Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison
"Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." – Thomas Alva Edison, Harper's Monthly(September 1932)
Born	Thomas Alva Edison February 11, 1847 Milan, Ohio, United States
Died	October 18, 1931 (aged 84) West Orange, New Jersey, United States
Occupation	Inventor, scientist, businessman
Religion	Deist
Spouse	Mary Stilwell (m. 1871–1884) Mina Miller (m. 1886–1931)
Children	Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965) Thomas Alva Edison Jr. (1876–1935) William Leslie Edison (1878–1937) Madeleine Edison (1888–1979) Charles Edison (1890–1969) Theodore Miller Edison (1898–1992)
Parents	Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (1804–1896) Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871)
Relatives	Lewis Miller (father-in-law)
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Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein in 1921
Born	14 March 1879 Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire
Died	18 April 1955 (aged 76) Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Residence	Germany, Italy, Switzerland, United States
Citizenship	Württemberg/Germany (until 1896) Stateless (1896–1901) Switzerland (from 1901) Austria (1911–12) Germany (1914–33) United States (from 1940)[1]
Alma mater	ETH Zurich University of Zurich
Known for	General relativity and special relativity Photoelectric effect Mass-energy equivalence Quantification of the Brownian motion Einstein field equations Bose–Einstein statistics Unified Field Theory
Spouse	Mileva Marić (1903–1919) Elsa Löwenthal, née Einstein, (1919–1936)
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (1921) Copley Medal (1925) Max Planck Medal (1929) Time Person of the Century
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autorun.inf

autorun.inf Manual Detection

Below are manual removal instructions for autorun.inf so you can remove the unwanted file from your PC. Always be sure to back up your PC before you modify anything.

Step 1: Use Windows File Search Tool to Find autorun.inf Path

1. Go to Start > Search > All Files or Folders.
2. In the "All or part of the the file name" section, type in "autorun.inf" file name(s).
3. To get better results, select "Look in: Local Hard Drives" or "Look in: My Computer" and then click "Search" button.
4. When Windows finishes your search, hover over the "In Folder" of"autorun.inf", highlight the file and copy/paste the path into the address bar. Save the file's path on your clipboard because you'll need the file path to delete autorun.inf in the following manual removal steps.

Step 2: Detect and Delete Other autorun.inf Files

1. To open the Windows Command Prompt, go to Start > Run > cmd and then press the "OK" button.
2. Type in "dir /A name_of_the_folder" (for example, C:\Spyware-folder), which will display the folder's content even the hidden files.
3. To change directory, type in "cd name_of_the_folder".
4. Once you have the file you're looking for type in del "name_of_the_file".
5. To delete a file in folder, type in "del name_of_the_file".
6. To delete the entire folder, type in "rmdir /S name_of_the_folder".
7. Select the "autorun.inf" process and click on the "End Process" button to kill it.

autorun.inf Anti-Spyware Recommendation

Certain file extensions come from parasite applications. If you decide to remove unknown file extensions manually, you might do irreversible harm to your PC. We highly recommend you use a good spyware cleaner/remover to automatically track autorun.inf as well as other spyware, adware, trojans, and virus threats in your PC.

More File Extension Resources

What's a .inf?

The file name autorun.inf is a .inf file extension.

.inf extensions indicate the file may be an information or setup file for various programs. Be aware that this type of file may be infected.

What's a File Extension?

A file extension is the last characters after the period in the name of a file and identifies the type of data found in the file. For example, to look for images on a computer, one would search for .gif and .jpg files.

What are the symptoms of a malicious .inf?

• Allows parasites associated with the file to operate invisibly in the background.
• May record your credit cards, bank passwords and other personal information.
• Parasites operate on your PC while malicious file is present on the system.

How can I tell if a .inf file extension is legitimate?

There are legitimate file extensions that are not malicious. File extensions are components of your operating system or software. Therefore, you should check the file before removing it from your computer. In case you are not sure about the legitimacy of .inf file extension, run a scan with an anti-spyware program or ask an expert to examine the file to make sure you won't delete a legitimate file. But remember that the file which is installed without your knowledge is not a legitimate one. Removing files can be risky, because spyware often exploits legitimate files and if such files are not removed properly can seriously damage your system.

