comp-world

Microsoft Certifications are one of the most widely acclaimed, pursued, and achieved technical certifications in the IT industry. The demand for Microsoft Certified Professionals in the job market is increasing every year.


Microsoft offers a number of certification levels depending on specific areas of proficiency and nature of job. Some of the certifications pertaining to networking are:


Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)


Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA)


Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE)



Each certification level has certain exams associated with it. You can decide the appropriate certification exam based on your experience, skills, and interests.


Benefits of Microsoft Certifications



Microsoft Certifications provide a standard method for testing employee skills. The certifications provide employers a valid benchmark for evaluating the employee's abilities. This will provide you the recognition and reward as per your expertise.


Microsoft Certifications offer prospective employers a baseline to judge your knowledge, skill, and expertise in the field. Certifications can provide added advantage if you are at the same level of experience as another person without certifications.


Certifications are a valuable tool if you have no or very little experience. The certifications that you hold can prove and reassure your employers and consultants about your knowledge in the field. This will help you secure good job as well as negotiate a good salary.



Pre-Requisite Experience (Recommended) for Microsoft Certifications


To pursue this certification you should have at least 1 year of experience in:



Implementing and administering a network operating system in environments with 50 to 26,000 supported users, in approximately 3 to 150 physical locations.


Implementing network services and applications such as file and print services, database services, messaging services, proxy server or firewall services, dial-in server services, and Web hosting.


Implementing and administering a desktop operating system.


Designing a network infrastructure with 3 or more domain controllers.



Significance of Microsoft Certifications for Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Microsoft has developed independent certification requirements for Microsoft Windows Server 2003. An aspirant can certify directly for MCSE/MCSA in Windows 2003 if they are new to certification process. If the aspirant is already a certified MCSE /MCSA in Windows 2000, then they can follow the upgrade path for MCSEs in Windows 2000 to secure Windows 2003 Certifications. If the aspirant certifies in MCSE for Windows NT4.0, they can earn MCSE in Windows 2003 by following the upgrade path for MCSEs in Windows NT4.0.


The exams are slightly more challenging than their Windows 2000 counterparts, but they will actually test your hands-on knowledge since that is the most important part of ensuring that a certification is credible.


Exam 70-290: Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment

Exam 70-290 is the first in the series of the core exams for MCSE certifications.


When you pass the Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment (MCSE 70-290) exam, you achieve Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) status. You also earn credit toward the following certifications:



Core credit towards Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 certification

Core credit towards Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 certification



MCSE 70-290 exam objectives are:

Objective 1: Managing and Maintaining Physical and Logical Devices

In this objective you will need to demonstrate expertise in managing and maintaining physical and logical devices. As an administrator, you should understand Basic and Dynamic disks, RAID configuration and troubleshooting, driver signing, and the use of tools, such as Device Manager and Hardware Troubleshooting Wizard. Familiarize yourself with Device Manager and the warning and disabled icons found when problems are present on installed devices.


Objective 2: Managing Users, Computers, and Groups

This objective includes many topics, so you should be prepared to face many questions that fall into this category. Have a healthy introduction to profile management, user and group accounts, permissions, and troubleshooting. Practice a lot on GPOs and perform a variety of administrative tasks, including configuration of desktop settings, control of security settings, assignment of scripts, redirection of folders, and software distribution. Also, get a clear understanding on inheritance and filtering.

Objective 3: Managing and Maintaining Access to Resources

Knowing how to configure, monitor, audit and troubleshoot NTFS permissions based issues are one of those most important areas that you need to know this concept thoroughly and also be sure to brush up on your share permissions and share/NTFS permissions interaction. Do not forget to brush up on how folder and file permissions can change or stay the same when copying or moving within a drive or between drives.


Objective 4: Managing and Maintaining a Server Environment

In this objective you'll find questions from topics, such as Event Viewer, System Monitor, software updates (including the functionality of Microsoft's Software Update Service or SUS), Remote Assistance, disk quotas, print queues, performance objects and IIS 6.0. Spend time understanding IIS topics around Web sites, Virtual and physical directories, files and host and cname records in DNS. New to Windows Server 2003 is SUS. Understand clearly how SUS is used for deploying and managing client and server critical updates.

Objective 5: Managing and Implementing Disaster Recovery

In this objective you'll find questions on ASR, VSS, backing up files and system state data, configuring security for backup operators, verifying backup jobs, managing media, restoring and scheduling backups and recovering from server hardware failures. You should take some extra time to get familiar with the various types of backups that Windows Server 2003 supports, as well as the various configuration options that are available to you. Practice making backups of different types and then practice restoring them.



