Wired @ Home

This is a new series starting today that will cover up to three cool downloads that will either make your life easier or just be a nice add-on.

Stop Your Web Indulgence

Everyone who surfs the web knows that they have a weak spot where they spend too much time on a particular topic such as celebrity news, or for me it's spending too much time promoting my wonderful website. A company who partnered with Firefox has developed an add-on called MeeTimer that will calculate all the time you've spent on a website for up to a year. Once Firefox restarts go to Tools--MeeTimer--Options and reconfigure the options to your liking.

The drawback to this add-on is you have to manually go to a site and right-click the Firefox tray icon and select Discourage Me. The add-on though provides a huge amount of stats, but mainly the timer is great and the ability to warn you if you've viewed a site for too long.

PC Energy Tracker

Windows XP has an included tool within Power Options that works and is integrated with Local Cooling, a utility developed by UniBlue. Vista users don't be discouraged though as it works perfectly fine on my computer. It works in the background and you can maximize it whenever you are on the computer. It's basically software that will tell you exactly how much you've saved if you close down your computer a little bit ealier or put it to sleep. You set exactly what those times are, for example, turning off your monitor in 45min.

As you can see my power use is pretty high in my opinion and so I will make changes to reduce that. Compared to other people though I believe it actually is low. The drawback is that the program actually takes control of your computer to shut down your computer when you say it should, like 45min. If you only want it to control your monitor then you can set the values to everything else to 0. Once this program is installed you can register at Local Cooling and it will keep track of your power usage and you can compare yourself to businesses and individuals who also have this utility.

Keep Track of Your Bandwidth

If your ISP providor caps your bandwidth for each ISP then this tool is for you. Some ISP providors have been known to stop the amount of data you move to and from your computer (download and upload). BitMeter II is a free utility that will calculate how much bandwidth you've used per month. You'll need to know your monthly limit though as that is how it will notify you when you've used a customizable percentage of that bandwidth. Right when you install the tool, BitMeter II will start tracking your download and upload speeds and put it all on spreadsheets, graphs, and charts which come in handy down the road. On top of this, BitMeter II includes a calculator that estimates how long a download will take. This isn't a biggie as Vista has that included and I believe XP does to.

Computers are ever evolving pieces of machinary with new products that go inside it everyday. For example, DDR3 RAM just came out and new LED technology is helping make laptops more efficient. Well now 3 more standards are going to enter out computers. Larger hard drives, faster internet, and larger system bus.

Many people, including me, don't know that the system bus limits overall performance as your PC's data flow goes through the system bus and if its not big enough, you get a bottleneck, much like when the 404 turns into the DVP. Currently the standard is PCI 2.3 which offers a data transfer rate of 5.2 gigabits per second which is a lot at first glance but the next generation is called PCI 3.0. This hardware will have a data transfer rate of 8 gigabits per second. Not only will PCI 3.0 allow for higher GPU performance (A special processor dedicated to calculating the graphics in a game. A GPU allows for better looking console games and takes the load off of the CPU during gameplay), but it also allows the system bus to power graphic cards directly instead of going through a seperate power line. The downfall is, you'll need a 3.3V card to use it instead of a 5V or 3.3V. Don't worry though, as these graphic cards (PCI 3.0) will be out in 2010 with the specs debuting in 2009.

When George S. was working for Much Music, back about 6 or 7 years ago, he had to specially order a 1TB hard drive to hold all his music. Back then, that was rarity, but now companies are going to be offering 5TB hard drives.To get something this big without sacrificing space a technique called Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and a similar technology called Thermally Assited Magnetic Recording (TAMR) uses lasers to heat the surface of the hard drive which makes it possible to pack a Terabyte into a square inch of the drives surface. This doubles the standard as a 2 inch square space could only fit 1 Terabyte. Once the laser starts heating the surface up, the driver can manipulate the surface on an extremely fine scale of about tens of nanometres. A huge benefit of these drives is the way the information is organized on it. The data will be organized into self-arranging magnetic arrays that allow the creation of a single bit of data on every grain of the drives surface. Don't expect this drive to be installed onto your computer for the next holiday season though. Its still a research project but Seagate expects to sell a 5TB HAMR hard drive by 2011

Bored of your internet connection? IPv4 is getting to be recurrent and so an old technology is expected to take over around the beginning of 2011. 2011 is the date when all the IP addresses in the current format will run out. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses whereas IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses which is a vast improvement. IPv6 also has network-layer encryption and authentication to make much more secure communications between computers. Give credit to the US government for making IPv6 more mainstream as they have ordered all there computers to be outfitted with the technology in 2008.

Search engines have been a hot topic lately and many new search engine sites have opened up. I've already reviewed 2, Spacetime and Hakia, but now Microsoft has released its own, Tafiti. At the time I wrote Beta Update, Spacetime was in its Beta 1 with many issues to fix, but now its very close to releasing Beta 2 with many improved features. I highly encourage you to visit SpaceTime to learn more and see more. They have a video up on the new features and the overall free product. Hakia however is in the midst of fully implementing its flagship feature, Semantic-Rank algorithm which is designed to extract meaning from your search phrases and questions. This is a massive step in bringing better search and more credible results to you. Another company that is using this type of technology is Vlingo. They offer a voice-recognition system for on the go Sprint users. It uses the Hieracrhical Language Model to recognize every single word you say and make educated predictions on what word you are going to say next based on the previous word uttered. On top of this, it will adapt, learn, and improve itself to understand new words, speech patterns and more.

