Windows Laptop Selector Guide 0 comments

While Apple’s Macs running OS X are without a doubt making inroads into the territory owned by Microsoft and PC makers with Windows machines, the fact of the matter is that the Redmond company and its OEM partners still account for the vast majority of the operating system and computer markets.

As far as consumer trends are concerned, there is a palpable shift from traditional desktops to laptops, and Microsoft is not only delivering Windows Vista, an operating system tailored to a mobile lifestyle, but it is also prepared to offer guidance on the acquisition of a new computer. From the Windows Guide library, the Redmond company has made available for download the Windows Laptop Selector Buying Basics.

“GHz? MBs? SDRAM? You don’t have to speak nerd to find a great laptop. Our Buying Basics makes it simple and straightforward to understand what you need to know when looking for your next PC,” reads an excerpt from the guide. Of course that the decision to buy a new machine orbits around money. “Many people see price as the biggest factor when buying a PC. A bargain-basement price may seem tempting now, but will it give you the laptop you want for the long haul? Technology changes rapidly and even if you spend less today, you might end up paying more tomorrow just to keep up with new software.”

Microsoft offers a comprehensive breakdown of what users should expect their machine to do, in accordance with a range of prices from $500 to over $3,500. But in addition to price, Microsoft is offering advice on aspects such as weight, speed, storage, screen size, ports, video and graphics, CD/DVD and even operating system. As far as the platform is concerned, all that Microsoft recommends is Windows Vista. However, that is understandable, now that Windows XP’s availability through the retail and OEM channels was discontinued at the end of June 2008, and Vista’s precursor is only available on ultra-low-cost desktops and laptops, from system builders and via downgrade rights.

Download the Windows Laptop Selector Buying Basics.

Troubleshooting Video Problems 0 comments

Does your display flicker? Are your animations not working correctly? Have you been notified that you have “display problems. This program can’t continue”? This tip will help you solve those video problems.

Hold down the Alt key and double click on the My Computer icon, then select the Device Manager tab (XP Users: it’s the Hardware tab). Double click Display Adapters.



Next, double click your video card. The Device Status window will list any problems with your video card. If a problem is listed here it is usually a conflict between two devices. Click on the Resources tab. If there are any conflicts listed in the Conflicting Device List, make sure the Use Automatic Settings is checked and reboot your computer. You can also try running through the steps under the Troubleshooting button in the General tab of the Properties window.



If either of these solutions doesn’t solve your problem, reload your video driver by repeating the above steps up to double clicking on your video card. From there click on the Driver tab, then Update Driver and follow the on-screen instructions. Have your video card driver disk or cd ready when you reinstall the driver.

Hardware Refresh 0 comments

Here's a cool way to save yourself some time. If you have any kind of external (non USB) device (like a scanner, tape backup, external zip drive, etc), they probably need to be powered on before you boot up your computer. If not, the computer doesn't recognize them and you need to turn them on and re-boot. Or do you?

For example, let's say you forgot to turn on your scanner. Now, normally you would have to turn it on and re-boot the computer. Wait - here's how to get around it.

1. Right-click My Computer and select Properties from the resulting menu.

2. Click the Device Manager tab and then the Computer item at the top. Towards the bottom of that screen, you'll see a "refresh" button. Click that.



Windows will now "refresh" it's hardware profile! Once it's done (it shouldn't take too long at all) you'll find your scanner is now part of the hardware profile and you can now use it, no re-booting required!

This will (should) work for any device that's attached to your computer and you forgot to turn on. It seems like I need to hit the refresh button twice on some computers to get this to work. Go figure.

Please note - if you forgot to attach a device to your computer, it's best to attach devices to the computer ONLY when it's off (Unless is a USB device).

Installing Wireless Phone as Modem to use internet revisited 0 comments

1: Attach the USB cable of WLL phone to the PC.Ensure that its other end is properly connected with the phone.

2: Login as root and go to Applications> Terminal.Enter command wvdialconf and the prompt.Ubuntu searches for a modem and finds the attached USB modem-evident by the output lines saying:

Found an USB Modem on /dev/ttyACM0.Modem configuration written to /etc/wvial.confi.

