1. Essential Useful Peripherals

2. USB Universal Serial Bus USB 1.1 supports 1.5Mbps (low speed) and 12Mbps (full speed) USB 2.0 supports transfer rates of 480Mbps (hi speed) (about 60MBps) – 25 times faster than parallel ports USB 3.0 supports up to 5Gbps (SuperSpeed)- blue port USB 3.1 supports up to 10Gbps – teal port 1996 for USB1.0; 2000 for USB 2.0; 2003 for USB 2.0 in laptops

4. Every device shares The USB bus with Every other device On the Host; bus slows And power consumed

5. USB issues Powered, and unpowered hubs, devices can overload Host Controller or hub 1.1 and 2.0 use 4 pins/wires 3.0 and 3.1 use 5 pins/wires

11. USB Hubs Host Controller supports up to 127 devices Use a hub when you run out of ports Powered (or not) Can daisy-chain up to five hubs Allows longer cable runs to devices Theory is 5m for longest cable; I have found ~20-foot cables at Fry’s

12. USB Configuration Install the device driver first, then plug in the device Windows supports keyboards, mice and most flash drives Make sure you have the speed the device can run at, otherwise it will default down in speed Make sure you have enough power (powered hub(s))

14. Device Manager, Expand USB, Right-click Hub Properties

15. Positions Up position Down position The third plug-in that works is the Superposition Type C connectors plug in either way

16. Firewire IEEE 1394 Older (by six months) than USB Digital Video Camcorders and (older) Apple computers 6-pin powered connector, or a 4-pin bus-powered connector 1394a at 400 Mbps; 1394b at 800 Mbps Devices can bus master – talk to each other Maximum of 63 devices Hubbed or daisy-chained devices Max cable length is 4.5m

17. More Firewire Can daisy-chain devices (without hubs) if you wish; USB requires hub(s)* Should install driver first, but most external hard disk drives and Digital Video are supported by Windows USB On the Go (lasted about 6 months) allowed device to device daisy-chain

18. Thunderbolt Intel developed it, Apple has used it PCIe bus for up to six devices -1 runs full duplex at 10Gbps, -2 at up to 20Gbps

19. Port Issues Is it the port, or is it the device? Has the CMOS been told to turn off the port? Or Device Manager? Is the port broken from too much use? – Bent or broken pins on connector – Bent or broken shell around pins

20. Somebody got really upset at USB port or device!

22. Keyboards Oldest and still primary way to provide input to computer PS/2, or USB connection Windows and Linux have CTRL and ALT keys; Windows also has logo key Mac has three: Control, Option and Command Use isopropyl alcohol to clean keyboard Worst enemy is your water bottle

23. Pointing Devices Mice and Touchpads (Touch Pad to CompTIA) In Windows, use Mouse Control Panel; in Mac use Mouse and Trackpad Preferences Optical mouse rarely needs cleaning

24. Biometric Devices Retina, iris, head image or fingerprint scan Voice recognition: Siri in iOS, Cortana in 10 and Google Docs – and Dragon Naturally Speaking

25. Smart Card Readers Most credit cards today are smart cards Businesses are catching up to these cards with “readers” More secure than plain credit card

26. Bar Code Readers UPS and FedEx would be lost without them So would most check-out counters Pen, hand or stationary scanners

27. Touch Screens Detect finger or stylus contact; send mouse- click event to system Microsoft wishes everyone had one

28. Motion Sensors Microsoft’s Kinect – product in search of a problem to solve Used a lot in security settings and outdoor lighting

29. KVM Switches Keyboard, Video and Mouse Used before we had virtual machines Worst problem is cross-wiring the switch Some PCs won’t boot unless switch is set to that box

30. Gamepads and Joysticks Only PC device that does not have an interrupt channel – CPU has to constantly query the stick Flight simulators used joysticks and were a great way to test PC compatibility in early days

31. Digitizers AKA Pen Tablet Wacom is the top label here Can paint, ink, pencil or ??? Another USB connection

32. Digital Cameras and Camcorders Still around but most people use their phone Amount of information captured (clarity, color depth) measured in megapixels Choose optical zoom (lenses) over digital zoom (larger pixels) Secure Digital cards for picture storage

33. Webcams Count of megapixels (2 minimum) Frame rate (30 fps is best) USB connections Install drivers first, then cam

34. Sound Capture We capture, or record, sound by a process called sampling: “measuring” the sound some number of times per second. Sampling rate is measured in KHz; 11 KHz to 192 KHz Let’s see a simple example

