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Careers In PC Repair Services

Tech Geek — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:21:05 +0000

Working as a PC technician fixing computers may seem from the outside to be quite an easy job to get into and enjoyable (for those who enjoy fixing computers). This article looks at careers and roles in PC repair services along with the training and skills that are required.

Working in PC repair services can actually involve a broad range of roles. Bench technicians work from one single location (e.g. a computer repair shop) where faulty PCs are brought into them for repairs. Field technicians work in businesses supporting in-house computer systems. Technologies and services can also become widely specialized with some individuals focusing on laptop repairs, data recovery or back-up services for example.

Training and certification is not necessarily required to work in PC repairs, but it is fair to say that it will look better on your resume. Over time, experience does become more valuable as individuals specialize in one/two technologies. An initial qualification as a computer service technician (Computing Technology Industry Association) provides a good grounding from which to start in the industry.

The important thing to note about training though is the need for ongoing education. New technologies enter the marketplace and it is up to the individual to up-train in the new hardware/software in order for their skills to stay current. This can take the form of short seminars or workshops on new PC maintenance software, in some cases, so usually isn’t a large burden on your time, and employers are normally conducive to supporting such training for permanent employees.

The ultimate goal for many PC technicians though is to set up their own business as a one man or small enterprise providing PC repair services to their local community. Many start out by working from home or providing a house-call service (e.g. repairing internet connectivity) until their business is up and running fully.

Pink Netbook Computers – Cute Mini Laptops for Working on the Go

Tech Geek — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 18:35:21 +0000

Having a pink computer has become a trend more and more fashionable in the latest generation of computers. If, at the beginning, it has been used only by women, as we all know that they love everything that is pink, nowadays even the most important business men tend to move towards the pink computers. A pink netbook is both helpful and entertaining; both used for doing your daily staff and for distinguish yourself from the common.

The pink netbook can be described as the little helpful brother of the pink laptop, but the one which maintain the same properties and skills, no matter its dimension and weight.
Taking into account the advantages of having a pink netbook, there is plenty to talk about them.

First of all we should consider that they have a small price, a thing that most of the managers will enjoy, its weight and its small dimensions make it very easy to be handled, a thing that will make happy every one that will use it, it dimensions are more useful than the ones from a smart phone and also has a good processing power, more powerful than the one of a smart-phone. Also its autonomy can pass over five hours in true conditions. Of course we can’t forget about the disadvantages of this machine, such as the small desktop and resolution or the missing of optic unit.

A pink netbook can be used by people belonging to almost every field of activity. First of all by the ones who work in the sales industry, having enough power for processing the data, even for large presentations in power point? And with a good modem and connection there can be visualized in every moment all the stores from every part of the world.

Then, the pink notebook is a useful tool for an editor. No matter the place where he takes part to an important event, he can connect himself to the Internet and send very fast latest news and photos to the editorial office.

The professionals in IT and the admins can use it in order to fulfill urgent administrative tasks or the maintenance from every place they are located, with the single condition of Internet connection. The managers or the directors can check their e-mail addresses and soon they will be able to access the Internet even during their plane journeys.

For the most gifted ones, the writers, the best pink netbook is a permanent friend, which they can carry all along a train, bus or tube trip to note their ideas or to write another chapter of their successful novel. Also the students and pupils can use it to find the necessary information for their homework or essays or to save their favorite music, which they can use to entertain the atmosphere of their parties.

All in all this little machine, the pink netbook can’t miss from your daily tools to fulfill your activities or to draw little fun to your life.

A Buyer’s Guide to Quality PC Towers

Tech Geek — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:33:20 +0000

Pc towers are the outer shell that hold common parts of a desktop computer together including the power supply, motherboard and hard disk drives. There are many computer cases on the market but choosing one is not as easy as some people would like to think. Reading this article may help you make a better decision regarding your next case.

Computer PC towers are designed to protect internal parts of the computer, but that’s not their only priority. If you’ve ever been to a computer shop you might agree that there are better looking and more plain cases. There are even ones that you would never want to have in your room. Their second purpose is to be decorative and pleasant to look at, so the main goal is to pick a computer case that is good quality and doesn’t look like a tank turned inside out.

Examining a computer case may bring up a few points that should be covered. Computer cases can look big enough from the outside, but it’s really important to make sure they’re big enough inside and that they are compatible with the other components you already have. Check the motherboard and find out what form factor it is. Most desktop motherboards are ATX so you will be looking for a case with the same standard of mounting holes.

There are computer cases for all kinds of users. An office computer doesn’t need to be a looker but the components still have to be organized neatly for easy maintenance. A hardcore gamer may want to buy a case with better airflow and for home use small computer cases are increasingly popular. It’s all up to personal taste but the general quality of build of the tower is not.

