Sunday, November 29, 2009
Introduction!
Writing the introduction last has turned out quite well as now it'll be at the top of the page! I'm going to say I meant to do that! :) My name's Hayley Smith, I'm 20 and I'm really enjoying college life I have to say! There's a lot of pretty interesting stuff to learn and meeting awesome people while you do it is an added bonus! It can be a little hectic having to have a job as well but sure, who needs sleep anyway?! Welcome to my blog! It's an involuntary blog because it has to be done for ICT class, but it's become a place for my ponderings and rants...sort of! It's unfortunate that blogs are on the internet because facebook is only a click away and can be VERY distracting when you should be writing article summaries! :) Anyway, have a little wander around and see if anything catches your eye, you can also wander over to the blogs of my lovely followers over there! Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Have a Safe journey! :)
What to keep in mind when buying a laptop!
Different people use laptops and PCs for different things, for social purposes, for business purposes, for gaming, for education, the list goes on! So it's understandable that certain things will be more important to remember when buying a laptop depending on what you plan to use it for. Here is a pretty general overview of what everyone should keep in mind when making that important purchase.
Processor. The processor plays a huge role in the performance of a laptop computer. If needed for mundane tasks, a lower spec processor might be the wiser choice as it will use up less battery power. Apparently, the processor that will balance performance and battery life the best comes from Intel's Centrino Technology or later versions. These included Intel Celeron-M and Pentium-M units.
RAM (Random Access Memory). RAM also plays a role in the performance of your laptop. If you need a laptop for some heavy gaming or multimedia work, it's advised you look at models with 1GB or more. If the laptop wont be used for much more than some word processing, presentation work or internet surfing, then the standard 256MB of RAM is adequate. I must mention that for a desktop computer howvever, 512MB should be the minimum and ideally 1GB. But for portable laptops, 256MB is fine. If money isn't a concern for you though, there'll be a noticeable performance increase with 512MB of RAM on a laptop!
Harddrive. You can get laptop harddrives that spin at 4,200rpm and 5,400rpm. Again, for serious gamers or people who need to do intensive multimedia work, 5,400rpm is the best option to go for. The capacity of the harddrive really depends on what you what you want to do with it. Simple, office type work wouldn't need more than 20GB, but you can opt for 40GB for not too much dearer. Those gamers and multimedia folk may need 80GB though and it wont cost a massive amount for that.
Graphics Cards. Most laptops rely on the graphics technology that's fully integrated in the laptop's motherboard. This is perfectly fine for office applications, internet surfing and DVD playback but for detailed games, a little extra help is needed. For powerful graphics, ensure you have at least 128MB of RAM behind your graphics card.
CD / DVD Drive. Again, this all depends on what you want your laptop for. Most laptop computers have a DVD writer as standard but if you're looking at the less expensive models, CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo is the norm. This will read and write CDs but only read DVDs. Bare in mind that a DVD writer wont cost too much more anyway and will enable you to do DVD burning.
Screen. This all down to personal preference really. The LCD screen of a laptop can be 12.1 inches diagonally up to 17 inches. So it all depends on what you're comfortable using!
Battery. Battery life can be anywhere from 1 hour to 5 hours depending on the laptop. This is also a personal preference issue really. If you want your laptop to survive perhaps a long train journey or a few hours out and about, longer life will be needed. But if someone just needs their laptop around the house or work place where power outlets are plentiful, there's no need to be hugely concerned about it. It all depends on your needs. Bare in mind, proper charging of the battery is essential for maximising the battery life! Charge fully, un-plug and use until it's running on fumes! Then charge again. Sticking it on charge when the battery is still half full (of half empty, depending on your perspective on life! ;) ) will do more harm than good in the long run.
Weight. Most manufacturers will now quote the weight of a laptop in the specifications. This is important if you want your laptop to get out and see the world with you.
