Video Conferencing

Video conferencing is the technique of conducting a conference between two or more participants at different sites irrespective of their demographic locations by using computer networks to transmit audio and video data. For example, a point-to-point video conferencing system works much like a video telephone, between two people only. Each participant has a video camera, microphone, and speakers mounted on his or her computer. As the two video participants speak to each other, their voices are carried over the network and delivered to the other's speakers, and whatever images the video camera captures appear in a window on the other participant's monitor. The other technique is multipoint videoconferencing. Multipoint video conferencing allows three or more participants to sit in a virtual conference room and communicate with the other participants of the video conference as if they were sitting right in front of you or next to each other. Technology that existed up to the mid 90s, made costs of video conferencing prohibitively expensive for most organizations, but that has changed drastically. Many experts and businessmen are of the belief that video conferencing will be one of the fastest-growing segments of the computer industry in coming years.

Companies such as Lifesize and Tandberg are leaders in the field of video conferencing systems and have installed tens of thousands of their systems in locations all over the world. Through innovative, generation next video conferencing technology, Tandberg can deliver greater video quality, brilliant audio coverage and flawless manageability. Tandberg customers enjoy better quality at any bandwidth and, with the very best cost factor available anywhere on the market. Anyone with dispersed colleagues and operations can now effectively share important information and valuable insights.

Tandberg video conferencing systems are fast becoming the indispensable communication tools of the globe. As more and more companies and business organizations are going global the need to stay in touch is becoming imperative. Business managers need to be in constant touch with their subordinates and customers all over the world. Offices being decentralized will need Tandberg's video conferencing system to ensure that anyone can meet anyone, anywhere, at the flick of a button and maybe a small message to come online. Tandberg offers a comprehensive array of video conferencing equipment to choose from. So if you are a small business house of a conglomerate Tandberg has just the video conferencing equipment for you. They even have something for the housewife and the student fraternity. The small desktop video conferencing equipment and software is the best you could get anywhere in the market at the best prices you could ever imagine.

Though there are many kinds online video conferencing software available on the Internet, for free, you might want to try some professional video conferencing software and equipment from the leaders in the industry. You will be surprised at the difference it will make for your business, the fact that you can establish actual eye contact with the people at the other end of the line makes all the difference with the professional video conferencing systems from the pros.

Photo Shop Tutorial for Beginners - 6 Tips for Getting Started

Photo Shop is one of the most amazing and yet complicated software programs out in the market right now, but don't worry…you'll only have to suffer its complicatedness at the start. After a while, you'll soon get the hang of Photo Shop and then you'll be editing your photos like mad!

Tip #1 Choosing the Type of Image File




Whenever you edit a photo in a major way, the default settings of Photo Shop would usually ask you to save the file in psd format; be that as it may, it's better for you to save your photos in jpeg as this is the most commonly accepted file and allows you to upload photos easily on just about any website.

Tip #2 Images without Background




Let's say you wish to create a particular shape or text or you've cut out a particular figure and you wish to use it on a website or even any design without white background. This is impossible to do with MS Paint, but certainly easy to achieve with Adobe Photo Shop.

First, set the background to transparent. Next, paste or create the desired text, shape, or photo. Once you're done, you have to click on Save for Web and not simply Save As because the latter would cause your photo to lose its transparent background.

Tip #3 Understanding Contrast




You see this term being used a lot when describing art or even when discussing about adjustment levels of a plasma TV. But do you really understand what contrast is? To put thing simply, contrast is the ability of a certain object, in this case that would be Photo Shop, to display the contrast or difference between dark and light colors or the difference between black and white. In a monochromatic photo, contrast is especially important because it makes distinguishing various objects in the photo easier. In colored photos, contrast is important when the photo has a particularly dark background.

Tip #4 Choosing the Quality Level




When you use Photo Shop to edit a photo, you might be asked in the end to choose the level of quality for your photo before saving it. The ideal level to choose is 60 because it allows you to enjoy superior quality while reducing the file size of your photo. Anything more can be particularly heavy and consume much disk space while the anything less can compromise the appearance of your photo.

Tip #5 Going Retro




To make your photos black and white, simply go to the Image Toolbar then click grayscale and your photos would immediately look decades older.

Tip #6 Layers




This feature of Adobe Photo Shop never fails to intimidate most beginners, but you shouldn't let it scare you. Once you understand how layers work, you'll be virtually addicted to using it frequently to enhance your photos.

Layers basically let you know the different layers that your photo consists of. Yes, your photo is indeed made up of multiple layers, and you can a new one or remove an old one with the Layers Toolbar. Using layers will allow you to edit one part of the photo without affecting the rest.

Tip #6 Marquee Tools




Lastly, these tools allow you to select a portion of the photo in the shape you prefer. The rectangular selection tool is the simplest and most commonly used. The elliptical marquee tool will allow you to make a circular selection while the single row or column marquee tools – as their names imply – allow you to make a straight line selection in your photo.

Ipod - Is It Worth The Money?

When people think of MP3 players most people think of the Ipod by Apple. But is it worth the money? My family began purchasing MP3 players about a year ago and the difference in price between one manufacturer and another can be substantial. The question you should ask yourself is: "How much am I willing to pay for the popularity of one MP3 player over another?" The answer of course is, you shouldn't pay a dime more than you need to. Most MP3 players regardless of price deliver outstanding sound quality and isn't that what you are looking for? Bells and whistles that you pay hundreds of dollars extra for are probably not necessary if you are just looking for a good quality MP3 player that won't break your budget. In fact, in our experience you can purchase an MP3 player which is superior to the Ipod in several areas for a fraction of the price.

My wife wanted an Ipod for her birthday and that's exactly what I bought her. She loved it at first... until I bought myself a Sony Walkman.

