As if we didn't know already, Microsoft has officially announced price cuts for all Xbox 360 SKUs. Multiple retailer fliers were photographed and posted on the web before they were supposed to be shown. All rumors were true, and the Xbox 360 is now the cheapest gaming console available. The Arcade unit is now $199.99, the Pro (60 GB) is $299.99, and the Elite is $399.99. Another important piece of information, the stand-alone 360 Hard Drive will also have a slashed price. You can buy a 120 GB Hard Drive for $149.99, a $30 decrease. If you want, buy an Arcade and a 120 GB HDD for approximately $50 less than the cost of the Elite.

Via Major Nelson Blog / Kotaku

Friend: "My computer isn't fast enough, how do I make it faster?"
Me: "How much memory do you have?"
Friend: "250 g bytes"
Me: "What?"
Friend: "My computer came with 250GB"
Me: "No, not your hard drive space, your RAM."
Friend: "My What?"

At that point, I'd usually guide them to the whole right clicking My Computer > Properties thing to the part where it will usually tell them that either A: they've been running off 256 Megs of RAM with a Windows XP computer or B: they've been running off 1GB of RAM on a Vista PC. And so, I casually explain to them the difference between Hard Disk space and Memory, and I can tell by the end of the conversation, despite my best efforts to dumb down my explanation 10 notches, that they still have no idea what I'm trying to tell them.

"But how does my computer store stuff then?"

If you or someone else has absolutely no idea still what the difference is, I've found both simple and complicated ways to describe it.

RAM and Hard Drive space are like long and short term memory.

If you have a test coming up tomorrow, but you forgot about it and you just stayed up until 2 AM drinking, then probably the first thing you'll do in the morning is 1: find something to relieve you of your terrible hangover and 2: cram as much as you can for fast access into your head. Well, if a computer wants to access something incredibly fast, it stores the information in its RAM, or Random Access Memory. Here, it can be accessed and changed at an extremely high speeds, unilke your hard drive. However, some people think everything they do is stored in their RAM forever. They're lucky this isn't the case, because anything stored in your RAM ceases to exist shortly after you turn off your computer, thus explaining why when you start up Windows takes so long to boot, because it has to load all its shit back into your RAM, taking significant amounts of time.

Hard drive space is like long term memory, it takes longer to get it there (although it still happens so fast that you really won't notice), but it will be there for a very long time. Your hard drive will retain information until:

• It breaks (this happens sooner than a lot of people think, but its still long enough to where you'd have to be crazy to keep a computer long enough for it to happen)
• You or someone else wipes your hard drive.
• You visit a porn website and install a virus because in your current state you'll click "Yes" to anything, as long as the stupid dialog box gets out of the way of the views of the new High-res jpegs you just found.
• You delete the file.

If all else fails...

Hard Drives look like this:

And RAM looks like this:

Seeing that they probably do those "Find the differences between these two pictures" puzzles that you'll most likely find in the latest edition of Nick Jr Magazine, they should be able to spot at least a few minor differences. If they can't, just be honest and tell them that they may want to have a repair shop take care of the problem and not do it themselves, because else you'll get a call a week later saying they busted their computer by shoving the RAM forcibly into a PCI slot.

----------------

So next time someone frustrates you by saying "I've got 500GB of ram in my computer and you told me you only have 3", you'll be able to explain to them that it is because you actually knew what you were talking about, and also give them the comparison above. I've used it for like 4 people, and they all got a pretty good understanding.

Not many people are aware that they should nor are they aware on how to.

I recently was at the store and I came across what I had needed for a long time with all of the data multiplying daily on my computer.

An External Hard Drive.

An External hard drive is a piece of hard ware, like a computer's hard drive except it is portable and can hold much more data than your own computer's Hard Drive Can.

The particular hard drive I bought was an IO Magic 320GB Portable Hard Drive.

Also, you can use a Jump Drive. A jump drive is like a memory stick, but it connects to your computer via USB.

Jump Drives will never hold as much as an external portable hard drive.

I highly recommend buying an external hard drive to back up pictures, music, and files on your computer.

Here's the link to a IO Magic Hard Drive:

Click Here To View The IO Magic Portable Hard Drive!

