Software Operating Systems , Office Suites to Freeware and Shareware

Without Software your system would be very limited in what it and you could do. Many PCs will have at least half a dozen different types of Software application ranging from Office and email applications to messenger programs and graphic packages some which are listed on this page.

Operating Systems - These are essential to handle the various systems and inputs into a PC. Microsoft dominates with the Windows range, but alternatives namely many Linux Distributions are growing in popularity.

Office Suites - Again Microsoft's Office Program dominates the market, alternatives such as Open Office and Lotus Notes are available. Many large companies and individuals use alternative products as the license fees are far lower and they offer the same functionality as the more expensive Office product.

Email Programs - Several popular programs to choose from. Microsoft products are either Outlook aimed at the more business user and Outlook Express for the home/office user. These are bundled either with Windows or the Office suite. Free alternatives include Mozillas Thunderbird and Others including Eudora, both are excellent programs and I would highly recommend them.

OEM - Often only available through resellers or when buying an item of hardware. This software may be an operating system or other application. It will typically come without any retail packaging or support and is often at a reduced price to the full retail version.

Open Source - Software which is released under the Open Source guidelines allows access to the source code for anyone who puts in the time to work on making a program or script better without requiring payment.

Many people have written small programs and they offer them to the online community for free, although the author retains the copyright and it can not be altered or sold.

Shareware this is similar to Freeware except often the software is only free for an evaluation period. To continue to use it you may need to pay a small fee which may include updates and support. Many programs will stop working if you have exceeded the trial period.

Computer Virus and Anti-Virus

Computers are under daily threats from new virus and spyware attacks all trying to disrupt your system or harness the system to allow it to send itself on to more people.

Some viruses are designed to collect personnel information others are designed to make your system unstable or unusable by altering crucial files.

Many viruses are designed to simply copy itself repeatedly which often results in the available memory being used up and the system freezes whilst it tries to recover.

Some variants can send itself to people in an address book or to a network drive if this was happening on a network PC and spread to other PCs. The network itself could become unusable as the virus spreads and disrupts more PCs until the network is shutdown and the virus is identified and isolated.

Many viruses are designed to simply copy itself repeatedly which often results in the available memory being used up and the system freezes whilst it tries to recover.

Some variants can send itself to people in an address book or to a network drive if this was happening on a network PC and spread to other PCs. The network itself could become unusable as the virus spreads and disrupts more PCs until the network is shutdown and the virus is identified and isolated.

Antivirus programs are available to help protect your systems; they regularly check for any virus updates and scan your computer for any infections. If any our found they can normally isolate, repair, or delete the infected file.

The big name antivirus companies are Symantec, McAfee, AVG, Trend Micro, and Sophos. All have products aimed at the home user right through to the business and networked user, with annual cover normally costing around £25/$43.

Virus or a Worm?

A worm is a more advanced type of virus which can copy itself and use system memory; it cannot attach itself to other programs. Worms have made the headlines in recent years with several high profile instances of large numbers of computers being infected and spreading rapidly across networks including the largest of the entire Internet.

Spyware

These is a different threat but similar in many ways to viruses. Spyware typically comes built-in to Peer-to-Peer (P2P), and Toolbar software. Some are without letting the user know, whilst others include mentions deep within terms and conditions so unless you read fully all the text you could be agreeing to let the program install spyware onto your computer.

Basic Tips to prevent viruses / spyware

If you receive an email with an attachment from someone you do not recognise, do not open the attachment. The attachment could contain a virus which if you open could copy itself to your PC and use your PC to send itself on to others, change your files, collect information on passwords and personal information and send it back to the sender. all without your knowledge.

Instead either delete the file immediately or move it to a separate folder (without opening the attachment) and review the email at a later date if someone contacts you again about the email.

Regularly scan your system using Adaware, or Search and destroy or similar which checks your system for suspicious items include cookies and spyware which can track your habits and send back information. Although most of these can be fairly harmless and are normally used for advertising purposes they should be removed.

