Archive for January, 2010
Upgrading your RAM
Jan 19th
Note: All images are clickable and will give way to a larger image in new tab or window depending on your browser settings!
What is RAM and what does it stand for? RAM are two or more chips that allow your computer to start, run, access information from your hard drive, display that information to you, convert those files into information you can access, use, edit, etc… Basically, your computer won’t even run without RAM, you’ll simply get a black screen or your computer may not even start. RAM stands for Random Access Memory. The word random refers to that fact that any piece of information can be returned at a constant time, regardless of location of any data.
Types of Ram:
There are a few types of RAM (random access memory) out there for you to purchase such as DDR (double-data-rate), DDR2 (double-data-rate 2), DDR3, SODIMM (small outline dual in-line memory module), DRAM (dynamic random access memory), and SDRAM (synchronous dynamic random access memory).
All the information above doesn’t specifically refer to the types of RAM. Rather, the information above is about the components of RAM but not the RAM itself. Here’s the break down….
DDR SDRAM:
Double-data-rate synchronous dynamic random access memory – whew, that was a mouth full!
Unlike its predecessor SDRAM which was a single-data-rate chip, this DDR SDRAM had the same general principles of SDRAM, however, it used double pumping without increasing the frequency. What does this mean and how will it help me?! Well, to be perfectly honest, it won’t!
So what do I really need to know about DDR SDRAM?
Well, as of 2009 DDR SDRAM was still being used in some computers and even in mobile devices so there might be a chance that you need to replace an old memory module or you might want to upgrade your ram altogether. If so, you need to identify some key thinks on your RAM chip before purchasing new memory. The first thing you need to know is exactly what type of RAM you’re dealing with. As mentioned above, there is DDR, DDR2, and DDR3 and each has a different pc number. To start, we need to identify our DDR type.
Use the image below of a common DDR2 laptop chip as a reference.
This is the main factor in deciding what ram to buy. DDR, DDR2, and DDR3 will NOT work with each other at all.
Next, we want to identity the PC number which is the next more important thing in your decision making process…
The PC Number is also known as the module number which is just as important as the type of RAM in which you use. You cannot have a different module number than your motherboard is made for and if you’re not sure what your PC number is, contact your manufacture for more information on the type of RAM that your machine uses.
Then, we want to determine the frequency at which our RAM operates on.
Frequency is the same as the PC number (within its own set of limitations, of course). It is important to know at what frequency your motherboard will use your memory.
Another good piece of info to know is that amount of RAM you have as a whole and each chip.
In this case, this particular RAM chip is a SODIMM DDR2 PC2-5300 @ 667 MHz that has 512 MB of available memory. With this information, we should be able to go into your local fry’s electronics, best buy, or any tech store that sells memory modules and be able to successfully upgrade, update, or replace your RAM!
One of these days, I’ll go in depth about RAM and all of the smoke a mirrors associated with computer hardware!
Basics of XHTML Part – #4
Jan 18th
Basics of HTML Part #3 is good to know before continuing on with this tutorial!
Today we’re going to talk about the img tag and the src attribute. This very important because this element allows us to input images in our web page and also input images from another web server or folder on our web server.
The Image Tag
There is something different about this <img> tag is that the closing tag is not </img>. This is known as a self-closing element or an empty element. These empty elements contain attributes only and no closing tag.
The “src” attribute
To properly display an image on a web page, we need the src attribute (which stands for source) which contains the relative or absolute link to the image you wish to attach. Without this attribute we would not be able to display an image because there would be no source.
The syntax for the img element is as follows:
<img src="url" /> <!--The image above--> <img src="http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard.jpg" />
Se have our basic syntax for the image element and the example provided is points toward the image location which has an image name of “standard.jpg” which is in the folder “images” on “http://www.atomicpages.net”
that has the URL of “http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard.jpg”.
The image element will place the image where ever the <img> is place. If that happens to be in the middle of a paragraph or in some arbitrary place on your web page, then it will be placed where ever the element is placed in your source code.
The “alt” Attribute
The alt attribute is important to have for a few reasons.
First, this alt attribute will display the text if a visitor on your web site has images turned off or they are using a text-only browser. This will accurately tell the user what they are missing if the page cannot load the images. Note: the alt attribute is not used as an image description or a summary of what the image is or what it is about.
