T. O' Donnell: Fast Web Design For Webmaster

About two years ago, I had a go at commercial web site design. I put a medium-sized ad in a London classified ad paper. Nothing fancy: "Web designer seeks work ..." etc. This was expensive, about £500 for a month's run.

Got a few replies. Lesson number one: advertise where clients of the calibre you want will see it. The clients I got thought £300 was a lot for a web site. They didn't want to pay web hosting. They wanted a lot of bang for their buck. 'Mission creep' was a term I grew to know and loathe.

This set me thinking: how could I give these people all they could ever want, but not spend a lot of time and money? Lately, I realized how.

So how can you get a full featured site up in a day? Easy (ish!).

1. Mambo Content Management System http://www.mambo.com.

I wish I'd found this software a couple of years ago. It's freeware. The default set-up allows people without web design skills to update the site. It has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) option. This adds HTML Area code to text input form fields. Each HTML code input box becomes a mini HTML editor.

If you can use Microsoft Word, you can add formatted HTML code to the site.

To get it running you need to know how to install MySQL databases, or have PHPMyAdmin as part of your web-hosting package.

You can add articles, edit them, send emails to members, and be contacted by users.

The only criticisms I have of this software are:

1. The admin interface is confusing. It's all there, just finding and using it is the problem!

2. You need to search around template sites to find ones suited to your site purpose. I wanted simple, clean, business ones. Most of those available seem to have a fat graphic which covers half the screen. There are more restrained ones out there.

These are minor gripes, compared to the relief of finding what is essentially a web site in a box. It can be installed in an hour, once you get familiar with it.

To add ecommerce to your site:

Oscommerce Shopping Cart http://www.oscommerce.com.

Again, this is a full-featured, freeware software. You can add lots of freeware 'plug-ins' to it, to get a professional shopping cart.

Therein lies the danger. Some of these plug-ins require altering or overwriting the default cart files. When you try to upgrade the cart version later, you may 'break' it, by overwriting a plug-in, thus creating errors.

The trick here is to only install plug-ins that add files (rather than overwrite them) or that require minor alterations to existing files.

What I do is download all the versions of the plug-in type I need e.g. a WYSIWYG editor. I then choose the one which has the least files, or which creates a new directory for its files. If it requires that important files be overwritten, or is complex, I chuck it.

Mambo and Oscommerce. Don't try to integrate them! Hyperlink from one to the other. I've tried integrations of other softwares, like PhpBB and PhpNuke. Fine, when it works, but when you upgrade one or the other, arrgh!

*Keep databases separate*. If one goes skew-whiff, then at least the other will still work. Same goes for adding chat rooms and the like. If they're all running off the one database, and that database becomes corrupted ...

It may offend your sense of tidiness for your visitors to have to sign up twice at your site, but you'll thank me for this sage advice later. Remember KISS is the basic rule of computing (Keep It Simple, Stupid!).

About the author:
T. O' Donnell ( http://www.tigertom.com) is an ecommerce consultant and curmudgeon living in London, UK. His latest project is an ebook on conservatories, available at http://www.ttconservatories.co.uk.T. O' Donnell freeware may be downloaded at http://www.ttfreeware.co.uk.

Joel Walsh : Need A Website? You Have 3 Options

When it comes to building a website, most individuals and small business owners think you either have to do it yourself or hire someone to do it. Web builder software is often the better option for this group by far.

Even if you're a seasoned web professional, you should know what web builder software can offer private individuals and small businesses. Designers regularly waste time fielding inquiries from small-time website owners who don't realize the time, effort, and therefore cost involved in making a website from scratch. Or your brain may be picked endlessly by a would-be developer. Recommending a good web builder program is a great way to help this group--you can even monetize these non-prospects by reselling web builder software or referring it as an affiliate.


The 3 Web Design Options
DIY (design it yourself), usually using software such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage. Pay someone else to design it.

Use a "website builder" that includes everything you need and builds the website based on a setup wizard that asks questions about your website goals.