Phishing

You may not have heard of that term but it is also known as spoofing, you have properly received an email from a spammer which looks very familiar to the real sites of eBay and banks, often they even link directly to the images from the sites to make it look more real. They claim to offer a limited offer or need you to login to verify your details. of course these are lies and they just want to record the details from you to take over your account possibly for fraud or other crimes to try and rip off someone or obtain money from a person or company.

similar, remember the banks and all internet sites never ask for your details or to verify bank details via email. If you have received an email which does looks genuine then I suggest you visit the site directly, not via the link. Most sites will alert you once you have logged in if you need to confirm your details, otherwise contact the relevant support section for advice.

What you can do

When using sites ensure the site is secure with a valid certificate.

Never disclose personal information which could be used to gather information or money from you.

Do not open emails especially ones with attachments from senders you do not recognise.

Keep your anti-virus software updated and scan your whole system regularly.

Use a Firewall, most routers come complete with one firewall built-in but it is worth installing Zone alarm or similar as well and taking the time to understand how they work so you can be better protected.

We have mentioned Spyware, this can also be installed by adding toolbars or other programs which can track your moments around the Internet collecting information. Some of this information may be used within a Cookie. Cookies are used in many sites especially online stores; however some sites/people use this for malicious purposes.

So to remove this threat regularly scan your system for Spyware by using Ad-aware or Search and destroy programs these scan your system for any suspicious files.

If any are found you are giving the option to remove, quarantine or leave the files. If you aren't sure it is worth using Goggle to search for the filename or reference the software makes to gather advice so that you can make up your own mind. If in doubt send them to quarantine, if you have problems surfing you can re-instate cookies individually.

USB Find out if your system has USB 2.0

USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports have been a common port on PC's for a number of years. It is now one of the main ways of connecting devices to a PC.

The introduction of USB allowed devices to be installed quicker and easier than before. PCs no longer needed to be shutdown first with USB the device could be connected and the system would detect and install the device or prompt for a driver to be installed, this is also known as hot-plugging or hot-pluggable.

Once a peripheral as been installed you can plug the device in and remove at any time, this can be particularly helpful if you need to print or scan or connect a backup device to the system with out having to shutdown and reboot.

Before USB connection methods were limited to either Serial or Parallel these were far slower in comparison to the newer USB 1.1 standard and as a result serial and Parallel barely used. When still used they are limited primarily to Printer and Mouse connections.

The two USB standards are either USB 1.1 or USB 2.0, the former is in systems prior to 2001 after this USB 2.0 was introduced and has been the default standard since. The transfer rate of USB 1.1 was limited to a maximum of 12Mbp/s which still is relatively quick. USB 2.0 can reach a theoretical data transfer rate of 480 Mbps which is 40 times faster than the original version of USB.

USB 2.0 has a higher maximum rate of 480Mbps, which is 40 times faster than USB 1.1.

To allow you to use either version you will need compatible ports on your PC and motherboard and use a compatible cable or hub.

USB Connectors

A and B connectors are the most common, although Mini-B connectors are common on Digital Cameras and hubs along with other products.

Devices

USB connectors can be found on just about every device from keyboards and printers to watches with flash memory built-in.

How to tell if your system is USB 2.0 ready?

You can tell if your system can use USB 2.0 my opening device manager and looking for the Universal Serial Bus (USB) section often at the bottom of the list. By expanding these options you will see either Standard Host Controller or Enhanced Host Controller. Standard means that your system uses USB 1.1, and Enhanced means you can use USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 as you can still use USB 1.1 devices but obviously at the reduced rate.

What happens if a USB 2.0 device is connected to a USB 1.1 system?

The whole USB system is reduced to the USB 1.1 standard of 12Mb/s. Some operating systems including Windows 2000 and XP often notify the user of this change and any available options.

How many USB devices can I connect to a PC?

USB allows you to connect a maximum of 127 devices at a time, of course this is via serveral hubs and interlinked connections. Most PCs have four-six and aone or two FireWire as standard.

