A Universal Cell Phone Charger

GSM Association, a mobile phone trade association, recently announced the introduction of a universal phone charger. By the estimated date of January 2012 most new mobile phones will support the universal charger. This universal charger is rooted in a micro-USB interface that will allow for the universal application across a variety of brands and manufacturers of mobile phones. Supporters of the universal charger include LG, Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Sony.

The hope is that with a universal mobile phone charger, there will be a reduction in e-waste- a current problem facing the environment and society at large. With only one charger, there will be no change of charger when a phone is upgraded or replaced. This is also a benefit to consumers as well. Have you ever been on a trip and forgotten to bring along your cell phone charger? Well if you have, you were probably forced to go to an electronics store and buy another, over priced, charger for your mobile phone. This is a common consumer problem, but if everyone has a universal charger you could easily borrow someone else’s charger to charge your phone. Additionally, hotels could simply stock a couple of these chargers at the front desk for any traveler who forgot to pack their charger.

The introduction of a universal mobile phone charger is a great green innovation that I predict will soon become a concept of other electronic industries as well.

The Greenest Technologies

The independent global campaigning organization Green Peace is constantly working to encourage the preservation of the environment and peace. In their efforts to try to persuade people to change their attitudes and behaviors to be more environmentally conscious, Green Peace developed the “The Guide to Greener Electronics” in 2006. This “guide” informs the public about the top 18 electronic manufacturers’ policies regarding toxic chemicals and plant waste. By publishing this information and making it readily available to the public, Green Peace has motivated many manufacturers to take responsibility for their ecological footprint and change their policies to commit to improving their green efforts. This includes abolishing the use of any toxic chemicals, increasing plant and product energy efficiency, and taking responsibility for their electronic waste. Not only has Green Peace’s efforts motivated manufacturers to change their ways, they have also inspired many consumers to change their buying habits as well. As more green options become available to consumers, consumers can make the choice not to support brands or manufacturers who do not abide by these “green guidelines”.

In 2008 Green Peace began extended its “Guide to Greener Electronics” and published its first “Green Products Survey”. This survey invites top electronic manufacturers to submit one of their products that they consider to be the greenest. Among those to participate were Acer, Dell, HP, Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba. This year the number one ranked greenest products included Lenovo ThinkCentre 58/M58p desktop computer, Toshiba Protégé R600 notebook computer, Sharp LC-52GX5 television, and Lenovo L2440x wide monitor.

Out of the six total categories rated, the Lenovo L2440x wide monitor received the highest score of 6.9/10. This monitor is a leader in both energy conservation and recycling technologies. It also contains lower amounts of halogen and mercury then most all monitors on the market today. This monitor is not only environmentally friendly; it is also flat panel and wide screen giving the user the ultimate screen display to work on. The image clarity and color contrast are also highly ranked. Lenovo L2440x wide monitor is truly the best consumer choice in monitors because it is green technology, while not forgoing any of the functionality.

IBM at the Forefront of the Supercomputer Industry

The U.S. government has recently contracted with IBM to make the most powerful supercomputer in the world. This supercomputer, named Sequoia, is said to occupy an estimated 3,422 square feet when completed by its 2011 anticipated delivery.

Now what could the U.S. government want with a supercomputer the size of a large house. The Sequoia will help the U.S. Department of Energy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to simulate nuclear tests. Simulation of U.S. nuclear weapons will allow scientist to make estimates about the safety and reliability of such weapons without doing any actual real-life testing. Additionally, the Sequoia could potentially be used for peacetime estimations such as weather forecasting and potential oil explorations. Simulation of possible pharmaceutical drugs effects on the human body or possible market events’ economical impact on Wall Street are also some expected capabilities of the Sequoia.

To run such stimulations the Sequoia will be backed by some impressive hardware and software. The supercomputer is said to have the capability of performing at twenty petaFLOPs per second. A FLOP is an acronym meaning FLoating point Operations Per Second- it is a measure of performance for fields like scientific calculations which entail floating point calculations; peta is equal to 1015 as mega is equal to 106. The Sequoia will have the power of two million laptops and hold an approximated 1.6 million processors. It is anticipated that the Sequoia will have 1.6 TB of memory and run on Linux, a highly regarded open operating system.IBM servers have also proven to be respected and capable of supporting such advanced programming.

