PS3 Fanboys have always used the

“a free-to-access environment where you can play online games, chat to friends and family around the world and surf the web”.

as a source of argument in the my console is better then yours debates, so how ironic it would be if Sony after all their Bleeting about having “free online gaming” started to charge.

Although nothing has been confirmed or what parts of the PSN would be chargeable I for one think it would be a good idea as this would enable them to improve the service, lets face it compared to XBOX Live the PSN is poor.

I am lucky to own both consoles and I can honestly say the whole xbox live setup is miles better then the PSN in my opinion.

Why is this? Well its all to do with deal with the European Commission to resolve competition concerns.

Users will get the choice of popular rivals such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari, there will also be a few less well-known such as Avant, Flock, Green Browser, K-meleon, Maxthon, Sleipnir and Slim.

I prefer Firefox myself, so will stick to that for the time being..

The higher rung of the price ladder is undoubtedly owned by MAC. The NPD reported last Summer that MAC’s account for a staggering 91% of the market share for computers that cost more than $1,000.

There are two trains of thought for that statistic, depending on which side of the fence you happen to be sitting.

• 1. MAC’s are overpriced and the vast majority of consumers choose the cheaper option, which is obviously a PC.

• 2. MAC’s cater to more upmarket clientele that need better and more reliable computers.

The latter point could be reinforced by comments from Tim Cook – Apple’s Chief Operating Officer – that “Our goal is not to build the most computers. It’s to build the best.”

Is he telling the truth though? Or is he just putting a positive spin on the fact that the general household user normally opts for a PC?

Microsoft can also claim a vast share of the market in more general terms. More than 90% of computer users in the world own a PC. While Apple claims their computers are the best, Microsoft would argue that 9 out of 10 users disagree. Are those users just buying the cheaper option? Or do they genuinely believe when they enter a computer shop that they’re better off leaving with a PC?

Apple seem content to keep rolling out their more expensive machines and not worry about market share. If one day word of mouth spreads enough that MAC’s are actually worth the extra dollars, they would surely welcome any increase in market share that comes their way, but for the time being it seems to be a secondary objective while happily watch the money roll in as their reputation grows.

What are the advantages of a MAC?

Security

Microsoft’s vast majority of the market share brings with it increased numbers of internet warriors wanting to poke holes in its security net. There is more incentive for hackers to create PC viruses because the potential for ‘victims’ is much greater. Tens of thousands of viruses are in circulation to infect PC’s, while only a handful of similar viruses exist for MAC’s. They’re built on a more secure platform so for the most part they’re virus free.

Convenience

Do you own an ipod or an iphone? If you do then you probably appreciate the simplistic but efficient nature of those products. The good news is that Apple applies the same design principles to its computers.

Stability

MAC operating systems are designed to run on a limited number of computers, those that they built. Windows programmers have to take an inordinate amount of variables into account when writing programs, whereas MAC’s OS X is designed to run specifically on the hardware it provides. This leads to better reliability.

What are the advantages of a PC?

Price
As mentioned earlier, your average PC is much cheaper than its Apple counterpart. Microsoft owns over 90% of the market share, so their vast wealth enables them to produce computers at prices that are affordable to general users.

Gaming

If you play computer games you should know that most games only run on Windows. You could run bootcamp or another software emulation program to run Windows on your MAC, but if you’re going to spend all of your time doing that you may as well have bought a PC to start with.

They’re customizable

PC’s can be custom built to suit the user. You can pick and choose which components you want your computer to have, whereas the best way to upgrade a MAC is to buy a new one.

Which is the best overall?

In truth, this is a debate that will never truly be settled. PC loyalists love their PC’s and MAC loyalists love their MAC’s. That will always be the case and your choice of computer should vary depending on your personal needs, not what some guy from the internet told you.

If you want a more reliable computer and you’re into video editing, a MAC is probably the right choice for you.

If you want to customize your system and you’re an avid gamer, then a PC is more up your street.

I’d also be interested to know which one you prefer, and your reasons for your choice. Let us know in the comments.

Here are my top five tips to keep your computer running smoothly.

