Category: General IT Stuff

Our Essential Wireless FAQ gets a lot of regular use. So we figured why not try the same thing for powerline networking? If you don’t see your question here, let me know. I can put it in the next FAQ article or in an update to this one. 1. Are all powerline adapters the same? No. Powerline networking suffered through […]

Upgrade Paths Existing OS Upgrade to Windows 2000? Upgrade to Windows XP? Windows 95 Yes No Windows 98 Yes Yes Windows ME No Yes Windows NT 4.0 Workstation Yes Yes Windows 2000 N/A Yes System Requirements: Windows 2000 Professional Hardware Minimum Recommended Processor Pentium 133 Pentium II or better Memory 64 MB 128 MB or more Disk Space Free 650 […]

Type of Memory Description DRAM (Dynamic RAM) Memory that must be refreshed. SRAM (Static RAM) (L1, L2, L3) Does not require refresh. Used for cache memory. SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic RAM) Synced with the CPU clock. 168-pin. DDR (Double Data Rate) SDRAM Data read on rising and falling edge of computer clock to double the bandwidth of SDRAM. 184-pin, 64-bit DIMM. […]

Tool Description or Purpose Compact Tool Box I like to have as small a toolbox as I can that can still carry my most essential tools to work on a computer onsite. Also consider a backpack for easier portability, and put your tools in a roll-up case. ESD Kit or Wrist Strap and Antistatic Bags A kit that includes the […]

SCSI Standard Number/Name Bus Width Throughput (MBps) Cable Pin Count Signaling Max Devices (Incl. Host Adapter) Max Length (M) SCSI-1/ “Regular” SCSI 8 5 50 SE 8 6 HVD 8 25 SCSI-2/ Fast SCSI Fast narrow 8 10 50 SE 8 3­ HVD 8 25 SCSI-2/ Fast wide SCSI 16 20 68 SE 16 3 HVD 16 25 SCSI-3/SPI Ultra […]

FAT16 Advantage Disadvantage Compatibility with all Microsoft OS and some UNIX Root folder limited to 512 entries MS-DOS boot floppy can access 4 GB theoretical size 2 GB maximum in Windows XP Efficient for small volumes (< 256 MB) Boot sector not backed up No file system security No compression scheme FAT32 Advantage Disadvantage No limit on number of root […]

Interface Standard Speed Notes IDE/ATA 2.1 MBps – 8.3 MBps 528 MB limit PIO modes 0-2 ATA-2/Fast ATA 16.6 MBps > 528 MB, 4 IDE devices PIO modes 3-4 DMA 1-2 ATA-3 Nominal speed increase SMART ATAPI-4, Ultra ATA, Fast ATA-2, Ultra DMA Modes 0-2, DMA/33 33 MBps Introduced DMA modes and 80-conductor cable ATAPI-5, Ultra ATA/66, Ultra DMA/66 66.6 […]

Attrib Displays, sets, or removes the read-only, archive, system, and hidden attributes assigned to files or directories. Used without parameters, attrib displays attributes of all files in the current directory. Syntax attrib [{+r | -r}] [{+a | -a}] [{+s | -s}] [{+h | -h}] [[Drive:][Path] FileName] [/s[/d]] Parameters +r Sets the read-only file attribute. -r Clears the read-only file attribute. […]

Bus Type Bus Width (Bits) Bus Speed (MHz) Data Cycles Per Clock Bandwidth (MBps) PCI 32 33 1 133 PCI 66 MHz 32 66 1 266 PCI 64-bit 64 33 1 266 PCI 66 MHz/64-bit 64 66 1 533 PCI-X 66 64 66 1 533 PCI-X 133 64 133 1 1066 PCI-X 266 64 266 1 2133 PCI-X 533 64 […]

Windows 9x AUTOEXEC.BAT Plain text file. Batch file that executes command prompt instructions. Configures command prompt environment and loads TSRs. COMMAND.COM Command interpreter. Provides user interface to command prompt & processes keyboard commands. Contains other internal commands such as CD, COPY, VER, DIR. CONFIG.SYS Plain text file. Activates memory areas and loads real-mode device drivers using “DEVICE=” (Always use full […]