experience with you at no cost. – Yes that’s right; it’s free of charge expertise from top businesspeople. Can you really afford to miss it? The next session is this coming Thursday. I know I’ll be listening in.

On the subject of business; you might find this post useful also: -

Monetise Your RSS Feed

You could be leaving money on the table if you’re not making the most of monetising your RSS feed.

Yaro Starak’s had the doors open to another of his courses this last week. Oh you didn’t take advantage of it? Well you’ll have to wait until the doors open again in 2010 then. – I did publicise it rather much. – I even had an advert on Google for it: -

Doors Closing Soon … Oops; too late.

Lisa Jackson’s been video-making again: See her Halloween production here: -

Halloween Rules

- Totally off-topic for this blog; but what the heck? A little laughter never hurt anyone.

… And finally; here’s a rundown of the rest of the articles published since the last Public Newsletter: -

Benefits of Doing Your Own Upgrades

All you need is some basic electronics knowledge, general software knowledge,… a steady hand and relatively good hand-eye-coordination, and you’re away.

Keep Your Drivers Up-To-Date

To help get optimum performance from your computer, you should keep your drivers up to date.

How to Back-up Social Media – Bonus Article

Social media has no built-in backup; but there are applications out there which can do the job as far as Facebook and Twitter are concerned.

Computer of The Future: 2020

In this post I project my predictions, based upon my impressions of quickly-advancing technology, of how a computer could be in the year 2020.

An Introduction to Wireless Computer Speakers

Andy Zain tells us a bit about wireless computer speakers in this article: I don’t think this idea will ever go mainstream; but I’m sure that it has its uses.

Fake Antivirus Software is Infecting on a Massive Scale

Partly due to the corporate greed of the kosher affiliate networks, there are now criminal affiliate networks peddling malware. Criminals are making a fortune!

- That’s it for this Public Newsletter then: Enjoy your weekend, and if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere then remember, it’s getting cold outside lately; so why not stay in more, sit in front of the computer, and among other things, read kkomp.com.

‘So Much Hardware!

You’ve no doubt noticed the frankly amazing rate at which new hardware, particularly motherboards, is being produced at these days: It’s like there’s a race on to produce better and better hardware. The leading players appear to be motherboards in first place, closely followed by graphics cards, and processors aren’t far behind.

When a new processor begins manufacture, every motherboard manufacturer makes a variety of motherboards initially to accommodate that processor and get the very best from it. They also utilise the latest chipset designs, many of which are purposely designed to operate in tandem with a particular type of processor. The production run continues with more specifically-designed boards, possibly utilising newer chipsets; tailing off as the processor in question, and/or its socket designation, becomes less utilised in favour of something newer.

Graphics cards are more in a league of their own; with the onus on the manufacturer to use one of the recently-introduced graphics chips from the graphics-chip manufacturers to give the best performance on screen in high resolutions and fast frame-rates, from complex multi-processor-core-utilising games software.

Unique Drivers

…And with each new hardware design comes a new set of software in the form of drivers; although having said that; recently companies such as Via Technologies, in the case of motherboard chipsets; and nVidia, in the case of graphics cards, have done fairly well in producing an all-in-one driver software package that fits pretty well all of their recent products. An example of this is Via Technologies’ site Viaarena; where a driver package of this sort, one-size-fits-all, cab be used to drive pretty much any recent Via chipset.

- But that’s not the case with every manufacturer; and even a number of the products manufactured by such companies as mentioned above are so particularly specialised that they have their own individual driver.

The good thing is that, in the case of motherboards and graphics cards, the manufacturer usually provides a CD or DVD with the product that has all the necessary drivers on it. When you install the board or card, you just simply install all the necessary other drivers from the disc. You’ll also find that the manufacturer provides a download for these drivers on their website also: This is a subject that we’ll be returning to later in this article, as there is something particularly important about that fact.

Motherboard drivers mainly relate to the chipset used on that particular type of board, as well as to the onboard soundcard and any other chipset-associated graphics-circuitry if included. Also the SATA and PATA controllers, and the RAM controllers, need a driver – as does the processor itself, in relation to the specific motherboard build as well as a unit in its own right too.

Windows in the Equation

Operating systems such as Windows, particularly Windows XP onwards, were designed to cater for drivers to some extent, and, when installed, attach a driver to each device to allow it to at least function something like correctly and identify itself, so that the operating system can be properly installed. – But that doesn’t always happen.

Windows XP was launched in 2001, and contained compatible drivers for most if not all of the technology in use in 2000. With a bit of forethought, Microsoft also created basic drivers that would at least run future hardware to some extent also. – But this doesn’t mean that Windows XP will install every driver necessary to run your system proficiently and optimally on install: As years have gone by, technologies have appeared which, although largely backwards-compatible with XP, are built for Windows Vista, or more recently Windows 7; which uses a very similar kernel to Vista anyway.

- So when you install no-frills Window XP and nothing else on your box, it runs. – Perhaps the functionality of a number of devices is impeded; for instance the graphics card is only able to work with a couple of screen resolutions, at a set monitor frequency, but nevertheless it runs. The reason for this is that it installs drivers to your devices that make them work with the XP kernel. These drivers, however, aren’t specially designed for the hardware that they’re driving in most cases, and they’re old.

-She’s Boasting Again…

I’ve just installed the RTM version of Windows 7 64-bit, after previously running the 64-bit RC version. – Both versions instantly recognised all of the hardware in my self-built computer, and so it should: the hardware I used was a Gigabyte motherboard that had been around a few months, as had the Gigabyte 256MB GDDR3 graphics card, the 8GBs of DDR2 800MHz RAM, the AMD triple-core Phenom processor, and so on. – All fully 64-bit capable, designed for use with Vista, and therefore Windows 7… – Except for two pieces of hardware in particular: The Realtek onboard sound-card needed a Realtek High-Definition Audio driver, which even Windows 7 didn’t carry in its arsenal: Result = no sound. Also there was no decent driver for the chipset: While Windows installed one that made it work, it didn’t have the necessary custom-designed driver that was required: The nVidia nForce System Management driver. – Both of these I had to install from the CD that came packed with the motherboard.

Soon Windows 7 will start initially installing only make-do drivers that allow the hardware to function very basically with the kernel. – The good thing about Windows 7 is that if it can’t immediately find a decent driver for a piece of hardware, then it will, after installing the best  driver it can find that works, go straight online to Windows Update to try to find a better driver there.

Another thing is that even Windows Update isn’t always that accurate: Yesterday, for instance, I was offered a replacement driver in Windows 7 for my Realtek ethernet connection as an optional update. The replacement driver was a year older than the one that was already installed, which was installed from the motherboard driver CD, and it didn’t work: result = no ethernet connection. I rolled back the driver and the ethernet port instantly started working again.

On that note; there are some automated driver-update services out there, which are supposed to always keep your computer up to date with the latest drivers. – These are also rather fallible: One of them that I used to use told me that my then Via chipset’s drivers were old, and it replaced them with Intel chipset drivers, so that it wouldn’t start. – ‘Not good.

In short; automated driver update services such as this, like most AI of this point in time time, occasionally have a brain-fart, and mess up big time.

(Windows XP will also go to Windows Update and find drivers; but not by default: You have to set the operating system to do this manually after installation; and even then XP will only chase down a better driver than the one already installed if you ask it to. If a piece of hardware doesn’t have a driver that isn’t available on the XP CD, or that piece of hardware has just been installed without a driver, XP will go to Windows Update to look for a better driver, sometimes automatically if set right; sometimes only if you prompt it to do so.)

Windows Update doesn’t have every type of hardware driver, though, so there’s a 50/50 chance that the operating system will have no luck there. Also, Windows Update doesn’t have all the latest versions of the drivers that it does have ready to be used: If it has a newer version of the driver that you have installed, then it’ll upgrade it; but just because it’s newer doesn’t mean that it’s the newest applicable driver.

‘Time for an Update?

This is where the manufacturer’s website that I mentioned earlier comes into play: –

If you look in Device Manager, then you’ll see details of the driver version that you currently have installed, who made the driver, the date that the driver was released, the hardware that it’s driving, who made the hardware, the hardware’s model number, etc.

Every now and then a hardware manufacturer’s research and development team will discover a flaw in a driver that was previously unnoticed. They’ll rewrite the driver to eradicate that flaw and improve performance of the product. – Either that or they’ll discover a security vulnerability in it and write it out. Having rewritten and tested the new driver version, they’ll release it to the public, so that their customers get better performance from their product.

Unless you keep a lookout for new drivers you could miss out on such performance-gains. – Which is where an occasional visit to a manufacturer’s website can be very helpful. If you rely on Microsoft Update then you’ll get the odd update; but it won’t be anything like new, and you’ll probably miss out on many new driver versions.

The above paragraph applies particularly to chipset drivers and graphics drivers; so keep a lookout for new versions of the drivers that you’re using especially in the case of those devices.

- So in the best geeky tradition, always keep your drivers up to date, and you’ll always get more from your box.

Have you checked your drivers recently? Do you keep an eye on your drivers?

Ignoring the obvious jokes about AC/DC; including bipolar DC currents, bistable multivibrators, and all other possible smutty electronics terminology innuendos; in this article we’ll be taking a look at how the high-voltage Alternating Current (AC) electricity that comes from the power plug and is transported to your computer becomes the low-voltage Direct Current (DC) electricity that runs your computer.

I use your computer in the above paragraph as it’s the most obvious choice; considering the fact that you’re probably reading this article on your computer; and if not have probably printed it off from a printer attached to a computer. In fact it’s not just computers that have to change the AC mains voltage into a usable working DC voltage. Most if not all mains-powered electronic devices have to do this: Even to a certain extent CRT monitors and televisions, although these also utilise the high-voltage AC current of mains electricity in addition to stepping the voltage both up and down, as well as converting AC into DC in some of their internal circuitry. For the purpose of this article I’ll be using the example of a computer (PC) power supply unless otherwise indicated.

In comes the power lead carrying between 217 and 254 volts of AC electricity in the UK (Depending upon the time of day and the geographical location in the UK.), or around 110 volts AC in the USA. The power supply’s job is to convert that voltage into three separate DC voltages; 12 volts, 5 volts, and 3.3 volts. Due to the high wattage requirements of some of the circuitry in the computer; these supplies; particularly the 12 and 3.3 volt supplies, have to also be able to supply very large currents, measured in Amperes. (Amps.)

The relationship of electrical current (Amps) to electrical power (Watts) is defined in Joule’s Law as P = IV. (Power in watts is equal to the sum of amperes in amps multiplied by voltage in volts.) Therefore if you were to have a power supply supplying 12 volts at 12 amps; the available wattage would be 12 volts X 12 amps = 144 watts.

(This equation can also be reversed to show the inverse of this: -

I = P/V (Amperage = power in watts divided by voltage in volts.) and V = P/I Voltage = power in watts divided by current in amps.))

For the purpose of this article, we’ll ignore the large currents to the greatest possible extent; and rather we’ll concentrate on the basics of changing high-voltages into low-voltages, and AC into DC.

There are 4 main component blocks in a (single-output) power supply; those being: -

1) Transformer

A transformer is a single electrical component consisting of two or more coils of wire formed around a core of varying density depending upon the type of transformer. It works by the electromagnetic field induced in the primary coil  or input coil by an AC electric current affecting the secondary or output coil and causing a proportional electric current to flow within that coil. The ratio of the two or more AC currents in question is dependant upon the construction of the transformer itself.

Recently; in electronic equipment that requires very low electrical current; the transformer has been replaced by a high-wattage resistor/ AC potential divider circuit. This has the effect of dropping the voltage by using electrical resistances rather than the electromagnetic induction principles of a transformer. Since resistors are [usually] smaller and lighter than transformers, as well as being cheaper; this type of voltage-dropping circuit is commonly used wherever possible these days.

Its advantages are reduced cost and reduced weight. Its disadvantages are that it can only output a small current: commonly considerably less than 1 amp, also that the load on the AC mains input of the circuit is always constant and unchanging; whether or not the circuit’s output is being used to power anything.

2) Rectifier

A [bridge} rectifier typically consists of four diodes connected in a certain configuration end-to-end. (see diagram.)

The action of the bridge is to use the component diodes ([Rectifier] Diodes will only allow electricity to flow one way through them dependant upon their connected polarity.) to sort the component parts of the AC wave-cycle into positive and negative; therefore changing the oscillating AC waveform into a crude type of DC current.

3) Smoothing

The crude “DC current” output of the rectifier stage of the circuit isn’t anything like pure DC electricity: It’s very unstable and resembles its former state to some extent.

A large-value capacitor placed across its path helps to iron out the remaining inconsistencies and reduce the inherent instability somewhat.

4) Regulator

No matter how much smoothing is applied to the output of the rectifier by capacitor(s), it can never be transformed into a totally stable DC current by this method alone. A voltage-regulator IC (Integrated Circuit) is placed in-circuit at this stage to finally stabilise any residual waveform-ripple and set the exact output voltage before the current can finally be outputted to run an electronic circuit.

- So very basically; that’s how it’s done. There’s more; a huge amount more, to be learned. – But these are the very basic basics of it.

- ‘Excuse the weird title: It was too long if I used anything else.

If you’ve ever set up a home network, you’ll notice that the first place you get access to is the Shared Documents folder on the other computer. You don’t get access to anything else on the other computer by by default; but you can access all drives on the other computer, including most of the files and folders on them, by setting permissions.

