Things to Keep in Mind While Buying a Computer Video Card

A computer graphics card is often called a graphics accelerator card since this card is an expansion card that generates graphics to a monitor. A graphics card allows a person to enjoy gaming on the computer and certain VCs also convert a regular computer into a home theatre system. A video card is not the most important part of the computer but it certainly helps a person enjoy viewing graphics on the computer and while many people are happy within built video cards. This article will elaborate on things to keep in mind while buying a computer VC.

The first thing to keep in mind while buying a computer graphics card is when you buy one you should not be pirated. Many sellers provide pirated video cards that look very similar to the original card hence it is important to buy a card only from a reputed seller. While buying these graphics cards through an online auction or online store it is beneficial to buy only computer products from sellers that have positive feedbacks since pirated cards can cause severe damage to the computer.

The second thing to keep in mind while buying a VC is that you plan to purchase should have sufficient memory. Although memory of the VCs is not everything, memory should be a deciding factor while buying these cards.

If you are planning to buy a computer VC for gaming purposes then it will be beneficial to buy a card with a good graphics processing unit. Nvidia, agp pci and ati radeon video cards are some computer VCs that have good processing units and good features. Your operating system may also affect the type of graphics card that will be compatible with your computer.

Article written by Jeff Frasco. Visit Computerknowledgeforyou.com for information about computers. The website offers knowledge about Computer Components, Hardware Tips, a Tutorial on How to build Your Own Computer and a shopping section where you can compare prices on Computers and Components. You can compare prices before you buy computer memory, components, accessories, modems and alot more.

Practice Bedroom Decorating Tips

Teenagers have the most unpredictable minds in the world. They changed their outfit, hairdos and outfit in a matter of minutes. They want their room to look cool and fun and they do not want it to look childlike and outdated.
Decorating you bedroom does not need to be as difficult and stressful as you think it is because it can be fun and exciting. You do not need to hire a professional interior designer to beautify their room, you only need to allocate adequate time, creative ability, knowledge in interior design and decoration. You can also read home interior decorating magazines, surf the Internet for additional information or ask ideas from your friends and colleagues. To gain some insights on bedroom decorating, read the article and follow the tips mentioned below.
Due to their active and wild lifestyles that most teenagers have, you are worried on what to place or how to decorate your teen's bedroom. Majority of them love lots of blings and teenage stuffs in their bedroom that parents do not understand or like.
Teenagers' bedrooms are their refuge and sanctuary, a place where they get away from school obligations, parental and peer pressure, it is best that you let them involve in the task. They cannot only decorate their own room, but they can create and can change the look of their room by arranging the furniture pieces, painting their room, and hanging picture frames and posters.
Creating a perfect retreat for you teenager is not only challenging, but tricky project, thus, you should not take their ideas and suggestions for granted because they know what are the popular fads and trends in the market today.
No matter what design you take, always remember that their bedroom can be successfully decorated if you balance between trendy and classic interior design.
Tips to Consider:

• Budget - Before you start any change on their room, consider first how much money you can spare for the project.
• Color scheme - Even though you want a different color for your teenagers' room, it is best to accede to your child's choice. Some teenagers prefer to neutral shades, while some girls go for shades for pink, while some boys prefer green colors.
• Furniture - Before you purchase any new furniture pieces in their room, conduct an inventory on your teenager's bedroom and decide what items to remove, to repair, to buy and to retain. Ask them what items they want in their room.
• Accessories - There are numerous teenage decorative accessories that can be incorporated in their room. Ask ideas from them. Some of them want the pictures of their idols, like the Jonas brothers or Hannah Montana, while some want their own photographs hang in picture frames.
• Message Center - a chalkboard, a cork tiles or a white board can serve as a message center. It is a vital item where you can leave your message to your child.
• Comfort - place accessories that encourage comfort, like cushioned bench, stuffed chairs, throw pillows or plush fabrics.

Article Source : http://bit.ly/lOM7Jk

Corporate Business Gifts That Say Wow!

