cooltools

Laptop computers

2008-05-19T04:41:00.000-07:00

Bigger, crisper displays and more usable key layouts have replaced small screens and cramped keyboards on laptop computers. Processors have caught up in speed with desktop models, and innovative dual-core processors are also available. Fast CD- and DVD-recording drives are common, as are ample hard drives.

As computers become a repository for digital photos, music, and video, manufacturers are making laptops and their peripherals increasingly competitive with home-entertainment systems.

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, restaurants, and coffee shops.

Most laptops now have wireless networking capability built in and deliver commendably long battery life. The thinnest laptops on the market are less than an inch thick and weigh just 3 to 5 pounds. But to get these light, sleek models, you'll have to pay a premium and make some sacrifices in performance, screen size, and features.

A desktop computer typically costs less for equivalent performance and is easier to upgrade, expand, and repair. It usually offers better ergonomics, such as a more comfortable keyboard, bigger eye-level display, and enhanced audio. But as costs plummet, a laptop computer is your best choice if portability and compactness are priorities.

Printers

2008-05-05T03:23:00.000-07:00

More and more households are buying printers that do more than print. All-in-ones, as they are known, let you print, scan, copy, and, often, fax. And many cost no more and take up little more space than a regular printer.

What's more, all-in-ones are actually getting cheaper and more versatile. As a group, the inkjet all-in-ones we tested for our printers review cost less than those we evaluated two years ago. Some of the models in our Ratings of all-in-one printers (available to subscribers) cost $100 or less. And a $140 model that ranked among the best performers (available to subscribers) is a CR Best Buy.

Manufacturers have been giving all-in-ones more features. Examples include networking, which lets you use the unit from any computer in either a wired or wireless home network; an LCD photo viewer; and a memory-card reader.

We also tested and Rated regular inkjet printers, laser all-in-ones (both available to subscribers), and regular laser printers. Most of the regular inkjets lacked LCD viewers and card readers. That suggests a downward trend in such printers' features because most of the ones we tested last year offered both.

While budget inkjet printers have become Spartan, inkjets that prints on sheets as large as 13x19 inches have become less expensive. Canon offers the Pixma Pro9000, $500, Epson the Stylus Photo R1900, $550, and HP the Photosmart Pro B8850, $550. (We haven't evaluated those models.)

In our tests, inkjet all-in-ones and regular inkjets performed similarly, cost about the same to use, and printed at similar speeds. A few inkjet all-in-ones and regular inkjets printed a color 4x6 in less than 2 minutes, and a few relatively frugal ones printed one for less than 40 cents. Among the laser printers we tested in the printers review, there was only one clear-cut performance difference: The regular lasers were noticeably faster at printing text than the all-in-one lasers.

Is an all-in-one printer right for you? See our free Buying Advice on printers to help you decide which type of printer is best suited for your needs.

KidsHealth

2008-04-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

KidsHealth is the largest and most-visited site on the Web providing doctor-approved health information about children from before birth through adolescence. Created by The Nemours Foundation's Center for Children's Health Media, the award-winning KidsHealth provides families with accurate, up-to-date, and jargon-free health information they can use. KidsHealth has been on the Web since 1995 — and has been accessed by about half a billion visitors. On a typical weekday, more than 500,000 visitors access KidsHealth's reliable information.

KidsHealth has separate areas for kids, teens, and parents — each with its own design, age-appropriate content, and tone. There are literally thousands of in-depth features, articles, animations, games, and resources — all original and all developed by experts in the health of children and teens.

Physicians and other health experts review all content before it's published on KidsHealth. All content is re-reviewed on a regular basis (about every 1 to 3 years, or more frequently if needed). You can find the most recent review date and the name of the expert reviewer(s) at the end of each article. You can learn more about how we create our content by visiting our editorial policy page.