In this article we will compare the Ipod Nano ($200) with the Sony NW-E005 2 GB Flash Digital Music Player ($62)

The first glaring difference between the Ipod and the Sony is not only price but the software that operates the units. We took the exact same CD and downloaded it to the Ipod software called "Itunes" and it took 4 minutes and 40 seconds for the download to complete. The same CD downloaded to the Sony Walkman software called "Sonic Stage" took only 2 minutes and ten seconds. Less then half the time! If you are planning on downloading a large music library then it is going to take you more then twice the time to accomplish this with an Ipod.

Another difference my wife noticed with the Itunes software is that it is not as easy to use as the Sonic Stage software by Sony. Her comments were: "Every time I open the Itunes software to use it I have to re-teach myself what to do because nothing is obvious. The Sonic Stage software is very easy to use. When you open the software it has three big buttons at the top. Music Source, My Library and Transfer. From these three easy to understand buttons you can perform any task quickly."

One other disadvantage of the Ipod is that it has a special cable that has to be used in order for you to charge the battery and download music. My wife complains that if she is out of the house and her battery runs down she cannot recharge it without that darn cable. So be prepared to take that cable everywhere you take your Ipod or you will not be able to recharge the battery or download music.

This is not the case with a Sony Walkman MP3 player. The Sony MP3 player has a built in USB that plugs into any computer to charge the battery and download music. No extra cables to carry around like the Ipod.

Another difference between the Ipod Nano and a Sony Walkman is how many hours the MP3 player will work on one charge. You guessed it. My wife's Ipod runs down in less then 10 hours while the Sony Walkman's charge is good for over 20 hours!

You may think that this article is a long advertisement for Sony Walkmans but that was not our intention. We had the opportunity to compare the Apple Ipod MP3 player with the Sony Walkman MP3 player and we were shocked that not only was the Sony Walkman a fraction of the price of the Ipod Nano but it was easier to use, the software was faster and the charge lasted twice as long.

The one advantage we found with the Ipod was that it held more songs. BUT - I still have not filled the memory on my Sony Walkman so it's not a factor as far as we are concerned.

It's up to you to decide if the Ipod is worth the money. For my wife and I... we are hooked on the Sony series of MP3 players. Great price, great software and very easy to use.

Future Developments Of Ontologies And Visualization

So far my taxonomies include the traditional object oriented relationships such as child, parent, sibling, attribute, and instance. There are other types of relationship that would need to be modelled in order to maximise the capabilities of software that would use the taxonomies. Basic key relationships used within the object oriented programming domain between objects are implemented. These key relationships depict families of objects that may share attributes and methods through inheritance. They also describe aggregations of objects that make (usually) some geometric sense.

Semantic descriptions with more relationship types than this allow a more expressive depiction of a problem domain, and can aid some forms of search within a model. One of the main advantages of a semantic net description, in terms of automated model generation, is that labelling relationships between objects allows the depiction of a number of aspects of a domain in one model, and with a consistent syntax. Ciocoiu et al (2000) explain how an engineering ontology can be made more rigorous in order to facilitate interoperability. This allows representation of, say, a product structure and its manufacturing processes together. A single node then is the only representation of that node within the model, with all its relationships depicted as arcs emanating/terminating at the node. More expressive semantic descriptions are possible through the use of one of the standard OWL dialects. Protégé has OWL plug-ins available that provide this functionality, together with links to reasoning tools for maintaining and analysing the logical constructs (Storey et al, 2004) and (Elenius, 2005). The University of Victoria Computer-Human Interaction and Software Engineering lab (CHISEL) (University of Victoria, 2006) has developed Jambalaya (Ernst et al, 2003) for visualization of knowledge and relationships. Cheung et al (2005) provide an ontology editor for knowledge sharing in manufacturing.

It is also important not to stay limited on one ontology development environment but instead explore how ontologies can be developed using a range of development tools and translated between each where necessary (Garcia-Castro and Gomez-Perez, 2006) are testing this. For this reason, a large range of ontology management tools have been investigated and meta languages. An interesting development is SWRL a Semantic Web Rule Language Combining OWL and RuleML and its use in modelling (Miller and Baramidze, 2005).

References

Cheung, W. M., Maropoulos, P. G., Gao, J. X., Aziz, H., 2005. Ontological Approach for Organisational Knowledge Re-use in Product Developing Environments. In: 11th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising - ICE 2005, University BW Munich, Germany.

Ciocoiu, M., Gruninger, M., Nau, D. S., 2000. Ontologies for Integrating Engineering Applications. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, 1(1) pp 12-22.

Elenius, D., 2005. The OWL-S Editor - A Domain-Specific Extension to Protégé. In: 8th Intl. Protégé Conference - July 18-21, 2005 - Madrid, Spain.

Ernst, N. A., Storey, M., Allen, P., Musen, M., 2003. Addressing cognitive issues in knowledge engineering with Jambalaya http://www.neilernst.net/docs/pubs/ernst-kcap03.pdf.

Garcia-Castro R, Gomez-Perez A, 2006. Interoperability of Protégé using RDF(S) as interchange language. In: 9th Intl. Protégé Conference, July 23-26, 2006 - Stanford, California.

Storey, M., Lintern, R., Ernst, N., Perrin, D., 2004, Visualization and Protégé In: 7th International Protégé Conference - July 2004 - Bethesda, Maryland.

University of Victoria, 2006. Model Driven Visualization (MDV) http://www.thechiselgroup.org/?q=mdv.

Samsung D800 - Innovative Technology With Loads To Offer

The present mobile phone world is more dynamic and literally crammed with innumerable handsets. Therefore, you need to merge all the essential factors like technology, features, designing to lure more and more users. The race is on like never before and each leading handset manufacturer is trying to outplay others with consistent innovation. The Samsung D800 also belongs to the category of such handsets, which are sheer examples of technical enhancements. Moreover, the Samsung D800 also offers all that you want in designing. It has been duly designed with each detail to live up to the expectations of the users. Relying on its essential resources, the Samsung D800 is an upgraded version of the D500.

