Talk About Computers

Your two new sticks of memory will replace your old 512MB sticks of memory. You'll have a total of 2GB when you're done.

Unfortunately, your old memory is useless to you. There's no way to bump your laptop up to 3GB.

The two memory slots in your laptop are all you get. It's up to you to make the most of them.

Well, I don't consider myself an expert on battery technology. That said, the measurement you're looking for is mAh (milliampere-hour). The higher the number, the longer the battery lasts each charge.

A little shopping around shows that 2700 mAh is the best you can expect.

Many rechargeable AA batteries have a shorter life. I saw a Sanyo set rated at 2000 mAh.

Good luck!

Hello perfect stranger ;) You are really asking two questions here: How to download YouTube videos and how to play them once they've been downloaded. There are tools aplenty that make this easy. However, YouTube frowns upon it and it can even be illegal.

First the disclaimers: Saving the videos to your hard drive is against the YouTube Terms of Use, Part 4, Section C. Breaking YouTube's rules isn't illegal, but if you're caught, you could be blacklisted from YouTube.

Using this method to download copyrighted material from YouTube (like movies or TV shows) is crossing the line and could get you in legal jeopardy.

With the warnings out of the way, let's get started.

There are dozens of tools that will do the job. I'm going to focus on just one that I found particularly easy to use (and free, of course). It's (unimaginatively) called YouTube Downloader.

Here are the steps to save the clips:

1. Download and install the YouTube Downloader software.
2. Go to YouTube and find a video that you want to keep.
3. Right click the text in your address bar and select "Copy." (The address bar is the area near the top of your browser with the http:// blah blah blah in it)
4. Run YouTube Downloader, right click the text box under "Enter video URL" and select "Paste." This will insert the same address that was in your browser's address bar. You may find that YouTube Downloader enters this address automatically.
5. Click the "Ok" button and find a place on your hard drive to save the video. The default is the Desktop. Click "Save" and the YouTube clip begins to download.
6. Once the download is complete, click "Convert video (previously downloaded) from file."
7. Browse for your downloaded clip by clicking "..." button next to the "Select video file" text box.
8. Under "Convert to," select "Windows Media Video." This is a video format that all Windows computer can play natively.
9. Click "Ok." A window reading "Choose Quality" will appear. "Optimal" video quality will be very close to the original YouTube clip but the new file will be 20 to 40% larger than the original file. "Medium" video quality will be noticeably grainier but the new file will be 5 to 10% smaller than the original.
10. Click "Ok" to begin the conversion. Soon, your Windows-playable YouTube clip appears in the same place you selected in step 5. Double click the file to play it.

There you have it. 10 steps may seem daunting at first but once you master this process, it will become second nature.

Be forewarned: While this process works today, you can bet several months from now YouTube will update their site to break this and every other YouTube downloading tool. When that happens, just go back to the YouTube Downloader site and get the latest version of the program. You will be downloading clips again in no time.

Those "data pluggy in thingamajigs" of which you speak go by many names. USB Flash Drives, Thumb Drives and Memory Sticks are the most common. At the "Optimal" quality setting (step 9), you can expect about 300 minutes of video per GB (about 3.42MB a minute).

Looking at Amazon's selection of flash drives*, 4GB will cost you between $30 and $50. The prices get much steeper after 4GB.

Good luck to you. I'm sure your class will soon enjoy hours of edutainment thanks to your efforts. Let me know if you get stuck on any part of the process.

* Knowzy receives a commission from purchases made through this link.

It's not a stupid question at all. A lot of people are confused and even suspicious about cookies.

What I'm hearing is that you are concerned about privacy when it comes to cookies. In other words, will the cookies from these "certain forums" rat you out to "someone else" and/or will the Internet at large think this "someone else" is browsing these "certain forums?"

While cookies can be used to track your browsing habits, you have complete control over how they are used. Cookies are stored on your computer, not on the web sites you visit. Wipe out the cookies on your computer and you'll look like a brand new person the next time you visit that certain forum.

Cookies are typically used to store settings and preferences when you visit a web site. For example, Knowzy sets a cookie when you change the font size. If you visit us a week from now, your web browser will tell Knowzy that you prefer a 12pt font.

Cookies cannot be shared among web sites. Yahoo cannot read cookies set by Knowzy and Knowzy cannot read cookies set by Yahoo. This is a hard rule of cookies.

However, a web site can embed other web sites within its pages and that's where "tracking cookies" come into play.

You can divide cookies into two broad categories: First-party and third-party. The font cookie is an example of a first-party cookie: It came from the web site you visited.

A third-party cookie, on the other hand is set by a web site other than the one you're visiting. An example of this can be found in the advertisement at the top of this page. Technically, that advertisement is a different web site.

When you visit Yahoo, CNN or other major web sites, the advertisements may come from the same web site as Knowzy's advertisement. The company serving up the advertisement at Yahoo will know that you visited Knowzy through the third-party cookie.

This is how advertisers track your browsing habits and try to send you ads based on the sites you've visited.

If that creeps you out a bit, remember, you are in control who deposits cookies in your cookie jar and you can throw out the batch of cookies at any time.

Internet Explorer 7 has an easy way of rejecting third-party cookies. Here's how:

1. Click the "Tools" button in the top-right of the web browser and select "Internet Options" from the menu.
2. In the Internet Options window, click the "Privacy" tab, then click the "Advanced" button.
3. In the "Advanced Privacy Options" window, check the "Override automatic cookie handling" checkbox, then click "Block" under "Third-party" cookies.

Now, if you want to wipe out all the cookies stored on your computer (or "someone else's"), follow these steps:

1. Click the "Tools" button in the top-right of the web browser and select "Internet Options" from the menu.
2. In the "Browsing History" section, click the "Delete" button
3. In the "Delete Browsing History" window, click the "Delete Cookies" button and you're home free.

In general, cookies are far more beneficial than they are harmful. If you're worried about being tracked from web site to web site, blocking third-party cookies is a good start. Just don't tell Knowzy's advertisers you learned how to do it from me! ;)

Actually, both are correct: You should copy down all of your BIOS settings before removing the battery because you will lose them. Then, after replacing the battery and re-entering your BIOS settings, Windows will detect any new settings.

Of course, if you copied your BIOS settings down, there should be no new settings for Windows to recognize! But it is true that Windows is adept at detecting changes you make to your BIOS.

I think it's great that you're going through the trouble to replace the motherboard battery. Too often, small things like this send entire computers to the junkyard.

I've also seen many motherboards where the CMOS battery is glued to the board so that it can't be replaced. Now that's playing dirty!