CD and DVD Writers for the home and PC

CD & DVD Writers for the home and PC

DVD Writers take over where the CD Writer left off, the limitations of CD meant that only relatively small amounts of data could be copied at one time. Also the uptake of DVD and the improvements it offered helped bring forward the arrival of drives which can burn a DVD in under 10 minutes and still allow for the CD to be copied or read as well.

DVD Writers are the standard in new PC builds and can be purchased separately for just £15. Newer drives have been introduced which exceeds the 4.7GB limit of single sided media to allow 8.5GB to be burnt onto both layers of the disk. Newer formats are soon to be introduced which will exceed the capacity to at least 27GB.

Bluray and HD-DVD are the newer formats, Bluray can store upto 25GB on a single layer and 50GB on a dual-layer disk.
HDDVD can store upto 15Gb per layer so 30GB on dual-layer and has specifications for a triple layer which can hold 51GB. There is a format war going on as a result you must have the correct player to play the required format, however some dual format players are around if you know where to look.

At present Bluray comes with the Sony PS3 and HDDVD comes with the Microsoft XBox 360. In addition to being able to buy a standalone player of course. Films for both formats have come down around £17 from PLAY or other retailers.

DVD Writers for the home are growing in popularity and should replace the VCR at some stage. DVD Writers are included in a number of set top boxes which include a Freeview decoder alongside a hard drive. The result is the Personal Video Recorder (PVR) allows for shows to be stored on the hard drive or copied to a DVD for portability.

DVD Regions
DVD Rental

CD Writers can use either CDR or CDRW a rewritable media in the same way as DVD Writers the CDR disks can only be written or burnt once. The RW version allows for many writes or burns to be made by re-using the same disk.

CD Writers started at low speeds and are unlikely to exceed the 52x/56x speeds as the drives and media would not be able to work at higher speeds. Copying data to a CD takes just a couple of minutes and can then be used in almost all players instantly.

All burners come with built in buffers which allows you to do one or two tasks such as collecting email or writing a document, whilst writing to the disk. A buffer is similar to the anti-shock feature built into walkmans.

Speeds are written as 40 x 16 x 40 which means it has a 40x speed write, 16 x speeds re-write, and a 40x read function. The read function is exactly the same as normal CD/DVD Rom drives, the write speed is used when writing to CDs or DVD and the re-write is used only with re-writeable CD or DVD media.

IDE connection is still the most popular connection method as it is a PC standard. Other connecting options include external USB 2.0 or FireWire units.

Networking what it is and what you'll need to set-up your own network.

A network is a group of computers and other devices such as printers connected together by cables. Wireless devices are now becoming common with built-in hubs and routers to add wireless functionality to your set-up without the need for cables.

Data travels over the cables and allows users on the network to share documents and files with each other and share printers so that anyone on the network can print directly.

Ethernet is the most popular networking method they are two types either 10Mbps (megabits per second) or 100Mbps, the latter is ten times the 10Mbps standard and is the standard in modern computers. This will evolve to the next standard in coming years of Gigabit Ethernet which operates at 1000Mbps.

Networking Hardware

Network Interface Card (NIC) more commonly known as a network card. To allow any PC or device to use a wired Ethernet connection they must have a NIC installed in each device.

Most Motherboards now have at least one connection built-in, and network cards are still used for older PCs or to install additional ports. They will typically be a 100MB Ethernet connector newer PCs will come with a Gigabit connector.

Hubs - A hub connects computers and other devices together on a local area network (LAN) if there are four PCs to be networked each with a NIC then each PC is connected from the NIC to a port on the hub by a network cable. The hub acts as a junction box and once the PCs TCP/IP settings have been set allows each computer to be available from one of the others.

When looking at hubs you should look at how many ports you need, normally four is the default, then eight and upwards. You should also check the hub is compatible with the speed of your NICs this is not a great problem with new hardware as 10Mbps and 100Mbps are both supported as default. Older hardware was limited to either one or the other.

Switches - are used in larger LANs and allow multiple computers to be connected together. Basically they act as a high performance alternative to the hub.

Switches are used in office environments or when it is likely significant amounts of network traffic will be generated within a network of many computers.