Your corporate business gift should have "WOW" written all over it. Your business gift should stand out, it should be memorable and most of all it should turn a few heads. It should amaze the recipient.

Let's face it, that traditional gift basket just doesn't cut it anymore. Nor does that dusty bottle of wine or that heavy dull paperweight.

Your company's employees, patrons and clients deserve more from you. They need a business gift that goes beyond the 'normal yawn' or 'that's nice!"

But creating or buying corporate business gifts that say WOW takes a little bit of planning and time on the part of the giver. However, like all things in life which take a little longer to do, the rewards are worth it. The same applies here.

Maintaining high company morale is a sometimes forgotten aspect of today's modern company or workplace. But creating a good working atmosphere pays high dividends in more ways than one. Savvy managers and bosses already know this and they also know keeping everyone happy only adds to your productivity, no matter what business you're pursuing.

However, like all gift-giving, it's not easy to find the perfect corporate gift that will wow the receiver. Short of a Lear Jet, here are some suggestions to increase the WOW factor in your next corporate business Christmas gift.

1. WOW them with Personalization
Might sound a bit obvious but nothing is more desirable or pleasant as seeing your own name on a well-thought-out gift. So include a name plaque or engraving to show your real appreciation. Remember, almost anything these days can be laser engraved, so there's no reason not to personalize your gifts.

Moreover, whatever you give, make sure it relates to the person receiving it. Relating the gift to an employee's interests and hobbies is always more effective than a generic gift. Getting a practical gift that you can actually use and benefit from will greatly increase the wow factor.

2. WOW them with Uniqueness
Along the same lines, making your business gifts unique, one of a kind, will obviously make them stand out. High quality hand-crafted items and works of art can sometimes produce that wow moment.

3. WOW them with Style
High style always wows the receiver. Make sure if you give business related gifts they are stylish and in demand. Fashionable gifts are always much more appreciated.

4. WOW them with Surprise
Everyone loves a surprise. So a surprise gift will always wow them. Unexpected gifts can be the most fun; everyone expects the Christmas Turkey Hamper but a half day surprise holiday will wow them over to your side!

5. WOW them with High Tech
Truth be told, no one ever grows up. We are all still kids at heart. We still like the latest toys, especially high tech toys and gadgets that wow us.

So don't rule out giving the latest smart phone, PDAs that do everything under the sun, LCD TVs that dazzle the eyes or computer games that will have everyone jumping or looking on in amazement.

6. WOW them with Fun
All kids like to play and have fun. Christmas corporate gifts don't have to be dull and boring, instead spice them up by including the element of fun. Have corporate sponsored games, parties or trips to sporting events and concerts.

Think outside the workplace.

Cater to your workers' interests/hobbies and plan such things as fine dining, hiking trips, wine tasting parties or trips to Vegas. Whatever the majority of your clients and workers do to have fun - within legal limits of course!

7. WOW them with Money
Money never loses its WOW factor! If all else fails or you just plain forget, money always works. Bonuses and stock options have been wowing them over for years. Probably always will, everyone loves getting more money. Pay raises at the appropriate gift-giving time will put a smile on everyone's face except your accoundant's.

8. WOW them with Emotion!
Remember, corporate business gifts are first and foremost just gifts. The best gifts are the ones that surprises us and literally makes us jump for joy. If we look a little deeper we would probably discover gifts play a much more important role in our lives.

Gifts fill an emotional need we all have, the need to feel appreciated and wanted, whether it's from a loved one or from the company we work for. Likewise, the reciprocal is also true, the giver never forgets the feeling and joy of giving a gift.

Gifts work both ways.

Any company, boss, manager or worker can use corporate gift giving to accomplish or fulfill these human needs. To make the sometimes cold sterile workplace just a little more human. A well-thought-out and heart-felt corporate business gift will show the recipient just how much they are appreciated. And vice versa.

Perhaps, underneath it all, whether we realize it or not, this is the true corporate gift that really says WOW.
 

