Installing Windows

How to Install Windows Using a CD

Microsoft Windows is a user-friendly, GUI (Graphical User Interface) operating system, used by around 90% of the PCs in the world. Nowadays, many applications in market tend to support Windows. Follow the steps below, and install this operating system by yourself, without calling a highly-paid computer technician at your home.
Steps

1. Buy a Microsoft Windows OS CD from your local CD center, or order for it. If you have one already, then proceed to next step.
2. Open your CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-ROM/DVD-RW (Any of these drives) and insert the Microsoft Windows Setup CD.
3. Restart your Computer.
4. Soon after restarting your computer, Hold on F2 to start BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) Settings. If nothing happens try restarting your computer again and press DEL key this time.
5. After BIOS loads completely (usually blue screen). Go to 'Boot', by pressing the Number Keys.
6. After the [Boot] Settings Appear, search an item named as [Boot Priority] or [Boot Order] etc, or with the same meaning, and Press Enter.
7. Then see if your CD-ROM is set to 'First Boot Device', it would have been named as [ATAPI CD-ROM], either by its Manufacturer, or simply [CD-ROM]. If it is not, then set is using the keys usually Page Up and Page Down. If not, then take help from the Legend which appears at the right portion of the screen.
8. After setting CD-ROM as the 'First Boot Device', press F10, the BIOS will ask you whether to 'Save Changes and Exit', select 'Yes'. The BIOS will automatically restart your Computer.
9. Now after your computer Re-Boots, A Black screen will appear showing the message 'Press any key to Boot from CD...', press any key.
10. Wait for 2-10 Seconds (depending on your System Speed), a Blue Screen will appear with a Title Windows Setup.
11. Follow the On-Screen Instructions to Install the Windows, your computer might be restarted a number of times by the Windows Setup during the Installation.
12. After the Windows is Installed successfully, you are greeted with Welcome.
13. You are done with installing Windows, now take a Quick Tour, as Windows will pop-up a message for it.

 

Tips

• Set the Partition Size to Maximum, if you don't want any Partition of your Hard Disk (For Low-Storage Hard Disks else making Partitions is Recommended).
• Windows can be upgraded if you already have the earlier version of Windows running: Simply Insert the CD in the CD-ROM and follow the instructions.
• If Windows doesn't recognize some of your hardware, check the vendor's website for drivers.
• To validate your Windows (To confirm whether it is not Pirated or not), Go to Microsoft's Official Website provided in External Links Section in this Article, and download any of the Microsoft Product available for free except Windows Live Messenger. The Website will ask you to download a tiny program, which provides you with a code named under [Validation Code], when executed, and you have to Enter or simply Copy-Paste that code into the Field of Validation Code on Microsoft's Website, which appears when you are going to download something from it.
• If you have any questions regarding Windows Installation or this article, please Discuss them with us by Clicking on the Link [Discuss This Page], which appears at both Top and Bottom of the Page.
• If you encounter any difficulties installing, Windows Setup will give you technical information about the error, which can help determine its cause. Check the troubleshooter on Microsoft Official Website for assistance with common installation problems.
• Don't forget to set your boot priority in your BIOS. Most of the time, BIOS is set to read Floppy, HDD, and THEN CD-ROM. You will need to set your boot priority to load the CD-ROM before Floppy and HDD.
• Make sure you Keyboard is connected to your computer properly, as it does all of the job, until the installation is complete.

 

Warnings

• If you are re-installing Windows make sure you Back-up (Keep the Copies of Important documents, music, applications in a Safe Place such as in Removable Storage Devices such as USB, CD, Floppy).
• Also make sure you have all the driver Cds for all your Hardware (Printers, Ethernet Adapters, Modem, Video Cards etc).
• Reformatting a Hard-Drive will erase everything from it. Backup your important programs before you begin.
• This Procedure for Windows Installation is same except Windows 95 and Previous Versions.
• Do not install Windows multiple times on the same Partition, or on the same partition as another operating system.
• Do not attempt to install Windows on a system that does not meet the minimum requirements.
• Be sure to Activate Windows within 30 days of installation, otherwise the system will not allow you to log on until Activation is complete.

