Computer Spot

If you’re a gamer and you’re working off a limited budget (who isn’t?) then you’re almost always better off buying a desktop computer and not a laptop. You get a lot more mileage for your money.

But laptops, more and more, are becoming mainstream and don’t really cost as much more than desktops as they used to.

You really could find a laptop for gaming that was designed with all the right features, that wasn’t that much more expensive than the desktop equivalent. This is what you need to know.

How do you know that a given machine is a gaming laptop? Well, usually, they don’t build them to be as slim and lightweight as regular laptops. These, they built for performance, even if it means a less flattering figure.

Now a laptop for gaming isn’t just a powerful laptop. It needs to have specific features built in that don’t all have to do with performance.

Let’s look at something to do with performance first of all and get out of the way. It goes without saying that a laptop for gaming needs a powerful graphics card built into the system.

Since this is meant to be an evergreen advice article and not just something for today, it’s hard to specify what kind of graphics card it should be.

As of late 2011, one specification you could look for would be a card built-in that had 2GB in graphics memory. That isn’t the only specification you need to look for though. Just look for the best discrete desktop graphics card for gamers they are selling at the moment, and look for something that’s nearly as powerful for your laptop.

A good way to judge how adequate the graphics card on your laptop is, would be to look up the recommended configuration for the games you intend to play. If your laptop has something like that, you’re good to go.

But apart from the performance, you’re looking for things that make gaming actually easy and convenient. For instance, if they call it a laptop for gaming and the keys seem all crammed together, that’s poor design.

Look for well-spaced backlit keys and a tapering keyboard design. You need to be able to hit those keys in a split second.

Of course, you need a good screen that’s at least 15 inches, and Full HD would not be a bad idea either. But you do want screen quality and sound quality that really live up to what the game designers have intended. And intend very well, they do.

They build those games these days to spectacular Hollywood movie levels of budget. The better your screen and sound are, the better you’ll enjoy your game.

Look for audio ports that will allow you to directly plug your laptop into a surround sound system if it’s available.

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Is there any reason anyone should go to the trouble of building their own computer from the ground up – buy a motherboard and all those components, snap all the parts together, install the operating system and so on?

Well, you could do that if you are really particular about performance and getting a good deal. The kind of motherboard you get has a great deal to say about what kind of performance you get. And who’s to tell what kind of motherboard Dell and HP and Lenovo use?

Not to mention, there are so many little things you could control if you built your own PC – you could get the latest kind of USB port (SuperSpeed 3.0), you could get exactly the right kind of graphics card that you wanted – no more, no less, and you could buy exactly the kind of monitor you wanted.

You just won’t be locked some impractical configuration that the geniuses of the computer company put together. And of course, you’ll save some money this way.

Okay, now that you’re clear that building your own computer makes a lot of sense, let’s talk a little about how exactly you buy the most important component of your own hand assembled computer – the motherboard.

Most people don’t seem to realize this, but if there’s one part of the computer that you could point to and say – “That’s the soul, the main part of my computer”, it would have to be the motherboard. It’s not the processor or anything else.

For this reason, if you’re building your computer, you need to buy a motherboard first of all. Everything else that you buy, you buy to suit the motherboard you bought.

Picking a motherboard, of course, you do want to think about what kind of stuff you would like to plug into it.

Most parts that you stick into the motherboard – the hard disk, the graphics card, the sound card, the memory – happen to work to standard requirements no matter what motherboard you buy.

If there’s one kind of part, the most important, that requires that the motherboard be specifically built for it, it’s the processor.

The processor and motherboard need to be built for each other. Basically, you have a choice in two different standards when you’re talking about the motherboard-processor match.

There’s the standard adopted by Intel, and there is the standard adopted by its rival AMD. Both are mutually incompatible even if you could get very good performance with either. The first thing you need to do is to choose which standard you want to go with.

Intel is widely considered to be somewhat better when it comes to performance. AMD on other hand, while it does offer nearly the same kind of performance, is often far cheaper.

Once you make a choice of standard here, your next step is to choose how powerful a processor you need. If you’re going with Intel, you want to know how powerful the processor you’re planning on buying will be – the i3, the i5 or the i7.