About the Statewide Telecommunications and Network Division

2008-04-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Department of Technology Services Statewide Telecommunications and Network Division (STND) provides an integrated information network for the State of California. We provide a broad range of vital telecommunications and networking services, including telecommunications consulting. We also offer State officials expert advice and assistance in evaluating and planning for the future telecommunications needs of California.

Challenges

STND provides telecommunications and networking services to a state with the sixth largest economy in the world, encompassing 163,000 square miles and 1,800 state and local agencies. We meet this challenge by educating ourselves and our customers on the latest technology offerings, listening to our customers needs and providing effective business solutions.

Focus

STND's focus is to provide the highest levels of service, products and expertise to the State. We do this through:

* Customer Advocacy
Actively researching, recommending and providing cost efficient business solutions to our customers.
* Contract Development, Negotiation, and Administration
Negotiating and administering integrated information network products, services and consulting contracts for use by all State agencies, departments, cities, counties and other local jurisdictions.
* Vendor Management
Guiding vendors in the implementation of products and services to ensure that customers' business needs are met.
* Regulation, Communication and Compliance
Providing business solutions to meet customer needs while following California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules and tariffs.
* Technical Expertise
Striving to be the center of competence, expertise and leadership for integrated information network technologies and services in the State.
* Telecommunications and Networking Strategists
Working closely with the State Chief Information Officer, the Department of Finance, State Procurement, and others to develop and implement consistent, standard State Telecommunication and information technology policies and strategies.

A Mobile Game

2008-03-23T18:51:00.001-07:00

A mobile game is a video game has fun on a mobile phone, Smartphone, PDA, handheld computer or any type of handheld or wireless device.

Mobile games are played using the technologies current on the device itself. For networked games, there are different technologies in common use. Examples contain text message (SMS), multimedia message (MMS) or GPRS location identification.

However, there are non networked applications, which simply use the machine platform to run the game software. The games may be installed over the air, they may be side loaded onto the receiver with a cable, or they may be embedded on the handheld devices by the OEM or by the mobile operator.

Mobile games are generally downloaded via the mobile operator's radio network, but in some cases are also loaded into the mobile handsets when purchased, or via infrared connection, Bluetooth or memory card.

Household Electric Fan

2008-03-16T20:30:00.000-07:00

A mechanical fan is a device used to create an airflow for the purpose of creature comfort, ventilation, exhaust, or any other gaseous transport.

Mechanically, a fan can be any rotating vane or vanes used for producing currents of air. Fans produce air flows with high volume and low pressure, as opposed to a gas compressor which creates high pressures at a comparatively low volume. A fan blade will often rotate when exposed to an air stream, and devices that take advantage of this, such as anemometers and wind turbines often have designs alike to that of a fan.

Typical applications contain climate control, cooling systems, personal comfort (e.g., an electric table fan), ventilation (e.g., an exhaust fan), winnowing (e.g., separating chaff of cereal grains), removing dust (e.g. sucking as in a vacuum cleaner), drying (usually in addition to heat) and to provide draft for a fire. It is also general to use electric fans as air fresheners, by attaching fabric softener sheets to the protective housing. This causes the fragrance to be carried into the immediate air.

In addition to their utilitarian function, vintage or antique fans, and in exacting electric fans manufactured from the late 1800s through the 1950s, have become a recognized collectible category, and in the U.S.A. an active collector club, the Antique Fan Collectors Association, supports the hobby.

Origin of ice age theory

2008-03-09T19:57:00.001-07:00

The plan that, in the past, glaciers had been far more extensive was folk knowledge in some alpine regions of Europe (Imbrie and Imbrie, p25, quote a woodcutter telling de Charpentier of the former extent of the Swiss Grimsel glacier). No single person imaginary the idea. Between 1825 and 1833, Jean de Charpentier assembled proof in support of this idea. In 1836 Charpentier influenced Louis Agassiz of the theory, and Agassiz published it in his book Étude sur les glaciers of 1840.

At this early stage of knowledge, what were being studied were the glacial periods within the past few hundred thousand years, during the present ice age. The far previous ice ages' very existence was unsuspected.