Many brands try to save some cost on using materials that would be better left out. They are also trying to skip some steps during manufacture. Overall quality makes the difference between a poorly made model and an industry-standard computer case. Make sure to look for edges inside as well; by going for a little more expensive but in overall better made case you save yourself from injury risks and damage on components

There are dozens of different brands making PC towers, settling for the first you see in a shop is ill-advised. Spending some time on the net gathering information on different models will save you money and give better understanding of the market at the same time.

How Do Touch Screens Work

Tech Geek — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:44:01 +0000

Touch screens are gaining importance in everyday life. These screens can be found in various electronic gadgets like mobile phones, Tablet PCs, car navigation devices etc. A lot of ticket vending machines, bank ATMs etc. also include a touch screen user interface. Since the technology used in touch screens is becoming cheaper, more and more gadgets in future would include a touch screen interface.

Anyone who has used a touch screen phone would agree that touch screens provide almost ubiquitous interface with electronic devices. Touch screens work like magic, understanding touch like humans do. Have you ever thought, how all this is made possible? The following points provide a brief explanation.

Touch screens mainly consists of three modules, namely, touch sensor, controller and software driver.

Touch Sensor:
As the name suggests the touch sensor is a responsive surface which senses the touch. The display of the device is normally covered with the touch sensor, which has electric current flowing through it. The touch causes a change in voltage, showing the location of the touch. The touch screen is an input device so it is placed in some kind of casing which forms the outermost perimeter of the touch screen device.

Controller:
The controller is the brain of a touch screen system. When the sensor determines the location of the touch within the touch screen, a controller converts these signals into computer commands. These controllers can either be integrated with the touch screens, as done in most of the touch screen mobile phones, or installed as a separate unit. The controllers in touch screen kiosks operate as stand alone units and communicate via standard serial or USB ports with a computer.

Software driver:
The software driver forms an interface between the touch screen controller and the computer. The driver receives the commands from the controller and converts them to usable computer operations. Similarly, the software driver sends commands to controller to perform operations that are requested by the computer.

The combination of all these modules makes the touch screen function in a way we see in phones and other electronic equipments.

Using a Router to Connect Multiple Computers to the Internet

Tech Geek — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:10:06 +0000

Unlike ten years ago, it seems many people may have more than one computer in their home. While they have more than one computer, they would usually only have one Internet connection. Connecting more than one computer to the Internet isn’t hard to do, especially with the right hardware.

Connecting to the Internet with more than one computer can easily be accomplished by purchasing a router. The router is connected to the broadband modem and each computer, so it acts as an access point to the Internet. An additional benefit to using a router is that many include a hardware firewall, which provides added protection to any computer that is connected to the router.

The way a router works is that it obtains the IP address from your Internet Service Provider (ISP). This is the IP address that is used to access the Internet.

To connect your computers, the router assigns separate, internal IP addresses to each computer that you connect to the router. When a computer requests information on the Internet, it sends the request to the router. The router will then send that request out to the Internet using the IP address it is assigned by your ISP.

Once the Internet server processes the request, it then sends the data back through the Internet, which is eventually retrieved by the router. The router than determines which computer, based on the local IP address that was assigned, that request the data, and then sends the data back to the sending computer. This is how a router can be used to share one Internet connection with multiple computers.

Now one thing to note is that it is important to secure your router before using it. Make sure you change the administrative password on any router that you will be using to prevent unauthorized access. For wireless routers, you need to secure the wireless connection as well as anyone with a wireless network adapter would be able to connect to your router. Once they are connected, then that can use your Internet connection, and perhaps also access the computers on your network.

If you make a mistake when securing your router, or can’t remember your passwords, or just want to start over with securing the router, you can always reset the router. It isn’t difficult to reset a router, and there are many guides online that explain how to do it, such as this guide that shows how to reset the WRT160N wireless router.

If you have more than one computer that you would like connected to a single Internet connection, you should go invest in a router that can easily do the job for you.

Mini Notebook Computers – Why Do People Love Them?

Tech Geek — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:04:03 +0000

**This is a guest post by a friend of ours who writes at other places online. They love their mini notebook computer and wanted to tell you guys why.**

I’ve had a mini notebook computer for more than three months as a main computer, a main point of entry to internet and I absolutely love it for various reasons. It never ceases to amaze me how tiny these things really are. I use an Asus 1005ha and it weighs 2.5 pounds which is so small I even forget I have it in my backpack though I know when I have my umbrella with me. London is just like that, you think about your umbrella first, laptop second.