3: Go to the menu bar Places>Computer>File System>ETC folder and open wvdial.conf file.Remove leading semi-colon character from the lines supplying username,password and phone number.Now complete the lines by entering correct values.Here,add one more line setting Stupid Mode to 1.The updated wvdial.conf file should now look this (order of lines may differ-it does not matter):

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 & C1 & D2
+FCLASS = 0
Modem Type = USB Modem
ISDN = 0
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/tty/ACM0
Baud = 460800
Phone = #777
Username = vwireles@ptcl.com
Password = ptcl
Stupid Mode = 1

4: In the Ternimal window,type wvdial and wait for the lines to appear showing DNS addresses,confirming successful Interne Connection,e.g.

----->primary DNS addresses 211.94.65.97
----->pppd: x[08][06][08]?[10][06][08]
----->secondary DNS address
202.125.148.204
----->pppd: x[08][06][08]?[10][06][08]

5: To exit any time,press CTRL+C twice in the terminal window.To connect again,simply type 'wvdial' in a Ternimal Window.
We are all ready now to explore the world of Ubuntu and enjoy this free OS.Havind administrative control,multimedia and internet working can make a life easier for Ubuntu users.One should take some time to read the built-in help to get acquainted with how things work in this OS.Moreover,before comparing it to Windows heads on,remember you do not have to pay for a dime for using and owing Ubuntul.

Free Password Management software 0 comments

To keep computer files, internet connections and other resources just to ourselves, we use passwords. Some people use the same password for everything. This is a very bad practice. Because if someone comes to know about this password then they will get access to all your resources. There fore it is essential to have different passwords for different purposes. But this poses another problem. It becomes very difficult to remember all these passwords. Some write these passwords in their diary or write on a small paper and keep it on their table. This too is a bad practice. Because it is easy for other people to get hold of this information when you are not around.

If you could keep all your password in a database and then encrypt this database and protect it with a password then all your passwords will be safe. Then you just need to remember this one password, so even if you forget other passwords you can still use this password to open the database and check the password.

You can use a free password management software such as 'Password Safe'. You can download password safe from http://sourceforge.net and install it in your computer. Then you will never have to remember many passwords.

To create a master password

When you open Password safe for the first time it will ask you for the 'Safe combination' which is nothing but the master password for your password database. The safe combination password should be long and contain both numbers and alphabets so that it is difficult to guess. If you give a simple and easy to guess password then password safe will warn you. Now key in the same password again in the 'Verify' box and click on 'OK'.

To add passwords to Password Safe

Click on the 'Add Entry' button in Password Safe. In the new dialog box give 'group name' (optional) and the title name and then key in your username and password. In the 'Notes' section write anything you want to write about the account. Now click on 'OK' to add this information to password safe.

As mentioned in the above paragraph add all your passwords one by one. When you close password safe program it will ask you where you want to save this password database in your hard disk. This is only for the first time.

To retrieve the password

If you forgot the password for any file or program and you want to retrive the password from password safe then password safe will first ask you for the 'master password'. After you give the master password the database will open.

Then click on the 'title' for which you want to know the password. Now click on the 'Copy password to clipboard' button. Now the password will be copied to the clip board. You can use Ctrl + V to paste it anywhere you want.

When you exit the password safe program, it will automatically clear the password from the clipboard for security reasons.

You can also edit the password if you want.

Hardware Tips -> Problems and Tips while using USB ports 0 comments

Some readers says that while is inserting flash drive in USB port. The system didn’t recognize it how could we overcome it.

First of all we should know the two types of USB ports.

USB 1.1: This is the first type of USB. It designed as per the speed of transferring 1.5mb/sec data’s. This is designed instead of serial and parallel port for the use of USB port. This is basically used only for connecting mouse and keyboard. System would be struggled for data overloading.

USB 2.0: This kind of USB ports is used for large scale into data transfer. More readers ask that how to identify these two kind of USB ports. To identify the model use the following commands. Start=>My computer=> properties. And click Hardware tab after than select Device Manager. Now you got the list. In that list select the plus symbol that is located after “Universal Serial Bus controllers” if your system have USB 1.1 mean it displays as “Host controller (or) Open Host Controller”. Else USB 2.0 is used mean it displays like.” Enhanced host controller (or) USB 2.0 controller.