MCSE 70-290 Exam Model

Most of the questions in the MCSE 70-290 exam are multiple choice type. The questions require the "best" answer from several close responses. Other questions may present an implementation scenario, requirements, and a proposed solution and then ask if the solution meets all of the requirements or combinations of the primary and secondary requirements. Microsoft has introduced some testing innovations for the certification exams. These question types present a more realistic visual representation of the tasks a MCSE would do in future. These are:

• Hot Area Questions - This type of question requires indicating the correct answer by selecting one or more elements within a graphic.

• Active Screen Questions - This type of question asks you to configure a dialog box by changing one or more elements.

• Drag and Drop Questions - This type of question asks you to drag source objects to appropriate targets within a work area.

• Build List and Reorder Questions - This type of question asks you to indicate the correct answer by building an answer list. In a Build List and Reorder question, you need to build a list by dragging the appropriate source objects to the answer list and then placing them in the correct order based on criteria defined in the question.

• Create a Tree Questions - This type of question asks you to create a tree structure. You indicate the correct answer by dragging source nodes to the correct locations in the answer tree. Nodes consist of text and a small icon.

• Windows Simulation Questions - This type of question asks you to indicate the correct answer by performing specific tasks such as configuring and installing network adapters or drivers, configuring and controlling access to files, and managing hardware devices. Many of the tasks that systems administrators and systems engineers perform can be presented more accurately in simulations than in most traditional exam question types.

• You can get hands-on experience on new set of questions that are available in Whizlabs MCSE 70-290 Exam Simulator. This will help you plan your study regime to ensure success.

Passing Score

Microsoft has normalized scoring for all MCP exams, so the same passing score applies to all exams. 700 is now the minimum passing score for all MCP exams. However, the maximum score (which used to top out at 1000) varies per exam, depending on the complexity of the skills measured.


Time Limit

The exam duration is 175 minutes with 45 questions. You will have plenty of time to answer the exam questions, so there is no need to rush. If you have spare time available, you can double check the questions and ensure that you have read them correctly and actually answered the question as intended.


Exam Result

Instead of reporting results based on major categories for exam objectives as it used to, Microsoft is now providing numerical scores and bar graphs for "skills clusters". Visually, the bars in the exam report show you how well you fare in each skills cluster. If bars that represent cluster scores are close to one end of the graph, they indicate stronger skills; bars near the other end indicate weaker skills. Please store your exam results in both paper and electronic format for later reference.


Sample Questions


Question 1

You are a systems administrator for TicTacToe Toy Manufacturers. All servers in the company run on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. The company's Active Directory infrastructure consists of a single domain hosted on two domain controllers named Tic1 and Tic2.

Tic2 experienced a hard disk failure, and hence has been taken offline. Tic2 remained offline for some days while all Active Directory updates were made to Tic1. You proceed to restore the data from backup while ensuring that the latest Active Directory changes are replicated to Tic2.


How should you restore the lost data from backup?


Choices:

• Perform authoritative restore on Tic1.
• Perform normal restore on Tic2.
• Perform primary restore on Tic2.
• Perform authoritative restore onTic2.

Correct Choice: B


Explanation:

Choice B is the correct answer.

During a normal restore operation; Backup operates in non-authoritative restore mode. That is, any data that you restore, including Active Directory objects, will have their original update sequence number. The Active Directory replication system uses this number to detect and propagate Active Directory changes among the servers in your organization. Because of this, any data that is restored non-authoritatively will appear to the Active Directory replication system as though it is old, which means the data will never be replicated to your other servers. Instead, if newer data is available from your other domain controllers, the Active Directory replication will update the restored data. Hence, choices A, C, and D are incorrect.



Question 2


You are a systems administrator for Blueberry Packaging Industries. All servers in the company run on Microsoft Windows Server 2003.


You create a folder named Custom Package on the company's file server to contain the company's files. You share this folder as Custom Package. The folder is configured with default NTFS permissions and default share permissions. The file server is located in a secure room.


Within the shared folder, Managers should be able to add and change files and subfolders. Employees in the Sales and Packers department should be able to change and delete files and subfolders. All other employees should only be able to view the files.


All Sales employees are members of the Sales domain local security group. All Managers are members of the Managers domain local security group. The Packers are members of the Packers global security group.


How should you modify share level permissions on the Custom Package folder so that the appropriate users have the minimum required privileges? (Choose all that apply)


Choices:

• Grant Change share permissions to Managers.
• Deny Full Control share permissions to Managers.
• Grant Change share permissions to Sales.
• Grant Full Control share permissions to Sales.
• Grant Change share permissions to Packers.
• Grant Full Control share permissions to Packers.
• Deny Full Control share permissions to Everyone.
• Remove Everyone from the share permissions list.

Correct Choices: A, C, and E


Explanation:

Choices A, C, and E are the correct answers.

