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The Danger Zone…

Posted Jan 28, 2000 by mdockter  

If my frequent readers haven’t noticed yet, I’ve been making the
titles of some of my “segments” about classic songs. 
Last week, the Heat was on. (Beverly Hills Cop)  This week, the
timeless rock anthem from Top Gun, The Danger Zone.  “What
does Danger have to do with computers?” you might ask. 
Well, there are a lot of things.  First, I must give you a little
run down on what a capacitor is.  A Capacitor, is just what it
sounds like, almost.  It is a type of electrical circuit that
holds power, kind of like a battery.  The purpose of a capacitor
is to keep electricity flowing regularly.  There are quite a few
giving juice to your computer as we speak.  What prevents your
computer from crashing during a “brown out” (low power time)
are those capacitors.  They hold enough juice to keep your
computer, mainly processor, running.  There are some huge
capacitors in a computer that hold enough power to kill a
person.  It is recommended that one leaves a capacitor “unplugged”
for 24 hours or more to let it fully discharge, especially the big
ones.  Their main place in a Computer is in the Power Supply

(Small box that converts AC current from the wall to DC current your
computer can run on) and in a computer monitor.  Both have very
dangerous capacitors that could severely kill someone if they touched
the metallic leads.  My point in tell you all of this is to make
sure none of you kill yourselves by breaking open the power supply or
monitor and trying to fix it.  It’s a Dangerous Zone, so don’t
even try to do it!

Results of the Win2K vs. Win98
Poll
I would like to start this segment off by saying most
of you are lacking in the metal areas!  I
made it perfectly clear that I played no games, and ran mostly business
apps in the last issue.  At least I thought I did, but apparently
I didn’t make it clear enough.  Only 11 people voted for Win2K,
while 15 voted for Win98.  Being it’s my computer and my OS, I’m
running Win2K no matter what the majority of people say.  The
Education value in this?  Win2K is made for Business
applications, while Windows 98 is made for Gamers, and Games.  If
you’re new to computers, you’ll also want to stick with Windows 98,
being Windows 2000 is a little more complicated.

I’m gonna have you run another poll
soon so you guys can redeem yourselves.  Keep reading
Transistorized and the Tormented for more Questions.

Posted In: Editorials

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