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These Online Programming Competitions Are The Best

programming competitions

Internet in more than one ways has fast become the best tool for all class of people. Today, the web is a collection of almost everything; Entertainment, News, Study Resources you name it and it’s there online. This situation has almost developed a win-win situation for both companies and the masses.

Companies have already started taking advantage of online competitions to pick out the best among the crowd. There actually are a lot of websites these days where you can compete with pioneers in different fields, given you are eligible. This article highlights the best online programming competitions across the internet. So, if you are a programmer here’s where you get to check how good a programmer you are.

These Online Programming Competitions Are The Best

The Best Programming Competitions

 

  • ACM ICPC

The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is the most prestigious programming competition for college students, sponsored by IBM. After years from when it actually started, the ICPC has developed into the best contest that helps programmers showcase their potential in computer science.

It is known as one of the toughest programming contests on earth. You can check out a lot more information on this contest in its official website:

http://icpc.baylor.edu/

Initially you start in the regional level and once you clear them, you get to participate in world finals held in different continents each year.

 

  • Top Coder

Top Coder is another such competitions which tests your mettle to the core. Considered to be a most sought out programming competition, Top Coder is one of the largest communities in itself. All the members of these communities work on industry related problems and win cash prizes and fame. There are a variety of fields you can compete in Top Coder, and win cool gift hampers and cash prizes.

The best and somewhat unique part about Top Coder is their rating system. Its members are constantly rated based on their success and the one best rated programmer is awarded as the best coder over time. So, simply with Top Coder the more you compete, the better placed you will be.

Check out more about Top Coder on its official website:

http://www.topcoder.com/

 

  • Google Code Jam

Of the many contests Google conducts every now and then, Google Code Jam is one prominent programming competition among them. It is a multi round competition and is open for all internationally. Google uses this competition to filter the most talented programmers and place them within its organization.

This competition is time based and the participants are expected to solve algorithmic puzzles and problems. Anyways, participants can use any programming languages, text editors and development software for their solutions. Most part of the competition is online but the finals is an onsite event, similar to the ACM ICPC.

The official website of this programming competition is:

https://code.google.com/codejam/

 

  • Microsoft Imagine Cup

Microsoft is not far beyond Google in picking out its employees through an international competition. This competition brings together programming minds from all corners of the world to find solutions for the toughest of problems. This competition is further divided based on fields and Software Design is one of the five major technology competitions.

This competition is a once-per-year event, while there are also monthly challenges, where participants are to write a given snippet of code using as less lines as possible.

Find out more about this competition on the official website:

http:// www.imaginecup.com/

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PC Guides

Here’s About That Big Bead On Your Laptop Charger Cable

Here’s About That Big Bead On Your Laptop Charger Cable
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Believe it or not, you are surrounded with a whole lot of electromagnetic waves. Your Mobile Phone, Internet Data Card for that matter, every wireless device within your proximity, communicates through these waves. These are one set of waves, but they aren’t all.

You must have seen a lot of wires in and out of your computer. Most of us certainly know what each wire is meant for, but there’s something we have been missing out. It isn’t because it is invisible or something like the earlier mentioned set of energy waves, but let’s not brood over it. This is article will help you step forward in unraveling the mystery of the black bead present on your laptop charger cable. Yes, it isn’t only limited to your laptop chargers, but also the display connectors, and on other peripheral connectors have these on them.

 

Here’s About That Big Bead On Your Laptop Charger Cable
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What Is This Bead?

This bead or lump is called a ferrite bead, or simply, a choke. This is the technical name for a electromagnetic wave bouncer. But now, why do you think a electromagnetic wave bouncer is of any use in these cables?

The answer lies in the basic principles of the current flow through a conducting wire. As current flows along a wire, there is an induced field perpendicular to the direction of the current flow. This is electromagnetic interference (EMI) and almost every electronic device during its operation produces EMI.

For example, when you connect a mobile phone to your computer, there is some disturbance observed on the monitor in the absence of the ferrite bead. This could appear smooth, but on the long run could completely damage both your mobile phone and PC. Due to this very reason, there always is a special unit in all electronic manufacturing companies which monitors EMI produced from different devices. If at all this EMI exceeds a certain limitation, there is notable degradation of performance of gadgets and it could also lead to medical complications.

