ATAPI, Advanced Technology Attachment with Packet Interface is the standard interface (type of connection) used to connect hard drives, CD-ROM drives and other components like RAM, motherboard inside the CPUs of personal computers. It is the standard developed by Western Digital and maintained by the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (also known as the X3). ATAPI is an evolved form of ATA interface. However, further advancements in interface technology have produced the Serial ATA interface (2003) which is a step up from ATAPI. The ATAPI was designed in 1986 Read More

One of the big burdens that goes with owning a printer is when the ink jets get clogged. This typically happens when the printer sits for a long time and isn’t used. To prevent an inkjet from getting clogged, use it about once a week, even if it means just printing a photo or a text document. So long as the ink is being run through the cartridge, it won’t have time to clog up the inkjet. However, should the inkjets get clogged, unclogging it doesn’t take long. To begin Read More

Conceptually, hypersonic sound (HSS) systems do to sound what laser technology does to light – focus sound into a tight beam that can travel great distances without dispersing. HSS systems can create sound that is meant only for a certain individual(s), not for everyone who just happens to be in the vicinity. HSS Speakers versus Conventional Speakers A conventional sound system is comparable to light bulbs. Speakers broadcast sound waves indiscriminately over a wide area – just as a conventional light bulb emits light indiscriminately over the whole room. HSS Read More

A TFT monitor is a LCD display that uses thin-film transistor technology. Flat panel displays are quickly becoming the dominant display of choice and are replacing cathode ray tubes. These days, nearly all of the LCD monitors that are designed and developed use TFT technology to provide the picture. They were developed because, in the past, there was a reliance on the passive matrix LCD display. These were unable to keep up with images that moved quickly. For example, moving the mouse on a computer from two points would disappear Read More

Whenever you make a dramatic change to your computer, such as installing a new operating system, reformatting the drive partition, or editing the system files, you need to backup your entire disk. Most of the time, system changes go through with no problems but if you do not back up your drive beforehand, you can lose everything that was on your computer. There are many methods to backing up your computer and each method has its own pros and cons. In this article, we will go over each of these Read More

System Administration concepts such as storage virtualization simply separate the logical storage from physical storage on a storage medium. This provides greater flexibility for systems administrators in managing storage for end users on the system. Storage virtualization is an essential part of keeping everything allocated correctly on the physical medium which is accessible by the end users. Address Space Remapping The physical location in which all of the data is stored does not usually stay in a localized area for large amounts of traffic. The purpose of virtualization is to give the users Read More

I2S is Inter-IC Sound. I2S is a serial bus used to transport digital audio. High-end CD and DVD players feature I2S outputs. I2S inputs are found on some PC sound cards. I2S Pinouts Pin Purpose 1 Word Clock (WCLK) 2 Bit Clock (BCLK) 3 DATA 4 Master Clock (MCLK) 5 DEM The pins on the male I2S jack are numbered clockwise, with the missing pin as zero. The pins on the female I2S plug are numbered counter-clockwise, with the missing pin as zero.

Society has spawned many different computers over the years that do many different things. Likewise, there have been many different devices invented to collect input from the user in order to control those computers. One of these input devices is the trackball. Trackballs have been widely used in many different fields over the years for a variety of applications. While mice and touchpads have almost completely replaced the trackball in home computer use, trackballs still play a crucial role in several different industries. This article will explore what trackballs are, Read More

One of the most common hardware problems that people who own a laptop experience is a broken or malfunctioning laptop screen. Laptop screens are essential to laptop use. Laptop screens can be incredibly delicate. However, they are surprisingly very easy to fix  even if the fixer is not a technical person. Troubleshoot the Laptop Screen Problem Before replacing a laptop screen, it is wise to troubleshoot the problem. While obvious damage to a screen usually requires full replacement, other types of damage that are visible on the laptop screen may Read More

Athlon-64 is a name for AMD’s main line of 64-bit CPUs. The Athlon-64 line is designed to complete against the Intel Pentium CPUs. Athlon-64 processors are designed to execute 32-bit and 64-bit instructions simultaneously. This enables them to directly address more than 4GB of RAM. Athlon-64 CPUs feature an L1 cache with 64KB of RAM for data and 64KB of RAM for instructions. The 1024KB L2 cache in an Athlon-64 CPU operates at the full speed of the CPU. These L1 and L2 cache numbers are per core. In a Read More