 

Things You'll Need

1. A Microsoft Windows Setup CD to Install Windows.
2. A CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-ROM/DVD-RW.
3. A Removable Storage Device to store your Back-up.
4. An Internet Connection to Update Windows.
5. 300 Mhz Intel or AMD CPU
6. 128 Megabytes of system RAM
7. 1.5 Gigabytes of available drive space
8. Super VGA 800x600 Display Adapter
9. CD or DVD-ROM
10. Keyboard and mouse, or other pointing devices
11. Network Interface Adapter required for Internet and Network Connectivity

Married to the Mobile

Powerful new phone devices are rewriting the rules of the social networking game

While Walter Zai was in South Africa watching wild animals recently, people around the world were watching him. Zai, a 37-year old Swiss engineer, used his mobile phone to send out constant updates and images from his safari for an online audience.

“You feel like you are instantly broadcasting your own life and experiences to your friends at home, and to anyone in the world who wants to join,” said Zai, who used a new online service called Kyte to create his digital diary.

The social networking phenomenWhen on is leaving the confines of PC. Powerful new mobile devices are allowing people to send round-the-clock updates about their vacations, moods or even their latest haircut.

New online services, with names such as Twitter, Radar, Zaiku, hope people will use their ever-present gadget to share (or, inevitably, to over-share) the details of their lives in the same way they have accustomed to doing on websites such as MySpace.

Unlike the old networking sites, which are still largely used on PCs, these new phone-oriented services are bringing the burgeoning culture of exhibitionism to more exotic and more personal locations. They are also contributing to the general barrage of white noise and information overload – something that even some participants say they feel ambivalent about.

But such services have the same addictive appeal for young people as Blackberry’s do for busy professionals, said Howard Hartenbaum, a partner at the venture capital firm Draper Richards, an investor in Kyte. “Kids want to be connected to their friends at all times,” Hartenbaum said. “They can’t do that when you turn off the computer.”

Central to the technology of Kyte and similar services is the marriage of the mobile phones and the Net. Users download Kyte software for their phones at www.kyte.tv and can send their photos and videos- however grainy- form the phone to their online Kyte ‘channel’.

Viewers can tune in to the programming on their own phones or on the Kyte site or they can have the channel show up on their own website or social network page. In some cases, the video stream can be watched live. Those who are watching the same channel can swap messages with each other and the channel’s creator, even if he or she is silently stalking wild animals.

Daniel Graf, Kyte’s 32-year old co-founder, sees each of the world’s hundreds of millions of camera-phone owners as a potential television broadcaster. “To run a television network used to require expensive cameras, a satellite connection and studios,” Graf said. “But the production costs have gone down to zero. Now you can share your life over a mobile phone, and someone is always connected, watching.”

Another company proving the potency of the sharing impulse is Twitter, which is also based in San Francisco and has lately captured the enthusiasm of bloggers and tech insiders. Twitter, spun off this month from a company called Obvious, lets people broadcast short text messages from their phones and computers to those of friends and strangers.

For many Twitter users, text messages have become a form of self-expression and public performance. They are flinging messages that would seem to be of slight interest to anyone: notifications that they are online or listening to music, or going shopping, or even performing activities of in historically move discreet nature.

Twitter’s fans include some high-profile technology pundits and even John Edwards, the former senator who uses it to inform followers of his whereabouts on the presidential campaign trail.

Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of twitter, said high-speed social networking can become a money-maker. “I believe it can be profitable,” Dorsey said. But it is not entirely clear how, and how soon,” he added. Twitter, which says, it has several hundred thousand users, could ultimately consider displaying advertisements, or charging frequent users especially those who send out promotional messages. Social networking sites such as Facebook are largely supported by advertising.

Mobile-phone companies themselves are trying to get into mobile networking game. Chief among them is Helio, a year-old mobile phone carrier aimed at young people. A joint venture of Earthlink and SK Telecom of South-Korea and based in Los Angeles, is making social networking a central part of its business and is betting it will be fundamental to attracting new subscribers.

Helio has an exclusive deal to offer MySpace features on its phones, which tend to be slicker and more multimedia-focused than those from more mainstream cellphone companies. At the end of 2006 (the last time Helio publicized its public figures), 70% of its 70,000 members used MySpace, said Michael Grossi, senior vice-president of strategy and business development at Helio.

To further capitalize on the trend, Helio plans to introduce a handset that has a fold-out Standard keyboard for easier typing and socializing.

