Gaming Laptops - 5 Reasons To Put Them On Your Christmas List

One of the major categories of laptop computers is gaming laptops. Usually, these are the laptops that offer high processing performance, superior graphics, brilliant displays and possesses a large hard drive for plenty of storage. In other words, you want a laptop that has a high-end GPU, fast processor, tons of RAM, large 17inch or bigger display, large hard drive and many throw in a Blu-ray optical drive to make sure you're getting the best viewing enjoyment possible.

You should also know, in the quest to produce the most powerful gaming notebook computer, the ideal machine will now sport multiple graphics cards, dual or even quad processors, multiple hard drives... and as gaming technology has progressed, these fully loaded laptop rigs are just about on par with what you would find on a gaming desktop PC.

Gaming laptops have also been a popular Christmas gift in years past and this year will probably prove no different. These dream machines are on everyone's list for a number of reasons so here's why you should consider getting or giving one this year...

1. Price & Variety

As competition in this market heats up, prices have been steadily falling. Once this category was dominated by gaming specialists such as Alienware and Rock, but not anymore, as many of the major computer makers such as Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba... are all entering this niche market. The resulting fall-out has seen most prices drop and a whole variety of options presented to the consumer. There are a lot more quality gaming machines to choose from and you can expect to pay less than in previous years. However, lets not kid ourselves, to buy a fully loaded gaming rig with all the extras can still set you back 4 or 5 grand. Ouch Santa, that hurts!

However, this factor plays into another segment of the buying public, despite the down-turn in the economy there are still those amongst us who only buy the best of everything. The ultimate gift for those who want the very best of everything. The highest price laptop you can buy. Then these buyers will have to go with a gaming laptop as these are usually the most powerful machines on the market; not counting desktop PCs.

2. Supreme Performance

Gamers want and demand the highest performance possible in their machines. Manufacturers are gladly supplying that power by utilizing more and more powerful processors such as the new Intel Core i7 (64-bit x86-64) processors. And decking them out with ever increasingly higher performing Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and neatly presenting all this power and performance on High Resolution and High Definition Display systems, many incorporating the newer Blu-ray technology. For those who want to receive the latest in tech gadgets and gizmos, then gaming laptops fit the bill perfectly.

3. Portable

Sometimes it's hard to imagine some of these 10 plus pound monsters as portable but when compared to a gaming desktop PC, a gaming notebook computer can be said to be much more portable. One of the major selling points of gaming laptops is this mobility, you can quickly pick one up and carry it around with you and as these machines are getting sleeker and smaller - they will only become even more portable. Ideal gifts for college students, travelers and your very active teenagers. You can send both of them to their rooms without getting those dirty looks. Some gifts do come with fringe benefits.

4. Windows 7

Windows 7 has just been released and now is an excellent time to upgrade your computer. Unlike all the negative press that Vista received, Windows 7 seems to be getting much better reviews, mainly because Microsoft actually listened to its customers and designed an operating system that satisfies the end-user. Unless you're Mac fanatic, now would be a good time to purchase that new laptop either for yourself or someone you like, and obtaining the new Windows 7 would just be an added reason to get one this Christmas Season.

5. Fun/Enjoyment Factor

First and foremost, Christmas gifts should be all about fun. If it's not already written into the constitution, it should be! Mainly because nothing says fun more than a gaming laptop and it will surely please the receiver. And while it will deliver hours and hours of enjoyment throughout the year; always remember, unlike other toys, gaming laptops can be very practical - especially for students. Remember, these machines are powerful computers which have many more beneficial uses than playing computer games. Just try to convince yourself, Junior is destined to do more than kill imaginary aliens for the rest of his life.

If you think for a second, you can probably come up with many more solid reasons to put a gaming laptop on your Christmas list. Your beloved off-spring pestering you for 30 days straight for one, doesn't really count but it probably does. Just remember the 5 reasons above and you will feel much more comfortable playing Santa this year by giving a gaming laptop.

The Easiest Way to Backup Games to Xbox 360

Learning how to make 1:1 copies of your Xbox 360 games without installing a mod chip can save you a lot of money. You already know by now that been up to date with the newest Xbox 360 games to play for yourself or to compete against your friends on Xbox Live can be very expensive.