Router - is a device or occasionally software that determines the next network point where a packet should be forwarded.

Routers are often connected to a LAN and an ISP. This allows for the router which often includes a built-in firewall to sit between the internet and the LAN and allows for access to be restricted and monitored easily throughout your network.

Computer Processors (CPUs)

Every PC has a Central Processing Unit (CPU) which acts as the brain of your system. It is connected to the motherboard and works alongside the other components processing strings of data which allows for data and applications to rendered and run.

There are two companies who dominate the PC Processor market these are AMD and Intel. Both have been around for decades and have become main suppliers for the home and business markets.

Both companies have fierce rivalry and have near identical chip products on the market at the same time as they compete for the fastest chip and share of the market. Intel is without question the larger company and for many years was regarded as the fastest processor supplier. However it is now very close and many people are now turning to AMD for systems and upgrades.

My personal view is I have used both company's products over the years and found very stable and fast systems using both makes. The AMD processors do tend to run hotter than the Intel versions, but with a suitable fan this is easily kept under control.

Intel products have in my experience always been more expensive typically £20-£30 more than an AMD equivalent chips. Throughout my usage and builds find the AMD more affordable and easier to source cheaper but efficient coolers. Intel's products extra price is often as a result that they are available more in retail packaging rather than cheaper OEM.

If you are looking to upgrade then one of the main considerations is likely to be the price. On Intel based boards the area around the CPU is taken up by stands and clips which are needed to attach the heat sink and cooling fan, AMD products use a smaller traditional looking heat sink and fan which clip onto either side of the CPU socket and take up less space on the board.

My advice would be to compare the prices of the CPUs against the higher versions as often another £10 buys you a significant jump in processor speed. You should look at comparing like for like Intel and AMD products for price and check how much a compatible motherboard is likely to cost. As typically you will need to upgrade the motherboard, CPU and memory. This may seem like a lot but they work closely together and will give your system a significant performance boost.

Monitors LCD or CRT flat screen which size

Monitors are an essential item of hardware, as you will use it to view everything on your system and spend countless hours' in-front of it. You should choose a display which fits your needs and workspace environment, whilst providing a clear image without flicker which can lead to eye strains and related problems.

There are two different types of Monitor currently available these are Cathode-ray tube (CRT) or TFT (thin-film transistor). Telling the difference is straight forward; CRT screens are large and heavier units whilst the TFT are thin and light in weight.

CRT technology has been around for decades from mono through the different versions to the versions which are being superseded today. TFT screens were previously limited to the wealthy and of course were an essential part to a Laptop or Notebook.

Screens come in several different sizes 14' 15' 17' 19' 21' are the most common. The most popular screens at the moment are 17 and 19 inches as they have dropped in price and the price between 15' and 17' is normally so slight it is always worth the extra cost for the extra viewing space.

TFT 15" Displays are around the £120 mark at the time of writing including, 17" versions are approx an additional £30-40 the smallest TFT screen widely available is the 15" then 17+. 17" is currently the most common size monitor for most people, this will adapt into widescreen versions and as prices continue to fall lead to 19" becoming the standard size.

The move to TFT has really picked up in recent months as the costs have tumbled, their advantages include using less power and requiring less space, whilst providing a crisp picture quality.

If you're buying and can visit a shop it is always worth seeing different monitors before you buy. Of course it often pays to buy it online and save a small amount even at the cost of a couple of days waiting for delivery.

Some terms explained which you should consider when buying a display:

Refresh rates - is the number of times the image is drawn on the display each second. If your refresh rate is 85 then this is measured as 85 Hertz (Hz). You should ensure the refresh rate is on the highest possible setting, by ensuring a fast refresh rate you will reduce flickering often the rates are set incorrectly or too low and the flickering leads to headaches and eye strain. Try checking your refresh rate and if it is not at the highest increase it and see if you notice any difference.

Resolutions - CRT screens can work perfectly up to the quoted maximum resolution. The TFT is recommended to be used at only one resolution. The reason for this is the pixel makeup differs between CRT and TFT. The most common resolutions are 1024x768 and 1280x720 of course you may have your own preference.