Most people just stumble into one of these three options without really comparing. In fact, if someone is even considering whether to try to do it themselves, hire a pro, or use a website builder program, it's extremely likely they really do need to start with a website builder program. After all, with the small investment required by web builder software, you can easily decide to go the DIY or professional design route later. But the money and time spent on professional services or DIY cannot be un-spent.

If you don't have the web design skills that would lead you to make your own website without questioning, or the budget to hire a designer just as easily, your time, money and other resources are probably better spent on other aspects of your website--such as promoting it, planning it, or getting content for it.

Website Options Comparison: Cost

: Cost of software (Dreamweaver, the most popular, runs about $300) + many hours of your life--what is your time worth?

Web Designer: $500-$5000

Website Builder: $100-200 (if a software package); $15-40/month (if a subscription service)


Time
DIY: Depending on your skill level, a week to a few months.
Web Designer: A few weeks till completion (but little time on your part).
Website Builder: Five minutes to an hour (depending on how much you want to play with the options).

Graphic Design: Most people who build their own websites use graphic design templates, or at least ready-made graphics. But there's still the problem of how to bring the elements of the design together into an attractive whole.

Web Designer: If you want to be taken seriously, a graphic designer will go a long way. Still, many people manage to sabotage the designer's work with too many demands. Also, some designers are really programmers rather than graphic designers, and will use templates anyway. In the end, though, the biggest drawback is cost: graphic designers can do it better, but can you afford them?

Website Builder: The advantage of a website builder over DIY templates is that the builder will save you the time of coding the website to stitch all the parts together.

About the author:
Joel Walsh recommends you check out http://www.ezgenerator.com/

Graphic Design Using Color

Color is everywhere and conveys a message even if we don't realize it. While this message can vary by culture it pays to know what colors "say" in your own corner of the universe, and even what color means to your target market.

If you don't think that color speaks just complete this sentence, "red means ---- and green means ?" even a child will know what red means stop and green means go. If such simple ideas work for all of a given culture or market what could it mean to the graphic design of your website, brochure, or product if you know some of this information.

First let's start with the basics. The color wheel. We've all seen it. The color wheel shows the basic colors, each wheel is different in how many shades of each color is shown, but they are essentially the same.

Color harmony, colors that go together well. These will be colors that are next door to each other on the color wheel. Such as blue and green. In reference to clothes these colors match each other. Instinctively most of us know which colors go together when we dress ourselves every morning.

Color complements, colors that set each other off, they complement each other. These are colors that are opposite on the color wheel. Such as blue and orange.

Color depth, colors can recede or jump forward. Remember that some colors seem to fall back such as blue, black, dark green, and brown. Other colors will seem to step forward such as white, yellow, red, and orange. This is why if you have a bright orange background it may seem to fight with any text or images that you place on it. The orange will always seem to move forward.

Now you have the basics so let's go further. Just because to colors go together or complement each other doesn't mean that yo necessarily want to use them on your project. I opened this article with the meaning of colors now here is an example, keep in mind this is one example from western culture.

Color Survey: what respondents said colors mean to them.

Happy = Yellow Inexpensive = Brown
Pure = White Powerful = Red (tomato)
Good Luck = green Dependable = Blue
Good tasting = Red (tomato) High Quality = Black
Dignity = Purple Nausea = Green
Technology = Silver Deity = White
Sexiness = Red (tomato) Bad Luck = Black
Mourning = Black Favorite color = Blue
Expensive = Gold Least favorite color = Orange

So in designing your project it's important to know what colors mean. You can now see why a black back ground with green type would be bad, beyond being nearly impossible to read, if your target market thinks that black represents mourning and green makes them sick. There are exceptions to every rule of course.

So you may want to include some research in what colors mean to your target market. Colors that would get the attention of a teen would probably annoy an older person and the colors that appeal to the older person wouldn't get a second look from a young person.

Color may be one of the most overlooked aspects of design.

Copyright 2004 Kelly Paal Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

How do I drive traffic to a brand new website?

by: Richard Grady Copyright 2005 Richard Grady

Every single day, more and more people upload brand new websites to the Internet. I don't have any figures but there must be hundreds of thousands of new pages being added daily (if not considerably more!)

