Being a pro gamer is not a cheap thing to achieve. There is plenty of equipment to purchase and it is not the cheapest, but also not too expensive. You are getting your moneys worth for what you pay for. In my detailed post I mentioned gaming equipment, I am going to go into more detail on the different equipment a pro gamer should have. First things first is a controller. Now you can use just a standard controller or you can use what most pros use and that is a Scuf controller. You can either buy a Scuf controller and add some customization to it our you can mail in your own controller and customize it and have it mailed back to you. By customization I mean adding a skin design to the controller, adding grip, changing the kind controller stick, and or adding paddles. Now the skin design is just what covers the base of the controller, so instead of having a plain black controller you could have a red and black controller. It just makes the controller look cooler. The grip is just so you have a better grip on your controller, so it does not slip out of your hands.

There a two kinds of controller sticks you can use; concave and domed. Concave is where the center of the stick is caved in and the domed is where the stick is in the shape a dome. They do not necessarily make you play better, it is just your preference for what you would want to use. The paddles are designed for button mapping. By this I mean having the paddle replace a button so you do not have to use that button.

These go on the back of the controller. For example let’s say that the A button is used to jump, when customizing the controller paddles you can assign one the paddles the A button. So instead of always having to press A to jump you can just push the paddle instead. Now the paddles can be assigned to any button you want, just do what fits your style of play. You can have up to four paddles, which means you can have four buttons remapped for the paddles.

The next thing you will want to get is a gaming headset. The top two companies are Turtle Beach and Astro Gaming. These headsets allow you to hear game audio and chat audio in the headset. It is up to you to figure out what levels you want each audio at. Each person has their own preference but majority of the pro players use Astro gaming. Also, each person will say that one is better than the other based on what headset they have. I have had a Turtle Beach headset before but now have an Astro Gaming headset. I personally think Atros are better because they are designed better, and I think they have better quality.

You want to have one of these brands because they will help you in-game. It will help you hear things at a distance and it helps you hear people coming up behind you. Do some research, look at reviews, and talk to your friends about them and buy what you think is best. The last main thing you will need is a monitor. There are a lot of companies who make monitors, just like headsets each person has their own preference of what brand they use. Major League Gaming uses BenQ monitors. They even have a specific monitor that is used by the pros at events. You can find these by just Googling them. These have the best quality and the lowest lag response time. The picture is so clear, colorful, and is nice because there is no lag which means everything that happens, happens in real time with no delay. Another thing that I would recommend is a recording a device to record your gameplays. You can get an El Gato or and Hauppague HDPVR.

These are the only two that I know of, but I am sure there are more. Before purchasing one these make sure your computer or laptop reaches and or exceeds the specifications of the device. These are not necessary to be a pro gamer, but it is nice to record your gameplays and makes videos out of them and post them to YouTube. Basically every pro player makes YouTube videos from their games. You can get fans to watch and subscribe to your YouTube channel. This is not necessity but it is a nice thing to have to show to others. These are the products that players in general and pro players use. I highly recommend looking into all of these. Theses would be an investment, a one time purchase that would last a very long time. I hope that these help you guys out. Happy gaming.

Baking has been many cultures’ favorite technique for creating snacks, desserts, and accompaniments to meals for many years. Now, it is very well-known as the method for creating sweets and all sorts of wondrous mouthwatering pastries. In ancient history, the first evidence of baking occurred when humans took wild grass grains, soaked it in water, and mixed everything together, mashing it into a kind of broth-like paste. Then, the paste was cooked by pouring it onto a flat, hot rock, resulting in a bread-like substance. Later, this paste was roasted on hot embers, which made bread-making easier, as it could now be made anytime fire was created. Around 2500 B.C., records show that the Egyptians already had bread, and may have actually learned the process from the Babylonians. The Greek Aristophanes, around 400 B.C., also recorded information that showed that tortes with patterns and honey flans existed in Greek cuisine. Dispyrus was also created by the Greeks around that time and widely popular; was a donut-like bread made from flour and honey and shaped in a ring; soaked in wine, it was eaten when hot.