Your windows operating system says that the connected USB get speeded. When you are connecting the high speed USB to logo speed USB port of the system, but most of the reader saying that while connecting the USB device to the system. The device was not getting detected. Commonly while inserting an USB device to the system. Window XP will say new hardware found. This message will display in the hard disk. While inserting the USB device it will get auto play, and enquire whether to open the files as file (Or) audio format (Or) video format? It assigns a drive letter for it. If all the details mentioned above had not displayed means the inserted device had not matched with your operating system. You can solve this by doing below.

Go to Start => control panel =>Administrative Tools and click in administrative tool. After that double click on Computer Management.
In that left side select Disk Management, at the right side a drive displays with the name of a removable drive. This is the drive thus containing to same name of already using drive.
To change it right click on the while bar then a got a list.
Now select “change drive letters and paths”.
Now you can select the letter that you want. Click the “change” option.
The letter that you selected it should be already used one.
After finishing this you should get a warning message.
Now click ok to it.
Now close the computer management console while clicking the My computer icon.
You can see the USB drive’s letter.

We face more problems on problem on using USB port. Some part may become in accessible due to the power shortage of computer. These kinds of problems happen on USB 1.1 ports only. These problems happen only on windows 2000 and the before edition while getting these kind of problems. We just disconnect the instruments after that connect one by one.

Now a days the new version computer consists of at-least four USB ports. Two ports are fixed in backside and the remaining two parts are fixed in front side. Windows XP packages will manage these ports without any problems.

AMD introduces ATI Radeon HD 4600 graphics plaque series 0 comments

AMD redefines with Radeon 4670 and Radeon 4650 what means mainstream graphic plaques.

AMD fulfill their promises and launches officially a new series of graphic plaques - ATI Radeon HD 4600 that intend to offer an exceptional performance for games and HD multimedia, at power consumption lower than one of a bulb. And all these at a very attractive price for graphic plaques from mainstream category.

4600 graphic plaque series are practically limited versions of 4800 series, with what AMD succeeded to overcome those from Nvidia. They are based on TeraScale graphic processor, realized in 55 nm and with 320 stream processors that is a modified RV770.

ATI Radeon HD 4670 works at a 750 MHz nuclear frequency, 2 GHz memory frequency, has a memory interface on 256 bits, and can include 512 MB or 1 GB of GDDR3 memory.

Less powerful version, ATI Radeon HD 4650, has a 600MHz nuclear frequency, 1GHz memory frequency, memory interface on 128 bits and includes 512 MB of GDDR2 memory.

Both of these plaques have 320 stream processors, 32 texture units and support DirectX 10.1, include Unified Video Decoder (UVD) 2.0 for HD video processing and HDMI 7.1 surround sound audio.

Plaques have a reduce power consumption, 60 W for 4670 and 50 W for 4650. Prices are extremely attractive, being smaller than initial estimations. So, HD 4670 with 512 MB of memory costs 80 dollars (version with 1 GB will appear later), and HD 4650 has a price of 60 dollars.

From initial reviews performance of these gadgets seems to be excellent, considering low power consumption and price. So HD 4670 is situated somewhere among Radeon HD 3650 or GeForce 9500 GT and Radeon HD 3850 or GeForce 9600 GT/GSO in some tests even overcoming them.

Asus Eee PC 901 Modded for Mobile Broadband 0 comments

That’s right folks! An enterprising member of the eeeuser forums has found a way to give the Asus Eee PC 901 HSDPA.

The instructions, stripped down for the layman, involve opening up the netbook, installing a HSPA or EVDO miniPCI-E card, and setting it up properly in the OS. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, can we expect an add-on kit from Asus? (And how does this mod affect the Eee’s battery life?) While you’re waiting though, feel free to check out the complete how-to here.

Future Data storage medias 0 comments

DVD-RAM is a disc specification presented in1996. which specifies rewritable DVD-RAM media and the appropriate DVD writers. DVD-RAM media have been used in computers as well as camcorders since 1998. The direct successor of this format will be HD dvd-ram.

HD DVD-RAM

hd dvd-ram is the proposed successor to DVD-RAM for random access on optical media using phase-change principals. HD DVD-RAM will hold 20 gigabytes per layer instead of 15 gigabytes for HD DVD-RAM-r because of differences in recording methods used, yielding a higher density disc.

