A modular power supply doesn’t have wires soldered to it like a non modular power supply. It has ports instead. With the modular power supply comes the power cable connections for all of it’s possible ports. The idea is to clean up the inside of the PC, by not having all those wires unnecessarily hanging about. So you only connect the device you will be using to the port on the power supply. For example, instead of having 6 sata power wires hanging out the power supply when you are only using 2, you can clear 4 of those wires with a modular power supply and decrease the clutter inside. That’s it’s point.

The key card notch is physcially different. Therefore you won’t be able to fit it in the slot.

If your motherboard is designed for DDR2 RAM, it would be wise to get DDR2 RAM for it. If you have DDR3 RAM available to you, you may want to look into getting a motherboard that supports it.

This applies to desktops as well as laptops/notebooks/portables(apple)

What you should try to do, is create layers and make things more complex and therefor more time consuming. That sounds like a joke, but it’s seriously the only thing you can do. For example, turn off the SSID, turn mac filtering on, create a VPN with secure handshaking and limit the range of the router itself.

These things by themselves are basically pointless. But if you have layers, it’s more time consuming to those who want to break into your system. Think aboiut it like this, a car alarm is probably pointless on it’s own. It’s just annoying and most people ignore it anyways. However, a car alarm with a low jack and a steering wheel lock and an engine disabler. Now it’s gonna be real tricky and time consuming to get into that car. Now you step back and wonder if it’s worth the effort. That’s all.

Or if you like, another example would be the movie Entrapment. Having all those layers is like having those invisible laser beams of security. It’s very complex and time consuming to get to the jewel. So it has to be worth getting the jewel to go through all that madness.

A passive heat sink is just a heat sink, a piece of flat metal with fins on top that directs heat away from the chip set it is installed on.

An example of an active heat sink would be the heat sinks installed on top of today’s processors, Intel and AMD. They are big heat sinks with fans attached to them.

Another example would be a video card. Today’s modern video cards GPUs (Graphic Processor Unit) have heat sinks and fans installed on them because of their required workload.

An example of a passive heat sink would be a north bridge or math co processor chip set heat sink. These don’t tend to have fans on top of them because their work load doesn’t require it (yet).

It’s kind of like audacity, but for a fee. I purchased it a couple of years back and use it to record with my computer microphone. Then I take these sound and inject them into song that I make up in Mixcraft and GarageBand to make my own music.

So anyways.

On Total Recorder, in order to record, I have to set my sound card up to record through the Total Recorder mixer. Which is fine. I do that to record through Total Recorder and it works fine.

What happens is that, afterwards I forget to switch it back. Then I go to youtube and play videos and listen to audio at the same time through Winodws Media Player or RealPlayer and I can only play one audio channel at a time.

So if youtube is up, I can’t listen to Windows Media Player, and if Windows Media Player is up, I can’t hear youtube.

Why would you want to hear two different audio sources at the same time…you may ask?

Because I often switch between audio interfaces quite frequently. And I have to stop one source and let the other source play for a minute. For example, if I was listening to a playlist on Windows Media Player and my friend sent me a link for a youtube video, I’d pause Windows Media Player and check out the clip momentarily.

This was impossible before. Because I had my soundcard settings on Total Recorder.

I fixed this by simply changing the sound card settings back to the sound card drivers on my sound card and was able to listen to multiple audio channels at once again.

Seems like a simple thing, but for some reason I never picked up on it before.

So now I switch the settings on my sound card back to the sound drivers and my audio works again!

The lesson here? Remember to change the settings in control panel when you switch devices!

At the time I had only ever thought about doing this once or twice before. Certainly not recently. So I spent some time, quickly as I was in the middle of something else, attempting to research more about this so that maybe I could give them an answer.

They actually came up with solution.

if you have a lot of bookmarks for pages you visit, you might notice that you fill up one line on the toolbar (bookmark menu bar), and then have to select the rest from a drop down menu.

If you go to the Firefox website. It will have a blue banner menu at the top of the page. It will say mozilla to the left. In the menu,  click on “ADD ONS“.

Search for Multirow in the search box to the left.

It will be called Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar. In order to install it you will need to verify it by clicking okay and it will automatically install it onto the Firefox web browser.

Easy.

So if you have a lot of bookmarks and don’t want to click on the bookmark button in order to start scrolling, this is a great option!

