Relatively new computer devices emerging in late 2007, early 2008, netbooks are storming markets with attractive pricing, competing with their laptop and notebook forefathers. Used mainly to surf the web and perform small computer functions, consumers now have the option to have a dulled down laptop that will meet their computing needs at a fraction of the cost.

Netbooks are designed to utilize the Internet for the majority of computing necessities such as word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, storage, and other various applications. Netbooks do not come with powerful features, as the majority of models have a hard drives that rarely exceed 250 GB, which is fairly new to netbook lines, as it used to be 160 GB. It is also common to find netbooks with 8 GB to 32 GB solid state hard drives that are smaller, faster, and more shock-resistant as they in the form of a series of small chips unlike their disk shaped counterparts.

In addition to small storage space, netbooks are also known for their low processing speeds and are usually equipped with low amounts of memory. As these computing marvels are not designed to run much more than an internet browser, 1 GB of memory has become the industry standard for netbooks, while some even run 512 MB. Processing speeds are currently hovering around 1.6 GHz.

Netbooks are also known to not come with an optical drive, but will have a USB port for an external hard drive, USB drive, or even an external optical drive. With a screen size ranging between 7″ to 10″, it is not only difficult to incorporate an optical drive, but also defeats the “portal to the internet” philosophy.

At the beginning of their development, manufacturers of netbooks tried to keep features and specifications at the minimum to keep pricing low, as not to deter laptop and notebooks sales; the profit margin for more expensive laptops and notebooks yields more than low cost netbooks. This concept was later altered when netbooks began to impact the mobile computing market, lowering the sales of laptops and notebooks. Now companies are beginning to invest more into their netbook product lines with such high consumer demand.

Computer product companies such as Intel and Microsoft have adapted products to fulfil the demand of netbooks. Intel offer their Atom processor line in netbooks that is very small, uses little energy, and has about half the power of its Celeron cousin. Microsoft has offered Windows XP for netbooks at very low cost compared to desktops and laptops, and has even claimed that 96% of netbooks currently run the operating system. Linux has also gathered a sliver of the netbook operating system pie, however only claim to run on less than 10% of netbooks.

Priced, on average, around $300, netbooks are not only revolutionizing the computer industry, but are also allowing consumers who never owned a computer to be able to afford one. Netbooks offer a gateway to online computing, reducing the purchase cost with dulled features compared to laptop alternatives.

Popularity: 56% [?]

With the next generation of console gaming, there is also a new generation in desktop gaming, and with it a myriad of new hardware and technology that these new games require. An older PC will have almost no chance of running the newest and most resplendent of PC games, so it may be time to upgrade your old gaming desktop or purchase a new one if yours is more than a few years old.

Your choice of motherboard in your computer will be a very important one indeed! It determines which brands of processors you can use, what sorts of memory and video cards you can employ, how many USB ports you have, and a variety of other minute factors. It is important that you research the motherboard you choose well, and ensure that it will be compatible with the hardware you want to use with it.

The newest games on the market are extremely memory intensive and can really cause your gaming desktop to struggle to run them with anything less than two gigabytes onboard. You should really consider triple channel RAM, and perhaps as much as four gigabytes or more to ensure optimal performance.

If you want to experience your games in the resplendent detail that the designers intended, then you will need a powerhouse of a video card to handle the lush character models and painstaking attention to detail in the scenery. An older AGP video card is simply not going to suffice. You will need to go with a PCI-Express model that takes advantage of the latest in graphics processing technology. They can run several times faster than AGP models, and have enough onboard memory to run any game out on the market.

Your other hardware is actually limited by the power of your CPU. They may be ‘able’ to run at impossibly fast speeds, but the CPU has to interpret and transmit their data to other parts of your system, and this really controls the speed of your computer and your games. It would be smart to invest in the best processor that you can fit in your budget to maximize the performance of your gaming desktop and its upgradability.

If you want to gain a little extra performance out of your processor and video card without forking over too much extra cash, you should consider overclocking your hardware. This runs them a little faster than what the manufacturer sets them at, but does increase the risk of the hardware burning out. If you are determined to overclock your hardware, the best investment you can make, and an inexpensive one at that, is a top of the line cooling system for your computer. This will keep your CPU and video card temperatures lower and help to prevent them from getting fried.

What would a gaming desktop be without an ergonomic keyboard, and fancy mouse, and a variety of other devices, like a microphone to talk to your friends or teammates online? Most peripherals of this nature are independent of the other hardware in your machine, and you only need a few free USB ports to run some truly unique gadgets that will make your gaming experience personalized and unique.

Popularity: 50% [?]

Well, it would appear that way to according AVG, the virus scanner. An update released for AVG contained an incorrect virus signature, result? AVG decided that user32.dll contained the Trojan Horses PSW.Banker4.APSA or Generic9TBN! Quicker than you can say ‘Oh dear, my computer if f**ked’ AVG recommended that you delete the offending file. That’s where your problems start. Deleting the file has two effects - system fails to stop booting or goes into a continuous reboot loop cycle. At the moment, only Windows XP seems to be affected.

