You Don’t Have To Be Rich To Be A PC Gamer

You Don’t Have To Be Rich To Be A PC Gamer

There is a common misconception that you have to take out a second mortgage on your house if you want to get a computer that will run all of the latest and greatest games. I don’t know who started the rumor that you need to spend 00 to get a gaming computer. The truth is, if you are smart about it, you can easily afford to get a high-end gaming computer. Here are a few simple rules to follow to put a gaming computer within reach.
Rule 1. Never buy the newest technology.
I know we all want to be the guy or girl with the newest toy, but you will never be able to keep up with technology. That top-of-the-line graphics card that came out today will be old news in just a couple of months and a new one will be released that is “so much better”. Guess what happens to the price of the new graphics card you just broke the bank on? It dropped by about 50%. If you would have just been patient you could have purchased it for a fraction of the cost.
Rule 2. You only have to keep up with the software.
Rule 2 closely correlates to Rule 1. It usually takes software companies two years, give or take, to develop a new game. During this time there are new technology breakthroughs. If they went back and re-engineered the game every time a new processor or a new graphics card came out, the game would never be released. Another important factor is that they want the game to be available to the largest number of consumers. For this reason they do their best to make sure the game can be played on a wide variety of systems. Check out the system requirements for some of the more popular games. A 1.8GHz processor and a Direct X 9 compatible graphics card will run just about everything out there. Granted you might have to turn some of the settings down but it will run it.
Once you reach a certain point the added performance of the new technology is noticeable. For example, the Athlon 64 chip has been out for more than a year, yet there are very few applications that require a 64 bit processor. If you check out benchmarks on the new PCI Express graphics cards you will see that they are running games at 300+ frames per second. When you watch a movie it runs at roughly 60 frames per second. A game will still run relatively smoothly at 20 frames per second. Basically anything over 60 frames per second likely will not be perceived while playing the game. You will only see the difference in your benchmark programs.
Rule 3. Build Your Own Computer
This is important for two reasons. First, you can be assured of better quality components when you pick everything out on your own. When you buy an off-the-shelf system, chances are you are getting a big name CPU and everything else is most likely generic. Do you know what motherboard, power supply, or type of RAM you are getting? This of course, is my personal opinion, I’m not saying every manufacturer builds sub standard machines, but from experience I’ve had greater longevity from the computers I’ve built myself. I’ve also noticed that you will often get little system memory, unless you pay a great deal more for it. You will often get 256MB of RAM with these base system. Windows XP will run, but likely with problems, on 256MB of RAM. It seems to be the most stable with 512MB or more. Other areas they cut costs is by using integrated graphics chips. This saves them having to put in a graphics card, but you will pay the price for it when you try to play a game.
The second reason to build your own computer is that you can cut your costs by stealing parts from your old computer. You can save hundreds of dollars by reusing the drives, case, monitor, keyboard and mouse. Plus, you don’t have to worry about calling a technician to install RAM or a new graphics card because you’ll already know how to do it.
How Much Can You Build A Computer For?
I just checked out some pricing and you can build a very nice midrange gaming computer for around 0-0 using an AMD Athlon 64 3000+. If you can steal a DVD drive from your old computer and maybe the case, you can bring the cost down even more. You can build a high-end machine for under 00. The internet is full of useful websites about how to build computers. Look around and you’ll find all the information you need. There are several books published about the topic as well. If you follow these simple rules and do a little research you can enjoy all of the best computer games even if you are on a shoestring budget.

Website Usability through Navigation Design

Website Usability through Navigation Design

Navigating through a website should be simple and efficient. Navigation is one of the key determinants of a website’s usability.

Usability refers to the ease of use and learning with regards to websites. It can refer to the effectiveness and quickness of the navigation structure of the website to be able to present pertinent information to the surfers.

The Issue of Usability

Usability is deemed to be very important in terms of web development today. Websites are made with the intention of making them tools for people in doing their daily tasks. Developing complex websites which don’t assist people in effectively doing their tasks would make little sense.

People with disabilities are continuing to grow in number. In the United States alone, one-fifth of the population is pestered by some kind of disability. This is the main reason why many people are gearing towards making websites more usable. The Internet has become a main instrument for these people to be able to live their lives.

