"Unfortunately, the Windows operating system that we've grown to know and love (or hate) is not the most secure operating system by any means, but Windows 7 promises to change that. TechReviewSource.com agrees too: Windows 7 is the most secure operating system Microsoft has ever made. This exposé of the many security features in Windows 7 include the new Action Center, improved UAC, and more."
PC Crashed and you can't afford to take it to the repair shop? Save some time
and money by using PCSTATS' extensive knowledge to put your PC back into top running condition! Dig into a pile of handy Beginners Guides, sweep the performance sucking
dust bunnies out of that old computer for good, and get more out of the PC you
already have!
A second area PCSTATS Beginners Guides focus on is how to make
your computing life easier. For example, spam email has become a
painful fact of life for most computer users, but it doesn't have to
be such a major irritation. A beginner's guide to stopping spam gives you several easy procedures
which will quickly make spam email much less of an obstacle to your
use of email. Likewise, the proliferation of viruses and spyware on
the Internet threatens everybody. We give you a heads up on computer
safety in our guide to firewalls and Internet security , and cover the
safe removal of intrusive adware and spyware programs too. Do your wrists
and eyes ache from too much computer time? Check out PCSTATS' ergonomics guide for some handy tips towards more
comfortable computing.
Increasing your productivity within Windows XP is also a topic
covered in several of our guides. If you regularly work at home as
well as the office, you'll be interested in our guide to synchronizing files and folders so you'll always
have the latest versions of your files at hand with out confusion.
Own one of those handy-dandy USB key drives? take a look at a set of
cool and clever USB drive projects; you can do a lot more with
those things than you might think! Another handy thing to learn is
how to create batch files within Windows; these little
programs allow you to automate many of your most tedious tasks.
Tired of installing the latest Service Packs in every new Windows
XP system you create? Tired of installing Windows XP at all? Check
out this pair of guides, both of which are among the most popular
articles with overworked IT staff: 'Slipstreaming: creating a Windows XP CD with Service
Pack 2 included' guides you through the process of incorporating
the latest Windows XP Service Pack right into your operating system
CD, while the guide to creating a fully unattended Windows XP installation
CD gives you everything you need to know about automating the
Windows installation process in one handy location.
If you'd like to be sure that you have the basics of security and
computer hygiene nailed down, but don't have the time or the
inclination to learn about these subjects, try our quick guides to
securing your PC and getting rid of spyware, adware and browser hijackers.
If you want to know more about the guts of your system, the
hardware that keeps it going, PCSTATS has a series of articles just
the weekend hardware warrior. Take a look at our guide to assembling your own PC for a comprehensive,
step-by-step guide to building a home computer. Once you have that
mastered, you'll find the do-it-yourself guide to building a home theatre PC
a snap! The annual PC maintenance checklist helps ensure that your PC
will stay in top shape for as long as you own it. Sometimes it's
good to go back to basics, and a good way to start is with this
guide to computer memory. It explains how RAM works and why
you might want more of it if your computer is getting 'slow'. For PC
speed freaks, we cover RAID hard drive setups in detail, what they are,
and how to set them up. If you are feeling ambitious, how about a
bit of video card BIOS flashing?
Would you like to try overclocking but aren't sure where or how
to start? This guide to overclocking a videocard will get you moving in
the right direction. The companion guide to overclocking the processor, memory and motherboard
explains the overclocking process for the rest of the system
components; what the benefits are, as well as some of the potential
dangers.
Interested in what makes Windows XP tick? Then we have some
articles for you; this guide to the Windows XP registry will take you through this
storehouse of XP customization settings, while the comprehensive
article on Windows XP's Safe Mode will equip you to use this
powerful recovery mode to your advantage. For Windows Vista users, see our guide
to Safe Mode Crash Recovery in Vista.
I'd also suggest you check
out the guide to the Windows XP services for information on what these
behind-the-scenes programs do, and how to create your own. If you
are experiencing frustrating crashes or errors (and what Windows
user hasn't at some point or another?) this handy guide to
understanding and resolving the infamous BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) error
should be interesting reading. Finally, get to grips with the Windows XP command prompt to increase your
knowledge and control of the OS.
