Before the Internet it was extremely hard to make sure your software was up to date.  Either you had to wait for a service pack to be shipped, or go out and buy a new version.

Today, many applications actually install an application go out and ask the server if there are newer versions available, and download them to their computer.

There are applications to update your Operating System, those to update your web browser and your plugins.  The only place that we didn’t seem to have one for was for device drivers.

Device drivers are the pieces of code that lie between your computer’s main system and the different things you plugin to your computer.  For example, there’s a device driver that sits in between your word processor and your printer, to help the computer know how to send signals to your printer to get that picture you want to look just so.

These device drivers need to be kept up to date if you want the best performance, but, for the most part, you have to go out and look for a driver update yourself.

To tell you the truth, the only time I end up doing this is when something’s going wrong.  And even then, it’s not one of the first things on my list of things to check.

However, there are now applications out on the Internet that will scan your computer for you and let you know if there’s anything out of date—and for a small fee will get the drivers for you.

Do you know if everything you’re running is up to date?