Why 17" Monitors Measure Up Just Fine

By Morgan Hamilton

I think that 17” computer monitors are the perfect combination of affordability and functionality so I have been using them for several years. This size is large enough to provide a large graphical interface for playing games or movies, but it still falls in a reasonable price range. The price shoots up a lot going from 17” monitors to 19” or larger ones, while the price between smaller monitors is usually not very much.

If you are using the older CRT type technology, then 17” monitors can allow you to save on space. CRT monitors of any size are too big, and you really need a lot of desk space to fit the 19” and beyond level. I think that the extra two inches of monitor size in a 19” monitor just isn’t worth the overall lack of room on my desk and the extra hassle in moving it around.

However, desk space is less of a problem if you have LCD monitors. This is because LCD monitors are extremely space efficient. I’ve also observed that LCD monitor screens tend to look bigger. It may be due to a kind of optical illusion and they aren’t really bigger, but the 17” inches in an LCD seem to go a long way.

17” monitors has the same screen size as any other because the 17” inches is measured across the diagonal surface of the monitor. However, LCD’s seem to use it more effectively. In my opinion 17” LCDs are the way to go because the price on 19” LCDs is still pretty high, and the 17” monitors have become almost in line with their CRT counterparts.

In the last few years, it seems that 17” monitors have become a sort of standard for businesses. It used to be the 15”, but I really don’t see as many 15” inch monitors these days. Everyone seems to be using 17” monitors for their different needs. It’s the right combination of luxury and practicality because it is affordable and yet still fairly big.

You may want to consider an even larger monitor if you have the money to spend, and plenty of desk space. You will really appreciate a bigger monitor if you’re using graphical programs, play computer games, or watch movies on your computer.

Morgan Hamilton offers expert advice and great tips regarding all aspects concerning 17" Monitors. Visit our site for more helpful information about Cheap Lcd Monitors and other similar topics.

How to Buy a Computer Monitor

By Rani Raj

The monitor is a popular and most commonly used output device. Most monitors used in personal computers display text, graphics, and video information. Due to different and futures of monitor purchasing can be one of the most important pieces of the computer as it is what will display everything coming from your computer.

Technology of monitor.

These are two basic types of monitors that are used with personal computer.

CRT monitors
Flat-Panel Monitors

When purchasing a computer monitor it is important to know if you want a CRT monitor or a Flat Panel monitor.

CRT Monitors. A CRT monitor is similar to standard television. Like televisions, CRT monitor size is measured diagonally, in inches, across the front of the screen. Today, CRT monitors are available in various sizes, i.e., 15, 17, 19, 21, and 22 inches. The large size monitors are more expensive and allow you to view more information on the screen at once.

Flat Panel / LCD. A flat panel monitor is also called LCD monitor. A flat panel monitor takes up less desk space and also consumes less power. Flat panel monitors are available with different sizes such as 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, and 23 inches. Flat panel monitors are commonly used in mobile devices such as laptop and table PCs. Similarly, smart phones, PDAs calculators have LCD screens.

There are two main categories of LCDs. These are

Active Matrix LCD

Passive Matrix LCD

Resolution

The quality of monitor screen depends on its resolution, which is generally proportional to the size of screen.

15" monitor typically has a resolution of 800 x 600 / 1,024 x 768

17" monitor typically has a resolution of 1,280 x 1,024

19" monitor typically has a resolution of 1,280 x 1024

21" monitor typically has a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200.

Once you have reviewed the appropriate information and believe that you are ready to make a purchase of a new monitor ensure that the source which you plan on purchasing the monitor from is a reputable source and you have reviewed our section on what to look out for when purchasing over the Internet.

http://www.ComputerFreeTips.com

A Complete List Of Accessories For Your Laptop

By Joann Grant

The demand for laptop accessories is growing steady. People are constantly looking for new accessories that go with their laptops. Popular laptop accessories are nothing more than some special add-on’s or additional gadgets attached to the original setup of your laptop which makes working of your machine more smoother. Especially for the travelers it is a boon as they can stay productive even while on the roads.

With the burgeoning demand of laptop accessories coupled with a fray of these available gadgets in the market, you have many options at your disposable. The most common and the top most accessories available for your laptops are:

• Bags: The right kind of bag is very essential for your laptop, as it is the outer most protective shield. The bag should be sturdy enough to bear the weight of your machine.

• Note Book Security Cables: Preventing your dream machine from theft is a very important concern. This lightweight cable wraps around the stationary device and then locks the security slot of your laptop. If your machine does not have an in-built security slot, then an optional glue-on adapter comes with no extra charges.

• Portable Hood: This necessary equipment improves the screen visibility by eliminating glare and also reduces eye strain. The shade also works as a privacy screen concealer of your confidential documents.

• Laptop Mouse: If you are tired of scrolling your finger over those hard touch pad, there comes an optical mouse at your service, both wireless and wired, suiting your requirements.

• Mobile Printers: It is yet another important accessory needed for your machine. It makes you independent wherein comes the matter of taking printouts of the important documents for your immediate use.