How to set permissions:

Click on My Computer. Right-click a drive that you want to share on the network and click “Sharing and Security”. Click the “Sharing” tab and look in the “Network sharing and security” section in the middle of the box. Check “Share this folder on the network” to allow the drive to be shared on the network. (You might find that you have to set permissions on some of the sub-folders too before you can access them from another computer.) Check “Allow network users to change my files” if you want to be able to alter anything from another computer; otherwise you’ll only be able to read files. (Remember that anyone using the other computer will be able to get into that computer and change anything that has sharing permissions.)

If you have a peripheral device attached to your computer, and you have files and folders on it that you need to transfer across the network, you might run into a problem: You may be able to set permissions for that device; but chances are that the other computer may not be able to see your device; no matter how big it is.

Sometimes there’s no problem, and the other computer sees the device, lists it, and transfers happily. – But Windows can be a bit unpredictable as far as a network is concerned: -

For instance; if I set up my external USB hard-drive on my old computer, my newer computer can’t see it at all: It only sees the internal SATA-connected drives, C:, D:, and F:. If, however, I set up my USB hard-drive on my newer computer. then my older computer sees it and can transfer straight to it without a problem: It all depends on the hardware used, as well as how the motherboard is constructed, among other things.

There are a number of ways round the problem: I could copy everything I wanted to transfer to an internal drive, say F:, but that’s hassle, I might not have enough space on F:, and I’d probably have to erase it all again afterwards even if I had enough space. = Wear on the drive and time unnecessarily taken for a somewhat pointless exercise. _ But I can still transfer the files straight from my external USB drive on my older computer to my newer computer, even though my newer computer can’t see the drive. Here’s how: -

My older computer can see my newer computer, and vice-versa. That’s all it takes: A little manual exercise will sort the problem out. Let me explain: I find my external USB drive in “My Computer” on my older computer; Drive J: in this instance, and I also find the drive on my newer computer that I want to transfer the files and folders to in “My Network Places” on my older computer.

Now I select the files and folders that I want to transfer from the place they’re stored on my newer computer via “My Network Places” and drag them to my external hard-drive in “My Computer”>J:  It’s just a matter of dragging between windows.

Transfer starts; target neutralised.

It’ll also work with most peripheral devices like digital cameras, mp3 players, USB sticks. I’ve never managed to get it to work with a webcam though. – But that’s streaming rather than storage; so it’s a different kettle of fish. Oftentimes it works otherwise.

(I’ve yet to meet anybody who keeps fish in a kettle, or come to that, a different kettle.)

Have you tried this? (No; not keeping fish in a kettle silly; I meant the other thing with the network.) Did it work? Did you need to do it? Do you disagree with me? Please comment below.

(To set up a network you need to have either a patch lead between two computers, or network them through a router or switch by means of a wireless connection and/or a wired ethernet connection. Simply setting the file permissions alone will not network computers together. Use the Network Setup Wizard (NetSetWiz) in XP to accomplish this having connected the computers.)

Above: An abortion of a mess of untidy wiring.

A number of years ago a friend gave me an old computer that had “just died” in part-exchange for one of mine (Not my own build.) that I was selling. She said that her husband had been tinkering with it and had upgraded the graphics card. (He works at IBM; but in the office department, not the practical computer maintenance department.) It worked after he had been fiddling with it – Until it had been moved to a different location; after which it had been totally dead from then onwards.

On opening it up the reason became apparent: All the unconnected power leads from the PSU were hanging around loose and swinging around as it was moved. It appeared that one of the the power-carrying contacts of one of the loose Molex connectors, which had become somehow extended out from the plastic sheathing, had touched the inside of the case.

A Quick Lesson in AC Power

The electricity supplied to your computer is in the form of AC (Alternating Current) electricity, at between 110 and 260 volts, depending upon where in the world you are and what time of day it is*. The job of the power supply unit in your computer is to convert this AC voltage into a very accurate number of lower DC (Direct Current) voltages with which it supplies the various components of your computer.

AC electricity is made up of a waveform which alternates in electrical polarity between negative and positive. A complete alternation; where the waveform swings from zero-volts to positive, through zero volts again to negative, and returns to zero volts again, (Also known as a 360-degree phase.) is referred to in electrical terminology as a cycle. The number of cycles per second are measured in hertz, and are the frequency of the AC waveform.

In the UK the AC mains electricity supply is approximately 220 to 260 volts (Depending upon the time of day and the area of the UK.) at 50 Hertz (Hz). (It’s actually over 400 volts before it flows through a transformer on every home’s distribution-board, which reduces the voltage. (The unmanned electrical substations you see dotted around the UK reduce the voltage to around 450 volts from several thousand volts.)) Due to the dual-polarity of AC power, it is commonly conveyed at a number of different (high) voltages using a single cable or wire, right up as far as the domestic power unit attached to each house in the UK. At that point another wire is introduced; that being the neutral (blue) wire. It is connected to a well insulated electrical earthing point. (Not to the same one as the safety electrical earth (Green/yellow) wire.) When electricity is used by an appliance in the UK the power flows from the live wire, which is indirectly connected to the supply via the transformer I mentioned, through the appliance, and to earth via the neutral wire. The safety electrical earth; which is totally unconnected to and completely separate from the neutral earth, is only there to prevent people getting electrified if the live wire somehow becomes connected to the metal case of a faulty appliance. In modern homes there are resettable circuit-breakers fitted to the power-distribution board that will cut the power to a whole section of the home’s wiring if such a fault is detected.

The computer’s case is connected to the safety electrical earth in the UK. Although it’s not the same as the neutral connection it works in the same way; carrying electricity safely to earth and away from metal objects. Although the DC power rails of the power supply unit in a computer seem totally unrelated to the AC mains electricity in your home; that AC mains electricity is nevertheless the source of that DC power that your computer uses. (The power is stepped down in voltage using transformers inside t6he computer’s PSU, changed from AC into DC current by a number of devices called rectifiers, stabilised and regulated by various high-wattage integrated circuits and other regulation devices, and supplied to your computer’s components via the supply rails from the PSU. Allowing one of these supply rails to touch the case, therefore connecting it to electrical earth, completes a circuit, and electricity flows through that circuit to earth. Due to the nature of the build of the PSU combined with the nature of the circuit created by doing so, the power supply unit overloads and stops working. (I could explain it in detail; but neither time nor space allow currently.)

Amateur Upgrade

That’s just one scenario; the one that had happened in the case of this computer, where my friend’s husband had left the power connectors lying loose around the inside of the case after he’d changed the graphics card: Moving the computer to another location had caused a protruding connector on one of the Molex plugs that should have been insulated and inside its plastic sheathing to touch the outside of the case; therefore overloading the PSU and the computer stopped working as a consequence. (In this case I just changed the PSU and the machine worked fine.)

It could have been worse of course: The connector could have touched a metal case or a connector of something on the motherboard; rendering the motherboard useless as well as the PSU itself.

To be fair my friend’s husband wasn’t an engineer or technician: A colleague at the office had told him how to change a graphics card after learning it himself from somewhere, and he’d done as instructed. It worked; but an unforeseen snag caused a problem. He had no idea of how a computer works, and no ideas as to electricity: He followed instructions, correct instructions, and fitted a new graphics card. The power connectors were tied up and tidied; but were in the way of what he needed to do; so he moved them. He just didn’t bother to tidy them up again afterwards.

Nightmare

The sight of loose power connectors (Molex or SATA) lying around inside a computer case make any engineer or technician’s hair stand on end on sight. All unused power connections should be secured by a twist-wire or cable-tie, attached to (But obviously not connected to) the chassis or to other wiring, and kept away from anything metal. Ideally they should be bunched and woven into bundle with the used power leads and secured well away from all surfaces. Anything else is just tempting negative providence and asking for Murphy’s Law to come into play.

Although it can be difficult to make the power leads secure and also look nice at the same time; that’s the constructor’s way of doing it. Practice makes perfect. Power leads/Molex & SATA power connectors (Used and unused.) should be easy to find and/or to trace back to or from the PSU itself by any repair technician or engineer at any time. They should also be safely secured, separate from other wiring, and restricted from movement to as great an extent as is possible. Wherever possible they should be kept away from and not cross the path of other leads/ data transmission leads. (Although this is often unavoidable in many cases, at least to some extent.)

Keep it tidy, keep it traceable, keep it safe.

What exactly is eSATA?

eSATA means external SATA. Although both eSATA and SATA are serial ATA data transmission lines; the two are not interconnectable:

From Wikipedia:

“eSATA, standardized in 2004, provides a variant of SATA meant for external connectivity. It has revised electrical requirements in addition to incompatible cables and connectors:

• Minimum transmit potential increased: Range is 500–600 mV instead of 400–600 mV.
• Minimum receive potential decreased: Range is 240–600 mV instead of 325–600 mV.
• Identical protocol and logical signalling (link/transport-layer and above), allowing native SATA devices to be deployed in external enclosures with minimal modification
• Maximum cable length of 2 metres (6.6 ft) (USB and FireWire allow longer distances.)
• The external cable connector equates to a shielded version of the connector specified in SATA 1.0a with these basic differences:
  • The external connector has no "L" shaped key, and the guide features are vertically offset and reduced in size. This prevents the use of unshielded internal cables in external applications and vice-versa.
  • To prevent ESD damage, the design increased insertion depth from 5 mm to 6.6 mm and the contacts are mounted farther back in both the receptacle and plug.
  • To provide EMI protection and meet FCC and CE emission requirements, the cable has an extra layer of shielding, and the connectors have metal contact-points.
  • The connector shield has springs as retention features built in on both the top and bottom surfaces.
  • The external connector and cable have a design-life of over five thousand insertions and removals, while the internal connector is only specified to withstand fifty.”

Some of the recent motherboards have an eSATA port attached; however a lot don’t. In fact USB and FireWire are a lot more common than eSATA. This is partly because USB and FireWire actually carry power, whereas eSATA does not.

USB 2 can carry a 5 volt supply at a power rating of 2.5 watts. (1/2 amp (500mA))

USB 3 can carry a 5 volt supply at a power rating of 4.5 watts. (0.9 amp (900mA))

FireWire can carry a supply voltage of 12-25 volts at 15 watts. ( 600 to 800mA )

eSATA carries data only at a voltage of around 500 to 600mV. (Approx. 1/2 volt)

Most computers around at the time of writing don’t have an eSATA port. (Unless one has been fitted after purchase.)

What do you do, then, if you need to use an eSATA-connected device, but your computer doesn’t have an eSATA port?

Answer = You fit an eSATA port.

A lot of PCI or PCIe RAID-controller cards have (an) eSATA port(s) attached to them. While you may not want to use the card for the primary purpose of running an extra RAID array from it, the eSATA port can still be utilised nevertheless.

For instruction in fitting a PCI or PCIe card; see here and here.

First; what is SATA and what is IDE?

From Wikipedia:

“Conceptually, SATA is a ‘wire replacement’ for the older AT Attachment standard (ATA). Serial ATA host-adapters and devices communicate via a high-speed serial cable.

SATA offers several compelling advantages over the older parallel ATA interface: reduced cable-bulk and cost (8 pins vs. 40 pins), faster and more efficient data transfer, and the ability to remove or add devices while operating (hot swapping).

As of 2009, SATA has all but replaced the legacy ATA (retroactively renamed Parallel ATA or PATA) in all shipping consumer PCs.”  

“The current ATA/ATAPI standard is the result of a long history of incremental technical development. ATA/ATAPI is an evolution of the AT Attachment Interface, which was itself evolved in several stages from Western Digital’s original Integrated Drive Electronics interface. As a result, many near-synonyms for ATA/ATAPI and its previous incarnations exist, including abbreviations such as IDE which are still in common informal use. With the market introduction of Serial ATA in 2003, the original ATA was retroactively renamed Parallel ATA (PATA).

Parallel ATA standards allow cable lengths up to only 18 inches (46 centimetres). Because of this length limit the technology normally appears as an internal computer storage interface. For many years ATA provided the most common and the least expensive interface for this application. By the beginning of 2007 it had largely been replaced by Serial ATA (SATA) in new systems”

“OK; so you can copy & paste:” Says the reader. 

“- I’m wanting to replace my hard-drive. Do I go for SATA or do I go for IDE?”

The question might be more like: “Which will my existing motherboard allow me to install?”

If your existing motherboard is 5 years old or more then it’s unlikely that there is any provision made for SATA drives. If you want to stick to the same motherboard and have a SATA drive installed then there is a way around it; but it depends upon what operating system you’re running as to exactly what that may be. The basic idea is to install a PCI RAID card and run the SATA drive(s) from that. However there may be problems with older operating systems with regard to this:

I’m thinking Windows here: If you’re running Linux or something similar then I will leave it to you to suss it out, as there are so many distros that it’s impossible for me to cover them all herein.

If you’re running Windows XP or earlier and you have an older motherboard without provision for SATA drives then you’re probably stuffed as far as SATA is concerned, and you’ll have to replace your old IDE hard-drive with another IDE drive.

The reason is that Windows XP runs SATA drives in an IDE emulation mode, and older versions of Windows have no support for SATA drives whatsoever as far as I’m aware. (If anyone knows otherwise then please comment below.) Therefore, in these cases, Windows will look for a storage drive to boot from on the motherboard. Since there is no provision for the SATA drive you installed to a RAID card on the motherboard the BIOS will not find any hard-drive and will report this. The SATA drive you installed via the PCI RAID card won’t be seen, because the RAID card needs drivers before it can work – and where are the drivers? On the SATA HDD, which the system can’t see because the RAID card has no drivers.