Tiny Pictures, a San Francisco startup company, is taking a slightly different approach. Its service, Radar, is similar to Kyte in that users send their camera-phone photos to the internet or to the phones of other Radar members. But users share their pictures only with friends they have invited to view them.

John Poisson, chief executive of tiny pictures, said the service was explicitly intended to be private because mobile social networking Works best and will be most lucrative if users know the people they are sharing pictures with.

“Exhibitionism will exist as long as there is voyeurism,” he said. “But we are in the business of helping people stay in touch.”

Of course, there is such a thing as being too much in touch. Zai was disconcerted by the instant feedback to his safari photos that popped up on his phone. “Getting all kinds of communication in such a remote place is a bit confusing,” he said. “I kept responding, ‘I don’t really have the time to talk to you now. I have to make photos of these elephants.’”

Over the Air

The problem with really great technology is that sometimes it has no users. It sounds like an oxymoron but unfortunately, it’s true. The gadget graveyard is littered with products that were wonderful but did not gather critical momentum to become world-class bestsellers. Betamax, Minidisk, 3D, Voice recognition – there are multiple examples of really astonishing technologies that did not take off.

It is that famous ‘tipping point’ problem where every new product or innovation needs a certain number of users to embrace it before it becomes the de-facto standard in its sphere. Sometimes it needs a different kind of company with certain marketing skills to get the point across. Apple has done that before with the iPod – and they are attempting it again with the media streamers.

Apple with its iPod didn’t invent the portable music player, nor did it bring about the revolution of the MP3 format. All it did was to see the potential of an existing product, simplified the usage, made the device really sleek and shiny and unleashed it onto the unsuspecting consumers with dramatic marketing. The rest is history. Pretty much the same thing is happening in the world of media streamers. A number of companies make multiple versions of it and Apple is entering the market with its own version – the simple, smooth and sleek Apple TV.

Collectors

Media streamers at their most basic level are pure collectors. Today, most homes have multiple devices on which we keep many things. We have music collections, photos, movies, audio files, recorded TV shows, podcasts, video clips – but they are strewn all over the place. Most of them reside on a computer, a laptop or portable media player. Yet, most of our real viewing is done on a TV with a DVD player and a cable connection jammed into it. What if all of this could be centralized – where you could listen to a song, tune into an Internet radio station, fire up a movie or a video clip, listen to podcasts or browse an entire photo album – anywhere in the house. With no wires, no cables and a simple setup – that’s what a media streamer would do for you. Fundamentally a media streaming device will access files from multiple sources and play it anywhere you want – your bedroom, the living room or your home theatre.

Diversity

You can achieve this with an Xbox360 and Dlink, Netgear have their own versions. Microsoft media center can do this with media extenders, some companies have built this capability into a DVD player and now we have the Apple TV. Once again form takes precedence over function as this pizza box appliance is just about an inch thick, yet surprisingly heavy. Typically it is devoid of any unnecessary buttons (not even power-up); all the connections are at the back and the famous Apple branding takes its pride of place on top. It comes with a 40 GB hard drive inside and works on 802.11g and 802.11n wireless. I was up and about and running in less than 3 steps and was able to access and play most of my media files from three different computers.

However

It is not all good. The Apple TV is fairly typical of most products from the company – big on build up, huge on design, simplified to idiot-proof levels but short on functionality. Let’s save that for a detailed review of the Apple TV, the Hava and also do a comparison of the best Media Streamers in the market. Streamers will eventually be commonplace. It’s a natural evolution of home entertainment devices and is going to be a critical component of the wireless home, basically an idea whose time has come.

Which OS are you?

Windows Vista requires major hardware upgrades, yet there are good reasons to stay with it. Mac OSX has stabilized a great deal more than Vista. Plus it looks great. So, which Operating System (OS) is for you?

It is always difficult to get used to completely different way of life. This holds true for absolutely everything including Computers Operating system (OS). Solo readers you will have to decide: when should you switch to Microsoft Windows Vista? Should you?

According to several users and experts, Vista is not too different from its predecessors and the learning curve isn’t as much as was expected. But the changes to the user interface mean that there will be the number of new things to learn and a number of old ones to unlearn.

