PCinfospace

SPAM  is junk mail.  Certainly it is mail you don’t need or want.  It is an attempt by the sender to get your attention at all cost to you.  It may be trying to get you to buy something or even sell something.  It offers deals too good to be true.  It may attempt to get your personal information.  In fact this is now the number one threat.  It may (and often times does) carry a virus or spyware program that can damage your computer or obtain your personal information.

How do I get these to start with?

There is no one good answer to this. However, e-mail is the number one way. If you enter a so- called “bad site” (one that is infected) you may get a program that generates these unwanted visitors.  What is worse is you might spread them to others through email and/or infected files that are passed from one person to another. This is especially true if you are networked together like many are in small and large companies.  In larger companies the Virus or spyware program may reside on the server and infect every computer on the network and cause a large amount of damage before it is even detected. These “bad guys” can happen at anytime under any circumstance.

How can I protect myself?

Stay away from sites that may contain infections.  These are normally sites that contain unacceptable or even illegal materials. Don’t open e-mails that you don’t recognize.  Don’t send jokes or chain letters.  These are known to carry these unwanted programs. The main thing is to buy the best anti-virus and anti-spyware program you can afford.  Many companies combine these two types of programs.

Is there anything I have to do with anti-virus programs?

Yup! You need to make sure they are always up to date and activated.  If you let your program expire it will not protect you.  This is exactly what the virus writers are hoping for. By keeping your program current you protect yourself against the latest threats.  You need to totally replace the program as often as you can.  Each program has updates that will help you protect your computer. Be sure to scan your computer at least once per week and check for updates to the program. Don’t let the cost of the program be a road block to protection.

How do I know if I am infected?

You may start getting a lot of unknown and unacceptable mail.  Normally you also get a lot of pop ups.  It might even drive you crazy.  The computer usually slows way down.  It might be hard to get any work done because of this.  If you can not send or receive mail or get into the internet you may be infected.

What is a SCAM and how is it related to SPAM?

Normally SPAM is a SCAM.  SPAM is the vehicle of transport. The writer is secretly trying to get you to do something you don’t want to. They can obtain information they can use to commit identity theft or other illegal activity.  They may be trying to gain access to your money by planting a virus in your computer that will gather your personal information and then send it to the sender at a given time and place.  Entire bank accounts have been emptied using this method.

Some SCAMs have claimed that they are seeking money so they can get to the US etc.  They play on your sympathy.

You should report any SCAMs you think are real rip offs to your local authorities.

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This refers to a digital camera.  In the days of the film cameras nobody worried about this.

In digital imaging, a pixel (or picture element) is the smallest item of information in an image. Pixels are normally arranged in a 2-dimensional grid, and are often represented using dots, squares, or rectangles. Each pixel is a sample of an original image, where more samples typically provide more-accurate representations of the original. The intensity of each pixel is variable; in color systems, each pixel has typically three or four components such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

The word pixel is based on a contraction of pix (“pictures”) and el (for “element”).

When you take a picture the elements of light (Red,Green & Blue) are stored in a form of media.  This media is normally an SD or other card. These are very small and can store quite a few pictures.  The number of pictures that can be stored on the card depends on the storage size and the resolution (explained below) the camera is set on for that picture.

The number of resulting pixels in the image determines its “pixel count”. For example, a 640×480 image would have 307,200 pixels, or approximately 307 kilopixels; a 3872×2592 image would have 10,036,224 pixels, or approximately 10 megapixels. The higher the megapixals the sharper a printed picture will be. In earlier cameras that were only 2 Megapixal you could only print picture 5×7 if you wanted them to look sharp. In today’s cameras (10 or more Megapixels) you can easily print very large pictures. If you would have printed a large picture with the old cameras the picture would be “pixelated” and would be very blurry.

The pixel count alone is commonly presumed to indicate the resolution of a camera, but this is a misconception. There are several other factors that impact the resolution. Some of these factors include sensor size, lens quality, and the organization of the pixels (for example, a monochrome camera without a Bayer filter mosaic has a higher resolution than a typical color camera). Many digital compact cameras are criticized for having excessive pixels. Sensors can be so small that their ‘buckets’ can easily overfill; again, resolution of a sensor can become greater than the camera lens could possibly deliver.

It should be noted that the higher the resolution the more storage it will take up both on your storage media and on your computer.  You should know what you plan to use the picture for.  As an example: if you plan to use it for a web site you can take it at a very low resolution.  If you plan to publish the picture in a magazine (or other printed media) you need to have it as high as possible. Keep in mind that if you have your camera set at a high resolution you will not be able to store as much on your media card.

Media ports are now available on many computers and printers.  You don’t have to use the hardware that came with your printer in that case.

As you can see this can become very complex. You can easily go to a search engine to find out more information about this subject.

