Posts Tagged ‘Basic’
Basic Computer Hardware
July 4, 2010 | 
Author Computer Hardware
Obviously, before you can put together a computer, you’re going to need to purchase some hardware. And before you can purchase hardware, you need to know what you’re looking for! In this section, I will explain the primary components of a computer and their basic functions.
1. Computer Case
The computer case is the outer protective case that houses all of the computers components. The case is as far into the computer that most people ever look. The computer case is often mistakenly referred to as the CPU, which really stands for Central Processing Unit, or the processor.
Computer cases are most commonly constructed from steel, aluminium, and/or plastic. Occasionally, they have Plexiglas or acrylic windows, allowing a clear view of the internal components from the outside.
Computer cases come in many different shapes and sizes. The shape is generally determined by the form-factor of the motherboard, since it is the largest component of most home or office PC’s. These days, most home computer cases are Tower cases, and house an ATX form-factor motherboard. For the tutorials on this site, tower cases and atx motherboards will be assumed.
2. The Motherboard
The motherboard (or main board) is the backbone of any home, office, or gaming computer. It is the large circuit board in the center of the computer case that every other component connect to. It contains the system BIOS (Basic Input Output System) and controller chips for the processor, memory, optical drives, hard drives, and expansion cards, among other things.
Selecting the correct motherboard is one of the most important decisions when putting your custom computer together. The motherboard determines what type of processor and memory your computer will use, and what sort of storage, media, and expansion options you will have. Selecting the wrong motherboard could be disastrous! For example: if you need to build a computer that has four internal hard drives, and your motherboard only has connectors for two, you will be out of luck!
3. Processor
The processor, or CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of the computer. It carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer’s functions. The fundamental operation of most CPUs, regardless of the physical form they take, is to execute a sequence of stored instructions called a program.
The speed at which processors can execute instructions is called the Clock Rate, or clock speed. When selecting a processor for your new computer, clock speed is very important, as it will have a large impact on how fast your new computer is.
These days, most processors on the market are multi-core. Having a multi-core processor is like having two (or more) workers carrying out your instructions. While one worker carries out Task A, the other can work on Task B. If there is only one task, both workers can split the work evenly and help each other out! There is significantly more to multi-core processors, but for the beginner, it should be obvious that multi-core processors are a solid decision!
4. Memory
Random Access Memory (RAM) provides space for your computer to read and write data to be accessed by the CPU. When people refer to a computer’s memory, they are usually referring to the RAM.
If you add more RAM to your computer, you reduce the number of times your CPU must read data from your hard disk. This usually allows your computer to work considerably faster, as RAM is many times faster than a hard disk. For many people (and maybe for you!), adding more RAM is the first computer upgrade they attempt themselves.
RAM is volatile, so data stored in RAM stays there only as long as your computer is running and electricity is flowing through the memory. As soon as you turn the computer off, the data stored in RAM disappears.
There are many different kinds of RAM you can buy, so it is important to ensure you select the proper type of RAM for your motherboard.
5. Hard Drive
The Hard drive, or Hard Disk Drive (HDD), is storage where all of the computers files and programs are kept. Everything stored on the hard drive is permanent, and unlike RAM, will not be lost when you power the computer off.
A hard disk stores data the same way a cassette tape does, through a magnetic storage technique. This makes data stored on a hard disk very easy to erase, revise and replace. Moreover, the magnetic recording patterns are stored on a hard disk for a long time. As such, the only way to definitely erase data that has ever been stored on the disk’s magnetic surface is to physically destroy the disk.
Since the Hard Drive holds all of your data, the most important factor to consider when selecting one for you computer is size. Today, hard drive size is measured in Gigabytes. One gigabyte is roughly 1,000 megabytes, and one megabyte is roughly 1,000 kilobytes. The size of the hard drive you select will be dependant on your individual storage needs.
6. Optical Drive
The optical drive is a disk drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves near the light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can only read from discs, but recent drives are commonly both readers and recorders. Recorders are sometimes called burners or writers. Compact discs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs are common types of optical media which can be read and recorded by such drives.
Selecting an optical drive is important, because most media today is distributed via CD or DVD, and this is how much of your data and programs will be installed to your computer. Ensuring you chose a recording optical drive, or burner, is importent if you want to write files to CDs, DVDs, or even Blu-ray discs. Selecting a Blu-ray drive is imporant if you want to watch Blu-ray movies on your computer.
7. Video Card
Video Cards, also known as display cards, graphics cards, graphics controllers, or graphics accelerator cards, convert binary data (bytes) into display images. The Video Card, at its most basic, is a printed circuit board where the major components, namely the graphics processing unit, the video memory, and the motherboard slot are mounted.
Not all computers requre a seperate video card, as many today have the video processing hardware integrated into the motherboard. However, gaming computers, home theater computers, or office computers used for 3D design will require the more powerful hardware offered in a standalone video card.
For custom gaming computers, selecting the proper video card is likely the most important decision you will make.
