Wingless Fleas

Posted by Simon on March 26, 2011 under Really interesting! | Be the First to Comment

A Flea is a common small wingless insect. Fleas, being external parasites, live by hematophagy off the blood of mammals and birds that they live on. There is several different species of fleas, with the most well known being:
– Cat Flea
– Dog Flea
– Northern Rat Flea
– Oriental Rat Flea

It is rare that flea’s become damaging to their host; in most cases they are just nuisances. There can however become a problem when the host suffers an allergic reaction to the flea saliva. Spots where fleas bite are normally visible by a slightly raised and itchy swolled spot, that will have a single puncture at the center.

It is important to note that opposite to what I said above, fleas can transmit diseases. This is a rare scenario, but does happen, and an example is the bubonic plague where the disease was transferred between rodents and humans. If that is not bad enough Murine typhus fever and even some cases of tapeworms can be transmitted by fleas.

Fleas are busy little insects and will pass through a complete life cycle, egg to adult, in as short as two weeks to as long as eight months, depending on environment conditions. Generally after a blood meal a female flea will lay eggs, about 15 per day, and up to about 600 in its whole lifetime. The eggs are generally layed on the host, and will often times drop off the host. These Flea eggs take between 2 days to 2 weeks to hatch.

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Understanding the Scientific Method

Posted by Simon on June 14, 2010 under Really interesting!, What could be more fun? | Be the First to Comment

Understanding the scientific method and how to follow it is critical to building a good reputation in the technical community. In regards to science fairs, as a student progresses in grade levels the judges are going to demand more and more focus on using the scientific method.

Here is my seven step description of the scientific method.

1. Define the question 2. Gather information and resources 3. Form hypothesis 4. Perform experiment and collect data 5. Analyze data 6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses 7. Publish results

In science fair competitions, if you can show that you are following the scientific method, you are well on your way to impressing the judges.

Basically, start out by defining your question and topic. After that, form a hypothesis and perform your experiments. Step 6 is where you use that data to make any new hypotheses or theories about your science topic. If you want, you can take that new hypothesis you just developed and start again from step 3, then move your way back to 6. Follow this cycle as much as you want. The more focused your information and experiments the better.

Would you like an example to clarify how to use the scientific method?

Imagine you are doing your project on “Hot water” and we are going to follow the scientific method steps.

1. Define your question.

How about something silly, like “Will boiling water burn a person’s hand?”

2. Find lots of information about hot water and learn everything you can about it.

3. Now form a hypothesis based on your research. Our hypothesis is, “A person will not suffer any burns due to contact with boiling water.” Hopefully you are smart enough to know this isn’t true, but let’s pretend we aren’t just for the sake of the example.

4. Now we do perform our experiments. In real life we know we will burn ourselves with boiling water, and we should never touch it! But, suppose the experimenter has no idea. They run tests to see if contact with boiling water burns a person. BAD IDEA!

5. Now look at your data. Probably everyone in the experiments burned their skin during the tests. Looks like boiling water does cause burns! DUH!

This is how it snows in the springtime in the Rocky Mountains taken Spring 2006
Snow in the Springtime in the Rockies

6. Interpret the data. Hmm… our hypothesis was completely wrong. Our experiments showed that boiling water can cause burns.

7. Publish your results. I certainly hope you never make a project just like this, but here’s your chance to show the world what happens when you touch boiling water!

Keep in mind, don’t change your hypothesis because your final data did not agree with it. You don’t get more credit for having a correct hypothesis. You get credit for following the scientific method and coming to a correct conclusion based on your data.

Don’t forget to include possible reasons for experimental error.

If you follow these steps your project or experiment will make sense to anyone who views it and you have a good chance of succeeding!

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The Invention Of The Atomic Clocks

Posted by Simon on May 25, 2010 under It Is Believable, Really interesting! | 2 Comments to Read

Louis Essen was born in 1908 in a small city in England called Nottingham. His childhood was typical of the time and he pursued his education with enjoyment and dedication. At the age of 20 Louis graduated from the University of Nottingham, where he had been studying. It was at this time that his career started to take off, as he was invited to join the NPL, or National Physics Laboratory.

It was during Louis’s time at the NPL that he began working to develop a quartz crystal oscillator as he believed they were capable of measuring time as accurately as a pendulum based clock. Ten years after joining the NPL Louis had invented the Essen ring. This was an eponymous invention which took its name from the shape of the quartz which Louis had used in his latest clock and which was three times more accurate than the previous versions.

Louis soon moved on to newer areas of research and began to study ways to measure the speed of light. During World War II he began to work on high frequency radar and used his technical ability to develop the cavity resonance wavemeter. From 1946 it was this wavemeter which he used, along with a colleague by the name of Albert Gordon-Smith, to make his lightspeed measurements. It has been acknowledged recently that Louis’s measurements were by far the most accurate to have been recorded up until that time.

Mt Hood Oregon taken 2010-05-14
Mt Hood Oregon

During the early part of the 1950’s Louis began to take an interest in research which was being carried out at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in the United States of America. He learnt that work was being carried out to invent a clock which was more accurate than any other. The American scientists were using the idea of maintaining a clock’s accuracy by using the radiation emitted or absorbed by atoms. At that time the Americans were using a molecule of ammonia but Louis felt that this was not working as well as if they were using different atoms, such as hydrogen or caesium, and so he began working on his own clock using these materials instead.

1953 saw Louis and a colleague, Jack Parry, receiving permission to develop an atomic clock at the NPL based on Louis’s existing knowledge of quartz crystal oscillators and other relevant techniques he had learned from the cavity resonance wavemeter he had previously designed. Only two years later Louis’s first atomic clock was running, Caesium I, designed by the UK scientists. Development in the United States had all but stopped due to political difficulties.

Louis continued to work on his atomic clock and by 1964 he had managed to increase the accuracy of the atomic clock from one second in 300 years to one second every 2000 years! The continued success of Louis’s work resulted in the definition of a second being changed from 1/864000 of a mean solar day to being calculated as the time it took for 9192631770 cycles of the radiation in an atomic clock.

Louis Essen died in 1997 and before his death had been honoured with, amongst others, an OBE and the Tompion Gold Medal of the Clockmakers’ Company.

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Tiwanaku Alien and Evolution

Posted by Simon on May 18, 2010 under It Is Believable, Really interesting! | Be the First to Comment

It was mentioned on a biology blog that archaeological engravings from the Tiwanaku civilization in Bolivia are unlikely to be depicting an ancient astronaut for the reason that, even with an aquatic tail, the creature still looks too much like a human. The underlying argument was that the evolution of life forms is so diverse that it is highly unlikely an alien would come out looking even remotely like us. In essence, this is the opposite side of the pendulum to Hollywood’s consistent imaging of aliens as humanoids.

The biologist ignored the decorative and symbolic imagery added by the Tiwanaku artists and did not consider the given premise of an aquatic alien inside helmeted spacesuit. I have to assume, therefore, the biologist noted that the creature had two arms and two eyes, and since humans have two arms and two eyes, the biologist concluded that this cannot be an alien.

What should intelligent aliens look like? Or, to phrase it another way, what should we expect interstellar travelers who come here to look like? This is not a complete unknown. If the aliens are capable of interstellar travel, they obviously achieved higher technology. What is necessary to achieve technology? My opinion on this is that to achieve technology, a life form would need a complex brain and the ability to see and manipulate objects. This implies eyes, fingered appendages, and perhaps a head relatively large compared to overall body size. The Tiwanaku alien has all these features.

This picture is of the Wahkena Falls off the Clomumbia River in Oregon Taken 2010-05-14
Wahkena Falls off the Columbia River in Oregon  http://www.iz4vr.com

The biologist might counter that the issue is not that aliens have eyes, but the number of eyes. Here on Earth, higher animal forms evolved with two eyes. For example, mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects all have two eyes, but on another planet the number of eyes would be different. There, perhaps, the life forms would randomly have one, three, four, or even ten eyes. Is that true? Is the number of eyes a random event in the evolutionary process?

Astronomers searching for extraterrestrial intelligence are looking for planets similar to Earth regarding temperature and chemical composition because they know life evolved here, so it is logical to assume that life might also evolve on other similar planets. Likewise, with similar planetary history, we might expect the evolutionary process on those other planets to progress similarly to how it progressed here.

Question: Was the evolution of animal life with two eyes on Earth a random event, so much so that we should expect extraterrestrial life to have a different number of eyes? I think not. Why? It is called natural selection or survival of the fittest. Two eyes are the minimum required to give depth perception and concentrated focus. Perhaps early on Earth there were animals with five or ten eyes, but with a brain too small to orientate five directions, such species quickly became extinct. Only two eyes survived. Should we expect something radically different on another Earth-like planet? No. It is reasonable to expect intelligent aliens to have two eyes, just like humans.

It is also reasonable to expect alien life forms to be imaginable from the diversity of life forms we see on Earth, past and present. The Tiwanaku alien has features similar to a fish (fish mouth that seems to be breathing inside a water-filled helmet), features similar to a lobster (sea creature with two forward appendages for manipulating objects), and features similar to humans (large head and fingered upper appendages). Only four fingers are depicted in the Tiwanaku drawings, versus our five, but this easily falls within evolutionary feasibility. The alien’s three-pod aquatic tail is also an imaginable evolutionary development.

This picture at the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum in Hood River Oregon Taken 2010-05-14
Airplane WAAAM Hood River Oregon  http://www.iz4vr.com

I think the biologist’s appreciation for the potentially enormous diversity of life forms in the universe is admirable. For those life forms that develop higher technology, however, it is likely, not unlikely, that they will have something in common with humans.

This article referred to Bella Online Biology comments on the Tiwanaku Alien pages of the CrypticThinking.com website.

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Hang Time – Your Computer Crapping Out

Posted by Simon on May 13, 2010 under It Is Believable, Really interesting!, What could be more fun? | Read the First Comment

You may have experienced having your computer intermittently hangs-up, or may re-boot itself for no apparent reason. It is almost like a 3 point basketball shot as the buzzer; it’s going, and going and going then it hits the rim and it is all crapped out like your computer freezing up. This can be annoying, and can mean you have lost valuable work that you we in the process of creating.

If this has happened once, then your chances of explaining the cause are remote in the extreme. If you find it happening regularly, then it is clearly in your interest to find and fix the problem.
There are a few things you can check for yourself that may save you a trip to the repair shop.
With most modern computers, the system comes with built in circuitry to monitor the state of the computer. One of the checks built into your system is to test the operating temperature. The computer may shut down if this moves outside the desirable operating range.

For your system to run at the correct operating temperature it is important that air circulates freely in and around the case. If you have the computer case installed inside an enclosure, then this may be the first thing to consider changing. Similarly, I have seen computers covered with books, manuals and paper documents. These again can hinder air circulation, and these items should be removed. Take a look at the slotted vents in the sides of the case. These slots can become blocked by an accumulation of dust. Because the computer is usually always drawing some power, it has a constant electrostatic charge. A computer is second only to a vacuum cleaner in its ability to suck in dust and fluff.

Let’s take a moment for a pretty picture.
This picture was shot 2010-05-13 at Hood River of the Columbia River Bridge.
Columbia River http://www.kvmaudio.com
We will now continue with the blog. Like the picture?

Taking the cover of the case will also show the dust build-up inside the computer. Be careful removing dust accumulations from internal components. This is probably best done with a soft artist’s brush or an aerosol can of compressed air.

Next, take a look at the internal cooling fans. Modern computer usually have a cooling fan perched on top of the processor. This fan should be clear of dust, and running freely, without obvious scraping noises, when the computer is operating. It is OK to start the computer with the case cover removed, just be careful not to poke things into the various components.

There will also be a cooling fan inside or attached to the power supply. This again should be free of dust and running freely. Some computers may also have an additional case fan. This will be screwed on over one of the slotted case vents, and typically be running from a cable connected to the mother board. Not all machines have a separate case fan, but if it is there, it is there for a reason. Apply the same checks to this fan.

If you have identified faults with your cooling fans, this may require a trip to your local repair shop. The repair technician may also suggest that the CPU heat sink be removed and re-placed with fresh heat transfer compound, which is a straightforward job for an experienced repairer.

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Video game industry has another bad month (source: Mercury News)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

twolverton@mercurynews.comRetail sales of video games plunged in April, marking the third time in the first four months of this year that sales have fallen from year-ago levels. (source: Mercury News) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

So What is The Story of Popcorn?

Posted by Simon on May 12, 2010 under Really interesting!, What could be more fun? | 8 Comments to Read

Corn pollen more than 80,000 years old was found in Mexico. Proper popcorn was known in China, Sumatra, and India for at least 5000 years. Popped popcorn and kernels 5600 years old were discovered in the “Bat Cave” in New Mexico in 1948-1950. Popcorn kernels – ready to pop – were unearthed in ancient Peruvian tombs. In a cave is southern Utah, fluffy, fresh looking, white popcorn was dated to 1000 years ago.
Let’s Take a moment from this blog and look at a pretty

This picture was taken of Mt. Hood from Timberline Ski Area outside Portland Oregon on 2010-05-12
Mt Hood http://www.fs9simblog.com

Now back to the Blog.

Popcorn was used by the Aztecs and Indians as a decorative motif in headdresses, necklaces, and ornaments on statues of divinities. In the 16th century, both Hernando Cortes (in Mexico) and Christopher Columbus (in the West Indies) described these unusual uses of the snack. Father Bernardino de Sahagun (1499-1590), a Franciscan priest with deep interest in Mexican culture, described a ritual in honor of the Aztec gods of fisheries:

“They scattered before him parched corn, called momochitl, a kind of corn which bursts when parched and discloses its contents and makes itself look like a very white flower; they said these were hailstones given to the god of water.”

French explorers in the early 17th century reported that the Iroquois Indians in the Great Lakes region drank popcorn beer and ate popcorn soup. In either 1621, or in 1630, popcorn was brought as a gift by the Indian Quadequina, brother of Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag tribe, to the colonists in Plymouth, Massachusetts at their first Thanksgiving dinner in the new land.

This may be an apocryphal story but, in any case, it would not have been popcorn as we know it today. An oiled ear was held on a stick over an open fire and the popped kernels would be chewed off. Popcorn later served as a morning cereal, eaten with cream or milk. The colonists called it “popped corn”, “parching corn”, or “rice corn”.

Most of the world’s popcorn (“prairie gold”) is produced in Nebraska, Iowa and Indiana, in the United States. The kernel is a seed containing a plant embryo and its soft, starchy food. The seed is protected by a hard shell. Heating the kernel converts water held in the seed into pressurized steam which causes the kernel to pop and the starch to expand to 40 times its original size.