IF you installed an IDE hard-drive, from which the BIOS could boot the operating system and install the RAID card’s driver, then the system would be able to see the SATA drive in Windows XP and use it as a second drive.

Actually I’ve just realised here that any operating system would do much the same; as regardless of the way that it operates SATA drives, it simply won’t see a SATA drive connected via a RAID card without any drivers. – So whatever the case you’re screwed unless your board has a built-in SATA capability. If it doesn’t then as you can see above, you can use a SATA drive via a RAID card as a secondary drive; but not as a primary.

Having said all that I’m willing to be proved wrong; as that lot was something I worked out by complex logic.

Anyway, regardless of this; it’s fairly unlikely in this day and age that you’ll want to run a SATA drive on a board that doesn’t support SATA, if any such motherboards are still in use that is. If this should be the case in your situation, however, then I’d advise you either to install a new IDE drive, (They’re still available to buy new from most computer component retailers at time of writing, (1st March 2009) and even if they disappear from that source I would imagine that there’ll be a number of secondhand IDE drives available on eBay or Craigslist for a few years yet.) or get a new motherboard or a new computer.

(I’m not saying that it’s not possible to run XP on an all-SATA computer: I’ve actually built an all-SATA computer, running 2 HDDS in RAID 1, and installed XP on it without a problem. The customer is still using it to this day without any issues.)

Wow we spent a lot of time on that didn’t we? Most motherboards in use these days will have provision for SATA drives: Normally at least 2 SATA ports on the motherboard itself that is. There’ll possibly be at least 1 IDE port too. So back to the question: SATA or IDE?

If your motherboard has provision for both then the choice is yours, after all it’s your machine. You might have an IDE DVD-RW drive which uses the IDE port, and an IDE hard-drive which shares the IDE ribbon with it, or you might just have the IDE DVD-RW connected to the IDE port and a SATA hard-drive connected to one of the SATA ports.

Whatever your setup, and whichever technology you replace or add to your hard-drive(s) with; remember that IDE is yesterday’s technology and is obsolescent: It’s being phased out. SATA is today and tomorrow’s technology, and it’s being phased in. In the light of that it makes sense to choose SATA if you can, and only use IDE where you have no other choice.

Would you agree with this or any other issues raised herein, or do you disagree? Please comment below.

These days flash memory is becoming quite the in-thing. It appears that the days of the DVD are slowly coming to an end.

In fact, as soon as flash drives generally are improved so that they can store a terabyte or more and the price comes down considerably, I can see the days of spinning-disk storage coming to an end completely. That’ll mean less moving-parts in a computer, and therefore less to wear out quite so quick. (Although even flash memory has its lifetime limits.) It’ll also mean slightly less noise, other than fan noise.

At the present moment removable flash-drives are generally superseding the DVD-RW drive; which at one point not so long ago replaced the CD-RW drive, which replaced the floppy-drive: All within around 14 years. What of the blue-ray drive? It’s one of the current popular methods of data-storage; but its day will come.

So in the light of the fact that flash-cards are popular, and indeed a number of peripheral and other devices use them; such as digital cameras, mobile phones, mp3 players and the like. Although it’s possible to download from such devices by means of USB and FireWire, it’s also a good idea to have spare flash cards, just in case the one fitted to your digital camera fills up during a holiday for instance.

In such a case, when you arrive back home with several flash-memory cards full of snaps; it’s a good idea to have something other than the camera itself to read them on – Such as a universal card reader fitted to the PC for instance.

A universal card reader is inexpensive. (Although it’s possible to buy an external card-reader for a few groats more and connect it via USB, it’s always easier to have said card-reader installed into the front panel of your PC so that you can just pop the card in, cut and paste its contents to disk, and use it likewise again.) I bought the one fitted to my computer as a stock part about 2 years ago for less than £5.00 UKP.

In the picture above you can see the universal card-reader fitted between the DVD-RW above and the floppy-drive below. (Yes I still use floppies.)

The good news is that they’re rather easy to install as well as being inexpensive. Most modern pre-built computers these days are supplied with a card-reader built in, but not all of them. Older computers, commonly 2 years + old, probably won’t have a card-reader fitted.

Before you fit a card-reader, you’ll need to do some checks. The first of those being: Do you have a spare drive bay with a front opening in your computer’s case. The front-opening may be concealed by a plastic panel which can be popped out from inside the case – So just because you can’t see any more openings doesn’t mean there are none available.

The card-reader unit is commonly the right size to fit a smaller drive bay where hard-drives and floppy-drives are fitted. If you don’t have a smaller 3 1/2-inch drive-bay spare with a front opening then don’t worry: You can buy an adapter which makes it fit into a larger 5 1/4 inch drive-bay where you’d normally fit a DVD-RW drive for instance: basically its two pieces of metal and an extra fascia that screw onto the card-reader unit so that it fits into the larger drive-bay. Once again this is quite inexpensive.

Once you’ve mounted your card-reader unit in a drive-bay, all you need to do is plug it in. On the motherboard there should be at least 1 spare USB connector. (This is NOT a standard USB 2 port: It’s a set of pins onto which fits a plug that leads to a USB device: Either a number of USB ports on the back or front of the case, or otherwise; such as a card-reader as in this case.) If you’re unsure which connector is which I suggest you refer to your motherboard’s manual (RTFM), or if you no longer have it then download it from the manufacturer’s website.

Whilst it is true that most motherboards should have at least a single spare USB connector, there may be cases where this isn’t the case; such as in some computers built from a barebones kit, or on some older motherboards. In such cases it is usually possible to remove the single plug from the only available USB connector; but the front USB ports on the computer’s case may stop working if you do. Therefore this is a good check to do beforehand: Do I have enough USB connectors available on the motherboard, and if not am I prepared to sacrifice the function of my front USB ports in order to connect up this card-reader?

In the picture above the USB connectors on the motherboard are marked with arrows. I’ve connected my universal card-reader to the top one; marked with an asterisk at the tail-end of the arrow.

I suggest before doing anything inside a computer you earth yourself to prevent any static charge being transferred to sensitive components inside the computer. You can purchase a wrist-strap that you connect to electrical earth and wear, or you can connect a piece of metal jewellery or a metal watch that you wear to a metal pipe or the house’s electrical earth.

When you connect the plug to the pins, make sure that the plug is the right way round before you push it home. If it resists DON’T FORCE IT; check that it’s round the right way and try again.

Once connected, power up your computer and install the drivers and/or other software from the accompanying disk if necessary. Your card-reader should now read all the flash-cards that it’s designed to read.

That was a fairly easy install. I would assume that even someone with limited knowledge of computers would be able to do it as described.

Please comment on this article. Thank you.

I started writing this with the intention of writing an e-book; but I simply don’t have the time or the patience to write the reams and reams of text to justify a full coverage of the subject: Therefore I’ve condensed some of what I wrote down into a rather large post. Some of the text isn’t quite as I’d like it to be; but overall it conveys the right message.

This article is written with a view to teaching a few of the basics of electronic circuit design using a number of equations from or based upon Ohms’ Law. It is aimed at the beginner-level student. Whilst knowledge of component function is assumed throughout, links to articles from other sources as well as kkomp.com have been included throughout in order that the reader can study and read up on the function of individual electronic components for the purpose of being able to better follow the basic tuition herein.

Electronics is such a huge subject that it is impossible to cover every aspect in the required detail in a single article. Maybe a 1.5 terabyte hard drive would be large enough to store the knowledge of the average engineer, if it were zipped and otherwise compressed.

We begin by looking at the basics of Ohms’ Law and go on to design of a very basic DC inverting amplifier stage using three resistors and a transistor. I have attempted to keep the material as light as is possible, given such an intense learning curve packed into such a small space.

The main onus is left up to the reader, as near the end of the article I leave the reader with a conundrum to solve. The problem can be solved using only resistors, transistors, and a diode or maybe two. In solving the problem the reader will construct and solve many equations using Ohms’ Law; therefore putting into practice all that they have learned herein whilst at the same time developing their skills further.

It’s short and concise. There’s a lot of study and knowledge packed into it, and I hope I’ve done the subject justice.

Foreword

Electronics is a vast and complicated field. There’s so much to learn, and that learning curve never stops. No matter how much you know; there’s always more to be known as new discoveries are constantly being made.

For instance; forty years ago, nobody would have thought that the recently-invented transistor would be at the centre of technological advancement. It would have been thought of a a crazy notion that over sixty million transistors could be compacted into a device with the volume of a standard matchbox that is the central processing unit of a powerful personal computer.

In this article I’m not intending to describe in great detail the various functions of individual electronic components. Where this may be necessary I’ve linked to articles containing further information on this, should the reader require it.

This article is mainly about calculation used in simple circuit design, brought about by the use of basic calculus, in part using Ohms’ Law. The publication is intended to be the first in an ongoing series of books covering the basic principles of electronics and electronic circuit design. A basic knowledge of component identification and function is assumed in the reader. If this happens to not be the case then the information provided at the destination of the links incorporated within the text should be a sufficient source of knowledge.

The article that you’re now reading does not endeavour to go into digital electronics at this stage, and concentrates rather on basic analogue DC circuit principles, which should be learned as a forerunner to the discovery of digital circuitry.

Electronics is a very intense subject; and one could devote one’s entire lifetime to the furtherance of knowledge in this field. However with the rate of new discoveries now being made it is extremely unlikely that one could ever learn everything there is to know about the subject in even a very long lifetime.

This article is intended for the beginner class on levels 2 and 3. However, by utilising the links provided I feel even an absolute beginner on level 1 would be able to keep up, with much study, and maybe even progress a degree in doing so.

One thing that has been the very basis of all electronic advancement, from the days of valves up until the present day, is a set of equations known as Ohm’s Law. In this article we’ll be taking a look at Ohm’s Law and showing how it is applicable to every aspect of electricity and electronics.

Georg Simon Ohm was born in Germany on 16th March 1789, and lived until 6 July 1854. He became a physicist, and during his career determined that there is a direct proportionality between the voltage applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current flowing in the circuit. Further experimentation meant that eventually Ohm was able to define the relationships of voltage, current, and electrical resistance.

_._

In this rather large article I’m going to be using circuit diagrams. For those not familiar with circuit diagrams I would suggest that you take a look at this link and/or here to familiarise yourself with some of the symbols used. You will notice that I don’t always stick to the usual format in a number of cases when I’m drawing my own circuit diagrams freehand or other than on the computer itself: For instance; when I’m drawing a resistor I use a diagonal zigzag line rather than a rectangular box. Also when drawing a transistor symbol I usually omit the circle around the device.

This is for a number of purposes; the main ones being speed and neatness: If you’ve ever tried to draw a perfect circle without using a pair of compasses or a jar lid, you’ll know just how difficult it is. The symbol inside the circle is the same and unique whichever way round one draws it. The reason for the circle is to indicate that the device is a discreet device, meaning a single device in a package; as opposed to part of a multi-transistor chip or an integrated circuit. For this article we’ll just use the symbol without the circle where I’ve drawn the circuit diagrams myself: It’s a transistor and that’s it.

Standard Transistor Symbol     Transistor Symbol Used Herein

(The link shows only the symbols of a bipolar NPN and a PNP transistor, and also a phototransistor. There are many other types of transistor; such as the FET or Field Effect Transistor in its various different guises. (Which, incidentally, was not named after the author; Sharron Field. (Sadly.))

I commonly use a zigzag line as the symbol for a resistor; this was once the standard symbol for a resistor. It was abandoned for the sake of clarity because it looks too similar to the symbol for an inductor , the symbol of which has curves where the old resistor symbol has angles.

= This is how I draw a resistor

Whereas this is the modern standard symbol:

I personally use the old zigzag line symbol because it’s vastly easier to draw and takes less than 1/4 of the time. If I try to draw a rectangular box I end up wishing I hadn’t.

You’ll notice that the circuit diagrams that I’ve included were drawn with a pen or pencil on paper and scanned in: That’s the way things are currently. I don’t at the moment have either the software to draw exclusively on the computer nor the time and patience to learn how to use it. The situation may be different in the future; but right now that’s the way things stand.

The Basic Triangle

So let’s look at the most basic bit of Ohm’s Law first; that being the relationship of Voltage to current to resistance in a DC (Direct Current) environment: -

The relationship can be expressed in an easy-to-remember format thus:

V

I        R

Where V is Voltage in Volts,

I is electric current in Amperes,

and R is DC electrical resistance in Ohms

From this simple illustration we can draw the following equations: -

V / I = R

V / R = I

I x R = V

If we were to substitute the figure 1 for all of the variables we would notice that the equations are all true and equal in their most basic form: If a single Ampere flowed through a resistance of a single ohm at a voltage of a single volt it would be the point of correlation between the three measurements.

If, as happens in nearly all cases in a practical working environment, we were to increase or decrease the value to a number less than or greater than one for any or all of these variables, then that correlation vanishes; yet the equations still hold together.

Let’s look at an example on the next page: -

A current of 2 Amperes, or amps for short, is flowing through a resistance of 2 Ohms.

In this case Ohm’s law tells us that the voltage present at the point where the current exits the 2 Ohm resistor is 4 Volts; as 2 amps x 2 Ohms = 4 Volts.

Another example: –

An unspecified current is flowing through a resistance of 10 Ohms. The voltage at the point where the current exits the resistor is 5 Volts.

Ohms’ Law reveals that the unspecified current must be 5 Volts / 10 Ohms = 1/2 amp.

