Category: Laptops

How the digital divide can be solved

Paul


OLPC Rwanda Workshop Day 1

The Digital Divide

Let’s begin with the simple facts at hand, that the digital divide is just that a divide again the populations around the world that have very little change to have internet.   One such organization, One laptop per Child a non profit did try to do that to help bring the digital devices and educational needs to the areas with the greatest need.   It however went terribly wrong.   We can only identify areas that need the digital signals and try to provide for them.   This is where Elon Musk’s idea of StarLink is being conceived to do just that.  This will greatly help people with low income or places that has no access to wired internet to be able to get digital signals to them.   In all truthfulness, I really don’t have a lot of ideas on how to address this divide but I am sure it’s only a matter time before someone else comes up with the ideas that will make it work even better than I could imagine it.

Addressing it

Some way I guess we could address this issue is simply by making it inexpensive to countries that can’t afford to pay 100$ for the internet and or pay for the One Laptop Per Child.   I would think if we can get governments around the world to embrace stuff like this and help pay for the technology or even just the internet than more people around the world would be able to access the digital devices like everyone else.   I can think of maybe a few ways to help decrease the amount of the device or even just the internet to people who have little or no internet.   Make it free for everyone around the world but then who’d pay for it?  Who’d keep our privacy safe?  Who’d make sure they didn’t misuse our information?  That’s the real big question when it comes to how to make a free internet, because we will always have to worry about someone using our information for bad or even making money off of us in one way or another.  Still this is just one way we can at least attempt to fix the problems with the digital divide.   It isn’t going to solve every problem but at least it would make it so much easier for people to get onto the internet and we wouldn’t have as big of a divide like we do today.

With Black Friday for 2008 quickly approaching!!

Paul

Since Black Friday is approaching next month, I Figured it is time to point to places where you could find them.  Now that being said, I don’t think people should take some of these ads serious because of all the possibility.  Where these ads are being placed is not going to be the absolute final end all price.   Knowing these competitors like I do, they are going to have an ace in the hole.  You will probably not find out until a week or a few days before black Friday.

They will of course try to keep the really juicy stuff out of the hands of people who blab about this on the net.

Why do they have Black Friday?

The term “Black Friday” originated in Philadelphia in reference to the heavy traffic on that day. More recently, merchants and the media have used it instead to refer to the beginning of the period in which retailers are in the black (i.e., turning a profit).

[via Wikipedia]

Now that being said you can expect to save a lot on Electronics, maybe even laptops.  You could even save money buying a Playstation 3, or an Xbox 360.   That it why there is so much hype in this so called black friday.   With the possible recession looming over our heads, everyone is worried about being laid off.

Here are some great sites to watch to see what might be coming your way:

[ad]

With these links you should start to find the deals and plan out where you want to be in the coming future.   If you have any other websites just put them in the comments section for all to see.

I want to hear what people think about Black Friday ads.  Is it right to to have this information early, or is it wrong?  Do you think they will stop this in the near future?  These are all the questions I have been wondering?  Is this right for them to hide this information or do they have a real need to hide it?  Why not come up with another Black Friday date?  I want to hear you comments and your ideas on this and other post.

Tips and Tricks to Shut down Windows Vista!

Paul

Yes we will be talking about why Vista won’t shut down properly.  It is a common problem in all models.   It has been know to cause some issues with boot up.  In the past, Vista when you hit the shut down or you did the short cut Windows key>Right Three Times>Enter, it wouldn’t shut down instantly.  I’ve recently found out how to fix this problem and why it comes and goes.  Here are some great ways to get Vista to shut down properly