This is what you decision will hinge on. Would you rather learn a new system that is buggy and still unstable or one that has long been acknowledged as the best, but has only recently come around to having a large enough third party software support base to appeal to everyday users? Of course, we are referring to the Apple Mac OS X.

But this is tricky, certainly not easy. Both OSes have their pluses and minuses. Windows has a very large pool community that is taking the torch ahead and there are plenty of third-party vendors who have created and continue to create newer and better programmes for the windows platform. On the other hand, it is an extremely unstable operating system and one that is prone to virus attacks and crashes more often than Mac.

But the real deciding factor would be your usage pattern. Before we start comparing some specific packages for the users, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of both OSes.

UI and ease of use

If Windows XP was the ugly duckling, Windows Vista is supposed to be the swan. A major facelift It has ensured that Vista is now far better looking and more intuitive than previous versions of Windows. Whether this is true or not, only time will tell. One of the things that Macs have always boasted of is a good UI and ease of use. If you are switching from Windows, It could take time to get used to.

A Mac keyboard layout is not identical to that of a Windows computer’s. We are not referring to the different positions of the Page Up or the Delete keys. There are new keys here such as Command and Function that do more than tertiary application launches. Unlike on a windows computer, there is no Start button either. The Apple logo to the top-left takes care of most system-related functions like Recent Programmes, Shut Down and Restart. Also, most Mac programmes can be left running in the background without their taking up screen space. Only the active programme’s toolbar will be visible on screen. At times, when no document or file is open for that programme, you may not even know that the programme is open. That’s when the dock is handy. Every program is highlighted on the dock with a small arrow under it. Clicking on the icon will bring the programme to the front and offer access to toolbar and all other functions you want to use. Once you are past this (and this will take a little while to get comfortable with it), using the Mac is a breeze. There are some advantages that a Windows offers over this, however. For one, your active programmes are visible in the form of windows on your taskbar. Convenient, but in case of smaller screens (even 15-inch ones), it can be a challenge to not have too many windows open and lose sight of unnecessary ones that hog processing power.

Security has long been a major concern for most Windows users. With a large number of viruses doing the rounds, anti-virus software is a must. And that costs a neat sum, as it does with a Mac. The real difference is that a Mac is perceived to be much safer and prone to fewer virus attacks. I am not saying that it is virus free, but it’s not as problematic as a Windows machine would be. With Vista, this is set to change. Improved firewall features and better encryption promise safer ride. Heading over to actual functions and programmes that one uses, here’s comparison of the various features of both OSes.

Range of software available

If the Mac has one Achilles’ heel, this would it. There just isn’t enough third party software for a Mac compared with a Windows computer. While all essentials are available, it’s the smaller and more specialized ones that can be tough to find. And it’s not just about software. If you are a gamer, you may just have a tough time finding (or waiting) for a Mac version. Once available, though, it’ll be miles ahead of anything you could imagine in terms of performance and looks.

For most users, a word processor, a spreadsheet processor and a mail client are important. And if MS office is your holy grail, don’t worry. Office for Mac takes care of that. The familiar Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are all available in Mac versions. (The outlook parallel for Mac is called Entourage and it works just as well). Without getting too much into the specifics, let us say that these are identical to the Windows programmes and just as robust. Entourage may, in fact, be a bit better than Outlook, with features such as Project Center that allow you to view all activity around a particular project in one area. Of course, you have to set it up, but it is a useful tool. For the publishing industry or the graphic artists, Mac has been the computer of choice for long, thanks to superior graphics and better performance and there is no changing this.

With the introduction of Intel-based Macs, there is greater expandability thanks to the fact that you can run both Windows and OSX on the same computer. All you need is software like Parallels Desktop. Ensure, however, that you have the requisite hardware to run a dual-boot computer.

Wireless connectivity

AirPort Extreme sounds like a fast bus to the Airport. It is in fact, Apple’s Wi-Fi adapter. Now, it’s built into most new machines. User experience says that it works a lot better than any Wi-Fi adapter seen on Windows machine did. Logging on to a wireless network is a piece of cake and a Mac brings back more networks than a Windows machine does.