History Of Natural Science

2008-03-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

Prior to the 17th century, the objective study of nature was called as natural philosophy. Over the next two centuries, however, a philosophical interpretation of nature was gradually changed by a scientific approach using inductive methodology. The works of Sir Francis Bacon popularized this approach, thereby helping to create the scientific revolution.

By the 19th century the study of science had come into the purview of professionals and institutions, and in so doing it gradually acquired the more recent name of natural science. The term scientist was coined by William Whewell in an 1834 evaluation of Mary Somerville's On the Connexion of the Sciences. However the word did not enter general use until nearly the end of the same century.

2008-02-24T18:29:00.000-08:00

Bond Paper

Bond paper is a high quality durable writing paper alike to bank paper but having a weight greater than 50 g/m2. The name comes from it having initially been made for documents such as government bonds. It is now used for letterheads and additional stationery and as paper for electronic printers. Widely employed for realistic work involving pencil, pen and felt-tip marker. Bond paper can occasionally contain rag fibre pulp, which produces a stronger, though rougher, sheet of paper. Nowadays, however, bond paper is presently known as being a smooth white sheet commonly made from normal eucalyptus pulp.

2008-02-17T17:54:00.000-08:00

Dot-Matrix Printers

In the common sense many printers rely on a matrix of pixels, or dots, that together form the larger image. However, the term dot matrix printer is specially used for impact printers that use a matrix of small pins to create precise dots. The advantage of dot-matrix over other collision printers is that they can produce graphical images in addition to text; however the text is generally of poorer quality than impact printers that use letterforms (type).

Dot-matrix printers can be generally divided into two major classes:

* Ballistic wire printers (discussed in the dot matrix printers article)

* Stored energy printers

Dot matrix printers can either be character-based or line-based (that is, a single horizontal series of pixels across the page), referring to the pattern of the print head. At one time, dot matrix printers were one of the more general types of printers used for general use - such as for home and small office use. Such printers would have either 9 or 24 pins on the make head, 24-pin print heads were able to print at a advanced quality. Once the price of inkjet printers dropped to the point where they were aggressive with dot matrix printers, dot matrix printers began to fall out of favor for general use.

Several dot matrix printers, such as the NEC P6300, can be upgraded to print in color. This is achieved through the use of a four-color ribbon mounted on a device (provided in an upgrade kit that replaces the standard black ribbon mechanism after installation) that raises and lowers the ribbons as needed. Color graphics are commonly printed in four passes at standard resolution, thus slowing down printing considerably. As a result, color graphics can take up to four times longer to print than regular monochrome graphics, or up to 8-16 times as long at high resolution mode.

Dot matrix printers are still usually used in low-cost, low-quality applications like cash registers, or in demanding, very high volume applications like invoice printing. The fact that they use an impact printing technique allows them to be used to print multi-part documents using carbonless copy paper (like sales invoices and credit card receipts), whereas other printing methods are unusable with paper of this type. Dot-matrix printers are now (as of 2005) quickly being superseded even as receipt printers.

2008-02-10T18:05:00.000-08:00

Printing Technology

Printers are routinely confidential by the underlying print technology they employ; numerous such technologies have been developed over the years.

The choice of print engine has a considerable effect on what jobs a printer is suitable for, as various technologies are capable of different levels of image/text quality, print speed, low cost, noise; in addition, some technologies are inappropriate for certain types of physical media (such as carbon paper or transparencies).

Another aspect of printer technology that is frequently forgotten is resistance to alteration: liquid ink such as from an inkjet head or fabric ribbon becomes absorbed by the paper fibers, so documents printed with liquid ink are more difficult to alter than documents printed with toner or solid inks, which do not penetrate below the paper surface.

