KnowCrazy.com: 12/22/13

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Lost Egyptian City

Lost Egyptian City Found Under the Sea After 1,200 Years! Finally, the lost Egyptian city of Heracleion has been revealed after spending 1,200-years under sea. Researchers discovered amazingly well-preserved artifacts 30-feet under the surface of the Mediterranean Sea in Aboukir Bay, near Alexandria that tell the story of a vibrant classical-era port.

[Knowledge-base] Computer Drivers

What are drivers?

Whether classified as device drivers or software drivers, they are small software programs.
Drivers are crucial to the communication between your hardware devices, software and operating system.
Hardware, such as scanners, requires specialized commands, but software sends more generic instructions.
When you hit print in Microsoft Word, the command is translated by the driver into a command that the printer understands.
Some devices might function in what is called "generic mode" without drivers; for example, your display might perform only in low resolution mode.
This means you are not getting your money's worth out of the investment you made in your hardware.
If you upgrade your operating systems, purchase a new computer or if your hard drive crashes, you will need to install the correct drivers.

Why you need the latest drivers?

They will help ensure your system continues to be stable and operate smoothly.
Drivers are susceptible to corruption; if this occurs, to your modem driver for example, your internet connection will not work properly.
Companies often update their drivers more than once a year.
A major reason for an updated driver to be released is to fix a bug.
This obviously will enhance your equipment's performance.
As well, updated drivers can bring with them new features.
By ensuring you have the most up-to-date drivers, you can be sure to get the most out of your PC.

User-mode and Kernel-mode Drivers:

A processor in a computer running Windows has two different modes: user mode and kernel mode.
The processor switches between the two modes depending on what type of code is running on the processor.
Applications run in user mode, and core operating system components run in kernel mode.
Many drivers run in kernel mode, but some drivers run in user mode.
Device drivers, particularly on modern Microsoft Windows platforms, can run in kernel-mode (Ring 0 on x86 CPUs) or in user-mode (Ring 3 on x86 CPUs).
The primary benefit of running a driver in user mode is improved stability, since a poorly written user mode device driver cannot crash the system by overwriting kernel memory.
On the other hand, user/kernel-mode transitions usually impose a considerable performance overhead, thereby prohibiting user-mode drivers for low latency and high throughput requirements.
Kernel space can be accessed by user module only through the use of system calls.
End user programs like the UNIX shell or other GUI-based applications are part of the user space.
These applications interact with hardware through kernel supported functions.

[Tutorial] Update your drivers

Ever wanted a software that gives you all the updates for all your drivers with a single click that you can trust upon blindly and for which you don't have to spend a penny? Well yes that's possible and I am going to show you how you can do it in this step-by-step visual tutorial!

Intel has launched an online portal with contribution of System Requirements Lab from where you can find all information and latest updates for all of your drivers with a single click. As it is powered by Intel you don't have to ensure information provided neither need to worry about any harm caused by the software.

>> If you are a GEEK then click here to save your time ;)

>> If you are not Tech-savvy then continue reading :)

Before we continue with this tutorial you should know the following things, click on below links to learn more about them:

What are drivers?

Why you need the latest drivers?

Guide for updating drivers

Step 1: Go to http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect and click on 'Check your system for updates' button

Step 2: It will open a pop-up for java permissions so click on yes and it will start identifying drivers

Step 3: After completion of identification process it will show you a list of all drivers and it will be written as (Newer Driver Available) next to the category of the drivers. If you don't see this then it means that all your drivers are up-to-date

Step 4: Expand the category to view list of drivers. It will give you version information of drivers installed and you can update your drivers by clicking on 'Download Now' button

If you have any doubts about this tutorial or having any other technical issue feel free to contact me on facebook or drop me an email.

Turn your browser into notepad

We all came across daily in need to type down something real quick so that we don't forget it later on. Sometimes its tedious to minimize the browser, create a new text document and paste/type content over there. If you are facing this problem and need a quick solution to write down and dump your thoughts in a text editor to free up your mind then you'll be happy to know that you can do it within your browser with just opening a new tab and without installing any extensions/add-on.

The trick is simple and uses an attribute of HTML5. The attribute used is contenteditable. So how does it works, well it's simple! The contenteditable attribute is an enumerated attribute whose keywords are the empty string, true, and false. The empty string and the true keyword map to the true state. The false keyword maps to the false state. In addition, there is a third state, the inherit state, which is the missing value default (and the invalid value default). The true state indicates that the element is editable. The inherit state indicates that the element is editable if its parent is. The false state indicates that the element is not editable.

Ok, but how to use it? It's as easy as 1-2-3: