Colt Tech

Archive for the ‘Search Engine Optimization’ Category

There are an infinite number of options for computers now. Whether you want a laptop, pc, or mac; and then you get into whether or not you want to buy one from a company such as Dell or build it yourself. I’m going to be discussing the steps you should take when building your own computer and give an example walkthrough.

What are the benefits of building your own computer? The biggest reason for me is cost. I can shop around for parts and find the lowest price. You also are afforded a lot more freedom in picking what actually goes inside your computer. And quite frankly, building your own computer is pretty darn fun.

Now, where do we start?

Before you think about what hardware to buy, you need to determine what kind of user you are, and what you need the computer to do.  I’ll break it down into three categories: Please note that there is an infinitely large spectrum between these categories, so try and gauge where you fit best.
1: Power/Hardcore User - You use the computer all day, and the main focus of your activities are graphic design, CAD, serious gaming, video encoding/editing, or writing code. You are going to want a computer that is fairly powerful in order to handle all the processes and demands that you’ll require.
2: Average User - You use the computer frequently, but don’t do anything too complex. You might do things ike Quickbooks, check your email, use word processing, and surf the web.
3:New User - If you are brand new to computing this would be you (i.e. you’ve been using a computer for less than a year). I would steer away from building your own computer. You haven’t established what you need it to do yet, so a cheap 300$ machine would be fine for now.

Try not to worry too much about the “what ifs” and just focus on what you most frequently use the computer for.

Also, set a budget. If you can only afford a $1,500 machine, stay within that $1,500.

Here are the main components we’re going to look at:
1- CPU/ Central Processing Unit
2- Motherboard
3- RAM/ Random Access Memory
4- HDD/HD/Hard Disk Drive/Hard Drive
5-GPU/Graphics Processing Unit/ Graphics Card
6-Sound Card
7-PSU/Power Supply
8-Cooling/Airflow
9-Case
10-Peripherals
11-Operating System
12-Other accessories

This might seem like a lot, but hopefully all these terms will become second nature by the end of this series.

The CPU:
Manufacturer: Intel or AMD
Socket: LGA 1366, 939, AM2, AM2+, LGA775, and there are many more
Number of cores: Single, Dual, Quad
Speed:  #GHz

The first two questions are to help prevent compatibility issues. If you have a cpu made by Intel it will not work on a motherboard made for AMD cpus. Sockets are brand-specific. For instance, all socket 939 motherboards and process refer to AMD chips. You need to make sure the cpu and motherboard match up. Unless you are a power user, stay away from the quad-core processors. They are fairly expensive, and you simply don’t need the horsepower. Think of it like giving a 16year old a Forumla 1 car. Dual cores are almost always a safe bet. The speed just tells you how much it can process and how fast. For a dual core, something around 2.4GHz will get the job done just fine.

For our tutorial we’re going to go with the Intel Core i7 2.66GHz socket LGA 1366 quad-core processor.

With how fast the technology changes the learning curve keeps getting more and more steep. One thing I’ve noticed over the last year or two is that I get a lot of questions similar to: “Hey Keith, what is a …?” I’m sure others in the technology industry get their fair share of these kinds of questions as well. It is also especially important for those who are looking to get a website done for them. When a company tells you they’re going to “develop a robust backend” it would be good to know exactly what that means. I’m going to cover three main topics and some common terms associated with each: Web design, web development, and search engine optimization, as well as some general terms.

Frontend - This is the area of a website that the user directly interacts with - navigation, flash, video, forms, etc.. It gathers the information from the user to be processed by the backend. It also gives the user the ability to request or call up information from the backend.

Backend - The backend is sister to the frontend. It takes the information that that is either sent or requested by the user and processes that to return the relevant information. With higher traffic sites more complex backends are needed so that they can keep up with the amount of information being sent and received. This is generally where the term “robust” comes into play. This enables for faster load times, and in general, a better experience while on the website.

Search Engine Optimizatin (SEO) - This has become the hot topic for people in the web industry. Its sole purpose, as you would expect, is to make websites tuned for the best possible search engine results. There are hundreds of different theories on what works and what doesn’t work. I think that it is best to say that each case is different, and that there is no cookie cutter SEO. There is only one real rule that is agreed on by everyone, and that is “content is king.” Matt Cutts has said this numerous times, and I would like to think he has some good insight into search engines since he works for Google. The best web designers and developers will take SEO into account and naturally build a solid foundation right into the site, which limits the need to hire a specialized SEO company.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL Certificate) - This is more of a domain/hosting topic, but it’s good to know. SSL essentially means that the server is using some kind of cryptography to guard the transfer of information between you and the server. If you plan on doing any kind of online purchasing it’s an extremely good idea to make sure the site has a valid SSL. Firefox will pop up a warning if the SSL of a certain site can’t be verified. Hosting companies for instance have this issue, since they issue their own.

Dynamic websites - This connects back in with the frontend/backend topics. A dynamic website is one where the information that is displayed is pulled out of a database.  On non-dynamic websites, the information is simply entered right into the coding of the page. This makes it pretty tedious to update, and change. Dynamic websites solve this problem in that the information is all entered into a database, and then is just called up to the website.

Content Management System - The name says it all. These allow you to input, store, and edit information. This is very closely linked with dynamic websites, in that you can update the information in your CMS, and that updated information is automatically updated on the website. There are several extremely good free open-source CMSs such as Joomla, Drupal, and Wordpress. Non open-source CMSs can be quite expensive though, and easily exceed $10,000.

Landing Page - This is essentially the page a potential customer sees after being directed to your site; usually by clicking on some sort of ad. A well designed landing page is essential. This is the (most likely) first impression that person gets of your company or product. It is also important for the page to “flow” well with your site, and the information that is being provided. For instance, if a graphic on the page is displaying some kind of hardware yet your company sells software, it gives conflicting messages. Moreover, it should be consistent with what the add originally said. This seems obvious, but I have clicked on quite a few advertisements that say “x item 45% off” but on the landing page it says 40%.

Web browser - Even though I’m sure 99.9% of my readers know what these are, I have to put this here. There are essentially four big names: Internet Explorer (MicrosofT), Firefox (Mozilla), Safari (Apple), Chrome (Google) (Cutts). From a web developers standpoint, I would suggest everyone to try something other than Internet Explorer. There are so many odd qwerks with it, that it is truly a pain to make sure all the content is displayed properly. Firefox and Chrome are both free, are incredibly fast, have great support, and tons of awesome addons.

I hope these are some help for those looking to get a new website, or just wanted some quick information about one of the topics. If you have any suggestions or questions feel free to leave a comment.

Sources:

Cutts, Matt. “http://www.mattcutts.com.” 2 April 2009. Matt Cutts’ Blog. <http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/chrome-marketshare-for-march-2009/>.