1. Defragment your hard drive

If, like me, you tend to move your files around a lot then Windows can become a bit messy, with fragments of these files stored at different locations of your hard drive. This means your computer has to put in extra effort to find all these bits and pieces and it slows down the performance of the system.

Fortunately, Windows has a built in system to combat this problem called Disk Defragmenter.

Open My Computer,
Right-click once on your C: Drive and go down to “Properties”
Select the “Tools” tab and click “Defragment Now”. Then simply  follow the step by step instructions.

2. Clean your startup folder

As your computer gets older and you install more and more programs onto your hard drive, many of these add themselves to the Windows Start-up folder. Then every time you boot your computer, the load time is slowed down while each of these programs loads. Just think how fast your computer could start if you only had the essential programs loading at boot. Here’s how to fix the problem.

Click “Start”, then “Run” and type “MSCONFIG” into the box. Navigate to the “Startup” tab and note each program with a tick in the box next to it. These are the ones loading at startup. Assess each one and ask yoruself if it’s essential that it loads every time your computer boots. If it isn’t, simply the box. Do this until you’re happy with your selection, then reboot to complete the process. You should notice a considerable change in boot time.

3. Get rid of spyware

Spyware is one of the most common problems facing today’s computer users. They’re stealthy programs that insert themselves into your registry without permission and slow down your system. They’re usually found within ‘free’ programs that you’re trialling, or on suspect websites. If left to do as they please they can do serious damage to your file system and slow your computer down to snail’s pace, so it’s best to catch them early and get rid.

There are plenty of anti-spyware programs out there, some of them are even free, so go to google and find yourself a good anti-spyware program and rid your computer of those nasty pests.

4. Clear space on your hard drive

If your hard drive is more than 90% full you’ll notice a dramatic slow down in the speed of your computer. This is perhaps the easiest problem to remedy. Simply delete any files or folders you no longer need and uninstall old programs you don’t use anymore.

5. Clean your bloated registry

When you uninstall a program via the control panel, it often leaves behind entries that clog up your registry and slow it down. Windows gets distracted while carrying out operations and doesn’t know what to do with these leftover entries, resulting in poo application loading times, extremely slow shut down and boot times and at times your system freezing up completely,  so it’s best to remove them. You can do this by downloading a free registry cleaner like ccleaner that will do all the work for you. It will also kill two birds with one stone by deleting your cache.

By taking these 5 simple steps you will have significantly increased the speed of your computer and improved its health at the same time. All completely free of charge!

The casual user assumes that computers look after themselves and don’t need any maintenance, but as the more frequent user knows, that’s simply not the case. There are many ways you can keep your computer running smoothly and below is a list of 5 of the best.

1. Take good care of your drives.

Your hard drive is the single most important part of your computer. It’s the place where all of your family pictures, spreadsheets and all kinds of data is stored. You wouldn’t want to lose any of this information so it’s inoprtant to look after the health of yoru hard drives.

The disk defragment tool is a good place to start. It cleans up your drive by finding all the stray file fragments and consolidating it to take up less space. By doing this you’re relieving the pressure on other components that have to search for these stray fragments by making it easier for them to find what they’re looking for. This, in turn, makes the process a little quicker.

Scandisk is also a tool that should be used frequently. If your computer often locks up and has to be restarted before it’ll let you do anything, the chances are that your hard drive contains errors. Scandisk will find these errors and correct them.

Scandisk and disk defragments should be carried out at least once a month for maximum effect. The more often you do it, the less time it takes the next time you do it.

2. Don’t let your hard drives fill up

As mentioned in point 1, a healthy hard drive is essential to a smooth running computer. It’s thus very important that you leave some free space on there. It’s generally though that around 500mb is the minimum amount of space you should have on your drives at any one time, but I tend to err on the side of caution and leave a good couple of GB’s free. The reason why you should leave free space is because Windows can get bloated and clogged up if you let your hard drive fill to capacity and start dumping data. If you leave plenty of space then you won’t be at risk of losing data and it will also be able to locate files and folders more easily.