The one thing that all of these new websites need in order to make their existence worthwhile is traffic, which leads me to one of the most common questions I am asked and the subject of this newsletter:

'How can you generate traffic to a brand new website?'

Of course, there are a number of different answers to this question and what I would do myself is probably very different to what a completely new Internet entrepreneur would do. The reason I say this is that the first thing I do when launching a new site is make use of my existing website traffic by advertising the new site on my other established sites. In addition, I have the luxury of a large mailing list which I can use to drive traffic to the new site.

I appreciate that anyone starting out in online business won't have these options open to them (and in fairness, neither did I when I first started), so let's look at things from the beginning. Day one of your first website.....

It is a fact that the quickest and probably most effective way of bringing targeted traffic to your website is by paying for it. Now before you rush off and sink $50 into one of those '50,000 hits for $50' schemes, DON'T, this isn't what I mean. Those schemes are largely a complete waste of money. Even if you get the traffic that you are promised (as opposed to some software script visiting your site and pretending to be a visitor), it will not be targeted and therefore there is a very low chance that the traffic will generate sales. When I talk about buying traffic, I mean by using the pay- per-click services offered by most of the big search engines.

You probably already know the sort of thing I mean - for example, Google Adwords. Pretty much any search on Google will display a list of adverts down the right-hand side of the page and these are all paid adverts. Every time you click on one of them, the advertiser pays Google a fixed amount which could be anything from 5 cents upwards (depending upon how competitive the keyword is).

Pay-per-click allows you to be very selective about which keywords your advert is shown for and this allows you to target your advertising perfectly. Other big names in the pay-per-click market include Overture, Espotting and Findwhat.

Now, before you all start emailing me and saying that you already knew about PPC let me just say that I am well aware that people know about it. The problem (as I see it), is that people aren't using this type of service because of the fact that they don't want to spend any money on advertising. That's all well and good but the fact is that the Internet is getting more and more competitive each day and the chances of you building a successful website business from scratch without investing any money are tiny to say the least.

If you want to attract a decent level of traffic to a brand new website in a short period of time, it is almost a necessity that you use pay-per-click on one of the main search engines. If you don't, then the growth of your traffic levels will be painfully slow and inconsistent at best.

When I launched my very first websites I invested heavily in pay-per-click advertising. At one point, I was spending over $6000 a month on Google Adwords alone!!! Seriously I really was spending that much money. It was a constant battle to tweak the website sales copy and continue to test the advertisement text just to make sure that my sales were covering the advertising payments each month. At the time I was probably just about breaking even but buying traffic in this quantity meant that I was able to fine-tune my sales pages and start to build up a list of mailing list subscribers.

Once you have got to the stage where you know your sales pages are converting visitors into buyers, then you can start to gear up with other methods of getting traffic to your site - writing articles, linking strategies, viral methods (ebooks etc), using your eBay 'About Me' page, using your link as a signature when you post on forums etc. All of these methods will win you traffic (and in most cases it will be completely free) but it will take time for the traffic to build to a worthwhile level. If you rely solely on free traffic, you really will be building your business one hit at a time.

Of course, once the free methods of gaining traffic start to pay off, you can begin to wind down your paid methods, though you may not want to - after all, if you are earning more in sales than you are paying for your pay-per-click traffic, why stop it?

As your portfolio of websites grows, you will also be able to share the traffic around a bit by linking to your own sites and of course, if you are capturing your visitors email addresses, you will be building a mailing list of people interested in the products you are offering.

Like I say, I appreciate that the above may not be the ground-breaking secret that you were hoping for but as with so many things online, there really is no secret. Achieving success is simply about taking action and whilst you can succeed online by spending very little money, the chances are that you will succeed a lot quicker by making a bit of an investment. You don't have to be spending thousands of dollars a month as I was but any new business owner should be prepared to invest a few hundred dollars a month in order to get things off the ground....

