Archive for the ‘Computers’ Category
(From The Editor’s Desk) READ: I Got A New Computer!…
Source: DNN (OMG! DNN plagiarized itself instead of Newser or The Huffington Post how bout that?) hee hee.
Woo Hoo! I finally broke down and got a new computer!… But I’d like to share my horror story with you before I reveal which one I got.
How I managed to make something do something that it wasn’t designed to do in the first place, and lived through it:
So I took a 4 or 5-year-old Dell 2400 dimension and tried to turn it into a Digital Video/Audio workstation by editing HD Sony video files (AVCHD)… No laughing allowed! It actually works remarkably well, just slow as hell; (Took about 10 minutes to import the file to Sony’s Picture Browser, then another 10 or so for it to analyze the file, and a few minutes to import the file into Sony’s Vegas PRO software, and this doesn’t even include the time it takes to actually edit the movie’s sound, removing unwanted pops/hisses or whatnot, edit out unwanted visual shots such as the camera was aimed wrong, focus was poor, ETC.) But I did all that on a single core processor, and a really antiquated video card, hard drive… PAIN! much pain.
So last night I went to BestBuy. Now normally I avoid that store like the plague for a few reasons: #1 the crowds, 2. The noise, 3. The $7.50 making sales associates or whatever they call themselves these days, I don’t mean to pick on low-wage making people, it’s just they tend to be rude, uneducated and just plain don’t care about the products they’re selling. I can say that because I was one of “Those” kinds myself for many years! 😉
Anyways, so yeah after 10 minutes I managed to stomp and kick loud enough that a sales rep finally noticed me. I told him what I was basically looking for: a decent computer that could handle HD video editing without choking too much… at first I was eye-balling some of their laptops (Toshiba), but I spotted a HP TouchSmart and noticed they have come down in price quite a bit since last year (I think they were about $1700 then, now they’re like $1000). However the guy that was helping me said that it would not be a very good computer for what I needed, and he recommended me a Quad-Core, they only had one:
HP – Pavilion Elite Desktop with AMD Phenom™ II X4 Quad-Core Processor
Model: e9120y | SKU: 9366553
Nope that’s not an advertisement link, remember kids, DNN doesn’t advertise (if we did you might as well just get your news from CNN or FOX, its money that corrupts them…bah, I got off track sorry about that!) that’s my new computer. 🙂
Well I think I’ll close with that, I will try to write up a review soon, I’ve only had it for less than a day so I don’t know what it’s capable of yet. So If I may use the cliché: STAY TUNED!
(POLITICS) READ: Online politics reserved for rich…
US civic engagement remains in the hands of the middle-class despite hopes that the internet would democratise political involvement.
Those are the findings of a report from the Pew Internet Project.
Online political engagement such as contacting officials, signing petitions and making donations is skewed towards richer and better educated Americans.
The report found signs that social networks could be encouraging younger people to get involved in politics.
According to the report 35% of US adults on incomes of at least $100,000 (£62,000) participate in two or more online political activities compared to just 8% of adults on incomes of less than $20,000 (£12,000). READ MORE
(TECH) READ: The Internet Turns 40!…
(Newser Summary) – Forty years ago, two UCLA scientists exchanged data via computers, arguably making today the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Internet. “It would be more accurate to say some important seeds of the Internet sprouted with that data transfer,” writes Stephen Shankland on CNET, but no matter. It’s a good time to take stock. “Woodstock embodied the rising power of a new generation. … Men on the moon showed us how small the Earth is. But the Internet changes everything—and it will be instrumental in the next chapters of humanity’s future.”
There are negative aspects, of course: The abundance of communicative possibilities can be overwhelming. Privacy issues abound: Evolution never made allowances for a social circle that spans the whole planet. The Internet can serve the interests of repressive governments just as it does the disenfranchised. “But it’s only gaining in importance, power, and reach,” Shankland writes. “So my advice is to embrace it and try to shape it for the better for the next 40 years.”Source: CNET
(READ): Department for the Environment has worse recycling rate than national average…
Source: Telegraph.co.uk
The Government department in charge of the environment recycles less than the average household in Britain, according to new figures
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recycled just 29 per cent of its waste last year.
In comparison, the national average is 35 per cent, while the top councils recycle more than 60 per cent of waste and companies like Boots recycle almost half their rubbish. Read More
(READ): Internet Addicts Get First U.S. Treatment Clinic…
Source: LiveScience
Hardcore Internet junkies now have their very own version of the Betty Ford clinic.
The Heavensfield Retreat Center, located in Fall City, Wash., claims to be the first U.S in-patient center to treat Internet, video game and texting addictions. Enrollment in the clinic’s 45-day Internet addiction recovery program, called reStart, costs roughly $14,500.
The program is designed to wean patients off the Internet by combining traditional talk therapy with social skills training, such as lessons in conversation techniques and dating. Patients also feed goats, raise chickens and do home-maintenance work as a way of getting reoriented with the offline world.
The clinic’s first patient is a 19-year-old boy from Iowa who admitted to being hooked on the online game World of Warcraft.
While it may seem like an extreme (not to mention pricey) way to get unplugged, Stuart Fischoff, a psychologist and Senior Editor at the Journal of Media Psychology, believes the rehab approach can be helpful.
