Welcome to the (again) updated Computer Knowledge website. I've moved to a new content management system (CityDesk). With this one, the server simply serves static pages with fixed URLs so the site should be faster and more stable in the indexes (at least, that's the plan).

Got Spam? If you got spam with a CKnow.com return address, please be aware that it did not come from CKnow.com as we are a spam-free zone. Return addresses are easy to forge and there has been a rash of such forgeries lately. See the Joe Job entry in the terms section for more information.

Navigation

Recent articles of interest will be linked on the Home page. Topic introductions are linked on the top menu bar. You can also search, however if Google has not indexed the entire site then results may not be found. For that reason, search results are returned in a new browser page.

You'll note two new items in the menu bar: File Extension Information and a Discussion Forum. Both of these link to the CKnow related site: FILExt. To post in the forum you will need to register. This is to help prevent forum spam. Despite the concentration of that site on file extension information, a number of general questions come up and this allows me to maintain a single forum.

Enjoy! And, hopefully, learn some things about computers.

Current Hot Topics

Following are some of the most-asked questions...

• Why Does a File Named Tilde (~) appear on the Desktop?
• Why am I Having a MSN MAILHOST or DOWNLOADHOST Problem?
• Why Does a File of the Form TFTPxxx Try to Run at Startup?
• What are HIBERFIL.SYS and PAGEFIL.SYS?

News

The latest modified news articles are linked below. To see all news see here. Please note that Computer Knowledge is not attempting to become a primary news source. Only articles that pique the interest of the webmaster are included on this site for a limited time (usually six months to a year) only.

• Current Virus News. Some real-time feeds from anti-virus sites.
• Medical ID Theft Financial ID theft can affect your bank account; medical ID theft can affect your very life.
• Claimed JPEG Patent to be Re-Examined The Patent Office has granted a review of a claimed JPEG patent at the request of the Public Patent Foundation, a not-for-profit legal services foundation.

FAQs

Common questions, questions that have come in via E-mail, and things that just interest me are documented in new FAQs. Here are links to a few of the latest added or changed.

• What are HIBERFIL.SYS and PAGEFIL.SYS? These are system-generated files. They are used by Windows for hibernation and virtual memory control.
• Why Aren't Different Display Colors the Same on Different Monitors? Often computer users complain that images viewed on one computer do not look the same when viewed on another.
• Why am I Having a MSN MAILHOST/DOWNLOADHOST Problem? Now and again the controlling DLL file(s) for MSN becomes unregistered and MSN users receive MAILHOST and/or DOWNLOADHOST problem messages and can't connect to their mail. Here's how to fix this.
• Why Does a File of the Form TFTPxxx Try to Run at Startup? A file of the form TFTPxxx (where xxx = numbers) attempts to run at system start and Windows does not know how to do that. Why does it happen?
• Why Can't I Copy a Large File Despite Having Larger Free Space? In these days of extra large hard disks many try to copy large files from a DVD but find that can't even though there is plenty of free space on the hard disk. Why not?

Computer Terms

Computer Knowledge has a collection of computer terms organized into alphabetical categories. You can choose from the alphabetic lists or use the search box, but CKnow uses Google site search and if the portion of the site you are interested in has not yet been indexed the search might not reveal what is really present.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Numbers & Symbols

Here are a few of the latest changed or added terms plus some old popular ones...

• Emoticons Text images used in messages  
• XPS XML Paper Specification
• HDTV High-Definition Television
• IRC Internet Relay Chat
• Cyberloafing Doing non-work activities at work on a computer.
• Cuckoo Egg A munged copy of what appears to be copyright-protected material.

Tutorials

Computer Knowledge plans to have several different tutorials. At present, we have one:

• Computer Virus Tutorial

Finally, Random Videos you might enjoy...