PC Toolkit

SourceForge.net: PHPBounce: phpbounce Project: Admin: Screenshots

2010-01-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

SourceForge.net: PHPBounce: phpbounce Project: Admin: Screenshots

Internet Scams

2009-08-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

There are many scams on the internet, and you can find them just about anywhere. I am writing this in my blog, because I found one on a popular job posting site.

I'm going to explain how they hook you, how they try to get you to do things for them, and what you can do to not get sucked in.

I was on a job posting site looking for some part time jobs to supplement my income, and I fell on a what seemed to be legitimate job posting. Nothing out of the ordinary. I did notice that the posting was in terrible grammar. I still proceeded to apply for the position and I received an email about the posting. I was very excited at the fact that I could work from home after hours. I read the job description, and found the company name I was going to be dealing with. It seemed to be some company in the middle of the UK, in a very small town. I found it quite awkward that they were looking for people in the US to help them with some clerical work. I still proceeded to complete the application. I was surprised that it didn't ask for any social security number or any personal information other than your name and address and phone number. A few days later I received a phone call from the person I was dealing with on the internet. He wanted me to download the training book to begin my job training. I downloaded the file and read it carefully. It started talking about "the company" (not specifying the name), and talked about learning how to send money orders, and they needed my bank account to sent some money for me to take out. Immediately I saw where this was going. I stopped the communications right there, and my information was safe (other than name / address / phone which is public info to begin with). I never gave out my social, nor my bank account information.

Some Security Rules:

1 Never give someone your social security online, unless you are absolutely sure you know who you are dealing with (Your Bank, Credit Report Sites, Payroll Company, IRS...).

2 Never give out your bank account number or routing number online. They could use this to withdraw money from your account!

3 Do not give any information online you wouldn't give to a stranger on the street!

I hope that I am able to prevent some cyber crimes, and will find some more interesting things to talk about later on.

In Case of Emergency

2009-08-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

Disaster Recovery

Hurricane season is here, so you should prepare yourself in case of an emergency. I'm not just talking about hurricanes but any disaster. Backing up your data from your computer is probably the most important thing you will need to do. Your computer contains very important information such as, personal documents, insurance information, family photos, and more. In order to keep all of your information safe, you should purchase a USB thumb drive. These devices can hold large amounts of data in a small space. In the event that you have to evacuate your home, and leave all your possessions behind, it is important that your data can be transported quickly and easily. Backing up data to a USB thumb drive can help you avoid losing all of your for information.

Do I need special software?

No, you do not need special software to backup your data to a USB thumb drive. Some USB thumb drives include backup software. Knowing where your data resides on your computer is very important, because you need to know where to get it. Once you know where your data is located make copies of it on your USB thumb drive. You can create multiple folders on the thumb drive with dates of backups that you have made, this will allow you to organize your backups by date in case you need to go back a further date. I would not do this for pictures or documents that you do not change very often, as pictures can take up large amounts of space. I would use a separate USB thumb drive for pictures, and another one for important documents.

What if I have too much information to back up?

USB thumb drives are great devices, but one thing they do lack vast quantities of storage space. Yes, your USB thumb drive can hold few GigaBytes, but it surely isn't enough for all your home videos or all of your MP3 collection. There are other solutions out there to store larger quantities of data. Consider purchasing an external USB hard drive. external USB hard drives can hold hundreds of gigabytes or even thousands of gigabytes. They are a little bit bulkier, but very portable.

I'm scared of cookies!

2009-08-12T07:20:00.000-07:00

The Internet and the cookie monster

Many of you, who have been using the internet for quite some time, have heard the expression to remove your cookies, delete your cookies, or get rid of them because they are bad. I am here to give you insight on what they are, how they work and why people think they are so bad.

What is a cookie?

A web browser cookie is just a plain text file which contains information pertaining to the website that you are currently visiting. Cookies can help the website you are visiting be more of use to you by remembering your username and password, or even other pieces of information. Without cookies, you wouldn't be able to get access to your hotmail account, gmail account, or any other site you have to login to. It's simple, cookies are a necessity.

How do cookies work?