Like its predecessor, the Samsung D800 is based on the popular trend of 'slim-wide' design. It is quite a slim phone with 14.9mm dimension and very well complemented by its smooth slide-up mechanism. Furthermore, it has been empowered by the latest multimedia functionalities. It also boasts of a 1.3 megapixel camera and digital zoom, but you have to compromise on the picture quality. The Samsung D800 does good care of your viewing experience. Hence, it is endowed with a 240 x 320 pixels screen resolution. Thus, you can view all your documents on its big screen.

As far as technology is concerned, the Samsung D800 is way ahead of its predecessor. It supports Bluetooth, tri-band network coverage, PictBridge, EDGE technology – all that you can think of in a present mobile handset. To provide adequate space, the Samsung D800 is also supported by 80MB of memory space. You can also connect it with your TV to watch video clips with its TV out feature. Its voice recognition feature allows you to record voice and you would easily know about the caller, as it can recognise the voice.

The Samsung D800 also scores really well, when it comes to battery. Its battery can provide a talk time of 3.5 hours in a decent standby mode – talk more with enough power. You can also listen to your favourite music on its inbuilt music player, which can play music in various popular formats like MP3, AAC, AAC+ and e-AAC+. The Samsung D800 is really an all-rounder and it would be a great fun to have such a dynamic handset.

The 5-Minute Guide to Learning How to Play Chess

Chess is a marvelous game to learn how to play and is as popular today as ever. With a near perfect balance of offense and defense, strategy vs. tactics, it requires you to think about how your current move will impact the game several moves ahead. The very best way to learn how to play and to develop a keen sense of strategy is to play with others. But as a beginner you should first get a handle on the basics of the game.

Surveying the Battlefield - Aligning the Chess Board

The board is made with eight columns and eight rows. When you are sitting at the chess board the bottom right hand square should be white so if it's not, rotate the board as needed. The columns are identified with letters, so when looking at the board from the white side, a - h, going from left to right. Numbers are used to identify each of the rows, so again using the white side as the reference, the rows are numbered 1 - 8 from bottom to top. Of course, this is all reversed when looking at it from the black side, so column "A" is on black's right side and row 8 is closest.

Amassing Your Troops on the Battlefield - Setting up the Board and How Each Chess Piece Moves

There are six different types of chess pieces. Each piece looks different and should be placed on the board in the correct order.

The Pawn: You have eight Pawns and they are the smallest (and arguably weakest) pieces on the board. You should place them on the second row from the bottom and all the way across. The first time you move the pawn, you may move forward one or two places. After that, it can only move one space forward at a time. When using your pawn to capture your opponent's piece, you must move one place diagonally. That's one of the things that makes the pawns unique in that they capture differently than how they move. Another reason the pawns are unique is that if you get one all the way across the board, you can declare it any piece you want. So for instance, you could name it a queen and have more than one queen in play...a very powerful strategy.

Next, we'll work place pieces on the bottom row, working from the outside in.

The Rook: The two pieces that look like castles are Rooks and they go on the board next and are placed on the bottom row in each corner, so on the outermost squares for that row. The Rooks moves forward or sideways as many places as it wants, so only along the columns or rows, not diagonally. In addition, the Rooks can't jump any pieces (in fact only one piece can). You capture a piece with your Rooks by landing directly on the same square as the opposing piece.

The Knight: Next are the Knights, and they usually look like horses and they sit next to the Rooks. The way the Knights move is a little trickier. They move in the shape of an "L". You can move up one space and then over two places in either direction. Or you can move up two spaces and over one in either direction. This is the only piece on the board that can jump another piece but captures are still the same...you must land on the same square as your opponent's piece.

The Bishop: The Bishops are placed next to the Knights. The tops of these pieces are usually shaped like a hat worn by a bishop (imagine that!). The Bishops move similar to the Rooks since can move any number of spaces, but they only move diagonally as opposed to along the rows/columns like the Rooks move. The Bishops can't jump other pieces either but can capture them by landing on the same square as the opponent's piece.

The King: Your King is the tallest piece on the board and goes next to bishop on your right side. The King moves in any direction but only one space at a time, making him a rather weak piece in terms of movement, but still the most powerful piece on the board by at least some measure since capturing the King is how the game is won.

The Queen: The Queen is placed next to the King and if the board has been setup correctly, she should be on her own color. Arguably the most powerful piece on the board (at least in terms of movement), the Queen can move in any direction and as many places as you choose. Of course, like the other pieces, the Queen can't jump other pieces, so her power is limited.

When the board is setup properly, both sides should mirror each other. Meaning your queen should be directly across your opponent's queen, your king across from their king, and so on down the board.

Prepare to Do Battle - Basic Gameplay

The game is played by each player taking alternating turns and each player must make a turn...you can't "pass". The white pieces always make the first move. The goal is to put your opponent in "checkmate", meaning that there's no place for the King to move and the opponent can't position any other pieces in a way that keeps you from capturing the King. Leading up to putting your opponent in checkmate, you'll want to strategically move your pieces throughout the game board while capturing as many of your opponent's pieces as possible to weaken them. Of course, at the same time, you'll need to keep your king from being captured.

Chess may take a while to master, but it is a game worth learning. This is just a broad overview of the game, as you become more experienced, you'll learn more advanced strategies, terminology and sequences of moves you can make to baffle your opponent and make winning even easier.

You Don't Have To Be A Programmer To Fix Computer Errors

Nothing is more frustrating than a computer that constantly freezes up, hangs and crashes on you at the worst possible times!

I have had my share of frustrating run-ins with my own PC, and have threatened it with swift and painful death many times whenever it gave me errors...but for some reason that never seemed to work!

I now know of a far easier way to solve computer error problems...run a top rated registry cleaner scan on your system at least once a week...

It doesn't matter what version of Windows you are running, sooner or later you will most likely get an error of some kind (there are thousands to choose from) and you'll start searching for ways to eliminate that error as quickly as possible!