IO Magic is a registered trademark of I/O Magic Corporation

Here's an image of the hard drive I bought:

When you first pop-in your Windows disk, the operating system will prompt these choices for you to choose from. Here are the format options:

• Format the partition by using the NTFS file system (Quick)
• Format the partition by using the FAT file system (Quick)
• Format the partition by using the NTFS file system
• Format the partition by using the FAT file system

When you choose to run a Full format on a volume, files are removed from the volume that you are formatting and the hard disk is scanned for bad sectors. The scan for bad sectors is the reason why the Full format takes twice as long as the Quick format.

If you choose the Quick format option, the format removes files from the partition, but does not scan the disk for bad sectors. This option is best when your hard disk has been previously formatted and you are sure that your hard disk is not damaged nor has bad sectors. This can be a problem later because bad sectors that are not located can cause damage to the hard drive. For example, if data is later installed on this "bad sector", the data will read errors or as corrupted files.

In simple terms, a Full format will truly scrub through the hard drive from scratch, rebuild all of its file structures, and scans the drive to make sure that everything is on a satisfactory level. On the other hand, what a Quick format does is lay down a blank FAT and directory table without checking for bad sectors.

This is why when you buy a brand-new unformatted hard drive, you cannot give it a Quick format. The drive needs a Full Format because it needs the entire file structures set-up, so the FAT actually has blocks and sectors to track, rather than a chaotic mess. However, like we mention earlier, if your hard drive is already has a clean slate and has no bad sectors, a Quick format will be suitable.

Also, If you installed Windows on a partition that was formatted by using the Quick format option, you can check your hard drive by using the chkdsk /r command after the installation of Windows is completed.

A file is a collection of binary data. A file could represent a program, a document or in some cases part of the file system itself. In modern computing it is quite common for their to be several different storage devices attached to the same computer. A common data structure such as a file system allows the computer to access many different storage devices in the same way, for example, when you look at the contents of a hard drive or a cd you view it through the same interface even though they are completely different mediums with data mapped on them in completely different ways. Files can have very different data structures within them but can all be accessed by the same methods built into the file system. The arrangment of data within the file is then decided by the program creating it. The file systems also stores a number of attributes for the files within it.

All files have a name by which they can be accessed by the user. In most modern file systems the name consists of of three parts, its unique name, a period and an extension. For example the file 'bob.jpg' is uniquely identified by the first word 'bob', the extension jpg indicates that it is a jpeg image file. The file extension allows the operating system to decide what to do with the file if someone tries to open it. The operating system maintains a list of file extension associations. Should a user try to access 'bob.jpg' then it would most likely be opened in whatever the systems default image viewer is.

The system also stores the location of a file. In some file systems files can only be stored as one contigious block. This has simplifies storage and access to the file as the system then only needs to know where the file begins on the disk and how large it is. It does however lead to complications if the file is to be extended or removed as there may not be enough space available to fit the larger version of the file. Most modern file systems overcome this problem by using linked file allocation. This allows the file to be stored in any number of segments. The file system then has to store where every block of the file is and how large they are. This greatly simplifies file space allocation but is slower than contigious allocation as it is possible for the file to be spread out all over the disk. Modern oparating systems overome this flaw by providing a disk defragmenter. This is a utility that rearranges all the files on the disk so that thay are all in contigious blocks.

Information about the files protection is also integrated into the file system. Protection can range from the simple systems implemented in the FAT system of early windows where files could be marked as read-only or hidden to the more secure systems implemented in NTFS where the file system administrator can set up separate read and write access rights for different users or user groups. Although file protection adds a great deal of complexity and potential difficulties it is essential in an enviroment where many different computers or user can have access to the same drives via a network or time shared system such as raptor.

Some file systems also store data about which user created a file and at what time they created it. Although this is not essential to the running of the file system it is useful to the users of the system.

In order for a file system to function properly they need a number of defined operations for creating, opening and editing a file. Almost all file systems provide the same basic set of methods for manipulating files.

A file system must be able to create a file. To do this there must be enough space left on the drive to fit the file. There must also be no other file in the directory it is to be placed with the same name. Once the file is created the system will make a record of all the attributes noted above.