Tilt/Swivel - If you can purchase a screen which allows you to alter the screen either through tilts or swivel you may be better off. By being able to adjust the display to your working level you should be more comfortable and make better use of the display. Many TFTs only allow for minor changes in the angle often just on a horizontal axis.

Response times - This is another word to not look to deeply at. With TFT's the response time is the TFT version of refresh rates and is the time taken for a pixel to reach maximum brightness. However companies can measure this differently so there is often room for interpretation.

Previously TFTs had response times of 125ms or more and were poor at displaying moving graphics, often it would appear that a ghost or shadow would follow even the mouse cursor on the screen. Now as the technology has matured 12-25ms is the standard. The result is now TFTs can handle movements and games at an expected level and it would be hard to tell the difference between a 12 or 25ms display.

Warranty

Most screens come with ether an on-site or return to base warranty and depending on the maker either a standard 1 year warranty or a maximum of 3 years. It is worth looking at the terms of the warranty as you are not covered if your new TFT develops one dead pixel. It often depends on the location and amount.

If your screen is your only display or if you use it for business use you should look at an on-site warranty so that if anything did happen a replacement is usually delivered when the other is being returned or looked at.

The return to base method often means you will need to package and return the monitor or wait for it to be collected looked at and then returned which obviously can take time.

Hard Drives Continued

Hard Drives are the storage area of your system, where all programs and applications are stored and written to.

With programs needing more space and the PC being used in many areas it is reccomened ed that you always opt for the largest capacity you can afford or to meet your current needs.

If you intend to do any graphics or video editing you'll need a large amount of space to allow the programs to operate smoothly and for the video files to be stored for editing and space to allow the PC to encode any files into smaller edited formats.

The hard drive works in parallel with the memory (RAM) and the motherboard to read and write data through the system.

Operating systems and applications including games requirements for disk space has increased vastly in recent times. An example of this is a typical Windows XP install uses approx 1.5GB of space, a typical PC DVD Game will need just under 5GB.

With your office applications, any MP3 and digital picture librarys and the odd game you can easily start usign serveral GBs of space. This is fine however you should ensure your drives are regualrly backedup or partitioned so you can backup to another location or seperate drive.

If you intend to use your system to backup CD and DVDs you will also need space to ensure that the system can create a temporary file whilst the burning process takes place.

Sizes:

In recent years the hard drive market has benefited from technology advances which allows for larger capacity drives with falling prices. This benefits the users and allows for additional drives to be used either as a main disk or many choosing to add a disk purely for backup purposes.

It is still possible to buy small 20-30GB drives, but for literally £10 more you can purchase a drive with upwards of 60-80GB.

We would suggest a drive of around 120GB for most users as this will allow for plenty of capacity for everyday use and for disk hungry tasks. You can of course divide or partition the drive this allows for backups to be copied from one partition to the other and allows for easier maintenance and organisation of files.

Types of Hard drive

IDE has long been the standard to allow ATA devices to work together in PCs. There have been several different versions of ATA since it was first introduced in the mid 1980's. The most common that we will mention are ATA 33, ATA 66, ATA 100, and ATA 133.

External devices are growing in popularity these typically connect via a USB or FireWire connection.

The IDE/ATA standard is the most common interface also known as PATA. There have been several different versions of ATA since it was first introduced in the mid 1980's. They all focus on the theoretical transfer rate via the interface between the drive and the motherboard.

The connectors are a bank of pins which are at risk to damage. Also the configuration in older systems had to be setup via Jumpers or Bridges. More modern systems could detect via the BIOS using the cable select feature.

Serial ATA (SATA) as mentioned already PATA has been around for many years and as a result of other areas of PC architecture evolving so to have a bottleneck for transferring data quicker between the systems buses and the hard drives. SATA with its first standard supports transfer rates measured at 150 in relation to the previous standards.

This standard will allow for faster rates to emerge in coming years.

SATA does away with large ribbon cables and instead uses a thin cable with a small connector which can easily be clipped on to the connector. Bridges have been removed as the drive is automatically detected by the system or separate SCSI card.

