Google

วันพุธที่ 15 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2550

Digital Cameras

If you go out shopping for a new camera today you’ll be hard pressed to find one of the old 35 MM varieties. No one buys these anymore. Certainly used professional cameras can be found, and possibly a few throw backs to the old film variety, but for the most part, it’s all digital cameras today. If this seems scary, it need not be. The days when digital cannot touch the quality of film is long gone. The new digital photography is no longer riddled with visible pixels or problems in clarity.


Today’s digital pictures are far better than their older counterpart. Not only can you take pictures of the most precise quality, but you can enhance them on your computer. Using a Photoshop program, color can be enhanced, those pesky under eye circles, acne, even dull teeth, can be completely removed from the photo. If you’re really handy with the computer tools, the enhancements can take away the ten pounds your camera adds, and then some. You can use these programs to completely change the background, crop areas you dislike, even choose to remove people and objects with ease. You can use these programs to create an artistic atmosphere in your photograph, or just to improve the image that you took.

Besides the obvious wonder of programs used to crop, present, and enhance your photos, the cameras themselves do some fairly amazing things. The screen allows the photographer to see their image, exactly as it should appear, before taking the photo. If, by chance, the photo still turns out unlike what you expected, just delete it. It’s that simple. You can delete any of the garbage photos to save room on your disk for the keepers.

The camera’s also come equipped with some quick fix remedies for common photograph problems. Most cameras can take care of red-eye problems. With memory cards, your ability to take picture after picture is far greater than what you might get out of many rolls of film, and the camera automatically focuses and provides high resolution results. These photographs can be printed on your home printer with photograph paper, or the memory card can be taken into your local photo developer to have the pictures printed as regular, old fashion photos. You can also upload all of the images to your home computer, email them as jpegs, turn the entire roll into a slideshow, or just save them in a folder for later use. Photos you’ve taken can be used as your screensaver, shared online, or turned into a brilliant digital scrapbook.

The HP Photosmart R725 comes equipped with slimming features built into the camera. Once you take the picture, you can digitally enhance the image from the camera screen. If you dislike the results of slimming, you can choose to keep the original photo or the new, slimmer image. More expensive models such as this one also come equipped with other image enhancements and design gallery use. There are a wide variety of cameras to choose from, at varying prices. With a little homework, and a good idea of your own personal use and needs for the camera, it can be a great investment for your photography needs. Gone are the days of the old shoeboxes of scattered pictures, or hours spent adding each to a photo album. These new digital images can be kept organized much more easily, and arranged for your preference of viewing.

Read More...

วันศุกร์ที่ 10 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2550

Apple iPhone

Is it a computer, phone, iPod, or video device? The answer may be all of the above. Steve Jobs recently unveiled his much anticipated Apple iPhone. The model, an ultra thin handset, with a touch screen that takes up virtually the entire face of the model, is equipped with all of the iPod audio technology and wi-fi capabilities. So what does this mean for the world of cellular phones?

The Apple iPhone is scheduled to go on the market in June of 2007. How this device may change the industry is up for theoretic debate at the moment. Some believe, at nearly $500.00 for the basic model, it is overpriced and while there may be a flux of interest at first, sales will dwindle shortly thereafter. Others believe the combination of audio, web accessibility, and communications capabilities will lead customers, who previously used their wireless phone only for simple texting and phone usage, to explore more computer and video applications through cellular devices.

The iPhone will be offered exclusively through Cingular, which may limit the customer base by excluding loyal patrons of other carriers. Another consideration in sales potential is in the purchasing preferences of current wireless phone users. Most marketing statistics suggest that consumers choose their wireless phone by carrier and plan pricing, with the actual model of phone being a secondary consideration, if it’s a consideration at all. Many consumers look at their wireless phone as, just that, a phone. As long as it holds their address book, is easy and convenient to use, and allows them to take the occasional picture or check their email, that’s all they really need. Many customers don’t even use all of the features available on their current wireless, simply choosing the phone that came with the best phone plan. All of which leads experts to wonder whether the impressive design of Apple’s new iPhone will be enough to catch consumer interest and maintain it for a prolonged period.