In the Roman Empire, baking flourished widely. In about 300 B.C., the pastry cook became an occupation for Romans (known as the pastillarium). This became a very highly respected profession because pastries were considered decadent, and Romans loved festivity and celebration. Thus, pastries were often cooked especially for large banquets, and any pastry cook who could invent new types of tasty treats, unseen at any other banquet, was highly prized. Around 1 A.D., there were more than three hundred pastry chefs in Rome alone, and Cato wrote about how they created all sorts of diverse foods, and flourished because of those foods. Cato speaks of an enormous amount of breads; included amongst these are the libum (sacrificial cakes made with flour), placenta (groats and cress), spira (our modern day flour pretzels), scibilata (tortes), savaillum (sweet cake), and globus apherica (fritters). A great selection of these, with many different variations, different ingredients, and varied patterns, were often found at banquets and dining halls. To bake bread, the Romans used an oven with its own chimney and had grain mills to grind grain into flour.

Eventually, because of Rome, the art of baking became widely known throughout Europe, and eventually spread to the eastern parts of Asia. Bakers often baked goods at home and then sold them in the streets-children loved their goods. In fact, this scene was so common that Rembrandt illustrated a work that depicted a pastry chef selling pancakes in the streets of Germany, and young children surrounding him, clamoring to get a sample. In London, pastry chef sold their goods in handcarts, which were very convenient shops on wheels. This way, they developed a system of “delivery” baked goods to people’s households, and the demand for baked goods increased greatly as a result. Finally, in Paris, the first open-air café of baked goods was developed, and baking became an established art throughout the entire world.

Recently, some researchers, in particular, Simon Baron-Kohen and John James, suggested that such well-known personalities from the past, as Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton had Asperger’s syndrome. Scientists say that they showed some tendencies of the syndrome in their behavior, such as an intense interest in one topic, or social problems. One of the chapters of this Gillberg’s book is devoted to this theme, including a detailed case analysis of the situation with philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein with the conclusion that the person meets the criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome. Naturally, the absence of diagnosis during life does not mean that there was nothing to diagnose, especially if we bear in mind that while there was no widespread knowledge about the syndrome (as often happens with Asperger’s syndrome, which recently has been widely recognized in psychiatric circles). However, such post-mortem diagnosis remains controversial.

Arguments in favor of the alleged autism spectrum disorders in famous personalities vary from person to person. Some of them argue that in the case of Albert Einstein (one of the most frequently cited suspected autistic), he learned to talk late, was a lonely kid, organized violent tantrums, silently repeated the previously pronounced sentence, and needed his wives to play the role of parents when he was an adult – the stereotypical factors for autistic individuals. Isaac Newton stuttered and suffered from epilepsy. Many of these alleged historical cases of Asperger’s syndrome can be quite soft (not expressed), but some skeptics argue that in these cases only some features of autism can be seen, and they are not enough to diagnose autism spectrum. In the end, many critics of historical diagnosis claim that it is simply impossible to diagnose the dead, and therefore nothing can be said with certainty about historic individuals with (or withour) Asperger’s syndrome.

All of these assumptions may be just an attempt to create a pattern of behavior (role model, an object for imitation) for people with autism, and demonstrate that they can do constructive things, and make a contribution to society. Such a presumptive diagnosis is often used by activists for the rights of people with autism to show that the treatment of autism would be a loss to society. But others in the organizations for the rights of autistic people do not like these arguments because they feel that people with autism have to appreciate their uniqueness even if they do not want to be healed, regardless of whether people like Einstein were autistic.

Some features of appearance and facts of activity indicate that John Carmack is also a man with AS, or he has other unusual personality type of a similar nature.

Possible causes and origins of Asperger’s syndrome is hotly debated and controversial topic. The majority opinion today is that the causes of Asperger’s syndrome are the same as autism’s. Some researchers, however, disagree and argue that the Asperger syndrome and autism are lead by two different things. All this occurs during the ongoing wider debate about whether Asperger’s syndrome and other conditions (such as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity disorder – ADHD) are the part of the so-called autism spectrum.

Among many competing theories about the causes of autism (and, therefore, as many believe – Asperger’s Syndrome) – theory of non-complete connection, developed by researchers of cognition at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, the theory of marginal male brain of Simon Baron-Kohena, the theory of pre-working, theory of social structure and genetics.

Some theorists give more arguments in favor of Asperger’s syndrome than autism. Sometimes they argument that some specific theories play a greater role in Asperger’s syndrome, for example, theory of social structure and genetics. However, this is the area of considerable controversy.

