Hardware Upgrade Tip of the Day #28



*1. GRAPHICS BOARD TIPS--PART 2 OF 5          
  
Extra memory means better performance. Does this sound familiar? Of 
course, this statement is true regarding your PC's RAM, but now it's 
also true for your graphics board. These days, high-performance 
graphics boards come with 16MB to 32MB or more of memory. In general, 
gamers report that you'll notice the improved performance as you 
upgrade to more memory, even just a jump from 16MB to 32MB. If gaming 
is your passion, decide if running 32MB of memory on your card is 
within your budget. Regular business application users don't have to 
play this upgrade game--they only need 4MB or 8MB on their graphics 
boards.


*2. GRAPHICS BOARD TIPS--PART 3 OF 5          
  
With gaming, the hardware often runs ahead of software. Thus you'll 
often find that the games you own (or even those you buy new off the 
store shelves) don't take advantage of the 3D processing technology 
and the improved performance on your new graphics board. If you 
purchase a high-end graphics board, check with the software maker 
about the specifications for its software, and ask specifically 
whether that software takes advantage of the power in your particular 
graphics board. You might want to choose one game over another if it 
leverages the capabilities of your new graphics board.


*3. GRAPHICS BOARD TIPS--PART 4 OF 5          
  
TV-tuning capability remains a specialized feature that only a few 
companies offer on graphics boards. This means if you want to watch TV 
over your computer, you must search for a board that offers the 
capability. Currently 3dfx (http://www.3dfx.com), ATI 
(http://www.ati.com), and Matrox (http://www.matrox.com) all offer 
TV-tuner cards.


*4. GRAPHICS BOARD TIPS--PART 5 OF 5          
  
Anyone who owns a high-performance graphics board must check regularly 
for driver updates. New drivers, offered after the boards hit the 
market, often fine-tune their performance. You'll also find drivers to 
support new operating systems, such as Windows 2000. However, keep in 
mind that new drivers sometimes have bugs, so make sure you know how 
to return to your old driver before you install a new driver--in case 
you run into an emergency.


*5. MOBILE COMPUTING TV TO GO          
  
Up until now, most TV tuner products have been limited to the desktop, 
and most require adding an extra board into your PC. Lifeview 
(http://www.lifeview.com) now sells a USB-interface TV tuner that 
comes with everything you need to watch TV over a notebook computer or 
a desktop computer. Its USB Life TV sports an antenna and built-in 
speaker so you don't need to attach extra cables to the device. The 
Life TV also accepts video input from VCRs, camcorders, and desktop 
cameras.


*6. SCANNER TIPS--PART 1 OF 5          
  
Color scanners are cheaper than ever. Now you can pick one up for as 
little as $100. Over the next few days, I'll pass along some tips that 
should help you choose among these inexpensive peripherals. 

First, don't consider the ENHANCED resolution specification. Instead, 
look at the OPTICAL resolution spec, which should be 600 dpi (dots per 
inch) or higher for a quality scanner. Enhanced resolution is simply a 
software-based image process for adding detail to a scanned image. 
Unfortunately, most of the time these enhancement algorithms don't 
work very well. Besides, most image-processing applications perform 
this function for you, so you don't need your scanner to do any 
enhancing.


*7. SCANNER TIPS--PART 2 OF 5          
  
Universal Serial Bus seems to be the hot new interface for scanners, 
and for flexibility and ease of installation, you can't beat USB. 
However, if scanning speed is important to you (that is, you work in 
an art department), you might consider going with a faster interface 
like SCSI. In terms of data transfer, SCSI outpaces USB. With large, 
high-resolution scans, you'll notice the speed difference.


*8. SCANNER TIPS--PART 3 OF 5          
  
Believe it or not, the internal scanning element used to digitize your 
images can make a big difference in the quality of your scans. 
Currently, two distinct types of elements are used in scanners--CCD 
(Charge Coupled Device) and CIS (Contact Image Sensor). In general, 
CCD elements make for clearer and sharper scanned images, even if the 
material you are scanning is uneven or textured. However, CCD elements 
are usually larger than CIS elements and also slightly more expensive 
than CIS elements. If you are choosing between CCD and CIS for a pair 
of scanners, however, CCD is generally worth the few extra dollars.


*9. SCANNER TIPS--PART 4 OF 5          
  
Scanner usability has improved dramatically. Many now offer one-button 
scan features that let you digitize images quickly and easily. Even 
so, you should still thoroughly investigate the scanning software that 
comes with your scanner. You will almost certainly need to adjust 
resolution, contrast, and brightness settings at some point, so make 
sure the software is easy to manipulate.


*10. SCANNER TIPS--PART 5 OF 5          
  
If you will be digitizing documents for use in your word-processing 
application, definitely investigate the optical character recognition 
software that comes with your scanner. Unfortunately, in low-end 
scanners (costing around $100), the OCR software is usually a light 
version of a more full-featured package you would need to purchase 
separately. Still, you should shop around for the best OCR package 
that's bundled with a scanner on your list. Unless you frequently 
digitize documents, you may not need to purchase a separate OCR 
package.