Once a file has been created we may need to edit it. This may be simply appending some data to the end of it or removing or replacing data already stored within it. When doing this the system keeps a write pointer marking where the next write oparation to the file should take place.

In order for a file to be useful it must of course be readable. To do this all you need to know the name and path of the file. From this the file system can ascertain where on the drive the file is stored. While reading a file the system keeps a read pointer. This stores which part of the drive is to be read next.

In some cases it is not possible to simply read all of the file into memory. File systems also allow you to reposition the read pointer within a file. To perform this operation the system needs to know how far into the file you want the read pointer to jump. An example of where this would be useful is a database system. When a query is made on the database it is obviously ineficient to read the whole file up to the point where the reuired data is, instead the application managing the database would determine where in the file the required bit of data is and jump to it. This operation is often known as a file seek.

File systems also allow you to delete files. To do this it needs to know the name and path of the file. To delete a file the systems simply removes its entry from the directory structure and adds all the space it previously occupied to the free space list (or whatever other free space management system it uses).

These are the most basic operations required by a file system to function properly. They are present in all modern computer file systems but the way they function may vary. For example, to perform the delete file operation in a modern file system like NTFS that has file protection built into it would be more complicated than the same operation in an older file system like FAT. Both systems would first check to see whether the file was in use before continuing, NTFS would then have to check whether the user currently deleting the file has permission to do so. Some file systems also allow multiple people to open the same file simultaneously and have to decide whether users have permission to write a file back to the disk if other users currently have it open. If two users have read and write permission to file should one be allowed to overwrite it while the other still has it open? Or if one user has read-write permission and another only has read permission on a file should the user with write permission be allowed to overwrite it if theres no chance of the other user also trying to do so?

Different file systems also support different access methods. The simplest method of accessing information in a file is sequential access. This is where the information in a file is accessed from the beginning one record at a time. To change the position in a file it can be rewound or forwarded a number of records or reset to the beginning of the file. This access method is based on file storage systems for tape drive but works as well on sequential access devices (like mordern DAT tape drives) as it does on random-access ones (like hard drives). Although this method is very simple in its operation and ideally suited for certain tasks such as playing media it is very inneficient for more complex tasks such as database management. A more modern approach that better facilitates reading tasks that arent likely to be sequential is direct access. direct access allows records to be read or written over in any order the application requires. This method of allowing any part of the file to be read in any order is better suited to modern hard drives as they too allow any part of the drive to be read in any order with little reduction in transfer rate. Direct access is better suited to to most applications than sequential access as it is designed around the most common storage medium in use today as opposed to one that isnt used very much anymore except for large offline back-ups. Given the way direct access works it is also possible to build other access methods on top of direct access such as sequential access or creating an index of all the records of the file speeding to speed up finding data in a file.

On top of storing and managing files on a drive the file system also maintains a system of directories in which the files are referenced. Modern hard drives store hundreds of gigabytes. The file system helps organise this data by dividing it up into directories. A directory can contain files or more directories. Like files there are several basic operation that a file system needs to a be able to perform on its directory structure to function properly.

It needs to be able to create a file. This is also covered by the overview of peration on a file but as well as creating the file it needs to be added to the directory structure.

When a file is deleted the space taken up by the file needs to be marked as free space. The file itself also needs to be removed from the directory structure.

Files may need to be renamed. This requires an alteration to the directory structure but the file itself remains un-changed.

List a directory. In order to use the disk properly the user will require to know whats in all the diretories stored on it. On top of this the user needs to be able to browse through the directories on the hard drive.

Since the first directory structures were designed they have gone through several large evolutions. Before directory structures were applied to file systems all files were stored on the same level. This is basically a system with one directory in which all the files are kept. The next advancement on this which would be considered the first directory structure is the two level directory. In this There is a singe list of directories which are all on the same level. The files are then stored in these directories. This allows different users and applications to store there files separately. After this came the first directory structures as we know them today, directory trees. Tree structure directories improves on two level directories by allowing directories as well as files to be stored in directories. All modern file systems use tree structore directories, but many have additional features such as security built on top of them.

