The Fourteen Percent Solution by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/27 Apple Insider reported that Mac grabbed 14% of U.S. Retail Sales in February. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

The laptop computer - baby you've come a long way

The laptop computer is now a mainstream piece of technology and found in most workplaces. Where has the laptop come from and where is it going?

A laptop computer, or simply 'laptop', is a small battery powered personal computer that usually weighs around 1 to 8 kilograms.

These days, many office workers use their laptop as their primary source for computing using an external mouse, keyboard and monitor when in the office, and using the laptop's organic screen, pointing device and keyboard when traveling.

Laptops usually run on a single main rechargeable battery, or from an external AC/DC adapter that charges the battery while also supplying power to the computer itself.

Laptop batteries usually last from between 2 and 5 hours between recharges. New battery technology is set to extend their useful life by factors of 3 or 4 times within three years.

Most laptops also have a button cell battery to run the clock and store the computer's bios. In most cases, the laptop also holds an image of the main operating system that can be used to restore full functionality after a virus attack or other computing disaster.

Laptops contain components that are similar to their desktop counterparts and perform the same functions, but are miniaturised and optimised for mobile use, low weight and efficient power consumption.

Typically the laptop gives less computing power per dollar because they use customised components and propriety designs to lower weight and give lower power consumption.

Laptops usually have colour liquid crystal displays, and most of them use different memory modules than standard personal desktop computers . In addition to a built-in keyboard, they may also offer users a touchpad (also known as a trackpad) or a track-ball for input, though an external keyboard or mouse can usually be attached.

The first commercially available portable computer was the Osborne 1 in 1981, which used the CP/M operating system. The Osborne 1 weighed 10.7 kgs, had a tiny 13cm CRT display, and a single density floppy disk.

Although it was large, heavy and useless compared to today's laptops, it had a revolutionary impact on business. Computing and engineering professionals were able to take their computer and data with them for the first time.

Since these early days the major developments in laptops have been focused on processing power, weight reduction, price reduction, battery life, and more recently, aesthetics.

It wasn't until the mid to late 1990s that laptop computers became common place as prices reduced and they became less burdensome to travel with. As far aesthetics are concerned, Apple's range of laptop computers are examples of brilliant industrial design combined with serious computing power.

Weighing in at less than 3 pounds, the MacBook Air is less than .77 inches thick and will run for up to 5 hours on a single charge.

The future for laptops looks promising. As industrial design and battery technology improves, laptops will get faster, smaller and lighter. The laptop will become more of an industrial strength PDA than a computer. It won't be too long until you will be able to get full computing power in a handheld device 12 x 12 cms by 8mm thick. The Apple iPhone is half-way there.

For more information, visit Laptop bags Australia, mobile phone cases Australia and iPod case Australia from Rumtree.

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Wrong DNS causes interesting glitch by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/16 I had an interesting call a few days back. Old customer, old SCO box overdue for the graveyard but still in use. Customer needed to renumber his ip scheme and ran into a confusing situation after changing from 192.168.2.x to 10.126.10.x. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

How do you do "X" in Unix (Linux,Solaris..)? by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/15 One of the paradigm shifts Windows users (and even some Unix users) have to get by is often seen in a "How do I do X in Y?" question, for example "How do I repeat commands in Unix?". Of course that can be a perfectly legitimate question, but often the person asking is missing an important concept: Unixish systems do not tightly bind the user interface to the system. That particular question is a user interface question, and the answer is (depending upon how much of an s.o.b. you want to be) "That has nothing to do with 'Unix'" or "That depends upon what shell you are using." Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

Boats, Life, Wives & Children

I bought my first boat when I was 25 years old. I only needed to consult my bank account, I needed to consult only with myself, and I happened to readily endorse this idea.

What A great boating, fishing season that was (from what I remember.)

 

FAST FORWARD 20 YEARS. Not being able to part with my boats through the years, I now own three, one that runs occasionally. Let's just say all of my decisions regarding boats may not have been the best over the years. Although I must say, I have not regretted any time spent on a boat, regrets begin for me when I am entering the harbor.

 

My last boat was a 28 ft. Carver, it was an old boat but that boat was a yacht for me. My wife thought it would be a good idea to get a survey ( inspection ) beforehand. I didn't think that was needed at all, why spend 250.00 for nothing.Only after it was taking on water and the hull deemed not seaworthy did I think maybe she was right.

 

Did this stop me? Being a boat addict, I was driving by a boat dealer (happened to be in the neighborhood, 10 miles out of town.)  My dealer had the good stuff right in front, a brand new 23 ft. PRO LINE, My Dream Boat.

 

Wasting no time, I took my wife to see this beautiful creature, to this day I don't know if she likes it or not.

Gentleman, Listen to my advice. My wife said "go ahead and try, they are not going to finance you." Well, I took this as an open invitation to get a new boat, they did finance me and 2 days later I came home with a new boat.