Change permissions allow the users to create, delete, and change any files and folders in the shared folder, provided the users have appropriate NTFS permissions on the files and folders. The default NTFS permission in Windows Server 2003 is Read for Everyone and the default share level permissions grant Read access to Everyone. You should not remove Everyone from the share permission list. By default, share level permissions grant Read access to Everyone.



How to Prepare for Microsoft Certification?

Following are the steps to prepare for Microsoft certification.



MCSE exams are not easy, as advertised on many websites. The MCSE Certifications are tough, so plan to put in a lot of time and effort getting ready for your certification exams. Get all information you can about the certification exams and then start working towards your goal.


Get hands on experience. The first step in the preparation for any Microsoft Certification is hands on experience with the related product. For MCSE, the aspirant needs to have at least a year of working experience and for MCSA, the minimum recommended time of experience is 6 months. If you are not working anywhere, it will help, if you can volunteer your IT skill services to gain valuable experience.


You can set up a small network at home to practice. Setting up the home network will give a great opportunity to learn. You can practice the lab exercises in the home network as and when you study. This will give you a better understanding of the theories than just studying the exam guides.


Get trained in the related product. If possible, try to get training in the related product in a Microsoft Authorized Training Center. You can use training resources to supplement your skills and experience. You can also use the Microsoft Official Curriculum for the related exam as well as Microsoft Press books that are available for the exam.


For Exam 70-290, the main areas that you need to concentrate are

• Automated System Recovery (ASR)
• Diskpart utility
• Diskraid utility
• Emergency Management Services (EMS)
• File Replication Service (FRS)
• Group Policy Management Console (GPMC)
• Open File Backup
• Password Backup and Restore Wizard
• Remote Assistance
• Remote Desktop
• Shadow copying of shared folders
• Software Update Services (SUS)
• Virtual disk service
• Permissions -Share and NTFS
• Users, Computers, and Groups

Use the preparation guide of the exam that you want to take and read it thoroughly. You should know all the exam objectives of MCSE 70-290 covered in the exam preparation guide.

Use practice test software packages. Whizlabs MCSE 70-290 Exam Simulator is an example.

Do NOT use Braindumps. Braindumps might help you get the certification, but you will lack important practical knowledge about the product. Hence, your prospects of landing a good IT job will be less. Some brain dumps deliberately mislead you. So BEWARE!

You can participate in any online discussion forum, where you can participate in an ongoing dialogue and even ask doubts if you have any. You are sure to get the right guidance.



You've learned the details about the MCSE 70-290 Exam, its pattern, objectives etc. Download the MCSE Exam Preparation Guide to learn how Whizlabs can help you achieve the MCSE credential.

Resources

Exam simulators

Whizlabs MCSE 70-290 Exam Simulator

Besides identifying your weak areas and giving you a feel of the exam environment, Whizlabs Exam Simulator nurtures your potential to acquire domain expertise so that you not only succeed in your certification exam but succeed in your career too.

Articles on Windows 2003



Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server Home Page

What's New in Active Directory

Windows Server 2003 Demos

Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition



Microsoft Online Resources



TechNet : Designed for IT professionals, this resource includes Howto's, best practices, downloads, technical chats, and much more.


MSDN : The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is a reference for developers, featuring code samples, technical articles, newsgroups, chats, and more.

Training & Certification Newsgroups : A newsgroup exists for every Microsoft certification. By participating in the ongoing dialogue, you take advantage of a unique opportunity to exchange ideas with and ask questions of others, including more than 750 Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) worldwide.

During POST (Power On Self Test), the BIOS try to get information about all the devises Connected to the system. After checking the processor and RAM it checks for devise such you’re hard disk, CD-ROM, etc., and display them on screen with messages such As ‘detecting IDE drives…’ and Found Primary Master….’etc. Sometimes your BIOS Just refuses to recognize your hard disk, basically making it useless-there’s no way windows will recognize your hard disk if the BIOS doesn’t. Let’s see why this happens:


The most common reason is a loose or badly connected data cable. Make sure the data cable is plugged in properly, both into the hard disk, as well as the motherboard. The same goes for power cable, so check that as well. Also, make sure that the red lines on the data cable and power cable are adjacent to each other.


One you’ve ruled out any cable problems, check the jumper setting on the drives. If two drives are connected to a port, make sure one is set as master and the other as Slave, or else both are set to Cable Select.


Next, make sure your drive controllers on your motherboard are not disabled. These controllers control IDE devices, and without them the BIOS cannot detect the drives. Go to the BIOS setup, and under the Integrated Peripherals menu, make sure that ‘On Board HDC’ is enabled for both Primary and Secondary channels. Also ensure that all drive types are set to AUTO under the Standard CMOS Setting. If you are not comfortable with changing the BIOS values, just reset the BIOS to factory defaults.


When all else fails, so has your hard disk send it to a technician for servicing.