Some of the more common errors I have had to deal with over the years are: windows freezes, long program hang times, computer crashes (very annoying!), runtime errors, fatal errors (sounds serious), blue screen of death, and others...

Just imagine trying to troubleshoot your Windows operating system by yourself, and figuring out which program, entry, corrupted registry key, etc... is actually 'causing' the error to begin with...

That task might not sound daunting for a Microsoft programmer, but for the 'normal' person, there are better things to do with your time (like watching grass grow)

So you have the choice then, of paying a computer technician $60-??? dollars to come out to your house and fix your computer errors and problems for you...or you can download a highly effective 'registry cleaner' and run a scan on your computer by pushing one button.

Registry cleaners are actually designed (by computer programmers) to eliminate errors, clean, defragment and compress your windows registry (a location within Windows where all critical data about every program loaded on your computer is stored).

Most registry cleaners will find problems and fix them, but some of the better programs will allow you to schedule when they should run automatically (set it up and forget about it). And they will allow you to control and manage startup programs, set system restore points in case anything bad happens, and actually show you where specific problems were found and what kind of PC errors they are.

There are a few things each person who is serious about keeping their computer running as fast as the day they brought it home should have in their "maintenance arsenal":

* A good registry cleaner

* A good spyware remover

* A good anti virus program

* A good anti spam program

Having these tools can and WILL save you a lot of grief!

Who wants their identity to be stolen because of spyware running on their system? Who wants all their valuable data corrupted and unuseable because of a virus that slipped through and infected your entire system? Who wants to put up with a slow computer that gives you errors every time you turn it on? Not me!

The investment in a good registry cleaner can do the most good for your computer, as it will allow you to concentrate on actually using your PC instead of spending time reinstalling windows in an attempt to eliminate errors and make your computer faster.

I have spent countless hours (days even) doing exactly that in the past, because I was so disgusted with my PC I just couldn't take it anymore...and I remember exactly how fun it was to reinstall 50+ windows programs and go through all those program settings to get them back to the way I liked them!

I find satisfaction in helping others to avoid wasting as much time as I did trying to fix computer errors...

Sony Ericsson K800i - The Imaging Qualities Are Simply Superb

Sony Ericsson K800i has got good reviews from experts and mobile users worldwide because of its superior photographic capabilities. The handset is giving tough competitions to many a digital cameras available in the market. The mobile phone has been deftly crafted with smooth surfaces to give it a trendy look. A wide range of features available in the handset fully complements its good design. Similar to other handsets in the Sony's Cyber-shot series, your Sony Ericsson K800i too has a flip form factor. An attractive keypad makes for speedy texting.

The Sony Ericsson K800i mobile phone is packed with the latest camera functionalities. A 3.2 -mega pixel camera with digital zoom allows you to shoot images with great detail and vivid colours. Facilities like Auto red eye reduction and Pict Bridge support offers print-quality photographs. The handset also has features to effectively manage your images and share it with your friends and loved ones. Viewing images in a vibrant display is easy on eyes.

Your Sony Ericsson K800i is a 3G mobile phone which offers face-to-face video calling, high speed data transfer and browsing. With video-calling it is not only possible to talk to the person on other side but you can also see where he is and how he is doing. Get access to Internet on your mobile phone and surf websites of interest. The RSS feeds support on the mobile phone will help you get updated on latest happenings across the globe. The device has support for versatile messaging options like SMS, MMS, instant messaging and e-mail facilities. The mobile phone operates on Tri-band GSM connectivity which keeps you connected across many continents. An expandable memory slot in the mobile phone allows you to get more out of your device. Sony Ericsson K800i

Stripping Your World Of Warcraft Character Naked

Have fond memories of going around in games like Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance or Neverwinter Nights naked, slaying rats or any other low-level creatures? Well, you can do the same thing - or you can just run around naked screaming about a magic missile for an hour or two in Stormwind. Not that I've done that, you know, but anyway!

Getting your World of Warcraft character naked just takes the basic knowledge of the game setup, and a few empty slots in your bag. If you don't have the empty slots, you can sell anything you don't need, or place items in the bank for retrieval later. You could also ask a friend to hold the items for you, if you're in a group, but be careful - you might never see those items again.

Open your backpack or bag (Hotkey B for your backpack, hotkey's F8 - F11 for other bags), and then open your character menu (Hotkey C). Left click once on a piece of your clothing that you wish to remove - pants, shirt, shoes, anything - and move your curser to an empty slot in your bag. Next to your curser should be a smaller image of your item - if not, you need to click again. Just left click the empty slot to place the item in your bag. Do that for every piece of clothing you have on you.

And tah-dah. You're naked. There's really not much to it - unless you want to look good while naked. Then there's something much more to this.

Your attractiveness depends on what race you are, and if you're male or female. Here's a low-down on how attractive your WoW character will be when he or she is actually naked.

Alliance


Night Elves


Hands down, the most attractive race of the Alliance, the Night Elves look great both clothed and naked. There's not too much to say about the naked male Night Elf, but the female has a slightly off body shape, and the ribs protruding not only don't fit with the stomach, but give the torso an awkward look. Still, you have to admit, the Night Elves can really get their dance on.

Humans


The humans aren't too bad looking, as long as you keep their clothes on. Both the female and male are a little on the - how you say, chunky side, and they do not wear flattering underwear. Not very appealing to the eye, but somehow guys who play women and dance naked in Goldshire still get stuff. Hey, we all have to make a living, right?

Dranei


The Dranei, one of the new races that came with the Burning Crusade expansion, are the ugliest Alliance race. No question about it. The men are wide and brutish, and the women - well, their legs are just disgusting. Although, while I have nothing good to say about the men, the women's facial features are rather attractive, in their own, blue way, and their bodies are much better sculpted then the gnomes or dwarves.