Once you do that, you’re pretty much set for what kind of motherboard you want to buy.

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If you haven’t actually bought your college-going kit a laptop yet, he is probably pestering you for one right about now.

How do you pick the best laptop for students going to college, actually?

Does he really need a full-blown laptop that costs $1200?

Won’t a $400 netbook do just as well if they just want to take notes in class or something?

Well, your kid probably so badly wants an iPad at this point that he’ll try to convince you that it could be his main computer for college.

Don’t buy that line of argument though. Most of what your kid will do in college, will involve typing. And doing that on an iPad can be a pain – even with a Bluetooth keyboard.

So basically, the best laptop for students is a laptop (surprise!). How powerful a computer is your kid going to need?

Well, he is going to need something for his homework – which, unless he is studying animation or computer music composition, is going to be fairly routine.

An Intel Corei3 processor and a 15-inch screen could do.

If your kid is a slightly built girl though, that kind of computer might be all too heavy to lug around between classroom, dormitory, library and home. A 13-inch laptop should be completely serviceable and should be large enough too.

You can’t just buy a computer for what it does though. Even if it’s technically exactly what it needs to be. College is as much about the social experience of being with your friends and getting along as actually getting work done. Basically, you want to get a machine that’s good-looking, too.

If you really like the idea of an ultrabook – which would be something like the MacBook Air – that might be workable, except that it’s really expensive without really bringing anything to the table other than lightness of weight.

Which actually brings us to an important point. College kids are not known for how careful they are with their possessions.

There’s certainly going to be a fair amount of being dropped, and being slid across floors, and being sat on involved (for the laptop, and not the kid).

While the idea of getting a really lightweight computer might appeal, and ultrabook like the MacBook Air is not really going to be suitable.

Because these computers are by definition, really, really thin and light. They aren’t going to take that kind of abuse. This isn’t the best laptop for students.

You could go with a standard MacBook or MacBook Pro depending on your budget. That’ll cost you about $1200 or so.

On the Windows side of the aisle, ta Core2 Duo or Core i3 should be perfectly adequate. A Core i5 and a 1TB hard drive wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. A machine like this shouldn’t cost more than $600 or so.

Do see if you can get an educational discount. You can usually get $100 off when you’re buying a laptop for a student.

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How do you choose the right product for the best forex software trading experience? When you ask around or look at a few testimonials on websites, you’ll invariably run into a few very enthusiastic reviews by people who say that they are beginners like you and would like you to believe that they’ve made a great deal of money with their favorite robot.

Of course, testimonials can be bought. Or they can be just outright lies. There are some pretty bad programs for sale out there, and it’s really a case of buyer beware.

What makes a particular piece of software bad while another is quite impressive?

Well, the bad software isn’t actually poor quality usually. It is just is that it has not been programmed with algorithms to tackle all of the different crisis scenarios it runs into.

When you buy software that’s not well-featured, it may work very well only in some situations, just not every situation.

When you buy this kind of software, you don’t want to go in looking for something that’s been reviewed to be “the best”.

The best forex software trading experience often comes from choosing software that’s right for your specific needs.

Buying “the best” may not really make much sense for your needs sometimes.

Automated software will often vary from one package to the next in how fast it is, how programmable it is, how easy to use it is, and so on.

What suits one trader may not suit another. With some traders, what they’re looking for is software that does very specific things – one that imposes stops and other market orders, or one that been makes reports.

To many, real-time monitoring is also nonnegotiable. If it’s a novice trader, he’s probably looking above everything else for software that’s ready to go, out-of-the-box – with no user interference needed.

Some users tend to travel a lot and will look for software that can be remotely managed. They want it so that they can set the computer going before they leave, fly to another city, and then log into their home forex computer from their laptop or something to manage things.

For these people, a web-based program may be more useful than anything else. For this kind of professional trader, virtual private server hosting may be important.

Many reputable software makers these days offer free demos before you actually pay. You can take her out for a test drive to see if everything is how you want it to be. They also offer a moneyback guarantee.

It’s only the most reputable software makers actually, for this kind of healthy trade practice.  This alone should be a sign of that the software you’re looking at can offer you best forex software trading experience.