 

What’s Inside That Bead?

If you’re thinking about any complicated circuitry which could decrease the EMI being produced, you are wrong. There’s simply nothing in this choke.  When cut open, this bead consists of a cylindrical ferrite rod, magnetic in nature. The magnetic nature of this ferrite rod is what absorbs all the EMI and dampens these waves from interfering with the other devices.

 

This black bead is generally located closer to the EMI source hence in laptop charger cables, it is located close to the end of cable. So, in a nutshell the bead at the end of your laptop charger is simply a EMI blocker which protects devices from getting damaged due to the EMI. That’s it.

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PC Guides

This Is How The Computer Hardware And Software Interact

Although for using your computers you don’t really have to know how the hardware and software interact, but for all those computer enthusiasts, this is surely interesting enough. It is a common fact that there are a lot many differences between the hardware and software. But all these differences play their part in building up the interaction between the hardware and software. In this article we spare you all the technical extravaganza and help you understand how hardware and software interacts in the most plain English.

This Is How The Computer Hardware And Software Interact

Software :

The entire computer software can be broadly categorized into three types: Device Drivers, Operating System, and Application Software. Simply all these types encompass the totality of the programs present in your computer. Generally each and every program has its specific task to perform. For that matter, the entire program is a set of instructions that are written to alter the state of hardware. Before actually getting into how these instructions effect the hardware here’s something you need to understand about computer hardware.

Hardware :

The Monitor, Printer, Hard Drive, RAM, Graphic Card and all the other physical components which are connected to the computer (or) which can be physically touched is the computer hardware. Without hardware, software has no idea where to work on. Hence hardware and software run hand in hand for implementing whatever the user wants.

The Differences And The Interaction between Hardware And Software :

There are a lot many differences between the hardware and software. Including the nature, functionality and the ability to be changed again and again the software and hardware differ from each other in numerous ways. But ultimately they are useless in the absence of the other.

Once you perform programming, using some high-level programming language (eg. C, C# etc) the entire set of code you write is converted into 1s and 0s. This is taken care of by the compiler which converts written code into binary (1s and 0s) once the program follows a defined set of rules or the syntax. These 1s and 0s are simply the voltage levels which establish the control over all the electric circuits.

For example, consider a simple LED bulb connected to a battery supply and a small switch. Whenever this switch is closed the LED glows and once the switch is open the LED gets turned OFF. The bulb glows and gets turned OFF because of the variation in voltage levels in these instances. When the switch is closed the entire supply voltage is across the LED bulb due to which it glows and once the switch is open, the bulb isn’t supplied with the required voltage and hence it doesn’t work. This is how voltage levels control the LED bulb. The physical act of turning ON and OFF by opening and closing the LED bulb can be substituted by any other mechanism. This works fine until this mechanism actually is able to operate as per your requirement.

In case of computers, the entire hardware is supplied varying voltages due to which different components get activated at the same or different time instances and achieve a particular task. Finally all the binary data in a computer is nothing but the voltage level information, for which a particular task is assigned to be executed.

The entire sequence of events that occur for hardware and software interaction is under the control of OS. All the driver software help the OS to actually communicate with the hardware, so as to execute the application software.

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PC Guides

Sound Card: This Is How Computers Convert 1s And 0s To Sound

sound card, sound signal

This is a well known fact that the entire functioning of computers revolves around 1s and 0s. Then, did you ever wonder how such a device is able to produce sound energy? How the music with different beats and levels is being obtained from the speakers? Well then, if that’s the question in your mind, then today you’ll find the answer right here i.e. about how your computers produce music.

Sound Card: This Is How Computers Convert 1s And 0s To Sound

Nature Of Sound Waves:

You must be familiar with the fact that sound waves are analog in nature. Usually sound travels from one place to another due to collision of energized particles with the others and so on. Due to these collisions, with distance the energy dies out. This is what you must have learnt long ago when you went to school.