A third example: -

A current of 0.1 amps, or 100 milliamps, is outputting a resistor at a Voltage of 0.3 Volts, or 300 millivolts.

Ohms’ Law informs us that the resistor’s value in Ohms is 0.3 Volts / 0.1 amps = 3 Ohms.

Yes it really is that simple; at least at this stage in the proceedings.

Power

The next denomination we introduce into the mix is electrical power, represented by the letter P; and which is measured in Watts.

Here we introduce another law, that being Joule’s Law, which is named after the British physicist James Joule.

Joules’ Law has 2 main equations for giving the relation of power, or wattage, to the integers that we’ve already introduced in Ohms’ Law: The following equations describe this relationship: -

P = I x V

2 ,

P = V  / IP = V squared / square root of I

and

2

P = I  R        (P = I squared x R)

(Please excuse the error in writing the equations as mathematical formulae: The text has cocked up beyond repair. Please read the words rather than the badly-printed equations.))

Let’s look at some examples of this: -

1) A lamp draws 1 amp of current at a voltage of 6 Volts. Joules’ Law combined with Ohms’ Law tells us that the lamp is burning 1 amp x 6 Volts = 6 Watts.

2) A DC circuit draws 2A of current, and has an overall resistance of 12 Ohms. Joules’ Law tells us that (2 x 2) amps of current x 12 Ohms = 48 Watts.

In Circuit

So that’s the very simple bit out of the way and dealt with. let’s now take a look at connecting resistances in parallel and also in series, as well as working out the total resistance: -

There are different equations for calculating parallel and series resistances. Let’s first take a look at series resistances:

In the example above we have a circuit diagram of 2 resistances, R1 and R2, in series. To calculate the total resistance of the series pair we simply add up the sum of the values of the two resistors thus: –

Rt = R1 + R2

That was easy.

When calculating the resistance of 2 resistors in parallel, however, things are slightly more complicated. The equation for calculating the total resistance of 2 resistors in parallel is:

Rt = (R1 x R2) / (R1 + R2)

Let’s look at an example of this: -

In the diagram above we have a 2,200 Ohm (2.2 kilohms) resistor connected in parallel with a 1,100 Ohm (1.1 kilohms) resistor. The total resistance is given by

Rt = (1,100 x 2,200) / (1,100 + 2,200)

Rt = 2,420,000 / 3300

Rt = 733.33 Ohms (0.73333 kilohms)

Here’s a reminder of the resistor colour code and how to read the resistance value of the component. (This code also applies to some capacitors too.) : -

Introducing Semiconductors

In this article I’m not going to be covering any other “passive” components, such as capacitors and inductors. – I’ll save that for you to learn elsewhere. Right now I’d like to move on to what are termed “active components”, or semiconductors.

All the many types of transistor are classed as semiconductors, as are a range of components called diodes. There are also semiconductor components called thyristors which are used for DC power control, also triacs which are used in AC power control circuitry. High-current versions of these are probably utilised in the power supply of your computer, along with capacitors – large and small, resistors, diodes, power transistors, and inductors. Here we are starting to go beyond the scope of this article, however.

Herein I’d rather stick, for now, with just resistors, diodes, and a single basic type of transistor known as a bipolar transistor.

Very briefly; the diode in its raw form is a semiconductor device that only allows electricity to flow only one way through it. Click the hyperlink at the word “diode” above and discover more about it.

Standard Transistor Symbol     Transistor Symbol Used Herein

Yes you have seen these symbols before. They appear in the Foreword.  I thought it prudent to place them here also to serve as a reminder of the point on circuit diagrammatic terminology touched upon therein, as well as to provide the circuit diagram symbol for a bipolar transistor. – No it’s not an electronic device with a mental condition. The name derives from its construction. See the link above for more information.

The bipolar transistor comes in 2 ‘flavours’; those being NPN and PNP:

ollector                                                       mitter

NPN                                                                PNP

The meaning of these terms is described in detail in the Wikipedia article linked to above. This article isn’t written with an intention of dealing with the construction and function of electronic components. Foreknowledge in this area is assumed. Links to locations which detail this are provided for those who need to know, however.

For the examples in this publication we’ll be using the NPN transistor.

Throughput

You will appreciate that every device has its limitations; therefore although there are expensive hi-current devices available that can handle several amps of power, most low-power, and small signal bipolar transistors can only deal with a fraction of an amp passing through them without burning out. With this fact in mind we have to ensure that the current supplied to the individual transistor will not overload it. This is accomplished by a resistor connected between the collector and the + supply rail (VS). This resistor is commonly referred to as the “collector load resistor”. the amount of current allowed by this resistor is calculated by means of Ohms’ Law:

I=V/R

The main amount of current flowing through the device passes from collector to emitter. A smaller current is also required to be applied to the base connection, usually about 0.1 times or 10% (maximum) of the larger current.

More Terminology

In electronics terminology we refer to the current flowing between collector and emitter as Ice0, and the current flowing between the diode junction of the emitter and base as Ieb0.

Similarly with respect to voltage, the terms Vce0 and Veb0 are used respectively.

The terms Vb, Vc, and Ve, refer to the voltage present at the transistor’s base, collector , and emitter respectively. Similarly the terms Ib, Ic, and Ie, refer to the current present likewise.

V+ usually refers to the supply voltage, otherwise referred to as VS or Vss.

Biasing the Base

A bipolar transistor requires a voltage of 0.7 volts present at its base before it will allow any current to pass between collector and emitter. This is known as the “transconductance threshold” It is for this reason, particularly where the device is used under small signal conditions such as audio amplification that the base needs to be biased with a tiny current in proportion to the input signal, to a voltage of just under 0.7 volts.

To achieve this, a pair of resistors connected in series across the supply rails is normally used as a potential divider. The resistances of each resistor are selected such that the voltage at the centre-tap to which the base is connected is just below 0.7 volts. In addition to this the resistances of the resistors are kept as high as is reasonably possible to ensure as little current as possible, and consequently as little wattage as possible, is wasted; as a potential divider will continue to burn the same amount of wattage whether or not an output is drawn from its centre point, due to it effectively being a resistance connected across the supply rails.

In the example above we use a 10 kilohm resistor as R1 and a 1.1 kilohm resistor as R2. The supply voltage, VS, is 7 volts.

To calculate the voltage at the centre tap between the two resistors, to which the transistor’s base is connected, therefore the base voltage (Vb), we use the following equation:

Vb = VS X (R2 / R1 + R2)

Therefore in this example: -

Vb = 7 X (1100 / (10000 + 1100))

Vb = 7 X (1100 / 11100)

Vb = 7 X (11 / 111)

Vb = 7 X 0.099099

Vb = 0.6693693V

- Which puts the transistor right at the edge of the threshold of transconductance. A voltage of over 31 millivolts will flip the device over into transconductance and a proportionally equivalent current will flow between collector and emitter.

Beta

No this doesn’t refer to a test-version of a new computer program: The beta of a transistor is the quantity giving the amplification factor of that transistor. There are two ways of looking at this; in-circuit and out-of-circuit.

Out-of-circuit, as a standalone unused component, a given type of transistor has a maximum beta rating that it can be run at in-circuit. This can vary from around 20 or less for some power-transistors, to up to 1500 or more for some hi-gain amplifier transistors.

Setting the beta of a transistor in-circuit is another part of circuit design.

The in-circuit beta of a given transistor can be calculated by the proportion of Ib when Vb is above the transconductance threshold to the amount of current represented as Ice0. (Unless the transistor is connected in-circuit as a voltage amplifier rather than a current amplifier; in which case the beta is calculated by replacing the term Ib with Vb and Ice0 with Vce0. That is beyond the scope of this book, so we’ll stick to the current amplifier model for now.)

For example; let’s assume that we have a transistor connected in circuit with a base voltage of 0.75 volts (Vb = 0V75), therefore biasing it into transconductance. The base current is set at 1 milliamp (1mA). The supply voltage (VS) is 10 volts, and the collector load resistor is 100 ohms:

Ic (collector current) = V / R

Ic = 10 / 100

Ic = 0.1A (100mA)

The in-circuit beta of that transistor can then be given as:

b = Ic / Ib

b = 100 / 1

b = 100

Provided that this doesn’t exceed the transistor’s out-of-circuit beta rating it’s perfectly safe to run the transistor at this beta and expect its amplification factor to be 100 X.

(In most cases, though, such a large amplification factor in a single-transistor amplifier stage would give rise to signal distortion; especially in high-frequency

AC amplifiers. For DC amplifiers such as we’re dealing with here, though, this beta rating is OK and won’t cause any distortion as there’s effectively nothing to distort in this example.)

Let’s sum up and take a look at an example of what we’re trying to achieve here:

In the circuit above we’re using the potential divider we mentioned earlier:

R1 = 10K and R2 = 1K1

That’s great with a supply voltage of 7V as it biases the base just below the transconductance threshold as we saw earlier.

- But we haven’t yet worked out Ib in this case. How do we do that? well the total current flowing in the potential divider will be:

VS / (R1 + R2)

7 / 11100 in other words; which equates to 0.00063A, or 63 microamps. That’s pretty low but it’s OK. If we want to run the transistor at a beta of 100 then we’ll need to make the collector load resistor allow 63 X 100 microamps to flow as Ice0.

So we want to arrive at a scenario where Ice0 = 6.3 mA.

We know just how to do that using Ohms’ Law: -

If Ice0 = 6.3 mA and V=7 volts, then V / I = R:

7 / 0.0063 = 1111.1111 ohms

- Is the value of resistor that we’re looking for. We look in the spares box and find that the nearest value of resistor that we have is 1100 ohms (1K1). only 11.1111 ohms out; which will make very little difference except that the beta will be a fraction over 100. That’s good enough. – So we choose 1K1 as the value for the collector load resistor.

Another Stage?

That’s it then: We’ve designed a DC inverting amplifier with a beta of 100 (+/-1%) using a single transistor and 3 resistors.

For clarity here’s a components list: –

Transistor:

Q1: BC108C (I chose this one as its quite ideal for the purpose.)

Resistors:

R1: 1K1 1/8Watt

R2: 10K 1/8 watt

R3: 1K1 1/8 watt

If we were to apply a current of 1mV to the base, then the collector current (Ic) would drop by 100 mV. That’s a very basic medium-high gain inverting amplification stage we’ve just designed. Give yourself a pat on the back – That’s quite an achievement if you started reading this article without much, if any, idea of circuit design.

What’s meant by an inverting amplification stage? Well basically the input is the opposite of the output: When the input voltage is zero the output voltage is equal to the supply rail voltage, and whatever voltage is applied to the input, the output drops by a factor proportional to the amplifier’s beta.

For instance; if a DC voltage of 41mV was applied to the base of the transistor in this circuit, then the output would drop by 1.0 volts; from 7v to 6v. That means that if 101mV (0.101V) was applied to the input at the transistor’s base, the output at the transistor’s collector would drop from 7v to zero. – that’s a pretty sensitive circuit we’ve designed there. – But we want to design a non-inverting amplifier; one where if we apply 101mV to the input then the output rises from zero volts to 7 volts.

Why does it behave like this?

When there is no input, the transistor if switched off and current flows unopposed through R3 to the output. (Remember; a resistor gives resistance to current, not voltage; so although the collector current is regulated by R3, the voltage remains unchanged.)  – Therefore the output is at 7v. As the input voltage rises and the transistor begins to switch on and allow current to flow through it to ground, the voltage at its collector falls proportionally.

We could take resistor R3 out of the collector circuit and connect it between the transistor’s emitter and ground, taking the output from the emitter. That would work fine. – Then as the transistor begins to switch on the voltage at its emitter would rise from zero volts proportionally; but R3 as an emitter-load resistor would never allow the output voltage to rise as far as the 7 volts we require. Remember the transistor’s 0v7 transconductance threshold? That would affect the output so that it would never be able to rise above 6v3. What we need is some more circuitry added to what we’ve designed so far. Let’s get designing:

We can modify our existing circuit by adding an output stage to it: -

We have a condition at the output of our device we just designed where the output is at 7v with no input. The output drops by 0.1v with every millivolt above 31 mV applied to the input. Let’s ignore the 31mV for the time being, for the sake of simplicity. – But that idea of taking the output from the emitter can be used. First we’ll redesign the circuit: -

We’re now taking the output from the emitter. This type of circuit is called an “emitter-follower” for seemingly obvious reasons. We now design a second stage for this circuit to correct the error; or should I say YOU now design it.

“But I’m no circuit designer!”

You know enough now to solve the problem.

‘Your Turn

It’s tricky, but it can be done using only what you’ve already learned herein and by clicking on the links provided. You can use as many resistors and transistors as you wish, but remember, in the interests of cost efficiency you need to keep the number of components used as low as you can. If you manage to solve the problem using 64 transistors and 184 resistors then well done for solving it; but that’s far too many components. Keep the component-count low but keep trying.

I ask two further things: The first is that you don’t modify the original emitter-follower circuit in any way. You can connect to it at any point you choose; however you must take the output from the emitter and you cannot change either the existing circuit configuration or the component values. You also cannot change the supply voltage.

Good luck. You can refer to any electronics teaching media that you wish to use. However – here’s the second thing I ask of you – you cannot ask an electronics engineer or technician to solve the problem for you. This is your project. A qualified engineer will have no problem with it; but a qualified engineer doesn’t need to learn how to do it. Hopefully by the time you’ve solved it you’ll have learned how to do everything I’ve shown you off by heart and with ease.