Especially when the DVD disc the games are stored on does not work anymore, Scratched discs is one big problem, every time you load a disc into your Xbox 360, you are putting it on a great risk of scratching the surface, if you take a look on the surface on one of your older games, you can see the surface is already a little scratched.

Most of those scratches are from your Xbox alone and it is only a matter of time before the disc gets unusable, and you have to invest in a new copy of the game.
Other problems are the exposure of sunlight that really can wipe out most discs as well, and accidents like a dropped soda can do much harm as well.
There is not money back guarantee or exchange of the disc on Xbox 360 games if it breaks.
The only solution is to make 1:1 back up of your Xbox 360 games, safe the original in a safe place and then just use the backup of your game. With the newest game copy software it is possible to make copies with out having a mod chip installed into your Xbox 360
Here is the how to Backup Games to Xbox 360

- Get the backup game software, and install it on your computer. It only cost a few bucks, one game and you have paid of your investment.
- Start the software program and insert the original Xbox 360 game in your DVD drive in your computer.
- Start the copying to computer process and be a little patience it may take a while.
- Insert an empty disc to your DVD drive and start making the backups you want.

You can save a lot of money by using this software. See how to get it here!
Using this technology you do not need to have any technical skills, everything goes pretty much automatic.
The good thing is, your warrant stay intact because of no need to install a mod chip. And you can continue playing on Xbox Live without getting banned.
Be aware that not all Xbox 360 games fit on a regular DVD disc with 4.7 gigabytes available. In that case you can use the dual layer DVDs with a total of 9.4 gigabytes available. Most DVD burners today support dual layers.
The Gamecopy software supports Xbox 360, Xbox, Ps3, Ps2, Nintendo Wii and Bc Games.

How to enable and disable icons in Windows 7

Windows 7, Microsoft's newest operating system, is offering several enhanced features like multi-touch screen, device management, power management etc. that will help users in many ways.

Steps to enable or disable various icons in Windows 7:

Users start with opening the Local Group Policy Editor, then in the left pane, click on an expand User Configuration, Administrative Templates, and Start Menu and Taskbar. Then for the clock Icon, go to the right pane, right click on Remove Clock from the system notification area and click on Edit. For disabling the clock icon - Select .enabled and click on OK, and for enabling it select .disabled and click on OK. Then go to the right pane, right click on Remove the volume control icon and click on Edit. For disabling the volume icon - select .enabled and click on OK, and for enabling it select .disabled and click on OK. Then go to the right pane, right click on Remove the networking icon and click on Edit. For disabling the networking icon- select .enabled and click on OK, and for enabling it select .disabled and click on OK. Then go to the right pane, right click on Remove the battery meter and click on Edit. For disabling the power icon- select .enabled and click on OK, and for enabling it select .disabled and click on OK. Then go to the right pane, right click on Remove the Action Center icon and click on Edit. For disabling the action center icon- select .enabled and click on OK, and for enabling it select .disabled and click on OK. After that close the Local Group Policy Editor, then Log off and log on, or restart the computer.

Alternatively, users can also download files for enabling or disabling of the different icons. After downloading the specific file Click on save, and it to the .zip file to the desktop, then open the .zip file and extract the .reg file to the desktop. Right click on the .reg file and click on Merge. After that, click on Run, Yes, Yes, and OK. Then log off and log on, now delete the downloaded .reg and .zip files.

Description about the files is as follows:

Action Center Icon - Enable_Action_Center_Notification_Icon.zip file for enabling and Disable_Action_Center_Notification_Icon.zip file for disabling this icon. Clock Icon - Enable_Clock_Notification_Icon.zip file for enabling and Disable_Clock_Notification_Icon.zip file for disabling this icon. Network Icon - Enable_Network_Notification_Icon.zip file for enabling and Disable_Network_Notification_Icon.zip file for disabling this icon. Power Icon - Enable_Power_Notification_Icon.zip file for enabling and Disable_Clock_Notification_Icon.zip file for disabling this icon. Volume Icon - Enable_Volume_Notification_Icon.zip file for enabling and Disable_Volume_Notification_Icon.zip file for disabling this icon.

So, with above mentioned steps users can enable or disable any icon in new windows 7.

22 Security Programs For Windows 7

you've bought yourself the shiny new operating system from Microsoft - Windows 7.