3. Never turn off your computer until Windows has shut down.

It can be tempting at times when shut down is taking longer than usual to simply turn off your computer using the power switch. However, the few seconds saved by switching it off in this way can mean hours of agony the next time you turn it back on. Windows can lose files or find that they’ve been corrupted, and you could lose files or folders just because you were too impatient to wait a few more seconds. In severe (but rare) cases you can even cause permanent damage to your drives.

4. Backup, then backup again

You know how frustrating it is when you’re halfway through that essay and Microsoft Word crashes and you lose all your hard work? Imagine that happening to tens or hundreds of files when your hard drive fails! That’s why you should always, always backup your work and then back it up again. If there’s something you can’t afford to lose, make a copy straight away. Put it on an external hard drive, your slave drive, cd’s, flash drive, anything, just so long as you avoid that soul destroying moment when you realize all of your hard work has been undone by your relucatance to spend a little time backing up your files.

5. Get rid of unused programs

I bet there are at least a dozen programs on your computer that you never ever use. Why are they still on your system? What purpose are they serving? Other than bloating your registry and slowing down your computer, they’re not serving any purpose, so why not simply uninstall them? It’s simple to go. Go to your control panel and find the Add/Remove Programs section and it’s pretty self explanatory from there. Just find the programs you no longer use and click Remove. Simple as that, although for a more effective uninstall use a program like CCleaner to clean your registry thoroughly.

Frequently, the cause of this error can be determined from the second parameter, the I/O status code. Some common status codes are:

1. 0xC000009A, or STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES, indicates a lack of nonpaged pool resources

2. 0xC000009C, or STATUS_DEVICE_DATA_ERROR, indicates bad blocks (sectors) on the hard disk

3. 0xC000009D, or STATUS_DEVICE_NOT_CONNECTED, indicates defective or loose data or power cables, a problem with SCSI termination, or improper controller or disk configuration

4. 0xC000016A, or STATUS_DISK_OPERATION_FAILED, indicates bad blocks (sectors) on the hard disk

5. 0xC0000185, or STATUS_IO_DEVICE_ERROR, indicates improper termination, defective storage controller hardware, or defective disk cabling, or two devices attempting to use the same resources.

Possible Resolutions:

1. Stop 0×7A can be caused by bad sectors in the virtual memory paging file, disk controller error, virus infection, or memory hardware problems. In extremely rare cases, depleted nonpaged pool resources can cause this error. If the first and third parameters are zero, the stack signature in the kernel stack is missing, an error typically caused by defective hardware. If the I/O status is 0xC0000185 and the paging file is on a SCSI disk, check for cabling and termination issues. An I/O status code of 0xC000009C or 0xC000016A indicates that the requested data could not be found. You can try to correct this by restarting the computer. If a problem with disk integrity exists, Autochk, a program that attempts to mark bad disk sectors as defective so that they are not used in the future, starts automatically. If Autochk fails to run, you can manually perform the integrity check yourself by following the instructions to run Chkdsk provided in “Stop 0×00000024 or NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM” earlier in this appendix.

2. Another cause of Stop 0×7A messages is defective, malfunctioning, or failed memory hardware, such as memory modules, Level 2 (L2) SRAM cache, or video adapter RAM. If you added new hardware recently, remove and replace it to determine if it is causing or contributing to the problem. Run diagnostics software supplied by the system manufacturer to determine if the component has failed.

3. Check the hardware manufacturer’s Web site for updates to disk adapter firmware or drivers that improve compatibility. Verify that your disks and controller support the same set of advanced features, such as higher transfer rates. If necessary, select a slower transfer rate if an update is not yet available. Consult your hardware or device documentation for more information.

Possible Resolutions:

1. A Stop 0×79 message occurs when the system is using out-of-date Ntoskrnl.exe or Hal.dll files. This can occur after manual repairs that involve copying incorrect files to the system. This error also occurs when using mismatched files, such as copying a multiprocessor HAL on to a system using a single-processor kernel (or vice versa). The kernel and HAL files for single-processor and multiprocessor systems are stored on the Windows XP Professional operating system CD using two different file names. For example, the single and multi-processor versions of the kernel, named Ntoskrnl.exe and Ntkrnlmp.exe respectively. Setup copies either Ntoskrnl.exe or Ntkrnlmp.exe to your system as Ntoskrnl.exe. In Recovery Console, you can use the Copy command to copy the correct HAL or kernel files from the CD to the appropriate folder on the hard disk.

