Notable Websites

 

Notable Websites

Slashdot – A news site updated often and run by Geeks. The news they post can be very sophisticated at times, being only of interest to hardcore Linux fans, but most of what they post is very interesting and there first. I’ve seen them post news stories well in advance of other papers, so that some even link back to Slashdot. One of the best and most popular tech news sites on the web.

www.slashdot.com

 

Gizmodo – A Gadget depository. It is run by a guy who sits in his apartment in NY, reading emails people send him about gadgets and other interesting stuff, and posting what he likes. The editor also provides many amusing comments along with the gadgets. Highly recommended, you’ll find out about gadgets well before they are released.

www.gizmodo.com

 

Google Maps – I love this site, they are doing amazing things with their technology. Google has recently released an update that tracks all the taxi cabs in NY city, allowing you to find the closest one in real time. There have also been tons of hacks online where even universities are adding information like the Boston subway system to the maps. Very clean interface.

maps.google.com

 

Cartoon Fridge – I was recently shown this by a friend. This site has tons of cartoons viewable online such as the Simpsons (seasons 1 – 12!), Family Guy, Futurama and others.

http://www.cartoon-fridge.com/

 

Enjoy your summer, and wear sun block.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/ped_7_1_What_You_Need_To_Know_About_Skin_Cancer.asp?sitearea=&level=

Gadget of the Week

 

 

My first gadget isn’t really a gadget, but is still worth mentioning. Skype is a free VoIP (voice over IP) program. Imagine AIM with the ability to talk, but better. It is the best attempt thus far to turn your computer into a phone. I had all my family members install Skype and we now all talk to each other for free. It has saved my brother, who lives in Peru, hundreds of dollars a month in phone bills. Check it out at www.skype.com

 

To make up for last weeks missing gadget of the week, let me mention the PSP (PlayStation Portable). The newest, and by far shiniest, portable gaming system. Having been able to try one myself I can say it lives up to all the hype. The best part of the PSP is by far its sharp and vivid screen. The downsides, which I love finding in electronics, are the following: it can only hold up to 1 gb of mp3’s or movies, it can’t play common movie formats without being converted lowering quality, battery life isn’t long enough, can’t read from common memory formats like compact flash, is expensive. Otherwise, it’s the best available, I suggest you try one for yourself.

Things you probably didn’t know # 2

For this article I would like to continue dispeling rumors and misconceptions in the technology world.

 

1. Backing up my files to a CD is safe; not any longer. If you look on the back of a CDR, or recordable blank CD, you might see a deep blue or green color; these are the most common types of recordable CDs. Blank CDs have been selling for some time with the promise that they can archive your data for a hundred years. Studies are now coming out showing that some CDs may only last as long as 5 years! When a CD is created, it is literally burned. The drive uses a laser to read and burn pits on the disc to create ones or zeros. Over time, the dye used in the CD starts to decay, making if harder and harder to read the data on the CD. Some people have found CDs created only 5 years ago are today indecipherable. Also, leaving a burned CD face up in the sun for only one day can do the same thing. You might notice CDs you buy in the music store have a silver or gold back.. These are far more likely to last 100 years as they are made of better quality materials, but can’t be created by the home user. The best bet one has is to re-burn your CDs every 5 or 10 years. Another option is to buy “gold” backed CDs made by a company called Mitsui; some claim these will last longer than the rest. They cost more than the Memorex’s you’d find at BestBuy but are worth it for archiving.
2. Mega pixels, the more the better. This is not necessarily true. In fact, scientists who work at NASA only used a one mega pixel camera on the Rover Spirit, the one currently on Mars. For now, more mega pixels do give you a sharper picture, but many cameras in the 8 mega pixel range are sacrificing image noise for more pixels. Noise in a digital camera picture can be seen often in pictures taken at night or in homogeneous surfaces. Noise in a picture appears as monochromatic grain or colored waves which can produce some very noticeable defects in a picture (imagine a bunch of colored specs covering parts of a picture). The problem with most digital cameras is that when a company adds more pixels, the size of each pixel has to be reduced which in turn increases the amount spillover from other pixels (when a pixel becomes saturated from light photons, it can affect others around it). The only solutions so far to this problem are to buy a single lens reflex camera, very expensive, or to use clever algorithms to remove noise. Many cameras with this problem try to reduce the noise by automatically using a longer exposure time, resulting in less noise but blurrier images. My suggestion is if you must have those next generation 16 mega pixel cameras, get an SLR. SLR (single lens reflex) cameras inherently have almost no noise because they use much larger light sensitive chips.
3. Flash memory or USB keys can die, quickly. You have probably noticed all those flashy USB memory keys being sold everywhere. They use flash memory just like your digital camera does and so are very useful for quickly moving files. When you write data to a USB key, you are lessening the lifespan of the device. Imagine the memory on a USB key as a very small metal grid. Each time you change a bit on that grid, a link has to be melted and broken. This can happen only so many times before the materials are destroyed. This does not mean one shouldn’t use flash memory; I use my USB key often. One way to extend the life of the key is to save to your hard drive while typing a document and wait until you’re finished to move it to the USB key. Don’t impulsively save every other word to the USB key or it will be gone before you know it.