A cookie can be stored on your computer for any reason the website sees fit. Don't be scared, they can only put a tiny amount of information in the file less than 4KB. If it's to give you a unique visitor number to keep track of where you go on the site, or to keep your user id and an encrypted version of your password, or even just to remember customized information for that site, cookies are used to do just that. If a webmaster has designed his site correctly, then the cookie can only be used on his website, or even only part of the website like a sub site or sub domain. If another site tries to get the cookie, your browser won't deliver it to them.

Why people think cookies are so bad?

There has been a lot of hype going around on the internet for many years that cookies are bad and have to be removed from my computer. Every time I hear someone talk about computer security, they ask me if I found any cookies in their computer. My answer to them is, yes their computer is swarming with them. Immediately there is a huge sense of fear, and I have to sit there and explain what cookies are. Why are people scared of cookies? People are scared of cookies, because it is information, personal or public, that is stored on the "computer". When people hear the notion of information being stored on their computer without their knowledge, I can see where it can create fear and distrust. The truth is that cookies help make the internet a better place, and without them we couldn't really do anything on the internet.

The internet has been a wonderful tool over the years, it has also been used as a means to spread fear and malicious software.

Parts of a Computer

2009-08-08T21:11:00.001-07:00

Basic Components of a Desktop Computer

PARTS:

Motherboard
Video Card
Sound Card
Network Card
Memory
Processor
Hard Disk Drive
CD / DVD ROM Drive
Cables
Power Supply Unit

I'm going to post pictures of these parts and describe how they are used in your every day computer.

The Motherboard

The Motherboard is the main component of the computer. Like it's name it's the mother of all the boards / cards that make up a computer. It ties the Processor (Brain of the Computer) to the Memory, RAM (Short Term Memory) or Hard Disk Drive(Long Term Memory), and other connected devices. Modern day Motherboards come with built in boards / cards like the Video Card or Sound Card, and Network Card. These boards also have many ports, which are plugs for external devices like a keyboard, mouse, or camera. Just like cars, there are many different brands of Motherboards out on the market, I usually stick with one brand in particular (Gigabyte), because the boards tend to be very reliable in my opinion.

Video Card

This component is in charge of delivering video input and output to a display device like a computer monitor, TV, or projector. Many video cards that are not integrated into the motherboard are morepowerful than the ones onboard. These cards are usually for 3D rendering of games, graphics, and now used to watch HD (High Definition) TV. The video card plugs into the motherboard via a long slot in the middle of the motherboard. Modern motherboard use a slow called the PCI Express (16x). Just like Motherboards these cards come in many different brands. The two major brands are nVidia and ATI.

Sound Card

This card is usually found onboard like the video card. This card can also be purchased as an additional card for the motherboard, but most onboard sound cards have sufficient power to output clear audio.

Network Card

This card is used to connect to other computers. Just like the two first cards, this one is usually found onboard the motherboard. The most common type of network card is the Ethernet Card, which uses a large telephone like plug (RJ45) and a CAT 5 cable to send and receive information from other computers / devices. This card is responsible for connecting to the internet via high speed cable / DSL modem.

Memory (RAM)

When people refer to computer memory they usually mean the RAM (Random Access Memory). This memory is considered to be the short term memory as it is constantly changing. Memory is measured in terms of speed (Hz) and capacity (Bytes). These memory modules are designed to be plugged into the motherboard in slots near the Processor. Modern motherboards use a type of Memory called DDR2 or DDR3 (Double Data Rate). DDR2 or 3 memory also can be configured to run in a mode called Dual Channel, which doubles the speed of the memory for more performance. But in order to achieve this, you must purchase 2 identical memory moduals for your motherboard. Memory is mostly sold as dual channel kits.

Processor (CPU)

The Processor is the brain of your computer, it's what does all the thinking. The processor is locked in placed on the board in a socket where tiny pins connect it to the motherboard. Different processor models use different types of sockets.

Processor performance is measured in Hz, but most processors run thousands of times faster, so we use MHz (MegaHertz) or GHz (GigaHertz). When processors reached the 3.0 GHz speed range, they seemed to have reached a physical block.
They electrons couldn't seem to run and faster through the circuitry, so processor manufacturing companies started producing Dual Core and even Quad Core processors, which are basically 2 or 4 separate processors under a single processor chip that share the workload to increase performance.