All the information you need is written above; but you can use whatever other media you wish. If you want to learn then this is a worthy project. if not then I hope you’ve found what you’ve learned edifying.

If you happen to be a bit unsure of component function then click the links provided again and study the material. Several months’ basic electronics tuition has been crammed into this book to this point. It would be unrealistic to expect anyone to grasp it all in one reading; even if they did click every link and study the information there in full.

After – word

So you’ve decided you want to be an electronics engineer? Good choice. I’m not the one to teach you though: I’m only qualified as a technician. I am qualified to teach you the basics, though; and that’s a start if nothing else.

I’m trying to limit what I teach herein to what I’m qualified to teach. What I know is more than I’m trained to know. Whilst I’m not up to engineer’s status in knowledge, I do have perhaps a bit more know-how than the average technician. Had I qualified at a higher level I could teach more and feel comfortable in doing so.

The engineer’s course is 4 years long. I studied the equivalent of 2 years (‘Just over a years’ intensive training.) for my technician’s qualification. (City & Guilds 300, 301.)

I’ve deliberately not tried to make this aritcle “pretty” or to give it extra appeal. What you see is what you get. Electronics is a cold hard emotionless science: There’s a lot of maths involved; on a much higher level than this article has delved. (Bode plots and Nyquist diagrams included.) What you see is the beginnings of elementary calculus and an opportunity to dip your toe into using Ohms’ Law for real. If this breif and basic look at electronics has whetted your appetite for more then you’re probably a natural to at least a certain extent. I suggest you glean as much of the elementary basics as you can from this source; following which you continue your studies both online and offline.

Keep your eye on http://kkomp.com for any electronics titbits that I throw out to my readers. Take a home study course, night school, even go for it and take an electronics engineer’s degree if you like. This article only covers a few of the basics: I’ve barely touched on capacitors and inductors, no more than mentioned diodes and some other components, and I’ve only once or twice mentioned digital electronics. – With its logic gates, pulse-triggered flip-flops, Schmitt triggers…

The material herein has barely scratched the surface of analogue electronics. There’s so much to learn; and you’ve hardly begun.

If you’re intent on learning more, or even becoming qualified in electronics, then I wish you the very best of luck. If you found this heavy going and decided that the subject’s not for you then thank you for reading. At least you now have some idea of a subject that you don’t want to pursue any further. I hope you gained some enlightenment from your reading.

Whatever you choose to do; I hope you get the very best from it.

There are several types: The main two, in layman’s terms, are a light dependant resistor – LDR  – the resistance of which increases with the amount/type of light falling on it; and conversely one the resistance of which decreases with the amount of light falling upon it.

One of the main uses for these devices is in switching on street lighting. Rumour has it that a timer mechanism was originally used for the purpose, before the LDR’s invention. That’s maybe a sound idea if the light happens to be situated at or near the Equator; where the seasonal variations between night and day are minimal. However when you start getting as far away from the Equator, even as “close” as Southern England – Where night can come as early as 3:50PM in the depths of winter; yet as late as 10:40PM in the heights of summer: The timer would require resetting at least weekly. I honestly can’t envisage electricians running round the country resetting street lamp timers every week. Having said that though; there were people who went around the major English cities in the evenings and mornings lighting and extinguishing gas street lamps in the Victorian era.

Thankfully technology has moved on a bit since then.

See the Wikipedia article hyperlinked above from the letters LDR for a full description of the component.

You may notice that, on the circuit below, I use a non-standard symbol for an LDR which is completely different from the standard symbol. The one that I use (A zig-zag line with two arrows pointing towards it.) is a shorthand circuit-diagrammatical representation. It’s the old symbol for a resistor with the two arrows indicating that its value is dependant upon the amount/type of light falling upon it. Similarly with the fixed-resistors in the circuit; a zig-zagged line without the arrows. The symbol used as standard for a resistor is a rectangular box with leads either end. i find this too much hassle and too time-consuming to draw; therefore I resort to my shorthand: I understand it even if not all other people do.

So how does the device work in-circuit? The circuit-diagram below shows a very basic circuit incorporating 2 fixed resistors, a transistor, and a light-emitting diode to display the output. The LDR is an inverse-effect type. That is to say its resistance decreases as more light is shone on its surface.

The LDR , along with R1, acts as a potential-divider, biasing the base of Q1. As the light shining upon the LDR gets brighter, so its resistance drops, and thus the voltage at Q1’s base drops via R3. (See “Ohms Law and the Potential Divider”. Also see “Base Voltage”) When the base voltage drops below 0.7 Volts the transistor switches off and the LED goes out.

The function of the circuit can be reversed by replacing R1 with the LDR and vice-versa: In that case as the light shining upon the LDR increases, so its resistance drops and the voltage at Q1’s base rises via R3. When the base voltage rises above 0.7 Volts the transistor switches on and the LED lights up.

This circuit does work; in fact I memorised it from my early self-tuition in electronics, as well as from college. (Where I gained C&G 300, 301: Analogue and digital electronics certificates. ( I also retook a Maths exam as I had a cold on the day of my original exam twenty-something years ago and didn’t do as well as I’d have liked. – I passed; but my grade wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for, and I knew that I could get a better result.))

You might like to experiment with different values of resistor for R1, although a kilohm is probably the lowest value you should use in this case. You could also try replacing R1 with a 1K resistor and a 10K linear potentiometer connected in series. I’ll leave you to experiment.

There are a few and there will be more posts on the subject of basic practical electronics in this blog. if you’re interested in the subject then do look further into the content. It’s not all listed at time of writing so Google is your friend; use it. (Or Windows Live Search, Ask, Yahoo… whatever: I’m not biased or sponsored by Google. I prefer to use Google myself as I find the GUI simple to use and the listings useful. Your opinions may vary.)

If you build the circuit and experiment with it please do tell me your results. I’ll be interested to know.

Above: a PCI USB card.

I realise that many run-of-the-mill or experienced computer users will know the content of this article already. There are some, however, – maybe newbies or non-computer-savvy users – who won’t  know it; and this article is for those people:

No matter how many USB ports there are on your computer, (Usually anything between 2 and 12, depending upon your motherboard and the builder of your computer, be it a well-known-brand, or a custom-build.) there may come a time when you simply run out of ports. Maybe one or more just stop working suddenly due to a hardware fault, or perhaps you have so many devices attached via USB that there are no USB ports left to connect to.

There’s no need to rush out and buy an additional or a replacement computer though: There are at least two much cheaper ways to deal with the problem.

The first is to buy yourself a USB hub:

 This method can on rare occasions have drawbacks as far as power consumption is concerned: A standard USB 2.0-enabled socket will deliver 5 Volts (+/- 0.5 V) at 0.5 Amps = 2.5 Watts approx. If the equipment connected to said USB port via the USB hub(s) tries to draw more than 2.5 watts of power then things start happening: The USB port physically can’t and won’t supply any more power; therefore something has to go without. – And consequently something won’t work as it should.

Overcoming this problem; should it arise, involves opening the case and installing a PCI USB card. This is a device which plugs into one of the PCI sockets on the motherboard, and, once installed, is accessible from the back of your computer.

“I’m not going inside the box! – Oh no way: I’m a technophobe and will just end up breaking something in a panic!”

Relax! It’s a very simple operation. Compose yourself. If it’s your first time inside a computer you may like to be supervised by a local geek you know; just to give you a bit more confidence and reassurance, so that if you feel you can’t go on – help is at hand.

I do suggest that you earth yourself before even opening a computer and/or handling any microelectronic device. If the computer remains connected to the AC Mains with the main power-switch turned off, then the case remains connected to your home’s electrical earth. You can connect a piece of wire to the case and connect the other end to a piece of metal jewellery if you like; or you can buy yourself an anti-static wristband which connects in a similar manner.

Forget everything you see as soon as you remove the side-panel of the case: I know it looks confusing and complicated. You’re right: It is. – But we don’t need to worry about that right now. There’s no microelectronic surgery or precision soldering involved in this operation.

Your PCI USB card should still be in the box and sealed inside the anti-static bag at this point.

Now identify a PCI socket on the motherboard; there should be at least 2. (Don’t get PCI and PCIe confused: they are different technologies and not in any way interchangeable. You’re looking for a PCI socket.) Either ask your friendly geek or find your motherboard’s manual and identify it using that.

Looking horizontally towards the back of the computer from your chosen PCI socket you’ll probably see a blanking-plate, (Usually metal) corresponding to where the USB sockets on the card you’re about to install will be positioned. Reach inside the case. – Try not to touch any of the other electronics purposefully. If you do so accidentally it should be all right so long as you remain earthed (See above.). – Push the blanking-plate outwards, applying pressure until it partly collapses towards the outside back of the computer case. Go round the back of the computer case and remove it completely by breaking any of the weak points remaining that are keeping it attached.

While remaining earthed via the wire or the wristband, remove the PCI USB card, sealed inside the anti-static bag, from its box, Carefully remove the anti-static bag, avoiding touching any of the card’s electronics wherever possible. Hold the card by the metal end where its USB ports are.

Move the card gently into the computer’s case so that the contacts on its side match exactly with the PCI socket on the motherboard. You’ll see a metal lug which is a tiny extension of the card’s metal plate. Keep this as close to the case as possible and you’ll find that it inserts between the edge of the motherboard and the back-end of the computer;s case, so that the card’s USB ports are flush with the outside of the back of the case. Ensure that the card’s row of contacts are flush with the PCI socket on the motherboard and gently press down until they all evenly slide into the PCI socket.

‘Nearly finished: You’ll now see a screw-hole on the tag at right-angles to the metal-plate on the back-end of the card. Match this up with the corresponding screw-hole on the case and insert and tighten a screw to secure the card in place.

Before you close the case; switch on and boot up the computer. The computer should see the new hardware t6hat you’ve just installed, and should automatically install drivers for it.

If it fails to do so then either the card is not inserted properly into the PCI socket or it is faulty. Shut down and switch off the computer at the back. Check that the card is firmly pushed down into the PCI socket and that all the connectors are making contact with the socket correctly. If you are sure that everything is as it should be; power on and boot up again. If the computer still fails to see the card and install drivers, do this check again, and if still nothing remove the card and replace with a different card of the same type.

Once your computer has seen, identified and installed drivers for the card, you can use it normally. Remove the earth connection between the case and yourself, check that you haven’t left anything loose inside the computer, such as tools, a screw, jewellery, etc, and replace and secure the case panel.

You have just fitted a USB extension card; and you’ll see a number of new USB ports at the back if your computer:use these normally as you would use any other USB port.

That wasn’t too hard was it? If you’re not happy with the above instructions then take a look at another site: This tutorial shows you how to install a PCI TV card – the same one that I use in my computer would you believe. Although you’ll be installing a different type of card, as in a PCI USB card; you’ll nevertheless be installing it to a PCI slot just as with this card, so the principle is the same.

Either you’ve plugged in a USB hub, or you’ve installed a PCI USB card. You now have more USB ports to play with either way.

Happy computing.

Analogue amplification stages incorporating just a single active device, such as a transistor or op-amp, – as in a DC amplifier -  usually allow amplification of either the negative-going or the positive-going part of an AC waveform alone; basically cutting out half of the cycle and therefore causing immense distortion. There are two ways of overcoming this: Those being amplifying both halves of the waveform separately and recombining them at the output; perhaps at a decoupling transformer, (Too much copper wire, inductance, and consequential weight for my liking.) or by using two interconnected active devices to amplify both halves of the waveform at once, before passing the full AC waveform on to the next stage.

The latter method can be achieved with a push-pull amplifier.

Pictured below is a circuit diagram of a very basic push-pull amplification stage. (Please excuse the freehand drawing.)

The input signal; an alternating waveform, is fed via capacitors 1 & 2 to the bases of Q1 and Q2. The functions of C1 & 2 individually and collectively are two-fold: The first is that they individually shield the base connections of their respective transistors from any stray DC voltages from a previous stage, also they separate any DC potentials present at the base junctions of Q1 & 2; therefore preventing unintentional and accidental biasing of one another.

Resistors 3 & 4 act as a potential divider biasing the base of Q1 to 0V7. Resistors 1 & 2 have the a similar effect effect on the base of Q2: However since Q2 is a PNP transistor, the values of resistor used in the case of the R3,4 pair are reversed; therefore giving the base of Q2 a negative bias with respect to that of Q1.

Preset potentiometers PR1 & 2 set the potential of the transistor-pair with respect to the supply rails; and consequently the swing-maximum of the output-waveform. Resistors R5 & 6 are a precaution to avoid the peak output level colliding with the supply voltage and therefore causing distortion.

Capacitor C3 provides AC decoupling for the transistor pair.

Note that the emitters of the transistors are connected together and the output taken from that connection. This allows the inclusion of the traditional collector load resistance in both cases.

A waveform appearing at the input flows through both C1 and C2 to the base of the individual transistors. If the waveform is on the positive-going half of the cycle it lowers the conduction of Q2 and raises the conduction of Q1. If the waveform is on the negative-going half of the cycle the reverse occurs: Hence the output polarity mirrors the input polarity to whatever degree of amplification is involved.

A Little Background Information:

Prior to the advent of digital electronics, this type of circuit configuration was widely used in analogue receiving and amplification devices throughout the 1950s, 60s, and to some extent even the 70s. Back in the 1950s before the transistor became widely used in electronic circuitry, they would use a pair of triode or pentode  thermionic valves in the place of the transistor pair. As technology developed the manufacturers developed smaller valves with two triode or pentode sections for the purpose, screened from one another by a metal electrode.