About the author:
Richard Grady has been helping ordinary people earn online since 1998. He writes a free newsletter which is published every two weeks. To subscribe (and claim your free gifts), visit: http://www.thetraderonline.com/newsletter.html

What Should You Know About Search Engines and Pay-Per-Click?

by: Chet Childers

Here’s a fact for you, 85 to 95% of websites are found through a search engine. You may have the most incredible website on the Internet, but it will receive little or no traffic without search engine visibility and ranking. Can you imagine a billboard in the Sahara desert? Who sees it?

So, how will searchers find your website? What types of search engines could they use?

Search engines fall into two categories. The first is referred to as natural, organic or standard. The second is called pay-per-click, paid inclusion or paid placement.

Natural, organic and standard are interchangeable terms describing a search engine that bases its search rankings on a ranking algorithm. The algorithms involve a number of criteria and parameters, all relating to the content of the website, the website’s size, the number of incoming links to the website, and the content’s relevancy. You will hear terms such as keyword relevancy and keyword density to describe various components of the algorithms.

For the standard search engines, you, your webmaster or hired search engine optimization specialist could spend considerable time optimizing your website to achieve top rankings. The goal is for your website to appear on the first or second page of the search engines’ results when your target user searches keywords or keyword phrases.

The good news is rankings on standard search engines are free. The downside is the tremendous amount of time and effort required to achieve exceptional search engine rankings. Let’s confess to each other that top rankings on standard search engines can be tough and timely to achieve!

The interchangeable terms pay-per-click, paid inclusion or paid placement describe a search engine that bases its search rankings on a "bid for position" basis. Simply stated, you "bid" a price to be in a specific position of the search rankings for a particular search keyword or keyword phrase. For example, the #1 position on the search phrase "pay per click" recently required a bid of $3.55 per click, whereas the 15th position required only a bid of 55 cents. As a result, your differential website advertising costs between position #1 and #15 can be considerable.

With pay-per-click search engines, your ability to bid high can dramatically impact your website's search engine ranking when the search results display website domain names or URL's for the search keyword or keyword phrase. The benefit is your website gains visibility with the searcher, but you are not charged the pay-per-click "bid" until a searcher actually clicks on your website domain name or URL displayed in the search engine results. The selection of your website in the search engine results is called a click-through.

In general, click-through rates range from 1% to 5% of the number of impressions. What is all of this? A click is when a searcher selects or "clicks" your pay-per-click ad. An impression is one display of your pay-per-click ad on the search engine results. So, the click-through rate is a measure of the total number of ad clicks versus the total number of impressions in a period of time:

Click-Through Rate % = Total Number of Ad Clicks / Total Number of Ad Impressions * 100
Let's do the math for our #1 position bid of $3.55 per click. In September, 2004 there were 21,535 searches for "pay per click." First, let’s assume a 1% click-through rate. The top bidder spent $764.49 (21,535 * 1% * $3.55). Now, at a 5% click-through rate the top bidder spent $3,822.45 (21,535 * 5% * $3.55). Budgeting and controlling marketing expenses with such a broad range of potential costs could be tough. Plus, such costs could be the tip of the iceberg. We still must consider derivatives of the keyword or keyword phrase. So, was being #1 worthwhile? That depends on your website’s cost per visitor, conversion rate and profit margin of your product or service.

From what we’ve covered so far, you should realize you can achieve a top or high ranking through the pay-per-click search engine. But, a high ranking will cost money and these costs can be volatile. Meanwhile, the standard search engine remains free.

However, pay-per-click offers one significant advantage. It enables you to achieve website visibility with a high ranking instantaneously or overnight. If you want to draw traffic to your website fast for any reason, pay-per-click can make that happen. Remember, maximizing the standard search engine process takes time!

Let’s summarize the pros and cons of pay-per-click marketing:

Pros

* Improves your website’s ranking and traffic quickly.
* Tests the marketability of your product or service swiftly.
* Determines the ability of your web site to convert visitors to a call to action or make a purchase promptly.
* Identifies which keyword phrases will provide the best conversion rate rapidly.
* Provides complete control of the search engine campaign, both position and cost.