The Importance of Fairy Tales in a Child’s Life

Wisdom from Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment

I spent many delicious hours as a child reading fairy tales. Even today, many of the stories I devoured ring clear in my head, although I have not read them in perhaps forty years. Stories of dancing princesses escaping to an underground world of music and balls, the finding of a magic ring baked in a cake, the agony of a sister trying to free her brothers from a spell that has changed them into swans-these elements of fairy tales sank deep into my heart and imagination and continue with me today. Why is this?

As I pondered this question, I had a chance meeting with a woman who had run a Christian bookstore for years. She told me of the many parents who would come into the store looking for suitable reading material for their children. When offered fairy tales, they would shy away, fearing the dark and disturbing images that had the potential to frighten and traumatize their young ones. Their argument would go like this: “Fairy tales are scary and present the world dishonestly. They would make my child confused as to what is real and what is fabricated. They are full of ogres and witches and giants, so why should I allow my child to be terrified by things that aren’t even real?”

Because I write full-length Christian-based fairy tales, I decided to explore these questions and address these valid concerns of many parents. I thought back to a book I had read when my first daughter was born: Bruno Bettelheim’s famous book, The Uses of Enchantment. I remember the impact that book had on me, and because of its logic, chose to immerse my children in the world of fantasy and fairy tales throughout their childhood. Now that they are grown, I have asked them how these stories have shaped and affected their worldview and creativity. They have no doubt that their lives have been seriously enriched by this experience, and reading fairy tales has contributed toward their healthy and confident attitudes about the challenges and terrors of this life.

Bruno Bettelheim was a child psychologist, famous for his research on autism. The aforementioned book written in 1976 won him a National Book Award. I love what he writes in the introduction. “Wisdom does not burst forth fully developed like Athena out of Zeus’s head; it is built up, small step by small step, from most irrational beginnings. Only in adulthood can an intelligent understanding of the meaning of one’s existence in this world be gained from one’s experiences in it. Unfortunately, too many parents want their children’s minds to function as their own do-as if mature understanding of ourselves and the world, and our ideas about the meaning of life, did not have to develop as slowly as our bodies and minds. Today, as in times past, the most important and also the most difficult task in raising a child is helping him to find meaning in life.”

Working in the field of autism presented Bettelheim with the challenge of restoring meaning to the lives of severely disturbed children. He found most literature for young readers to be sadly lacking in the ability to accomplish this task, but also knew that literature held the best promise to pass on cultural heritage, which he felt was crucial. And this was what he deemed necessary: “To enrich [the child’s] life, it must stimulate his imagination; help him to develop his intellect and to clarify his emotions; be attuned to his anxieties and aspirations; give full recognition to his difficulties, while at the same time relate to all aspects of his personality-and this without ever belittling but, on the contrary, giving full credence to the seriousness of the child’s predicaments, while simultaneously promoting confidence in himself and in his future.” He goes on to say how important it is that literature provide a moral education which subtly, and through implication only, “conveys to him the advantages of moral behavior.” His conclusion? “The child finds this kind of meaning through fairy tales.”

The German poet Schiller wrote: “Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life.” How can this be? Bettelheim says, “These tales start where the child really is in his psychological and emotional being. They speak about his severe inner pressures in a way that the child unconsciously understands and . . . offers examples of both temporary and permanent solutions to pressing difficulties.”

Parents longing to protect their children from evil, scary things in the world do well to remember that this is the world to which we are preparing them to face. By hiding that world from their awareness, by trying to postpone or color the harsh realities of life, we are doing them a great disservice. We have the Bible as the master example of frankness and the revealing and candid exposing of evil in its many forms. God did not censor murder, rape, betrayal, cruelty, incest, and even sexual passion from the pages of His word. Parents may argue that a young child does not need to learn about these things, and it is true-there is a time and season for all things, and some are best to cover when a child may be more mature to understand and emotionally deal with some of these things.