Price. Of course this is massively important, price and value for money. You know your own budget and hopefully you'll know what you're looking for. If you've never bought a laptop before, it will be hard to judge what is good value for money. The best thing to do is ask around. Ask friends or family who have laptops how much theirs were and how satisfied they are with their laptop. Internet reviews will be helpful too. These methods are also useful for finding out the brand you should opt for and of course the brands you should avoid.
Software. The software of a machine is important for everyone and what you need will differ depending on what you plan to use the laptop for. The operating system is an important factor, most will use a Microsoft Windows version eg. XP, Vista. Some maunfacturers will throw in some nice bonuses: anti-virus software, Microsoft Office, DVD playback software. It's worth knowing which are included in one laptop and which are included in another as they can be very expensive to buy seperately.
After you've discovered exactly what specifications you need from you laptop, it's also worth finding out about the warranty service. Laptops can be expensive to repair so it's handy to have. If the retailer is offering a warranty service that isn't included in the price and you have to pay extra, there's no harm in shopping around for third party warranty services because you may save a bit of money in doing so.
Processor. The processor plays a huge role in the performance of a laptop computer. If needed for mundane tasks, a lower spec processor might be the wiser choice as it will use up less battery power. Apparently, the processor that will balance performance and battery life the best comes from Intel's Centrino Technology or later versions. These included Intel Celeron-M and Pentium-M units.
RAM (Random Access Memory). RAM also plays a role in the performance of your laptop. If you need a laptop for some heavy gaming or multimedia work, it's advised you look at models with 1GB or more. If the laptop wont be used for much more than some word processing, presentation work or internet surfing, then the standard 256MB of RAM is adequate. I must mention that for a desktop computer howvever, 512MB should be the minimum and ideally 1GB. But for portable laptops, 256MB is fine. If money isn't a concern for you though, there'll be a noticeable performance increase with 512MB of RAM on a laptop!
Harddrive. You can get laptop harddrives that spin at 4,200rpm and 5,400rpm. Again, for serious gamers or people who need to do intensive multimedia work, 5,400rpm is the best option to go for. The capacity of the harddrive really depends on what you what you want to do with it. Simple, office type work wouldn't need more than 20GB, but you can opt for 40GB for not too much dearer. Those gamers and multimedia folk may need 80GB though and it wont cost a massive amount for that.
Graphics Cards. Most laptops rely on the graphics technology that's fully integrated in the laptop's motherboard. This is perfectly fine for office applications, internet surfing and DVD playback but for detailed games, a little extra help is needed. For powerful graphics, ensure you have at least 128MB of RAM behind your graphics card.
CD / DVD Drive. Again, this all depends on what you want your laptop for. Most laptop computers have a DVD writer as standard but if you're looking at the less expensive models, CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo is the norm. This will read and write CDs but only read DVDs. Bare in mind that a DVD writer wont cost too much more anyway and will enable you to do DVD burning.
Screen. This all down to personal preference really. The LCD screen of a laptop can be 12.1 inches diagonally up to 17 inches. So it all depends on what you're comfortable using!
Battery. Battery life can be anywhere from 1 hour to 5 hours depending on the laptop. This is also a personal preference issue really. If you want your laptop to survive perhaps a long train journey or a few hours out and about, longer life will be needed. But if someone just needs their laptop around the house or work place where power outlets are plentiful, there's no need to be hugely concerned about it. It all depends on your needs. Bare in mind, proper charging of the battery is essential for maximising the battery life! Charge fully, un-plug and use until it's running on fumes! Then charge again. Sticking it on charge when the battery is still half full (of half empty, depending on your perspective on life! ;) ) will do more harm than good in the long run.
Weight. Most manufacturers will now quote the weight of a laptop in the specifications. This is important if you want your laptop to get out and see the world with you.
Price. Of course this is massively important, price and value for money. You know your own budget and hopefully you'll know what you're looking for. If you've never bought a laptop before, it will be hard to judge what is good value for money. The best thing to do is ask around. Ask friends or family who have laptops how much theirs were and how satisfied they are with their laptop. Internet reviews will be helpful too. These methods are also useful for finding out the brand you should opt for and of course the brands you should avoid.
