So, you want to do some gaming, do you? If you’re planning on taking to the online arena, there’s a few things you should know-and, likely do- beforehand. This short tutorial will help you to quickly and efficiently get the most out of your internet connection, ensuring you can spend more time doing what you love, and less time having to prepare....

Periodically a web site will change up its design, such as the recent minor redesign on PCMech that happened recently. With the PCMech site, tests are performed with various browsers on both Windows and Mac to make sure the site loads right and looks right before it goes live. With other web sites, let’s just say they don’t do as much testing as...

This Linux distribution may be mini at an under-500MB size, but it packs in a lot of OS for something so small. In fact, PCLinuxOS 2011.07 could easily be mistaken for a full-sized distribution given there’s nothing in it that feels slimmed down/compromised for size. Personally, I think this is definitely one of the better smaller distributions out there....

And so the rivalry between Nvidia and AMD continues. For those of you who don’t know, Nvidia’s been responsible for the CPUs on most of the modern Android tablets. If a recently leaked roadmap is to be believed, AMD is throwing in with rival Microsoft for the upcoming Windows 8 Tablets. Do note that this one’s a rumor, folks- don’t get...

Recently I had to upgrade the BIOS on my PC to the latest version to enable support for something specific to GIGABYTE motherboards called On/Off Charge. This isn’t a big deal as I’ve flashed more than a few BIOSes over the years, however the way this one was done was, shall we say, a bit unique. 1. Motherboard software utility or bootable USB? Most...

One particular PC component that a lot of PC builders miss is the card reader. While true you don’t need one, they are oh-so convenient to have – and dirt cheap. These days the only good use for the 3.5-inch bay where the floppy drive goes is a card reader. Nobody uses floppies anymore and haven’t for years – yet I bet there’s still...

Can Linux be retro? Sure it can, since it’s been around since 1993. In the video below, I take a quick overview of Red Hat Linux 9 release, the last desktop version of Red Hat before the company decided to go "all corporate" and it became Red Hat Enterprise Linux or RHEL for short. RHL 9 was released March 2003, back at a time when Windows XP was...

This is an instance which has caused many a PC builder some serious frustration – only because they didn’t know the root cause of the problem. Situation: You upgrade a component of your PC, be it the processor, graphics card or what-have-you. After the upgrade, you start getting random BSODs and you have absolutely no idea why. You think it might be...

GIMP, a favorite among those who like a feature-extreme image editor that costs exactly zero dollars, does have the ability to use your existing USB scanner and can import images from it quite easily. The video below shows how it’s done, and also mentions a few words on dots-per-inch (dpi for short) and which you should use for good practical...

A nice resource that Intel has is the ARK web site at ark.intel.com. On that site you can get information on CPUs as far back as the 90MHz Pentium. Modern Intel CPUs such as the Core i5-650 list a section under Package Specifications called TCASE; this lists a temperature in Celsius:But what does TCASE actually refer to? TCASE is defined literally as...

If there’s one thing a geek loves more than anything else – besides gadgets – it’s information. Information on anything and everything that interests him or her. This is part of the reason geeks love upscale cars so much because those vehicles have gauge clusters that show you a ton of stuff other cars don’t; they also have much...

There is a proposed federal law that would require ISPs to store logs about their customers for 18 months. Should you be concerned about this? No. Before I explain why, the people I feel most badly for are the ISPs themselves should the law pass; this is because the ISPs at present simply do not have the room – and I mean that literally – to store...

Google Dashboard is the ‘catch-all’ so to speak concerning everything to do with your Google account. There are specific areas of the Dashboard which everyone who uses a Goog account should know. 1. Search alerts Google Alerts can be accessed direct from the Dashboard under the heading Me on the Web, and by clicking "Set up search alerts for...

What I really like about the modern market concerning PC building is that it’s cheaper than ever to build something that truly is fast. A few notes before continuing:NewEgg will be used to list parts and prices. This is not me telling you to shop there as some of you prefer TigerDirect, eBay or other local-to-your-country vendor. I have tested...

In Windows 7 (and assumedly Vista), if you search for anim, the beginning of the word animation, the option to "Turn off unnecessary animations" pops up:Click this brings up the Ease of Access Center portion of the Control Panel. If you scroll down, there’s the check box "Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)":I...

LGA 775, also known as Socket T, is an Intel processor socket type. There are probably several millions of computers out there with 775 sockets and Intel CPUs in them. Now of course, LGA 775 is the old socket type. The newer types are the 1155, 1156 and the 1366. And while it’s true new motherboards with the 1155 socket greatly outnumber the older 775: ...

Peppermint OS is a lightweight Linux distribution that is making its way up through the ranks because of it’s fast operation, ease-of-use and bundling apps in the distro that people actually use. The latest version is Peppermint OS Two. It’s definitely better than Peppermint One, but is a tad rough around the edges. See video below for...

Got a vintage PC you want to put on display but want something a little better than just a screen saver to show activity? If the computer is internet-capable, use an IRC client and load up the #ubuntu channel on the irc.freenode.net server. It’s easy, only takes minutes and for Windows in particular can work anywhere from 3.1 to present. See video below...

For those of you who use Gmail, you’ll have noticed that it’s geared towards creating a new contact for every email you send. While this can often be very convenient (I know for my part, it helps me keep in touch with clients and interviewees), such a feature might not be a boon for everyone. There are a lot of addresses that you’re only going...

The Blu-ray rewriteable optical media format as of this month has been around for 5 years. July 18, 2011 will mark rewriteable Blu-ray’s 5th birthday. Sony introduced the first consumer-available rewritable Blu-ray drive on July 18, 2006 for the low-low price (yes, that’s sarcastic) of only $699. What a deal. Blu-ray burner drives have officially...