Don't ever take the challenge, when your wife says" go ahead and try" I am pretty sure that means " if you buy that boat I will make your life miserable for the next 5 years." I have owned the boat for 3 years now.

Speaking of boats, We run a shop called Good Tidings in Algoma, wi. and specialize in Nautical Gifts.

 

I have had several great trips with my sons  on this boat and I have learned more about kids on these trips then I have learned on land.

 

My son Paul and I were headed out for an over night trip on the bay of green bay to catch perch, I have a few spots that nearly always produce. Well, as fishing goes all that was biting was a fish called sheephead, or, freshwater drum, these are considered trash fish around here, they do get to about 10 lbs. Paul was having a blast catching these while I was wasting my time being mad about not catching perch. If I would have been paying attention to the fun my son was having, we would have stayed there all day and caught those fish. Lesson learned.

 

Our next trip was an overnight adventure on the bay of Green Bay again, we started off on a beautiful day, with a twenty mile trip ahead of us. We stopped and swam on the way, kind of a tradition. By the time we got to the island it was early evening, we made camp, fished off shore and caught these gross little fish called gobies. We caught 50 - 60 and decided to have a championship, my son earned the title of goby master. It was hilarious, tied up to a dock with this beautiful boat, and catching these ugly things.

 

Morning came along with a strong wind that cut our day short, we had to head back 20 miles in 3-4 ft. waves, never pleasant. If we had not caught the gross fish the night before, we would have caught no fish. I learned again.

 

I guess the motto with kids would be, as long as they are enjoying it, it must be fun! I will still always prefer to catch salmon, trout etc, but a yearly goby/ sheephead trip is quite likely.

 

 If You happen to be in Algoma, Wi., stop in and say Hi, we have a great selection of beach theme decor, nautical gifts for you to choose from. We are only minutes from door county, wi. and 25 miles east of Green Bay, on the shore of lake Michigan.

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Reading Skills by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/12 I'm not much for visuals. I don't like video blogs, slide show blogs: I want text. I suspect that's because I have extreme astigmatism and it wasn't corrected until I was well into school; I couldn't see much of the world around me so I never really learned to appreciate visual images as much as most people do. Probably for the same reason I'd rather read a book than watch a movie. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

Insulting Windows Admins? by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/10 I happened to catch a blurb promoting Xandros BridgeWays Management Console. I'm not going to pick any fault with that product; I'm sure it's as grinchy as grinchy can be, but my eyebrows did raise at this: Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

What to make of the iPhone SDK by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/08 You may not have been paying much attention to the release of Apple's $99.00 Software Development Kit for the iPhone. If not, there's just one thing to realize: it's a good time to buy Apple stock. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

A Change of Address by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/06 I had shut down my computer and was getting ready to wrap up the day when the phone rang. My wife always groans and tells me to let these last minute calls go to voice mail, but I never pay attention. I didn't recognize the caller id, though I did know it was from a mid-western state. I answered. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

Web site surveys by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/06 A few of you may have seen the 4Q Survey I had running here recently. This is a free service you can add to your own site. It's a "pre and post view" survey; that is, it asks before you see your requested page if you'd be willing to take a survey after reading the page. If you say yes, a separate window opens with the survey and the original page you requested opens in the current window. That's how it's supposed to work anyway.. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

Time and Billing by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/05     Photo by Refracted Moments Tracking time and getting paid for that time is often a problem for consultants. It's easy enough to keep track of time when you are physically at some customer's site, but when you are working in your office and switching from one thing to another, that may not be so easy. And then you have to actually get paid, and that's not always easy either. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

Convenience and Security by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/04 How many of you will start up your car and leave it running in your driveway to warm it up a bit before you leave? My wife does that because cold weather really bothers her arthritis; a warm car is almost a necessity. Although we hardly live in a high crime neighborhood, I ask that she at least leave it locked while it's sitting unattended, but she doesn't always do that. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

E-Mail Harvesting Protection by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/03 We're all so worried about our e-mail addresses, aren't we? Look at my Contact Page: I use a jpeg image of my email address. Other people do things like "It's steve AT xyz DOT com" to "protect" themselves from email harvesters. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here

Keep it Simple, Stupid by Anthony Lawrence

2008/03/02 How far do you think the World Wide Web would have got if you had to use Ajax to create a web page? I'm not knocking Ajax; that's actually not particularly complicated considering its intended use. I'm just pointing out that the web spread fast and far because HTML by itself was and is simple and highly forgiving. You can actually put up a web page using nothing but text - in the early days, many a web page was done exactly that way. Adding a little HTML makes it "prettier", but you can be incredibly sloppy with that markup and still get reasonable results.I was reminded of this recently when I visited a site that offered to let me authenticate with OpenIID. I was delighted: OpenID is a great idea and I'd love to see everyone using it. Unfortunately, my login failed. I know it's not a problem with me (because my OpenID login works at other sites), so something is wrong there. Full Text RSS Feed now available - Coming Soon - Skills Tests - Surveys - Kerio Mail Server - Fortinet Routers - Consulting - Advertise Here