Credit goes to Dweebcentric! Good job!

But that’s how it is in the Wild West, isn’t it? You just have to be real careful about who you are giving that sensitive information to.

But it’s not easy is it? Especially if you’ve been out of work for a long period of time. Then one day you check your email and there is someone who is offering you a job, probably a really good one. What do you do? Not jump on it?

Nope.

Of course you’re going to be excited. Of course you’re going to shout and dance around your room. You need money, and the economy is less than generous these days. In your excitement though, you forget to actually look at the email. You forget to notice certain things about what is written. You forget that maybe, in our particular economic climate, there may be people out there posing as companies just to get your information.

It’s not really a stretch of the imagination, is it? It’s easy enough in a climate of desperation. That’s gold mine territory for scammers.

So what I thought I’d do here is point out some of the more obvious things I’ve noticed along the way that scammers do, but people who are too excited to notice, may neglect.

As with any advise from anyone you read on the internet, please remember to exercise common sense and think about what is being asked of you. Think about how realistic the offer is, and what hoops you are being asked to jump through. A blood sample and ex girlfriend/boyfriends reference of you is a clear signature that this isn’t right. I only write this article because the things I’ve personally seen and been in contact with. This is by no means a full list of every scam out there today. Please use common sense when reading this, and use common sense when accepting anything over the internet. It is still virtual and people can still claim anything they want on it.

In no particular order:

+ the tiny url:
If you get an email from a small mom and pop company, and they need you to fill out an application on their website and the link reads http://www.tinyurl.com/website (website being another name), this is a scammer. No reputable company out there will be using tiny url. Why? Because companies pay for their websites, therefore they prefer to use their own websites. So the url will have something about the company name in it, definitely NOT tinyurl. http://www.comcast.com or http://www.directtv.com or something. They want to make it obvious that the website is for their company. Scammers count on you being too excited and overlooking these small details. It’s even happened to me, that’s why I’m posting it here.

+ Any company that requires sensitive information from you, better have a secured website. Meaning that in the lower right hand corner of your web browser (all web browsers have this) there will be a privacy lock. This is an indication that the company has at least taken some measures to encrypt the sensitive information that will be floating through the internet. If you see no such lock or indication, I would personally not bother with the offer. That’s just me though. But all of the reputable companies I’ve dealt with have this. They pay for web certificates and keep them up to date. Once again, they wish to remain reputable, and these are just issues of trust. It’s not difficult for a company of any kind to purchase and keep up web certificates, so they better have them. If they don’t, there is not reported security on the website, meaning your information could be okay, or could be going elsewhere.

+ My favorite. The rush jobs. Hearing about super opportunities that must get processed immediately. They need all of your sensitive information today and will be hiring you on the spot tomorrow. This one is pretty obvious to me, but the way you can tell this is a scam is usually they want all your information in an email. I don’t know any company who is reputable that wants Social Security numbers and the like in an email. Simply because emails are the most unsecured way of transportation. Normally companies need a resume first, then an application filled out, followed by an interview, and perhaps a seconds interview. That’s the norm. I’m not saying there will not be a rush, but the information normally follows a standard procedure, the one noted above. Be careful who you give that sensitive information to, ID theft is real people!

+ Phone verification. This is one I’ve run into recently.  I can’t remember any company checking up on you based on phone records. I don’t know the deal with that scam, but it is a scam. I was very happy to aviod it. Online applications shouldn’t ask you off the wall things like phone verification. It sounded shady to me at first, and then I found out it was in fact a scam. So remember to avoid that.

+ Investors scam. They offer you a great job, problem is you must invest in their operation. Soon you find out it’s a pyramid scheme. They are really sappy salespeople, like used car salespeople. They tell you they have a wonderful opportunity for you. When you arrive to hear about the job, they instead lecture you on how you could be doing in life, and with a small fee towards them, you could be managing lots of people. Yes, they even throw in cars and houses in the pitch as well. Stay away from too good to be true schemes.

Surprises, I was not expecting in this day and age of digital, HD, wifi, easy instant wide screen, 3D world we now live in.

I noticed that some movies, even though they report widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio, appear on my widescreen TV in fullscreen (4:3) format. My jaw drops!

What? How could this be? How could any movie be translated today with fullscreen aspect ratio?