Spotlight

Windows XP had Find and Vista has search, But OSX has spotlight. It’s the desktop search tool that indexes everything on your computer. The search is so fast that by the time you have finished typing your keyword, the results have started appearing. And you can choose how you want to sort them. It sounds basic and it is. But it is powerful enough to be considered intuitive and necessary. Quite addictive, really.

iLife, iWork, .Mac

These are some of the productivity and fun software suites available with Mac ( all need to be bought separately).The .Mac is an online service that gives you an e-mail address and web space to backup data and host your own site. Why would you do that? Because everything then becomes simpler since the user-end integration has already been done on your Mac. . Mac members can create private, ad-free online communities for family, friends and closed-user groups to share, coordinate and communicate. The entire group can post files and other data to iDisk, publish web pages and post links to other sites. The integration extends to sharing dates and events with others using iCal calendar.

iLife and iWork are productivity tools that include a photo viewer, a DVD viewer and even a website creator. Perhaps the most interesting is the Garage Band that lets you create your own audio, including Podcasts. Yes, all this is also possible on a Windows machine and you have specialized free software to facilitate this. But the free software is not always upto the mark and you do need to know a lot about a lot to do some things well.

OSX Panther

The current version of OSX is the Tiger. The next version (expected by October 2007) is called Panther. Panther has new features like Time Machine, an automated system that backs up everything such as music, photos, movies and documents. Time Machine has the ability to take you back in time to restore your system in case of a crash, and, at least, be at a point close to the crash. Additionally, there are expected to be improved versions of Spotlight and additional features like Spaces that let you organize your windows into different groups on the screen.

There are, however, plenty of reasons to stay with Windows, including the cost. While a Windows machine that has Vista on it may cost about Rs.60000 (varying with the configuration and the manufacturer), a Mac with similar specs would cost about 30% more. And despite all arguments about having to relearn a new OS, Vista will offer some familiarity if you upgrade. It really is a choice.

The Big Picture

Recreating the magic of movies in your own home is no longer a dream. Here are some options to help you do this

While you can’t help how a movie turns out, you can surely tailor the experience, especially when you are trying to recreate the magic of the movies in your own home.

Where to start?

Today, there are many options for setting up a home-theatre system. If you are very particular about how every component will look and what its exact function will be, you can opt for a custom-assembled system. This will take some researching since the variables involved are plenty. If you were to find a good Bose, Sonodyne or such signature store, you could easily get help from them. It would still be recommended that you do your research beforehand.

There are also out-of-the-box systems available from leading manufacturers that you can hook up, and these certainly cost a whole lot less. Of course, the quality you get is only as good. Most of the out-of-the-box systems do not bother much with the size of your room when putting together the components, thus rendering some of the speakers inadequate. The wiring, which is also an important part of the set-up, is often not as good as when you have gone out and assembled your own components. But if time and budget are constraints, the ready-to-use ones are a good option.

Something Point One

2.1 ch (channel), 3.1 ch, 5.1 ch and, now even 7.1 ch, these are the buzzwords you will hear when shopping for a home theatre system. Simply put, the format consists of three speakers across the front and two speakers in the rear. The .1 is a sixth channel called an LFE that is sent to a subwoofer.

So, in a 3.1 or a 7.1, the .1 remains constant but the 3 or 7 defines how many speakers there are in the system and how they are to be distributed. The wiring for these needs to go all around the room and when setting up the speakers, it is important to know the size of your room and choose the speakers that have the best reach. To really make your sound system work, you would also need to worry about things like thick concrete walls with no windows, solid-core doors with yards of weather-stripping and sound absorbing baffles on the walls and ceiling. Chances are that most of us won’t have the time, inclination or budget required to do this. Hence, we make do with five speakers arranged at the right places.

Key Components

A TV set, a DVD player, five speakers (we’ll use 5.1 as the norm), receiver and the right cabling are what will be needed. Instead of a PLASMA/LCD set, you could also use a projector that is hooked up to your DVD player and a wall-mounted screen to make the effect bigger. But the components for this are costlier because High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) output will be required. HDMI is a direct digital connection that can carry digital high-definition video as well as digital multi-channel audio. By eliminating the conversion to analogue signals, it delivers perfect picture and sound quality, completely free from noise (distortion).

While the experience will be greatly enhanced if you used a projector set-up, getting the right projector itself could run into more than Rs. 1 lakh. Unless you are a certified movie buff, it’s not recommended. Commonly referred to as front-projection systems, these are for the connoisseur with deep pockets. If you are on a budget, a large-screen TV set or Plasma screen should do just fine.