IBM has been a leader in the supercomputer sector for more than fifty years and continues to be in the forefront of supercomputer technologies.

Delay in the Switch from Analog to Digital

If you haven’t heard the news already, Congress recently passed legislation delaying the deadline for television stations to stop broadcasting in analog. Last year the deadline was set for February 17, 2009 for all stations to end broadcasting in analog, but with millions of people still not equipped for the change, Congress has given television broadcasters until June 12, 2009 to make the move. Though some full-power stations may stop broadcasting in analog this month on the 17th, others are deciding to postpone their switch until sometime between March 14th and June 12th. Additional information regarding exact dates around the switch to digital can be found on the FCC’s Digital TV Transition website.

Congress’s decision gives the public more time to make the decision to either upgrade to a new television or to buy a converter box. For many, this legislation is giving people the push needed to go out and upgrade thier television. Though digital converter boxes enable people with analog televisions to view digital broadcasting, some are finding this not be an easy transition.

One complaint that has been made is that when the digital converter box was installed, less channels were received then without the converter box. This is because analog can pick up on weak signals, while digital cannot; with digital reception you either have reception or you do not. While your analog television may have delivered some stations in poor quality, these stations probably will not be picked up at all with digital.

Another concern that has frustrated the public is that people with analog televisions will no longer be able to record programming directly off of the air with their VCR’s. Though this problem can be overcome fairly easily, it does pose one more obstacle for those still utilizing analog. One option is to connect the digital converter to the VCR and to also connect the VCR to the T.V.; the problem with this method is that the viewer cannot change channels while recording programming. A second option would be to buy two converter boxes and have one connected to the T.V and the other connected to the VCR. The final option would be to buy a digital video recorder (DVR) to record programming digitally off the air.

The only real way to avoid all of the upcoming hassle involved with making the switch from analog to digital would be to invest in a new television set. If your T.V. still works with analog you probably haven’t upgraded in a long time anyways- televisions on the market now are quite impressive in their functionality. Clarity, color vibrancy, and all together image quality are remarkable in some of the new HDTV’s and prices are also fairly reasonable. Brands such as Samsung, ViewSonic, and Panasonic offer a wide range of television models that accommodate for trade offs made between image quality and price.

Western Digital Proves Itself to be a Leader in Technology

Western Digital is currently the second largest producer of hard drives. Having been around for nearly forty years, WD has proven itself over time as a trusted brand and producer of electronic storage products. Though they are not typically know for being the manufacturer that directs jumps in hard drive capacity technologies, last Tuesday, January 27th Western Digital announced that they would be the first company to produce a 2TB hard drive in a single 3.5” unit.

Formerly, the largest hard disk drive on the market was Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB hard drive. This drive series has recently been reported to be flawed with a self-bricking malfunction. Meaning that some of these units begin working normally, then after some use (and apparently out of the blue) the hard drive will stop being recognized by the users’ computer. Currently, Seagate is stating that the content on the malfunctioning drives is not lost, but not accessible. Seagate also says that they are, “working with customers to expedite a remedy.”

Seagate’s misfortune could not come at a better time for Western Digital. For years the two companies have been close competitors, with Western Digital trailing in the number two position in hard disk drive manufacturing behind Seagate hard drives. Maybe these seemingly coinciding events will help Western Digital take the lead in their industry.

Retrieving Old Product Keys

Updating to a new computer for most people is exciting, but can also be a real pain. There are a number of things that you need to remember to do before moving on to a new computer. Important files must be backed up onto external devices so that content is not lost and can be easily transferred onto the new computer. In addition, files containing confidential and/or personal information should be deleted off of the old computer if you are getting rid of the unit. Once you have completed transferring and deleting your files, you will also have to reinstall all of your beloved programs onto your new computer.