Cons

* Cost

Many individuals criticize pay-per-click because of the costs involved. But, have you really thought about the cost issue? Unless you or someone in your organization has expertise in search engine optimization, you’ll probably pay several thousand dollars in fees to a search engine optimization specialist to improve and optimize your website to achieve higher rankings in the standard search engines. So, my question to you is. Are the standard search engine rankings really free?

At the end of the standard versus pay-per-click search engine debate, it’s like the old saying, "There is no such thing as a free lunch." Or, it’s like the old commercial, "You can pay me now or you can pay me later." The reality of the debate is you must evaluate your specific website situation and utilize the search engine approach that maximizes your website promotion goals and investment.

Tips 10 web design tips to get your website noticed by spiders

by: perfect optimization

Many web designers do not pay attention in coding structure, the result is no one can find those websites in search engines!. In many cases search engine spiders cannot crawl 100% of those sites, this is because of huge size, html code error, navigation problem due to using scripts. By following these ten tips while designing and developing your website, you can improve your web presence.

1) Table structure: Nested tables can cause the huge page size and it could be problem with download times. Use separate tables wherever possible. Rather than using tables, use CSS to format your page layouts.

2) Page size: small web pages load faster. Make your page size to below 50K, so that search engine spiders can able to crawl your entire website without having any time delay.

3) Frames: Do not use Frames. Some search engines not even supported frames and it could be some display/alignment problem with some browsers. It could also affect while bookmarking a page. Remember, whatever you are trying to accomplish by using frames can usually be done with CSS.

4) Alt tags: Minimize the use of graphics and Flash. If your site having graphics try to explain those by adding ALT text. Since search engine spiders cannot read text within images, you should provide alternative text, so that spiders can understands what they mean.

5) Navigation: Each pages on your website should be easily connected. Use of JavaScript links and image maps may affect spidering your entire site or you should use text links at the bottom of your page to help search engine spiders to navigate each pages. Try to check your web pages in a text only browser and ensure you can easily navigate all the pages from page to page.

6) Title and Meta tags: Add title and Meta tags to each pages in your site and all title tags and Meta tags should be unique.

7) Sitemap: Provide a sitemap that linked from your homepage. It must be essential if your site having dynamic pages, that contains special characters such as ?,%,&,# etc. As these pages are generated automatically, search engines spiders cannot follow these links.

8) HTML codes: Internet explorer can display your page even if any minor errors in the html code, but it could be a major problem with search engine spiders. I recommend validating your html codes through some online tools that available in the net. By getting W3C standards can give your web pages greater visibility in web searches.

9) Cascading Style Sheets: CSS enables you to independently control the structure of your web page. By using CSS, you will get its benefits like smaller file sizes, browser compatibility and search engine friendly.

10) External CSS/JavaScript files: Call all your JavaScript and CSS from external file, so that spiders can easily access your data without causing any error.


Professional Camera: Hasselblad H3D-31


Hasselblad extends the appeal of its outstanding H3D DSLR camera system to a new professional photographic audience with the launch of the Hasselblad H3D-31, the 31 megapixel version of the H3D-39, the world’s first 48mm full-frame DSLR camera system. Featuring near full-frame capture, the H3D-31 uses a 44×33mm sensor enhanced with micro-lenses to boost ISO rating one stop to a new maximum of ISO 800. The system’s new high-speed capture architecture, which is common to all H3D models and enables the fastest possible operation, also gives the H3D-31 an impressive capture rate of 1.2 seconds per image in either mobile or tethered mode. These features give the Hasselblad H3D-31 the highest burst rate of the H3D family and make it the camera of choice for the professional mobile photographer. Developed around a brand new digital camera engine, the H3D takes lens performance and image sharpness to new levels. When compared with high-end 35mm DSLRs, the H3D delivers unmatched pixel resolution, better colors and detail rendering and a new choice of viewfinders for creative image composition.

The H3D-22 and its nearly double-resolution H3D-39 counterpart are both full frame 48mm DSLR’s using the sensor format 36×48mm. These cameras operate up to ISO400 with a capture speed of up to 1.4 seconds per capture. The H3D-22 and H3D-39 are the preferred choice of professional commercial photographers. The new Hasselblad H3D-31 is available immediately worldwide through Hasselblad’s national subsidiaries and channel partners with a retail price of 24,995 US$ or 19,900 Euros.