Steve Jobs contends that the iPhone will revolutionize the wireless phone industry. The iPhone has iPod capabilities, as well as web browsing through a partnership with Yahoo. It is also linked in to global positioning satellites, giving users an accurate location and directions to where they are going at the touch of their fingertips. The touch screen itself utilizes what Apple has named, ‘multi touch’ technology; meaning that the phone ignores multiple touches or mistakes, making it easier to accurately use the features. Another plus to the design, the large touch screen makes it more convenient for customers to use their features, rather than the sometimes difficult to use current variety of wireless phones.

Only time will tell whether the price is too high or the technology great enough to overcome it. It’s fully conceivable that this type of communication device can replace the business person’s need for a laptop while they travel or are away from the office. The phone also serves as an iPod, camera, and video player, so there may be a great deal of consumers who take into consideration the fact that in combining all of these features, the price becomes worth it. With an easy to use menu, email and web browsing capabilities, musical and video selection, and of course phone capabilities, the device can certainly replace a number of existing appliances that most consumers would purchase separately.




Read More...

วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 2 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2550

Sony sued over Cell Processor

by highlandcynic

Sony
is once again the subject of legal action this time directed at the Cell processor that forms the heart of the PS3. A company called Parallel Processing Corporation, previously unknown, has filed a case against Sony claiming the Cell infringes on patent 5,056,000. A patent, which was originally filed in 1989 and granted in 1991.The suit says the Cell infringes on the patent covering “synchronized parallel processing with shared memory.” Parallel Processing Corp of California wants triple damages and the impounding and destruction of all offending product. One of the puzzling aspects of this is that Sony is only one of three companies that were involved in the Cell project, with Toshiba and IBM. It’s puzzling since IBM clearly designed the processor and designed the reference platforms for Cell, and sells its own line of blade servers based on Cell.

What makes things more interesting is the company suing didn’t exist until June 15, 2007.

For more, please see Ars Technica and CVG.

HighlandCynic’s Opinion

The patent in question essentially describes a linearly scaling parallel processor. The terms of the patent are extremely broad; for example, “A high speed computer that permits the partitioning of a single computer program into smaller concurrent processes running in different parallel processors.”

That could describe any multi-core/multi-processor architecture since about 1970. Actually, the Cray super computers of the 1980s had a design remarkably similar in concept to that of the Cell processor itself. I graduated with my Comp Sci degree in 1990, and reading the patent reminded me of so many of the things covered during my studies that I dug out an old text book. High Performance Computer Architecture by Harold S. Stone (who works for IBM at the Watson research center in NY and was made a fellow of the IEEE in 1987), published in 1987. Sure enough, there are algorithms for parallelizing tasks by breaking them up into small pieces and synchronizing the results. The book is a hardware book, and describes various hardware methods for obtaining high performance, including parallel processing. You can Google Stone’s work and find lots more at the IEEE or the ACM.

Read More...

PS3 to get digital tuner

Is your cable DVR down? Has your TiVo been trashed? Then turn to your PS3 to save your TV programs. According to Sony Computer Entertainment New Zealand, Sony has plans to create a digital tuner for the PlayStation 3, so it can be used as a programmable television recorder.

In a recent interview with Warwick Light, Sony Sales and Marketing GM, Light indicates Sony is looking to release the device for the PS3 sometime next year. “We’re also hoping next year–about the same time that Freeview launches its terrestrial broadcasting service (expected to be in March)–to release a digital tuner for the PS3, turning it into a programmable TV recorder,” Light said.

While I wouldn’t expect a PS3 to replace a conventional DVR due to the hard drive sharing game and other content, having another option to record programs may be handy if your cable box is already busy recording two other programs.

Currently available by satellite, Freeview in New Zealand is a non-profit organization providing free-to-air digital television and was designed to overcome the poor reception caused by New Zealand’s rugged topography.

Read more at Gamasutra.

Read More...

Are you taking your BlackBerry to bed with you?

Talk about being a workaholic. A new AOL Survey conducted in partnership with the Opinion Research Corporation is showing that when it comes to e-mail most of us simply do not know how to disconnect. The problem seems to have gotten worse with the creation of mobile e-mail devices such as the BlackBerry. The survey included 4,025 respondents over the age of 13 from 20 different cities.

The survey showed most people check their e-mail about five times a day. If you have a portable device, then 59% of you are checking it every time a new message arrives. If this wasn’t bad enough, 43% of those with a portable device were keeping the device near them when they sleep to check for e-mail.

