Monthly Archives: October 2009

A “Virtual” machine is a program that runs on a computer that emulates another computer.  For example, there’s an arcade game emulator called MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) that can pretend to act like one of the computers inside a … Continue reading →

…from a Windows user’s point of view. I’m writing this as I’m upgrading.  Keep checking back for progress. I’m a Windows guy at the moment, but am attempting to see if I can make Linux my primary desktop.  I’m starting … Continue reading →

A Message Queue is a technology used to transfer information from one computer to another, one message at a time.  A message is defined as any type of data (text or binary) that can be sent in one chunk.  The … Continue reading →

Bit Locker was a feature first introduced in Windows Vista Ultimate that provided you the ability to encrypt your whole hard drive.  No one knows my Microsoft didn’t make this a standard feature of all versions of Windows.  If they … Continue reading →

A virtual hard disk is a “fake” hard disk.  It’s usually just a file (or a list of files in a folder) that is treated as if it were an entire hard disk when using Virtual Machine software such as … Continue reading →

Windows 7 provides a new security model that can restrict what applications can run on a PC.  This new model is called “App Locker”.  This is a feature that’s more likely to be used in an enterprise environment that in … Continue reading →

Windows 7 doesn’t come with Windows XP Mode, but you can download it for free from here.  Essentially, Windows XP Mode is virtual machine software (called Virtual PC) that can emulate a whole other computer even running a completely different … Continue reading →

Windows Media Center is a program that provides a DVR like user interface to all of your videos, music, CDs, DVDs, photos, recorded TV, & FM Radio.  It, itself, is a DVR, if you have a TV Tuner card in … Continue reading →

“Home Group” is a new feature of Windows 7 that allows multiple Windows 7 machines on the same local area network to more easily share files, music, printers, and such.  Any Windows 7 computer on the network can create a … Continue reading →

Modern PCs have 1 CPU, but multiple cores.  Most people don’t really understand what that means.  Here’s an explanation: First, until a couple of years ago, most computers had one CPU with one core.  A CPU is an acronym for … Continue reading →