RAM, or random access memory is the temporary memory that the computer uses to perform its functions while being used; that is, the when the computer is actively running, it is constantly storing and erasing bits of information. When you shut off your computer, that information is gone. It is like using a whiteboard with erasable ink: you can use it over and over and over, but once you erase something, it is gone forever; unless you recreate it from scratch.

ROM, or read only memory. In its pure form, ROM is the data that is permanently written to a chip, that there is no way of overwriting. An example of ROM is the program that you computer uses to reboot. It is essential to the core functioning of the computer. You might be familiar with Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory in the form of a flash drive.

The difference between Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl are the creatures and control over Dialga (diamond) or Palkai (pearl). You cannot collect the same characters in Pokemon Diamond as in Pokemon Pearl, so for those who are completists out there, you will want both. The game is virtually identical in all other regards. Sales of Pokemon Diamond have, by far outpaced Pearl. A thorough review can be found at 1up.com

A copy of this article along with others about search engine optimization can be found in Blogging Tips To Attract Reader.

Hardware refers to the physical components of the computer that run the software; such as the hard drive, the motherboard, the video and sound cards, the monitor, the printer, the keyboard and the mouse. Hardware also includes removable storage devices such as a CD Rom Drive or Zip Drive.

Software refers to things that are used by the hardware, such as programs that you install on your computer including games, word processing programs, spreadsheet programs, graphic design programs and the like.

There is an in between category called firmware or middleware. This is the program initially installed on your computer that allows you to run all other programs. Examples include operating systems include MS Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Basically, firmware is the go between the software and the hardware; translating the software into a language that the computer can understand and respond to.

If you spend any time learning to program in an object oriented programming language, like C++, Java, Python or Ruby, you’re going to run across these two concepts. But what is the difference between an abstract class and an interface?

As you probably know, a class acts like a blueprint. It gives you the design from which objects can then be created. But an abstract class is a special kind of class that can’t be instantiated; you can’t make objects from it. The only way you can use an abstract class is to inherit a sub-class from it. And by creating your classes so they inherit from an abstract class, you enforce standards.

For example, let’s say that you create an abstract class to define geometric shapes. You know they’re going to have names, colors, and textures. You can’t make any objects from this, but you can inherit a class that lets you make squares. It has to have name, color and texture, and then any other characteristics you give specifically to the class. You could also create a circle sub-class with the same base characteristics and then custom attributes just for circles.

An interface, on the other hand, isn’t a class at all. It only has signatures for the various methods in the class, but no implementation at all. It allows one class to access the abilities of an object without having any inside knowledge on how it works. One class could ask an object to sort itself, and not care whether it’s made of letters, numbers, or words. If you know an object implements an interface, it will be able to do the task, whether it’s sorting itself, or painting to the screen.

A class can implement multiple interfaces, but it can only inherit from a single abstract class. An abstract class can provide method signatures, as well as default implementation for each method, while an interface can only have the method signatures.

You use abstract classes when you have a hierarchy of classes that you want to share common attributes, sort of like a family tree. You use an interface when you want various implementations to share method signatures.

If you’re reading this article, you probably know they’re both programming languages, but what is the difference between C and C++?

C came first, developed as a procedural block programming language back in 1972. Many of the programming trends we use today, like functions, loops, if/else blocks were used in C. But at the end of the day, C was a procedural language. A program started at the top, and then ran through the program line by line, using functions as necessary to redo common operations.

C++, created in 1979, was originally designed as an extension to C, and introduced the concept of object oriented programming techniques. With object oriented programming, you have classes, which can create objects used by the program. Object oriented programming can allow you to manage more complicated and sophisticated applications; although, some very complicated programs are still developed in C.

C is considered a low level program, allowing the programmer to access hardware directly in many cases, while C++ also does this, but also allows more high-level development, where access to the hardware is abstracted. But C++ is still more low level than newer programming languages, like Java.

C is procedural, while C++ is object oriented. Although the underlying lines of code can be similar, programs are designed completely differently in the two languages.

C++ can compile and run most C code; although, there are a few exceptions, while C can’t compile C++ code at all.

Those are the general differences, but if you’d like some specific differences, to see how functions are programmed, take a look at this site, or this one.

Procedure and functions are generic terms used in computer science, interchangeably with method, subroutine, etc. However, in database programming they mean very specific things. So I’m going to assume you want to know, what is the difference between procedure and function in databases.

Both procedures and functions are used in Oracle’s programming language PL/SQL to allow your database to perform functionality when certain events happen in the database. For example, you can have a stored procedure run when data is inserted into a table, or have a function run when you’re calculating payroll.

When you create a function, it has to have a return statement inside it. For example, if you were calculating the area of a circle, you would call the function, pass it the radius of the circle, and the function would return the area of the circle back to whatever called it.