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It used to be that your real computer was always your desktop. Your notebook was always the standby – what you tried to use when you were outside.

You came home and tried to sync your laptop to your real computer so that you could get some real work done. But that’s all changed now.

There is only one real computer in our lives, and it isn’t a desktop. Choosing a laptop these days though isn’t just about choosing a laptop. Laptops have just gone and morphed themselves into a half-dozen different subcategories.

There are the full-featured laptops of course that everyone knows and pays $1500 for. But there are lots of other contenders for the throne – chrome books, net books and ultra-books being important among them. How do you know what to buy?

Let’s start with the newest in this category – the ultra-book. As far as mobile electronics manufacturers are concerned, thin and light are the mantras to live by.

It’s actually a pretty great one as mantras go, and it’s driving quite a bit of innovation in the mobile PC market right now.

You could say that Apple invented the ultra-book category with its MacBook Air. These are notebooks that have a full-sized keyboard and screen and full-sized power – except that the notebooks are thin enough to dangerously bend when you try to do that.

The MacBook Air was quite expensive at first; and rare. But many manufacturers have hopped on the bandwagon now and they all offer something at about $1000.

These laptops are quite powerful full-sized devices; the only place they ask you to sacrifice anything is in the connectivity options they give you and in the presence of an optical drive.

Asus invented the netbook category. It was so successful that Intel really went to town with a whole new kind of stripped-down processor for the category – the Atom.

While ultra-books look incredibly sleek and attractive, net books don’t try to be small in that way. They’re actually just small – with screens under 10 inches.

Their keyboards are small and cramped, and they clearly look like budget offerings. But they’ve been runaway hits with physically very small.

You can get netbooks the size of paperback novels for $250, and they fill a real need – anyone can throw one of these into a handbag or even a coat pocket. And for most purposes, these do work like actual full-sized laptops.

Google came into the market at some point and wondered if it could do something with the popularity of the netbook and hijack the market to its own ends. They’ve come out with something they call the chromebook. While netbooks and ultra-books run proper Windows or OS X operating systems and are real computers in every sense of the term, chromebooks run a special Crome OS. It’s an all new operating system that you can’t really install programs on. There’s just one thing you can do with it – you can run the Chrome web browser. Whatever you want to do, you’re supposed to do on the cloud through this web browser.

Ultra-books really are the perfect compromise. While they are full-size, they’re very light. And you don’t sacrifice any on performance. The ultra-book can usually give you almost everything you are looking for in a computer. They’re the new benchmark.

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With the current advancements in the field of information technology, people are getting more interested in computers.

This does not only apply to people who use computers but to those who make them and design their software as well.

When one goes to study computer engineering in college, they are exposed to various computer related issues that cover both the software and hardware aspects of a computer.

These issues may also be in the form of computer engineering projects that could be assigned by the school or self assigned.

Most of the time, colleges assign these projects to groups of students and it often becomes easy as many hands make light work. If one is working on the project alone they might have to periodically get help from other people.

Basically, computer engineering project that is software related will entail developing, designing, analyzing, implementing and maintaining computer software.

Programming by use of different computer languages like C++, Visual basics and Java will also be a part of the project.

For people with hardware computer engineering projects the project will entail dealing with the physical aspects of the computer and these include things like modems, printers, scanners, mouse, keyboard, CPU and monitor.

Knowing exactly what is expected of a project will go a long way into ensuring the success of a project.

Computer engineering projects need financing to be successful and while some colleges will offer finances and equipment to the students some do not.

People in colleges that do not offer finances may have to source for their own funds and one way of doing this is by getting a sponsor.

Alternatively, people who work in a group can simply pull their resources together to see the project through.

Commitment to the project is something else that a person who is working on a computer engineering project should have. This is because computer projects require time and much effort.

Another way through which a person working on a computer project can be successful is by conducting thorough research.

The research should mainly entail what other people have done in the field, the barriers to one’s success, differed angles through which the problem can be approached and so on. Computer engineering books and the internet are some of the resources that could be of great help. One should also consult widely with such people as lecturers, people working in the field and researchers.

The possibility of one making a great breakthrough in the field of computer engineering is very high as long as they have proper planning.

There are no specific time requirements for a person to complete their project as different colleges have different time lines for the projects.

