Where Can I Get Free Driver Downloads?

If you have ever installed Windows, then maybe you have noticed that in most cases, there are remaining devices without drivers installed after the Windows installation. These could be a graphic cards, sound cards, wireless adapters, etc. Sometimes, Windows includes drivers for devices, but generally drivers need to be downloaded and installed separately. It is very convenient when we have a CD with the necessary drivers,but what happens in the absence of such a disk? Maybe the easiest way is to find them on the internet, but sometimes it takes a lot of time. That’s why I created the following list and i hope it will make your search more easier.


This is a list of the Support pages from the sites of some hardware manufacturers where you can find drivers for motherboards , graphic cards , notebooks , desktop computers and many other devices. Of course there are many sites, offering wide variety of drivers in the Internet, but the advantage here is that the official producers websites always contain actual information about their products and maybe the most important thing is that you don’t have to register anywhere

LENOVO - includes drivers for desktops,notebooks and servers

DELL – drivers for notebooks, desktops, printers, servers, network devices, etc.You can identify your product by choosing its service tag, model number or select it from the drop down menu. For most products, when you enter your Service Tag you will get a concise list of drivers for your specific product model.

FUJITSU – software patches, BIOS updates, driver updates, and other miscellaneous software for notebooks, servers, desktops, tablets

TOSHIBA - drivers and bios updates for notebooks, servers, PDAs, monitors

HP - drivers and other software for notebooks, servers, desktops, scanners, printers, monitors, projectors, etc.

ACER – includes drivers for notebooks, desktop systems, LCD displays, network products, etc.

MSI - drivers for notebooks, motherboards, graphic cards, servers

PACKARD BELL - here you can find drivers and software for desktops, monitors, notebooks, handhelds, televisions, DVD and other multimedia devices

ASUS - bios updates, drivers and utilities for motherboards, graphic cards, LCD monitors, network products, notebooks and multimedia products

SONY - drivers, software and bios updates for desktops, notebooks, projectors and multimedia devices. You can search by model number or to use the drop down menu, but more interesting is the option AUTO DETECT. This support option allows the support web site to determine your Sony VAIO computer model and forward you directly to your model support page. Unfortunately this option is available for VAIO PCs only.

LG – wide variety of software for any product made by LG. In order to see the searching fields you have to choose your location first (e.g. continent and country).

GIGABYTE - easy to use website, offering many search options.

INTEL – includes drivers, BIOS, utilities, firmware, patches, plugins and other support software for any Intel product.

NVIDIA - drivers and other software for the NVIDIA graphic cards. There is an useful option called NVIDIA Smart Scan that looks at your computer’s hardware and system software to determine whether or not your drivers are up-to-date.

ATI – this is the official support site of AMD. It offers a lot of software and easy navigation.

ASRock - here you can find the latest drivers, BIOS updates and utilities for any ASRock motherboard.

Share a folder or drive

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Sharing a Hard drive in Win XP

What is sharing ?

Sharing  is an useful option in Windows, which allows  remote users to connect to any computer over the network and access the files, that are shared on that computer. There is also option for the remote users to read, write, or delete any shared  files. It is a convenient way to work with files, located on another computer on the network.

In this post I will try to explain in few steps, how to share a hard drive, using Windows Xp.

• On the computer you’re sharing, open My Computer.
• Right-click the hard drive you want to share and choose Sharing and Security from the shortcut menu that appears.
• Click the link to share the drive. The Sharing tab changes to reveal the options that allow you to share the drive.

Note: If you see a window like the one above, then maybe the remote access to your computer is disabled by Windows. In such case, you have two options: The first is to use the Network  Setup Wizard and the second is to click on the link saying: if you understand the security risks but want to share files without running the setup wizard click here.

The next window that, appears will ask you to confirm if you want to use the wizard to enable the file sharing or just to enable the sharing without the wizard. Here you can click on Just enable file sharing button and then OK. You may need to repeat the steps 1 to 3 again

Now you have to see the following window:

• Select the Share This Folder on the Network option.
• Enter a name for the share.
• Select the Allow Network Users to Change My Files option.

If you don’t select this option, network users can view files but can’t create new files or modify existing files. Because you’re a network user, you want to be able to work on a file on this computer from a different computer, so there’s not much point in restricting what network users can do.

• Click OK.
• Lastly...You  will see the following icon

Thank You ;)

Success In Social Media

 

What Does Successful Social Media Look Like?

When you are starting a social media campaign, what are you thinking about? How to reach 20,000 fans, followers, or connections? Maybe even a more modest 1,000? Stop that thinking, immediately! Sure, aesthetically, these are metrics to aim for, but they won’t get you very far.

Social media success is not about how many fans or followers you can get. Take a minute and let that register. Let it sink in, and always keep it in mind. Instead of counting followers, try to think about how much engagement you are getting from the followers you already have.

When your customers are engaged, and willing to spread the word about your company, additional fans and followers
will inevitably ensue.

Let me put this into a little better perspective for you. A small company, which we will call ABC, with 5-10 employees, launches a social media campaign. ABC company has 1,000 fans, and 190 of them are posting about them or on their page. They’re still spending the same amount of money on customer service, and their website hasn't received any more hits than what it was getting before. Sure, they made a lot of impressions - and maybe gained some brand recognition, but it is offering no additional value to their company.

Instead, let’s take a look at another scenario:

ABC company has 500 fans, and 95 are posting about them, or on their page (50% reduction!). They look at their records, and they notice an increase in hits on their website, and at the same time, their customer service expenses are decreasing! So, even with less overall impressions, the content is driving their customers to engage, buy, click, or do whatever else the company would like them to!