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WINDOWS 7

Windows 7 is the latest public release version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and reached general retail availability on October 22, 2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time.
Unlike its predecessor, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being fully compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista is already compatible. Presentations given by Microsoft in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, referred to as the Superbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7; most are instead offered separately as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite.

Minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7

Removed features(AS compared to windows xp and windows vista)
A number of capabilities and certain programs that were a part of Windows Vista are no longer present or have been changed, resulting in the removal of certain functionality. Some notable Windows Vista features and components have been replaced or removed in Windows 7, including the classic Start Menu user interface, Windows Ultimate Extras and InkBall. Four applications bundled with Windows Vista — Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Calendar and Windows Mail — are not included with Windows 7, but are instead available for free in a separate package called Windows Live Essentials.

INSTALLATION
Installation Microsoft is offering several paths to install Windows 7. People can buy a new computer with the operating system already installed, upgrade from Windows XP or Vista, or do a clean install on a computer the user already owns. The clean installation took us about 30 minutes, but that will vary depending on your computer.
The upgrade procedure is different depending on whether you're running Windows XP or Windows Vista. Vista users merely need to back up their data before choosing the Upgrade option from the install disc. Both XP Home and XP Pro users will have to back up their data, then choose Custom from the install disc. Custom will have the same effect as a clean install, although it'll save your old data in a folder called Windows.old. Once you choose Custom, you'll need to select the partition of your hard drive that contains Windows XP, and then follow the instructions to enter your product key and allow the computer to reboot as needed.

FEATURES 

DESKTOP Themes 
Support for themes has been extended in Windows 7. In addition to setting the colors of the window chrome, desktop background, desktop icons, mouse pointers and sound schemes, themes in Windows 7 include desktop slideshow settings. A new control panel interface, accessible through the "Personalize" context menu item on the desktop, has been introduced which provides the ability to customize and switch between themes, as well as download more themes from Microsoft's web site. Support for "theme packs" is included; theme packs are cabinet files with an extension of .themepack, and consist of a .theme as well as any number of image, sound, icon, and mouse cursor files. Windows 7 recognizes this file format and will switch the user's theme to the theme contained inside when opened.

Desktop Slideshow
Windows Explorer includes a desktop slideshow that changes the desktop background in a designated amount of time with a smooth fading transition. This feature supports pre-downloaded sets of wallpapers and also supports photo RSS feed.

Gadgets
Windows Vista introduced Gadgets and a sidebar which provides the ability to anchor Gadgets to the side of the user's desktop. In Windows 7, the sidebar has been removed, while gadgets can still be placed on the desktop. Windows 7 adds a Windows Media Center gadget to the default collection while removing the Contacts and Notes gadgets.
Managing gadgets is more closely integrated with Windows Explorer, but the gadgets themselves continue to operate in a separate sidebar.exe process.The Desktop context menu includes a new "Gadgets" menu option to access the gadget gallery, and a "View" sub-menu option to show or hide gadgets. Hiding gadgets results in the sidebar.exe process being unloaded, which Microsoft says is a power-saving practice. Unlike Windows Vista, all gadgets run in a single process, which saves memory, and the process is not run at all if the user has no gadgets on the desktop.

Branding and customization
OEMs and enterprises are able to customize the logon screen wallpaper of Windows 7 that is displayed before a user logs on.

Libraries
Windows Explorer in Windows 7 supports Libraries, virtual folders described in a .library-ms file that aggregates content from various locations - including shared folders on networked systems if the shared folder has been indexed by the host system - and present them in a unified view. Searching in a library automatically federates the query to the remote systems, in addition to searching on the local system, so that files on the remote systems are also searched. Unlike search folders, Libraries are backed by a physical location which allows files to be saved in the Libraries. Such files are transparently saved in the backing physical folder. The default save location for a library may be configured by the user, as can the default view layout for each library. Libraries are generally stored in the Libraries special folder, which allows them to be displayed on the navigation pane.

