Beyond

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 increases 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