35. Sound wave Time

36. Sound wave Time Sample points

37. Sound wave Time Sample points

38. Sound wave Time Sample points

39. Sound wave How the sound would play back or output Time

40. Sound Characteristics Loudness (amplitude) Tone, high or low (frequency) Instrument (timbre) Quality of sound is in the bit depth – much like color quality in video 2^8=256 characteristics, 2^16=65,536 characteristics Single track (monoral) or two (stereo) CD quality is 44KHz, 16-bit, stereo

41. Sound Formats Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) – developed for phone calls and now called.WAV file type Great for sounds, voice and music – but very big files: 4-minute song=40+ MB Since we can’t hear all that 44KHz, 16-bit can give us, we compress the file using CODECs: MP3 for example

42. Bit Rate The amount of information (number of bits) transferred from the compressed file to the MP3 decoder in one second. Higher the bit rate, the higher the sound quality; range is 24-320 Kbps. CD-quality is 128 Kbps

43. Playing Sounds - MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface Hardware dependent – on sound card Very small files; works for music not voice 78 MB vs. 60KB FM Synthesis: electronic emulation of sound – sounds “electronic” Wave Table Synthesis: recording of actual instrument samples that are “bent” for tone and timing. Polyphony = number of instruments; 64 to 256.

44. Sound Standards AC’97. Found on lower-end audio devices; adequate quality for stereo system Intel High Definition Audio (HDA) AKA Azalia. True surround sound with many discrete speakers. Also allows for multiple streams of audio from one computer to different output devices..

45. The Right Sound Card Always first: What are you going to use it for? Low-end sound cards lean on processor for much of the work Recording signal to noise ratio; 40 is poor, 100 is good Connectors: (Green) speakers; (blue) line in; (Pink) microphone; joy stick (15-pin female DB) DirectX compatible: Version 9 (or 10?)

46. Sound Processor Capabilities vary: low price card = low performance processor – that means more work for CPU By doing the work on the card, this accelerates the sound process Support for surround sound (positional audio = more speakers); support for gamers, once again

47. Speaker Support Every card supports two speakers; better cards support more speakers Subwoofer for bass sounds, can really be put anywhere around you The.1 (as in 5.1) means the subwoofer

48. Recording Quality Check signal-to-noise ratio in specifications on the box 30 (really poor) to 100+ dB (really good) (Buy a matching quality microphone)

50. SPDIF Sony/Philips Digital Interface connector Sound card to 5.1 speaker system Could be called “Digital Out”

51. Audio Cables Small, gray cable with three wires Used to come with sound card and often proprietary connector(s) Cable now comes with optical drive, not sound card Experiment confirmed: not necessary to play music CD in DVD drive. Was used for analog replay back then.

52. Speakers If all you want is Windows sounds… 2 = Stereo; left and right channels 2.1 = Stereo plus subwoofer; probable best bet. 5.1 = Six speakers total. Front Left, Front Right, Front center, rear left, rear right and subwoofer 6.1 and 7.1 systems are now available

53. Positional Audio Uses 5+.1 system to place sound anywhere in 3-D space. Introduced with DirectX-3. Creative Labs added to -3 with Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX); rolled into DirectX-8 in 2000 Dolby Lab’s Dolby Digital used by DVDs; DTS (Digital Theater Systems) use 5.1

54. On board sound If sound is on the motherboard, make sure CMOS has it turned on. You will find the sound driver(s) on the motherboard CD Card goes into slot (or enabled in CMOS) first, then load drivers Make sure connections to speakers are good

55. Installing Sound Just another PCI card Be careful of ESD, as always Find an empty PCI slot, snap card into place Secure with screw Installation is now done; time to load drivers

56. Installing a Sound Card DOS Support MIDI support WAV support Joystick support Drivers, drivers and more drivers

57. CD’s Applications Along with drivers, you can probably find an application or two on the install CD I tend to avoid installing these applications; Michael says to go for it as you can uninstall later I will install DVD replay software.