“For patients in clinical settings, exposing them to friendly animals has had very positive effects,” said Fischoff, who is not affiliated with the new clinic. “The purpose here is to get the patient to experience gratification from something that doesn’t require an Internet connection. So giving the patient someone who needs them, appreciates them and doesn’t judge them allows them to reach out to the flesh-and-blood world.” Read More
(READ): Pentagon Grades Reporters’ War Coverage…
Source: Stars and Stripes/Newser
(Newser Summary) – With a view to trying to influence coverage of the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is grading journalists’ work, the Stars and Stripes reports. The military newspaper says it has documents that counter official denials of the practice, with coverage rated as “positive,” “neutral,” or “negative.” The documents also contain advice on how to “neutralize” reporters seen to have a less-than-positive slant.
The Pentagon has farmed out the analysis of reporters from some of America’s top newspapers to a controversial Washington public-relations firm; the Rendon Group denies it keeps a “ranking of reporters.” Fumes one servicemember: “It’s troubling that the military is contracting a private PR firm, paid with US taxpayer dollars, to profile individual reporters. It shows utter contempt for the Constitution, which we in the service pledge our lives to defend.”
(READ): Cloud Looms Large As Future Of Computing…
Source: SKY News
Historically the home or business PC has been the central hub for storing data and running programs, whilst the internet was a rich resource for information and communication – only services like Hotmail and Gmail offered us a glimpse into the world of cloud computing.
In recent years email services like these have been joined by other applications running through the web browser – from photo editing to business databases, most applications are now available online.
This experience is quickly evolving to something commonly known as ‘cloud computing’, ‘Web 2.0’ or ‘Software as a Service’.
But what is the cloud? Quite simply it is having your applications; data and software reside online, on remote computers that you can access to, in real time from any device with internet access. Read More
(WATCH): Israelis restrict Palestinians’ water supply…
Source: The Real News Network (trnn.com)
World Bank report: Israelis have access to four times as much water as Palestinians due to restrictions
After World Bank issues report, commissioned by the Palestinian Authority on the condition of water accessibility in the West Bank, Israel claims the reports authors are biased. To understand the conditions on the ground, how they’ve been addressed, and whether the so-called peace process succeeded in addressing them, The Real News speaks to LifeSource Project, a non-profit organization focusing solely on the issue of water. Susan Koppelman and Taysir Arabasi tell The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky the Mountain Aquifer, the biggest supply of fresh underground water is pumped by Israel even though it lies almost entirely in the West Bank. They also speak about restrictions on Palestinians to dig water wells, and their dependence on the Israeli national water corporation, Mekorot.
(READ): Could Afghanistan Become Obama’s Vietnam? …
Source: NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — President Obama had not even taken office before supporters were etching his likeness onto Mount Rushmore as another Abraham Lincoln or the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Yet what if they got the wrong predecessor? What if Mr. Obama is fated to be another Lyndon B. Johnson instead?
To be sure, such historical analogies are overly simplistic and fatally flawed, if only because each presidency is distinct in its own way. But the L.B.J. model — a president who aspired to reshape America at home while fighting a losing war abroad — is one that haunts Mr. Obama’s White House as it seeks to salvage Afghanistan while enacting an expansive domestic program.
In this summer of discontent for Mr. Obama, as the heady early days give way to the grinding battle for elusive goals, he looks ahead to an uncertain future not only for his legislative agenda but for what has indisputably become his war. Last week’s elections in Afghanistan played out at the same time as the debate over health care heated up in Washington, producing one of those split-screen moments that could not help but remind some of Mr. Johnson’s struggles to build a Great Society while fighting in Vietnam.
“The analogy of Lyndon Johnson suggests itself very profoundly,” said David M. Kennedy, the Stanford University historian. Mr. Obama, he said, must avoid letting Afghanistan shadow his presidency as Vietnam did Mr. Johnson’s. “He needs to worry about the outcome of that intervention and policy and how it could spill over into everything else he wants to accomplish.”
By several accounts, that risk weighs on Mr. Obama these days. Mr. Kennedy was among a group of historians who had dinner with Mr. Obama at the White House earlier this summer where the president expressed concern that Afghanistan could yet hijack his presidency. Although Mr. Kennedy said he could not discuss the off-the-record conversation, others in the room said Mr. Obama acknowledged the L.B.J. risk.
“He said he has a problem,” said one person who attended that dinner at the end of June, insisting on anonymity to share private discussions. “This is not just something he can turn his back on and walk away from. But it’s an issue he understands could be a danger to his administration.”
Another person there was Robert Caro, the L.B.J. biographer who was struck that Mr. Johnson made some of his most fateful decisions about Vietnam in the same dining room. “All I could think of when I was sitting there and this subject came up was the setting,” he said. “You had such an awareness of how things can go wrong.” Read More
READ: New Office 2010 is Proof Microsoft Sabotaged Macintosh
Source: CIO.com
FRI, AUGUST 14, 2009 — PC World — There was a time when a new version of Outlook for Macintosh would have been big and welcome news. Now, it and the rest of Office for Mac 2010 are a big yawn. With Apple poised to finally make its own Mail, iCal, and Address Book fully compatible with Exchange servers, who needs Outlook?
Microsoft: Next Mac Office Due Late 2010 with Outlook
Slideshow: 10 Apple Trivia Questions
For a decade, Mac users who needed access to Microsoft Exchange servers were given a truly second-class client, Entourage, to do it with. It has been part of MacOffice since 2000.
Many Mac users simply gave up, choosing Outlook Web Access over Exchange. That’s what I did for a while.
At any time, Microsoft could have created a real Outlook for Mac, fully Exchange-compatible, but chose not to, apparently hoping the lack of tight Entourage support would hobble the Apple platform. And it did.
So, Apple began developing replacement programs–Mail, iCal, and Address Book–that despite their success never reached full Exchange compatibility. That is, until the release of the new Snow Leopard OS. In a matter of weeks, Macs should become full players on Exchange-based e-mail systems. Read More
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