Software. The software of a machine is important for everyone and what you need will differ depending on what you plan to use the laptop for. The operating system is an important factor, most will use a Microsoft Windows version eg. XP, Vista. Some maunfacturers will throw in some nice bonuses: anti-virus software, Microsoft Office, DVD playback software. It's worth knowing which are included in one laptop and which are included in another as they can be very expensive to buy seperately.
After you've discovered exactly what specifications you need from you laptop, it's also worth finding out about the warranty service. Laptops can be expensive to repair so it's handy to have. If the retailer is offering a warranty service that isn't included in the price and you have to pay extra, there's no harm in shopping around for third party warranty services because you may save a bit of money in doing so.
Technology Article #2
http://www.bbcfocusmagazine.com/feature/tech/nets-next-big-thing
This article focuses on the internets next big thing! At the moment, sites Google, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular on the internet. But what will be the most popular in the future? What will these sites have to offer? How will they differ from the popular sites of today?
Many factors must be taken into account to determine whether a website will be a success or not. But Google, Facebook and Twitter all have one thing in common, that is, they offer the right thing at the right time. They were not the first sites to offer the services that they offer, but they just happened to be there right when everyone started wanting their service. Right place, right time.
The following three web-services are the sites that Focus predicts we'll all be using in the next year or so. Each incorporates the 'semantics web', which is the next stage in the evolution of the internet! 'Semantics web' relates to the meaning of words and the next step on the ladder of internet evolution is websites that will be able to recognise and respond to language in the same way a person would.
The next Google ... WOLFRAM ALPHA!
Wolfram Alpha is an answer engine as opposed to a search engine.
"A search tool that returns facts and figures instead of a long list of results. Unlike conventional search engines, which equate importance with popularity (Google ranks a site according to how many other web pages link to it), Wolfram Alpha looks for information in a database of carefully curated knowledge. It then tries to compute a sensible answer, which is why it's billed as a 'computational knowledge engine'."
(I urge everyone to check this out! Wolframalpha.com. I got extremely excited when I tried it, it's amazing! I'm sure non-nerds will love it too!)
Rather than giving you links on your desired topic, it gives you information straight away. So the down side to this site right now is that it doesn't have a massive wealth of knowledge yet. But give it time! It's only a baby, it's growing.
The next Firefox ... UBIQUITY!
"Ubiquity lets you take shortcuts while using the web. Instead of going to a separate site to use a service, it brings that site's features to you." This will be a huge time-saver because you don't have to navigate through several sites if you want to do some emailing with copy and paste and sending links and whatnot!
The next Facebook ... GOOGLE WAVE!
"Google Wave is a tool for communicating in real-time. Think of it as instant messaging for the 21st century." Although instant messaging is mainly just in text form, Google Wave lets you insert photos, videos, games, Facebook comments, Twitter messages, loads of different types of media from many sources! It also has a semantic spellchecker, so for example, it would replace ' principle' with 'principal' in the sentence "the principle of the school", because it recognises other words in the sentence! Exciting! :)
All this hard work and research was done by JV Chamary, reviews editor of Focus.
This article focuses on the internets next big thing! At the moment, sites Google, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular on the internet. But what will be the most popular in the future? What will these sites have to offer? How will they differ from the popular sites of today?
Many factors must be taken into account to determine whether a website will be a success or not. But Google, Facebook and Twitter all have one thing in common, that is, they offer the right thing at the right time. They were not the first sites to offer the services that they offer, but they just happened to be there right when everyone started wanting their service. Right place, right time.
The following three web-services are the sites that Focus predicts we'll all be using in the next year or so. Each incorporates the 'semantics web', which is the next stage in the evolution of the internet! 'Semantics web' relates to the meaning of words and the next step on the ladder of internet evolution is websites that will be able to recognise and respond to language in the same way a person would.