2. If you experience Stop 0×79 messages after changing firmware settings, restore the original settings used during Windows XP Professional Setup.

Because systems that use the ACPI HAL ignore IRQ assignments stored in firmware, you can only manually change IRQ settings for non-ACPI (Standard PC HAL) systems. Some x86-based provide the option to toggle ACPI functionality. To disable or re-enable ACPI, you must change firmware settings and reinstall Windows XP. Because of the numerous registry and system file changes required, you must run Setup again (an upgrade installation does not work).

Possible Resolutions:

1. Stop 0×77 messages can be caused by bad sectors in the virtual memory paging file or a disk controller error. In extremely rare cases, depleted nonpaged pool resources can cause this error. If the first and third parameters are zero, the stack signature in the kernel stack is missing, which is an error typically caused by defective hardware. If the I/O status is 0xC0000185 and the paging file is on a SCSI disk, check for cabling and termination issues. An I/O status code of 0xC000009C or 0xC000016A indicates that the requested data could not be found. You can try to correct this by restarting the computer. If a problem with disk integrity exists, Autochk, a program that attempts to mark bad disk sectors as defective so that they are not used in the future, starts automatically. If Autochk fails to run, you can manually perform the integrity check yourself by following the instructions to run Chkdsk provided in “Stop 0×00000024 or NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM” earlier in this list.

2. Another cause of Stop 0×77 messages is defective, malfunctioning, or failed memory hardware, such as memory modules, Level 2 (L2) SRAM cache, or video adapter RAM. If you added new hardware recently, remove and replace it to determine if it is causing or contributing to the problem. Run diagnostics software supplied by the system manufacturer to determine if the component has failed.

3. The problem might also be due to cracks, scratched traces, or defective components on the motherboard. If all else fails, take the system motherboard to a repair facility for diagnostic testing.

4. Problems that cause Stop 0×77 messages can also cause Stop 0×7A messages. For more information about Stop 0×7A messages, see “Stop 0×0000007A or KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR” later in this list.

Possible Resolutions:

1. If you added new hardware recently, remove and replace the hardware to determine if it is causing or contributing to the problem. Run diagnostics software supplied by the hardware manufacturer to determine if the component has failed.

2. Stop 0×50 messages can also occur after installing faulty drivers or system services. If the file name is listed, you need to disable, remove, or roll back that driver. If not, disable the recently installed service or application to determine if this resolves the error. If this does not resolve the problem, contact the hardware manufacturer for updates. Using updated drivers and software is especially important for network interface
cards, video adapters, backup programs, multimedia applications, antivirus scanners, and CD mastering tools. If an updated driver is not available, attempt to use a driver from a similar device in the same family. For example, if printing to a Model 1100C printer causes Stop 0×50 errors, using a printer driver meant for a Model 1100A or Model 1000 might temporarily resolve the problem.

1. The system Page Table Entries (PTEs) are depleted or fragmented due to the system performing a large number of input/output (I/O) actions.

2. A faulty device driver is not managing memory properly.

3. An application, such as a backup program, is improperly allocating large amounts of kernel memory.

Possible Resolutions:

1. Stop 0×3F messages can occur after installing faulty drivers or system services. If a file name is given, you need to disable, remove, or roll back that driver. Disable the service or application and confirm that this resolves the error. If so, contact the hardware manufacturer about a possible update. Using updated software is especially important for backup programs, multimedia applications, antivirus scanners, and CD mastering tools.

2. The system might not actually be out of PTEs, but a contiguous memory block of sufficient size is not available to satisfy a driver or application request. Check for the availability of updated driver or application files and consult the hardware or program documentation for minimum system requirements.

3. Another cause is excessive demands for system PTE by applications. This situation is more common in server environments. Windows XP Professional provides a registry entry, SystemPages, that you can use to increase the number of PTEs allocated.