Protection can be implemented in many ways. Some file systems allow you to have password protected directories. In this system. The file system wont allow you to access a directory before it is given a username and password for it. Others extend this system by given different users or groups access permissions. The operating system requires the user to log in before using the computer and then restrict their access to areas they dont have permission for. The system used by the computer science department for storage space and coursework submission on raptor is a good example of this. In a file system like NTFS all type of storage space, network access and use of device such as printers can be controlled in this way. Other types of access control can also be implemented outside of the file system. For example applications such as win zip allow you to password protect files.

There are many different file systems currently available to us on many different platforms and depending on the type of application and size of drive different situations suit different file system. If you were to design a file system for a tape backup system then a sequential access method would be better suited than a direct access method given the constraints of the hardware. Also if you had a small hard drive on a home computer then there would be no real advantage of using a more complex file system with features such as protection as it isn't likely to be needed. If i were to design a file system for a 10 gigabyte drive i would use linked allocation over contigious to make the most efficient use the drive space and limit the time needed to maintain the drive. I would also design a direct access method over a sequential access one to make the most use of the strengths of the hardware. The directory structure would be tree based to allow better organisation of information on the drive and would allow for acyclic directories to make it easier for several users to work on the same project. It would also have a file protection system that allowed for different access rights for different groups of users and password protection on directories and individual files.Several file systems that already implement the features ive decribed above as ideal for a 10gig hard drive are currently available, these include NTFS for the Windows NT and XP operating systems and ext2 which is used in linux.

1.chassis shouldn't weigh more than the person using it
2.plastic BAD
3. accessibility GOOD

I know these are points that dell whould totally ignore if they ever ready. becuse the point is no mortal is supposed to mess with thier scam.

When I run a few programs, such as the now bloated Microsoft Office 12, and maybe Photoshop, along with the Aero window theme, the glass look, and the Windows Sidebar, my computer shows signs of aging and slows to an unbelievable pace!  Yet, all of my computers that run various Flavors of Ubuntu (Ubuntu, Fluxbuntu, Xubuntu) still go at an awesome pace for how old these machines are.  All of these machines are at least three years old, but they run just as fast as Windows Vista.  The only thing I can see in Windows Vista is Windows XP with a super bloated graphical theme.  Is this Revolutionary?  No.  Ubuntu and various other Linux Distros have been able to skin the window manager and have thousands of other ways to customize your box.  There are tons of Mac-like themes, Aero themes, and tons of other amazing themes.  All of this, and my Linux still runs faster, with the same look and similar programs.  Another bonus to Linux: It's free.  That's about two-hundred dollars cheaper then Vista.

If you think this is too late, I needed time to test Vista, and Ubuntu and find many of the disturbing realities of Vista.  It's bloated and not worth your money.  I wouldn't take it for free either.  There you go.  That's my Windows Vista rant.

Have you ever looked at your hard drive and wondered why in the world you have so little space left? It is easy to clutter you computer with stuff you don't really need and forget that they are there. Remember what happened to Spike from Cowboy Bebop when he left stuff in the fridge? :P The question is how can we find all that crap? Someone thought about it and came up with a very nice free open source solution :)

WinDirStat (Windows Directory Statistics) allows you to sort the files in your computer by file type and size, with a nice visualization . The size of the rectangles is positively related to the size of the files. I hope this little tool will help you clean up all those mushrooms from your fridge!

Related Articles:

How to determine hard disk space usage (Online Tech Tips)
Optimize your hard drive in three easy steps (Cnet)

Related AMV: Living in the Fridge :P

Fragmentation is caused by creating and deleting files and folders, installing new software, and downloading files from the Internet. When you delete files or folders, the first available empty spaces on the Hard Drive are filled in randomly when you create new files and folders, as you do when you save pics from your camera, install software, save emails, or create documents.

A fairly common point of view holds that defragging a Hard Drive is pointless and provides no measurable increase in system performance.

One example of this type of thinking taken from a forum I visit frequently is as follows: “Disk cleanup is pretty useless, and defragging should only really be done if you recently moved around very large files on your hard disk”. This point of view has some support in the tech community.

On the other hand there is also considerable support for the following point of view: “Disk fragmentation leads to system slowdowns, PC crashes, slow startups and shutdowns”.

