What is data recovery?

By Jakob Jelling
http://www.sitetube.com

Data recovery is the retrieval of inaccessible or contaminated data from media that has been damaged in some way. Data recovery is being increasingly used and is an important process nowadays.

There has been a lot of progress in increasing the memory capacity of data storage devices. Therefore data loss from any one incident also tends to be very high. The relevance of lost data can vary greatly. Maybe you have had the experience of storing a homework assignment on a floppy disk only to have it missing on the day the assignment in due.
read more from "What is data recovery?"

How to Build a PC
A breakdown of the technology and pieces used to build a personal computer

The first thing a computer needs is the motherboard, a square or oblong shaped circuit board that controls all components of the computer. This is the basis of the computer and provides connections for all other devices. Located on the motherboard is a large microchip called the Central Processing Unit (CPU). This computer chip acts as the brain of the system and calculates billions of instructions sent to it from all other devices. When someone refers to their computer in terms of megahertz or gigahertz, this references the speed at which the CPU can process instructions. The higher the number, the faster the computer can perform a given task.
read more from "How to Build a PC"

Seven Tips To Keep Your Pc Running At Peak Performance.

By Dave Fraser http://www.pcsandthings.com/ (c) Copyright 2004

Did you know that very soon after you start using your computer it begins to slow down and loses that responsive, “fresh out of the box” sort of feel.

You’ve just started up your new super-speed, top of the range computer. You start surfing the internet, downloading a few new programs to try out and then a few weeks later you’re working away and you notice it just doesn’t seem as fast as it was before. Seven Tips To Keep Your Pc Running At Peak Performance.

By Dave Fraser http://www.pcsandthings.com/ (c) Copyright 2004

Did you know that very soon after you start using your computer it begins to slow down and loses that responsive, “fresh out of the box” sort of feel.

You’ve just started up your new super-speed, top of the range computer. You start surfing the internet, downloading a few new programs to try out and then a few weeks later you’re working away and you notice it just doesn’t seem as fast as it was before.

If that’s ever happened to you, then there are a few things you should know which I’ll be covering in this article that will get the pep back into your PC.

read more from "Seven Tips To Keep Your Pc Running At Peak Performance."

Computer Ports: What You Should Know to Defend Yourself, by Aaron Turpen of Aaronz WebWorkz
The number one way a computer is exposed for nefarious uses online is by exploiting open ports on that system.
Ports are names or “handles” given to various network connections your computer uses to communicate with other computers. For example, your connection to the Internet is through a port protocol called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) using well-known ports such as HTTP or “port 80.” While it sounds complicated, the way all this works is actually fairly simple.

Computer Ports: What You Should Know to Defend Yourself, by Aaron Turpen of Aaronz WebWorkz
The number one way a computer is exposed for nefarious uses online is by exploiting open ports on that system.
Ports are names or “handles” given to various network connections your computer uses to communicate with other computers. For example, your connection to the Internet is through a port protocol called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) using well-known ports such as HTTP or “port 80.” While it sounds complicated, the way all this works is actually fairly simple.

A program (called a “daemon” in Unix or a “service” in Windows) “listens” or watches a specific port. So, for instance, a web server daemon will watch port 80 for queries from outside the server. When a query comes in, the daemon immediately responds by accepting the query and sending the requested information.
On a home computer, many of these ports are open by default, many for good reason, but many more for no good reason. Trojan horse programs (software that pretends to be one thing, but is actually another), AdWare (software that runs using online advertising), SpyWare (software that “spies” on your activity in order to target advertising to you, or for other reasons), and other questionable or downright devious programs will listen at unusual ports to send or receive information. Information that you may not want transmitted.

There are several ways to check these ports and ensure that they are OK. The best and easiest is to use a software firewall such as ZoneAlarm (http://www.qksrv.net/click-983614-9925654) to monitor your incoming and outgoing data and alert you to anything suspicious. I highly recommend this route for most users.
If you are a little more technical and/or more adventurous, you can open a command window (MS-DOS window in Windows) and type the command “netstat -an” at the prompt (no quotes) and see a list of currently open ports and the IP addresses associated with them.
Often overlooked, open ports are the easiest and most common way for a hacker, virus, or worm to take advantage of your computer or data. Learning about the open ports on your machine and how to guard them is important.