Second, the alt attribute is good to have for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Web bots that crawl your web site cannot see the images.
Third, the addition of the alt attribute will make your web page W3C compliant and your web page will validate when checked by the W3C HTML Validator.
Here is an example of useage for the alt attribute:
<img src="url" alt="Alternative text" /> <!--Example--> <img src="http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard.jpg" alt="Standard Hosting" />
“height” and “width” attributes
Height and Width attributes can be used in the place of inline css or css in general. These attributes specify the dimensions of the image. These attributes will usually come after the src attribute. The syntax is as follows:
<img src="url" height="in px" width="in px" alt="" /> <!--Example--> <img src="http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard.jpg" height="148" width="300" alt="Standard Hosting" />
The height and width attributes define the image size in terms of pixels (px) without you having to write px after the integer.
Alliteratively, you can use inline css to define an images dimensions like so:
<img src="http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard.jpg"
style="height:148px; width:300px; alt="Standard Hosting" />
Images and Links
In Basics of HTML Part #3 we discussed links and anchors. We can actually combine links and images to make clickable images that will take us to a larger image or another place on our web page.
Consider the following code:
<img src="http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard.jpg"
height="148" width="300" alt="Standard Hosting" />
This will correctly display the image we want; however, if we wanted to make this image one that was clickable then we would do the following:
<a href="http://www.atomicpages.net/hosting.php"> <img src="http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard.jpg" height="148" width="300" alt="Standard Hosting" /> </a>
This would make the image clickable and once you clicked on the image it would take you to http://www.atomicpages.net/hosting.php If we wanted to use an image that would link to another image or a larger image then we would do the following:
<a href="url to different/larger image"> <img src="url to image you want to display" height="" width="" alt="" /> </a> <!--Example--> <a href="http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard.jpg"> <img src="http://www.atomicpages.net/images/standard-small.jpg" height="74" width="150" alt="Standard Hosting" /> </a>
Reformatting your Hard Drive
Jan 17th
We’re going to be looking at how to reformat and partition your Hard Disk Drive (HDD) using Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Windows 7. Since these two OS have disk management software embedded in the OS, there is no need for third-party applications such as Partition Magic or Norton’s Parted Magic software.
Step 1
To open the management portion of Vista or 7, right click on the computer icon on your desktop, type compmgmt.msc command in run or DOS, or if you’re using the new start bar design, you can right click on computer and choose manage.
Any way you do this, you will have to click "Yes" to the User Account Controls (UAC) in order to proceed into the management services.
Step 2
You’ll want to navigate to Disk Management on the left hand side menu and wait for all of your drives to load.
As you can see from the image above. There are three Hard Drive Partitions, one for C:, E:, and D: (which is an external HDD plugged in via USB). C: has 73.53GB of space on it, E: has 1021 MB of space on it, and D: has 149.05GB of space on it. Let us say for the sake of argument that E: partition is in FAT32 format and we want it to be formatted in NTFS….
A brief history of NTFS and FAT 32… NTFS is called the New Technology Filing System and FAT is called the File Allocation Table.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| File Compression built in | Is more complex than FAT32 |
| Saves Disk space by arranging cluster sizes more efficiently | Slower writing speeds than FAT32 systems |
| More stable | |
| It supports Disk Quotas, allowing you to choose the amount of disk user on a per user basis |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Faster disk writing speeds than NTFS | Less stable |
| Easier to manage | Poor disk space management |
| More user friendly | Doesn’t support file compression |
| Has a 137GB limit for ATA drives | |
| Slows down as you will up the drive. |
All in all, NTFS is the way to go. A small sacrifice in disk speed is well worth the reliability of the NTFS format. FAT32 is outdated these days anyhow, flash drives and some external HDD are formatted in FAT32 and most new computers are formatted under the NTFS system. As an example of the FAT32 format’s inability to save disk space, think of a 1KB text document; NTFS will save it and put 2KB on the disk as a backup, whereas FAT32 will take that 1KB and turn it into 32KB with 31KB not in use.
Step 3
Let us say we want to reformat our E: partition from FAT32 into NTFS. First things first, we need to click on the drive in question, in this case the E: drive. Then we want to right click on the E: drive or the windows that represents its free space, size, etc… The highlighted areas basically…. Select the format option.
