A computer is made up of three main components, the central processing unit (CPU), the hard drive, and random access memory (RAM).

To understand the function of each component, let's think back to pre-computer days when your workspace consisted of just you, your desk, and your filing cabinet.
Now, think of your computer in those same terms. You are the CPU. You decide what you are going to work on and how hard you're going to work. Your file cabinet is your hard drive. It's where you store all the stuff you may not need every day, but important stuff that you want access to at any given moment. And your desk is the RAM, the memory. If your desk is small, you can only work on a few things at a time. If you want to work on something new, first you'll have to take something off your desk and file it away to make room.

Apple have just released a flurry of hardware updates across its range of personal computers.

One of the most striking is their update to the Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro is Apple's top of the line power house personal computer. The coming update almost doubles its already impressing performance.

The new Mac Pro comes packed with Intel’s new “Nehalem” and “Westmere” Xeon processors that contain six-cores on a single die running up to 3.33GHz.

Google has patented a system that displays search results and adverts based on where you move your mouse.

Search engines such as Google’s already order search results according to click-through rates – i.e., how often users click on particular links

According to the patent it involves installing a piece of software on the user’s machine

These various pointer activities can provide another way to evaluate the user’s feedback with respect to a particular informational item. A longer hover period may suggest a more positive opinion from the user.

Failure to take data protection and data loss seriously is no longer an option.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued a new guide which means that penalties of up to £500,000 can be imposed for breaching the Data Protection Act.

In its guide the Information Commissioner states:

Key points:

• The objective of a backup is to make a duplicate copy of files and data so that in the event of data loss or hard drive failure, the user has an additional copy that they could potentially revert to.