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Apple: Google Phones Not Outselling iPhone (source: Forbes)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 11, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Apple comments on a new report that says Android phones are ahead. (source: Forbes) -

Water Falls Http://www.nomisdice.com

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Wi-Fi Gets Faster (source: Forbes)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 10, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Blu-ray DVD players will be able to send pictures directly to LCD TVs. (source: Forbes) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

Fast Forward: There shouldn’t be just one template for tablet success (source: Washington Post)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 9, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Maybe Bill Gates was right all along about tablet computing. tablet - IPad - Programming - Languages - Apple (source: Washington Post) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

The Defensive Patent License makes patents less evil for open source (source: Internetnews)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 8, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Network World: "Two law professors from UC Berkeley have come up with a novel idea to protect open source developers from patent bullies. They call it the Defensive Patent License. They hope the DPL can address the objections FOSS developers have with pate... (source: Internetnews) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 & CentOS 3 end-of-life announced (source: Internetnews)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 7, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

The H Open: "Red Hat has published a reminder that version 3 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) reaches its end-of-life (EOL) date on the 31st of October, 2010." (source: Internetnews) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

The People Who Support Linux (source: Internetnews)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 6, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Linux.com: "The Linux Foundation's individual members help to support the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and other important activities that advance Linux, while getting a variety of other fun and valuable benefits. The series begins with Matthew Fer... (source: Internetnews) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

Opera betas 10.5 for Linux and FreeBSD (source: Internetnews)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 5, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

The Register: "Opera 10.53 beta for Linux and FreeBSD is the first Unix beta of Evenes, the browser built atop the company's new Carakan JavaScript engine." (source: Internetnews) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

The other Ubuntu Linux distributions (source: Internetnews)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 4, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Cyber Cynic: "I like the brand spanking new Ubuntu 10.04 a lot. But while I like its GNOME 2.30 interface, I also like other interfaces such as KDE. It would be nice if Ubuntu could also play MP3s, common video formats and Flash from the get-go." (source: Internetnews) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

Apple celebrates big iPad sales but may face anti-trust probe (source: Mercury News)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 3, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Consumer complaints, legal threat temper mood (source: Mercury News) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

Magid: Facebook, U.K. skirmish over cyberbullying (source: Mercury News)

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The dispute seems silly at first glance, but it represents a very important philosophical dispute on how to best protect kids from online abuse. (source: Mercury News) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

AMD Unleashes Six-Core Desktop CPU (source: Linux Today)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on May 1, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Hardware Central: "AMD today announced the availability of a new six-core desktop processor and platform to accompany it, which includes a new chipset and support for hobbyists who like to tweak their processors to the limits of their heat sink and warrant... (source: Linux Today) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

Apple’s New Ally: Microsoft (source: Forbes)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 30, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

The software giant agrees with Steve Jobs' criticisms of Adobe Flash. (source: Forbes) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

Making Computers Human (source: Forbes)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 29, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Asus Chairman Jonney Shih discusses the evolution of the Eee PC and what's next. (source: Forbes) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

Tech review: Zeo is a useful but pricey sleep monitor (source: Mercury News)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 28, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Associated Press RICHMOND, Va. — If I didn't already have a reason to look forward to Friday nights, I do now. (source: Mercury News) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

New Nvidia Video Driver for Linux Supports X Server 1.8 (source: Linux Today)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 27, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Softpedia: "Nvidia announced a few days ago, on its forum, a new version of its proprietary driver for the Nvidia graphics cards. Nvidia 195.36.24 adds support for new GPUs, and fixes a few issues. But the most important thing is that Nvidia 195.36.24 has ... (source: Linux Today) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

Windows Malware: The Final Straw That Broke the Penguin’s Back (source: Linux Today)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 26, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Tech Broiler: "It was simply a matter of time before Linux became my primary operating system. My most recent malware incident was the final straw that sent me into welcoming and safe haven of Ubuntu" (source: Linux Today) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

Remote Control Your Linux Desktop Using the iPhone (source: Internetnews)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 25, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Tech Source: "Did you know that you can remotely control your Linux desktop over a local network using the iPhone?" (source: Internetnews) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

Lighting Your Videos (source: About)

Posted by technology / digital video news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 24, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

I just purchased a new lighting kit to replace my older lights, which have been beaten and bruised over the years. A lot of video projects that I work on don't actually require video lights.  Often, I can just rely on available or natural light, which mak... (source: About) - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

Google to introduce more smartphones (source: Mercury News)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 23, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

The Nexus One was the first Google-branded phone. Despite reportedly poor sales, it won't be the last. (source: Mercury News) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and RSS Feed on Feedzilla.com

Uncovering Eco-Friendly Apps (source: Forbes)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 22, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

There are plenty of eco-friendly apps for the iPhone and now a few more for Android. (source: Forbes) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

Multitouch Trackpad Gestures coming to Linux (source: Linux Today)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 21, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

IT World: "Synaptics announced today the extension of its Gesture Suite to several Linux operating systems, which means that you can now zoom, flick, rotate, and ChiralScroll to your heart's content on your Linux box." (source: Linux Today) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

Firefox 3.6.4 Lorentz Goes Beta (source: WinPlanet)

Posted by technology / software windows news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 20, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

The first beta release of Firefox 3.6.4 is out with a new feature Chrome users are already familiar with. (source: WinPlanet) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

Half of iPad users have Windows device in home, research finds (source: Network World)

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A little more than half of all iPad user have a Windows computer at home, according to a sampling of nearly 75,000 of the tablet computers studied by online advertising network Chitika. (source: Network World) - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

The viability of open source forking (source: Linux Today)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 18, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

InfoWorld: "Source code availability is a central factor in establishing trust in the open source community, as knowledge that the source is available can often allay fears about the future of a particular open source project or product. And yet, this trus... (source: Linux Today) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

Help File: Using an alternate Gmail return address in a smartphone’s mail program (source: Washington Post)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 17, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Q: How do I use a different return address for my Gmail account on my phone? Its e-mail program won't let me add one. Gmail - Shopping - Labels - Email - File Management (source: Washington Post) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

For now, there’s little to do about a bad Internet provider (source: Washington Post)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 16, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

If your Internet provider jerks you around and slows you down, what are you going to do about it? Business and Economy - Computers and Internet - Access Providers - United States - Oceania (source: Washington Post) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS and News widget on Feedzilla.com

Hands-On with DXG’s 3D Pocket Camcorder (source: ziffdavis.com)

Posted by technology / digital video news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

In July DXG will release a 3D camcorder and 3D digital picture frame for just $600. We take a look. (source: ziffdavis.com) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Feed widget on Feedzilla.com

Google Sees Fake AV Threat (source: Information Week)

Posted by technology / software windows news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 14, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Not only is fake anti-virus software increasingly common, but it delivers half of the malicious ads detected. (source: Information Week) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS feeds and Feed widget on Feedzilla.com

April Patch Tuesday Tackles Five Critical Flaws (source: WinPlanet)

Posted by technology / software windows news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 13, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Another Patch Tuesday from Microsoft, another busy day for IT administrators. April's patch batch includes 11 total fixes, five deemed "critical" in severity. (source: WinPlanet) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

Ncat: The Network Swiss Army Knife (source: Internetnews)

Posted by technology / software linux news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 12, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Linux.com: "In the right hands, ncat can be an extremely useful tool for system administration and troubleshooting." (source: Internetnews) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

FAST FORWARD Rob Pegoraro (source: Washington Post)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 11, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

United States - Rob Pegoraro - US House - South Carolina - Politics (source: Washington Post) - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

HP Jumps Back Into the Camera Business (source: ziffdavis.com)

Posted by technology / digital video news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

HP has not introduced new digital cameras since 2007, but after spending some time with their 2010 lineup of cameras and a pocket HD camcorder, it appears that their most compelling feature is the price point. (source: ziffdavis.com) - RSS and News widget on Feedzilla.com

Wolverton: You’ve got iPad questions. I’ve got answers (source: Mercury News)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 9, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Despite the publicity blitz, consumers have plenty of questions about the new gadget. They want to know just what it does and why they'd want one. (source: Mercury News) - RSS and News widget on Feedzilla.com

HP’s New Energy-Efficient Chip Tech (source: Forbes)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

New chip technology stores memory and stacks three-dimensionally, just like a brain synapse. (source: Forbes) - RSS widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

How To Beat Online Shopping Scams (source: Forbes)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 8, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Shakedowns and cons run rampant on the Web. Here's how you can protect yourself. (source: Forbes) - RSS feeds and Feed widget on Feedzilla.com

Enterprises May Snub iPad-Style PCs (source: Information Week)

Posted by technology / software windows news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 7, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

With employees already proficient in mouse-and-keyboard setups, touch-enabled computers aren't likely to make corporate inroads any time soon, study says. (source: Information Week) - RSS feeds and Feed widget on Feedzilla.com

Sourcing The Milk You Drink (source: Forbes)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 6, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

A site called "Where is my milk from?" tells you where your milk originated. (source: Forbes) - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

Best Buy to Start Selling Nook; Google Tablet Update (source: About)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 3, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Best Buy's apparently not content with resting on its laurels from its iPad retail deal with Apple. The retail electronics giant just added a popular eReader to its trophy case, announcing a deal to sell Barnes & Noble's Nook starting April 18. The d... (source: About) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

Sony Swarovski Frame Plus iPad Jailbreak and Airport Screening Update (source: About)

Posted by technology / personal technology news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on April 1, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

Ooh, shiny... With all the slate tablet overload lately (cough* iPad* cough*), I figured it would be good to throw in something different for a change of pace. So I went ahead and did a writeup of the Sony Swarovski DPF-D72N digital picture frame. What exa... (source: About) - Share on Twitter - Share on Facebook - RSS news feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com

The Interesting Eagle Nebula

Posted by Simon on March 14, 2010 under It Is Believable, Really interesting! | Read the First Comment

          
          

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The Eagle Nebula, associated with open star cluster M16 of the Milky Way, was named for its dramatic similarity to the appearance of an eagle. Located 7000 light years from Earth, it is a component of the constellation Serpens (for Serpent). It was discovered in 1746 by P.L. de Cheseaux but it was not until twenty years later that the famous astronomer Charles Messier discovered it nebulosity. Not naked to the naked eye, it can be seen under the power of a low-to-moderate power telescope.

The Eagle Nebula is what is categorized as an emission nebula. An emission nebula is created when electrons are stripped away from molecules through the process of ionization and then recombine with protons emitting quanta of light. Usually the photons emitted lie in the red end of the spectrum creating a red-looking nebula. This is largely true for the Eagle Nebula with much of its glory being due to a brilliant display of red colors in addition to blue and white light. The Eagle Nebula is a heavenly wonder.

The source of the ionization in emission nebula is energetic ultraviolet light created from hot stars shining on a cloud of hydrogen gas. In the case of the Eagle Nebula, the ultraviolet energy comes from the blue and white stars of the M16 cluster. These stars are interesting in that they are only approximately two million years old compared with our own sun’s age of four billion year. However, they are considerably heavier which is responsible for the shortening their lifetime to the order of a few million years.

The resemblance of an eagle is due to the presence of three tall dark pillars of EGG’s, or evaporating gas globules. EGG’s are composed of hydrogen gas and dust and are so dense that their constituents actually condense under the force of gravity to form new stars. These pillars are light years in length. The dust referred to absorbs much of the pillars’ light, giving it a dark appearance. These dust particles are not like ordinary household dust due to being both microscopic and asymmetrical in shape. Very little is known about them, as they have never been viewed first hand. However this interstellar dust makes up a large component of the universe.

Although somewhat complicated, the scientific origin of the Eagle Nebula is both rich and fascinating. The nebula itself is breathtaking, and any chance to view it should be undertaken if at all possible. There are many different types of classifications of nebulas with as many different visible manifestations as the number of identifiable nebulas themselves. Many beautiful images of the Eagle Nebula have been captured by the Hubble telescope, and like all images of nebulas are wonders of nature.

1) Bill Schoening/NOAO/AURA/NSF

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and, Good Day!

    
             
   


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Understanding the Scientific Method

Posted by Simon on March 7, 2010 under Free eBooks, Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Read the First Comment

          
          

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Understanding the scientific method and how to follow it is critical to building a good reputation in the technical community. In regards to science fairs, as a student progresses in grade levels the judges are going to demand more and more focus on using the scientific method.

Here is my seven step description of the scientific method.

1. Define the question 2. Gather information and resources 3. Form hypothesis 4. Perform experiment and collect data 5. Analyze data 6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses 7. Publish results

In science fair competitions, if you can show that you are following the scientific method, you are well on your way to impressing the judges.

Basically, start out by defining your question and topic. After that, form a hypothesis and perform your experiments. Step 6 is where you use that data to make any new hypotheses or theories about your science topic. If you want, you can take that new hypothesis you just developed and start again from step 3, then move your way back to 6. Follow this cycle as much as you want. The more focused your information and experiments the better.

Would you like an example to clarify how to use the scientific method?

Imagine you are doing your project on “Hot water” and we are going to follow the scientific method steps.

1. Define your question.

How about something silly, like “Will boiling water burn a person’s hand?”

2. Find lots of information about hot water and learn everything you can about it.

3. Now form a hypothesis based on your research. Our hypothesis is, “A person will not suffer any burns due to contact with boiling water.” Hopefully you are smart enough to know this isn’t true, but let’s pretend we aren’t just for the sake of the example.

4. Now we do perform our experiements. In real life we know we will burn ourselves with boiling water, and we should never touch it! But, suppose the experimenter has no idea. They run tests to see if contact with boiling water burns a person. BAD IDEA!

5. Now look at your data. Probably everyone in the experiments burned their skin during the tests. Looks like boiling water does cause burns! DUH!

6. Interpret the data. Hmm…our hypothesis was completely wrong. Our experiments showed that boiling water can cause burns.

7. Publish your results. I certainly hope you never make a project just like this, but here’s your chance to show the world what happens when you touch boiling water!

Keep in mind, don’t change your hypothesis because your final data did not agree with it. You don’t get more credit for having a correct hypothesis. You get credit for following the scientific method and coming to a correct conclusion based on your data.

Don’t forget to include possible reasons for experimental error.

If you follow these steps your project or experiment will make sense to anyone who views it and you have a good chance of succeeding!

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and, Good Day!

    
             
   


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Computer Security – In Today’s Society, Protecting Your Computer Is A Requirement

Posted by Simon on February 28, 2010 under Free eBooks, Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | 5 Comments to Read

          
          

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Advances in computer technology is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it affords us quick and easy access to numerous conveniences such as bank statements, favorite shopping centers, school and health records, and more. On the other hand, it can also grant the same access to those who aren’t supposed to get it. Although it’s a rare occurrence, hacking has become the biggest criminal nuisance in computer history.

Make no bones about it. There’s nothing innocent or cute about the hacker. Today’s hackers aren’t the pimply-faced teen rebels that you might be thinking of. Instead, this generation of hackers are grown individuals who are more than likely earning a living by stealing the identities of innocent, law abiding individuals and then selling those identities to others who want to slip by the system. And the only protection against these seedy people is prevention.

Computer security couldn’t be more important than it is today and that’s why we’ve taken the time to introduce it to you. You can reduce the probability of experiencing identity theft by making your computer as hacker-proof as possible. All that’s needed is a little software and a lot of common sense.

1. Install an anti-virus/anti-spyware program. Anti-virus/anti-spyware software will stop malicious code from downloading and installing onto your computer while you peruse the Internet. Known as viruses, worms, or spyware, this malicious code can destroy important files and render your computer good for only one thing: sending sensitive data back to the server of an identity thief.

2. Don’t store sensitive data on your computer in the first place. Should your computer get infected with a virus, worm, or piece of spyware, you can thwart the individuals responsible by not storing your personal information on your PC so that when and if your computer does send back data – it won’t be anything valuable. Hackers look for things like full names, social security numbers, phone numbers, home addresses, work-related information, and credit card numbers. If these things aren’t saved onto a computer, there’s nothing critical to worry about other than restoring your computer to a non-virus condition.

3. Don’t open files without scanning them with an anti-virus/anti-spyware program. In the past, the warning was to avoid opening files from people that you don’t know. Today it’s really not safe to open files from anyone (without scanning the files) because that’s how viruses get spread – through files – even by mistake. So even though your co-worker may have emailed a funny video, it’s no more safe to open than a video downloaded from a complete stranger. Be safe and scan each and every file you download from the Internet or receive through email regardless of where it came from.

4. Create a barrier between your computer and prying eyes. Anti-virus/anti-spyware programs are only effective after the effect. But you can prevent identity theft from occurring by installing a firewall. A firewall is software that checks all data entering and exiting a computer and it then blocks that which doesn’t meet specified security criteria (user-defined rules).1

5. Don’t click on website links in spam messages. In an effort to obtain personal information, some spammers will send email that asks you to click on a link. The email messages are often disguised as important messages from well-known online establishments, and they often try to scare their readers into clicking links with threats of closing an account of some sort. Sometimes the links are harmless and attempt to con the reader into volunteering personal information (credit card number), but other times the links attempt to download harmful software onto a computer.