Source : http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Corporate-Business-Gifts-That-Say-Wow-/233190

Promotional Pens Are In Demand as Excellent Business Promotion Products

 

Promotional pens have always been in demand for various reasons. One of them is the ability of this fabulous promotional item to endorse an organisation.

Promotional pens are by far one of the best business promotion products available to an organisation. There is actually nothing that can even second these promotional pens as far as effective advertising is concerned. Blessed with the ability to disseminate your message far and wide, promotional pens are undoubtedly
the best advertising vehicles that you can have for your organisation.

The demand for promotional pens as excellent business promotion products  is on an all time high these days. Every company, big or small, is putting these promo pens to advertise their products and services. But what is it in this extremely ordinary promotional item that makes it the choice of every organisation as a business promotion product? Well, it is not just one or two factors that make promotional pens a great brand endorser. However, here are some of the prominent ones that are worth a mention.

The utility of promotional pens is one of the biggest factors that attribute in making it an excellent business promotion product. By offering utility, there is nothing new that promotional pens are doing. After all promotional items are meant to offer utility to the recipient. Promotional pens segregate themselves by offering utility that is consistent and not occasional like many other promotional products. Their consistent usage implies consistent noticing of your message that often leads to your brand becoming a household name.

Longevity is yet another reason why you must use these promotional pens to back your brand. Where other promotional tools fizz out and give way in a day or two, promotional pens keep you upfront for long. Promotional pens stand to be an extremely durable item and thus guarantee long life advertisement. With these promotional pens working for you, you can be rest assured about being in the sight as well as mind of your audiences.

Unlike other advertising tools that can completely blow up your budget, promotional pens ensure that the promotion of your brand is within budget. An easy on pocket product, promotional pens fit into almost any budget with ease. They are the perfect way to ensure that you never go over budget with your promotional requirements. And on the same low costs, promotional pens offer you wide reach and exposure. Now isn't that what we call value for money?

Wide reach and exposure, pocket friendly nature, long lasting advertising, cost effectiveness…with all these benefits, no wonder why promotional pens are most sought after promotional products.  Go ahead and pick this excellent business promotion product by logging online.

About the Author Gareth Parkin is the co-founder of Ideasbynet, the UK's leading online promotional pens and custom printed promotional pens company based in the north of England. Ideasbynet specialises in promotional gifts, items, products and business gifts.

Personalised Christmas Gifts For Grandparents

By Samuel George

So Christmas is fast approaching and you need to get something nice and meaningful for your Granddad or Grandma but do not know where to turn. With the rise of the internet - Christmas gift shopping is now more fun than ever but also very confusing.
The market is saturated with gifts and websites offering gifts. This is where I can help. Once again I have stuck my feelers out there to source some of the best personalised gifts that your grandparents could wish for. From original newspapers to gift packs of the family history - we have reviews our best ten picks and have compiled them into a handy top 10 list.
Top 5 Personalised Christmas Gifts for Grandparents
1. Historic Newspaper Books
Historic newspaper books capture events in newsprint as written at the time. They are bound in a handmade gold embossed personalised book. There are many books to choose from, with titles covering the top 100 stories of the recent centuries. From Royal Navy sea battles to the life of Princess Diana -there is a story to suit every Nan or Granddads taste.
2. Original Newspaper Gifts
This is definitely something that the older generation will fully appreciate. This gift will allow Granddad or Grandma to relive some of their older memories. Some of which they may be very fond of. The original newspaper will come beautifully presented in a luxury gift box. The original newspapers are in fact original (not copies) and 100% authentic. This unique gift is bound to bring a beaming smile to the recipients face!
3. Personalised French Red Wine
Personalised wines, spirits and champagnes are a very classy and trendy gift at the moment. There are some fantastic ranges available on the internet. So what is a bottle of personalised red wine? It is a classy bottle of French red wine with a twist - the recipient's name on the label! You can also add an original newspaper. Both will be presented together in a luxury satin lined gift box.
4. Family History Gift Pack
Discover the history of your surname! In this unique gift pack, recipients will receive their own ornate personalised A4 certificate containing details of the history of their family name. Also included is a book on how they can trace their family history and a template of a family tree so they can plot their uncovered history. A unique and truly memorable Christmas gift.
5. Personalised Malt Whiskey
This gift has definitely got an element of class about it. It makes for a truly unique gift as the bottles label can be personalised with the name of the recipient, a short message and the vintage year being celebrated. A great Christmas hamper delivery idea for your Granddad.
Well there are my top 5 picks for personalised Christmas gifts for Grandparents. Hopefully I have given you plenty of gift ideas and some inspiration to set you off on the right track for your Christmas gift buying. Remember - keep it personal!
Now get shopping.Sam K George is an author who enjoys writing about seasonal occasions like Christmas. For more personalised gifts and ideas for Christmas gifts visit http://www.gonedigging.co.uk/.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Samuel_George