(Example: ECC82 (European Nomenclature), or equivalent 12AU7 (American nomenclature.) AF double-triode with a 6.3 Volt heater supply. The European equivalent with a higher heater voltage was the UCC82 which required a 32 Volt heater supply.)

Valves were also manufactured with a pre-amplification or oscillator stage included, usually a triode; along with a main amplification device, usually a pentode. (Example ECL85 (6.3V heater supply), UCL85(32 V heater supply), and PCL85 (17.5 Volt heater supply, commonly used in the audio output stages of televisions. – Right up until around 1973.))

During the late 1960s/early 70s, valves began to be excluded from the designs of electronic devices, in preference for the transistor; which was lighter, lasted a lot longer, required less voltage to function, and didn’t require an internal heater powered from an external source to make it work.

(There was a period at the very end of the 1960s which lasted a little way into the 70s where equipment manufacturers would produce valve/transistor hybrids, especially in the case of televisions. These exhibited a few benefits over valve-only technology; such as they took less time to warm up before they started working, and the amount of mains-hum distortion was reduced to a large extent.)

There: A free history-lesson along with the main subject. There’s value-for-money; even though there was no charge in the first place.

Personally Speaking:

Just in case you’re wondering, I do just about remember those old days mentioned; especially the latter valve/transistor technology. I was just getting into electronics in those days. – And yes I was rather young to be messing about inside televisions et al. I practiced hobby electronics until fairly recently, when I got qualifications in the subject after a crash-refresher course at college. I became interested in computers in the late 1970s, around the time the Commodore Pet was released to market. Upon leaving school I followed the arts for a while, at the same time as running a small hobby-enterprise in analogue electronics, until I got back into both computers and digital electronics in the late 1990s.

(Oh yes. – Just in case you were wondering; I do remember the large B9D-base line-output pentode valve used in some televisions right into the 1980s; although I can’t remember the alphanumeric designation offhand. It started with a “P”, but that’s pretty obvious. – Most television valves did, other than maybe the HF triode-pentodes in the UHF/VHF tuners of some 1960s models. – Apart from some of the B8A valves of the early 1960s with the metallic base. – Now that is going back a bit too far.)

Ah I just remembered: PL504.  

. . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I was just proof-reading after writing this lot and I remembered; I need to hyperlink. There is so much I should hyperlink. If this article takes longer than expected to produce then that’s part of the reason why.

Oh wow; this’ll be fun!

Advertisment : Word Press Link Cloak: Easily disguise and protect your affiliate links to increase your revenue. Click Here!

Not long ago, processor speeds just seemed to get faster and faster. In the last 10 years we’ve seen CPU speeds go up from around 233MHz to over 2.3 GHz: A tenfold increase in just ten years. – But suddenly they stopped getting faster. Why?

There are two combined main reasons: The first being market-forces.

Everybody continually demands more processing power from their processor; therefore chips became faster, as processors that were able to operate at greater speeds were developed; able to process the same amount of data more quickly. Due to a combination of the limited speed of the frequency of operation of the motherboard, plus design constraints that we will look at shortly, there was only so far that this could go. Secondly two brains are better than one. When you’ve gone as high as it’s realistically possible to go; they way to further increase capacity is to build outwards, or duplicate the structure as an annexe of the original.

That’s what chipmakers did: Around 2005; AMD, having developed a commercially-available 64-bit processor, then fabricated it as 2 of those processors on a single die. The Athlon 64 x 2 was born. (The computer I’m writing this article on now has one of these processors.) Intel stapled 2 dual-core dies together in a single package and produced a quad-core processor. At the time of writing 6 and 8-core processors are looming on the horizon.

But they’re still no longer getting any faster. Why?

CPU speed of operation is limited by frequency. Also, when you get up to a certain frequency,  greater heat is produced; regardless of the size of individual transistors: Heat that is generated by the frequency of operation itself to a certain extent. 

Go above a certain amount of gigahertz and you’re getting too close to microwave frequencies. At these extremely high frequencies a combination of things start to happen:

The frequency that individual components, such as the processor and the chipset, communicate with each other at, is around 200MHz: That’s the case with all computers. You may have a 3.2 GHz processor in circuit; but 3.2 GHz is the frequency within the processor itself only. If the processor were to try to communicate with other components at that frequency; the signal would never make it to the other components:

The higher the frequency the smaller the antenna needed to radiate that frequency. That’s the reason why the highest frequencies outside of any chip on the motherboard are limited: If they were any higher, the connective tracks on or between the layers of the motherboard would radiate the power away as radio-waves before it ever reached the next component. If the in-chip frequencies became too high then even the connections inside the chip would act as antennae and the chip itself would cease to function, regardless of the design of the transistors themselves.

Secondly; what happens when you put a dinner into a microwave oven? It cooks, yes?: What’s happening is that the high-frequency microwaves of several gigahertz are bombarding the food and exciting the (water) molecules to vibrate sympathetically, causing them to heat up. (I think the frequency used is around 5 point something gigahertz.)

When you’re talking gigahertz; the higher the frequency (The more gigahertz.) the greater the heat generated. Also the higher the frequency the smaller the components necessary to run at that frequency. Small things tend to burn up quicker than larger things. Go figure. The cost of fabricating a chip small enough to function at higher energy microwave frequencies, as well as the cooling system it would require, doesn’t even bear thinking about: It’s just totally impractical.

So once you’re getting above around 4+GHz frequency you’re starting to fight a losing battle. Logically if you can’t go upwards you go outwards. Think outside the box like AMD did: Add another core operating at an identical frequency on the same die and you theoretically and loosely have twice the frequency without having to have twice the frequency, if you catch my drift?

(In actual fact it’s not quite that simple: The overall performance gain works out at somewhere just above 1.7 times rather than double; but I’m not going to type a load of complex calculus-laden quantum-linear algorithms here to prove a point, even if I could remember them.)

So what of the future? 48-core processors? I think, making a logical guess, that that’s about the theoretical upper-limit using today’s technology: But things can only get better. All of this is talking from the viewpoint of today’s technologies of course: If it were possible to isolate the transmission of gigahertz-frequency waves and amplify and send them by means of a chain of nano-electronic relays over greater distances on an active-conductor, then basically the sky’s the limit as far as the number of processors in a package is concerned; once one accounts for the excessive cooling required for such a device… The mind boggles.

Someone leave a comment on their theoretical predictions based upon factual or theoretically-possible engineering concepts. I’d be fascinated to delve further into the realms of possibility, even from the mind of someone better-informed than myself. I’d love to hear your ideas.

Click Here To Get The Cash
Sucking System ($47 value) for FREE!

There are times when things can be hard to write; and maybe this is one of them, but what the…

OK I’ve been somewhat of an anti-proponent of Apple up until now; and I have to say that I’m still having problems in my mind with what I term "the Steve Jobs modus operandi". I’ve borrowed incidental comments from others and expanded upon them, slating Apple and Steve Jobs in the process. I’ve even used the name "Jobsweh" as a derogatory name for Jobs, (A parody of the all-powerful and demanding Yahweh in the Bible.) which I picked up from a term used once in fun by Ded Ryzing in July of this year, 2008.

But it’s starting to get to my head, and after almost actually, without realising it, trolling in a comment I made on PC Mech earlier, which owner David Risley described in his follow-up comment as a "knee-jerk reaction every time he mentions the word "Apple"", I’m beginning to realise that all that’s happening is that I’m, without meaning to, starting a pointless one-woman-crusade against Apple; which is a ridiculous thing to be doing.

So what got me started on this foolhardy idea in the first place? Well during July I had a long conversation with a taxi-driver whose brother-in-law worked for Apple, and who had passed on some insider-information to him that Apple had rushed out the initial iPhone platform to get the iPhone to market ahead of the LG Viewty. I looked up the LG Viewty on the web and realised that it was a very nice cameraphone. From then onwards I became a proponent of the Viewty in opposition to the iPhone.

At the same time the world went iPhone mad: Suddenly everyone had an iPhone, but very few people owned a Viewty, despite the Viewty’s camera being far better than that of the iPhone. The thing was that the Viewty was a top-class camera-phone, but that’s all it was; a camera and a phone. It wasn’t a mobile personal computer like the iPhone.

At this point I was on the verge of admitting defeat and going with the flow; when suddenly up popped the news that Steve Jobs; control-freak extraordinaire, had a lever that would remotely block any chosen application on any selected customer’s iPhone. The iPhone suddenly became just like a Mac: The property of Steve Jobs, right down to which applications you could run on it. It was no longer a personal mobile computer as in your personal mobile computer; it was Steve Jobs’ personal mobile computer that you’d paid to lease on the proviso that he dictated what Apps you can and can’t run on it. It was yours to do what Jobsweh liked with, literally. It seemed like people were paying Apple for a computer that they were told was their property, but was under the remote control of Apple, with Steve Jobs at the controls. That; to my mind, is a con.

From that point onwards I’ve been expressing my distaste of Apple and Steve Jobs; which is starting to go overboard and is serving no useful purpose as such other than possibly to negatively affect my popularity of late.

Unfortunately it’s time for me to accept the fact: Apple, despite what I may think, and regardless of my opinion, have pulled it off, and they are a successful company, and growing too. Whatever I may think of the tactics of Steve Jobs; they work and they have made him a fortune: More than anything ethical or that I consider ethical has ever made for me. Do I need to redefine ethicality within my own mind? It may be so; maybe not? – I have to think a lot on that one.

Whatever the case; Apple have the iPhone as probably the most popular phone on the planet. Apple are the only company who managed to get everybody excited about their phone product: Think about it; no other mobile device has such a buzz associated with it. Why? The iPhone seems to just work the way people want it to. I don’t know if they envisage Steve Jobs at a remote-control booth somewhere in iWorld booming "I am the Almighty Jobsweh! Thou shalt not run that program upon thine iPhone that I have granted to thee." and pulling the lever. I have no idea whether they see it anything like I do but just put it out of their minds. Whatever they do or don’t do they buy iPhones – millions of them. – And now everyone is trying to make their latest mobile device look nd feel like an iPhone to the greatest extent that they can. Am I missing something here?

Why iPhones? Why not Blackberrys? Why not Sony Eriksson z750i like I have? Why not a Windows Mobile-powered device like I have? Evidently the others seemingly don’t have what it takes. I love my z750i – It’s cute, it’s a cool girly flip-phone. I’m content with my Windows Mobile-powered device to a certain extent too; although it could be better. – But I heard something today which went down like a lead balloon with me: Microsoft are prepping the ancient IE6 to work with Windows Mobile: In itself that’s good news, the current browser I’m using is insubstantial. – BUT would you believe it – here’s the bad news – it’ll require a 500MHz processor to work properly! My device has a 201 MHz processor, 64MB RAM with 128MB flash RAM. Great! No wonder they’re not offering it as an update; millions of people will require a new device! Thanks Microsoft!

Will I be getting a new Microsoft Windows Mobile device? Will I fsck. I’m getting an iPhone next: Not right at the moment; but when I decide to upgrade, which might not be until a better model iPhone is released, I’m getting an iPhone. There you are all those who I’ve slated iPhone to. – Flame bait for you all.

I don’t know if it’s a wise move; I don’t know if I’ll regret it, but in for a penny, why the heck not: It seems to be the better of a bad bunch.

As time goes by I expect mobile devices to improve, and the future is anyone’s guess. Right now; if I can’t beat them – join them.

Probably within the coming year; and maybe before the release of Windows Seven, we’ll be seeing a new standard of USB connection emerging into the marketplace. USB 3.0 is set to theoretically be ten-times faster than the currently-used USB 2.0 connection. Whether or not that is actually the case in reality remains to be seen; but the figures say so at least.

Does that mean that USB devices will suddenly become faster? No; it means that if you use a future motherboard equipped with USB 3.0 ports, or use a USB 3.0 card fitted to a PCI or PCIe slot, along with future devices which are USB 3.0 compatible, you’ll theoretically be able to transfer data at ten times (4.8 gigabits per second (Gbps)) the current speed of 480 megabits per second. (60 megabytes/second) (Also six times faster than FireWire 800.*)

All this works out fine in theory; but I’ve clocked USB 2.0 working in real-time in the real-world; and the fastest I’ve seen it go on one occasion was just under 30 megabytes/second when transferring a huge file from a USB external drive to a computer with an Asus motherboard fitted with 2GB RAM + a dual-core CPU, and running a SATA 2 7200RPM HDD. Realistically then you’d be lucky to achieve a 2.4 Gbit/sec transfer rate with USB 3.0 : That’s still fast; but more realistic in terms of practical application.

(Typo fixed.)

Why the difference between the theoretical transfer rate and the real-world transfer rate? Well the example I used had a number of bottlenecks placed in the path of the data: The first of these being the external HDD itself along with its USB interface circuitry. What exits the USB interface travels via the USB 2.0 cable to the computer and through the USB 2.0 interface on the motherboard, including the South Bridge. The South Bridge is also handling all the other USB and whatever else traffic flowing through it, then a bus line to the RAM and CPU. – The CPU regulating the USB interface and controlling the data throughput, then on to the computer’s HDD via the SATA controller, the disk’s read/write cache, and finally the disk itself. ‘Not quite as simple as you might have imagined possibly.