The next Google ... WOLFRAM ALPHA!
Wolfram Alpha is an answer engine as opposed to a search engine.
"A search tool that returns facts and figures instead of a long list of results. Unlike conventional search engines, which equate importance with popularity (Google ranks a site according to how many other web pages link to it), Wolfram Alpha looks for information in a database of carefully curated knowledge. It then tries to compute a sensible answer, which is why it's billed as a 'computational knowledge engine'."
(I urge everyone to check this out! Wolframalpha.com. I got extremely excited when I tried it, it's amazing! I'm sure non-nerds will love it too!)
Rather than giving you links on your desired topic, it gives you information straight away. So the down side to this site right now is that it doesn't have a massive wealth of knowledge yet. But give it time! It's only a baby, it's growing.
The next Firefox ... UBIQUITY!
"Ubiquity lets you take shortcuts while using the web. Instead of going to a separate site to use a service, it brings that site's features to you." This will be a huge time-saver because you don't have to navigate through several sites if you want to do some emailing with copy and paste and sending links and whatnot!
The next Facebook ... GOOGLE WAVE!
"Google Wave is a tool for communicating in real-time. Think of it as instant messaging for the 21st century." Although instant messaging is mainly just in text form, Google Wave lets you insert photos, videos, games, Facebook comments, Twitter messages, loads of different types of media from many sources! It also has a semantic spellchecker, so for example, it would replace ' principle' with 'principal' in the sentence "the principle of the school", because it recognises other words in the sentence! Exciting! :)
All this hard work and research was done by JV Chamary, reviews editor of Focus.
Technology Article #1
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/mobile-phones-more-dangerous-than-smoking-802602.html
Do you have a mobile phone? If so, how long have you had it? This is a question to bare in mind when reading the article in the link above. Dr Vini Khurana, a neurosurgeon who has impressively written over 3 dozen scientific papers and reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones, has found that using a mobile phone handset for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. The reason for this being that cancers take at least ten years to develop. Previous official saftey assurances were based on studies that included few people, if any, who had been using mobile phones for that long. Dr Khurana has deduced that mobile phone usage could potentially be more fatal to the population than smoking because there are three times as many mobile phone users in the world than there are smokers. The findings are currently only up on a brain surgery website, as the paper that was written on the research is still being peer reviewed for publication.
I personally use my mobile phone an awful lot and have done so for about 8 years so this article was, to say the least, scary! The Mobile Operators Association have, however, dismissed the study. According to them, it's "a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual" and "reaches opposite conclusions to the WHO (World Health Organisation) and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews." Dr Khurana believes that the government and mobile phone industry need to take immediate and decisive action before the rate of malignant brain tumours and consequently, the death rate, rises globally. Watch this space!
Do you have a mobile phone? If so, how long have you had it? This is a question to bare in mind when reading the article in the link above. Dr Vini Khurana, a neurosurgeon who has impressively written over 3 dozen scientific papers and reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones, has found that using a mobile phone handset for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. The reason for this being that cancers take at least ten years to develop. Previous official saftey assurances were based on studies that included few people, if any, who had been using mobile phones for that long. Dr Khurana has deduced that mobile phone usage could potentially be more fatal to the population than smoking because there are three times as many mobile phone users in the world than there are smokers. The findings are currently only up on a brain surgery website, as the paper that was written on the research is still being peer reviewed for publication.
I personally use my mobile phone an awful lot and have done so for about 8 years so this article was, to say the least, scary! The Mobile Operators Association have, however, dismissed the study. According to them, it's "a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual" and "reaches opposite conclusions to the WHO (World Health Organisation) and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews." Dr Khurana believes that the government and mobile phone industry need to take immediate and decisive action before the rate of malignant brain tumours and consequently, the death rate, rises globally. Watch this space!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Useful Sites!