Here’s what Bettelheim says: “In child or adult, the unconscious is a powerful determinant of behavior. When the unconscious is repressed and its content denied entrance into awareness, then eventually the person’s conscious mind will be partially overwhelmed by derivatives of these unconscious elements, or else he is forced to keep such rigid, compulsive control over them that his personality may become severely crippled . . . . The prevalent parental belief is that a child must be diverted from what troubles him most: his formless, nameless anxieties, and his chaotic, angry, and even violent fantasies. Many parents believe that only conscious reality or pleasant and wish-fulfilling images should be presented to the child-that he should be exposed only to the sunny side of things. But such one-sided fare nourishes the mind only in a one-sided way, and real life is not all sunny.”

Rather than shelter children from life’s evils, we can equip them with the tools needed to face them head-on with confidence. Bettelheim says that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human experience. If one does not shy away, “but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.”

The Elements of Fairy Tales

The fairy tale, according to Bettelheim, confronts the child squarely with the most scary subjects in life: death, aging, loss of a parent, being trapped or lost, and other stresses. The fairy tale simplifies all situations, allowing the child to come to grips with the problem in its most essential form. The figures are clearly drawn and the details, unless very important, are eliminated. All characters are typical rather than unique. Evil is as common as any virtue and both are usually embodied in the form of a figure or their actions. Evil is not without its attractions, “symbolized by the mighty dragon or giant, the power of the witch, the cunning queen in ‘Snow White.’ ” In many fairy tales the usurper succeeds for a time-as with Cinderella’s sisters and step-mother-but in the end, the evildoer is punished, and the moral is that crime does not pay. Because the child follows the hero through his or her journey, he can identify with the hero in all his struggles-suffering and triumphing with him. Bettelheim says that the child “makes such identifications all on his own, and the inner and outer struggles of the hero imprint morality on him.”

The most important element in fairy tales, to me, is the moral choice presented to the hero. The child learns that choices have consequences, and the child can choose what kind of person she wants to be. Only by “going out into the world” does the hero learn, and acquire happiness. The fairy tale is future-oriented and guides the child, so that instead of escaping into a world of unreality, she is given tools to help her develop character and courage to face what the world presents to her. Often the hero is lost, alone, frightened. These are feelings a child identifies with. Yet, her hero is guided and given help along the way because of his determination and courage. In this way, fairy tales work their own kind of magic, for in reading them, the child feels understood and enriched, giving the child what Bettelheim says is “an enchanted quality just because he does not quite know how the stories have worked their wonder on him.

“Fairy tales, unlike any form of literature, direct the child to discover his identity and calling, and they also suggest what experiences are needed to develop his character further. Fairy tales intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity-but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity.” This is a basic tenet of the Bible as well: that those who want to please God and obtain his favor need to endure difficulties; that these trials produce endurance, character, and hope, and that the hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:3-5).

So, do not discount fairy tales as a bad influence on your children. Rather, be selective, and choose age-appropriate stories to give to them. But do not be afraid of unleashing their imagination and letting them confront their darkest fears. By giving them heroes to identify with, you are letting those fears surface in a subtle manner, and allowing your child to find his courage and make moral choices vicariously-choices that will build his character and have influence on the rest of his life.

I look at my daughters, now grown, and see how that world of imagination and fantasy helped them to face evil and struggles, gave them confidence and courage, and stimulated their imagination which poured over into their art, writing, poetry, and music. We cannot hide our children from the evils of the world, and even explaining everything in a pat manner from God’s Word does not dispel the deep fears and worries a child has. Only by bringing them to the surface in a safe and imaginative way can we as parents help them mature and become responsible adults. I think of that word, responsible, as response-able, for that is our goal: to help our children become able to respond competently to any situation life puts before them, and fairy tales will help them do just that.

PART I – INTRO & FRAGMENTATION

Many people are under the impression that a computer's performance deteriorates with age. I'd like to dispel that myth: computers are mostly solid-state technology that is large unaffected by age. I'm not saying that older computers do not run more slowly, but once we correct the notification that the slow-down is caused by its unalterable age, the problem becomes one that can usually be remedied without buying a newer computer.

First, let's understand what does not cause a computer to slow down:

• Computer processors are digital electronic transistor-like switches, sealed in a hard plastic package; These are solid-state devices that either work or do not. They may get fried if exposed to a power surge, but otherwise, they do not slow down.
• Computer memory is comprised of similar components and works or does not work, just the same.
• A computer motherboard is nothing more than wire tracks on a piece of plastic, usually with more solid-state devices plugged into it or soldered to it. Motherboards do not slow down, either.
• Computer power supplies are exposed to some of the most extreme conditions a computer experiences. That's why they burn out more frequently than most other parts, but even they do not cause performance reductions; they either work or they do not.