If this is someone who sounds like they need a vacation, keep in mind that 83% of e-mail users admit to checking their e-mail once a day while on vacation. That’s probably why 15% of respondents feel they are addicted to e-mail. As far as the most e-mail addicted city Washington, D.C. took top honors followed by Atlanta and New York.

That’s why I don’t think it is cool anymore to get yet another device or tool that keeps me chained to the office outside of work. After all, it becomes a security blanket that people can’t seem to put down. That’s probably why I also don’t take my BlackBerry with me on vacations. It’s to protect me from me.

Read more from the AOL press release.

Read More...

วันจันทร์ที่ 23 กรกฎาคม พ.ศ. 2550

Should I Make a Backup of My Computer?


Few people that purchase a computer go through the trouble of making a backup on their computer of their applications or data. Backups take more time than people are willing spend on them. Their is one question you should ask yourself? Do I have any valuable letters, spreadsheets, pictures or financial or other data that I will lose if my computer has hardware, operating system, virus or spyware problems which cannot be recovered. If your answer is yes you should make some type of backup on your new computer.

One backup strategy is to make a image of your hard drive when your computer is operating correctly. This way when trouble happens you can restore your image to your hard disk in about 45 minutes. This will give you a fresh start, with no spyware, virus, conflicts or problems. This will restore your computer to the state it was when you created the image. You will lose any information that you created or programs that you installed after the image was created. The advantage is you will have an exact image of your hard drive and can restore your computer in half the time it would take to install Windows XP and all the data a software programs that you would have to other wise have to reinstall. If you are like most people you often misplace your CD's for Windows or software programs. You not need these CD's to restore your image. Symantec Norton Ghost 9 and Acronis True Image 8 are a couple of image programs that we have great success using.

Here are some ideas of where you can save your image. The least expensive way is to make a second partition on your primary hard drive. You should request this be done when you purchase your new computer or you can use Windows XP or a third party program such as Symantec's Partition Magic. You can also use this partition to keep all your documents, spreadsheets, photos or any data without creating an image. This will make it to restore this information should you need to reinstall Windows XP and your software programs. The disadvantage to this is if your hard drive fails you will lose your image or information. You could also make images to your DVD R-W if you have one installed on your new computer. You may have to span your image across more than on DVD-RW disc. Most image programs support this feature. Another option would be to install a second hard drive to create images on. You could do this with an internal or external hard drive. Using internal hard drives you could mount your primary and secondary drives in removable drive housings in open bays. In the event that your primary drive fails you could switch drives from bay 1 to bay 2 and start your computer from your ready to go image on drive 2. You also can have a RAID LEVEL 1 configuration on your new computer. This creates identical contents on both hard drives to protect against data loss due to drive failure. In the event your primary drive does fail the secondary drive would keep your computer running. You would have no down time on your computer. The most expensive option would be a Iomega backup drive. These drives have removable disks that can be inserted or removed from the drive.

With a little effort you can be sure that your computer stays running smoothly with little down time and troubleshooting using the above methods. This will make sure you have a reliable backup of your valuable information.

Written by JR Computers Staff
From: http://www.jronsite.com/article_2.htm

Read More...

Quality Technical Support should be included with a New Computer



When you purchase a PC you look for all the bells and whistles you would like to include in you new computer. You are hoping the bells and whistles are also assembled with quality and great performing components. Well when you are looking for a great performing reliable computer most people should be looking to see what type of technical support is provided with their purchase. Even computers with quality are likely to need some technical support during the warranty period. Here are some issues with technical support on new computers.

Qualified Technicians: Technicians should be with good training on the customers computer. Watch out for computer manufactures that hire employee reading scripts to troubleshoot customers computers.

Language Barriers: Nothing is more frustrating than phoning for technical support and trying to communicate with a hard to understand technician. I have heard stories of wrong replacement parts being shipped to customers for repairs. Customers having to phone technical support 2-3 times before they get a technician they can communicate with and make progress on their problems. These are some of the countries that Technical Support for computer manufactures are based from United States, Canada, Ireland and India. It is bad enough to have computer problems without have communication problems with your technical support. It would be wise to purchase a computer with technical support based in a country you would be able to clearly understand and communicate to resolve your problem.

