Best Computer Solution

To some, it may appear that computer technicians speak a different language then english. Really, all we do is abbreviate words into letters so they are easier to say and type.

Some technicians even go as far as having a friendly (ego) competition with other technicians. Who knows the most abbreviations is the smartest technician (No joke!).

In this post you can find many of the common abbreviations that most IT technicians use.

RAM = Random Access Memory
This is what your computer uses to store all the data that it requires fast, such as what’s currently being displayed on your screen, or what you are typing into a text document, to what programs you are currently running.

HDD = Hard Disk Drive
A Hard Disk Drive (Sometimes known as a Hard Drive) is where your computer’s long term memory is. This is where all your files are saved.

TCP/IP = Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol are both separate entities. They however make the internet work. TCP is used in making sure data gets to a location properly and intact. It is what checks to make sure the data arrives correct also. IP is really your machines “Address” to where TCP should send the data. All IP addresses should be unique within a network. A common example of an IP address is 192.168.1.1

DNS = Domain Name Server
Domain Name Servers are a real beauty! They are what translates english (domain names) into IP addresses (Computer Language). For example, DNSs will translate http://www.google.com (What we remember) into 209.85.171.100 (What computers know).

DHCP = Dynamic Host Control Protocol.
A DHCP server is a computer that hands out IP address to other computers. This computer makes sure that no 2 computers have the same IP address.

CPU = Central Processing Unit
The CPU is no doubt the brain of the computer. This is where all the calculations, computations and processing occurs inside your computer.

VM = Virtual Memory.
Virtual Memory acts the same as the RAM, except Virtual Memory is stored on the hard drive also.

GFX = Graphics Card
The graphics card is what is used to display all the information on the screen. For video rendering and gaming, it is also where additional data is stored (Such as 3D objects).

BIOS = Basic Input Output System
If the CPU is the brain of your computer, this is definitely the heart. The BIOS is what controls all the data from your keyboard, mouse, screen, HDD - everything about your computer and converts it into digital signals.

POST = Power On Self Test
This is all those funny beeps and burps your computer does when you first turn it on. Your computer is checking to make sure everything is intact and working correctly before it proceeds to load up the operating system.

ADSL (DSL) = Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
This is the way the internet is sent across telephone lines. It uses extremely high frequency (Too high for humans to hear) to get the best broad rate.

FTP = File Transfer Protocol
This is just a fancy way of saying “copying files”. FTP is responsible for transferring say picture files from your home computer, to a website you may have. FTP supports all files types.

HTTP = Hyper Text Transfer Protocol
This is responsible for transmitting HTML (Webpages) to your browser when on the internet. It can also transfer pictures, songs and other file types.

ISP = Internet Service Provider
These guys provide the internet for you!

LAN = Local Area Network
Every computer that is on the same network as you is in your “LAN”, by “local network” it means no routing has to happen to communicate to the remote computer.

WAN = Wide Area Network
The internet is a perfect example of a WAN. A WAN is many networks placed together.

OS = Operating System
Windows is an operating system.

This of course is not every possible acronym. Some may disagree with the way I have explained these too! But that’s ok =), that’s what comments are for!

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Posted under General, Tips

Regular Users

Tend to sometimes get the “Error Code 5: Access Is Denied“, or the “Requested operation requires elevation” when using command prompt in Vista.

Command Prompt

There’s an easy way around this however!

Step 1:

Find Command Prompt in your start menu directory (Usually Start>>All Programs>> Accessories>>Command Prompt) and Right Click on it…

Step 2:

Click “Run as Administrator” in the menu. Command Prompt should open up normally, but when you try the same command again, it should work fine!

Running

If you aren’t the Administrator for the computer (You don’t have Administrator rights), then you may have to enter the Administrator’s passwordfor this to be successful.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Posted under General, Security, Tips, Tutorials

So many programs huh?

Don’t you find it annoying when starting your computer up when you have about 10 billion programs all fighting for existence at once. This really slows down your computer’s startup time. How many of those programs will you honestly need running when you’re using your computer any way? Some of the most notorious programs for doing this (Just off the top of my head) are:

* Nero
* iTunes
* Toshiba/Acer “Smart” tabs.
* Webcam applications
* Printer Applications.