So what does cause a computer to slow down with age?

The largest culprit is data storage. Imagine trying to look for something in a file cabinet if it was the only item in the drawer; it would be pretty easy to find, right? If there were even just a few items in the drawer, it would still be simple to thumb through them to find the one you wanted. What if the drawer was completely filled? It might take a little longer, right? That's what happens on a hard drive when you install an operating system, applications, and data on it. Every time you download more.mp3 songs, import more.jpg photos from your camera, or type up new word processing documents, you're stuffing more things in the file cabinet which is your hard drive.

Unlike the processor or memory, the hard drive is typically not a solid-state device; it has moving parts. Consequently, the time it takes to read or write hard drive data is on the order of 1,000 times slower than solid-state devices like RAM or a USB thumb drive. Couple that with the fact that you keep adding more and more stuff to it, and you can begin to understand the problem.

In reality, it's even worse than you imagine. When you save a document to the hard drive, it gets stored in a specific space on the drive. The computer tries to allocate hard drive space as efficiently as possible, so if more stuff gets written to the drive after that, it's stored in the next-available sequential space. (For the hard-core techies reading this, yes, I know that this explanation severely oversimplifies the process.) Unfortunately, that means that when you next edit that initial document, there is not any contiguous space on the drive for the new data to be stored, so it ends up getting stored elsewhere, separated from the first part of the document. Later, when you try to read this document back into memory, it takes a little longer than it would for a contiguously-stored document because the computer must make a jump in the middle of reading it to find the rest of it. This is known as separation. Another cause of fragmentation is when files are deleted, as that creates holes the computer tries to fill with sub -ently-saved data, but the holes are almost never the right size for the new files being saved, so the newly-saved files also get broken up into noncontiguous pieces.

Do not think your use is the only force causing fragmentation on your drive, either. Virtual memory, points to recent files, various cache files, and updates / patches use and release hard drive space all the time, causing fragmentation, even if you never intentionally save another file to your computer. Fortunately, fragmentation is reliably easy to cure. Microsoft Windows comes with a tool that does it for us – all we have to do is use this tool from time to time, and it rearranges the files on the disk to do its best to store them all contiguously. Lucky for us, a lot of the stuff we store on our hard drives does not change all that frequently. Operating system files, installed applications, and even our music and photos rarely change in content or size, so once they get defragmented into less-dynamic areas of the hard drive, they should be fine.

PART II – DIGITAL HOARDING

After fragmentation, the next issue to discuss about how hard drives slow down our computers is the increasing volume of data being stored on them. If you've seen a phonograph turntable, you have a rough idea of ​​how hard drive operates, but imagine it spinning much faster. Instead of 33 or 45 revolutions per minute, hard drives operate at 5,400, 7,200, 10,000, or even 15,000 revolutions per minute. For even the slow hard drive to spin around to the complete opposite side of the disk may take under 1 / 100th of a second, but like a phonograph turntable, rotation is not the only motion the drive makes; the head also moves in and out, radially, and that motion is significantly slower. When a hard drive has little data on it, that data is generally stored close to the center, so the head only needs to traverse a tiny fraction of the radius of the disk, but as more and more data get stored, more of the radius of the disk is used, so the portion of the radius that the head must travel gets longer, making data reads and writes slower.

Fortunately, this type of performance degradation can frequently be mitigated, too. People tend to be terrible pack-rats about what they store on their computers. Hard drives become like black holes, collecting years of data that may never be used, needed, or even seen again. If the computer was faster when it was new, before it had all this data on it, you may well be able to restore it to that level of performance if you could clean out some of this data. There are countless ways to identify and remove unneeded data from a hard drive. Windows comes with a few tools that may help:

• Disk Cleanup searches for several categories of junk left on your drive and enables you to remove them.
• Add / Remove Programs helps you find and remove old applications and Windows Components that you no longer use or need.

Even your old documents, music, movies, and photos can be attributed and either deleted or moved to offline storage (such as burned to CDs / DVDs or uploaded to network or even Internet storage facilities).