One fine day you start your PC and get messages that say,”Book Disk failure”. The problem is that the hard disk is detected but the OS does not load. The system may get stuck in the second screen during the booting process or the OS might display an error message and refuse to load. Such situations can be trouble some as they leave you with very few troubleshooting options


One of the common problems in dual boot systems is of the boot loader getting corrupted. For example, you have a system running Windows XP and Linux using Lila as boot loader. If Lila gets corrupted, you can not boot into either OS.When this happens, you have to boot into the system using some other media, such as a boot floppy or the Windows Dafter booting go to the command prompt, type ‘fdisk/mbr’ and press [Enter]. Note that if you use Windows 2000 or XP, boot into the recovery console and give the command ‘fixmbr’ to clear the MBR. Unfortunately, after you restart, it will boot to Windows directly, without any option of booting into Linux. You will have to restore LiLo again from your Linux CD, or reinstall boot loaders such as XOSL from Windows.


If your problem persists, or if you never used a boot loader, than boot into the system from a boot floppy or the Windows CD.Windows 2000 and XP users should boot into the recovery console. Go to the command prompt and give the command fdisfk/mbr’and then give the command ‘sys C’. This clears the MBR, and makes the bootable partition C, Windows 2000 and XP users should give the command ‘fixmbr’ and’ fixboot’ C: to do the same. Then restart the system to boot into the OS.


If you still have trouble, you might have a virus on your PC’s boot sector .It is difficult to confirm an infection without a virus scan. Thesymptoms of an infections-applications slowing down or many unrecognized files appearing in the system-should give you a clue. For example Windows 98 and Me users might see a message during boot up that says,” No valid FAT on boot drive” this is caused due to a boot sector virus called stoned Monk. Even reinstalling Windows might give you an error message that says, “Your computer already has an operating system installed”. Then best solution is to connect the hard disk to another system, and scan with an anti virus tool. You can also create a rescue disk for the anti virus tool and scan the system using it.


If nothing mentioned above seems to work. Then you have a serious problem at hand. Connect it to some other system and try to access the data if you can, then your boot record is damaged. Otherwise the service center beckons.

This month's article is one of the things I still find comes up as a frequent question, "what's the difference between Viruses and Spyware"? I will try and clarify that here.


One of the biggest slowdowns of a PC is caused by viruses, adware or spyware as it's often called. Before you can benefit from any other optimisation tips or improvements you really need a system relatively free from those pests.



A virus is a piece of malicious software code written to cause some kind of damage to a computer system or network or even the Internet itself. Viruses spread, similar to their biological namesake, from one machine to another and can spread havoc wherever they go. They are most commonly spread by sharing files with others or through email attachments where they can be set up to send themselves to all the addresses in your email address book.



Adware is usually dowloaded and installed along with some other program without your knowledge and unlike a virus doesn't spread by itself. Very often you click "OK" without reading the terms and conditions and by doing so you agree to have the files installed. An example is you see a "free" program on offer that you think might be useful and download it without thinking. Even some anti-spyware programs install adware and the website earns money from the ads that are clicked on.



The catch is that the extra files introduced are used to determine things like your surfing habits and the data is used to serve up popup ads or redirect your browser to a page other than the one you wanted. Some of the programs can be used to install keyloggers which can send back information about passwords and bank details etc. Adware is not a security problem it is more an annoyance especially when you have ten different programs trying show ads. The amount of computer resources it uses up slows your system to a crawl.




Spyware is more malicious and evil intentioned and is designed to steal something from you. It can be downloaded by visiting
the wrong types of websites or along with other files the same way as adware. Spyware can often be hard to remove as it can continually recreate itself and hide somewhere on your hard drive.



Programs such as trojans can be used to allow access to hackers at a later date. From the story of the Trojan horse where the Greeks hid inside the wooden horse left as a peace offering and were wheeled in
to the fort by the Trojans themselves. Then at night the Greeks crept out of the horse and opened the gates and let the enemy in. Trojans and adware unlike viruses don't spread themselves.



It is wise to run more than one spyware checker as no one system gets rid of them all. You can never be certain you have every one removed because new ones may not have been discovered and the Spyware program doesn't recognise it yet.


I use the two free ones "Spybot search and destroy" and "Adaware 6.0" and I also use


Counter Spy which comes from a reputable company that specialises in removing spyware.



Sometimes people say to me "doesn't my anti-virus software remove spyware"? Well the answer is most don't and even if it does I always find a specialist product works best. Beware also of bogus spyware scanners available on-line which actually install their own spyware once they have removed their competitors. Sometimes you run a free scan and it finds all sorts of nasties but you will have to sign up and pay to remove them. I have even seen it that they find things that don't exist or try to frighten people into believing they have lots of spyware when all they have are advertising cookies.



Cookies are small text files that websites leave on your system so that when you return they can customise the page that loads or they can count you as a returning visitor. They are harmless and most of them are useful. They can be easily removed by deleting them in your browser settings.