Camera BenQ DSC-X800 Extra-Slim


BenQ has revealed a new extra-slim camera it hopes will appeal to those for whom even most point-and-shoot models would be too thick. The X800 produces 8-megapixel shots but measures just 9.8mm (0.39in) thick courtesy of a prism-based 3X optical zoom lens that lets it fit in tight pockets. In spite of this, the camera can shoot macro images at roughly the same distance and contains a large 3-inch LCD for live previews. Its image processor allows face detection and includes modes to use high sensitivity (up to ISO 4000) to compensate for fast movement or dark scenes without using flash.

The camera also doubles as a video capture and playback device that can support up to 640x480 video at full speed; it also works as a music player and includes earbuds, though BenQ does not say which audio formats it supports on its SD card storage. BenQ ships the X800 in red and silver color options and expects the camera to be available worldwide during the first calendar quarter of the year, though whether this release will include North America as well as Asia and Europe has not been revealed.

Tips Recovery Hardisk dan Survey Harga

Harga Recovery Hardisk di KL

Service charge di pasaran tengok berapa GB capacity yang akan di’recover’. Harga dalam RM1,500 lebih kurang (dlm 10-20GB). Pengalaman member saya pernah 160 GB SCSI “recovery charged” kena bayar RM 10,000.
Bagaimana jika anda buat sendiri lebih jimat & menguntungkan……
Pelbagai tips recover hdd.

1) Tukar board hdd
2) Masukkan ke dalam peti ais
3) Top Software Recovery

TUKAR BOARD HDD
1) Pastikan board hdd yg rosak mesti sama dengan board ok.
(Kalau tiada cari sampai dapat,tanya kawan-kawan/cari tempat barang-barang lusoh/kedai secondhand computer/tanya saya).

2) Pastikan nilai kapasiti hdd rosak sama dgn hdd yang ok.

3) Pengalaman jika nilai kapasiti hdd tidak sama,tidak mengapa tetapi board mesti sama dari segi saiz/bentuk/rupa/pin connector.

4) Buka skru pada board hdd yg rosak dengan berhati-hati.

5) Buka skru pada board hdd yg ok dengan berhati-hati,tetapi ingat JANGAN rosak apa-apa komponen atas board tersebut.

6) Pasang semula board hdd yang ok ke casing hdd yang rosak tersebut.

7) Pastikan semua skru telah dipasang dgn betul dan tiada yang ‘short circuit’

Pasang Hdd yang telah ditukar board tersebut ke dalam system komputer.Hidupkan “baca bismilah tau”.

MASUKKAN KE DALAM PETI AIS

Kalau hdd tersebut ada bunyi pelik kalau kita goncang takut spindle head dia dah lari.
Cara kedua mungkin berbunyi kelakar tapi percaya lah memang berkesan dah lebih 10 unit hdd yang tidak boleh nak read langsung (physical error) boleh recover data.

1) Pastikan physical hdd tu kering, caranya gunakan hairdryer,vakum, atau kipas angin.

2) Bungkus dalam surat khabar, lagi tebal lagi bagus

3) Bungkus lagi dengan plastik, insulate/seal area yang ditakuti boleh menyebabkan air masuk

4) Pastikan keadaan hdd tu air tak masuk

5- Masukkan hdd tadi dalam freezer, lagi lama lagi bagus tapi paling kurang 7 jam

6- Unwrap hdd yg dah dibekukan tadi, check ada air kat board dia kalau ok masuk balik kat pc pastu.On kan “baca bismilah tau”.

Insyallah selamat la data dalam tu.

Tips Jitu tentang Motherboad, Sekarang dan Akan Datang

Motherboard (Papan Induk) merupakan hardware (perkakasan) yang paling utama pada sesuatu sistem komputer.Semua hardware lain (yang merupakan papan peranti elektronik, atau expansion card seperti sound card, graphic card dan sebagainya) disambungkan ke satu hardware utama (yang juga papan peranti elektronik) – iaitu motherboard. Kesemua hardware ini disambungkan dengan pelbagai jenis sambungan pada motherboard – seperti sambungan kabel, slot, dan sebagainya.