Dwarves


The dwarves are short-ish, squat creatures that aren't at all attractive or appealing to the eye. Most male dwarves have long beards which take away from the rest of their face, and the choices for women's facial structure or hair aren't very nice at all.

Gnomes


I have the same complaint about the gnomes as the dwarves - their shorter, though, and even less attractive naked. No one, and trust me, no one, wants to see a naked gnome dance. I'll leave it at that.

Horde


Blood Elves


A beautiful race! The blood elves were the other race to come with the expansion, and they are the most attractive race in the entire game, no questions asked. Slim, sleek bodies framed by a smooth, visually appealing face and surprisingly nice hair styles. Their jump is smooth and fluent, with a graceful landing style, and they look the best naked, by far.

All Other Horde Races


These races aren't something that you want to see naked. The Undead, Orcs, Tauren, and Trolls should never take their clothes off, ever.

Ever.

Finding The Most Affordable Cellular Phone

Market competition is the consumer's best friend; and nowhere is that competition more thriving then in the world of cell phones. What was once a luxury item that came at a great price, is now a standard item carried by people everywhere and available at an affordable price. As the cellular phone morphed from bulky to streamline, the competition waged over design, features, services, and price; and today's cell phone customers can take advantage of their many options in order to find an affordable cellular phone.

Finding an affordable cellular phone is far easier than it ever was based upon the variety of companies that have now thrown their hat into the ring to provide cellular service. In many cases, if you are already a customer with a cell phone company, your service allows you to upgrade your phone when you extend your contract. An affordable cellular phone often comes at this time of renewal; you may have the ability to choose from a number of low priced – and even free – phones.

But in the game of finding the most affordable cellular phone, it is important to shop around; use your leverage as a customer to get the best deal you possibly can. New phone deals come out every day as companies try to compete to bolster their customer base. Look for sales and year end discounts; cell phone models change from year to year – if you can purchase the last of a year's model you will often receive it at a wonderful price.

Most importantly, finding an affordable cellular phone comes with patience; do your research on the cell phone models that have received the highest customer ratings and offer the most features for the price. Affordability takes into account the value you get for your money so be sure that you are not simply trading price for quality.

The cell phone promises to be the communications device of the future; keeping us in contact with each other at the touch of a button. And as models and features change so will prices. In order to find the most affordable cellular phone for our particular situation, it is necessary to stay educated on changing technology and what that means to our wallets.

3G Phones – Riding the Modern Waves

The twenty-first century has played witness to a steady development in the field of technology over the years. The dizzy pace at which mobile phone manufacturers are vying to catch up with the latest technology has served one special purpose – it has made life easier for human beings. From monochrome display phones to colour display phones, and further on to the ultra smart 3G phones, the mobile phone industry has seen it all. 3G phones, as the name indicates are christened so to represent third generation mobile phones. 3G phones are the latest addition to the progressive bandwagon, and it has made quite an impression in the mobile market as well as in the consumers' minds.

The present day phone market is overflown with a number of 3G mobile phones in the likes of the Nokia N75, the Nokia N76, the Nokia N77, and so forth. The 3G revolution has taken communication technology of mobile phones to a hitherto conquered level. Having smoothly evolved from the obsolete 2G level of communication system, the 3G technology ensures a horde of benefits at the hands of the users. The 3G technology has made a paradigm shift from simple voice communication to the next level of the Internet, fax, video conferencing, and so on. Moreover, users stand at the definite advantage of staying in touch with the rest of the world even when they are out of their geographic region through descent roaming and a broad bandwidth capacity. 3G enabled phones come packed with most of the known connectivity features like Bluetooth, EDGE, GPRS, and Infra Red thereby enhancing the communication capability of the phones.

3G technology has experienced considerable success since its introduction, and mobile phone manufacturers have already gone one step ahead by working on its up gradation through the Quad Band technology. Life never gives out a dull moment when technology is the watchword of the day.

Motorola V3i - Underline Your Style Statement-

Exuding style and sophistication, Motorola V3i comes as a sleek slider phone, with designer metal casing. A D&G creation, the phone looks much like its predecessor, MotorolaV3, save that V3i is more slim and sleek. Golden keypad and golden headset with anodized aluminum finish makes the phone stand out as a fashion statement.

This feature - rich phone includes 1.23 Megapixels camera with 8 x zoom technology. This enables the user capture picture in the most perfect manner. Further, MotorolaV3i's high resolution screen enhances the viewing pleasure, as the pictures come out clear with apt colours. One can also make, share and store memorable videos with V3i's quality video capabilities.To make calling a pleasure, the phone has user-friendly buttons. It has speaker phone, handsfree, voice memo and caller ID feature. MotorolaV3i includes SCREEN 3 technology. Through this, the users can get access to the worldwide news, sporting events and entertainment. SCREEN 3 is instant with zero click access.

Motorola V3i offers a tri-band network. This way, the phone intuitively picks up the best available network and switches automatically to it. For wireless data transfer and connectivity, V3i has a bluetooth. It also features Mini USB and GPRS. And if music makes your adrenalin go high, MotorolaV3i will be a perfect companion. The phone comes with a Mp3 player and music software for iTunes. Further, there are options for polyphonic and Mp3 ringtones. And if that's not sufficient, MotorolaV3i allows its users to download many more. Talking of entertainment, MotorolaV3i has a wide options of games. It has J2ME games embedded within, the number of which can be further increased by downloading more.

The Motorola V3i phone has a 10 Mb of memory, plus a Micro SD. It is compact, weighing only 95 grams and measuring 98 x 53 x 13.9 mm.

LG KG800: Sleek, Slim and Smart

The LG KG800, often called as Chocolate is one of the most stylish phones available in the market. Giving a feminine look, the device looks stunning when you touch the keypad. Loaded with an array of outstanding features including a digital camera, music player – the phone offers full entertainment options. Combined with tri-band connectivity, Bluetooth and lots more – the LG KG800 is a brilliant phone both in terms of its form and functionality.

