IT Audits: The Next Step by Joshua Feinberg
With most of your clients, once the relationship is established and IT audits are complete, you should move into a project plan mode where you set up a spreadsheet and organize it on a monthly basis. During IT audits, you’re going to find that some things have to be done this month; some can... Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting Blog. ... It is as simple as setting up an Excel spreadsheet and putting a couple columns in there like Month, Task, Estimated Labor Cost, Estimated Product Cost for software peripherals, hardware, and a column if you need to bring in an outside contractor or...

IT Security and You! Part 3 - Data and Hardware-Media Disposal by David Baldwin
IT Security and You! Did You Lock the Doors and Windows When You Left For Work This Morning? Part 3: Data and Hardware/Media Disposal Giving Away PCs and Hardware This article does not discuss the Data Protection Act etc. It is about the proper disposal of information held on hardware and... A good system will overwrite areas of a disk making data retrieval impossible, even with hardware tools. ... The IT manager of that company had formatted the computer and re-installed software – supposedly!

A Sneak Peek Into The World Of Refurbished Laptops by Joann Grant
A refurbished or recertified laptop is one that has been previously used for a short period of time and after being returned to the manufacturer is refurbished and is available in the market for sale. The reason for return can be as small as ‘the user is not comfortable with the size of the... This is what a good restoration process should look like: examination of all the hardware components performance of various diagnostic and performance tests incurring basic cleanups ensuring all cut and scratch repairs The basic aim of this process is that the machine should run just as good as...

New Computer? Steps to Protect Your Computer Before Connecting to the Internet by Steve Freedman
Getting a new computer should be an exciting and gratifying experience. After all, you’ll be able to do things faster, safer and without having to worry that your old hard drive is so full that one more file will “break the camel’s back.” However, there are dangers out there that probably... Use the live links on a computer that is fully updated, virus protected and firewalled, and download the instructions/programs to a CD or a USB drive, then transfer them to your new computer. ... If possible, connect the new computer behind a network (hardware-based) firewall or firewall router.

A Virtualisation Article by Michael Hart
An analogy: One bus can carry 30 passengers, but cars are now so relatively cheap we all travel by car. That’s up to 30 vehicles that need maintaining,rather than just one. If you can equip the bus with all the facilities you get in the cars (eg airline style seats with all the personal... Each simulated hardware resource is assigned an address within the host application, the virtual addresses of the simulated hardware are redirected to the physical addresses of the underlying hardware, which allows hardware resources to be applied to any resource mapped across the bus, including memory...

Guide to Buying Hard Drives by Andrew Gates
Apart from being one of the most essential parts of your computer, hard drive storage is constantly updating, in terms of both capacity of disk space and in physical size. When it comes time to upgrade your disk storage, there are a number of factors for you to take into account. ... Most computers will support a standard that is faster than what the computer currently supports, so you can buy a faster drive, and update your computer at a later time. ... However, before you buy a hard drive for your portable computer, check that the hard drive's specifications will meet the standards of...

Finding the Right Performance Optimizer by Kevin-James Vella
So, you've decided to fine-tune your PC by using a performance optimizer, but there are hundreds of products available on the market and to find a solution that fits your need can be daunting. In this article, I will explain what performance optimizers are and how they work while suggesting what... Performance optimizers automatically dig into your hardware and free up valuable resources, remove system hogs that slow your computer down or cause it to crash. ... When optimizing memory, performance optimizers look at how your computer is using RAM and how Windows is creating and operating...

Improve Multitasking Performance and Overall Computer Performance by Emil Sasu
Here is a list of useful tips on how to improve multitasking performance and overall computer performance on your Windows based PC. Please backup your system before doing changes, to make sure you can get it back working should anything go wrong for you. ... Cheap hardware will never work properly; cheap motherboards and computer cards are unstable, have improperly written drivers and tend to easily get defective. ... Since BIOS works directly with your motherboard and drivers and preconfigures your system hardware before the operating system is loaded, these settings are vital for your...

Networking Basics by Kashif Raza
A network is a group of computers, printers, and other devices that are connected together with cables. The sharing of data and resources. Information travels over the cables, allowing network users to exchange documents & data with each other, print to the same printers, and generally share any... Public data and applications are stored on the file server, where they are run from client PCs' locations, which makes upgrading software a simple task--network administrators can simply upgrade the applications stored on the file server, rather than having to physically upgrade each client PC.

Advanced Tips on Speeding Up Your PC by Mark Berger
Other then keeping your HDD free of viruses, spyware, and ad-ware at all times, there are other methods for speeding up system speed which you may like to employ. One of these is overclocking. Overclocking is a method of increasing your system speed by increasing the frequency at which your CPU... Other methods of keeping your computer up to speed include: -Running defrags/scandisks on your PC once to twice a month -Upgrading your RAM by installing faster, or more memory -Formatting at least once a year Running a defrag is easy.