Setting Up New Computer – Pick a Location

When my novice friends get a new computer I normally get a phone call to come, and help them set the new computer up.  

Setting up computers at first can be very intimating it seems with all the different parts, wires, etc. 

I want to go over some important parts, before we rip open that box and get down to business with setting up the computer.

I will try to break this down in a couple of articles of setting up the computer.

The first important step of setting up your new computer?

LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!

Yes you guess it!  We need to think about WHERE we are going to place our computer.

Don’t invest in a new computer if you are going to place it in a damp room, on a wobbling card table where it very unstable.  Damp or dusty rooms can lower the life expectancy of your computer.   Placing it on unstable furniture you take the risk of the table collapsing, or the computer falling off.

Location for your computer setup is also important when you think about HOW you are going to use the computer, and when.  Its suppose to be fun, so don’t sit it in the corner of the basement to get it out of the way.    If you have children or grandchildren I recommend placing it in a living area so you can supervise what they are doing on it.

Magnetic fields are NOT a computer’s friend!  Microwaves, magnets themselves and some appliances do have a magnetic field.  It can damage your data on your computer.

You need to be sure you have grounded outlet source for electricity.  Don’t use the same one your energy hog major appliances use.  Power fluctuations can also damage your computer, and destroy your files. 

Another portion of your initial set up of your computer is to find out where your connection for the internet is coming into.  If you are going to use dial up you will need to use a phone jack.  Most people actually have a phone jack under the computer, and they install it separately.  If you have a internet provider?  They will normally connect the cable connection, and you will need to ask them to place it near your computer’s location.

Keep in mind some monitors may have some glare issues if your monitor is directly facing the light source.  That could be a window, or something else.  Glare will make it very difficult for you to see your screen. 

As I’m sure you noticed your computer has fans in the rear computer panel.  It also may have vents as well.  YES, your computer will need to breath so it doesn’t overheat. 

Basically, you are looking for a clean, dry, cool, and out of direct sunlight place for your setup of the new computer.

The last portion of this lesson on setting up your new computer to invest in a decent surge suppressor. It is also referred to a surge protector.

I normally use this surge protector for monitors, printers, and scanner, etc as well.  As you can see from the picture it has more than one outlet.

Most computer manufacturers will not cover damage to your computer if you don’t use one.

Decent surge suppressors also offer a warranty that covers damage to your computer and the surge protector as well.  Most of them now days also have a phone jack, or Ethernet slot.

With the new televisions and entertainment equipment?  I have a surge protector for all of it.

So, step one is setting up our computer HAS to be location!  Next, lets unpack those boxes!

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Setting Up New Computer–Ports, Wires, Cables OH MY!

Welcome Back to setting up a new computer!

 

So far we have spoke about the location of our new computer, and unpacking of our new computer.

 

The picture is what is called the rear computer panel.  Keep in mind not all rear computer panels look the same, but generally they will all have similar parts that will be referred to as connectors, ports.

 

Some computers may have all the ports and connectors on the rear panel of their computer as pictured, and some not have as many ports and connectors.  That’s fine!

 

When we are done YOU will be able to impress all your friends with your computer rear panel knowledge!  How does that sound?

 

For Safety reasons, I do need to stress its ALWAYS a good idea to completely shut off your computer, and unplug it from its electrical source.  We don’t want to get electric shocks or worse!  You also will take the chance of damaging your computer as well, but personally?  I think you are more important. 

Keep in mind that connectors have male and female counterparts. The male has the pins while the female has the holes.

 

At this point we have NOTHING plugged in to the electrical outlet!  It comes last!  If you have anything plugged in?  Unplug it!

 

As I’m sure you have guessed already the tower can be called, CPU, tower, system unit.  This is the brains of the computer. 

 

Peripheral Devices

Peripheral Devices are items we will plug into the CPU, Tower or system unit.  Some examples of peripheral devices is the keyboard and mouse.  Your monitor is almost like a TV screen, and you are reading these directions through a monitor.  The speakers add sound, and of course our printer.

 

Scanners, joysticks, cameras, modem, etc are all peripheral devices.

 

Static Buildup

 

In our last lesson I mentioned that magnetics fields are NOT a computer’s friend.  Today I wanted to mention neither is Static Buildup. 

 

Do you remember as kids you dragged your feet along the carpet, and then touched your sibling to shock them?  That can kill sensitive components of a computer.   Most recommend placing the unit on a anti-static pad to prevent this.