Motherboard juga dikenali dengan pelbagai nama lain seperti mainboard dan desktop board Kebanyakan peminat sistem komputer di Malaysia, baik dari peringkat amatur hinggalah ke professional, lebih selesa dengan singkatan board.

Pada motherboard PC, terdapat beberapa jenis I/O (bermaksud input/output iaitu keluaran dan masukan) sesuatu data atau isyarat dari motherboard ke hardware – seperti ports, soket, slot dan antaramuka (interface) bagi beberapa bas.Tiga jenis bas iaitu bas data,bas kawalan & bas alamat.

Selain itu, anda juga dapat melihat CMOS jumper, FSB jumper pada sesetengah motherboard dan juga sebuah bateri butang. Bateri ini dikenali sebagai bateri CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor , ia merujuk kepada bahan semikonduktor yang digunakan dalam pembuatan cip pada motherboard). Dulu ada beberapa saiz,tapi sekarang dah tetap iaitu Bateri CR2032.Penting untuk motherboard menyimpan segala setting-setting dalam CMOS yang telah dilakukan oleh pengguna.Jika bateri ini rosak @ lemah sistem akan menyuruh pengguna setting CMOS semula atau masa,tarikh telah berubah.Bateri CMOS ini cuma 3Volt.Harga pasaran Rm7-10.Sesiapa berminat membeli secara pukal bateri ini email saya di megabytett@hotmail.com. Harga pukal cumaRM 350.00 untuk 100 unit saja.

Motherboard ada pelbagai jenis soket.Biasanya motherboard ni bergantung kepada prosesor yang anda gunakan.

Sejarah motherboard:
Soket 1 486 SX/SX2, DX/DX2, DX4 & Over Drive
Soket 2 486 SX/SX2, DX/DX2, DX4, Over Drive & 486 Pentium Overdrive
Soket 3 486 SX/SX2, DX/DX2, DX4 & 486 Pentium Overdrive
Soket 4 Pentium 60/66, Overdrive
Soket 5 Pentium 75-133, Pentium 75+ Overdrive,Pentium MMX 166-233, K5 PR75~PR133, 6×86L PR120+, PR166+ - PR 233
Soket 6 486DX4 75-120
Soket 7 Pentium 75-200, Pentium 75+ Overdrive,Pentium MMX 166-233,K5 PR75-PR200, K6 166-300, K6-2 266-550, K6-2+ 450-550, K6-III 400-450,K6-III+ 450-500,Cyrix,VIA
Soket 8 Pentium Pro 150-200, Pentium II OverDrive 300-333
SECC Slot 1 (Single Edge Contact Card) Celeron 266-300 (Covington),Celeron 300A-433 (Mendocino),Celeron 300A-533 (Mendocino PGA),Celeron 500A-1.1GHz (Coppermine-128),Pentium Pro 150-200,Pentium II 233-300 (Klamath),Pentium II 266-450 (Deschutes),Pentium III 450-600B (Katmai),Pentium III 533EB-1.13GHz (Coppermine)SECC Slot 2 Pentium II Xeon 400-450 (Drake), Pentium III Xeon 500-550 (Tanner),Pentium III Xeon 600-1GHz (Cascades), Soket 370 Celeron 300A-533(Mendocino), Celeron 500A-1.1GHz (Coppermine-128),Celeron 1.0A-1.4GHz (Tualatin)Pentium III 500E-1.13GHz (Coppermine)Pentium III 866-1.13GHz (Coppermine-T)Pentium III 1.0B-1.33GHz (Tualatin)Cyrix III 533-667 (Samuel)
Slot A Athlon 500-700 (K7)Athlon 550-1GHz (K75)Athlon 700-1GHz (Thunderbird)
Soket A Duron 600-950 (Spitfire)Duron 1.0GHz (Morgan)Athlon 750-1.4GHz (Thunderbird)Athlon 4 850 (mobile Palomino)Athlon MP 1.0GHz-2100+ (Palomino)Athlon MP 2000+ (Thoroughbred)Athlon XP 1500+-2100+ (Palomino)Athlon XP 1700+(Thoroughbred)Athlon XP 2500+(Barton)
Soket 423 Pentium 4 1.3GHz-2.0GHz (Willamette)Pentium 4 1.6A (Northwood)Celeron 1.7GHz (Willamette)
Soket 478 Celeron 1.7GHz-1.8GHz (Willamette)Celeron 2.0GHz (Northwood-128)Pentium 4 1.4GHz-2.0GHz (Willamette)Pentium 4 1.6A (Northwood)
Soket 603 & 604 Xeon 1.4GHz-2.0GHz (Foster)Xeon 1.8GHz (Prestonia)Xeon MP 1.4GHz-1.6GHz (Foster MP)Xeon MP 1.5GHz (Gallatin)PAC418 Itanium 733-800 (Merced)
PAC611 Itanium 2 900MHz (McKinley)
Soket 754 Athlon 64 1GHz+ (Clawhammer)Athlon 64 1GHz+ (San Diego)
Soket 940 AMD 1GHz+ (Sledgehammer)
Soket AM2 ( zaman akan datang )
Slot ram yang boleh digunakan:
Edo Ram (ini zaman mula-mula komputer,mesti ada sepasang’pair’)
SD Ram pc66 (ini mula-mula SD Ram keluar)
SD Ram pc100 (ada 4 chip/ 8 chip/ 16 chip,single @ double chip)
SD Ram pc133 (ada 8 chip/ 16 chip,single @ double chip)
RD Ram (ini zaman mula-mula Pentium 4 dengan soket 423,mesti ada sepasang’pair’)
DDR Ram PC2100/DDR 266Mhz ,PC2700/DDR 333Mhz,PC3200/DDR 400Mhz
DDR2 Ram PC4200/DDR2 533Mhz ,PC5300/DDR2 667Mhz,PC6400/DDR2 800Mhz
DDR3 Ram PC8500/DDR3 1066Mhz (terbaru)