Your best protection against computer crimes is your own knowledge. Hopefully the suggestions above will prompt you into taking appropriate action and into protecting your computer with the suggested tools. In doing so, you’ll not only protect yourself, you’ll prevent the spread of these malicious activities and protect others at the same time.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and, Good Day!

    
             
   


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Why You Shouldn’t Try Data Recovery Yourself

Posted by Simon on February 20, 2010 under Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Really interesting! | Be the First to Comment

          
          

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In the world of computers, data recovery is something we all know and rely on to recover lost of missing data. The process of data recovery is very complicated, one that you should never attempt to do yourself. Hard drives especially, are very fragile and need extra special care when they are worked on. You have to be careful with the small components inside of them, which is why only a trained specialist should be attempting data recovery.

When you first take your hard drive to a specialist, they will perform an evaluation then get back to you and tell you the problem, as well as the cost. When most people get their price quote, they immediately think the price is too high. As this happens, the individual will decide to try their own data recovery. This isn’t the smartest idea, as it normally results in your data being lost forever. In most cases, where individuals attempt data recovery themselves, the data is so far gone that even the best data recovery specialist can’t bring it back.

When the hard drive crashes and data cannot be accessed, most people will think about using a disk repair utility. This isn’t a good idea, as the software will normally write to the disk, causing the data that is currently stored to be overwritten. These types of software programs can be very complex, and in most cases, won’t fix the problem. They should be avoided at all costs, for the simple fact that they won’t bring back your data – they will only make things worse.

Another common mistake people make, that should never be attempted, is to open up the hard drive and try to rebuilt it. Hard drives are full of very delicate components, many of which are very small, and very fragile. The platters are the most sensitive inside of the hard drive, as they are small and contain a layer of magnetized material. This material is very fragile, and sensitive to debris, dust, and especially your fingerprints.

If you don’t know how to handle the platters, you can easily scratch their surface, which could indeed damage them forever. There is a spindle inside of the drive, which constantly moves the platters. A motor is there as well, which determines the speed that the platters revolve. The platters store data for the entire drive, which is accessed by an actuator arm. When the hard drive is in operation, the platters and the actuator arm move at very fast speeds, which is why everything has to be perfect.

If you go to tamper with the drive and attempt to rebuild it yourself, you’ll more than likely damage something. The technicians that work with data recovery on a daily basis are experts with hard drives, and know exactly how to handle the devices. They know how to handle the platters, the actuator arm, and how to put everything back in a complete working fashion.

Some people out there have been told that hitting or even dropping a hard drive can fix common hardware problems. This is not the case, as hard drives can easily break if they physically abused in any way. The interior components are very fragile and do not react well at all to any type of abuse or physical mistreating.

Whenever something happens to your hard drive and you lose your data, you should always leave it to the data recovery experts. Companies who specialize in data recovery can recover your data, and do it the right way – which can save you time and money in the long run.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and, Good Day!

    
             
   


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Underwater Digital Camera: Capturing Moments Underwater

Posted by Simon on February 11, 2010 under It Is Believable, Really interesting! | Read the First Comment

          
          

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Memories are created just about anywhere. And when I say anywhere, I mean that memories are even created underwater – so the creation of underwater digital camera.

An underwater digital camera is not just used to capture underwater memories; some professional marine photographers also use underwater digital cameras in their business. Even marine biologists and scientists use underwater digital cameras to capture marine life and thus be able to study the life and properties of the marine life. But I think it is safe to assume that you, my reader, are neither a marine scientist nor a professional photographer. Like me, you are just some photo junkie who wants to capture underwater moments and just cant figure out how without ruining your cameras.

Please listen to me when I say that even waterproof cameras cannot withstand underwater photography. To be waterproof is to resist the water in certain levels, submerging in under the water to get the perfect shot is like throwing it out of the window expecting a pick-up truck to pass by and run over it.

Now if you’re really serious about using an underwater digital camera to capture those wacky and funny moments underwater, I suggest that you buy specialty cameras.

There are rarely underwater digital cameras, as cameras are electronic and cannot withstand water and water pressure. The closest electronics has ever got to producing underwater digital cameras are producing underwater casings for digital cameras. These casing will turn your conventional digital camera into an underwater digital camera.

If you are shooting with your underwater digital camera, you need to take note of a few things to help you come up with the best images underwater.

Remember that as you farther under water, light diffuses. This means that your underwater digital camera will produce images darker than those images you took while on land – this is because of the light diffusion the red spectrum seems darker. To avoid this, use white balance come up with natural colors. Also, pictures taken underwater will come up larger than pictures taken on land with the same zoom effect. Be sure to check your underwater digital camera’s viewfinder to check the right picture angle and size that you want.

An underwater digital camera with its built-in flash will produce marine show phenomenon. It is a phenomenon wherein your pictures come out as blurry and with white particles floating above it, to avoid this phenomenon it is advisable to use external flash for your underwater digital camera.

Before using your underwater digital camera, submerge the camera in the water first for several seconds then check if there are leaks through the case. Make sure that no grain of sand or piece of hair is stuck in between the seal to make sure that water will not permeate the case and thus wet your camera in the process. It is also advisable to put silica gel or two inside the case of your underwater digital camera as long as they don’t disturb the camera’s operation. (Silica gel will keep the moisture from forming inside your camera case.)

Most underwater digital cameras come with optional lenses. Don’t be afraid to add these lenses to your underwater digital camera kit. Macro lenses will help you capture small things without getting too close and startling your subject.

Also, remember to always wash of salt when you’ve used it under salt water. If the salts are not washed off, in time they will crystallize; act as sands and cause leaks for your camera case. In cases when sands seem to get into the case, they are better washed off with streams of water.

Check out Sony, Nikon and Canon’s website for available underwater cases for your digital cameras.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and, Good Day!

    
             
   


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FAQs on VoIP Revealed

Posted by Simon on February 10, 2010 under I am Reall Poor!, Really interesting!, You should Try this | Be the First to Comment

          
          

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As a newbie, it is totally expected that you will be asking a couple of questions. By surfing through the Internet, you will come across several websites that host tons of information regarding this service. For a clearer understanding, you may take a look at the pertinent FAQs on VoIP that this article tackles.
 
What are the possible methods that will let me connect to any of the VoIP service providers?
 
There are three known methods, so to speak. Take a look at the following details.
 
The analog telephone adapter or ATA can be connected between that of an IP network plus the telephone jack. This is then placed in one specific location and is available for a very cheap price rate.
 
The VoIP phones are those that allow the placing of VoIP calls even in the absence of a computer system. Rather, they are connected directly to an IP network by means of Ethernet or WiFi. As always, the service is made accessible by a paid service plan.
 
The softphone is likewise called the Digital Phone or Internet Phone and is the software that has to be installed onto the computer for the placing of VoIP calls. One of its advantages is that of obtaining one fixed phone number which you may use wherever you go. The same number is retained even when you go out of the country or you transfer to another location.
 
How does VoIP work?
 
This phone service converts the voice into some digital signals that are made to travel through the web. If you dial a regular telephone number, then the respective signal gets transmitted. With VoIP, you may directly call a computer, a regular landline phone, or a VoIP phone. In places wherein there is the so-called wireless hot spot, you may gain the wireless access to your VoIP service too.
 
What types of equipment must I prepare?
 
All that you need to prepare is a reliable broadband Internet connection that will endow you with clear voice communication, a computer system, special phone, an adaptor, the software, a speaker, and a microphone.
 
What special features are included in placing local and long distance calls?
 
If you are lucky enough, you may spot the free VoIP service providers. In this case, it always happens that the provider may permit you to use a different area code from your actual location. The charges for long distance calls depend on the length of the call incurred. Again, depending on the terms and conditions offered by your provider, you may enjoy longer durations of long distance calls and when you place International calls you may still get the local rates.
 
What benefit will VoIP give me?
 
Traditionally, VoIP will let you save much on your monthly phone bills. Instead of procuring other extension lines, you may simply sign up for a VoIP phone service and let the calls get forwarded to the respective employees’ phones.
 
What is its bad side?
 
Since nothing in this world exists with purely a good side, some of the disadvantages to watch out for include the loss of signal during power interruptions and there are some service providers that are not directly in contact with the emergency hotline.
 
Overall, VoIP is worth trying. Let these FAQs on VoIP guide you in making your decision.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and, Good Day!

    
             
   


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Life Without Sustainable Power

Posted by Simon on February 9, 2010 under Free eBooks, Really interesting! | Be the First to Comment

          
          

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generation. Test program included.

================================================
What happens when the oil prices and production costs get too high? What if our fossil fuel supply runs out? What will happen then? Actually, to fully appreciate sustainable power, these aren’t the only questions we should ask. Perhaps we should inquire: Where does 20% of our electricity supply come from? How are far off towns furnished with power? You see sustainable energy is not just for the future, it is here, it is now.

The Real Deal

The thing about sustainable energy is that it arouses debates from politicians, NGO’s, advocates and opponents all have certain grounds for saying that sustainable works or is a bad thing after all. Perhaps we should begin by defining what sustainable power is. When we say sustain it means to support, uphold, to keep from falling. So when we say sustainable power it means energy with unending resources. In the case of today sustainable energy means endless resources fro power supply without the harmful effects on the environment.

Its Not Sustainable It’s the Alternate

In all reality it is not sustainable energy that precipitates the conflict. It is the “alternate source” of energy that is the root of all things that create conflict. A lot of people argue that alternate energy resources are simply too new a resource fuelled by technology for it to be really said that it is indeed safe.

What is more, some authorized people on the matter of energy say that alternate energy resources are simply not powerful enough to cope with the demands of the world. No matter which way we argue alternate energy resources are part of sustainable power and sustainable power means we live the humans live on as a species; were not supposed to die or else it is useless for use to look for ways to improve ourselves. After all isn’t future the reason for our continued quest to be better and more environmentally aware?

Its Here, There, Everywhere

Alternate energy resources derived naturally have been employed as early as the time of the pharaohs. Today alternate energy resources are scattered all around the world. From the richest countries to the third world nations. In northwester Europe wind farms are abundant. The Philippines, New Zealand, Kenya, Iceland, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Mexico, and even the states make use of geothermal plants to supply a portion of their electricity. Hydropower so popular in the US and in china are used to generate enough electricity to power small towns and help power the enormous electrical consumption of a city like Las Vegas.

Its Now and It Can’t Be Denied

If you think that earth is already polluted and in peril, then imagine what if thousands of years ago our ancestors all used fossil fuels and burned coals for every energy need they have? History says that with every development and discovery man makes, the earth gets polluted every day. So there must have been that one thing that slowed it down a bit.

Remember the great smog of London where over 8,000 people died? Well that happened because they were experiencing unusually cold weather so they in turn consumed and lit up more coals, thereby fogging the air with smog. If alternate energy resources were never used we wouldn’t even be here today. So be thankful and be a supporter not only in words but in action as well.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and, Good Day!

    
             
   


Check It Out!

The Fourth Law (of Robotics)

Posted by Simon on February 7, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Be the First to Comment

The movie “I, Robot” is a muddled affair. It relies on shoddy pseudo-science and a general sense of unease that artificial (non-carbon based) intelligent life forms seem to provoke in us. But it goes no deeper than a comic book treatment of the important themes that it broaches. I, Robot is just another – and relatively inferior – entry is a long line of far better movies, such as “Blade Runner” and “Artificial Intelligence”.

Sigmund Freud said that we have an uncanny reaction to the inanimate. This is probably because we know that – pretensions and layers of philosophizing aside – we are nothing but recursive, self aware, introspective, conscious machines. Special machines, no doubt, but machines all the same.

Consider the James bond movies. They constitute a decades-spanning gallery of human paranoia. Villains change: communists, neo-Nazis, media moguls. But one kind of villain is a fixture in this psychodrama, in this parade of human phobias: the machine. James Bond always finds himself confronted with hideous, vicious, malicious machines and automata.

It was precisely to counter this wave of unease, even terror, irrational but all-pervasive, that Isaac Asimov, the late Sci-fi writer (and scientist) invented the Three Laws of Robotics:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Many have noticed the lack of consistency and, therefore, the inapplicability of these laws when considered together.

First, they are not derived from any coherent worldview or background. To be properly implemented and to avoid their interpretation in a potentially dangerous manner, the robots in which they are embedded must be equipped with reasonably comprehensive models of the physical universe and of human society.

Without such contexts, these laws soon lead to intractable paradoxes (experienced as a nervous breakdown by one of Asimov’s robots). Conflicts are ruinous in automata based on recursive functions (Turing machines), as all robots are. Godel pointed at one such self destructive paradox in the “Principia Mathematica”, ostensibly a comprehensive and self consistent logical system. It was enough to discredit the whole magnificent edifice constructed by Russel and Whitehead over a decade.

Some argue against this and say that robots need not be automata in the classical, Church-Turing, sense. That they could act according to heuristic, probabilistic rules of decision making. There are many other types of functions (non-recursive) that can be incorporated in a robot, they remind us.

True, but then, how can one guarantee that the robot’s behavior is fully predictable ? How can one be certain that robots will fully and always implement the three laws? Only recursive systems are predictable in principle, though, at times, their complexity makes it impossible.

This article deals with some commonsense, basic problems raised by the Laws. The next article in this series analyses the Laws from a few vantage points: philosophy, artificial intelligence and some systems theories.

An immediate question springs to mind: HOW will a robot identify a human being? Surely, in a future of perfect androids, constructed of organic materials, no superficial, outer scanning will suffice. Structure and composition will not be sufficient differentiating factors.

There are two ways to settle this very practical issue: one is to endow the robot with the ability to conduct a Converse Turing Test (to separate humans from other life forms) – the other is to somehow “barcode” all the robots by implanting some remotely readable signaling device inside them (such as a RFID – Radio Frequency ID chip). Both present additional difficulties.

The second solution will prevent the robot from positively identifying humans. He will be able identify with any certainty robots and only robots (or humans with such implants). This is ignoring, for discussion’s sake, defects in manufacturing or loss of the implanted identification tags. And what if a robot were to get rid of its tag? Will this also be classified as a “defect in manufacturing”?

In any case, robots will be forced to make a binary choice. They will be compelled to classify one type of physical entities as robots – and all the others as “non-robots”. Will non-robots include monkeys and parrots? Yes, unless the manufacturers equip the robots with digital or optical or molecular representations of the human figure (masculine and feminine) in varying positions (standing, sitting, lying down). Or unless all humans are somehow tagged from birth.

These are cumbersome and repulsive solutions and not very effective ones. No dictionary of human forms and positions is likely to be complete. There will always be the odd physical posture which the robot would find impossible to match to its library. A human disk thrower or swimmer may easily be classified as “non-human” by a robot – and so might amputated invalids.

What about administering a converse Turing Test?

This is even more seriously flawed. It is possible to design a test, which robots will apply to distinguish artificial life forms from humans. But it will have to be non-intrusive and not involve overt and prolonged communication. The alternative is a protracted teletype session, with the human concealed behind a curtain, after which the robot will issue its verdict: the respondent is a human or a robot. This is unthinkable.

Moreover, the application of such a test will “humanize” the robot in many important respects. Human identify other humans because they are human, too. This is called empathy. A robot will have to be somewhat human to recognize another human being, it takes one to know one, the saying (rightly) goes.

Let us assume that by some miraculous way the problem is overcome and robots unfailingly identify humans. The next question pertains to the notion of “injury” (still in the First Law). Is it limited only to physical injury (the elimination of the physical continuity of human tissues or of the normal functioning of the human body)?

Should “injury” in the First Law encompass the no less serious mental, verbal and social injuries (after all, they are all known to have physical side effects which are, at times, no less severe than direct physical “injuries”)? Is an insult an “injury”? What about being grossly impolite, or psychologically abusive? Or offending religious sensitivities, being politically incorrect – are these injuries? The bulk of human (and, therefore, inhuman) actions actually offend one human being or another, have the potential to do so, or seem to be doing so.

Consider surgery, driving a car, or investing money in the stock exchange. These “innocuous” acts may end in a coma, an accident, or ruinous financial losses, respectively. Should a robot refuse to obey human instructions which may result in injury to the instruction-givers?