Trying to Phone Technical Support: When telephoning technical support customer have to maneuver through menus and listen to recording pushing buttons on the phone before reaching a technician. This can be a very frustrating experience. When you reach the end of menus it seems you are then put on hold for ever.

Hardware vs Software: Most computer manufactures will only support hardware issues. The truth is if a computer is manufactured with quality hardware most of your problems will be software related issues. Software that is purchased with the computer should have technical support that includes the operating system (e.g.. Windows XP) and software utilities such as anti-virus, firewall, spyware. application software such as word processing, photo editing and games. The computer manufacture should supply technical support phone numbers for each individual software vendors if they do not support the software themselves.

Quality Control: Problems should be kept to a minimum if good quality control measures are taken before shipping. Quality control consists of testing the computer for any flaws after assembly. The problem is some companies do not test every computer. They will test every ten for instance. This could increase the chance that your computer you purchased may sneak by quality control with a defect. You may get a computer delivered to you DOA (Dead On Arrival).

Computer manufactures could take it a step farther and bench mark your computer. This will show you the performance of your computer comparing to similar computers manufactured by competitors. I would imagine some manufactures would decline to do this because they are giving you a great price for your computer using older technology. The bottom line is it may not perform better than the reference computers. Just remember a better performing computer will last into the future longer before having to purchase a new computer again.

Online Support: This is a great option for the more experience computer user to find information about resolving their computers problems on your manufactures web site. Some manufactures offer Online Chat technicians. This is convenient and much cheaper for the manufacture if the customer uses both these options for self help resolving their computer problems. The Cons to these options are - If your computer is down how are you going to get on the manufacture web site for help. Using the chat technician may be hard for people with limited typing skills. It is also hard to try and repair your computer while you have to keep going back to the manufacture web site after rebooting, installing software or drivers.

When purchasing a computer it may payoff to research what type of support your manufacture offers. Things to look for are support in a country where you are able to clearly communicate with the technician. Technical support that does not have phone menus and long wait times for a technician. Support for hardware and software on you new computer purchase. A company that quality checks every computer for defective components, reliability and performance before they ship to their customers. Finally online support is a plus, but make sure the computer manufacture does also offer good phone support.

Written by JR Computers Staf
From: http://www.jronsite.com/article_4.htm

Read More...

Windows Vista Tips & Tricks


We've got 15 tips and tricks for enhancing your Vista experience.

By Joel Durham


1. If you hate the look of Aero, click Start/Control Panel/Themes and you can choose a non-Aero theme, such as Windows Classic.

2. Windows Vista's installer can detect serial-ATA (SATA) drives without the need to provide a driver diskette. Don't bother creating a diskette for your SATA drives before you install Vista.

3. If, for some reason, the Vista installation gets interrupted due to an unintentional shutdown or reboot, start the computer without booting the Vista DVD. Windows Vista's installer should pick up where it left off. If it does-n't, then restart the installation over from scratch.

4. When you perform a search with Vista's new, instant search feature, you can save the search in a special folder. This powerful feature allows you to create a virtual folder which, by default, is saved in your \\Searches\ folder. Every time you open such a folder, the search results are updated.

5. In Windows Vista, you can add additional clocks to the system tray. Click the clock, and then click Date and Time Settings. Click the Additional Clocks tab. You can add one or two additional clocks to the tray and select their time zones.

6. You can save your progress in most of the games included with Windows Vista—even the carry-overs from earlier versions of Windows.

7. You can create XML documents, which are more secure than regular text files or even word processor docs. Just create a document in a word processor, print it via the options menu, and select the XPS printer.

8. If you upgrade your graphics card in preparation for Windows Vista, be sure to get a new card with as much local memory as possible. Since Windows Vista renders everything—even the desktop and windows them-selves—as 3D surfaces, local 3D memory greatly improves performance...sometimes even more than a more powerful GPU.

9. Windows Vista games deposit their saves into a special directory, called Saved Games, in your personal folder. In theory, that will make upgrading to a new system much easier for gamers, who like to migrate their game saves.

10. When using the Help system, it's usually advantageous to include Microsoft's online database in your search. The online/offline status of your search is located on the bottom right of the Help window. You can click it to toggle.