Do you feel secure with it?

Windows 7 certainly takes things seriously - it has several security features built in.

The question, though, is what other products work with the operating system that will allow you to keep yourself out of harm's way?

Here is a list of 22 programs that I have found that seem to play nicely with Windows 7 -

AdAware AppRanger Ashampoo AntiSpyWare 2 avast! Professional Edition AVG Internet Security Avira AntiVir Premium CA Anti-Spyware 2009 ClamAV ESET Smart Security K7 TotalSecurity 9.0 Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware McAfee Internet Security Norton Internet Security 2009 Panda Internet Security 2009 Spybot - Search & Destroy STOPzilla Trend Micro Antivirus + Antispyware Verizon Internet Security Suite Webroot Spy Sweeper WinPatrol 2009 ZONEALARM Internet Security Suite

Of course it goes without saying that the list is far from exhaustive and there will be many more additions now that the final retail version of Windows 7 has been released.

Whether you choose something I mentioned above, or pick an alternative, the point is that you should have some level of protection.

Just because Windows 7 is cool, hype and new it doesn't mean that you don't need a good antivirus program, a spam filter or an alternative firewall.

The bad guys are still out there, they're still writing malware and looking for new ways to phish your personal information from you.

Whats more, they like a challenge and a new operating system release is just that.

Don't forget either that Windows releases tend to have large number of updates and patches soon after they come out - there is a reason for that!

Walt Disney's 100 Years Of Magic 164 Discs DVD Boxset

In an effort to revive his sagging animation department, Walt Disney turned once again to a fairy tale. This time around, he chose one of the best known and oldest of them all, Cinderella.

The tale is familiar. A beautiful girl is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters and forced to work as their slave. When a ball is given for all the eligible maidens in the kingdom, Cinderella dreams of going too, only to have her hopes dashed at the last minute. With a gift of magic, she is able to go, but only until the stroke of midnight.

The story is so well known, if fact, that any story about an underdog coming from behind and winning is called a Cinderella story. Disney's job here was to make the story entertaining for 75 minutes. The solution here was creating the animals. Mice Jaq and Gus and their constant struggle against the evil cat Lucifer is funny and tying this sub-plot to the ultimate outcome is brilliant. The other standout character is the stepmother who is frighteningly evil with no super powers.

As with any Disney movie, this one also has great songs. Arguably the best known is "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo." Right behind it is "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes." My favorite, however, is the often overlooked love song "So This is Love."

While not the best release in the Platinum series, it still stacks up well. The movie has been restored, and it looks great to me. I'm not a nitpicker, but I can't find any problems with the full frame picture, the original aspect ratio. There is an enhanced 5.1 home theater mix, which doesn't seem quite as impressive as some other releases. It seems more like the sound coming equally from all speakers. Of course, given the age of the film, there probably isn't much more they could do. For purists, there is an original soundtrack on the disc as well.

The extras in this set seem to be split between content for kids and adults, with the kids winning. Disc one includes a new version of "A Dream is a Wish" with the stars of several Disney Channel series. It also has several "Cinderella stories" in sports moments, a weird feature to me. Disc two includes several features about living like a princess.

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Forensic Nursing

Crime scene investigators are the first people allowed to touch dead people's body at the spot where they were first discovered. The lead CSI observes and from what he saw, he concludes foul play. That's homicide TV for you there. As we see them geeks strut through the laboratory with all those gadgets to get evidence from the littlest of substances or debris we can't help but admire them, and possibly daydream of being them. Forensic nursing is a little something like that. Read on for more on forensic nursing description.

Forensic nursing is a new specialty area in nursing practice that is fast gaining popularity even across nations. It is recognized by the American Nurses Association (ANA). The International Association of Forensic Nurses (IAFN) is the group that helps promote and develop the field further.