You have the choice of renaming the HDD if you desire, and can also change the file system to NTFS, — duh — FAT32, or FAT (you don’t want!). You can also choose to perform a quick format which isn’t recommended because, well, you’re rushing a change of the file system on a HDD, you don’t want to rush that do you? You can also enable file and folder compression as well, this will add time to the procedure of course.
Upon clicking OK, windows will prompt you saying that everything on this partition (or HDD if it’s a complete drive) will be erased and once the process is started cannot be undone or stopped without some consequence. Back everything up on that particular drive if you’re reformatting a partition and if you’re reformatting a whole HDD, back up the files that you wish to keep because once they’re gone, they’re really gone and no file recovery software, system restores, etc… will recover the files. Naahhh!! I’m just trying to scare you all!! You can find software that will recover files and such, but it will cost you! If you lose some files that you want to recover, click on any of the three links below!!
Ending stubborn processes in DOS
Jan 15th
Ever had that process that wouldn’t go down without a fight? You’ve tried relentlessly to end the process through task manager with no success… You see End Process Tree and you said, “Oh well, might as well since I can’t do anything else” and you click it. Next thing you know you get the infamous Blue Screen of Death and your computer crashes. You start your computer in safe mode (just to be safe) and hope all is well but it does it again… Such a tool exists that is as powerful as administrative control if not more…. Behold the power of DOS!!! Also called cmd, command prompt, run (which is incorrect), and DOS (Not denial of service, that was the 80s). Let’s say for instance that you want to kill notepad.exe in dos. Open the command prompt (cmd) or open run and type cmd.
So you get this fancy – or lack thereof – black box with a stoic blinker and an archaic C:\> You think to yourself, “what am I doing here?!” There’s a purpose behind this, I assure you! The command for killing a task in cmd is cleverly called “taskkill” (minus the ” and “, of course). Note: If you type taskkill/? it will give you more information on taskkill command and any other command that you type e.g. cmd/?, ipconfig/?, winver/?, etc… I strongly recommend that you type this before proceeding, unless you happen to know the proper syntax.
As we can see, there are many choices that we can use and each serves its own special purpose in terminating a process. Our first example will be terminating notepad.exe using it’s Image Name (IM).
Step 1
Open Notepad.exe and open cmd.exe
Step 2
Type taskkill/? for the example to see or continue reading….
Our proper syntax will be the following: taskkill /IM notepad.exe and the process will terminate with a success or failure message and then the PID. In order to kill a process and all child processes started by that process, we can use a different syntax, example: taskkill /IM notepad.exe /T and if we want to forcefully kill a process (which you might have to use) our example would look like taskkill /F /IM notepad.exe /T
For the sake on example, let us say that we don’t know the image name but we do know the PID or we want to kill multiple processes without typing each IM. In vista, go the view > select columns > Process ID
XP users should also have a PID option. Example syntax:
taskkill /F /PID 5644 /PID 2216 /PID 1253 /T this will kill the following PID: 5644, 2216, & 1253 with a forceful termination and terminating all child processed started by it’s parent process.
rundll32.exe is out of control!
Jan 13th
Have you ever experienced sluggish computer performance and checked your task manager (taskmgr.exe) so see if it was a service or process that was out of control or not running? In you search you find, to your dismay, you see that you have about a thousand rundll32.exe processes open and now it’s sapping all of your CPU power and all of your RAM! (In windows vista, you’re only supposed to have two rundll32.exe running at any given time and usually the same for XP). You have no idea where the process is being started from and you want to find out and see if it is a virus or not. If you’re running XP then I have some bad new for you. To my knowledge, you cannot see the command line of the source file that’s causing all of this drama; however, if you have vista then you can simply go to the view tab and pick the select columns icon. Scroll down to the bottom and select the command line option check box.
When this check box is selected, you will be able to see the command line version of the specific location of that process and what rundll32.exe is actually executive (exe).
If you do have this problem and you trace the problem back to internet explorer, then you need to install ie to the latest edition or you may need to reinstall completely. If, however, your problem is not traced back to ie then do a Google Search on that particular process in question (be sure to add the file extension e.g. taskmgr.exe, system.sys, etc) and you can review opinions through a google search.