 

Gadget of the Week

It is innovation like this which restores my faith in the giant tech companies. Logitech was really the first to produce a fast, accurate, and rechargeable mouse. Their new product the Logitech® MX™1000 Laser Cordless Mouse outdoes themselves in all the previous categories. They have replaced their battery with a lithium-ion rechargeable one, meaning it will last significantly longer sometimes up to a week! The mouse uses an actual laser making it far more accurate than any other mouse in existence. Accuracy translates into better representation of your hand-to-screen movements as well as allowing the mouse to work on even more surfaces, no more mouse pads needed! Having tried the mouse myself I can attest that it is by far the best out there; the mouse is sleek, fast, and light. I is probably too much mouse for the casual pc user, but for anyone who is into pc games or really appreciates quality, this is for you. It retails for about $60 online.

Things you probably didn’t know about your computer

This week, I thought it would be nice to dispel some common rumors and misconceptions currently floating in the computer world.

 

1. Screensavers save screens. Nope, not any more. This was true of old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors back in the 90’s. The deal was that a monitor that was left on a Microsoft word document for too long would burn that into the monitor, so when you view something else, you would notice a significant graying in the picture. That is why all old screensavers move so much, so that the monitor doesn’t display anything for too long. Today’s screensavers are no longer functional, at least, to save screens. In fact, all of you with LCD screens (flat monitors or laptop screens) will not benefit at all from using a screensaver, and in fact, might make things worse. LCD screens use a florescent tube to light the lcd screen, so even if your screensaver has black in it, or is set to all black, the lcds and the light are still being used. If you have windows, turn off your screen saver and set your monitor to just power off instead, you’ll increase the life of your monitor.
2. Don’t unplug your keyboard while your computer is on and running, you might destroy it. This sounds strange but is true. If you unplug your keyboard while the computer is running you might cause static electricity to destroy your motherboard.
3. Laser mice are lasers. I remember when “laser mice” were first introduced people were afraid to look at the light they emitted because people thought it might burn their eyes. Optical mice, which they are now more accurately called, do not use a laser but rather an LED (light emitting diode). There is no more harm in staring into your optical mouse than in staring at a light bulb. Your optical mouse uses the reflection of the LED light, using a built in camera, to track changes and movements from the light and from that decides how you are moving your mouse. This is not entirely accurate however since Logitech just introduced an actual laser mouse a few months ago. Read gadget of the week below for more details.
4. Ink prices are too high. Well, yes, ink is expensive, but not unfairly so. First a little history. When printer companies decided to move beyond the streamer type printers (they used long ribbons of black ink) to the current ink jet type, they had a big problem to deal with. The current printers you use, bubble jet or inkjet, rub the head of the printer right on the surface of the paper, wearing it out every time you print. If the printer companies built the ink heads right into the printer, you would have to buy a new printer every few months. So, the companies thought that instead consumers would rather, rightly so, buy ink every few months with the printer heads attached. So not only are you refilling your black ink when you replace an empty cartridge, but you are literally giving yourself a new printer as well. This is also why printer companies are right in telling you not to simply buy a refill kit; you will replace the ink but not the damaged and used ink head.
5. Leaving PC’s on will help them live longer. Don’t do this, for several reasons. First of all, it isn’t environmentally sound to leave an unused computer on all school year (like my roommate). Secondly, and more importantly, it does not benefit your system. The only reason I have heard to leave a system on is because stress is placed on a computer every time it is started. This is true, but still not as bad as leaving it on continuously. All the components in your computer are rated to last only so many hours before they die, leaving a computer on will just burn through these hours. More importantly for college students, hard drives, those nasty crunching sounding things which hold your papers, will increase their risk of failing the longer they are used. I recommend the following. You can leave the computer on all day unless you have a good number of hours in between of inactivity in which case you should turn it off, but turn it off at night. For windows users, go to Start -> Control Panel -> Power Options and select your hard drive to turn off after about 30 mins for both battery power and Home/Desk use. This will only turn the drive off after 30 mins of inactivity, not while you are using it. Turning your computer off will also keep your computer running faster since your RAM (random access memory) will have a chance to clear itself before you use the computer.