Upgrading and updating your PC is another inevitable task that we
try to make easier. Take a look at PCSTATS' guide to flashing your motherboard's BIOS for one example.
If you've grown used to your Windows XP install and hate the thought
of reinstalling to accommodate a new computer system or hard drive,
see this time-saving guide to cloning windows XP for another solution... Want to
upgrade your system but don't know where to begin? We have the
answers in this guide to the fundamentals of updating a PC , and it will
certainly give you a helping hand in the right direction. If all you
want to do is upgrade your motherboard, we've got an article on
handling this complex operation too. No more service charges!
If you are tired of Windows altogether, or wary of Microsoft's
operating system validation requirement for downloading patches, why
not consider moving to Linux? PCSTATS has written three guides to
this alternative OS, covering the basics of getting familiar with the Linux KDE desktop and
then moving into the process of installing a Linux PC. In the third installment,
we walk you through the task of installing new software in Linux, and where to
find some productive programs for free.
Networking is a very important area of computer knowledge,
especially as many homes now have more than one computer. Sharing an Internet connection among the computers
in your household is a good start. If you're curious, PCSTATS also
has guides to home networking, allowing you to share files
between the systems in your home, and an article on the benefits of wireless networking. While wireless is
extremely easy to set up and use, it has some security concerns that
every user should know about. In PCSTATS' wireless security article, we provide any user
with the knowledge they need to secure their wireless network from
intruders. Advanced users may find this guide to Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and internet connection
security especially useful. If you have a printer, why not share
it over your network so that anyone in your house can use it? The
easy to follow printer sharing guide has the goods.
Once you have a broadband Internet connection, there are a lot of
interesting things you can do with Windows XP that are not
immediately obvious. For example, how about enabling remote access, so you can work on your
desktop from any Internet enabled computer in the world? Or maybe
you'd like to create your own FTP server, allowing easy file transfers
over the Internet? Perhaps you'd even like to learn how to create
your own weblog ('blog') a small personal website. Speaking
of websites, this guide to website hosting from a home PC has
that critical topic completely covered! It's all here
in PCSTATS collection of Beginners
Guides. Once you've got a blog or website going, how about
setting up an RSS feed so others can track your site easily? If
you check out several bookmarks every day, learning about RSS readers could save you a lot of time.
Hardware failure is an unfortunate fact of life for PC owners,
and one of the things that keeps computer stores in business.
Fortunately there are ways to detect problems before they happen,
and reduce the damage if your hardware should fail. Hard drives are
one of the focal areas for failure in modern computer systems, due
to their mechanical nature. They are also rather easy to erase,
accidentally or maliciously. In one of our most popular and
acclaimed guides, PCSTATS Beginners Guides looks at ways to restore your lost data in the event of just such a
hard drive disaster. On the same topic, our guides to diagnosing bad memory and bad hard drives as well as interpreting your computer's 'beep' error codes will help you
troubleshoot your PC at home. If you'd just like to expand the
amount of storage space on your PC, well we've covered that aspect
too with the guide to formatting and partitioning a hard drive!
Encryption and passwords are important facets of modern computer
use, especially where the Internet is concerned. These subjects can
be rather hard to understand for the average user, however. We've
attempted to set things straight in this walk-through of encryption and online privacy .
Locked yourself out of your computer or file by forgetting a
password? In twin guides, PCSTATS' examines the strengths and
weaknesses of Windows password security and document password decryption giving you the
knowledge you need to reclaim access. Knowing how to break back into
Windows, or a locked document or ZIP file isn't something you'll
need to know everyday, but when you're in a bind this information
can be a life saver. PCSTATS also examines how to 'harden' your laptop computer , so if it is lost or stolen, at
least your data will be safe.
For assorted tips and tweaks that can make your Windows XP
experience, cleaner, faster and uniquely yours, we present our most
popular set of PCSTATS Guides; 101 tips and tweaks for Windows XP and 104 Great Tech Tips for Windows XP. That's 304
useful tips, every one of them tested. You are sure to find
something you like in one of these articles.
