Geek-of-All

A surge protective device, also known as a surge suppressor or a surge protector, is a device designed to protect electrical equipment from the harmful effects of electrical spikes and surges. The two most common methods that surge protection devices use to serve this function are diverting any excess electrical surge to a ground and blocking the surge. Most residential surge protection devices make use of the grounding method, which diverts excess voltage to a power outlet's ground wire. An electrical surge is classified based on the length of time it lasts. A spike lasts less than three nanoseconds, or three-billionths of a second. Any power flux that lasts longer than a spike is known as a power surge. Any electrical value higher than the standard voltage in an area — such as 240 volts in the India — qualifies as either a spike or a surge. Surge protection devices are designed to protect against the effects of both spikes and surges. When a surge protec...

The Internet is a worldwide network of unrelated computers that can only communicate successfully by agreeing to incorporate a set of rules or protocols. One of the most basic tenets of the Internet is the Internet Protocol (IP) address. An IP address refers to a unique number assigned to each computer on the Internet. The IP number is called an "address" because it serves the same purpose as a home address -- it allows each machine on the Internet to be located by a numerical scheme. A domain name, such as geekofall.blogspot.com , also maps to a numerical IP address. An IP address is analogous to a street address or telephone number in that it is used to uniquely identify an entity. Dotted Decimals : Your IP address at home will be different from the IP address at your work office. And that IP address will be different from the one you would have if you used the free wireless hotspot at a coffee shop or hotel. But they all have one thing in common: Th...

A Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) is an electronic set of instructions that a Personal Computer (PC) uses to successfully start up. It is located on a chip on the motherboard inside of a computer and is designed to be protected from disk failure. While it can be updated, this should be done carefully to avoid damaging the computer or leaving it unable to start up. The Function of BIOS One of the main functions of the BIOS is to give instructions for the Power-On Self Test (POST). This self test ensures that the computer has all of the necessary parts and functionality needed to successfully start itself, such as use of memory and a keyboard and other components. If errors are detected during the test, the computer gives a code that reveals the problem. Error codes are typically presented as a series of beeps heard shortly after startup. The BIOS also works to give the computer basic information about how to interact with some critical components, such as hard dri...

 What if I told you there is more to matter or rather atoms than just electrons, protons and neutrons?? There are two main categories of subatomic particles - Fermions and Bosons. Fermions are the particles we think of as "stuff" - leptons like the electron, neutrino, and cousins, and quarks like the up quark and others in its sizable family. Gauge bosons are the particles that mediate the four fundamental forces of nature - the weak and strong nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity. These include the familiar photon, and its far less-frequently-seen cousins, the W and Z bosons, gluons, and (physicists expect) the graviton, the much-sought-after particle thought to mediate gravitational interactions. It is important to understand the difference between subatomic particles and fundamental particles. Fundamental means that the particle has no smaller constituents; it is fundamental. Not all subatomic particles are fundamental, though all known...

Pixels are dots used to display an image on a screen or printed matter. The word is a blend of the words pic ture and el ement. Usually, the term refers to pixels in a digital context, but it is can be more generalized to refer to any smallest unit of an image. It is important to recognize that pixels are not a measure of size, though often the term is used as though they are.Think of it as a logical - rather than a physical - unit. The physical size of a pixel depends on how you've set the resolution for the display screen. If you've set the display to its maximum resolution, the physical size of a pixel will equal the physical size of the dot pitch (let's just call it the dot size) of the display. If, however, you've set the resolution to something less than the maximum resolution, a pixel will be larger than the physical size of the screen's dot (that is, a pixel will use more than one dot). A video monitor is made up of many millions of...

A computer cookie, also referred to as an "HTTP cookie," is a small text file that contains a unique ID tag, placed on the user's computer by a website. In this file, various information can be stored, from pages visited on the site, to information voluntarily given to the site. These tiny files provide practical benefits to both users and website operators, and generally make surfing the net a smoother experience than it otherwise would be. Nevertheless, privacy advocates tend to be wary of them, since many users are unaware of exactly what information is collected, and how the information may be used or shared. Types of Cookies There are two types of computer cookies: temporary and permanent. Temporary cookies , also called session cookies, are stored for a short time and then removed as soon as the browser is closed. Permanent cookies , also called persistent cookies, are stored for a long time on the user's hard drive and, if deleted, will be ...

