Technology is a very interesting subject, and what is more interesting is the fact that the personal computer has evolved from its very utilitarian purpose it had so many years ago to the chameleonic all in solution that it is today. Previously, computers were used for mainly office work, simple calculations, word processing, printing, and surfing the internet. Games were available, but of course they were limited to simple incarnations like Blackjack and Solitaire, which meant that the computer had a pretty much focused existence.



The internet itself was a massive addition some time in the late 1980s, when it began to creep into the more affluent households and it soon became a worldwide phenomenon. Now the computer is no longer just a glorified office; manufacturers all over the world have come together and created a multimedia, all in one, strategic solution that can be used for any application.

Now, this article would be more for the home PC user, and perhaps some industries as well but what it does not cover are the super computers or bespoke machines used by really tech savvy companies or those that use it for military application.

For the average home user, we can split them into several categories of heavy users, but the three main ones would be those who use it for design/multimedia work, home entertainment or pure gaming. For these three groups of people, the amount of hardware on the computer varies and can number more than ten. For example, the designer or the multimedia would need extra storage, a fairly powerful graphics processor, extra RAM, a multi cored chip as well as design specific software and hardware. The home entertainment aficionado would need a very powerful sound card that supports more than 5 speakers, remote controlled audio and multimedia hubs, a high speed DVD drive at the very least, expensive speakers, a large screen (or hooked up to a LCD or plasma flat screen television and a high speed modem for content download.

The gamer is the one with the most needs, with the latest screaming giant of a graphics card, loads of ram, extra hard disks, sound cards, game specific mouse, speaker set ups, a whole host of software drivers to improve performance. What all three configurations have in common is their heavy use of drivers, which even you will notice as you install new hardware and certain software, is that problems like missing or corrupt drivers might sometimes appear.

You can resolve this by the use of gateway drivers. Windows keeps a collection of gateway drivers that it stores in the hard disk, so that it can automatically recognise new hardware when plugged in and install the drivers for you. If that is not enough, there are websites with a large variety of catalogued drivers from every major and medium corporation out there commonly used with Windows.

These drivers are your gateway to less headaches when employing a large variety of machines. There are many of these websites online regarding such drivers, and all you need to find them is to key in ‘gateway drivers' into a search engine.