In extreme situations, you can also reduce some of the cache sizes, such as the System Restore cache size or even the Recycle Bin. By default, these take up 12% and 10% of your hard drive, respectably, and unless you're sorry to deleting things you should not have, cutting these in half frees up 1/9 of your hard drive, immediately and without undue risk.

Professionals may also be able to help you identify more ways of freeing up space, such as disabling Offline Files if the feature is not needed, deleting old user profiles, removing old printers, reducing Internet cache settings, etc. Frequently, programs leave remnants of themselves behind on your hard drive, even after being uninstalled; these may also be deleted. Misconfigured virtual memory settings may also hog up more of your hard drive than is actually needed.

PART III – APPLICATION CREEP

Beside hard drive data storage, there is another area in which computer performance may become degraded, looking to be due to age: increasing demands on the processor and memory. We must divide this issue into two categories, though. One may be resolvable without upgrading your computer, whereas the other likely would not be.

The resolvable category is what I refer to as "Application creep." Your computer probably came with a bunch of free and free-trial programs installed that you've never used. Most of these lie dormant on your hard drive until invoked, but some, like printer drivers, malware detectors, and hardware and software updaters load into memory every time you boot your machine. On top of these, you've probably installed more, whether you realized it or not. If you installed Adobe Reader, there's a little piece of code that probably loads up on every restart of your PC – it makes it quick for you to open.pdf files because part of the Reader is already in memory, but what about the 99% of the time that you're not using it? Well, it still sits there, taking up resources, making other operations slower. Lots of other common applications have such components that automatically run when you boot your PC (aka "AutoRuns"), such as iTunes, Safari, QuickTime, Java, and more. Beside these AutoRuns, other unwanted programs sneak in, piggy-backed along programs you use. Those extra toolbars in your Internet Explorer window were the carefully-understood payloads of lots of other programs you installed, and guess what – they use up resources unnecessarily every time IE is running. It's not a big reach to realize that when unneeded things are using up resources, desirable operations work less efficiently.

The category that's more difficult to resolve is the result of technological advancement. You bought your computer eight years ago, before Netflix ever started streaming movies, and now you expect it to do things it was not intended to do. You finished the games you were playing and bought newer games, even though they demand more RAM, more hard drive space, and faster processors. You had a film camera before, but now you're importing your digital cell phone photos from all of your trips, and you've started taking short videos, too! … and even if you do not actively update any of your software or increase your utilization of it, updates may be happening behind the scenes. Microsoft Windows can update itself automatically, and in fact, many Microsoft software titles can be configured to do so. Adobe, Java, Real Player, iTunes, and Quicken prompt you for updates, and you just click "OK" without even thinking about it. Bug fixes come out, updated drivers are released, and you do not want to be left vulnerable or outdated, so you accept them. Each of these updates places additional statements on your computer's resources.

Look, we do not all still carry around our first, brick-sized, analog-only, battery-guzzling cellular phones – we want the latest features, so we upgrade. At some point you have to make the decision to do that with your computer, too. Ultimately, you may find that even after thinning out your data, eliminating your unwanted applications, and cleaning up your AutoRun programs as far as you reasonably can that your computer is still too slow for your taste. At that point, either upgrade or replace it. Hopefully, following the advice above will at least increase the amount of time between computer upgrades, saving you money.

PART IV – WHAT TO UPGRADE

So you've tried all the optimizing you could, and you're still unsatisfied with the performance of your computer. Now what? Maybe it's time to upgrade, but what should you upgrade? The whole system? Just some components? If time and money was no object, you'd just go buy the latest great system out there and hire someone else to reinstall and reconfigure all of your applications and transfer all of your data. Unfortunately, for many of us, that's not the case. When faced with limited resources, we have to make decisions about the best ways to employ them. You've hated to spend four-digits on a whole new computer system if all the old one needed was a memory upgrade. However, you're also hate to waste money on RAM only to find that you're still unsatisfied and still faced with the need to buy a whole new system. How can you tell what to do?