So you need to be running a suitable and up to date antivirus program and one or more Spyware checkers.

So you want to buy a gaming laptop.

But not just any old gaming laptop, you want to buy the best gaming machine on the planet, the best gaming machine money can buy - the fastest, the most powerful, the ultimate kick-ass, take no prisoners, meanest motherboard of all gaming laptops.


Well, there's some good news for you, things have really changed in the laptop world. No doubt you are probably aware there have been some major developments in laptop construction and technology in the last year or so. Technology that puts the gaming laptop
on par or near par with its main rival - the desktop PC.



Recent changes in technology have really brought gaming laptops into the spotlight with a whole list of new Technologies:

PCI Express, Sonoma Chipset, SLI, Hyper-Threading, Dual Graphics, Better RAM, and now Dual Core gaming laptops. Gaming notebooks are just now entering the specs and performance arena which was exclusively reserved for the bulky yet much more powerful desktop PC.


Just in case you have had your head buried in term papers and study sheets lately - hey, it happens! Here's a brief rundown of these



New technologies that will give you the fastest gaming laptop:

Graphics Cards: these are the real heart of any gaming machine. They are getting faster and more powerful. We also see the use of dual graphics cards and better transfer of data with new pipelines and buses.


PCI Express: is a new standard for expansion cards that comes in different versions. Presently, we have the x16 and x1 lanes, they offer increased bandwidth. For example, x1 lane offers 500MB/sec instead of just 133MB/sec for PCI.


NVIDIA SLI: SLI stands for Scalable Link Interface, technology that lets you use a couple of GeForce 6800 graphics cards together with PCI Express X16. Basically, SLI will speed up graphics on a single monitor by deploying two graphics cards. It also lets you combine 4 GPUs in one system for the fastest graphics yet.


An alternative system would be ATI's CrossFire which is a SLI-like configuration using 'Master' and 'Slave' cards to combine two Radeon GPUs for improved and faster graphics.


Hyper-Threading: Gives processors better performance especially when combined with dual-core processors, capable of handling four software threads which will put a smile on any gamer's face.



Better RAM: DDR3 SDRAM (Double Data Rate Three Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) this new DDR memory standard will use 40% less power and run at speeds up to 800 MHz.

Don't confuse this with GDDR3 (in Graphics Cards) which is a totally different technology.



Dual Core: just as the name says, you put two CPUs into a laptop for more power and faster computing. Rockdirect's Xtreme 64 was one of the world's first dual core notebooks to hit the market.


Also be on the lookout for Intel's Dual-Core Notebook Chip dubbed Yonah, it will be somewhat different in that this notebook chip will not only have two cores but these cores will share a 2MB cache which will greatly boost performance.


In most cases, keeping ahead of all these developments and improvements can be a pleasurable chore for most gamers but it can sure eat into your gaming time. And as the notebook technology evolves, the gaming laptop will get even more smaller and more powerful, offering a real alternative to the gaming desktop PC even for the most die-hard Power Junkies.


Serious gamers will also know laptop or notebook gaming technology is constantly evolving and mutating. Therefore, most gamers will only purchase a fully upgradeable open architecture notebook - they look for a laptop design which can be easily upgraded with the newest and latest technology, if at all possible.


Despite this option, as laptop gaming technology steadily improves, gamers are still left with the choice of which gaming system to buy. Just in case you have be hibernating for last five years - hey, it happens. Here's a quick rundown of the different systems on the market ...Voodoo, Alienware, Mayhem, Vigor, Sager, ASUS, Rockdirect, M-Tech, Dell...


Despite the fancy lapels, serious gamers know that most laptops are made by the same two or three companies in Taiwan! The same components and mainframes are assembled under different brand names and marketed to the public.


Not to get too cynical, but sometimes it's the laptop with the better paint job or the better advertising that will win your purchasing dollar. Not that savvy gamers are easily fooled, perish the thought, but packaging may rule the day performance may be the same or negligible in gaming machines with basically all the same components and specs.


Regardless of this sober reality, gamers are still left with the choice of which gaming manufacturer has tweaked these components into the best gaming laptop on the market. There are numerous gaming specialists that make high quality machines well worth your consideration but because of limited space here we will only examine three major gaming manufacturers, sometimes for entirely different reasons.


These three are Alienware, Rockdirect and Dell. All produce serious contenders for the ultimate gaming laptop. Here's a brief rundown on all three makers and their gaming laptops which may be of some help to anyone looking to purchase a high-end gaming monster.



Alienware Laptops

First, we will start with the most distinctive looking gaming laptops on the market. Those coming from Alienware, a company founded by two avid gamers, Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Aguila, in 1996. It has become one of the leading producers of revolutionary gaming PCs and Notebooks. It has also won raves and rewards from such top industry publications as CNET, PC Gamer, Computer Games and many more.


