Geeks2U | February Newsletter

Stop and think: Do you have anything important stored on your computer? Sometimes we overlook the importance of the files we store on our computer - precious family photos, work and school projects, email (and contacts), music as well as many other type of files. Most of us would be devastated if they were lost.

Why do hard disks fail? Hard disks are full of parts spinning thousands of times per second. Think of a Boeing 747 cruising at 900km only 15cm above the ground...that is the degree of accuracy a hard disk operates at. While hard disks are extremely reliable, when something does go wrong it can cause a catastrophic failure.

Unfortunately, we see first hand the disaster of hard drive failures, accidentally deleted documents, and corrupt files every day. In fact, we've found that most regular computer users have experienced the loss of something important on a computer at one point or another. The problem is that most of us do not back-up our computers until we've learnt the lesson the hard way.

Data recovery can be an option, but it's never guaranteed that your files will be recovered and it's often both expensive and time consuming. By far, the best way to avoid being a victim of data loss is prevention – it's essential to back up regularly.

There are many ways of backing up files, such as CD's or DVD's, although these methods are time consuming, and can only back-up a limited amount of data. Flash drives are also quick and simple, but again have limited storage capabilities and can be unreliable.

We've found that the best way to back up files is with an external hard drive*. These are relatively inexpensive, and provide a comprehensive solution to all of your backup requirements.

Don't leave it until it's too late – back-up now!

* For more information about external hard drives see our gadget of the month.

Simply Computing - What is a PC anyway???

Many of us use them - at home, in the office, at a friend's house - but not everyone understands them very well. But really, they're quite straightforward, and they're nothing to be frightened of - if only someone would explain them in simple terms. So here it goes:

PC means "Personal Computer". Your computer is the big box that hums a lot. These days it usually sits on the floor under your desk, but sometimes they sit on your desk.

The PC hums for two reasons. Firstly because it has fans inside that are spinning around to keep it cool. Secondly because it has something inside it called a "hard drive", which has even faster spinning things enclosed in a metal case, a bit smaller than the size of an average Terry Pratchett novel.

Your computer has some wires coming out of the back of it. It needs power, so it will be plugged into a wall socket. You need a keyboard, so you can type things. You have a mouse, that rolls around on your desk (or on a little mat if you're posh), that you use for pointing at things. You have a monitor, which is like a little television (or like a big television if you spent lots of money on it), which you need to see what you are doing. You may have speakers too, so you can hear things, like music perhaps, or annoying pings and bleeps when you do something wrong.

All these things are plugged into the back of your computer. And probably other things too. So lots of wires.

So many wires in fact, that I doubt you bother to hoover the floor round the back of the computer very often. Tsk tsk. Think of all those cobwebs.

Your computer has memory. Ok, this is where lots of people start to stumble. Concentrate! Memory is temporary. When your computer is switched on, and you are doing something like writing a letter or an email or something, your work is in the computer's memory. Memory needs electrical power. When you switch off your computer, the memory is cleared. Everything is forgotten.

Imagine someone, this may be you in fact, who is good at remembering everything they did during the course of a day right up until bedtime, but after a night's sleep, can't remember anything the next morning. You may even have a hangover. The computer doesn't have the hangover, but everything else is the same. Switch the computer back on again, it has forgotten everything. The memory is empty. This is why I say, memory is temporary. An elephant never forgets, computer memory never remembers.

So computers need another way of filing information, like your letters, your photos, your old emails, so you won't lose them every time you switch the computer off. Because that would just be too annoying. For the sake of brevity, lets call the information you don't want to lose "computer files". Like the files you put in a filing cabinet, only these are electronic and you can't actually see them when the computer is switched off.