But a computer is incapable of directly producing such vibrations from its digital data. So just like a processor, RAM and the other components have their fixed tasks, a sound card is the one which deals with such energy translations.

 

The Role Of Sound Card:

In a computer, each of the components communicates with each other digitally. Similar to a Graphic Card, a Sound Card converts the digital sound information into the human-perceivable sound waves (i.e. waves of frequencies 20-20000 Hertz).

The most important components in a Sound Card among the rest are:

  • A digital-to-analog converter (DAC), which helps convert the binary information into analog sound signal.
  • An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to record the analog sound inputs and storing them as digital sound.
  • The connection interface which keeps the sound card attached to the motherboard, mostly a Peripheral Component Interface (PCI).
  • The various connectors to enable users to connect Mic or Headphones to the computer.
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PC Guides

This Is Why Computers Use The SMPS Unit

SMPS: Switch mode power supply unit

A computer is a combination of several electronic devices (Hard Disk, Optical Drive, CPU etc) each of which, have their specific operating voltages and currents. For all of them to work together, they are to be fed with constant desired voltages without much deviation.

Any Power Supply Unit (PSU) is expected to deliver a regulated output voltage to the load, using the poorly regulated input voltage available at the wall outlet. In case of electronic circuits, this regulated voltage needs to be a stabilized low-voltage DC. This can be achieved by any of the two types of PSUs: Linear PSU or Switch-mode PSU (SMPS).

 

SMPS: Switch mode power supply unit

 

Switch-Mode Power Supply (SMPS):

In computers, we work with the Switch-Mode Power Supply Units (SMPS). The particular reason, SMPS are only used is that they are far more efficient than the rest. SMPS Unit has lesser electronic components comparatively and they perform the chopping process (switching between voltage levels) at high frequencies.

Hence there is low power dissipation due to which we get higher efficiency (up to 80%). The other advantage is that an SMPS Unit is very light-weight and economical compared to the rest and is available in different form factors.

 

The Internal Circuitry:

The internal circuitry of the SMPS has components which work at high frequencies mounted on a PCB. Each of them is designed to meet the specified output voltage levels. These include the rectifier section (steps down the input AC voltage), the filter section (completely removes all the AC voltage components) and then the MOSFET. The MOSFET forms the most important part of the SMPS Unit.

A MOSFET is controlled by an Integrated Circuit which decides the duty cycle (the ON time compared to total ON and OFF time) of the MOSFET. Hence different output voltages are produced and can be effectively distributed among various components.

 

Output Voltages:

Now that you have understood how a switch mode power supply unit is capable of producing many levels of output voltages, let’s take a look at the most common among them:

+5 Volts: In any standard computer, the +5 volts DC output wires are red in color. This voltage is used to drive motors present in drives of form factors 2.5 inch and 3.5 inches. This is a very basic supply voltage to many electronic circuits.

Also a 5 Volts green wiring is used to connect the power button to the rest of the circuitry.

 

+12 Volts: A +12 Volts DC supply is carried out by the yellow wires that come with your SMPS unit. Such high supply is generally used by the cooling systems and cooling fans of the computer. Also, this supply may be used to drive motors which can’t run on a +5V DC Supply.

 

-12 Volts: This Supply voltage collected from the blue wires was once used in the ISA bus slots (pin B7). Now mostly the work which was carried out earlier by a -12 volts supply, is being taken care of by the +/- 5 Volt supply.

 

+ 3.3 Volts: The +3.3 Volts orange line is the most basic supply line. This is so because; most of the CPUs and RAM use 3.3 volts. The PCI Bus is powered with this supply voltage and hence any components attached to it use this voltage line. In addition, a 3.3 Volts line powers up the motherboard and is used to compensate any line losses since every device needs a constant supply voltage.

 

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PC Guides System Performance

Can I Increase The Power Of My Computer By Overclocking?

Increase The Power Of Your Computer By Overclocking

One of the most important changes that we can make in our computer to increase the potency is overclocking. Overclocking is a process to increase the frequency of processing of our microprocessor at higher levels than the default, i.e simply asking our microprocessor to work harder.