• Laptop Desk Version: This particular accessory is engineered for the heavier laptops in order to give relaxation to your legs on a journey, coupled with five typing positions and a rubber surface.

• Podium Cool Pad: This add-on provides heat dissipation and a 360 degree rotation benefit along with helping you to adjust your laptop keyboard.

• Headset Microphones: It gives you the benefit to control your output.

• Speakers: Apart from the inbuilt speakers, using external speakers gives you an extra edge at time of meetings and presentations.

• Portable USB Handy Lite: This gadget is a convenient way to illuminate your laptop keyboard when the light is poor.

• Earbud Headphones: It is an important accessory for the telecommuters. It is small and compact and is also able to filter out the background noises.

• Multi Power Car Charger: Multi Power Car Charger is a very useful accessory for those who spend most of the time working on laptops in their cars.

• USB Handy Fan: It is a perfect accessory for your laptop in hot and humid environments, which helps to create a gentle and refreshing breeze.

• DVB-T-USB Stick: with this add-on in your laptop, you can watch and record TV and radio shows.

• USB Number Pad: It is a USB hub with two additional USB parts that helps you to connect to more USB devices. This gadget helps you to work more quickly, easily and accurately on the spread sheets.

• USB Numeric Pad: It is a 19-key device which offers an instant benefit to the notebook users.

•Web Camera: An accessory which you can use to stay in touch with your friends by seeing them.

• Phone to PC recorder: It helps you to connect to your telephone handset with your laptop's sound card, enabling you to record the telephonic conversations.

The Right Flash Drive

By Luke Kent

Even though most of our lives are stored on computers, many people still neglect to have a back up for their files. In the past backing up files was time consuming and required individual to use numerous floppy disks and/or cds. Today the flash drive is making backing up and transferring files quick and efficient.

A flash drive is a small, portable data storage device that plugs into the USB port of a computer. Flash drives are popular because they can hold a considerable amount of data and are fast, reliable, and portable.

Before you go out and purchase a flash drive here are a few things you should consider:

1) Choose one that suits your style and will stand up to daily wear and tear.

2) Flash drives can hold 32Mb to 4Gb of data find a drive or drives that suit both your current and future needs, as your requirements for more capacity may grow. In terms of budget, as a general rule price increases with capacity.

3) Make sure that the drive is compatible with your PC and that it comes with software and/or it is easily downloaded from the web.

4) Ensure that the drive has write protect to avoid accidental erasure and if privacy is a concern, make sure that the drive can be password protected.

As an educator I have found that having a flash drive saves me time and in the long run saves money.

Benefits of External Hard Drives

By Claire J Rottenberg

Now that most computers come with larger internal hard drives, many people may feel that they don't need an external hard drive. But there are several good reasons to add an external hard drive to your computer configuration. Many companies produce excellent hard drives and selecting the one that's right for your needs may not be an easy task. In this article, I give some of the reasons for using an external hard drive and discuss briefly what you should look for when buying a hard drive.

Storage Capacity
One reason for using an external hard drive is to increase your storage capacity. When I bought my iBook five years ago, I thought 10 GB would last me forever. I now use a Mac Mini with two external hard drives - a 120 GB drive and a 300 GB drive. What seems like more than adequate storage space now may seem miniscule in just a few months, so think to the future when you buy an external hard drive.

Backup Drive
An external hard drive can be used as an emergency backup drive. Hard drives crash and die, so having a backup is essential if you depend on your computer for work or for personal needs. If you're buying a hard drive to use as a bootable backup for Mac OS X 10.4, make certain that the drive has a firewire connector and that the drive is bootable (check with the manufacturer). Most drives that come with the Firewire 400 Oxford 911 chip are bootable. Also, if you plan on using more than one firewire device with your Mac and the computer has only one firewire port (like on a Mac Mini or MacBook), buy an external hard drive with two Firewire 400 ports.

Improved Performance
Using an external drive as your boot (or main) drive can speed up the performance of Macs with slower internal drives. I use an external 7200 rpm hard drive as the main drive for my Mac Mini and it's noticeably faster than the Mini's slower internal 4200 rpm drive. If you're planning to use an external hard drive as your boot drive, look for a 7200 rpm drive with a large cache buffer.

Portability
Many of the hard drives made today are small and lightweight and easily moved from one location to another. This can be useful if you want to take your data (for example, your iTunes library) with you when you go on a long trip, perhaps to visit friends or relatives. Just plug your hard drive into another Mac, boot up the computer using your hard drive as the boot drive and you'll feel like you're back home. If you want portability, look for one of the smaller but fast external hard drives made today.

Longer Life
If you use an external drive your life won't fall apart when your hard drive dies. Remember when the drive in your computer dies, you can't use the computer, but if your external drive dies, you'll still be able to use your computer. Furthermore, getting your external drive repaired might take less time and cost less than repairing the internal drive on your computer. Also, using an external drive as your main drive can save wear and tear on your internal drive, and, thus, help it last longer.

As you can see, there are good reasons to use an external hard drive. Just decide on how much storage space you need, how much portability you want from an external drive and how much you want to spend, and you'll be able to find the drive that's best for you.

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Data in a Flash

By Chin Wong

NOT too long ago, flash drives were just for geeks.