Once you have the components in place, it is important to check whether your room is right for this. If you have a choice, go for a rectangular one with as few doors and windows as possible. Or you could place your components in such a way that they form a rectangle with you at the centre on the shorter side, opposite the TV set (or whatever display you are using). Now, it’s time to hit the shops and get your rig. Before this, though get a fix on your upper-limit budget, and stick to it. It’s easy to succumb to temptation.

For example, a salesman once told me that I should try out the new Monster cables that would greatly improve the sound and picture quality because they carry digital signal from the DVD player, priced at about Rs.6000 for a set of two cables.

Remember that the reason you are doing all this is to get a fee of theatre in your house. It’s important to get as many aspects right as possible. Bare tiles, marble or any wooden flooring will reflect sound, causing a loss in quality of the audio. It’s advisable that you place a carpet, or at least a large rug to fill as much of the room as possible. It is also a good idea to have some paintings or décor items in the room to absorb unwanted noise. Hang thick curtains to keep out the light and reduce glares from the screen. But if the room is pitch dark, watching a long movie can strain the eyes. To correct this, you could buy dimmers for lights and reach a middle point. We never said this was going to be easy, did we?

Check These Out

• Bose is one of the preferred brands, and not without reason. Of all their systems, it is worth checking out the new GSX Home Entertainment System. It can store upto 200 hours of data digitally and new Gemstone speaker system makes the pieces smaller, yet retains the output. It comes with acoustimass module, a media centre, two speakers and 3.2.1 universal remote control. Although the system does not have five speakers, it claims to deliver the same effect. The media centre combines a progressive scan DVD/CD player, FM tuner and offers inputs for three other sources. All this for a nifty price tag of approx. Rs. 94900 (taxes & levies extra).
• Pioneer is another manufacturer that is not often considered when looking for a home theatre system. They have some great components on offer; including 42 and 50 inch plasma TV sets that bring a 5.1 ch home theatre system wit it free. Although prohibitive for some buyers, the cost of Rs. 1.6 lakh for the 50-inch TV set and Rs. 1.3 lakh for the 42-inch TV set do make a good deal. The screens can be wall-mounted as well as kept on a tabletop. The set-up includes five 60-watt speakers (four towers and a subwoofer) in addition to an HDMI-ready DVD player. The cost of this set-up is otherwise approximately Rs. 30000 but free when you buy the TV set!
• For a high-end system, you could also visit Yamaha and the Bang & Olufsen (B&O) shops. They will be able to offer customized solutions based on your room set-up and size. Most homes do not have good acoustics in their rooms. That’s where the solutions from Yamaha or B&O will help. These solutions, however good they may be, are not cheap and start at around Rs. 1.5 lakh for a great set-up that includes speakers, amplifier and a good player. The TV set is your own.
• If the Bose, Pioneer or Yamaha systems are beyond your budget, you can try the Sonodyne genie 2 HTS that has a receiver with seven analogue, one optical and two digital inputs. Simply put, you can plug everything you have into this and use the speakers to output it. Priced at approximately Rs. 62000 (all inclusive), it includes five satellite speakers and one main speaker with the universal remote. Best suited for small or medium-sized rooms (upto 300 sq. ft.), it delivers great audio. The video quality would depend on your DVD player and your TV set. These are not included in Rs. 62k!
• And if this, too, is out of your budget, you could opt for one of the many out-of-the-box solutions offered by manufacturers such as Sony or Philips. While both these manufacturers also offer high-end solutions, it is their low-end ones that attract their budget buyers. The Cineos HTS9800W/55 from Philips is a brilliant HD-capable set-up priced at about Rs. 60k. It includes wireless rear speakers. Among some of the better budget offerings is Sony’s DAV DZ720, which comes with five speakers, including four tall ones (so you don’t do any permanent fixtures on your walls), a DVD player and a woofer. All this comes for just about Rs. 30k – not a bad deal for a 5.1 ch system, which requires no installation time.

In most cases, the installation will be handled by the manufacturer and they will bring around three metres of cable (variable depending on your deal), but will not be helpful if you need to get casing done to conceal the wires.

The list is endless. But with these basics, you have a starting point. You could also start with a small system and build up to a big one. Collect your components and learn from your mistakes. And let me know about these mistakes.