Consider a mountain climber – should a robot refuse to hand him his equipment lest he falls off a cliff in an unsuccessful bid to reach the peak? Should a robot refuse to obey human commands pertaining to the crossing of busy roads or to driving (dangerous) sports cars?

Which level of risk should trigger robotic refusal and even prophylactic intervention? At which stage of the interactive man-machine collaboration should it be activated? Should a robot refuse to fetch a ladder or a rope to someone who intends to commit suicide by hanging himself (that’s an easy one)?

Should he ignore an instruction to push his master off a cliff (definitely), help him climb the cliff (less assuredly so), drive him to the cliff (maybe so), help him get into his car in order to drive him to the cliff… Where do the responsibility and obeisance bucks stop?

Whatever the answer, one thing is clear: such a robot must be equipped with more than a rudimentary sense of judgment, with the ability to appraise and analyse complex situations, to predict the future and to base his decisions on very fuzzy algorithms (no programmer can foresee all possible circumstances). To me, such a “robot” sounds much more dangerous (and humanoid) than any recursive automaton which does NOT include the famous Three Laws.

Moreover, what, exactly, constitutes “inaction”? How can we set apart inaction from failed action or, worse, from an action which failed by design, intentionally? If a human is in danger and the robot tries to save him and fails – how could we determine to what extent it exerted itself and did everything it could?

How much of the responsibility for a robot’s inaction or partial action or failed action should be imputed to the manufacturer – and how much to the robot itself? When a robot decides finally to ignore its own programming – how are we to gain information regarding this momentous event? Outside appearances can hardly be expected to help us distinguish a rebellious robot from a lackadaisical one.

The situation gets much more complicated when we consider states of conflict.

Imagine that a robot is obliged to harm one human in order to prevent him from hurting another. The Laws are absolutely inadequate in this case. The robot should either establish an empirical hierarchy of injuries – or an empirical hierarchy of humans. Should we, as humans, rely on robots or on their manufacturers (however wise, moral and compassionate) to make this selection for us? Should we abide by their judgment which injury is the more serious and warrants an intervention?

A summary of the Asimov Laws would give us the following “truth table”:

A robot must obey human commands except if:

Obeying them is likely to cause injury to a human, or
Obeying them will let a human be injured.
A robot must protect its own existence with three exceptions:

That such self-protection is injurious to a human;
That such self-protection entails inaction in the face of potential injury to a human;
That such self-protection results in robot insubordination (failing to obey human instructions).
Trying to create a truth table based on these conditions is the best way to demonstrate the problematic nature of Asimov’s idealized yet highly impractical world.

Here is an exercise:

Imagine a situation (consider the example below or one you make up) and then create a truth table based on the above five conditions. In such a truth table, “T” would stand for “compliance” and “F” for non-compliance.

Example:

A radioactivity monitoring robot malfunctions. If it self-destructs, its human operator might be injured. If it does not, its malfunction will equally seriously injure a patient dependent on his performance.

One of the possible solutions is, of course, to introduce gradations, a probability calculus, or a utility calculus. As they are phrased by Asimov, the rules and conditions are of a threshold, yes or no, take it or leave it nature. But if robots were to be instructed to maximize overall utility, many borderline cases would be resolved.

Still, even the introduction of heuristics, probability, and utility does not help us resolve the dilemma in the example above. Life is about inventing new rules on the fly, as we go, and as we encounter new challenges in a kaleidoscopically metamorphosing world. Robots with rigid instruction sets are ill suited to cope with that.

Note – Godel’s Theorems

The work of an important, though eccentric, Czech-Austrian mathematical logician, Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) dealt with the completeness and consistency of logical systems. A passing acquaintance with his two theorems would have saved the architect a lot of time.

Gödel’s First Incompleteness Theorem states that every consistent axiomatic logical system, sufficient to express arithmetic, contains true but unprovable (“not decidable”) sentences. In certain cases (when the system is omega-consistent), both said sentences and their negation are unprovable. The system is consistent and true – but not “complete” because not all its sentences can be decided as true or false by either being proved or by being refuted.

The Second Incompleteness Theorem is even more earth-shattering. It says that no consistent formal logical system can prove its own consistency. The system may be complete – but then we are unable to show, using its axioms and inference laws, that it is consistent

In other words, a computational system can either be complete and inconsistent – or consistent and incomplete. By trying to construct a system both complete and consistent, a robotics engineer would run afoul of Gödel’s theorem.

Note – Turing Machines

In 1936 an American (Alonzo Church) and a Briton (Alan M. Turing) published independently (as is often the case in science) the basics of a new branch in Mathematics (and logic): computability or recursive functions (later to be developed into Automata Theory).

The authors confined themselves to dealing with computations which involved “effective” or “mechanical” methods for finding results (which could also be expressed as solutions (values) to formulae). These methods were so called because they could, in principle, be performed by simple machines (or human-computers or human-calculators, to use Turing’s unfortunate phrases). The emphasis was on finiteness: a finite number of instructions, a finite number of symbols in each instruction, a finite number of steps to the result. This is why these methods were usable by humans without the aid of an apparatus (with the exception of pencil and paper as memory aids). Moreover: no insight or ingenuity were allowed to “interfere” or to be part of the solution seeking process.

What Church and Turing did was to construct a set of all the functions whose values could be obtained by applying effective or mechanical calculation methods. Turing went further down Church’s road and designed the “Turing Machine” – a machine which can calculate the values of all the functions whose values can be found using effective or mechanical methods. Thus, the program running the TM (=Turing Machine in the rest of this text) was really an effective or mechanical method. For the initiated readers: Church solved the decision-problem for propositional calculus and Turing proved that there is no solution to the decision problem relating to the predicate calculus. Put more simply, it is possible to “prove” the truth value (or the theorem status) of an expression in the propositional calculus – but not in the predicate calculus. Later it was shown that many functions (even in number theory itself) were not recursive, meaning that they could not be solved by a Turing Machine.

No one succeeded to prove that a function must be recursive in order to be effectively calculable. This is (as Post noted) a “working hypothesis” supported by overwhelming evidence. We don’t know of any effectively calculable function which is not recursive, by designing new TMs from existing ones we can obtain new effectively calculable functions from existing ones and TM computability stars in every attempt to understand effective calculability (or these attempts are reducible or equivalent to TM computable functions).

The Turing Machine itself, though abstract, has many “real world” features. It is a blueprint for a computing device with one “ideal” exception: its unbounded memory (the tape is infinite). Despite its hardware appearance (a read/write head which scans a two-dimensional tape inscribed with ones and zeroes, etc.) – it is really a software application, in today’s terminology. It carries out instructions, reads and writes, counts and so on. It is an automaton designed to implement an effective or mechanical method of solving functions (determining the truth value of propositions). If the transition from input to output is deterministic we have a classical automaton – if it is determined by a table of probabilities – we have a probabilistic automaton.

With time and hype, the limitations of TMs were forgotten. No one can say that the Mind is a TM because no one can prove that it is engaged in solving only recursive functions. We can say that TMs can do whatever digital computers are doing – but not that digital computers are TMs by definition. Maybe they are – maybe they are not. We do not know enough about them and about their future.

Moreover, the demand that recursive functions be computable by an UNAIDED human seems to restrict possible equivalents. Inasmuch as computers emulate human computation (Turing did believe so when he helped construct the ACE, at the time the fastest computer in the world) – they are TMs. Functions whose values are calculated by AIDED humans with the contribution of a computer are still recursive. It is when humans are aided by other kinds of instruments that we have a problem. If we use measuring devices to determine the values of a function it does not seem to conform to the definition of a recursive function. So, we can generalize and say that functions whose values are calculated by an AIDED human could be recursive, depending on the apparatus used and on the lack of ingenuity or insight (the latter being, anyhow, a weak, non-rigorous requirement which cannot be formalized).

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

The Aurora Lights

Posted by Simon on February 6, 2010 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Read the First Comment

Lights in the sky have fascinated us for thousands of years. The lights in the far north and south of our planet are some of the more famous ones.

What was in that Soup?

Travel to Antarctica or the Arctic and you’ll start thinking you are having hallucinations. During the evenings, the sky will literally glow.

In the Northern Hemisphere these lights are known as the aurora borealis. They are part of a larger light phenomenon known as aurora. In the Southern Hemisphere, these lights are known as the aurora australis or southern lights. In certain countries such as Russia, the northern lights are known as the white nights. Regardless of the hemisphere, the aurora has a uniform cause.

The aurora is the result of streams of electrons reacting to the magnetic field of the Earth. At far northern latitudes, the magnetic field is very close to the surface of the planet. Where the field penetrates the atmosphere, electrons react with gases such as oxygen and produce the effect known as the northern lights.

The aurora is undeniably beautiful. The lights appear in a variety of forms, but often combine a glow and curtain like roll. The light literally appears to slowly flow across the sky much like a sheet in the wind. The lights, however, can also appear in a curve similar to a rainbow or long lines. The specific shape is entirely dependent on how the magnetic field is interacting with the atmosphere.

On rare occasions, auroras may appear closer to the equator. This rare event is associated with massive solar events. When our sun kicks out a massive solar flare, the resulting solar radiation batters our magnetic field. This battering will actually push the field back into the atmosphere of the planet. When this happens, people around the world are given a chance to see the aurora without traveling the far north or south.

The aurora is truly an amazing thing to see. If you are compelled to experience it, Alaska and Norway are considered the best viewing locations.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Thought Control

Posted by Simon on February 5, 2010 under Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Really interesting! | Be the First to Comment

Thought control? How would you like to be able to turn on your television just by thinking? Or have the door to your house open by mind power when your hands were full? This isn’t something that will remain science fiction for long. The technology necessary to make this happen is here now.

First of all, you have basic thought control now, meaning you can control and direct your thoughts. You can imagine a friend talking in your mind, for example. Then you can choose to hear music in your imagination. If you are hooked up to an electroencephalograph when you do these things, it will also be clear that these two thoughts are handled in different parts of your brain.

This electroencephalogram, or EEG, is important, because what we can measure, we can use to do things. Think about this for a moment. Modern electronics has made it possible to easily operate things as a response to measurement. A thermostat measures the temperature, for example, and turns the heater on or off according to that measurement. Security lights turn themselves on when light levels get low.

Thought Control Devices

We can already measure and track what is going on in the brain. Is it inconceivable then, to have that measurement automatically trigger some action? For example, even before the electrical patterns of the brain were made “visible,” we measured pulse rate with many different machines. Now, what if instead of sending a signal to a monitor telling a red light to go on when the heart raced, the signal told the TV to turn on? Think of anything that gets your heart racing and the TV would turn on, right?

Call it mind power, thought control or whatever. You can see that such a device has been possible for at least a generation now. With new technology, and more detailed measurements of the actual electric patterns of the brain, how much more is possible?

Someday, an electroencephalograph type of device will be able to more directly read your mind. The technology will eventually get to the point where it can print out the actual words you are thinking. We are a long way from that, but we are right at the brink of building machines that give us thought control of the things around us.

You see, even with the crude measurements being done now, as long as we can choose what to think about, and any resulting change in the brain can be measured, the possibilities are endless. For example, we can already see the changes in the brain when a person thinks about music, versus a conversation. An existing electroencephalograph machine, using electrodes attached to your head, could be set to turn on the lights instead of producing a changing chart when you sing in your mind.

For paraplegics without speech, there’s real hope in this idea. A patterned alternating of thoughts could be used as a sort of Morse code, spelling out words on a screen. They could actually use thought control to make a message appear! At the current level of technology, this would be a tedious process, but the amazing thing is that all the necessary things to build a machine like this are here right now. It’s time for thought control!

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Tiwanaku Alien and Evolution

Posted by Simon on February 4, 2010 under It Is Believable, Really interesting! | 9 Comments to Read

It was mentioned on a biology blog that archaeological engravings from the Tiwanaku civilization in Bolivia are unlikely to be depicting an ancient astronaut for the reason that, even with an aquatic tail, the creature still looks too much like a human. The underlying argument was that the evolution of life forms is so diverse that it is highly unlikely an alien would come out looking even remotely like us. In essence, this is the opposite side of the pendulum to Hollywood’s consistent imaging of aliens as humanoids.

The biologist ignored the decorative and symbolic imagery added by the Tiwanaku artists and did not consider the given premise of an aquatic alien inside helmeted spacesuit. I have to assume, therefore, the biologist noted that the creature had two arms and two eyes, and since humans have two arms and two eyes, the biologist concluded that this cannot be an alien.

What should intelligent aliens look like? Or, to phrase it another way, what should we expect interstellar travelers who come here to look like? This is not a complete unknown. If the aliens are capable of interstellar travel, they obviously achieved higher technology. What is necessary to achieve technology? My opinion on this is that to achieve technology, a life form would need a complex brain and the ability to see and manipulate objects. This implies eyes, fingered appendages, and perhaps a head relatively large compared to overall body size. The Tiwanaku alien has all these features.

The biologist might counter that the issue is not that aliens have eyes, but the number of eyes. Here on Earth, higher animal forms evolved with two eyes. For example, mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects all have two eyes, but on another planet the number of eyes would be different. There, perhaps, the life forms would randomly have one, three, four, or even ten eyes. Is that true? Is the number of eyes a random event in the evolutionary process?

Astronomers searching for extraterrestrial intelligence are looking for planets similar to Earth regarding temperature and chemical composition because they know life evolved here, so it is logical to assume that life might also evolve on other similar planets. Likewise, with similar planetary history, we might expect the evolutionary process on those other planets to progress similarly to how it progressed here.

Question: Was the evolution of animal life with two eyes on Earth a random event, so much so that we should expect extraterrestrial life to have a different number of eyes? I think not. Why? It is called natural selection or survival of the fittest. Two eyes are the minimum required to give depth perception and concentrated focus. Perhaps early on Earth there were animals with five or ten eyes, but with a brain too small to orientate five directions, such species quickly became extinct. Only two eyes survived. Should we expect something radically different on another Earth-like planet? No. It is reasonable to expect intelligent aliens to have two eyes, just like humans.

It is also reasonable to expect alien life forms to be imaginable from the diversity of life forms we see on Earth, past and present. The Tiwanaku alien has features similar to a fish (fish mouth that seems to be breathing inside a water-filled helmet), features similar to a lobster (sea creature with two forward appendages for manipulating objects), and features similar to humans (large head and fingered upper appendages). Only four fingers are depicted in the Tiwanaku drawings, versus our five, but this easily falls within evolutionary feasibility. The alien’s three-pod aquatic tail is also an imaginable evolutionary development.

I think the biologist’s appreciation for the potentially enormous diversity of life forms in the universe is admirable. For those life forms that develop higher technology, however, it is likely, not unlikely, that they will have something in common with humans.

This article referred to Bella Online Biology comments on the Tiwanaku Alien pages of the CrypticThinking.com website.
About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Cooling Your Hard Drive

Posted by Simon on February 3, 2010 under It Is Believable, Really interesting!, You should Try this | 6 Comments to Read

For several different reasons, storage is a very important part of a computer. These days, computers do far more than they ever have in the past. From businesses to family photo’s, storage is the ideal way to keep documents on your computer. The most popular method of storage is the hard disk drive, which we all count on for keeping our data safe.

Even though the hard drive stores data, it isn’t perfect by any means. Hard drive failure is very common with all computers, with no real way to prevent it. Although there are several different reasons why a hard drive can fail, the most common is overheating. Viruses and crashes are common as well, along with theft and accidental deletion.

With the older style and mechanics of hard drives, the RPM speed was low, meaning that the drives wouldn’t overheat. The hard drives we use now days, have speeds between 7,200 and 10,000 RPM, meaning that they can get quite hot when they start working. Computers of this day and age come with fans to cool everything down, with most hard drives including temperature sensors as well, so you can keep track of just how hot your hard drive becomes.