More popularly known as the LG Chocolate, this slider phone is very sleek and lightweight (83g). Available in different attractive colours, the phone grabs users attention instantly. When closed, the phone looks like a notepad computer. Slide open the phone and view keypad – touch the pad and access those hidden features – shoot and capture some incredible moments or listen to your favourite music tracks, everything is possible with the LG KG800.

Equipped with an integrated 1.3 mega-pixel camera with up to 4x digital zoom and multi-shot mode – the phone ensures good picture quality. Simply push the dedicated camera button and you are ready to capture the moment. Users can also capture motion pictures – shoot, capture and share images or video clips with your family or friends via MMS. What's more, the device is also enriched with music player. Download your favourite music tracks and listen to music on the move. The tri-band phone comes with features like mobile internet, Bluetooth, USB and lots more. Send or receive emails or keep you abreast of the latest news and information. Transfer data via Bluetooth or USB. Documents like music files, images, video clips and texts file can be transferred easily via Bluetooth and USB. The phone comes with 128 MB memory – enough to manage large files.

The LG KG800 phone is not only popular for its Chocolate design, it has everything that you can expect.

LG U880 Pink - Bringing Beauty To The World Of 3G

Pink is 'The' colour these days in mobile phones. Like all manufacturers jumping the pink bandwagon, LG too have come up a pink LG U880, but with touches of pearl white and a bit of baby blue in the design scheme. That is quite refreshing in contrast to all pink models. If pink is not your colour, you can opt between silver and black.

This 3G phone is capable of video calling across UMTS networks but doesn't uses a separate camera for this like others in the market today. Instead, the LG U880 uses the same 1.3 megapixel camera that has an 180 degrees rotating lens. While on camera mode, the TFT display acts as a viewfinder for your subjects and doubles up as video screen while on video calls enriching the experience with 262k accurate and vibrant colours. Shooting videos in QCIF format is just another aspect of the camera of LG U880.

The built in MP3, AAC and MPEG4 player is a great way to unwind on the road. A handsome 75 Mb of shared memory is good enough to carry your favourite tracks and videos and has an external memory card slot if you demand more. Enjoy your music alone on your headphones or share with friends on the high quality dual stereo speakers of the LG U880.

The LG U880 supports triband GSM mobile network an changes band automatically. Other than lightning fast data connection of around 384 kbps through 3G, you'll also find alternative in built in GPRS technology. Managing your personal and professional emails, Internet browsing for your desired web content with its built in WAP 2.0/xHTML browser and downloading it directly to your handset at a quick pace – the LG U880 gives you a complete mobile Internet experience. you can also share your 'things' with others via USB or Bluetooth v1.1.

The LG U880's appeal doesn't stop at its good looks, it just begins there.

LG U880 Pink

How to Put Music on the PSP

So you are wondering how to put music on the PSP? Well, really it is quite simple. Obviously, the first thing we need is a PSP and a computer. In addition to this we need a mini USB cable and some MP3 files would help.

Now I'm assuming that you are unfamiliar with your new PSP Otherwise you would already know how to put music on the PSP. Firstly, we need to scroll to system settings. Here, we click on the "X" button, then we scroll down to the "format memory stick", and once again, click "X". This will bring up a prompt which asks you "do you want to format the memory stick?" here we choose "yes" and click "X". Now why do we do this you ask? Well, when we format our memory stick the PSP automatically creates the folders that we need to play music, games and movies.

The one other thing we might want to consider is the size of our memory stick. Most PSP come with a standard 32 MB memory stick, which is really only big enough to hold six or seven songs of decent quality. Your best option is to buy a larger memory stick. They now come in a variety of sizes ranging from 32 MB all the way up to 4 GB, and obviously the bigger your memory stick the more music you can place on it.

Now to get the music onto the PSP, all we have to do is plug our mini USB cord into our PSP, and then plug the other end into the computer. Once we do this we simply need to scroll to the USB connection on our PSP and click "X". This will prompt a window to open up on your computer which will ask what you want Windows to do, from here we choose "open folder to view files using window explorer".

This will open a new window which will contain the contents of your memory stick. In this window you should see a folder named "PSP", we need to double-click on this. This will of course open the folder and from here you should see another folder named "MUSIC". This is where we place our music. Now depending on what firmware version you are running on your PSP, you could put MP3 in there or if you are running at a later firmware version you could put MP3 in addition to WMV in the folder.

All you have to do from here is copy and paste your selected music in to that folder. Once you have done this simply press circle on your PSP to exit the USB connection, and then navigate to the music option on your xmb menu on the PSP, from here you click "X". Now you can select the songs you want to listen to, and this is how to put music on the PSP.

Samsung E900 - Explore The Hidden Mobile World

Samsung E900 is the latest phone in the slider phone category. The phone design has been inherited from the Samsung's most popular D series slider phones. The E900 has inherited the best thing from its previous phones and has introduced a new phone with more attractive design and technologically advanced features.

The Samsung E900 has touch-sensitive keys and the keypad is invisible when the phone is not in use and lights up when it is touched. With shimmering surface, the phone looks cool in appearance. Slide open the phone and the button lights up – push the button and explore unlimited possibilities that are concealed in the device. The E900 is functionally very good, The phone with 262k TFT colour screen display and with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels – provides excellent display quality. Loaded with CMOS 2.0 mega-pixel digital camera with up to 4x digital zoom and flash ensures good picture quality. With this camera, users can capture both still as well as motion pictures. Share those memorable moments with friends via MMS, Bluetooth and email.

The handset is also loaded with Music player – enjoy listening music on the move. Music player also supports several music formats such as MP3 and AAC – download your favourite tracks and feel every beats of music. Moreover, with 80MB of internal memory and expandable MicroSD memory card support – allows enough room to download songs, images and video clips. And with advanced messaging services such as SMS, MMS, and Email – users can keep in touch with their friends anywhere-anytime.