8. Expansion Cards
There are an assortment of other expansion cards you can add to your custom computer in order to add functionality and features.
9. Power Supply
The power supply unit (PSU) is the component that supplies power to the other components in a computer. Power supplies convert potentially lethal 110-115 or 220-230 volt alternating current (AC) into a steady low-voltage direct current (DC) usable by the computer. A power supply is rated by the number of watts it generates.
The most common computer power supplies are built to conform to the ATX form factor. This enables different power supplies to be interchangeable with different components inside the computer. ATX power supplies also are designed to turn on and off using a signal from the motherboard, and provide support for modern functions such as the standby mode available in many computers.
Posted in 
Tags: 
What Is Basic Computer Hardware?
Basic computer hardware refers to the physical parts of the computer that you can touch and feel. There are several components that make up computer hardware. Here, we will just see a brief overview on all the basic components of computer that you should know generally. This will definitely not make you a hardware technician. It just concentrates on giving you some insight about computers.
Every computer has four basic functions to do. They are input, processing, storage, and output. To perform each of these functions, it is necessary that a device is used. For example, to input data or feed data to the computer, you definitely need a keyboard or a mouse. When it is necessary to process some data, a processor comes into picture. All these devices can be touched and felt. These constitute the basic computer hardware.
Apart from the input and processing devices, you must also understand that there are output devices such as monitor, printer, speaker, etc each of which gives some kind of output. Monitor is meant to give the visual output, while speakers are known to produce audio output. The printer is used to get a hardcopy of the text or images that you see on your monitor.
For storing purposes, there are memory storage devices such as RAM and ROM. If you happen to open your processing unit of your computer, you will get to see all these devices stacked inside the cabin. Also, there are buses that are interconnecting these devices to ensure data transfer. Storage devices can also be the CDs you use, or even the floppy disks that were once so famous. DVD is also a storage device.
All these devices put together constitute the basic computer hardware that one should be aware of.
Basic Concepts of Web Hosts
The one who wants to enter in this web world and desires for a long time survival, then he/she should be familiar with each and every terminology used in this field. If user considers all the important factors before choosing a hosting plan then only he/she will be able to have a successful future in this world .User should not choose any of the plan, rather he/she should opt the best and most suitable one and this can only be made possible by fetching more and more informations and also by studying properly all the requirements. New comers should start from the basics .They should learn the meaning of each and every term used and also in addition those factors that can affect his/her selection.
Web Host
Web host refers to a computer connected to the internet. Web host can also be termed as ‘web server’. The computer that is playing the role of the web server needs to be more powerful than normal PCs and the function of this web server is to serve up websites.
The website content of the user will remain will on this computer, so as the people who are surfing on the internet can get a way to access his/her website.
There can be three main categories in which the web host can be classified based on the economic factor and common features:
1. Free Hosts:
The users who are not professional but are making website only as a hobby then for them free hosting can be a good option. In free hosting space, bandwidth and other features provided are very limited. With free web hosting one can not only make his/her website successful but is also suitable for personal websites or for temporary usage. Generally free hosting enforces pop-up, text or banner ads. Reliability, best performance and customer support lacks in case of free hosting as well. When a user registers for a free host then the word free host gets added with the user’s domain name that gives an adverse effect in the eye of the visitors.
2. Shared Hosts:
The next type of the web hosting to be discussed is shared hosting. This hosting service is used by many of the web sites .This type of hosting service is Suitable for personal, small and medium businesses. This service can be used by paying $1 to $25 per month. The features provided by this service vary from very limited space/bandwidth to semi-dedicated servers. The users host their website by this type of hosting service and it has its own top level domain facility. No doubt that shared web hosting is quite better than free hosting but still it does not provide 100% satisfactory services. In case of shared hosting one server is shared by the number of websites so its performance and availability gets affected. More websites usually means less performance. If less number of websites are hosted by one server then it will be more expensive, but in this case there are more chances of reliability. There are many companies allowing customers to host multiple websites with different domains under a single account.
3. Dedicated Hosts:
The next type of hosting is dedicated hosting. This type of hosting is most reliable hosting. In this type of hosting a full server is dedicated to a single customer. Generally this type of hosting is used by large businesses, professionals and very active websites dealing with thousands of visitors daily. The customers having dedicated hosting can have their total control over the server as well as able to create as many websites as they like. Customers can run their own hosting company on a rented dedicated server. Payment module is mentioned according to specifications and services provided with the server, which varies from $100 up to about $800 dollars per month.
4. Collocated Hosts:
Now the other type of hosting service to be discussed is collocated hosting. This service is very much similar to dedicated hosting. The difference between collocated hosting and dedicated hosting is that in collocated hosting the customer owns the server hardware instead of renting it. In this service the server will be placed in provider’s data center. This service is more expensive than dedicated hosting.
5. Reseller Hosts:
In reseller hosting the providers offers web server storage to their customers, and resells the web server storage to them. Generally providers offer resellers a discount price.