With hard drives today, overheating is a very common problem. The faster hard drives come with speeds of 10,000 RPM, which can make the temperature soar above 70 degrees F, really heating things up inside the drive. The mechanics on the inside are built to withstand the heat, although if things become too hot, you’ll encounter problems. If a drive becomes too hot and ends up losing the data, it may be next to impossible to retrieve the information – no matter how good your data recovery specialists may be.

One area that suffers from the drive overheating is the platters, which are magnetic media. Platters are what carry the data throughout the hard drive. Platters are constructed from optical glass, aluminum, or ceramic and normally coated with a layer of magnetic material. Once the hard drive begins to heat up, the platters will start to expand, which changes their size. When this happens, the magnetic surface on the platters will get destroyed, which results in a loss of data. If the physical area of the platters are damaged, it will result in unreadable sectors.

Other areas of the hard drive that can be damaged due to overheating are the read and write heads, head actuator, and the controller chip. Hard drives are very sophisticated pieces of hardware, and can’t handle overheating. The read and write heads are a common example, as they can easily render the drive useless if they become damaged. If they get too hot, they don’t make any contact with media, which pretty much stops the flow of transfer from information to the computer.

To prevent your hard drive from overheating, you should always make sure that it is cooled properly and well ventilated. You can always get additional fans and coolers, which will improve both ventilation and the flow of air in your computer. You can buy fans and coolers at very affordable prices, which makes them an ideal investment for keeping your hard drive or hard drives cool.

You can also get software that monitors the temperature of your hard drive as well. Whether it’s software, or additional fans, you should always ensure that your hard drives are kept cool. By keeping them cool, you’ll greatly reduce the amount of crashes. You’ll also increase the stability of your hard drive as well, which will make your entire computer perform much better.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Three Versions of PocketDISH

Posted by Simon on February 2, 2010 under Really interesting!, What could be more fun? | 4 Comments to Read

PocketDish is one of the latest entertainment innovations, brought to the market by EchoStar. The devices are designed to make it convenient to access videos, music, games and photos anytime and anyplace. With three separate versions of PocketDish, it is possible to store up to 40 hours of programming, 20,000 songs, and 400,000 photos. Movies and shows can be downloaded from DISH Network DVRs or other devices and watched in the car, a waiting room, or at a friend’s house. Each device comes with a rechargeable battery that allows 4 hours of viewing time before recharging. Music and photos are also readily downloaded to give access to favorite songs and good memories at any location. With music playback only, the battery will last approximately 12 hours before needing to be refreshed. The other PocketDish feature is its gaming capability. Brain teasers, role-playing games and adventure games are all accessible in one small package.

Currently three versions of PocketDish are on the market. The AV402E is the entry-level version and offers many features. It houses a 2.2 inch LCD screen in a device that measures 4.2 in x 2.4 in x 0.7 in. The 20GB hard drive gives storage capacity of 20 hour of video, 10,000 songs, and 200,000 photos. This version does not contain a built-in DVR, so video programming must be transferred from select DISH Network DVR players. Audio and photos can, however, be transferred from any compatible source.

The AV500E is the middle version of PocketDish, offering more features than the AV402E. For roughly double the price, the 500 offers an extra 10GB of hard drive space and DVR capabilities. This device, with 30GB can store about 30 hours of video, 15,000 songs and 300,000 photos. It also has a larger LCD screen at 4 inches and a slightly larger body size. The biggest difference, though, is its ability to record shows from any TV, satellite receiver, cable box or VCR. Because it is a DVR, it can also be hooked up to a television to play any recorded shows on the larger screen.

The most advanced version is the AV700E. It has the same DVR capabilities as the 500, but includes 40GB in hard drive, allowing storage of 40 hours of video, 20,000 songs, and 400,000 photos. It also features a 7 inch screen for easier viewing. Both the AV500E and AV700E come complete with a remote control, docking station, removable battery and stand.

With all of the PocketDish models, programming can be downloaded free from compatible DISH Network DVRs or other devices. If a USB 2.0 port is used, one hour of programming can be downloaded within 5 minutes. The PocketDish can also be hooked up to a receiver without a compatible USB connection, but download time will increase to 1 hour for each hour of programming. All versions also allow software upgrades via satellite or the DISH Network website. Plus, PocketDish offers parental control locks to let parents limit kid’s access to inappropriate programming.

PocketDish combines the capabilities of several audio-visual devices to offer a very versatile and portable technology. It offers many of the benefits of satellite TV in a hand-held format, plus storage and playing capacity for music, photos and games.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Dust Kills – Cleaning the Unit Fan is Essential Computer Care

Posted by Simon on February 1, 2010 under It Is Believable, Really interesting! | Be the First to Comment

Between taking care of the household, the kids, the pets, and the district PTA, computer care is probably one of the last things that you think of doing on a regular basis. Without a regular maintenance schedule however, you could find out (the hard way) that a neglected computer is an energy hog – one that works harder than it needs to and one that could be a financial burden to replace.

Let’s talk about maintaining hardware. So much emphasis is put on maintaining a computer’s operating system that we sometimes forget how important it is to maintain a computer’s hardware components. Since there can be quite a few components to take care of, let’s talk about the most important one.

The most important component of a computer’s hardware system is its fan. The fan is located on the computer’s CPU unit and when that thing gets clogged with dirt and dust, it can run down a computer faster than you can say, “Something’s wrong with my computer and I don’t know what it is!” In short, the fan is responsible for keeping a computer’s motor cool and this motor is what keeps the computer’s hard drive and peripherals functioning the way you need them to, which translates to “fast.”

A dirty fan doesn’t rotate fast enough to keep that motor cool and a completely clogged fan just stops rotating altogether. This causes the computer’s motor to work harder – and a harder working motor can raise the electric bill! Worst case scenario: the motor can overheat and stop working as well. No motor equals no computer.

Keep your computer’s fan clean by preventing the fan from getting dirty or dusty in the first place. Use the computer in a dust-free environment and never smoke around it. Nicotine and tar mean certain death when it comes to computer fans, however should you find a need to clean the fan, do so with extreme care.

It’s quite easy to cause more damage from cleaning so if you’re not comfortable with cleaning your PC yourself, take it to a shop for servicing. Otherwise, you can unplug and disassemble the computer to do it yourself.

You’ll need a can of compressed air and an anti-static rag to remove stubborn clumps of dust. Hold the can perfectly vertical and spray the fan being careful not to spray the dust off the fan onto other sensitive parts of the computer like circuit boards or inside the motor casing. Wipe up remaining dust with your anti-static rag and then reassemble the computer.

One thing that you certainly don’t want to use to remove computer dust is a vacuum cleaner. Although using a vacuum cleaner seems to make more sense, the strong suction of a vacuum cleaner can actually spark damaging static electricity or dislodge loose cables. You also don’t want to use oil-based cleaners. Although Pledge may dust your wooden tables and cabinets to a perfect shine, the oil inside a cleaner like this will erode sensitive computer parts. Stick to a liquid-free dusting method and your dusting routine will be safe enough to repeat as often as you need.

As previously mentioned, preventing dust from entering the computer is extremely important and will reduce the need to open and dust your system in the first place. The severity of outside elements (smoking, humidity, pets, etc.) will ultimately determine how often you’ll need to de-dust your machine. But as an average, you shouldn’t need to perform this procedure any more than once or twice a year.

The entire exercise should take no more than twenty minutes tops and once complete, you’ll immediately see and hear the difference in your machine. The computer’s keyboard and mouse will run more smoothly, hardware won’t take as long to connect, and the entire machine won’t be as loud as one that’s corroded with ugly dust bunnies.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Biofuels as Alternative Sources of Energy

Posted by Simon on January 31, 2010 under Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Really interesting! | Be the First to Comment

Biofuels are produced by converting organic matter into fuel for powering our society. These biofuels are an alternative energy source to the fossil fuels that we currently depend upon. The biofuels umbrella includes under its aegis ethanol and derivatives of plants such as sugar cane, as well aS vegetable and corn oils. However, not all ethanol products are designed to be used as a kind of gasoline. The International Energy Agency (IEA) tells us that ethanol could comprise up to 10 percent of the world’s usable gasoline by 2025, and up to 30 percent by 2050. Today, the percentage figure is two percent.

However, we have a long way to go to refine and make economic and practical these biofuels that we are researching. A study by Oregon State University proves this. We have yet to develop biofuels that are as energy efficient as gasoline made from petroleum. Energy efficiency is the measure of how much usable energy for our needed purposes is derived from a certain amount of input energy. (Nothing that mankind has ever used has derived more energy from output than from what the needed input was. What has always been important is the conversion—the end-product energy is what is useful for our needs, while the input energy is just the effort it takes to produce the end-product.) The OSU study found corn-derived ethanol to be only 20% energy efficient (gasoline made from petroleum is 75% energy efficient). Biodiesel fuel was recorded at 69% energy efficiency. However, the study did turn up one positive: cellulose-derived ethanol was charted at 85% efficiency, which is even higher than that of the fantastically efficient nuclear energy.

Recently, oil futures have been down on the New York Stock Exchange, as analysts from several different countries are predicting a surge in biofuel availability which would offset the value of oil, dropping crude oil prices on the international market to $40 per barrel or thereabouts. The Chicago Stock Exchange has a grain futures market which is starting to “steal” investment activity away from the oil futures in NY, as investors are definitely expecting better profitability to start coming from biofuels. Indeed, it is predicted by a consensus of analysts that biofuels shall be supplying seven percent of the entire world’s transportation fuels by the year 2030. One certain energy markets analyst has said, growth in demand for diesel and gasoline may slow down dramatically, if the government subsidizes firms distributing biofuels and further pushes to promote the use of eco-friendly fuel.

There are several nations which are seriously involved in the development of biofuels.

There is Brazil, which happens to be the world’s biggest producer of ethanols derived from sugars. It produces approximately three and a half billion gallons of ethanol per year.

The United States, while being the world’s greatest oil-guzzler, is already the second largest producer of biofuels behind Brazil.

The European Union’s biodiesel production capacity is now in excess of four million (British) tonnes. 80 percent of the EU’s biodiesel fuels are derived from rapeseed oil; soybean oil and a marginal quantity of palm oil comprise the other 20 percent.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Pictures in the Sky

Posted by Simon on January 30, 2010 under Really interesting!, What could be more fun? | 15 Comments to Read

One of the earliest activities we engaged in when we first got into astronomy is the same one we like to show our children just as soon as their excitement about the night sky begins to surface. That is the fun of finding constellations. But finding constellations and using them to navigate the sky is a discipline that goes back virtually to the dawn of man. In fact, we have cave pictures to show that the more primitive of human societies could “see pictures” in the sky and ascribe to them significance.

Constellations also have been important in culture and navigation long before we had sophisticated systems of navigation. Early explorers, particularly by sea, relied exclusively on the night sky to help them find their way to their destination. In fact, when “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492” and “discovered” America, he could not have done it without astronomy and the help of navigation of the cosmos, much of which is made possible because of the important constellations.

When learning to find the great constellations in the sky, we use the “find one, you found them all” system. That is because the easiest constellation to find will guide us to the rest of them. That constellation is The Big Dipper. Look to the northern sky on a clear night and widen your field of vision from just focusing on one star and it will pretty much jump out at you. In will look like a big kitchen pot or ladle, right side up in the fall, upside down in the spring.

When you have the big dipper under control, you can pretty easily find the North Star. This is the star that those ancient sailors depended on the most to find their way to land. Start with the far edge of the bowl of the Big Dipper, the side that is opposite the handle. There are two stars that make up that side of the bowl. So start at the bottom of the pot and mentally draw a line to the top star of the bowl. These two stars are “pointing” to the North Star. Just keep following that line, curving a bit with the sky and the bright star that you come to is the North Star. You can impress your friends or family if you know the scientific name for this star is Polaris.

The North Star can then take you to The Little Dipper. The key here is that Polaris is the tip of the handle of The Little Dipper and the bowl hangs down from the handle like it was hanging up in the kitchen. Be patient with this one as the stars that make up The Little Dipper are dimmer than The Big Dipper. But it pretty cool once you find it.

These are the obvious starting places but from The Little Dipper you can find the constellation known as “The Swan” or Cygnus. Just use the same system you used to find The North Star but continue drawing that line that started in those pointer stars in the bowl of The Big Dipper. Go about half as far as you went to find Polaris and you are there. You will see a trapezoid of stars about as big as The Big Dipper. This trapezoid forms the tail of The Swan.

That line that we are drawing from the pointer stars is our roadmap to another well known constellation which is Cassiopeia. If you use that line and imagine you are directly under the two pointer stars, you will se a big “W” just off to the left of the line. This is the constellation Cassiopeia, the wife of the king of Egypt, Cepheus, in Greek mythology. There are so many more wonderful constellations to find and a good star map can continue your quest.

Like Cassiopeia, all of the constellations have wonderful stories and myths related to Greek culture. It is just as fun to find the star clusters themselves as it is to enjoy the rich culture related to that constellation. For all of the signs of the zodiac, for example, there is a related constellation in the sky. So whether you are serious about astrology or not, its fun to find the constellation that relates to your “sign” (or that of your children) and be able to see how the ancients related to these pictures in the sky.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Basic GUI Terminology – Knowing What You’re Working With Helps Technicians

Posted by Simon on January 26, 2010 under Free eBooks, Really interesting!, What could be more fun? | Be the First to Comment

Getting help with your computer software can be easier when you know the correct terms to use. One of the biggest problems that new computer users have with technical support is not knowing how to correctly describe the problem that they’re having. And it isn’t fair to expect a tech support person to automatically know what a “thing-a-ma-jingy,” or “whatcha-ma-call-it” is.

The following describes the correct names for common components of software so that when you experience a problem, you can effectively describe an issue that you’re having and a technician can readily resolve it.

User interface – this is the visual design of a program. It may contain squares, boxes, words, icons, and buttons. If you’re experiencing insufficient memory for example, you might see black rectangles across the user interface of your software programs.

Title bar – this is the top-most part of a program that displays its own name or it may describe the contents displayed in another part of the interface. If a program is incorrectly coded, you may see a wrong description in this part of its interface.

Menu bar – this part of a program displays menu items and menu options. Some of the most common parts of a menu bar grants access to File commands, Open commands, Save commands, and Print commands. An example of an error in this part of an interface would be if an option was missing or grayed out (lighter in color).

Tool bar - this part of a program displays small icons across the top which represent tools. Clicking an icon will open a tool or process a command that might also exist on a program’s menu bar. Problems in this part of an interface are uncommon, however if you find yourself repeatedly clicking an icon with no results, you can correctly describe the problem by referring to the toolbar.

Minimize, Restore, and Exit buttons – these three buttons are usually located on the right-most upper part of a program’s interface and each allow you to minimize a program’s screen, restore it to its original size, or shut down the program completely.

Scroll bar – this convenient tool allows users to move data up and down the computer screen.

Status bar – this part of a program is located at the bottom-most part of its interface, and it usually displays small messages that indicate the progress of a command or task. If programmed incorrectly, an application might display the wrong information in this area.

Context menu – like the menu bar, a context menu displays when a user right-clicks on something. It displays commands just like what you see on a File menu or a Help menu.

Input box – input boxes are usually small rectangles that allow you to type data into a simple interfaces like a webpage or browser window. If you find that you can’t type information into one of these, you can effectively resolve the issue with a technician by calling it an input box, rather than a “white rectangle,” or “place to put in text.”

Button – buttons perform a command after a user clicks them with a mouse. Problems occur when the text of a button is grayed out or if it doesn’t appear to sink into the screen when clicked.