Checks should also be printed with liquid ink or on special "check paper with toner anchorage". For similar reasons carbon film ribbons for IBM Selectric typewriters bore labels counsel against using them to type negotiable instruments such as checks. The machine-readable lower portion of a check, however, must be printed using MICR toner or ink. Banks and additional clearing houses employ automation equipment that relies on the magnetic flux from these specially printed characters to function properly.

2008-02-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of complex systems, particularly communication processes, control mechanisms and feedback principles. Cybernetics is strongly related to control theory and systems theory.

Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study linking the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology and neuroscience in the 1940s. Other fields of study which have partial or been influenced by cybernetics include game theory, system theory (a mathematical counterpart to cybernetics), psychology (especially neuropsychology, behavioral psychology, and cognitive psychology), and also philosophy, and even architecture.

2008-01-27T18:20:00.001-08:00

Differences between touring cars and sports cars

For the informal observer, there can be a great deal of confusion when it comes to classifying closed-wheel racing cars as 'touring cars' or 'sports cars'. In truth, there is often very little technical differentiation between the two classifications, and nomenclature is often a matter of tradition.

In common, however, touring cars are based upon 4-door 'family' sedans or, more rarely, 2-door coupe cars, while GT racing cars are based upon more exotic vehicles, such as Ferrari's or Lamborghini's. Underneath the bodywork, a Touring Car is often more intimately related to its road-going origins, using many original components and mountings, while a top-flight GT car is often a purpose-built tube-frame racing chassis underneath a cosmetic bodyshell. Many Touring Car series, such as the BTCC and the now-defunct JTCC differentiate themselves from sports-car racing by featuring front-wheel drive cars with smaller engines.

However, while in common Touring Cars have a lower technical level than sports cars, there are notable exceptions to the rule. The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) is measured to be one of the most technologically advanced racing series in the world, with cars that, underneath their four-door shells, are more purebread racing machines than most FIA-GT vehicles.

2008-01-17T18:20:00.001-08:00

Touring car racing

Touring car racing is a common term for a number of distinct automobile racing competitions in heavily-modified street cars. It is notably all the rage in Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and Australia.

What constitutes a touring car?

While rules differ from country to country, most series require that the competitors start with a standard bodyshell, but nearly every other component is allowed to be heavily modified for racing, including engines, suspension, brakes, wheels and tyres. Wings are generally additional to the front and rear of the cars. Regulations are generally designed to limit costs by banning some of the more exotic technologies available (for instance, many series insist on a "control tyre" that all competitors must use) and keep the racing close (sometimes by a "lead trophy" where winning a race requires the winner's car to be heavier for subsequent races). In this, it shares some resemblance with the American NASCAR series, but raced exclusively on road courses and street circuits rather than the American series' primarily oval tracks.

2008-01-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

History of Honda

In 1997 Honda began producing a street-oriented GT motorcycle using in olden times important name: Superhawk. The previous (60's) Superhawk was a similar twin motorcycle that Robert M. Pirsig rode in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

The original Superhawk was a profitable success, hence the name being recycled. The new Superhawk was introduced later than the Ducati 916 made V-twin sportbikes popular again. The new Superhawk uses an every part of new 90 degree V-twin.

The bike introduced more than a few new design concepts such as the "pivotless frame", side radiators, single casting engine case, connecting rods with cap screws instead of nuts, and the largest carburetors Honda ever put on a motorcycle. "Pivotless frame" predestined that engine was a stressed member with the swingarm bolted directly to the enigne. The bike was released in 1997 as an before time of release 1998 model year.

One motorcycle magazine recommended (circa 2000) that this bike was the fastest 0-60 mph production bike at the time.

A racing version of the bike was estimated from Honda. Honda produced in 2000 the RVT1000R (RC51) identified outside the United States as the VTR1000SP, though the bike had only four engine parts in common with the modern Superhawk.

The RC51 was an completely new V-twin racing platform that won the World Superbike championship its first year racing with Colin Edwards and the Castrol team.