Federated search
Windows Explorer also supports federating search to external data sources, such as custom databases or web services, that are exposed over the web and described via an OpenSearch definition. The federated location description (called a Search Connector) is provided as a .osdx file. Once installed, the data source becomes queryable directly from Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer features, such as previews and thumbnails, work with the results of a federated search as well.

Start menu
The start orb now has a fade-in highlight effect when the user moves the mouse over it.
Windows 7's Start menu retains the two-column layout of its predecessors, with several functional changes:
The "Documents", "Pictures" and "Music" buttons now link to the Libraries of the same name.
A "Devices and Printers" option has been added that displays a new device manager.
The "shut down" icon in Windows Vista has been replaced with a text link indicating what action will be taken when the icon is clicked. The default action to take is now configurable through the 

Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window. 
Taskbar Jump Lists are presented in the Start Menu via a guillemet; when the user moves his or her mouse over the guillemet, or presses the right-arrow key, the right-hand side of the Start menu is widened and replaced with the application's Jump List.

Taskbar
The Windows Taskbar has seen its most significant revision since its introduction in Windows 95. The taskbar is 10 pixels taller than in Windows Vista to accommodate touch screen input and a new larger default icon size, though a smaller taskbar size is available. Running applications are denoted by a border frame around the icon, while applications can be pinned to the taskbar, so that shortcuts to them appear when they are not running. Within this border, a color effect (dependent on the predominant RGB value of the icon) that follows the mouse also indicates the opened status of the application. The glass taskbar is also more transparent. Taskbar buttons show icons by default, not application titles, unless they are set to not combine. Only icons are shown when the application is not running.

Window management mouse gestures

Aero Snap; Window maximizing and tiling 
Windows can be dragged to the top of the screen to maximize them and dragged away to restore them. Dragging a window to the left or right of the screen makes it take up half the screen allowing the user to tile two windows next to each other. Also resizing the window to the bottom of the screen or top will extend the window full but retain the width of the window. These features can be disabled via the Ease of Access Center if users do not wish the windows to automatically resize.

Aero Shake

Aero Shake allows users to clear up any clutter on their screen by shaking (dragging back and forth) a window of their choice with the mouse. All other windows will minimize, while the window the user shook stays active on the screen. When the window is shaken again, they are all restored, similar to desktop preview. 

Multi-touch 
Hilton Locke, who worked on the Tablet PC team at Microsoft, reported on December 11, 2007 that Windows 7 will have new touch features. An overview of the multi-touch capabilities, including a virtual piano program, a mapping and directions program and a touch-aware version of Paint, was demonstrated at the All Things Digital Conference on May 27, 2008. A video demonstrating the multi-touch capabilities was later made available on the web on the same day.

Desktop Window Manager 
First introduced in Windows Vista, the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) in Windows 7 has been updated to use version 10.1 of Direct3D API, and its performance has been improved significantly.The Desktop Window Manager still requires at least a Direct3D 9-capable video card (supported with new D3D10_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_n device type introduced with the Direct3D 11 runtime).With a video driver conforming to Windows Display Driver Model v1.1, DXGI kernel in Windows 7 provides 2D hardware acceleration to APIs such as GDI, Direct2D and DirectWrite (though GDI+ was not updated to use this functionality). This allows DWM to use significantly lower amounts of system memory, which do not grow regardless of how many windows are opened, like it was in Windows Vista. Systems equipped with a WDDM 1.0 video card will operate in the same fashion as in Windows Vista, using software-only rendering.The Desktop Window Manager in Windows 7 also adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors

Font management 
The user interface for font management has been overhauled. As with Windows Vista, the collection of installed fonts is shown in a Windows Explorer window, but fonts from the same font family appear as "stacks" instead of as individual icons. A user can then double-click on the font stack and see the individual font. A preview of the font is displayed as part of the icon as well. New options for hiding installed fonts are included; a hidden font remains installed, but is not enumerated when an application asks for a list of available fonts. Windows Vista had received considerable criticism for including the same "Add Font" dialog that had existed as far back as Windows NT 3.1; this dialog has been removed.
The Font dialog box has also been updated to show previews of the font selection in the selection lists. The fontview.exe default font viewing application has replaced the "Properties" button with a "Install" button. 

