Keeping Your Laptop like new Always
Laptops are expensive. Therefore you need to take real good care of it. And laptop maintenance is not a one time thing. It should be a regular exercise. To prevent your notebook's LCD from becoming smudged or dirty you should clean it regularly. We recommend spraying a diluted window cleaner onto a soft, non-abrasive cloth and then lightly wiping the screen with it. It might be simpler to just spray the detergent directly on the screen but it's not recommended as the fluid can trickle down into the bezel at the screen's bottom which could in turn damage the computer's circuitry.
When it comes to getting rid of dust, dirt and food crumbs off the keyboard, a vacuum cleaner's brush attachment is ideal. There are handheld vacuum cleaners, specifically intended for PCs that can remove the dust and food from in between the gaps on the keyboard. But if you're traveling, a vacuum cleaner would be quite cumbersome. In such cases, you can use a canned aerosol cleaner to spray a blast of air between keys. And in case you spill something on the keyboard, you should immediately switch off the laptop and place a towel over the keyboard, and turn it upside down to drain the fluid and prevent it from leaking into the computer's circuitry.
And if you happen to travel a lot, your laptop is only as good as its battery. Luckily, most laptops today use lithium ion batteries that aren't afflicted with the memory-loss problems of the older nickel-cadmium batteries. However, in time it's inevitable that your notebook's battery will lose its ability to fully hold a charge. So, make sure that you replace the battery every 18 to 24 months. However, if you don't use your laptop often then you might not need to change the battery so frequently. One way to make sure that your battery lasts as long as it can is to reduce your screen's backlighting. Also, configuring your power settings so that the display shuts off after inactive periods can significantly increase the life of a battery.
However, there's more to the maintenance of a laptop than just making sure that the exterior is clean and neat. When using it, always remember to keep it in a cool environment. A laptop computer generates a lot of heat and too much heat can damage the internal circuitry. So always try and keep your laptop in a well-ventilated and cool environment. Also it's important to ensure that the fan grills on the sides, back, or bottom of the machine are not blocked while it's in use. Also, LCD displays are fragile devices that need special care. So as much as possible, avoid touching or playing with your LCD screen. And clean the screen only with the approved cleaning materials.
Another risk to your laptop is viruses. So make sure to get hold of an anti-virus program and keep it updated. Buying an anti-virus one-month and not updating it regularly makes the whole process useless. Your laptop could be exposed to hundreds and thousands of new viruses every month and if you don't update your virus definitions then some viruses will go undetected by the program. And to make the whole process less complicated, most anti-virus programs have automatic update methods, so that you don't have to remember to do it manually.
And always use a firewall on your Internet or network - enabled laptop. Also block out all the unnecessary ports and close all loopholes to prevent a hacker or virus from entering your hard drive. And whatever you do, don't drop your laptop. And finally always keep it safe inside a carrying case, especially when moving it or traveling.


The writer, Ismael D. Tabije, runs the website, http://www.bestlaptopnotebookdeal.com, where you can get tips for buying top laptop brands at cheap prices from reliable online merchants.


The PSP Report Card - One Year Later
Well folks, the psp has now been out for about one year and its time to take a look at how it has done and whether or not it lived up to its expectations. All in all, I would say that the graphics on mostly any psp game definitely looked awesome. Its hard to believe how far technology has actually come over the years. It doesn't seem that long ago when I can remember playing Tetris on my gameboy and i thought that was the best thing since sliced bread. Boy have we come along way, huh.
One disappointment I had with the average psp game is that most of them were just a copycat of games already out there for the ps2. Not that this is such a bad thing, because there are many excellent ps2 games which did translate to an excellent psp game, but I would just like to see some more originality for this system. How about using the psp to its full potential? Come on you software designers, lets see a new idea for a psp game once in awhile!
When questioned about this, some of the developers blamed it on lack of time, and that they were also busy with ongoing ps2 projects, so sometimes a psp game would have to take a back seat.
The good news is from what I've been reading is that they are really looking to expand the psp experience with new original titles and not the same old psp game that is already out there and played into the ground on ps2. So we will keep our fingers crossed and see what the future holds and keep our eye out for some new original games for the psp.
For more information, check out my blogs at psp movie and psp game download


Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Route Summarization
Preparing to pass the CCNA exam and earn this important Cisco certification? Route summarization is just one of the many skills you'll have to master in order to earn your CCNA. Whether it's RIP version 2, OSPF, or EIGRP, the CCNA exam will demand that you can flawlessly configure route summarization.
Route summarization isn't just important for the CCNA exam. It's a valuable skill to have in the real world as well. Correctly summarizing routes can lead to smaller routing tables that are still able to route packets accurately - what I like to call "concise and complete" routing tables.
The first skill you've got to have in order to work with route summarization is binary math; more specifically, you must be able to take multiple routes and come up with both a summary route and mask to advertise to downstream routers. Given the networks 100.16.0.0 /16, 100.17.0.0 /16, 100.18.0.0 /16, and 100.19.0.0 /16, could you quickly come up with both the summary address and mask? All you need to do is break the four network numbers down into binary strings. We know the last two octets will all convert to the binary string 00000000, so in this article we'll only illustrate how to convert the first and second octet from decimal to binary.
100 16 = 01100100 00010000

100 17 = 01100100 00010001

100 18 = 01100100 00010010

100 19 = 01100100 00010011

To come up with the summary route, just work from left to right and draw a line where the four networks no longer have a bit in common. For these four networks, that point comes between the 14th and 15th bits. This leaves us with this string: 01100100 000100xx. All you need to do is convert that string back to decimal, which gives us 100 for the first octet and 16 for the second. (The two x values are bits on the right side of the line, which aren't used in calculating the summary route.) Since we know that zero is the value for the last two octets, the resulting summary network number is 100.16.0.0.
But we're not done! We now have to come up with the summary mask to advertise along with the summary route. To arrive at the summary route, write out a mask in binary with a "1" for every bit to the left of the line we drew previously, and a "0" for every bit to the right. That gives us the following string:
11111111 11111100 00000000 00000000
Converting that to dotted decimal, we arrive at the summary mask 255.252.0.0. The correct summary network and mask to advertise are 100.16.0.0 252.0.0.0.
For the CCNA exam, emphasis is put on knowing how to advertise these summary routes in RIPv2 and EIGRP. For both of these protocols, route summarization happens at the interface level - it's not configured under the protocol. On the interface that should advertise the summary route, use the command "ip summary-address". Here are examples of how the above summary route would be configured on ethernet0 in both RIPv2 and EIGRP.
R1(config-if)#ip summary-address rip 100.16.0.0 255.252.0.0
R1(config-if)#ip summary-address eigrp 100 100.16.0.0 255.252.0.0
The main difference between the two is that the EIGRP command must specify the AS number - that's what the "100" is in the middle of the EIGRP command. Since RIPv2 does not use AS numbers, there's no additional value needed in the configuration.
For OSPF, the commands differ. If you're configuring inter-area route summarization, use the "area range" command; if you are summarizing routes that are being redistributed into OSPF, use the summary-address command under the OSPF routing process on the ASBR. Neither of these are interface-level commands.
I speak from experience when I tell you that practice makes perfect on the CCNA exam, especially with binary and summarization questions. The great thing about these questions is that there are no grey areas with these questions - you either know how to do it or you don't. And with practice and an eye for detail, you can master these skills, pass the exam, and become a CCNA. Here's to your success!