Although it may seem strange to have cameras and PCs in the same article it is certainly the wave.  The reason is that many people store pictures on their computer.  They may also print these pictures, email them or cut them to a CD or DVD.  Other uses may be possible.

How do you get the pictures from the camera to the computer?

There are several ways to do this. You do need a USB cable that is for your specific brand of camera. Mostly you do not need any software if you have Window XP or higher. A software program is available in the operating system that allows you to move them from the camera to the computer.  Some computers now come with multimedia ports.  These ports allow you to use the media card and put it directly in the computer.  This allows you to insert your SD, MicroSD and other card.

What do I do after I have them on the computer?

The tricky part is what to do with the pictures after you have moved them. You can just store them and look at them when you want to. If you want to change the size or appearance of the pictures you will need photo editing software that has the ability to edit them according to your needs. There are many of these on the market and most cameras come with this type of software.  Adobe Photoshop is the top of the line editing software.  It is somewhat complex and expensive but is great if you want to have maximum ability to change your picture any way that you want to.

One thing you should know about keeping pictures on a computer is that there are many ways to lose them forever.  You could accidentally delete one.  A virus could attach the file(s) and/or make them susceptible to spreading a virus to some other computer through email. Your computer could crash.  If so you may lose all of what you had on the computer. It could be very expensive to restore files after a crash. In some cases you may not be able to get them back.

In order to protect your valuable pictures you need to back them up.  Put them on CDs or DVDs.  I am recommending DVDs because they have a much larger storage capacity.  You can also buy an external USB drive.  These are getting bigger and cheaper every day.

Another valuable piece of information to know is that most picture files are big.  If you have a small hard drive you could fill it up rapidly.  Most drives these days are quite large.  It is still possible to fill them up.  This is the reason you want to put them on another media.  You could store them on a second drive also.  USB drives have come down in price and are really huge.  You can get one Terabyte drive at this writing.

Another problem is that storms, fire or other catastrophic events can happen.  You need to keep copies off site.  Either you can use a bank safety deposit box or you now can use online storage.  You can never tell when or if something will happen.

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This is normally due to a corrupt registry and is very common with newer computers. This fix is already fairly well known but I felt it was necessary due to the risk involved in trying to correct the problem. Here is where to go to repair this registry problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270008 . You can use the “Fixit”  file located on that page.  It does work.

First, and foremost, always back up your registry.  If you even make the slightest error when you try to correct this problem you may not be able to reboot your computer. To do this go to Microsoft’s website at:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756 .  This will walk you through how to back up and restore your registry. An external drive is the best for this situation.  You may not be able to access the main drive.

This is not a fix for the weak hearted.  Read the instruction before you start.  If you feel uncomfortable with doing this then hire an expert.  It isn’t worth losing your data over what should be a simple fix.

If this does not work the instructions does include a way to do to the next step.

This article is short because I feel I didn’t want to write about what already is written.

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I see people confuse these all the time.

Storage is the amount of space available on the hard drive that stores any programs, file or information you have. You absolutely must have enough storage capability not only to store your files but also to run programs. If you have been storing pictures, music, word documents or any other data it does take space. Eventually you will reach the limit that the hard drive can store. With XP and above it will normally warn you when you get close to the limit. By luck most of the hard drives that are installed today are fairly large and can normally hold all the files you will ever be able to create. However, if you store large amount of large files it can happen that you could run out.

What if I run out of space?

First of all do not neglect any warnings you get. If the drive reaches a certain point it may not boot. This is because programs need some space for temporary files that make them work. This also includes the operating system. Your options are numerous. You could take the information (such as pictures) and move them to a CD or DVD. You could buy a USB drive (recommended) and start moving your pictures or other data to that drive. Although you could have another internal drive installed, I feel it is way too much work and may be expensive now that there are USB drives. You will need to know if you have a ATA or SATA drive if you plan to put in an internal drive. If you don’t know how to install a second drive you may need to pay somebody to do it. With a USB drive you just plug it into a USB port and you’re done. You can also use a Flash drive if you don’t have too many files. However, they do manufacture them up to 16 GIG which will store quite a bit of data. These Flash drives increase in storage size and decrease in price all the time. If you want to transport files from point to point this is the only way to go.

What about RAM?

First and foremost it is NOT storage. It is also called memory. It does not have any ability to store any information of any kind. It is your working space or where programs go to do the work you need to do. If you even type a letter it takes RAM working in the background to get any work of any kind done. If your computer runs slow or you are have a hard time opening program, you may need more RAM. The cheapest and fastest upgrade you can do is to add more RAM. This will let programs load faster and you will be able to get more productivity. In the event more RAM does not help speed things up, there could be other problems such as a Virus or Spyware. There could be a hardware problem also.

If you are low on RAM, programs will try to use the Hard drive instead (known as paging). That is why things slow down. This is especially a problem if you are lacking hard drive space. This is referring to virtual memory and it can be adjusted although it is beyond the scope of this article.