11. The Games folder is a powerful repository of all things gaming. From within, you launch games, update games with the latest patches, enable parental controls to protect younger users from harmful content, and more. Invoke it by clicking Start/Games.

12. Several applications are available to help you tweak Windows Vista for maximum performance. They in-clude TweakVI (www.totalidea.com), TweakVista (www.tweakvista.com/tweakvistautility), and VistaBootPRO (www.vistabootpro.org). And don't forget about Windows ReadyBoost, which lets you use a removable flash memory drive to boost system memory.

13. Do you use the icon in the upper left corner of system and application windows? A quick double-click closes the window (instead of a single click on the X at the upper right). Though Microsoft left the icon out in Vista, the function remains.—Sarah Pike

14. In Microsoft Windows Explorer, you can use column headers (Name, Size, and so on) to sort files. Savvy users may right-click on a column head to remove items or add some—say, Dimensions for images. There are around 45 such columns available in Windows XP. Windows Vista has well over 250, covering a multitude of metadata.—Sarah Pike

15. If you've become used to surfing your Program Menu to get to applications, you'll be in for a shock when you first use Microsoft Windows Vista. The new Program Menu shows you only recently used applications and requires extra clicks to navigate to submenus. This can be very frustrating but, thankfully, the Search box Microsoft has added to the Start menu is a great replacement—as long as you're an accurate typist. As quickly as you can type, it returns intelligent results in apps, files, even e-mail messages.—Dave Cardinal, freelance writer

From: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2088459,00.asp

Read More...

RAID (level 0) Performance or (level 1) Data Integrity


...................................................
RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. Raid configurations mostly benefit gaming, performance and media computers. They benefit business users in workstations and servers. A RAID system uses more than one hard drive for the benefit of increasing data integrity, fault tolerance, throughput or capacity. This does depend on the RAID configuration used such as RAID 0, or 1. At the very simplest level, RAID combines multiple hard drives into a single logical unit. Thus, instead of seeing several different hard drives, the operating system sees only one. What RAID is and what it does for you depends on what configuration you choose.

RAID 0

This level is for users of gaming, high-performance, multimedia computers and workstations. This level spreads or stripes data (data striping) evenly across two or more disks. RAID 0 is normally used to increase performance, although it can also be used as a way to create a small number of large virtual disks out of a large number of small physical ones. For example Windows will see a 360 GB hard drive if you RAID (5) 73GB physical hard drives together.

A RAID 0 can be created with disks of differing sizes, but the storage space added to the array by each disk is limited to the size of the smallest disk—for example, if a 120 GB disk is striped together with a 100 GB disk, the size of the array will be 200 GB.

RAID 0 configurations improve performance by allowing the controller to exploit the capabilities of multiple hard disks to get around performance-limiting mechanical issues that plague individual hard disks.

Cons

RAID O does double your chances of losing your data. If one drive fails you lose data on both drives. The defective drive will have to be replaced and the operating system re-installed.

RAID 1

This level is for business computers and servers RAID 1 creates an exact copy (mirror) of a set of data on two or more disks in real time. This configuration gives higher data security. This means that the data on the array can withstand even the complete failure of one hard disk without any data loss, and without requiring any data to be restored from backup. The computer or server will run on the good hard drive until the defective hard drive can be replaced. A RAID 1 can be created with disks of differing sizes, but the storage space added to the array by each disk is limited to the size of the smallest disk—for example, if a 120 GB disk is striped together with a 100 GB disk, the size of the array Windows shows will be 100 GB.

Cons
You should still backup your data because RAID level 1 does not protect from any data corruption, viral infection, spyware infection or accidental deletion. Since both drives have the same exact data in real time (mirror).

Should I Use Raid?

Gaming and High Performance Computers
For those individuals who are playing intensive games. These users should consider a RAID 0. It will provide the improved performance needed in many game applications.

Media Computers and Workstations
For those individuals who are doing intensive work such as video file editing, graphical design, CAD/CAM, and the like should consider a RAID 0 will provide the improved performance needed in many of these applications.

Business computers and servers
All but the smallest businesses should be running their critical data on RAID 1. Data is so important, and interruptions can be so crippling to most businesses.

Written by JR Computers Staff
From: http://www.jronsite.com/raid.htm

Read More...