 

I have to admit I’m bad at this.  Normally, before handling anything?  I touch something besides the computer parts.  That releases the shock, and I move on.  Carpeted areas are the worse for the shock and static.  Others use anti static wrist pads, etc. 

 

Setting up your new computer: Plug in those connections!

Note:  Today’s technology tends to use what they call ‘wireless’ connection.  It is exactly what it sounds like.  There is no wires to plug into the CPU at all.  Its amazing to watch once you turn on your computer that these Peripheral Devices connect automatically.  Depending on your operating system peripheral software may or may not be needed.  Normally, they will include it just in case.  Your first clue will be if it NOT working after you boot up the computer, or the computer asks for the software.  The newer computers normally will search out, and install the software on its own.  These Peripheral Devices normally work on batteries:  keyboard or mouse.  Check your batteries to make sure they work if your computer isn’t responding.

 

Second Note: USB ports seem to be more popular to use for keyboards and mice.  I will cover USB ports as well, but wanted to note this in case your computer isn’t using the traditional PS/2 port for those peripheral devices.  (Don’t worry you will know what USB and PS/2 are soon!)

 

What is nice about computer’s today is that the manufacturers got smart, and started put pictures next to the connections.  In the picture below you can see the green area that shows a mouse.

 

PS/2 Port

 

 

Pictured above is a PS/2 port on the back of your computer.  This is the female connector that has holes. Notice the outside shape isn't a true circle, but has almost notch looking curves. PS/2 Ports are normally used for the keyboard or mouse.

 

At times you will have check to see if you lined up the outside shape I mentioned above when you push them into the back of your computer. Green cord goes into the green connector, as does the purple goes in the purple.  The cords would be the male connection!

 

These should slide in easily.  Don’t force them, because you can break it.

 

USB Port

 

The UBS port that looks rather flat, and has that solid white portion on top. The cable you use is flat has well, and UBS normally just snap right in.

 

The USB ports don’t normally have anything labeled like they do above.  You just grab a USB port that is available. 

 

It seems to me technology is moving towards using more USB ports.  You may have these on the front panel of the computer, rear panel of the computer, or both.

 

UBS ports are normally connected to items like: mouse, keyboard, speakers, printers, joysticks, headphones, etc.

 

I normally place mouse, keyboard, speakers, printers plugged into the back of my computer.  On the front of my computer?  I have our headphones and camera.  We don’t use those all the time, and when we do use them we plug them in.  Its an easier access to the ports for me.  If they aren’t using them?  They are in the drawer.

 

Ethernet

 

The Ethernet reminds me of an oversized phone cord plug. You know how you plug your phone cord into the jack?  

 

If you have dial up you may not use this.  

 

This normally is a connection that is used for high speed internet like DSL or cable.

 

One end would plug into the rear panel of the computer where pictured.

 

The other end of the cord would plug into your router or modem that your internet provider gave you – or had you buy.

 

 

 

 

The cords with the oversized phone connector plug (ethernet) is normally pretty thick and normally colored blue.

 

 

If you are using dial up internet connection?  Please see two websites for insight.  Dialup Modem one, Dialup Modem Two

 

 

Serial Ports – These it seems are being phrased out.

 

These are serial ports. As you can see you will have to have a cord that is a female version. You also have to screws on the edge.   Its for a more secure fit. 

 

 

Serial ports and Parallel Ports are similar, and to be honest seems to me are being phased out.  They are being replaced by USB, or PS/2 ports

 

 

This is a Parallel computer or what some call a printer port.  This would be a good example of a male port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some printer ports have a connectors may look this for this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These ports are normally your very LONG ones! 

 

This is the VGA port or video port, and is normally used for your monitor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio Jacks

 

The above is all the jacks we have dealt with so far, but the ones on the bottom called audio jacks.  As you can see these are normally colored coded to make it easy.  These jacks directly connect to your computer's sound card or sound processor.

 

These can be used for your speakers, microphone or headset, or music players for example.  We use them for the headset, because our family computer is in the living room.  We don’t need to hear youtube, or games playing while watching television! 

 

Most desktop computers have at least one line-in jack to connect a music player or other audio device and one line-out jack to connect speakers. These jacks typically appear on the back of a desktop computer. Many desktop computers also have a microphone jack, which is often on the front of the computer.