In the old days, you had magnetic tape. A bit like those old audio cassettes of "Wet Wet Wet" and "Duran Duran" you have stashed away in the bottom of that cupboard you haven't looked in for years. Back in those days, you could use a tape recorder, and instead of using it to record music, you could use it to record computer files. But that was very very slow. Sometimes it might take 45 minutes or longer for your computer to start up. Arghh. That's why the Phil Collins tapes got played such an awful lot, to alleviate the boredom.

Then came something called the floppy disk. Ahhh those were the days of luxury. No more tape recorders. Someone clever had invented a way of manufacturing the same magnetic stuff, but so that it was disc-shaped, like a small frisbee, rather than the long spindly stuff that was prone to getting chewed up in tape recorders. The frisbee-shaped magnetic stuff was then concealed inside a square-shaped cover, sometimes black, sometimes blue. It looked a bit like a place mat. But if mother started serving hot dinners on it, her life wouldn't be worth living.

Floppy disks slid inside the front of the computer, through a convenient sized hole, and a satisfactory click was felt, signifying the disk was in the correct position. The computer would then start to spin that frisbee-shaped magnetic thing very quickly (which unfortunately you couldn't see, I'm sure it would have looked quite fun if you could), and computer files were read and written to the floppy disk like that. It could be quite noisy, but it was much much faster than the tape drives.

Well enough of the history lesson, and back into the present. So how do computers store your files these days? It would be no good if your letters, photos, emails and little singing Santa's were lost forever every time you switched your computer off. That would be ... well ... pants.

That's where the hard drive comes in. That metal case I mentioned at the beginning, inside your computer, a bit bigger than your Little Book of Bunny Suicides someone you can't remember bought you for Christmas some years ago. The hard drive is like lots of those floppy disk things I was talking about, all stacked tightly one above the other, and spinning round and round very quickly. If you opened up your computer to take a peek, you wouldn't see anything spinning of course, except the fan, because - and you should know this if you were paying attention - the hard drive is all concealed in a small metal case.

Anyway, the files on your computer are stored on your hard drive. And because it is magnetic, it does not need electrical power to keep the information safe and intact for many years. Therefore you can turn your computer off, and sleep soundly at night, knowing that your letters, photos, emails and fluffy electronic dogs that bound across your computer screen every 5 minutes, won't be totally forgotten about the next morning.

So.....PC, wire, wall socket, keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, files, memory (temporary!), and hard drive (permanent!). Got it? Just about? T'rific. Now have a break and pat yourself on the back, you've done good.

Thanks to Mark R Bannister (a true Geek) for writing this article!

Bruce’s IT experience dates right back to when he was a Cash Register Technician with NCR, the National Cash Register Company! Of course he has kept his skills well and truly up to date since then, having owned and run his own shop for many years, retailing computers.

His particular strengths include installation and connection of computers and peripherals, problem diagnosis and troubleshooting, POS systems, all Microsoft software and an excellent work ethic and customer service focus.

The computer world is full of jargon - terms like megabytes, kilohertz, gigabit, and jargon such as bitrates and bandwidth. These words sound confusing but they all just refer to quantities and measurements. Each edition we'll attempt to explain one of these terminologies...this week we're looking at bytes.

The smallest quantity we measure in the computer world is a bit...you can't really do much with a bit, but put 8 little bits together and you'll have a byte - which is enough information for us to make a letter! Okay, so that's not very exciting, it's like using one letter of the alphabet and expecting to make sense.
Lets add a few bytes together and we start to get words, now we're getting some useful information!

So where to from here? Well, in written language, we'd string a few hundred, thousand, or even million words together to generate paragraphs, pages, chapters, books, libraries – here is how bytes and books compare:

1 byte = 1 letter
1,000 bytes (aka. 1 kilobyte) = 4 pages
1,000,000 bytes (aka. 1 megabyte) = 4 large books
1,000,000,000 bytes (aka. 1 gigabyte) = A small library
1,000,000,000,000 bytes (aka. 1 terabyte) = A very large library

Of course this example is just comparing data with words – but the comparison can also be made with data and photos or music.