2007-12-30T18:57:00.000-08:00

Car Albums in 1978’s

The band's hits dominated the charts for over nine years; their most victorious albums were 1978's The Cars, which featured hit "Just What I Needed," and 1984's Heartbeat City, which included four Top 20 singles: "Magic," "Drive," "Hello Again," and "You Might Think," which also won the MTV Video of the Year Award . "Drive" gained fastidious notability when it was used in a video of the Ethiopian food shortage prepared by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and introduced by David Bowie at the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium.

After the consequential period of superstardom and another hit single, the Cars released their last album Door to Door in 1987, but it failed to approach the success of their previous albums. The Cars announced the group's disintegrate in February 1988. In the late 1990s, rumors circulated of a Cars reunion, but Orr's death of pancreatic cancer on October 3, 2000 position an end to them.

Starting in late 2004, The Cars punch song "Just What I Needed" was played in Circuit City television ads.

2007-12-23T22:46:00.000-08:00

CARS

The Cars were an American new wave band, one of the most admired to emerge out of the early punk scene in the late 1970s. They hailed from Boston, Massachusetts and were signed to Elektra report in 1977.

The band's members were Ric Ocasek (born Richard Otcasek), the band's principal songwriter, rhythm guitarist, and part-time lead singer; Benjamin Orr (born Benjamin Orzechowski), bassist and recreational lead singer; Elliot Easton, lead guitar and backing vocals; David Robinson, drums and backing vocals; and Greg Hawkes, keyboards, saxophone, guitar, and backing vocals. The nucleus of the assemblage was composed of guitarists Ocasek and Orr.

The Cars productively bridged the gap between the guitar-oriented rock of the 1970s and the synth-oriented pop of the early 1980s. While most of the singles included an Elliot Easton guitar solo, The Cars' sound was distinct much more by Greg Hawkes' synthesizers and the huge harmonies of Easton, Robinson, and Hawkes behind Orr's and Ocasek's lead vocals.

2007-12-16T18:02:00.001-08:00

Collective and non-human intelligence

Some thinkers have explored the idea of combined intelligence, arising from the coordination of many people.

A battleship, for instance, cannot be operated by a single person's knowledge, actions and intelligence, it takes a corresponding and interacting crew.

Similarly, the interesting behaviors of a bee colony are not exhibited in the intelligence and actions of any lone bee, but rather manifested in the behavior of the hive.

These ideas are explored as a foundation for human thought, with applications for artificial intelligence (AI), by MIT AI pioneers Norbert Wiener and Marvin Minsky. Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged from Computer science as a specialty which seeks to make computers do something in increasingly intelligent ways, and provides insights into human thought processes.

When considering animal intelligence, a more common definition of intelligence might be applied: the "ability to adapt effectively to the environment, either by making a change in oneself or by changing the environment or finding a new one" (Encyclopædia Britannica).

Many people have also speculated about the opportunity of extraterrestrial intelligence.

2007-12-11T17:38:00.000-08:00

Intelligence, IQ, and g

Intelligence, IQ, and g are very different. Intelligence is the term used in ordinary discourse to refer to cognitive ability.

However, it is usually regarded as too imprecise to be useful for a scientific treatment of the subject. The intelligence quotient (IQ) is an index calculated from the scores on analysis items judged by experts to encompass the abilities coverd by the term intelligence.

IQ measures a multidimensional magnitude: it is an amalgam of dissimilar kinds of abilities, the proportions of which may differ between IQ tests.

The dimensionality of IQ scores can be premeditated by factor analysis, which reveals a single dominant factor underlying the scores on all IQ tests.

This factor, which is a hypothetical construct, is called g. Variation in g corresponds very much to the intuitive notion of intelligence, and thus g is sometimes called general cognitive ability or general intelligence.