The screen resolution is somewhat smaller than the resolution I was used to on my old 22” LG tft before I moved here, but that is something I can put up with for the amount of money it parted me with. The hard disk is 160GB in capacity and I’ve never ran out of space, even after putting my favorite albums and videos on it. Perfectly fine for any kind of light office work such as word processing and tinkering with spreadsheets.

I love this little screen against all of its shortcomings, though. It consumes so little power it doesn’t really matter if I use it at low brightness or maximum. A few minutes on battery life, maybe half an hour. It’s sharp and crisp and my eyes have aren’t irritated even after prolonged periods in front of it.

The processor is snappy fast and the memory is enough for everything unless firefox decides to go and play world domination in it, as far as I keep an eye on what I run next to each other it’s plenty. I absolutely love the keyboard though. It’s claimed to be 92% size of the normal keyboard but I can’t see where have they stolen that 8%, it’s all perfectly aligned and a simple joy to type on. There is one thing I’d change though, Asus if you are listening, the up-down arrow keys are not good that way, put them on a normal size key, because scrolling in the browser is awkward in the darkness.

The battery runs the show for 6.5 hours and it cost me $400 or £250 if we’re going pounds. It’s really a bang for the buck and I love it.

Avoiding Malware and Spyware: Drive by Exploits

Tech Geek — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:58:27 +0000

Keeping your computer clean from spyware and malware is getting increasingly difficult. The net is simply overflowing with these programs and for the casual surfer without much knowledge of the issue, getting infected without even knowing is beyond commonplace.

Why is it a problem to get infected with these programs? Well, you will notice that for many, one of the first steps in how to speed up their computer, is getting rid of them. They also track your actions, collect data, selling it without your approval. Plus they can do damage to your system, for example causing you to lose work you have done on the computer.

But what are some essential things to know about internet security? What do people do wrong? Well, for example, some people browse the web using an old web browser, as for example internet explorer 6, and no anti virus or anti spyware program. This is a very risky combination since internet explorer 6 is highly vulnerable to all kinds of programs with malicious intent and in the absence of anti virus protection you could easily become a victim of what is referred to as a ‘drive by’ web exploit.

What exactly is drive by exploits? It is when people with little conscience setup a malicious website that will attempt to automatically install malware or spyware on a user’s computer, once he or she visits the site. The visitor is often lured to the site by links in emails or other black hat advertising techniques, where the user is led to believe that the site contains something of actual value.

Often drive by exploits are ’0-day’, a term used when the method has been discovered only recently and therefore there will not be any kind of fix for them yet. The result is that the ‘success rate’ of infection tends to be high.

Unless you have quality anti virus installed, that manages to detect what is going on, you will not even realize what is happening and the malware will be installed onto your computer.

How is this information useful? It highlights the point that it is important to always use a up to date browser and up to date anti virus. It is also very helpful to use malware and spyware scanning tools. Have the programs do weekly scans of your entire system.

No anti virus, anti malware, or anti spyware software will ever offer 100% protection, as new malware is constantly being created and it will take some time for anti virus programmers to locate these and include them in their detection lists.

It therefore stands to reason that having all the right programs installed is mo substitute to exercising caution while online. Don’t click suspicious links, don’t visit dodgy sites, and always be careful with what your downloading!

Wireless Earbud Headphone Options

Tech Geek — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:56:42 +0000

The new technology incorporated into bluetooth headphones allows you to have optimum sound quality wherever you are. There are however, some differences in the types and styles of the earbuds available with the new Bluetooth technology.

The Jabra BT2080 set of earbuds has a high recommendation among its users. The Samsung WE300 is also a highly recommended choice. The features of the headsets have on and off switches as well as indicator lights for the level of battery usage. This is helpful when using a wireless device.

As far as wireless earphones go the Jabra Cruiser comes with a host of advanced features for those people who are more particular about controlling their sound quality. The headset comes with a speaker phone which enables the user to talk through video conferencing programs. It also has data encryption to help reduce the security risk associated with some Bluetooth devices.

If you’re looking for a headset that allows you to change between mono and stereo you could look at the Samsung WE870. The set also has a noise reduction feature which is handy for optimal listening enjoyment. Novero also makes a Bluetooth capable set of earbuds known as TheFirstOne. While it offers noise reduction it only allows for listening in mono.

If you’re interested in finding a headset that offers comfort in its design you could choose the Tritton AX Micro. It comes with a comfortable earbud cover that fits snuggly on the ear and also has a control for volume. A medium range set is the Iqua BHS-302 which is moderately priced and is fairly comfortable to wear.

If you’re looking for a bargain in a set of bluetooth earbuds then you should consider the LG HBM-310. It has the standard features of a power switch and has mono sound. It is an easy to use set of earbuds and is reasonably priced. It would make a good first set for those looking for Bluetooth technology earbuds.