3 recommendations in buying laptops. These are not based on hardware specifics but convenience and usability from someone that is new to computers and also keeping you in mind.

Suggestion 1:

A fast top of the line PC. Let it be known that the PC market is so competitive these days the profit is only a few bucks off of the CPU and mother board. The profit comes from cables, print cartridges and accessories. For $2000.oo you can buy a system with all the bells and whistles which would include;

Pentium 4 processor

512MB ram

cdrom, dvd-rom, read/write of both.

Top end video card

Monitor

TV card

Printer

Software

Suggestion 2:

This is taking the approach of mobility and convenience. This is the laptop. In my opinion, there are 3 levels of laptops: entry level (under $1200), user level ($1200-2000) and professional level ($2500+). Entry is something like students and beginners. I would categorize the average person as a user level. This will give you the power of processor and memory. Laptops are sold with the intent that you won’t upgrade, but buy a new one when it becomes outdated. Laptops fit the same business model of selling cars; they depreciates in value as you drive off the lot. Pay the extra in the beginning then it will save money down the road.

With the laptop, I also recommend you buy 2 more items. Monitor and docking station. This will allow the laptop to be docked and used as a home computer, and give you the option of portability. I like this idea, because a monitor is always the preferred method of computing. If you’re working on a big project, the TFT display on a laptop can be strain full to the eyes

Suggestion 3:

This is a beefed up version of Suggestion 2, with the hand-me down in mind. Simply removed the monitor and docking station and get a loaded laptop. For the higher end of user level laptops (between $1500-$2000) you can get a decent laptop. With extras such as wider display, video out, faster processor, wireless, cd read/ write and a second battery.

After you decide which suggestion to go with, we can focus on what exactly to buy and where. Online or from a local shop. Laptops do break from time to time, so finding someone with immediate support is smart shopping. Once you have the item, I would come into the picture and show you how to make full use of your new hardware and software.

IEEE OUI: – IEEE OUI and Company_id Assignments based on mac address.

Belarc Advisor – Get all the info on your computer. Tech specs as might put it.

Enhancing Performance

-Faster Refresh in Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer can be slow to update its display when other programs change files and folders. The following tweak speeds Explorer’s reaction time. The tweak will also affect traditional system policies. If you encounter any trouble with system policies after making the change, undo it. On some systems, the value type will be DWORD; the tweak still works.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update

UpdateMode Binary 00

-Increase NTFS Performance

On busy NTFS drives, you can increase performance by dropping the last- accessed date/time stamp (so NTFS doesn’t have to update them) and the DOS-style 8.3 filename, assuming you have no antique programs that require the 8.3 filename.

hklm\system\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate dword 1

NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation dword 1

-Optimize File Allocation Size

If you work with very large files or disk-intensive applications, you may be able to speed up operations by changing the contiguous file allocation size. After making the change, defragment your drives.

hklm\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session

Manager\Memory Management

ContigFileAllocSize dword 512

-Transfer IE 6 Zone Settings

Internet Explorer 6 controls access to specific sites based on zones specified in the Security tab of Internet Options. In particular, you can block access to a site by adding it to the Restricted zone. The following tweak transfers zone settings to another computer.

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains

Action: Select the key and choose Export from the Registry menu. With Win NT 4.0, export to the REGEDIT4 format. Copy the resulting REG file to the other computer and launch it.

-Transfer IE 6 Zone Settings

Internet Explorer 6 controls access to specific sites based on zones specified in the Security tab of Internet Options. In particular, you can block access to a site by adding it to the Restricted zone. The following tweak transfers zone settings to another computer.

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains

Action: Select the key and choose Export from the Registry menu. With Win NT 4.0, export to the REGEDIT4 format. Copy the resulting REG file to the other computer and launch it.

Dangerous Defaults on The XP Desktop

Swap file. Normal Windows operation can leave unencrypted text (including passwords) on your machine, in files you would never think to look in—but a hacker might. The first thing to do is to set your machine to clear the system paging file (swap file) at shutdown. Go to the Start menu and click on Run, type regedit, and click on OK. Go to HKEY_local_machine\system\currentcontrolset\control\ sessionmanager\memory management. Find or create the ClearPageFileAtShutdown Dword and make its value 1.

Dump file. A dump file stores data from memory during a system crash and can be helpful when diagnosing problems, but like a swap file, it can also expose a lot of sensitive, unencrypted data. To prevent Windows from creating the file, go to Control Panel | System. Click on the Advanced tab and then the Settings button on the Startup and Recovery pane. Set the drop-down menu under Write debugging information to (none). Similarly, the debugging program Dr. Watson saves information when applications crash. To disable it, go to HKEY_local_machine\software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ AeDebug and set the Auto string to 0. Then use Windows Explorer to go to Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\DrWatson. Delete User.dmp and Drwtsn32.log, the insecure logs the program creates.

POSIX. Windows XP still ships with a subsystem called POSIX, which allows the use of Unix commands. Disabling POSIX prevents hackers from using Unix commands against your system. Go to Run and type regedt32 (not regedit). Find HKEY_ local_machine\system\currentcontrolset\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems and click on the multistring called Optional in the right-hand pane. By default, the multistring’s value will be POSIX; delete that value and leave the space empty (but don’t delete the Optional multistring). Then click on the actual POSIX multistring in the same pane. Note that it points to a file in your Windows System32 directory called Psxss.exe. Delete that file using Windows Explorer, use the Registry Editor to delete the POSIX string, and then reboot.

Other services. Unless you need one of them, it’s a good idea to disable several services that may open up back doors to your system: NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Remote Registry, Routing and Remote Access, SSDP Discovery Service, telnet, and Universal Plug and Play Device Host. Go to Control Panel | Administrative Tools and click on the services you don’t need and select Stop this service in the left-hand pane.

Converting Tape to CD:

What you’ll need to do is connect a tape player to your sound card’s line-in terminal with a 1/8″ mini-jack and record the contents of your tape as a WAV file. To do this, we recommend using the free version of MusicMatch 6.0. Just set MusicMatch to record the line-in channel, press play on your tape deck, and then press the record button on the MusicMatch Jukebox. Use Spin Doctor from Roxio to burn the CD. It’s part of Roxio’s Easy CD Creator 5.

Before you create the CDs, you may want to transfer the WAV files to an editing studio. Pro Tools, Sound Forge, or Cool Edit Pro will work just fine. Let your budget determine which one you get.

Digidesign has recently made a free version of Pro Tools available. Pro Tools is the industry standard among recording professionals worldwide. It’s not a user-friendly program but you can download a copy to edit and clean up WAV files before burning them to CD.