Archive for 'Gadgets' Category

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Mini Laptop Showdown MSI Wind vs HP Mini note 2133 vs Acer Aspire One vs Asus 1000

 With a lot of people asking me now which UMPC (ultra mobile pc) is good for them, I just had to create this article to consolidate all the ideas and details so I can just refer the queries here.  The conclusion comes in the first paragraph: a toss up between the MSI wind and Acer Aspire One.

If I had to choose one, it would be the MSi wind. Reason? For price and features of more memory and hard disk space, the wind takes my vote.  But this vote is only for the 6 cell version.

how to eliminate electricity vampires and save on your bills

Standby power, also called vampire power, phantom load, or leaking electricity, refers to the electric power consumed by electronic appliances while they are switched off or in a standby mode. A very common "electricity vampire" is a power adapter which has no power-off switch. While this consumption of power may be used to provide useful functions for appliances such as remote controls and digital clocks to the user, most power consumed by non-operational devices is considered wasted.

Devices and functions that consume standby power

• Power supplies, transformers and inefficient electronic devices, for example battery chargers. Those constantly generate heat that can't be further used.
• "Instant on" functions, like remote control receivers, waiting for the user to interact.

Globe Telecoms to sell Iphone 3g

Globe Telecoms will be the Philippine carrier to sell 3G Iphones in the fourth quarter.  So how much will the iphone sell for?

With the price now only at $199, expect the phone to retail only around 10,000 pesos.  A far cry to the exorbitant 24,000 pesos still being sold at Greenhills.

“We are very excited to be working with Apple to bring Filipino consumers iPhone 3G later this year,” said Gerardo C. Ablaza, Jr. president and CEO of Globe Telecom. “We are thrilled to bring iPhone 3G to millions of mobile customers in the Philippines,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s COO.  However, 3G in the Philippines has not gotten be speeds of over 56k, or not over the speed of dinosaur dial-up connection.

Alternative energy: fusion technology is near

This little device made from a coffee maker found its way to the top of a Delorean automobile as a fusion reactor.  Requiring only bio mass (junk garbage), it can power the car for time travel.

In Japan, the prime minister's official residence became the first house in the world to be equipped with a domestic fuel cell in 2005.  A fuel cell looks something like the picture on the right.

The fuel cells produce electricity and hot water through a chemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen extracted from natural gas or other fuels.

"The hydrogen needed can come from various sources — hydrocarbons, natural gas, bio mass or rubbish" to create methane, said Mohri.

Wireless Keyboard Mouse Review: a4tech rks 23

The a4tech RKS 23 has all the "clickability" you'd want in a keyboard and mouse combo.  Some cheap brandless versions don't "click" well, and don't bounce up quite responsively after hitting the buttons.

 Installation Couldn't be simpler, installed supplied batteries, plugged receiver into USB port, windows (XP) did its thing and that's it everything worked perfectly

The keyboard has a sort of A shape to the keys, which is supposed to minimize RSI (repetitive stress injury), the keys have a solid feel and layout is otherwise standard.

The units main claim is its low power use (7mA), this seems mainly to apply to the mouse, I assume the keyboard uses less.  I have yet to replace batteries on both the keyboard and mouse after one month's (non-continuous) use.  Unit does not come with any charger of sort.

Biggest Thinnest Flash SSD : Samsung 256gb

Samsung unveiled in prototype form at a Samsung event in Taipei, has the same form factor as a 9.5-millimeter high 2.5-inch hard-disk drive for which it is designed to be a drop-in replacement.

Solid-state disks (SSDs) are an emerging type of storage device that use flash memory chips in place of the spinning magnetic disks used in hard-disk drives. The memory chips mean the drives are more sturdy and typically have a higher performance but the per-byte storage cost is also much higher, so they are generally more expensive. That has largely restricted them to niche applications but as flash prices come down they are expected to become more widely used.

How to transfer songs from ipod to pc

Itunes users know that transferring songs is limited to a one way street, one can only transfer from PC to your ipod.  This is Apple's way of ensuring that their gadget would not be used as a usb device to transfer songs from one ipod to various PC owners.  Hence,  limiting mp3 piracy.

This frustration by many ipod users led many third party software application makers to develop a software that will let the user transfer songs from an ipod to a PC.

However, one will have trouble searching the net for finding a software that will give you flexibility on how the song would appear on your hard disk when transferred. 

how to eliminate vga cable emi interference by using ferrite core

Lost or broken the cable that came with your monitor?  Or buying one for your LCD or plasma?  Incidentally, it's called a VGA cable, and for some monitor/pc/video card compatibility combinations, you can't just go out and buy one and expect it to work without hazy wavy electromagnetic interference (known as EMI) blocking the clarity of your display.

Here are some tips for picture clarity: Remember to keep your purchase under 5 Meter length as much as possible, because the longer the cable, the higher the chances of EMI i for you.  Most important is to pick a cable with a ferrite core near the ends.  Ferrite cores look like car mufflers, as seen on picture.

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