But these days, almost anyone who uses a computer is likely to have one, and some people even use it as a fashion accessory. The device, no larger than your thumb, is known by a variety of names: thumb drive, flash drive, flash disk, keydrive, keychain drive, clip drive, data stick, memory key and (erroneously) memory stick. All these refer to the USB flash drive, a storage device that uses flash memory to store data and programs and that connects to computers through the universal serial bus (USB).

The flash drive was conceived by Dov Moran in 1998, when his laptop refused to boot before a presentation to a group of investors in New York. “With all eyes on me, I smiled, ad-libbed and frantically continued to press the start button,” Moran recalls in an article in EE Times. The laptop eventually booted and Moran was able to play his 6 megabyte (MB) presentation, but out of the near-snafu was born the idea of a portable storage device that would be easier to use and that would plug straight into the USB port.

Moran’s company, M-Systems of Israel, filed a patent for the USB drive in 1999, but only brought it to market in 2000, when IBM introduced the 8-megabyte Memory Key as the first USB flash drive. The device cost $55 to make.

Today, when flash drives can run up to 4 gigabytes – or about 4,000 MB – the original 8MB Memory Key seems almost ridiculous. And for less than half the cost of the first flash drive, you can buy a 1GB drive that provides 125 times the storage capacity.

Economies of scale and the entry of Asian manufacturers have greatly reduced the prices, but when buying, it’s important to remember that not all USB drives were created equal. Immediately disregard anything below 256MB – very few companies still make these drives and any you see on the store shelves are likely to be based on old, slower, and more expensive technology.

Unless you enjoy watching a progress bar crawl lazily toward completion, look for the “Hi-Speed USB” logo, which indicates that it is a USB 2.0 device. If you’re in a real hurry, or if you work with large video files, look for a flash drive with a speed rating. (Makers of slower drives will be silent about this because they have nothing to brag about.) The industry has adopted the standard used by CD-ROM drives, with multiples of the single-speed CD drive of 150 kilobytes per second. So an 80X drive will transfer files at a maximum rate of 12MB per second, while a 150X device will move data at 22.5MB per second. If you’re copying a 700MB file, the slower drive would take a minute, while the faster one would take just half the time.

Beyond storage and speed, look at software bundles that make sense. USB drives with these extras are called Smart USB drives, a category that the research company Gartner expects will begin outselling traditional storage-only drives by 2008. The bundles can be fairly simple – say, security software that allows you to password-protect your drive – or complete applications designed to run off your flash disk. A platform called U3, developed by industry leaders Sandisk and M-Systems – which are merging later this year – makes it simpler to launch Windows applications from a Smart USB drive, and to store your preferences, profiles and data on the same device.

Such list of portable programs that will run off a USB drive on OS X. Also, although I haven’t tried it yet, you can bring an entire Linux system with you—complete with desktop applications – and boot off the USB drive with Damn Small Linux, which takes up only 50MB, or Puppy Linux, which uses 64MB.

Flash drives have already all but killed off floppy disks, but it’s still unclear if they will one day replace hard disks on computers as well. Right now, hard disks are still way ahead in terms of capacity and price. Of course, barely six or seven years ago, a major PC vendor had scoffed at the very idea of flash drives, telling Moran: “One hundred floppies will cost much less than your device!”

Computer Memory: How Does RAM Work?

By Michael Quarles

How does RAM work? Is it some form of technical wizardry, beyond the understanding of average folks?

My answer would be “no”. Actually, in concept it’s quite simple. RAM is filled with microscopic capacitors. Each of these capacitors can do one of two things: they can hold a charge, or not hold a charge. This is the most basic level of information inside your computer.

Yet this function can be made to store anything from your child’s book report to a 3-D drawing program. How is this possible?

Those tiny capacitors, that can only hold a charge, or not hold a charge, are arranged in banks of eight. If a capacitor has a charge, it is given a value of “1”. If it doesn’t hold a charge, it carries a value of “0”.

Imagine these banks of capacitors using their charges to hold what seem to be rather peculiar numbers. Say the first capacitor has no charge, making it a “0”. The second has a charge, making it a “1”. Our third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh capacitors have no charge, making them “0”. Finally, the eighth has a charge, and therefore is “1”.

You wind up with “01000001”. Let’s say that in binary code this combination of “0’s” and “1’s” equals the letter “A”. The combination “01000010” could equal “B”, and so on, through the alphabet, with a different combination of on and off capacitors equaling each letter.

“Well enough,” you may say “but there’s more things in my computer than the ABC’s. How do you account for all the rest of it?”

If you have enough banks of capacitors, you can make different combinations of “1’s” and “0’s” represent anything. Of course, it would require millions.

So, how many do you have? Look at it this way: each “1” or “0” is called a “bit”. Eight bits make a “byte”. One million bytes make a “megabyte”. If your computer has 512 megabytes of RAM, how many of those microscopic capacitors is that?

Plenty. Actually, you can get by with a lot less, though for some applications you might sacrifice speed. My first computer had only 640K of RAM, less than a megabyte, yet it performed what seemed like wonders.