 

Create a Gift Memory Book By Jeff McRitchie

A memory book is a great gift to help celebrate a birthday or other momentous occasion. Here are a few tips and ideas to help get you started.

Gather Your Material:

For your memory book, the first thing you are going to want to do is to enlist the help of as many friends and family of the guest of honor (GOH) as you can. Get an email list together and send a list of questions out to all of them, or ask for great stories that involve the GOH. Some examples of questions might be: tell us about how you met the GOH, what is the funniest thing he or she ever said or did, how he or she helped you through a rough time, etc. The idea is to get as many different anecdotes as possible, and if there is one great story, get some different perspectives on it. If the GOH has children, see of you can get them to do a drawing or write a poem.

The key here is to not be to rigid in what you expect from your contributors. Those who have a natural bent for writing should given free reign to contribute whatever they would like to, whereas those who busy or are hard to pin down can just give short answers to specific questions.

You should also ask for some great photographs from the past and present. You may have to encourage some people to scan photos that are not already in a digital format, or to send them to you via snail mail.

Putting it Together:

There are a few different ways you can go about this. You can either put the stories and pictures in chronological order of the GOH's life, or you can let each contributor have his or her own page, or you can divide the book into sections that were contributed by friends, family, children, etc.

When you are designing your pages, it might be a good idea to include clip art of the GOH's favorite hobbies, or items that are representative of what the story on that particular page is. If, for instance, someone is telling a story about a fishing trip, you can include clip art or images of fishing flies and rods, etc.

When you are putting your memory book together, keep fun in mind. Your GOH is going to be totally surprised, so depending on his or her personality, you may not want to do anything too embarrassing or tear-jerkingly poignant. Then again, you might. It all depends on the person. Just keep in mind that the book you are creating is something that you want the GOH to keep forever.

Printing and Binding:

When it comes to printing, you will probably want to make the pages as high quality as possible, so use a digital color printer if possible. There are lots of options for binding the book. "You can take it to the print and copy shop, send it away to one of many online services, or for less than one hundred dollars you can get a machine that will allow you to bind the book yourself. Thermal (hardcover) binding machines are really easy to use, and allow you to make as many copies as you want at a moment's notice. They are great to have around for other projects too, as well as repairing your old and worn out books.

If you are interested in more information about how the right Thermal Binding Systems can help you create a great memory book you might want to visit MyBinding.com. They offer a great price on these machines and they even offer Free Shipping on orders over$75. Plus, they carry a full line of Thermal Binding Supplies, in many colors and sizes.

If you are looking for other information and articles to help you learn about Binding and Laminating, you should really check out MyBindingBlog.com. They feature thousands of articles, posts and product reviews on topics related to binding, laminating, paper shredding and paper handling. Check them out today.