HD DVD-R

is the writable disc variant of HD-DVD and is available with a single-layer capacity of 15GB or dual-layer capacity of 30GB. Currently, HD DVD-R has slower write speeds than the competing BD-Rformat (1–2x vs 1–4x) and lower storage capacity.

Pricing of HD DVD devices and blank media is yet to be released (September, 2006), but it is expected that devices will be available at a lower price-point than the competing Blu-ray Disc format.

Blue-ray disk

A Blu-ray Disc (also called BD) is a high-density optical disk format for the storage of digital media, including high definition video.

* About 9 hours of high-definition (HD) video can be stored on a 50 GB disc.
* About 23 hours of standard-definition (SD) video can be stored on a 50 GB disc.
* On average, a single-layer disc can hold a High Definition feature of 135 minutes using MPEG-2, with additional room for 2 hours of bonus material in standard definition quality. A dual layer disc will extend this number up to 3 hours in HD quality and 9 hours of SD bonus material.

Manufacturing of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) 0 comments

Manufacturing of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

A Hard Disk is the most important & vital component of a computer. In many years, it has seen significant improvements in the amount of data can store, also how fast it can retrieve. But in all these years, the basic mechanical

Structure of hard disk has remained the same. Under the case of each hard disk, you’ll see a PCB board. This houses the electronics that makes the drive do what it is expected to do. Inside the casing, the bulk of the space is occupied by one or more platters mounted one on top of the other, on a spindle on a motor. The data is stored on magnetic material on these platters. Finally, there’s the reading/ recording head, and its drive mechanism. Each face of each platter will have its own independent head. The processes may different with different disk manufacturers.

The detailed here is the process followed by Seagate, as seen at their Recording Media Operations at Ang Mo Kio, Singapore. At Seagate, hard disk manufacturing is spread across different factories, which are situated in different countries. The platters are made in one plant, and they’re prepared to hold data in another. The reading head is produced in another, while the final drive is assembled in yet another.

Here, we’ll look at how the individual platters are prepared for holding the data. The disk platter is a finely balanced piece of work, finished to microscopic tolerances. Take the smoothness of its surface, for example. The drive head rides a cushion of air microscopic distances above the surface of the platter. So, the surface can’t be too smooth, or the drive head will end up sticking to the platter. It can’t be too rough either, or the head will end up getting caught in the microscopic bumps on the surface.

Almost all the work takes place in clean rooms, where the amount of dust in the atmosphere is kept very low, and is strictly controlled and monitored. Remember the Pentium bunnies in the old Intel ads? Well, in some of the clean rooms, the workers are similarly dressed, to avoid contamination of the material they’re working with.

The platters come to the factory, packed in shipping cassettes. When they get taken in for production, they’re transferred to what are called process cassettes, which are nothing but carrying cases, as shown here. They move from one process to another in these cassettes. When the cassettes have to move from one room to another, they do so on automatic guided vehicles. This is to prevent contamination due to human contact.

The first step in getting the platter ready to record data is Mechanical Texturing. Here, roughness and groove are applied to the polished surface of the disk. This helps in depositing magnetic material on the disk later.

During the texturing process, small amounts of nickel get removed from surface of the disk and remain there. To remove this, the platter is now washed. This process is called Oliver Wash. If you look at a platter removed from a finished hard disk, you’ll see a 2-4 mm band near the center, much like the one you see on the silver side of a CD-ROM. This is the Laser Texture, the landing area where the read head comes to rest. Laser Texturing is done now. The landing area is created by creating microscopic bumps, using a laser. This prevents the head clinging to the disk surface when the disk is spinning. Time for a final cleaning of the platter. This is done using a series of ultrasonic, mega sonic and Quick Dump Rinse (QDR) steps. At the end of the final clean, the platter has an ultra-clean surface and is ready for depositing of magnetic media— a process known as sputtering. The platters now move to a Class10 clean room, in an automatic guided vehicle, described earlier. Sputtering is perhaps the most critical in the whole process of creating a recording media.

Automatic guided vehicle (center) transporting platters:

Magnetic film is coated on to substrates that are then transferred on to the platter.

There are two types of sputtering— pass-by sputtering and static sputtering.