Navigation

The usability of a website is dependent on several different factors such as accessibility, content quality and readability and over-all presentation, however, many web developers would say that the usability of a website is all about navigation.

This article tries to lay down some basic tips which should guide a developer on how to make a website more usable through the improvement of its navigational structure.

Here are some tips on how to make a website’s navigation more user-friendly:

-Avoidance of irrelevant links

One of the main mistakes of web developers in building websites is that they add more confusion to the visitor rather than eliminate it. This is the result of putting too much links that are not really needed by the visitors.

Having too many links to the other parts of the website is clearly an indication that the navigational structure of the website is not at its best. Let’s examine a hypothetical website so as to give us a way to discuss the different things to avoid and do in designing a website’s navigation structure. Let’s say that we are building a public auction site (one similar to E-bay).

If a surfer would want to buy computer accessories, the website should not contain irrelevant links to other parts of the website such as putting a direct link towards the section on buying clothes. If the said person is interested in buying clothes after he has shopped for the computer accessories that he needs, he will definitely find his way to the clothes section. Putting these kinds of links will irritate more people than satisfy more people. It’s like putting a section of computer accessories and a section of clothing right beside each other in a department store-it makes no sense.

-Standardize icons

A study has revealed that 39% of shoppers didn’t pursue in buying certain items from the Internet because they found the sites to be too hard to navigate. This meant a lot of loss for the businesses, but this can be avoided.

One of the ways to improve navigation is to use standardized icons for linking pages. Icons were made to be able to represent something that is related to it. The use of random icons will definitely add up to the confusion regarding navigation. Also, developers shouldn’t over-explain the icon because icons are there to be able to provide non-text information about the link. A brief explanation should be provided, but it should be kept brief and concise.

-Sitemap

The provision of a sitemap will definitely help people to effectively navigate through the website. A sitemap provides a skeleton structure of the website in a single page. All the links and contents are indicated in a sitemap therefore making navigation a much easier process.

-Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumb links provide linkage to the major pages of a website. These are particularly useful for people because they give easy access to the major pages.

-Avoid burying information

Navigating through a website need not be a journey through an ocean. A simple rule of thumb is that all the web pages in the website should be accessible from each other not more than 3 clicks away.

These are just some of the ways on how to improve the usability of a website through the improvement of navigation. These steps should be done hand-in-hand with the other ways of improving a website’s usability.

Lost Something On Your Computer? It May Not Be As Bad As You Think

Lost Something On Your Computer? It May Not Be As Bad As You Think

Just because you can’t see it, or can’t find it doesn’t mean that its not there! I would say at least 90% of people who use a computer on a regular basis have no idea how it actually works. They think that things like icons on their desktop will make their computer run slow. Many things that because they have a slow computer it will cause their Internet to be slow. Others think that “Windows” is the computer and they don’t realize that it’s just another piece of software like every other program running on a computer. Finally many people think that when they click and delete something off of their computer, and wipe it from their trash bin that the information is actually gone. If you think that is the case, and you think you have lost your information for good, think again, cause you might just be in luck!

When information is stored on your hard drive or hard disk, it is stored in things called sectors. When you delete something off of your computer through Windows or Linux or Dos all it is doing is telling the computer that those sectors are now available to be written over. The computer doesn’t actually wipe them clean, which would be useless when it could just as easily write over them. So if you have a virus or a computer illiterate roommate that happens to delete the important files off your computer, then you might just be able to get that information back. There is one catch, its not easy!

Not only is it not easy, but also 99% of people don’t have the technology, know-how or resources and education to do it themselves. This is why there are professional companies that specialize in data recovery, and believe me, they charge tons of money.

Data loss occurring from an actual hard drive failure such as overheating and melting important sensors or an electric shock that fries components might actually result in permanent data loss. Yep, so sometimes data recovery cannot restore lost files. This is why data security is a smart, preventative measure. Backing up data on multiple hard drives and CDs and DVDs and on multiple computers will prevent disastrous things like permanent data loss from occurring. Be smart – back your files up, it will cost you less to back up on hard drives than it will cost you to recover files directly from your hard disk.