Security / networking
Microsoft had already done a lot of work since the initial release of Vista on not bugging us incessantly with pop-up security nags, but Windows 7 strikes an even better balance. What is disconcerting is how often security warnings include an "unknown" as the publisher -- it's not really teaching anybody to be judicious about what pops up in the warning if the warning itself doesn't even know what's going on. In the end we'll find out just how secure Windows 7 is once it's in the wild and hackers start hammering on it, but with the abundance and ease of Windows updates these days, most anybody with an ounce of common sense and a speedy internet connection should be able to steer clear of danger. Meaning: we're all doomed.

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USB->UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS

Just about any computer that you buy today comes with one or more Universal Serial Busconnectors on the back. These USB connectors let you attach everything from mice to printers to your computer quickly and easily. The operating system supports USB as well, so the installation of the device drivers is quick and easy, too. Compared to other ways of connecting devices to your computer (including parallel ports, serial ports and special cards that you install inside the computer's case), USB devices are incredibly simple!

In this article, we will look at USB ports from both a user and a technical standpoint. You will learn why the USB system is so flexible and how it is able to support so many devices so easily -- it's truly an amazing system!

Anyone who has been around computers for more than two or three years knows the problem that the Universal Serial Bus is trying to solve -- in the past, connecting devices to computers has been a real headache!

• Printers connected to parallel printer ports, and most computers only came with one. Things like Zip drives, which need a high-speed connection into the computer, would use the parallel port as well, often with limited success and not much speed.
• Modems used the serial port, but so did some printers and a variety of odd things like Palm Pilots and digital cameras. Most computers have at most two serial ports, and they are very slow in most cases.
• Devices that needed faster connections came with their own cards, which had to fit in a card slot inside the computer's case. Unfortunately, the number of card slots is limited and you needed a Ph.D. to install the software for some of the cards.

The goal of USB is to end all of these headaches. The Universal Serial Bus gives you a single, standardized, easy-to-use way to connect up to 127 devices to a computer.

Just about every peripheral made now comes in a USB version. A sample list of USB devices that you can buy today includes:

• Printers
• Scanners
• Mice
• Joysticks
• Flight yokes
• Digital cameras
• Webcams
• Scientific data acquisition devices
• Modems
• Speakers
• Telephones
• Video phones
• Storage devices such as Zip drives
• Network connections

In the next section, we'll look at the USB cables and connectors that allow your computer to communicate with these devices.

USB Hubs

Most computers that you buy today come with one or two USB sockets. With so many USB devices on the market today, you easily run out of sockets very quickly. For example, on the computer that I am typing on right now, I have a USB printer, a USB scanner, a USB Webcam and a USB network connection. My computer has only one USB connector on it, so the obvious question is, "How do you hook up all the devices?"

The easy solution to the problem is to buy an inexpensive USB hub. The USB standard supports up to 127 devices, and USB hubs are a part of the standard. 

USB Cables and Connectors

Connecting a USB device to a computer is simple,we can find the USB connector on the back of your machine and plug the USB connector into it.

The rectangular socket is a typical USB socket on the back of a PC.

If it is a new device, the operating system auto-detects it and asks for the driver disk. If the device has already been installed, the computer activates it and starts talking to it. USB devices can be connected and disconnected at any time.

A typical USB connector, called an "A" connection

A typical USB four-port hub accepts 4 "A" connections.

A hub typically has four new ports, but may have many more. You plug the hub into your computer, and then plug your devices (or other hubs) into the hub. By chaining hubs together, you can build up dozens of available USB ports on a single computer.