Their flagship model is the Area-51m 7700. This scary monster can be outfitted with an Intel Pentium 4 Processor with Hyper-Threading Technology - (2.8GHz - 3.8GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB Cache, Socket 775) Intel 915P + ICH6 chipset with NVIDIA


GeForce GO 6800 ULTRA with 256MB DDR3. It has a 17 inch WideUXGA 1920x1200 LCD Display and 4 dedicated SO-DIMM slots for Dual-Channel DDR2 Memory. Warranties can be purchased for up to 4 years.


The Alienware Area-51m 7700's base price starts at around $2000 but if you want to max out this system, be prepared to double that amount. High price for high performance. Runs quiet and cool. This one is dressed to kill.



Rockdirect Laptops

Next, we go across the pond, for a company that produces some high priced yet powerful gaming machines. Rockdirect gaming notebooks are another group of machines that many gamers should consider.


Rockdirect, formerly known as Rock, is a British company that's on the cutting edge of notebook technology. They have had a long history of making high quality laptops for business and gaming.


Rockdirect laptops are expensive, there's no way to get around that fact.


Rockdirect's Xtreme 64 is one of the world's first dual core notebooks using AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ processors and twin 100GB 7,200RPM hard drives. With NVIDIAGeForce Go 7800 GTX
graphics and a 17 inch WSXGA+ (1680x1050) display with X-Glass for better viewing. Around 2,300 pounds or $4,000 USD. Three Year Collect and Return Warranty.



Dell Laptops

Hey dude, this can't be a DEll?

Dell with the introduction of its XPS second generation gaming laptops has to be considered by the serious gamer. Don't laugh!

With the introduction of the XPS Gen2 laptops, Dell entered the gaming market for real. A lot of people stood up and took notice.

Even more people stood up when Dell introduced the XPS Renegade 600 desktop gaming system with 4 NVIDIA 7800GTX GPUs at the CES this year. Now that's putting SLI to some good use!



Dell's top Notebook Model is the XPS M170 powered by
Intel Pentium M Processor 780 (2.26 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
and 2GB1 Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm Memory on
a 100GB 7200rpm Hard Drive. It uses 256MB NVIDIA GeForce
Go 7800 GTX and has a 17 inch UltraSharp Wide Screen UXGA
Display. Priced at around $3,896 with a two year warranty
and longer warranties may be purchased.

Show me the Facts!

Anyone can pick a top gaming notebook and say its the fastest
in the world. However, you have to prove it or back it up.
That's where benchmark testing enters the picture, these are
standard tests that rate the performance level of your
gaming laptop. Hey, tests are good for something!

One good site that has performed a whole slue of tests on
the gaming laptops mentioned above is www.hexus.net
- You can see the different Benchmark tests here:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4188

Testing for memory bandwidth and latency, picfast,
cryptography, raytracing, realistic render, encoding and
so on. The dual core Rock XTreme 64 showed impressive
numbers, even beating out an Athlon 4000+ Desktop in
many areas.

WildCard Entry: M-TECH!

There's another laptop maker many novice gamers don't consider
when buying their ultimate gaming machine. It may not be as
well known as the ones above but the real wildcard entry is
M-TECH. This is basically the American equivalent of Rockdirect,
although the companies are in no way connected. They just have a
similar philosophy of working with and using cutting-edge technology
and firms to produce some superior gaming machines.

M-TECH, a Michigan company, started in 1995 and has close
strategic partnerships with Tech firms in Silicon Valley. It
is favorably reviewed by many industry magazines such as
Laptops, Mobile Computing, CNET, PC TODAY and others.

M-TECH produces some powerful low priced (relatively speaking)
gaming laptops such as the D900K and the D900T:

You can configure your D900T with two 100GB (7200RPM) SATA HDD
Hard Drives with Pentium 4 3.8GHz 2MB L2Cache with a RAID setup.
With Nvidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX w/256MB DDR3 and a 17 inch TFT WSXGA+
Glassview LCD display for around $3500 USD. One year warranty,
longer warranties may be purchased.

When buying your laptop, keep in mind, just because a gaming
laptop has a lot of style doesn't mean it has sacrificed performance.
It is not a matter of style over substance - it just means
you have to pay highly for all that style/advertising/packaging.
If you can afford it, go for a higher priced gaming laptop.
People buy Ferraries don't they? There's no accounting for how
people spend their money - if you want one of these dual core
laptops from Rockdirect and you can take a little bit of heat
and noise with your games - go for a Rockdirect Xtreme 64 or
the older Xtreme Ti.