Though there is no current software or programs that can help you to figure out which files you deem as important enough to backup and save, there is a utility that can help in the area of reinstalling software onto your new computer. A major part in reinstalling software is to come up with the product keys that are needed for each program instillation. However, if you originally installed the software sometime ago and no longer have the product key, finding or generating a new product key can be a hassle, especially when you must do this for multiple programs. Magical Jelly Bean’s Keyfinder is a great freeware utility that can ease the job of reinstalling all of your software. Though it has a silly name, the freeware is a keyfinder and is slightly magical.

The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder pulls the product key form almost any application. It is compatible with most all Microsoft Operating Systems such as, Windows ’95, ’98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, Office XP, Office 2003, and Office 2007 family products. Most other software keys can also be retrieved due to the community-updated configuration. This keyfinder is free, easy to use, secure, and can be downloaded directly from Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder website.

Organizing Your Picture Folders

Digital cameras have made taking pictures more convenient and cost effective then ever. However, the downside of this is that with the growing number of photos in people’s picture folders, many people are finding it hard to keep their thousands of pictures organized. So here are a few tips to help keep your photo folders organized and up to date.

If you are one of those people who drops all of their downloaded photos into one single folder, this needs to be a practice that stops today. You will never get any of your pictures organized if you have thousands of mixed up photos in a single folder. A good rule of thumb is to create a few broad folders such as, “Vacations,” or, “Birthdays”; then each time you upload new photos from your digital camera, create subfolders specific to a certain occasion within these broad categories. This will create broadly organized folders such as, “Vacation Pictures,” which contain more specific subfolders of pictures such as, “Disneyland 2008,” or, “Hawaii 2005”. Note that it is also a good practice to include a date (or at least a year) in the subfolder's name. This will be of much use when searching though hundreds of different folder names within your library of photos. Creating a new folder and titling it appropriately initially takes a mere few seconds, but in the end will save you much time and effort when looking for specific photos.

If you want to go one step further, create a folder named, “Pictures to Order”. Any time you upload pictures that you would like to have framed or just want a hard copy of, paste a copy of the picture into this folder. Every few months you can upload the pictures accumulated in this folder and have them ordered to be printed or print them at home. Or you can create a folder named, “Photos for Digital Picture Frame,” so that every so often you can switch out the photos on your digital picture frame with new ones. If you don’t currently have a digital photo frame I would highly recommend buying one because they are a cost effective alternative to having photos printed. Also, if space is an issue for you in your home, digital photo frames have the ability to display many photos in one single frame. ViewSonic digital picture frames are a popular brand among consumers because of their trusted brand name and their reasonable prices.

Another good tip is to upload your photos often. This will make the task of organizing all of your pictures into neat organized folders less daunting. Uploading photos after each specific event or trip will decrease the number of folders you have to create each time, decreasing the chances for confusion over organization. Also, remember that each time you upload photos onto your computer you should backup the pictures onto an external hard drive or copy them onto a CD to ensure their longevity. It is important to prepare yourself beforehand for disaster, instead of whishing you had after the fact. After this is done you should clear your photo card and erase the pictures you just uploaded onto your computer. This will help to ensure that you don’t duplicate uploading your photos the next time you upload pictures.

If uploading duplicate photos seems to be a chronic problem for you, there is a freeware utility called VisiPics that can help ease your troubles. The user chooses which folders and/or drives to have VisiPics scan. Because VisiPics actually looks at the content of each photo searching for similarities in each image (instead of just sorting by file name) you can choose how precisely the filter searches for duplicates- anywhere between strict, basic, and loose can be selected. After the scan has been completed the duplicate pictures are displayed in a column on the left hand side of the VisiPics window. Duplicate photos can then be selected for deletion or be moved into a, “Duplicates Folder,” if you do not want to risk erasing any pictures.

Hopefully these tips will be of some use- even if you are not motivated to apply all of the concepts, just try to apply one. Having some sort of organization system over your growing library of photos will make enjoying your pictures much more pleasurable in the future.