Advice
Need a Cooker? Use Your Cell Phone
Paul Fitzgerald asked: Many organizations including the cell phone industry often downplay the risk of cell phone radiation to the brain. Results from short-term studies were used to convince consumers that use of a cell phone is not associated with brain tumors or cancer, which only develop decades after exposure.To be fair, no one knows exactly how much harm a cell phone can do to a person.Recently, new media has reported a study showing the radiation from cell phones is so full of energy they can be used to cook eggs.In the experiment, researchers placed one egg in a porcelain cup (because it is easy to conduct heat), and put one cell phone on one side and another cell phone on the other. The researchers then called from one cell phone to another and kept the cell phones on after connecting.During the first 15 minutes, nothing changed. After 25 minutes, however, the egg shell started to become hot and at 40 minutes, the surface of the egg became hard and bristled. Researchers found the protein in the egg had become solid although the egg yolk was still in liquid form. After 65 minutes, the whole egg was well cooked.The study [...]
Cash For A Used Cell Phone?
Michael Kerry asked: Chances are, for most Americans, there isn’t much thought put into throwing your used cell phone in the drawer after you’ve upgraded to the newest model phone. All too many people assume that their “outdated” phone isn’t worth hassling with. The reality is that for most cell phones that are less than three years old, there is an easy way to make some decent cash. It’s fast and it’s easy!With millions of cell phones being exchanged across America, a logical question would be “what happens to all these old phones?” Unfortunately all too many end up in our landfills. However, there is a very strong used cell phone market and it’s pretty easy to get involved to not only help eliminate waste, but to also get some extra money for your 5 minutes of trouble!Over the last several years, online cell phone dealers have sprung up left and right. They recognize that even though Verizon or Sprint has given you a brand new phone, there is still some pretty good value in that soon to be forgotten two year old phone. There are at least 30 companies that are online right now ready to send you a [...]
Consumer Reports – Laptops
Brooke Yan asked: Laptops account for about 25 percent of sales. It’s not hard to understand why. Small screens and cramped keyboards have been replaced by bigger, crisper displays and more usable key layouts. Processors have caught up in speed, and innovative new processors provide some real advantages. Fast CD and DVD recording drives are common, as are ample hard drives. And a growing interest in wireless computing plays to the laptop’s main strength: its portability. A laptop is the most convenient way to take full advantage of the growing availability of high-speed wireless Internet access at airports, schools, hotels, and even restaurants and coffee shops.The Centrino technology that’s central to Intel’s newest laptop processors has wireless capability built in, and delivers commendably-long battery life. The thinnest laptops on the market are less than an inch thick and weigh just 2 to 5 pounds. To get these light, sleek models, however, you’ll have to pay a premium and make a few sacrifices.WHAT’S AVAILABLEDell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq (now owned by HP), IBM, Sony, and Toshiba are the leading Windows laptop brands. Macintosh laptops are made by Apple. Laptops can be grouped into several basic configurations:Budget models. These have slower processors and [...]
Consumer Reports – Cell Phones
Brooke Yan asked: There are now more than 190 million cell-phone subscribers, more than one per household, on average. A small but steadily growing number of people use a cell phone (a.k.a. a mobile phone) as their only phone. Phone manufacturers and wireless-service providers are promoting new generations of equipment that let users do much more than merely make phone calls.Despite its popularity, wireless service has a reputation for problems: dead zones, where you can’t get service; calls that inexplicably end in midconversation; inadequate capacity, so you can’t put a call through when you want; hard-to-fathom calling plans; and errors in bills. Problems like those are why one-third of the cell-phone users we’ve surveyed say they’re seriously considering a switch of carrier.Switching is now much easier than ever, thanks to the government mandate on local number portability. However, keep in mind that the phones themselves aren’t portable. If you switch carriers, expect to buy a new phone.WHAT’S AVAILABLEThe cell-phone itself is only part of what you need. You also have to sign up for service with a wireless provider and choose a calling plan. You can find phones in many outlets, including independent wireless retailers, electronics stores, and Web sites.The [...]
Some Computer Identity Theft Cases
Bill Protresi asked: Computer identity theft cases normally take various forms. They mostly target people who are most vulnerable, for example senior citizens and children. Computer identity theft cases may for example take the form of an individual who pretends to be an agent of the federal tax authority. He identifies himself as a tax agent and requests you to send your social security number to him.Such messages are normally sent to people’s inboxes. Some people do not think that they can be victims of online identity theft thus they do not normally take the necessary precautions. If you respond to such messages that are supposedly from online tax agents, your details will be used to operate several credit cards and sometimes withdrawing money from your bank account.These activities may make you bankrupt. Computer identity theft cases are normally planned and executed by highly ingenious individuals. They sometimes design websites that look exactly like other original company websites. The only difference is that they provide a link to another web page which will usually require you to upload your personal data.It is the personal data that they use to carry out computer identity theft. Computer identity theft cases have increased [...]