So which point of view then is more likely to be accurate given that hard disk fragmentation makes the disk drive heads move more than necessary when reading files which can lead to reduced performance in file input and output?

Despite the fact that it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure an increase in system performance following Hard Drive defragmentation, there is a slight leaning in the tech community toward defragmentation being a positive maintenance process. I support this point of view.

Personally, I defrag with Auslogics Disk Defrag a free disk defragger from Auslogics Software regularly. The program is extremely easy to use, does not require any analysis phase and is faster than most disk defragmentation software I’ve tested in the past, and best of all, it’s free. In my view, it’s one more maintenance process that helps me get the maximum performance from my hardware.

Before you begin a defrag process it’s important to run a program such as CCleaner which will empty your Recycle Bin, Temporary Internet Files folder, and other locations where clutter tends to accumulate on your PC. Alternatively, you can let the application remove temporary files by adjusting program settings accordingly.

As well, you should consider uninstalling any applications you no longer use. Revo Uninstaller is a free utility that will uninstall unneeded applications more thoroughly than the Windows native uninstaller.

Quick facts:

Improve computer performance and stability

Increase your productivity - no more waiting for files to open

Defragment disks in minutes

Disk fragmentation map and detailed fragmentation report

Defragment USB/memory sticks

Two million downloads of this application from CNET, and an average user rating of 4.5 Stars speaks to the value of this small application.

System requirements: Vista/XP/2000/2003, 32-bit and 64-bit and dual-core CPU supported.

Download at: Download.com

"Back up my hard drive? How do I put it in reverse?" ~ Unknown

While doing regular backups is very important, sometimes people believe that backups are some kind of magic bullet so they let themselves get over confident and let bad hardware issues get out of control. By paying attention and seeing if your machine is experiencing any of these seven signs of eminent hard drive failure, you may be able to save yourself hours of wasted time and an expensive repair bill.

Sign 8 - Disappearing files and folders

As a drive goes bad it will often display subtle indications of trouble. One of the most overlooked are "vanishing" files or folders. If you notice that you can never find your files anymore or that folders you "know" were there are now gone, then your hard drive maybe slip sliding away.

Sign 9 - Folder and file names that have been scrambled and changed

A related issue is that you can find the folder or file you want...or at least you think you have. The filename is messed up but when you open it, it's the letter you were looking for. But you have a set way of labeling your files it is way wrong. A sign of things going badly quickly.

Sign 10 - You experience really loooong waits to access folders and files

Another related issue. You can find the file fine but you notice that over the last little bit, it's been taking practically forever to open folders or files. Once you click on a file, you can get up, grab a coffee, and read the front page of daily paper before it opens up. Just joking, but accessing files are noticeably slower.

Sign 11 - The System locks-up during boot up, repeatedly

Okay, even the best of machines, even brand-new-outta-the-box ones will misbehave by locking up occasionally. Occasionally... If you start have lockups every other time you boot up your machine, the drive can be having lots of read/write errors that overwhelm it. Time to go shopping.

Sign 12 - ScanDisk or a third-party utility shows bad sectors

Windows' drive diagnostic tool Scandisk if one of my faves. By running it and setting it to "automatically fix" errors, you can see if your drive has physical bad "spots" or sectors on the disk platters. You can also use a third-party program. All the major hard drive manufacturers have free utilities on their websites.

Sign 13 - Error message: Disk can't find the Windows Master File Table (MFT) or Master Boot Record (MBR)

You may have a bit of luck with this one. The good news, a virus or piece of spyware has taken over your drive and rewritten or "hidden" the MFT (on Windows 2000 and later) or MBR (Windows 98/Me and earlier). You may be to repair this with some technical help. The bad news, is that the MFT/MBR files rarely get corrupted or become infected, so this is almost a sign of drive gone bad.

Sign 14 - The drive is running hot

This one sign you probably will never notice since, it requires that the case be removed from your computer. Instead of sign this should actually be classified as a more of a test. If you notice any of the other problems mentioned above, then you can pop your PC case and lay your hand on top of hard drive while in operation. It should be warm but not hot to the touch. A hot device is positive physical sign of early failure.

Your PC is having any of the above issues then you must backup your files, as completely as possible as soon as you can. Even with these danger signs, hard drives have been known to fail without warning, so backup frequently.