The tri-band Samsung E900 phone is endowed with premium features including Bluetooth, USB, TV-Out, WAP, GPRS, EDGE and more – allows user to connect the phone with other compatible devices, mobile internet for email and other news updates, etc. This slim elegance is all set to impress you in the very first look.

How To Repair Dell E173fpb LCD Monitor Easily

Troubleshooting DELL E173FPB LCD Monitor with power blink symptom is quite easy if you know the right procedure to test it. There are two sections in the monitor that can cause power to blink. It is either primary or secondary section or even sometimes both sections can be faulty. So to isolate as which section is giving problem. I used an automobile 12 volt light bulb (brake light) and connect it between the 12 volt supply line and cold ground with the fuse removed. If the bulb still blink chances is very high the power primary section have problem.

Do not overlook the other voltages line as well such as the 3.3 and 5 volts. If any components shorted that gets the supply from the 5 and 3.3 volts, the power also may blink. If the 12 volts bulb lights up we can assume that the power supply is working fine and something shorted further down the line that makes the power supply to blink. If the bulb lights and you continue to check the power section, it will be going to waste your time. You should now concentrate on the secondary section circuit such as the four transistors C5707 that drive the high voltage transformer in the inverter board.

Just think these transistors like horizontal output transistor (HOT) in the CRT monitor that drive the flyback transformer where it worked so hard and chances for it to breakdown is very high. Checking the four transistors off board found one of them have a shorted reading with an ohmmeter.. This transistor can get faulty by itself or it could be some others components that caused it to develop a short circuit such as a defective high voltage transformer but all of the four high voltage transformers checked to be okay with ringer and ohmmeter test.

Now, here is the secret that I'm going to reveal. If you just replace the defective transistor only, chances is very high the transistor or another C5707 transistor will breakdown again. Usually what a technician does is to test the other transistors with either an analog or digital meter. If you use both meters to test the transistors then you have missed out on the faulty transistor because both meters won't reveal to you the hfe reading of the transistors. Only some digital meters have the hfe checking feature. In other words, you have to use test the hfe reading of a transistor. Although you can replace the other three transistors directly, why not we do some detective work to find the cause of the problem?

Using the Peak electronic atlas component analyzer, I could clearly see the different between a good and a bad transistor. A good C5707 transistor has hfe reading from 320 to about 390 but the bad one reads 467! The other two C5707 transistors have reading about 350. In the above case only two C5707 transistors were replaced and you save the other two. I had burn in test this LCD monitor for many days and it worked perfectly fine.

Conclusion- Whether you repair the DELL E173FPB LCD Monitor or any other model such as the E172FPB or E171FPB, basically the testing method is the same. You could also use this testing procedure on other brand of LCD Monitor too.

Current Internet Network Security Policies Are Nonsense!

Internet network security policies are flawed in strategy and implementation.

Gary suggests that the use of external consultants for the entire internet network security policy framework is not a great idea since the external consultants will find it difficult to grasp the intricacies and business drivers for the network security decisions.

Also, in terms of implementation, the internet network security policy should be disseminated to each and every employee of the company through seminars , handouts and quizzes rather than an innocuous email that no one reads.

The network security policy should capture the latest trends in the network security industry rather than playing catch up. One of the network security aspects
that Internet network security policy makers should be worried about now is access to corporate data through a Blackberry or a mobile phone.

New ways of accessing internet cause internet security policy nightmares for CIOs. For example, most companies allow employees to access the corporate intranet mails thru Blackberrys. Also, some companies allow VPN access to the entire corporate intranet. All this is usually actually in violation of the existing corporate internet security policy which has to be rewritten.

In conclusion, internet network security policy implementors should focus on internal buy in among employees and proper dissemination to the entire IT work force,including contractors.This will ensure that the internet network security policy doesnt end up as a useless binder in your boss's cabin!

When Will a Universal Hand-Held Internet Connected Device Handle All World Languages?

Universal Language translators have been discussed and dreamed about for a hundred years now; machines that might know every world language; Imagine that? When will a Universal Hand-Held Internet Connected Device be readily available to handle all World Languages?

The Online Think Tank recently considered this question and one member stated; "This is an easy one because on Page 5 of SpeechTech Magazine in the October 2006 issue was an advertisement for "SpeechGear, Inc." which has the capacity to instantly translate language anytime and anywhere onto Windows XP Tablet PC Edition."

Look up "Endurance TabletPC" and "Compradre" with SpeechGear. SpeechGear in their previous white papers explains their system is speech-to-speech language translation. Also, remember this was being talked about at TED Conference Last Year.

We can expect all this technology to miniaturized within the year and readily available to market in 2-years and it will be a hot seller, I think the smart VCs are already all over it. And In-Q-Tel and DARPA are seeing these technologies worthy for the challenges in Iraq. Apparently, a prototype of this is in use by troops in IRAQ now presently and some police departments and Border Patrol Agents as well.

Imagine the benefits to business dealings and uniting culture and peoples of the world? I certainly hope this article is of interest and that is has propelled thought. The goal is simple; to help you in your quest to be the best in 2007. I thank you for reading my many articles on diverse subjects, which interest you.

Money Saving Tips For Buying Ink Cartridges

Printer ink is one of the most expensive things you'll have to buy for your computer on an ongoing basis, but fortunately there are ways to save both time and money.

The best choice for buying ink cartridges is to do so on the internet. This obviously save time compared to having to drive to your local computer or office supply store, but it's also often less expensive. You place your order online and they'll be delivered directly to your home or office.

Online ink suppliers offer considerable discounts on their cartridges. And if you buy in bulk you can often save even more money. They often have better selections than the average "brick & mortar" store as well.

Another way to save money on your printer ink is to buy refill kits or recycled cartridges. Most ink cartridges can be refilled at least once, and the cost is often less than half that of a new one.

You do need to be careful with refilled ink cartridges, however. They have been known to not work as well as the originals and in rare cases can even damage your printer. Make sure the company you buy them from offers a good guarantee.