If you want a dressed to kill Alienware laptop - go for the
Area-51m 7700. If you're on a budget, look closely at the Dell
XPS M170 or the other XPS systems and watch for special Dell
coupons and discounts. Dell is known for giving some great
discounts so keep your eyes peeled. And if you really want to
go against the mainstream, why not check out M-TECH. Especially
the M-TECH D900K or the D900T, ultimate performance at a good price.

No matter which gaming system you go with, try to pick one
that has a fully upgradeable open architecture structure so
you can easily upgrade when the time comes. Keep in mind,
laptop technology is changing so fast by the time your
dream machine is configured, it is probably already out of date.
Sobering thought but more true than any of us would like to
believe.

Finding the fastest gaming laptop may be an on-going process
of outfitting your dream machine with the latest technologies
and hardware as they come on stream. Hey, nobody said life would
be simple.

Just wondering how you can fit Quad SLI with 4 GPUs
into a laptop. Hey, it can happen and probably will!

............

For more info on the best gaming laptops click here:Gaming Laptops.
For information on upgrading your gaming laptop click here:
Laptop Memory Upgrade
Titus Hoskins Copyright © 2006. This article may be freely distributed
if this resource box stays attached.

A Top 10 List That Can Save Your Computer


Many who read this article may find these recommendations to be old news. However, think about the number family, friends, and associates that ask you for help fixing their PC and I believe you will understand why I chose to write this article..


This list of recommendations for a healthy & secure PC is by no means a complete list of everything you can and should do. It is however a great start if you want to keep your computer running properly for an acceptable period of time. It will also help prevent some of the most common issues related to PC security.


A Top 10 List That Can Save Your Computer

Many who read this article may find these recommendations to be old news. However, think about the number family, friends, and associates that ask you for help fixing their PC and I believe you will understand why I chose to write this article..


This list of recommendations for a healthy & secure PC is by no means a complete list of everything you can and should do. It is however a great start if you want to keep your computer running properly for an acceptable period of time. It will also help prevent some of the most common issues related to PC security.


1. Hard Drive Fragmentation

Believe it or not, many people have never even heard of hard drive fragmentation, or the process of Defragmentation. In a nutshell, when you install software or create files and data, the Operating System stores this data on your hard disk drive. The most efficient way of storing this data would be in one continuous disk file. However, files are not always stored this way, or are initially stored this way and later become split up, or fragmented. Because of this, when the data or file is retrieved, the hard drive must be searched in multiple places just to combine data that makes up one file. This slows things down tremendously. If you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you should perform a disk defrag at least once every two weeks, more if possible. All of my systems run this process automatically once every week in the evening hours.



2. Installing Games & Disk Intensive Software

If you're a gamer, or regularly use disk intensive software, the above Defragmentation process will help. However, you can also take another step to make things move a little faster. If you have two physically separate disk drives in your system, I suggest that you use one primarily for the Operating System and related software, and devote the other physical disk for installing games and other disk intensive applications. This cuts down on the competition for disk resources between your Operating System and other applications. There are other things you could do as well, such as configuring the appropriate type of RAID where multiple disks appear to the operating system as one big logical disk drive. This takes a little more planning to get the most out of your drives so I’ll cover that in a future article.



3. Virus & Spyware Protection

The bottom line here is; make sure you have installed some sort of anti-virus and spyware protection. Furthermore, don’t just assume that the default configuration of the program is best suited for your environment. For instance, I can’t tell you how many people I know whose computer has contracted a serious virus because of just one minor but very important task. When the anti-virus software pops up a message and tells you that your subscription is about to expire, don’t just hit the ignore button. Take a five minute break from what you are doing and renew your virus signature subscription. Not only will this keep you up to date on newer viruses, it will allow your software package to update to newer versions. The same thing goes for spyware protection. There are plenty of free spyware protection solutions out there, none are perfect, but most do the job. I suggest using Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Beta package at the least.



4. Software & Hardware Firewall Protection

If you are not using a firewall, then you are just asking for trouble. Actually, there is a significant chance that your system is already compromised if you have no firewall protection at all. Many cable/DSL router combo devices have built in firewall protection, and this is at least a good start. However, if you have Windows XP SP2, go ahead and enable the built in firewall as it will provide you another level of protection. Oh, yes, and when the system pops up a message about whether or not to allow a certain application or communication to take place, don’t just hit the ok button, read it thoroughly then make a decision.



