This is a listing of all the video posts we have made on the NOC, feel free to browse around. If you are looking for something specific use the search feature. It's much faster.
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Last Updated: 01/18/2009 11:07 AM
Google is once again pushing their Chrome and Chrome OS products hard again, so it's only fitting that I now get to add this video to the website. People see Chrome as a killer of Microsoft and Apple in the OS market. The thing that people don't understand however is that Chrome OS is just a web browser and that the Chrome browser exists for only one reason... and that is to get you to browse more web and use more Google products.
How Google makes their money is through advertising, every web page with a Google ad on it is a chance that you might click on one of those ads and make some money for them. If they can get you to browse more of the web with that content on it, then you are more likely to see those ads. Fu...
Google has released Chrome OS in beta form for developer preview and testing. I have managed to get ahold of a copy in virtual machine disk format to review. Now let's get something right immediately here. The Chrome OS is still in beta (pre beta I would really say), and is in no way intended for everyday use. As a result alot of the things I point out here may change or not even exist in the end product. However one thing I do know for sure is the purpose of the OS itself. Google has made it clear that the Chrome OS is intended for specially designed netbooks, and will be for browsing the internet only. Meaning there will be no high end desktops, or CPU intense applications such as video editors.
In my opinion I find the concept...
If your system no longer starts windows, you can still recover your files before you reload the system. All you need is an Ultimate boot CD, and an external hard drive.
What you need to do this is a couple of things
An ultimate boot CD
An external hard drive to store your recovered files onto
With these two items you can start up your system and copy your files safely to your external drive for safe keeping, or to copy back onto a new computer, etc. The first thing you will want to do is set your system to boot from a CD (Check the first video below). Then you can place your Ultimate boot CD in the system and start from there.
I recomm...
Probably the most powerful tool built into Windows is the registry editor. As Spiderman's uncle said... "With great power comes great responsibility!" The registry editor is nothing to kid around with. With it you can change or create virtually any software or hardware setting on your system directly. However if you delete or set something incorrectly Windows won't complain until it's too late.
So before you start fooling with the registry editor, watch my video on it and learn a bit about how the tool works first. Then once you are ready, open the registry editor and make a backup of your entire registry. As I said before, and I say again, You can easily stop windows from working by setting a value wrong! This can caus...
Now that all your computer components are combined you now have Voltron! Defender of the universe... or just a computer that needs to be started up, one or the other. Chances are the later, so we have a few things to do before we actually turn this thing on.
First make sure that all your connections are solid and in place, and that everything is screwed in. We have one fan connector to hook up from the hard drive power cable, and remember to install the extra USB connector on the back panel if you want it. Now you will want to start planning how to put your wires out of the way. Normally you do this prior to hooking everything up, but In this case we do not have any way to route the c...
After getting all your parts together we can now we can get to the fun part! Assembling your computer one step at a time.
The physical process like I said before I pretty easy, but so you know what to expect here is the quick run down on it all:
We already preped the case for parts
Install the motherboard
Installation of the Processor
Install the power supply
Install the RAM
Install the CD Drive
Installing the Hard drive
Installing the Graphics/Video card
Then we can boot for the first time and install the operating system.
For each step I have a video below that goes into more detail....
Building your own computer is not as difficult as you may think. The reality of the situation is that putting the parts together is very easy. The only tricky part is making sure that all the parts would work together. That comes with experience and research, and that's for another set of videos altogether. This series will show you how to physically get all the components in a computer together, to build a working unit.
If you have never built a computer before and want to give it a try let me recommend that you find a current example online, and read or watch it a couple times before starting. Further I would recommend buying the same parts that are in the example video/document so that you can follow along easily.
In t...
The Kingston SNV225-S2 provides excellent performance for the buck compared to other SSD models of the same speed. I purchased this 64GB model for around $160 at the time, and according to the specificiations it should get around 220mbs read, and 140mbs write speed.
Just like other SSD drives I've seen this one comes in a 2.5 inch mobile format. I do question as to if making these drives in a standard 3.5 inch format would provide more storage for less cost, as some people like myself will be using these in desktop systems.
The casing of the drive is metal as I would expect it to be, and besides it's performance there is really nothing else to note. Feel free to watch my video review to see the drive in action.