Motherboard ni banyak jenis. Bergantung ciri-ciri yang disediakan oleh sesebuah pengeluar motherboard.Contoh ada yang mempunyai 2 bios la, kat chipset ade kipas la, dan sebagainya …

Tips beli motherboard pastikan chipset yg digunakan adalah intel @ via.Jika chipset sis,lebih baik lupakan saja.

Warna pada motherboard pcb hijau, biru,kuning.Jika warna merah tidak bagus untuk kesihatan.

Contoh motherboard yang ada di pasaran kini :
MSIGigabyteABITASUSINTELPC-CHIP
Tips motherboard jika ko,pastikan keadaan fizikal elok.Chek kapasitor-kapasitor ,pastikan tiada gelembung samada kat atas @ bawah.Jika kapasitor rosak system akan hang @ asyik ‘restart’ aje @ ‘no display’.Jika ada habuk,gunakan berus gigi utk gosak bahagian slot Ram.Gunakan berus untuk buang habuk seluruh motherboard.

Tips yang ‘advanced’Basuh dengan air sabun,bilas dengan air bersih,jemur sekitar suhu bilik aje.Pastikan buka/cabut bateri CMOS,rendam dalam air sabun @ macam basuh baju.Gosok seluruh motherboard dengan berus supaya tiada habuk-habuk@kuman-kuman melekat.Kemudian bilas dengan air yang mengalir.Keringkan motherboard tersebut dengan mengunakan tembak angin ‘air compresses’.Jemur sekitar suhu bilik saja.Jangan jemur macam ikan bilis,nanti rosak chip-chip IC.

Tips Ram,sila gosakkan pin-pin warna emas dengan pemadam pensil.Pastikan ia berkilat semula.

Sesiapa yang ada parts-parts komputer seperti motherboard,ram,slot card lama-lama yg rosak @ berfungsi sila email pada saya.Cadangan hendak buat Muzium Komputer.