In pass-by sputtering, disks are passed inside a vacuum chamber, where they’re

Bombarded with the magnetic material. Static sputtering uses smaller machines and each disk is picked up and sputtered individually. The sputtering material is prepared in what are called bombs, which are loaded onto the sputtering machine. The bombs are vacuum chambers with targets on either side. The platter is lifted into the bomb and is bombarded with the magnetic material. Though the process uses bombarding, my guess is that the name bomb comes from the shape of the chamber, rather than the process.

A basic factory view:

Sputtering leads to some spikes being deposited on the platter, which need to be removed? To ensure that this doesn’t lead to the scratching of the platter, lube is applied to the platter surface now. Once lube has been applied, the platters move to the buffing stage, which is basically polishing the disk while it spins around. After buffing, the platter is wiped and clean lube is evenly applied on the surface. The disk is now ready, and needs to be tested for quality. This is a three-stage process. First, a burnishing head passes over the surface, removing any bumps (asperities as the technical term goes). The glide head now goes over the disk, checking for remaining bumps if any. And finally there is the Cert head (the certifying head) that checks the surface for manufacturing defects and also measures the magnetic recording ability of the platter. Platters that pass the quality test go into final packing. They’re vacuum packed onto caddies. These are sent to the disk drive operations plant, where they’re assembled into hard disks.

The test heads in operation:

A hard disk platter over the year, you will notice that the size has not changed too much. Increased disk capacity has been achieved by improving the areal density (The amount of data that can be stored per square inch).

What is "low level formatting" an ATA (IDE) drive?

Here we describe you a low level formatting of HDD. Actually the term "low level" is a bit of a misnomer. The low level process first used years ago in MFM hard drives bears little resemblance to what we now call a "low level format" for today's ATA (IDE) drives. The only safe method of initializing all the data on a Seagate device is the Zero Fill option in Disc Wizard Starter Edition.

Why would need to Zero Fill a hard disk drive?
The most common reasons to Zero Fill an ATA (IDE) hard drive are:

ü The drive has contracted a virus that cannot be removed without destroying the boot sector.

ü You are changing from one operating system to another and wish to remove everything from the drive.

How does a low Zero Fill on a hard disk drive?

ü Zero Filling an ATA (IDE) drive destroys 100% of the data on the drive. Make sure the drive is completely backed up before proceeding.

ü The Zero Fill option in Disc Wizard Starter Edition is the only safe method for use with Seagate hard drives. Some system BIOSs may include a Low Level Format option; use these at your own risk, as this may produce undesirable results.

Disc Wizard Starter Edition can be downloaded as a part of the Disc Wizard package. It includes two Zero Fill options, partitioning options, and high-level formatting options. Zero Fill writes zeros in each data sector up to the complete capacity of the drive and will clean up some file system defects.

The download routine for Disc Wizard Starter Edition creates a bootable diskette. Boot from the diskette to start Disc Wizard Starter Edition. After startup, select Utilities than Zero Fill Drive (Quick) or Zero Fill Drive (Full). Select the drive you want to erase, then select Zero Fill or Low Level.

Zero Fill Drive (Quick) will write over the beginning of the drive which includes the critical partition information, eliminating all partitions and information on the drive including the Master boot record. This is useful if you have a drive that has a corrupted partition or that you wish to erase to reinstall a fresh operating system and new data.

Zero Fill Drive (Full) will write over the entire data area of the drive. This is useful if a drive has bad sectors that cannot be fixed by the operating system. This will also erase all the data on the drive, but it will take several hours.

When the process completes, reboot the system from the operating system install CD and follow the instructions to prepare (partition and format) the drive and install the operating system.

Hard Disk Drive Troubleshooter -Error Messages

NTLDR Errors

There are four types of primary reasons why we might get an NTLDR error:

ü The boot order is not set to boot from CD-Rom first.
To install Windows XP you need to boot from the CD-Rom. More computers default set to boot from the hard drive first, but will boot from the CD if there is no partition on the hard disk drive. Once we use DWSE to create partition the computer attempts to boot from this new partition and detects that the partition has no operating system installed and reports missing NTLDR.
To fix this type of the issue you will need to adjust the boot order of your computer in the BIOS (computer setup).

ü If left a floppy in the diskette drive.
Check and confirm if don't have any floppy diskettes in the drive.