Imagine yourself in a car: The car is capable of travelling the 3 miles it needs to go in about 1 1/2 minutes IF it were travelling completely unobstructed and in a straight line. The reality is, though, that there’s a number of bends and roundabouts in your path as well as other random traffic: There is no way you’ll make the trip in 1 1/2 minutes even though the car is capable of doing so.

The blog wired.com, linked to earlier as well as here, is of the opinion that USB 3.0 will kill off FireWire. But, and there is a big but here, there is something that the author didn’t consider:-

    FireWire 3200

Since 1995, when it was introduced, IEEE 1394 or FireWire has been what everyone has looked to for high-bandwidth data transfer. No matter how much USB has tried to keep up with it, FireWire has always had the upper hand. With the coming advent of USB 3.0, however, FireWire is starting to lose the race:

The IEEE has approved the IEEE 1394-2008 specification, adding support for bandwidth up to 3.2Gbps: It’s fast, it’s not as fast as USB 3.0. Will it be good enough? In some cases perhaps so; in fact in some cases it may well be the preferred choice despite 3.0. Here’s why:-

USB 3.0 will still be processor-reliant with regard to the control of the data throughput; therefore USB 3.0 won’t be able to achieve its theoretical speeds and will probably at best be only as fast as FireWire 3200. Added to that is the fact that, despite the higher current-output of USB 3.0; at 900mA (0.9A), it doesn’t quite have the current-output capabilities of FireWire. – Neither, for that matter, does it have the voltage capabilities:-

FireWire is able to supply between 8 up to around 25 volts under certain conditions. USB 3.0 will still be able to only supply a single voltage: 12 Volts.

Using Ohm’s Law: 12 Volts multiplied by 0.9 Amps equals 10.8 Watts,  over three times the power supplied via USB 2.0 and just enough to power a small USB external hard-drive at a push perhaps; but nothing compared to the 24 Volts multiplied by 1 Amp equals 24 Watts capable of being delivered by FireWire.

If I were a camcorder designer presented with the choice of using a USB 3.0 interface or a FireWire 3200 interface for my device I’d instantly see that 10.8 watts would be more than enough to power the camera itself, but would be insubstantial for powering the camera, the onboard disk-drive motor, and the USB or FireWire interface all at the same time: That would mean that I’d have to include a rechargeable battery onboard which charged from the USB power. The battery would mean extra weight and extra circuitry to be included. That would mean extra cost. It would take up extra space and make the design more bulky. However the users of my device wouldn’t want to use it connected to the computer at all times; so I’d have to include a rechargeable battery whichever connection method I used.

The advantages of using FireWire would be that the battery could charge at any time the camcorder was connected to the computer, even whilst it was being used to film and record on its internal disk drive, whereas the USB model would only be able to charge whilst the camcorder was connected and idle. Also the FireWire model would have a faster charge-time, and probably a very slightly faster data throughput compared to its USB rival.

It would seem, then, that I would design and manufacture a camcorder capable of interfacing by means of both USB 3.0 and FireWire 3200. The user could choose which one they wanted to use at a given time. This gives the user extra choice and also keeps FireWire very much alive.

All things considered, at least as far as this round of advancements is concerned, FireWire is here to stay. I don’t see it vanishing into obscurity for some years yet, if at all.

Do you see it differently? If so please do explain by means of a comment below.

Chipmaker, Advanced Micro Devices, has launched its first 45nm ‘Shanghai’ Opteron chips for servers and workstations.

It also has a forthcoming range of desktop processors built on 45nm technology codenamed "Deneb". Both of these ranges are constructed using a process called "immersion lithography". AMD claim that this fabrication technique will lead to ‘dramatic performance and performance-per-watt gains.’

The new Opterons will have an increased clock speed due to this fabrication process; rising from 2.3 GHz with the current Barcelona-cored Opterons, to 2.7 GHz with the Shanghai-cored chips. The current Phenom range, which run at up to 2.6GHz, may also benefit from this upward-clocking in their next incarnation.

The new Shanghai-cores also benefit from increased cache-size, as well as from HyperTransport 3.0, which increases bandwidth considerably. Let’s hope they vastly outperform the Intel competition as well as the previous/current Phenom CPUs, or AMD is going to have a hard time on its hands and will probably end up cutting retail prices to offer a cheaper though lesser alternative to the Intel  developments.

AMD also plan to introduce a new six-cored range of chips called "Istanbul" sometime next year (2009). As for Deneb; AMD will probably be launching them before the end of 2008.

The Question is can AMD ever get ahead of Intel again? Can they even catch up; and if so is this their chance? What’s your opinion?

In this article I want to demonstrate and to talk about a simple potential divider.

What is a potential divider? It’s a device or a number of devices that divide a voltage potential.

In the first (1) of the diagrams below, we see a pair of resistors R1 and 2, dividing the voltage potential between the + rail and zero volts. This could also equally be accomplished with a single resistor or any number of resistors. I’ve used two resistors in the diagram so that there is a centre-tap where they connect together. (A).

The value chosen for the resistors in this circuit will affect the voltage at point A. These same values will also affect the amount of current flowing through the series-resistor pair; and therefore also will limit the current available at point A.

Let’s put some meat on the bones and give an example:

First let’s decide on a voltage for the + rail. 10 volts sounds a nice round figure.

Now let’s select some values for our resistors. How about we make both R1 and R2 a value of ten ohms? Let’s do just that.

So between the 10V rail and 0V (Zero volts) we have 2 X 10 ohm resistors connected in series; which gives us a total resistance of 20 ohms. How much current will flow through the resistor pair? To answer that we use Ohm’s Law:

Ohms Law says that I(current) = V(voltage) divided by R(resistance). Therefore 10 volts divided by 20 ohms = 1/2 amp, or 500 milliamperes (mA). This means that under these circumstances, if you were to connect an ammeter between point A and 0V (ground), it would give a reading of a half an ampere.(Amp.).

If you’re building the circuit you’d need to account for this: Resistors are available in a number of different wattages. In this circuit we need to know what wattage resistors 1 and 2 should be. If we use components rated at too low a wattage then they’ll get too hot rather quickly and burn out. We need to know the wattage that is used by the circuit:

Once again we turn to Ohm’s Law: Ohm’s Law describes wattage with the variable P, for Power – which is what wattage is; power. Ohm’s Law says there are two ways of calculating the wattage in a circuit:

The first of these is P = Isquared(R) ; Power = current squared multiplied by resistance.

We know that we have 1/2 amp of current, and we know that we have a total of 20 ohms of resistance: Therefore the power used  in the resistor-pair circuit is ( 1/2 x 1/2 ) =1/4 (0.25) x 20 = 2.5 watts.

We could also do this calculation the other way: Ohm’s Law says that I x V = P; current multiplied by voltage = wattage:

At point A we know that we have 1/2 amp, but we don’t know what the voltage is at point A:

What would be the voltage at point A? To calculate this we use the following equation:-

V = Vx(R2 / R1 + R2)

That means; voltage (The voltage at point A.) is equal to the voltage of the + rail, multiplied by the solution of the equation where the value of R2, in ohms, is divided by the value of R1 + the value of R2, both in ohms.

Since we know the value of all the variables in the equation, we can rewrite it thus:-

V = 10 x (10/10 + 10)

V = 10 x (10/20)

V = 10 x 1/2

V = 5 volts

Therefore we now have a voltage of five volts for point A.

Using Ohm’s Law we can say that 1/2 amp x 5 volts = 2 1/2 watts, or 2.5 watts: ‘Same answer.

When we select the physical 10 ohm resistors to build the circuit then we need to bear in mind that they need to be rated at a minimum of 2.5 watts. If we use a pair rated at exactly 2.5 watts they’ll be running at their limit; so we want to use a rating somewhere above that; let’s say 5 watts, bearing in mind that resistance decreases with heat, and we want our resistors to stay at as near 10 ohms each as is possible, so that we know what’s going on.

Having done so we can build the circuit by connecting two 10 ohm 5 watt resistors in series and connecting either end across a 10 volt supply. We know that the current used by the circuit is 0.5 amps; therefore we’ll need a power supply capable of delivering that amperage.

Basically, by building this potential divider, we’ve built a very primitive voltage regulator: We know that if we supply this circuit with exactly 10 volts at the correct amperage, we’ll get exactly 5 volts from point A. We also know that we can draw up to 0.5 amps of current from that point also.

The problem with this voltage regulator is that it’s too primitive: Whether we draw 0.5 amps of current or not, this circuit will always use 2.5 watts of power from the supply, even if we leave point A unconnected. – That’s going beyond the scope of this article though.

On a final note, let’s recap on what we’ve accomplished:

We designed a potential divider out of 2 resistors. Using Ohm’s Law we calculated the current flowing through those resistors in circuit, and we calculated the power that they would drain from the supply. We used that figure to help us choose our components, and we calculated the voltage at point A.

Although it might not appear at face-value to be so; we’ve actually just learned a very important part of analogue electronic circuit design: Once again, however, we’re going outside the scope of this article if we were to dwell any further on this.

Looking at (2) in the above diagram, I’ve added a device called a "potentiometer" (‘Obvious reasons?) or variable resistor, between the two resistors. (You’ll find potentiometers in a lot of places; even though you may not have realised it: For instance; when you turn up the volume on your stereo sound machine, if you turn a knob then you’re actually adjusting a potentiometer. The same goes for a TV volume control, brightness control, maybe even the bass and treble controls, or the graphic equaliser (Might be sliding potentiometers?) on your computer’s speaker amplifier?) Using a potentiometer this way you can adjust the output voltage at point A. – Another article perhaps?

There was a typo in this article; which has now been corrected.

I hope you find what you’ve learned both enlightening as well as useful; at least perhaps in the future if not right now.

A transistor is an electronic component. It is defined as an "active" electronic component because it is able to perform more than one function at more than a single level.

The most basic of transistors is the bipolar transistor. It has three connections; those being the base, collector, and emitter. A circuit-diagrammatical representation of the bipolar transistor is shown in Fig.1 below. The collector is the connection at the top, the base is the one in the middle, and the emitter is the one at the bottom with the arrow on it. In addition to the transistor’s amplification factor, the base and emitter act as a diode. (See Fig.2 (i) and (ii).)

The direction of the arrow indicates whether the type of bipolar transistor is NPN or PNP. (Which stands for Negative Positive Negative or Positive Negative Positive.) The difference amounts to the way that the transistor is connected in a circuit with regard to the DC polarity. This polarity is caused by the transistor’s substrate layers being doped with a P-type and an N-type substrate. (See table of links.)

Fig.3 shows a PNP transistor connected into a basic circuit. Fig 4 shows an NPN transistor connected into an equivalent circuit. The resistors in the circuit limit the current flowing through the device and set the device’s voltage potential point with respect to the supply rails. The capacitor drawn in with dotted lines is a decoupling capacitor which, along with R3, decouples the collector (PNP) or the emitter (NPN) to ground; limiting distortion in the output and/or compensating for any residual ripple present in the supply rails – depending upon its value combined with that of R3 giving a certain AC reactance. (A subject beyond the scope of this article.)

Resistor, R1, is connected as a DC current-limiting resistor in both cases, to the base of the transistor; limiting the base current which in normal operation should not rise above approximately 1/10th of the current flowing between collector and emitter. (As low as 1/100th is the preferred quiescent value for maximum amplification in most high-gain devices.) The differential between the two sets the transistor’s working amplification factor or beta. This is limited by the actual electrical characteristics of the chosen device itself.

This article cannot hope to go into the full details and various functions of the bipolar transistor under all conditions, and even the AC amplification operations of said device are far too in-depth to discuss in the space allocated.

For further information on this device please visit links in the table of links below.

Table of Links:

Every now and again hardware manufacturers write a new device driver version for their products: They do this to iron out bugs in previous drivers, to add extra or better functionality to an existing product, or to allow better integration with new technologies used by websites etc. Maybe even for security reasons too.

It is always good practice to keep your hardware’s drivers up to date, as it will allow your computer to function better if you do.

Microsoft sometimes announce and allow you to download drivers from Windows Update: Personally I don’t think it’s a good idea to always trust drivers from Microsoft Update. It has been known for WU to advise people to update a driver only for it to be the wrong driver which crashes the system. Also these driver update sites which scan your drivers and find the latest versions don’t always get it right. Whilst they are generally accurate they do tend to boob at times: I once was offered a driver package by such a site which was supposed to be the latest drivers for the chipset in the machine which I was using at the time. The drivers were the latest drivers for an Intel chipset; yet there was a Silicon Integrated Systems chipset fitted to the motherboard.

The only fully reliable way to do it is to take the long route and go direct to the manufacturer of the device in question to search for the latest correct driver. To do that you need to know who the device manufacturer is, what the device in question is, and also any particular model number of a specific device.

This can be easier said than done, as there are many devices on the motherboard itself; all of which need their own individual unique driver. If you know which device needs a driver, and what it is + its model number and manufacturer, then you’re almost there. If you have a motherboard that needs drivers but you don’t have the corresponding installation CD, you’ll need to either order a corresponding driver CD from the board’s manufacturer, or download it online as an .ISO file and burn it to CD on another computer.

If you’re already running an existing working PC then it’ll be worth checking your drivers to see if they can be updated. Old or corrupted drivers can result in anything from less-than-tip-top performance to a stop error. (BSOD) Assuming that you’re not someone with lethargic loser mentality; "Oh I can’t be bothered – My computer works as it is, so I don’t need to improve it.", you’ll want to keep your computer working at its best as much as possible.