The Power of W i d e

Nineteen inches of real estate on your desk to view all the stuff on your computer; could anyone ask for more?

Hands on Asus VW192 Monitor

The ASUS VW192, one of the newest 19- inch flatscreen monitors in the market, is a good companion for most multimedia needs. A 19- inch monitor is not really necessary for normal use, but for multimedia needs like image or video editing, the extra space a 19-inch offers over a 15-inch or even 17-inch is considerable.

In case of the VW192, there are a few more features to entice the user such as the auto adjust facility that starts as soon as you power up the monitor. Taking in the ambient light conditions and the inherent settings on your computer, the monitor powers up to give you the best colour and resolution settings. This saves you time if you have a computer that maxes out the resolution at more than 1440 x 900.

You can use the VW192 using a direct serial connector on a Windows XP machine or a DVI to VGA adapter on a Mac. The colour rendition on the Windows machine is superior to the Mac and to even fit in the higher-resolution Mac, it took some time and adjustment. The monitor also implements ‘Splendid Video Intelligence Technology’ that fine-tines the colour, brightness, contrast and sharpness of images in different video applications, and offers five preset video selection modes via a hotkey and three skin-tone options providing video quality comparable to the best TV sets.

The VW192 is a widescreen monitor with a 16:10 golden ratio and offers a wider viewing angle than most other monitors, making it well-suited for a variety of uses. The monitor also offers 5 milliseconds of response time, making it great for video viewing.

Adding to the package is the presence of two 1-watt speakers. Not much would you say, but in a monitor this sleek, they are barely noticeable. You will have to really follow directions in the manual to find them. They are not for the audiophile, but they well for the alerts and basic purposes, eliminating the need for external speakers. So, you have already freed up space with a slim TFT monitor and, now, some more because the speakers are bundled. Not a bad deal!

The VW192 not only works well, but also looks good. It has a sleek black finish with the buttons so well placed below the screen that they can be a little tough to find at times.

A small but important addition to the monitor is the cable holder to get rid of tangling wires and cables and keep desks neat. The monitor also sports a cover at the back that helps keep the cables and connections hidden from the naked eye. It may not seem important, but even when you adjust the view of the monitor, which can happen quite often, it’s a bonus not to entangle yourself in wires.

If you happen to be looking for a flatscreen, TFT widescreen monitor, the VW192 is definitely worth considering. There are many options, but the quality that this one displays is simply a cut above the rest.

Price: about Rs. 13,000 (plus tax).

Keep Spam out of your Inbox

Do you know that nine out of every ten e-mails delivered over the internet is spam? Gmail, Yahoo and other such portals are continuously improving their anti-spam algorithms but the problem is far from getting over.

And spammers are finding more innovative ways to deliver spam – they now hide the advertisement text inside the image attachments which sometimes trick the spam filters of the e-mail program.

Junk e-mail messages hurt the productivity. The only foolproof method to prevent e-mail spam is to never ever share your e-mail address with anyone, even your wife. If that sounds a bit too impractical, here are some other ‘practical’ suggestions:

Don’t share your personal e-mail address on the Internet mailing lists and discussion boards. These are the favourite hunting grounds for spam-bots and e-mail harvesters. Always create a separate ID for places where you expect to get spammed.

Some websites require visitors to register with their e-mail address before letting them in. you type in your e-mail address, they send you an e-mail to confirm the address and then allow you in.

Would you share your personal e-mail address with a third-party website just to view their webpage? This may sometimes lead to unsolicited marketing e-mails entering your inbox. Luckily, we have a neat solution here – use a disposable e-mail address.

A service called 10MinuteMail.com creates a temporary e-mail address for you which expire after, as the name suggests, exactly ten minutes. You can successfully register on websites using this use-n-throw e-mail address and keep your private e-mail inbox safe and clean. All the junk mails sent to this disposable e-mail address, after it has expired, will bounce back to the spammer.

In situations where you want people to reach you over e-mail but are still wary of sharing your address with them, a clever alternative is Contactify.com that turns your e-mail address into a web contact form. Contactify creates a special webpage for your e-mail address. Anyone can contact you via e-mail through this webpage but your actual address remains hidden. You can share this webpage URL in message boards, mailing lists or e-mail footers without worrying about spam.