Posted on Nov 30, 2009 under Computer |
As consumers upgrade their computers and laptops and are discovering the convenience of wireless computing, they may also be opening themselves up to attacks from random hackers. If you have a home network and it has wireless capabilities one of the most important things you can do to protect yourself, your computers and most importantly your data, is to secure your network. You may think you are doing a good thing leaving your wireless network open for your neighbors to use, but you may also be allowing people to use your network to download pirated music or movies (which you will be responsible for), send unsolicited commercial email (aka spam) or launch viruses.
Securing your network is fairly easy and can be done by just about anyone, even if you aren’t computer savvy. If you are using a laptop you may want to connect your computer via ethernet cable to your router, while you are making the configuration changes. The first thing you should do is log into your wireless router and change the administration password and username if possible. Leaving the default settings is like locking your door and hiding a key under the mat. Next you want to enable WEP (wireless equivalent privacy) security on your router. If your router has 128 bit encryption use it, it’s more secure than 40 bit encryption.
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Posted on Nov 29, 2009 under Entertainment, Home Improvement |
For those who want their home theatre to imitate the cinematic experience, a plasma TV wall mount is a good investment to save space and to give a great effect. A plasma TV wall mount is easy to install yourself, but if you prefer, you can hire a professional to do the job for you. The price of a typical plasma TV wall mount can range from $60 to $350, and it is a good idea to invest in the best plasma TV wall mount you can afford, since plasma TVs are quite delicate and you cannot risk having your plasma TV fall to the ground. However, most plasma TV wall mounts do the job sufficiently well.
Your plasma TV wall mount should contain at least the following items:
• Wall plate
• Rails
• Arms
The wall plate attaches to the wall and the rails are for the back of the television. There should be two perpendicular arms with devices to connect to the back of the plate. The rails enable you to move the TV to the right or the left across the wall and enable you to lift the TV off, if necessary.
You need to select a plasma TV wall mount suited to the type of plasma TV that you have. The average size is 26-41” and weighs up to 100 pounds. A typical plasma TV wall mount can handle this type of set. However, if you plasma TV is larger than this and weighs more than 100 pounds, you will need a two stud wall mount.
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Posted on Nov 28, 2009 under Home Improvement, Internet |
Dial up is the slowest way to connect to the Internet for people who do not have access to DSL or cable. The fact is that people in rural areas are not connecting with cable or DSL because the services do not extend that far out of local areas. This is frustrating for people who need to work at home or have a need for a fast computer. If you buy a new computer these days, you want a Internet that has some speed. Satellite Internet service is the way for people to have the speed they need for that new computer.
When you buy a computer that has everything you want and need, you want to be able to use it in a way it was designed for, fast connections for downloading and uploading. Many rural residents with lightening fast satellite Internet service have replaced dial up and are reaching the potential of their computers. The speeds are faster than cable or DSL and allow you to do more things online that you could not do with dial up, cable or DSL. With satellite high-speed Internet, you are always connected to the Internet, therefore there is no waiting to connect.
People who live in cities or rural areas that want to use Voip as their phone will need DSL or high-speed Internet to use this service. If you use the Internet Voip phone system, a high-speed connection is the only way to use the phone system in real time. This is just another reason for people to have a satellite Internet service. You will find that many satellite services are following Hugesnet and offering their high-speed Internet connections. If they can match up speed wise, they are a good bargain. The only thing you have to consider is the connection speed, downloading and uploading times.
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Posted on Nov 28, 2009 under Mobile and Gadget, Sport and Auto |
Duh, It’s A Car Stereo!
Pretty self-explanatory isn’t it? It’s a stereo system in a car, you say. Whoa, hold your horses, it’s not that simple. Although some people like to put home stereos in their cars and vans (out of dire need for some sounds), sometimes it just doesn’t work. Yeah, maybe before it could’ve worked just fine, all you needed was radio and a cassette player (or 8 tracks, for the inner dinosaur in you) so sure, lug those big box speakers into the back seat and you’ll be blaring down the highway. But nowadays there are things like cd players and mp3 players and your popup LCD panels and all that techie knickknack you’d think they’d like to build a home theater system right smack on the console of your van. If you don’t know anything about these things but would like to have some sounds in your car anyway, here are some things to know about a car stereo.