5. Installing & Uninstalling Applications

Just about every time you install a new application or piece of software you increase the time it takes to boot your PC and in some cases decrease its performance. On thing that drives me crazy is printing software. For the life of me I cannot understand how or why printer support software could total 400MB in size, but they sometimes do. Not only that, they tend to load all kinds of unnecessary real-time running applets. HP printers are notorious for this. Be very aware of what it is you are loading and only load those components that you need. Even some off-the-shelf software packages load adware and other not so helpful applets. Also, when you uninstall software, not all the software gets uninstalled in many cases. One thing I suggest is to purchase a registry cleaner. This can dramatically decrease boot times and in many cases increase the overall performance of your PC. 6. Purchasing & Downloading Items On The Internet


When you download or purchase any software from the Internet, make sure you pay close attention to everything you are agreeing to or checking off on the various pages that lead up to the final purchase or download. As with everything else, make sure you read the fine print. You may be agreeing to download and install something you don’t need or may impact the security and performance of you PC. Also, how many more mailing lists do you really need to be on? How many Internet Explorer tool bars do you need? Most of these tool bars should be renamed to “adware / spyware bars”



7. Installing Operating System & Application Patches

In a nutshell, if you are using Windows XP, make sure that automatic updates are turned on. This is very important. Microsoft releases security and bug fixes routinely and some of them are critical in nature. Something people tend to overlook is updating and patching their applications. For instance, Microsoft Office has critical security patches and performance enhancements available in the form of patches and service packs. It’s not just Operating System bugs that can put you at risk, applications can too.



8. Updating Drivers

Similar to the above, hardware manufacturers routinely update their drivers. This includes video cards, sounds cards, capture cards, system boards, you name it. Some manufacturers have started to release automatic updates for their hardware, but many have not. Make sure you check these sites regularly and when a driver update is available, install it.



9. What Do Your Children Download

This is a really big one. I can’ tell you how may times I have been told by people that they have no idea how something got installed on their computer. Usually their second sentence contains “one of my children must have downloaded it”. The first thing that comes to mind is “why do parents let kids download what ever they like in the first place”. Not only can this severely impact the security and performance of your computer, who knows what your kids are getting their hands on. Do you know what one of the most frequently installed application installs I see on a teenagers machine is? Kazaa, BearShare, eDonkey, all P2P file sharing programs. I don’t care what anyone says regarding how convenient and safe these applications are now, they are wrong. Monitor what your children are doing / downloading on the Internet. Install a parental control software package if need be.



10. Rebuilding Your Operating System

If you are not familiar with system imaging software, I suggest you read up on them. One of the most popular packages is “ghost” and it’s been around for quite some time. I rebuild my systems pretty much on an annual basis. When I first configured them, I used an imaging package to create a complete image of the basic OS and application install. This allows you to not only re-install the base operating system and applications by hitting just one button, but can save you big time in the event of a system disaster.



Conclusion

Many of my peers and other technical people will read this and say it’s all common sense and very basic. Well, if this is what you do for a living then yes, it is. But many people don’t know these things or did know about them and have forgotten. So many PC are in such bad shape and it’s beyond me how the average person even deals with it. It has to be frustrating not knowing where to turn or what to do, especially if you don’t have a tech friend or family member to call on. I hate to sound pessimistic, but things are not getting better for the average home or small business person. Technology should not be this difficult to maintain. The average person just wants something that will work, and stay working.
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TenThingsToDoForAHealthyAndSecurePc.htm

Should you buy a cheap laptop or a cheap desktop?


You may find yourself asking that question many times while shopping for a computer. This guide offers you the pros and cons of owning a laptop versus a desktop pc.


1. Processing speed

Comparing processing speeds, laptops usually lag behind their desktop counterparts. With the rapid advance in microchip technology, the gap between them will become smaller.


2. Wireless.

Most laptops especially those with Intel mobile chips come with wireless capability out of the box. This means you can get online from any location at home easily without ugly wires if you have a wireless network setup at home.


Desktop pcs do not typically provide this capability out of the box although that may change in the near future.


3. Memory.

Memory chip tends to be more expensive in Laptop than desktop pcs. If you buy a laptop with less than 512MB ram, be prepare to pay more for memory upgrades than you have to with a desktop pc.


4. Graphics Display

Because of the size of a laptop, most business or entry level laptop use integrated graphics with limited ram. This means most laptops even some expensive ones cannot run graphics intensive applications or 3d games as well as a desktop pc.

With a desktop pc, you can buy a dedicated graphics card just to serve a graphics intensive application.


5. Portability.

Portability is why everyone wants a laptop these days. Because of their size and weight, it is easier to carry a laptop around as opposed to a desktop pc.


6. Screen Display.

Everyone buy laptop for their portability so laptops usually do not come with screens as big as their desktop counterparts. The screen technology used is usually not as good as those used by desktop pc.


Furthermore with a desktop pc, you can always upgrade to a bigger and better screen whereas for laptop you are stuck with the same screen display for the whole lifespan of the laptop.


So whether you should buy a cheap laptop or a cheap desktop, ask yourself what are your needs? If you want to be able to use a computer wherever you go, then you are looking at a laptop to fulfill your needs.


However if you do not require the portability of a laptop, play a lot of 3D games, graphic intensive applications, if you care about upgradeability to prolong the lifespan of your investment, then desktop pc is a smarter choice for you.