A procedure, on the other hand, doesn’t need to have a return statement. Instead, it can just perform an action. You pass it the parameters, like the radius of the circle, and have the procedure just insert the radius into a table. No data is returned back to whatever called it.

So, just to recap, the main difference between a procedure and function (when you’re doing database programming), is that functions have a return statement, while procedures don’t.

Routers and switches are both pieces of networking equipment that help data move across the network to their final location, but they work differently, and actually function at different levels of the networking stack. What is the difference between a router and a switch?

The least intelligent kind of networking device is a hub, which takes data in one port, and then retransmits it out every other port. So any information sent or received by any single computer on a hub is retransmitted to every other computer. This is bad for security, obviously, but it also uses up a lot of bandwidth on the network, as computers have to receive data that they don’t need.

A switch uses a little more intelligence. It learns the IP address of each computer attached to it, by matching up IP addresses with hardware MAC addresses. When data comes into the switch, it only sends data back out the port assigned to that computer’s MAC address. Switches are said to work at a hardware level, and help relieve bandwidth across the network.

A router is the most intelligent networking device. But routers aren’t like really intelligent switches, they actually work in a completely different way. Routers are designed to connect networks together. So, your internal network might have IP addresses, like 192.0.0.100, while your Internet service provider might give your computer an IP address that starts with 64.x.x.x. A router can take internal traffic bound for destinations out on the Internet in general, and route it from your internal network to the external network. Whenever you change networks, you need a router. And vice versa when information comes from the external network to your home network.

So, just to restate, switches connect computers together within the same network, while routers connect entire networks together.

When you connect a computer to a network, you have the choice of either giving it a static or dynamic IP address. What is the difference between them?

A fixed, or static IP address assigns a computer a specific IP address on a network. The computer knows what IP it’s supposed to have, and the domain controller on the network knows that IP that computer is supposed to have. If you try and give two computers the same IP address, you get collisions and errors. You might have seen this when you’re trying to set up a computer, and see an error that another computer on the network already has that IP address. Static IP addresses are often used for devices that will always be present on a network, like printers or web servers.

A dynamic IP address is assigned by a special computer on the network called a DHCP server. Computers that attempt to access the network use the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to contact the server and request an IP address. The server has a pool of IP addresses that it can then assign to the requesting computer. Once that computer logs off again, the IP address can be freed up and assigned to a different computer. This allows large numbers of computers share a limited number of IP addresses. As long as they aren’t all trying to access the network at the same time.

So, the main difference between static and dynamic IP addresses is that static addresses are configured permanently to a specific computer, while dynamic addresses are handed out by a DHCP server on an as-needed basis.

A computer uses RAM or memory as a place to store data in between times that the processor is using it. For example, a processor might be adding up a series of numbers, and would use the RAM as a place to store all the numbers it’s working with. There are two kinds of RAM used in computers; so what’s the difference between static and dynamic RAM?

The most common form of RAM in a computer is dynamic RAM. Each chip contains millions of tiny memory cells made up of a transistor and a capacitor, and can contain one bit of information – a 0 or a 1. In order to store a bit of information, the computer needs to put a tiny amount of power into the cell to charge the capacitor, but this energy leaks out quickly. So to keep information in dynamic RAM, your computer needs to recharge all the cells in the memory chip every few milliseconds, or all the data is lost. This constant refreshing gives dynamic RAM its name.

Static RAM, on the other hand, works with a completely different technology. Each cell holds a bit of information that can be flip-flopped, from 0 to 1, and doesn’t need to be refreshed; although, it requires more transistors to make it work. Because it never needs to be refreshed, it uses less power and operates much more quickly. But it’s much more expensive to manufacture.

All modern computers use a tiny amount of static RAM, as a cache close to the CPU where it’s most needed to help perform calculations quickly, and then larger quantities of dynamic RAM to hold programs and data.

When you browse the Internet, you use a web browser. This is an application that runs off your local computer, connected to the Internet. It requests web pages from distant web servers, and translates the HTML programming language into the familiar web page that you read, with embedded pictures. What is the difference between static and dynamic web pages?

A static web page is one that has been written once, like a word processing document, and then saved onto the web server. It’s like a file. If you could access the web server at a file system level, move the file over to your computer, and then open it up locally in your web browser, it should look exactly the same as if you looked at it through the Internet. Any changes to a static web page need to be made manually, and then saved again.

A dynamic web page is created on the fly. It doesn’t actually exist on the web server until a web browser requests it. When a request is made, web server runs whatever program will create the web page. That program creates the page dynamically and returns it to the web server, which then passes it along to the web browser.

So the main difference between static and dynamic web pages is that static pages exist on the web server, while dynamic pages are created on the fly when a web browser requests them.