As mentioned above, at first units and speakers from home audio systems and professional markets were just simply installed into vehicles. However, they were not well suited to the extremes of temperature and vibration which are a normal part of the environment of an automobile. Car stereo enthusiasts were not satisfied with the sound quality of regular car sound systems, and with the advent of the CD player, they really had to start modifying some of these home stereos in order to work well in a car environment and voila!, now we have the modern car stereo.
If you have a new car, first hand bought, say from about 90 to present, chances are you already have a “factory” car stereo in your car. It means the car manufacturer already included a car stereo system in your car, unless specified in the car model but most often this is the case. Some car manufacturers make their own car stereos, like BMW which includes a pretty decent car stereo package head unit and speakers. It is a standard which comes with all their cars (which isn’t surprising considering that BMW is included in the league of “luxury car manufacturers”). Or like Mercedes Benz or Volkswagen, they use car stereo systems from a German audio manufacturer called Blaupunkt.
A standard car stereo (also called a head unit) usually includes an auto-reverse tape deck, a cd player and sometimes the optional changer – a device which automatically changes the cd in play. On newer car models, the car stereo can also play mp3s and other digital audo file types like WMA and AAC, whether on a cd or a memory device which can be hooked up to the head unit.
The car stereo head unit is connected to several speakers. Older car models usually just had one speaker mounted underneath the dashboard, pointing through perforations towards the front windshield. The standard for car stereo nowadays is a pair of “tweeters” (used to bring out high treble) on the driver side/front passenger side dashboard, a pair of normal “mid” speakers on both doors, sometimes even the backseat passeger doors if it’s a large car and larger speakers capable of bringing out low ends at the back protion of the backseats.
Your car stereo is probably ok as it is, as car manufacturers ensure that the audio products that come with their cars can handle most dirver’s listening demands. But if you think that what you have isn’t enough, you can always CUSTOMIZE.
Pretty self-explanatory isn’t it? It’s a stereo system in a car, you say. Whoa, hold your horses, it’s not that simple. Although some people like to put home stereos in their cars and vans (out of dire need for some sounds), sometimes it just doesn’t work. Yeah, maybe before it could’ve worked just fine, all you needed was radio and a cassette player (or 8 tracks, for the inner dinosaur in you) so sure, lug those big box speakers into the back seat and you’ll be blaring down the highway. But nowadays there are things like cd players and mp3 players and your popup LCD panels and all that techie knickknack you’d think they’d like to build a home theater system right smack on the console of your van. If you don’t know anything about these things but would like to have some sounds in your car anyway, here are some things to know
about a car stereo.
As mentioned above, at first units and speakers from home audio systems and professional markets were just simply installed into vehicles. However, they were not well suited to the extremes of temperature and vibration which are a normal part of the environment of an automobile. Car stereo enthusiasts were not satisfied with the sound quality of regular car sound systems, and with the advent of the CD player, they really had to start modifying some of these home stereos in order to work well in a car environment and voila!, now we have the modern car stereo.
Posted on Nov 27, 2009 under Computer |
Computer is a real helper. It helps us in almost anything, from a simple calculating task, to a heavy and complicated rendering task. Since we rely much on the performance of the computer, we must regularly maintain the computer so it will always be in its best state. There are a lot of things that influence the performance of a computer, including the amount of free disk space. More free space in the disk, it means the better the performance.
One problem that usually slows down the computer is the startup item. This is the item that will be activated girth away after your computer is turned on. Too many of these startup items will decreasing its performance. If you want to know more about startup item and you want to what are all the startup items that are installed in your computer, you should visit Aboutmypc.net.
This is a website that contains thousands of different startup items that usually installed in the computer all around the world. If you do not understand what the startup item in your computer are, find some explanation in this website. Once you find that some of the startup items are useless, just remove it.