58. Speakers will output sound when slider is clicked

59. Name of sound file Sound (and card) are alive. Button will play sound when clicked

60. Add Remove Programs to Windows components Have to click on event to have this “go live”

61. Click on slider and speakers should respond

65. Troubleshooting Always make sure the volume is turned up in two places: sound applet and speaker’s volume control. Make sure you have good connections – and the correct connections Make sure speakers are on – they need power Driver problems show up in Device Manager

66. Video Capture Again, it is CAPTURE not record If signal is coming from analog source (VHS tape) need hardware to provide translation to digital Need decent computer with lots of free hard drive space and substantial RAM – also deep pockets for software (Adobe Premier Elements or Apple Final Cut Pro)

67. Editing Allows you to change the raw video/sound file(s) to the order you want the clips to be in Wrappers. Both video and audio go through a compression process (not the same one) and the two files are then stored in a container file or wrapper. Can’t tell from the wrapper what codecs were used – lots to choose from

68. TV Tuners Gives you better video and sound than cable Need source – usually the lower channels are not encoded from TimeWarner so can use cable, or set up a metal antenna Need software (often with card) to view Tvguide.com or titantv.com for listings of shows

69. Smart TV A smart TV can access the Internet for content (Netflix or Amazon and on …) A set-top box (Apple TV) does the Internet and feeds a regular TV

70. Storage Devices Most common is the flash drive (aka thumb, jump drives) Hot swappable (but you knew that) Can boot from them (with a little work) – remember to change the boot order in CMOS Should last for a decade, or maybe longer, but will slow down with frequent use

71. CompactFlash Oldest, most complex and physically largest of memory cards Could get a microdrive – complete with platters and read/write heads in CF format

72. SmartMedia Second in line, had its day in the sun More storage capacity than CF

73. Secure Digital Most common format today Can have mini- and micro- cards Used in cell phones Largest card has a slide lock to make contents read-only

74. Memory Stick Thank you, Sony, for this one Not much use outside of Sony products

75. xD Picture Card Olympus cameras for this one Fujifilm digital cameras also use it

76. Card Readers Quite the rage a few years ago; anywhere from 5 to 15 slots for different memory cards Smaller ones were 3.5 inch form factor, larger ones are 5 ¼ format If you insist on using a camera-camera, have to have one of these

77. Definitions CD-ROM – Compact Disk, Read Only Media/Memory; this is how programs come to you DVD – Digital Versatile/Video Disk Blu-ray disks have major storage

78. How it lays out This time the data is INSIDE the disk: Data Location Label, or not Laser 10

79. ISO 9660 Also called: High Sierra for the hotel in Colorado where standard got developed Joliet – Microsoft’s extension(s); Mac and Linux support these also. Rock Ridge – UNIX file system support El Torito – Bootable CD media Apple Extensions – Apple’s HFS file system

80. CD Speed 1x : Original (and still) audio standard: 150,000Bps or 150KBps 4x : 600KBps 24x : The “magic line” – Below this drives and connections were proprietary – and often to sound card – These drives were single speed – always on At and above 24x – Variable speed – spin up, read, spin down – Uniform connection method (ATAPI-6)

81. To Burn a CD Second, more powerful laser (10x read) Two CD-R formats: 72-minute (650 MB) and 80-minute (700 MB) Burns organic dye to create pits (0’s) Need burning software below XP CD-R is write once, read many CD-RW is write often, read often (can be erased) Speeds are ; 16x10x40x for mine

82. UDF Universal Data Format, replacement for 9660 Vista supports this but not XP Supports packet writing Roxio’s DirectCD and Nero’s InCD allow disk to feel like a hard/floppy disk No traction, thanks to flash drives

83. DVD Digital video discs, then digital versatile discs Big step up in capacity: 4.37 GB Smaller pits, more dense than CD Single-sided or double-sided Single layer or double layer You need decoder (MPEG-2) to watch movies on your PC – most DVD drives ship with them DVD+R, -R, +RW and –RW

84. Blu-Ray Uses blue laser (405 nm) vs. red (650 nm) Capacity of 25 GB and multiples Still on the pricy side of things ($50+) Mini-size disks used in high-end camcorders Burners cost hence not seen often

85. ISO files A complete copy of the contents of an optical disk Win 7 will “burn an ISO” i.e. make a disk from the ISO file (not copy the iso to disk) Need software for XP and Vista – find free on the Internet

86. Region Codes Attempt to limit distribution/bootlegging Can only change four times then stuck Region 0: all regions Region 1: US and Canada Region 8: Cruise ships and airlines

87. Installation Master or Slave Ribbon (data) cable Power You can still find SCSI drives Most optical drives are SATA today

88. Buffer Underrun Fortunately, it is a thing of the past (16x burn rate and slower drives) No, you don’t see a spec on the buffer size on the drive’s box BURN-Proof seems to be the maiden name for underrun protection

89. Troubleshooting I have had almost zero luck with trying to clean an optical drive to get it functioning again Sometimes it’s a compatibility issue… but rare today Replace the drive, they are not that expensive