Newbie User Guides you may find useful
This is the place to look for advice and help on issues regarding the
personal computer. The guides are based on our experience with PC's, which
you may find useful.
In the left margin you will find links to my
guides on this site, which are not only for new users. As my site develops
I will add more.
A good place for newbies
Technological Advances means every part of the computer system is heading
for bigger and better things.
The Processor or CPU
The technology that allows manufacturers to make current chips, can place
two transistors at distances closer than 1/500 the width of a human hair.
These distances will continue to shrink in the future, allowing more transistors
per square centimetre and even faster chips.
Memory the RAM
New memory technologies like DDR, SDRAM and RAMBUS offer higher speeds,
but in the future holographic and molecular memory will give us gigabytes
in a tiny space.
Hard Disks
There are limits to which today's magnetic storage technologies can go.
The future could lie with solid state storage, similar to today's RAM.
Lasers record pages of data within (not only on the surface) an optically
sensitive material, which could be a spinning disk or a crystal.
Graphic Cards
Graphic cards continue to evolve, adding more high end 3D features, while
they are getting ever faster. They do however put more demands on the
rest of your system as well as the graphics cards own memory and processor
subsystem. At full pelt, the whole system is still slowed down by bottlenecks
in the bus connecting them. AGP standards should continue to multiply
from 4X to 8X etc.
Motherboards
There is a definite trend to incorporate most of the PC's main components
on to the motherboard. This should result in more stable and reliable
systems. The motherboard is also becoming more compact and extra features
are included as standard. Thermal management and power saving techniques
will improve as the software catches up with the hardware.
Modems
The future of dial-in connection is in broadband services. ADSL transforms
existing telephone lines into permanently connected high speed pipelines.
Short range wireless networks enable sharing the main connection between
multiple devices in the home and office.
Printers
Laser printers are the most effective and also expensive available. Most
small offices and home users rely on an inkjet. These come in different
print speeds, dots per inch and more importantly some can hold both colour
and black ink cartridges. A printer is one of the most useful add-ons
for any computer system.
Sound Cards
All singing all dancing 3 dimensional environmental audio has become
the standard. Some sound cards include on board RAM and ROM which allow
you to store samples and reproduce any sound imaginable and in 3D with
full control over bass, treble and balance. Balanced with a good set of
digital surround speakers you have your own home theatre.
Monitors
LCD screens are fast becoming the desktop standard. Their small footprint,
low power consumption, a 14 inch LCD will for example display the same
screen area as a 15 inch CRT and the prices are dropping. Maybe by the
time you read this you too may have one. Beware of the cost of fluorescent
tubes for any LCD. Two are required, one at the top and the other at the
bottom of the display. They lighten and warm up the display but usually
only have an average lifetime of about 4000 hours. If like me your monitor
is used more than 10 hours a day, you could be replacing tubes every year
and be warned they are not cheap.
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