Check box – a check box is a small box that allows a user to indicate several choices among many. When clicked, a small “x” displays inside a box. Similar to the check box, a radio button allows a user to indicate a single choice among many. Problems with radio buttons and check boxes occur when a user makes one choice, but the interface reacts as if the user made many choices (or none at all). When describing a problem to a technician, be sure to indicate whether the problem occurs with a check box or a radio box. Computer novices mistakenly interchange the names of both of these controls.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

Cheap and Fast Software – An Introduction to Shareware

Posted by Simon on January 25, 2010 under Free eBooks, Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | 3 Comments to Read

Visit any computer store today and you’ll find what seems like miles and miles of software on sale. Certainly enticing buys, there are a few problems with buying software off the shelves. On the shelf, software – otherwise known as “commercial software” – can be expensive, and incompatible, and outdated when compared to what’s available online. Fortunately, there’s an alternative to commercial software and although it isn’t new, it’s one of the most under-exploited opportunities in the computer industry.

We’re talking about shareware – software that you can try before buying.

Shareware has a long history and was rather popular in the days where BBS (bulletin board systems) reigned the online industry. It hasn’t gone anywhere, but its competition with commercial software is fierce – so fierce that it tends to fall on the back burner among new computer users. This is unfortunate because shareware has so many advantages over commercial software.

One of those advantages is its cost. On the whole, shareware is generally cheaper than commercial software. But don’t misinterpret the cost. With shareware, cheap does not equal low-quality and there are plenty of examples that prove shareware often outperforms the quality of commercial software time and time again. How much savings are we talking about? You could purchase a quality word processor, spreadsheet, database program, or system utility anywhere from a mere $15 to under a hundred. This is almost unheard of in stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, or Egghead, yet the shareware programs offered within this price range rival even Microsoft’s Office suite.

Another advantage that shareware has over commercial software is its compatibility. We’re not saying that shareware is compatible with all operating systems. What we’re saying is that since we can try shareware before paying for it, we can determine if the software is completely compatible with our systems first. In other words, we can discover whether the software performs the way we want them to and should anyone try to do the same with commercial software, they’ll be in for a big disappointment.

Commercial software policy doesn’t even allow for returns, let alone “borrowing” them to try them.

The last advantage that shareware has over commercial software (but certainly not the least) is its applicability. Plain and simple, shareware is the best bet when you want to keep on top of the latest release of a particular program. Sure, computer stores do their best to keep their inventory up to date, but when you can download version 5.6042 of a shareware program as opposed to buying a commercial 3.0 version from the local computer shop, there’s just no comparison.

Which brings up our next point. Just where does one get shareware? Shareware is all over the Internet and it’s really hard not to bump into it. The most popular places to find shareware is within thousands of download libraries, however the companies (and even independent programmers behind shareware) are increasingly offering shareware from their own websites. A simple Google or Yahoo search for a particular type of program will yield all sorts of results that point you toward items that you can try before you buy.

Be aware however, that because shareware is not commercial software, you may not experience a full program the way you would if you bought the software out of a box. Shareware may or may not be limited – meaning that some functions may not be available to you until the program is paid for. These limitations are often small and don’t interfere with the way its full version operations. They’re really just implemented as a way to prompt payment. Remember that shareware is not freeware. You shouldn’t try to use shareware as commercial software without paying for it.

About the only thing that’s similar between shareware and commercial software is the way in which they may be bought. With a credit card, you can be the new owner of your own software within minutes.

About the Author:
My name is Simon and I am a Blogger. As the title of this blog it is as expected: A Tech Blog. I find so many things fascinating that I just have to write about them sharing my fascination with that particular item or technical bit of information. I ask that If you do read an article, that you would take a moment and comment saying good job, alright! or that it just sucked. Let me know, for it is important. Most of all, if you do enjoy my articles, please subscribe to my articles through the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS button on the blog page. Thank You for visiting and,
Good Day!

What is a Multilayer PCB?

Posted by Simon on January 23, 2010 under Free eBooks, Really interesting! | Read the First Comment

A Multilayer PCBs consist of multiple layers of electronic components placed over each other.

Through-hole construction was the technology that was used to deal with planting the electrical components through the holes on the Printed Board Curcuit and then soldering them together. When this technology was found wanting in complex cases, Point-to-Point construction technology evolved. This proved to be better than its predecessor, but in no way is it comparable to a multilayer PCB. The development of multilayer PCB has allowed electronic companies to drastically cut down on the cost and size of their products.

The functionality of a multilayer Printed Board Circuit depends on the internal connections between the various components that make up the entire device. Until and unless these components work in tandem, the device is non-functional. In the case of most technology, the urge to improve product performance makes the products bulky, whereas the flexible design of the multilayer PCBs has entirely replaced the rigid single-layered PCB design. The high-class wiring and the flexible parts have improved the performance of many products, especially automated and complex devices such as computers and cellular phones. Technology today has come a long way, culminating in the manufacture of multilayer PCBs that can contain as many as twenty-four layers, depending on usage and the complexity of the product itself. Multilayered PCBs have also facilitated the ease of manufacturing, since most of them are pre-mounted and prefabricated. Although manufacturing these prefabricated multilayered PCBs is a complex process, the final stage has now become a matter of assembly rather than manufacturing.

Any discussion of this technology would be incomplete without mentioning the tools and materials that are required for using a multilayer PCB. These are:

*Powerful drill
*Copper etcher
*Laminating press
*Copper plating cell
*And most importantly – a well-ventilated area

The reasons behind the development of the multilayer PCB are numerous, although some may think the technology was unnecessary while standard PCBs were doing fine. As discussed earlier, a multilayer PCB has a more flexible structure and can considerably reduce the size of the device. This is not the only reason. The cost of production using conventional PCBs was very high and costs only increased with new developments. By contrast, a multilayer PCB, in addition to providing revolutionary on-board components, more often than not needs only reprogramming. Moreover, mass production has become easier due to prefabricated multilayered PCBs. Instant installation or assembly of multilayer PCBs means electronic companies have definitely experienced a rise in their production rates.

In case you are wondering about the longevity or quality of these circuit boards, they are very well packaged and can be left as they are for future use. Once each board is completed, it is thoroughly tested to make sure that it functions properly. In cases of failure, the repair process is easy and can be achieved by replacing the board itself instead of resorting to component-level troubleshooting.

About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each Article and SHARE on FACEBOOK, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If there may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
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Can I Record Streaming Video

Posted by Simon on January 22, 2010 under Free eBooks, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, You should Try this | Be the First to Comment

Some people may actually not be aware of whether or not they can record streaming video. Other people may not be aware that they have been able to record streaming video all along. There are many people that record streaming video clips and are not even aware at the time that this is what they are doing. Many people associate the possibility of being able to record streaming video with the internet. They exclusively attach this meaning to the process of being able to record streaming video. This is not the case. Too many people are not aware of this. Instead of focusing on the true definition of being able to record streaming video, these people simply focus on what they think the meaning is. If you think that streaming video is just over the internet, you are wrong. If you think that streaming is a medium, you are also wrong. To record streaming video, a person simply is recording a video that is being continuously sent from one location to another. If we think about it, we are always able to record streaming video around the home, at work, and on the internet. We can record streaming video for personal or professional reasons.

Sometimes when we record streaming video for personal reasons, we will be able to make a profit later. Other times, when we record streaming video for professional gains, we can lose money and it forces the venture to become a personal venture. Around the home, on the computer and in other areas we often record streaming video. Having a recording device attached to the television allows the individual to record streaming video. They can do this at any time, since the video is always being sent out by the channel station. There are a couple of major methods through which individuals are able and willing to record streaming video clips from their television. This is through the video cassette recorder and through the disc recorder that is sometimes offered on a DVD player.

When it comes to the internet and being able to record streaming video, one needs to typically download the clip before they can transfer it. Some software programs will allow the individual to record streaming video. In other cases, it is very possible to embed one’s own website with a link to the streaming video and they can offer the streaming video in this method. People are often looking to be able to record streaming video so that they can be entertained or entertain others. Some people will record streaming video so that they can stream it to other people and help to get the information to people that might be interested. We have been able to record streaming video since the time of the VCR, but many people did not know that cable television represented streaming video. It does, and this is why we can record streaming video on the television and not just on the internet, which is very helpful to a number of different types of people that need to or want to record streaming video.

About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each Article and SHARE on FACEBOOK, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If there may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
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Video Security System Installation – How to install a video security system

Posted by Simon on January 21, 2010 under Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, You should Try this | Read the First Comment

As a home owner, knowing that your home is physically secure from harm will bring you peace of mind. Aside from the basic security measures installed on your home like locks, motion sensors and fire alarms, it will be a great help to have a video security system installed as well.

You can be free to do other things while checking on your baby or seeing who is on your front door through security monitors. You can even monitor your home while you are away on a trip by accessing your video home security system from the Internet.

To have a video home security system installed, first, you need to decide on the areas of your home that you would like to monitor. The logical spots are the front and back doors, as well as any area in your house that is unnoticeable, where intruders are likely to go.

When deciding where to install the cameras, also consider the rooms within the house. Install one on the rooms of your youngest children. If you have elder or disabled people in the house, you can also monitor their rooms.

When considering the equipments for the video security system that you want to install, here are some tips to remember: Choose a weatherproof camera with specialized lens that you can use at night. You can install this at areas outside the house, and it is very important that they can be used at night and during any weather. There are cameras that you can remotely control. You can use this to monitor a larger area outside the house. It is important that they can be tilted to view any angle. Images transmitted from these cameras may be viewed using the monitor or your choice. You can also link them with your television set to make it easier to access.

With the advancement in technology, you can look for every feature imaginable so that they can be included with the installation of your home video security system.

About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each Article and SHARE on FACEBOOK, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If there may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
Good Day!

How does satellite radio work?

Posted by Simon on January 20, 2010 under Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, You should Try this | Be the First to Comment

Satellite radio is one of the biggest improvements in broadcasting since the introduction of FM. Satellite radio signal can be broadcasted for more than 35,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) with complete clarity and high quality sound. You will never get static interferences while listening to over 100 radio channels. The idea behind satellite radio has appeared in 1992, when the United States Federal Communications Commission granted a spectrum of the S band (the 2.3 GHz frequency) for Digital Audio Radio Service. The license to broadcast in that band was allocated to Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio in 1997. Now there are three companies that provide satellite radio in the world: Sirius and XM in Northern America and WorldSpace in Asia, Europe and Africa.

Each of these companies offer different broadcasting systems, since the radio signal of each is proprietary. This means that you will have to buy different hardware depending on your subscription to one of these companies. However, there are three components common to all satellite radio services: the satellites, the ground repeaters and the radio receivers. Different satellite radio companies broadcast the radio signal in different ways. For instance, XM satellite radio uses geostationary satellites which have orbits that are synchronized with the movement of Earth. These satellites are located above the equator. In order to allow subscribers to receive crystal-clear signal despite obstacles such as buildings, hills or bridges, XM satellite radio service has installed a network of repeaters antennas that receive the radio signal from the satellites and retransmit it to the subscriber’s receiver Sirius, on the other hand, uses satellites that have unique elliptical orbits around Earth. These kinds of orbits allow satellites to get higher in the sky than geostationary satellites and this prevents loss of signal. This is the reason why Sirius has fewer terrestrial repeaters than XM.

Satellite radio services have digital broadcast centers where a huge amount of music in digital format as well as CD format is stored. Radio programmers have the task of selecting which song has to be played at which time. There are also a lot of studios managed by digital radio companies where artists perform live. All songs and material are transmitted to the satellites in digital format so that the signal contains very high quality sound. The signal is encoded by the satellite and then retransmitted to the repeaters antennas, which then transmit it to the radio receiver which decodes it and plays the sound. The entire process is very quick and reliable. Satellite radio would not be possible without digital compression. Digital compression is a technique that uses sophisticated algorithms to compress as much material as possible on the available bandwidth. Once you make a subscription to a satellite radio provider you will need the appropriate radio equipment. Traditional radios cannot decode the signal received from satellites so you will need special equipment.

The popularity of satellite radio has exploded due to many technological advancements that enabled manufacturers to offer the receivers at very attractive prices. The fact that satellite radio is commercial free for many of its channels is also a major selling point.

About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each Article and SHARE on FACEBOOK, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If there may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
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Setting Up and Securing Your Wireless Network

Posted by Simon on January 15, 2010 under Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, What could be more fun? | Be the First to Comment

There are more and more individuals opting to work from home than ever before. The advantages to this are many including avoiding the morning and evening rush hours, being able to spend time with your kids and significant other, and doing everything on your own time. Though the pitfalls are many, the one that I will be focusing on in this article is that of setting up a secure wireless network for your home based business. Right now somewhere out there, there is someone with a receiver waiting to pick up on an unsuspecting person’s wireless local area network. Their hope is to garner some sensitive information that may lead to identity theft, and stolen proprietary business information.

Most businesses owners are not technically inclined, though they may be power users, in general security settings is not one of the first things they want to mess around with in their day to day operations. This makes most wireless LANs a great target for information predators.

Here are some general guidelines to follow in setting up your wireless network. Though it may vary from vendor to vendor, the gist is more or less the same:

1. Setup the wireless access/router point via a wired client.
2. Always change the factory setting password to something difficult for someone to guess.
3. Enable 128-bit Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) encryption on both your access point and network card. From time to time change the WEP key entries. If your hardware does not support a minimal of 128 bit WEP encryption, then it may be time to replace this dinosaur. WEP is only a minimal security precaution, which is better than none at all.
4. Alter the factory default SSID on the access/router point to a convoluted difficult to guess string. Initiate your computer to connect to this configured SSID by default.
5. Setup your access point not to broadcast the SSID if available.
6. Block off anonymous internet requests and pings.
7. P2P Connections should be disabled.
8. Enable MAC filtering.
9. Enable firewall on the network router/access point with demilitarized zone function disabled. Enable client firewalls for each computer in the network.
10. Update router and access point firmware as updates become available.
11. Make sure the physical router is hidden so that a random person can’t reset the settings.
12. Position the physical router near the middle of the establishment as opposed to near windows to prevent others outside from receiving the signals.

These and other settings will collectively help prevent any unwanted intrusions on your private data.
About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each Article and SHARE on FACEBOOK, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If there may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
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Your ‘No’ Could Mean ‘Yes’ To A Trojan

Posted by Simon on January 13, 2010 under eBook Readers, Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, You Should Be Afraid | Be the First to Comment

Similar to viruses, Trojans copy, distribute and kill your data. Obviously since you would never permit these actions, Trojans do not bother to ask for your permission.

Trojans are deceptive programs which don’t take no for an answer. Any keystroke means yes to them. They are mainly designed to steal your data from your pc. But if you have antispyware guarding your pc, you need not worry.

What Are Trojans?

Basically Trojans appear quite harmless. They quietly enter your computer, either as email attachments or bundled in with other software programs. They are a kind of spyware. Spyware works by keeping track of what you do when you browse the web without you being aware of it. It is quite irritating and can cause major problems if you don’t use any antispyware program to keep your pc clean.

Trojans are one of the worst kinds of spyware that eventually destroy your data after stealing it. There are some Trojans called remote administration tools, which permit access to your computer every time you log in – and you won’t even know it. Whoever accesses your pc can easily pick up files from your system, remove or add programs, and even control your keystrokes.

How Trojans Land Into Your PC

Similar to viruses, Trojans copy, distribute and kill your data. Obviously since you would never permit these actions, Trojans do not bother to ask for your permission. The spyware installer does not care about the means used to rob your data. It is well known that there are many Internet marketers who trick you into installing certain software bundled in with Trojan spyware into your computer. They use a pop up ad to attract you, and then as if you want to install it. Whether you say yes or no is irrelevant. Even if you say no, they follow up with another pop up ad to ask if you are really sure. In spite of clicking no, your keystroke simply sets off a download into your computer without your being aware of it.

Drive by downloads are a common method for Trojan spyware to sneak in to your pc. Here is what happens – you browse a website and see a popup asking if you want to download something and the way it asks you, you sometimes end up saying yes, thinking that you need to download it to look at the web page. So when you say yes, it looks like you are allowing the download. If you say no, you are hounded by pop ups that wait for you to just click to start off the download, making it happen without your knowledge.

Everyday there are new ways being devised by spyware installers to get into your system. Get antispyware software to control this and keep your pc free of spies!
About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each Article and SHARE on FACEBOOK, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If there may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
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Why Is Computer Software Soft?