For some comic relief, as well as a serious look into the kinds
of problems and errors of judgement that may one day destroy your
precious computer, take a look at the extremely insightful guide to
the most common ways to kill a PC. Why not visit
our feedback page and share your own stories once
you're
finished!?
Here are the TOP 20 PCSTATS Beginners Guides of all time... feel free to share this list on your blog or favorite forum.
"There are many programs on the market to test hard drives. Personally I would love to use every single one of them in testing, but don’t think I could keep you interested for 30 pages of benchmarks. In the past every hard drive was the same; you had cache, platter speed, platter density and interface, boom, bing, bam, run the tests write it up and call it a day.
Today we are going to walk through the testing procedure for storage here at TweakTown. There are a few categories that will be covered; SSDs, HDDs, RAID controllers, NAS servers and DAS servers. Since our previous AMD Opteron workstation was starting to run into performance issues with the latest round of ultra high performance SSDs, we have built a new workstation and want to thank a few of the companies responsible for helping to get the parts together."
UPDATE: PCSTATS reader Serge has commented on Motherboards.org video of the steps to install Windows 7;
"...just saw the windows 7 boot time video on the main page. As interesting as is, there's one statement in the video bothering me.
The prompt that came up when selecting the hard drive is not advising that the old files will be erased, but that they will be moved to a folder on the hard drive called windows.old. the windows.old folder is useful in the event that you may want to restore your old OS, or you can sift through it and pick out your personal files. Windows? 7 will not format your drive by default. Vista also did the same thing, I worked on the official vista support team at launch, and I will say that feature is brilliant for sides, as a user, there's not accidentally erasing data, and as a tech, there's no accidentally walking a user through erasing data."
With Bing slowly but steadily rising in popularity Google is facing more pressure than ever to rejuvenate the search experience it has to offer. Sure, they still hold a clearly dominant share of the market at about 64.6% (versus 19.3% for its closest rival, Yahoo), but then again Google has proven to know better than to just rest on its laurels.
Over the years, the Mountain View-based company has been enhancing its search engine not only to provide quality and relevant results, but also let users be more particular about their searches with dozens of special features and operators. Despite this, I am willing to bet that most people just use the vanilla search as is.
Fair enough. I mean Google is supposed to be easy to use, so why complicate it? Well, for starters, these functions are meant save you a lot of time and effort. I'm sure the more inquisitive of you know all about the basics, like quoting your searches to find exact matches, and then some -- but that's truly just the tip of the iceberg. Today we'll be highlighting some of our favorite Google search tricks.
"To satisfy my performance needs, I am now going to put together a low-power server built around an Intel Atom 230 processor in order to install PiaF natively to get the best performance I can out of my homebrew VoIP solution using Google Voice. With a budget of about $225, this article is going to give step-by-step instructions on how to build your Atom-based server, install and configure PBX in a Flash, and finally configure your Linksys SPA-3102 ATA..."
Buying a new computer is always a tough task, what sort of things do you want to do on there? Just use the internet? Play games? Create websites? Because there are so many different types of systems to choose from, not everyone knows what specifications there computer needs to cope with the required tasks. Read on to find out “How to Choose the Right Computer for You”
The NVIDIA Quadro family of professional graphics cards are very, very expensive. But everyone knows that Quadro and GeForce graphics cards are virtually identical in hardware.
Obviously, you cannot just use Quadro drivers with your GeForce graphics cards. However, there is an easy way to soft-mod (modify in software) an NVIDIA GeForce desktop graphics card into an NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics card. We will show you just how to do it in this guide.
Not only that, we have also a new page with performance results from the soft-modding of an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX to the Quadro FX 4600 and a comparison of that soft-modded card with a true NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700. Read on and find out!"
"After migrating to Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP, the menu and the favorites bar would go black with no apparent reason. So far we didn't discover why this happens and when or if Microsoft will release an update to fix this bug. Meanwhile, learn the trick we are using to restore the menu and the favorites bar to its correct color. The problem can be seen on Figure 1."
I'm not exactly sure when it became cool to abandon the use of your operating system's desktop, but a growing number of people these days prefer the "clean" look. Recent releases of Microsoft Windows seem to encourage this. By default, Windows Vista and 7 strip the desktop of all icons but the Recycle Bin.