6. Other Hosts:
Including the above type of hosts there are also many other hosts such as email hosts, media hosts, data hosts, etc but these hosts will not be discussed in this article.
Domain Name
Domain name is the name which shows the place where one’s website is located. The actual address of the website is a set of numbers. Each and every web server has its own unique address. Domain name indicates the real addresses of every websites. One can easily remember the domain name of any of the website. Remembering domain name is easier than recalling the IP addresses.
Space / Storage
Space is one of the services provided by the web host. It plays a very important role in the website development. It happens many times that the customer requires more space but the host fails to provide it, so customer should be very careful while choosing the web host. Storage is the amount of web server’s disk space available for customer’s website files, images and databases. Space can be according to the requirement; it can be as small as 5MB in some free hosts and as big as 300GB for some dedicated servers. Earlier prices of the space were very high but prices reduced significantly during the last few years. The hosting plans offering 3GB of space for less than $10 a month can be easily available.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth can be defined as the amount of data transferred from web server to clients’ internet browsers. When ever a person outlook a page the data is transmitted from the server to that person’ PC. If any one is having audio, video and images in his/her website then the bandwidth consumed is more in comparison of the website having only text contents. The bandwidth available in free hosting can be as low as 100MB per month where as in some dedicated servers the bandwidth available is as high as 2000GB a month. The customers who don’t want to pay more for bandwidth can easily find hosting plans offering 75GB of monthly data transfer for less than $10.
Server Type
Generally server means the operating system than runs the web server. Some common types are Windows, Linux and UNIX. Server type refers the server side scripting and database types. The difference between Windows server and Linux/UNIX is that Windows runs ASP and ASP.NET with Access or SQL Server databases where as Linux/UNIX servers usually runs CGI, PHP or JSP with MySQL or Oracle databases. The other difference is that Windows servers are more expensive than Linux/UNIX servers.
Databases
As server type is discussed earlier also, we are able to know that there are different types of databases available. The mostly used is MySQL as it is open source GPL (free) software and can serve a lot of online applications’ requirements such as forums, content management, mailing lists, etc. MySQL, rather its features are limited. MySQL is sufficient for small concern but it is not powerful for the complicated large business sites. Large business requires more powerful databases such as Oracle or SQL Server.
.
Server Side Scripting
Usually the new comers prefer to use PHP as server side scripting. The reason behind this is that there are hundreds of open source (GPL) PHP scripts that are able to fulfill the webmaster’s requirements. However PHP also has some limitations in features required by advanced websites same as in the case of MySQL, due to this limitation some professional web developers prefer to use ASP.NET or JSP. Some other developers still prefer to use Cold Fusion, CGI, ASP or PERL.
Now the next very important aspect to be talked about is Email. At present no one can move further in this computer world with having his/her Email account. The one who is planning to do any kind of activity through computer such as to run a business or to provide any kind of service, then the first thing he/she need to do is to open an Email account. There are many hosting plans that include the feature of having some email accounts with customer’s domain. The availability of number and size of email accounts totally depends on the hosting plan one opted. Generally this feature is not included in free hosting. Small plans provide only about 10 accounts where as big plans do not have the limited number. Usually those email accounts are web based and accessible through POP3 clients as well.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
The other service is FTP. File Transfer Protocol is a usual way of transferring files across the Internet. Most of the webmasters used to upload and download their websites contents through FTP. The process of uploading or downloading is performed by using FTP client software. Webmasters require FTP username and password so as to access their web server. There are any hosts who use to provide more than one FTP account to their customers as per their requirement. Rather FTP is unspecified; it is not advisable as per the security reasons.
Control Panel
Control panel is the service available by many of the web hosting companies to their customers. It is a web based application that helps in managing websites. Some important functions performed by the control panel are that it used to manage email accounts, providing statistics, managing FTP accounts, managing domains and sub-domains and managing databases. The control panel application that is mostly used by the user is cPanel. There are many companies who use to develop their own control panel application.
Uptime
Now after having all the services, the thing of concern which remains is how the user keeps his/her website uptime most of the time. If anyone is having a website with excellent features but it remains down most of the time it will be of no use, as when ever the visitors visit his/her website and found it down then later on they will think twice before visiting it. In result he/she will suffer the loss of visitors. Uptime is very important feature of web hosts and that is usually measured in percentage. If a server remains down near about 30 minutes a day will have an uptime percentage of about 99.98%, which is acceptable for most small to medium business websites. If any of the business website is not having at least this percentage of uptime then that website is not suitable for a business website. Mission critical sites cannot tolerate frequent outages, thus they may use web monitoring services to notify web administrators immediately when an outage happens.
Price
Finally the factor left is price. In this option also there is a great variability found like for example customer is having option to choose between the prices ranging from 0 to $1000 per month. For most personal, small and medium websites the total amount of cost involved is just $15 per month. Thus its not at all advisable for business website owners to select very cheap plans let say less than $5 because this price can lead to huge cost indirectly afterwards.