Completing the project in time will however give one added advantage. If it is a personal project one can take as much time as they want. Good luck with the project.

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The tablet accessories market is an overcrowded one. Once you get an iPad or other tablet and you’re happy using it on its own, at some point, you’re going to wonder about a few amenities you might appreciate to go with your tablet. Smart Covers for the iPad2, for instance, would be an example of a great essential tablet accessory.

Of course, you can go to some pretty exotic extremes buying tablet accessories that turn your tablet into all kinds of things.

For instance, on some models, you can get a nice laptop-like keyboard to just plug the tablet into – voila! instant laptop.

Or you could choose from among a bewildering range of tablet docks that let you just drop the tablet into a slot so you can play the music in it or something.

Well, those would be the more exotic choices. Let’s look at a few essential tablet accessories.

To any tablet computing enthusiast, the case has to be where all the accessorizing starts. You buy a brand-new tablet, and sooner or later, you begin to notice that that gorgeous expanse of transparent Gorilla Glass is beginning to pick up a few scratches – as hard as it tries to resist them.

They make covers and cases out of all kinds of different materials and in all kinds of designs. At its simplest, a protection cover is just a silicone skin or a clear plastic overlay for you screen.

It affects the looks of your pretty tablet as little as possible and it doesn’t add to the weight either. The iPad has its magnetic Smart Covers of course that actually performs a function – it turns tablet on or off on its own.

Buy an actual case for your tablet, and you could add considerably to its bulk. But you really would make your tablet far more usable – cases usually have kick- out stands that allow you to prop your tablet up like it were a picture frame.

And should you drop your tablet, as more and more tablet owners are beginning to notice that thye do, it’ll be completely protected unless you drop it directly on its face on a sharp rock.

A tablet is basically designed to be charged through the USB port on your computer. While this may be the way most people use their tablets, there are some who don’t ever go near an actual computer.

To them, a portable travel charger would be a great idea – something that you plug into the wall socket or the cigarette lighter outlet on your car. Companies like Belkin make all kinds of portable chargers.

Sure, your tablet comes with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. But often, just connecting it to another computer through a real wire is the fastest and most convenient way. Lots of tablets allow you to connect devices through HDMI, Ethernet or USB.

Often, it can be great just connecting your tablet to your large-screen TV and watching something that you just downloaded from iTunes. Getting the right complement of cables can be a lifesaver.

And finally, be sure to check out a windshield mount for your tablet. You’ll spend perhaps $20 for it, and it’ll just attach your tablet to your windshield with a suction cup. Your tablet can make for a great GPS unit.

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How many times have you needed to hit Print on your computer and you’ve realized that you’re just not connected to a printer?

Physically connecting your computer to the printer of course will mean picking your computer up, making your way to wherever the printer is, or wherever a computer is that is connected to the printer through Ethernet cable.

Why on earth should anyone have to put up with this, when it’s cheap buying and setting up a wireless printer?

Printers are just getting smarter everyday. A wireless printer – one that is able to connect to computers through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi – can be had for as little as $50.

You can park the printer wherever it’s convenient, plug it into the power, and you’re good to go. It’ll just show up on everybody’s computer as a network destination, and anyone can just send print jobs.

If you’re good with setting up a wireless printer, there is no reason to have to wire things up anymore.

Now, unless you have a very old printer, you never have to connect a printer directly to the computer it needs to print from.

Nearly every printer out there has a regular Ethernet port. You just need to connect the printer to a Wi-Fi router that wirelessly connects to every computer in the building, and you’d have yourself a wireless printer just like that.

But that isn’t really as convenient as a real wireless printer.

In some buildings and installations, the router is located somewhere really inconvenient, sometimes in the basement or on another floor.

To have to put the printer next to the router can make little sense in many places. Setting up a wireless printer is the only thing that would work.

Once you have it, you could get your printer and every computer in the building to connect wirelessly to one another.

In some installations, wirelessness in a printer can make even more sense. Consider a small office where there is more than one printer – perhaps one that’s an inexpensive color laser model, one that’s a monochrome laser model, a couple of inkjet models for different levels of quality and so on.

Everyone in the office would want to connect to every one of these printers at different times. A print server would be an excellent idea in this case.