The place to start is in Device Manager. In earlier 9x versions of Windows this was readily accessible. In Windows XP they’ve hidden it. I wrote an article on creating a Device Manager icon on your desktop, which it might be useful to read. If you haven’t yet created that icon then there are 2 ways to get to the Device manager window:

The first; the short way, is to click Start>Run and type "devmgmt.msc", then click OK. The second; the long way, is to click Start>Control Panel>System(In Classic Mode.)>Hardware and on the Hardware tab click the Device Manager button.

There you will see a list that looks something like this:-

The top icon is your computer itself, and it has your computer’s name next to it. (In this case "INXPENSE2X"; because the computer I’m using is an ex-demo model from the Kustom Komputa INXPense range with a dual-core processor.) Below that you’ll see various sections which expand if you click the corresponding + signs in the boxes to show which devices you have installed:-

As you may note I expanded the "System devices" section, which is in essence most of the drivers associated with the components the motherboard, and as you will also note there are a lot of them. Don’t fret; they won’t all require updating.

Double-click on a device and a spec.s box appears which has information on that particular device:-

As I insinuated earlier; there are certain drivers that won’t need updating. These are the system device drivers that are provided and installed along with the operating system:

When Windows is installed it installs a number of drivers by default during the installation process. Some of these drivers are stand-ins and are installed pending installation of a better and updated driver, which usually occurs when the drivers on the motherboard’s accompanying CD are inputted on initial power-up after build – And/or in the case of using a supplemental graphics card; when the graphics card’s driver CD is installed after the motherboard’s devices are installed. Some of the drivers that the operating system installs, though, are only licensed to Microsoft, and form a part of the Windows operating system; such as the drivers for the COM ports, the motherboard resources drivers, the PCI standard host CPU bridge drivers, etc. These are normally set in stone with the operating system and cannot be updated unless you upgrade the operating system: For instance from XP to Vista. Occasionally but rarely Microsoft may offer an updated driver of this type on Windows Update -  And in such rare cases it is worth taking the new driver and upgrading your existing driver as you won’t get an update from anywhere else. Usually, though, if you double click on a device and the driver manufacturer as written on the Drivers tab is Microsoft plus the year of manufacture is the same as the year that the operating system was released, then there’s no point in attempting to update that particular driver.

It’s drivers such as "VIA standard PCI to PCIe Bridge" which might be able to be updated: In the case of this one it comes in a package of system drivers from Via at the ViaArena website, and which is updated somewhere in the region of every 9 months to a year. Also drivers such as Asus nVidia GeForce 6200 graphics card… Basically anything with a manufacturer name in it, is a great place to start looking for updated drivers.

Go to the device’s manufacturer’s website, search for an updated version of the correct driver, and install it:-

Some drivers are supplied in their own .exe package and can be installed with just a click + follow any instructions. Other drivers aren’t quite so user friendly, and require a different approach; such as unzipping to a .temp file, opening the device’s installation program, pointing it to the temp file that has been unzipped, and allowing Windows to install the files for you. (Canoscan FB620U scanner driver for example.) Yet others are so primitive that I’ve known at least one case where it’s best to just dump the files on C: drive and the installer usually finds them and installs them on reboot. (- An old Xerox printer I used to use once, years ago.)

That’s given you some idea of how. As for why; well as I already said: It’ll give you better performance, and greater stability – So keep your drivers up to date. Maintain a healthy computer.

This is a deviation from the normal type of posts:

I’m currently carrying out maintenance of my main computer due to the hard-disk packing up. basically what’s been happening over the last 3 days is that for no apparent reason the machine’s been randomly BSODing; just a couple of times a day at first, then more including at boot. Yesterday the CHKDSK initiated after crash at boot 3 times and repaired errors on the disk, only for it to crash again at boot, sometimes activating CHKDSK before attempted reboot.

The situation now is that it won’t boot at all without crashing.

I had a second drive in the machine; so I disconnected the faulty drive from the motherboard and connected the second drive in its place. I switched on and was planning on using Windows Automated System Recovery to restore things. My backup was on the drive that I was now using – Which Windows promptly formatted! Fortunately I had a copy of the backup on an external disk.

I though that I’d left it connected to this second computer which I’m on now, so I switched it on but found that it wasn’t. OK fair enough. I didn’t realise that it was connected to the machine I was working on.

I went out to the kitchen to make coffee and returned a while later to a dialog box telling me that Windows ASR was formatting volume \DosDevices\ D: … and the external drive was spinning away with a constant green light on:

So thanks Windows – You just ruined any chance I had of making things easy: Now I’ll have to try and use a month-old backup which I have stored on this computer, or I’ll have to rely on the slow restore of Carbonite online backup.

This operation is clearly going to take the rest of the day: In future I’m using Acronis and Carbonite/Backblaze online backups only.

Despite a strong wind from the NASDAQ with the potential to dislodge Apple and send it tumbling as an economic drop-out; the company has had its own windfall in the States recently according to figures released by US market watcher NPD: The figures indicate that Apple made an impressive 20% of all retail notebook computer sales during July and August of this year, 2008.

The MacBook range of laptops appear to have gone down well with parents buying for their kids for the new school year, as well as with students. I perceive the dollar-signs lighting up so bright in the eyes of Jobsweh; god of all things Apple, that they nearly cause a fire as he curls his talons around his increasing capital assets:-

The 20% figure is for stock turnover. The revenue percentage of market share is 35%: Whoever suggested that Jobsweh had priced himself out of the market?

Of course, as I mentioned in another article, the MacBook line is due to be refreshed about now or in the very near future – Yet even just clearing the old stock has set the cash-registers ringing merrily across America.

The “anti-Vista lobby”; IOW a large percentage of (ex-)Windows users, must have helped account for the unexpected fortune of the company – switching from Windows notebooks now mainly only available pre-installed with Vista, to MacBooks with OSX installed. Despite the relatively high-costs involved it seems the American public on the whole feel that it’s a price worth paying.

Can this boom continue or is it merely a lucky blip? Despite the economic misfortune that now bites the world economy, it appears that Apple have had such an effective marketing campaign that consumers will still buy MacBooks despite the extra price tag and the cheaper Linux-bearing alternatives.

It would be wise for Apple to drop their profit-margin somewhat on the upcoming ranges though, as competition is still rife and economic future trends would appear to favour lower-cost devices. If the price of the new lines are right then Apple have the chance to make another massive windfall, rather than breaking where their growth is stemmed, and dropping from the money-tree to become fodder for the foragers and scavengers of recession.

Do you think Steve Jobs (Jobsweh) can resist overpricing his wares?

Mozilla won’t be developing Firefox as an iPhone App: Mozilla Chief Executive John Lilly says Apple has made it too difficult a task to accomplish. Instead Mozilla will focus on other mobile platforms and in particular the LiMo project, aimed at putting Linux on other mobile devices.

Development of desktop Firefox is still going ahead in leaps and bounds: The alpha release of Shiretoko; AKA Firefox 3.1 has already happened.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/3.1a1/releasenotes/

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/3.1a1/releasenotes/#download

Besides adding new filtering features to the Awesome bar where users can filter their searches to show browsing history only, Mozilla are particularly set on improving the Gecko rendering engine and adding a new visual-tabs feature.

What of Microsoft and IE8? Well IE8 is in beta and available for download. I’ve heard that installing this beta kills the Microsoft auto-update ability of Windows to receive critical updates and patches from M$ Update: I don’t know if that’s still true or if they’ve updated the beta to prevent this?

According to Microsoft:

“Some of the new features designed for developers include a developer toolbar and improved interoperability and compatibility…Internet Explorer 8 will take the web experience beyond the page.”

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/features.mspx

- Beyond the update too it appears? I don’t see anything immediately outstanding about enhanced security features; although a Google search reveals this:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=IE8+enhanced+security+features&meta=

The good thing is that IE8 beta is available for download to Windows XP as well as to Vista – I hope this is also the case with the final retail version.

Why, though, has IE8 been in beta so long, while all other browsers are advancing and releasing newer versions? Who knows the mind of Microsoft? Does M$ itself know it’s own mind after the departure of Bill Gates?

WATCH TV on your PC! No monthly fees and no hidden charges! Watch Sports, News, Game Shows, Documentaries, and hundreds of other programs from around the US and the world! Your cable company doesn’t offer this! And there is no monthly fee! Click Here!
 

Read on; you’ll soon feel better

Today I was wondering what to write about. I have a folder full of text-files going right back to the year 2000, most of which are complete junk. I thought I’d have a look through it to see if I could gain any inspiration. I found several parts of a series of advisories I’d written in 2003 with regard to setting up an FTP and web server in IIS in Windows XP – but I decided that was a bit old-hat for this point in time.

One of the items I found was one that I posted on Twitter, and would, I feel, be a must-have for any male geek:

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/Accessory/DriveBay/a2021/a2021.asp

(See website for image.)

An ashtray and cigarette-lighter fitted to a spare 5.25 drive-bay would be just the thing for the macho motor-enthusiast geeks.

Next we come to the one that I mentioned that I have designed into the novelty G1RL-P0W3R range from Kustom Komputa:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/ezbake.shtml

Personally I think this in-computer oven is a great little novelty: Cook while you compute.

For the third gadget – What can I say? Al Bundy eat your heart out. (Al Bundy never actually did use a computer in Married With Children as far as I recall, not even a 386.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/pcmods/8095

Think Geek themselves describe this device as “High-tech Laziness at its Finest”.

Oh what a shame that our next device is out of stock or discontinued!

http://tekgems.com/Products/et-15783-cmo-yel-paradise-bay.htm

Damn! I think it’s quite a useful idea; providing you have enough drive-bays to sacrifice one for storage.

Now you might, like myself, have hundreds of old cassette tape cartridges with all your favourite 70s, 80s and early 90s music on them – But try buying anything to play them on and it’s virtually impossible to get a cassette-player these days. (I have an old Ferguson Cassiever analogue radio/cassette deck which I used to play the cassettes on and used it also to transfer the content to my computer: Unfortunately the cassette-deck gave up the ghost last year.)

Now, however, using our next gadget, playing and transferring cassettes is even easier:

http://www.firebox.com/product/1700/Plus-Deck-Cassette-Converter?src_t=sbk&src_id=cassette&currency_conversion=1

Just in case nothing out of those took your fancy there’s a whole lot more similar weird geeky gadgets for you to browse at http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/Accessory/DriveBay/drvbay_index.asp

-And no, I gain nothing, whether or not you buy any of these products.

Enjoy.

No suspicion necessary; only discrimination required.

The US news-sources – In fact the whole world – is a-buzz with the story of America’s new so-called “Terrorism-prevention” measures; which open the floodgates for racism, sexism, all sorts of other-isms; and which seem totally ridiculous anyway.

The good old FBI are now allowed to seize a traveller’s laptop, PDA, alarm clock, mobile/cellphone, wristwatch; in fact any electronic device – Especially if they like the look of it. Who knows; they might just allow that beautiful middle-eastern woman to keep the devices strapped to her body following a strip-search and a sexual bribe?

Advertisement : -

Buy “WordPress on Crack” – Build your own WordPress plugins: Click Here!

If you see the men-in-black waiting at the point you’re just about to cross America’s borders at then kiss your brand new notebook farewell; an FBI agent has already decided that he/she prefers it to his/her current model. They are allowed to take the device(s) to an offsite location, e.g their home, for an unspecified period of time, e.g. until the device breaks down through natural wear and tear/usage, without any suspicion whatsoever.

The policies cover “any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,” including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover “all papers and other written documentation,” including books, pamphlets and “written materials commonly referred to as ‘pocket trash’ or ‘pocket litter.’ ” I suppose that’s at least a way of passing on an iPhone: They’re the only people who’d want something with cracked casing. http://kkomp.com/archives/664

They can also steal any data contained in or on said devices, and there’s nothing to prevent them selling anything to interested parties, rival companies, Al Quaida, North Tibetan Militia, Russian Mafia … From your porn to your personal details; it could easily end up in the hands of the highest bidder.

Advertisement : Word Press Link Cloak: Easily disguise and protect your affiliate links to increase your revenue. Click Here!

These ridiculous policies were issued jointly by the US Customs and Border Protection and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Both of which are to do with the DHS. (Department of Homeland Security.)

DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies — which apply to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens — are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism. That is the biggest load of crap I’ve heard in years! They think that nicking people’s laptops etc is going to stop anyone bringing illegal data into the USA? Err, just a dad-blamed cotton-pickin’ minute there Mr Redneck, but ain’t y’all gone and forgotten the internet?

Officials said such procedures have long been in place but were disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter. Ah right: The FBI have been stealing people’s devices for years but nobody noticed: That explains it and makes it all perfectly acceptable then – NOT! Maybe they diverted people’s “lost” luggage at Heathrow Airport, UK?

Advertisement :

Completely Eradicate Concerns Over Duplicate Content On Your WordPress Blog. Build Your Own Free Unique Article Spinner. Defeat Proxy Hijacking. Dynamically Rotate Ads. Do A/b Split Testing.

“You want all electronic devices?”

It’s already started for real: The Washington Post reports that “…an increasing number of international travellers have reported that their laptops, cellphones, and other digital devices have been taken — for months, in at least one case — and their contents examined.” No reports of any disappearance of equipment yet then? Maybe the data on then made more money at sale and wasn’t as traceable?

The policies state that officers may “detain” laptops “for a reasonable period of time” to “review and analyse information.” It is claimed. however that ” Searches have uncovered “violent jihadist materials as well as images of child pornography” – So it’s not all bad news then.

‘Want to view the policy in detail? Click here.