 

 

Power Port or Power Plug

 

This is the main electrical source plug from the back of your computer into your surge protector.

 

All the ports and connections aren’t that hard.  Just need to find the spot that basically look like they go together pretty much.  I know my children took scraps of paper, and wrote ‘printer’ or ‘monitor’ or what have you on each plug or cable and taped them on the cords or cables as they figured them out.

 

Remember to plug all your electrical plugs into your surge suppressor, and then plug that into your grounded outlet.  Remind those from lesson 2?

 

According to most manufacturers that I have seen they ask you to turn on the monitor first, printer, speakers, etc – last but NOT least turn on your CPU or tower.  During this portion of your computer setup it may take a while for it to bootup as they call it. 

 

You may also get some startup questions and instructions.  If some screens rush through before you can read them?  Don’t worry to much about it.  If they needed your input they would stop until you answered the question. 

 

Well until next time this part of our step three of setting up your computer or setting your PC is complete. 

 

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Japan Creates World's Fastest Supercomputer

When it comes to the most powerful supercomputers in the world, I don't think it is to anybody's great surprise that the most powerful one is located in Japan. This new Japanese supercomputer has just recently earned the top spot among all the supercomputers in the world with a performance that makes other supercomputers look like a TI-82.

Known as the "K Computer", this device is three times faster than its closest rival from China, which previously held the number one spot, according to Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University Tennessee at Knoxville Jack Dongarra. Dongarra also keeps the official rankings of computer performance.

The K Computer, which was created by Fujitsu and is located at the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan, represents an incredible step forward in the realm of speed. This computer will also, more than likely, become a great sense of national pride for Japan, especially for computer scientists, who take the race to have the fastest computer in the world very seriously.

According to Dongarra, "It's a very impressive machine. It's a lot more powerful than the other computers." The latest ranking of the top 500 computers is determined with a simple mathematical equation. The computer who gets to take the top spot is able to make 8.2 quadrillion calculations per second which also calculates to 8.2 petaflops per second. The performance of the K Computer is the same as linking around 1 million desktops.

Supercomputers have many uses including earthquake simulations, climate modeling, nuclear research and weapons development and testing. Businesses also use supercomputers for oil exploration as well as rapid stock trading. However, building a supercomputer isn't cheap and it usually involves connecting thousands of small computers in a data center.

The K Computer is made up of 672 cabinets filled with system boards. The K Computer is considered to be energy-efficient even though it uses enough electricity to power around 10,000 homes at an estimated cost of $10 million annually. I'd hate to see the statistics for the non-energy-efficient ones. The lab that the K Computer calls home is planning on increasing the size of the computer to 800 cabinets which is predicted to raise the speed of the supercomputer that is already faster then its five closest competitors.

The K Computer received its name from the Japanese word "Kei" which translates to 10 quadrillion, the overall goal for the number of calculations the supercomputer should be able to perform. The previously leading supercomputer was China's Tianhe-1A which was located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, China. The Tianhe-1A was the first Chinese supercomputer to hit the top spot which acted as a beacon of the country's growing technological prowess.

The fastest supercomputer in the United States is located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It placed third behind the K Computer and the Tianhe-1A. Countries in Asia have made sizable investments in supercomputing and currently dominate the upper echelon of the field. Japan and China alone hold four out of the top five spots.

However, when it comes to the top 10, the United States is still the leader, holding five of the top 10 spots. Japan's top supercomputer ranking marks the country's first since 2004. The United States and China were previously the only countries to hold that title. These rankings, issued every six months, are frequently changed and reflect just how fast computer power is advancing.

Source: The New York Times - Japanese 'K' Computer Is Ranked Most Powerful

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Facebook Creating an App for the iPad

Facebook is planning on releasing an app for the iPad in the next couple of weeks that is said to feature a "slick design" as well as new Facebook Chat and Groups functionality. In addition to that, the app is also said to feature an "amazing" photo and video experience.

This news comes right after another report that Facebook was preparing an HTML 5 web app for iOS devices. In addition to that, Facebook is supposedly working on a new website optimized for the iPad. However, Facebook's refreshed site is only meant to be a "supplement" to the iOS apps from Facebook, not a replacement.

With the high popularity of the iPhone's Facebook app, it is surprising that Facebook hasn't created one for the iPad. To make up for the lack of an app, iPad users have been forced to turn to third party apps like Friendly, MyPad and Facely HD or just go with Facebook's actual website.