The Power Of One

Remember, it only takes one person to get something out there. Through social media, one person could have thousands of connections at any given time. By having one person post something about your company, you have opened the floodgates for more impressions. That one person could deliver thousands of chances for someone else to connect, and if they do, that could lead to thousands more. Then if they post it....well, I think you see where I am going with this.

My point is this: If you can engage even a small number of users, your possibility of gaining more followers can grow exponentially!

Acquiring Your Following

So, how do you persuade anyone to become engaged, post, repost, and talk about your company?

You don’t have to!

That’s the beautiful thing about social media. Most everyone who joins, do so to connect to others in some way. They are already looking for a reason to do so. All you have to do is provide them with something they can connect about.

Now, that may seem easy. In fact, you could probably stop reading right now, go out and start posting, and have some success. However, should you choose to read further, you could learn numerous ways to maximize your return on investment. Instead of throwing your time and money out the window, you could be saving money and making sales.

Sharing Printers with Others on Your Network

To share your printer

1. Open Printers and Faxes. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then clickPrinters and Faxes.

2. Right-click the printer you want to share, and then click Sharing.
3. On the Sharing tab, click Share this printer and then type a share name for the shared printer.

4. If you share the printer with others using different hardware or different operating systems, click Additional Drivers. Click the Environment and operating system for the other computers, and then click OK to install the additional drivers.
   Note  Drivers for users running other versions of Windows (Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0) are located on the Support CD. Printer drivers for Windows NT 3.1 and Windows NT 3.5 are not included.

5. Click OK, or, if you have installed additional drivers, click Close.
   Note  When you publish a printer in Active Directory, other users logged on to the Windows domain will be able to search for the printer based on its location and features, such as how many pages it prints per minute and whether color printing is supported.

To stop sharing your printer

1. Open Printers and Faxes. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then clickPrinters and Faxes.
2. Right-click the printer you want to stop sharing, and then click Sharing.
3. On the Sharing tab, click Do Not share this printer.

To connect to a printer on a network

1. Open Printers and Faxes. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then clickPrinters and Faxes.

2. Under Printer Tasks, click Add a printer to open the Add Printer Wizard, and then click Next.
3. Click A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer, and then click Next.

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Three Ways to Connect to a Printer on a Network

To search for a printer in Active Directory

1. Click Find a printer in the directory, and then click Next.

2. Click the Browse button to the right of Location, click the printer location, and then click OK.

3. Click Find Now.
4. Click the printer you want to connect to, and then click OK.

To locate a printer by typing the printer name or browsing for it

1. Click Connect to this printer.

2. Do one of the following:

• Type the printer name using the following format:
  \\printserver_name\share_name
• Browse for it on the network. Click Next, click the printer in Shared printers.

1. Click Next.

To connect to an Internet or intranet printer

1. Click Connect to a printer on the Internet or on a home or office network.

2. Type the URL to the printer using the following format:
   http://printserver_name/Printers/share_name/.printer.

3. Follow the instructions on the screen to finish connecting to the network printer.

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Setting or Removing Permissions for a Printer

To change the permission settings for a printer, you must have the Manage Printers permission, which is one of several printer permissions.

To set up new permissions for a printer

1. Open Printers and Faxes.

2. Right-click the printer for which you want to set permissions, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.

3. Click Add.

4. Click Look For, select the types of users you want to add, and then click OK.

5. Click Look In, browse for the location you want to search, and then click OK.

6. In the Name box, type the name of the user or group you want to set permissions for, separating each name with a semicolon ( ; ).
7. To ensure the names are recognized by the directory, click Check Names.
8. Once all the names you want are listed in the Name box, click OK.
9. In Permissions, click the Allow or Deny check box for each permission you want to allow or deny.

10. To view or change the underlying printer permissions that make up Print, Manage Printers, and Manage Documents, click Advanced.

To change or remove permissions for a printer

1. Open Printers and Faxes.
2. Right-click the printer for which you want to change or remove permissions, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.

3. Click the name of the user or group whose permissions you want to change or remove.

4. In Permissions, click the Allow or Deny check box for each permission you want to allow or deny, if necessary. Or, to remove the user or group from the permissions list, click Remove.
5. To view or change the underlying permissions that make up Print, Manage Printers, and Manage Documents, click Advanced.

Verifying the CD-ROM cables are correctly connected

Issue

Verifying the CD-ROM cables are correctly connected.

Cause

1. Moving the computer may cause the cables to become loose or disconnected from the CD-ROM drive.
2. When installing a new CD-ROM drive you may need to verify the cables are connected properly.
3. When installing another drive, the jumpers may need to be checked.

Solution

As mentioned above there are several different causes that can cause cables to become loose on your CD-ROM drive. Below are steps on how to check the connections on a CD-ROM drive. Because these steps require that you open your computer and work inside make sure you're aware of the potential ESD hazards by reviewing our ESD page.

Opening the computer

Open your computer and locate the CD-ROM and each of the cables connected to it. Below is an illustration and picture of what an IDE/EIDE CD-ROM looks looks like.

Verify connections

Your CD-ROM should have at least two cables connect to it, a power cable and IDE cable that should also be connected to your motherboard or other interface card. Disconnect the IDE cable from the back of the CD-ROM and reconnect it, do the same on the opposite end of the cable.

Next, if your CD-ROM drive is not getting any power disconnect the cable from the back of the drive and reconnect it.

Finally, some computers will also have a small third cable used to interface the CD-ROM with the sound card. If the audio for your CD audio CDs is not working properly verify that this cable is not disconnected from the back of the CD-ROM.

Check jumpers

If you've recently installed any new disk drives such as a new hard drive verify that the jumpers are properly set on the back of the CD-ROM. Having the jumpers set improperly to master or slave can cause the CD-ROM to not work.