Cheap Computer Guide - Computer Memory and its functions

PART 1
Computer memory is the fastest, simplest and cheapest
upgrade for your computer

Computer memory is very important to your system's functions.
A computer system's memory is its workspace. Everything the computer does is processed somewhere in memory.
The two main types of memory are Random Access Memory (RAM) and Read Only Memory (ROM).
Random Access Memory (RAM):
This is the computer's working memory and it has two distinct characteristics. (1) RAM is volatile which means all information stored in the chip will be lost when the system is turned off and (2) RAM can be written to and read from.
Today's operating systems (such as Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7) and application software require large amounts of RAM (Temporary Memory).
There are different types of RAM :
Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM)
This is most commonly used for main memory. DRAM is also referred to as fast page-mode (FPM). Since this is one of the cheapest types of computer memory, it is used as main memory in most computer systems. DRAM must constantly be refreshed on a regular basis; hence, while it is being refreshed, it cannot be read or written to. This causes system slow-down, which can be compensated by two methods; namely, paging and interleaving.
Paging:?? Improves memory speed since the memory is accessed in chunks called pages; hence, the name Paging. Accessing computer memory in pages is almost like reading a book because as long as the book is open at a certain page, you can read from the top, the bottom or anywhere on the page.
If you want to read the next page, you simply have to wait until the page turns which takes longer than skipping around on the page to read different sections. This is how paged memory works. Because when a page of memory is accessed, data can be read from anywhere in that section of memory.
Changing to a different page requires more time; therefore, the computer has to add a wait state. This wait state is time wasted for the Computer's CPU (Central Processing Unit) which has to wait until it can access memory (RAM). Click here and here to view cheap computer memory.
If you have fast enough RAM, the CPU does not have to wait to access data; hence the system has a "zero wait state". But since DRAM needs to be constantly refreshed, wait states are sometimes required.
Interleaving:?? Interleaved memory is accessed faster than paged memory. With interleaved memory, odd bytes are one bank and even bytes are in another bank. While one bank is being accessed, the other can be refreshed, saving time.
By using interleaving, computer memory access can be almost doubled without using faster computer memory chips.
Extended Data Output (EDO)This is an enhanced version of DRAM. Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM)
This is a type of DRAM that runs in synchronization with the system bus. SDRAM can operate at higher clock rates than standard DRAM. If SDRAM is used for main system memory, wait states are reduced or eliminated because the signals are already synchronized with the motherboard clock. SDRAM is the most popular type of memory used in new computer systems. At present, SDRAM can operate at speeds in excess of 800 MHz.
Static RAM
This operates just like DRAM except for one important difference - It does not need to be refreshed; hence the word static which means fixed. Since this computer memory is fixed or static and doesn't need to be refreshed, it can be accessed much faster than DRAM. Click here to look at some RAM
Access times for SRAM can be below 2 nanoseconds (ns) while access times for DRAM are between 60ns and 70ns. Since SRAM is faster than DRAM, why isn't SRAM used for all the system memory? Unfortunately, SRAM is physically larger, cost more to produce and consumes more power than DRAM.
Read Only Memory (ROM)
This is non-volatile memory which contains data that isn't lost when the computer is turned off. ROM is programmed into the chip by the manufacturer which means information is written to ROM during the manufacturing process. This information doesn't change once its written - it's stored in the chip permanently. ROM is used on motherboards, modems, video cards, etc. to store data, programs and instructions that must be retained when the system is powered down.
One good example is the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) which is used to boot your system.
On boot up, the computer loads data from read-only memory (ROM) and performs a power-on self-test (POST) to ensure that all the components are operating properly. During POST, the computer memory controller checks all the memory addresses with a quick read/write operation to make sure that the memory chips have no errors.
BIOS is loaded from ROM and provides information about boot sequence, storage devices, security, etc.
Following this, the operating system (OS) is loaded from the hard drive into the system memory (RAM) where critical sections of the OS are retained as long as the computer is powered on.
This feature allows the processor to have immediate access to the operating system which enhances the overall performance of the system.
If an application is opened, it is loaded into RAM and only essential sections of the program are initially loaded and then other sections are loaded as required. Doing this, conserves RAM usage.
While using an application, any files that are opened are loaded into RAM.
After completion, the file can be saved and the application closed. When this is completed, the file is written to the dedicated storage device (hard drive) and both are cleared from the computer memory (RAM).

This process is ongoing as applications are opened, used, saved and closed.
Click here to go to Cheap Computer Memory-Part 2  
Click here for Computer Memory Installation Guide

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