However, that could all change if the latest round of rumors turns out to be true. It has been said that the proposed iPad app has been in development for over a year. It has been said that CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is heavily involved in the design of the app as well as its features. Photos and videos will be displayed full size at full resolution and the app is also expected to be free, just like all of Facebook's mobile apps.

Source: PC Mag - Facebook Crafts an iPad App

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Samsung's New 30nm DDR3 DRAM

Samsung has just recently introduced 30-nanometer-class1 DDR3 synchronous dynamic random access memory (DRAM) modules designed for upgrading your PC. This new generation of faster, energy efficient DRAM modules is going to be available via consumer retail channels this summer.

According to Samsung Electronics America's Senior Vice President of Mobile Entertainment Marketing Reid Sullivan, "Replacing your DRAM can be one of the easiest, most cost-effective ways to upgrade your PC's performance, and these new products offer the most energy-efficient option currently available to consumers. Samsung is committed to bringing performance-enhanced computing to consumers, and our 30nm-class process technology offers an outstanding combination of advanced low-power DDR3 technology, with blazing speed up to 1,600 megabytes per second."

You can get this new DRAM from Samsung in either a 2GB or 4GB model and both are available in very low profile unbuffered dual in-line memory module configurations for desktop PCs and small outline DIMM configurations for notebook PCs. They are also backwards compatible with systems designed for previous DDR3 and DDR2 memory and can be purchased in single or dual pack quantities.

These memory sticks are also more energy efficient, using up to two-thirds less energy than those manufactured with industry standard 60nm class technology. What is great about that is that this boost in energy efficiency does not come at the cost of performance. The new modules transfer data at up to 1,600 Mbps which is 20% faster than the current 40nm-class generation of DDR3 DRAM from Samsung.

The new 30nm-class DDR3 DRAM modules will be available from Samsung this summer with single pack modules costing less than $30 to less than $55 and dual pack modules ranging from less than $55 to less than $110.

Source: Engadget - Samsung's 30nm DDR3 DRAM boosts speeds, cuts power consumption

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Internet Access Shut Down In Most of Syria

According to Renesys, a service that focuses on monitoring Internet connectivity, due to the civil unrest that is going on in Syria, most of the country’s Internet services have been shut down.

According to a blog post that was posted by Renesys on Friday, June 3 at approximately 6:35 a.m. local time, close to two-thirds of the entire country’s networks were disabled. The company said that “over the course of roughly half an hour, the routes to 40 of 59 networks were withdrawn from the global routing table."

Unfortunately for Syrians, most of their Internet access is brought to them by a company called SyriaTel, which is state-owned. "They buy most of their Internet transit from Turk Telekom and Deutsche Telekom, with some contribution from PCCW, Tata, and Telecom Italia," Renesys said. "Connectivity has historically come in over submarine cable from Cyprus; activation of new terrestrial fiber connections to Turkey have been delayed by this year's political unrest."

Well, what about the other third of the networks, some might ask? Unfortunately, Renesys said that all of those connections belong to the Syrian government. Of course the country’s Oil Ministry Web site is still online, as is Syrian Telecom’s official page, but government sites like the Ministry of Education, the Damascus city government page and the Syrian Customs site are all down.

Although Renesys had lots of great information, they did not have any evidence of what specific regions or cities were affected by the outages or how the massive outage was coordinated; however, they did say that "if Egypt and Libya's Internet outages are any guide, one might conclude that events on the streets in Syria are reaching a tipping point."

Google confirmed the outages in Syria via its Twitter account, tweeting on Friday afternoon: "Google services currently blocked in Syria."

For months the citizens of Syria of have been protesting against the conditions of their country, but according the Washington Post, the real turning point for everything was this past Wednesday. The Post reports that more than 300 opponents of the current Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, held a meeting at a hotel in Turkey to discuss what their next move should be. According to the Post, "It was significant that the government's opponents were finally coming together to try to present a united front to a world that remains skeptical about the Syrian protest movement."

Just this past February, there were reports that the Syrian government was planning to lift the then current bans on YouTube and Facebook. These bans had been present for over four years and were supposed to be lifted due to the “popular upheaval” about the situation.