    • Boot into Safe Mode —  Yes booting into safe mode will fix the problem to a point.  Here is what you need to do at start up of computer.  Press F8 as soon as you see the screen flicker black and you will be given a choice.  Choose Safe Mode.  Once done booting into safe mode.  Log into you user name.  There you will want to check with Msconfig. Make sure you aren’t loading up anything that might stop shut down from happening.  Once done they do the shut down procedure.  By doing it in safe mode you have vista reset all procedures to shut down.  This sometimes resolves the issue.
    • Don’t Shut down Vista improperly — having seen this from time to time.  If you do a hard shutdown, which you drop power or remove the battery.  This has been know to cause a issue with shutting Vista down properly.  There seems to be a correlation with vista and hard shutdowns.  I do not know how or why, I just seen that with my current Vista machine.
    • Make sure you exit out of legacy programs before you shut down — legacy programs are programs that aren’t designed for vista but are designed for Windows XP, 2000, 3.1, 3.0.  I don’t recommend using programs that are designed for Windows NT and nothing else.  If it’s in the list when you buy a program.  NT and Vista are siblings, they both use the same kernel.  Microsoft has said that in the past and I believe it.  So it only comes with reason that NT programs can work with Vista.  I’ve not tried but I’d be willing to say it could be done.
    • Let it think about shutting down — I find if I tell it to shut down and walk away it will eventually shut down.  I think it has a long wait time before shutting down.  Some program has to time out before it can shut down, or it has to tell vista that it needs to unload a program from memory.
    • Try using the registry hack — I’ve not tried this one but some say they get Vista to shut down properly and quickly by cutting the wait time out protocol in the registry.  I’ve seen it done on some Windows XP, it will shut down almost instantly because it doesn’t wait for the program to say anything.  It forces the program to quit.  So it could very well help you with shutting down Vista if your in a hurry.  Also try this: Faster Shutdowns using the Run Dialog
    • Don’t put the computer in sleep mode — This is only good for those who have laptops.  It seems putting the system in sleep mode slows down Vista when you are ready to shut down.  It seems to have a conflict in the system and has been know to cause interference with other shutdown procedures, so I recommend if you are done with your system to either leave it on, or shut it down but not to put your system into hibernation.

If you follow these steps you will find that Vista stops having this shutdown issue.  I had the same problems as others but after doing these steps myself, I’ve found Vista to shutdown faster and quicker and not hang during shutdown.  If you have any other ideas feel free to email me or make a comment on how to get Vista to shutdown quicker. If you like what you’ve seen by all means click on one of my ads to show support to my site.

Gateway’s First Gameing Laptop Machine — LaptopMag.com

Paul

We managed to get our lucky paws on Gateway’s first-ever gaming machine, the P-171XL FX. We threw this bad boy through our tests to find out how well the latest gaming laptop holds up to the most system-crunching games, including Crysis.

At first glance, it’s obvious that this laptop was made for gaming and multimedia. The FX has a glossy black shell with orange, silver, and carbon fiber colored accents (think Halloween). Gateway packs a full-sized keyboard with a numeric keypad and a copper border. We also appreciate the large trackpad and included fingerprint reader.

Above the display are a 1.3-megapixel webcam, a microphone, and a small blue LED light that glows when the webcam is on. Even at just 1.3 MP, the camera produced a crisp picture that reproduced colors quite well and wasn’t too dark or too light.

[Via LaptopMag]

I thought this was an extremely nice Laptop Gaming system. I read through it and was really surprised what they put in the laptop. Go check out the full review and see all the stuff they’ve done with it. 🙂 That’s so cool!! 😉

Drive eRazer Tabula Rasas Hard Drives, No Computer Required

Paul

Need to kill the data on a hard drive you have lying around but don’t wanna bother hooking it up to a PC? Wiebetech’s pocket-sized eRazer plugs directly into lonely hard drives and genocides whatever naughtiness you have have etched into it at a rate of 35MB/s, leaving a 250GB hard drive scorched earth in under two hours.

There are two versions, both the latter of which meets DoD HDD sanitation specfications: The $99 Standard hooks up to IDE drives and performs a single pass, while the $150 pro model jacks into SATA drives and sports a multi-pass mode for the super paranoid. [Wiebetech via Crave]

Nice to have for the computer repair on the go!! 😉 You can always plug and play!! Not Sure how securely it formats the HD! 😉