If you're going to buy ink in bulk quantities, make sure you know how quickly you can use it. Ink cartridges do have a shelf life and there's no sense buying two years worth of ink if they expire in one. Check with the ink supplier to find out when the cartridge expire.

To find out how much ink you use, you'll probably need to monitor how often you replace your ink for a few weeks, or months if you don't use it very quickly. Don't buy bulk quantities until you know for sure you can use it all.

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Casio Exilim EX-Z70 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Anti Shake Optical Zoom (Black)

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D-Link 7DBI Omni-Directional Indoor Antenna 802.11 B/G Base - ANT24-0700

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A-DATA 1GB Micro SD Card with SD Adapter

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Kodak EasyShare C743 7.1MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

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Panasonic KX-TG5631S 5.8 GHz FHSS GigaRange Digital Cordless Answering System

Outdoor Rechargeable 3 Million Halogen Spotlight

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SimpleTech 2GB Bonzai Xpress USB 2.0 Flash Drive -STI-UFD/2GB

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Panasonic DMR-ES15S DVD Player/Recorder - Progressive Scan DVD Recorder with DV inputRecords to DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/+R/+RW Discs

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Bill Gates: The days of R2-D2 are near ...

Imagine sometime in future, an office worker checks her home-gadget webpage from her work computer. The tasks she set for her home robots in the morning have all been completed: washing and ironing, vacuuming the lounge and mowing the lawn.

She orders dinner from the kitchen chefbot - sushi today, using a recipe from a Japanese website - then checks her elderly mother's house. The companionbot has given mum her medicine and helped her out of bed and into a chair.

This is the vision of the future offered by Bill Gates who, in the latest issue of Scientific American, argues that the robotics industry is on the cusp of a big expansion. He likens the current state of robotic technology to the situation in the fledgling computer industry when he and his fellow entrepreneur Paul Allen launched Microsoft in the mid-1970s.

"The level of excitement and expectation reminds me so much of that time when Paul and I looked at the convergence of new technologies and dreamed of the day when a computer would be on every desk and in every home," he writes. "I can envision a future in which robotic devices will become a nearly ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives."

"It has proved extremely difficult to give robots the capabilities that humans take for granted. For example, the abilities to orient themselves with respect to the objects in a room, to respond to sounds and interpret speech, and to grasp objects of varying sizes, textures and fragility. Even something as simple as telling the difference between an open door and a window can be devilishly tricky for a robot."

There has been progress, however. In 2004 a race for robotic vehicles across 142 miles of rugged terrain in the Mojave Desert proved to be beyond the assembled field. The top performing robot car managed only seven miles before breaking down. But in 2005 the winner completed the course with an average speed of 19mph, followed by four other finishers.

Mr Gates thinks the plunging cost of computer memory and components will contribute to advances. But he believes that, like the early computer industry, robot developers need a common set of programming tools to solve problems such as dealing with numerous sources of information simultaneously. He has set up a team to solve these problems.

Is the latest Gmail flaw a big deal?

I really can't decide how concerned to be about the latest flaw discovered in Gmail that allows spammers to sniff out a Gmail address and pound away with incomprehensibly stupid offers no sane person would respond to. On the one hand, it's troubling that a vulnerability like this exists and has escaped notice except by the spammers who have, I suspect, been exploiting this for quite some time based on the escalation in spam I've seen in my own account and that others have documented. On the other, Gmail does do a good job of catching virtually all of the spam that does arrive at my address and doesn't count it gainst my generous storage quota. So what's the big deal?

There's quite a bit of conversation taking place in blogspace about Google's recent woes and this latest problem. Google has already addressed this quickly enough and closed the hole that allows this exploit. But the damage is already done. Thousands (millions?) of Gmail addresses are now compromised and given the virus-like behavior of spammers sharing their ill-gotten gains. So the onslaught is only likely to escalate as the list of purloined addresses makes the rounds.

Is it just another example of the inherent issues related to complex code? No big deal? Or cause for concern as Google continues to position their wares as viable alternatives, even on a "casual basis" for standards from Microsoft, IBM, and others for business use? We have to wait and watch ...

$100 laptop to bridge the Digital Divide

The first $100 laptop prototypes are to reach children in the developing world in the next few days, the consortium developing them has said.

The One Laptop Per Child laptops, conceived and produced by a philanthropic group of designers and engineers led by Nicholas Negroponte - co-founder of the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - would begin arriving "within the next week," the project's chief technical officer, Mary Lou Jepsen, explained.She told that the design of the $100 laptop was highly innovative, centring on a CPU, or processor, that saves power by knowing when to turn itself off.

"The reason the CPU is usually on on a laptop is simply to refresh the screen, so in the timing controller chip for the display we put some memory - so when nothing's changing on the screen, it goes into self-refresh mode to save power," she explained.

"Half the kids in the world have little or no access to power, so it's been much harder to make a two-watt laptop."It's two watts because a kid can then use a crank or a foot pedal to recharge the batteries on their laptop - for six minutes' [work], they get an hour of charge. That seemed like the ideal ratio to us." The plan is to bring affordable computing to school children in the developing world, chiming with the United Nation's aims of bridging the "digital divide" within the next decade.

A total of 1,000 laptops have been produced so far, with plans to ramp up production from thousands to millions within a few months. The $100 laptop uses flash memory rather than a hard drive - which Ms Jepsen described as "expensive, power-hungry and the leading cause of hardware failure in laptops". The other important factor in getting the price down, she said, was the screen - which in a normal laptop alone costs over $100.

"Radical new performance" had been achieved through a "re-think of the fundamental design of the screen," meaning that the cost of the screen for the $100 laptops is a third of the usual price.
It also takes a maximum of 14% of the power consumption, as well as being readable in sunlight, and has a high-resolution.

"And that is not very expensive - it really is cents per laptop to ship."