But it’s true. Not all of the movies on instant demand were translated in 16:9. Some were translated as the original DVD packaging aspect ratio. So if the movie was old and not popular, it got minimally translated.

Then I noticed something else. I put a DVD into the DVD player and played the movie on my laptop. The movie showed up automatically in a very small aspect ratio. A very thin small aspect ratio.

I said, what’s going on here? Why are all these movies going into different aspect ratios when the world has now conformed to “Widescreen”?

Then I found out about an annoying thing called Windowboxing. This actually has nothing to do with the Windows Operating Systems, so don’t jump to that conclussion.

occurs when the aspect ratio of the media is such that the letterbox effect and pillarbox effect occur simultaneously

I thought maybe hollywood was working on some new resolution and needed to changed the aspect ratio. Or maybe there was a new aspect ratio going on that I was unaware of. I mean, what was going on here.

But alas, these things happen when we get complicated.

Here’s a better explaination of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowbox_(film)

Trouble with it is, there is no way fix this on a laptop. So for the moment it seems, this is how it is.

Just to say I’m not insane, and the world isn’t totally against me, this is an explaination of what’s going on when you can’t really see the movie, even though you have a widescreen HD TV or monitor. Thank you hollywood.

But how did you learn to drive? You had to learn all the traffic symbols and rules before you successfully hit the road. Same deal here. Crack the encryption and begin to learn the language and you’ll wonder how anyone could be scared of this wonderful little tool.

So I hope to begin writing some basics of using a Digital Multimeter blog on here as well. Probably giving it another category such as Tutorials/Walkthroughs or something of the like.

In this blog I’d like to just give one or two quick basics to handling and reading a Digital Multimeter. Something quick and direct for the first timers, as I myself once was.

The following will be a walkthrough on how to check the polarity of circuits (wiring) with a Digital Multimeter. I can only walk you through Digital Multimeters because I’ve never used an Analog Multimeter (I’m so nu skool!).

Okay, so the first step to doing anything with electrical devices or electrical circuits is to take those saftey precautions. Don’t electricute yourself or damage your home appliances because you got bored and wanted to see the voltage of your microwave. Please follow all saftey rules in your Digital Multimeter’s manual, or the ones you found online. I’m no where near responsible for anyone’s mistakes, proceed with caution and at your own risk!

The first thing to know about Multimeters is that they are just as fragile as the circuits you are testing them on. Don’t test a little cheapie multimeter on something that’s drawing in 100 amps of electricty and set it to 10 amps. It will fry your multimeter and then break and maybe even cause damage to you. Know your Multimeters limitations and play by them.

Okay,

Today we will be testing wiring for polarity. What does that mean?

It means that the wires were not marked or there is absolutely no indication which wire is Positive (+) and which wire is Negative (-). This will be essential to know the correct polarity if you are testing circuits and devices to ensure that the device is working correctly or not. Or if you must go in and rewire or something, you must know the correct polarity or the device will not work when you are finished repairing it. Today’s wiring is indication somehow someway by the negative wire having somekind of indication on it. But as I stated before, this is just a simple test for someone to get used to using a Multimeter.

Pretty simple.

So turn on your Digital Multimeter and connect the Negative (-) lead to the COM port. Then connect the Positive (+) lead to the V/mA port. Make sure to set your settings to the next highest rating of voltage. For this example, since I’m testing the wiring of a 1.5v DC wire, set the DCV to 20V.  I set it this way because it’s the lowest setting of that range on my Multimeter that I’m using.

Then simply touch your Positive and Negative leads to the wire. You will get a numerical reading regardless of the polarity. But the point of this exercise is to make sure we know the polarity of the wires. If you see a Negative (-) sign flashing before the numerical value, you are recieving a “negative” reading. This means your leads are in the incorrect polarity positions on the circuit (wires). Switch the leads to the opposite wires. You should get the same numerical reading, just without the flashing negative signal before them. You have corrected the polarity, and the multimeter’s leads are attatched to the correct polarity. This means that whatever wire the Postive (+) lead is connecting to at this point, is a Positive wire. The lead connecting to the other wire is telling you, the wire is negative.

The simplist version of this test is for speaker wire. If the polarity is reversed, the sound output to the speakers will be noticable. If the polarity is correct, the sound will be normal. Once again, if you reverse the polarity on your speakers, no harm will be done, it will just sound bad. Simply reverse the polarity to regain proper sound.