Really, it is not important what the names of the programs are. Believe me when I say there are many more then that small list. What i’m trying to say here is why would any one that doesn’t burn CDs all the time require Nero to be started up above system startup? It’s just stupid and wastes alot of time and system resources.

Of course most of these “Start With Windows” options can be found somewhere in the options in the various programs. I often find it hard to dig through the options menu, with each application trying to make their software more “user friendly”.

Fortunately, there is a centralized place to do this to practically all programs that startup with windows.

This is not where all startup programs are launched from. There’s about 8 different places to launch programs on startup from, which will be explained in another post. For now, we’ll deal with the most common.

Read on to find out how to do this!

So you want to stop them…

Step 1:

Click Start and then click “Run“. type in “msconfig” into the text field.

Step 2:

You will see various options. I strongly suggest that you don’t change any of these, instead click on the Start Up tab. That will display a list of programs that are currently being launched when you start windows.

Step 2

All that you have to do here is untick the programs that you don’t want to start up when windows boots up. Click “OK” once you have made your selection.

Step 3:

Once you’ve closed everything down, you will more then likely be prompted with this dialog box:

Step 3

It is up to you wether you restart your computer then and there or not. I personally would just leave it and not worry about it any more!

Step 4:

If you got the message from step 3, then you will more then likely recieve this message after you have rebooted your computer:

Step 4

Make sure that you click the “Don’t show this message or launch the System Configuration Utility when Windows starts“, unless you want it to show up each time.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Posted under General, Tutorials

Wouldn’t it be nice of just opening up a file and being able to ee your IP address, subnet mask and all that? Well you can do this now!

Step 1:

Click the start menu and open up “Run”, Vista users can just type “Run” into the search field.

Step 2:

Just simply type “cmd /k ipconfig“.

That’s it!

It will then open up command prompt and execute the ipconfig command.

You can also make this as a shortcut, or as a batch file. Just copy paste this into a text document and make its file extension a .bat and double click it. That will do the same as typing it into run!

Popularity: 79% [?]

Posted under Automation, General, Tips, Tutorials

Some people at the Security and Cryptography Lab at Switzerland’s EPFL have managed to capture the EMF (Electro-Magnetic Radiation) comming from wired computer keyboard. OK, we all know that if we used a wireless keyboard that any old FBI Agent - or hacker could easily catpure the signals being transmitted by the keyboard. But now they have figured out how to capture the pressed keys from a wired keyboard.

What next? They’ll be able to see what I’m doing on my screen too? It’s not that far fetched.

The tests were run in a fairly EMF free zone (There were no other devices around such as monitors, mobiles and other devices that give off strong electromagnetic waves), they were also, but the looks of it were using a unidirectional antenna (A “Tunnel Vision” antenna).

The expirement was tested on laptops with the embedded keyboards, and external USB/PS2 keyboards. They have so far managed to work out 4 different ways to grab our data fom a range of approximately 20 meters.

I believe this is just the start of this sort of technology. Hmmm… this gives me even more of a reason to live inside a faraday cage…

Below is a screenshot of the working software from the video:

Eavesdropper Software

Here’s a picture of one of the larger antenna’s used:

Antenna

There are some videos on this site about this.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Posted under General, Security

After using Windows XP for who knows how many years, many of us computer users are used to just clicking on Start then Run.

This is not the case in Windows Vista though. We can only speculate why Microsoft took it out by default.

Sure, you can type “Run” into the search field in the start menu… but who seriously can take the time of day to do that? That’s extra work, and extra work is something we don’t agree with.

There’s a few short steps you can follow to get the Run menu back to where it belongs.

Step 1:

Right click on the start icon and select “Properties” from the list.

Step 1

Step 2:

In the “Start Menu” tab click on the customize button.

Step 2

Step 3:

In the new window that pops up, scroll down until you see the checkbox “Run“. Simply tick it, then click “OK” on all open windows.

Step 3

Step 4:

Press start and have a look at your new Run menu =).

Popularity: 27% [?]

Posted under General, Tutorials