Most computer users are familiar with Universal Serial Bus (USB), which has become the most commonly used way to connect peripheral devices to a computer. Your mouse, printer, digital camera, scanner, and other devices probably all connect to your computer via a USB port. Many memory storage devices, such as portable hard drives, flash drives, and memory card readers, also connect to a computer via USB. USB connectors make it possible to connect a device to your computer using USB. A long cable is used to connect the device to your computer. Usually, the connectors on each end of the cable are quite different, making it necessary to know which of them goes to your computer and which gets plugged into the device. The standard USB connector you’re most familiar with is USB Type-A. Even as we’ve moved from USB 1 to USB 2 and on to modern USB 3 devices, that connector has stayed the same. It’s as massive as ever, and it only plugs in one way (which is obviously nev...

A stock market is a place where investors(we people) trade certificates that indicate partial ownership in businesses for a set price. Through these transactions, companies can raise the initial capital necessary for various aspects of operation, and those who buy the certificates become entitled to a portion of the business' assets and earnings. Although the value of the certificates is not static and depends to a large extent on public perception, the stock market remains one of the major means of investment and can be used as an indicator of overall economic health. Stocks and Shares When companies need money for various goals, one option they have for getting capital (money) is to divide ownership of their businesses up into parts known as SHARES . They sell these shares and use the funds for tasks like developing products or buying buildings and equipment. To provide some proof of this ownership division, they print certificates called STOCK , and in...

A bitmap is one of many types of file formats for images stored in a computerized form. It carries the extension .BMP . Computers use bits of 1 and 0 to store data. A bitmap is literally a map of bits that form a particular picture when rendered to a display like a computer monitor . To understand how a bitmap image displays, it’s important to understand the computer display screen. The display is made up of rows and columns of tiny blocks, or pixels . In a bitmap image, each pixel is assigned at least one bit to indicate whether the pixel should reflect the background color, the foreground color, or some other color. In the case of a page of black and white text, let’s consider a single letter. The many pixels that make up that letter only require one bit of data each. Either the pixel will be black or white: 1 or 0. When a bitmap displays a colored image, such as a lake scene, there are several shades of gradation in colors and lighting. In this case, each pix...

A current probe is a device that can measure amperage without breaking a circuit. Current probes can be self contained devices, or they may be designed to work in conjunction with a multimeter. Most current probes consist of a set of clamshell jaws that can be opened in order for a wire to be passed through and then clamped closed. When the jaws are closed, the current probe can use one of a few different methods to indirectly measure any amperage passing through the wire. Most current probes use either a transformer, Hall effect sensor, or iron vane to measure amperage. Due to the way that electrical circuits work, current can be more complicated to measure than voltage or resistance. Both voltage and resistance can be measured by probing the ends of a component, since voltage remains the same in parallel circuits and resistance is measured directly. Current is uniform in series circuits, so a direct measurement of amperage must involve breaking the circuit. This...

Codec stands for Co der- Dec oder (some say Co mpressor- Dec ompressor) and is used to describe anything which turns data into another form for storage or transmission, then changes it back for use. In traditional broadcasting, a codec is a physical device which turns analog video and audio data into digital form to be sent out over the air. It is also capable of turning received digital information back into an analog format. In computers, a codec is used as a way of compressing video, images and audio to a more manageable size. The majority use a lossy(Not all the data can be recovered from the file when decompressed) method of compression, but some are lossless. Lossless codecs, such as MSU or Huffyuv, reproduce the original video exactly, with no subsequent loss if the video is re-encoded. The more common lossy codecs lose varying degrees of information, but can save substantial amounts of space. A lossy codec may be transformative, predictive, or a comb...