Users of AVG 7.5 and AVG 8.0 have been affected by this somewhat erroneous update; revised signatures have been published which will resolve the minor issue!

If you have removed user32.dll you can quite easily repair your PC; boot from their original Windows CD and choose the repair option. Alternatively, you can use another CD to boot from and restore the file from C:\Windows\System32\dllcache.

AVG, who have around 80 million users worldwide, haven’t published an official reason for this PR disaster just yet but there is an FAQ no. 1574 which covers a “False positive user32.dll”. Inside the article you’ll find help on restoring Windows through WRC.

AVG is hugely popular due to the availability of the free version of their Anti Virus scanner. Some people may well grumble about their machine being trashed but don’t expect a mass exodus especially as the software is free.

AVG’s popularity stems mainly from the free version they offer for home users; if you’re looking for an alternative free virus scanner for Windows I highly recommend Avast!. ClamWin is another alternative; it’s a Windows port of the popular Linux scanner ClamAV.

Popularity: 52% [?]

…with an arse kicking 1Tb of storage

Move over Asus, here come Acer’s Aspire X3200 mini desktop PC and it ain’t taking any prisoners! The diminuitive Acer desktop looks set to wipe the Eee PC off the map unless Asus produce a very rapid answer. On top of the huge SATA disk the Aspre X3200 comes fitted with a Blu-Ray player - a nice move on Acer’s part.

Other goodies include an AMD Phenom quad-core processor, NVIDIA GeForce 8200, and up to 4GB of DDR2 memory. Should keep Vista happy.

I mustn’t forget to mention a bonus for movie fans - HDMI output and 5.1 channel surround sound (Dolby Home Theater technology). Like I said earlier, Acer are really setting the standard with the X3200.

There’s no news on release date or pricing, but rest assured that we’ll be hunting down the info and it’ll be posted here as soon as we find it.

Popularity: 48% [?]

Microsoft are getting ready to release technical details surrounding the Windows 7 operating system, according to a new blog about the OS.

Engineering managers Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky have written in their blog, Engineering Windows 7, “in-depth technical information…” will be released at the Professional Developers Conference on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) the following week.

Some reporters are suggesting that, by pushing Windows 7 into the public gaze Microsoft is signalling the demise of Vista! I must point out at this stage that I’ve been using Vista for some time now and, as far as I’m concerned, it was dead from the start. Poor responses from users and the slow uptake among enterprises would suggest that I’m right.

Apparently, the Engineering Windows 7 blog will allow a two-way disussion to take place based on comments and input from the engineering team.

It would appear that some commenters simply won’t let Vista fade away as some some have used the blog to highlight flaws in Vista - just let it die!

“Less is more. Really, it is. Microsoft went completely in the wrong direction with Vista,” wrote one commenter. “I personally think that, if you want a real hit on your hands, strip down the Vista OS to bare bones, optimise the heck out of the code, and tune the baby for speed.” - hmm, no shit!

Windows 7 has been slated for release in early 2010. Microsoft better pray that it doesn’t suck like Vista!

Popularity: 65% [?]

Healthy sales this year.

I freely admit to liking new toys. Admittedly, my Sharp Zaurus is getting on but it’s one thing that I’m loathe to get rid of but my desktops are regularly replaced (let me just add that my old PC’s are recycled). So are yours according to a report by iSuppli.

The research shows global PC sales have been increasing at a steady rate - growing by 12.1 per cent over the last year. The significant point here is this: the figure is identical to the first quarter growth rates recorded over the last five years. This suggests that, regardless of the world economic state, home users and businesses feel the need to keep up with the latest tech (or at least have half a chance of supporting Vista the resource hog).

HP headed up the sales league with more than 13 million PC shipments, a 23% increase and 18.9 per cent of the total market. The success of HP’s notebook lines and a strong sales channel is credited as a significant factor in the companies rising sales figures.

Dell was second on the list with a 20% growth over last year. The company shipped more than ten million PCs attaining a 15.4% share of the market.

Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba rounded out the top five, posting market shares of 9.7 per cent, 6.9 per cent and 4.4 per cent, respectively.

Analysts are rather surprised by the figures, having expected the numbers to be far lower on the basis of the flagging world economie - then again, we’re only just starting to feel the effects now so let’s see what the future holds.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Hardware piled sky high.

These figures are an estimate provided by Gartner who estimate that the number of PC’s is growing at about 12% per year. On that basis there should be around two billion installed PC’s kicking around by 2014.

According to research director George Shiffler,

Mature markets, such as the US, Western Europe and Japan, currently account for 58 percent of the world’s installed PCs, but these markets only account for 15 percent of the world’s population,

On top of those figures, reasearch suggests that 180 million PC’s are due to be replaced this year - that’s a whole lot of recycling!

Popularity: 61% [?]