Windows comes with several tools to help us identify bottlenecks. Armed with that information, we can make better decisions about what to do to resolve them. Here's a list of several of the more common bottlenecks:

• Network Connection – a low-speed network connection will make Internet access and any other network resource utilization slower.
• Main Memory – having insufficient RAM forces the PC to use a swap file on the hard drive instead, slowing down processing, task switching, and read / write operations.
• Processor – having too slow a processor or too few processors will impact the performance of all operations. Less-expensive processors also lack L1 cache, which reduces their performance further.
• Hard Drive – slower hard drives affect the speed of all read / write operations, including cache files and virtual memory. Space utilization is also a consideration; the guideline is to utilize less than 50% of any hard drive's capacity.

To diagnose these issues, first try to notice patterns. If your performance complaints predominant specifically to the speed at which Web pages load, they're more likely indicative of a problem with the speed of your Internet connection. If performance gets sluggish when you have more applications running, you may have insufficient memory or a slow processor. If the hard drive activity indicator light stays lit frequently, it may indicate insufficient memory or too slow or too full a hard drive. Once you have your guess as a starting point, you'll want to find evidence for or against your thesis. A good place to start is the Windows Task Manager. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del, and you should see the task manager or a link to it, depending on which version of Windows you're running. The Performance tab shows processor and memory utilization and the Networking tab shows network connection utilization.

Let's start with the performance tab; it provides lots of good information. First, the number of pans of CPU Usage History shows you how many CPU cores your system has. Utilization should normally be low unless you have a ton of stuff actively running. If any of the graphs are pegging the needle at the top of the chart, there is more demand being placed on your processor than it can handle. The PF Usage charts show how much RAM is being used. Ideally you want this to be low, too. The more applications you have running, the more RAM is required. As we mentioned, once the computer runs out of actual memory, it makes more room by moving less-frequently-used data into "virtual memory," which is actually stored on the hard drive. When it needs it back, it swaps the next-least-frequently-used data to the hard drive to make room to swap the needed data back in. All of these operations take time, so if the PF Usage is up at or near the top of your graph, you have insufficient RAM to meet your demands.

Another helpful tool to see the processor and RAM that are installed in your PC is the System Properties in the Control Panel. Press Windows-Break as a shortcut to bring that up. The Pentium-4 processor is today's standard, and if you have an older one, I would not bother trying to upgrade – just replace the PC. Different operating systems have different memory requirements, but having at least 1 GB of RAM is pretty common nowdays.

Back to the Task Manager, on the Networking tab, do not be surprised if your network utilization is frequently at or below one percent. A typical desktop computer has a network interface card (NIC) capable of communicating at 100 or even 1,000 million bits per second – even older NICs could communicate at 10 Mbps. A typical broadband Internet connection (such as a cable modem, high-speed DSL, or fiber optic connection), however, operates in the vicinity of 1 Mbps, and that's only when downloading large files under perfect conditions. If you're connected to other local network resources, such as servers or network printers, you may be able to use more of your available bandwidth, but if your sole network utilization is your network access, the bottleneck will always be the Internet connection rather than the computer's network connection. Now that we've cleared that up, if you find the graph showing utilization at or near 100%, your network card may be too slow for your requirements, but if you're uncomfortable with the speed of web pages loading a small low network connection utilization, you need to upgrade your Internet connection instead of your PC.

PART V – UPGRADING

Now that you've identified the problem, you need to decide how to deal with it. Some issues can be overcome by minor upgrades, but others are not worth the cost or trouble, and are an ideal opportunity to replace the PC.

If you've decided that you do not have enough RAM, that's usually the cheapest and easiest upgrade you can make to your PC. Depending on how much you have and how many slots your motherboard has, you may be able to install additional DIMMs or you may need to replace existing lower-capacity DIMMs with larger-capacity ones. There are dozens of incompatible varieties of memory, so if you're not sure what you need, the best thing to do is to check the owner's manual that came with your PC when you bought it. You still have it, right? If not, either take a DIMM out and bring it with you to the store or if you're buying online, search by the make and model of your PC, rather than for the type of memory.

If you've decided that your network card is too slow, you can probably install a faster one into a slot or even a USB port – this, too, is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade to perform. Most PCs built in the last 10 years have PCI slots, so you can probably look for a PCI-technology network interface card (NIC) at your local computer store or online. They come in wired or wireless varieties, depending on how you'll be connecting your PC to your network. If you're probably not open your PC, both wired and wireless NICs come in USB variants nowdays, too. If your Internet connection is too slow, you will not have to do a thing to your computer – just contact your ISP and discuss your options for upgrading your service to a higher bandwidth – or shop around to see what the other ISPs are charging.

