Computers

When we burn CD/DVD, we name them either using adhesive stickers or markers. Now we do not require any of these. The new technology is called LightScribe. LightScribe Direct-Disk-Labeling is a new optical media recording technology using which we can burn labels directly onto specially coated recordable optical media (CD and DVD) and create our own custom labels.

Intel has been announcing massive price slashes for its processors and motherboards since January 2007. In spite of this AMD based systems still maintain a comfortable lead over the Intel based systems. The price difference used to be around Rs. 3,000 around a year back but it has fallen drastically during the last one year. An AMD Sempron based system can be bought for around Rs. 13,500 while an Athlon X2 costs around Rs. 14,600. The Intel counterparts Dual Core and Core 2 Duo based systems costs around Rs. 15,500 and Rs. 18,500 respectively.

There was a time when computers were so expensive that, to own one was beyond the means of a common man and, they were only affordable for the elite of the society. Times have changed and the prices of computers have fallen so drastically that it has been moved from the list of luxury items to the list of essential items in a household. They have become so cheap that you can easily buy a brand new personal computer with basic configuration for just Rs. 13,500/- excluding tax, or a used computer for around one third that price.

Starting or scaling up a business establishment almost always involves upgrading your existing IT infrastructure. This normally takes its toll on capital resources. Even if you finance your IT purchases it would involve some amount of down payment and you will inevitably have to channel a reasonable amount of your capital towards IT infrastructure purchases. Valuable capital that could otherwise have been used for increasing the working capital to meet the requirements for the growth.

One of the strange types of complaints we receive from our customers is "The system was working fine till yesterday, I had shut down the system and it is not booting now". Strange as it may sound the common feature of these support requests included burnt motherboards, non-functional PCI Card slots and sometimes burnt Ethernet cards. One common factor in such cases was that these customers had Asianet Dataline as their internet service.

It can be safely assumed that an average home computer user uses his computer mostly to send/receive mails, browse the net, access online applications, watch movies, listen to music, use some desktop applications and work on documents or spreadsheets, in that order of decreasing frequency of use. But for the avid gamers, most would play some sort of simple computer games like card games, puzzles, chess etc. A very small percentage of the population would use a home computer for programming.

A new computer could cost anywhere from Rs. 13500/- where as you could get a reasonably good used computer in the range of Rs. 4000 to Rs. 7000 depending on the age and the configuration of the system. The obvious attractiveness in the option of buying a used computer is the price. Buying a certified used system is an excellent way to familiarize you and your family to the exciting world of computers and internet at perhaps 1/3 the cost of a new system.