Posted by Simon on January 12, 2010 under Free eBooks, I am Reall Poor!, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Read the First Comment

Have you ever wondered (I’m sure you have at least about other similar words) where a word like software comes from. I mean were floppy disks soft and malleable at one time. Or were the protective sleeves for the old hard diskettes made of some velvety material that made them “soft”ware. Well I love this sort of thing and would like to explore with you in the following several paragraphs the origin of this word and why it is so commonplace in our computer software age.

In order to understand the derivation of the term software, as in computer software, you must first understand that there is hardware as well. The meaning of hardware probably has a lot of levels of meaning and most were probably serendipitous over a lunch or other social gathering.

Hardware refers to the “guts of the computer machine, the actual physical reality of a disk drive and a hard disk and a monitor and the like. These are actual physical entities that make them “hard.” You can hold them, carry them, etc. Software on the other hand is more theoretical than physical. Sure the code is “hard” composed of 1’s and 0’s for bits and bytes but it is not hard in the sense that you can actually touch the ones and zeros with your hand, chew on them, and anything else that you might be able to do with hardware.

Software is the program that does things in more of a virtual or abstract level. It will save information as something that is unseen but totally retrievable and capable of with the help of hardware, produce an image that can be seen with the eyes.

There are two points to be made here. First the sensation of site does not make something hard or soft. Never has. It is touch that determines this description and this is a useful way to determine the hardness or softness of computer software and hardware.

A good example of this test is the phrase hard copy or soft copy of a document. The hard copy is on the document in actual paper page form and the softcopy is all of the ones and zeros that make up in a theoretical sense (more representative than actual) the writing on the page. Thinking about it this way may help you to sort out what is computer software and what is computer hardware.
About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each Article and SHARE on FACEBOOK, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If there may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
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Software Piracy – It’s Best To Avoid It At All Costs

Posted by Simon on January 10, 2010 under Free eBooks, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Be the First to Comment

Like electronic identity theft, computer viruses, and the spread of other computer crimes, software piracy is on the rise. The problem with software piracy is that software costs make this illegal activity appealing to the end user. After all, who is it going to hurt? Rich software companies?? This article investigates software piracy as a whole and the impact that it has on the computer using industry.
The most vulnerable victims of software piracy are software businesses or independent programmers who create and distribute commercial software or shareware. We described shareware in another article, but because both commercial software and shareware require payment, they’re the target of pirates who seek to make these kinds of programs free to use.
Depending on their binding legal agreements, licensing typically allows the use of a single program on a single computer. This set up is usually fine for a user who uses software at home on one computer. But in an environment where there are five, ten, twenty or more computers, buying a license for each computer can be down-right costly. So costly that the temptation to pirate a little software here and there can be pretty tempting.
Co-workers are familiar with this temptation and they’re often the ones who “share” purchased software among those who need it. However the same temptation also prompts others to knowingly or unknowingly buy bootleg copies of commercial software or registered shareware.
As tempting as it is, it’s still illegal and the punishments/fines for sharing commercial or registered software is too much for one to bear. In recent news, “Yahoo China loses music piracy case (AP via Yahoo! News) A court has ordered Yahoo Inc.’s China subsidiary to pay $27,000 for aiding music piracy, the company and a music industry group said Tuesday.“ Additionally, “EU lawmakers approve prison terms, fines for major commercial piracy (International Herald Tribune) EU lawmakers voted Wednesday for legislation that would set prison sentences and fines for large-scale commercial piracy, but exempt patents and copying carried out for personal use.”
Fortunately, there are alternatives. Schools can research student versions of commercial software or ask for a school discount. Just because school rates aren’t advertised, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t available. Freeware or open source software (also described in another one of our articles) is another alternative to pirating commercial-ware, as well as shareware. And using older versions of programs could additionally reduce the costs associated with commercial versions.
Up until recently, public opinion held little faith in freeware or open source software – often regarding it as low-quality knock-off’s of better known commercial products. But if you take a good look at what’s being offered at no cost, you may be in for a big surprise. The quality of today’s freeware and open source software created a strong rift among the commercial community and it’s literally driving the competition bananas! So much so, that even some well known software development corporations have joined the cause and built a few freeware open source products of their own!
If you can remember that there are hoards of alternatives to costly commercial software (and you make the effort to get it), you’ll discover that you can keep up with the rest of the computer industry at a significantly cheaper cost than if you attempted to pay your way down the software aisle. Software piracy just isn’t the answer.
About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each Article and SHARE on FACEBOOK, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If there may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
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CD Ripper Software

Posted by Simon on January 2, 2010 under Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks | Be the First to Comment

CD ripper software will open up an entirely new way of how you listen to music. With the use of CD ripping software, you can take audio tracks from a CD and them into audio files for use on your computer. You can save them as WAV, MP3, OGG, or WMA audio files. The term “ripping” is the term used to describe this very process.
There are advanced CD ripper software as well, which allows you to convert back and forth between these formats. You can also get software that can record vinyl LPs and cassettes to create those same audio files for your computer.
You can get a variety of ripper software programs online by searching the internet. Most software is user friendly and offers you a variety of options. You should however, do some searching and comparing before you decide which CD ripper program is best for your needs.
Each type of CD ripper software will offer it’s own style and interface. You should always make sure the CD ripper software you choose is easy to use and easy to understand. It doesn’t matter how good the software is – if you can’t use it.
When you explore the options of CD ripper software, make sure you also check the software’s editing abilities. With most programs, you can select the output format for the music. This will include the bitrate, channels, and even the frequency.
Quality ripper programs will also tag the encoded audio files with medadata, which will contain information about the artist, song title, track number, and even the album title. This will automatically be input for the file.
Another great feature with some ripper programs is the ability to delete the silence at the beginning or end of song tracks. Some programs will even give you the ability to edit the songs themselves, giving you full control of the sound provided by your files.
For those who enjoy to listen to their music from a CD, a CD ripper can also be used to select your favorite songs and create a mixed CD. Some rippers will even let you rip audio tracks directly from a CD then burn them to a new CD – without having to save them as a new audio file.
With millions of people ripping CDs these days, CD ripping is the wave of the future. You no longer have to keep your music on your computer, as you can rip them to a CD or even put them in your favorite MP3 player and take the music with you – wherever you go.
About The Author:
We would like to think the Author is of his right mind but following what he writes about and the passion in his blogging. The determination as to his sanity is likely best left up to you. In the event you do enjoy his writing be sure to subscribe via the RSS button on the top of the page, to TWEET each article and share on facebook, all of the linking facilities are with the article. If the may be something you do not like, we won’t give up on you for eventually something will popup that you will like and want to tell everyone about.
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DIY Surround Sound

Posted by Simon on December 23, 2009 under Free eBooks, Really interesting!, You should Try this | 4 Comments to Read

The debate of whether or not to install your own surround sound system has fallen on deaf ears and you have decided to tackle this delicate task for yourself. Good for you. The thing is you aren’t really too certain about where to actually begin this delicate procedure. At this point, I’m assuming that you have purchased either a home theater kit or surround sound system for your home and are preparing to begin the actual installation process. A good place to start is by reading the instructions and owners manual that most likely came with either the kit you purchased or each of the individual components.

The thing to remember with a surround sound system is that nothing will work without the speakers and they will only work for their intended purpose if they are positioned properly. However, you need to make sure that the other components are in place before beginning to work with the speakers. I recommend, particularly if this is your first system that you go with a simple AV receiver, if you’ve already purchased a tuner, amplifier, and all that other great stuff it is no problem, just a little more involved as far as processes go. The installation of each of these devices is often as simple as finding a space for them and plugging everything into the proper slot. The good news is that most systems have the ‘slots’ well labeled for just this purpose.

Once you have the receiver hooked up you should begin placing speakers. If you went with the basic 5.1 channel surround sound system you should have 6 speakers including the subwoofer. This is a good system to begin with and (if you purchased your AV receiver wisely) will leave room for growth and expansion in the future. I will begin with instructions for the placement of the 6 speakers for a 5.1 channel system and expand those instructions to include the others later.

With a basic 5.1 channel surround sound system you will have five speakers and one subwoofer. The placement of the speaker is important when it comes to placing the ambient sounds that are found in movies in the proper location in relation to the action onscreen. Three of the five speakers belong in the front. One speaker in the center and one each on the front left and right—the two remaining speakers belong behind you to the left and right (one left rear; one right rear). While this isn’t an overly complicated concept you’d be amazed at the number of people who have their surround sound systems improperly set up.

With the 6.1 channel system you will move the rear left and right speakers to the side and place one speaker to the rear and in the center. If you then upgrade from a 6.1 to a 7.1 channel surround sound system you will move the speaker that is in the rear to either the left of the right and install the additional speaker on the opposite side and to the rear.

If you are going to make the investment in a home theater or surround sound system please take the time to insure that the pieces and parts are properly located and installed in order to get your money’s worth out of the process. Now it’s time to sit back and enjoy your new sound system.
About the Author:

Simon is the type of person that if he was just to sit down and do nothing he would probably pass and we surely don’t want that. Simon is a tireless researcher and writer who has a passion for blogging and decimating information. At times a rather rare window may appear where a glimpse of his humor may be seen. Be sure to subscribe to Simon’s newsletter by clicking here to subscribe to Simon’s newsletter. If you have missed his last book you may obtain it free by clicking here for Simon’s Free eBook.
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Why You Should Use HD Cameras

Posted by Simon on December 20, 2009 under Free eBooks, Really interesting!, You should Try this | Read the First Comment

If you own a camera, as millions of us around the world do, your probably aware of the fact that there are many to choose from. The cameras of the past were black and white, enabling you to take a black and white photograph that printed out from the camera right in front of your eyes.

From then, cameras evolved. Digital cameras came out later on, which the ability to put them on your computer or even take your camera card to a local store and have the photos printed out on professionalpaper. Over the years, cameras have evolved in so many ways that it isn’t even funny.

These days, high definition video cameras are dominating the market. They are relatively new and quickly catching on, giving you so much you can do with your camera. Unlike the past, cameras are now capable of capturing full videos as well, proving that they are indeed capable of capturing any memory you can possibly imagine.

High definition video cameras also offer you 20X zoom lens or more, meaning that you can zoom in quite a distance on things that you want to capture up close and personal. For the most part, you can do things with these cameras that you may have never before thought possible.

When you capture a picture or video with high definition cameras, you’ll be very amazed at what you see. Just like HDTV, the pictures of the camera are very lifelike. If you have a newborn baby, a high definition video camera may be just what you need to capture each and every precious moment. For this reason and many more, you shouldn’t hesitate to get a high definition video camera – that is if you don’t own one already.
About the Author:

Simon is the type of person that if he was just to sit down and do nothing he would probably pass and we surely don’t want that. Simon is a tireless researcher and writer who has a passion for blogging and decimating information. At times a rather rare window may appear where a glimpse of his humor may be seen. Be sure to subscribe to Simon’s newsletter by clicking here to subscribe to Simon’s newsletter. If you have missed his last book you may obtain it free by clicking here for Simon’s Free eBook.
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Offsite Backup Advantages

Posted by Simon on December 13, 2009 under eBook Readers, Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, This Really Makes You Think . . ., You should Try this | Be the First to Comment

Creating backups of your data and files is a very important way of staying on top of disaster and missing data. Both small and large businesses, including individuals, always look towards a backup of information to keep them going in the face of disaster. Even though backups are a great way to keep your data safe and protected, there are some flaws with the traditional methods.

When you create backups of your data, you must store them somewhere where they can’t be damaged or someone else can access them. For businesses, offsite backup is a well known and popular way to backup files. It offers you several different advantages when compared to other ways, such as CD, DVD, external hard drives, and even servers. One of the biggest advantages to offsite backup is the fact that the backups aren’t stored in your office or business.

Offsite backup companies store your data in state of the art safes, to protect them against fire, flood, and even prying eyes. This can be extremely beneficial if unexpected things have a habit of occurring around your office.

Another great thing about offsite backups are the fact that they can be used as stores for your data. You won’t need to rely on online space, as you can easily go to the company who is storing your data and go through it anytime you wish. You can also use online space with most companies as well. You simply upload your data to their online storage area, then go back anytime you wish and view it. This is a very handy feature, similar to a hosting company.

Another benefit of offsite backup is the fact that your data will always be protected, and you won’t have to use CD or DVDs to do it. CD and DVD storage is great for individuals, although there will be quite a bit of them for most businesses. This can get somewhat costly, but more importantly, it will use a lot of space to store the backup files. They can also become damaged or lost, unlike offsite backup storage.

Offsite storage is also great if your business is in a bad area. If Mother Nature has a habit of bashing your area with floods, fires, or hurricanes, you should look into offsite backup storage immediately. They have ways to protect your information from harm, including anything Mother Nature can dish out. There is no need to worry about natural disasters, system failures, hard drive crashes, or data failure with offsite backup storage.

Even though you may not realize it, the data will be available anytime you need it. Online backup services are available anytime, day or night, and can be accessed anywhere you are. Most are easy to set up, and offers you very impressive security measures. They are also fast and very efficient, which is great for those who need to access their files immediately.

When it comes to offsite backup, you can store virtually any file you need to, such as text files, e-books, contact record, pictures, music, and anything else you can think of. The storage for online backups are virtually endless, capable of storing everything you need.

All in all, offsite backup storage is ideal for any business or corporation. You can store your data with an online offsite backup, or choose to do it physically in an offsite safe. The choice is entirely up to you. No matter which method of offsite backup you choose – your data will always be protected, and best of all – it will always be there anytime you need it.
AOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon is typically a normal laid back guy who just can’t sit still and has a curiosity that runs wild. His mind is constantly churning, thinking of material to write and what would be the best subject. Be certain, if nothing else to subscribe to the RSS feed from the blog page or to be certain you do not miss nothing new subscribe to his weekly newsletter CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE or if you just want to sent Simon a note then Email Simon.. It is a known fact that there is nothing so well researched or diverse than what you read here in this blog so certainly be sure to stay tuned for much more. Good Day!

Solar Energy Collecting as an Alternative Energy Source

Posted by Simon on November 29, 2009 under eBook Readers, Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | 15 Comments to Read

Photovoltaic cells— those black squares an array of which comprises a solar panel—are getting more efficient, and gradually less expensive, all the time, thanks to ever-better designs which all them to focus the gathered sunlight on a more and more concentrated point. The size of the cells is decreasing as their efficiency rises, meaning that each cell becomes cheaper to produce and at once more productive. As far as the aforementioned cost, the price of producing solar-generated energy per watt hour has come down to $4.00 at the time of this writing. Just 17 years ago, it was nearly double that cost.

Solar powered electricity generation is certainly good for the environment, as this alternative form of producing energy gives off absolutely zero emissions into the atmosphere and is merely utilizing one of the most naturally occurring of all things as its driver. Solar collection cells are becoming slowly but surely ever more practical for placing upon the rooftops of people’s homes, and they are not a difficult system to use for heating one’s home, creating hot water, or producing electricity. In the case of using the photovoltaic cells for hot water generation, the system works by having the water encased in the cells, where it is heated and then sent through your pipes.

Photovoltaic cells are becoming increasingly better at collecting sufficient radiation from the sun even on overcast or stormy days. One company in particular, Uni-Solar, has developed solar collection arrays for the home that work well on inclement days, by way of a technologically more advanced system that stores more energy at one time during sunlit days than previous or other arrays.

There is actually another solar power system available for use called the PV System. The PV System is connected to the nearest electrical grid; whenever there is an excess of solar energy being collected at a particular home, it is transferred to the grid for shared use and as a means of lowering the grid’s dependence on the hydroelectrically-driven electricity production. Being connected to the PV System can keep your costs down as compared to full-fledged solar energy, while at once reducing pollution and taking pressure off the grid system. Some areas are designing centralized solar collection arrays for small towns or suburban communities.