The short of it, bang for the buck the Xacti VPC-CG10 has more features than other video cameras in it's price range. That's exactly why I purchased it when I needed to upgrade my video camera for The Noc. I did'nt have much (or really any) money to spend on a camera, but needed something that was going to shoot in HD and mount to a tripod.
Doing some searching for HD video cameras I found several in the $400 and up range that would give me great quality, and everything I needed. However that was out of my price range, and I was wondering what the lower end market might offer.
So after looking over some models I found the Xacti on Amazon for around $175 at the time (Link below if you wan...
If you are serious about removing a virus from your computer these days, you need to have some serious tools. Viruses and spyware these days come out so fast they can break right past even the best antivirus products, and are crafted so they merge and become a part of your operating system. Scanning your system after getting infected does not always remove an infection, and to those who don't have the know how or tools will have to reload their system, or take it to a repair shop to be cleaned.
In most cases if an antivirus or spyware product cannot remove the virus while windows is running, you can use a boot cd to startup in a safe copy of windows and remove the virus. The reason this works is because you are taking out the vir...
If you ever had a system that was running a bit slow you might have thought about simply adding more ram to it, however that is not always the fix. Using some tools like process explorer and task manager can help you determine if your performance issue is due to lack of RAM, or another issue.
There are several ways in which you can test a desktop computer power supply. My perfered method is to use a power supply tester. This is because it's much faster, simpler, and there is less risk of having a component burn out or getting a nasty shock yourself. You of course can test a power supply using a volt meter as well. A volt meter will give you more information about the power supply, but in most cases is not needed. The only time I use a volt meter is when I suspect the issue could be the power supply even when my power supply tester shows that everything is fine.
With a power supply tester all you have to do is connect the main power connector and the processor connector from the power supply to the tester. Then apply p...
If you have a small form factor Dell desktop replacing the power supply is not too different than that of a normal desktop computer. The biggest difference is just the power supply itself. The process itself is basically the same. With these small form factor desktops the trick is you just need to get the power supply, unfortunately they are only available through the manufacturer themselves (or ebay), and cost an arm and a leg.
However once you do get ahold of one it's just a matter of disconnecting the leads from the power supply to the motherboard, and hard drive. Then you can remove the power supply itself and install a new one. You can then reverse the removal process by connecting all the leads to the board and hard drive.<...
Here's a quick tip/trick that will extend the life of your mouse, or even save you from having to buy a new mouse for quite some time.
If your mouse jumps around, stutters on movement, feels jerky or sluggish the chances are it is dirty. You can clean your mouse in just a few minutes by doing only a few simple things.
On ball mice take the ball out and clean the wheels inside as well as the ball itself. Dirt builds up in there and causes the ball to get stuck or move stiffly. This causes the stuttering and unresponsiveness of the mouse. This same thing happens with optical mice, however it is usually some dust or hair that gets caught in the sensor area causing the mouse to jump all over the place.
Watch the video...
Ever wonder what all is involved in replacing a graphics card in your computer? There is'nt much to it, it's just a few simple things you need to do.
First you need to know what kind of graphics card you can put in your system. For most motherboards you can look directly on the board near the graphics card slot (The one closest to the top of the case) there it is usually written what kind of slot it is. If it is not written, you can tell by the color of the port the general type of card you need. Blue ports are normally PCI Express, however I have seen some that are Yellow. Brown is for AGP ports, and white is for normal PCI ports. If none of this helps you figure out what your system needs, or you want more exact information on ...
I would say roughly 90% of the reasons I get called out for network and internet connectivity issues are due to simple reasons.
Going through and checking these simple configuration issues yourself can save you the trouble of calling someone to come fix it or waiting for your ISP's technical support to answer the phone.
I use these same methods myself when I find that my internet connection is down or not working, and it has saved me from calling my ISP numerous times.
Ironically speaking of ISP technical support, several times a customer will contact their ISP first before calling me, and I still surprised that many of these things are not checked. In some cases the technical support representative will actually ...
Built into your Windows operating system is a utility called MSConfig. This program allows you to remove extra startup entries, and disable extra services from starting up. It is a very powerful tool, and can make cleaning up entries very quick and simple. However you should use some care with this utility, as you can easily disable critical programs and services.
You will want to focus on the Startup and Services tabs in msconfig. In addition if you are not sure what a program is, or does it is best not to remove it. Further if you are a complete beginner to tweaking your system or adjusting system changes I highly recommend making a backup of your files before proceeding.
Removing entries from startup is as simple as un...
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