Forensic nurses take charge of investigating the causes of mortality or death in so many settings. Their responsibilities include:

* Collection of evidence from the suspect and victim

* Testify in court using evidence gathered as a fact witness or as an expert witness

* Know how to properly handle evidence

* Conduct forensic photography

* Serve as bridge between health care and legal systems

A forensic nurse should be skillful in making observations, documentations, and preservation of all evidences, which can help solve a criminal case. Forensic nursing is a broad science that covers sub-specialties like sexual assault, death investigation, psychiatric care, and medical-legal consultations. Here are the various types of forensic nurses:

- Forensic Clinical Nurse Specialist

- Forensic Nurse Investigator

- Nurse Coroner or Death Investigator

- Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner

- Legal Nurse Consultant

- Forensic Gerontology Specialist

- Forensic Psychiatric Nurse

- Correctional Nursing Specialist

Crime-related situations have time and again proven the importance of forensic nursing. Owing to the skills of the forensic nurse to provide health care, they are most especially needed in establishing the concrete foundation to a more stable and effective justice and legal system.

Training programs related to forensic examination of a victim were already available to qualified medical personnel as early as 1976. Health care professionals, both physicians and licensed nurses who underwent training spent 40 hours in the classroom learning the theories and concepts. Their training also exposed them to hands-on clinical practices that make them experience the actual applications of what they learned in the classroom.

The pilot training programs were more inclined towards care for sexual assault victims. As years went by these early programs were developed further and has branched out to several courses like SAFE (Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner), SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner), FNE (Forensic Nurse Examiner), SANC (Sexual Assault Nurse Clinician), and the latest SAE (Sexual Assault Examiner). These are different acronyms but in general, they teach the same curricula.

Violence is the usual root of all forensic nursing cases. This presents itself in various forms like verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, animal cruelty, destruction of property, sexual assault or rape, homicide, and so many more. There is no specific victim profile since anybody can be one. There are kids aged 2 who become victims. The same age group of kids can also manifest signs of violent behavior. In a crime, victims can become the perpetrators too.

Forensic nursing description can't be summarized in a few sentences or paragraphs, but still, it would be helpful to know even these basic things that were cited here.

How to be a more productive Linux systems administrator Part 5

Trick 5: Getting your screen back when it's hosed

Try this:

# cat /bin/cat

Behold! Your terminal looks like garbage. Everything you type looks like you're looking into the Matrix. What do you do?

You type reset. But wait you say, typing reset is too close to typing reboot or shutdown. Your palms start to sweat—especially if you are doing this on a production machine.

Rest assured: You can do it with the confidence that no machine will be rebooted. Go ahead, do it:

# reset

Now your screen is back to normal. This is much better than closing the window and then logging in again, especially if you just went through five machines to SSH to this machine.

How to be a more productive Linux systems administrator Part 4

Trick 4: Checking your bandwidth

Imagine this: Company A has a storage server named ginger and it is being NFS-mounted by a client node named beckham. Company A has decided they really want to get more bandwidth out of ginger because they have lots of nodes they want to have NFS mount ginger's shared filesystem.

The most common and cheapest way to do this is to bond two Gigabit ethernet NICs together. This is cheapest because usually you have an extra on-board NIC and an extra port on your switch somewhere.

So they do this. But now the question is: How much bandwidth do they really have?

Gigabit Ethernet has a theoretical limit of 128MBps. Where does that number come from? Well,

1Gb = 1024Mb; 1024Mb/8 = 128MB; "b" = "bits," "B" = "bytes"

But what is it that we actually see, and what is a good way to measure it? One tool I suggest is iperf. You can grab iperf like this:

# wget http://dast.nlanr.net/Projects/Iperf2.0/iperf-2.0.2.tar.gz

You'll need to install it on a shared filesystem that both ginger and beckham can see. or compile and install on both nodes. I'll compile it in the home directory of the bob user that is viewable on both nodes:

tar zxvf iperf*gz
cd iperf-2.0.2
./configure -prefix=/home/bob/perf
make
make install

On ginger, run:

# /home/bob/perf/bin/iperf -s -f M

This machine will act as the server and print out performance speeds in MBps.

On the beckham node, run:

# /home/bob/perf/bin/iperf -c ginger -P 4 -f M -w 256k -t 60

You'll see output in both screens telling you what the speed is. On a normal server with a Gigabit Ethernet adapter, you will probably see about 112MBps. This is normal as bandwidth is lost in the TCP stack and physical cables. By connecting two servers back-to-back, each with two bonded Ethernet cards, I got about 220MBps.

