Install It Right & Sleep Good At Night

Written by Jackson Morgan


Continued from page 1

Atrepparttar end of each step, I will give you a Tech rating of 1-5 (1 being easy, 5 being you better know your stuff)

Instructions for a Windows XP Professional Installation

----------------

1) You will need to know your hardware profile (i.e. I have an internal network interface card, Manufacturer – Broadcom / Model – 440Family) Your PC usually comes with a CD that has all hardware drivers for proper functionality. If it does not, or you simply can not findrepparttar 141670 CD, go to your vendor’s website and download them all. Make sure you download all drivers and bios updates necessary for your particular PC. (4)

2) Back up any files that you do not want to lose. This is important because for a proper installation you will need to format your hard drive. Most techies never userepparttar 141671 upgrade feature supplied in Windows. There is an unwritten law thatrepparttar 141672 upgrade feature only covers up problems, not solve them. (1)

3) Bootrepparttar 141673 PC to your Windows XP CD, formatrepparttar 141674 drive and install Windows. This could take some time depending on repparttar 141675 size of your hard drive and your processor speed. (4)

4) After XP sets up, check you systems device manager and install any drivers or bios upgrades needed. This is a simple step to perform, and a crucial one. Proper communication between your hardware andrepparttar 141676 OS is critical torepparttar 141677 stability of your machine. (2)

5) Uninstall any unwanted or unneeded applications that came with you XP installation CD. May manufacturers load their Operating System distributions with a ridiculous amount of "Free" or "Trial" software. On top of this, some of these software packages can really decrease your system performance.(2)

6) Connect your machine torepparttar 141678 internet and download all Microsoft service packs and security updates that are needed. Service packs are usually very large so if you can obtain a CD do so. **Note** you will need to reboot and return to Microsoft’s website several times in order to complete all updates. (1)

7) Install a reputable Anti Virus. (i.e. McAfee, Norton, Trend Micro, etc.) **Immediately update afterrepparttar 141679 install**. These will all cost money, but will save your machine inrepparttar 141680 long run. In my experience I have found only one free Anti-Virus package that works well. You can check it out at www.grisoft.com (1)

8) Install Microsoft’s Anti-Spyware or similar application. Again, updating immediately. (1)

9) Install each application separately updating them completely before installingrepparttar 141681 next. You can often find and icon inrepparttar 141682 tools menu with a Check for updates option. If not, checkrepparttar 141683 manufactures website. (1)

10) Defrag your machine and have a beer. (1)

11) Please note having a beer before step 1 will add one point to each tech rating. (1)

Conclusion

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Now you have a clean install on your machine and should be running at peak performance. You may want to tweak settings here and there to your personal satisfaction. But you should see a significant difference when you surfrepparttar 141684 web, check your email, play music, etc…

About The Author ---------------- Jackson Morgan is a Sr. desktop support specialist and works with small to large businesses. He is certified to work on many platforms and has over eight years experience in the field. If you would like to contact Jackson you can e-mail him at jackson.morgan@paralogic.net.


MySQL for beginners – How to create a MySQL Database

Written by Don Beavers


Continued from page 1

Step Three: Defining Fields

Once you have created your table you will be prompted to tellrepparttar database what features that you want each field to have. This looks complicated, but it’s not if you select your data type fromrepparttar 141627 information below. You basically have to decide between three common data types and selectrepparttar 141628 best choice for storing your data. If you make a mistake you can go back and editrepparttar 141629 field.

Ifrepparttar 141630 field is to be used to store numbers, here are some choices:

TINYINT – A very small integer. The signed range is -128 to 127. SMALLINT - A small integer. The signed range is -32768 to 32767. MEDIUMINT - A medium-size integer. The signed range is -8388608 to 8388607. INT - A normal-size integer. The signed range is -2147483648 to 2147483647. BIGINT – A very large integer.

Some other less common number options include:

FLOAT- A floating-point number. DOUBLE – A double-precision floating-point number. DECIMAL - A packed exact fixed-point number.

Ifrepparttar 141631 field is to be used to store text or both text and numbers combined, here are some choices:

VARCHAR is for varying characters and can be up to 255 characters in length. TEXT is a column with a maximum length of 65,535 characters – easy to search. BLOB is a column with a maximum length of 65,535 characters – case-sensitive.

Ifrepparttar 141632 field is to be used to store dates, here are some choices:

DATE - A date. DATETIME - date and time combination. TIMESTAMP - useful for recordingrepparttar 141633 date and time of an INSERT or UPDATE operation. TIME - A time.

Once you have selectedrepparttar 141634 data type for your fileds you will need to letrepparttar 141635 system know how many characters that you will need to store inrepparttar 141636 field.

Example: if you are storing a username, you might want to select VARCHAR as your data type and allow up to 100 characters for that field. If you are creating a User Identification number you might want to select INT and allow up to six characters – that would allow you to have up to 999,999 users.

The last step to creating your data fields is to select any special attributes that you may find helpful. Some examples are:

Auto Increment : Auto-Increment fields are useful for assigning unique identification numbers for users, products, and customers, etc. By default, fields are incremented using number characters (like "1", "2").

Primary Key: The primary key is a data column that uniquely identifies a specific instance of that data. At least one of your fields must be a Primary Key. Username is an example of a good primary key. You do not want to have more than one individual havingrepparttar 141637 same username.

Index Key: Allows you to speed up searches by designating a field as a preferred data source, especially when combining data from multiple tables.

Congratulations, once you have completed these steps you are ready to import data into your new database.

Don Beavers lives in Bryan, Texas and is an enterprise level PHP-MySQL programmer at Datavor Web Directory and at the Shopping Elf Directory .


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