Stock Research – Eastman Kodak And The Power Of Disruptive Technologies
Richard Stoyeck asked: It’s simply amazing that ten years into the digital revolution, Eastman Kodak is trying to figure out what business they are in. For decades Kodak dominated the chemically based photographic process. You shoot a roll of film, and then you physically took the roll to a developer, and made a second trip to pick up the finished prints. Their only competition in the industry was the Japanese company, Fuji. The upstart would just eat away each year at Kodak’s market, but never becoming a real threat to Kodak’s dominance.Meanwhile from outside the industry, Polaroid back in the late 1950′s invented a camera where the chemical based development of the pictures took place inside the camera. The picture was ready in about 60 seconds. Polaroid developed a wonderful business and made a fortune for both its shareholders and its genius creator, Dr. Edwin Land.What happened next was a business disaster, and Kodak should have learned from Polaroid’s mistakes. Dr. Land came up with a moving picture development system. They poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a chemically based system. It would allow users to take moving pictures. The movies would be developed chemically inside the camera system, [...]
All Roads Lead From Rome All Computer Enhancements Arise From Computer Busses
William Piker asked: We take a lot for granted in our modern Pentium 4 and advanced Atahlon computers. Plug and play, instant hardware configuration for the motherboard and accessory cards are pretty standard stuff.However it was not always that way. Early motherboards were limited in terms of computing speed and had to be manually set up and configured by tech experts with physical “jumper settings:” among other skills.These were not skills that knowledgeable teenager hackers generally had. If you wanted to compute so to say just as you had to have a good mechanic for your car you needed and excellent computer technician.Things were humming along early on with the advent of 386 and 486 era computers. All in all there were a number of ongoing improvements. These included. 32 bit widths. Bus mastering. Less susceptible to noise in that they were “quieter’ in signal transmission. More convenience of setup of adds on boards via software.Just as all roads so to say lead from Rome early computer advances all came from improvements in the “Computer Bus”.The ISA bus came in only 8 bit and 16 bit formats. Whereas the later 386 and 486 chips , in both the DX and [...]
Consumer Reports – Desktop Computers
Brooke Yan asked: The desktop computer has become just another appliance you use every day. Replacement sales–not first-time purchases–now drive the computer market. Fully loaded desktops selling for less than $800 are common, even among established brands.WHAT’S AVAILABLEThere are dozens of companies vying to put a new desktop in your home. Dell, eMachines, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard (which merged with Compaq in 2002), IBM, and Sony all make machines that use Microsoft’s dominant Windows operating system. eMachines, recently merged with Gateway, specializes in budget-priced Windows models. Apple is the sole maker of Macintosh models. Small mail-order and store brands cater to budget-minded buyers.Price range: $400 to $3,000.IMPORTANT FEATURESThe processor houses the “brains” of a computer. Its clock speed, measured in gigahertz (GHz), determines how fast the chip can process information. In general, the higher the clock speed, the faster the computer. But not always, since different chip families attain different efficiencies. Manufacturers of Windows machines generally use 1.6- to 3.8-GHz processors with one of the following names: Intel’s Pentium or Celeron, or AMD’s Athlon or Sempron. Celeron and Sempron are lower-priced processors that equal higher-priced chips in many respects. Intel now assigns “processor numbers” to its chips, de-emphasizing clock speed. Apple’s Macintosh [...]
Traveling with Your Laptop
Blair Stephens asked: If you are traveling for business or for pleasure and you own a laptop, the chances are you are going to want to bring it along. One of the biggest obstacles to most people working effectively on long flights is limited battery power. After all, whether you are working on a spreadsheet, a document, a presentation or even if you want to let your kids watch their favorite DVD, you can’t do much with a limiting two hours of battery life. So how do you plan and what should you do?First, figure out whether the plane on which you are flying has appropriate power ports. On most planes, if you are traveling in business or first class they will have power ports for you in every seat. The big question is coach/economy and whether or not the plane is newer. If you can, find out from the airline which type of aircraft on which you’ll be flying. You can do this over the phone or online, for the most part. Then go to Seat Guru () plug in the information and you’ll be able to see if you are going to have power from the aircraft. This [...]
