Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Applications that enable you to use telephone
or video-phone capabilities over the Internet, like Skype, are very bandwidth-hungry,
demanding the best service at all times. Delays in transmission and reception can result
in frustrating communication experiences. These delays can be caused not only by your
Internet connection, but also by your computer's ability to process voice data, converting it
between analog and digital.
Music and Video Streaming
To receive music and video content over the Internet, your
connection must have enough bandwidth to accommodate a steady stream without pauses
or breaks. Otherwise, you're in for a frustrating experience when the music or video starts
and stops.
Streamed services are often buffered to overcome minor service drops
during transmission. In other words, the system pre-downloads the
upcoming portion of the clip and stores it temporarily on your hard disk or
in memory, anticipating the moment when it will be called. That way, if there
is a minor delay in the Internet transmission, the clip can continue to play
without interruption.
Web-Delivered Applications
Instead of buying an application and installing it on your
own PC, you can in some cases buy permission to use an application online. For example,
rather than buy a fully featured word-processing system, you can sign up for a service
that gives you unlimited access to an online word-processing program. Such services are
becoming more popular, especially with budget-conscious consumers, and they have many
advantages. The main disadvantage, of course, is that if you don't have a fast and reliable
Internet connection, your access to the service may suffer.
Remote Desktop Services
With remote desktop services, you can remotely connect to a
computer that's not physically near you and access its desktop, applications, fi les, and other
resources just as if you were there. Some versions of Windows include a free Remote Desktop
application, and third-party services such as pcAnywhere also offer this capability. In Mac
OS X, the Screen Sharing utility that's built into Finder offers equivalent capability. Unless the
network/Internet connection is robust, though, service can be unsatisfactory.
Installing a New Application
Installing an application from a disc is simple. Just pop the disc into the drive, and the
Setup program will generally start automatically. If it doesn't, double-click the drive icon
for the drive. If that doesn't start the Setup program, it will open a list of fi les on that disc;
locate and double-click the one named
Setup
(or something similar).
You can also download and install applications. If you download an executable
Setup
fi le
(a fi le with an
.exe
or
.com
extension), you can double-click that fi le to start the setup routine.
Occasionally, an application you download may come in a compressed archive, such as a
Zip fi le (that is, a fi le with a
.zip
extension). In such a case, you must extract the contents of
the archive to a new folder on your hard disk and then run the setup from that new folder.