Why iTunes is evil…

 

So maybe you just bought an Ipod and want to buy music for it. For those of you considering switching from buying cd’s or downloading from Kazaa to get your music from Itunes, this article is for you. You might think that the title is a bit harsh, but let us take the definition of evil. Merriam-Webster defines it as: “inferior, offensive, and disagreeable.” Let me now explain why this is accurate. First of all, Itunes is terrible for artists. Itunes charges 99 cents per song, which by the way, is likely to be raised very soon. Of every song sold, Itunes gets 35% and the record companies get 65%. This amounts to about 8 to 14 cents per song to the artist. So for 1000 songs sold, the artist gets a whopping 80 bucks! So really, as you can see, when people complain about huge losses in music profits do to illegal file sharing, they really mean losses to the record companies, and even those losses are debatable. If this doesn’t bother you, then don’t worry, there is plenty more to dislike.

Some might be partial to the whole Itunes experience, personally I dislike it and find it overly simple for the amount of cpu and ram it uses. The real problem however, is when you download a song online, you are buying it in AAC format, Apple’s version of MP3 . When apple calls it a “lossless” codec what they really mean is that you lose. Unlike a CD, the music from Itunes is compressed and its quality is lowered. If you purchase a CD, you can choose to rip the music at any quality level using any codec. This means if you don’t have an Ipod, then you can rip music in a format you can actually play on another MP3 player. Other examples of codecs besides AAC are MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC and MAC. All of these are used for a variety of reasons, many claim one sounds better than another and so on, but the nice thing with a CD is you have options, not so with Itunes.

 

So far, not terrible, I admit. Trust me when I say I saved the best for last. Itunes couldn’t convince the record companies to sell music without a catch, that catch is known as DRM. DRM stands for digital rights management. Basically it means that whenever you try to do anything with “your” music that Apple or the record companies don’t like, they can beat you senseless with a large stick. DRM means that you really don’t own your music, you are using it with permission for a fee. With a DRM protected song, Itunes decides what, who, when, and how many times, a song can be played. Itunes limits how many times you can burn a song to cd and when you want to move music to another computer you have to bother with “authorizing” it to play your songs, which means you can’t have all the computers in your house have copies of your music. It also prevents AAC music from being played on a non-Apple device; basically every other mp3 player on the market. I am not alone in my hatred for this system, in fact, there are several projects out there which attempt to hack or remove this protection. I wouldn’t recommend using this if you have already bought music online since the last time Apple released an Itunes update it rendered any DRM songs that were hacked, unplayable.

 

You might be comfortable with this kind of purchase but I like to think that when I purchase music I am free to exercise my fair-use rights. Here is my recommendation, don’t use Itunes. If you must download music, try the service I recommended last time called Allofmp3.com. Not only does it not protect music like Itunes, but you can choose any quality and codec to download the music, and it costs about 10 cents a song. The best choice however is still to buy the CD. Try going to Amazon.com and purchasing a “used” cd. I often find many in this category selling for 5 dollars and they arrive in the shrink wrap. You’ll appreciate buying cd’s when a year from now your laptop/Ipod breaks and you lose all your music.

 

 

Gadget of the Week

First a quick update from last weeks Gadget. Last week I mentioned that the legality of Allofmp3.com was in question. This week I am slightly less concerned since a district attorney in Russia has claimed it cannot be prosecuted with their current laws, which only prohibit the distribution of physical cd’s. Basically this means expect Allofmp3.com to remain online for 3-5 years, the time it takes Russia to update its copyright laws.

Many of you have Ipods, that is certainly not a new gadget, but I bet you haven’t given thought to what headphones you use; but you should. Besides the electronics used in an MP3 player, the headphones are the next most important part for sound quality. The problem with the included Ipod headphones is that they are made to be as cheap as possible, so the sound quality is bad and they can be very uncomfortable after extended use. So what options are available? Depends how much money you’re willing to spend. First, Sony has been offering very good in-ear buds which can cost anywhere from 25 to 50 dollars. Sony has even started selling a white version to match the o-so-fashion cautious users. The next step up is really more of a jump with prices going from 100 to 400 dollars. The best headphones in this category are those from Etymotic and Shure. These two companies make the headphones professional musicians use on stage at live concerts. I personally own the Shure E3C headphones, a great set with sound reproduction like nothing else. If you are familiar with these types you would know that they are “in-ear” headphones. That is, they are meant to be worn inside the entrance to the ear canal. This has several advantages. First, it offers natural noise reduction, great for airplanes and public areas, and secondly, the material used is often a very soft rubber, allowing hours of use without any discomfort. For the common user, I recommend the Sony Fontopia headphones, for audiophiles, the Shure E2c’s.