Try as you may, ignoring this lone icon is impossible. Sure, you can hide it in just a few seconds, but at the cost of losing quick access to deleted files. You could also drag the Recycle Bin icon to the taskbar, but then it will appear pinned under Windows Explorer -- requiring an extra click to open and offering half the functionality.
Today we will show you one method of bringing a fully functional Recycle Bin to your Windows 7 Taskbar, so you can clear off your desktop once and for all with little to no compromise.
"Now we need to make the NFTS partition we just made active. This is where MBRWiz comes in. If you haven't downloaded it, get it now and for simplicity, save it to your desktop. Click Start then Run. In the Run window type CMD and click ok. You should now be looking at the COMMAND window. Now we need to change directories so we can see the Desktop that is done by typing CD DESKTOP and hitting enter. Now we need to see what number Windows has assigned the thumb drive; to do this type MBRWIZ /LIST and hit enter. Mine is number 5..."
"In this article we are going to answer one simple and at the same time very difficult question: how to choose a CPU? We decided to collect the mandatory basic information you must know to make an educated choice, and teach you how to choose."
"Universal Serial Bus devices have been around since 1995. In computer
years that seems like a lifetime. In that lifetime we’ve seen two
distinct generations of USB technology – USB 1.0 and USB 2.0. Back in
August 2008, the specification of the USB 3.0 technology was announced
and now it will soon be time for implementation. We can expect to see
devices based on USB 3.0 technology later this year (2009). This article
describes the history of USB, technical differences between the various
iterations and the future of USB technology. It will also help you
update an old computer for USB 2.0 support."
Like many of us, my history of backup management is shameful, littered with poorly labeled DVD-Rs, manual file copies, and a minimum of forethought. Yet with relative ease, I was recently able to build a much more rational backup scheme that is, by and large, automated in software.
This morning when I got up I had no intention of writing a guide to making a bootable NTFS USB Drive. As things often happen on a review site you often find yourself waking up intending to get one thing done and end up going in a totally different direction. Today was one of those days. I've been dealing with SSD, Platter hard drives and USB Drives all week. Suddenly this morning I found myself thinking wouldn't it be nice to be able to boot to a USB disk with the NTFS file system and run diagnostics, memory tests, and maybe install Vista or XP from a USB disk. How about being able to not only install Vista from a USB disk but once Vista is installed have all the review benchmarks and files I needed consolidated on one flash drive instead of searching for a bunch of disks scattered around my review area.
For enthusiasts, AMD has always been the more value-for-money proposition. And now, with their latest Phenom II processors at competitive prices, there hasn't been a better time to get an AMD system. Today, we show you exactly how to select your components and build your own AMD-powered HTPC.
"This week we were invited to visit the folks at Runcore at their Hangzhou office in China and get a look at its full range of Pro IV SSDs which launched just the other day.
During the five day trip, we arranged a factory tour of the Runcore facilities, which is conveniently located only about ten minutes down the road in the economic and development area of Hangzhou, officially known as 'HEDA' by the Chinese government."
"The sudden loss of factory hard drive capacity seems to be a common occurrence with very large capacity hard drives. Here's what typically happens; a large capacity hard drive of between 500GB, 750GB, 1TB and 1.5TB suddenly appears to loose most of its capacity for no apparent reason. In many situations the hard drive shrinks to 32MB and becomes inaccessible to the Windows Vista. Rest assured, in this Guide PCSTATS will tell you how to easily fix this bug and reclaim the full factory capacity of your hard drive."
Samsung LN55A950D1F 55-inch LED-backlight LCD A950 HDTV Review Sep 22 | Home Theatre Rating:
Samsung's new A950 series of LCD HDTVs has been designed to be the next step in image fidelity for liquid crystal display technology. These home theatre HD TVs use Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) that can selectively illuminate sections of the screen at a time.
The best Guides by the best writers on the internet; PCstats Beginners Guides explain
computers, software, and all those other wonderful things that cause you
frustration.
Learn how to use your computer better, master the internet while protecting yourself, and know what to do when your hard drive kicks the bucket.