Before going into detail about this practice, we should note that the increase in microprocessor performance is not enabled on computers that are manufactured under one brand and specific model.

Since they come protected against this overclocking, this operation is mostly performed on computers that have been assembled by third-party equipment.

What Overclocking Is All About – Beginners Guide

Overclocking is making your computer’s hardware run much faster than what they are designed for by manufacturers. If you are thinking about it, you can actually do

Read More

We also recall that this practice without sufficient knowledge can cause hardware damage and possibly alter the factory settings of these elements, which will result in immediate loss of warranty. Therefore make these practices under your full responsibility.

What Exactly Is Overclocking?

Overclocking is mostly described as the method which aims to achieve a higher clock speed, which is always above the manufacturer’s specifications and their standard values. This practice has one goal i.e to achieve higher performance from the components for free.

Overclocking is a term used in computing which means literally on the clock, i.e the clock frequency increase, which will increase processing capacity. You can have a detailed look about this Overclocking in our previous article.

What are its Pros and Cons?

On the pro side, obviously we can increase the capacity of our microprocessor for free and without hardly having to make any adjustments, and it is also a fast process.

On the downside, firstly the warranty of the device is totally lost as you alter the default condition of the component and it will also have changes in its stability, heat gain and possible reduction in life.

In case you don’t want stuff like this to happen to your computer, you can always quit this idea.

How can you Overclock?

If you’ve already decided to do so, you should know that there are two ways to overclock your system. Both of them are pretty easy to implement, they are as follows.

Methods To Increase The Power Of Your Computer

Method 1:

Through the BIOS: This is the cleanest and the most optimal and the highly recommended way to Overclock.

You just only need to access the BIOS your computer and Move on to the reference voltages and frequencies section.

Be very careful while modifying the values, If you have given a value which is considered to be very large than the value that your components can handle then it may lead to the hardware damage.

How To Clear CMOS Memory To Fix PC Hardware Issues You Don’t Know About

Occasionally, we may find that our computer suffers hardware problems that we don’t understand and do not know how to solve but have you tried getting over the issue by clearing the CMOS memory?

Read More

You must be very clear about the information being shown in your BIOS and what you should change, one should definitely research before making the change.

Increase The Power Of Your Computer By Overclocking

Method 2:

Through software: There are far many applications in the market to modify the default values of your computer in order to overclock.

Such applications are compatible with most devices and their use is often simpler than the method of the BIOS.

This method requires your BIOS password to be disabled ( i.e your computer should not have any BIOS password), of course, it will run only in administrator mode.

The operation is pretty simple you just need to restart your computer after making the changes. One of the simplest applications for this action is ” ClockGen “, Which can be download for free at the end of the article.

Increase The Power Of Your Computer By Overclocking

So, if at all you are thinking about modifying your computer to give it more power and speed, then you know what to do.

Softonic | ClockGen 

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PC Guides Security Web Guides

What Is A Firewall And How It Works

what is firewall and how it works, web application firewall

Firewalls are that extra layer of security which helps in restricting intruders. It can either be a software firewall or a hardware firewall. They have this unique ability of protecting entire network from the external environment. In this article you will understand what is a firewall and how exactly their implementation will protect the security and integrity of a given network.

what is firewall and how it works

 

Firewall – A Security System

Firewall is a network security system that can be implemented as a hardware device or a software program. A firewall once it is setup effectively filters out all the traffic that flows into a given network (or even a single computer) from some other network, like the Internet. This filtration is done based on the set of rules given to the Firewall.

It means that the resources present in a particular network can now be accessed only by the traffic that is allowed in the policy. And all the other traffic is denied access.

This security system has become more and more necessary with the increasing attacks of intruders, malicious codes and hackers. And if this network is the size of the internet, these unprotected computers become easy prey to hackers. So, one needs to understand the importance of a firewall and select that type of firewall which perfectly suits them. But that’s another lesson for another day.

 

Rule–Set (or) Firewall Policy:

The functioning of a Firewall is completely dependent on its rule-set. Based on this rule-set the firewall either accepts or denies external traffic. Actually a rule-set is that technical coding a Firewall Administrator does so as to tell the Firewall how he wants it to function. Basically, any firewall has a default setting to reject all traffic and to this policy few modifications are done so as to allow only a defined group of traffic.