Ok, so here are some useful sites for our applied psychology course:
American Psychological Association
http://www.apa.org/
This next one has tutorials on Adobe Illustrator
http://www.ndesign-studio.com/resources/tutorials/
The Encyclopedia of Psychology
http://www.psychology.org/
This link shows signs and symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury (Keep Your Brains Safe!!)
http://www.neurologychannel.com/tbi/symptoms.shtml
Monday, November 23, 2009
yet again!!
So, on October 29th, I decided to lose my wallet. Dropped it as I got on a bus and reckoned I'd never see it again. Later the following week, the college contacted me and said someone had found my wallet and even dropped it into the college! There had been no cash in it but a few coins and my precious laser card! AND my even more precious subway card! All of which were still in it when it was handed into college for me to collect! I was understandably shocked!! There are some nice, honest people out there!! Who'd have known! And Margaret Murray is one of them.
I was so thankful, I was adamant I wouldn't lose it again! But I did. November 20th...Just 3 weeks later. I stupidly put it on a cistern in a nightclub while I went about my business and left it there! Some drunken lassy probably stumbled across it, opened it and thought "50euro! Drinks are on me!" Because when I realised I didn't have it and returned to collect it, it was obviously nowhere in sight. Poo.
I'm never bringing a wallet out with me again. It'll be cash and cash only from on! Until 3 weeks from now probably, when I'll have a new wallet, bring it out with me and lose it. But of course.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Which comes first, the tea or the milk??
As an avid lover of an ole cuppa tea, i decided to do a little researching into the 'tea or milk; which should go into the cup first' debate! One reason given by the Tea First side is that one can then exactly moderate how much milk they want in their tea. Backing this up by saying that if one were to put too much milk into the cup first and only realise this when tea is added, they'd have to start all over again. Fair enough point, who wants a ruined cup of tea?
However, the winning side seems to be the one practiced least! Milk first. One reason for this is apparently, pouring milk into water at near boiling temperatures can scald the milk, denaturing the proteins. This gives the tea an odd flavour. I was thinking though, surely the same would happen when pouring the same temperature water into the milk??
It is also said that the keys to producing the perfect cup were using soft water, warming the pot before filling and allowing the tea to brew for three minutes. It was also essential to use loose-leaf Assam tea rather than tea bags - "they slow down the infusion".
However, I have also read that the key to a perfect cuppa lies not within the tea first - milk first debate, but keeping the water at 98 degrees! So crack out those thermometers and keep 'em in your pockets!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Blogging...
I always said blogging was something I'd never do, but being forced into it by an ICT class, here I am. Blogging. Choosing a topic proved the most difficult decision of the morning since the "what to have for breakfast" debate. So I finally decided on my topic....the hardships of a reluctant blogger.
I think my anti-blogging state of mind had stemmed from seeing video blogs posted by American teens talking for tens of minutes about how the boy in their class doesn't notice them, or how they can't quite seem to get their hair looking like Britney's. My usual reaction was, of course, "who cares?!"
Research into blogging to gain inspiration for my own topic has shown me that this is not what blogging is about. At all. I found really interesting blogs about films reviews, current affairs, funny anecdotes, technological advances and the latest gizmos and gadgets to get you out of bed in the morning.
Having somewhat flipped my sceptical view on blogging, maybe one day I'll blog for real...Who knows!
I think my anti-blogging state of mind had stemmed from seeing video blogs posted by American teens talking for tens of minutes about how the boy in their class doesn't notice them, or how they can't quite seem to get their hair looking like Britney's. My usual reaction was, of course, "who cares?!"
Research into blogging to gain inspiration for my own topic has shown me that this is not what blogging is about. At all. I found really interesting blogs about films reviews, current affairs, funny anecdotes, technological advances and the latest gizmos and gadgets to get you out of bed in the morning.
Having somewhat flipped my sceptical view on blogging, maybe one day I'll blog for real...Who knows!
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