The big news though is Microsofts new search engine called Tafiti. If you don't already have Silverlight*, the website will instruct you to download it. Once started, Tafiti loads surprisingly quickly and will position a search box in front of you. Once you've entered a phrase or keyword and pressed Go, the search box will slide to the left and below it, an orbit of the world, RSS, News, Images, and Halo icons will swirl around. These are just like the Google tabs of Web, Images, News, Groups, etc. After you've gone to the tab you want, you can click the result which has a larger description, or you can save that website by dragging it over to the corner which contains 5 empty slots. You can label those slots, email, or blog it (Windows Live Spaces). This is only possible if you have a Hotmail, MSN, or Live account. Not only does it display the results in such a cool way, they give you a second option to display it in a tree view which isn't the best but definitly looks cool.

Silverlight is basically another version of Adobe Flash but much better. This is why Tafiti can support such great graphics, video and animation. Sun Microsystems has already released a competitor for Silverlight days after its release called JavaFX. Currently, Silverlight is supported by the most popular broswers on Windows 2000 and up except Opera. The Mac versions are in the making and should represent a fair amount of the downloads. I won't get into the technical details of Silverlight but the jist is: it's more useable, superior graphics, animation, and video, more searchable, and doesn't need Windows Media Player, WMP Active X, or Windows Media plug-ins to be played. You can view some demos of the type of quality Silverlight provides on Fox. To learn more on Silverlight and other Beta products go to Beta Updates.

Since the introduction of wireless internet, many have wondered what other wireless technologies there would be. Wireless printers, speakers, cell phones, and many more. Now you can add 3 more to that list.

The power cord has long been the enemy of many people around the world. You always had to place things according to where the plugs were or you'd have some cord running all across the room. Nobody really notices and thinks about the power cord ones its being used and its found its place, but if it could be thrown away, what a world of a difference it would make. Now there is a solution to get rid of some of those plugs, wireless charging. To get things straight, this piece of technology won't replace all of your plugs but its a huge step in the right direction to making the power cord obsolete. Currently there are two ways to wirelessly charge a device and they are being offered by two different companies. WildCharge will start selling a conductive charging pad and eCoupled will offer a inductive laptop specific pad with a compatible notebook all by the end of 2008. Both companies will offer adapters at a range of $30. If you have taken science and didn't fall asleep then you can guess what the difference and how each of these technologies work. Conductive charging passes electricity when two objects come in contact. Inductive charging happens when there is a physical gap between two objects.

Print from anywhere with this new piece of technology offered by Zink (Zero Ink) Instead of going online and going through the tedious process of uploading photos (Costco gets double thumbs down) you can print those photos wirelessly or connect it via a USB cable to the ZINK mobile printers. The name explains some but doesn't answer all. First there is no ink used, instead the printer will heat up the adhesive paper, and thus release the crystals used to make the photo. The downfall is, the images will be small, and not your regular size 4by6, the paper will instead be 2by3 and will be semi-gloss. The printers are unique because they are a product in itself. They offer two printers, a mobile one and a mobile camera version. The mobile will be able to wirelessly print pictures from a laptop, computer or wifi enabled product. The camera version is a camera and there is no word on how good it is but the website describes it as a "full featured digital camera...take digital photos like any other digital camera." The projected costs of these tools is $100 but there is no word on where they will be sold, so look out for them at your local Best Buy store.

Wires, wires, wires, they seem to mess up and make our lives more complicated, but Amimon is trying to put a stop while making a quick buck. They are going to be released to the consumers in 2008, but just this August they let electronic makers have a crack at the technology. The system allows you to wirelessly transmit an uncompressed 1080p picture via a 5GHz radio transmitter from a DVD player, cable box, or game console to a WHDI-equipped TV (adapters can be purchased for $300-$400 a pair as at least two are needed). Comparatively, a WHDI-equipped TV will have a premium of $200. WHDI is just a replacement to the HDMI cable so no worries that your picture quality will be worse, but no celebrating that you'll be getting a better one. In a couple of years though the adapters will cost $60 and the premium on a TV will drop to $10. With the benefit of much less cables, you'll be able to rearrange your TV room the way you dreamed.

It's been over a year since the official launch of the HD DVD and Blu-Ray and now here comes some great discounts. Toshiba is in the works to offer a $198 HD DVD Player from Wal-Mart before the holiday season. This marks a huge gain for the HD DVD format as Blu-Ray has been stealing most of the spotlight and for good reason. The Blu-Ray format has garnered much support from studios including: Warner, Lionsgate, Paramount, Disney, Fox, Sony, and MGM; it supports a higher playback quality (1080p vs 1080i), it stores more on a same size disk, and it records faster. A price drop can help get HD DVD into more families homes and widen its customer base helping it catch up to Blu-Ray. With this information though, I'd rather wait for a similar price drop from Blu-Ray and get a much better quality player and product.Wal-Mart to me hurts the HD DVD repuation even further as Wal-Mart is a place to get cheap products, not quality ones. If I were a Blu-Ray maker, I'd be cheering inside.

Need To Hide Your Folders?
Download Free Hide Folders for free and help protect your folders from peering eyes. It doesn't just use the hidden function but it makes those folders, password protected. It protects that folder and all the subfolders within making your folders a secret a breeze.

Many companies have been trying to copy and beat the iPhone but this is the first true competitor in my mind. Although the looks are not the best, the internal statistics blow away the iPhone any day. Due for release on November 4, 2007, Sprint is readying for a huge release that will determine whether it catches up to AT&T or stays behind them. So how does the HTC Touch stack up against the Apple iPhone?