Some big-name corporations have made it clear that they are also getting into the act of using solar power (a further indication that solar generated energy is becoming an economically viable alternative energy source). Google is putting in a 1.6 megawatt solar power generation plant on the roof of its corporate headquarters, while Wal Mart wants to put in an enormous 100 megawatt system of its own.

Nations such as Japan, Germany, the United States, and Switzerland have been furthering the cause of solar energy production by providing government subsidies or by giving tax breaks to companies and individuals who agree to utilize solar power for generating their heat or electrical power. As technology advances and a greater storage of solar collection materials is made available, more and more private investors will see the value of investing in this “green” technology and further its implementation much more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon is typically a normal laid back guy who just can’t sit still and has a curiosity that runs wild. His mind is constantly churning, thinking of material to write and what would be the best subject. Be certain, if nothing else to subscribe to the RSS feed from the blog page or to be certain you do not miss nothing new subscribe to his weekly newsletter CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE or if you just want to sent Simon a note then Email Simon.. It is a known fact that there is nothing so well researched or diverse than what you read here in this blog so certainly be sure to stay tuned for much more. Good Day!

Cisco-EMC-VMware in data centre alliance (source: Australian IT)

Posted by it / applications news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on November 3, 2009 under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

TECHNOLOGY titans Cisco, EMC and VMware announced an alliance to peddle the wonders of cloud computing and virtualisation in a $US350 billion business market. (source: Australian IT) - News widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

Chinese satellites to help spy on bush (source: Australian IT)

Posted by it / applications news stories aggregated by FeedZilla.com on under Really interesting!, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Comments are off for this article

AUSTRALIAN and Chinese scientists have teamed up to crank up the use of satellites for monitoring natural disasters including floods and bushfires. (source: Australian IT) - RSS widgets and RSS feeds on Feedzilla.com

Artificial Bright Light

Posted by simon on October 25, 2009 under eBook Readers, Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, This Really Makes You Think . . ., You should Try this | Be the First to Comment

If you currently work in an office where light is limited, getting light during the day may be challenging for you. If you feel really drowsy and tired during the first hours of work in the office, chances are your body temperature isn’t rising fast enough, most likely because you haven’t been exposed to enough light, or haven’t had enough activity!

If you work in an office, or at home, a good idea is to get a “bright light box.” Bright light boxes are machines that artificially produce light at high intensities, from 5,000 luxes to up to 10,000 luxes. They’re a bit pricy, but a great investment if you or your employer values your energy level while you’re at work. If you work in a place where your employer depends on your ability to function properly and with full energy, you could give them this book and convince them to invest in a few of them.

They range from $150 to $300 in price, here’s a company I would personally recommend to order these from. Please click here for more information.

Bright light therapy also has a connection with our emotions and daytime mood; it has known to cure depression and other mental disorders. Lack of light in the winter is one of the main causes of winter depression, and why people generally sleep longer in the winter.

Again! I could go on forever about how important light is in our lives, but let’s move on.

Importance of Bright Light

If your office is dark and gloomy due to lack of light, getting light during the day may be a big challenge for you. After the first few hours at office, if drowsiness creeps in, it is because that your body temperature is not rising at the rate that it normally should, because you have not had enough physical activity or you have not been exposed to enough light.

Be it at office or at home, bright light is an essential commodity to the human body as it is to plants. If any of these places are dark or gloomy, a good ides is to invest in “Bright Light Box”. These are artificial light emanating devices that produce high intensity light at approximately 5,000 to 10,000 luxes. These a trifle expensive, but still a good investment for employers who want their employees to work at full energy levels for proper functioning of physical and mental abilities. This article would be an eye-opener to them and convince them to invest in one.

The price range of these Bright Light Boxes is $150 to $300.

Bright light therapy is a very important element which controls us emotionally and sets our mood. This therapy is a known cure for many mental disorders and depression. Winter depression as all of us know makes us sleep more in winter due to lack of natural bright light.

This discussion could go on and on, but let’s move on.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon is typically a normal laid back guy who just can’t sit still and has a curiosity that runs wild. His mind is constantly churning, thinking of material to write and what would be the best subject. Be certain, if nothing else to subscribe to the RSS feed from the blog page or to be certain you do not miss nothing new subscribe to his weekly newsletter CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE or if you just want to sent Simon a note then Email Simon.. It is a known fact that there is nothing so well researched or diverse than what you read here in this blog so certainly be sure to stay tuned for much more. Good Day!

How Do Auto Navigation Systems Work?

Posted by Simon on October 18, 2009 under eBook Readers, Free eBooks, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, This Really Makes You Think . . ., You should Try this | Be the First to Comment

Have you ever given serious thought to the incredible benefits that having an auto navigation system will bring to your life and your travels? The truth of the matter is that the more sophisticated systems on the market today provide much more than simple directions from point A to point B. Today’s auto navigation systems are your one stop travel shop when it comes to finding points of interest, restaurants, fueling stops, and places to sleep along the way.

If you’ve never given it much thought, perhaps learning a little more about how an auto navigation system really works will give you something to think about when you get around to considering the impact that a device such as this can make in your life and the lives of your family members. The thing to remember is that not all GPS or auto navigation systems are equal. There are different manners of creation along with different manners of functionality and design. However, they all work on very similar principles.

GPS systems use satellites that orbit the earth in order to send signals that are received by the GPS device. The system has software that interprets the signal and uses that data in order to form conclusions about the current location based on the time it took to receive the signal from the satellite, and the exact location of the satellite that sent the data. By combining that information a conclusion can be drawn by the GPS or auto navigation system as to the exact position of the GPS device. Three satellites are used in order to determine the point of intersection and a fourth satellite insures the accuracy of the data.

Auto navigation systems are more sophisticated and much more functional than the original military GPS devices that were used. You can not only get directions to guide you on your trip, to make up for detours, and get you back on track after wrong turns, but you can also get information about local destinations, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and a few other points of interest along the way. Many auto navigation systems have upgrade packages that allow you to purchase a subscription, which will provide you with up to the minute information about traffic, weather, and construction along your route. The subscription costs for these services may be a deterrent for the casual driver but will prove invaluable to those who rely on correct directions and being on time while traveling extensively through work.

Be sure that whenever you purchase a GPS or auto navigation system that the system you purchase is not only full upgradeable but also easily upgraded. It does no good to have a system that is capable of being upgraded if you can’t figure out how to upgrade it. Many of these systems can be upgraded by using a something as simple as a CD or DVD in order to deliver the information and upgrades. If you can’t upgrade your system it will become obsolete in time as new roads are constantly being made and old roads are often closed for construction and upgrades. If you do not have the latest data on roads you are essentially driving just as blindly as you would be without an auto navigation system.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon is typically a normal laid back guy who just can’t sit still and has a curiosity that runs wild. His mind is constantly churning, thinking of material to write and what would be the best subject. Be certain, if nothing else to subscribe to the RSS feed from the blog page or to be certain you do not miss nothing new subscribe to his weekly newsletter CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE or if you just want to sent Simon a note then Email Simon.. It is a known fact that there is nothing so well researched or diverse than what you read here in this blog so certainly be sure to stay tuned for much more. Good Day!

Making A Safe Room

Posted by Simon on October 11, 2009 under eBook Readers, Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, This Really Makes You Think . . . | Be the First to Comment

The safe room, which is also known as a panic room, is a secure location within a home or building that is designed to provide safety for families during terrorist attacks, nature, burglaries, or other types of threats. A safe room is an ideal investment for any home owner, although the more fortified rooms with heavy security are normally found in the homes of rich people. Those that have a lot of money really have no budget – therefore they can easily spend thousands on making their safe room the best place to go in the event of an emergency.

For most of us, a safe room is a location that family members can run to and hide, or call for help in an emergency situation. You don’t really need to go all out and put steel walls and a steel door in the room, although you do need a fortified door that opens outward with fortified walls. You can have a door constructed of wood or other material, although the key should be a material that is very hard to break through. No matter what type of door you choose, the doorjamb should be steel, to prevent the door from being kicked in.

It’s almost important that your safe room doesn’t contain any windows. Windows can provide entry for burglars, which is something you obviously don’t want. You should also make sure that you keep a phone in the room, along with water, first aid kits, food, and any type of defensive weapons that you can get. It’s also a good idea to keep medical supplies in the safe room as well, just in case you need them.

No matter how hard you may try, it’s impossible to predict how long you will be locked in your safe room when an emergency happens. Therefore, you should always think about ventilation, lighting, and even hygiene. Being locked in a room for several days or possibly even weeks can affect your hygiene, which is why you should keep proper hygiene supplies in your room at all times.

The reason why most people invest in a safe room is burglars, as they present a real threat. No matter where you live, or how nice the neighborhood may be, a burglary can happen at any given time. When a burglary happens, the last thing you want to try to do is to reason with the burglars, or attempt to cooperate with them.

When you have a safe room, you can take your family there. You should always make sure that everyone in your family knows where the safe room is located and how to use it. If you have children, you should teach them about the room and how important it is. The room should never be used for recreation purposes or for children to play in. Instead, it should only be used in case of an emergency or a place for you and your family to hide.

If you have a safe room or just interested in one, you should always make sure that you keep the proper supplies on hand, just in case. When you finally do use the safe room, you should always make sure that you keep the keys to open the room inside, so no one else can get in. While you are in the room you can call the local authorities, then wait inside your safe room until they get to your house and the problem is solved. Never, under any circumstances should you come out of your safe room before the police arrive. If a burglary is taking place, you will only make the situation worse.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon is typically a normal laid back guy who just can’t sit still and has a curiosity that runs wild. His mind is constantly churning, thinking of material to write and what would be the best subject. Be certain, if nothing else to subscribe to the RSS feed from the blog page or to be certain you do not miss nothing new subscribe to his weekly newsletter CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE or if you just want to sent Simon a note then Email Simon.. It is a known fact that there is nothing so well researched or diverse than what you read here in this blog so certainly be sure to stay tuned for much more. Good Day!

Video iPod`s accessories

Posted by Simon on October 4, 2009 under eBook Readers, Free eBooks, It Is Believable, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, Sony eBooks, This Really Makes You Think . . ., What could be more fun?, You should Try this | 3 Comments to Read

Different accessories are compatible with iPod video, fact that increases the importance and great success of the new video device. There are cases for all tastes, requirements and preferences. You may not worry about the age or special preferences of the persons you may bring as a gift the iPod and the case for it.

Other accessories are the chargers, the earphones, headphones of different models. There is also a speaker especially created for the new iPod video. You may also find different types of skins, sticker decals, carrying cases, pouches, remote control, iPlug 3.5 splitter, backpack w/ speakers and, of course, various connection cables and adapter very useful for the new iPod video.

There are also different available adapters – iPod video cassette adapter for 3.5 mm devices, iPod video 3.5 mm to RCA audio cable adapter, iPod video car charger cigarette lighter adapter for Apple iPod, iPod video USB black car charger cigarette lighter adapter, iPod video USB travel/home charger adapter, iPod video car charger adapter, iPod video wall-car charger 12V-AC adapter. You may also find different transmitters for the iPod video and this is the case of the iPod video tune-free audio FM transmitter and the iPod video WALL-II audio FM transmitter.

Various cables are also of great use and are needed while having the iPod video – iPod video firewire 1394 data dync dable for Apple iPod & iPod mini, iPod video retractable USB 2.0 data sync cable for Apple iPod, iPod video USB 2.0 extension cable, iPod video USB 2.0 data sync cable for Apple iPod. You may also need iPod video USB data transfer key fob, extended battery pack w/ carrying case for the iPod video, walet carrying cases, metal cases of different colors, protector shields of various colors.

There are also some other useful accessories for the new iPod video and you may choose from different types of cases – Kroo G5 belt clip leather cases, Kroo Melrose belt clip carrying cases, iPod video Optimum Armband carrying cases.

You may also buy an iPod video Cellet universal PDA holder and a special holder for the iPod especially designed for the car. Other accessories are also useful and have an interesting design – iPod video Cellet Rhinestones 100, iPod Cellet Rhinestones assorted.

Some other accessories point out the new generation style technology – iPod video creative CB2530 bluetooth digital wireless headphones, iPod video Naztech boom station N20 speaker and docking station, iPod video fold-up amplified portable speakers for MP3 and music players. Other accessories are iPod video desktop dock cradle, iPod video idock desktop dock cradle for Apple iPod w/ USB and FireWire.

All these accessories denote the fact that a simple portable audio device is of a great importance taking into account all different designs for the carrying cases and skins. The iPod video has many accessories, some of them are designed for suiting the lifestyle, the preferences and the tastes of the customers. Others are needed for transferring the information, for adapting or other useful activities in the technologic domain.

Another important aspect to mention is the fact that all the accessories are especially designed for the thinner models of the iPod video with a larger screen and smaller dimensions. The cases, skins and sticker decals have the role of pointing out the beauty, simplicity or vivid colors. On the other hand, they have a protective role and a decorative one, pointing out the personality, the lifestyle of the user. These aspects are extremely important for the younger users of the iPod video – the teenagers.

The other accessories are more or less needed taking into account how much into the fever of the iPods the user is and how much he uses all the other activities related with the iPod video. Anyway, in a world in continuous movement, almost all the accessories and special devices may be of great need for a modern person with a modern lifestyle.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon is typically a normal laid back guy who just can’t sit still and has a curiosity that runs wild. His mind is constantly churning, thinking of material to write and what would be the best subject. Be certain, if nothing else to subscribe to the RSS feed from the blog page or to be certain you do not miss nothing new subscribe to his weekly newsletter CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE or if you just want to sent Simon a note then Email Simon.. It is a known fact that there is nothing so well researched or diverse than what you read here in this blog so certainly be sure to stay tuned for much more. Good Day!

How Bluetooth Works

Posted by Simon on August 30, 2009 under Free eBooks, Kindle eBooks, Really interesting!, What could be more fun? | Be the First to Comment

Bluetooth devices will normally operate at 2.4 GHZ in the license free, globally available ISM radio band. The advantage to this band includes worldwide availability and compatibility. A disadvantage to this however, is that the devices must share this band with other RF emitters. This includes automobile security systems, other wireless devices, and other noise sources, such as microwaves. To overcome this challenge, Bluetooth employs a fast frequency hopping scheme and therefore uses shorter packets than other standards within the ISM band. This scheme helps to make Bluetooth communication more robust and more secure.
Frequency hopping Frequency hopping is basically jumping from frequency to frequency within the ISM radio band. After a bluetooth device sends or receives a packet, it and the device (or devices) it’s communicating with hop to another frequency before the next packet is sent. This scheme offers three advantages:
1. Allows Bluetooth devices to use the entirety of the available ISM band, while never transmitting from a fixed frequency for more than a short period of time. This helps insure that Bluetooth conforms to the ISM restrictions on the transmission quantity per frequency.
2. Ensures that any interference won’t last long. Any packet that doesn’t arrive safely to its destination can be resent to the next frequency.
3. Provides a base level of security as it’s very hard for an eavesdropping device to predict which frequency the Bluetooth devices will use next.
The connected devices however, must agree upon the frequency they will use next. The specification in Bluetooth ensures this in two ways. First, it defines a master and slave type relationship between bluetooth devices. Next, it specifies an algorithm that uses device specific information when calculating the frequency hop sequences. A Bluetooth device that operates in master mode can communicate with up to seven devices that are set in slave mode. To each of the slaves, the master Bluetooth device will send its own unique address and the value of its own internal clock. The information sent is then used to calculate the frequency hop sequences.
Because the master device and each of the slave devices use the same algorithm with the same initial input, the connected devices will always arrive together at the next frequency that they have agreed upon.
As a replacement for cable technology, it’s no wonder that Bluetooth devices are usually battery powered, such as wireless mice and battery powered cell phones. To conserve the power, most devices operate in low power. This helps to give Bluetooth devices a range of around 5 – 10 meters.
This range is far enough for wireless communication but close enough to avoid drawing too much power from the power source of the device.
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