Older motherboards supported ATA33/66 the newer motherboards and hard drives support ATA100/133 this basically means the rate of peak data transmission per clock cycle (burst rate). So if your hard drive is ATA100 it has a theoretical burst rate of 100mbps.

For the majority of users this type of thing does not matter, the main point are that you are aware of the different options and can relate the information to the indicators on the hard drive casing or the motherboard manual.

Spin Speeds

Another value which is referred to is the speed of the actual drive. Older drives were typically 5400RPM newer versions were introduced and the default standard is now 7200RPM this means the amount of revolutions per minute. Faster drives using SCSI or SATA can reach speeds over 10000RPM when comparing drives you should look for the seek and access times this are measure in milliseconds and tell you how fast they can access or write data to or from the drive.

Buffers

A drives buffer is an amount of memory (RAM) built-in to the drive which is used to store data that is accessed frequently. The larger the buffer the more data that can be stored which reduces the operations which take longer to be read and then wrote from the drive. The default buffer size is 2MB although many makers have increased this to 8MB and no doubt this will increase as the drive market continues to increase in capacity and performance.

Connecting IDE Hard Drives

Video and Graphic cards explained

Choosing a new graphics or video card can be daunting, with so many products and decisions to make. Should you go for the card with more memory? How do you tell which one is better than the next?

The product ranges produced by various makers all use a graphics chip from either ATI or NVida. To make deciding easier you can normally separate the various options into one of three categories:

Top End / Heavy Graphics / Game Usage - High specification cards with plenty of memory and fast processors providing plenty of power for games or other intensive applications. These cards often include extras such as TV/Video In/Out, DVI connectors, support for several monitor display. Prices in this section would be over £110+ (cards can cost upwards of £500)

Mainstream / Occasional Gamer - General applications and some gaming. If your system is fairly recent you may not need to change your card. However some of the newer games do require more powerful specifications. For guidance you should view the minimum specifications on the back of the game. Most cards include S-Video, TV Out connectors as standard. Prices £50-£110 for mid-range cards.

Value Cards - Ideal for general Office and Internet applications. Running graphic intensive games are unlikely to run at a useable rate with these cards as the processor and memory is not rated enough for those tasks.

How to tell if you need a new video card.

The obvious way to tell if your current card is up to running your latest game is to try it out. If the graphic detail is poor and sequences become jerky or freeze it most likely the card. However it could be a driver problem, to eliminate this you should try updating your cards drivers via the manufacturer's site. Next view the video settings in the game and try lowering the detail.

If the above does not improve the game then you should look at upgrading your card.

Other factors including RAM and overall system speed can also restrict the amount of games you can run on your system.

Different Card Types

Video cards come in three different connector types: PCI, AGP, and PCI Express. The slots all look different and are easily identifiable from each other.

PCI these connect into the often white slots of your Motherboard, they have been common on motherboards since the early 1990's they replaced the ISA standard.

AGP Often brown connectors were introduced as they allowed four times the bandwidth over PCI. Most AGP video cards are now designed to work only with the newer AGP 2.0 and 3.0 standards.

PCI Express often shortened to PCIe is the latest technology designed to replace AGP and work with the main board systems to allow larger amounts of bandwidth to be transferred which results in a new level of graphics and system performance.

Other connectors

Many video cards now include various additional output connectors some also include Digital TV tuners and allow for cable and other video inputs to be relayed through your system. The most common connectors are defined below.

DB-15 VGA/SVGA connector commonly used for standard output to an analog monitor

S-Video output allows you to connect your PC to a TV or VCR to output the same display as on the screen.

DVI connector typically used to connect digital flat screen monitors. The three different types are DVI-D (Digital), DVI-A (Analog), DVI-I (Integrated Digital/Analog).

Dual monitor support refers to splitting your video signal to go across two monitors instead of one. This can be useful for designers, engineers, and others who prefer to view large files on and still have other windows open. Often the dual monitor support consists of one standard VGA output and one DVI connector, which provides a higher-resolution output used for newer high-end monitors.