In reality, what you see with NFS on bonded networks is around 150-160MBps. Still, this gives you a good indication that your bandwidth is going to be about what you'd expect. If you see something much less, then you should check for a problem.

I recently ran into a case in which the bonding driver was used to bond two NICs that used different drivers. The performance was extremely poor, leading to about 20MBps in bandwidth, less than they would have gotten had they not bonded the Ethernet cards together!

How to be a more productive Linux systems administrator Part 3

Trick 3: Getting back the root password

You forgot your root password. Nice work. Now you'll just have to reinstall the entire machine. Sadly enough, I've seen more than a few people do this. But it's surprisingly easy to get on the machine and change the password. This doesn't work in all cases (like if you made a GRUB password and forgot that too), but here's how you do it in a normal case with a Cent OS Linux example.

First reboot the system. When it reboots you'll come to the GRUB screen as shown in Figure 1. Move the arrow key so that you stay on this screen instead of proceeding all the way to a normal boot.

Figure 1. GRUB screen after reboot

Next, select the kernel that will boot with the arrow keys, and type E to edit the kernel line. You'll then see something like Figure 2:

Figure 2. Ready to edit the kernel line

Use the arrow key again to highlight the line that begins with kernel, and press E to edit the kernel parameters. When you get to the screen shown in Figure 3, simply append the number 1 to the arguments as shown in Figure 3:

Figure 3. Append the argument with the number 1

Then press Enter, B, and the kernel will boot up to single-user mode. Once here you can run the passwd command, changing password for user root:

sh-3.00# passwd
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully

Now you can reboot, and the machine will boot up with your new password.

How to be a more productive Linux systems administrator Part 2

Trick 2: Collaboration with screen

David, the high-maintenance user from product engineering, calls: "I need you to help me understand why I can't compile supercode.c on these new machines you deployed."

"Fine," you say. "What machine are you on?"

David responds: " Posh." (Yes, this fictional company has named its five production servers in honor of the Spice Girls.) OK, you say. You exercise your godlike root powers and on another machine become David:

# su - david

Then you go over to posh:

# ssh posh

Once you are there, you run:

# screen -S foo

Then you holler at David:

"Hey David, run the following command on your terminal: # screen -x foo."

This will cause your and David's sessions to be joined together in the holy Linux shell. You can type or he can type, but you'll both see what the other is doing. This saves you from walking to the other floor and lets you both have equal control. The benefit is that David can watch your troubleshooting skills and see exactly how you solve problems.

At last you both see what the problem is: David's compile script hard-coded an old directory that does not exist on this new server. You mount it, recompile, solve the problem, and David goes back to work. You then go back to whatever lazy activity you were doing before.

The one caveat to this trick is that you both need to be logged in as the same user. Other cool things you can do with the screencommand include having multiple windows and split screens. Read the man pages for more on that.

But I'll give you one last tip while you're in your screen session. To detach from it and leave it open, type: Ctrl-A D . (I mean, hold down the Ctrl key and strike the A key. Then push the D key.)

You can then reattach by running the screen -x foo command again.

How to be a more productive Linux systems administrator Part 1

Trick 1: Unmounting the unresponsive DVD drive

The newbie states that when he pushes the Eject button on the DVD drive of a server running a certain Redmond-based operating system, it will eject immediately. He then complains that, in most enterprise Linux servers, if a process is running in that directory, then the ejection won't happen. For too long as a Linux administrator, I would reboot the machine and get my disk on the bounce if I couldn't figure out what was running and why it wouldn't release the DVD drive. But this is ineffective.

Here's how you find the process that holds your DVD drive and eject it to your heart's content: First, simulate it. Stick a disk in your DVD drive, open up a terminal, and mount the DVD drive:

# mount /media/cdrom
# cd /media/cdrom
# while [ 1 ]; do echo "All your drives are belong to us!"; sleep 30; done

Now open up a second terminal and try to eject the DVD drive:

# eject

You'll get a message like:

umount: /media/cdrom: device is busy

Before you free it, let's find out who is using it.

# fuser /media/cdrom

You see the process was running and, indeed, it is our fault we can not eject the disk.

Now, if you are root, you can exercise your godlike powers and kill processes:

# fuser -k /media/cdrom

Boom! Just like that, freedom. Now solemnly unmount the drive:

# eject

fuser is good.