Alliance Technology Professional
Providing Information on Technology Professional Development
How To Transport A Desktop Computer Cross Country
Nov 10th
When you move or go off to college, you might need to transport your desktop computer across the country. This is something that you need to do in a safe way without ruining the machine. There are two main ways of doing this that you might consider doing to ensure that your computer will get to its new location safely.
The first option is to ship the computer. Go to a professional packing company and get it shipped to your location. When doing this you need to get insurance on it just in case it is damaged in some way. Back up all your data before doing this. If the computer is damaged or lost, your insurance you purchased for it will cover the value of the machine so that you can just get a new one. This ensures that you are covered in case of loss. The disadvantage is that this option costs more.
The second option is to transport your computer in your car. This is best done if you have the original box with the stabilizing packaging but you can also just use blankets as well to pad the machine as best as you can. You don’t want it to move at all or be too bumpy.
Antivirus Firewall Software Types
Nov 2nd
It is a must for every computer or laptop to have some kind of antivirus software. Without it your computer will be open to all kinds of virus attacks and threats. Viruses usually corrupt your computer when it is connected to a network or to some external device that has already been corrupted like a flash drive or hard disk. Viruses, worms, bacteria, rabbits etc are different kinds of unwanted programs that infect the computer and cause hindrance in its normal functioning. To avoid this and to protect your computer from being infected and to ensure its smooth working you need to install a good antivirus software that will detect viruses and either delete or repair corrupt virus files.
Firewall software acts as a gateway. It usually consists of a set of routers between the machine and network. The firewall is of four different types. Application gateway, packet filter gateway, circuit level gateway and proxy server. The most basic firewall is the packet filter firewall. A packet filter firewall filters packets coming into and going out of the machine based on user configuration. If a certain packet does not fit into previously defined user configuration then it is discarded. For example the packet contains some information about the packet. So if the user has blocked a certain port number or IP address all packets coming from that port number or IP address will be discarded. A circuit level firewall does security checkup when the TCP or UDP connection is being set up between host and network. No further checking is done after connection setup. An application level firewall works at the application level. It is used for filtering required by higher level protocols like telnet, FTP, HTTP etc. It is more reliable and efficient than packet filter firewall. Application level gateway helps check mails as well and keeps unwanted or harmful date out of the system by preventing its entry.
A proxy server is kind of a relay server. When you make any request for a website this is sent to the proxy server. The proxy server then relays this request to a main server which in turn looks up the address and sends the corresponding IP to the proxy server. The proxy server then relays back this information to the client who requested the address. A Proxy thus acts as a firewall between machine and network. You can adjust proxy server settings according to your own needs. Thus a firewall works as an antivirus by protecting your machine from getting infected. It is one of the most efficient desktop security mechanisms available for computer security. Apart from providing security a firewall system can also be used to setup drive backup software. It can help filter sensitive data and store it in a backup system which can be retrieved whenever necessary. Depending on your needs you can choose between any of the types of firewalls. For a local network or office internal network packet filter can be ideal. For external networks application gateways and proxy servers are a must.
RAM and Virtual Memory, Which Is the Key to Improve Slow Windows Performance
Oct 28th
Slow Windows is the result of crappy computer hardware. A lot of people might have suggested you upgrade your computer to get the slow running Windows fixed, but do we have to replace all parts of it just in order to improve the slow running speed of Windows? Of course not!
As an important part of a computer, too little RAM leads to slow Windows. But why is that? Why would the slow speed of Windows become a penalty of the lack of RAM? It is because the hard drive is used as virtual memory by Windows which is running slow, when there is not enough RAM to store Windows system information. Take slow ultra ATA hard drive for example, Comparing to the transfer speed of DDR333 RAM which is 2700MB/s, the upper limit of ultra ATA hard drive transfer speed that is 133MB/s is unacceptable slow, which is why Windows doesn’t run fluently. So now it is obvious that adding more RAM is the key to remarkably boost up the slow speed of Windows operating system.
But there are three types of RAM which are DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 RAM and each of them fits in different DIMM slot, for example DDR RAM fits in a 184-pin DIMM slot while DDR2 RAM fits in a 240-pin DIMM slot. So as you could understand, it is crucial that which type of RAM to choose should be taken into consideration. Here is how to identify RAM, download CPU-Z, double click to run it, navigate to Memory tab, then you will see which type of RAM you are using under the General section. Purchase and install an additional piece of RAM which is the same type as the one you are using, it is able to boost up the slow running speed of your computer Windows.