2007-11-25T18:14:00.001-08:00

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (also known as machine intelligence and often abbreviated as AI) is intelligence exhibited by any contrived (i.e. artificial) system. The term is often applied to common purpose computers and also in the field of scientific investigation into the theory and practical application of AI. "AI" the name is often used in works of science fiction to refer to that which exhibits artificial intelligence as well, as in "the AI" referring to a singular discrete or distributed mechanism. Modern AI research is disturbed with producing useful machines to automate human tasks requiring intelligent behavior. Examples include: scheduling resources such as military units, answering questions about products for customers, thoughtful and transcribing speech, and recognizing faces in CCTV cameras.

As such, it has become an engineering control, focused on providing solutions to practical problems. AI methods were used to plan units in the first Gulf War, and the costs saved by this efficiency have repaid the US government's entire investment in AI research since the 1950s. AI systems are now in routine use in many businesses, hospitals and military units approximately the world, as well as being built into many common home computer software applications and video games. (See Raj Reddy's AAAI paper for a complete review of real-world AI systems in deployment today.) AI methods are often employed in cognitive science research, which openly tries to model subsystems of human cognition.

2007-11-18T17:29:00.000-08:00

camera

A camera is a mechanism used to take pictures, either singly or in sequence, with or without sound, such as with video cameras. The name is derivative from camera obscura, Latin for "dark chamber", an early mechanism for projecting images in which an entire room functioned much as the interior workings of a modern photographic camera, except there was no way at this time to record the image short of manually tracing it. Cameras may work with the visual range or other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Every camera consists of some type of enclosed chamber, with an opening or space at one end for light to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. This distance of the aperture is often controlled by an diaphragm mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture.

2007-11-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

Seedless fruits

Seedlessness is an imperative feature of some fruits of commerce. Profitable cultivars of bananas and pineapples are examples of seedless fruits. Some cultivars of citrus fruits (especially navel oranges and mandarin oranges), table grapes, grapefruit, and watermelons are esteemed for their seedlessness. In some species, seedlessness is the result of parthenocarpy, where fruits locate without fertilization. Parthenocarpic fruit situate may or may not require pollination. Most seedless citrus fruits want a pollination stimulus; bananas and pineapples do not. Seedlessness in table grapes domino effect from the abortion of the embryonic plant that is produced by fertilization, a phenomenon known as stenospermocarpy which requires normal pollination and fertilization.

2007-11-04T18:54:00.000-08:00

Multiple fruit

A multiple fruit is one formed from a group of flowers (called an inflorescence). Each flower produces a fruit, but these adult into a single mass. Examples of multiple fruit is the pineapple, edible fig, mulberry, osage-orange, and breadfruit.In a few plants, such as this noni, flowers are produced repeatedly along the stem and it is possible to see together examples of flowering, fruit development, and fruit ripening.

In the photograph on the right, stages of flowering and fruit development in the noni or Indian mulberry (Morinda citrifolia) can be observed on a single branch. First an inflorescence of white flowers called a top is produced. After fertilization, each flower develops into a drupe, and as the drupes expand, they develop into connate (merge) into a multiple fleshy fruit called a syncarpet.

2007-10-28T21:53:00.000-07:00

Aggregate fruit

An aggregate fruit, or etaerio, develops from a flower with numerous easy pistils. An example is the raspberry, whose simple fruits are termed drupelets since each is like a small drupe emotionally involved to the receptacle. In some bramble fruits (such as blackberry) the vessel is elongated and part of the ripe fruit, making the blackberry an aggregate-accessory fruit. The strawberry is also an aggregate-accessory fruit, only one in which the seeds are enclosed in achenes. In all these examples, the fruit develops from a single flower with several pistils.

2007-10-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

Types of Fruit

Fruits are so varied in form and development, that it is difficult to devise a classification scheme that includes all known fruits. Many common terms for seeds and fruit are incorrectly applied, a fact that complicates understanding of the terminology. Seeds are ripened ovules; fruits are the ripened ovaries or carpels that contain the seeds. To these two basic definitions can be added the clarification that in botanical terminology, a nut is a type of fruit and not another term for seed.[2]

There are three basic types of fruits:

Simple fruit
Aggregate fruit
Multiple fruit