The Firewall Administrator hence should have the perfect idea of what all the traffic he wants to allow into the network. If you are using Windows you can modify the firewall rule-set using the firewall setting in your control panel. But we recommend you do so only after understanding all the consequences.

 

Firewall Rules:

Each of the technical statements of the rule-set can address two types of traffic i.e. inbound and outbound. The rules governing these are the inbound rule and outbound rule.

Inbound Rule:

Inbound rules are those which are used by the Firewall to filter the incoming traffic. Generally, each computer when on the internet gets assigned with an IP address. So a computer on the network can be converted as a web server by defining an inbound rule and made to accept traffic. The aforementioned is one application and the other being the ability to hold video conferences.

Outbound Rule:

Outbound rule blocks or explicitly allows all the traffic that is originating from the host network. For example, you can block traffic from the network from going to a particular IP Address, or the time of day and so on using the firewall. For example, you can block the messages going out from your instant messenger using the outbound rule.

 

The Bottom Line:

For every computer that goes online, firewall is a must. Like mentioned Windows by default blocks all inbound traffic and allows all outbound traffic but all of that can be changed as per your requirements.

Also See: The Blooming Of Web Application Firewalls

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PC Guides

This Is How Actually The USB OTG Flash Drive Works

www.ncix.com , This Is How Actually The USB OTG Flash Drive Works

Each and every peripheral today is provided to connect to computers through the USB (Universal Serial Bus).  Such is the level of revolution, USB technology has managed to bring in with its absolutely flawless features. An addition to that arsenal of features is the USB On-The-Go (OTG). Surely why wouldn’t one love to own a technology which could directly connect to printers and print the desired images without the involvement of the computer? That’s exactly what you can do now with the USB OTG Flash Drive technology.

The additional benefits are that, now you can carry with you a storage device which can talk to both your smart phone and any computer without any other external hardware support. Due to which transferring files between your computer and smart phones is much easier, plus you wouldn’t even have to depend on the cloud for this.

 

www.ncix.com , This Is How Actually The USB OTG Flash Drive Works

Image Courtesy By : Ncix

All The Reasons You Should Go For USB OTG Flash Drive :

#1 Expanded Smartphone Storage

USB OTG Flash Drive is a boon for all those smartphone users, which don’t have a memory card slot. The micro-USB connector this USB OTG carries can connect these devices to most of the smartphones. Users can hence use this additional storage on their mobile phones. Like already mentioned, the best part of this feature is that you no longer have to depend on the cloud services to back up the data on your mobile phones or computers.

#2 Targeted Host Capabilities

USB OTG Flash Drive can help you set communications between two USB peripherals. With the USB OTG each of the USB peripherals including your smartphones can interchangeably used as the host or slave. For instance, when you connect this USB OTG device to a mobile phone it can act as the host and read data present in this flash drive, while when connected to a computer it offers itself as a USB Mass Storage Device.

So is the case with a printer which prints based on the instructions from the computer acting as a slave and when the USB storage device is connected directly in absence of computer, it becomes the host and takes control over reading what’s present in the USB device and printing as per requirement. Hence direct connection between OTG Flash devices can also be established.

#3 Preserves Battery Life

It is very common fact that devices can get charged up using their USB ports. The extra benefit that a USB OTG Flash Drive is that it hold charge and thus can be specifically used as a charger while you are on the go. Still the application of the USB OTG Flash Drive is under development and you can be sure to have this update any time soon.

#4 The Compatibility

The employed USB 3.0 can be used on the USB 2.0 ports because of its backward compatibility. But with just the USB 2.0 transfer speeds. When it comes to smartphones, it is compatible to a wider range of devices including all the latest models.

#5 Better Than Wireless

There is no doubt in saying this technology is indeed much better than the wireless data transfer. The wireless technology tends to get a little too slow and creepy with increasing amounts of data to be transferred. But with an USB OTG Flash Drive you wouldn’t even have to be a tad concerned about it.