In the past year, there has been plenty of civil unrest around the globe. Protest and violence exploded in the Middle East in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria. In January Internet services went down in Egypt for a couple days, due to the protests concerning the country’s governmental issues, including the nearly 30-year rule of its “President” Hosni Mubarak. In March Internet services were also disabled in Libya due to similar issues and protests.

The outages in Syria, however, ironically occurred on the same day that the United Nations released its Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression. Frank La Rue’s report discussed the recent increase of governmental restriction on the flow of online information. He noted that this was mostly due to the Internet’s ability to unite individuals together in protest of something; however, in his report he encouraged governments to not restrict their country’s citizens' Web usage. He instead asked them to work on developing a plan that would make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all.

"There should be as little restriction as possible to the flow of information via the Internet, except in a few, very exceptional, and limited circumstances prescribed by international human rights law," La Rue said in a statement.

"The report by the Special Rapporteur raises concerns about justifying broad surveillance powers under the name of national security or counter-terrorism," said the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation in a statement. "La Rue should be commended for questioning the ostensible motives for online surveillance."

"As Rapporteur La Rue affirms, the Internet's unique ability to provide ample space for individual free expression can lead to the strengthening of other human rights, including political, economic and social rights," said Cynthia Wong, the Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Project on Global Internet Freedom. "In order for these rights to be realized, governments, civil society and industry must all continue to build on the work begun by the Special Rapporteur."

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Malware on the Rise

Malware is the thing to look out for these days. McAfee claims that they tracked more than six million different unique malware samples in the first quarter alone. Those numbers make the first quarter the most active quarter for malware issues ever.

In a statement, Vincent Weafer, the senior vice president of McAfee Labs, said, "It's been a busy start to 2011 for cybercriminals."

McAfee went on to say that February was the most active malware month. In February, 2011 there were 2.75 million samples alone. According to the company, in March, 2011 there were also more than 350,000 fake anti-virus software samples, which was the highest level in over a year; however, partially in part to the demise of the Rustock botnet, spam is at the lowest level since 2007.

"Even though this past quarter once again showed that spam has slowed, it doesn't mean that cybercriminals aren't actively pursuing alternate avenues," Weafer continued. "We're seeing a lot of emerging threats, such as Android malware and new botnets attempting to take over where Rustock left off, that will have a significant impact on the activity we see quarter after quarter."

The most popular OS for mobile malware is still Symbian, but McAfee reported that Android is gaining on Symbian and came in at number two. McAfee thinks that Android isn’t number one because Google allows for the side-loading of Android apps. This means that it does not have a main spot where it checks apps for any possible suspicious behavior.

Just this past week, Google had to remove more than two dozen apps from their Android Market due to malware issues. NetQuin, a mobile security firm, also identified more than 20 malware filled Android apps that went to the extent of auto-dialing phones to pile up high user fees.

When dealing with spam, McAfee tracked more than 1.5 trillion messages each and every day, but thankfully that number is less than half of what it was just a year ago.

Government agencies across the globe have been working hard to crack down on cybercrime. In September dozens of international cyber-gangsters who were responsible for the creation and spread of the Zeus botnet were arrested. Also, thanks to Microsoft, FireEye (an anti-malware company), the University of Washington and Pfizer (a pharmaceutical firm) Rustock was taken down in March.

In their statement McAfee warned that the creators of the Zeus bot are hard at work merging the Zeus code with the SpyEye botnet. This would affect banking and online transactions, so it could cause some major issues if it isn’t handled.

"There was a strong uptick in new botnet infections toward the end of Q1, most likely due to the reseeding process, where cybercriminals slow down activity in order to spend time rebuilding botnets," McAfee said. "The botnet takedowns have resulted in an increase in the price of sending spam on the underground marketplace, showing that the laws of supply and demand also apply to cybercrime."

So why are people even falling for these threats? Well, cyber-criminals are very sophisticated these days. They make their scams look legit, so it’s hard to tell that it’s a threat sometimes until it’s too late. It seems that the spam that is promoting an actual product seemed to lure in the most people. IGNORE the e-mails advertising iPads and HDTVs. McAfee also noted a rise in “banker” Trojans. They lure people in talking about things like UPS, FedEx, USPS and the IRS. Unfortunately, on top of that, scammers are also taking advantage of crisis events like the Japan earthquake and tsunamis.

It’s just important to pay attention to what you are opening up or downloading before you do it. If you’re careful and take the necessary precautions, you should most likely be able to avoid any issues.

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