There are many types of processors on the market, two major brands you may be familiar with are INTEL and AMD. I prefer INTEL processors to AMD as I believe that they run better. Most modern day processors are 32bit processors that run on the x86 platform. Most computers sold today including the new line of Apple computers utilize new x64 or 64bit processors which are backwards compatible with 32bit operating systems.

In 2009 Intel released it's new Intel i7 line of processors which contain 4 real processors and 3 virtual processors for a total of 7 processors on one chip. The virtual processors serve to organize the data before they process it. Intel has already been using this technology for a while now, it was used in Intel Pentium 4 processors and was called Hyper Threading. AMD has released similar products.

Since the processor produces a fair amount of heat, it is cooled with a heat sink or a type of radiator for computers. This allows a fan, to blow cold air and remove heat from the processor. It is very important to keep your processor at acceptable temperature levels. If your computer fails to do so, you may experience computer lock ups or total system failure.

Hard Disk Drive

The Hard Disk Drive or Hard Drive, is the long term storage for your computer's data. This is where the operating system and all your saved files are located. When you turn off your computer this information is saved for a long period of time (maybe forever). Hard drives come in many different brands and are measured in capacity (Bytes), but we use thousands of times more than that so it is expressed in GB (GigaBytes). Many computers will soon use TeraBytes of data which is 1000 x 1 GB. The Hard drive is typically connected to the Motherboard and Power Supply Unit by means of SATA / IDE (Ribbon) or power Molex connector.

CD / DVD Rom drive

This is the optical drive where we can read and write CD's or DVD's. Many computers now come with DVD Burners, which usually double as CD burners as well. They connect to the Motherboard and Power Supply Unit via SATA / IDE (Ribbon) or power Molex connector.

Cables

Inside a computer you will see about 3 types of cables connected to the motherboard. There are Power cables, Data cables, and external port cables.

Power cables connect the Power Supply Unit to all the components inside the computer like the Hard Disk Drive, DVD ROM Drive, or Motherboard. There are different types of end connectors but it's hard to mix them up as they can only connect a certain way.

Data cables come in two different types of cables, older computers use the 40 / 80 pin PATA Ribbon cables, and the new SATA standard.

PATA (Parallel ATA) cables are long ribbon like cables that have 3 connections on them. The first connection is to motherboard, and the other two can be used to connect two drives simultaneously. Each drive must be set to operate in Master / Slave mode or the system will not recognize the drives. These cables have maxed their speed at (133 Mbps)

SATA cables are called Serial ATA because they operate in a serial circuit, only one drive per cable. Since the cables are so thin, you can have more plugs on the motherboard. These cables offer data transfer rates which are much faster than the traditional PATA cables (1.5 and 3.0 Gbps) (Gbps = Gigabits Per Seconds).

The other cables are usually not very important, they are connectors for front panel USB / DATA ports or sound card ports.
Not all motherboards come with support for these cables.

Power Supply Unit (PSU)

The Power Supply Unit is a box which transforms electricity from the wall into 12V and 5V for all the connectors. They usually come with many different Molex plugs to plug into the motherboard and any drives / devices inside the computer. The power supply unit is the ground for all the parts in your computer. In most cases when a computer has received a power surge, the power supply takes the hit and is usually the only thing that needs to be replaced in the computer. Power Supplies come in many different brands, and it is important to get a good power supply for your computer. Don't try to save a few bucks by getting a cheap power supply, because you may burn out your motherboard or a drive. Power Supply Units are measured in terms of Watts.

This concludes my blog for today. I hope you found this informative and educating.

First Blog Post

2009-08-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

This is the first blog post that I have done on computers, and the first one that I have ever done. I'm new to the whole blogging thing, and I've been very skeptical about the whole blogging culture. Hope you enjoy!

Here is an introduction of me and my company.

My name is Allen Hayward, and I'm currently the CEO of my startup IT consulting company called Executive IT Business Solutions (http://www.exitbs.com). My company is based out of Tampa, and we operate all around the bay area. I have been working with computers for over 10 years now. I started fixing computers the day that mine broke down. Since then, I learned to network computers together so that they could talk to each other, and moved on to more complicated things. I eventually learned how to run web servers and email servers, and I even start a web hosting site, where I offered free web hosting with PHP support. This was a very popular site, but I could no longer afford to keep it alive so I closed the site. In 2007 I started Executive IT Business Solutions, and it has been growing ever since. That concludes my intro, and I hope to get some readers.