ü If computer have more than 1 CD/ATAPI device installed on the secondary channel, be sure that you are booting from the "master" CD/ATAPI device. You can verify that which drive is the master versus slave CD/ATAPI device by booting into your CMOS/BIOS setup in case those devices are currently set for "Cable-Select" or you just don't know which one is the master device.
If this has been checked then try removing the "slave" CD/ATAPI device from the channel to see if the issue resolves itself.

ü The CD of Window XP prompted to 'press any key' and you missed it.
When booting from the Windows XP CD it will look for partitions if your drive is blank it will boot directly from the CD. If the drive has a partition it should prompt you to 'press any key’ to continue so that you don't have to remove the CD after the reboot that occurs during installation. You have to press any key very quickly because this message will time out in a very short period of a few seconds then you will see an NTLDR error on the screen.

ü Windows has not been installed. If the operating system has not been installed on computer then the system will report an NTLDR message until you boot from the install media and install the operating system to the hard drive.

The other Solution:

If above cant solve the problem & Windows unable to start in any case. Than try with following solutions:

o solve the NTDLR missing problem, boot the PC form Windows XP/2000 CD & when a blue screen show some option to go forward then select option with pressing ‘R’ to recovery console. This is a command prompt type screen which wants to user name & password to access the system folders. Type the administrator user name & password. Then type in "copy x:\i386\NTDLR c:\ press enter“ &

copy x:\i386\NTDETEC.com c:\ press enter“

This will solve the problem, if persist than need to reinstall windows with repair option

For more detail on NTLDR missing errors plz visit Microsoft's support site.

Switch Your Hard Disk to NTFS 0 comments

Your PC's Hard Drive may still be in FAT32 disk format. I encourage you to migrate to the more advance NTFS file system to boost your PC performance.

FAT32 [File Allocation Table 32-bit] format is the 32-bit version of the FAT file system which is introduced on Windows 95 and still used in Windows XP today. Obviously, it is already an obsolete file system to use in Windows XP since it is limited maximum partition size and file size compared to that of NTFS Format.

NTFS [New Technology File System] format is the more advance file system, compared to FAT32 and was developed to compensate the poor features of FAT32 format. It improves performance and is required in order to implement numerous security and administrative features in the OS. For example, NTFS supports Active Directory domain names and provides file encryption. Permissions can be set at the file level rather than by folder, and individual users can be assigned disk space quotas. NTFS is designed to log activity and recover on the fly from hard disk crashes. It also supports the Unicode character set and allows file names up to 255 characters in length.


Comparison of FAT32 and NTFS
> Maximum Partition Size: 32Gb[FAT32] vs. 2Tb+[NTFS]
> Maximum File Size: 4Gb[FAT32] vs. Size of Drive[NTFS]


How to quickly convert your Local Disk Drive?

1. Open Run and type:
"cmd.exe or cmd" and press [Enter].

2. In the Cmd.Exe window, type:
"convert (Drive Letter): /fs: NTFS" and press [Enter].

3. Reboot your PC.

Increase BROADBAND 0 comments

This is for broad band connections, though it might work for dial up.

* Make sure your logged on as actually “Administrator”.
* Start->Run->type gpedit.msc
* Expand the “Local Computer Policy” branch.
* Expand the “Administrative Templates” branch.
* Expand the “Network Branch”.
* Highlight the “QoS Packet Scheduler” in left window.
* In right window double-click the “Limit Reservable Bandwidth” setting.
* On setting tab check the “Enabled” item.
* Where it says “Bandwidth limit %” change it to read 0.

Effect is immediate on some systems, some need to re-boot. This is more of a “counter what XP does” thing. In other words, programs can request up to 20% of the bandwidth be reserved for them, even with QoS disabled.

Changing Motherboards 0 comments

Before you swap out the current motherboard go to device manager and select the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller and select your current storage controller. Right click, select update driver and select install from a list or specific location. Click don't search I will choose the driver to install and select the standard dual channel IDE controller.

This will prevent the inaccessible boot device blue screen. I have done this multiple times on different platforms with no problems.

Also I found that booting the first time with the new motherboard is best done in the Safe mode where XP will install the drivers it needs and at the same time you can install the new motherboard drivers from its CD.

This saved me doing a repair or a reinstall of XP. My whole system came right up and worked great and very stable.