If you decide that your processor is insufficient, it's usually best to just replace your PC. Motherboards are designed to work with a small range of different model processors, and even if yours was the low-end model, the cost and trouble to upgrade to the high-end processor would not produce a noticeably-worthy improvement; trade up for a PC with more processor cores, instead. The only exception to this rule might be if your motherboard allowed you to upgrade from a processor without L1 cache (such as a Celeron) to a processor with L1 cache – that could produce a noticeable-enough improvement to warrant the cost and difficulty. If so, check your owner's manual (or specs online) to see which experts your motherboard will accommodate, and if you decide to do it, once you factor in the cost of your time and effort, it's probably best to just upgrade to the best and fastest one available – you do not want to have to do this again in a year when you outgrow a tiny incremental improvement.

Historically, when a computer's hard drive became the bottleneck, it was usually a point at which we recommended replacing the entire system. In some cases, however, the rules have changed today. Replacing a hard drive involves reinstalling the operating system and all the applications, as well as transferring all the personal files and data, so it's typically such a labor-intensive process as to make it the ideal time to upgrade the rest of the PC along with it. Today, however, with the popularity of digital photography, .mp3 music files, videos, and other space-hogging multimedia data, it's frequently able to optimize an existing hard drive by offloaded all such personal files and data to external storage. USB flash drives are now available in 64 GB or more, and external USB hard drives exceeded 1 TB (which is 1,024 GB). It's a pain in the butt to have to change the installed location of most applications and Windows components, but to move data files is significantly less trouble. In fact, to further improve performance, you could even offload your PC's virtual memory file to a second (internal) hard drive without too much trouble. As we discussed earlier in this treatise, the more stuff you have on your hard drive, the less efficiently it operates, so by moving all this type of non-system-critical data off of the hard drive that contains the operating system and the applications , you may be able to restore most of the PC's youthful performance without too much trouble.

Ultimately, all of these optimizations and upgrades are only stop-gap measures. Software patches and updates will continue to require increasingly-more space on your main hard drive, and you'll probably add more features and applications over time. Even if you're terribly miserable with space on your main hard drive, there are still increasing demands. It's also one of the few mechanical components in your PC, so its lifespan can already be expected to be shorter than any of the solid state components. At some point you're going to need a new main hard drive, and at that point, I'm still stick with my position that it's a good opportunity to replace the whole PC.

Yesterday I attended a few shows at Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week. There were lots of paparazzi at Lincoln Center's outdoor plaza trying to get photos of any fashionistas that would walk by. Many models were coming out of the main pavilion and placing on the plaza getting more publicity for the brand they wear. Every year Fashion Week sets up in all the major cities from Los Angeles to New York. Each day designers, press and celebrities ooh and aah at the latest and greatest fashions of which most are unreachable for the mainstream buyer and some never reach the market. Some designs are purely fantasy, like a concept car at the Geneva Auto Show.

When it comes to Apple tech we only get it once every 18 months to two years. When it arrives there is so much hype and anticipation. Whatever Apple introduces the major wants immediately. There are already people lined up at the Apple flag on Fifth Avenue and 58th Street in New York City. Today, along with the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple launched the Apple Watch. Not only is it a wonderful piece of innovative technology that took years to design and build, but it's fashionable or at least it wants to be.

The Apple Watch danced and strutted down the runway. It showed off its accouterments to the crowd. The apple watch is available in different materials: gold, steel or aluminum and it comes in different colors. The watch bands also have a myriad of designs allowing for customization for personal taste. Unlike standard wristwatches it connects to the iPhone and has many functions and faces that can all be quickly changed into without a dressing room. What will the clothing designers think about all this? Will they overlap a new type of "tech luxury." Next time you see someone in a designer dress or suit take a look at their wrist. Is it Apple Watch? Chances are if it is an Apple Watch they will show you and at that moment it will be evident that Apple has created a new category to be leaders, "fashionista tech." It can reach the main stream and be worn more than once to an event. Apple Watch you have arrived. As the designers from Fashion Week wait to see how many orders they receive, Apple has already threaded the needle and created demand. Only time will tell.