Hubs can be powered or unpowered. As you will see on the next page, the USB standard allows for devices to draw their power from their USB connection. Obviously, a high-power device like a printer or scanner will have its own power supply, but low-power devices like mice and digital cameras get their power from the bus in order to simplify them. The power (up to 500 milliamps at 5 volts) comes from the computer. If you have lots of self-powered devices (like printers and scanners), then your hub does not need to be powered -- none of the devices connecting to the hub needs additional power, so the computer can handle it. If you have lots of unpowered devices like mice and cameras, you probably need a powered hub. The hub has its own transformer and it supplies power to the bus so that the devices do not overload the computer's supply.

The USB Process

When the host powers up, it queries all of the devices connected to the bus and assigns each one an address. This process is called enumeration -- devices are also enumerated when they connect to the bus. The host also finds out from each device what type of data transfer it wishes to perform:

• Interrupt - A device like a mouse or a keyboard, which will be sending very little data, would choose the interrupt mode.
• Bulk - A device like a printer, which receives data in one big packet, uses the bulk transfer mode. A block of data is sent to the printer (in 64-byte chunks) and verified to make sure it is correct.
• Isochronous - A streaming device (such as speakers) uses the isochronous mode. Data streams between the device and the host in real-time, and there is no error correction.

The host can also send commands or query parameters with control packets.

As devices are enumerated, the host is keeping track of the total bandwidth that all of the isochronous and interrupt devices are requesting. They can consume up to 90 percent of the 480 Mbps of bandwidth that is available. After 90 percent is used up, the host denies access to any other isochronous or interrupt devices. Control packets and packets for bulk transfers use any bandwidth left over (at least 10 percent).

The Universal Serial Bus divides the available bandwidth into frames, and the host controls the frames. Frames contain 1,500 bytes, and a new frame starts every millisecond. During a frame, isochronous and interrupt devices get a slot so they are guaranteed the bandwidth they need. Bulk and control transfers use whatever space is left. The technical links at the end of the article contain lots of detail if you would like to learn more.

USB Features

The Universal Serial Bus has the following features:

• The computer acts as the host.
• Up to 127 devices can connect to the host, either directly or by way of USB hubs.
• Individual USB cables can run as long as 5 meters; with hubs, devices can be up to 30 meters (six cables' worth) away from the host.
• With USB 2.,the bus has a maximum data rate of 480 megabits per second.
• A USB cable has two wires for power (+5 volts and ground) and a twisted pair of wires to carry the data.
• On the power wires, the computer can supply up to 500 milliamps of power at 5 volts.
• Low-power devices (such as mice) can draw their power directly from the bus. High-power devices (such as printers) have their own power supplies and draw minimal power from the bus. Hubs can have their own power supplies to provide power to devices connected to the hub.
• USB devices are hot-swappable, meaning you can plug them into the bus and unplug them any time.
• Many USB devices can be put to sleep by the host computer when the computer enters a power-saving mode.
• The devices connected to a USB port rely on the USB cable to carry power and data.

Inside a USB cable: There are two wires for power -- +5 volts (red) and ground (brown) -- and a twisted pair (yellow and blue) of wires to carry the data. The cable is also shielded. 

USB 2.0

The standard for USB version 2.0 was released in April 2000 and serves as an upgrade for USB 1.1.

USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) provides additional bandwidth for multimedia and storage applications and has a data transmission speed 40 times faster than USB 1.1. To allow a smooth transition for both consumers and manufacturers, USB 2.0 has full forward and backward compatibility with original USB devices and works with cables and connectors made for original USB, too.

Supporting three speed modes (1.5, 12 and 480 megabits per second), USB 2.0supports low-bandwidth devices such as keyboards and mice, as well as high-bandwidth ones like high-resolution Webcams, scanners, printers and high-capacity storage systems. The deployment of USB 2.0 has allowed PC industry leaders to forge ahead with the development of next-generation PC peripherals to complement existing high-performance PCs. The transmission speed of USB 2.0 also facilitates the development of next-generation PCs and applications. In addition to improving functionality and encouraging innovation, USB 2.0 increases the productivity of user applications and allows the user to run multiple PC applications at once or several high-performance peripherals simultaneously. 

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