****************************About the Author:************************************
Sick of computer headaches? Tired of wasting money on that "computer guy"? To learn more fast and free fixes for your problem PC, visit http://www.fixcomputerproblemsguide.com. Hard Drive Crashed? Repair or Rescue Any Hard Drive. From Chancer Reese, your Small Office Tech Diva.

***********************************************************************************

Easy to use Backup software EzBackup101 www.arcoide.com/ezbackup101.php

Need to move to a new computer? save time and transfer all your files, programs, preferences and even your bookmarks with just a few clicks  with EzMigration http://www.arcoide.com/instant_migration.php

แปลโดย IT Force

Bank customer data sold on eBay

eBay was first launched as Auction Web in 1995

An investigation is under way into how a computer containing bank customers' personal data was sold on an internet auction site.

The PC, which was reportedly sold for £35 on eBay, had sensitive information on the hard drive.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and its subsidiary, Natwest, have confirmed their customers' details were involved.

RBS says an archiving firm told it the PC had apparently been "inappropriately sold on via a third party".

It said historical information relating to credit card applications for their bank and others had been on the machine.

The information is said to include account details and in some cases customers' signatures, mobile phone numbers and mothers' maiden names.

RBS and Natwest - two of the three businesses involved - said they are taking the issue very seriously and are working to resolve it "as a matter of urgency".

A spokeswoman for data processing company Mail Source, which is part of the archiving firm Graphic Data, said it was investigating how the computer equipment had been removed from a secure location.

"The IT equipment that appeared on eBay was neither planned nor instructed by the company to be disposed."

Clearly such details should never have been included in the hard drive of the computer offered for sale on eBay eBay spokesman When financial data goes missing

She said the incident was extremely regrettable and the firm was "taking every possible step" to retrieve the data and ensure it was an isolated incident.

It is thought the problem came to light when Andrew Chapman, an IT manager from Oxford, bought the computer, noticed the data and raised the alarm.

The Daily Mail said the computer, containing a million bank customers' personal data, had been sold for £35.

A spokesman for eBay said they were currently looking into what had happened.

"Clearly such details should never have been included in the hard drive of the computer offered for sale on eBay. We fully expect Mr Chapman to hand it back to Graphic Data as soon as possible. We will of course work with Graphic Data to establish how it came to be available for sale on our site."

Banks have an obligation under the Data Protection Act to keep all personal information secure.

Last year the Financial Services Authority fined the Nationwide Building Society £980,000 for a security breach, after a laptop containing customer data was stolen from an employee's home.

So this definitely isn't the Gamer Lounge's longest or, for that matter, best episode and I don't want to sully our reputation. So what do I do? Put out "A Message from Luke!" :-D As you can probably tell from the title, I'm alone in this episode as well. However, that does not mean it's a waste of your time! I cover Assassin's Creed, Castle Crashers, Fighting Games, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Knights of the Old Republic, and Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War!

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I'm seriously considering getting a laptop. I can pretend I'm independent in the bedroom even longer without surfacing. It would be wonderful and convenient. Then, in the future we could get the big computer fixed (or maybe all at once depending on my Dell credit and if they have a current special). We'll see though. I hate having to spend money but it's lousy losing all the information and tutorials available through accessing the internet at will as it''s necessary.

A friend of mine that I shall refer to as Sergeant Red got back in contact with me after a couple of years of us not being in touch. It was really neat to hear about all that she had been up to. Re-enlisted in the army, she is currently in Iraq taking over the world. She got a vacation for a week or so that was spent with the spirits in Hawaii. She was always very in touch with nature and her surroundings so I bet that was wonderful. She's also been to Ireland several times in the past year or two. That must be nice. I've gotta have some family over there somewhere. Alright, where are you? I'm coming over! Now, I've composed an email back to her in notepad with no way to send it to her until I can get to a library with the disk.

I guess there's no real reason for telling anyone all this. It's just very frustrating to be able to type these things up but not be able to send them once they're finished. I guess once I get to the library Monday or Tuesday, I'll check out Dell for any specials and see if it's worth it or not to go ahead with a laptop. I've got two days to weigh it out and think about it.