Actually, make that a wireless print server. To think of the kind of wiring you would need to do in such a situation if it weren’t a wireless set up, fairly boggles the mind.

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If you are on the market for a laptop for the student in your family, there are basically four things that you need to keep in mind as you shop around.

Laptops for students need to be light because they do need to carry them around a lot, and they need to be small enough to slip into a satchel or something.

They need to have the kind of power your child’s course of study requires, and they need to be the right operating system for the kind of software your child will be using in the course of her studies.

What that means is, if you have a student who is studying video editing or animation, you don’t want one of those mass-market $300 laptops. Those will almost certainly be underpowered for this kind of thing.

On the other hand, a powerful and bulky desktop replacement type with powerful graphics processing ability will be overkill somewhat for the student who just wants to take down notes in law school. Let’s look into it a little bit deeper.

As much as you would want to buy the most powerful machine out there that you can afford, you do need to remember that with bag and power supply all put together, a powerful computer can end up weighing 10 pounds.

It’s really too much to expect students to carry around all the time. You don’t want something that’ll tire her out before she even gets into class. So when it comes to buying laptops for students, you have to really accept that portability trumps power.

And it’s not just about how light the machine is, either. While you might find yourself loving a large 16 inch screen on a laptop when you’re working at home, try using that same laptop at the coffee shop or something where there are lots of other people and you don’t find yourself free to spread out.

That’s the kind of environment your child will be using her laptop in – in class or in the dorm. There really isn’t much room at a classroom desk for a large laptop. Go for something that’s 11 inches or 13 inches in screen size, and your child will thank you for it.

Actually, the small size of the thing should work out really well. The smaller the screen on the laptop is, the smaller the battery has to be. All put together, it has to make for one lightweight laptop. Not to mention, a smaller screen is likely to use less power. That’s more battery life for you.

Try your best to look for a laptop that has the longest lasting battery. Try to get something with seven hours of battery life at least. It shouldn’t be that hard these days.

And finally, you really don’t need to buy a really powerful computer unless your child really needs it in the course of her studies.

You do need to remember that a young person can be really tempted to stray into gaming in her spare time if she has a really capable computer. Get as little computing power as your child can actually manage with.

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How much is a computer science degree needed? This depends on the market needs. The dynamics of information technology have drastically changed and continue to do so.

Information technology is now part of any organization and acts like the nervous. In fact, regardless of what degree qualifications other members of staff hold, part of their job will usually involve an IT aspect.

With this intertwining comes the question of how much worth a computer science degree.

Granted technical skills will always be marketable from the simple fact that the world runs on code. However the large majority of this code is not written by humans but rather computer generated.

A computer science degree that is directed towards utility computing and social networks is currently the way to go.  In other words, anyone who pursues a computer science degree needs to become a technology generalist as well.

It is not enough to just know how to write code. You need to adopt, relate, mold and use the existing technology to meet the changing business dynamics where your computer science degree can be most beneficial.

Thus, a degree in computer science tells an employer that you have the basic skills. But to profitably apply it in a business setting will require wielding this sword in a changing landscape effectively using business and social knowledge.

Even companies like Google and Microsoft recognize the need to have a well-rounded knowledge of IT. A computer science major is undoubtedly a high market demand.

However, having experience and skill in other areas such as finance, law, management or other disciplines will make it easier for anyone with a computer science degree to appropriately apply their skill to improve a specific departmental section or resolve a related problem.

As the director of Talent and Outreach Programs in Google’s People Operations Department Yvonne Agyei said in an interview, “”In addition to software engineering roles, we have roles within business, within legal, within finance where having a facility for technology and a passion for technology are important.

It helps if they have familiarity with our products. Having that knowledge is really important regardless of what aspect of the business you go into.”

Sometimes a hiring decision is largely determined by the experience a computer science degree holder has. As one interviewer said “It’s not going to be a show-stopper for me if someone does not have a computer science degree.

Particularly, if I am looking for developers, I am looking at what skill sets they have, how many years of experience and their knowledge of the subject matter.”

Indeed, to get the most out of a computer science degree, balancing it with business, collaboration or communication skills will make for valuable employees.

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